At Home, Pt. 03

"I thought you missed it," he says.

Fernando is lying on his back, naked, his hand tracing lazy zigzags along my back. I'm halfway on top of him, my face pressed against his chest, burying my nose in that thick-grown hair. The setting sun shines through his small windows, and the fresh sweat on his skin makes it glisten a beautiful dark bronze.

It's Monday, and he only had to teach a couple of classes in the morning, so he'd invited me over after lunch. There's a trail of clothes leading from the front door to the foot of his bed, besides the duvet and pillows that were unceremoniously thrown to the floor. For a while, I can only feel the aftertaste of his cum in my mouth, the lingering ache of his dick in my ass, the steady rhythm of his breath.

"I do miss it. I always will. I miss the lizards and the hummingbirds. I miss the desert sun. I miss you. But this is all my past now, and I need to live in the present. I need to build my future."

"You were always too poetic for your own good," he chuckles.

I tickle him in revenge, attacking his stomach with my fingers; he yells and jumps on top of me, trying to restrain my hands with his. We fight, but he's winning, his thick thighs holding my torso in place, his hands dragging mine behind my head. I stretch my head as if to kiss him, but turn to lick his outstretched pit instead. He groans and holds me tighter, as I bask in his scent, switching to his right pit, my tongue going crazy with his fur. He lets go of my hands then, so he can hold my neck down as he kisses me, his tongue sloppily fighting with mine, his other hand reaching down to stroke my straining erection.

His alarm goes off. "Fuck. I need to get to class in half an hour," he says, getting out of bed to silence his phone.

I jump to my knees, bending over and holding my cheeks open with my hands. "You'd better fuck me fast then," I say.

He didn't need to be told twice. He grabs me by the hips and pulls me to the edge of the bed, shoving his lubed up dick in me so hard that he bottoms out instantly. He'd already opened me up well before, so he doesn't hold back, smashing his hips against me with such fury I think he might leave bruises. His hands shift from grabbing my hips to my neck, pulling me forward so he can hug me, so I can feel his grunts directly in my ear, his punishing pace matched by my frantic hand on my dick.

It doesn't take long for my orgasm to overtake me, my full body shaking, cum flying everywhere, splattering his bed, and he keeps hammering me brutally throughout it, dragging out the pleasure until I have to let go of my oversensitive dick. His hips crash into me one, two, three more times before he's right there with me, his dick filling me up, one hand on my hips, the other holding my neck in place.

He jumps in the shower then, while I lie on his bed, trying to reconnect my consciousness. He returns surprisingly fast, still damp but fully dressed and smelling of a woody cologne, and he gives me a quick kiss on the forehead.

"Here's my spare key," he says. "Stay as long as you want."

- - - - -

I spend all of Tuesday running errands for my Mom. She's surprised, but more than happy for the help. I just need the mindlessness, the feeling of achieving something, however small. Despite my dread, reconnecting with Fernando had been surprisingly easy, like returning to your native language after months of not using it. And I could not stop rehashing our past relationship in my head.

We had a good run, a very good run: miles upon miles of intense sex, of easy companionship. It was easy to become friends when we met, two guys from the same tiny corner of the world, alone on the other side of it. We already had inside jokes by the time we went on our first hike, ended up making out only the second time we got drunk together, fucked the next day. We kept each other warm, that long pandemic winter. It felt inevitable to fall in love, after that.

It was only the ending that was as hard as it was abrupt. He'd finished his PhD; I'd finished my Master's; we were both working and flush with cash for the first time in our lives. I found a cozy one-bedroom, started planning our first trip together. Should we go to Australia? Brazil? Looking back, it's obvious that something was off. We were coasting on my enthusiasm and his complacency; he started withdrawing the moment we moved in together, probably even before that. I couldn't see it though, not through the castle of dreams I was building, not when he was fucking me harder than he'd ever had. We'd only been living about three months together when he told me. He didn't want to stay in Germany. He was going to apply for jobs back home. He wanted me to come with him.

Back home. That was the part that hurt the most to hear. To me, home was already our fourth-floor apartment, with its small balcony overlooking the park, its tiny fridge overflowing with leftovers. Home was the future we were building together, not the past we'd left behind.

The cashier at the supermarket drags me crudely out of my thoughts. Am I paying, or should she call security on me? I've already bagged everything, somehow, and I mix up my excuses while I fumble my wallet. She's not amused at all, but it's a superficial anger, mere annoyance. Nothing like what I felt last year.

Last year, I was so shocked at first that I couldn't even ask him to stay. My shock soon turned into an anger so deep that I still feel the echoes of it in my bones. The worst part was, I couldn't really direct my anger at him. I was the one who was always joking about moving back home, but he was the one who decided to act on it. I couldn't blame him. But I could not follow him back home, because, without having noticed it, I already was at home. We talked things through endlessly over the following months, bargained, made new plans and scraped them. We didn't really fight; we mostly fucked. We tried to compromise, but it soon became clear that it was the end of our relationship. He received a job offer as an assistant professor at the state university, back home, and he left soon after that. We told ourselves that we ended it on good terms, but that somehow made it hurt even more. I threw myself into my work and my gym routine, continuously deleted and reinstalled Instagram and Grindr, started counting calories for the first time in my life. Avoided him, avoided flying back home for over a year. Until Alejandra's wedding forced me back.

- - - - -

I'm already leaving on Sunday, so we fuck like rabbits, every second we can get between his work and my family commitments. On Saturday evening, I have another family dinner, but Fernando tells me to text him and go over to his place as soon as I'm done. It's almost 11 pm when I get there, when I let myself in his apartment for what could be the last time, already leaving the spare key that I know I won't be using on the coffee table after taking off my shoes.

This time, everything is dark and suspiciously quiet. I sneak into the bedroom slowly, in case he's already asleep. There's only faint streetlight coming in from the window, but it's more than enough. I'm already hard at the sight of what's waiting for me. He's on all fours, wearing a white jockstrap that I didn't know he owned, the classic kind with a wide, striped waistband. Every muscle of his ass and thighs is accentuated, his black hair a stark contrast to the crisp white of his jockstrap and socks. He's already playing with himself, one hand slowly stroking his dick over the jock. I must have been standing there for a while, because he raises his head to look at me, impatient.

"Why are you still wearing so many clothes?" he asks.

I almost fall down twice in my hurry to undress, and we both have to laugh, until I manage to remove everything but my socks, kneeling before him and attacking his ass with my tongue. His laugh morphs then, to moans and curses, while his hands reach back to push my head deeper. He's hairy everywhere, and his hole is no exception, clean and yet musky, and by the sounds of his groans, as sensitive as it's ever been. I grab at his cheeks to open him up more, push my tongue as deep as I can, until I have to resurface, to breathe, teasing around his rim while I play with the straps of his jock, snapping them against his skin. He's incredibly responsive, moaning and begging me to fuck him, his legs shaking with need. I want to take my time, but my dick is so hard that I can't control myself anymore, and it's only a matter of reaching for the lube, conveniently next to him; of positioning my dick, the head teasing his rim; of slowly inching inside him, letting him feel every vein, every ridge; of feeling myself bottom out, his ass pressing against my hips.

He doesn't bottom very often, so it takes him a while to get used to it, and I have to use all of my self-control not to piston into him with abandon. Instead, I go as slowly as I can, playing with his nipples, with his chest hair, reaching over to murmur encouragement in his ear. He's loud; he's letting himself be as loud as he never could before, and his moans guide me, letting me know when it's time to go a little bit harder, a little bit deeper. Before long, I'm speeding up, grabbing onto the waistband of his jock to fuck him, my mind going blank as I lose all control I had left. I don't really know what takes over me, a fog of lust that obscures my mind as I push him deeper into the bed, as I fuck into him as deep and hard as I can, as I spank him and fuck him and turn him around, as I drag him to the floor and spit in his mouth, as I make him suck me, as I fuck his throat. He is also far, far gone, responding to my every move in kind, letting me fuck him like I'd never really done before.

I push him back to bed, on his back, put his ankles on my shoulders to fuck him standing up. He pulls his cock out of the side of his jockstrap to jerk off, and he begs me to go faster, harder, and I try, I speed up my strokes, until I can feel his hole tightening on my dick, and I barely manage to see how he is cumming all over himself, shooting up to his face, because I'm also there, filling him up with the strongest orgasm of my life.

- - - - -

On Sunday morning, my sister drives me to the airport. I think I slept less than two hours in total, and it takes all of my concentration to nod along and pretend to follow her conversation. In my mind, I can only think about the past week of marathon sex, possibly the best of my life, definitely the best I've ever had with him. Sex had always been good between us, but there had always been some stubborn barriers in place that I don't think I'd ever even noticed before. Maybe it was the lack of expectations, the pure selfishness of the moment, that let us finally enjoy each other in full. Maybe we were never meant to be together romantically. I wonder how it could have been, if we'd stayed as good friends, as fuckbuddies, back then when our lives were so uncertain, when the lockdowns forced us together much too soon.

My sister jolts me awake at the airport entrance, and I hug her goodbye, not noticing the all-too-knowing look on her face. For the first time in my life, I'm grateful that this airport is so small. I don't think I could have been able to deal with chaos right now. I check my bag in a daze, and take the escalator to security on the second floor. He's waiting there, looking about as sleep-deprived as I feel, cracking a smile when he sees me.

"What are you doing here," I say, not really asking.

"Can't a friend say goodbye?" he asks, unbothered.

I have to smile at that, despite myself. I hug him tightly, holding him close to me for as long as I can. He's the one who breaks the hug, softly prying my arms away. He kisses me on the cheek, briefly, surprisingly chaste.

"Call me," he says. "Let me know when you make it home safe."

We're flying somewhere above Britain when it hits me, half-sleeping, half-squished in the cheapest economy seat. Home. The new home I chose, instead of him; but also the old home I left behind, the old home that will always be a part of me. The home he needed to get back to, because he didn't just miss the sun and the hummingbirds, but the very connection to the ground beneath his feet. I was right, sex could never make me forget Fernando. But, I think, it might have helped me forgive him already, sometime between swallowing his cum and breeding him. I'm not sure if we'll ever fuck again, though we probably will. But I know that, finally, we can be just what we've always been best at. Friends.