The key to the engine room

The key to the engine room

The ferry smelled of hot gas oil, salt and past hour coffee. Álvaro Mena had black fat hands up to the knuckles and neck of the blue monkey open to his chest. He had been on the Algeciras-Tanger route for fifteen years and knew every vibration of the hull as if it were the pulse of an old and faithful animal. That night the sea was flat, almost oily, and the buzz of the machines went down in tone as if the crew and the boat were breathing in unison.

In the crew dining room there was only one man sitting: thin, with a white shirt swirling, fine-mounted glasses and a pocket watch open on the table, with the guts in the air. He was not on board. He was carrying a dark leather briefcase and the air from whom he travels because he has to repair something that he does not accept wait.

"The time has stopped?" asked Alvaro, filling two glasses of water with the metal jar.

The other looked up. “Grey eyes, a beard of two days well trimmed, about forty-seven well carried. He smiled without haste.

“The escape has been blocked. Like this ship, sometimes. I am Martin Rueda. Watchmaker. I have been called by a marine chronometer of a shipowner in Tangier. They don’t trust the mail.

Álvaro sat in front. The contact of the boots under the table was accidental and, at the same time, deliberate. No one set his foot aside.

"Alvaro. Machines. If the escape of that clock is as stubborn as the regulator of the starboard auxiliary, we will need more than patience.

They talked about axes, tolerances, how a millimeter of slack can ruin a whole shift. The conversation had the density of two men who understand the weight of the precise. When the second machine bore his head to warn of the change of watch, Álvaro had already decided something in silence.

"If you want to see a real escape," he said, rising up, "come down with me. The engine room is not nice, but it does not lie.

Martin hesitated only for a second. He kept the watch, closed the briefcase and followed it down the narrow staircase. The heat suddenly increased. The noise became a continuous metallic breath. Yellow lights, sweaty pipes, the thick smell of hot oil. Alvaro opened the gate of the control corridor and let Martin enter first. The door closed behind his back with a deaf blow.

"No one is going up here at this hour," said Alvaro. "Just the noise and us.

Martin took off his glasses, cleaned them with the edge of his shirt and kept them in his pocket. Without them his face became more direct, more of a man who looks closely.

• Did you bring me to see gears or touch them?

Álvaro did not smile in theater. He approached until the chest of one brushed the other. The monkey smelled of work; Martin’s shirt, clean cotton and a trail of old colony.

"The two of you, but only if you want what I want.

"I love him," replied Martin, without lowering his voice. "I want his hands, his mouth, and let us not pretend that this is something else. I am an adult, you too, and it has been too long since someone who knows what they are doing with my body fucks me.

The first kiss was dry, almost of recognition. Then it opened: slow tongues, teeth rubbing lower lip, Álvaro’s hand on Martín’s neck holding him without brutality, with the firmness of whoever holds a piece so that he does not escape. Martín grabbed the monkey’s closure and lowered it to his waist. Alvaro’s chest was wide, with dark hair dotted with gray, hard nipples for the contrast of heat and desire. Martin licked them, biting them carefully, and felt the machinist gripping the jaw so as not to groan too high.

"The sound here eats almost everything," Álvaro muttered, "but don't scream like crazy. There are still people on the bridge.

• Then you shut me up.

Álvaro’s cock came out thick, venous, already completely hard, his brilliant head of precum. Martín knelt on the metal grid without complaining about the cold or the relief. He wrapped the base with a hand stained with other people’s fat and took the tip to his mouth. He squirted slowly, savoring the salt, the heat, the smell of man he has worked. Alvaro leaned one hand in the pipe above and the other in Martin’s hair, guiding without pushing too much. The rhythm was that of someone who understands cylinders and pistons: deep entrance, removed almost to the crown, again inside, thick saliva shining on the stem.

"Fuck... so," said Alvaro between his teeth. "Look at me while he sucks it.

Martin raised his eyes. There was a clear desire and also some challenge. He pulled his cock out of his mouth, licked it from the base with a flat tongue and swallowed it again until he felt it at the bottom of his throat. The reflection made him moisten his eyes; he did not turn away. Álvaro breathed through his nose, counting mentally not to run yet.

He lifted him up with both hands under his armpits and turned him against the control panel off. He pulled down Martin’s underpants. His ass was firm, of a man who walks a lot, with a thin dark hair that opened towards the center. Alvaro knelt down for a second, separated his buttocks with his thumbs and passed his tongue through his ass with deliberation. Martin released a low gash, his hands flattened against cold metal.

• That's... yeah.

Álvaro ate it with method: pointed tongue around the sphincter, then flat and wet, pushing a little to feel it yielding. He inserted a thick finger, lubricated with saliva, and looked patiently. When he found the point, Martin arched and cursed quietly. A second finger. Slow scissors. The watchmaker pushed back asking for more.

"I have lubricant in the medicine cabinet here," said Alvaro, the voice snoring. "And condoms. We don't improvise with nonsense.

"Bring them, and fuck me for real."

Álvaro opened the metal cabinet, pulled out a small tube and a condom. He put on his condom with practical gestures, anointed himself generously and put his head close to Martin’s ass. He slowly went in, inch by inch, one hand on each other’s hip to feel each resistance. Martín breathed through his mouth, relaxing, accepting. When Álvaro was inside, they remained motionless for an instant, sweating, the noise of the machines covering them like a thick sheet.

"Move," said Martin. "Don't treat me like glass.

Álvaro began to strike. First long and deep, then shorter and dry, looking for the angle that made Martin bite his forearm to not scream. The sound of skin against skin was mixed with the hum. The monkey hung from Álvaro’s waist; Martin’s shirt was open and soaked. Each attack caused the watchmaker to push his chest against the panel, nipples rubbing the cold metal.

"Heavier," said Martin. "I want to see it tomorrow."

Álvaro grabbed both arms and held them behind his back with one hand, without any pains, only control. With the other he surrounded Martín’s cock and pumped it at the same rate as the attacks. He was hard, dripping, hot skin. The engineer spoke in the ear, a serious voice, without cheap poetry:

"It gets so open... Look how my dick swallows me. This is what I wanted since I saw it with that watch torn apart, right?

• Fuck, yeah, don't stop.

Martin's orgasm came first: he tightened himself whole, thick cumshotd out at a pulse on Alvaro's fingers and against the panel. His ass closed around the other's dick in spasms that dragged Álvaro behind. The engineer sank to the bottom, grunted against Martin's shoulder and ran into the condom with long jolts, his forehead leaning on the watchmaker's sweaty neck.

They stayed like this, united, breathing. Then Álvaro went out carefully, took off the condom, tied it up and kept it in a paper from the medicine cabinet to throw it back where it belonged. They cleaned clean rags from the maintenance area. There was no shame; there was the complicit silence of two adults who had achieved exactly what they were looking for.

Martin fastened his shirt with still clumsy fingers. Álvaro climbed the monkey.

"My cabin is free until six," said the engineer. "There is a real shower and a bunk bed that is not a grill.

"I want to," replied Martin. "And I want you to fuck me again without haste, looking at my face.

They went up the service ladder. The cabin was narrow, with a low bunk, a metal wardrobe and the constant smooth swing of the boat. The shower was a cubicle where the two could barely fit. They soaped each other: hands on the chest, on the back, on the ass, cleaning fat and semen and sweat. Alvaro’s cock hardened again under the sponge; Martin laughed short and stroked him with soap until he was tense again.

In the bunk, naked at all, they took more time. Martin strung around, steered Álvaro’s cock—another condom, more lubricant—and went down on top with his head pulled back. Álvaro held his hips and sucked his nipples in turn. The watchmaker moved with a circular rhythm, looking for his own point, and when he found it he released a serious sound, almost a contained bark. Álvaro let him send for a while; then he knocked him back, opened his legs and penetrated him looking at him in the eyes. Slings, perfect friction, sweat in the clavicle, kisses that tasted of water and salt.

"Tell me your name again," said Martin, the voice broken with pleasure.

And you're Martin, and this isn't a road error.

When they ran the second time it was almost in unison: Martin between his own wombs, Álvaro inside the condom, both trembling, the bunk crunching in protest. Then they lay side by side, facing to face, knees fitted. The fan of the cabin moved the hot air. Outside, far away, a siren from another ship.

"I have the morning work in Tangier," said Martin. "But the ferry returns in the afternoon. I can stay one more day if there is a bunk.

Álvaro passed a finger through his lower lip, still swollen from the first fuck.

"There's a bunk bed, and there's a room of machines that locks, and there's a man who doesn't need to be told twice how to set up an escape.

They slept like this, Álvaro’s arm on Martin’s side, the smell of cheap soap and sex still in their skin. At five and a half the alarm clock on the driver’s mobile vibrated. They showered again, quickly. Martin dressed himself with his shirt wrinkled and his glasses returned to his place. Before going out to the hallway, Álvaro put a small key in his hand, labeled with black insulating tape.

—Quarte of machines. Night shift. If the shipowner’s watch gives you trouble again, you know where to find someone who understands pieces that fit by force.

Martin closed his fist around the key, kissed him one last time — closed mouth, intense, temporary farewell — and went down to the passenger deck. Alvaro stayed a moment at the threshold of the cabin, still smelling the other man’s trail, and smiled to himself with the concrete satisfaction of the greasy man who had to grease himself.

That night the sea continued flat. The ferry made its route. And in the head of the two, above the noise of propellers and of other people’s conversations, there was the exact echo of two adult bodies that had been asked for clearly, had come round and had left the door—and the key—opened for the next tide.

In Tangier, the chronometer of the shipowner was perfect before noon. Martin sent a brief message to a number Álvaro had written on the back of a maintenance card: «Escape resolved. I return at 19 o’clock. Leave the key where it is». No more literature was needed. At 20 hours, with the helmet vibrating again under his feet, Martin lowered the service ladder with the briefcase in one hand and the other free. Alvaro waited for him next to the gate, clean monkey from the beginning of the shift, looked at as a man who already knows what the other one has come to.

They did not speak much at first. The kiss was immediate, deep, with their hands already looking for buckles and buttons. This time they used the guard bunk behind the tool panel: narrower still, but with a mattress that was not metal. Martin put himself on all fours without being asked. Alvaro prepared it with fingers and tongue until he had opened it and asked in a low voice, then penetrated it with a long ram and stayed inside, still, letting him feel the pulse.

"All night," the engineer said in his ear. "Until the body says enough. Okay?

"All right," answered Martin, pushing back. "And tomorrow he really teaches me how to regulate that starboard auxiliary. I want to understand your machines as you understand mine.

Álvaro began to move. The rhythm was another: more possessive, more than those who have already tried and want to repeat with knowledge of cause. He fucked him to leave him trembling, made him run with his hand as he spoke dirty and precise—«this is how he gets to the bottom", «look how well he opens for me»—and then he ran, biting his shoulder so as not to let go of a shout that would give off his turn. They cleaned up again. They shared a cigarette next to the ox’s eye, the smoke coming out towards the night of the Strait.

"I am not a man of long promises," said Alvaro. "But I do this route four times a week. And you, if the work of clocks allows you, have room.

Martin nodded, the ash falling into an ash can.

—Watches are often damaged near the sea. I will manage to match the damaged with their timetables.

They laughed quietly. Then they returned to the bunk, slower, almost asleep between caress and caress. Alvaro masturbated him with clean motor oil — the one from the bottle they used for their hands — until Martin ran again, soft, against his palm. They kissed with taste to semen and tobacco. The boat swayed. Time, for once, did not run against.

When the dawn grinned through the ox’s eye, Martin still had the key in his trousers’ pocket. He did not return it. Alvaro did not ask for it. There were gears that, once fitted with the right tolerance, needed no more explanation than the daily friction, the shared heat and the adult certainty that desire, when nameless, can become a fixed route.

In the following weeks there were more nights: sometimes only a quick mess between shifts, against the closed door; sometimes whole mornings of open ass, of cocks in the mouth, of conversations about tides and docks and the exact way a man gets when he trusts. They never pretended to be anything other than what they were: two tough types of trade, with skilled hands, who looked for the body with coarse elegance and gave it to him with repeated consent each time the gate of the machine room squeaked when it closed.

And the ferry, foreign and implacable, continued its way from one side to the other of the Strait, carrying in its belly a secret that smelled of oil, semen and the absurd and perfect precision of two adults who had finally found the missing piece.