The bear neighbors

Julián had been living alone for years on the top floor of that old brick block, with his wingback armchair, his bolero records, and an almost military habit of having dinner at nine. At sixty-eight years old, he was still a big man: one meter ninety, a stevedore's back, large hands, and gray hair that peeked out from the collar of his shirt. And his five neighbors knew it well.

They were Ramón, the one from the second floor, with a thick beard and a belly from good eating; Tomás and Andrés, the couple from the third, two hairy wardrobes who were around sixty; Paco, the retired truck driver from the first, with arms like tree trunks; and Luis, the youngest, fifty-two years old with a broad chest and a roguish smile. They had been flirting with him for months in the elevator, in the lobby, at the community dinners that always ended at someone's house with a bottle of orujo on the table.

It was on one of those nights, with his tongue loosened by wine, that Julián confessed what he had never said out loud.

—I've always fantasized about being caught by surprise —he said, looking at the bottom of his glass—. That they tie me up, blindfold me, and take me among several. A whole night. Like an ambush.

There was a long silence. Then Ramón set his glass on the table very calmly.

—Well, that can be arranged, Julián. But well organized.

And they organized it. The six of them sat around the kitchen table as if preparing a neighborhood meeting, and they put the rules on paper: a safe word, "autumn," which would stop everything instantly; no drugs; no cameras or cell phones in the room; no choking or doing anything dangerous. He would always be the active one; no one would penetrate him. They chose the date: a Saturday at the end of September. Julián signed the paper with shaky handwriting that was not from fear.

That Saturday, at ten thirty, the doorbell rang.

Julián opened the door in a t-shirt and pajama pants, faking surprise that came out poorly, because his heart was racing. Before he could say anything, Paco and Luis had already grabbed him by the arms and Ramón was closing the door behind him.

—Good evening, neighbor —said Tomás with a wolfish smile—. We've come to collect the assessment.

Julián let out a laugh and struggled just enough to feel the strength of those hands. Among the five of them they lifted him off the ground—him, with his almost a hundred kilos—and carried him down the hallway amid laughter and stumbling, until they dropped him on the double bed, which creaked like a ship.

They undressed him without haste but without pause. The t-shirt flew over his head; the pants were pulled down by Andrés, who stopped when he reached the feet.

—The socks stay —he ordered, caressing the beige cotton with his thumb—. I like them like that.

Julián lay there, huge and naked except for those grandpa socks, with his cock already half hard ...