The Night at the Gay Club That Changed My Whole Year

I spent several weeks typing into search engines with a certain amount of embarrassment, opening tabs in incognito mode and closing them at the first sound in the room. I wanted to find a place where nobody knew me, where I could stop pretending for one night, and in the end I found a discreet club three blocks from the main avenue. The website was awful, with garish fonts and pixelated photos, but the reviews hidden in a forum described it as a serious place.

I went on a Saturday, around eleven at night. I wore an old sweatshirt so I wouldn’t stand out and a backpack with a clean change of clothes in case I ended up sleeping somewhere. I paid the entrance fee at a little window with mirrored glass, and a skinny guy explained the rules without looking up.

—I’ll give you the locker key on a wristband —he said—. Everything you’re wearing goes in there. The clothes stay with the wristband; you go in with nothing.

I looked at him for two seconds, trying to figure out whether he was kidding. He wasn’t.

I got undressed in a narrow hallway that smelled of pine and eucalyptus disinfectant. I folded my clothes by force of habit, as if someone were going to grade the neatness. The elastic bracelet squeezed my right wrist. When I crossed the strip curtain that separated the lockers from the main room, the air changed: warmer, thicker, a mix of sweat, alcohol, and a low electronic beat that seemed to move beneath the floor.

The first thing that surprised me was how natural everything looked. Men talking as if they were having coffee, leaning against columns, laughing. Tops, bottoms, versatiles, bodies of every shape. Some wore a towel over one shoulder as a minimal concession to modesty; most wore nothing. I wore nothing either. I saw cocks of every size hanging between the legs of the men walking by, hairy asses pressed against columns, hands slipping between other men’s butt cheeks without asking permission, mouths catching on nipples as they passed. An older guy against a wall had another one kneeling in front of him, sucking his dick with hollowed cheeks, and nobody stopped to look for more than two seconds.

As I walked, dodging glances, I saw him. A tall man with broad shoulders, leaning against the bar wall. He had an enormous cock, so disproportionate to his waist that it looked like a detail drawn over his body. It hung heavy, thick as my wrist, with the purple head peeking out of a half-lowered foreskin and a blue vein running from base to tip. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at a trans girl on the other side of the room, a brunette with straight hair who was combing it with her fingers as if she knew he was watching.

I went over anyway. Adrenaline made my heart pound at my temples.

—Will you let me? —I said, pointing downward.

He nodded without enthusiasm. I knelt on the cold tile and opened my mouth. The head barely fit; I had to hold it with both hands, one on top of the other, and even then there was shaft left to suck. I ran my tongue underneath it, from the balls to the tip, and felt the dead weight of the cock settle against my face. It smelled strong, of cheap soap and sweat, and I forced myself to take it as deep as I could without gagging. The head hit the roof of my mouth. I sucked it while jerking the shaft with my hand, saliva dripping down my chin, and my eyes watered every time I pushed deeper. I kept it up for a couple of minutes, trying to focus on what I was doing and not on his gaze, which stayed fixed on the girl across the room. I squeezed his balls with my other hand, rolled them in my palm, did everything I knew how to do, and he didn’t even touch my head. His dick got harder, yes, but it was a distracted, mechanical hardness, the kind that belonged to someone thinking about another cunt and not mine.

—Better leave it, handsome —he said after a while—. I’m going to try my luck somewhere else.

I wiped my chin and sat on a stool by the bar. I watched him cross the room, talk to the trans girl for five minutes, and disappear with her into one of the private rooms in back. I was left with frustration and a warm anger I knew well.

While I waited for my mood to settle, I thought of Tobías. Of that summer when he taught me what serious desire was, without the disguises of teenage curiosity. And I thought of Reinaldo too, the construction worker who worked next to my house and used to sneak into the bathroom with me during lunch break, and who never, ever kissed me on the mouth. Two badly closed stories that repeated themselves every time I walked into a place like this.

***

I ordered a plastic cup of red wine and went up a side staircase to the hammock area. Several hung between wooden beams, and almost all of them were occupied. I climbed into the only free one, in a corner, and let the rocking distract me. From there I could see half the ground floor without feeling watched.

—Do you mind if I sit? —a voice asked from behind.

It was a man in his forties, with a graying beard and small eyes. He had a well-built body without exaggeration, hair on his chest and forearms. I gestured for him to make himself comfortable.

—My name’s Esteban —he said. He rested a hand on my thigh as if it were the most natural thing in the world—. You’ve got a really nice ass; has anyone told you tonight?

I didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

—Not tonight —I answered.

He leaned in and started kissing my neck, slowly, unhurriedly. His hand slid up my thigh to the base of my ass, and his fingers slipped between my cheeks looking for my hole. He probed it lightly, with the pad of his middle finger, pressing in circles without quite entering. The hammock swayed with every movement, and the sense of instability made me nervous and hot at the same time. My cock hardened against the canvas, crushed flat, and I felt a thread of pre-cum wet the fabric beneath my belly. I turned over onto my stomach and he understood right away. He spread my ass cheeks with both hands, settled onto his knees on the hammock without tipping it, and lowered himself along my back with his lips until he stopped between my cheeks. He started eating me with a technique I had never felt before: slow, deep, patient. First the flat of his tongue licking me from top to bottom, long and thorough, soaking the entire groove; then the tip stabbing at my hole, pushing the muscle until it gave, going in and out like a miniature cock. He ate me for what felt like entire minutes, his beard scraping my ass cheeks and his warm breath blowing on my entrance each time he pulled his tongue back to breathe. He slipped in a wet finger, then two, and curled them inside looking for the spot that makes you see white. When he found it, I gripped the hammock canvas with both hands and muffled a groan into his shoulder.

I couldn’t move.

—Let’s go to the room —murmured another man who had come up without me noticing. A younger guy than Esteban, shorter, with tattoos along his ribs—. This is a bit too exposed.

The three of us went down the side stairs. The room was at the end of a red-lit corridor, with a sliding door that never quite closed. When we went in, we saw the trans girl from the bar coming out of the room next door. Her eyes were swollen, traces of smeared eyeliner on her cheeks. I stopped her for a second with my hand.

—Are you okay? —I asked.

She nodded without looking at me. I hugged her briefly.

—I went through the same thing —I whispered in her ear—. The pleasure comes first, the disgust after. Don’t worry, love.

She pulled away, nodded again, and walked toward the lockers. Esteban was waiting with the door half open. He nudged me inside gently.

***

Inside the room the air was different. It smelled of latex and recent sweat. There was a black leather-covered bench, a folded towel in one corner, and a transparent gel dispenser bolted to the wall. The other man, the one with the tattoos, was named Cipriano. I learned that later, not then.

Esteban laid me on my back on the bench and spread my legs until my knees were pressed to my chest. He squeezed a stream of gel into his hand and coated my ass with two fingers, then three, widening me little by little until the hole gave way. His cock was thick, not very long, with a red, shiny head. He put on a condom, taking it from a bowl beside the bench, lubed it with gel, and slid it into me slowly, bracing himself with his hands on either side of my head. When he was buried to the base, he paused and locked eyes with me.

—Hang on there, babe. Don’t move.

Cipriano had stripped naked and was standing at the side of the bench, his hard cock pointed at my mouth. I grabbed it with my hand and took it all the way down my throat. His skin was salty, and above his groin there was an anchor tattoo that moved when he pushed. Esteban started fucking me with short thrusts, shaking the bench with every stroke, and I sucked Cipriano in time with the rhythm Esteban set from below. My mouth filled with spit and the tip of his cock dripped a warm liquid that I swallowed between muffled moans.

Esteban pulled out suddenly, flipped me over as if I weighed half as much, and positioned me on all fours at the edge of the bench. He shoved it back in with one thrust. Cipriano climbed in front and grabbed my head with both hands to keep fucking my mouth. The two of them settled over me, and what followed doesn’t resemble anything that had ever happened to me before.

Cipriano got tired of the mouth. He got down, moved to the back, and said something to Esteban in his ear. Esteban chuckled softly, pulled out of me, lay on his back on the bench, and told me to get on top of him. I rode his cock, lowering myself slowly, and felt him filling me again, this time with my own weight pushing it in. Cipriano got behind Esteban, between Esteban’s legs, and started eating his ass while I rode. Then, once he had him ready, he slid in slowly. I felt everything from above: each thrust from Cipriano transmitted through Esteban’s body and reached me in the cock I had inside him. We were a chain of three, articulated. Esteban moaned underneath with his mouth open, arched his neck, clenched his teeth; Cipriano complained through his teeth about the pain of thrusting into him; Esteban didn’t let up, kept hold of my hips and drove me down onto him with each drop.

—Hang on, love —Esteban said from below—. Hang on, we’re almost there.

I stroked my own cock at the same time, with my hand covered in gel, while I rose and fell over him. My head knocked against a side mirror and I saw my face red, mouth open, a string of spit hanging from my chin. The three of us came almost at the same time, with only a few seconds between us. I first: I came across Esteban’s chest in three thick spurts that splattered his chest hair all the way to his chin. Esteban came inside the condom while I was still shaking on top of him, and I felt the contractions of his cock against the inner spot. Cipriano drove two more times and came inside Esteban with a low growl, biting his shoulder. He collapsed over the two of us, his hot forehead resting on the back of my neck. Then, when I sat up, they both leaned in, breathing hard, and offered me their cocks so I could clean them with my mouth. I took Esteban’s condom off with my teeth, licked his shaft from base to tip, sucked the remains of semen and gel; with Cipriano I ran my tongue underneath, licked his balls, took his half-soft cock all the way to my throat. I did it without thinking, as if it were part of the closing ritual.

Cipriano left first, saying goodbye with his hand gripping Esteban’s shoulder. He walked with difficulty. Esteban stayed with me on the bench, playing with a lock of my hair.

—Let’s go to my place —he said—. I want to keep fucking you, but not here.

I looked at him for two seconds. I had promised myself I wouldn’t leave with anyone that night.

—All right —I said.

***

The taxi dropped us off on a narrow street in a neighborhood I didn’t know. The building’s front door opened onto an alley with half-painted walls, and Esteban had to take out two keys to unlock two different locks. His apartment was on the ground floor, at the back of an inner courtyard.

When we went into his room, he turned on a warm light that reflected in four large mirrors hanging at calculated angles. One on the ceiling. One on each wall. Seeing myself repeated from so many angles made me lose my bearings: I didn’t know whether to look forward, upward, backward.

—I want you to watch yourself while I fuck you —he said—. You’ll understand why I picked you.

He laid me on my back on the edge of the bed, lifted my legs, and rested them on his shoulders. No condom this time. He took a little flask of oil from the bedside table, drizzled a line between my cheeks, and rubbed his cock with his open hand. He shoved it in all at once, to the root, and made me cry out. He stayed inside without moving, looking into my eyes.

—Look up —he said, pointing at the ceiling mirror—. Watch how it goes in.

I lifted my eyes and saw myself: legs open in the air, his cock disappearing inside me to the balls, my own cock hard against my stomach. He started fucking me with long, deep thrusts, without hurry, letting me feel each centimeter going in and out. Every so often he changed pace, sped up to the edge of orgasm and stopped dead, stayed inside breathing hard, waited for the urge to subside, and started again.

He turned me over. He put me on all fours in front of the wall mirror so I could see my face while he fucked me from behind. He grabbed my hair, pulled my head back, and forced me to look at myself while he hammered into me from behind, hands clamped on my hips. Then he laid me on my side, got behind me spooning, lifted one leg, and shoved it in again like that, slower, biting my nape, whispering filthy things in my ear.

—Look at how your ass opens, love. Look at how it begs for it.

We spent hours in positions I didn’t remember ever trying before, with pauses to drink water from a carafe on the bedside table. I don’t know whether he took something, a pill, a supplement, some kind of potion, but his erection never went down. He came inside me twice without pulling out, and stayed hard both times. The first time, his mouth was pressed to my ear; the second, kneeling behind me with his hands squeezing my cheeks so he could see himself going in better. I felt full, a warm pool between my cheeks dripping down my thighs when we changed position. I reached a point where pleasure blended into exhaustion, and exhaustion into a kind of absurd pride, as if enduring it were a feat. He kissed me on the mouth with a persistence that burned: I wasn’t used to so many kisses in a row, and even less with tongue, with teeth biting my lower lip, with saliva we shared as if it were part of fucking.

—I’m going to wreck your ass, love —he whispered in my ear—. But I’m going to take care of you afterward.

We fell asleep wrapped in each other, still dirty, when the birds started singing outside. I figured it was around three in the morning. We woke up at eleven the next day, with a whole Sunday ahead, and he was back to kissing me as soon as I opened my eyes. That second time was slower, almost tender. He slid it in from the side slowly, pulled it out, asked me to suck him for a while, then put it back in. He came in my mouth for the first time, holding my head with both hands. When I finished swallowing his semen, warm and thick, with a salty aftertaste that stayed between my teeth, he looked at me with a seriousness I hadn’t seen in him before.

—I want to be your husband —he said.

He said it seriously. I said yes, seriously too.

***

We were together for exactly one year and two weeks. I rented out my old room to live with him in the mirror apartment. I learned to make his coffee the way he liked it: strong, no sugar, in a large mug with a wooden handle. I learned the names of his sisters, his mother, the girl who cleaned twice a week. I learned when to keep quiet and when to insist.

Esteban never hid from me that he had a twelve-year-old daughter, or that the girl’s mother lived in another city, or that he traveled one weekend a month to see them. I knew that from the beginning. What I didn’t know was that that tie would pull him, sooner or later, toward the other side.

One afternoon in October, while we were drinking mate in the inner courtyard, he told me bluntly.

—My daughter asked me to come back. And so did her mother.

I didn’t cry in front of him. I cried afterward, in the bathroom, with the shower water covering the sound. I told him I understood, and it was true. Esteban had always been honest. He never treated me badly, never hid the truth from me, never made me feel like I was a secret.

We did things neatly. I looked for a room for rent on the other side of the city. He helped me move, carried boxes, left me two of the mirrors “so you’ll remember me.” We said goodbye at the door of the new room, without a scene, with a long hug and two kisses on the mouth.

After him I never went looking for another man with that intensity. Not because of pain: because of respect. Esteban was the loveliest love of that period of my life, the first one who treated me as an equal, the first one who desired me without shame. When I think of that night at the club, of the elastic wristband and the cold tile under my knees, I don’t remember the huge-dicked guy who ignored me or Cipriano groaning against my nape. I remember the exact moment Esteban sat in the hammock and asked me, with ridiculous formality, whether it bothered me.

And I still think, sometimes, that I should have said yes.