What My Friend Let Me Do to Him in the Shower

Bruno had come back to town for the holidays after three years away, and the first free afternoon we had we spent at the beach, like when we were kids. He had been my seatmate in high school, my confidant and, though I never told him, the first man who made me understand what kind of desire I carried inside me. I had kept it all that time, folded up and hidden away, while we sent each other birthday messages and not much else.

Seeing him get out of the car that morning left my mouth dry. The years had been good to him. His shoulders were broader, his face harder, his arms defined from lifting weights. He hugged me hard and I felt his chest against mine, and in that second I knew the afternoon was going to be a long one.

We loaded up the towels and a cooler with beers and headed to our usual corner, the farthest one, where the dune blocked the wind and almost no one ever came. It was the same place where, at seventeen, we used to stay late talking about girls who, in my case, didn’t interest me nearly as much as I said they did.

We spent hours stretched out on the sand, talking about everything and nothing, catching up. He told me about work away from home, about a girlfriend he’d broken up with recently, about how badly he wanted to come back. I listened halfheartedly; I was distracted by the way his stomach tightened when he laughed, the drops of sea water drying on his skin, the way he ran a hand through his wet hair. The sun was slowly sinking over the water and most of the people were already packing up their umbrellas to leave.

***

Toward sunset, two girls who had spent the whole day barging into every game along the shore came over to us. They were twins, identical even in the way they laughed: Lucía and Lara. Both of them flirted shamelessly with Bruno, glancing at him sidelong and biting their lips every time he answered something.

—A shoulder war —Lucía suggested—. One of us on each of you, in the water. Whoever throws the other one off wins.

They decided it with rock, paper, scissors. Lucía won and climbed onto Bruno; I got Lara, the one who had lost. I didn’t care which one I got, they were identical and hot as hell, but neither of them was what I was really looking at.

We went in until the water was above our waists. They slid over our backs and settled astride our shoulders, legs open, feet braced against our napes. The heat of their thighs against my neck, the warm water, the sun going down: everything was pushing in the same direction. Bruno, a meter away, had the same look on his face, like he was holding himself back.

We struggled for a good while, the four of us laughing and shoving, the girls trying to unbalance each other. Under the water, both of us were rock hard and we knew it. Every time I met Bruno’s eyes, he looked away right away, but not before I noticed he was breathing just as hard as I was.

The girls’ mother called them from shore. It was time; the sun was almost touching the water.

The twins got down slowly, too slowly, sliding along the sides of our bodies, their breasts brushing our arms, wet skin against skin. Before they left, each one gave each of us a kiss, tongue and all, and one hand apiece squeezed us over our swim trunks as well. Then they ran off toward shore, laughing themselves sick, leaving us stranded in the calm water.

We were left there both of us panting, water at chest level and the afternoon fading out.

—Look what they left me like —I said, and before I thought about it I took his hand and brought it to my bulge.

Bruno was still dazed, as if he still didn’t understand what was happening. He let me do it. I felt his hand open over the fabric, hesitate for an instant and stay there.

—And you? —I asked him, and I touched his cock through the bathing suit.

He was rock hard. I didn’t pull my hand away. I slid my fingers under the wet fabric and took him in my hand: he was warm despite the cold water, the skin soft, so soft that I stroked him slowly for a few seconds without him saying a word.

—What a waste —I murmured—. What those two missed out on.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t take my hand away either. He just looked at me, and in that look there was a question we had gone years without asking each other.

***

Almost no one was left in our section of the beach.

—Let’s rinse off —he said, his voice rougher than usual.

We walked to the changing rooms without speaking. The sun had almost set and the corridor lights were buzzing on, that cold tone that makes everything feel a little unreal. I was one step behind, looking at his back, his shoulders, the way the water ran down his spine. We went into the last two stalls, one next to the other, even though the place was empty. We kept our swimsuits on at first, out of habit, out of fear, out of doubt.

The wall separating the showers didn’t reach the ceiling. I could hear him breathing on the other side, water hitting his body, and I imagined every movement without seeing it. I pressed my forehead to the cold tiles and tried to calm down, but my heart was pounding. For years I’d convinced myself that Bruno was an old whim, something from adolescence that had to be left behind. That afternoon, though, everything I felt was more alive than ever.

I turned on the shower and let the water fall over me. On the other side I heard Bruno’s turn on too, and then the unmistakable sound of fabric dropping onto the wet floor. I didn’t dare look right away. When I did, he was already soaping himself up, with his back to me, and the only thing I could think was that from behind he was even more beautiful than I remembered.

He realized I was looking at him. He turned his head slightly, found me gaping under the spray, and smiled. It wasn’t a shy smile. It was an invitation, and we both knew it.

I came up with an excuse that fooled no one.

—You’ve got sand on your back —I said—. Between your shoulder blades.

—Where? —He stood still, not turning around.

—Can I?

—Yeah —he said, and the word came out of him almost breathless—. Go ahead.

I moved in behind him. I ran my soapy hands down his back, slowly, following the line of his shoulders, down his sides. There was no sand. We both knew it. I went back to the lower part of his back and pressed with my palms.

—Those hands —he said softly—. They feel like caresses.

That’s because I am caressing you, I thought. I’ve wanted to do this for years.

I kneaded the muscles in his lower back, went up, came back down. When I brushed the base of his ass with my thumbs, a short moan escaped him that he tried to swallow. I felt that if I kept going one second longer without touching myself, I was going to end up just like him, standing there, without having touched him where I actually wanted to.

—Turn around —I told him.

—No. It’s weird.

—Don’t be stupid. I’m just as worked up as you because of the twins.

—I’m worse.

—I don’t believe you. Let me see.

He turned slowly, eyes closed and water streaming down his face, his chest, his stomach. He was hard, pressed against his navel, and seeing him like that, surrendered, defenseless, took away the last scrap of restraint I had left.

I put my hands on his hips. I leaned in. I kissed the tip first, slowly, running my lips over the whole head while I looked him in the eyes, which flew open in surprise.

He took me by the head, at first as if to push me away. But I had already taken him into my mouth, very slowly, and instead of shoving me off, his fingers loosened, tangled in my hair and pulled me closer to him.

—Oh, Nico —he said, his voice breaking—. That feels so good.

The water was falling over both of us, warm, washing out the sound of everything else. I could taste the salt on his skin, the tremor in his legs every time I changed the rhythm, the way his breathing broke into short gasps he tried to hold in. I looked up once more and found him staring at me, mouth slightly open and eyes locked on me, with not a trace of the shame from a little while ago.

—Don’t stop —he begged in a whisper—. Please.

I took it slowly. Down and up, licking, taking my time with everything I had imagined for so long, until I could rest my nose against his stomach. I stayed there a second, still, tasting him, and felt his whole body trembling under the warm water. Three years apart and all the years before that had been reduced to that instant, to his hand in my hair and to the line we had just crossed and would no longer be able to undo.

At some point he stopped holding his breath and gave in completely, his back against the tiles, fingers firm on my nape, setting the rhythm he wanted. I followed him, paying attention to every shift, reading him like I had never been able to read anyone. There was no hurry and no clumsiness, only two bodies finding each other after too much time of circling around, and the sound of the water covering everything we didn’t dare say out loud.

And, honestly, neither of us wanted to undo it.