At Home, Pt. 02

(You don't need to read part one to understand part two. In part one, the narrator, Esteban (Stevie), flies back home to Mexico from Germany for a wedding. There he meets his ex, Fernando, but hooks up with another guy while trying to avoid him. Stevie then gets hopelessly drunk.)

I wake up to a throat so sore it's almost worse than my headache. There's no way I'm going to get out of bed before noon, so I mindlessly swipe through the Instagram stories from the wedding; at least until I get to a clip of Ale going around the dance floor, doling out tequila shots straight from the bottle, spilling half of mine down my shirt. I then apparently proceeded to yank the bottle from her hands, chugging the last few gulps to some scattered cheers. When the fuck did that happen? I just want to hide under the covers and pass out forever.

Fernando sends me a DM, though.

"Hey Stevie. Wanna go hiking?"

"Today? I don't think I can even walk downstairs," I reply.

"That tequila got the better of you? Nah, it's way too late, anyways. Let's go tomorrow. Wanna do the long trail?" he writes back.

"I want to sleep."

"You're staying at your Mom's, right? I could pick you up at 4:45."

By which he means 4:45 am, naturally. My first instinct is that there's no way I'm going on a hike with my ex at 4:45 in the morning. I reflexively start typing out a colorful death threat, but I manage to stop myself. The long trail is about four hours one-way, which makes it the perfect excuse not to spend the whole Sunday at another family gathering full of disapproving great-aunts. Going so early makes sense; it's the only way to avoid the worst of the midday sun of the desert. We also had an amicable breakup over a year ago, and it's high time I stopped avoiding him. Hiking was always more my hobby than his, and so this is obviously his way to extend an olive branch, to provide a neutral ground to reconnect. I keep listing all of the reasons why this is actually a good idea in my head, but in the end, it comes down to a single question. Do I really want to spend 8 hours alone with Fernando? I groan and curse so loudly that my Mom starts asking if everything's okay from downstairs. I tell her yes, that I just need more sleep; send the idiot a thumbs up emoji; and proceed to attempt to smother myself with a pillow for the rest of the day.

The next morning, I have to congratulate myself for leaving the house a couple of minutes early, but Fernando is already parked outside, waiting for me. For someone who was so desperate to leave Germany, he sure brought it back with him. I greet him with a very expressive grunt, to which he chuckles, but mercifully doesn't comment on. My hangover is not entirely gone, and it's too early to talk, anyways. I'm just glad I don't have to drive. We pass the state university, where Fernando now works; the high school we both went to, although we didn't know each other back then; before long, we're at the trailhead, almost at the top of the first hill right outside the city.

It's surprising how easily we fall back into our old ways. Fernando chastises me for not bringing enough water, and makes me take two extra one-liter water bottles so that we're each carrying five liters. We start at a steady pace, our footsteps loud in the immersive quiet, the only other sound the wind whistling against our ears. We manage to get to the top of the second hill in time to catch the sunrise, the view over the city unbeatable. It's only at that moment that I sort of start waking up, as I watch the first rays of the rising sun light up his eyes, his dark-bronze skin. I have to admit that seeing him in his hiking gear always does something to me. Maybe it's the simplicity of it, khaki cargo pants and a white cotton tee, his chest hair peeking out from its neck. Or maybe it's how relaxed he looks under the soft light with his two-day stubble. Maybe it's the easy smile I can read on the corners of his eyes when we're like this: comfortable, resting, alone on a trail.

This trail is more horizontal than vertical, but it does go steadily up as it meanders through the hills south of the city. The shrubland slowly changes to an open, dry forest; from the sparse and spiny mesquite; to short, stocky oaks and the occasional pine tree. As the sun rises higher, a band of dazzlingly blue Mexican jays start cawing at us from the treetops, and it feels like every other step we're either harassing a spiny lizard or being harassed by a hummingbird. The only constants are the dusty wind, the cloudless sky, and the scorching sun.

"I missed this so much," I say, finally breaking the silence.

"What, the dust?" jokes Fer.

"Idiot. You know. The lizards. The hummingbirds. The sun." You, I add, in my mind, but keep it quiet.

"I know," he says simply. "I know."

We don't talk at all after that. Now that I'm fully awake, I can't ignore the rising tension in the air between us, a full year's worth of regrets somehow emerging from our evaporating sweat. He's always been a fast hiker, but today he is going at an especially punishing speed; I'm grateful for it, though; the exertion is as good an excuse as any to keep quiet. For a while, there's only the steady burning in my legs; our increasingly jagged breaths; his stupidly thick calves, leading the way.

We reach the end of the trail less than three hours after starting, which must be some kind of record. At the top of the highest peak in this small range, some nine thousand feet above sea level, we're too far away from the city to see much of it, but that is the point of it all: the view of the other hills, a dark green jewel in the unending brown plains; the exhilarated smiles on our faces, as we slowly catch our breaths; the feeling of being completely by ourselves.

I take my time to stretch. My muscles are particularly unyielding; still sore from the small seats of the transatlantic flight, then the dancing marathon, and now this hike. I make sure that my ass is pointed straight at Fernando as I try to touch my toes, and I hear him splutter, coughing out some of his precious water. It's good he made us pack so many bottles. I might be wearing tight shorts and the white mid-calf socks he prefers exactly for this purpose, but I don't hear him complaining. In fact, he goes suspiciously quiet once he stops coughing. I slowly turn around, and he's palming himself through his pants, biting his lips. He holds my gaze, his eyes challenging mine, and he opens his legs wide, inviting.

I don't play hard to get. I've never been able to control myself with him before, and today was never going to be the exception. We're outdoors, but it's not risky at all; we started so early and walked so fast that hardly anyone could catch up. But still, even the illusion of risk has me already hard as I kneel in front of him, as I replace his hand on his crotch with my own, as I slowly take off his pants.

He's wearing simple white briefs with a wide waistband that shine dazzlingly bright in the morning sun. It's so unlike the boxers-wearing Fernando that I knew, that I have to stop and look at him, raising an eyebrow quizzically. He shrugs and winks, smiling at me encouragingly. The briefs fit him like a second skin: accentuating an already prominent bulge, sitting low enough to expose the V of his hips, leaving his broad, furry thighs on display. I'd always told him that he'd look better in briefs, and seeing him there, so expectant, having chosen exactly the pair I would have, makes me lose any hesitation that I still might have had.

I have to resist the urge to rip the briefs off his body. I follow the contour of his thickening semi with my tongue instead, letting the smell of his fresh sweat intoxicate me. I take each of his balls in my mouth through the cotton; reach upwards under his t-shirt to play with his nipples, feeling through the trail of short, curly hair that thickens on his chest. He responds by taking off his hat and his shirt, pulling me towards him to kiss me. His lips are as demanding as ever, his tongue as aggressive; his hands dig into my underwear, massaging my ass. He slowly takes off my clothes, stopping when we're both down to just briefs, socks, and shoes. He pauses to appreciate my body, absentmindedly stroking my biceps.

"Fuck, Stevie, you've been working out." It's not a question. And it's true, I've been hitting the gym regularly during the last year; we're both now buffer than we'd ever been.

"Not as much as you. Fuck, your calves look as thick as my thighs now."

"I knew you were checking me out the whole climb up," he says, before hugging me so tightly that I can feel almost every muscle, every hair of his chest against mine. He's tonguing my earlobe, stroking my back as I hug him back, and he starts moving his hips against mine. We're almost the same height, and so our straining erections rub against each other in a perfect parallel; mine a bit longer, his much thicker. We stay like that for a while, kissing, letting our hands explore, our hips synchronize, our briefs getting progressively wetter with our combined precum.

I only stop him when he starts playing with my nipples, pinching them so hard that my dick starts to complain in its confines. I push him back to the boulder where he'd been sitting, kneel in front of him, again; and finally take his dick out, through the fly in his briefs, let it stretch out as I rest my cheek on his thigh, smiling at him.

"You're such a tease," he says, not a hint of reproach in his voice. "Suck me, Stevie? Please. You're killing me." Fuck. I'd almost managed to forget how unable I am to deny him anything when he looks at me like that, eyes half-closed, all long lashes and thick eyebrows. But then, he never could deny me his dick, either.

It occurs to me that this shouldn't be sexy at all. We're both sweaty, dusty, well on our way to sunburned; my knees are smarting against the grit on the ground; there's a crow circling the peak and cawing at us like a nosy neighbor. But he grabs my neck just hard enough to let me feel his strength; strokes my jawline with his other hand, sometimes feeling his dick through my cheek; moans ever so softly as I lick his frenulum on the upstroke. I get so turned on that I forget to think; guide his hands with mine to the back of my head, like I used to do, and he understands---immediately starting to thrust deep into my throat. He fully takes control then, holding me with a firm and steady grip, fucking my throat with a punishing rhythm. My dick is producing so much precum that there's already a small puddle of it on the ground, my hand dripping wet as I stroke myself, my moans drowning in the spit lubricating his dick.

"Fuck. Fuck Fuck." Fernando gets louder and louder, almost screaming as he pumps me full of his cum. I'm right there with him, cumming so hard that I can't focus on swallowing. He's spilling out of my mouth, dripping to the ground, joining the growing puddle of my cum and spit. His legs are shaking, but so are my hands, my body; for a while, there's only the rush of wind against my ears, the distant cawing of the crow that seems to be finally flying away. Maybe Fernando finally scared it away, I think, laughing softly.

"What's so funny, Stevie?" he whispers.

"You never wanted to be loud during sex before," I say, getting up to sit next to him, "now look at you, scaring the wildlife."

"What can I say," he smiles, ruffling my hair, "I've missed you, Stevie." He rests his head on my shoulder, hugs my waist tightly.

"I've missed you, too," I finally hear myself say. There's so much more I want to say, but I can't seem to find the words for it. I let my cheek rest on his head; kiss it. My hands aimlessly wander over his body, his muscles much thicker than I remember. The sun is slowly getting more aggressive, the wind dustier, but we don't seem to want to move, to let go.

A thousand different scenarios run through my head as I hold him tightly. Part of me wants to get angry, to start a fight, to reproach him for having chosen his life in Mexico instead of a life with me in Germany. Part of me feels a little bit ashamed that I didn't even try to avoid having sex with him, but another part of me feels immensely proud that we finally had sex outdoors, for the first time, at home. Part of me wants to cry, wants to give in to the sadness, to the nostalgia for a future that we never really had; but another part of me feels intensely relieved that that future never came to pass.

"Sex was always the best part of our relationship, wasn't it?" I ask him, grinning widely.

He laughs at that; reaches down to caress my dick, which immediately twitches in appreciation. "I don't know. We were also pretty good at fighting," he replies with a wink.

"Well, if you want to relive that, you have four hours. There's no way I'm walking any faster than that on the way back."