Made In Portugal Read online

  The sky was turning a deep and vibrant shade of orange and red with the sun now hidden behind the hill in the distance.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “For sharing the journal with me, for taking time off work to come this trip with me, for not panicking when the car stopped, for coming up the hill with me - making me feel safe.”

  “Are you going to thank me for the sunset too?” David let out a chuckle.

  “Did you make it happen?”

  “I am led to believe it happens every day, but what do I know? I’m only a baker so I can't take credit for the sunset.”

  “You are so much more, David.” I wanted to tell him he was everything, but the words were stuck in my throat, and I knew it would make him run for the hills in the far distance.

  I knew all this was very new to David. He seemed comfortable in his own skin when he was around me, and I’d only caught him checking his surroundings a couple of times today. Not that we had displayed any kind of affection in public, but I wondered if in his mind he was worried that people might guess we were together by looking at us.

  Part of me wanted to tell him no, people wouldn’t guess. We were just two friends on holiday together.

  The other part, the one that held hope for something more, whatever it may be, wanted him to wonder if people thought we were a couple. I wanted him to consider that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if people knew.

  Fuck, I was a selfish bastard. When I told my parents I was gay, they didn’t bat an eyelid. Not only that, but they also accepted my best friend and made him part of our family. David’s experience was the complete opposite of mine, and he hadn’t even come out to his family yet.

  My earlier state of relaxation leaning against David gave way to tension, and I felt that I was going to be sick. I should just take a breath and appreciate this moment for what it was, nothing more, and manage my expectations.

  There was a strong possibility that David might never come out to his family, and our time together in a few years from now would be forgotten in the past, not to be repeated or shared with anyone else.

  I let out an “oomph” when my back hit the ground as David maneuvered me in super speed so I was lying on the ground and he was straddling me.

  “Stop it,” he said lowering himself down, so we were face to face, “I could hear your brain working overtime. What’s up?”

  “Oh, nothing... nothing important,” I said looking up at the sky and noticing it was still very light despite the darkness below the line of the horizon.

  “If you don’t come out of your head I’m going to make you.”

  “Oh yeah? And how do you propose to do that?” I asked running my hands down his firm, broad chest and letting them rest on his waist.

  “Like this,” he said stealing a too-short kiss from my eager mouth, “like this,” he said licking a path from my ear down to my collarbone.

  “Fuck.”

  “Like this,” he pulled my t-shirt up and teased one of my nipples into a hard peak, “and this,” then moved to the other.

  “Jesus, fuck that feels amazing David,” I could feel my need for him unfurling, and there was only one way this could end.

  “Oh yeah?” what he said next stopped caused my already erratic breathing to come to a halt, “Joel, I’d like to taste you, if that’s ok.”

  It was possible I died since my heart rate had just increased tenfold. We’d been in the same position only this morning, but somehow it felt that we’d also come so far and I had no doubt from the look in his eyes this time it was going to happen.

  “Erm... ok,” I said, trying to keep my lust at bay for a second, “David, you don’t have to, you know? I won’t mind.”

  “I want to, Joel. I really want to.”

  I placed my hand on his face and held it for a moment, trying to read him. There was nothing but desire in them, so I nodded.

  David scooted lower down my body and brought his mouth back to my chest. He made his way towards the button of my shorts so slowly I thought I was going to expire from need. Without stopping the teasing sucks and licks on my skin, he opened the button of my fly and lowered the zipper down.

  When he palmed my erection over my boxer shorts, I involuntarily raised my hips to increase the pressure. I could see a small patch where I was now leaking. David took a sharp intake of breath, like he was surprised to see my body’s reaction to what he was doing, then licked the patch while stroking me over the boxer shorts.

  “Fuck, David. Are you sure you’ve never done that before?”

  He chuckled but didn’t give me an answer because he was too busy getting rid of my clothing to release my aching cock. I felt a chill the moment I was exposed, reminding me we were out in the open. I really hoped we couldn’t be seen from the road, although no cars had passed in all the time we’d been here.

  David gave my cock a tentative stroke like he was trying it out for size. Fortunately for me, he must have found that it fits because he carried on doing it, applying the slightest bit of pressure and twisting his wrist as he motioned up and down.

  “Mhmm,” my moan turned into a cry when David replaced his hand with his mouth, and my body felt like it was going to spontaneously combust. I couldn’t even look at him because I knew it would be too much. There was no finesse in it, David was exploring and trying, and I had willingly volunteered to be his subject.

  Words were stuck in my throat, “Oh fuck, yes, David, oh god.”

  He gave me a break from the overwhelming sensations by kissing my stomach and my thighs. I was equal parts appreciative and frustrated. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was doing it to torture me.

  When he returned his mouth to me, there was a renewed purpose, and he took no prisoners. He had me on the verge of coming within a minute. It was all too much, and I just couldn’t keep my orgasm at bay, I didn’t even want to, I was so ready to give in.

  “David, baby I’m...fuck I’m going to come soon,” I warned.

  He nodded and kept going, faster, deeper.

  “David. David. I’m... I...” I came into his mouth, my body coiling in pleasure before relaxing again. I had expected him to withdraw his mouth from me just before I came, so I was surprised to see he hadn't when I lazily lifted my head to pull him into my arms.

  “Did you like that?” he asked.

  “I think all the residents in the nearby villages know how much I liked it,” I said before take David’s mouth for a searing kiss.

  Seeing David’s delight in the pleasure he gave me made me so proud of him I felt as though my heart was suddenly too big for my chest.

  I pulled my shorts back up, now feeling the chill of the summer night, and turned to David to return the favor.

  “No need,” he said, and his face lit up by the moon was five shades of red, “I er, came in my shorts.”

  This man really had the power to take words away from me. I’d never been with anyone that had been so into satisfying me that they’d come without even touching themselves.

  We lay on the ground for a little while, looking at the moon and the stars. The soil beneath me still felt warm from the sun. I knew we’d have to get back to the car soon but lying here with David pressed against me was so perfect I didn’t want to move.

  I could pretend just for a little while that we were real boyfriends and had a lifetime of adventures ahead of us.

  “We should get back to the car,” David said jolting me awake. I hadn’t realized that I’d dozed off.

  “Ok.”

  When we returned to the car, David changed into a clean pair of jeans, and I did the same since I wasn’t sure how cold it would get overnight.

  We leaned the seats of the car as far back as they would go and used the sleeping bags to keep warm. We were turned facing each other but didn’t speak for a bit, the silence between us a welcome friend.

  My eyes mapped David’s face, his dark eyes, and ridiculously long eyelashes, the
five o’clock shadow, his perfectly proportional nose, his brown hair that despite the short length seemed to get wavier as the day progressed. All of his features combined made him the most good-looking man I’d ever seen, and when I added what I knew about him as a person, he became almost perfect.

  Ok, I knew no one was perfect, and I certainly didn’t want to put David on a pedestal. It was unfair to do that to him. He had the right to mess things up and make the wrong choices. But despite all that I knew in my heart that he was perfect for me. He always had been. Because he was probably the only man that would ever make me feel like I could say the words I love you out loud.

  “I’m hungry,” his statement interrupted my thoughts.

  “What?”

  “I’m hungry. I’m going to eat some cake,” he said looking for the bag with the two slices of Sericaia, “if you want some say now or forever hold your pea--“

  “Want some!” I shouted, “gimme.”

  We ate cake and talked until we were both too tired and eventually fell asleep.

  I woke up at some point in the middle of the night to find David holding my hand in his sleep. With a smile on my face, I rapidly fell back asleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  David

  The last thing I remember before I fell asleep last night was holding Joel’s hand as he mumbled away about all sorts of random things until he could no longer string a sentence together and probably fell asleep himself shortly after.

  The loud sound of a tractor was enough to jolt me awake, but the awkward position I slept in made it difficult to get up fast enough to get out of the car and ask for help. Joel was still asleep with his hair sticking up at all angles making him look all kinds of sexy.

  Being stranded in the middle of the countryside wasn’t how I’d imagined spending the first night of our holiday but wasn’t going to complain when making love to Joel under the stars was now the new highlight of my life.

  Making love was unequivocally what we’d done. From the moment Joel nodded his consent while making sure I was ready to take the next step, it became more than getting him off and doing something I’d never done to another man.

  Exploring Joel’s body, I felt like the Portuguese ancestors who discovered the New World. Land was still land, water was still water, and people had the same number of limbs.

  Joel was my New World, his body was so similar to mine but also so different.

  He was slimmer and taller; his skin was a lighter shade, no doubt from all the time he spent indoors in the city. The part of Joel that was new was his reaction to each of my touches. For all my tentative and unsure strokes, kisses, and licks, Joel reacted as though I’d been doing this forever. That we had been doing this forever and each time was better than the last.

  I suddenly found the confidence I didn’t know I needed, but I also knew that I wasn’t suddenly a pro at sucking dick. The fact Joel had enjoyed it so much given my inexperience meant that we were beyond the no strings attached summer fling we’d agreed to, whether we acknowledged it or not.

  I couldn’t start to unravel what it all meant so I decided to do the only thing I could. Try to get us back to the hotel.

  I gently stroked Joel’s face to wake him up. His eyes scrunched up as though he wasn’t too pleased with being woken up. I chuckled.

  “Shut up,” he said with a groggy voice, and indignation, “I was in the middle of a dream, and you ruined it.”

  “I’d like to be sorry, but we need to find a way out of here before it gets too hot.”

  “It was already too hot, but you stopped it, you ruiner of hot sexy dreams,” he pouted.

  I leaned over to his side of the car and kissed him, gently at first, but when his tongue came out to lick my lips, I couldn’t resist having a taste.

  “Tell me about your dream.”

  “Not as hot as your kiss, even though Matt Bomer was in it.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” I gave him another quick kiss and made my way out of the car.

  It took us a while to figure out how to pop the hood of the car up to see if we could find out what the problem was. I didn’t know the first thing about cars, so I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at.

  “You’re Portuguese, can’t you find a way to fix the car?” Joel said as though this qualified me to do it.

  “Well, you’re half Portuguese, can’t you half fix the car?”

  We looked at each other and laughed.

  I knew what he meant. Most of my friends would know what was wrong with the car just by looking at it. I was sure it wasn’t an exclusive trait to the Portuguese people, but everybody always seemed to just know stuff. I’d recently overheard two middle-aged women in my café talking about the plumbing in their bathroom and how the guy they got to fix it had done a poor job.

  The few friends I had who would know how to fix the car had learned those skills from their dads. Growing up without a father meant I learned other skills from my mom. Even my uncle had never been interested in typically male activities. For as long as I’d known him he’d been attached at the hip to my aunt, working in the café and taking as much of the hard work from her as he could. It was in my view the only redeeming quality he had.

  “Look!” Joel called out and raised his arms, waving wildly at an approaching pick-up truck.

  The truck pulled up in front of our car and a man in his mid-fifties wearing a well-worn and paint-stained polo shirt and jeans walked up to us.

  “Bom dia,” the man drawled in his Alentejo accent, slow and relaxed as though he didn’t have anywhere else to be, “precisam de ajuda?” he asked if we needed help.

  “Bom dia, the car stopped last night, we don’t know what’s wrong,” I explained.

  He asked if we could try starting the car. Joel went behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine cranked but didn’t start.

  “It looks like your battery is dead. I have the cables to jump start it. Do you know where you need to go?”

  “Yes, I think we’ll go to our hotel and call a mechanic from there.”

  “Were you going to Hotel Casa Do Campo?”

  “How did you know?” Joel asked.

  “There's only one place this road leads to, the hotel. You boys are lucky, the main road to the hotel is on the other side of those fields, so the locals who live nearby are the only ones that use it.”

  Our rescuer, Senhor Rodrigo, turned his truck so it was facing our old 2CV and then got the jumper cables out of the back. We only stood there watching as he expertly connected the cables. Once we had both cars running, we had to wait a few minutes before we could disconnect them.

  We found out in that short time that Senhor Rodrigo was born and bred in Évora and had a wife of 25 years and two daughters at University, one locally and the other in Lisbon. He was a painter and decorator and worked exclusively for the hotel. Since they had three locations in and around the city, he was kept busy.

  Once we had a functioning car, we drove the few miles to the hotel. It wasn't difficult finding the driveway to the hotel since it was a tall iron gate attached to a white wall with bright blue trim on either side.

  The driveway up to the hotel was paved with the traditional smooth cobblestones. There were landscaped gardens with trees on either side of the road leading all the way to the small parking lot by the hotel.

  The reception desk was a dark polished wood with two big chairs in front of it for guests to check in comfortably. It felt wrong to sit on them considering I was desperate for a refreshing shower.

  The receptionist behind the desk was dressed in a hotel uniform that made me feel slightly out of place in my jeans and creased t-shirt, but her smile put me at ease. Joel had booked this hotel, so I sat there looking around at the surroundings and wondering how much of a fortune Joel had spent on the hotel. They moved us from the city hotel, so maybe we also got an upgrade for our trouble.

  Joel explained what had happened the night before and also asked for adv
ice on getting a mechanic to pick up the car and get the battery changed today since we’d agreed to spend the day relaxing in the hotel.

  I was barely paying attention to their conversation when I heard her speech falter.

  “What’s that?” I asked, turning my attention back to her and Joel.

  “I’m so sorry sir, I don’t know what happened, but we seem to have you booked in a king size room, and we don’t have any twin rooms left.”

  Joel looked at me and frowned as though he was confused. I wasn’t any less confused than he was.

  “I didn’t book a twin room,” Joel said, “I booked a double or king size room. Isn’t that what you have for us?”

  The girl looked at Joel, and then at me, at the computer and back at the two of us until something seemed to click, “Oh. Oh! Er...yes, we have a... that booked for you. So there isn't a problem at all. Here are your keys. Would you like us to help you with your bags?” She asked.

  We declined help and made our way to the room.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “That was the receptionist assuming that because we are two guys, we would have booked a twin and then realizing that we had purposefully booked a room with only one bed because, well, you know.”

  My heart started beating faster, and a slight panic crawled over me, “Oh my god, she knows!” my voice strained as I tried to temper my rising concern.

  Joel didn’t say anything, but he opened the door to the room and let us both in. The room was spacious, with a big balcony that had two chairs and a table overlooking the garden and swimming pool of the hotel and the wheat fields in the distance.

  He turned and started undressing me beginning with my t-shirt and then my jeans until I was in front of him fully naked. I hadn’t bothered with underwear when I changed last night, and his surprise showed on his pinked skin. Without too much thought I returned the favor by undressing him until we were both standing stark naked in the middle of the room.

  “Shower,” Joel commanded as he pulled my hand towards the bathroom. The shower was enormous and had a tiled bench that ran across the width of it. He turned the water on and waited until it was a comfortable temperature before he pulled us into the shower.