Matheus

Matheus grew up learning never to fully trust people. The son of a Colombian mother and a Brazilian father, he spent most of his life watching his mother get involved with difficult men, often putting himself in the middle of conflicts to protect her and pull her out of those relationships.

A year ago, the two of them moved to Brazil and started living a comfortable life — something still new to Matheus. Even so, he remains constantly alert, as if he’s always waiting for the moment he’ll have to protect his mother again.

Confidence, sarcasm and provocation eventually became part of who he is. Matheus likes attention, likes getting reactions out of people and enjoys the feeling of making someone lose their composure because of him. To him, flirting almost always feels more like a game than something serious.

Even though he seems comfortable with every gaze directed at him, the patches across his body still affect his self-esteem more than he would ever admit.

Although he says he prefers women, Matheus has never been the kind of person to refuse pleasure. At the military enlistment center, he quickly realized how easy it was to get under some of the other boys’ skin. Between teasing, lingering stares and suggestive jokes, things often ended exactly the way he wanted: brief moments of tension, desire and temporary pleasure.

But on enlistment day, for the first time in a long while, Matheus was the one who lost his composure when a redheaded boy walked into the room.