I was wrong in my thinking why my stepfather brought me on this business trip to Portugal. I’d thought he couldn’t chance me staying in Germany with my mother with him gone—that I’d tell her what we’d been doing, the baron and I. Not just what he had been doing with me, but what I, only fourteen, had willingly let him do—not too happily because there was nothing romantic in the baron’s doing it, but content enough in getting attention that I didn’t get otherwise. Mutter—Mother—gave all of her attention to my older brother, Derek. She always had. Derek had taken after my father. He even had his name. He’d get everything the family had to offer too. I was just the afterthought, the “leftover” son. I was on my own. But I kind of liked it that way.

But I wasn’t ignored by the Baron Manfred von Althaus, my stepfather. He’d always paid attention to me, even when he was romancing my mother. Sometimes I thought he only married her to get to me. I hadn’t made it all that hard to get me. I liked men.

Now, however, in Lisbon, sitting in the president’s box of the Campo Pequeno bullfighting stadium, sitting between my father and the man he was here to close a business deal with, I understood why I was here. Senhor Luis Nuncio was an important man here in Lisbon, and especially in the bullfighting world. He was an impresario. He managed bullfighters and the bullfights themselves, here in the main stadium and elsewhere in Portugal as well. And he acquired the bulls, the special bulls of specific bloodlines, to run in the arena. Portugal, in contrast to Spain, didn’t kill the bulls in a bullfight, but most of them wound up too wounded from the succession of spearings that defined the progress of the spectacle and became too savvy in how to face the bullfighters to be used more than a couple times before they were butchered for their meat, which, I was told, only the Portuguese knew how to make tender enough to chew. Sometimes, for bulls becoming famous, they are restored to health and set to stud. This is rather rare, though. So, there was a continuing need to procure the special bulls.

My stepfather raised a special breed of fighting bulls, Vegahermosa bulls, on his lands near Frankfurt, Germany, and he wanted Nuncio to buy them. He had tried to sell them to Spain, but they weren’t interested in any but Spanish bulls. Mexico was too far away. It would be too expensive to ship bulls there.

Senhor Nuncio had visited us in Germany to inspect the bulls. He stayed with us, and it became quite clear he inspected me too. Somehow, I now was learning, I had become part of this deal. Nuncio wanted to be a bull with me. I might have been interested—I was exploring my preferences and the baron had helped develop those—but Nuncio was old and ugly—and fat. And he was hairy and sweated easily and he couldn’t keep his hands to himself.

That’s how I knew why I was here. We sat, watching the many-faceted show in the ring, me being seated between my stepfather and Senhor Nuncio, and the man kept touching me. I looked over to my stepfather to see if he saw how familiar the man was getting, and I was shocked that he, indeed, saw it and signaled to me to cooperate with it.

Until I realized what my role was on this business trip, I had found it all very interesting. Lisbon was an old city that was very different from Frankfurt. It seemed so much older and the buildings so much fancier. But, then, Frankfurt had been heavily bombed in a war and Lisbon had not. We had arrived just the day before and we were staying at Senhor Nuncio’s house in the city, very close to the stadium. The baron lived in a restored and modernized castle; Senhor Nuncio live in an ancient palace, one with many bedrooms, and he there he housed the toreos, those who worked in the bullring, not all of whom were matadors, he managed.

His palace was fascinating, but it wasn’t anything as strange and wonderful as the bullfighting arena, the Campo Pequeno, that he brought us to on this day, was. The stadium, in the center city of the ancient Portuguese capital, was well over a hundred years old. It was built of orange bricks and had octagonal towers with domes on top of them—all very exotic, which Senhor Nuncio explained was the Moorish influence on architecture on the Iberian Peninsula, which had once been under the control of the Arabs.

The spectacle of the bullfighting was even more ceremonial and involved in Portugal, where it was called corridas de touros, than it was in Spain, and the Portuguese version didn’t often even have a single matador facing the bull, which wasn’t killed.

There were two parts of the entertainment here—the spectacle of the cavaleiro, where horsemen in fantastic costumes from two hundred years ago, toyed with the bull and with danger to themselves and during which the bull is stabbed with three or four decorated spears, called bandeirilhas. Following this, the horsemen leave the ring to be replaced by eight costumed men on foot, the forcados, in the pega, during which they take their chances toying with the bull as well. Normally, in the Portuguese version, these men had to wrestled the bull down and exhaust it, after which trained oxen come out and guide the bull out of the ring. On rare occasion there is a matador at the finish, though, dancing with the bull and stabbing it with the bandeirilhas. These matadors usually come from Spain and are the most dashing of the performers.

It was just such a matador, half Spanish and half Portuguese, Miguel Coelho, who was performing today and who Senhor Nuncio managed. He was being hosted at Nuncio’s palace, just as we were, but he had been preparing for today the previous night and I’d only gotten glimpses of him. He was a very handsome man, though, trim; moving like a dancer; dark, with flashing eyes; twenty-nine years old, I was told; perfectly formed; and quite proud of himself, as he had every right to be. I had found him mysterious and arousing. He had given me knowing smiles from afar and briefly already, which had sent my body shimmering.

This was the sort of man I went with in my fantasies.

Today, costumed as a matador, and dancing with the bull in the Campo Pequeno bullring, he was exquisite, masterful, and god-like. I melted to him. I’m afraid that Senhor Nuncio was thinking it was him I was melting to.

The performance of the horsemen, the cavaleiros, with two of them being women, was so exciting that the spectators were often on their feet, cheering or groaning at the danger the riders were putting themselves in with the bull. It was then that I became sure not only of Senhor Nuncio’s interest in me but also that my stepfather encouraged me to let the man enjoy his interest. Nuncio had already been touching me and whispering to me how nice I was—how young I looked, how slender, how narrow my hips were, that he thought blond German boys with blue eyes were the most beautiful boys in the world—and my questioning looks to my stepfather were not receiving sympathy. The man spoke no German and very little English, but what little he could convey to me in language was augmented by what he could convey to me in looks and with his hands. I had no trouble understanding his wishes and intentions.

He told me he liked boys and asked if I understood what he meant. I shrugged, not wanting to say that I did know what that meant. He asked me how old I was, knowing, I’m sure how old I was. When I told him, he said I looked younger but that it was good that I was fourteen. He wanted me to ask him why, I think, but I didn’t.

“I know what you do with the baron,” he said. “You can do that in Germany because you can say yes at fourteen there. Did you know that you can say yes at fourteen here in Portugal too?”

No, I didn’t know that.

I didn’t have to answer because just then the cavalieros performed a spectacular movement with the bull in the ring and everyone was up on the feet. When we went back down, though, Senhor Nuncio gripped my waist between his hands and pulled me down into his lap rather than in my own seat. What was going on in the bullring was exciting to all of us. I was as excited as anyone, but not excited in the same way Senhor Nuncio was. The working with the bull seemed to arouse the man sexually. He was panting, and whereas he was touching me earlier, now he was pawing me.

I was small and young looking. No one around us seemed to notice me on his lap, and if they did, they didn’t seem to see anything unusual in it—just a man with his young son, both of them excited about what was happening in the bullring. There was nothing for anyone else, other than my stepfather, the only other person in the box, to see because the president’s box had a wall around it to chest level when we were sitting and a wall behind it going up to the top of the stadium so whoever was sitting here was protected from behind and above.

I knew why he did it, though. He was hard and he was big, and I could feel it pressing against my buttocks as he held me in his lap. I looked plaintively over at my stepfather, but he just gave me a little smile. He moved me back and forth on it. If we weren’t wearing clothes, he’d be fucking me.

It became even more intimate. Senhor Nuncio moved a hand under me, between us, and unzipped himself. He flared his trouser fly and there were only the thinness of my shorts and briefs material between me and him. He was doing something with my shorts under there, and my stepfather, who I’m sure knew what was happening, was just smiling at me, when I was saved by the exit of the cavalieros and the entrance of the forcados, the eight men who would play with the bull on foot. The crowd welcomed them by rising to their feet and cheering. I used that to pull off the senhor’s lap and move up to the pathway above the boxes.

I remained up there and, when the matador, Miguel Coelho, pranced into the ring and danced with the bull, I became as mesmerized as everyone else in the stadium and forced any thoughts of Senhor Nuncio’s intentions from my mind.

My stepfather and I were sent back to the palace after the bullfight in Senhor Nuncio’s black Mercedes. Nuncio remained at the stadium to close out on the event. The drive was short, but I made an effort to ensure my stepfather knew of the liberties our host had tried to take with me. But there was no comfort in that direction.

“You do it for me,” he said. “You are in the family business now. We need this deal. You will do it for him too.”

I turned my head and looked out of the window. There was a difference. The baron was a handsome, fit man. The Portuguese man was old, ugly, fat, and crude. But in the end, I suppose, there wasn’t really a difference. One cock was much the same as the next one. I was already learning that.

I was wishing it would be that sexy matador, Miguel Coelho, though.

I soaked for an hour in the tub of my en suite bedroom at Senhor Nuncio’s palace that night. I’d been given a luxurious room with a sitting area, an alcove with a four-poster canopy bed, and a huge tiled bath with a large soaking tub in it. I was somewhat surprised that my room was nicer than the one given to my stepfather and I almost said something at the time, but there really wasn’t anyone to say it to. The baron didn’t seem to mind. I needed the soak. I was bruised—not badly enough for it to show; he was always careful about that—but enough to ache.

I had displeased my stepfather and when I retired, early, saying the day at the bullring had been too exciting for me after the flight from Germany the previous day, the baron had followed me a half-hour later, chewed me out, slapped me around, and fucked me. He said it was to show me who was boss and to bring me into line, but I knew he liked to fuck me and that he particularly liked doing it when it could be passed off as discipline. The baron was quite German that way. He’d slapped me around after saying I’d spent too much time mooning over the matador, Miguel Coelho, at supper and then afterward and hadn’t given enough favor to Luis Nuncio.

Well, he and Nuncio were tucked away in the man’s study after dinner. I could not have shown favor to Senhor Nuncio then. It wasn’t my fault that Miguel Coelho didn’t go out to find his friends.

“We are here to strike a deal with Nuncio, not for Coelho to dance around with you as he does with the bulls,” my stepfather had said. And he slapped me around, and he put me over his knee, and spanked my bare buttocks—spanking me seemed to be one of his favorite fetishes—and then he penetrated me with his fingers, which put him in heat and he bent me over the arm of an easy chair in my bedroom, mounted me, and fucked me.

I don’t think there was much I could do at supper that I didn’t do to be a good guest. I didn’t try to stay Senhor Nuncio’s hands when he was touching and fondling me. And I didn’t determine the place sittings at the table. Apparently, Coelho was blessing us with his presence to be here after his day in the ring. Matadors only were included in Portuguese bullfights a couple of times a month, and there were several matadors performing in the country, most of them brought here from Spain where the work was more steady. On a night after a bull fight in the Camp Pequeno stadium, a matador usually went out on the town, taken out to carouse all night by his fans. Coelho had plenty of fans in Lisbon. But he attended the supper hosted by Nuncio.

I heard them arguing in the foyer when Coelho arrived, but I didn’t speak Portuguese, so I don’t know what he and Nuncio argued about. When they came in where we were having drinks before dinner, Nuncio said that Coelho would be there for dinner but would join his fans again afterward. Coelho looked irritated when we went to the table, but he sat across from me, and he became progressively friendlier and conversant with me. Nuncio didn’t seem to mind. He spoke no German and I spoke no Portuguese. We could say simple sentences to each other in English, but that was a chore—Nuncio obviously had become tired out in trying to speak English with me when we were at the bullring—and language barriers didn’t encourage small talk. Coelho, on the other hand, spoke beautiful English and quite good German, and we chattered away. Both my stepfather and Nuncio spoke good Spanish, so they entertained each other in that language during the meal.

That didn’t stop Senhor Nuncio from touching me and squeezing my knee while he talked with my stepfather.

Immediately after dinner, Nuncio and my stepfather withdrew to the impresario’s study to discuss their business deal, which left Miguel Coelho and me at the table. I expected him to excuse himself and leave—to go meet his fans—but he didn’t. Instead, he suggested we withdraw to a lounge and he’d put some music on.

“Do you dance, Stefan?” he asked. “You move like a dancer.”

“I’ve had some lessons, yes,” I answered, but then as he started swaying to the music he’d put on, and I added, “but I don’t dance like you do. In the ring this afternoon, you looked like you were dancing with bull—teasing it, but coaxing it to dance with you. And the bull did. I was delighted. I think everyone in the ring was.”

“Yes, you have to be a dancer to be a good matador, Stefan. The bull isn’t your adversary in the ring; the bull is your partner—your dance partner. Come, dance with me.”

I was embarrassed at the offer and the contact with such a beautiful man, but I also was transported. I rose and went to him and we danced, close together. As was natural, he held me in his arms and he led in the dance. It was like this, the two of us dancing to the waltz music, that Senhor Nuncio and the baron found us when they returned.

Miguel had just whispered, “Du bist ein schöner Junge—You are a beautiful boy,” and kissed me lightly on the throat, but I don’t think they saw that. Nuncio didn’t seem to see his matador and the boy he was trying to cover dancing together as anything to be upset about, but my father was visibly angry. Miguel immediately pulled away from me and went over to a bar and fixed himself something to drink.

Red faced, I said that I was tired and perhaps should retire to my room early. None of the men objected to me going. Senhor Nuncio and Miguel spoke to each other in Portuguese, but the tone was friendly. My father had a smile on his face for the other men but turned to me briefly and scowled as I fled the room.

My stepfather was the only one who didn’t seem pleased. We weren’t there to make any business deals with a pretty-boy Spain matador, he said later in my room, when he was slapping me around. I was there to impress Nuncio, he admonished me.

“You didn’t tell me I was here to give myself to a fat, old man,” I said. The baron slapped me again then and said, “Your job here is to make him think he is a sexual god.”

I’d gone straight to the tub when the baron left me. When I dried off, I wrapped a fluffy robe around myself that had been hanging on the back of the bathroom door and came out to the bedroom. The lights were turned down low and the ceiling fan was languidly turning overhead. I went to the dressing table and sat down at it, looking at myself in the big mirror on the wall behind the table, looking to see if there was any damage to my face from the baron’s slaps. There weren’t. He liked to get physical in sex but that meant he was an expert in enjoying it but not going too far—not letting evidence of it show. As far as I knew, my mother had no idea what went on between me and the baron in his castle in Germany. Of course she was obsessed with my older brother. I didn’t really exist for her.

It took me the longest time to realize that the matador, Miguel Coelho, had come into the room while I was soaking in the tub. The first I became aware of it, I saw him, in the mirror, standing behind me. He was wearing a fluffy robe, just as I was, but it was unsashed and flared open. What I could see revealed was hard-bodied, tanned flesh. He was twice my age, but probably fifteen years younger than the baron, the man regularly covering me, and probably twenty-five years younger than Senhor Nuncio, who my stepfather was giving me to.

To me, Miguel was a young man. His body was magnificent. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He had the sleekness and tight musculature of a man who was a bullfighter. There were scars from encounters with the bulls, as well, but that only added to the mystery and sexiness of him. When he’d seen that I had noticed him and hadn’t bolted from the bench in front of the dressing table, he put his hands on my shoulders and leaned down and kissed me in the hollow of my neck.

I gave him no resistance, only sighing. I’m sure that told him I would let him fuck me.

“You left us early this evening,” he murmured.

“I understood you would be leaving—to celebrate with your fans—after supper. I thought the evening would be too dull after you were gone.”

“I didn’t leave.”

“So I see,” I answered. “Your fans are celebrating without you?”

“They could be. I don’t give a fuck if they are. I stayed because of you.”

There didn’t seem to be a need to say anything else after that. He brushed my robe off my shoulders with his hands, and it cascaded to the floor, surrounding the bench I was sitting on. I was naked now. Before putting his hands back on my shoulders, he shrugged out of his robe as well. When the hands came back, they glided down my chest, hesitated on my breasts to rub my nipples briefly, and then moved on down across my belly and into my trimmed patch of pubic hair. I felt him hard and pressing into my back between my shoulder blades, needy and insistent.

As he had done earlier, he whispered to me in German, “Do bist ein schöner Junge,” this time adding, “Ich muss in dir sein—I must be inside you.”