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, on some random corner near the seafront promenade. We’d get there after eleven, claim the table at the back, and around midnight the group would splinter: some would leave with their partners, others would wander in a pack to the waterfront, and in the end everyone ended up in their own bed.

Esteban must have been about forty-five. He was tan, with skin hardened by the sun and a thick beard, the kind that leaves not a single gap along the jaw even if you shave 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 the business: I’d heard rumors, the kind that travel in low voices among friends, that Esteban liked young straight guys, the sort he could convince the first time.

—Be careful with that one —Manu, one of my gay friends from the crew, told me one night—. He looks at you too much. And he’s not looking at your face, he’s looking at your fly.

—You’re crazy —I replied—. He’s just a nice guy, that’s all.

I wasn’t entirely lying. Esteban was an excellent conversationalist. He’d studied the same degree as me fifteen years earlier, knew all the dreaded professors perfectly, the trap subjects, the notes 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. That was it. Nothing more.

But on a Tuesday in June, after a suffocating class, I stopped by the bar in the middle of the afternoon, when no one from the faculty 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, awkwardly—. I live with my parents, I don’t have a job, I couldn’t return the favor.

Esteban laughed, not mockingly, but with a strange tenderness.

—That does you credit. Precisely for that reason you don’t owe me anything. Sit down.

I sat. 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 window, 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 had four or five rounds. I wasn’t used to drinking that much. My face felt hot, my hands clumsy, and an easy laugh kept slipping out of me every couple of minutes. We left the second bar at a slow 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 entrance.

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

I agreed without thinking too hard. In the elevator I smelled his cologne for the first time, a mix of leather and tobacco that I didn’t find unpleasant. My heart was beating a little faster, but I blamed it on 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. It was three or four long seconds, and his fingers slid very slowly toward the cleft of my ass, almost brushing over my pants. I swallowed.

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

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

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

It was a firm caress, not clumsy, not uncertain. His fingers pinched my right nipple, rolled it between index finger and thumb until it stood hard, and then slid down my sternum tracing a line that sank into my stomach. His palm paused for a moment over my belt buckle, feeling out what was underneath. I was already half hard without realizing it, and he noticed instantly: he pressed over the fabric and smiled when he felt the bulge.

—Well, well —he murmured—. Look what we’ve got here.

I froze, eyes wide as if I were watching a movie. I thought about saying something. I thought about getting up. I did neither.

—Relax —he said very softly, almost without moving his lips from my ear—. Leave it to me, you don’t have to do anything. Just look at me.

He undid my belt with one hand, popped the button, and pulled the zipper down tooth by tooth so I could hear each one. He slipped his fingers inside my briefs and took my cock out into the air, gripping it at the base with a steadiness that made my thighs close reflexively. I was hard as stone and he looked at it with calm satisfaction, like someone finding exactly what he expected to find. Without letting go, he knelt between my legs.

This isn’t happening to me, I thought. This isn’t happening.

But it was happening. And my body, traitorous, responded before my mind could process it. He stuck out his tongue and licked me slowly, from bottom to top, from my balls to the glans, with a long swipe that left a trail of warm saliva the full length of me. Then he spat on the tip and used his hand to spread the saliva over the shaft, jerking me off two or three times before taking me into his mouth.

When his mouth closed around me, I felt something I’d never felt with a woman: a deep warmth, patient suction, a tongue that knew exactly where to stop. He took me all the way down, until I felt the tip of the glans bump against his throat, and he held it there for a few seconds without pulling back, lips pressed tight against the base and breathing through his nose. I closed my eyes. I gripped the leather of the sofa. I wanted to ask him to stop, but what came out of my mouth was something else, a low moan, more like surrender than protest.

Esteban wasn’t in a hurry. He rose and fell at a rhythm that seemed calibrated over years. He’d pull my cock all the way out to the tip, play with his tongue on the frenulum until my legs shook, and then take me to the hilt again in one go. He alternated between sucking me off and long licks all along the shaft, sucking my balls into his mouth one by one, kissing the inside of my thighs with wet lips. Every now and then he’d stop and look up at me, with my cock in his hand and his lips shining with saliva, waiting for a sign, and I, instead of giving the refusal my head was asking for, would hold his gaze one second longer and close my eyes again. That was enough for him.

—What a delicious cock you’ve got —he told me, his voice roughened, spitting on it again—. All mine tonight.

He took me back into his mouth, this time faster, closing his lips very tight and making a wet sound every time he went down to the base. With one hand he massaged my balls, squeezing them gently, and with the other he searched between my cheeks, bringing a finger up to my hole without actually going in, just pressing from the outside, in circles, with an insistence that made me spread my legs without meaning to. That caress took me apart. No one had ever touched me there, and discovering that that spot lit up everything else left me defenseless.

The orgasm caught me from behind. There was no warning, no countdown. A contraction in my thighs, a cramp that ran up to my nape, and my body emptied itself into his mouth in thick jets that I could feel him swallowing, one after another, without letting a single drop fall. I thought he would pull away. He didn’t. He swallowed without stopping looking at me, with my cock all the way inside, lips clamped at the base to wring out the last burst, and when I thought it was over, he took me gently again and sucked the tip once more, very slowly, gathering with his tongue the last pearl of semen left in my slit. I was left so sensitive I almost screamed. I laugh now remembering it, but then I didn’t laugh. I lay there on the sofa, weak, with my pants around my ankles, staring fixedly at a point on the ceiling while he cleaned the tip with his mouth closed, as if he didn’t want to waste a thing.

***

I don’t know how long 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 dressed in silence. He said nothing, only handed me my shirt and held the door open with a friendly smile, no pressure, as if he were seeing off a neighbor going home.

I walked back to my place as if the devil himself were chasing me. In my head, all the questions were spinning at once. Am I gay? Have I always been gay and never realized it? Did I let it happen 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 never to step foot in that bar again. Never to talk to Esteban again. To forget the whole thing the way one forgets a punch in a dark alley.

***

The problem started the next day.

In the morning, over breakfast, I repeated my mantra: it can’t happen again. In class, while the professor was writing 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 keeping to it. I was managing.

But at night, when I got into bed, my mind played a dirty 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, the heat of his mouth closing around my cock, the tongue circling my glans. Without realizing it, my hand was already down there and I was jerking myself off with a memory my mind said it rejected. I spat into my palm, gripped the shaft hard, imitated with my fingers what he’d done with his lips, and came over my stomach in a couple of minutes, panting, with Esteban’s name almost slipping out between my teeth. I hated myself for half an hour before falling asleep.

Three days like that. Three days of mantra by day and betrayal by night. My head 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 booth on the corner, so there’d be no record on the house phone. He answered on the second ring, as if he’d been waiting.

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

—I thought that too.

—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 lobby. Esteban opened the door in his briefs, shirtless, 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. Through the white fabric of his briefs, a thick bulge showed, the dark shadow of the dense hair around it, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.

This time there was no polite conversation. He unbuttoned my shirt in the entryway, calmly, while looking me in the eyes. When I was left bare-chested, he drew 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 hit me hardest that 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 day-old stubble scraping my lips and chin, biting my lower lip until I moaned into his mouth. His hand slid down to squeeze my package over my pants, measuring me, and I felt his own cock harden against my hip through his briefs. I had never kissed anyone like that. When he pulled back, I was breathing as if I’d climbed six flights of stairs on foot.

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

The bed had white sheets and smelled freshly washed. He finished stripping me himself, garment by garment, unhurriedly: first the pants, then the briefs, kneeling to pull them down to my ankles and off over my feet. When I stood naked in front of him, my cock already hard and pointing at his face, he stood up, pulled his own briefs down too, and for the first time I saw what he had between his legs: a thick, brown cock, longer than mine, with heavy balls hanging beneath a mass of black hair. He took it in his hand, gave it a couple of shakes in front of me, and smiled when he saw I couldn’t look away.

—You can study it properly later —he said—. Lie down now.

He gently pushed me onto the mattress and set about working his way over my whole body with his mouth. He went down my neck, biting where the pulse beats, over my nipples, sucking them one after the other until they turned hard and dark, over my stomach, pausing at every inch as if he had all the time in the world. He ran his tongue over my belly button, over the strip of hair down to my pubis, and blew hot air over my cock without touching it, until I felt it twitching against my belly on its own, begging for his mouth.

When he got to my sex, he took me with the same patience as the first time, but now I was watching him. I didn’t close my eyes. I wanted to see. I wanted to understand what the hell was happening to me. I watched him open his lips and take my cock all the way in at once, down to the base, and withdraw very slowly, leaving it shining with saliva. I saw his tongue slip out underneath to lick my balls while his hand gave me a slow wank. I saw my own swollen glans appearing and disappearing between his lips, and that image —me, a guy who the week before had thought he was one hundred percent straight, with my cock inside another man’s mouth— got me hotter than any tits I’d ever seen in my life.

Esteban went up and down, alternated sucking with licking, licked my testicles with a technique you don’t learn in a week, took them into his mouth one by one and sucked them carefully while his hand kept jerking me off. Then he lifted my legs by the knees, spread them wide open, and without warning ran his tongue over my hole. That ripped a long gasp out of me. No one had ever done anything like that to me. The hot tongue, flat, pressing in circles and sliding inside, had me gripping the sheets with both hands, my cock pounding against my stomach with every throb.

—What a delicious ass you’ve got —he murmured from down there, never stopping eating me, pressing with his thumbs to open me wider—. One day I’m going to fuck it slowly. Not today. Today I want you to learn how good it feels to have your cock sucked.

He went back to my cock, swallowed it to the hilt, and his hands stroked my thighs, my hips, the inner curve of my ass cheeks until he brushed places I thought were untouchable. A finger damp with saliva started to play at my hole, without forcing it, just pressing, sliding in the first knuckle and out again, and every time he pushed a little further in I could feel my cock getting even harder in his mouth, as if those two points were connected by a wire. Every time I felt I was about to come, he noticed and eased off, took my cock out of his mouth, clamped his fist around the base to cut off my orgasm, and waited a few seconds before starting again. He kept me there on the edge four or five times, stretching it out until it became almost unbearable.

—I’ve got to drain every last drop out of you —he murmured at some point, and I laughed for the first time all night, with a broken laugh that turned into a moan when he shoved it back in to the hilt.

When he finally let me finish, it was a different orgasm from the one on the sofa. Longer, more conscious, without alcohol or surprise as a cover. I felt the cum rising from my balls, felt my whole belly clench, felt my cock firing shot after shot into his mouth while he kept sucking and looking up at me, swallowing every burst without losing a drop. I gripped the sheets, said his name twice in a row, let out a helpless “fuck, Esteban, fuck” without being able to control it, and lay there staring at the ceiling fan turning slowly, with my cock still in his mouth, throbbing between his lips until it gradually softened.

Only then did he let go of it, with a wet kiss on the tip, and came up to my level. He lay down beside me, slipped an arm over my chest, and when I felt his hard cock pressed into my hip, I understood there was still work left to do. I instinctively reached down and grabbed it. It was hot, thick, the head already wet. I started jerking him off slowly, awkwardly at first, imitating what I did when I was alone. He said nothing. He just closed his eyes and let me learn, barely moving his hips to set the rhythm, and when I found the pace he let out a rough moan that was the hottest thing I heard all night.

—Like that, very good —he whispered—. A little tighter. With saliva.

I spat on my hand and went back to it. I jerked him off, watching the thick glans appear and disappear inside my fist, watching his balls tighten, watching him start breathing through his mouth. It didn’t take long. A couple more minutes and I saw the first jet come out, white and thick, landing on my chest, followed by three or four more that burst from him with force while he clenched his teeth and dug his fingers into my shoulder. When he finished, he looked at the cum smeared across my chest and smiled.

—Welcome —he said, and cleaned me with two fingers, and he brought those two fingers slowly to my lips until I opened my mouth and sucked them without thinking.

For the first time in four days I felt my head and my body stop fighting each other.

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

—Me too —I admitted.

I didn’t know then whether this was the beginning of something or the end of the person I’d been until that moment. I didn’t care all that much either. We agreed I’d come back the next day. And I did.