The Night I Discovered I Was Into a Man

I got divorced at fifty-two. It was a necessary divorce, with no big drama: my wife was brilliant in many ways, but living with her had become a low-intensity war that was destroying the two of us in silence. We signed the papers on a Thursday in March, had a coffee, and wished each other luck without too much bitterness.

What came after surprised me. The loneliness I had expected never arrived. Instead, something I hadn’t had since my twenties came along: total freedom. My apartment, my time, my decisions. And with all that, women.

I’m not going to brag about numbers, though the numbers speak for themselves. In the first year and a half after separating, I’d fucked more than fifteen different women. From the woman next door on the fourth floor —a forty-year-old divorcée who rang my doorbell with any excuse and ended up with her panties on the floor of my living room— to a coworker’s sister-in-law who noticed me at a barbecue and sucked my cock that very night in the back seat of my car. No serious relationships. I was honest: I told them from the start I wasn’t looking for commitment, and the ones who stayed knew exactly what they were getting into.

I was, in every possible sense, a heterosexual man. That’s what I thought.

***

On a Tuesday afternoon Rodrigo called me. He was a friend of twenty years, an on-call doctor at the public hospital, a man of few words and good humor. We saw each other four or five times a year, enough to keep the friendship alive without letting it wear thin. His call that Tuesday was long: he told me he’d been in a relationship for almost two years, that he’d realized a lot of things about himself, that he wanted to introduce me to someone.

—A girl? —I asked.

—Not exactly —he said, and I noticed something strange in his voice, a mix of nerves and relief.

He explained it to me slowly. He was coming out of the closet. His partner was a man. I stayed quiet for a few seconds longer than necessary. Then I laughed, not out of mockery, but because the situation was so unexpected. I told him I was happy he’d told me, and that whenever he wanted, he could bring his boyfriend over for dinner at my place.

What I didn’t expect was for him to accept so quickly.

***

They came on a Friday at nine at night. Rodrigo came in first, with a bottle of wine in his hand and that same smile of his. Behind him walked a woman.

At least that’s what I saw for the first thirty seconds.

He was tall, with dark hair pulled back into a low bun that left his neck bare. He wore a black strappy dress that clung to broad, perfectly proportioned hips. He walked slowly, unhurried, with the kind of confidence people have when they know exactly the effect they have on others. He held out his hand before I could even speak.

—Sebastián —he said. —Nice to meet you.

It took me a few seconds to process what that deep, soft voice had just said to me. I looked at Rodrigo. Rodrigo was looking at me with a subtle smile, waiting for my reaction.

—Likewise —I replied, and I meant it.

During dinner I couldn’t help staring at him. The way he gestured, the way he laughed with his head tilted back a little, the slow, calculated movements with which he held his glass. He was smart and direct, with the kind of wit that doesn’t need effort to shine. At dessert he looked me straight in the eye and said:

—I was told you were open-minded. And it turns out you’re handsome too. What a great combination.

He said it without over-the-top flirting, just calmly. Like he was commenting on the weather.

The three of us talked until well past midnight. When they left, I stayed alone in the living room, not quite knowing what to do with what I was feeling. I went to bed and took a long time to fall asleep. I jerked off that night thinking about him, and came faster and harder than I had in months. Then I lay there staring at the ceiling, hand full of semen, not understanding anything.

***

They came two more times over the next few weeks. Sebastián always arrived dressed differently, but each time more certain of his presence. On the second visit he wore a long skirt and gold earrings that reached his neck. On the third, a fitted pair of pants and a silk blouse that hinted at the curve of his hips. Always with that same calm control, always with something in his gaze that was hard to ignore.

I started looking forward to those visits in a way I wasn’t comfortable analyzing. One night, while I was making coffee and Sebastián was helping me in the kitchen, he brushed my arm reaching for a cup. It was nothing. But I stood still for a few seconds longer than was natural, my cock hardening inside my pants with nothing I could do to stop it.

This makes no sense.

I repeated that phrase over and over over the next few days. It didn’t help.

***

The fourth visit was different from the start. They opened a second bottle of wine before midnight. Then a third. Rodrigo gradually fell asleep on the sofa, glass still in hand. Sebastián and I kept talking in low voices so we wouldn’t wake him. At some point in that conversation, without my being able to pinpoint exactly when, the distance between us on the sofa had been cut in half.

At one in the morning I suggested they stay over. They couldn’t drive in that state. I made up the guest room, left them towels, switched off the hallway lights. I went to my room.

I couldn’t sleep.

At two I got up to get some water. Passing through the hallway, I saw that the guest room door was slightly ajar. I stopped. From inside came the unmistakable sound of two people who were not sleeping: broken breathing, the rhythmic creak of the mattress, a rough moan bitten off halfway out.

I shouldn’t have looked.

Rodrigo was lying on his back with his eyes closed, mouth slightly open, one hand gripping the sheet. Sebastián was on top, riding him. He had him buried to the hilt and was moving up and down with that same calm he had for everything, both open hands pressed against Rodrigo’s chest, his hips rolling every time he came down, as if he were squeezing my friend’s cock from the inside. The little light coming through the window lit up his back, the curve of his waist, his ass opening and closing over my friend’s dick every time he let himself drop. Between his legs, hanging and swaying with the motion, Sebastián’s own cock was there, hard, shining in the dimness. He turned slightly and saw me in the doorway.

He didn’t shout. He didn’t cover himself. He lowered himself once more, slowly, never taking his eyes off me, smiling just a little at the corner of his mouth. He looked at me like that for a few seconds, riding Rodrigo while staring straight into my eyes, and I felt all my blood rush to my crotch.

—Sorry —I said, and left.

I went back to my room. I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes, but the image was still there: the arched back, the cock swinging between his thighs, the smile. I slipped my hand into my briefs almost without thinking and found them soaked with pre-cum. Twenty minutes passed, maybe thirty. I heard footsteps in the hallway. My bedroom door opened slowly.

Sebastián was standing in the doorway, wearing a short kimono that barely reached halfway down his thigh. He leaned against the frame without fully coming in. The fabric opened at the front, and I could make out, in the shadow of his lap, the dark tip of his cock, still only half-softening.

—Rodrigo fell asleep —he said quietly—. I feel weird being here alone.

—Headache? —I asked, because I couldn’t think of anything more sensible.

He laughed silently, only his shoulders moving.

—No. Something else hurts. And I think I know what can make it better.

He came into the room, closed the door with his foot, and sat on the edge of my bed. I was sitting too, back against the headboard, not quite knowing what was happening or, more accurately, knowing perfectly well what was happening and not deciding whether I wanted to stop it. Sebastián put a hand on my chest. Slowly. Slid it down to my stomach. Lower. He stopped right over the fabric of my briefs, where my erection was obscene, and squeezed lightly, weighing it, measuring what was there.

—From the very first night —he told me—. I knew it from the first night. And this too, I knew. I could see it through your pants when I crossed my legs.

—I’ve never been with a man —I replied. It was the only thing I could think to say.

—I know —he said—. It shows. We’re going to take it slow. Very slow. You’re going to end up asking for more, just wait.

And then he kissed me.

***

It wasn’t an awkward or tense kiss. It was precise, deep, tongue from the very start, unhurried, lasting longer than I’d expected. His hands slid up my neck and I, without consciously deciding to, put mine on his waist. The kimono fabric was thin, and through it I felt the heat of his skin, the real curve of his hips, the calm weight of his body leaning into mine. I untied the sash and the kimono fell open completely. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Smooth chest, dark hard nipples, and lower down, hanging thick and still only half-erect, the cock that had been inside Rodrigo ten minutes earlier.

I looked at it. Sebastián took my hand and placed it there, over him, closing my fingers around it. It was warm, heavy, with a glossy wetness on the tip.

—Touch it —he whispered—. It doesn’t bite.

I started stroking him slowly, up and down, learning the gesture I’d been doing to myself for thirty years but from the other side. Sebastián closed his eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath through his nose. He got completely hard in my hand, thick, veins standing out, the foreskin sliding back every time I went up.

—That’s it —he told me—. Very good. Now I want to taste you.

He yanked my briefs off in one clean pull. My cock sprang free all at once, so hard it hurt, with a thread of liquid clinging to my belly. Sebastián licked his lips and went down without breaking eye contact. He kissed the inside of my thigh, then my groin, then the base with his mouth open and hot, moving up the shaft with the flat of his tongue all the way to the tip, where he paused and sucked the head lightly, pulling the foreskin back completely, nibbling at my frenulum with a precision that made my hips jerk.

Then he took me all the way in at once.

When he took me in his mouth, I gripped the mattress with my fingers. I felt Sebastián’s throat closing around the tip, that burst of wet heat, then the slow pullback, the tongue wrapping around me, the free hand cradling my balls, squeezing them in an exact rhythm that rose and fell with the motion of his mouth. He sucked me all the way down, to the base, until I felt his nose pressed into my pubic bone, and then he came back up with a suction that knocked the breath out of me.

No one had ever done it like that.

No woman, in thirty years, had ever sucked my cock with that mix of force and patience. Sebastián knew exactly what he himself would want to feel, and he did it to me. When he noticed I was starting to shake, when my stomach tightened and a low moan escaped me, he slowed the pace, brought me right to the edge and left me there, still, breathless, cock throbbing against his cheek, staring at the ceiling of my own bedroom as if I were seeing it for the first time. He straightened up, wiped his lip with his thumb, looked at me, and smiled with that calm that defined him.

—Turn over —he said.

I didn’t think about it. I turned over and got on all fours in the center of my bed, ass raised, feeling more exposed and more aroused than I had ever felt in my life.

What came next was new to me in every sense. Sebastián took a small bottle out of the kimono pocket —he had brought it, he had planned this— and spread my ass cheeks apart with both hands. First came the tongue. Hot, insistent, licking my hole with a shamelessness that made me clench my fists in the pillow. No one had ever touched me there. Never. And this bastard was eating me out like he’d been waiting months to do it. He licked me slowly, in circles, slipping the tip of his tongue in, pushing, softening me up.

Then came the finger, slick, entering to the knuckle with a calculated slowness. I stayed still, breathing through my mouth. Sebastián didn’t force anything. He waited for me to give in from the inside, for the muscle to relax around him, and only then did he start moving it. One finger. Two. Curving them upward, finding something that made a rough moan escape me that I didn’t recognize as my own.

—There it is —he murmured behind me—. I told you you’d ask for more.

And I did ask for more. Not with words, but I pushed my hips back looking for him, impaling myself on his hand. Sebastián laughed softly. He pulled his fingers out, settled himself behind me, and I felt the head of his cock pressing against the exact spot where they had just been. Lubed, thick, insistent.

—Breathe —he told me.

He pushed in. Slowly, very slowly, gaining ground millimeter by millimeter. I felt the stretch, a burn that gradually eased, and then the impossible sensation of having him inside, all the way in, with his hips pressed to my ass and his belly against my back. He stayed still for a second, letting me get used to it. Then he started moving.

At first it was a long, calm back-and-forth, almost meditative, pulling almost all the way out and driving back in to the hilt, forcing me to feel every centimeter. The bed creaked softly. I bit the pillow so I wouldn’t shout and wake Rodrigo. Each thrust hit me inside that spot that sent electricity through me, and within minutes my cock was leaking liquid semen without his even touching it.

—Hold on —he said in my ear, his voice rough for the first time all night—. Not yet.

He grabbed my hips with both hands and sped up. It was no longer slow. He was fucking me with a deep, hard rhythm, slamming his pelvis against my ass with a wet sound that filled the room. He slipped a hand underneath, grabbed my cock, and started jerking me off in the same rhythm he was fucking me with. My face was mashed into the pillow, eyes closed, mouth open, saliva running down my chin uncontrollably.

—Come with me —he whispered—. Now.

I came in a way I had never known. An orgasm that rose from deep in my ass and shot forward, long, sustained, thick jets that filled his hand and stained the sheets beneath me. At the same time I felt Sebastián tense behind me, bite my shoulder to keep from moaning out loud, and spill inside me with three deep thrusts, holding me against him through the last convulsion. Warm semen ran down inside me as he pulled out slowly, and I collapsed face-first onto the bed, with no strength left anywhere in my body.

We took a long time. I lost track of time somewhere in the middle and didn’t care.

When I was done, I lay still for several minutes, breathing hard, my ass throbbing. Sebastián lay beside me for a moment, saying nothing, running a hand over my sweat-soaked back. Then he sat up, adjusted his kimono, and gave me a brief kiss on the forehead, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

—Sleep —he said.

And he went out into the hallway.

***

The next morning the three of us had breakfast together. Coffee, toast, the sound of the coffee maker. Rodrigo was in a good mood, suspicious of nothing, telling us something about a complicated patient from the previous week. Sebastián ate slowly and every so often looked at me over the rim of his cup with that same calm as always, leaving no trace of anything. Only once, when he walked past me to get more coffee, did he rest a hand on the small of my back a second too long, exactly where hours earlier he had been thrusting into me from behind. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.

When they left, I kissed each of them on the cheek twice, like always. I closed the door. I stood there for a moment in the entryway, alone, with my ass still sensitive beneath my pants and his scent clinging to my skin.

I didn’t really know what to call what had happened. I didn’t know whether it made me something I hadn’t been before, or whether it simply completed me. What I did know was that I didn’t regret it. And that the image of Sebastián in my doorway, in that short kimono and that impossible calm, was going to stay with me a lot longer than I had ever expected.