She Called Me Tania and For the First Time I Didn’t Correct Her

Tobías was twenty-seven years old and had a face that had gotten him into trouble his whole life. Slim, narrow-waisted, and fine-featured, he wore his hair longer than most men dared. On the street, people mistook him for a girl more often than he liked to admit, and every time it happened he felt that uneasy mix of annoyance and something warmer he preferred not to examine.

He defined himself as straight. He had lived alone for years, had a quiet job laying out catalogs, and a girlfriend, Carla, who lived a few blocks away and whom he saw on weekends. On paper, he was an ordinary man. But there were things Carla didn’t know, and that he himself only barely admitted to when he switched off the light.

That Tuesday morning he woke at five with his body still hot and his head full of reproaches. The previous afternoon had ended at Damián’s place, a colleague from the publishing house, reviewing proofs nobody was going to review. The wine, one joke too many, a hand that stayed too long on his knee. And then, everything else.

Damián had kissed him first, pushing him against the back of the sofa with one hand on his neck and the other opening his belt. Tobías still remembered the taste of wine in the other man’s mouth, the brusque way he had pulled his pants down to his knees and taken out his cock, already hard, with a rough chuckle. “Look at that, if you weren’t waiting for this.” Damián had knelt on the rug and taken it all the way to his throat without preamble, sucking him with a skill that stole Tobías’s breath. He felt the hot lips and tongue wrapping around his glans, one finger pressing at his perineum while the other hand squeezed his balls. In barely two minutes he was already groaning with his head thrown back, biting his fist so he wouldn’t call a man by name. He came in Damián’s mouth in a spasm that shook his whole back, and Damián swallowed every drop and licked his lips before leaning up to kiss him, his mouth still smeared with semen. “Now it’s your turn,” he had said, and pressed his cock to Tobías’s lips. Tobías had sucked him clumsily, hands trembling, not quite knowing what to do with his tongue, until Damián emptied himself too onto his palate with a long groan. After that, the proofs had been forgotten on the table.

“My, you’re looking good,” Damián had told him when Tobías came out of the shower wrapped in a towel.

“Don’t start,” he muttered, looking for his shirt.

“I’m serious. Look at you. You’ve got a better body than half the women I know. That waist, that back. That ass. You’re only missing the dress.”

Tobías didn’t answer. He finished dressing in silence, gathered his things, and left, promising himself it would not happen again. I’m a man. I have a girlfriend. That’s over. He thought it with the same firmness with which lies are thought.

***

The morning bus was almost empty. Tobías settled in the back, by the window, with his headphones on and his gaze lost in the passing buildings. At the third stop a man got on and stood right beside him, even though there were empty seats everywhere.

He was older, in his forties, broad-shouldered and calm in bearing. He smelled clean and expensive. Tobías noticed when the man’s thigh pressed against his with the sway of the ride, a pressure that could at first have been accidental and then, clearly, was not. He looked down for an instant and saw the pronounced bulge under the fabric of the pants: a generous cock outlined to the side, so thick it was impossible to pretend he hadn’t seen it. His mouth went dry.

He should have moved away. Instead he stayed still, his heart pounding in his ears and his own cock traitorously stirring inside his boxer briefs. The man glanced at him sideways, a measured smile on his lips, and Tobías, instead of frowning, gave him a half-smile before he could stop himself.

That was all the confirmation the other man needed.

“My name’s Renato,” he said softly, taking the seat that had just opened up. “Forgive the boldness. It’s just that you’re very handsome, and at my age one stops bothering with so many detours.”

“Tobías,” he replied, surprised by his own voice. “And thank you, I suppose.”

They talked about the weather, traffic, silly things. Renato had a way of looking that wasn’t rude but attentive, as if every word Tobías said truly mattered to him. Beneath the coat folded across his lap, however, the man’s hand found Tobías’s thigh and squeezed once, discreetly, possessively, in a gesture that sent a sharp jolt straight to his groin. When the bus approached the park, Renato stood up.

“This is my stop. It was a pleasure.”

“I get off here too,” Tobías said, and when he stepped onto the sidewalk he discovered, with a pang of something like luck, that they lived three streets apart.

“Well then, neighbors. We have to celebrate that.” Renato laughed, delighted. “I’m buying you an ice cream. I won’t accept no for an answer.”

***

They sat at a little table in the shade, beside the park stand. Tobías ordered lemon; Renato, coffee. While they waited, the man watched him with a frankness that should have been uncomfortable and yet somehow made him feel strangely seen.

“I’ll tell you straight,” Renato said, stirring his ice cream. “On the bus, it wasn’t an accident that I moved closer. I saw you and couldn’t help myself. There’s something about you. It’s not just that you’re handsome. It’s like you’re wearing a disguise that doesn’t fit you.”

Tobías felt his face heat.

“I’m a man, in case it doesn’t show,” he said, trying to sound joking.

“I know. And even so.” Renato shrugged. “Don’t mind me. Old-man habit. Tell me about yourself.”

But Tobías could no longer stop thinking about that phrase. A disguise that doesn’t fit you. It was almost exactly what he felt when he looked in the mirror بعض nights, when he pulled his hair back with both hands and stared at someone he didn’t quite recognize. When he slid two saliva-wet fingers into his ass under the shower spray, biting his lips, and came against the tiles thinking about things he would never have said out loud.

By the time they finished the ice cream, it was already late in a way neither of them mentioned.

“Walk me home,” Renato asked. “So you know where I live. In case you ever want a real coffee.”

Tobías knew he should go back to his apartment, answer Carla’s messages, recover the common sense he had lost when he got on the bus. Instead he walked those three streets at Renato’s side, listening to him talk, laughing more than the conversation deserved.

***

Renato’s house was single-story, with a large, bright living room and a hallway that smelled of old wood. He had lived alone since the divorce, he explained; his daughter had gone abroad on a study exchange years ago and had never really come back, because she had rebuilt her life there.

“Stay a minute,” he said. “I want to show you something. Don’t be scared.”

He opened the door at the end of the hall. It was a woman’s room, untouched, as if frozen in time. A canopy bed, a vanity with bottles covered in a fine layer of dust, photographs of a smiling girl in silver frames. Renato went to the wardrobe and flung it open.

Dresses. Skirts. Silk blouses in a neat row of colors. He opened a drawer and inside there was delicate clothing, lace and satin, carefully folded lingerie that had never been used again: tiny panties, padded bras, stockings with garters, a black thong with a tiny bow that Renato lifted with two fingers and let fall.

“This is how Mara left it,” Renato murmured. “I haven’t touched a thing in all these years. And I know it sounds absurd, but ever since I saw you on that bus I couldn’t stop thinking it would be your size.”

Tobías stood very still in the doorway, his cock traitorously growing again inside his pants.

“It’s your daughter’s clothes,” he said, in a lower voice than he intended. “It’s crazy.”

“It is.” Renato didn’t move. “And yet you’re imagining it, aren’t you? I can see it on your face.”

And he was seeing it, because it was true. Tobías looked at the blue silk of a blouse hanging in front of him and, for one dizzying instant, imagined it on his own skin, the cool brush of the fabric hardening his nipples, the way it would fall over his narrow shoulders. He imagined himself in front of the vanity mirror wearing tight lace panties over his hard cock, the tip peeking above the elastic, biting his lip, being someone else. The idea ran up his body like a current and he had to look away.

“No,” he said, more to himself than to the man. “I can’t. I’m a man, I have a girlfriend. I should go.”

“All right.” Renato closed the wardrobe softly. “I’m not going to ask you for anything you don’t want to give me. I’ll walk you to the door.”

***

They walked back down the hallway, Renato a few steps behind. At the entrance, when Tobías was about to turn the knob, the man stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and made him turn slowly.

It wasn’t rough. It was the opposite. He wrapped his arms around him as if Tobías were something that could break, and he stroked the nape of his neck with his fingertips, a slow touch that raised goosebumps all over his back. Tobías felt every one of his arguments dissolve in his mouth.

“Renato, no,” he whispered, but he didn’t pull away. On the contrary, he let his own arms rise to the man’s shoulders, traitorous—“Please. It’s late.”

“You’re beautiful,” Renato said against his ear, and the feminine word struck the center of his chest. “Tania. Tania suits you. Will you let me call you that?”

Tobías should have said no. It was a name that wasn’t his, an idea that should have seemed ridiculous. Instead he felt something surrender inside him, something that had spent years clenching its teeth, and he closed his eyes.

“Just for today,” he murmured.

And for the first time in his life, when someone called him by a woman’s name, he didn’t correct them.

Renato kissed him then, unhurriedly, one hand sinking into his long hair and the other sliding over the curve of his lower back to come to rest, with tender audacity, on the roundness of his ass. Tobías opened his mouth and kissed him back with a hunger that frightened him, feeling the man’s hardness pressing against his hip —an enormous cock, thick as a hot stone beneath the fabric— feeling, for once, exactly as Renato saw him. The man’s tongue entered his mouth slowly, thick, dominant, and Tobías sucked it as if he were thirsty.

Renato’s hand slipped under his shirt and moved up his stomach, over his ribs, until it caught one of his nipples and twisted it just a little. Tobías moaned against his mouth and felt his knees go weak.

“Look at you, Tania,” Renato murmured, pulling back a centimeter to look him in the eyes. “You’re already getting hard, aren’t you? Let me see.”

The hand slid down to the bulge in his pants and squeezed firmly, measuring him, stroking him through the fabric.

“What a pretty little cock you have. Small, tight, perfect for a girl like you.”

The word went through his whole body. Tobías hid his face in the man’s neck, burning with shame and excitement at the same time, while Renato opened his belt with one hand and slipped his palm inside the boxer briefs. Hot fingers circled his cock and began to jerk him off with calculated slowness, dragging the foreskin back to uncover the swollen glans, squeezing the sticky fluid that was already staining the tip.

“You’re soaking my whole hand,” he said in Tobías’s ear, with a smile in his voice. “Look at you dripping. And I haven’t even touched your little ass yet.”

“Renato…” Tobías panted, clinging to him. “I’m going to…”

“No, not yet.” The man squeezed the base of his cock with two fingers, cutting the orgasm off in its tracks. “Hold on for a little longer. I want to taste you first.”

And just like that, Renato sank to his knees in the foyer. Tobías looked down, not quite believing it, and saw the older man pull his pants and boxer briefs down to his thighs and pause for a second, contemplating his erect cock, red, trembling near his lips.

“Beautiful,” he repeated, and took it into his mouth to the root.

Tobías hit the back of his head against the door with a choked groan. Renato sucked him with obscene calm, his tongue wrapped around the glans, his throat opening effortlessly every time he went down, one hand kneading his balls while the other squeezed one ass cheek and spread it a little, just enough for the cool air of the hallway to brush his tight hole. Tobías had never in his life felt so exposed or so seen, and he loved it.

“Oh, God, don’t stop,” he murmured, burying his fingers in the man’s gray hair. “Please, don’t stop.”

Renato didn’t stop. He sped up. The blow job became deep, wet, noisy, an obscene slurping that filled the foyer, and one finger of the man’s hand —slick with both their saliva— began to graze his asshole, tracing circles over the tight entrance without going in, just hinting at it. The combination was too much. Tobías felt the orgasm rise from his feet with a violence he had never known.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he gasped. “Not in your mouth, wait…”

But Renato clenched his mouth tighter, his hand closing on Tobías’s ass like a vise, and Tobías gave in. He came with a strangled cry, in long thick spurts, and Renato swallowed every last drop, sucking his sensitive glans until Tobías had to gently push at his shoulders.

“Enough,” he whispered, shaking. “Enough, please.”

Renato let him go with a small kiss on the tip and stood up, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. The smile he gave him was proud, possessive. He pulled his boxer briefs up, adjusted his pants, and fastened his belt like one fastens a little girl’s coat.

“And you?” Tobías asked, looking at the still huge bulge under the man’s pants. “Don’t you want to…?”

“Another day.” Renato stroked his cheek. “When you come back and put on what’s in that wardrobe, you’re going to suck me off on your knees, with the panties on and a bow in your hair. And then I’m going to fuck you in the canopy bed, slowly, until you forget your own name. But that’s for Tania. Today was only to give you this.”

It was Tobías who finally pulled away, panting, his forehead resting against the other man’s chest and his legs still trembling.

“Now I really have to go,” he said, his voice rough. “Really. But…”

“But,” Renato repeated, smiling, without pressuring him.

“Another day. I promise.”

The man nodded, tucked a strand behind his ear with a tenderness that Tobías felt in his stomach, and opened the door. When he stepped out into the street, night already deep, Renato gave him a playful slap on the ass that made him smile despite himself.

“Take care, Tania. The house will be here when you want to come back.”

Tobías walked the three streets to his apartment with his heart hammering, his boxer briefs still sticky, and the certainty that something had opened inside him that he would no longer know how to close. He still felt the brush of imagined silk on his skin, the new name buzzing in his ears, the man’s mouth on his cock like a memory warming his cheeks, the promise hanging between them like a key.

In his pocket, his phone vibrated with a message from Carla. Tobías looked at it without opening it and kept walking, thinking, for the first time without guilt, of the blue blouse waiting in that wardrobe, of the lace panties that would press against his cock the next time, and of the man’s tongue waiting for him on the other side of that door.