The Man from the Locker Room Came Back for Him

Andrés’s apartment was small, but it had something that made it feel like a hideout from the rest of the world. A floor lamp in the corner left the living room in half-light, and a sandalwood candle he had lit without really thinking about it filled the air with a warm, sweet scent. For two days he had kept the card in his pants pocket, worn from taking it out and putting it back. Two days since that encounter in the gym locker room, when a stranger had looked at him in a way that left no room for doubt.

A brief message. An exchanged number. And now that same man was standing in the doorway, a bottle of wine in his hand and a smile that promised trouble.

—Good refuge —Marcos said, coming in with the ease of someone who feels he owns any place he sets foot in.

He wore a fitted dark shirt, with the first buttons undone, and trousers that outlined every line of his legs. Andrés, barefoot, in a gray T-shirt clinging to his shoulders, closed the door behind him. He immediately noticed his pulse hammering in his neck.

—Thanks. It’s nothing much, but it’s mine —he replied, and took the bottle, deliberately brushing his fingers against Marcos’s.

That tiny contact was enough. It was like reopening something that had been left hanging in the locker room, a current running through both of them that neither bothered to hide. Their gazes met and the air turned dense, almost solid.

For a moment neither of them said anything. Andrés had imagined that scene too many times over the past two days: he had gone over it in the shower, at work, lying in bed unable to sleep. And now that the man was really in his living room, he discovered that reality weighed far more than any fantasy. Marcos smelled of clean cologne and something else, of skin and anticipation, and Andrés had to hold himself back from moving closer too soon.

They never got around to opening the wine. Andrés had barely set the bottle down on the kitchen table when Marcos took a step and erased the distance between them.

—I’ve been thinking about you —Marcos murmured, his voice low, rough.

His hands found Andrés’s hips and pulled him close until both bodies were pressed together, with no air between them.

—Oh, yeah? And what exactly were you thinking about? —Andrés asked.

The tone wanted to sound mocking, but it came out loaded with something more urgent. He slid his palms up Marcos’s chest, feeling the firmness under the fabric, the heat coming off his skin.

I shouldn’t be doing this with someone I barely know, he thought. And yet he did not take his hands away.

Marcos did not answer with words. He tilted his head and caught Andrés’s mouth in a slow, deep kiss that tasted of two days’ worth of hunger held back. Their tongues searched for each other with an urgency that grew every second. Andrés slipped his hands under the shirt, tracing the warm back, and Marcos answered by pulling him even tighter, letting him feel the hardness beginning to outline itself in his trousers.

They moved toward the sofa without breaking the kiss, stumbling over a coffee table on the way. Andrés shoved Marcos down into a seat and straddled him. The friction of both bodies still clothed was a delicious torture. Marcos growled, ran his hands up Andrés’s thighs, and squeezed hard.

—Fuck, you’re a temptation —he whispered, and bit his lower lip before tugging his shirt off in one smooth movement.

***

Andrés’s skin was bared and Marcos did not waste a second. His mouth found his neck, moved downward tracing a path of wet kisses and soft bites that drew a muffled groan from deep in his throat. Andrés answered by unbuttoning his shirt, button by button, with calculated slowness that made Marcos squirm beneath him.

When the fabric fell to the floor, Andrés ran his fingers over the exposed chest, stopped at the defined muscles, at the hardened nipples asking for attention. He liked that small power, making him wait.

—Do you want to take it slow? —Marcos asked with a crooked smile.

Without waiting for an answer, he slipped a hand between them and opened Andrés’s trousers with an ease that betrayed experience. Andrés held his breath when those fingers found him over his underwear, a light, exact touch that made him arch.

—Not that slow —he panted.

His own hands went to Marcos’s trousers and ripped them off him. Seeing him like that, hard and ready, dried Andrés’s mouth. He leaned down, kissed his chest, moved lower over his abdomen until his lips brushed the sensitive skin just above the waistband. Marcos let out a deep groan and tangled his fingers in his hair, not pushing, just holding him there, on the edge of the inevitable.

—Come here —he ordered after a few seconds, and pulled Andrés back up to kiss him, this time with an intensity that bordered on desperation.

They stripped off the rest of the clothes with clumsy movements, garments piling up on the floor in no order at all. Naked at last, both bodies met skin to skin, one person’s heat feeding the other’s. Andrés felt every inch of Marcos against him, the hardness of his desire pressing, and his own answering with the same impatience.

***

They made it to the bedroom barely aware of the trip, too lost in the friction. Andrés’s bed, with dark sheets rumpled since morning, welcomed them. Marcos pushed him onto the mattress and climbed on top of him, his eyes shining with a mix of desire and something deeper that Andrés preferred not to examine yet.

—I’m going to make you lose your mind —Marcos promised.

Andrés only managed a broken laugh before that mouth started traveling over his body.

Marcos was meticulous, almost solemn. His hands and lips passed over every inch: the hollow of the collarbone, the curve of the ribs, the line of hair descending from the navel. When he reached the end of that path, Andrés was already trembling and gripping the sheets with both fists. The tongue traced a slow, devastating route before taking him fully and tearing a groan from him that echoed through the room. His hips moved of their own accord, seeking more, asking wordlessly.

—Not so fast —Marcos whispered, lifting his gaze with a devilish smile.

He sat up and reached for the condom and the lube Andrés had left on the nightstand that same afternoon, as if some part of him had known how the night would end. He prepared him with a patience that contrasted with the urgency of everything before, his fingers opening a path with a mixture of firmness and care that made Andrés gasp his name for the first time.

When Marcos finally slid inside him, slow but relentless, Andrés’s world shrank to that single sensation: the tension, the heat, the fullness that left him breathless. They moved together, first calmly, finding a shared rhythm, then with an intensity that made the bed creak against the wall. One man’s moans mingled with the other’s growls, the sweaty bodies colliding in a raw, animal cadence.

Andrés dug his nails into Marcos’s back and left marks that only fed the fire. Marcos answered by thrusting deeper, his forehead pressed to Andrés’s shoulder, repeating his name as if it were the only thing he remembered how to say.

The end came in waves. First for Andrés, who came undone with a choked cry, his whole body shaking under the other man’s weight. Marcos followed shortly after, his face buried in Andrés’s neck, a hoarse groan slipping from his lips as he let go completely. They stayed like that, tangled together, breathing hard, while the room slowly settled back into place.

***

Hours later they were still in bed, the sheets twisted into a knot and the air thick with the scent of both of them. They talked in low voices, almost whispers, as if raising them might break something. Marcos traced lazy circles over Andrés’s chest, and Andrés played with the dark strands of hair falling over his forehead.

It had not been only sex, and they both knew it. There was something else, a current hard to name, that kind of thing two strangers do not expect to find and that, when it appears, is a little frightening. Neither dared put a word to it. It was enough to feel it floating between them, like the smoke from the nearly burned-down candle.

—Another round? —Marcos asked with a lazy smile.

Andrés laughed and turned to look at him face-on.

—Give me ten minutes —he replied, though he knew being near him would take less than that.

And so the night stretched out, long and unhurried, full of caresses, ever lower moans, and promises neither of them voiced aloud. Dawn eventually filtered through the curtains and found them exhausted, still tangled together, still unwilling to talk about what it meant. There would be time for questions in the morning. That night, though, belonged only to the two of them.