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The sea swells under a pale orange sky, its rhythmic hush curling up to the balcony where he stands, wineglass in hand, staring out to the horizon. In moods like this, heavy and thoughtful, the Mediterranean feels to him like some primordial pond, the origin of things. The navel of the world. On the breeze hangs the smell of brine and warm, red stone. Down in the bay wealthy yachts hardly stir among the waves, and the tinkle and laughter of a party drifts from somewhere across the water. The evening is cooling after a sunny day.
“Roger,” says a voice from the other side of the balcony divider. Roger hangs his head forward and sees Rafa doing likewise, his hair falling a little into his eyes.
“Rafa,” says Roger. “I didn’t know you were next door.”
“Sí,” says Rafa. “I am.”
Roger grins. “Want a glass of wine?” he says.
“Sure,” says Rafa. “I come around.” He disappears and Roger hears the slide of the door back into his suite. He follows suit. Rafa is already at his door before he gets there.
“Come on,” says Roger.
“Are you alone here?” says Rafa, casting his eyes around the suite’s living room. “No kids? No Mirka?”
“Not yet,” says Roger. “They’re coming on Sunday.” The suite feels oddly empty without them. No toys piled on the plush sofa, no little shoes kicked off to be tripped on later, no half-eaten bowls of cereal on the dining table. Just rackets and grip tape and neat piles of tennis shoes in boxes by the wall. It seems to him suddenly anodyne, and he’s glad Rafa is here to fill the space. “Red wine okay?”
“Sure,” says Rafa. “Whatever you’re having.”
“So you escaped early too, huh?” says Roger. He gestures towards Rafa’s dark grey pants and white shirt, the top few buttons opened now, revealing the tanned skin of his chest, and a little untucked. Roger is still wearing his suit too, the tie still loose around his neck. It was a Nike event at the Grand Casino, something they both had to be photographed at.
“Sí,” says Rafa. “So boring, no? So many times.”
“Oh god, yeah,” says Roger. He hands a glass to Rafa. “Come out onto the balcony. It’s so nice to get a breath of fresh air after all that.”
They step outside and Roger draws the door almost closed behind them. Above them is the darkening sky, spread out over the mountains behind and the sea ahead. Monte Carlo twinkles below, a jewelled cluster at the edge of the continent. Roger takes a deep breath of sea air.
“Here,” he says. There’s a couch against the wall, covered in cushions and overhung with cantilevered glass and an early blooming clematis that smells of springtime. “Sit down.” They sit side by side, a little apart. Rafa sips his wine gingerly, like someone not quite used to the taste. He has an athlete’s care with alcohol. Roger puts his feet up on the low wooden table in front of them and leans back against the cushions. “I love these quiet weeks,” he says. “You know. Before the tournament starts.”
Rafa looks at him, one eyebrow angled in disbelief. “Really? You like this better?”
“I don’t know if I like it better,” says Roger. “I think I just appreciate the quiet. You know, like an old man.” He grins.
“Ha,” says Rafa. “Not so old, Roger.”
“Four kids, though, right? Maybe it’s not surprising I like the quiet.”
Rafa laughs. “Maybe,” he says. “Understandable.”
“You prefer the competition, I think.”
“Yes,” says Rafa, definitively. “I am not so patient.” He hesitates a moment, before adding, “But I like the quiet now.”
Roger smiles and reaches over to touch his shoulder, just a little, before drawing his arm back. Now and then he still can’t help it, the old flare of desire when he’s near Rafa. He has it mostly under control these days. Years ago, when he was younger, he felt an almost physical ache at times when Rafa was nearby. He averted his eyes from Rafa’s nudity in the locker room and then later he lay in bed thinking of him, thinking of his body, thinking ridiculous things, like how he felt he would die if he didn’t touch him. But over time, with hugs and handclasps and softer touches, he found it easier. Now he can tamp it down, ignore it. Ignore the false hope he feels at the little glint he imagines in Rafa’s eyes. Instead he breathes steadily and says, “Yeah? Good,” and smiles, just a friend.
Rafa toes off his shoes and puts his socked feet on the table, crossing his legs at the ankle. “I like Monte Carlo,” he says. “It reminds me of home.”
Roger thinks of the island rising from the sea, the clamour of Manacor’s streets, the stretch of Porto Cristo’s beaches. The sense of age he felt there, in the middle of the Mediterranean. The sense of streets laid down forever. “I love Mallorca,” he says, a little dreamily, before catching himself. “I mean, I loved it when I was there. Remember?”
“Of course,” says Rafa. “Battle of the Surfaces, no?” He pronounces it properly these days, not the “surfraces” of years ago, and Roger wonders who corrected such a lovely mistake.
“Remember that restaurant we went to afterwards, just you and me, when the media were gone? The place we ate mussels?”
“Las Dores,” says Rafa, nodding. “We should go there again sometime. Still very good mussels.”
“Okay,” says Roger. “Let’s do that.”
Rafa grins at him. “Okay,” he says, happily, and he raises his glass in silent toast and takes another sip of wine.
“What do you miss most when you’re on tour?” says Roger. This isn’t the usual kind of conversation they have, but he feels something different this evening. Something muted and calm, the kind of soft hush that invites truths, spoken quietly.
“I miss the sea,” says Rafa, after a moment. “Not the ocean, this sea. My sea, no? I miss the normal things, like the taste of fresh seafood and good olive oil, and I miss my garden and the path down to the beach in Porto Cristo. I miss my friends. I miss my home.” His brow is a little furrowed, his eyes on the distance. “You?” he says then, turning that intense gaze on Roger.
“Me?” says Roger. “Hmm. I miss the mountains, and the, I don’t know, the green smell of the wind, you know? I miss feeling like I’m under the sky. That makes no sense. I don’t know how to describe it.”
“In the mountains,” says Rafa, making the shape with his hands of a valley and the sky above.
“Yeah, exactly,” says Roger. He nudges Rafa with his elbow. “You get it. And I miss snow. It’s kind of stupid. It’s not like I’m there much anymore. I spend half my time in Dubai.”
“Home is home,” says Rafa, and though the sentiment seems simple, Roger knows the depth with which he means it.
“Yeah,” he says, quietly, drinking a little wine. “I guess I’ll see plenty of it once I retire anyway, huh?”
Rafa is silent for a moment. “You have plans, Roger?” he says.
“No, no. Not yet.” Sometimes he thinks of it, the days after tennis. He tries to imagine it. “What do you think you’ll do? I mean, after you retire.”
Rafa shrugs. “Work with my foundation, no? With the kids to play the tennis.”
“No,” says Roger. “I mean, every day? You get up in the morning… then what?”
Rafa frowns, looking out to sea. “I don’t know,” he says, after a moment.
“Me neither,” says Roger. “That’s what I can’t picture, you know? What I’ll do after I get out of bed.”
Rafa shifts his feet, heels against the edge of the table and knees bent. Roger is distracted, for a moment, by the length of his legs. He thinks Rafa has become slimmer in the past few years. Streamlined. “Yeah,” says Rafa. “I guess, first, breakfast. Then we’ll see, no?” He smiles a little.
“Yeah,” says Roger. “I guess that’s a good place to start.”
“Are you gonna keep the kids on tour?” says Rafa. “Or will they go to school?”
“Myla and Charlene start school in September,” he says. “That’s going to be weird.”
“What are you going to do? Will Mirka stay home?”
“We figure Mirka will stay home some of the time, and other times she’ll bring the boys and come with me, and our parents can stay with the girls.”
“Huh,” says Rafa, as if assessing the situation. “That will be strange.”
“Yeah,” says Roger. “Well, you manage, right? It’s not like Maria Francisca is with you all the time.”
Rafa levels a gaze at him, which Roger finds unreadable. “I think it’s different, Rogi,” he says, softly.
“I guess, a bit. With the kids and everything.”
Rafa’s expression turns quizzical, but he says nothing. He looks away after a moment and studies his glass intently, taking another mouthful and then rubbing the imprint of his lips from the rim.
“Maybe when I’m on my own we can hang out more,” says Roger. “Maybe in interviews you’ll finally say we’re friends.” He means to sound teasing but he knows he’s being peevish, all of a sudden. It’s just a thought that has drifted through his mind, now and then, every time he’s come across a quote or a soundbite in which Rafa is once more asked about their relationship and he once more insists that his friends are his friends in Mallorca, not his rivals on the tour. It has always stung a little.
Rafa shakes his head. “You know I don’t mean it this way, Roger,” he says.
Roger watches him for a moment, wineglass half empty, shirt almost fully untucked from his pants now where he lies against the couch cushions. He has a little stubble, as if it’s been a few days since he shaved. “Yeah,” says Roger. “I know.” A mouthful of wine. “Do you think we would have been friends, if we didn’t play tennis?”
Rafa shrugs. “How would we meet?”
“I don’t know. Just hypothetically.”
Rafa quirks an eyebrow.
“Just, you know, imagine it happened.”
“Friends,” says Rafa, as if weighing the word in his mouth. There are times when Rafa seems completely carefree to Roger, an explosion of expression, fully himself in front of the world. Then there are other times, when Roger feels there are wells of secrets inside Rafa that he has not plumbed. Whatever slow, silent currents swirl in their depths ripple now. “Yes,” says Rafa, carefully. “I think we would be friends.”
“Yeah,” says Roger, after a moment. “Me too.”
Night is falling across the bay. Above them the clematis gives one last burst of scent before curling up its petals. Rafa shifts in his seat and for a second Roger thinks he’s going to get up to leave, but he doesn’t. Instead he drains his wineglass and places it on the table in front of him, then leans back into the cushions. A little closer now, Roger can’t help noticing. He realises his body is awake to every movement Rafa makes, as if he can measure the distance between them in millimetres.
“It’s difficult, on the tour,” says Rafa, quietly, a confidence.
“What is?” says Roger. He finishes his own wine and leans back, angling himself towards Rafa now, his elbow on the back of the couch, his hand against his temple.
Rafa shakes his head a little. “You know. Relationships. Other people. Telling everything.” He touches his hand lightly to his chest.
“I guess,” says Roger. “I tell Mirka everything. I guess I’m lucky.” Rafa’s shoulders tighten a little. Roger would not have even noticed if they were not sitting so close. “Hey,” he says, letting his hand drop across the back of the couch. “What is it?”
For a second he almost thinks Rafa is going to tell him something entirely new, something from those silent depths, but then his face clears and he hits the back of his fist playfully against Roger’s knee. “Nothing,” he says. “I’m just…” He taps the side of his head, making a little loop with his fingers. “I think too much, no? Toni tell me this sometimes.”
“Rafa,” says Roger, gently touching his shoulder, so he has his arm almost around him now. “Do you ever think that sometimes Toni can be full of shit?”
Rafa looks shocked for a second, but then a grin spreads across his face and he laughs. “Sí, sometimes I think this, no?”
“Well, this might be one of those times.”
Rafa’s laughter subsides. Roger’s hand is still on his shoulder. The silence stretches out and Roger considers drawing his hand back, but something stops him, tells him to wait. Rafa lightly hits Roger’s knee again, eyes down, once more hiding his own thoughts. Something wrenches in Roger’s chest; an impatience, a burst of frustration. He grasps Rafa’s hand in his own. “Rafa,” he says. “What is it?”
Still Rafa says nothing. Then he twists his hand and entwines their fingers together. His palm is hot against Roger’s, his fingertips pressed white with the strength of his grip. Many things become clear all at once: Rafa’s silences, quizzical looks, and more, beyond this balcony, beyond this gentle, quiet evening. All of those soft touches at the net, fond smiles, close hugs. “Oh,” says Roger. Rafa looks raw, exposed, those deep, echoic secrets all drawn from the depths and written in his eyes. And something blooms in Roger, hope and happiness and want and a depth of affection that surprises even him. Rafa waits, wordlessly, and Roger realises he is afraid.
He kisses him for reassurance, at first. Gentle presses of his mouth that are little more than a sharing of breath. “I didn’t know,” he says.
“You want this, Roger?” says Rafa, his voice low, still unsure.
Roger exhales through a smile and presses his forehead to Rafa’s. “I’ve wanted you for so long, Raf.”
Rafa’s hands are on him now, holding his face, sliding down over his shoulders and and flat against his chest. “It’s true?” he says. His face lights up with a faint, hesitant smile.
“Oh god, yeah. For years.” Roger just wants to touch him, as if to be sure that this is real. His hands are all over Rafa’s body, and it is some kind of heady joy to finally feel the heat of his skin, the shape of him under his palms.
“You never say nothing, Rogi,” says Rafa. He’s doing the same, touching Roger with the same kind of look, like a man in a desert realising the water isn’t a mirage.
Roger kisses him again, breathy and open-mouthed. “I was afraid,” he says.
Rafa laughs a little. “Afraid I don’t like you?”
“Yeah,” says Roger. “I mean, afraid you didn’t like men in general. Me in particular.”
Rafa holds Roger’s jaw in his palm, his thumb pressing reassurances into his skin. “I like you,” he says, earnestly.
“I like you, too,” says Roger. He curls his fist into Rafa’s hair and lets his other hand rest on his leg, dragging slowly up the inside of his thigh, asking a silent question and reading the answer in the intensity of Rafa’s eyes, in his half-open mouth, his ragged breath. When he hesitates, resting his hand just close to Rafa’s groin, Rafa interlaces their fingers and brings Roger’s hand to his crotch, pushing up against him, letting Roger feel him through his pants. “This is what I want, Rogi,” he says. His voice is a throaty whisper and his mouth is open, ready to be kissed.
Roger surges forward and complies, this time open mouths and hot tongues. “Jesus, Rafa,” he says, pulling back, breathless.
“Roger,” says Rafa, and Roger can only see the sheen of his wet mouth. He feels a kind of wonder, looking at Rafa’s lips pink with kissing, his eyes so unguarded.
Rafa takes Roger’s tie in his fist and draws him back close, kissing him again, deeply, completely. Roger is lost. Rafa’s hands are everywhere, untucking his shirt and sliding over his stomach, over his shoulders and his arms. He sucks at a spot under Roger’s jawline and makes him whimper.
“Come on,” he says. “We go inside.”
Roger is weak with want. “No one’s gonna see us here, Rafa,” he says.
“No,” says Rafa. “But someone’s gonna hear us, no?” He kisses again at Roger’s jawline and whispers, “I’m gonna be loud, Roger, when you fuck me.”
Roger goes still, his mind flooded with the image of Rafa stretched out on the bed, his perfect body dark against cool white sheets. The thought of it fuels him: he stands, grabbing Rafa’s hand and dragging him through the door, which he closes and locks behind them. Then across the suite and into the bedroom, Rafa following. He closes the curtains and turns on the lamps. “I want to see you,” he tells Rafa, before kissing him again. For the first time they are pressed together, and Roger’s body is singing.
He strips Rafa first and pushes him, naked, down on the bed. He has to just look, for a moment, and Rafa sits and lets him. His cock is already hard, standing up against his stomach. Roger loosens his tie, slowly, deliberately, and throws it aside. He watches Rafa watching him, watches the tiny, sharp intakes of break as he removes his jacket, his shirt and his pants. He’s hard too. He peels off his socks but before he takes off his shorts, Rafa pulls him close. He opens his mouth against the cotton, his hot breath on Roger’s cock through the fabric, and Roger has to lean his hands on Rafa’s shoulders just to stay standing. Rafa pulls down his shorts, just to the top of his thighs, and takes Roger in his mouth, one hand wrapped around the base of his cock and the other gently kneading his balls. Roger runs his hands through Rafa’s hair and pats him blindly and comes in minutes, his toes curling against the floor.
He collapses onto the bed as Rafa wipes his mouth and grins obscenely. Roger can taste himself when Rafa kisses him. “You like that?” says Rafa, and Roger doesn’t know if he means the taste or the blow job or all of it, but he nods anyway.
“Yeah,” he says, still breathless. “Jesus, Raf.”
Rafa pulls Roger’s shorts fully off and drops them on the ground. Then he climbs over Roger’s body, his cock against his belly. Roger grips it, firm but smooth, and lets Rafa fuck himself into his fist. “Come on,” he says, as Rafa buries his face in Roger’s shoulder. “God, Rafa, you’re so hot, you know that? You’re so fucking hot like this.” Rafa whimpers in his ear and comes all over his stomach, and then collapses in the mess.
“Fuck,” says Roger, his head swimming. Rafa’s breath is hot against his shoulder and he’s heavy, but Roger loves the weight. “Hey,” he says, pressing his mouth into Rafa’s hair. “Let’s practice together soon.”
Rafa heaves himself up on one elbow to grin down at Roger. “Okay,” he says.
He is glorious and sticky in the dim gold light of the bedroom. Roger runs his hand down the length of Rafa’s back and over his ass. “I want to fuck you, Rafa.”
His eyes go dark and his grin turns to something else. “Okay.”
“Wait, I’ll get the stuff,” he says, scrambling off the bed. Rafa flops onto his back and watches him, bemused.
“What?” he asks.
“Lube, condoms,” says Roger, rummaging through the pockets of a suitcase. He glances over at Rafa, who has raised an eyebrow. Roger returns to the bed, condoms and lube in hand. “It’s--I use them with Mirka,” he says, awkwardly. Rafa just shrugs. “I don’t want you to think I do this with other guys.”
Rafa smiles and shakes his head. “Don’t worry, Roger,” he says.
Roger climbs back onto the bed beside him and he gently brushes some hair away from Rafa’s face. “Do you do this with other guys?” he asks, quietly.
Rafa holds his gaze, clear-eyed. “Yes,” he says. “Sometimes.”
Roger desperately wants to ask their names, are they on the tour, does he know them. Who are these other men who get to touch Rafa, who have been touching him all this time while Roger didn’t even realise he could. But he doesn’t. Instead he reaches for the tissues on the nightstand and wipes the drying mess off Rafa’s stomach and his own. Then he presses Rafa back against the bed and kisses him again. He kisses him deeply, hungrily, his mouth, his neck, his tongue along Rafa’s jaw. As if he wants to imprint himself on his skin. He has to stop for a moment and catch his breath when Rafa makes a tiny whimpering noise and lets his legs fall apart, Roger in between them. They’re both half hard again. Rafa’s hips are moving up against him, a gentle rhythm. He has one arm around Roger’s waist and his other hand is kneading Roger’s ass. “Roger,” he says. HIs voice has that guttural quality again, turned on.
“Yeah?”
“I want you deep in me, no?”
Blood rushes to Roger’s cock and it takes a second for his head to clear. “Okay,” he says, a little strangled.
“So I gonna turn over.”
Roger is rock hard again. He presses his forehead against Rafa’s chest. “Okay,” he says again. Rafa turns underneath him, reaching for a pillow and putting it under his hips. He jerks his own cock a couple of times before lying down, ass in the air, Roger kneeling between his legs. “God, Rafa,” he says, laying his hands on the globes of Rafa’s ass. “Fuck.” Rafa wriggles slightly, pushing up into Roger’s palms.
“You like?” he says, looking back over his shoulder.
He’s smiling a little, like someone who knows how good he looks like this, spread out on soft, white sheets, asking to be fucked. “Yeah,” says Roger. “I like.” He rakes his eyes down Rafa’s body, the thought that this is Rafa, here in his bed, catching over and over in his mind. He runs his hands over his back, over the muscles, the hollow at the base of his spine, the curve of his ass, his thumbs down between the cheeks. Rafa sighs and writhes again, his eyes falling shut for a moment. Roger’s hands continue down his thighs, across the tan line, and back up again. He spreads Rafa open, and he has the sudden urge to dip his mouth down, to bury his face in his ass. So he does.
Rafa gasps and tenses, and then exhales a long, shuddery breath, easing into it. Roger is half outside himself. This is nothing he’s ever done before, not even with Mirka. He’s thought about it, sometimes, at the sight of Rafa’s ass in the locker room, or now and then the image would come unbidden when Rafa started wearing those tighter shorts. But to actually do it is something else entirely. And yet here he finds himself, mouth open and wet and wanting it, working his tongue, listening for every breath and whimper from Rafa’s mouth, and Rafa’s luscious ass filling his hands. Rafa is undulating against him, palms pressed down on the sheets, lost.
“Oh, fuck, Rafa,” he says, breaking off. It’s too much. He reaches for the lube and covers his fingers. Rafa looks back at him, half-glazed already, his eyelids fluttering as Roger slides inside. He works him open, pressing kisses to his back, murmuring soothing nothings into his skin.
“Rogi,” says Rafa, half choked, “please. I need.” He pushes back against Roger’s fingers. “I’m ready, please.”
Roger grabs for a condom and rolls it on with a slippery hand. “Okay,” he says. “Jesus, Rafa, yes.” He pushes slowly inside, into Rafa’s body, till he’s all the way home.
He lies on top of Rafa, clasping their hands together, his mouth pressed against his shoulder. He braces against the bed with his knees and pulls out a little, then slides back in, feeling Rafa exhale sharply underneath him. His own head is swimming with the tight heat. “Oh, Raf,” he whispers. “You’re so fucking hot, you know that?” Slowly out, then slam back in. Gasp. “I wanted you so long. I can’t…” Again, again. Sweat blooms all over his skin. “Can’t tell you how much I want you.” And on he goes, whispering to Rafa all the things he never thought he would say. “I want to make it good for you.” He changes angle. “Is it good?”
Another change of angle and Rafa squeezes his eyes shut, groaning. “Oh sí, yes, there.” Roger slams back in again. Rafa said he’d be loud, but only now does Roger realise what that meant. The sounds Rafa is making are nothing like on court. These are earthy, full groans, not of effort but of pleasure. They send ripples through Roger’s body, electrifying him, fuelling him, till he’s pounding into Rafa. Rafa is arching up against him, opening further to him, taking all of him balls-deep over and over again.
“Come on, Rafa,” says Roger, in his ear. “I want to see you come.”
Rafa grabs his hand and brings it to his cock. “Here,” he says, his breath hitching. “Please.”
It’s all Roger can do, against the pillow, to let Rafa fuck into his fist. He presses his fingers down against Rafa’s balls on every thrust. “Come on,” he says. “Come for me, Raf.”
And Rafa does. He jerks unsteadily, his breath catching, and then Roger feels the pulse of his cock and the clench of his ass as he comes, striping the pillow, his mouth silently, breathlessly open and his forehead pressed to the sheets. Only when he’s coming down again does he groan, this time with deep, boneless satisfaction.
“Ohhhh, Roger,” he says, the words soft in his mouth.
Roger waits, uncertain if Rafa is too sensitive now or if he can slam home the way everything in his body wants him to. It’s only when Rafa looks back at him, sleepy and sexy, saying, “You come, now. Come in me,” that Roger lets go. He braces himself on his elbows and fucks himself into oblivion, his orgasm hitting him like a wall, like falling, Rafa’s tight, wet heat all he can think of, the press of salty skin against his mouth. Then the waves subside, and he collapses over Rafa. He eases out of him, ties off the condom and lets it fall on the ground, before wrapping himself around him, their bodies slick with sweat.
“Holy shit,” he says in a whisper, grinning against Rafa’s shoulder.
Rafa laughs a little. He lifts up and takes the ruined pillow out from under him, throwing it against the wall. “Sorry for that,” he says, not sorry at all. He rolls over and gathers Roger in his arms. Roger feels cloudy and giddy and he wants to laugh, and Rafa looks the same. He stretches like a cat, long and satisfied. “So good, Rogi,” he says, his face creasing into a smile.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” They grin stupidly at each other.
“It was amazing.” Roger feels starry-eyed, loose-limbed. He feels utterly content.
Rafa sighs. “I don’t wanna move.”
“Then don’t,” says Roger. He thinks of Rafa beside him in bed, he thinks of early sun seeping through the curtains and long, leisurely sex in the sleepy morning. “Stay.”
“When will you practice tomorrow?”
“Not till the afternoon. You?”
“Same.”
“With who?”
“Pico.”
“Is he-- do you--?”
Rafa’s arm tightens a little, then relaxes again, stroking Roger’s side like he’s soothing him. “Yes,” he says.
Roger nods. “Are we going to do this again?”
Rafa rolls over him, pressing him against the sheets, his face buried in the crook of Roger’s shoulder. “I hope,” he says. “I want.”
Roger threads his fingers through Rafa’s hair and just holds him there. “Me too,” he says.