Chapter 3: Meat and Memories
The roadside parrilla was a shack of bleached wood and rusted tin. Flies danced in the heat-hazed air above two rickety tables. The smell of charring meat was profound, a welcome assault that briefly cut through the diesel and musk clinging to their clothes.
Juan ordered for them both with a sharp clap of his hands. “Dos lomos, bien jugosos. Y dos Quilmes.” He didn’t ask. Dimitri was grateful.
They sat on splintering benches. Juan’s knees splayed wide, invading the space beneath the small table. The beers arrived, sweating beads of condensation. Juan took a long pull, his throat working, then wiped his beard with the back of a hairy wrist.
“Entonces, tu viejo,” Juan began, his dark eyes fixed on Dimitri. “Lo extrañas?”
The question, so direct, unlocked something. Dimitri nodded, staring at the label on his bottle. “Every day. He is… he was everything. My best friend. We did everything together. Training, working.” He took a shaky breath. The words came easier in the shadow of this older, similarly massive man. “He is huge. Like a bear. More hair than me. More muscle. When he walked into a room, everything stopped. He had this… smell. Like iron and pine and sweat. It was home.”
He glanced up. Juan was watching him, utterly still. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were sharp, taking in every flicker on Dimitri’s face.
“He taught me everything,” Dimitri continued, the confession spilling out. “How to be strong. How to be a man.” The memory of his father’s hands correcting his stance in the gym, the rough paternal hugs that crushed the air from his lungs, the deep, reassuring voice in the dark. And the other memories, the ones that made his stomach tighten and his blood flow south: the secret lessons, the praised obedience, the profound, overwhelming taste of his father’s approval, given in the most primal way possible. He shifted on the bench, a faint blush creeping up his neck.
Juan’s smile was slow, a subtle curve in the black thicket of his beard. He said nothing, just took another drink. His gaze drifted, for the briefest moment, to the front of Dimitri’s shorts, where the heavy denim was tented unmistakably. The smile deepened.
“Mi mujer,” Juan said after a heavy pause, changing the subject yet somehow continuing it. “Es una santa. Y en la cama… Dios mio.” He made a fist, shook it in the air with a grin. “Pero la ruta es una puta celosa. Me traga por meses. No la veo, no la toco.” He spun the wedding ring around his finger. “Las necesidades se acumulan. Se ponen grandes, pesadas.” He tapped his temple. “Acá también. A veces, en la litera de atrás, tengo que sacármela. O encuentro algún alivio en el camino. Algún huequito que necesita un hombre.”
Dimitri listened, frozen. The crude honesty was electrifying.
“Y bañarse…” Juan snorted, leaning back and spreading his arms. The movement amplified his scent, that cocktail of sun-baked skin and deep, salty maleness. “A veces no hay ducha por días. Uno se acostumbra. Al principio molesta, después… te gusta. Huele a hombre. A trabajo. A potencia.” He sniffed at his own armpit theatrically and laughed, a rich, unapologetic sound. “Vos, con este calor y este cuerpo… vas a oler como un hombre de verdad muy pronto, pibe. A bestia, como yo.”
Before Dimitri could process the statement, Juan reached across the table. His big, calloused hand landed firmly on Dimitri’s left pec, squeezing the dense muscle and coarse hair through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. The touch was proprietary, assessing.
“Mierda,” Juan muttered, impressed. “Puro músculo. Y peludo. Para tu edad… sos un toro.”
Dimitri’s breath hitched. The touch burned.
“My father,” Dimitri blurted out, his voice thick. “He was the model. A beast. Like you. Even more.”
Juan’s hand stayed put, his thumb rubbing a slow circle. His eyes locked onto Dimitri’s. He’d seen the bulge jump at the mention of the father. He said nothing. Just the knowing smile, and a final, firm squeeze before pulling back as the sizzling steaks were slammed down in front of them.
They ate mostly in silence, the rich meat a grounding counterpoint to the dizzying exchange. Juan devoured his steak with visceral pleasure, juice on his beard. Dimitri chewed mechanically, every sense tuned to the man across from him.
After paying, Juan stretched, his spine cracking. “Vamos a mear. El camino es largo.”
The bathroom was a single filthy closet at the back of the gas station, reeking of piss and cheap cleaner. Juan shouldered the door open and lumbered in, Dimitri following, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Juan went straight to the cracked urinal, already working the button on his shorts. “Ah, eso sí alivia,” he grunted.
Dimitri stood frozen, unable to look away. Juan shoved his shorts and briefs down just past his thick thighs. It wasn’t a reveal; it was an event.
Even completely soft, it was the most formidable piece of flesh Dimitri had ever seen. A heavy, thick tube of meat, deeply tanned and roped with veins, nestled in a dense black forest of wiry hair. It was long, shockingly so, the flared head half-peeking from its hood. Beneath it, hanging in a wrinkled, hair-fuzzed sac, were two eggs the size of plums, swinging heavily with his movement.
The scent that bloomed from him was instantaneous and overwhelming: a pungent, fermented, salty musk, the very essence of unwashed, virile manhood, concentrated and undeniable. It was his father’s scent times a thousand, raw and uncontaminated by nostalgia.
Dimitri’s mind short-circuited. Memories flooded him, vivid and tactile: kneeling on cold linoleum, his face buried in that same type of hairy, musky groin, the weight of a similar monstrous cock on his tongue, the guttural sounds of paternal praise as he swallowed. The conditioning. The need. It wasn’t trauma that curled in his gut; it was a deep, starving hunger.
He realized he was achingly hard, his own considerable size straining against his zipper.
Juan, already pissing a powerful, noisy stream into the bowl, glanced over his shoulder. He saw Dimitri’s stare, saw the rigid outline in his pants. A proud, amused smirk twisted his lips.
“Genética argentina, pibe,” he said, giving his massive shaft a casual shake. “A las mujeres les vuelve locas. Les parte al medio.” He finished, tucked himself away with a nonchalant heft, but didn’t button up. He turned, leaning back against the urinal, his gaze dropping to Dimitri’s evident predicament. “Pero vos… no te queda nada atrás, eh? Para ser tan joven, tenés un arma potente también.” He nodded, a connoisseur’s approval. “Tu viejo te pasó buena herencia.”
The compliment, delivered in that rumbling voice in the stinking little room, shattered the last of Dimitri’s pretense. He couldn’t speak. He could only look at the older man, his expression one of naked want and total surrender.
Juan’s amused smirk softened into something else. Something darker, hungrier, and completely in control. He read everything in Dimitri’s face—the recognition, the craving, the trained obedience. He took a step forward, the space evaporating. The musky scent enveloped Dimitri.
“Bueno,” Juan murmured, his voice now a low, intimate growl that vibrated in the humid air. He reached out and palmed the back of Dimitri’s neck, his grip firm and possessive. “Parece que los dos tenemos necesidades que atender.”