What Happened in the Sauna with My Berlin Lover

It was a hot summer Friday night and the Sauna Vulcano, in the heart of Cartagena’s old quarter, was boiling over. It’s the biggest place on the whole coast, the one everyone knows even if few will admit it in broad daylight. I’d gone exactly a month without stepping into a place like that, ever since that week in Berlin that left a mark on me more than I cared to admit.

I arrived a little after eleven-thirty. I’d just turned thirty-nine and I’d never felt so fit: dry hard body, skin still bronzed from the sea, long braids pulled back at the nape of my neck, tattoos climbing my neck up to my jaw. I asked for a locker, stripped off without rushing, and tied a short white towel around my waist.

What happened in Berlin had been an accident. We ran into each other in a club at four in the morning, no introductions, no surnames, and what was supposed to be one night turned into four days with us barely leaving the hotel. I left convinced I’d never see him again, and since then I hadn’t managed to get him completely out of my head. That was why, really, I’d come back to a place like this: looking for something that resembled him, even though I knew nothing would.

The place was packed. The heat from outside mixed with the steam inside, the music pulsed low and steady, and in the air hung that unmistakable smell of chlorine, sweat, and desire. I passed through the showers, let the warm water run down my back, and crossed toward the cabin area with my pulse already racing.

And then I saw him.

He was leaning against the bar, back to the wall, taking everything in like someone who had already decided why he was there. A black towel tied below his navel, a red leather harness crossing his chest, his body more defined than the last time. When he turned his head and recognized me, his mouth drew that crooked smile I remembered all too well. Mateo.

No talking was needed. I walked straight up to him and we went for each other’s mouths without preamble, in front of everyone at the bar, as if the month apart had never existed. His tongue, his teeth on my lip, his hands open against my back. The murmur around us vanished.

—You again? —he said, pulling back barely an inch, my lip still between his teeth.

—Looks like the country doesn’t matter —I replied, sliding my hand under the black towel—. We always end up in the same place.

And we always end up equally fucked up, I thought, not caring in the slightest.

I dragged him to the first empty cabin I found. I slammed the door shut and the noise of the place stayed on the other side, muffled. Red light came in through the gap at the top and painted half his face.

He shoved me against the wall with both hands, yanked my towel off in one pull, and dropped to his knees without taking his eyes off me. What came after was slow at first, almost a tease: his tongue tracing me slowly, green eyes locked on mine, measuring how long I could last. I grabbed his short braids with both hands and set the pace myself. He let me, groaning softly, hands clamped on my thighs.

Then I pulled him up and turned him around. I opened him up against the wall, pressed my chest to his back, and felt his skin goosebump. I covered every inch with my mouth, biting the nape of his neck, trailing down his spine, until he was pushing back looking for me, impatient, cursing under his breath.

—Not here —I told him in his ear—. I want them to see us.

He laughed against the wall. That was exactly what he wanted to hear.

***

We came out of the cabin and went straight to the big jacuzzi at the back, ringed with blue lights and packed to the brim with men. The water was hot, almost too hot. Mateo sat on the marble edge with his legs open and I climbed in, on my knees, the water covering me up to the chest.

I lowered my head between his legs while the bubbles burst all around us. He buried his fingers in my wet hair and threw his head back, not hiding from anybody. A little crowd began to form beside us, men drawing closer slowly, their eyes fixed, some of them already touching themselves in silence.

Then we switched. I sat on the edge, cold marble against burning skin, and he gave me back every single thing with the same cruel calm, stopping just when I needed it most, forcing me to hold on. I felt the hot water on my legs and his mouth above, and the difference in temperatures made my head spin.

—You’re a bastard —I muttered through clenched teeth.

—I know —he answered, not stopping.

When we got out of the jacuzzi, dripping wet, half the people watching us followed us with their eyes. Some couldn’t take it and stayed right there, finishing what the show had started for them.

***

The Finnish sauna was close to ninety degrees. The air burned on the way in and the wooden benches scorched under our hands. We climbed up to the highest bench, where the heat was unbearable, and there he laid me face down.

He lay on top of me with all his weight. I felt his chest against my back, the leather harness pressing into my skin, his breath on my neck. He started slowly, measuring me, letting me feel every movement before picking up the pace. Sweat slid down over both of us, mixing together, and the bench creaked beneath us.

Down below, on the lower benches, two or three men had gone still, watching us through the steam, their shapes blurred in the damp half-light. The heat amplified everything: every gasp, every shove of the hips, the smell of hot wood and skin. I closed my eyes and let myself go completely, gripping the edge of the bench while he set the rhythm without mercy.

When we could take no more of that oven, we came out to the cooler area trembling, laughing like two kids who had pulled off a huge prank.

***

There was a special cabin at the end of the corridor, one with a leather swing hanging from chains in the ceiling. I knew it from other nights. Mateo opened the door and nodded toward it.

—Inside.

I let myself be tied to the chains by the wrists, legs suspended, body open and at his mercy. He stood behind me. He grabbed my braids like reins and pulled just enough for me to arch my back. Every strike echoed off the cabin walls, and the swing’s sway turned every movement into something new.

—Do you remember Berlin? —he asked in my ear, not letting up.

—I haven’t been able to think of anything else for a month —I admitted, my voice breaking.

That confession seemed to ignite him even more. He got me down from the swing, made me kneel on the leather seat, and kept going until tears sprang to my eyes, not from pain but from sheer intensity. I didn’t want him to stop. He knew it.

***

The big dark room was almost pure darkness, just a single red bulb in one corner that didn’t quite light anything. It took me a few seconds to get used to it and, once I did, I made out silhouettes pressed against the walls, held breath, the occasional glint of eyes. In the middle there was a huge mattress and we lay down on it, one on top of the other, locked together, giving everything back all at once. In the gloom, anonymous hands started moving over us: fingers we couldn’t tell belonged to whom, mouths appearing and disappearing, bodies brushing us in the blackness. We didn’t care. As long as I could feel Mateo on top of me, the rest was set dressing.

At some point Mateo got down on all fours and I took my place behind him. While I had him like that, a huge man with a foreign accent planted himself in front of him and Mateo took him without hesitation. Then we rotated: they put me in the center, him behind me and the same stranger in front, the three of us fitting together in a choreography no one had rehearsed and that worked perfectly.

After that we split up at the glory holes. I was in one booth, he in the other, recognizing each other through the hole by touch, by shape, and in between attending to strangers passing through without knowing who was on the other side. For a good half hour the entire sauna was our playground.

***

We went back to the jacuzzi for the finale. We sat facing each other, each on a submerged bench, legs open under the water, staring hard at one another through the blue steam. I reached out my hand toward him and he did the same toward me, and we found each other slowly beneath the surface while we kissed with our tongues, unhurried this time, as if we wanted to stretch the moment out.

A perfect circle of men closed around us. Nobody spoke. Only breathing, the bubbling water, and the splashing.

—Come on me, Bruno —he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine—. Like in Berlin.

And that’s how it was. We came together at the same time, looking each other in the eyes, and then we kissed for a long time, sharing everything, licking each other’s faces between laughs while the circle around us finished too, a warm rain falling over us from every direction.

***

We left Sauna Vulcano just as it was getting light, around seven in the morning. Wrecked, shaking, with weak legs and a raw throat. Neither of us wanted to say goodbye yet.

We got into my car and I drove to my apartment, facing the beach, with the windows down and the cool dawn air rushing in by the mouthful. We didn’t sleep. We kept going well into Sunday afternoon: in bed, on the sofa, in the shower, on the terrace overlooking the sea, on the kitchen floor. We filmed ourselves, laughed, ran out of strength and found it again.

That night at the sauna with Mateo was the longest, dirtiest, most intense I can remember. Two men who happen to meet by chance in some corner of the world and turn that corner into their own for hours. Next time it’ll be in another city, I thought as I watched him finally sleep, but we’ll always end up in the same place.