#mateo stuff

Ivar sidled up to the bar and purchased two beers corked with lime wedges. He breathed in deeply and turned around before setting his crutches off to the side. He could stand upright when he had something solid to lean on. The man in his sights turned to him and flashed a customary tourist smile, all courtesy and trying not to notice the condition that set him apart from every other person dancing in the bar that day.

“How’s it going? Enjoying yourself?” Ivar asked.

The man glanced over to verify it was him the broad-chested man with the braided hair spoke to, and his smile grew. Ivar’s eyebrows hopped when he saw all the straight white teeth in his face, the twinkle in his peculiar eyes. He then took in all the other parts he’d missed while spying from across the room: the huge, veiny hands, the length of his thighs, his sandaled feet, his soft brown hair and the flecks of gold in the green irises.

He raised his near-empty beer. “Sure.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to intrude. This is just the best place to stand when you want service.”

The lanky man realized how much of the bar’s real estate he took up and stepped away. Ivar raised one beer bottle. “No need to move. It’s safer for me to have someone to fall on if I tip over.”

“Oh,” the tourist giggled.

“I’m kidding. Don’t worry, I promise I won’t fall and break a hip then make you call me an ambulance. There’s plenty of sand to cushion me.”

The traveller met Ivar’s blue intensity, then pocketed the phone he’d been checking so adamantly for the last forty-five minutes. The look on his face told of amusement and impending small-talk. Ivar crooked his elbows against the bar and waited.

“Do you live here?” The man asked.

“Yeah. When it’s Winter in my home country.”

“Where’s your home country?”

“Very far North.”

“What like, Alaska?”

“Denmark.”

The traveller smiled ever wider. “We’re practically neighbours.”

“Ah, yes,” Ivar chose then to slide the second beer over to the tourist. “You have that Scandinavian look about you. Name’s Ivar, like the Viking.”

“Mateo,” he said, grabbing the beer by the neck. “Skol!”

Ivar raised his drink, and they clinked bottles. “Skol.”

After another half hour, Mateo had that third shot, courtesy of Ivar, his newfound friend and Viking descendant. The conversation progressed at a casual rate until Ivar grew bored with asking innocent questions. He waited until Mateo looked at his phone one last time before zeroing in for the hopeful kill.

“Are you waiting on somebody?” Ivar asked.

Mateo chuckled. “Oh, no. Not really. I’m on a layover. Going to Brazil to meet my soulmate.”

“Just to meet? You mean, you haven’t met them yet?”

Mateo clicked something on the clear screen and showed Ivar a photo of a handsome black man with kind eyes and a lively smile. Ivar sweated, not because of the competition, but because he’d pegged Mateo right.

“We haven’t met. But we don’t need to, right? That’s kind of the whole point of the test. Once we’re together, it will click.”

“Yeah, but... What if it doesn’t? Don’t get me wrong, I support everyone finding their true love, but that’s just one photo. What happens if you meet him and the lower half of him is horribly disfigured?”

Mateo scoffed. “That wouldn’t stop me. We’re matched. It means no matter what, we’re compatible. Plus, he’s gorgeous. Even if he was horribly disfigured from the waist down, it wouldn’t make a difference. Not to me.”

Ivar tasted his confidence rising from his stomach and piping, all the way to his mouth where it manifested as carefully plucked words.

“But you haven’t met yet, right? You’re not officially tied down?”

“No. Not officially.”

“How much time do you have until your flight to meet him?”

“I leave tomorrow.”

“That’s plenty of time,” Ivar said, moving his head to the rhythm of the live music.

Mateo leaned over. “Plenty of time for what?”

Ivar closed the space between them, touching Mateo’s jaw as he whispered in his ear. “Plenty of time to get one last fuck out of your system before you’re shacked up for life. What do you say?”

Mateo’s cheeks turned sunburn-red, his smile a new, shy version of the one Ivar had been studying. He laughed uneasily, scratched the back of his head and laughed again. Ivar didn’t let Mateo rest from the blazing blue-eyed stare. Not until they were in his apartment, undressing each other and kissing feverishly. Ivar grabbed Mateo by the collar of his bright floral shirt and bade him sit on the foot of his bed. Using his crutches to climb down, Ivar went to his knees and wrestled Mateo’s shorts down his thighs. When an erection sprung up between them, they both chuckled.

“Fuck. I knew it,” Ivar moaned.

“Knew what?” Asked Mateo.

“That you had a big dick.”

Mateo scooted forward, shoving his solid manhood closer to Ivar’s mouth. The Viking wrapped his lips around the head, eyes fluttering closed as his tongue besieged the slit already leaking pre-cum. Mateo spread his hands over the sheet and gaped his legs a little more, so Ivar had all the room he needed. The kneeling man took this as a further invitation, and propped Mateo’s legs up by his knees, spreading him and forcing him back for a more thorough licking.

“And what if I didn’t have one? What then?” Mateo asked, feeling cheeky from his unexpected score.

“Then I’d have to adjust my thinking. Reevaluate the statistics that men with big feet also have big cocks.”

“I feel so... Exploited,” Mateo snickered and then melted from the feeling of a hot, determined tongue igniting the nerve-heavy spots along his shaft.

“Oh, I’ll exploit you. I’ll exploit you all night long. Right until you hop on that plane to go meet your soulmate. And I guarantee you’ll keep thinking of my mouth long after you’ve gone.”

Mateo gasped as Ivar throated him, streams of slaver dribbling down his balls. Ivar withdrew to collect the escaped saliva, then deposited the glob over the tip again. He did this several more times until Mateo’s cock glistened in the golden sunset blazing through the dirty window next to the bed. He lost himself in the tightening sensations, letting the stranger treat him with all the experience of a well-learned enthusiast.  After long, Mateo pressed his chin to his chest, grabbing the braids at the nape of Ivar’s neck to pull him off.

“I’m gonna come,” Mateo warned.

Ivar laughed. Mateo returned the merriment with slight discomfort.

“W-what? It’s true,” the gangly tourist admitted.

“Then come.”

“In your mouth?”

“If that’s where you want it, big boy.”

Mateo shivered, chills shooting down his legs into his feet, numbing his toes. “Oh, fuck.”

The next day, Mateo stood in line waiting to board his flight. His eyes locked onto his phone screen and the photo of Jonah that had made his heart twinge the last couple of weeks. He swiped over and looked at a photo of Ivar, shirtless and tan, a beer bottle in hand and stylish sunglasses perched on his nose. Mateo switched back to Jonah, then back to Ivar.

“Sir? Please keep the line moving,” the woman at the desk motioned him forward.

Mateo hesitated. He looked at the photo of Ivar one last time, then sent him a friend request, pocketed the device and put on his most charming smile as he approached the desk.