The Second Time with Esteban Was Also the Last

There are stories one carries for years without really knowing what to do with them. Mine with Esteban is one of those, and this is the ending, the second part of something that began when I was thirty-three and he was almost sixty.

I already told about the first time in another story. What matters to understand this is that, after that encounter, I pulled away. Not because I hadn’t liked it — I had liked it more than I was willing to admit — but because I was afraid. Ashamed, too. I was living with a girlfriend, working in an office, playing soccer on Tuesdays with the guys from the neighborhood. Nothing in my life lined up with what I had felt the night I walked into Esteban’s house for the first time.

Two years went by. Two years in which I deleted his number three times and wrote it down again four. Two years of messages at three in the morning that I then didn’t dare send. Of going into his profile and leaving before the “online” status appeared. Of convincing myself that it was over, that it had been an isolated experience and nothing more.

Until one Friday in April, we talked again.

It was something simple. I sent him a photo of the park next to my house, the trees already turning yellow, and a short message. “I thought of you.” He took forty minutes to reply. When he did, he didn’t ask where I’d been all that time. He just told me he thought about me too, that his house was still the same, that if I wanted I could come by on Saturday.

I said yes before I even thought about it.

***

Esteban’s house was in a quiet neighborhood in Rosario, on a street lined with tall trees and broken sidewalks. I arrived at nine at night, after circling the block three times to gather courage. I rang the bell and immediately regretted it. I wanted to leave. The door opened before I could even take two steps back.

—Hey. Come in —he said, and his voice was exactly as I remembered it.

He had more gray in his hair than the last time. A neatly trimmed beard, a black T-shirt, worn jeans, bare feet. He nodded for me to come in and closed the door slowly, as if he were afraid of frightening me off. We didn’t hug. We didn’t greet each other with a kiss. There was only a hand on my shoulder and a quiet “I’m glad you came.”

He offered to show me around the house. The kitchen, the inner patio with a lemon tree, the room where he kept books and records. I walked behind him nodding and looking at everything without seeing anything. Every time he turned around to point something out, my stomach tightened a little more. Not from fear. From anticipation.

—Come on, let’s go to the bedroom —he said when we finished the tour—. It’s more comfortable to talk there.

The bedroom was large, with a window facing the patio. A low lamp on the bedside table, music at barely audible volume —something old, jazz, I didn’t recognize the musician— and a wide bed with a gray coverlet. We sat on the same side, both leaning against the headboard, our legs stretched out. Esteban poured me a fernet and Coke in a wide glass and poured one for himself.

We talked. About nonsense at first, then about more serious things. I told him I had left my girlfriend eight months earlier. He told me his brother had gotten sick and he was thinking about moving south to take care of him. I listened to him and watched his mouth; I couldn’t help it. That mouth with which, two years earlier, I had learned everything I know.

—You got quiet —he said after a while.

—I’m nervous —I admitted.

—Me too.

He laughed. It was a low laugh, almost to himself. And then he put the glass on the bedside table, leaned in, and kissed me.

***

With women I was always the active one, the one who takes the lead, the one who decides when and how. With Esteban it was different. The moment his mouth touched mine, something in my body settled on its own, as if it had spent two years waiting for exactly that. I kissed him back with an urgency I had never felt with anyone. My hands went to the nape of his neck, his beard scraped my chin, I tasted the fernet on his tongue. He bit my lower lip, sucked on it, pushed his tongue all the way into my mouth, and I welcomed it as if he were feeding me drink. With his other hand he gripped the back of my neck, firm, leaving me no room to doubt. I felt his cock harden against my thigh through his jeans, thick, pressing outward, and that single contact made me hard too.

We took off our clothes without saying a word. First the T-shirts, then the pants. He helped me with the buttons of my jeans because my hands were shaking. When he pulled my briefs down and I stood naked in front of him, my dick shot up suddenly, pointing at his face, and he gave a soft laugh and took it in one full hand, without ceremony, like someone recognizing something that belonged to him. He stroked it slowly, looking me in the eyes, and with his thumb he spread the moisture from the tip all over the glans. I closed my eyes and swallowed a moan.

—Not yet —he said—. We’ve barely started.

He took off the rest of his clothes too. When we were both naked, I paused for a second looking at him, the body of a man of almost sixty, not perfect, not from a magazine, but solid, real, with chest hair and an old scar on his right shoulder. His cock stood up curved slightly upward, thick at the base, the veins standing out and his heavy balls hanging between his thighs. It was the most erotic body I had ever seen in my life.

—Come here —he said, and took me by the arm.

He made me kneel between his legs, him sitting on the edge of the bed, and I sucked him without being asked. He was hard already, thick, and I had forgotten what it felt like to have something like that in my mouth. I held him at the base with my hand, weighed him, ran my tongue over the big vein that ran underneath, from the balls to the tip, and he let out a long sigh. I licked the glans in circles, savoring the salty taste of the pre-cum already beading there. Then I took him into my mouth. Slowly at first, feeling him fill my mouth, pressing against my palate. I went down farther, as far as I could, until the tip hit the back of my throat and made my eyes water.

I did it hungrily, slowly at first, then deeper, feeling his breathing grow heavier. I pulled him all the way out of my mouth, slapped him lightly against my lips, sucked on his balls one by one, and took him back in to the very end. I filled his cock with spit, dripping, and with my free hand I pumped the base in time with my mouth. Esteban grabbed my hair, not to force me, only to guide me. He liked me looking at him while I sucked him. I looked at him, with my lips stretched around his cock and my eyes fixed on his, letting a string of saliva fall down to his balls.

—Just like that, kid. Like that. You suck it so well.

His voice came out hoarse, broken. His thighs trembled a little. I swallowed again, took him in until my nose was pressed into his pubic hair, and stayed there for a few seconds, feeling the pulse of his cock in my throat, until I ran out of air and had to pull back coughing, with watery eyes and my whole mouth drooling.

—Wait —he said after a moment—. Wait or it’ll be over before it even starts.

He lifted me by the hair, gave me a quick kiss on the mouth —tasting himself on my lips without a trace of disgust— and made me turn around. Face down on the bed, with two pillows under my hips to lift my ass. I was left exposed, my ass raised in the air, my legs open, my cock pressed against the pillows. I felt his hand spreading my cheeks, parting them slowly, and then the cold air against my hole. He stayed there a moment looking at me, and I felt shame mixing with desire in a way that nearly made me cum just from that alone.

—What a great ass you’ve got, you motherfucker.

And then he lowered his face and started to eat me out. I felt his hot tongue pass over my hole, first gently, in circles, then with more pressure, slowly pushing inward. He licked me slowly, patiently, wetting me all over, biting my ass cheeks now and then, spitting on me there and going back to licking. I bit the pillow, my hands clamped on the sheet, moaning softly. No one had ever done that to me. His beard scraped me and his tongue opened me, and it was a combination I hadn’t known existed.

Then came the cold of the lubricant. A generous stream, running down my perineum to my balls. He pressed his teeth behind my neck, bit my shoulder softly, and started to finger me.

—Tell me if it hurts —he said.

—Go on.

One finger, pushing all the way in, turning inside, searching. Two fingers, opening me, scissoring me slowly. I breathed into the sheet, fists clenched, and little by little my body remembered. It remembered the first time, two years earlier, when Esteban had taught me that my ass could feel things I didn’t know existed. With his fingers inside me he hit a spot and a jolt ran up my back to the nape of my neck. I pushed back against his hand, wanting more. He laughed softly, satisfied.

—There it is. Now you remember.

He slid in the third finger. It burned, but I took it. He moved them inside me, in and out, while with his other hand he rubbed my back, caressed my waist, ran his knuckles down my spine. I was soaked with sweat, my cock dripping against the pillows, and I couldn’t take any more.

—Fuck me —I asked him.

***

He did it slowly at first. He got on top of me, spread my cheeks with both hands, and rested the head of his cock against my hole. He rubbed there for a moment, soaking himself in the lubricant, letting me feel how thick he was. Then he pushed patiently, letting me breathe between each centimeter. The head went in first, and that was the hardest moment, when the muscle opened all at once and tore a long moan out of me against the pillow. I felt the burn, that burn that feels unlike anything else and had scared me so much the first time. Not now. Now I expected it. I welcomed it. He went in little by little, a centimeter, another, another, until I felt his balls press against mine. When I felt him all the way inside, he stopped moving and kissed the back of my neck.

—You okay? —he asked.

—Fuck me.

I didn’t say anything else. Esteban understood the word as authorization for everything. He started moving, first with long, deep thrusts, pulling almost all the way out and then driving back in to the hilt, taking his time to feel every centimeter. I moaned into the sheet, bit the fabric, felt the weight of his body on my back, his hairy chest pressed to my spine, his beard scraping my shoulder. Then he picked up the pace. It was much rougher than the first time. He grabbed my waist with both hands, dug his fingers into my skin —the next day I would still have the bruises marked—, pulled out and drove back in with a single hard thrust that made me jerk forward. He buried himself in me hard, to the balls, and the sound of his thighs hitting my ass filled the room.

—What a hot ass, kid. You’re still so tight.

He talked in my ear while he drove into me, and each word of his made me tighten even more inside. He grabbed my hair, yanked my head back, forced me to arch my back to take him better. At times the pain was strong, too strong. My ass hurt like he was breaking me open. His whole cock inside me, into a place I didn’t know existed in my body, and he still didn’t slow down. And when I couldn’t take it anymore, I told him.

—Wait a second.

He stopped. He stayed still inside me, without pulling out, waiting. He kissed my shoulder, the back of my neck, talked in my ear. “You’re doing great, you’re being so good. Relax, breathe. Feel me inside you.” I breathed, felt the pulse of his cock against my walls, adjusted, and when the burn eased a little I told him to keep going.

He started again.

That night I learned that pain can be part of pleasure if you trust the person giving it to you. At one point he made me turn over. He put me on my back, lifted my legs, rested them on his shoulders, and put himself back inside me while looking at my face. That was worse and better at the same time. Worse because he got deeper into me, at an angle that scraped right against that spot where everything catches fire. Better because I could see his eyes, his open mouth, the vein in his temple throbbing with every thrust. He took my dick in his right hand and started stroking it in the same rhythm he was fucking me. I trusted Esteban. I trusted him so much that at some point I got tired of asking him to stop and asked for the opposite.

—All the way in —I told him—. Don’t stop. Break my ass.

He didn’t stop. He shoved himself all the way in, over and over, to the hilt, without rest, fucking me as if he needed to unload two entire years inside me. The bed creaked. The headboard hit the wall. I screamed, no longer afraid of being heard, and he covered my mouth with his free hand while he kept ramming into me. I came before he did, with his cock inside me and his hand in mine, splashing my own chest and stomach with a long stream, moaning against his palm, tightening around him like a fist. When he felt me come, a curse slipped out between his teeth.

—There it is, there it is, hold on.

He increased the pace, brutal, a few more thrusts, all the way in, until I lost count and sense and everything else. When he came —inside me, after a deep groan that came from his chest, me feeling every pulse of his cock emptying into my ass— he stayed on top of me for a good while, still inside, breathing on my neck. When he finally pulled out, he did it slowly, and I felt his load run hot down my perineum. My face was soaked and I didn’t know if it was sweat or something else. I didn’t want to move.

—Stay —I told him.

—I’m not going anywhere.

***

We slept together that night. I woke up at six-thirty, with the sky still dark, and watched him sleep for a long while. I touched his beard, his gray hair, the scar on his shoulder. I memorized everything. I don’t know why, but I already knew there wasn’t going to be a third time. Something inside me was telling me that, an intuition I couldn’t explain but that was there, crystal clear, while he breathed heavily against the pillow.

When he woke up, we had breakfast in the kitchen. Coffee, toast, a mandarin peeled between the two of us. We talked little. Before I left, at the door, he hugged me tightly and whispered in my ear:

—Take care, kid.

—You too.

We never saw each other again. Three months later he moved south, as he had told me he would. I wrote to him twice; he replied warmly but briefly. After that, we stopped writing. A year ago I learned from a mutual acquaintance that his brother had died, and that he was living alone in a house near the sea. I thought about writing to him. I didn’t.

Esteban changed me. Because of him —or thanks to him— I now know that I like men as much as women, and that there is a way to fuck and to be fucked that only exists between two guys who searched for each other long before they met. I’m not out looking for anyone new. I’m in no hurry. I know he’s out there, somewhere, and that’s enough for me.

Greetings from Rosario, Argentina.