The Night I Crossed a Line with Another Man

I was twenty-two and absolutely certain that I liked women. I was in my third year at university and, on Fridays when I had enough money, I’d go out with the faculty crew to the same bar as always, any old corner near the waterfront. We’d arrive a little after eleven, take the back table, and by midnight the group would start to break up: some people would leave with their partners, others would wander in a pack down to the seafront promenade, and in the end everyone would end up in their own bed.

Esteban must have been about forty-five. He was dark-complexioned, with sun-browned skin and a full beard, the kind that leaves not a single gap along the jaw even when a man shaves every morning. He wore his shirt with two buttons undone, and you could see the hair on his chest peeking out from the opening, just like on his forearms. He was the owner’s close friend, and the two of them shared more than just business: I’d heard rumors, the kind that travel in low voices among friends, that Esteban liked young straight guys, the kind he could persuade for a first time.

—Watch out for that one —Manu, one of my gay friends from the group, told me one night—. He looks at you too much.

—You’re crazy —I said—. He’s just a good guy, that’s all.

I wasn’t lying entirely. Esteban was an excellent conversationalist. He had studied the same degree I was doing fifteen years earlier, and he knew the feared professors inside out, the trap courses, the notes that were actually worth having. When he came over to our table, I’d let myself get tangled up in conversation for ten or fifteen minutes, then go back to my friends as if nothing had happened. I liked him. End of story. Nothing more.

But one Tuesday in June, after a suffocating lecture, I stopped by the bar in the middle of the afternoon, when none of the faculty crowd had arrived yet. Esteban was in his usual spot, reading the newspaper by the counter. He greeted me with a broad smile and invited me to sit down.

—I’ll buy you a beer —he said.

—I can’t accept —I replied, uneasy—. I live with my parents, I don’t have a job, I wouldn’t be able to return the favor.

Esteban laughed, not mockingly, but with an odd tenderness.

—That does you credit. That’s exactly why you don’t owe me anything. Sit down.

I sat down. We were on our second beer when he told me he needed to stop by the post office before it closed to pick up some documents. He asked if I’d go with him. I said yes. We stepped out into the afternoon sun, walked four or five blocks, he collected a padded envelope at the counter, and on the way back toward the center he suggested we go into another, quieter bar to finish the afternoon.

—Just one more round —he said—. Then we each go home.

By eleven at night we’d already had four or five rounds. I wasn’t used to drinking that much. My face felt hot, my hands clumsy, and I kept breaking into an easy laugh every other minute. We left the second bar at an unhurried pace. We were walking down a narrow street, talking about I don’t remember what, when he stopped in front of a three-story building.

—This is my place —he said—. I’m going up to drop off the papers and then we’ll go back out and have the last one somewhere else. Come with me.

I agreed without thinking too much about it. In the elevator, I caught the scent of his cologne for the first time, a mix of leather and tobacco that I didn’t find unpleasant. My heart was beating a little fast, but I put it down to the alcohol. When he opened the apartment door, his hand settled on the small of my back to invite me in. He didn’t take it away right away. Three or four long seconds passed. I swallowed.

The apartment was small and tidy, with a black leather sofa facing a low wooden table. Esteban left the envelope on the table, took off his shirt, and hung it over the back of a chair. He did it naturally, as if at home he were always in a T-shirt.

—Make yourself comfortable —he said—. It’s hellishly hot.

I copied the gesture automatically. I took off my shirt and sat on the sofa. He came back with two short glasses of something amber-colored and ice. He handed one to me, toasted to “friendship,” and we set the drinks down on the table. And then, without warning, his hand rested on my chest.

It was a firm caress, not clumsy, not uncertain. It slid down my sternum to the waistband of my trousers. I went rigid, eyes open wide as if I were watching a movie. I thought about saying something. I thought about standing up. I did neither.

—Relax —he said, very softly, almost without moving his lips away from my ear.

He undid my belt with one hand and, without breaking eye contact, knelt between my legs. This isn’t happening to me, I thought. This isn’t happening.

But it was happening to me. And my body, treacherous, was responding before my mind could process it. When his mouth closed around me, I felt something I had never felt with a woman: a deep warmth, a patient suction, a tongue that knew exactly where to stop. I closed my eyes. I dug my fingers into the leather of the sofa. I wanted to tell him to stop, but what came out of my mouth was a different sound, more like surrender than protest.

Esteban wasn’t in a hurry. He moved up and down with a rhythm that seemed calibrated over years. Every now and then he’d stop and look at me, waiting for a signal, and I, instead of the refusal my head was asking for, would hold his gaze for one second longer and close my eyes again. That was enough for him.

The orgasm took me by surprise from behind. There was no warning, no countdown. A contraction in my thighs, a cramp that shot up to the nape of my neck, and my body emptied itself completely into his mouth. I thought he would pull away. He didn’t. He swallowed without taking his eyes off me, and when I thought it was over, he took me again gently and sucked the tip one more time. I was left so sensitive I nearly cried out. I laugh now when I remember it, but back then I didn’t laugh. I lay there on the sofa, drained, with my trousers around my ankles, staring at one fixed point on the ceiling.

***

I don’t know how much time passed. I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes it was almost two in the morning and Esteban was sitting beside me, reading something. I sat up abruptly. I got dressed in silence. He said nothing, just handed me my shirt and held the door open with a kind smile, no pressure, as if he were seeing off a neighbor heading home.

I walked back to my place as if the devil were after me. In my head, all the questions were spinning at once. Am I gay? Have I always been gay and not realized it? Did I let him because I was drunk? What if I run into him tomorrow? What if he tells people?

That night I went to bed with the private promise that I would never set foot in that bar again. That I would never speak to Esteban again. That I would forget the whole thing the way one forgets a blow in a dark alley.

***

The problem started the next day.

In the morning, during breakfast, I repeated my mantra: it can’t happen again. In class, while the professor explained things on the board, I repeated it again: it can’t happen again. In the afternoon, in the library, I repeated it two more times. I was sticking to it. I was managing.

But at night, when I got into bed, my mind played a nasty trick on me. I closed my eyes to sleep and saw Esteban kneeling between my legs, heard my own breathing, felt the weight of his hand on my thigh. Without even realizing it, I’d already taken my hand down there and was masturbating myself with a memory my mind claimed to reject. I finished in a couple of minutes, panting, and hated myself for half an hour before falling asleep.

Three days like that. Three days of mantra by day and betrayal by night. My mind said no. My body said yes. I’ve always been a reasonable man, and reasonable men, I learned late, almost always end up listening to the body.

On the fourth day I called Esteban. I did it from the corner pay phone, so there’d be no record on the home phone. He answered on the second ring, as if he’d been waiting.

—I thought you wouldn’t call —he said.

—I thought so too.

—Are you coming now?

—I’m coming.

I hung up before I could change my mind.

***

I went up in the elevator with my heart in my mouth, praying I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew in the entryway. Esteban opened the door in his underwear, chest bare, and seeing him like that, without the choreography of the first time, without the excuse of alcohol, I felt something different. Not shame. Something closer to relief.

This time there was no polite conversation. He unbuttoned my shirt in the entryway, calmly, while looking me in the eye. When my chest was bare, he pulled me to him and hugged me. It was a long hug, skin against skin, and feeling the hair on his torso against mine sent a shiver down my spine. Then he kissed me.

The kiss was what struck me most the second time. More than the blowjob on the sofa, more than the first orgasm in his mouth. It was a long kiss, with tongue, with a day’s growth of beard scraping my lips and chin. I had never kissed anyone like that before. When he pulled away, I was breathing as if I had climbed six flights of stairs on foot.

—Come —he said, and took me to the bedroom.

The bed had white sheets and smelled freshly washed. He finished undressing me himself, garment by garment, without hurry. Then he gently pushed me down onto the mattress and devoted himself to tracing my whole body with his mouth. He went down my neck, over my nipples, across my belly, stopping at every inch as if he had all the time in the world. When he got to my cock, he took me with the same patience as the first time, but now I watched him. I didn’t close my eyes. I wanted to see him. I wanted to understand what the hell was happening to me.

Esteban moved up and down, alternating suction with his tongue, licking my testicles with a technique you don’t learn in a week, and all the while his hands caressed my thighs, my hips, the inside of my ass cheeks until he brushed against areas I had thought untouchable. Every time I felt I was about to finish, he knew it and eased up, stretching it out until it became almost unbearable.

—I’ve got to get the last drop out of you —he murmured at one point, and I laughed for the first time all night.

When he finally let me come, it was an orgasm different from the one on the sofa. Longer, more conscious, without the excuse of alcohol or surprise. I gripped the sheets, said his name twice in a row, and lay there staring at the ceiling fan turning slowly.

Esteban lay down beside me, put an arm across my chest, and for the first time in four days I felt my mind and my body stop fighting each other.

—I’ve thought a lot about you these days —he said—. Every time I got into bed.

—Me too —I admitted.

I didn’t know at that moment whether this was the beginning of something or the end of the person I had been until then. Nor did I really care very much. We agreed I’d come back the next day. And I did.