I Wanted Him to Desire Me, Not Just the Transvestite

Rafael waited for me, leaning against the bar every Friday, wearing that half-smile he thought was irresistible and that, unfortunately for me, it was. We had met at the bar where I sang two nights a week, and from the first exchange of glances I knew he was going to complicate my life.

—Well? —he said that night, coming close enough for his breath to brush my ear—. How long are you going to keep me waiting?

—Until the time is right —I replied, without taking my eyes off the empty stage—. I want us both to be ready.

—Ready for what? —he laughed under his breath—. Look at me. I’ve been here alone for half an hour just to watch you walk.

—I desire you too —I admitted, and it was true—. But I need more time. I came out of something that left me broken, and I don’t want to repeat the story. Try to understand.

Rafael looked at me differently then. Not with the easy hunger of those first weeks, but with something more patient.

—What if I promise you it won’t happen again with me? —he said.

—Promises are cheap at one in the morning —I replied, turning my back before he could see that I’d blushed.

***

The problem with Rafael wasn’t that he desired me. I had more than enough of that: men who wanted to pull me into their cars, whisper obscenities to me, and forget my name by dawn. What undid me about him was something else.

—Tell me about the love that hurt you —he asked one night, while we shared a cigarette outside the place.

I raised an eyebrow.

—Do you really want to know, or is this your new tactic for getting me into bed?

—I want to know —he said, and from the way he said it, I believed him.

So I told him. I told him about Marcos, who for two years introduced me as his “friend” and hid me from his family as if I were a vice. I told him about the nights he fucked me with the lights off and the mornings when he pretended not to know me. I told him he had promised me the whole world and that the day I finally found the courage to ask him for it, he simply stopped answering.

—I don’t want someone who desires me in secret —I told him—. I want someone who looks me straight in the face when he’s fucking me.

Rafael stubbed out his cigarette against the wall. It took him a while to speak.

—I don’t know how to hide anything —he said at last—. Ask anyone. I’m a disaster when it comes to keeping secrets.

I laughed, and it was the first time in a long while that a laugh had truly come out of me.

***

We started seeing each other outside the bar. Mid-afternoon coffees, long walks along the waterfront, dinners in places where he introduced me to the waiter by saying my name, Renata, without hesitating or lowering his voice. Little things. Little things that weighed tons to me.

—I still want to fuck you —he told me one night, smiling, as he left me at the door of my building—. In case that wasn’t clear.

—It was perfectly clear from the first day —I replied.

—But I’m not in a hurry anymore —he added—. It’s strange. I used to be, and now I’m not.

That was the sentence that finally made me lose myself. I grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket and kissed him right there, beneath the yellow light of the entrance, and felt his breath catch and his cock spring against my hip, hard, insistent, impossible to hide.

—Come upstairs —I told him.

—Are you sure?

—I’m ready —I answered—. Which is different, and better.

***

My apartment was small, barely a living room, a tiny kitchen, and a bedroom with a window overlooking the avenue. Rafael came in slowly, as if he were afraid of breaking something. I poured two glasses of wine that neither of us touched.

—You don’t have to prove anything to me —he said, standing in the middle of the room—. If you want us just to stay here talking, I’ll stay.

—I’ve wanted this for weeks —I replied, moving closer—. What I didn’t want was to do it for the wrong reasons.

I kissed him again, this time without hurrying, and let his hands move over my back above my dress. Rafael kissed the way he spoke: attentively, without rushing me. He slowly lowered the zipper, stopping every so often, reading my face to make sure I was still with him.

—Look at me —I asked softly—. I want you to look at me. Not at what you think I am.

—I’m looking at you —he said, his forehead pressed against mine—. Only you.

The dress fell to the floor. I stood before him in panties and bra, and he took off his shirt without breaking my gaze. For the first time in years I didn’t feel that urge to cover myself, to get ahead of the rejection that always came. Rafael looked at me as if desiring all of me were the most natural thing in the world, and the bulge outlined in his pants confirmed it.

I fumbled with his belt, unbuttoned it, and yanked down his pants and boxers, and his cock sprang out hard and thick, the tip already glistening. I stared at it for a second before raising my face.

—Fuck, Rafael —I murmured—. You really did wait for me.

—Weeks —he said in a broken voice—. Every night, in my bed, thinking about this moment.

I unhooked my own bra and let it fall. He stared at my breasts with such raw hunger that I felt my nipples tighten on their own. He brought my hands to his tits before lowering his mouth to them, sucking one nipple with his broad tongue, barely nibbling it, while his other hand squeezed my other breast. I threw my head back and moaned helplessly.

***

We fell onto the bed tangled together. His lips traveled down my neck, my chest, my belly, leaving a warm trail with his tongue that made me arch my back. He ripped off my panties in one pull and opened my legs without ceremony, and when his mouth landed between my thighs I almost screamed.

Rafael’s tongue knew exactly where to go. He began slowly, licking my whole pussy from bottom to top, savoring me as if he had wanted that taste for years. Then he focused on my clit, sucking it with his lips, lashing it with the tip of his tongue, while two fingers slid slowly inside me and opened me from within. I buried my fingers in his hair, holding my breath every time he stopped for a second too long.

—Don’t stop —I murmured—. God, don’t stop.

—I want it to last —he said against my pussy, his mouth soaked—. I waited a long time. You waited a long time. I’m not going to rush through it in five minutes.

His fingers slowly fucked me while he sucked me, curling inside to touch that exact spot that made me twist my hips against his face. I felt the first orgasm climb up my legs, announce itself in my belly, and when it arrived it shook me from head to toe. I screamed his name and squeezed his head between my thighs, and Rafael didn’t pull away; he kept licking me slowly while I trembled, until I begged him to stop because I couldn’t take any more.

He sat up with his mouth and chin shining with me. He smiled, and that smile finished setting me on fire.

—Come here —I told him, pulling him toward me—. I want to taste myself in your mouth.

I kissed him dirty and deep, tasting myself on his tongue, and a few seconds later I was already moving down his chest, his belly, until I knelt between his legs. I gripped his cock in my hand and felt it throb, hot and taut.

When I finally took it into my mouth, I did it slowly, savoring the way his body tensed, the way my name escaped between his teeth. I licked the tip first, playing my tongue around the glans, gathering the drop of fluid that seeped from it. Then I took more and more of him, until I felt the back of my throat protest. I pulled it out, spat on it to make it slippery, and took it all the way back into my mouth, faster now, setting a rhythm with my hand and mouth at the same time. Rafael let me set the pace, one hand tangled in my hair without pushing, merely accompanying me, and that difference—that one difference—turned me on more than any roughness could have.

—Renata —he panted—. Stop, or this will be over before it starts.

I released his cock with a wet kiss on the tip and climbed on top of him, feeling all of him beneath me. I gripped his shaft, rubbed it against my soaked pussy, sliding it between my lips without letting it enter yet, torturing him.

—Slowly —I asked him—. It’s been a long time since I’ve done this. I want to enjoy it, not endure it.

—You’re in charge —he said, and he meant it.

***

He let me control every inch. I lowered myself onto him carefully, feeling the tip force its way in, stopping, breathing, letting myself adjust while his hands held my hips without forcing anything. There was a moment of discomfort, that familiar burn of first penetration after months, but this time it didn’t come alone: it came with his voice asking if I was all right, with his thumbs drawing slow circles on my skin until my body yielded and the burning became something else. I lowered another inch, and another, until I felt his balls against my ass and his cock buried completely inside me.

—Like that —I sighed, beginning to move—. Just like that.

—Fuck, Renata —he said, his head sunk into the pillow—. You’re so tight. You have no idea how good you feel.

I began to ride him slowly, rising until only the tip remained inside and then dropping all the way down, feeling him fill me each time. I brought my hands to my breasts, squeezing them myself, and Rafael looked up at me with his mouth open as if he were witnessing a miracle. I took my time, feeling each rise and fall erase a little more of Marcos, the hidden nights, the version of me that accepted scraps. For the first time in years, I felt powerful. Desired. A whole woman, with no asterisks.

I gradually increased the pace, grinding my clit against his bone every time I came down, feeling the second orgasm begin to build in my belly. Rafael moved my hands to my tits and squeezed them, pinching my nipples just enough, and the combination tore a long moan from me.

—Don’t rush —I warned him when I felt him trembling beneath me—. I want this to last.

—I’m trying —he laughed breathlessly—. But you make it impossible with that pussy.

***

We changed positions without letting go of each other. He laid me on my back, his cock still inside me, opened my legs with his hands, and folded them against my chest, leaving me completely open beneath him. He entered me again while looking me in the face, reading every expression, and this time he went deep, all the way in, drawing a sharp gasp from me. I wrapped my thighs around his waist as best I could and pulled him closer, asking for more with my body, and he answered by burying himself in long, measured thrusts that knocked the air from me.

—Harder —I asked him, grabbing his ass with both hands—. Fuck me harder, Rafael.

He obeyed. He quickened the pace, bracing himself on his forearms on either side of my head, and began fucking me with short, deep thrusts that made the bed creak and his belly slap against mine. Every blow pulled a moan from me, every thrust drove his cock into a place I hadn’t even known I had. The whole room smelled of sex, sweat, and wet pussy.

—Look at me —I repeated, holding his face with both hands—. Don’t close your eyes.

—I’m not closing them —he replied through clenched teeth—. I want to see you when you come.

He slipped his hand between our bodies and found my clit with his thumb, drawing quick circles without stopping his thrusts. It was too much. The orgasm surged up my legs like a shock and exploded inside me. I came with his name caught in my throat and my nails dug into his back, feeling my whole body shake in waves I had never felt with anyone, feeling my pussy clench around his cock in uncontrollable spasms.

—I’m going to come —he panted—. Renata, tell me where.

—Inside —I begged him—. Come inside me, I want to feel it.

Rafael followed seconds later, burying himself to the hilt and staying there, trembling, while I felt him empty himself in hot spurts inside me. He collapsed on top of me with a long, hoarse groan, releasing his full weight into my arms as if he could finally stop carrying it.

We stayed like that, pressed together, soaked, breathing the same air, his semen trickling down my thighs. Outside, the avenue continued to sound indifferent.

***

—Are you all right? —he asked me afterward, brushing a damp lock of hair from my forehead.

—I’m better than all right —I said, surprised not to be lying.

Rafael pulled me against his chest. I could feel his heart still beating hard beneath my ear.

—Do you know what I liked most? —he said.

—Surprise me.

—That you didn’t put on an act —he replied—. The other times, with other people, I always felt there was a performance involved. With you, there wasn’t. There was you. Just as you are.

I propped myself up on one elbow to look at him.

—And you like that? —I asked—. Me, just as I am?

—That’s the only thing I like —he said, without a second’s hesitation.

I rested my head against his chest again and let the sweet exhaustion overtake me. For the first time in a long while, I didn’t calculate when he would leave, or rehearse the indifferent smile of goodbye. Rafael wrapped an arm around me and settled in like someone planning to stay.

—I’ll be back at the bar on Friday —I murmured, already half-asleep—. Will you be at the bar?

—At the bar, in the front row, and with flowers if necessary —he said—. I already told you I don’t know how to hide anything.

I laughed against his skin. Outside, dawn was beginning to break, and for once I wasn’t afraid the light would take something from me. That morning, the light only confirmed what I already knew: after waiting so long, I had finally given myself to someone who looked me straight in the face.