The Day I Stopped Being Adrián Behind the Bar

I grew up in a village lost among olive groves, and from a very young age I knew something was off with me. It wasn’t an idea, it was an entire body that felt wrong. I thought like a woman, I liked the things they liked, and I dreamed of a man looking at me the way he looked at my neighbors. My name was Adrián, but inside I was never really him.

I started working very young in hospitality, first as a kitchen assistant and later serving tables in the summer season. I’d go to Mallorca with my older brothers, who had been going down to the coast for years. There, far from the village, I discovered something like freedom: I fell in love with a man named Dante and stayed in a relationship with him until one day he packed his bags, returned to his country, and left me high and dry without a single explanation.

That winter I went back to the village in pieces. I had lost Dante and, on top of that, the restaurant where I had worked three seasons was closing its doors. Uncertainty was eating me alive: either I found something soon, or the fields and their endless days under the sun awaited me.

When I started to pull myself together a little, I found out that a roadside club a few kilometers from the village was looking for a bartender to work the bar. I didn’t think twice. One rainy morning under a leaden sky, I showed up there ready to offer my services.

I was met by Remedios, a woman in her seventies, tall and imposing, with heavily made-up features and nails painted a deep red to match her lips. She explained that I’d have to speak to the owner, Rubén, who had gone out and wouldn’t be long. While we waited, she told me she was the cook, took care of the cleaning, and looked after the girls who worked there, even washing and ironing their clothes.

A brand-new, gleaming car pulled up in the forecourt. Out of it got a tall man, gym-built, impeccably groomed, with full lips and a deep, intimidating gaze. He walked with the confidence of someone in charge. As soon as he came in, he addressed Remedios without even looking at me:

—Who’s this and what does he want?

I calmly stepped in and explained I was there for the bar job, that I had experience, and that I wanted to work. He looked me up and down and let out a half smile.

—Ah, right. I thought you’d come to collect. At this hour, everyone who comes in here comes to collect something.

We talked a while and came to an agreement on pay. My duties were clear: serve drinks, keep track of the invitations clients paid for the girls, and note down the services each one provided in the rooms. At Remedios’s suggestion, Rubén added that I’d also have to help him in the kitchen and with cleaning. Despite the excessive workload, and since I had nothing else, I accepted. I arranged to come back that same afternoon.

***

I showered, put on a very tight white T-shirt, tight jeans, and carefully did my hair. I added the slightest touch of gloss to my lips. That’s how I showed up for my first afternoon. Rubén introduced me to the girls, gave me the sheet where I was to write down drinks and services, and at exactly six o’clock the doors opened.

There were women who lived at the club and two or three who brought their boyfriends shortly before opening. The atmosphere hit me full force: I had never been in a place like that. Woman was the absolute center of that world. Dressed in provocative, skin-tight lingerie, they danced to draw the looks, and clients would come up to brush against them, grope them, begin a clumsy courtship that was really after only two things: a free drink or taking them upstairs.

Behind the bar, I wrote down the services and watched every encounter. And, unable to help myself, I envied them. From my repressed femininity I kept asking myself why I couldn’t be one of those desired women. Sometimes I found myself staring as a man chased a girl around the club, and I daydreamed about being in her place.

I settled in to the point that I moved into the club. My nature was already obvious to everyone, and some of them started calling me Adriana half in jest. In the quiet moments they dressed me in lingerie, put makeup on me, and made me strut in front of them amid laughter and compliments, encouraging me to become more and more feminine. And I enjoyed it like never before.

***

One afternoon, just up from my nap, Rubén sent for me to his bedroom. Remedios had mentioned to him that I was dressed as a woman and he wanted to see it with his own eyes. I wanted to take off the makeup and clothes immediately, but the girls wouldn’t let me: laughing, they pushed me down the hallway to the room and threw me into the center of it, right in front of him.

—Well now... I’ve got myself a new little whore and didn’t even know it. —He laughed.

—Boss, don’t say that, for God’s sake. I’m Adrián, can’t you see? This is one of those lizard bitches playing a trick on me, they dressed me up and brought me here like this —I said, embarrassed.

Rubén got out of bed, came over, and wrapped his huge arms around me. He kissed my neck and whispered in my ear:

—From today on, you’ll be Adriana, and you’ll go downstairs serving drinks, made up and dressed as a woman. You’ll be a draw. People will come from all over the district to see the girl from the next village over. —He pulled back a little, took a bill from his wallet, and placed it in my hand.— Here, you’ve earned it for being pretty. Tell them to do your makeup less heavy, to put you in a tiny top that shows your neck and belly, a thong peeking out the top, short shorts, and heels. In a little while I want to see you down there working like that. Agreed?

—Agreed, Rubén —I answered, and it wasn’t resignation: it was excitement.

***

Nerves were eating me alive before they opened the doors. I was afraid men from my village would show up and recognize me as one of the girls. Even the coworkers who didn’t live at the club were stunned to see me so feminine behind the bar.

The clients were rough people, hardened by the fields, with not a shred of sexual scruple. When they asked me for a drink, they started using words they hadn’t used with me before: slut, bitch, little whore. Others, on the other hand, treated me sweetly, calling me sweetheart, pretty, darling. And Rubén was right: the news spread like wildfire. Within days, whole groups were coming down to the club to see with their own eyes that it was true, to flirt with or insult the waitress dressed as a woman.

One night a group of five boys from my village came in, and my heart sank. Yolanda, who was on the other side of the bar, told me that sooner or later it was bound to happen, that I had made a decision and had to stand by it. So I kept serving drinks as if nothing were happening.

—Well, well, if it isn’t the village’s first official whore, and a faggot on top of that —said Anselmo, who had gone to school with me.— So it was true after all, you were always checking out my zipper, the clever little bastard. What, have you decided to come out of the closet?

I pulled strength from somewhere I didn’t have any and, as if the comment had nothing to do with me, I asked:

—What would the gentlemen like to drink?

—Look at you, so refined and so well brought up for a whore. Bring us some rum and cokes and get your ass outside, because I want to buy you a drink and feel that ass of yours.

While I was serving them, Rubén stepped in:

—Leave the girl alone. She only serves drinks. If you want company, there are several girls over there. That’s what they’re for.

—But he was Adrián all his life, Ramona’s son... —he laughed.— And what if I pay whatever you ask to be with him? I’m interested in this fag.

—Don’t insist, please —Rubén cut in, calm but firm.— This girl doesn’t provide services. If you keep bothering her, I’ll have to ask you to leave, and I wouldn’t like to do that.

That was the end of the first incident. They kept saying all sorts of things to me whenever I passed by, but it didn’t bother me as much anymore. In the days that followed, more people from the district came to see Ramona’s son turned into a woman, and that morbid curiosity made my transformation so profitable that Rubén made me dress like a girl whenever the place was open.

***

From that first afternoon on, Rubén couldn’t stop looking at me, enchanted, while I worked. One night, after closing, he invited me to have a drink with some of the other girls. Time passed, and without realizing it, the others left and we were alone. With his expert tongue, seasoned by a thousand nights, he slowly stripped me bare. After serving the last drink, he grabbed my waist.

—You know? I never thought I’d be this comfortable with a girl like you. I never tried sex with a man, my pride won’t let me. But with you it’s different. I look at you and I see a woman like any other. You’re smart, you speak beautifully, and you’re beautiful inside and out. I’d love to spend the night with you.

Those words went deep. Not even Dante had ever spoken to me like that. I didn’t understand how such a hard man could say such tender things, but he had me spellbound.

—Well, if you don’t spend it with me it’s because you don’t want to —I told him.— You’re the boss and I’m your employee. All you have to do is say “let’s go” and I’ll drop everything.

—Let’s go —he answered at once.

We walked to his room wrapped around each other. As soon as the door closed he kissed me on the mouth, his tongue invading me all the way down to the deepest place, like no one had ever kissed me before. It was so intense and so long that I lost my head, and before I knew it my hand was already firmly stroking the bulge that had mesmerized me since the first day.

I unbuttoned his pants and knelt down. I freed him from his underwear and found something huge, thick, growing as I caressed it. I threw myself onto it with my mouth open, hungry, savoring that firm flesh with a salty edge that anticipated what was to come. Rubén, surprised by how eager I was, relaxed and began to enjoy himself.

Confidently, he grabbed me by the hair at the nape of my neck and set the pace to his liking, sometimes thrusting so deeply that his glans stole my breath from the back of my throat. I felt him tense, the veins swelling, his breathing ragged, and he emptied himself completely into my mouth. I licked every last drop with the tip of my tongue and took him back in, this time more slowly, to keep him hard. It worked. He led me to the bed.

—I’d like to fuck you, but I’ve never done it with someone like you. I don’t know if I’ll know how.

—Do you want to? I’ll teach you —I answered.

—I’m afraid of disappointing you.

—Oh, come on. It’s like with a woman, only from behind. And don’t worry, I’m as clean on the inside as I am on the outside. Shall we try?

—All right.

I laid him out lengthwise on the bed and crouched over him. Slowly, very slowly, I began lowering myself onto his member, feeling it open me centimeter by centimeter, hard as stone. Pleasure ran through me head to toe, a mixture of burning and surrender that made me feel more like a woman than ever. He groaned beneath me, enjoying himself like a child with a new toy.

Once I had all of him inside, I began moving my hips, slow and steady, and Rubén was losing himself with every sway. Soon he took control, grabbed my hips, and drove into me hard, over and over, hitting me in the deepest place. Each thrust confirmed where I wanted to be, what I wanted to be. At a man like that’s disposal, feeling desired, feeling like I belonged to him.

He came inside me with a growl, filling me completely. And even so, still hard, he asked me for more. I licked him again, rode him again, and so on until we both lay spent.

***

From that night on, I became one of his favorites. Once or twice a week he would call for me, just like the rest of the girls. And besides serving drinks, when a client insisted too much, I’d go out to mingle, and more than once I went upstairs to the rooms.

I never went back to the village. By then even the children knew. Rubén had three favorites: Noelia, Bianca, and me. Over time business started failing him and he had to sell the club, but he never let me go. He kept me close to help him and give him affection in the hard times, and I never let him down: by his side I was feminine and obedient, as if I were his woman.

He never abandoned his three favorite little whores. We lived in three different flats, in separate neighborhoods of the capital, and he visited us in turns whenever he felt like it, showing us his affection despite being married with children. I lived a normal life in the neighborhood, moved around the city like any other man, but in private I was always her. And whenever he said he was coming, I got myself ready, made myself beautiful, and became Adriana, because that’s how he liked it.

There are countless moments I’ve lived through with Rubén since I became his lover. Nearly fifteen years later, I still am, and I still satisfy him in everything he asks of me. There are a thousand more anecdotes I wouldn’t mind telling, if anyone wants to ask.

Adriana.