The Mature Rider Waited for Me in the Ranch Kitchen

That summer I turned eighteen, and my mother insisted that we go visit her brothers in town. I didn’t feel like it. I was a city girl, used to traffic and the car’s air conditioning, not to the dusty roads of the Bajío or the smell of manure drifting over from the corrals. But I agreed because she asked me with that look she knows how to use when she wants something.

The town was small, with a single main street, a colonial church, and a square with a kiosk. The houses were low, painted in bright colors, and people greeted one another from their doorways as if they had all known each other forever. My uncle Ramón had a ranch on the outskirts: a long adobe building with horse corrals and an inner courtyard full of bougainvillea.

My cousins dragged me everywhere on the first day. I wanted to like them, but they talked about local boys and flirting by the river, and I felt out of place in all of it. The only thing that shook me out of my indifference was hearing that the patron saint’s festival was that weekend.

“And Dad got Esteban Cortázar to come,” Mariana, the eldest, said as we walked back from the market. “Do you know who he is?”

I shook my head.

“The rider. The guy who rides bulls up north. They had him on TV last year.”

I shrugged. Rodeos seemed like a small-town thing to me, loud and violent. My cousins laughed at my bored face.

My uncle Ramón, on the other hand, couldn’t talk about anything else. For weeks he had been preparing the ring, the posters, the speeches. And most important of all, according to him, Esteban was going to stay at the ranch. At our house.

“It’s an honor for a man like that to sleep under this roof,” he repeated at dinner. “A real honor.”

***

The night before the event I couldn’t sleep. The room they’d given me was upstairs, with a window that looked onto the inner courtyard and, beyond that, the corrals. It was hot. I tossed and turned thinking about everything and nothing until I felt like having coffee. I went downstairs barefoot, in my pajamas: a short pair of shorts and a sleeveless cotton top.

The kitchen was almost dark. I turned on the extractor light, a weak yellow glow, and put water on to heat. Through the window facing the garden I saw someone.

He was standing with his back turned, smoking. Short, but solid, with broad shoulders. Dressed all in black, boots sunk into the gravel. The cigarette smoke rose straight up, with no wind, as if the air had stopped around him.

He turned slowly, as if he knew he was being watched. He lifted a hand. I returned the greeting, and for some reason I felt caught, even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

He was an ordinary man. Forty, maybe older. Dark-skinned, sun-weathered. An untidy beard framed his mouth like a shadow. He wasn’t handsome, not in the way I had been taught to call a man handsome. He had nothing to do with the boys at my university or my parents’ friends’ sons, all shaved clean and perfumed with expensive colognes. But there was something about him. Something stopped me cold.

I was about to leave the kitchen when he came in.

“Good evening,” he said, with a northern accent that dragged out the s sounds. “Mind if I pour myself a glass of water? I wasn’t thirsty, but now I am.”

I smiled without being able to help it.

“If you want, I can make you coffee.”

He nodded. I looked for the coffee pot, the cups, the sugar. I could feel his eyes on my back, moving from my neck down to my legs, without trying to hide it. When I went closer to hand him the cup, I smelled him.

He smelled clean, yes, but also of tobacco and the countryside, of dry sweat and cheap perfume, the kind bought at gas stations. A strong, dense smell, masculine in a way I didn’t know. The men around me smelled of mint and cedar, of department store colognes. He smelled of something else. He smelled like what my body didn’t know it had been waiting for.

I sat across from him. He stretched his legs under the table, unhurried.

“So where’d you come from, doll?” he asked. “You’re not from around here, that much is obvious.”

“From the capital. I came to visit my uncles.”

“It’s obvious you weren’t too convinced about coming.”

I laughed.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Everything about you is obvious,” he said, and took a sip of coffee without taking his eyes off me.

We talked for quite a while. About silly things, serious things. He told stories from the north, about the rodeos, about a bull that nearly broke his back in Sonora. I told him about the university, my friends, how boring life in the capital was. When I told him I had to go upstairs to sleep, he held out his hand to say goodbye.

That hand was what finished undoing me. Strong, rough, full of calluses. A hand that had held reins, gripped horns, worked. Not my father’s hand, nor those of the university boys. The hand of a man.

“Tomorrow I’m dedicating my ride to you,” he said. “Sleep well, doll.”

***

I hadn’t planned on going to the rodeo. But the next morning I dressed up as if I were going to a wedding. Flowy floral dress, low-heeled sandals, my hair loose and damp. Mariana narrowed her eyes when she saw me.

“Well, what’s this miracle? Yesterday you didn’t want to go.”

“I changed my mind.”

She smiled as if she knew something. I said nothing.

The ring was packed. My uncle seated all of us in the honor stand, next to the priest’s family and the mayor. Riders came out one after another: some held on for seconds, others were thrown through the dust, bleeding, with broken ribs. People shouted with every fall. My stomach churned.

Until they announced him.

“And now, straight from the north, the king of rodeo riding, Esteban Cortázar!”

He came out into the ring unhurriedly. He greeted the crowd with a raised hand. He looked for our stand. He found my eyes and didn’t let them go. My aunts and cousins stifled a cry. My mother looked at me, not understanding.

He took off his shirt. His brown, sweaty chest, tight belly, arms full of veins. He lit a cigarette. He took two drags while looking only at me, before tossing it away and climbing onto the platform where the bull was waiting.

What happened in the ring was something else. The bull jumped, spun, charged. He stayed on top, holding on with one hand, his body bending into impossible angles. Every leap rattled him to the bones, but he held on. He held on and looked straight ahead, as if the animal were a whim and not a threat.

When the bull finally gave up and he jumped down, the whole town shouted his name. He greeted the crowd, tipped his hat toward my uncle, and once again looked at me.

I pressed my legs together beneath my dress and felt my panties stick, soaked, to the lips of my cunt. I was about to come without anyone touching me. And I didn’t understand why.

***

I couldn’t sleep that night. I turned over and over in bed. I imagined his hands opening my legs, his mouth biting my nipples, his dragged-out voice whispering dirty things in my ear. Even though I had already been with two or three boys before, none of them had made me feel what I felt looking at him from the stand. My body wasn’t asking me for a boyfriend. It was asking for a man to fuck me.

I slipped my hand into my shorts. I was wetter than I had ever been. I ran two fingers over my swollen clit and a moan escaped me. I brought them to my mouth. They tasted like me, like hot pussy. I lowered them again, this time pushing them into my cunt, imagining they were his, imagining they were his cock. I touched myself until the mattress creaked, until the pillow was soaked with my saliva, and even then it wasn’t enough. I came, yes, but it was a small, muffled orgasm that left me even hungrier.

I got up with a dry throat and my sex throbbing. I told myself I was only going for water, but inside I knew the truth.

I went downstairs in the same shorts and the same top from the night before. No bra, no panties, because I didn’t usually sleep in underwear. I thought he had already gone to his room, that I’d find the kitchen empty.

But he was there, in the garden, smoking, as if he’d been waiting for me since dawn.

He lifted his face. He saw me through the glass. He threw down the cigarette. He crushed the ember with his boot. And he walked to the door.

He came in without knocking. Closed it behind him. I stayed pressed against the table, my heart in my throat and my nipples so hard they showed through the thin cotton of my top.

“I knew you’d come down,” he said softly. “I read it on your face since the afternoon.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” I murmured, and my own voice sounded ridiculous to me.

He didn’t answer. He walked over to where I was, unhurried. He took my face in both hands. And he kissed me.

A part of me wanted to shove him away, slap him, run. I tried. I really tried. But he held me with one hand, effortlessly, as if I weighed nothing. The other hand slid down my neck, over my top, to the side of my hip, and from there moved up beneath the fabric to squeeze one whole breast. The rough fingers scraped my skin and made me arch.

The kiss tasted of tobacco and coffee. His tongue invaded my mouth slowly, taking over everything, finding mine and sucking on it as if he meant to tear it out. I stopped resisting. Not out of fear. For something deeper, more shameful: because I needed him to do to me what he was about to do.

His hand shoved my top all the way up, leaving my tits bare, hanging heavy under the yellow extractor light. He pulled back for a second to look at them. He clicked his tongue.

“Look what you had hidden, doll.”

His rough fingers squeezed one breast and then the other, measuring me, weighing me, like someone choosing a ripe piece of fruit. He lowered his mouth and sucked one nipple whole, tugging it with his teeth, biting it until I moaned so loudly I had to cover my mouth with my own hand. Then the other. He left both nipples red, wet with saliva, pointing at the ceiling.

“Be quiet,” he whispered against my chest without stopping sucking me. “If they hear us, it’s all over. And I haven’t done anything to you yet.”

With his other hand he unbuckled his belt. I heard the metallic click of the buckle, then the zipper. He lowered his pants to his thighs. His cock was not huge, but it was thick, thicker than I had ever seen, hard, throbbing, with a purple tip and a drop of liquid gleaming on the head. His balls hung heavy and dark, covered in black hair.

He grabbed it in his hand and gave it two shakes in front of my face, letting me see it properly.

“You ever sucked one this size, doll?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. My mouth was watering.

“On your knees, then,” he said, without raising his voice. “And open wide.”

And I knelt. Without thinking. Without arguing. As if I had spent my whole life waiting for a man to tell me that way.

The tiled floor was cold against my knees. He took my chin between two fingers, squeezed my cheeks until he forced my mouth open, and pushed himself in slowly, centimeter by centimeter, until the tip touched the back of my throat and made me gag. He stayed there, not moving, looking down at me with narrowed eyes.

“Breathe through your nose. Like that. Hold it.”

He grabbed my hair with both hands, winding the strands around his fists the way he gripped his horse’s reins, and started fucking my mouth. At first slowly, giving me time. Then faster, deeper, without mercy. I felt like I was choking, my eyes filling with tears, spit running down my chin and onto my tits. His cock went in and out of me gleaming with my saliva. Every thrust made me suck in air with a wet, obscene sound that filled the kitchen.

“That’s it, doll. That’s how you suck cock. Take it all.”

When he pulled his cock from my mouth I coughed, gasped, wiped my chin with the back of my hand. He didn’t even give me time to recover. He lowered my face to his balls and pushed them into my mouth one by one, forcing me to suck them carefully, with my tongue flat, while he stroked his cock over my forehead.

Then he yanked me up by the hair and turned me against the table. The cold wood stuck to my wet tits. He ripped my shorts down in one jerk, and with the shorts fell away whatever modesty I had left. He spread my ass cheeks with both hands, without delicacy, and stared.

“Look at that cunt, little doll. Dripping. Dripping since the afternoon, right?”

He shoved two thick fingers between my lips and pried them open. I heard the sticky sound my own slick made. He rubbed my clit with his fingers, slow circles, and my legs trembled so hard I had to brace myself on the table so I wouldn’t fall.

“Please,” I whispered, not even knowing what I was asking for.

“Please what. Say it.”

“Please... put it in me.”

“Louder.”

“Put it in me,” I repeated, biting my lip. “Put it in me now, please.”

He ran the tip of his cock over my soaked pussy, up and down, making me feel every centimeter without letting it in. He tapped my clit twice with the tip. He made my back arch until my belly pressed against the table. And when I thought I was going to beg him out loud, he shoved it in all at once, to the hilt, until it slammed against my hip.

I covered my mouth with both hands so I wouldn’t scream. The whole house was asleep upstairs. The scream got trapped in my throat, coming out as a muffled squeal.

He grabbed my waist with both hands and moved with a rhythm I had never felt before. Slow at first, measuring me, letting me feel how his cock opened me up every time it entered. Then fast, deep, brutal. Without asking permission. He fucked me with his hips and his hands at the same time: one hand went to my breasts hanging under the table, and he squeezed my nipples between his thumb and forefinger, tugging them until he wrung tears out of me.

“That’s how you like it, isn’t it, city girl? For it to be done right. For it to be stuffed properly.”

I nodded, my cheek pressed to the table, my mouth open and filling with saliva. The kitchen smelled of sex, of our two bodies, of the cold coffee left in the cups. Every thrust made a sound: the slap of his thighs against my ass, the wet splash of my cunt, my muffled moans behind my hand.

He brought one hand around to the front and found my clit. He started rubbing it in circles while he fucked me. I came a few minutes later. I tried to hold it back, but I couldn’t. I felt the wave rise from my feet, clench my belly, burst through me. I soaked my thighs, soaked his cock, and I could even feel a hot gush running inside me. He laughed softly against the back of my neck.

“The little doll came. And we’ve barely started.”

He pulled his cock out and turned me around. He lifted me as if I weighed nothing and sat me on the edge of the table, my ass in the air and my legs dangling. He yanked my top off in one pull that ripped a seam. I was completely naked, trembling under the yellow light, my tits red from his bites and my cunt open, soaked, swollen.

He knelt in front of me. He spread my legs until my thighs hurt. And he buried his face in my cunt.

His unkempt beard scraped my thighs, my mound, my lips. His tongue went in whole, thick, hot. He sucked my clit with his lips, tugging it with his mouth as if it were a little nipple. He shoved his tongue into my hole and licked the slick out of me. I grabbed his hair with both hands and pressed his head against me, shameless now, fucking his mouth with my hips.

“I’m going to come again,” I panted. “Again, again, again...”

I came on his tongue, in his mouth, with a shudder that shook my legs and left my feet useless. He rose with his beard shining with me, his lips swollen, smiling for the first time.

“What a delicious cunt, doll. What a delicious cunt you have.”

He settled between my legs and came in again with one hard shove. This time he looked me straight in the face, seeking my eyes, not letting me hide.

“Look at me. Look at me when I fuck you.”

I looked at him. I couldn’t stop looking at him. He lowered his gaze to where our bodies joined, and forced me to do the same.

“Watch how it goes in,” he told me. “Watch how good it goes in. Watch your little cunt swallow cock.”

I watched. I saw the thick cock disappearing inside me, coming out shining with my slick, going back in. I saw my lips stretched around it, I saw my swollen clit, I saw drops of wetness sliding down my ass and onto the table. No one had ever looked at me like that. No one had ever made me look at myself.

He grabbed my legs and lifted them onto his shoulders. He leaned forward until he bent me almost in two, until my knees touched my ears. His cock went in from a new angle, deeper, touching something inside me I hadn’t known I had. Each thrust tore a new moan from me, sharper, more animal.

“Again,” he ordered. “Come again for me.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t, and yet I did. I came again, harder than the first two put together, biting my knuckles until I drew blood. I felt my heart in my throat and in my cunt at the same time. I stayed trembling, vision blurred, seeing him double.

He sped up. The table creaked against the tile. The dishes in the rack clattered. His abdominal muscles stood out with every thrust, shining with sweat. It showed on his face that he was close.

“I’m going to come inside, doll.”

“No,” I gasped. “No, please, not inside.”

“Where, then? Tell me where.”

“On my face. On my tits. Anywhere you want, but not inside.”

He pulled out in time. His cock gleamed with me, red, throbbing. He grabbed my hair with the same force as before and made me get down from the table, kneel again in front of him. He jerked his cock quickly with his hand, aiming it at my face.

“Stick out your tongue. Stick it out and take it.”

I stuck out my tongue. I closed my eyes.

The first rope hit my forehead, hot, thick, and ran down into my eye. The second landed on my cheek and lips. The third reached my neck, my chest, my belly. I felt drops hanging from my chin, falling onto my tits, sliding between them. He kept pumping until the last drop stained the torn top hanging beside me.

He stood there gasping, his cock still hard in his hand, looking down at me like one looks at a hunted animal.

“Now clean me up,” he ordered, bringing his cock to my mouth.

And I did. With my tongue, with my lips, with the slowness he set. I sucked every last drop from the tip, ran my tongue along the length, over the balls. I swallowed his semen mixed with mine. Then I licked my lips, my chin, the fingers that had been stained.

When I finished, he looked down at me without a smile, without tenderness, without apology. He pulled up his pants. Adjusted his shirt. Took out another cigarette and lit it.

“Sleep well, doll,” he said, and went out into the garden to smoke as if nothing had happened.

I stayed on the kitchen floor, my legs shaking, my cunt throbbing, semen drying on my face and tits, smelling of him everywhere. Feeling, for the first time in my life, like a woman in the hands of a real man.

The next day, before breakfast, he was already gone. My uncle told me he had a commitment in another state. I never saw him again.

But even today, when I smell tobacco mixed with the countryside and cheap perfume, my whole body goes weak and I’m that girl again, kneeling in the kitchen, mouth open and tits bare, waiting for a man’s order.