The NGO Volunteer Took Me to His Bed

I was heading home after twelve hours at the office, my tie loosened and my head heavy from a meeting that had dragged on to the point of exhaustion. All I wanted was to get to my flat, pour myself a whiskey, and collapse onto the sofa. The station was packed, as it was every Wednesday at that hour, and in the main corridor, between the newsstand and the escalator, a small group of boys in blue overalls was trying to sign up members for an NGO.

I instinctively dodged them, as I always do. But one peeled away from the group and stepped in front of me with a tired smile that clearly had been rehearsed a hundred times that day.

“Excuse me, do you have a minute?” he asked. “It’s for the children in the Sahel.”

I was going to tell him no, that I was late, that I already supported another organization. I looked at him to give him the excuse, and then the sentence got stuck in my throat. He had honey-colored eyes, huge, with lashes so long they looked painted on. He was slender, tall, with well-shaped lips and a brown lock falling over his forehead every time he nodded.

“A minute,” I said.

He explained about the wells in the desert, the schools for girls, the health kits. I nodded without really listening. I watched his mouth when he spoke and his hands when he stopped. His fingers were long, fine, stained a little with pen ink. On the badge I read his name: Iván.

“How old are you, Iván?” I cut in.

“Twenty-two. I work here on Wednesdays and Fridays,” he said, a little confused by the change of topic.

“You study.”

“Yes, final year. Philosophy.”

I smiled. Of course it was philosophy. As he talked to me about the monthly donation, I felt my body starting to wake up. The suit trousers left no room for mercy: one of those slim cuts that look elegant in the shop window and in the street do absolutely nothing to hide a thing. I slid my briefcase across the front of me with a gesture I hoped looked casual.

“Do you live around here?” I asked, not taking my eyes off him.

He hesitated for a second. He bit his lower lip. It was such a small gesture that anyone else would have missed it, but I didn’t.

“Three streets away. I share a flat with an Italian friend, but he’s away until August.”

“Italian.”

“Roberto. He’s on an internship in Milan.”

There was a long pause between us. His coordinator, a girl with dreadlocks and a huge folder, passed nearby calling the volunteers. Iván raised his voice, pretending to stick to the NGO script.

“...and for just nine euros a month, we can change an entire family’s life,” he recited.

I, in the coordinator’s blind spot, let the back of my hand brush his thigh through the overalls. He swallowed. His shoulders tensed. He bit his lip again.

“I need to let them know I’m leaving,” he murmured. “Give me two minutes.”

I waited for him outside the station, beside a subway entrance, hands in my pockets and my heart pounding with a force I hadn’t felt in years. This is insane, I thought. This is insane and you’re going to do it anyway.

***

He appeared five minutes later, without the overalls, with a black backpack slung over one shoulder and a gray sweatshirt that was too big for him. He walked up to me without smiling and, without saying a word, turned and headed down a narrow street.

“This way,” he said.

I followed two steps behind him. I didn’t want to walk beside him, I didn’t want anyone to see us together in that area where I sometimes ran into clients. Iván moved fast, shoulders hunched, as if he wanted to get there before he could think twice.

The entrance was narrow, with old tile. We went up in a tiny elevator that smelled of varnish and damp. As soon as the doors closed, I shoved him against the mirror and kissed him on the mouth. He tasted of mint gum and cold coffee. He let me for a second, two, and then kissed me back with an urgency that surprised me. I gripped the back of his neck with my left hand and, with my right, lifted his sweatshirt to touch his stomach. It was flat, warm, with a line of hair running down toward the waistband of his trousers.

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor. Iván fumbled for the keys without really moving away from me, laughing under his breath. His hand trembled when he put the key in the lock.

“Is this your first time doing this?” I asked in his ear.

“Not the first. But almost.”

We went in. The flat was small, smelling of tobacco and old books. He nudged a few notebooks out of the hallway with his foot and led me by the hand to his room at the back. The bed was unmade, the desk covered with notes, a T-shirt thrown over the chair. He switched on only the bedside lamp.

“Hurry up,” he said, stripping without ceremony.

He took off the sweatshirt, the jeans, the briefs. He stood with his back to me, looking for something in the drawer. He pulled out a tube of lubricant and a small towel, and left them beside the pillow like someone setting up a desk before starting to study.

I took off my jacket, loosened my tie a little, but I didn’t undress. This was going to happen with the suit on. I pulled down the zipper and took out my cock; it had been hard since the station. The metal edge of the zip pressed at the base, forming a kind of improvised ring that cut off my circulation a little and made me feel every throb in the glans. I liked the sensation.

Iván had gotten on all fours on the bed. He prepared himself, using two fingers. His breathing broke up. When he finished, he rested his forehead on the pillow and turned his head a millimeter, as if asking me to begin.

I knelt behind him. I ran my palm over his back, over his kidneys, over the curve of his ass. With my thumb I traced the groove between the two cheeks. His skin prickled. I put a little more lubricant on my cock and started to enter him slowly.

“Loosen up. Breathe,” I murmured.

He let the air out in a long sigh and relaxed just enough for me to keep going. Centimeter by centimeter, feeling how he adjusted to me. When I was all the way in, I stayed still for a few seconds. I heard him swallow, stifle a moan against the pillow.

“I’m fine,” he said before I could ask. “Keep going.”

I started moving. Slowly at first, setting a lazy rhythm, letting him get used to me. I grabbed his hips with both hands. Iván had a pale back, fine, with a small scar just beneath the left shoulder blade. I slid my fingers down to his waist and dug my nails in just a little. He pressed his neck into the pillow and let out a low moan that exploded inside me.

I picked up speed. The sound of my pelvis against his ass, the rub of the unzipped trousers against his skin, his broken breathing. I kept my shirt on, my tie half-loosened, my cufflinks flashing at my wrists. Every time I drove in hard, the zipper squeezed the base more, and the tingle of pooled blood made the pleasure twice as sharp.

“Don’t stop,” he murmured into the pillow. “Please, don’t stop.”

I didn’t stop. I grabbed his hair from the nape of his neck, lifted his head a few inches, and whispered in his ear:

“Look at me.”

He turned a little. His eyes were bright, wet. His cheeks were red. He bit his lip the same way he had in the station, but this time with his mouth open. I let go of his hair, slid my hand down his neck to his chest. I pinched one nipple. He shuddered all over.

***

When I felt I was about to come, I pulled out sharply. I grabbed him by the arms and lifted him up to sit on the edge of the bed, facing me. I held his chin in my left hand.

“Open,” I ordered.

He opened his mouth. Stuck his tongue out a little, like a child in the doctor’s waiting room. I gripped my cock with my right hand and finished myself off, two, three, four quick pulls. The first spurt hit his tongue. The second, his lower lip. The third, his chin. The fourth slid down his neck to his collarbone.

Iván didn’t turn his face away. He swallowed. He slowly licked his lips, gathering with two fingers what had remained on his chin. Then he leaned in, without asking, and took my cock in his mouth again, softly, cleaning it until it was dry. I let him. I stroked his hair with my open hand.

“Good boy,” I said.

He closed his eyes for a second and smiled.

I gave him a small pat on the cheek, almost affectionate, and moved away from him to pull up my zipper. I straightened my tie in front of the wardrobe mirror, combed my hair with my fingers, and took my jacket from the chair. Iván was still sitting on the edge of the bed, naked, looking at me with that half-smile of a boy who has gotten something right.

“I live far away,” I said, as if that explained anything. “I have to go.”

“I know.”

I stepped closer, kissed his forehead without thinking, and headed for the door.

“By the way,” he added before I left, “you didn’t sign up for the NGO.”

I turned around. He had his head resting against the doorframe. I laughed, for the first time all night.

“Stop by the bank tomorrow,” I answered. “Sign up on my behalf. For the children in the Sahel.”

I closed the apartment door and walked down the four flights of stairs, my legs still a little weak and the smell of lubricant and sweat stuck to my suit. Out on the street, the night air hit my face and, for the first time in hours, I felt like I was breathing properly. I thought about him a couple of streets away, about his honey-colored eyes, about the NGO’s rehearsed script, about the scar under his shoulder blade. Then I stopped thinking.

At the station, another volunteer in blue overalls tried to stop me. I smiled and kept walking toward the platform. Not tonight, I thought. Today I’ve already done my good deed.