Master Carlos, latex and the faggot (2) - Awakening

Gabriel opens his eyes and doesn't know where he is. The room is not his. The bed is not his. And for a second he thinks he stayed over at a university classmate's house, but that's not it. The smell tells him it's different, and then, little by little, his body gives him back the truth.
Everything hurts. Everything.

He touches his hip and it hurts. He touches his ass and it hurts more, a discomfort that doesn't go away with a change of position, that stays inside him. But he has never ridden a horse. And that's the first sign that what happened to him is unlike anything that has happened to him before.

Memory comes in pieces. The mirror. Carlos's voice. Something going into his mouth. And the feeling of not being himself, of being someone else. After that, nothing. An emptiness.

He stays sitting on the bed, hand on his hip, and realizes his face is hot from the inside. He doesn't know if it's shame, or fear, or something else. Carlos did things to him. And he let him do them, and he enjoyed it, which is what he can't quite understand.

On the nightstand there's a piece of paper. A yellow post-it, folded at the corner, with handwriting he doesn't know but recognizes. EAT. SHOWER. COME BACK AT EIGHT.

He stares at it. He reads it twice. And he realizes he's thinking about Carlos, and that he isn't thinking about anything else.

He doesn't know what it means. Or rather: he knows, but he doesn't dare believe it. Come back at eight. Come back where? To this house? To Carlos? And if he doesn't go? Is it over?

He gets up. He showers. When he gets out, his body still hurts. He doesn't dare look at himself in the mirror. He's afraid of seeing something he doesn't recognize.

He puts on his jeans and T-shirt. He drinks his coffee standing up. While he drinks it, the post-it is in the kitchen, and he can't stop looking at it. Eight o'clock.

And at seven thirty he finds himself going down the stairs with the keys in his hand, and he doesn't quite know when he made the decision. But he made it.

Carlos is in the kitchen, with his back turned, wearing the blue shirt. On the counter he has a glass of freshly squeezed juice. When he hears the door, he takes a small bottle from his pocket and drops a generous dose of GHB into the glass, with a calm hand, not even looking toward the door. He puts it away before turning around.

—I see you came.

—It's because you left a note —Gabriel says, and stays in the doorway, hands in his pockets. He doesn't know how to come in. He doesn't know if he has to take off his shoes, like at his grandparents' house, or if he stays as he is.

Carlos turns and looks at him. He looks at him whole, calmly, like someone glancing over something he knows but that turns out to still be intact.

—You came —he repeats, and smiles, a small smile of satisfaction.

—What happened to me last night? —Gabriel asks, and ...