Martha, After Midnight

The rain had stopped by eleven, the usual October storm that rolls over Mexico City every afternoon and leaves the Centro shining. On República de Cuba the puddles reflected pink neon, and the organillero who worked the corner by Bellas Artes had packed up his hand organ and gone home. Daniel stood in front of an unmarked steel door with a small painted bat above it. He checked the address on his phone for the third time.

La Cripta. Back room. Ask for the absinthe.

Inside it was red light and fog machines, Siouxsie on the speakers and a dance floor full of kids in fishnets and boots. He asked the bartender for the absinthe and got pointed down a narrow hallway lined with votive candles and Day of the Dead marigolds that someone had started setting out early. The cempasúchil gave the air a sharp, spicy smell over the smoke.

She was sitting in a velvet booth at the end of the hallway, legs crossed, a glass of mezcal in front of her with orange slices and sal de gusano.

Martha looked exactly like her photos and somehow more. Black hair cut blunt at the jaw, dark lipstick, a corseted black dress with a high slit, and a silver septum ring that caught the candlelight. She was tall even sitting down. She watched him walk the whole length of the hallway without looking away.

"Daniel," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Martha. Hi. I wasn't sure I had the right place."

"Nobody is, the first time. That's why I like it." She nodded at the seat across from her. "Sit. I ordered you a mezcal. If you hate it, I'll drink it."

He sat. He tasted it. It was smoky and sharp, and he didn't hate it.

"So," she said, putting her elbows on the table. "Before anything else, the boring part. The envelope goes in my bag, not my hand. Thank you." He slid it over and she tucked it away without counting. "My apartment's in Roma Norte, ten minutes in an Uber. Condoms every time, no exceptions. I say what happens and when, and you can say no to anything, any time. Same goes for me. Good?"

"Good," Daniel said. "Very good, actually."

"And there's one more thing I tell everyone in person, because I'd rather see your face than read your text." She tilted her head and kept looking right at him. "I'm trans. I have a cock, and I plan to keep it. Some men book me because of that. Some book me without reading the fine print. I think you're the second kind."

Daniel blinked. For a second the music from the main room seemed very loud.

"I... no," he admitted. "I didn't know."

"I figured." She didn't sound annoyed or embarrassed. She sounded like a woman who had said this a hundred times and had stopped apologizing for it a long time ago. "So here's your exit. Finish your drink, keep half the money, go eat tacos al pastor on Eje Central and tell your friends about the weird goth bar. No hard feelings. Truly."

He didn't move. He looked at her: her painted mouth, her long fingers on the glass, the calm way she sat, like the whole room belonged to her. He thought about the photos he'd spent a week looking at, and how none of them had felt any less hot now that he knew.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"You can ask. I might not answer."

"Is it... do you like being with men who've never...?"

Martha smiled for the first time, slow and a little wicked. "I like being with men who are curious and polite. The rest I can teach."

Daniel finished his mezcal in one swallow and set the glass down. "Then I'd like to stay."

"You're sure? I'm not doing this so you can freak out in my bedroom."

"I'm sure." He was a little surprised by how sure he was. His pulse was pounding, and not from nerves. "Honestly? I'm into it. I want to know you."

She studied him for one more long second. Then she stood, picked up her bag and offered him her hand.

"Then come on, güero. Let's go home."

---

Her building was a 1920s Porfirian house on Calle Colima that had been split into apartments, with high ceilings, original tile floors and tall French windows looking onto a balcony full of potted ferns and a single bougainvillea. Through the glass you could see the lit-up cupola of a church and, farther off, the red light on top of the Torre Latinoamericana. The apartment smelled like copal and vanilla. Old horror movie posters hung on the walls, and books were stacked on every flat surface.

"Drink?" she asked, dropping her keys in a clay bowl.

"I'm okay."

"Good. Then come here."

She didn't wait for him. She walked up, took his jaw in one hand and kissed him. It was unhurried and deep, the kind of kiss you get from someone who knows exactly what she's doing. He made a sound against her mouth and she laughed softly into his.

"Breathe," she murmured. "We have all night."

She walked him backward into the bedroom: a big iron bed, black sheets, candles she lit one by one while he watched. Then she turned around and lifted her hair off her neck.

"Zipper."

His hands weren't completely steady when he pulled it down. The dress fell open over the long line of her back, a tattoo of moths and roses climbing her spine. She stepped out of it and turned around in black lace underwear and nothing else. Her breasts were small and high, her nipples dark and pierced with tiny silver bars. Under the lace, the shape of her cock was obvious and already half hard.

Daniel stared.

"You can look," Martha said. "That's the point."

"You're beautiful," he said, and it came out rough.

"I know." She smiled. "Now take your shirt off. I'm not the only one getting naked."

She undressed him slowly, like she was unwrapping something she'd paid for and not the other way around. She ran her nails down his chest and unbuckled his belt, and when his jeans hit the floor she palmed him through his boxers and hummed with approval at how hard he already was.

"Somebody's not so surprised anymore."

"Somebody's been thinking about you since the bar," he admitted.

She pushed him down to sit on the edge of the bed and stood between his knees. Up close, she hooked her thumbs into the lace and paused.

"Last chance to be shy."

"Please," Daniel said.

She slid the lace down her thighs. Her cock sprang free, uncut, smooth, fully hard now and flushed dark at the tip. He'd never been this close to another one. His mouth went dry, and then it watered.

"Touch me," she said. It was an instruction, not a request.

He wrapped his hand around her and she was hot and heavy in his palm. When he stroked, slow and uncertain, she let out a breath and slid her fingers into his hair.

"Like that. A little tighter. Yes."

He looked up at her. "Can I taste you?"

Her eyes darkened. "Look at you. An hour ago you didn't know, and now you're asking." She reached over to the nightstand, took out a condom, tore it open and rolled it down her length herself, smooth and practiced. "Go ahead, mi amor. Slowly."

He leaned in and took the head of her cock into his mouth. It tasted like latex and faintly of vanilla. She gasped, a real, unguarded sound, and it went straight through him. He took more of her, clumsy at first, and she guided him with her hand in his hair, showing him the rhythm, the pressure, when to use his tongue.

"Good," she whispered. "So good. You learn fast."

He loved it. He loved the weight of her on his tongue, the way her hips moved against his face, the little groans she couldn't hide. He loved that he could make this sure, commanding woman shake. He reached around and gripped her ass to pull her deeper, and she swore in Spanish under her breath.

After a while she tugged him off by his hair, gently but firmly. Her lipstick was smeared from kissing him and her chest was flushed.

"Lie back. In the middle of the bed."

He did. She took off her condom, threw it out and climbed over him like a cat, knees on either side of his hips. She took his boxers off and then took his cock in her hand. She opened a fresh condom and rolled it down him slowly, watching his face the whole time, then poured lube in her palm and stroked him until he was gasping.

"I'm going to ride you," she said. "You're going to keep your hands where I put them. And you're going to tell me if you want me to stop."

"I won't want you to stop."

"Tell me anyway."

She worked herself open with slick fingers while he watched, her head tipped back and her mouth open, and the sight of it almost undid him. Then she lined him up and sank down slowly, inch by inch, until she was sitting fully on him. They both moaned.

"Fuck," Daniel breathed. "Martha..."

"Mm. I know." She took his hands and put one on her hip and the other around her cock, which was hard and bobbing against his stomach. "Both. Don't you dare stop."

She rode him slowly at first, rolling her hips and controlling every inch, and he stroked her in time with her movement, his hand slick with lube. Candlelight moved over her tattoos and her pierced nipples and her smeared dark mouth. Outside, a late microbús rattled down Avenida Álvaro Obregón and a dog barked somewhere on the rooftops, and none of it seemed real except her.

"Look at me," she ordered, and he did. "You like this?"

"I love it," he said, and meant it completely. "I love you on me. I love your cock in my hand. I love... God, everything."

She smiled, fierce and pleased, and moved faster. The iron bed creaked against the wall. She braced her hands on his chest and took him hard and deep, and he stroked her harder to match. He felt her cock swell in his fist and her body clench around him.

"I'm close," she gasped. "Don't stop. Don't you dare..."

She came first, crying out, her head thrown back, spilling hot over his hand and onto his stomach in long pulses. Feeling her tighten around him and watching her come apart pushed him over a second later. He came deep inside the condom with her name in his mouth, his hips jerking up into her while she rode him through it.

For a long moment there was only breathing, and candle smoke, and the rain starting again softly against the French windows.

Finally she lifted off him, carefully held the base of the condom as she moved, and handed him a towel from the nightstand like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then she lay down next to him, propped on one elbow, and traced a lazy line through the mess on his stomach.

"So," she said. "Surprised?"

Daniel laughed, a little breathless and a little dazed. "Very. In the best possible way."

"Hm." She looked pleased with herself. "Most men don't get past the bar."

"Most men are idiots." He turned his head to look at her. "That was... I've never felt like that. I want to do it again."

"Tonight, or another night?"

"Yes," he said, and she laughed out loud, head thrown back, the same way she had when she came.

"Rest first, güero. Then I'll teach you something new." She pulled the black sheet up over both of them and settled against his shoulder like she'd decided he could stay. "And tomorrow I'm taking you for chilaquiles at the market on Medellín. You're going to need the energy."

He fell asleep with her heartbeat against his arm, the rain on the windows and the smell of copal and marigolds in the air. He was already sure, the way you're sure of something you didn't know you wanted until it was right in front of you, that he would book her again.