My Old Rival Recognized Me Dressed as a Woman

For months, that had been my secret routine. Three afternoons a week, I crossed the city, locked myself in the studio I rented with a friend, and stopped being who everyone thought I was. I applied my makeup slowly, in front of a mirror with yellow light, and when I finished there was no trace left of the shy boy from college. Renata remained.

At night, I went out. Sometimes to a jazz bar where no one asked questions, sometimes dancing until my legs burned on my heels. I collected glances the way someone collects evidence: proof that I existed, that this version of me wasn’t a disguise but the truest thing I had.

By day, I still went to class in the other clothes, still holding my breath in the hallways. But every week that disguise weighed on me more than the other one.

The problem had a name, and his name was Damián.

We had gone to the same high school and then the same university, the kind of coincidence life insists on repeating even when you pray it won’t. At school, he had made my life impossible: the comments, the laughter behind my back, that way of looking me up and down as if he were measuring me for something. As a boy, he destroyed me. As an adult, I learned to hold his gaze and keep walking.

But when I was Renata and ran into him, everything became complicated. I slipped away. I crossed to the other side of the street. I ducked into some random café with my heart pounding against my ribs, unable to understand why the idea of him recognizing me frightened me so much and, at the same time, sent an uncomfortable heat between my legs that forced me to squeeze my thighs together beneath my skirt.

***

It happened in September, when the weather was beginning to ease. One of those mornings that start out freezing and by noon the sun barely warms you. I was crossing the university’s central courtyard, this time by day and as a woman, because I had some paperwork to handle at the registrar’s office and had decided, for the first time, not to hide.

I saw him before he saw me. And I knew, from the way he stood still, that this time there was no escape.

He approached unhurriedly. I braced myself for the blow: the mockery, the contempt, the sentence that would ruin my morning.

—Renata —he said, and it wasn’t a question.

I lost my breath. Not from fear. From the way he said it, as if the name belonged to him as much as it belonged to me.

—How do you know…? —I began.

—I’d recognize you anywhere —he interrupted—. I’ve been recognizing you for years. You just thought I was looking at you to humiliate you.

I swallowed. Then what were you looking at me for?

—I’m not going to tell anyone —he said, lowering his voice and reading my thoughts—. It’s not what you’re thinking. But there is something I do want.

My heart slammed hard. I knew from his tone that it wasn’t a threat. It was an offer. And the worst part was that one part of me had already decided on the answer before hearing the question.

—What do you want? —I asked in a thread of a voice.

—I want to see you tonight. No masks. You and me. —He paused, measuring me just as he had in school, only now I understood that look—. If you’re interested. If you tell me no, I’ll turn around and you’ll never see me again.

The air between us grew dense. Years of tension, hostility, and something neither of us had known how to name condensed on that cold sidewalk.

—And what if I say yes? —I said.

He smiled, and for the first time there was nothing cruel about it.

—Then you’ll have to trust me. And tell me if you ever want to stop. Deal?

I nodded before I could think about it.

—Ten-thirty. At Bicentennial Park, by the old fountain. Come however you want. But come as Renata.

***

I arrived ten minutes early. I had dressed carefully: a black leather skirt down to mid-calf, a cream lace blouse with no bra underneath, a long coat for the cold, and heels that made me feel tall and dangerous. Beneath the skirt I had put on a tiny black lace thong, and already on the bus I had felt it growing damp just from thinking about him. I had done my eyes in smoky shades, my lips in a discreet red, and put on the perfume I saved for nights that mattered.

While I waited, my mind wandered. I imagined everything that might happen and everything I wanted to happen, and was surprised to discover how much the two lists overlapped. I imagined myself on my knees in front of him, mouth open, looking up at him while I pulled his cock from his trousers. I imagined my skirt pulled up to my waist, my thong pushed to one side, feeling him open me with his fingers first and his cock afterward. I wasn’t ashamed to want someone to desire me like that. It made me feel powerful.

I saw him approaching with his hands in his coat pockets. He looked different without his daytime armor. He greeted me with a kiss on the cheek, close to the corner of my mouth, and the touch raised gooseflesh on my skin and pressed my nipples against the lace.

—You’re beautiful —he said, and he meant it.

—I know —I replied, laughing at my own boldness.

He laughed too. Something loosened between us.

—Before anything else —he said, turning serious—. This stays between us. You’re in charge, even if it looks like I am. If you say “stop,” it’s over. Are we clear?

—We’re clear —I said. And I kissed him, so it would be clear who had started. I bit his lower lip as I pulled away and felt his breath catch in his throat.

***

He took my hand and led me down a side path, away from the main lights, to a hidden bend behind some cypress trees. The city sounded far away, a murmur of cars and wind. There was a wooden bench and the dense shadow of the trees.

He pressed me against the trunk of a cypress and kissed me for real, without hurrying, one hand at the nape of my neck and the other firm on my waist. I melted against him. Years of avoiding him, crossing the street, and in the end I wound up here, wanting him with an intensity that frightened me. His tongue searched inside my mouth and I sucked it as if I were already anticipating what I was going to do to him lower down. I felt his cock hardening beneath his trousers against my hip, and lowered one hand to grab it through the fabric. It was hard, thick, unbearably alive.

—Fuck —I murmured against his mouth—. You have a beautiful cock.

—And you have a dirty mouth —he answered, and bit it.

—You like playing at being in charge —he murmured afterward against my ear—. Tell me you do.

—I do —I admitted, and the confession loosened something in my chest—. I like being used.

—Then get on your knees.

I obeyed without thinking. My heels dug into the earth, my coat fell open at the sides, and I ended up on my knees in front of him, in the dimness beneath the cypresses, my face level with his fly. I slowly opened his belt, lowered the zipper, and freed his cock all at once. It was thick, its veins pronounced, the tip already glistening with a transparent drop. I took it in my hand and stared at it for a second, entranced, before sticking out my tongue and running it underneath, from the base to the tip, gathering the salty taste of that drop.

—Holy shit —he moaned, throwing his head back.

I put the whole thing in my mouth, or as much as I could, feeling it fill my throat and make me swallow. At first I started sucking it slowly, my lips tight around the hard flesh, moving up and down while helping myself with one hand at the base. I licked the tip in circles, then took it back into my mouth, all the way, until I gagged, until the effort filled my eyes with tears. He grabbed my hair, not to force me, but to hold my face while I kept devouring him hungrily.

—Look at me —he ordered.

I raised my eyes without taking him from my mouth. The image must have pleased him, because I felt his legs tremble. I kept sucking and sucking, and between each pull I quietly begged him to fill my face, to fill me wherever he wanted, things he had never heard me say aloud and that came out of me on their own that night.

—Stand up —he suddenly said, his voice broken—. If you keep that up, I’ll come in your mouth, and not yet.

I stood with my chin wet with saliva. I wiped it with the back of my hand without taking my eyes off him.

—Turn around —he said.

I obeyed, bracing my hands against the rough bark and offering him my back. I felt his hands moving over me through my clothes, slowly, tracing the route. He yanked my skirt up to my waist, and the cold night air brushed my bare buttocks. He gave me a dry slap on the ass—not hard, barely enough to make me tremble—and I moaned and arched, asking him for more. He dug his fingers into my flesh, spread my cheeks, and I felt his thumb pass over the tiny fabric of my thong, pressing it against my soaked cunt.

—You’re dripping —he said with a low laugh—. All this for me.

—All this for you —I confirmed, without shame.

He pushed my thong to one side with a finger and thrust two fingers inside me at once, all the way, without warning. I cried out against my own arm. I was so wet that they slid inside without resistance, and he began moving them slowly, curling them, searching for the exact spot. With his thumb he found my clitoris and began making circles, and my knees went weak.

—Anyone could see us here —he said, his mouth pressed to my neck.

—I know —I panted, and the danger set me on fire.

He pulled his fingers out and ran them over my lips. I sucked them without hesitation, tasting myself, and he let out a hoarse growl against my ear.

Then I felt the tip of his cock against the entrance to my cunt, thick and barely pushing. He made me wait. He moved his hips slightly, rubbing against me, wetting himself with what was dripping from me, but still not entering.

—Ask me for it —he said.

—Fuck me —I begged—. Please, put it all the way in.

And he drove into me with one thrust, all the way, so suddenly that I let out a muffled cry and the bark scraped my palms. He stayed still inside me for a second, breathing hard against the back of my neck, letting me feel how completely he filled me. Then he began fucking me, slowly at first, with long, deep thrusts, gripping my hips with a firmness that would leave finger marks the next day.

—Like that —I told him—. Like that, harder.

He obeyed. He sped up. He drove all the way inside me every time, and I felt my ass collide with his pelvis with a wet sound that seemed enormous in the park’s silence. Every thrust shook my entire body, made me squeeze my eyes shut and bite my arm to keep from moaning too loudly. He moved one hand around to the front, slipped his fingers over my clitoris again, and then I couldn’t do anything anymore: I began trembling from the waist down, feeling the orgasm rising from deep inside me.

Every time I felt myself about to come, he slowed down, pulled his cock all the way out, and pushed it back in slowly, tearing a long moan from me. He made me wait. He drew a plea from me, one I gave him gladly. It was a back-and-forth game of surrendered and returned control, and I discovered that giving myself over lit me up more than anything else I had ever tried.

—Please —I panted, and there was nothing in my voice of that frightened “please” I had so often imagined in my worst school memories. It was an order disguised as a plea—. Let me come. Let me come on your cock.

—Not yet —he answered, and pulled it out again, leaving me empty and trembling.

***

He made me turn around again to face him. He wanted to see my face, he said, and I wanted him to see it. He sat me on the wooden bench with my legs spread, my skirt up, my thong hanging from one ankle. He knelt between my thighs and licked my cunt from bottom to top, with one long, broad stroke of his tongue, and I threw my head back against the backrest with a moan I couldn’t contain.

He ate as if he had a hunger to make up for. He sucked my clitoris, squeezing it between his lips, pushed his tongue inside me, thrust his fingers into me again, and moved them at the same time as his mouth. I grabbed his hair with both hands, pressed his face against me, and told him everything he wanted to hear: to eat me, to suck me, never to stop.

—I’m going to come —I warned him, my voice breaking—. Damián, I’m coming.

—Come in my mouth —he said without lifting it, and kept going.

I came in one long shudder that ran from the nape of my neck to my heels, biting my lip so I wouldn’t scream and give us away, squeezing his head between my thighs, soaking his face. He held me the entire time, his hands firm on my legs, sucking me through every last contraction, not letting go until the final tremor faded.

When he lifted his face, it was shining, and he was smiling. He stood in front of me, his cock still hard and pointing at me. I took it in my hand and put it back in my mouth, savoring my own taste mixed with his, sucking him eagerly and looking up at him.

—Renata —he groaned—. Like that, like that, don’t stop.

I sped up. I took him all the way in, pulled him out, licked him, devoured him. I felt his thighs tense, felt his cock swell even more between my lips, and knew he was close.

—Where do you want it? —I said, pulling it out for a second—. Say it.

—On your face —he said, panting—. In your mouth.

I kept sucking him and stroking him with my hand at the same time, until he came with a hoarse groan that rose from his chest. I felt the first hot spurts against my tongue, took them into my mouth, swallowed; the ones that followed landed on my cheek, my lip, my chin. I stayed still, looking at him, my face covered and my mouth open, while he emptied himself in long gasps.

Afterward we stayed still, catching our breath, his forehead resting against mine and my hand still wrapped around the base of his cock, feeling it pulse. The cold returned gradually, reminding us where we were. I ran my thumb over my cheek, gathered what was left there, and brought it to my mouth without taking my eyes off him. He muttered a curse under his breath.

—Are you okay? —he asked once his breathing had settled. And the fact that he asked it seriously was worth more than everything that had come before.

—Better than okay —I said.

He helped me straighten my clothes with a care I hadn’t expected from him. He cleaned my face with a handkerchief, pulled up my thong, lowered my skirt, fastened my coat, brushed a strand of hair from my face, and looked at me as if only then he were seeing me whole.

—All my life, I thought you hated me —I said as we walked back along the path.

—All my life, I thought you wouldn’t want anything to do with me after the way I was —he replied—. I was a stupid, scared kid. I laughed at you because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stop looking at you, why I got hard every time you walked past me.

I stopped. I looked at him. There was something unguarded in his face, something the boy from school would never have let anyone see.

—Well —I said—. Now you understand.

—Now I understand —he repeated.

***

I lit a cigarette on the corner of the park, my body still buzzing, my swollen cunt throbbing inside my damp thong, while he waited for the bus a few yards away. The night had turned warm, or perhaps it was me. Before he got on, he sent me a message, and the phone vibrated in my hand along with a smile I couldn’t suppress.

“Saturday? This time dinner’s on me. And come however you want. But come as Renata.”

I put away my phone and walked the blocks to my home without hurrying, listening to the echo of my heels on the empty sidewalk. For the first time in a long while, I wasn’t walking away from anyone or hiding from anything.

When I arrived, I removed my makeup slowly in front of the mirror with its yellow light. The red on my lips faded, the smoky eyes disappeared too, and little by little the other face returned, the one from the university hallways. Before, that transition left me empty, as if I had to kill Renata every night to survive the day.

Not that night. That night I looked at myself in the mirror, bare-faced with my hair tied back, and realized there were no longer two people fighting inside me. There was only one, learning not to ask permission.

I got into bed with my body aching in all the right places, my crotch still hot, and a smile too big for my face. I thought about Damián, about the way he had said my name on the sidewalk, without mockery, like someone finally daring to say something he had kept silent for too long.

And before I fell asleep, I thought that the boy who had made me feel small for years had just shown me, unintentionally, how big I could be when I stopped hiding.