Page 32 of His Worst Crime

“I don’t doubt it.”

They took the horses out of the water and up onto the hard sand, where they could see any rocks or other obstacles on the beach more easily, and let them have their heads. Ramon barely needed to apply the slightest pressure with his knees for Ferro to be off at a canter. Behind him David whooped, digging his heels into Desdemona to encourage her to follow suit. They caught up to Ramon and both horses broke into a hard gallop, thundering across the hard sand that stretched before them for miles. If before this, the animals had been racing nearly at their fastest, now, with the promise of home pastures and a decent feed in their minds, both horses bolted full pelt, stretching out their necks in a flat gallop as the wind whipped back their manes.

Once heading for home and a feed, there was nothing that could have pulled the horses in, and it was all Ramon and David could do to hold on, crouching flat along their withers, hands clasping the reins loose beside their horses’ necks, grinning across at each other as they rode, smiles breaking irrepressible across their faces, the wind whipping their hair back behind. They made the return leg in barely half the time it had taken them to ride outward. Once the horses had run themselves as hard as they could for ten minutes or more, the two riders began leaning back and reining them in, slowing them to a canter, then a more sedate trot, and finally a walk, giving them ample time to recover their wind before they got back to the car park. There were also other people on the beach now, families with small children running up and down between the water and their picnic site, so they had to take more care.

“How was that?” Ramon asked.

“Brilliant!” David’s face was a wreath of smiles. “I haven’t ridden like that since… so long!”

Ramon noticed his hesitation, and change of tack, but refused to ask him about his past. Not today. There’d be time. Things had been good, better than good, great… terrific! Amazing! He couldn’t stop smiling himself. Life didn’t get any better than this, did it? Here he had David beside him riding out on the Trabucador. After breakfast, they’d spent more time making love, so when they’d finally got around to doing the chores that had to be done around the place, it had been really late. He could still taste David in his mouth, after a long drawn-out tongue-exploring kiss they’d shared before getting out of the car and de-floating the horses. He carried the image of David even now present in his mind, ankles resting on his shoulders as he’d fucked him again, David smiling up at him, even through the pain. Though he’d tried to be gentle, and he had. But once he was inside him, David himself had been more insistent, wanting it harder, deeper, more aggressive. And all the time they’d been gazing into each other’s eyes. He’d got lost in that blue, that need and desire in his eyes as they’d surfed together up the back of that huge wave of their passion, surfing on its peak for timeless, never-ending moments, which nevertheless had come achingly, despairingly to a close as they’d tipped over the edge and come crashing down together, all the cum surging up from their balls at the same time. As he’d come deep inside David, he’d felt his lover spurt his hot jizz over his stomach. And they’d stayed like that, glued together in hot sticky wetness for long minutes as they kept kissing, not wanting it to be over, not wanting to come unstuck, or break the spell.

But all things eventually must end. Even so, the magical moment had lasted. It had held them together enmeshed in each other’s bodies under the hot shower, then dealing with the chores that wouldn’t do themselves, before spending a further lazy hour in the pale spring sunshine, just lounging on a bench outside the masia and kissing non-stop, trying to get inside each other’s soul through their mouths. David had wanted to pull him back into the bedroom, and he would have gone, but finally Ferro had whinnied in impatience, and Ramon had phoned the neighbor to see if they could borrow Desdemona, a young chestnut filly with come-hither eyes and a large white blaze down her face.

Ramon had changed into his weekend riding clothes—an old pair of gray jodhpurs and a heavy red-check bushman’s shirt. David was wearing more or less what he would wear around the stables, except that Ramon had lent him a charcoal-colored pair of jodhpurs that set off his ass spectacularly. His gaze kept sliding down there as they rode, wanting to get back in there as soon as they dismounted. Patience.

Soon the car park came into view, with Ramon’s pickup and the horse float poking head and shoulders above the other cars. They walked their mounts up the beach and into the car park. Tying them up to the horse float, they unsaddled and removed their tack, before rubbing them down. On the far side of the car park was a toilet block with a tap. Ramon took a coiled hose and a horse scraper from the back of his pickup, and they led the horses over to the toilet block. There they hosed the animals down, scraping off the excess water with the metal scraper.

“There’s a café up the road. We can stop there for lunch before heading back?” Ramon suggested.

“Lunch? Almost getting on for dinnertime where I’m from. It’s nearly five o’clock.”

“I always eat late on the weekends.”

They watered the horses once they were sure they’d thoroughly cooled down, and then loaded them up into the float, where Ramon attached a feed bag to each horse’s muzzle.

“That should keep them happy for the return trip.”

As they got into the pickup and buckled up, it felt to Ramon like they’d been doing this together their entire lives. Looking after the horses, they worked as the perfect team, helping and complementing each other with the feeding and grooming. Ramon had known David was good with horses, but he’d never seen him ride before. David was a natural, as if he’d been born in the saddle. How could this not be the perfect life? This was the one, he knew it. He was going to make this work whatever it took.

La Guingueta was a sort of beach shack set back among the dunes, with a wide terrace that looked like it had been tacked together from driftwood, while no two tables or chairs in the whole place matched. As they drew into the car park, David was feeling more relaxed than he had in months, literally glowing. As if a fire had been lit inside him, one that was shining out, lighting up the world, and everybody could see how happy he was. He hadn’t felt like this in years—maybe even forever. Part of it was getting back on a horse and having a decent gallop, sure. He’d never got much of a chance to take the horses at the stable out riding. In Barcelona, his life had been mainly working—mucking out, feeding, and helping to break in Boira. And there was nowhere on Monjuïc, or even throughout the city where you could gallop the horses like they’d just done. He’d been missing that sort of hard riding without really realizing it.

But maybe it was more. Or another kind of riding that left him feeling so jubilant. They’d had sex, like real proper sex, and it was even better than he could ever have imagined. The touching, feeling his body held by another man, the smells, tastes, and feelings…. He’d watched loads of porn growing up, like most kids his age, but nothing had prepared him for the real event. This had felt so right, so intimate, such a world away from the muscled straining bodies he’d watched on screen, with their monotonously repetitive cries of fake lust. Ramon had finally fucked him, slowly, deeply, lovingly, and it had felt like an exotic flower in his heart had opened, peeling back its delicate petals one by one, each thrust revealing another tender spot in his most vulnerable private self. And all the time they were fucking, he was drowning in Ramon’s dark gaze. Their eyes never left each other, except momentarily when they changed position slightly, such as Ramon releasing one of his ankles, letting his leg fall, so that he could straddle it, and fuck David harder and deeper from a sideways position, his other ankle still raised and resting on Ramon’s shoulder, where Ramon was smothering it with kisses, licking his toes, his gaze still boring into David even as he fucked him. Ramon had done things to him he hadn’t believed possible, opened him up and laid him bare. He simply hadn’t wanted their lovemaking ever to end.

Now sitting beside Ramon in his pickup, he felt completely satiated, emotionally and physically. But a third reason came to him: This… this situation… together, it felt like he’d finally come home, as if they’d been coming out here to run the horses on the sandspit their whole lives. This place in the passenger seat, with its splitting upholstery covered by an old jumper of Ramon’s, felt rightfully his. The big old sagging double bed back at the masia that they’d barely slept in yet felt like it was his bed too. He wished it could be.

But with that thought, reality hit. It was stupid, it was wrong, and it was really cruel to Ramon, because once this weekend was over…. David looked out the window and tried to focus on how beautiful the dunes were with the sun’s evening rays turning them golden-orange, the shadows of the umbrella pines beyond the car park stretching out in long purple stripes across the café‘s sun-kissed deck. Even though it was evening, it was still warm, mid-May, and they were now getting the occasional day that promised real summer heat. They got out of the pickup, David walking across to the café while Ramon quickly checked the float to make sure the horses were OK before joining him.

“Exercised, fed, they’re falling asleep back there,” he said as he took his place at the table opposite him.

A young waiter came to take their order. In his early twenties, chatty and keen, he described the different dishes the café offered—mainly salads and quiche-type dishes—with a gushing enthusiasm that rushed on oblivious to the weary glow within which Ramon and David sat basking. Ramon eventually stopped him and asked him to bring the hot dish he most recommended. For two. Once they were alone again, David said:

“Thanks for today… all of it. I haven’t ridden like that for ages. It was a bit like how we used to ride when I was a kid. Only more responsible,” he smiled coyly. “We’d wreck the horses. My dad would always be on at us that we’d give them colic or founder them. But we were kids, we’d treat them like racing cars, ride them till they were foaming at the mouth. Luckily nothing bad ever happened. At least I know better nowadays.”

“We gave them a good work-out—Ferro damn well needed it, and I don’t think Desdemona gets ridden enough—but we cooled them down properly and rubbed them down. They should be fine. How are you feeling?”

“To be honest, I’m wrecked too. Maybe we could… don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved it all, what we did… it’s been amazing, but maybe we could… sleep a little more tonight?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Ramon chuckling. “How’s your ass feeling?”

David couldn’t help his blush even as he smiled coyly.

“Ah… sore? Ridden hard by two different animals in the last… twelve hours.”

Just then the waiter arrived with a tray containing bread and two steaming plates of estofado, a thick beef and potato stew. They kept their laughter to themselves as he unloaded everything, setting it out before them. Then they began to eat. After a night in which they had barely slept, followed by intense lovemaking and then an equally intense ride, it was just what they needed, and silence fell as they ate.

Finally Ramon pushed back his plate, while David was still mopping up the final blobs of stew with the last of the bread. Then he too sat back:

“That was delicious! Now I just need a kip.”