Strangers

At fifty-three, single and bored, Ramiro discovered that supply and demand also work at three in the afternoon, on the sofa in his living room.

He promised me a berth on the schooner if I went with him into the alley. What I saw through that window and what happened next changed everything I thought I knew about myself.

Four months later, we went back to the same locker room hoping to repeat that afternoon. We didn’t count on a third man, young and shameless, watching us from the other side.

The bedroom door was ajar. I looked through the crack without thinking and what I saw pinned me to the floor: my father was not who I thought he was.

For weeks I’d wanted him to come looking for me again. That night I understood that if I wanted to feel that way again, I’d have to go looking for it somewhere else.

I was drunk on the subway when I opened the app out of boredom. I had no idea that message from a stranger would end with me on my knees in a dark storage room.

I accepted the game: the door left unlocked, the lights off, and a man whose face I’d never see. What I didn’t imagine was meeting him at the office on Monday.

He hadn’t slept in two days, but footsteps in the dark aisle woke him: someone was going into the bathroom where another boy was already waiting, and no one else knew.

The ad said “free erotic session for young guys.” What it didn’t say, and what I understood perfectly, was how he planned to charge me that night.

Matías opened the door barefoot, wearing a half-smile that hid nothing. Behind Andrés, Esteban was already breathing against his neck. All three knew why they had come.

I went upstairs to drop off some paperwork and came back down with a stranger who smelled of expensive cologne. Then the elevator stopped, the lights died, and everything changed between us.

I’d been sending him nudges for months with no reply. That morning he answered with two words that had me on my knees before I even opened the door.

When he opened the door in his boxers and told me “on your knees, quietly,” I knew the Uber ride across town would be worth it.

I was twenty, home alone, and chatting online. I never imagined that stranger would show up at my door twenty minutes later—or what he would leave burned into me forever.

I’d sworn we were only going to watch. But when that stranger put his hand on Eduardo’s shoulder, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay still either.

I thought I was imagining it, until I found a number written on the wrapper of the wet wipe he handed me when I got off the plane.

The carriage was empty that late at night. When that man sat almost across from me and started looking at me without hiding it, I knew the ride would be different.

I felt his large body pressing against my back whenever the train braked, and when he whispered, “We’re getting off at the next stop,” I knew I wouldn’t be able to say no.

I showed up at that party in my swimwear thinking it would be just another day with my boyfriend. I had no idea I’d end up on my knees, showing another man what he was missing.

I’d been at the company three weeks when he leaned over the table and told me I had something that caught the eye. That afternoon I followed him.