The Stranger from the Bar and the House by the Sea
This is one of those nights you reconstruct afterward, in reverse, as if the hours were layers slowly being unstitched.
The sun was barely coming in through the open window of the room, and the two bodies on the bed were still steaming with that faint vapor that skin leaves behind when sweat cools. There was no need to say anything. What had happened had happened—the thing the whole night, hour by hour, had been becoming inevitable.
Mateo couldn’t remember exactly the words that had led them there. Nor did he care all that much. What was done was done, and guilt, if it surfaced at all, came wrapped in a calm he didn’t want to break.
He rolled slowly onto his side and looked at the man sleeping beside him. The dawn light fell obliquely across his shoulder, his neck, the left side of his face. His mouth was slightly open and his eyelashes were stuck together. Mateo stayed there for a long while, looking at that profile and trying to make out what had happened in that room thick with the smell of sex, sweat, semen drying on the sheets, and sea salt drifting in through the window.
***
An hour earlier, the two bodies had given in. They fell against each other, embraced on their sides, foreheads pressed together, their still-ragged breathing mingling in the same breath. Mateo ran a hand over the nape of his neck, stroked his wet hair, and Sebastián closed his eyes and sighed. Mateo’s cum was stuck to his chest, and between his ass cheeks the warm semen was slowly running down his inner thigh, marking his skin. Neither of them made a move to clean up. They stayed like that, breathing each other’s mouths, until sleep overcame them without warning.
***
An hour and twenty minutes earlier, a long kiss had closed the night. A kiss that wasn’t trying to go anywhere anymore, that was no longer a prelude or a promise, but simply an ending. Mateo’s hands traveled over Sebastián’s body with a new slowness, without urgency, acknowledging every rib, every hip bone, every fold of his thigh. He ran his fingers over the lower belly, still wet, over the soft, heavy cock pressed against the thigh, over the root of the hair. Sebastián gently bit his lower lip and laughed under his breath.
—You wrecked me —he murmured against his mouth.
—You returned the favor —Mateo answered, and searched for his tongue again.
The kiss became endless. It became calm. It became one of those that get etched somewhere you return to later, for years, without quite knowing why.
***
Two hours earlier, Mateo was kissing his chest. He moved his mouth down the sternum, stopped to lick each nipple until Sebastián arched his back against the mattress and dug his nails into the nape of his neck. He sucked one hard, bit it slowly, moved to the other, playing with his tongue in circles until it stood hard and red. He kept going down the center of the abdomen, tracing each square with his tongue, lingering for a while in the navel, sinking into it as a prelude. Then he went lower still and came upon Sebastián’s cock, already hard against his belly, rigid, the tip shining with a thin clear thread.
He first ran his tongue flat from the base to the glans, slowly, then sucked his balls one by one, and when Sebastián let out a long gasp, he took the whole thing into his mouth. He felt it fill his palate, press against his throat. Sebastián let out a hoarse sound, grabbed his hair with both hands, and begged him not to stop in a broken voice.
—Like that, like that, don’t stop, suck it all —he begged, pushing Mateo’s head down while Mateo swallowed and came back up with his lips tight around the cock.
Mateo relaxed his jaw and let it slide down his throat. Saliva ran down his chin, down his neck. He pulled it out of his mouth with a sudden jerk and gave the frenulum a slow lick, then buried the tip of his tongue just under the glans, teasing, while his hand kept jerking him slowly. Sebastián writhed against the sheet, hips pushing upward, looking for that mouth again.
Then the roles changed. Sebastián gently pushed him until he was lying on his back, settled himself between his legs, and returned the attention with the same painstaking care. He ran his tongue along the inner thighs, bit his hip carefully, blew on the wet skin until it made him tremble. He lifted his balls with one hand and licked them slowly, one by one, sucking them until Mateo moaned and gripped the headboard.
When he finally took Mateo’s cock into his mouth, Mateo lifted his gaze to the ceiling and ran out of air for a second. Sebastián sucked him differently: deeper, without taking his eyes off him, pale eyes locked on his while he moved up and down. He squeezed the base with his hand, pulled back, licked the edge of the glans, and took him in again until his nose was buried in the pubic hair.
—You’re going to make me come —Mateo gasped, tugging his hair—. Stop, stop…
Sebastián didn’t stop. He drove a hand into his hip and held him still, sucking his cock with a new urgency, as if he didn’t want to let a single drop fall. And Mateo couldn’t hold on any longer. He felt the pull inside him and warned him through clenched teeth:
—I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming…
Sebastián pulled his cock from his mouth just as the first jet hit Mateo’s chin. Mateo came in long spurts, marking his face, his neck, a little of his chest. Sebastián laughed softly, satisfied, and ran two fingers over his chin to bring the semen to his mouth.
They went on like that a little longer, Mateo going down to return the favor with Sebastián’s cock still hard, sucking him until he could also feel it throbbing on his tongue. Sebastián grabbed his head and came into his mouth, pushing his hips upward, with a long groan. Mateo swallowed what he could and let the rest run from the corner of his mouth while he kept sucking slowly, without letting go, until the last contraction.
They ended up marking each other with the result of that whole hour of mouths and hands.
***
Three hours earlier they were doing something else. Mateo, sitting on the edge of the bed, had grabbed Sebastián by the hips and arranged him against him, back to him, over his lap. He ran saliva-wet fingers over his ass, pushed one in first, slowly, looking for a way through. Sebastián bent forward, rested his hands on Mateo’s knees, and took a deep breath. Mateo slid in another finger, moving slowly, turning them, until he felt the other one give.
—Put it in already —Sebastián asked in a hoarse voice—. I can’t take it anymore.
Mateo spat into his hand, spread the saliva over his cock, and set the tip against the entrance. He pushed slowly. Sebastián bit his lip when he felt the pressure, let out a muffled whimper against the pillow and then a longer, broken sound when Mateo entered completely, sinking in to the balls. He stayed still for a moment inside, letting him get used to it, breathing on the nape of his neck.
Then he started to move. First slowly, coming out almost all the way and sinking back in, feeling how Sebastián clenched around him. Mateo’s free hand circled his waist, then slid down his belly, found him hard, and began to match the rhythm with a closed palm. Sebastián opened his mouth against the sheet and let out sounds that didn’t seem to be his own.
—Harder —he asked, and Mateo obeyed.
He gripped his hips with both hands and started fucking him for real, every thrust drawing out a new moan. The bed creaked against the wall. The sound of skin striking skin filled the room, mixed with the two of them gasping.
They changed positions twice. Sebastián got on all fours, face against the mattress and ass lifted, and Mateo went in from behind, grabbing his hair while he drove into him. Then he turned him over onto his back, lifted his legs and rested them on his shoulders, and like that, with Sebastián folded in half and looking at him, he kept fucking him slowly, staring into his eyes, almost without blinking.
—Don’t pull out —Sebastián asked through clenched teeth—. Come inside me.
Mateo sped up. He felt the pull running down his back, rising up through his balls, and buried himself as deep as he could just as he came inside, flooding him deep with spasms that made his thighs shake. Sebastián touched himself only twice and came too, splashing his belly and chest.
They finished on their sides, locked in an embrace, Mateo’s hips tucked behind Sebastián’s, his cock still inside, slowly softening, their two hands finding each other and interlacing over the stained chest. It was the first time in a long while that Mateo felt sex was not a transaction or an urgency, but something else, something that had more to do with disappearing together for a while.
***
Three hours and thirty minutes earlier they had started undressing. Slowly. Both of them trembled a little, not from cold but from that sense of being out of place you feel when you go to bed with someone you met three hours ago. Mateo undid Sebastián’s shirt button by button, with no hurry at all. He brushed his lips over Sebastián’s chest as he opened the fabric, bit the collarbone bone. Sebastián lowered Mateo’s belt while watching each gesture carefully, as if he wanted to memorize the other man’s face at that instant. He unbuttoned his pants, lowered the zipper, slid a hand inside his boxer briefs, and grabbed his cock, already semi-hard.
—That’s a pretty one —he murmured, squeezing it slowly.
—Take it out —Mateo answered, his voice half-broken.
They kissed shyly at first, as if they needed to start over now that they were naked. Then the kisses grew deeper, wetter, with the whole tongue and teeth showing now and then. They fell onto the bed tangled together and ended up settling in opposite directions, one with his mouth on the other’s groin, both of their breaths colliding against the other’s thighs.
A perfect sixty-nine, unhurried, each taking the time to discover how the other responded to everything. Mateo had Sebastián’s cock in his mouth and at the same time could feel the other sucking his, with that hot tongue teasing his frenulum, with fingers squeezing his ass, a thumb probing his hole. Each moaned over the other’s cock and those moans vibrated through the flesh, stoking them further. Mateo buried his face in Sebastián’s balls, licked them whole, came back up; Sebastián grabbed his ass cheeks with both hands and pushed him downward, swallowing his cock to the base. They stayed like that a long while, until both had to stop to avoid coming too soon.
***
Three hours and forty-five minutes earlier they had crossed the bedroom door. Mateo had pointed down the corridor as soon as they entered the house. There was no time for the drinks they had promised themselves in the taxi. They were kissing against the wall, biting each other’s neck, leaving clothes along the way: one shoe in the living room, Sebastián’s shirt thrown over the back of the sofa, Mateo’s belt looped around a door handle. Sebastián had him grabbed over the pants, squeezing the bulge without stopping kissing him. Mateo answered by sliding a hand under the already loose waistband, searching for his ass with an open palm.
When they reached the room, they stood looking at each other for a second in silence, still half dressed. As if recognizing one another. As if giving themselves one last chance to say “better not.” Neither took it.
***
Four hours earlier, the taxi had stopped in front of the house. It was a low building, with walls painted pale blue and flaking from the salt, a small front garden and a back patio that opened directly onto the beach. Mateo paid the driver without counting the change, opened the gate, and motioned for Sebastián to go in first.
Inside, there was no conversation. Sebastián barely looked at the living room, a wooden table, a half-empty bookshelf, a crooked painting on the wall. Mateo closed the door with his foot and grabbed him around the waist. They kissed against the edge of the dining table, and there, pressed against the wood, Mateo slid a hand down the front of Sebastián’s pants and found his cock already hard. He squeezed it through the fabric.
—You’re ready, huh? —he said in his ear.
—Since the bar —Sebastián answered, laughing softly against his neck.
Mateo pushed him toward the hallway without breaking the kiss.
***
Four hours and thirty minutes earlier they had left the bar. They walked a block holding hands. They didn’t care if anyone looked. Mateo lifted his free arm as soon as he saw a taxi coming. The driver glanced at them in the rearview mirror when they got in and kissed before even saying the address. After that he just drove, without comments, without questions, with the radio on an old bolero program.
The ride was short and endless at the same time. Sebastián had his hand on Mateo’s thigh, just above the knee, and kept moving it upward by millimeters until it brushed the bulge over the pants. There it stayed, squeezing slowly, feeling it harden under his palm. Mateo bit his earlobe, whispered in his ear what he was going to do to him as soon as they closed the door, with crude words the other didn’t fully understand but answered yes to anyway, moving his head against his neck. They arrived at the house with their clothes barely in place and an erection each that was impossible to hide when they got out.
***
Four hours and forty minutes earlier, Mateo had asked him softly, almost against his ear, if he wanted to go with him. They were still seated at the bar table, with two half-finished drinks and the background noise of the crowd.
—Would you come home with me? —Mateo said.
Sebastián took a few seconds to answer. Not because he was hesitating, but because he wanted to savor the question. Then he nodded slowly, lifted his jacket from the back of the chair, and followed him out without saying anything else.
***
Five hours earlier, Mateo was falling apart telling him things in his ear. He talked to him about his eyes, dark and huge, he talked about the bridge of his nose, his chin, the way his voice changed when he laughed. Then he lowered his tone even more and told him, with his mouth almost on his earlobe, that he’d been imagining him naked for a while now, that he wanted to know what the skin on his neck tasted like, that he wanted to bite it slowly and go down. Sebastián listened with a half-sideways smile, not rushing to answer, letting him talk, but his Adam’s apple moved slightly as he swallowed.
The words turned into something else. Mateo’s hand went to Sebastián’s knee and then moved up a little. His fingers brushed the fabric of his pants, slid up the inside of his thigh, stopped a hand’s breadth from his groin. The brush became a caress. The caress became a kiss on the neck when Mateo leaned in to speak to him even more softly, his lips almost touching the skin.
I didn’t come here for this, Sebastián thought. And yet he didn’t want him to stop.
***
Five hours and thirty minutes earlier, Mateo lifted his eyes from his drink for the umpteenth time. He’d been looking for a while at that table at the back of the bar, next to the window that looked out onto the dock. There was one man alone. Dark hair cut almost to the scalp, light eyes visible even from far away, a blue shirt open at the neck, long fingers drumming slowly on the wood of the table to the rhythm of the music.
It took him a while to decide. He ordered another drink, knocked it back almost in one go, left a couple of bills on the bar and walked to the back with his heart beating a little harder than he would have liked to admit.
—Excuse me —he said when he got there—. Do you mind if I sit down?
The other man looked at him calmly, not too surprised, as if he’d been expecting him. He barely moved his head to indicate the chair opposite him.
—Can I buy you another one?
—Sure.
They talked about the bar, the night, the heat on the coast that week. They talked about nonsense and about things that seemed more important. They laughed at a guy at the counter who insisted on singing off-key. They ordered a third drink. Then a fourth.
At some point, with the fourth glass half empty, Mateo ran a hand over the back of his neck and smiled crookedly.
—I just realized I never introduced myself. I’m Mateo.
The other man smiled too, broader this time, and held out his hand across the table.
—Sebastián.
And there, without either of them knowing it yet, began the countdown of the hours that would follow, one by one, until the sun came through the window and found them naked on the tangled sheets, still breathing into each other’s mouths.