Kyles New Stepbrother - Brad Vance

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Contents KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER II: LONG HOT SUMMER KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER III: INDEPENDENCE DAY FIREWORKS KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER IV: SWEET SUMMER GONE KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER V: WINTER WONDERLAND KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER VI: AWESOME AMSTERDAM KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER VII: BOUND FOR BERLIN

Copyright © 2015 by the author All rights reserved

KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER “Are we ready?” Mrs. Astor asked her family. She was dressed to the nines, in a smart suit and Hermes scarf. Overdressed for a night out in Santa Rita, Kyle thought. But he would never say that. “Well, I had my meal all picked out at Thai Lotus,” Kyle’s stepdad grumbled, smoothing his tie and checking his hair in the mirror by the front door. “Oh so now you tell me! I asked you if Carlotta’s was fine for dinner, and you said it was…” Kyle sighed. This would take a while. His strategy was to just check out, and let his eyes drift to the mantel. His mom had made a clean sweep of pictures of his real dad, who’d left them as soon as Kyle had graduated from high school. Kyle didn’t blame him – he’d stuck around till Kyle was ready to go to college, putting up with his wife’s short temper, and then he was outta there. But now there were new pictures. Pictures of Mr. Astor and his family. His deceased wife, and their son, Nick. Lots of pictures of Nick, who was the apple of Mr. Astor’s eye, even though he’d been out of touch for…well, since before Mr. Astor had come into their lives. Nick in a football jersey, Nick at graduation, Nick shirtless and proud next to his Ducati… Yeah, Kyle’s eyes always stopped on that one. Nick in his shorts and flip flops, a crooked grin on his handsome face, his lean toned body slouched against the bike. Nick and his hot bod, oh, you could see that he knew he was hot… Kyle shook his head. The argument had gone upstairs now, as his mom made a big deal out of changing from her fancy suit into something simpler, “since obviously we’re going to Thai Lotus now and I can’t go in there looking nice, can I?” His mom and stepdad had gotten married just this spring, and here it was summertime and the strain was already showing. Kyle knew he’d probably made a mistake coming home for the summer. He should have just got a job and a roommate in Berkeley, and waited for his sophomore year to start. He’d never met Nick. Nick hadn’t come to the wedding, angry that Mr. Astor had remarried so soon after his wife’s death. All Kyle knew was that Nick, who at 21 was three years older than Kyle, had dropped out of college, and gone to North Dakota. He was working in the oil fields there, making some serious bank. “Kyle,” his stepdad asked, breaking his reverie. “Can you go out in the garage and get me my Topsiders? They’re in a box marked ‘Summer clothes.’ I’m… I’m going to keep talking to your mother now.” “Sure thing, Joe.” They both knew he’d never be “dad” and that was fine with both of

them. He knew that if Mr. Astor – Joe – were to go out there on his own, there was a good chance that he’d find more memories of his late wife, a woman who starkly contrasted more each day with his new one. Out in the garage, he moved some boxes around, thought he’d found what he was looking for, and opened the box. But it wasn’t one of his stepdad’s. It was one of Nick’s boxes, actually – old high school stuff. Inside were trophies, a ball and glove, and…some clothes. An old football jersey, the same one in the photo on the mantel. And…Kyle caught his breath. An old school, plain tan jock strap, in a Ziploc bag. It had a Post-It note on it, with a funny little poem. “Saved this for you, liked you asked me to, you can sniff the three day stank, to help you when you wank. Nick-o-lodeon.” He opened the bag, put his nose in it. The zip had done its job…sealing in not freshness but a rich, crotchy musk, not dirty or rank but…healthy. Athletic. Manly. Kyle could feel his erection throbbing in his pants. Nobody would miss it. Nick was gone, long gone, and this had clearly been intended for someone, someone who’d never got it because its owner had left in a rage, jumped on his Ducati and hauled ass out of town one day, leaving everything behind. Just before he resealed the bag, he saw something glitter underneath the fabric. He reached in, shuddering as his fingers traveled over the fabric of Nick’s jock strap. His dick had been in there, and Kyle just knew it was a big one – you could look at that crooked grin on Nick’s face, and see that utter sexual confidence, that showed the world he had what it took. It was a pair of dog tags, those gag gift types you get at the fair. Stamped into one were the words NICK’S BITCH, and on the other, PRIVATE PROPERTY. Nick was a kinky fucker, wasn’t he…someone who was more than happy to wear a jockstrap around for three days without showering, to make a present for someone. Someone who was going to be his bitch, who’d wear a dog tag literally like a dog… Some lucky fucking girl somewhere in this town who was probably crying her eyes out even now at what she’d lost. Kyle stuffed the bag into a pocket, and tore through the other boxes looking for the Topsiders. When he went back inside, he could hear them, fighting, in the bedroom. Dinner wasn’t going to happen, he knew. He set the shoes down outside their room. His own room was down the hall, with a big linen closet and a bathroom between his room and theirs. He closed and locked his door, and, heart hammering, took the bag out. He took his pants off, throwing them over the chair, then the dress shirt he’d put on for a nice dinner out with the family. Standing there in his briefs, he checked out his lean long legs in the full length mirror, admired his slim frame, naturally athletic from years of playing soccer. He wasn’t his own type, with his sandy hair and boyish face. Even now, at eighteen, he could go days without shaving and muster just a bit of stubble. He wasn’t his own type,

that was for sure. Now, Nick. That was his type. Dark haired, dark eyed Nick, cruel, dominant Nick, who owned bitches… Kyle had opportunities to get laid at UC Berkeley. He was young and good looking and, shit, he was in the Bay Area, which was Gay Central USA. But what he wanted wasn’t showing up. He kept attracting “nice” guys who wanted to go on a “nice” date and talk about professors and classes and career plans and stuff. He didn’t want nice. He wanted… He looked in the mirror, watched his own face as he opened the bag and stuck his nose in it, saw the drugged look that came over him, his eyes fluttering – because it was a drug, what was in there. Testosterone, pheromones, sweat… He took the chain out of the bag, fingered the stamped letters on the tags. Kept eye contact with himself as he gravely, slowly, put the chain over his head. He pulled the jock out, buried his face in it, getting the full effect now. It made him dizzy, the power in it… And it was more than sex. It was the idea that he, a lonely only child, could have had a brother. An older brother. To teach him things. To play soccer with him, or throw a ball, or beat up his bullies. To throw an arm around him and squeeze him hard when he won, or lost. To wrestle with him, to tickle him… everything a big brother might do to a little brother… “Kyle!” his mom shouted. “Come on. We’re going out. Just put on a pair of shorts or something. Nothing fancy,” she said, dripping with scorn intended for her husband. “Co…” His throat was dry, his voice cracked. “Coming,” he said, trying again. He threw on a polo and a pair of cargo shorts. When he checked himself in the mirror, he saw the flash of silver chain and realized he’d forgotten to take off the tags. “No, you didn’t forget,” he said to himself, with an evil smile. Dinner was civilized. Mom didn’t make a fuss in public, where people would see. Instead she put on this bright, “We’re having fun!” rictus smile that, more than throwing any scene could do, told everyone how miserable they all were. At least they had a window table. Santa Rita wasn’t exactly the most happening town near the California Coast, but there was enough money here to keep the yogurtoriums and candleporiums open late for those strolling in the balmy summer night. “Is that…” his Mom said. Mr. Astor turned. “Yes, it is.” Kyle turned to see. There was a man with his back to them, putting a small grocery bag into his motorcycle’s luggage carrier. He picked up a helmet off the seat and turned around, getting ready to mount the bike.

He realized there were three pairs of eyes on him. He and Kyle locked eyes. Nick. They stared at each other, just for two seconds, before Nick scowled and put the helmet on and was outta there before anyone could move. But Kyle knew, that Nick had read his mind. That all his desire had been as plain on his face as the entrée on the plate in front of him. “Why didn’t you tell me he was home!” Kyle’s mom hissed. Mr. Astor sighed. “He’s only been here a week.” “A whole week!” “Look, Michelle, this is hard for him. He’s back but he’s not…ready. He let me know he’s here but he wants some space, some time. He’s staying in the cottage behind the McAllister house.” Kyle’s face was red hot. Nick was here. Only a mile away. Suddenly he got up from the table. “I’m gonna walk home.” They didn’t stop him. Not that they could have. He was taking a walk. But he wasn’t walking home. He knew the McAllister’s house well. Sam McAllister had been his bestie all through elementary school, and he’d spent plenty of afternoons at their house. The little cottage in the back was one of those old freestanding garages on an alley that had been converted into a residence. His mouth was dry as he walked up the alley towards the cottage. Sure enough, the Ducati was parked outside. The light of a TV flickered behind the shades. A car came down the alley, and he tried to look casual as it passed. Walked past the cottage. Then turned around when the car was gone. Walked back. Hopped over the little picket fence and around to the side. There was a set of blinds with their louvers only partly closed. He leaned in to look. He couldn’t see his stepbrother’s face, just his legs, sprawled out in front of the couch. His right hand was visible on the arm of the couch, holding a beer, and his left was obviously fidgeting with the clicker, flipping through channels until it landed on SportsCenter and stayed there. Then Nick got up, and Kyle ducked down. His stepbrother dangled the empty beer can in his hand, clearly going for a refill. He was shirtless, and Kyle could see every ridge, every channel on his tight body… Kyle greedily soaked in everything he could see, everything he could find out about his stepbrother. The posters on the wall were a young man’s – Lamborghinis and Foo Fighters and a badass fighter jet. There was an electric guitar on a stand. It wasn’t dirty but

it was cluttery, with shoes scattered around and…and a pair of underwear, just lying there. Dirty underwear… A hand grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his face into the wall. “What the fuck do you think you’re…oh. It’s you.” Nick let go of Kyle’s hair. “I’m sorry,” Kyle blurted, rubbing his forehead. “I just…” He stopped. What could he say? What could he say he wanted to see, to find, to have tonight? Nick was even more handsome than his pictures, the heat of his anger lighting up his features. Then they softened. “Oh, shit, you’re bleeding. You better come inside.” “Sit on the toilet,” Nick commanded. Kyle sat down, at eye level with Nick’s crotch. Nick was in a pair of basketball shorts, and Kyle wondered if there was a jock strap under there, too. Nick gently cleaned the cut on Kyle’s forehead with some Betadine. “It’s not that bad,” he said. He put a bandage on it. “You’ll live. Sorry about that. I saw a peeping Tom and I freaked out.” “No, I would too. Sorry I snuck up and all.” “Yeah, why didn’t you just, you know, ring the doorbell like a normal person?” Kyle snorted. “From a normal upbringing? Have you met my mother?” Nick laughed, tilting his head back, the cords in his neck taut and lean. He had a short stubbly beard now, that only accented his sharp jawline. “Come on, little bro,” he said, “let’s get you a beer.” Kyle thought his insides would melt. Nick had called him “little bro…” In the kitchen, he nervously pounded the first beer. “Whoa there, liquor horse.” Nick swapped out the empty for a full one and they went into the living room. Nick sprawled on the couch, legs spread, idly rubbing a hand over his chest. Which made Kyle just about cream himself right then and there. “So,” Kyle ventured. “Are you back here for good?” Nick snorted. “Back here? Are you kidding? Nah. I made some serious bank in North Dakota, man. Hard living, that’s for sure, fucking sharing a motel room with six other dudes because it’s so expensive there. A freezing cold room, too.” Kyle tried not to think about Nick in a room with six dudes, trying to keep warm. “But,” he said, stretching his arms and arching his body like a cat’s, “now I can travel. Fuck around Europe for a while. A long while, if I do it right. I just came back here to, you know, reset. Maybe make peace with the old man. Get my shit out of his garage. Your garage.”

Kyle blinked. He’d have to put it all back in the box, the jock strap, the dog tags… “Get laid, too, while I’m here, if I can.” “I’m sure you can,” Kyle blurted, blushing. Nick looked at him strangely for a moment. Calculating something. Getting the answer. He ran the back of his hand over his abs now, lazily. “I mean, it’s not like I didn’t get off up there. You gotta do what you gotta do, you know?” “Wha…what do you mean?” “Shit. The ratio of dudes to ladies in fucking Williston, North Dakota? It’s like ten to one. Good fucking luck. If you wanted to pay for it you could, but it would take all your money.” “So what did you do…” Nick shrugged. “Oh, there were some gay dudes from Bismarck who’d come down on weekends. Looking for horny straight guys.” “Oh,” Kyle said, staring ahead at the television. But he knew Nick’s head was turned. He could feel Nick’s eyes on him. Nick’s voice lowered. “Straight guys who were so horny they didn’t care where they put it.” “So they…sucked you?” “They everything’d me. Anything you could do, man. They loved it. I mean, it’s hard for me with girls, too,” he said casually, “because I like it pretty rough. I’m pretty aggressive in bed and once I get going, man, look out. I get a hole, I’m gonna wreck it.” “Oh…” “Get over here. Let me look at that cut.” Kyle moved down the couch, closer to his stepbrother. Nick took Kyle’s head in his hands, as if inspecting his forehead. “Yeah. Looks good,” he whispered. “Real nice.” Nick shifted on the couch, as if trying to adjust himself without touching it. Kyle’s eyes instinctively went down to Nick’s crotch. When he remembered to look away, he was looking at Nick. Who was smiling. “Take your shirt off.” Kyle obeyed immediately. Then, with it half over his head, he froze. The dog tags! He hastily pulled his shirt back down. But it was too late. Nick reached through the V of his polo and pulled the tags out. He laughed. “Ah no way. You found those.”

“I wasn’t trying to look through your stuff, I just accidentally…” Nick waved it away. “They look good on you.” He reached down and grabbed the bottom of Kyle’s shirt, pulling it up and over his head. Nick threw the shirt over the back of the couch. His work-roughened fingers grazed Kyle’s smooth chest as he picked up the dog tags, making Kyle gasp. “NICK’S BITCH. That’s right. You wanna know the story about these?” “Hell yeah.” “Heh. Well, when I was still living here, obviously, right? Anyway, I worked at PriceCo, and there was this dude who came in all the time. And he was always checking me out. Like, hard.” Nick tugged at the dog tags. Kyle didn’t resist as Nick used the chain to pull Kyle’s head down toward Nick’s crotch. “And he wasn’t a bad looking dude. In his thirties, fit. Into young straight dudes, no problem, whatever.” Nick put his hand on the back of Kyle’s head, idly stroking his hair as he pushed his stepbrother’s face into his crotch. “Then one day I was out in the parking lot, pulling cart collection duty.” Kyle shivered. Nick’s cock was erect underneath the satiny polyester shorts. Nick stopped stroking his hair and grabbed a fistful, pulling it tight, making it hurt. Kyle winced but didn’t protest. It felt…good. To be grabbed by his stepbrother, to roughhouse like brothers did… Kyle’s lips were pressed against Nick’s girth beneath the fabric, and his stepbrother started pumping his head up and down, using his fistful of hair as a handle, just bumping his face against Nick’s knob. “So he’s out there, by the cart rack. And he says to me, just fucking comes out and says, ‘I’ll pay you two hundred bucks if I can suck your dick.’” Nick started thrusting with his hips now, pushing his cock across Kyle’s face. Kyle reached for Nick’s waistband, tried to get to the meat itself. Nick pulled Kyle’s head back sharply and slapped him. Kyle jumped with the shock, then the tingle of the slap ran down his spine and landed in his crotch, the pain instantly rewired into pleasure. Nick’s eyes were smoking, his face angry. Silently he waved a finger with the other hand – no. Then he shoved Kyle’s face back down, hard. Kyle was aching, burning, to get his stepbrother’s cock in his mouth, to take his flesh down his throat. But he wasn’t in charge. He was Nick’s bitch. His own dick ached with the thrill of it.

“So I’m makin’ fuckin’ ten dollars an hour, so I say, fuck yeah! And the dude’s a sick bottom, man. Fucking took everything I dished out. Anytime I got horny, day or night, all I had to do was pick up the phone. Or anytime I was broke, cuz I’m always horny.” Nick pulled Kyle’s head off his crotch and finally, finally, pushed his shorts down, his huge hardon getting tugged down with them until it bounced free. Nick grabbed it and started smacking Kyle in the face with it. “Don’t flinch,” Nick said, slapping him lightly. “Keep your eyes open when I give you my cock.” “Okay, sorry.” Nick’s eyes widened. “What?” he nearly shouted. He slapped Kyle hard this time. “Sorry what?” “Sorry, sir!” Nick nodded. “That’s right. Who are you?” “Nick’s bitch!” “No. You wanna be my bitch. You haven’t earned it yet. Open your mouth.” Kyle opened wide, his eyes riveted on his stepbrother’s pornworthy tool. It was pale, like the rest of Nick, his whole body white from too long in North Dakota. The head was pink and fat and, yes, juicy, just a droplet of precum glistening like dew in the slit. Kyle almost shot his tongue out to collect it. “Yea, go on, get that.” He held Kyle’s head so that he could almost reach it. “Work for it, go on.” Kyle’s tongue ached, stretched out as far as it would go. But it had to go farther, it had to… Then it did. His stepbrother’s precum was like caviar, salty and rich. “Lots more where that came from. Now don’t move. Anyway,” Nick continued, holding Kyle’s face a tantalizing inch away from his meat, so close Kyle could see every vein throbbing in it. “He wanted to be my slave. My bitch. Wanted to wear dog tags that said so. Shit, I thought, whatever, you know? I’ll come and go as I please and he can roll over and beg and drool, not my problem. He was gonna pay me three hundred bucks for a dirty jockstrap, too, if you can… Oh shit!” Nick laughed. “You found the jockstrap, too, didn’t you?” “Yes, sir.” “And did you sniff it like a fuckin’ perv? A fuckin’ jock sniffer?” “Yes, sir!” “Shit. And now you’re gettin’ it free, too. Friends and family discount.” Kyle couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Nick laughed, too. He pulled Kyle up onto the couch and started tickling him. “Laugh harder, bitch!”

“Ow shit oh don’t!” Kyle protested, ticklish as hell. He tried to back away from Nick, tried to curl up in a ball on the other end of the couch. Then Nick was on top of him, flattening him out on his back, pulling his arms over the end of the couch. His face, his shoulders, eclipsed the light. His face was serious again as he looked down. “You gonna take his place? You gonna be my bitch? Anytime I tell you, you come over here and service me, any way I tell you to?” “Oh fuck yeah, sir.” Then the one thing Kyle never expected happened. Nick kissed him. Hard, of course, rough, demanding, his tongue jamming into Kyle’s mouth. Then he bit Kyle’s chin, hard, making him gasp. He ran his tongue across Kyle’s face like a lizard’s, slow and deliberate. Then he backed away like a cobra, and spat in Kyle’s face. “Lick that off your face,” he ordered. Kyle’s tongue eagerly searched out Nick’s spit, dragging it into his own mouth. He held his mouth wide open, like a receptacle, begging for more. Nick grinned, worked his jaw and his lips, and stuck out his tongue, a fat tendril of spit dropping like molasses into Kyle’s mouth. “That’s it. Drink up. You ever drank a guy’s piss before?” “N…no. Sir.” Nick was thoughtful, measuring Kyle’s unease. “Okay. We’ll get to that. Next time.” He jumped off the couch, shaking his shorts off his ankles as he ran around to the side. He pulled Kyle up by the arms until his back was arched over the couch’s armrest, his head nearly upside down. Nick smacked his tool against Kyle’s face, and Kyle tried to chase it with his tongue. “You a choker?” Nick asked. “I…I don’t know, sir.” Nick’s eyebrows went up. “Are you a virgin?” “Y…yes sir.” “NO SHIT. No way. Oh man. I’m gonna get down in a tight virgin throat. Fuck… Okay. This time, and this time only, understand, I’ll take it easy on you.” “Thank you, sir.” With a practiced hand, Nick cradled the back of Kyle’s head. “Open wide. Breathe, in, out. That’s it. Get some oxygen in you. Here it comes.” Kyle nearly panicked instinctively as Nick’s mushroom head touched the back of his throat. Nick caressed the side of his face, his voice gentle. “That’s it. Don’t worry, you aren’t gonna choke to death on it. I’ll let you breathe, sometimes. I like a warm fuck.”

Kyle laughed a little, relaxed, accepted Nick’s slow advance. He felt the gag, suppressed it, and then there was a pop, as Nick entered his throat. “Fuck yeah…oh that’s so good. Oh yeah.” Kyle flinched, choked on it, but Nick didn’t retreat. “Ten more seconds. You can do it.” He could, he could, if he wanted to. He wanted to please Nick, more than anything. Nick pulled out, ten seconds later. “Good boy. Good bitch. You like that?” “Yes, sir,” Kyle said, his own slobber covering his face as Nick swung his hips back and forth, smearing it over his bitch’s face. “Breathe. Again. Longer this time.” Again, down Kyle’s throat, the two of them holding perfectly still. The next time Nick began moving, in and out. As his dick slipped out of Kyle’s throat, the head rolling around in his mouth, Kyle could taste it, more of his stepbrother’s primal genetic essence. Then Nick grabbed his head firmly. “Okay. Time to do it my way.” Then he thrust, hard, fast, deep in to Kyle’s throat, holding his head as he pumped, pounded. Kyle was dizzy with lust, with oxygen deprivation. Nick pulled out only long enough for Kyle to take a swimmer’s gasping breath before he jammed himself back in again, and again. “Here it comes. Oh shit here it comes… FUCK! FUCK!” Nick bellowed as he exploded into Kyle’s guts, his dick throbbing madly with each pulse. Nick pulled out to stroke out the last shots, and Kyle moved his head, making sure to get every drop in his mouth. “Fuck, you’re a born cum slut, aren’t you. Here, lick it clean. Every drop. That’s right. So clean I can put it back in my shorts and not feel anything sticky. Yeah, good bitch.” Finally Nick was satisfied with Kyle’s work. He hitched up his shorts and headed for the kitchen. “Time for a beer. That was hard work.” Kyle panted, delirious, exhausted, exhilarated. It was everything he could have dreamed of and more. Nick handed him a beer, pushed his legs off the couch and flopped back into his spot. He cracked the top and drank deep. “Ahh. Cheers, little bro.” “Cheers,” Kyle said, opening his own beer and drinking greedily. “So,” Nick said, wiping the back of his mouth with his hand. “How long you in town for?” “As long as you want,” Kyle said impulsively. Nick grinned. He grabbed Kyle’s thigh and gave it a hard but friendly squeeze. “Nah, little brother, you got to go back to school. And I got to go to Europe.”

“Oh,” Kyle said, feeling the weight of a disappointment so intense it crushed him. “But,” Nick said, “We got all summer, right? And…I think in the spring, you need to study abroad. Yeah. Get yourself a Eurail pass. So wherever I’m wandering, you can get to me. Fast. Right?” Kyle’s grin nearly split his face. “Right you are, big brother.”

KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER II: LONG HOT SUMMER “Isn’t this nice!” Kyle’s mom chirped. “The whole family together at last.” “Yes,” agreed his stepdad, Joe Astor. “I’m so glad the two of you get to meet.” Kyle met Nick’s eyes over the dining room table. Nick had one hell of a poker face, that was for sure. Kyle hoped his own blush didn’t alert his mom to the lie as he said, “Yeah, it’s great to finally meet Nick.” It had taken all his self control to look Nick in the eye when he’d arrived, to shake his hand and feel the gritty strength in his work-roughened paw. And to say, “Nice to meet you,” as if his new stepbrother’s cock hadn’t been buried down his throat just the other night, as if those big hands hadn’t gripped his head to keep him from struggling… “You too,” Nick said, with a charming smile. “We shouldn’t have waited so long.” Kyle wanted to laugh or kill him, or both. “So!” Kyle’s mom said brightly. “You were working in North Dakota. On an oil rig?” “Yes, ma’am,” Nick said, his demeanor as pleasant as a boy scout’s. “Hard work, and dirty work, that’s for sure. But the money’s good.” Kyle tried to concentrate on his plate. He knew just how dirty Nick’s work had been. Nick had shown him his old Carhartt pants and his Red Wing boots, which he’d kept to “remind me to save my fucking money and not have to do that shit again.” “Put them on,” Kyle had whispered. “I wanna see how you looked, working out there with all those other roughnecks…” Nick chuckled darkly. “You got it, bro.” Then Nick had dressed for him, and jammed Kyle’s face into the crotch of the tough work pants, where he could smell the dirt and the oil and the deeply ingrained sweat and man-musk from Nick’s 12 hour shifts. Nick broke his reverie. “So how’s college, Kyle?” he asked innocently. “You studying hard?” “Y…yeah.” He’d almost said “yes, sir,” the words he’d said to Nick so many times in the last week, down on his knees in front of his stepbrother. “I’m majoring in English. I’m going to be a writer.” “There’s no money in that!” Kyle’s mom said. “You need a backup plan. Take some accounting classes or something. So you can get a good steady office job while you… write.” “Yeah, you’re eighteen years old, Kyle,” his stepdad said. “You don’t know what you’ll want to be when you’re older. Nick here went and got a job on an oil rig when he was nineteen, and he’s done with that, aren’t you, son?”

“I’d rather risk my life on an oil rig,” Kyle said abruptly. “That would be a cleaner, easier death.” Nick stifled a surprised laugh. He’d never seen Kyle in “defiant mode.” Of course he hadn’t. Kyle had submitted to his stepbrother’s every whim, never once saying no. “Well, come on now,” Kyle’s stepdad said. “Let’s not ruin a nice dinner.” “No, sir,” Nick said, smiling at Kyle. “It’s a very nice dinner.” Kyle suppressed a gasp. The toe of Nick’s running shoe was suddenly pressed between his legs, bumping against his crotch in a slow rhythm. Nick didn’t even look at him as he did it, and his core was so strong that his upper body didn’t move as his foot twitched. Kyle’s blood pressure soared, and his forehead broke out in a sweat. “So, Michelle,” Nick asked lightly. “This meat loaf is delicious. Where’d you get the recipe?” “Oh, I didn’t cook it. I bought it at Whole Foods. I’m a terrible cook!” “Well, you certainly have good taste,” Nick said, digging his toe just underneath Kyle’s balls, then popping his foot up, up, up to make Kyle’s junk bounce in his pants. But it didn’t bounce for long, since Kyle got rock hard in a few seconds, his dick aching against the fabric of his cargo shorts. No, not his – Nick’s cargo shorts. They had the same size waist, and wearing his stepbrother’s clothes made him feel…maybe what he would have felt if he’d really had a brother. A big brother to give him his hand-me-downs, soft and broken in and stained and frayed from an athletic young life. Nick’s foot hit one of Kyle’s balls square on, It hurt enough to make him drop the salt. “Kyle!” his mom chided him. “You should be more careful.” “Don’t be so hard on him, Michelle,” Nick said. “It could happen to anyone.” “That’s great,” Mr. Astor beamed. “Sticking up for him like that. Why, it’s like you really are brothers.” “Well!” Kyle said, jumping up from the table. “That was good. Thanks, mom. I’m gonna go get some air.” “But it’s so hot out there!” “That’s okay, I’m a little cold,” Kyle said. “I’ll join you,” Nick said. “I could use some air, too.” The temperature was about twenty degrees hotter outside. It was still in the high 80s, after a near-100 degree day. But the heat was dry, the air was clean, not at all oppressive but more like a soft warm blanket… Kyle sat on the porch swing that nobody ever used, wondering if it would hold his

weight. His mom had put it in as a decorative touch, so there was only one way to find out. “Perfect weather for fucking,” Nick said. He leaned on the railing, the moonlight casting a shadow along his spine where the tight t-shirt hugged his strong back. “You think?” Kyle asked. “You’d work up a sweat pretty fast, fucking in this heat.” Nick turned towards him, a half smile on his perfect profile. “Exactly.” Kyle laughed. Nick took a seat on the swing next to him, and threw his arm around Kyle’s shoulder. Kyle thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Wasn’t this the dream? Having a big brother, who was unafraid to show his affection, give his little bro his protection? He knew other guys had big brothers who had just been cruel, or careless, or apathetic. But that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This was the way it was supposed to be. The noise of a cheering crowd echoed in the distance. “Hey,” Nick said, “let’s go down to River Park. Sounds like there’s a softball game going on.” “Sure,” Kyle said, ready to do anything his new big brother suggested. Nick stuck his head in the door to announce their departure, shutting it again before anyone could object. Kyle followed him to his Ducati in the driveway. “Hey, I got you something,” Nick said, handing Kyle a helmet. “If you’re gonna be my biker bitch, you’re gonna need this. Check out the back.” Kyle took the helmet, and turned it around. Surrounded by roses and barbed wire were two words in a scrolly-font Kyle associated with tattoos. Kyle’s eyelids fluttered. He looked Nick in the eyes, unblinking, serious. “Yes,” he agreed. Nick was startled, Kyle could see, by his firmness, his intensity, his guarantee. Nick nodded. “Okay, then.” They got on the bike, Kyle wrapping his arms around his stepbrother’s lean strong torso, and Nick tore out down the street, to hell with speed limits. Kyle held on for dear life, and he should have been afraid, would have been afraid with anyone else. Instead all he could think of was the back of his helmet, the letters glittering in the headlights behind them, announcing to all the world that he was NICK’S BITCH. They stopped at the Quickie Mart for a six pack. River Park was busy even at ten o’clock. Busier, maybe, than it was during the heat of the day. Nick parked the bike in a spot by the elevated riverbank, on top of which a paved walkway stretched along the river for miles. The park was lit by the moon, and by the bright lights over the softball field. They ambled across the park, passing families barbecuing, young couples making out on blankets, a couple of college kids walking on a rope strung between two big sturdy

trees. Nick hopped on top of a picnic bench, and handed Kyle a beer. Kyle sighed. “Was your family like that?” he asked Nick, pointing his beer at the happy family barbecuing. “Yeah,” Nick said. “It was…” He pounded his beer. Let out a satisfied sigh and a belch. Cracked open another one. “It was good. My mom was great. She took me to football practice and baseball practice and all my games and to karate lessons and…” He grew quiet. “I really miss her.” “I’m sorry,” Kyle blurted, “I shouldn’t have brought it up.” “No, no,” Nick shook himself. “It was good times. I like to remember. I just wish she was still alive, is all. And you, did you have a happy childhood?” “Ha. Would be writers aren’t allowed to have happy childhoods.” Nick laughed. “You needed a big brother. Someone to give you shit, chase you around, get you out of yourself.” “Yeah…But…” Kyle hesitated. “But I have one now.” Nick was silent. Then he nodded. “Yeah, man. You do.” Kyle felt it for the first time in his life. The thing songs and movies and even commercials were always going on about. Love. Security. Joy. “Hey!” Nick said. “Someone left a Frisbee!” He jumped off the table and grabbed it. “Go long, little bro!” He sent it sailing, and Kyle ran after it like a happy puppy. He threw it back in his stepbrother’s general direction, and felt his groin ache as Nick jumped into the air to catch it, his upraised arms lifting his shirt, the chiseled V of his waist and his treasure trail sparkling in the phosphorescent lights from the softball field. Kyle knew he’d have this image in his memory forever, better than a photo – Nick, smiling, one foot tucked behind him like a dancer in mid-leap, a bolt of young lightning in the sky. Finally, Kyle could do it – he could just give in to happiness, accept that this was real, permanent, yeah, even though they’d go their separate ways at the end of the summer. This, this was forever. “You’re sweating,” Nick said, his own face shining with exertion. “Let’s go on down to the river and cool off.” Nick led him along the top of the embankment until he found what he wanted, a steep dirt path down to the river, through the scrub and brush. Another path revealed itself at the riverside, into the tall trees. At the end of that they reached a battered green picnic table in a clearing, its paint chipped off and hacked out by decades of initials carved into it. Nick tore off his shirt, dropped his shorts and threw them on the table. He was naked in the moonlight, pale and smooth and chiseled as marble. “Come on, get naked,” he said. “Leave your shoes on, though.” Kyle complied

immediately and followed him across the smooth rocks in to the cool, shallow river. “Feels good, huh?” Nick said, splashing him. “Sure does,” Kyle laughed, splashing him back. Nick cocked his head back at the picnic table. “Can’t believe there’s nobody down here tonight. Cops must have come through earlier.” Kyle dipped his head in the water and shook himself like a puppy, sprinkling Nick. “What do you mean?” Nick held his nose with two fingers and dunked himself out of sight, popping out of the water like a god from the sea. He took his turn to shake himself, the water already curling his dark brown hair. “Dudes go down there and hang out, looking for dick to suck.” Kyle raised an eyebrow. “How do you know?” “Heh. How do you think? Remember that dude I told you about? The one I met in the PriceCo parking lot? He turned me on to this place. He went out of town on business and said if I needed to bust a nut while he was gone, I should come here.” The cold water was no match for the hot blood rushing to Kyle’s cock. “And so you did…” “Yep. Man, it’s great. Like a fucking vending machine, only you don’t even have to put any money in it.” Nick hummed a tune, smiling at the thought. Kyle’s mouth flew open, and he burst out laughing. “I get it! I get the poem!” “What?” “The note you left that guy on the Ziploc bag.” Without thinking, he touched the dog tags he had around his neck – tags meant for another man, once, but his now. One stamped NICK’S BITCH, and the other, PRIVATE PROPERTY. “You signed it Nick-O-Lodeon. Like the old song, that you were just humming. ‘Now you put a nickel in, to the nickelodeon.’ He put a nickel in, and he got a peep show.” Nick laughed, too. “You got it. How the hell do you know that old song. Charlie, he never got it.” “Oh, so he has a name, huh.” Nick shrugged. “Nah, he didn’t really. His name was Cum Dumpster. That’s what I called him anyway. He loved that.” “I bet…” “So, you, uh…wanna go check it out? Take a walk into the bushes?” “Hell yeah,” Kyle managed to croak through his suddenly dry throat. Back at the park bench, Nick’s demeanor changed. Coldly, abruptly, he said. “Stay

there. Put your clothes back on.” Nick pulled his shorts on and walked away. Kyle complied, watching Nick’s retreat. Then he saw Nick turn off the path, stop behind some tall bushes, and lean against a tree. Only his pale torso glimmering through the bushes told Kyle where he was. Kyle knew what to do. He walked slowly, silently, approaching like a stranger. He turned, looked at Nick, tried to make eye contact, to nod acknowledgement. Nick looked away, as if Kyle wasn’t there. Idly adjusted his crotch. Not an invitation and not a rejection. Kyle approached. Nick still wouldn’t look at him. Tipped his head back to look at the stars. Kyle went to his knees, his hands reaching for the button of Nick’s shorts. Nick’s hand brushed his away. Then grabbed his hair and held him. Unzipped his shorts with the other hand and pulled his cock out. Of course, Kyle thought, he was leaving his shorts on for the quick getaway if they got caught. Nick wrapped his hand around the base of his tool, leaving the rest for Kyle to suck. He went down on it fast, greedy, his chin bumping against the meat of Nick’s hand between thumb and forefinger. As Nick’s cock swelled, he changed his grip, letting Kyle get closer to the root, taking it, filling his mouth with meat. Nick put both of his hands on Kyle’s head, his hands pumping Kyle’s head up and down on his dick. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Suck that dick, you queer. You fucking love cock, don’t you.” His mouth full, Kyle could only nod, thinking of the strangers who’d been right here, on this patch of ground, doing just this. He hated them all, for having Nick first…but it didn’t matter. It was all his now. “Dirty little bitch,” Nick hissed, grabbing Kyle’s hair and pulling it, hard. Kyle’s pulse jumped, his jaw clenched. His stepbrother yanked his hair, pulling him off Nick’s dick. Nick slapped him. “Watch those fucking teeth. You bite me again, I’ll slap you harder.” Kyle nodded. “Yes sir!” He almost wanted to bite again, just to feel Nick’s strong hand on his cheek once more – a hand strong enough to work an oil rig, to arm wrestle for money, but with a light touch when needed for fine adjustments, or spreading a hand of cards…or slapping his bitch just hard enough to make Kyle’s cock start to leak in his shorts. “Sucking dudes in the park, that what you like?” Nick said, pushing Kyle back down, the fat head of his dick forcing its way into Kyle’s throat. “Yeah,” Nick answered for him. “Gettin’ used. Just a hole…ah…shiiitttt….” Nick rammed Kyle’s head down to the root of his shaft, harder, faster…then stopped, the two of them stone still. And then his dick exploded, pumping gouts of cum straight into Kyle’s belly. Kyle ached to taste it, to fill his mouth with it, to roll it around over

every taste bud, to store it under his tongue for later. But that wasn’t what Nick wanted, and Nick got what he wanted. Nick pulled out, and Kyle gasped for air. “Finish me off,” Nick said, putting just the head of his dick into Kyle’s mouth, squeezing the base of his still-hard cock, short strokes forcing a few more contractions, finally giving Kyle what he wanted, the clean fresh salty taste of Nick’s cum. Nick pushed him off, stuck his cock back in his shorts and zipped them up, and walked away. Just the way he’d always done here, Kyle knew. He staggered to his feet, and walked back out of the bushes. Nick was sitting on the park bench, grinning like the cat that ate the canary. He had a beer in each hand, and extended one to Kyle. “Oh my God,” Kyle said, sitting down next to him and chugging his beer. “That was… insane.” “Yeah. You liked that, huh.” “Couldn’t you tell?” “Oh yeah. Usually there’s an audience, too. The other dudes watching and stroking and…” “And wishing it was them down there on your cock,” Kyle finished. “Heh. Yeah.” “Don’t you worry about getting busted by the cops?” “Well, actually, there’s this one cop who comes down with a flashlight and scares ‘em all away.” Nick smirked. “So he can have me to himself. Not sure if he’s really a cop or just dresses like one – anyway, he figured out how to get me exclusively.” Kyle laughed. “You lead an exciting life.” Nick crushed the empty beer can against the table. “Come on. Let’s go back to the house. I’ll show you something exciting.” Nick’s cottage didn’t have A/C. All the windows were open in the hope of catching a breeze, and one fan whirred in the living room, pushing the heat around. Nick grabbed them two more beers and put on a baseball game. “Fucking Giants are going to kill it this year.” “Yeah. Every other year, right, so this year for sure.” Nick nodded. Kyle sipped his beer, trying not to wash away the taste of Nick’s cum. Nick yawned and stretched. “Dude. Fuck. Too many beers. I’m gonna go lay down. You wanna pass out on the couch?” “Sure…” Kyle said, trying to hide his disappointment.

Not long after that, he heard the TV in Nick’s bedroom…and the unmistakable sound of straight porn, an actress squeaking “oh oh oh” as she got fucked. Kyle wanted to cry, he was so horny. He’ll have his dick in his hand, he thought. He walked quietly towards the bedroom. Nick was naked, the sheet tossed down to the bottom of the bed. He was on his back, one hand brushing his chest, the other stroking his fully erect monster cock. Kyle stood in the doorway. Nick didn’t look at him, his eyes glued to the porn on the TV, but he shifted on the bed, his legs parting. Kyle got on the bed, creeping up between Nick’s legs. He looked at his stepbrother, his lover. He reached out and touched Nick’s dick. Nick helped him by changing his stroke, pushing it down to point at his mouth. Kyle took it in his mouth, shifting to get a better angle. Nick groaned. Kyle licked the shaft slowly, tickling Nick’s furry balls with his tongue. It was like the most delicious ice cream cone he’d ever had. Then he noticed Nick’s silence. He looked up to see his stepbrother looking at him. “You got a nickel?” he asked, smiling. Kyle laughed. Then Nick jumped up, grabbed him, and threw him over, pinning him. Kyle struggled, trying to get out of the wrestling submission, but Nick was too strong. “Say uncle,” Nick said. “Or I’ll give you an Indian burn.” “No!” Kyle said, fighting harder, using his legs to roll them off the bed. They hit the floor with a thump. “Oh, you’re gonna get it now,” Nick growled. He grabbed Kyle’s legs and pushed them back over his head. Kyle could feel Nick’s massive hardon pushing along his ass crack. He moaned. “Oh yeah.” Nick grabbed his chin, hard, and drilled him with his dark eyes. “Is that what you want? You want me to fuck you?” “Fuck yeah.” “You don’t know what you’re gettin’ into. Okay, ‘cause you’re a virgin, I’ll open you up easy. But I don’t fuck easy. I’m not a gentle lover. I’m gonna get in there and fucking wreck you.” “That’s what I want! I want it!” Scowling, Nick shook his head. “You better not be fucking bullshitting me. If I get inside you and you chicken out, I’m gonna be so pissed…” “No. I won’t. I double dare you to pound my ass.” “Ha. Okay then.” In a flash, Nick was off him and on his feet. “I don’t have any lube, though. I usually just wank with lotion.” “How about Crisco?” Kyle suggested.

“Crisco? O fuck no. I cook healthy, man. Hmm. Yeah. Coconut oil should do the trick.” He padded out to the kitchen. Kyle took his clothes off as fast as he could, throwing himself up on to the bed, on his back, his legs bent to present his ass. Nick came back in and stopped. “Turn over.” Kyle flipped over. “Push that ass up in the air. Let me see it. Fuck. Fucking bubble butt. Virgin bubble butt. Oh shit that’s gonna be so tight…” He opened his closet door. “Get up for a minute.” Kyle stood up. Nick pulled a black fitted sheet out of a box in the closet. “Help me put this on the bed.” The texture was strange, not that of a normal sheet. “What is this?” “A play sheet. So we can roll around in sweat and lube and cum and still have a dry bed.” “So…” Kyle said hesitantly. “You have a lot of company here?” Nick looked at him, surprised. “You jealous?” “Yes.” His stepbrother smiled, opened his arms. “Come here.” Kyle stepped into Nick’s arms, feeling his embrace, his smooth hot skin pressed against his own, his strong arms wrapping around him. Kyle felt delirious with affection. Nick nuzzled his neck, then moved his lips down, and bit his trapezius muscles, hard. Kyle cried out sharply. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” Nick growled. “My teeth print in your flesh. Fucking marking you, bitch. Mine. You hear me?” “Yes sir.” Nick pulled back, grabbed Kyle’s hair, his hard forearm pressed against the side of Kyle’s face. He slapped Kyle with his other hand. “You gonna ask me who else I fuck again, huh?” “No sir!” Nick nodded. “That’s right, bitch.” He shoved Kyle onto the bed, face down. Kyle spread his legs, afraid of the pain about to come, but wanting it too. Nick got on the bed behind him, pushing Kyle’s legs apart with his own. Kyle heard the lid turning on the jar of coconut oil. He jumped when Nick’s greasy fingers touched his asshole. “Stick it up,” Nick commanded. “Higher. Put your hands on your cheeks, and spread ‘em. That’s it.” Kyle squeezed his eyes tight when Nick’s finger pushed its way inside him. The

coconut oil eased its passage, but his muscle still protested. “Relax,” Nick said. “You’re gonna get a lot more than a finger up there.” He pulled it out, then forced two fingers in, hard. Kyle shouted. “O fuck!” “That hurt?” “Yeah…” “You want me to stop?” “No…” “Good. Fucking take the pain I give you.” “Y…yes, sir.” “That’s it,” Nick crooned. “Yeah.” Nick’s voice was as much a lubricant as the oil, easing something inside Kyle, something that opened him up for his stepbrother’s fingers. Nick got three fingers in there this time, as he twisted his hand back and forth, massaging Kyle’s sphincter, stretching it wider. Satisfied, Nick wiped his hand on the play sheet and slid on top of Kyle. He kissed the back of Kyle’s neck, then nipped at it once, again, making Kyle moan. “Harder,” Kyle said. “Take me.” Nick paused. Then like a wild animal he bit Kyle hard on the back of the neck, and pushed himself inside with one stroke. “O fuck!” Kyle screamed, the pain in his ass radiating out through his body. “Fuck!” “Easy. Hold still. It’s not coming out till I say so.” The pain made Kyle’s senses hyperaware. He could hear the crickets outside, chirping madly, the hum of the fan in the other room, the soft sigh of restless cars from downtown. Nick was pressed on top of him and their skin was already slick with a layer of sweat between them. The searing became a throbbing. Nick wrapped his hands around Kyle’s torso, stroking his chest, kissing his neck tenderly now. “Yeah, that’s it, bro, take me inside,” he whispered. “I’m gonna fucking fill that empty hole inside you that you didn’t even know you had…” And it was true. He’d been empty and hadn’t known it, until Nick had come along and filled him up… “Now take that huge fucking cock, all the way.” Kyle couldn’t believe there was still more to take, until Nick’s hips moved and filled him up even more. The head of Nick’s dick pressed up against his prostate, making him gasp.

“Yeah. Now we’re good. I hit your sweet spot, didn’t I?” “Ugghhh…” Nick chuckled darkly. “Fuck yeah. Here it comes.” He grabbed Kyle’s wrists and pinned them up at the top of the bed, his iron grip bound to leave a mark. Then he drew back, slowly, as if notching an arrow. “Put your face in the pillow,” Nick said. Kyle obeyed. Nick slammed his hips forward, striking deep inside Kyle’s guts with the head of his rock hard cock. Kyle screamed into the pillow, unable to sort out pain from pleasure, as Nick began pounding him, over and over, mercilessly. Kyle couldn’t believe that one man could do this to another man and not break him in two… Nick let go of one of his wrists, and shoved his fingers into Kyle’s mouth, fishhooking his head sideways. “You fucking like that?” “Ye’ ‘ir,” Kyle managed to grunt. Nick’s fingers were slick with coconut oil, but still sandy and rough. “Fuck. Just wait till you learn what else I got in that box.” Kyle whimpered, making Nick laugh. He let go, then pressed his fists into Kyle’s back, putting himself in pushup position, driving all his weight into his stepbrother. He thrust, hard. “Yeah, I’m gonna get a Sharpie and mark your ass.” Again, harder. “Every time I fucking blow a load inside you this summer, I’m gonna mark you again.” Harder still, again and again. “Your ass is gonna look like a jail cell wall.” “Fuck yeah!” Kyle shouted. The pain had submitted to the pleasure now, the pressure Nick kept forcing on his prostate making his own dick spurt juices, slicking the sheet beneath him, his own dribblings mixing with the lube and sweat pooling beneath him. “I’m gonna cum now. You ready?” “Yes, sir!” “No you’re not,” Nick said. And started really truly fucking him. Hammering his ass with every muscle in his body. Kyle roared into the pillow as his own orgasm took him, his cock unable to take the slick strokes against the sheet. “Yeah! Fuck yeah!” Nick shouted, his strong hands on Kyle’s shoulders, so Kyle’s body was forced to take the impact. “Ohhhh….shiiitttt….” Then Nick’s body shuddered, twitched, with a will of its own, as his cock danced inside Kyle, blowing an epic load. Nick kept fucking him, but slower now, teasing out the last of his juices, savoring the sweet ache of a hyper-sensitive post-orgasm cock. Spent, he collapsed on top of Kyle, the sweat dripping off his forehead and down the side of Kyle’s face. Kyle reached his tongue out to catch it, wanting every drop of Nick’s fluid.

“Holy crap,” Nick said finally, rolling onto his back. “That was…the best ever.” He grabbed Kyle and pulled him onto his chest. “It was,” Kyle said, wrapping his arms around his stepbrother, feeling Nick’s stillrapid heartbeat, the heat of him like a furnace. Nick laughed. “It was your ‘only ever,’ man, so of course it’s your best ever.” Kyle turned his head to look up at Nick. “I know it’ll always be my best ever.” Nick smiled. Pulled him up and kissed him. Deep and slow and tender, like a lover. “Well, just wait and see what I’ve got in store for you next time, little bro.” Kyle buried his face in Nick’s chest. “I can’t wait, big bro.”

KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER III: INDEPENDENCE DAY FIREWORKS

Kyle walked over to Nick’s little one-bedroom cottage that night, as he had every night for weeks now. He’d make some excuse to his folks about “helping Nick work on his bike.” They were so glad their two sons from their previous marriages were getting along that they didn’t question it. And, hey, if the two stepbrothers had too many beers after workin’ hard on an engine, it made sense for Kyle to stay over, right? Besides, he was eighteen now, and Nick was twenty-one. He was an adult in the eyes of the law and didn’t need a fucking excuse. “Don’t come in here,” Nick had shouted from the bedroom when Kyle walked in the unlocked front door. Kyle quivered. Nick was preparing something for him, something new. Kyle got a beer from the fridge and sat down on the couch, yearning, dying to get up and look in the bedroom. But he didn’t dare. Nick liked surprises. They hung out in the living room for a while, watching TV, Kyle barely able to focus, or carry his end of the chit chat about what they were seeing on SportsCenter. Nick became less and less verbal. Took faster swigs from his beer. Didn’t look at Kyle anymore. Kyle felt the heat in his groin when that happened. Nick was going…there, his dark sexual place. Getting ready to rock ‘n’ roll. Abruptly, Nick said, “Go get on the bed. Face down.” Kyle jumped up, tearing his clothes off as he ran into the bedroom. Only the fitted sheet was on the mattress, and a single pillow. He threw himself onto the bed, holding on to the pillow for dear life, breathing hard with excitement. He was in Nick’s bed, waiting for him… The night was hot and humid, and there was no air conditioning at the cottage, so the temperature in here was the same as it was outside. It would be late at night before the place cooled down. Nick let him stew in his juices for a few minutes. That was part of the game, too – the torture of waiting, of wondering. Nick had just started to dig into the “box of tricks,” the big cardboard box in his closet full of…things. Toys that he’d used in his playtime with Charlie, a man who’d propositioned him in the parking lot at PriceCo – the man who had taught Nick what gay men loved to do in bed. What they loved to have done to them by a hot young straight dude like Nick… Charlie had generously equipped Nick with everything he’d need to work him over hard.

Would it be the big black belt that Kyle had caught a glimpse of in the box? The strange box with the dial on it? The glinting metal thing that looked like a dentist’s tool? He could hear people setting off firecrackers in the neighborhood, impatient for the big Fourth of July show the next day. The pops and bangs and whoops would mask the noises Nick would coax out of Kyle tonight… Nick finally came in. He stood at the side of the bed and grabbed Kyle’s right hand, stretching it out. Then from its concealed spot under the mattress, he lifted a fat black cuff with a Velcro closure, and sealed it around Kyle’s wrist. Rounding the bed, he did the same with his ankles and his other wrist. Kyle could hear Nick’s shorts drop at the foot of the bed. Nick grabbed the straps attached to the ankle cuffs, and pulled them both hard, tightening the fit of Kyle’s body to the bed. Kyle’s legs were yanked apart like a wishbone. Nick sat down on Kyle’s back, his strong legs pressing into Kyle’s hips, and did the same thing to his wrist straps. Kyle’s body made an X on the bed. He tried to move his hands, but there was no slack. “That’s it,” Nick said. “Indian style. Fucking staked out for the predators.” He stood up to survey his work, walking back and forth at the foot of the bed. He rummaged through the box and pulled something out. “Or alien style. Ready for your probing.” Kyle heard the flick of the cap on the bottle of lube and squirmed in anticipation. Nick laughed at him. “Yeah, wiggle that butt at me. I wanna see that asshole wink.” Nick wedged his strong legs between Kyle’s, parting them even wider. Kyle felt a small round wet object up against his asshole. He knew what it was – the dildo was a long thin wand shaped into a ball on the end, meant to hit his prostate without stretching out his ass. Nick liked to use it to get Kyle lubed up deep inside. Nick pushed it in, hard. Kyle yelped. Nick snorted. “Fuck, you still got a tight asshole. I’m not pounding you hard enough, I guess.” Kyle groaned as Nick bumped the end of the wand against his prostate, hard, punching his button like a man impatient for an elevator. “That’s it, take it. Look at you. My fucking prisoner,” Nick hissed. He stretched out on top of Kyle, his weight pressing insistently on his stepbrother’s body. His right hand still working Kyle’s ass with the wand, he moved his hips, his big cock sliding up and down along Kyle’s ass crack. “I could leave you right here, just like this. Go get the phone and take a picture. Yeah, I got an old buddy I bet would go for that. I bet if he’s drunk enough, he’d fuck a dude. I could text him this and see what happens…” “Anything you want, sir,” Kyle said. “Really?” Nick said dryly. “You sick of my dick already?”

“No, sir. But it would be hot because…because you were here. Watching. Because it turned you on, to make me do it.” Nick paused. “Yeah? You like to please me, huh?” His free arm wrapped around Kyle’s neck, tenderly now, stroking his throat. “Maybe later,” he said, his stroke turning into a grip, threatening to choke him. Nick manipulated the wand, up and down, right and left, working Kyle’s hole. “Gonna give you a little more tonight…” Nick pushed himself inside Kyle’s ass, his cock riding up into him alongside the wand. “O God!” Kyle shouted. His stepbrother’s cock was massive, and having both his cock and the wand up his ass put tremendous pressure on his insides. “Hell yeah,” Nick said. He didn’t move his body, didn’t move his cock. Instead he took the handle of the wand and worked it up and down, in and out, the ball of it stroking the flesh of his dick and the inside of Kyle’s ass. Nick sighed as he rolled the ball over the head of his own cock, along the sensitive underside. “Your turn,” he said, and pushed it in deeper, knocking the ball against Kyle’s prostate. “And my turn,” he said, returning its attentions to his own dick. “Yeah, fucking jacking myself off inside your ass. You like that, you fucking dirty slave?” “Yes, sir!” Kyle cried, feeling his own juices pooling and cooling underneath him as the wand pushed the fluid out of his prostate, leaking out of his rock hard dick. “Yeah,” Nick nodded. “Think I’ll just leave it right up there.” He gave the wand one last push, embedding it deep inside Kyle. Then he shifted, and wrapped his arms underneath Kyle, hooking them on his shoulders like clamps. “Leave it right there…while I…fuck…the…shit outta you!” he shouted, pounding Kyle furiously. Kyle screamed and Nick butted Kyle’s head with his own, pushing it down into the pillow. “You want the neighbors to hear, you, huh? Want ‘em to come and rescue you?” “No sir!” “Then scream into that pillow, bitch!” Nick shouted, and began to pound away, hard and fast, jackhammering Kyle’s ass. Kyle sobbed with pain, with pleasure, as the wand rolled around inside him, pushed this way and that by Nick’s violent thrusts. He came, hard, and came again, till it hurt, his post-orgasm cock so hypersensitive now. “Here comes,” Nick panted. “Here comes. O yeah. Fuck yeah… UNNNNNGGGHHH!” he shouted just as a long string of firecrackers popped in the alley

behind the cottage. He pounded his load deep inside his stepbrother’s guts, the violent motions of his dick pushing the wand in deeper too. “God damn,” he said finally, collapsing on top of Kyle, the sweat dripping off the both of them in the July heat. “That was great,” Kyle gasped. “I fucking came so hard!” Nick laughed. “You did? All over my sheets?” “You forgot to put the play sheet down.” “No, I didn’t. That thing holds the heat. Too hot in here already for that.” Nick delicately closed his teeth on the lobe of Kyle’s ear, again and again. He whispered in Kyle’s ear. “You know by now I don’t forget anything, brother.” The next day was the Fourth of July. There was a big festival down at River Park, and their stepparents and their friends would have a picnic laid out. Before they left, Nick had Kyle put on a pair Nick’s old cargo shorts, a pair of skate shoes, and a backwards baseball cap. Nick handed him a pale blue v-neck t-shirt. “Just stuff the shirt in your back pocket, let it hang out.” “Pale blue, right side,” Kyle said, wedging the shirt in. “That’s the hankie code for cocksucker.” “Huh. Guess I musta known that subconsciously, huh?” Nick winked at him and clamped a Giants cap on his head. “Fuck you,” Kyle grinned. “It’s backwards,” he said, trying to turn the hat around so the bill was forward. “No, dude. Today you’re a dude. It’s on right, trust me.” Nick put a pair of his Spy sunglasses on Kyle’s face. Then he nodded. “Yeah, now you look like my bro,” he smiled. “I wish,” Kyle blurted. “I feel weird, like I’m in costume or something.” Nick pinched his cheek. “You’re cute when you’re nervous.” Then he sobered. “Look, man, it’s all about attitude. You walk in somewhere like you fuckin’ own the place? Then you own it. You believe it, it’s true. I’m not talking about those toolbox types who swagger in all, like…” Nick scowled, stiffened, and held his arms crooked out at his sides, like a guy with massive lats whose 250 pounds of stiff muscle wouldn’t let him straighten his arms. In a deep voice he said, “ ‘Yeah I’m a badass yeah don’t fuck with me, I watch MMA on TV, man, I’ll fuck you up.’” Kyle laughed. “You’re a good mimic.”

“Thanks. Just…you know, be yourself. You got a lot to be proud of, brother,” Nick said, heading for the door and smacking Kyle on the rump as he passed. “Starting with that fine ass of yours.” They rode Nick’s Ducati to the park, Kyle’s hard cock pressing against his stepbrother’s back the whole way. “Don’t get any ideas,” Nick said at a red light, revving the motor. “That ain’t getting in me.” “I don’t want it to!” Kyle yelled back. “I like you being all top!” “Good.” They made their appearance at the family’s picnic table, long enough to fill their Solo cups from the keg. Then they sauntered around the park, weaving through the festival tents, checking out the crafts and t-shirts and homemade hats. The hotter the day got, the better the beer tasted to Kyle. Walking behind Nick, Kyle stared at his stepbrother’s back, his cargo shorts sagging and revealing the barest hint of smooth ass crack – no underwear for Nick. Kyle smiled. His balls would be slick and tangy tonight… “Yo! Nick! What up dude!” A shirtless young muscle stud came out of nowhere, high-fiving Nick. His blond hair was buzzcut military-style. “Hey, Tommy, how’s it going? Yeah, I just blew into town…” He shot the shit with him for a minute as Kyle watched. He looked like a frat boy, athletic and rowdy, one of those types with a wholesome face and a dirty mind. “This is my stepbrother, Kyle,” Nick said, and Tommy nodded at him, taking off his sunglasses and extending his hand. “How you doing, man, nice to meet you.” Kyle raised his own sunglasses and took his hand, feeling the firm grip, as Tommy’s crystal blue eyes locked on his. Kyle couldn’t help but wonder…is he the one Nick could call, the one who’d fuck a guy if he was drunk enough? Kyle’s guts clenched a little as Tommy’s eyes searched his, examining, evaluating… He nodded at Nick, as if the two of them shared a secret. “Come out with us tonight, man, we got some M-80s and shit we’re gonna blow up.” “Nah,” Nick said, casually throwing an arm around Kyle’s bare shoulder. “Me and my bro here are gonna hang out and put on a show of our own.” Kyle nodded coolly in agreement, finally in character, even as Nick’s soft warm skin on his own made him shudder with desire. “Cool, man! Have a good time!” They moved on, Nick’s arm hooking his neck in an affectionate lock. “We’re

gonna put on a show of our own, huh?” Kyle asked. Nick nodded. “Yep. Gonna light up the sky tonight, bro.” Their family’s picnic table was out in the sun, and it didn’t take Kyle long to start to feel the heat. He put his shirt back on, but that only held the sun’s baking rays. He turned his hat around to use the visor the way it was meant, but the hat was still trapping the heat rising off his head. Nick looked as cool as a cucumber with his sunglasses on, strumming a Nirvana riff on someone’s acoustic guitar. Of course he even plays the guitar, Kyle thought, wiping his forehead. “You okay?” Nick asked him, taking off his sunglasses and frowning. “Just…really hot.” Nick jumped up. “Come on, let’s get you in the shade.” He grabbed a couple sodas from the ice chest along with a few of the big chunky ice cubes, and steered Kyle over to a big tree at the edge of the park. “Here,” Nick grinned, looking right and left to see if the coat was clear. “Turn around. Up against the tree.” Kyle was glad to rest his torso on the tree’s massive trunk. Then he jumped as something cold touched his back, just above his ass crack. “Don’t resist me,” Nick said in his dark, deep night time voice. “Okay…” Kyle said. Nick stuck his hand down the back of Kyle’s shorts. Something cold pressed against his asshole. “Open for it,” Nick commanded, and by now it was instinct to obey. Nick pushed until he’d popped the ice cube inside Kyle’s ass. Kyle yelped with the cold and the pain. Nick laughed. He stood back, slapping his hands clean as if he’d just finished a dusty job. “That’ll cool you down.” Kyle turned around and rubbed his ass. “That hurts, man.” “Yeah,” Nick whispered, his dark eyes narrowing. “It does, doesn’t it… Just stand there. Let it melt. Feel that burn.” Kyle’s eyelids fluttered. Nick cocked his head. “Come on, let’s go back to the table.” Kyle sat down, knowing Nick was watching him suffer. It was so cold, that big long ice cube deep inside his guts! It was taking forever to melt… But it was cooling down his overheated core, he had to admit with a smile. Kyle reached for the potato salad. “Nuh uh,” Nick whispered, putting his

sunglasses back on. “You’re gonna be choking on my cock tonight, and I don’t want that on my dick.” They both busted out laughing. Their stepparents looked down the table, beaming, so glad the two young men were getting along so well. They got back to Nick’s late in the afternoon, hot and exhausted. Nick had sealed the cottage up tight early in the morning, shutting all the windows and blinds to hold in the early morning chill, and at least it was cooler in there now than it was outside. Nick saw Kyle’s tremendous yawn. “You need a nap? It is baby’s nap time?” “Shut up,” Kyle said through the tail end of the yawn. “Aren’t you tired?” Nick shrugged. “Yeah, a little. We should rest before the big show tonight. C’mon, help me with the sheet.” “Which one?” “Ha. The regular fitted sheet on the bed, smartass. Take it off that corner.” They pulled it off and Nick ran it under the tap in the kitchen, until it was soaking wet. He threw it at Kyle, who caught it as it splatted against his chest. “Hey!” “See, you’re cooler already.” They spread it out on the bed. Nick tore his shirt off and threw himself down on it. “Aah, that’s good. Turn the fan on.” Kyle flipped the switch on the overhead fan, setting it on high. Nick patted the bed beside him. “Come on, doggy.” Kyle laid down a discreet distance away, but Nick shocked him by grabbing him, pulling Kyle onto his stepbrother’s chest. Kyle sighed, delirious. Nick’s arm around him, his head on Nick’s chest, just like…well, like lovers, really. This wasn’t something brothers did, was it? Kyle stroked Nick’s side, feeling his ribs, his silky smooth skin. He was full of questions he wanted to ask, and yet didn’t want to have answered. There was one that he knew was dumb, maybe even a little…dangerous. Last time he’d asked about other people Nick fucked, Nick had told him it was none of his business. But there was one question he could ask. “So…are you still straight?” Nick thought about it for all of a second, then shrugged. “I’m still what I’ve always been. I’m sexual. I don’t watch gay porn, you know, but fuck who knows, I might some day. When I’m alone, thinkin’ about days like this, wishing you were with me. Then I might.”

Nick paused. “But I know that you turn me on. The way you look at me. The way you want me. It makes me want you back. And it’s…it’s hard to talk about, you know? To say that you’re my brother, but more than that… Not a boyfriend or a lover because that’s all, you know…” He waved a hand in the air. Kyle nodded. “I know. Friday nights at the Olive Garden, double dates, Valentine’s Day…” Nick roared with laughter. “Yeah! That shit! ‘He went to Jared’ and shit. I fuckin’ hate all that.” Kyle squeezed his stepbrother, nuzzled his chest. “I guess it’s kinda all mixed up, you know. I wanted a brother, but my mom couldn’t have any more kids. My friends had brothers, big athletic dudes, and they were so hot…I wanted them, fuck I wanted them… But what I really wanted was my own brother, you know?” Nick ruffled Kyle’s hair. “Yeah, man, I get it. And you know, we are brothers, in my mind. Real true brothers now. If my dad and your mom get divorced, it doesn’t fucking matter. We’re still family, you and me. So it doesn’t matter, when you go back to school and I go traveling. We’ll always be family. Hey, are you crying?” Kyle snuffled. “A little,” he laughed. “Ah shit, you need a drink, little bro. Come on,” Nick said, gently easing Kyle up, “let’s make some margaritas.” Kyle was splayed out on the peaked roof, his arms hanging over the other side. The shingles were rough against his skin, and while the roof wasn’t so sharply angled that he was going to slide down to his death or anything, he still felt the need to hold on. “This is it, huh,” Nick said, flopping down beside him, pressing his hips against Kyle’s. “We can really see the fireworks from here.” “Yeah,” Kyle agreed. The trees around them concealed them from most lines of sight, and Kyle had a funny thought. “We could even fuck up here and nobody would know.” Nick turned and looked at him, the starlight glinting in his eyes. “Oh, I wasn’t serious…” Kyle said. Still holding his gaze, Nick reached a hand down the back of Kyle’s shorts. Kyle closed his eyes as Nick’s finger probed his asshole. “Pull ‘em down,” Nick whispered, taking his hand back out and spitting on it copiously. Kyle arched his butt up, and slipped his shorts down to his knees. Nick’s slobbery fingers probed his asshole, slicking him up. Nick clambered on top of him, putting his hands on the ridge of the roof. “Hold on

tight,” Nick said, poking and prodding Kyle’s ass with his dick. “Don’t fall.” Kyle could hear people around them, in other yards, drinking and eating and waiting for the big show to start. Nick pushed, trying to get his fat head into Kyle’s barely lubed hole. “There isn’t enough…” Kyle started, and Nick clamped a hand on his mouth as he shoved his big dick inside Kyle’s ass. Kyle yelped, but Nick’s hand did its job, muffling the sound. He let go as Kyle’s cry turned into a groan. “That’s it. Fucking take it.” “You better hurry,” Kyle panted. “People are gonna see us up here, when the fireworks go off.” Nick laughed. “You think? Shit. People are all gonna be lookin’ up at the sky. Besides, what if they do see us? Let ‘em. Do you care?” “No…I only care what you think.” “Well,” Nick said, grinding his hipbone against the meat of Kyle’s glutes, making Kyle bite his own forearm to squelch the scream. “I think I’m gonna fuck you on this roof, then. It’s the Fourth of July, man – Independence Day. The day we celebrate being Americans who can do what the fuck we want if it ain’t hurting nobody else, right?” “Hell yeah.” Nick’s dick started making its own lube, leaking pre-cum. Then his movements inside Kyle got easier, faster, harder. Kyle grimaced, his fingertips clinging so hard to a shingle that it peeled off in his hand. “Fuck yeah, man,” Nick whispered in his ear, taking it in his mouth and biting it hard. “We’re gonna tear the roof off this bitch tonight.” Nick’s thrusts came faster, harder. There was a boom, and the sky lit up with the first of the fireworks, like a giant green dandelion. Then a red one, a blue one, a multicolored splash. Kyle held on to the roof for dear life now as Nick pounded away. His stepbrother had an iron grip on his wrists, holding them down, and through eyes halfclosed in agonecstacy, Kyle watched the light play off his brother’s forearms, the little bleached hairs reflecting the fireworks, making their own colorful show against his smooth golden skin. “Oh shit,” Nick said, slowing down. Stopping. “I’m not ready.” He kissed Kyle’s neck, nuzzled it, bit it. “You make me cum so fast. I never cum as fast as I do with you. You’re so hot, dude. You’re the fucking best fuck I’ve ever had.” “I already know that nobody’s ever gonna fuck me like you do.” Nick chuckled. “Hey, we’ll see about that. Maybe a three way is in the works for us one day.” “Yeah? Like with your friend Tommy? He looked like he knew what we were up to. Or he had a read on me, anyway.”

“You think? I’ve wondered about that dude for a while myself. He looks, I wanna say omnisexual. Yeah, that’d cover it.” Nick stroked Kyle’s hair, then grabbed a fistful and pulled his head back. “I might like that. Watching you take another man’s cock. But only one that I tell you to take. Then again I might not. I might get jealous.” “Yeah?” Kyle whispered. “What would happen then? If you got jealous?” “I’d throw him the fuck out and punish you,” Nick growled. The explosions in the sky grew more frequent, more elaborate. “Yeah,” Nick said. “Time for the big finish.” He started moving inside Kyle again. The more the light dappled them, and the more the thunder drowned out everything else, the harder Nick fucked him. The booms were coming all together now, no spaces between them, and Nick shouted with them. “Yeah! Fuck yeah! FUCK…YEAH!” He pounded his massive load deep into Kyle’s guts. For Kyle, the fireworks above, no matter how big, how bright, how loud, couldn’t hold a candle to the pleasure bombs detonating in his brain. “Yeah!” Kyle shouted back. “Do it! Go hard! Oh don’t stop…” The show was over, and Nick was spent inside him. It almost felt like the applause they heard at the end of the show was for them. Nick turned Kyle’s head to the side, angled his own, and kissed him on the lips. “Happy fucking Fourth, brother.” Kyle kissed him back. “Yeah. Happy fucking Fourth to you too, brother.”

KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER IV: SWEET SUMMER GONE

“Check this out,” Nick said. Kyle turned his attention from the TV and looked at Nick’s book. The DK guide to Berlin was lavishly illustrated, but the font they used for the text was thin, spidery, almost impossible to read. Kyle leaned in, squinting, trying to see. “Museum Island?” “Yeah, man. The whole island is nothing but museums. Pretty cool, huh?” “I didn’t have you pegged for an art fan.” Nick just looked at him. Then with cobra-like speed, he threw an arm around Kyle’s neck, putting him into a headlock. “You didn’t, huh?” Nick said. Kyle trembled. His stepbrother was so strong…what would he do next? Would he shove Kyle’s face into his crotch, punish him with a skullfucking to remember? Or do what he’d done the other night, and just sweep everything off the coffee table and throw Kyle down on top of it, ass up to the sky? Instead Nick really surprised him. He gave him a noogie, grinding his knuckles into Kyle’s skull. “No, huh, you think your big bro’s just some dumb bunny, huh?” Kyle laughed, squirming, but Nick’s grip was like iron. “Take it back,” Nick commanded. “I take it back, I take it back!” Kyle shouted. Nick relaxed his grip, but instead of letting Kyle go, he pulled him in, settling Kyle’s head on his lap. Kyle was more startled by this than anything hard or rough that Nick could have ever done. Nick’s body heat made him sweat, as if this August heat wave hadn’t already done enough of that. But it felt good, so good… “I know it doesn’t look like it now,” Nick said, glancing around the cottage, “but I read a lot. I mean,” he grinned, “there’s no time lately, ‘cause I’m spendin’ all my free time nailing your ass. But back in North Dakota?” He sighed and shook his head. “Other than going to some bar and spending twenty bucks on a shitty drink, there wasn’t anything else to do.” Nick turned the pages of the book. “And Germany, man, there’s always been some serious decadence going on there. Weimar times, you know? ‘Cabaret’ and all that? Yeah, that’s gonna be a hell of a good time.” Kyle felt it then, that queasy sensation that had taken him more often lately. Like he’d

lost his balance for a minute… There was only a week left before he went back to UC Berkeley. He’d be leaving the day after his nineteenth birthday, and Nick had a plane ticket for that same day, to Germany. When he was nineteen, Nick had taken off for North Dakota, working the oil fields there for two hard cold years, making $100,000 a year. He’d banked every penny he didn’t have to spend on the exorbitant cost of living in a boomtown. He’d been banking it for this, his dream of bumming around Europe as long as the money lasted… And Nick was frugal – he wasn’t into designer shit or gold chains or first class hotels. His only big expenditure had been his Ducati motorbike. Nick’s money would last a long time, Kyle thought. Which meant Kyle wouldn’t see him for…how long? Nick had said something once about Kyle “studying abroad” in the spring semester, but it was probably already too late to make that happen. And Nick in Berlin…with all those wild, uninhibited gay men… Why would he ever want to come back to the likes of me after that, Kyle thought glumly. Nick’s dick was pressed under Kyle’s head, fat and warm. I have to enjoy this while it lasts, every second of this summer I have left… He rolled his head, nuzzling Nick’s knob like a cat would work a human leg. It instantly stirred beneath him, swelling and hardening. “Oh yeah,” Nick said casually. “I even got some fucking German porn. This outfit called Wurstfilm. Like the sausage,” Nick whispered, his hips twitching as he ground his erection against Kyle’s face. “C’mon,” he said, pushing Kyle up. “Let’s go check it out.” Kyle followed Nick into the bedroom. Nick fiddled with his computer for a second, then dropped his shorts, instantly and easily naked, and threw himself onto the bed. He slapped the other side. “Come on, bro.” They’d played this game before, but it never got old. Two dudes, horny and a little drunk, sprawled on the bed and jerkin’ off to porn…nothing gay about it… Kyle stripped and fell onto the bed next to him. Nick pointed the clicker at the TV and flipped it to the computer input. “Fuck yeah,” he said, as the movie started. “That’s the Fickstutenmarkt.” “Your German’s getting good. What’s that mean?” “The ‘horse market.’” He squeezed some lotion onto his dick, then handed the bottle to Kyle. “It’s a real thing, too. The bottom dudes are the ‘mares,’ they all get into slings and shit in this big room. Then the tops come in, and they ‘cover’ the mares.” Kyle watched the movie with astonishment. All the bottoms were blindfolded. “They can’t see who’s fucking them?” “Nope,” Nick said, his eyes intent on the screen, as he slowly worked the lotion around his shaft, and down onto his big, shaved balls. “They just gotta take whoever wants

to fuck ‘em.” Kyle’s own dick was growing, but he was more intent on watching Nick than the porn. His stepbrother was so handsome, his dark eyes narrowed, his fine brows furrowed. Nick licked his perfect lips, the flickering light from the TV casting shadows across his cheekbones, his unshaven face, his dark curly hair glistening. Kyle could see him there, in the ‘Horse Market,’ covering every mare and still having juice to spare. “It’s kinda hot,” Kyle whispered. “The blindfold. It’s like… I could be walking down the street, you know? And see a really hot dude, and be cruising him, checking him out. And he just…walks past, doesn’t look back at me. Like I’m not his type, like he’s never seen me before. But I’d be wondering…was it him? Did he fuck the hell out of me last night? Does he remember me, and know I can’t remember him, can’t ever know it was him?” Nick turned to look at him. “Fuck. That’s hot. You are getting really twisted, little bro.” Kyle didn’t blink. He knew the way to Nick’s heart…and his groin. “You have no idea how twisted I can get,” he dared his stepbrother, reaching over and putting his hand on Nick’s cock. Nick’s eyes burned into him. “Yeah? You think you can compete with the big boys, huh? You think you’re kinkier than that?” he asked, cocking a head at the TV. “Try me.” Nick’s laugh was low, evil. “Oh, dude, you fuckin’ asked for it.” He jumped off the bed, wiping his lotion-covered hands on his thighs. Kyle knew where he was going – The Box. The box of Nick’s kinky sex toys, the box that Kyle had wanted to sneak into so many times, when his brother wasn’t around. It had physically hurt, sometimes, being in the little cottage by himself, unable to stop thinking about The Box, wanting to rush in and tear through it, to see all the things Nick had yet to use on him… But Nick’s warning had kept him from opening Pandora’s Box. One night he’d crept up behind Nick when he was rummaging for something in there. Nick had whipped around and grabbed Kyle’s wrist. “Don’t. Ever. Fucking go in there.” There had been some days when Kyle had come over and Nick wasn’t home yet, still out with his buddies, racing their bikes around town. Kyle would sprawl out on the bed and jack off, his eyes on the closet, its white door a screen with images from his fantasies projected on it, more powerful than any porn could offer. Kyle watched Nick squatting down in front of the closet, his perfect ass and powerful thighs on display as he rummaged through the box. He knew so many of the things in it already. The paddle with a fraternity’s Greek letters on it, stolen by Nick on a dare… The heavy chains that Nick had wrapped around his wrists, binding them behind his back,

padlocking them in place – and then leaving him on his knees in the bedroom for an hour, aching, yearning for Nick to come back in the room and… “There it is,” Nick said, turning around with a grin. He held up something Kyle had a glimpse of before, a strange little box with a dial on it. “And here’s the bag of tricks that goes with it.” In the other hand, he held a freezer bag full of what looked like medical stuff – EKG pads, and wires. Nick stood at the foot of the bed, examining Kyle. Kyle parted his legs, drew up his feet, spreading himself, presenting himself to Nick. “Hmm, the patient is eighteen years old… Nineteen next week,” he grinned. “Presents with a case of attitude. I recommend a course of attitude adjustment. Oh yeah,” he said, dropping his burden between Kyle’s legs. “Need something from the kitchen.” Kyle laughed. Whatever it was, if it involved coconut oil again, he was in. Nick came back with the jar and got on the bed, his face serious. He took a dab of coconut oil and ran his fingers over Kyle’s freshly shaved balls, their touch swirling around the base of his throbbing cock. Nick’s eyes never left Kyle’s as he did this, and it occurred to Kyle that this was the first time his stepbrother had touched his cock. “Don’t want you interfering with this,” Nick said, going back to the box and returning with two black nylon ropes. Nick’s only addition to the furniture in the rented cottage had been an ironwork headboard – all the better to bind you to, my dear. With the speed that comes from practice, he secured Kyle’s wrists to it. Kyle loved this sensation, this position – his hands up in the air in surrender, unable to stop anything Nick was about to do, his trust in his stepbrother complete … Nick opened the freezer bag and pulled out a black loop. He wrapped it around Kyle’s junk like a cockring. Then he connected a wire from the box to the loop. “You know what this is?” “No.” Nick reached up and just tapped his face lightly with one finger, a reminder, a threat, a promise. “No what?” “No, sir.” Nick fiddled with the box. “Well, we’ll start easy then.” Kyle jumped. The ring around his junk had sent an electric shock through him – not a sharp, static electricity shock, more like a..wave. It hurt and yet…in the aftershock his dick began to leak. “Good slave,” Nick said. “Good little bitch. You ready for more?” More? Kyle thought. Shit. “Y…yes, sir.” Nick touched the box again. Another jolt, another wave, a radiating pain that made his dick twitch and bounce. “Oh fuck!”

Nick reached forward, grabbed him under the chin. “Had enough?” “No, sir!” Kyle shut his eyes, gritted his teeth, ready for the next assault. Then Nick’s grip softened, stroking his neck, as if…yeah, as if calming a horse. “Relax. Easy, there.” Kyle sighed as Nick’s touch on his face varied – first stroking it with his fingertips, rough and scaly and hard, then with the back of his hand, warm and soft. “That’s it,” Nick said soothingly. Then he touched the box again. This time the pain was different. Without his muscles tightened against it, the wave sunk into his groin, warming his balls, his cock, the energy traveling up to his prostate… “Oh fuck, sir…” Nick put the box down. Grinning, he opened the coconut oil and stuck his fingers in, pulling out a glob. “Get those legs up,” he commanded, and Kyle’s ankles flew up over his head. Nick just barely touched his greasy fingers to Kyle’s asshole, holding them there. He touched the box with the other hand. Just as the shock hit, he thrust his fingers hard into Kyle’s asshole, the twin pains making him shout. “Fuck, you’re loud tonight,” Nick said, reaching into the bedside table. He pulled out a ball gag and wrapped it around Kyle’s head, sticking the black ball into his mouth. “Now you can fucking scream all you want.” He grabbed Kyle’s legs and pushed them up, ready to cover his mare. “Shit, this isn’t working. Need more rope.” Back to the closet he went, to return with more black nylon rope. He lassoed Kyle’s ankles and secured the ropes to the headboard, pulling them tight until Kyle’s ass was up in the air, his legs as immobilized as his arms. “That’s it,” Nick nodded. “Hands free now.” He worked himself into position, the tip of his cock up against Kyle’s asshole. “Look at me,” he ordered Kyle. Kyle met his gaze, and watched as Nick slowly, simultaneously, turned the dial on the box and pressed himself inside his lover’s ass. Kyle was glad for the ball gag. He could scream, shout, curse at the sweet twin, triple, infinite pains in his dick, his ass, his balls… Nick fucked him slowly, deliberately, but he still broke a sweat in the August heat, his golden skin glistening. His body was silhouetted in the light from the TV, as exquisitely proportioned as da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, his shoulders strong, his hips narrow, his legs splayed to get the leverage he needed. He fucked hands free, the ropes doing their job, keeping Kyle right where Nick wanted him. At the end of each slow thrust, just as the head of his dick met Kyle’s prostate, he turned the dial on the box.

Another pain grew inside Kyle now, that hot tight internal pain of a prostate preparing to blow. He shouted into the gag as he started to cum, shooting a geyser – the first shot so powerful it hit him in the face, the rest of the jizz gushing across his chest, his belly… Nick laughed. “Fuckin’ A! I fucked the cum outta you!” He dropped the box and started to thrust now, hard and fast, as Kyle’s own dick kept twitching, gushing, more fluid than he’d ever blown in his life. Nick grunted, grimaced, and shouted. “OH FUCK YEAH!” he shouted in victory as his own load exploded inside Kyle’s guts. Kyle was nearly crying now, his groin refusing to stop singing its pain and pleasure, the pleasure so sweet it was agony. Nick slowed his pace, concentrating, his eyes rolling up, his lids fluttering, as he squeezed the last drops out of himself into Kyle. Then he reached up and pulled on the knots that kept Kyle’s legs up, letting them fall. As soon as Kyle’s legs collapsed to the bed, Nick fell on top of him. “Fuck man. How was that for you.” “Mmm www fffrrr grrr.” Nick laughed, hard. “Ah, shit I forgot!” He undid the ball gag. “Try again.” “It was fucking great,” Kyle gasped. “Tested your limits, huh?” “Hell yeah. What else you got?” Kyle dared him. Nick smirked. “You’ll find out, little bro. Trust me.” “I do,” Kyle said solemnly. Nick looked at him, blinked, nodded. “Yeah, you do, huh.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, distant. Then the Nick he knew so well came back, his sunny smile, his dirty good cheer. “Well, not tonight. We got a ball game tomorrow, you know.” “Ball game?” “Oh, shit, I didn’t tell you? We gotta fill in for a couple dudes in a softball game.” “Um, I don’t… I’m not good at team sports.” Nick laughed. “Don’t sweat it. It’s more about drinking in the parking lot than winning a game. Oh, and one more thing. We’re playing on different teams.” “What?” “Yeah. You and me, dude. Don’t get in my way when I’m running those bases, you hear?” Kyle raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Well, let the games begin, then.”

Kyle thought it was funny. A month ago, following his stepbrother around the 4th of July celebration, he’d felt strange, awkward, like an impostor. Nick had dressed him in Nick’s “dudewear” – cargo shorts, no shirt, Spy sunglasses, a backwards ball cap. Now, a month later, greeting the other guys on the softball team, all that awkwardness was gone. Nick had been right – it was all attitude, and his friend, his brother, had given that to him. Both teams were in the parking lot, with two trucks parked next to each other, both with huge beer coolers. Nick’s friend Tommy was there, on the “blue” team. Kyle had got used to how hot all Nick’s friends were, without getting too excited about any of them, but there was something extra about Tommy, something…dark. Dirty. The way he looked at Nick and Kyle? Kyle was sure he knew everything they got up to. His blond buzzcut, his sky blue eyes, his overall demeanor… Tommy handed Kyle a beer, along with the blue t-shirt and vest that made him a member of the team. He made to hand Nick a beer too, then yanked it back dramatically. “Oh, shit, Red Team. Get your own fucking beer.” Nick jumped up into the back of one of the trucks, the one with the blue cooler. Defiantly, he lifted the lid and snagged two beers. “Just did.” “Wrong cooler, bitch! You play for the other team now!” And as he said it, he looked at Kyle and winked. Kyle laughed, knowing exactly what “other team” he meant. Yeah, Tommy knew everything, no doubt. And the crazy thing was, he didn’t care. Kyle wasn’t ashamed, or nervous about the discovery, or anything. He was…happy. Kyle cracked his beer and dropped his sunglasses into place, leaning against the truck and nodding to the other guys as they trickled in. He could feel Nick’s eyes on him, and he turned. Nick nodded and gave him the thumbs up. Kyle grinned a million dollar grin and gave him the thumbs up right back. In that moment, he was sure life would never, ever get better than this. Kyle didn’t fuck up anything too bad at second base. Not, he noticed, any more than the outfielders, or the guy at first base, all of whom had drank a lot more beer than he had. It was a casual game, just a lark, not a tournament game or anything like that. Then Nick came to the plate. Kyle saw his eyes and shivered a bit. Nick’s face had the look it had when he was tying Kyle to the bed, or checking his ass to see how big and reds the welts were from his paddle. Serious. Nick swung the aluminum bat at the first ball and whiffed. He let the second go. Then on the third, he connected. The shot rang out and the ball sailed past the shortstop and into

the outfield. Nick poured on the speed, rounding first and heading for second. Kyle had watched enough baseball with Nick, sprawled out on the couch night after night, to know how to set himself and wait for the outfielder to throw him the ball. When he did, Kyle caught it on the bounce. He was off the base, so he had two or three seconds to get back and tag Nick out. He turned to see if Nick would stop, and go back to first base. No. Nick still had that look on his face, and he was barreling straight towards his stepbrother. He was going to fucking take second if he had to knock the ball out of Kyle’s hand. If he had to knock Kyle into the outfield. You wanted to be one of the dudes, Kyle told himself, running for the bag, ready for Nick to slide. Instead, Nick kept running. Kyle waited for him, met his eyes, didn’t flinch. They collided, fell, but Kyle held on to the ball. On the ground, he held it up for everyone to see. His team cheered him wildly. Nick was next to him on the ground, panting. “Fuck, man, I thought you’d let me have the base.” “Why, you think I’m your bitch everywhere? Just in the bedroom, brother.” Nick looked at him, truly shocked. Then, a slow grin spread over his face. “No. No, brother, just in the bedroom. That’s sure as shit official now.” Nick jumped up and extended his hand. Kyle took it and let his stepbrother lift him up. If beer was softball’s pre-party, beer and pizza was the after-party, at least for the guys whose wives or girlfriends didn’t haul them home. Which happened a lot that night, so in the end it was just Nick, Kyle and Tommy who made it to the pizza joint. “Fuck man,” Tommy said, leaning back after his fourth slice. “I’m stuffed. So, what you guys up to later tonight?” “Not much, you?” Nick replied, eyeing the last slice. “Oh, shit, I had a date. You remember Candace from high school?” “Oh yeah, you and her uhh…?” “Yeah, we uhh. Sometimes. Casual and shit. But she cancelled on me. Women, right?” Tommy said, nudging Kyle with his elbow. “Umm…” Kyle said. “He don’t know, man, my little bro here is gay.” “Oh, that’s cool.” Tommy clapped Kyle on the shoulder, his big hand getting a firm grasp on Kyle’s shoulder. “No offense, bro, but I thought so.” “That obvious, huh?” Kyle laughed. “Well…” Tommy’s blisteringly bright eyes zeroed in on Kyle’s. “I see how you look at

your big brother here.” Tommy reached down and adjusted his crotch. “And that’s cool. You guys spendin’ a lot of time together and shit…” He let the rest hang in the air. Kyle turned to Nick for rescue. “So…you asking something?” Nick said, reaching for the last slice. “Or asking for something, maybe?” Tommy grinned. “Yeah. Maybe.” Nick was thoughtful. Kyle remembered his half-threat, half-promise, that someday he’d punk Kyle out to a friend, let another guy work him over while Nick watched. Kyle’s pulse raced, the thought making him flush. Nick looked at Kyle, read the heat in his face. “Okay. I’ll show you how I treat little bro here around the house, and we’ll see if you’re up for doing the same.” Tommy smiled, and Kyle knew instantly that he would be. “Hell yeah.” Nick help up his free hand. “But,” he said through a mouthful of pizza, “however you treat Kyle when we get home? You don’t treat him any different out here than you do now. Capisch?” Tommy nodded at both of them. “Hell yeah, man. What happens in Vegas and shit. Right on.” Nick dropped the rest of the slice, wiped his mouth, and smiled at Kyle. “Okay then. Let’s get it on.” They were still three dudes, drinking beer in Nick’s kitchen. Three dudes for a few minutes more, Kyle thought, and then… “So,” Tommy said, “how do we play this?” “You ever been with a dude?” Nick asked. “Well…what happens in Vegas and shit, right?” Tommy said, ready to high five. Nick and Kyle took his high fives in agreement. “There’s this dude here in town? I was hanging out at River Park one day like, a couple weeks ago? And he came up to me, and said, ‘You have a great body, can I suck your dick? I’ll pay you a hundred bucks. There’s a place down by the river…’ What?” Kyle and Nick were bent over laughing. “Dude!” Nick choked out between gusts. “His name is Charlie. I used to work that fucker over all the time. Cum Dumpster’s still around, huh?” “Oh shit…you too? Get the fuck out.” Tommy shook his head and pounded his beer. “He told me to call him ‘cum dumpster’ too. Shit, I need another beer on that.” Kyle handed him one, still laughing. “Nick has a box of toys he used to use on Charlie. Kink shit. Maybe you should borrow some.”

“Oh yeah?” Tommy’s eyes narrowed. “What you still got it for, Nick?” Nick leaned against the kitchen counter next to Kyle and threw his arm around his stepbrother’s shoulder. “What do you think I still got it for?” “Huh. Kink shit, like what?” Kyle looked at Nick, and cocked his head towards the bedroom. “Come on. Let’s show him.” Kyle got on his knees in front of Tommy. “You like suckin’ dick?” “He loves it,” Nick said, standing next to Tommy. The two of them were massaging their dicks through their shorts, and Kyle didn’t know which one to dive on first. “Guest goes first,” Nick said, grabbing Kyle by the hair and pushing his face into Tommy’s crotch. His rod was hard, and Kyle scrabbled eagerly at the button to Tommy’s shorts to get them down. He didn’t go commando like Nick, keeping his junk tucked into a pair of white briefs – just a little frayed and starting to discolor, no high style here. “Oh man,” Kyle said, the white of the underwear showing exactly what Tommy had for him. “Pull it out,” Nick egged Tommy on, opening his shorts and popping his own tool out through the zipper. “Let’s compare.” He and Tommy stood face to face, their hard dicks next to each other. “Mine’s bigger,” Nick said. “Fuck no. Mine’s longer.” “It looks longer ‘cause it’s not as fat as mine.” “Here,” Kyle said. “Let me swallow it, and I’ll tell you if it’s thinner than Nick’s.” “Oh yeah? You an expert on his cock now, huh?” “I’m a fucking professor of Nick-cock-ology.” They all laughed, but Tommy’s laugh turned into a groan as Kyle’s mouth closed on his shaft. Kyle looked up, but not at Tommy. He was watching Nick’s face as he sucked his buddy. Do you like this? his eyes asked. Nick’s eyes were so hot, almost…angry at the sight of his stepbrother’s mouth on another man’s cock. “Fucking take that cock,” he growled, pushing Kyle’s head down onto Tommy. “Oh yeah man,” Tommy said, putting his hands behind his head. “Fucking Charlie ain’t got nothin’ on you man…” Kyle sucked with enthusiasm, putting one hand on Tommy’s leg and another on Nick’s cock, stroking it, feeling its hard mass. Tommy was a good guest; he pulled Kyle’s head off his dick and pushed it onto Nick’s.

“Yeah, that’s fucking insane, man,” Tommy said. “Suck your stepbro’s cock…shit…” Tommy started jacking himself as he watched. “You get in his ass?” “Yeah. You ain’t, though. That shit’s mine.” Tommy laughed. “Okay. Shit, I think you’re jealous.” Nick nodded. “Yeah, man, I think I am. Never thought I’d say that. But you know what?” He switched Kyle back to Tommy. “I’m a good host. I’m gonna get you off, dude.” “Fuckin’ a, man.” Tommy took over the duties on holding Kyle’s head, pumping his dick in and out of Kyle’s mouth, feeling his head bump the back of Kyle’s throat then, finally, pop through into the dark, wet channel of Kyle’s throat. “Oh shit fuck,” he sighed, bobbing Kyle’s head up and down. “Gonna shoot…” He pulled out and stroked it, hard and fast. “Not in his mouth,” Nick said. “On his chest.” Kyle arched himself back, presented himself to Tommy, his face out of range (he hoped). It was so hot… Nick didn’t really want to share him after all, had made a mistake… didn’t even want another man’s cum in his mouth. “ARRGGHH!” Tommy shouted, blowing his load onto Kyle’s chest. “FUCCCKKK!!” A few more grunts and groans and he was done. “Oh fuck. Thanks, man.” Tommy was an alert guy, Kyle could see. He pulled up his briefs and shorts, and tucked himself in as Kyle stood up. “I gotta jet. Kyle, dude,” he said, shaking Kyle’s hand. “Thanks, man. Nick, brother…” They hugged, slapping each other on the back, laughing when they realized that Nick’s cock was still out of his shorts. “Congratulations, dude, on, you know…” He waved a hand around. “This.” They all knew what he meant. “See you guys later, thanks again.” And he was gone. Kyle washed up in the bathroom, and came back to find Nick on the bed, hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling. “You okay?” he asked his stepbrother. “Come here,” Nick said. Kyle got on the bed and put his head on Nick’s chest. “Did you like that?” “Kind of. Until…until I could see that you didn’t.” Nick nodded. “No. I thought…shit, I thought, you know, we’d all mess around, it’s a game, it’s a good time. Then I saw his dick in your mouth and I was like…no. That’s mine.” An almost infinite wave of warmth swept through Kyle at the words. Was this love? Was this what it felt like? Nick’s arm wrapped around him, tightly. “I don’t wanna share. I want you to be mine.”

“I am. I’m yours.” Nick went distant again. “I feel like…I don’t think I should go to Europe.” “What!” “I feel like I’m abandoning you. Like you’re the first ‘family responsibility’ I’ve had since my mom died.” “You’re not. You’re doing the right thing. We both are,” he said. “As much as it fucking hurts to say it.” He propped himself up on Nick’s chest to look him in the eyes. “I mean, think, Nick. What do we do here for the rest of our lives? Or if you followed me back to school, then what? You go and get another job instead of having your fucking epic trip?” Nick laughed. “Yeah, that would suck. I’m so not ready to work again right now. And…” Kyle could just see it. A small tear was pooling in the corner of Nick’s eye. “I promised my mom, before she died. That’s why I did it, the whole North Dakota thing, the fast easy money. We always…we always talked about it, just…chucking everything and going to Europe, bumming around together, drinking wine in Florence and fucking looking at art until it was time to drink wine again and…” Nick looked away. “She made me swear I’d go.” “Then you have to go. I order you to go.” Nick laughed, wiping away the tear as it fell. “You’re ordering me now?” “Yeah, I am. Look. Go. My semester is sixteen weeks. Come home then, or come to the Bay Area, something, whatever. Sixteen weeks, that’s…nothing. Nick. All my life I’ve wanted a brother. Now I have one. Right? Forever?” “Fuck yeah, forever.” “Then what’s four months? It’s nothing. Go, or I’ll never suck your dick again.” That got him, Kyle thought as Nick came back to himself, the Nick that Kyle loved, his face alight with laughter. “Well shit, that would suck. So to speak.” Kyle reached over and grabbed a pillow and smacked Nick with it. “Funny.” Nick’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh, you wanna fucking pillow fight? Oh, it’s on, bitch!” “Oh, I can’t believe it!” Kyle’s mom cried. “Both our boys are leaving tomorrow!” “I bet you two are gonna miss each other,” Nick’s dad said. “I’m so glad the two of you got close this summer.” This was it, a little farewell party for both of them, and a birthday party for Kyle’s nineteenth birthday. Tomorrow they would both be gone, Kyle driving back to Berkeley and Nick getting on a plane for Berlin.

“We sure did,” Kyle said. “I finally have a brother.” “Well, it’s not my fault you didn’t have one…” “Not now,” Kyle’s stepdad said, refilling her glass. “Let’s just…enjoy these last moments.” Kyle and Nick snuck into the backyard. The sun had gone down and the crickets had started chirping in the long twilight. Kyle laughed at the song drifting out of the stereo. “My Sweet Summer is Gone…” It was, wasn’t it? Almost… “I never did get in this pool,” Nick said, the two of them flopping out in the lounge chairs. “But that’s okay. I got everything else I wanted this summer.” He tilted his beer bottle towards Kyle, who clinked his in return. “Me, too.” They enjoyed the silence together. If this is it, Kyle thought, if shit happens, if life happens, and we never see each other again, it was worth it. I’m going to savor every fucking second of it, too. At the dinner table, they made pleasant chat, and even Kyle’s mom was on her best behavior. But she couldn’t resist one comment. “Nick, you’ve had a few beers, haven’t you. You shouldn’t ride that motorcycle of yours…” “She’s right, Nick,” Nick’s dad said. “Stay here tonight, get up early and get on your way then.” Nick’s eyes met Kyle’s. Kyle felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. They both had the same thought. “Yeah, Michelle,” Nick agreed. “That’s a good idea.” Kyle was in agony. They’d all gone to bed an hour ago. How much longer would it be? He thrashed in the bed, wide awake, watching the door to his bedroom. It was kind of twisted, he knew, this fantasy – a fantasy in which Nick really was his brother, slipping into his room late at night… Finally the doorknob turned, and Nick slipped in, quietly shutting the door behind him. “Fuck,” Kyle whispered. “I thought you’d never…” In the moonlight, Kyle could see Nick hold a finger to his lips. As always, it seemed, he was in his shorts and nothing but, and he was soon out of those. Nick slipped into the bed next to Kyle, the sheet thrown down to the bottom. “We have to be quiet,” Nick whispered, making himself the Big Spoon to Kyle’s Little Spoon, big brother to little brother. “We don’t want them to hear, do we?” “No,” Kyle said. “No way.”

Nick kissed him on the back of the neck, his hand trailing along Kyle’s torso, his erection pressing against Kyle’s ass. “Slow and quiet tonight,” Nick said in Kyle’s ear, just nipping it. Kyle took a sharp breath, but there would be no pain tonight, not really – nothing to make him make a sound. He arched his rump, grinding it up against Nick’s cock. “You got some lotion?” Kyle reached over to the Lubriderm by the bed and pumped a few globs into his hand. He reached around and put it on Nick’s cock, torturing it, each stroke of his hand taking several seconds to go up to the head, several seconds back down to the root… “Fucker,” Nick hissed. “You tease.” “You teased me. You made me wait an hour.” “You know me,” Nick said, surprising Kyle by taking some of the lube off his cock and using it to stroke Kyle’s, just as agonizingly slowly. “You never did this. Never touched my dick.” “Yeah. Sorry about that. Better late than never, right?” “Yeah. Oh yeah….” Kyle closed his eyes as Nick jacked him off, so quietly, so stealthily… “Open your asshole for me,” Nick said. Kyle relaxed, pushed himself onto Nick’s hardon. Nick eased himself inside Kyle, who barely gasped when Nick was fully sheathed inside him. Nick’s kisses dotted Kyle’s neck, his shoulder, his back, as Nick began to move, slowly. They only had tonight, but they had all night… Kyle sighed. “You fuck me so good.” “Yeah, baby, I do,” Nick said, and they dissolved into laughter. “Shit,” Nick said, covering Kyle’s mouth. “You’ll wake the parental units. Easy now,” he said, putting his hand back on Kyle’s cock. “Easy…” When Kyle came, it was like a spring had been tapped in the ground. It eased out of him, pulsing gently, soiling the sheets. Nick took his cum-splashed hand and moved it to his own mouth, licking his fingers. “Now I know how you taste, too. Fuck…” he said, and his own cock began to pulse inside Kyle’s ass. “My fucking brother…” Neither one of them moved. Neither one of them wanted to part, to get up, to clean up, to end it. And so that’s how they fell asleep, together. When Kyle woke up in the morning, Nick was gone. The ache he felt was bittersweet. He wanted him now, again, always, every day. But he

wanted Nick, his Nick, and that person had to leave, had to do his thing. On the pillow was an envelope with a note. Kyle smiled. That was sweet. He reached over and opened it. It wasn’t a note. It was a plane ticket. Dated December 19th, the day after his last final. For Switzerland. Open return date. Kyle laughed. Their sweet summer was gone…but their winter wonderland was beckoning.

KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER V: WINTER WONDERLAND Kyle looked at his watch for the third time in five minutes. The train was sleek, modern, comfortable, and driving him crazy. The TGV was Europe’s “bullet train,” but the Swiss rails weren’t equipped to accommodate it at top speed. Half an hour, still, before the train reached Bern, before he saw his stepbrother Nick again. Nick, his stepbrother, big bro, best bud, lover… Half an hour shouldn’t be much, right, after four months apart? Kyle kept telling himself. But each minute seemed to pass as long as another month. It was late evening, and the train car was sparsely populated. Kyle couldn’t wait any longer. He pulled out his tablet, put on his headphones, and angled himself in his seat so that his back was to the window. He opened the folder called NICK PIX, his heart racing. Some of the pictures were clean, but even those had an undercurrent to them. Here was a typical one – Nick in Berlin, at Berghain, the legendary club where your admission on Friday night was good till Monday. Berliners, Kyle had learned from Nick, knew how to party. He had his arms around two shirtless dudes, their smooth firm torsos covered in glitter, their eyes dilated with some drug or another. Nick was shirtless, too, but his eyes were clear, mischievous, and Kyle knew why. It was always the same story. He remembered the text message that had accompanied this picture. “These dudes wanted to take turns sitting on my cock. I showed it to them but didn’t let them touch it. Told them it belongs to my bro back home. They were so pissed…” Kyle smiled. He loved it, knowing that Nick was leaving a trail of blue balls behind him, all across Europe. He could only imagine the agony it would cause, seeing Nick pull out his monster cock, only to see him stuff it back in to his pants again. Kyle had installed a Skype video recording program on his PC. Looking around the train car to make sure nobody was nearby, he opened one of the recordings of his calls with Nick. This was his favorite one. “Hey man,” Nick whispered. “I’m layin’ here on a bottom bunk bed in this hostel in Frankfurt.” He was holding his phone up over his head, and the picture was dungeon-porn dim in the darkened room. He had his earbuds in, Kyle could see. Nobody would hear the other side of the conversation. “How many people are in the room with you?” Kyle heard himself asking on the tape.

“About three. They’re passed out, drunk as fuck. Here, I got a present for you.” The image wobbled as Nick moved his phone, and the lens adjusted its focus. Nick’s raging hardon filled the screen. He flexed it a couple times, and Kyle watched its tip smack his abdomen, all the way up to his belly button. “Touch it for me,” Kyle heard himself croak. “Yeah?” “Yeah. Touch it the way I touch it.” The index finger of Nick’s free hand took a drop of precum leaking from the tip of his cock. Then slowly, tortuously, he ran the slick fingertip down the length of his shaft. “That’s how you fucking torture it, isn’t it.” “Yeah…” Here on the train, Kyle’s boner raged as hard now as it had when he’d seen it live, alone in his dorm room at Berkeley. “You know how long it’s been since this cock has been sucked?” “Yeah, I do. Twelve weeks, two days, and about seven hours.” “Fuck…” Nick started to stroke it. Kyle knew this was true. He knew that his stepbrother had been, for the first time in his life as a sexual being, celibate for months. Kyle had been, too. “Oh, you fucking tease,” Nick said at this point. “You are so gonna get a beating on that ass for doin’ that to me…” Kyle was confused for a moment, then smiled, remembering what he’d done at that point in the call. He’d gotten up from the computer, turned around, bent over, and slowly, so slowly, pulled down his sweatpants until his bare ass was in Nick’s face. Then he’d flexed it, squeezed it, the ache of longing overpowering him. “I need your donkey cock in there so bad…” “That’s mean, man. My dick hurts just lookin’ at that. That’s a dirty trick.” “Oh hey,” Kyle said after sitting back down in front of the camera. “Guess what? I pulled one of your tricks the other day.” “Yeah, what’d you do?” Kyle grinned and reached off camera. His hand came back with a paddle. “I snuck into a fraternity and stole one of their paddles.” Nick roared with laughter. “You sneaky bastard!” He looked off camera. “Oops! Sorry dudes! Go back to sleep. Nothin’ to see here. Just Skypin’ with my frat bro back home.” Kyle laughed, closed the file and looked up from his tablet. The endless half hour had passed at last, and the train was pulling into the station. The station was clean, modern, shiny. It was funny, how many people back home thought of Europe as an old place, full of stuffy cathedrals and stone palaces. But what

Kyle had already seen just since his plane had landed in Geneva was a world more modern and up to date than most of America. At home, public transportation was allowed to go to hell, more rickety and dirty every day. Here it was a source of national pride. He got out, heart hammering, looking for Nick. Then from behind him, two strong arms, two big hands, grabbed him in a bear hug. “Dude!” Nick shouted. Kyle laughed, wriggling out of his grasp to turn around and see him. Nick looked different, his skin paler, of course, than it had been over their long hot summer together, but it only made his brown eyes look brighter, happier. Then their smiles faded. This moment…every single day of the whole semester at school, Kyle had dreamed of this moment. How it could go, how he wanted it to go. And he knew that what he wanted was clear on his face. Nick was taller than him by a few inches. He looked down gravely at Kyle’s face. Then his big hands cupped Kyle’s head, and he leaned in. They kissed, lightly, tentatively at first. Then Kyle dropped his backpack, throwing his arms around his stepbrother, holding him hard. Nick responded, his kisses becoming more aggressive, his tongue forcing its way into Kyle’s mouth. They held each other hard enough to crack a rib. They broke off the kiss, if only to breathe, shock and awe on both their faces. “Brother,” Nick whispered. “I love you.” If Nick hadn’t still been holding him, Kyle would have fallen. This was what he’d wanted to hear. What he knew was true, all this time. But which Nick had never said, not like this. “Love you, man,” Nick would sign off on their calls, but that wasn’t the same as…this. “I love you, too, brother,” Kyle smiled. Nick grinned, back to his normal self. “I barely recognized you with clothes on.” “Yeah, you look…weird, too. With a shirt on for once.” “Not for long,” Nick growled. Kyle’s guts churned with anticipation. “No,” he managed to croak. “Not for long.” The December evening was surprisingly nice. The thermostat said 7 degrees, so he prepared himself to walk into a bitter cold night…then remembered that was 7 Celsius. Double it and add 32, was a good rule of thumb, or close enough anyway. 46 degrees was a pretty comfortable temperature. The rooftops and trees were covered in snow, but the roads were slick with the meltoff. The town was kitted out with Christmas decorations, and Kyle realized that Christmas was only five days away.

Nick, Kyle noticed, had on a fairly thin jacket and no hat. “You really run hot, don’t you,” Kyle said as they stepped out onto the street. Nick nodded. “I’m a furnace, baby.” Kyle had taken Nick’s advice and packed light, so he didn’t have a suitcase, just a backpack – the packing of which Nick had meticulously supervised over Skype, to get as much stuff into as small a space as possible. Although, unbeknownst to Nick, Kyle had found a way to pack a few extra things in there. “Let’s take a walk,” Nick said. “Okay…” Kyle said, unhappily. What he wanted to do was get to their hotel and fuck like a pair of bunnies. Nick noted his tone, and patted him on the ass. “You won’t regret it. I have a challenge for you.” They walked through Bern’s Old Town, which was the “Old Europe” Kyle had been expecting, the stone buildings and “wedding cake” exteriors. It was…romantic at night. The streets were closed to cars, and only the modern light rail train gave any indication of what century it was. Kyle wondered where they were going, since the street was dead ending. There was clearly a cliff here, with a short wall along the edge, and one small building marked “DRAHTSEILBAHN” at the edge. “I got a challenge for you. Won’t be hard,” Nick said, as they walked into the little cube. “Not now, anyway.” Kyle saw that this was like a little train station. This was a “funicular,” a one car train that ran up the side of a mountain. They were the only passengers. They sat down, and as the doors shut, Nick turned to him. “The ride down hill takes one minute. You got one minute to suck me off. Trust me, bro, as long as it’s been? I’ll fuckin’ blow a load before that.” Kyle grinned. “Hell yeah. Let’s do it.” Nick whipped his throbbing hardon out of his pants and Kyle deep throated it in one swallow. Nick’s hand was instantly on the back of his head, his hips thrusting furiously. “Forty five seconds, brother, come on,” Nick egged him on. Kyle was resolved to hold his breath, to never stop sucking the whole time. “Fuck yeah…” Kyle would never ever let Nick out of his mouth, he decided. Never… “Thirty seconds, yeah, take that cock…” Nick hissed. “Oh shit.” At forty seconds, he started to cum, Kyle knew, because Nick’s cock throbbed in his throat, pouring the elixir Kyle had craved for so long down into his stomach. “Oh shit,” Nick said. “Get off me, get off…” Kyle got up, wiping his mouth, as Nick stuffed his still leaking cock into his pants.

The minute was up, the funicular had reached the station. They stood up, both panting. An older couple looked at them strangely as they got off, taking their place in the car, smelling something in the air, hot, salty, tangy… The stepbrothers looked at each other and started laughing their asses off, holding each other up. “Dude,” Kyle panted. “That was…so hot.” Nick nodded, his face sobering. “I told you, little bro. It’s been so long since I’ve had your mouth on my dick. I didn’t jack off for the last three days, either. That was like…nine loads worth of cum.” “Yeah? That all you got?” Kyle challenged him. There he was now, Kyle could see – the other Nick. “Dark Nick.” His eyes, his scowl, his deepened tone of voice, told Kyle what he wanted to know. “You are gonna find out tonight just how many fuckin’ loads I got, little bro. Because you’re gonna take every…single…one of them.” Kyle felt the blood rush to his face, to his groin. “Yeah. I am, big bro. Every one.” “Dude. This is too much.” Nick threw his arm around Kyle, nodding his head at the view of Bern from their room at the Schweizerhof Hotel. “Yeah man. It’s great.” Kyle looked around the luxuriously appointed room. “No, I mean, this must be like… four hundred bucks a night.” “Yep. But hey, it’s only for one night. Tomorrow we’re off to Gstaad to do some skiing. And that place is fucking expensive. We’ll be back in a hostel then, so… I figured we needed one night in luxury. And…privacy.” Nick’s hand traveled down the back of Kyle’s pants, slipping down the crack of his ass. Kyle’s eyes nearly rolled up in his head. “How are we gonna fuck all night when we’re in a hostel, dude?” “We’ll find a place. We’ll find a way. Trust me.” Nick’s hand slipped out of Kyle’s pants. “We got all night. All morning too. Checkout time’s 11 o’clock, so I figure we can fuck right up till 10:30.” Kyle laughed. “We better get started, then.” “Not yet. Come on, get on your dancing clothes. There’s a bar we gotta check out.” Comeback Bar was a cozy spot, with a DJ spinning dance tunes. Nick and Kyle took a spot against a wall, drinking their first beers of the night.

Kyle noticed a hot guy checking him out. Not exactly his type, a blond dude, but big and strapping with a look in his blue eyes that said he knew how to give Kyle what he wanted. Nick noticed, too, and threw an arm around Kyle’s shoulder. “Mine,” Nick whispered in his ear, nuzzling it, nibbling it, his eyes on the blond dude the whole time. Blondie either considered this an invitation or wasn’t to be deterred. He approached them, and Kyle saw how big he was. Like a giant Viking or something. “Are you Americans?” he asked in perfect English. Kyle had been shocked when he got off the plane in Geneva, went into a coffee shop, and was addressed in that same, accentless English by a Swiss native. Few people in America bothered to do so well, if at all, with anyone else’s language. “Sure are,” Nick said, extending a hand to shake. “Nick.” “Lars. And you are…” Lars said, offering his hand to Kyle. “Kyle.” Lars held his hand a little too long, so Kyle had to say it. “I’m Nick’s brother.” Lars’ eyebrows went up. “Oh, you mean his ‘bro,’ right?” “No,” Kyle said, his hand reaching over to graze Nick’s crotch. “I’m his little brother.” Lars’ eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Oh…” Nick and Kyle looked at each other, poker faced, and kissed, a long sensuous anything-but-brotherly kiss. Kyle turned back to Lars. “My big brother takes good care of me.” Lars slowly backed away. Kyle smiled. “Nice to meet you.” By the time they left, three beers and several makeout sessions later, the news had spread, and half the bar was looking at them in shock…and the other half was watching them with intrigue, if not outright desire. Outside it was snowing, and they could finally laugh. “Dude,” Nick said. “I can’t believe you.” “It worked, right? The guy wasn’t gonna leave me be.” “You seriously freaked him out.” “It was hot, wasn’t it? Pretending to be real brothers in love?” Nick looked at him, the snowflakes landing on his black hair like diamonds. His face was serious. “Yeah. It was. It is.” “Come on,” Kyle said. “Let’s go back to the hotel. I have a surprise for you this time.” “How much longer?” Nick asked from the bathroom. “Just another minute,” Kyle said, adjusting the straps he’d slipped under the bed. It

was too bad about the modern headboard, a single large piece of blond wood. He’d have preferred an old ironwork headboard like the one Nick had back home. “Okay. Come out now.” Nick came out of the bathroom naked, his resplendent body glistening from the shower. Kyle hadn’t forgotten the look of a single hard line of his frame, not one chiseled channel on his stepbrother’s body. “Lay down on the bed,” Kyle said. Nick threw himself onto the king size bed, his arms behind his head. “Let me have your hand,” Kyle said, reaching under the bed to Nick’s right. Nick yanked it back when he saw the restraint. “Dude. What the fuck.” Kyle looked him in the eye. “Do you trust me?” Nick paused. “You know I am not ever gonna bottom for you. I don’t suck dick. I sure as shit don’t get fucked.” “Do you trust me?” Kyle insisted. Nick looked at him. “Yeah. Yeah, man, I trust you.” He offered his hand. Kyle secured both of Nick’s wrists, and tightened the straps so that Nick’s body made a Y on the bed. He crawled up the bed till he was between his stepbrother’s parted legs. Nick’s cock was soft, the look on his face uncertain, wary. Kyle splayed himself flat on the bed, his face in Nick’s crotch. He began to lick Nick’s balls, slowly, teasing them. He’d made Nick get in the shower and shave them – he’d gotten just a little too European in his body hair management over this fall. The head of Nick’s flaccid cock was right between his eyes, its ripe head ready for Kyle’s kisses. And kiss it he did. Nick couldn’t help but begin to swell up at Kyle’s ministrations, however wary he was of what was coming next. Once he was hard, Kyle’s tongue traveled slowly from the tip down the shaft, between his balls, and further down… Nick yelped. “What the fuck?” “I’m not gonna try and fuck you. Just relax.” Nick shook his head. “Dude. If you’re planning on touching my asshole I’m…oh. Oh fuck.” Nick’s sentence died as Kyle’s tongue began lapping at Nick’s chute. Slow strokes just along the edge of Nick’s clean hole, then just a delicate poke of his tongue inside it, as he tried to part Nick’s cast-iron, never-violated sphincter. “Mmm…” Nick groaned. Kyle smiled, continuing to lap and probe. Nick lifted his legs, giving Kyle more access. Kyle’s tongue ached as he stretched it out as far as it would go, pressing it into Nick’s hole, which began to give up its guard, accepting him.

“Oh, man,” Nick sighed. “That’s why you like your asshole played with.” Kyle looked up at his stepbrother, over his now rock-hard cock. “Yeah. I could eat it all night. But I need something else now.” He got up and went to his backpack, fished into the bottom of it, where a secret compartment held what he needed. He turned to Nick and grinned, showing him what it was. “Dude. I bet that’s like a totally illegal agricultural product. You managed to get that in?” “I didn’t know if I could get it here,” Kyle said, twisting open the small jar of coconut oil. “And we both know there’s no substitute.” He got back between Nick’s legs and took a glop of the semi-solid oil out of the jar. Then he began to massage Nick’s cock with it, slowly finger-painting it until it glistened. Kyle got up on his knees, took another glop, and pushed it up in to his asshole. He was tight, so tight, it had been so long… “Oh fuck yeah,” Nick said, desire burning in his eyes. He struggled instinctively against the restraints, wanting to grab Kyle, to dominate, to be the one in charge. But he was helpless. Kyle stood up over him, then slowly, teasingly, lowered himself until he was sitting on Nick’s groin. Nick began to thrust his hips, trying to get himself in that hole, but every time he did, Kyle sat up, out of reach. “You fucking tease,” Nick said. “You’ve waited this long. You can wait another minute.” Kyle bent over, and kissed Nick on the lips. Nick responded ardently, his head lifting off the pillow to attack Kyle’s face. Again, Kyle pulled back, giving him only a bit at a time. “You don’t know,” Nick croaked. “You don’t know how hard this has been for me.” “Not fucking other guys? I know. My hot fucking stud stepbrother, with men trailing after you like a dog after a bone. And you turning them down, left and right…your cock aching to be inside them…” “No.” Nick cut him off sharply, abruptly. “No. You wanna know what was hard for me? Not that. Not them. Fuck those bitches. What was hard for me was not fucking jumping out of my lonely bed and buying a plane ticket, straight to San Francisco. Then hopping in a cab straight to your dorm room in Berkeley. Then coming through that door and surprising you, grabbing you at your desk while you were doin’ your homework, and throwing you down on your little dorm room bed. And fucking the shit out of you all night long. That’s what was hard. Not doing that, knowing I had the money, that I could do it any time I wanted.” Kyle was stunned. All this time it had never occurred to him that Nick burned for him the way he burned for Nick.

Nick nodded. “Yeah. That’s right. I’m in love with you and I’m faithful to you and if you don’t sit on my fucking dick right now, I’m gonna bust my way out of these straps and pound you through the floor.” Kyle didn’t need any more instruction than that. He put his hands on Nick’s chest, and moved his ass, Nick’s shaft sliding along his crack, until the tip was against his hole. He backed up a little bit, pushing Nick’s hard cock up like a rocket onto a launch platform. “Do it,” he said to Nick. “Fuck me.” Nick thrust his hips up, hard, embedding himself in Kyle’s ass. Kyle gasped with the pain. It had been so long, Nick was so big. Oh fuck it hurt, oh God he never wanted Nick to pull out. Kyle began rocking back and forth, working Nick’s cock with his ass. Nick responded with perfectly timed thrusts, punching Kyle’s prostate again and again. Kyle ground his ass down on Nick’s hipbone, craving, demanding every inch of cock. “That’s it. Fucking jack me off with your asshole.” Nick stopped resisting the restraints, stopped thrusting his hips. He relaxed and watched Kyle do the work, bouncing up and down on his dick. “Come on. You can move faster than that. Make me fucking cum.” Kyle rammed himself down on Nick’s meat again and again, watching Nick’s eyes narrowing, his face clenching, the tendons in his neck standing out. Then he bounced faster and faster, knowing how close Nick was getting. “Ah shit,” Nick cried. “Oh mother fuck.” Then he lost his words, reverting to the savage animal cries from the back of his brain where his orgasm blotted out thought. “Aahhhhhh!” Kyle laughed, working harder, faster, pulling more and more of his stepbrother’s juices inside him as if recharging his battery with Nick’s elixir. “Oh fuck stop,” Nick cried out, his orgasm over, his cock experiencing that tender agony of post-cumming sensation. “Not yet,” Kyle said, reaching back and swiping some of the grease off his ass, then stroking himself hard and fast, Nick’s still-hard cock buried inside him. “Yeah, dude, do it,” Nick egged him on. “Fucking cum. Do it. Oh shit you’re killin’ me.” Kyle cried out as his load shot out of him, all over Nick’s chest and abs. Just as his shots began, Nick started thrusting hard with his hips again, pounding juices out of Kyle’s prostate. When Kyle was spent, he started laughing. “Oh fuck that was good.” “Come here,” Nick said. Kyle popped off Nick’s cock and they both gasped at the parting. He collapsed on Nick’s chest, his own cum gluing them together.

“Undo those fucking straps, man.” Kyle reached up and undid the Velcro, freeing Nick’s hands. His stepbrother’s hands wrapped around him, holding him tight. “You’re crazy, dude,” Nick said into his ear. “My little bro. When I met you, you were so shy and uncertain. You never ever woulda done something like this. I’m proud of you.” Nick’s words penetrated Kyle more deeply than his cock, down into a place he didn’t know he had. His tears were soft, but they came all the same. Nick could feel them, Kyle knew, dripping on his chest. But he said nothing. Just held Kyle, and let the moment be. The next day, they took the train to Zermatt. “Jesus,” Kyle said, watching Nick fork out the Euros for their equipment rental and lift tickets. “Lemme give you some…” Nick held up a hand. “I’m your sugar daddy today, baby.” Kyle smiled. “Okay, daddy.” Nick nodded. “That’s right. Respect my authority.” They cracked up, even making the checker smile. On their first run, Kyle realized that Nick was an expert skier. Kyle was no slouch on his snowboard, but shit! Nick was fast. He was gonna have to get his board waxed at the base before they went up again, if he was gonna keep up with Nick. “Where did you learn to ski so well?” Kyle asked him on the lift back up. “Tahoe. Kirkwood, Squaw, Heavenly. You?” “Same. Funny huh. I bet we were there the same weekends sometimes.” “Yeah.” Nick punched Kyle in the shoulder. “You were probably that little bastard on a snowboard cutting me off on my run.” “Ha,” Kyle said, punching him back. “You were probably that pushy skier stomping on my board in the lift line.” They giggled and wrestled right up to the top. “Oh shit!” Kyle said, breaking off just in time to get off the chair without embarrassing himself by toppling to the ground. Kyle was in heaven. The air was so clean, the decreased oxygen at this altitude made you just a little high, and he found he was able to keep up with Nick on the second run. Nick looked back and saw Kyle matching his speed and he got low, trying to outrace him. He beat his younger stepbrother to the bottom of the hill, but just barely. “Come on,” Kyle said. “Rematch. One more before lunch.” “You’re on.” But at the top of the run, Nick frowned. “I don’t like the look of those clouds.” Sure enough, just as he said that, the lift stopped running. They’d been the last ones let up

before the impending storm. “No,” Kyle agreed. “Can we outrun it?” “Let’s try.” They raced down the hill, but the storm was faster. Soon they were in a blizzard, a complete whiteout. Nick called a halt. “Dude. We don’t know this mountain. We could be going off a fucking cliff. We gotta make some shelter.” They had rented emergency shovels and beacons. Kyle had wondered if that was overkill at the time, but he was glad now. They started making a snow cave, a place they could stay warm, odd as that sounds. Kyle fished for the beacon, ready to activate it if they ended up completely buried. Then Kyle had the strangest thought. Maybe it was the oxygen deprivation, but a clear calm settled over him. If I die here, with Nick, that’s okay. If we freeze to death in each other’s arms, that’s better than all the million ways I could die of old age or infirmity. A bliss came over him at the thought. At the idea that nothing could come along later, ruin it, part them… And as he thought it, the snow cleared for a moment and he saw something dark, solid. “Dude!” he shouted. “Look!” Nick stopped shoveling and looked up. “No way.” Fifty yards later, they were at a small wooden building. It was closed up, clearly a summer hut, not one of the bigger winter ones that served the hut-to-hut ski tours. The door wasn’t locked. They went inside, shaking the snow off their clothes. There was a wood stove, and firewood next to it. They explored the quaint cabin, with its blond wood kitchen table and cabinets. There was no hot water, no electricity, but there was dry food in the cabinets – protein bars, powdered milk, enough to live on in an emergency. “We’re saved!” “Oh, we’re better than saved,” Nick smiled, holding up a big bottle of peach schnapps. “It’s a party now.” The living room warmed up fast, especially after they closed the doors to the bedrooms. They started losing layers of clothing, partially from the heat of the stove but partly from the heat they were generating inside, as they sat in front of the fire, kissing. Oh, and partly from the schnapps. “So is your trip all you hoped it would be?” Kyle asked, snuggling into Nick’s chest on top of a bearskin rug, the jaws of the bear’s giant head wide open, snarling at the fire. “Yeah…I mean, I… It was supposed to be me and my Mom, you know that. But I feel like, she’s with me, you know? I’m not religious, at all, or even superstitious. But I still feel like she’s…approving.” Nick paused. “She would have liked you.”

Kyle looked up at his stepbrother. “I wish I could have met her.” Nick was incapable of a dark mood for more than a second, it seemed to Kyle. “Yeah. You and her woulda gotten on like a house on fire.” He pulled Kyle up for a long, sensuous kiss. Nick flipped them over so he was on top, then began slowly, deliberately, nuzzling Kyle’s neck, his earlobes, his eyes, before settling on his lips for an extended session. “I guess I’m gay now,” Nick said. “Why’s that?” He shrugged. “All the time anymore, I think about one thing. My dick in your ass. My hands on your body. My…everything in your everywhere. And you’re a dude. So there you go.” Kyle kissed him back. “You don’t have to be gay or straight. You just have to be mine.” Nick nodded gravely. “I am. And you’re mine.” “I don’t want this to end,” Kyle sighed. “I don’t want to go back to school and normal life and…” Nick put a finger on his lips. “Dude. Your winter break is a month long. You’ve been here two days. Don’t start thinking about when it’s over. Just be here.” Kyle smiled. “Okay.” “We got time, man. No more luxury hotels, though, or pricy lift tickets. Back to supermarket cafeterias, hostels, Couchsurfing.com and shit. You okay with that?” “More than okay. Gonna make it harder for us to find places to fuck.” Nick snorted. “Oh dude, don’t worry about that. We’ll find a way.” They were too exhausted to fuck. They fell asleep in front of the fireplace, and woke up early when the chill in the room began to bite. Nick opened the front door. “Dude! Check it out!” Kyle came up behind him, putting his arms around Nick’s waist. “Oh, wow.” It was a classic “bluebird day.” The skies were crystal clear, the snow was like an ocean of powder. Their ride down hill would be epic. They cleaned up the cabin, poured water into the stove to kill the last embers, and left a few euros for the bottle of schnapps. They dressed, locked their boots into skis and board, and stood outside. The Swiss Alps beckoned them, all of Europe beckoned. The world was their fucking oyster. “So where do we go from here?” Kyle asked.

Nick turned to him. Kyle couldn’t see his eyes behind his goggles, but nothing hid his million dollar smile. “I don’t know, man. Which way is Amsterdam?”

KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER VI: AWESOME AMSTERDAM Kyle was half asleep, with his head on Nick’s chest and Nick’s arm thrown around him. The train swept across the flat landscape, the gray Dutch winter leaving little to look at through the window. They’d split the earbuds plugged into Kyle’s phone, and Kraftwerk’s “Europe Endless” shimmered through one ear. Nobody seemed to notice, or care, about their intimacy. Sure, Kyle knew, there were still plenty of places in Europe where they’d take shit from assholes for being publicly affectionate. But not here, not now. The train pulled into the station in Amsterdam, and Kyle untangled himself from his stepbrother. Nick was amped, hopping up and down, waiting for the doors to open. “We’re here, man! Fucking Amsterdam! Big change from uptight Switzerland, right?” “Oh I don’t know,” Kyle said casually, “I had a pretty good time there.” Nick laughed. “Yeah. Me too. So just imagine what a good time we’ll have here.” They got off the train and looked around. “Where’s the train to Hogwarts?” Kyle asked. Nick laughed. The station was old fashioned, with red brick walls and an old ironwork roof. The fast, modern and shiny trains seemed like time machines in here. It was grey and damp in the big plaza outside the station, not raining but misting. “You wanna take the tram?” Nick asked. His stepbrother was immune to cold and wet, Kyle knew. And like any little brother, he wasn’t going to puss out in front of his big bro. “Nah, the phone says it’s a ten minute walk to the hostel.” Even in this weather, the streets of Amsterdam were packed with bicyclists. It was still jarring to Kyle to see more people on a street either on foot or on a bike than in cars. And some of the narrow streets were completely car free, practically a crime back home. Amsterdam seemed to Kyle like the ultimate combination of college town, Spring Break destination, and “bad part” of a big city. There were head shops, bars, tattoo and piercing studios, all along the charming Old World cobblestone streets. Kyle didn’t see any of the famous prostitutes, set up like mannequins in their little red-lit store windows, but he knew from the guide book that they weren’t far away. St. Christopher’s Hostel wasn’t at all what Kyle had expected. He’d thought of hostels as dreary dormitories, but this place was decorated like a cool upscale Manhattan hotel.

Wild art was painted on the walls, and even in December the lobby was full of excited chattering students. “We’re in a room for four,” Nick said as they waited in line at the check-in desk. “Two bunk beds. Tryin’ to save some money, you know? Switzerland was fucking expensive.” “That’s cool,” Kyle said. Then he whispered into Nick’s ear. “Two roommates, huh? Gonna make it hard for us to find a place to fuck, though.” Nick smirked. “Don’t worry about that. Don’t we always find a way?” “Yeah. Come to think of it, we always do.” The room was nice, clean and modern, with a pair of bunk beds. Their roomies were… well, hunks. Big tall strapping young Aussie surfers, both blond and blue eyed. “I’m Nick, this is my little bro Kyle.” “Hey mate,” the slightly blonder one said, “I’m Matt and this is my mate Terry.” They all shook hands, Nick and Matt instantly bonding in some secret dude handshake/back slap that made Kyle smile. Kyle couldn’t help but wonder what they would think, if they knew what Nick and his “little bro” got up to when nobody was around… “So where’s the weed, man?” Terry said. “We just got here, and I’m ready to get WASTED!” “Yeah, we went into a café and all they had was coffee. What’s up with that?” “You have to look for a sign that says ‘coffeeshop,’” Kyle said helpfully. “Look for a neon palm tree on the sign.” “Right on, mate, thanks a lot!” And the two surfer dudes tore out the door. Kyle and Nick looked at each other and laughed. “I’d do either one of them,” Kyle said. “If I wasn’t with you.” “Oh yeah?” Nick growled, pushing Kyle up against the wall. “You’d like that, huh, some big Australian hunks tag teaming you?” “Hell yeah,” Kyle whispered, feeling Nick’s cock pressed against his own, growing, swelling. “They look pretty athletic, don’t they?” he teased Nick. “Like a pair of wild horses…” “You want a horse, huh?” Nick grabbed Kyle’s wrists, pinned them against the wall over his head, grinding his massive hardon against Kyle’s hips. “You wanna ride a wild stallion?” “Fuck yeah.” Nick nodded at the bunks. “Check out the curtains.” Both top and bottom beds had little red curtains that could be shut for privacy, like the ones in a train compartment. “We could get behind one of those and…”

Kyle’s pulse raced. “We’d have to be quiet. So quiet. You couldn’t pound my ass. It would have to be like our parents’ house…all secretive, discreet…” The thought of that night under their respective parent’s roof made the blood rush to Kyle’s groin. Nick and Kyle, on what Kyle had thought might be their last night together… Kyle in his bedroom, Nick in the guest room, Kyle waiting with agonized yearning for his “big bro” to sneak into his room and get into bed with him…. “Yeah,” Nick said, the bright heat in his brown eyes like embers. “Big brother coming in to little bro’s room to teach him a trick or two…” “Hey, that’s what brothers do, right?” Kyle replied softly. “Help each other out…” The door flew open and the bigger Aussie, Terry, burst in. “Oh shit!” he gasped at the sight of Nick and Kyle. “I, um, forgot my wallet. Sorry.” “No worries,” Nick said lightly, not letting go of Kyle’s pinned wrists. “Have a good trip, man,” he said, winking. “Um. Yeah. Thanks.” Terry grabbed his backpack and flew out the door. Nick and Kyle looked at each other and burst out laughing. Nick had to let go because he was holding his sides, the laughter hurt so bad. “Oh shit, did you see the look on his face!” “I know! Like he stuck his finger in a light socket. He didn’t look appalled or anything though. Just shocked.” “Well,” Nick said, the heat in his eyes returning, his face getting serious. “We are brothers… Maybe that’s the shocking part.” Kyle loved it when his stepbrother did that. Called them “brothers,” as if they’d been born this way, together, always. “Yeah. Maybe. But hey – it’s Amsterdam, right?” Kyle grinned. “If you’re not hurting someone else…anything goes.” “Fuck yeah. Come on, let’s hit the town.” They rented one of the famous pedaling boats, covered with a clear plastic hood against the elements. It was cool and dreary, so Nick scored them a blanket as well. “We look like two old ladies,” Nick said, his legs pistoning as the two of them pedaled away from the dock and into the canal. “All bundled up.” “Well…that blanket can come in handy,” Kyle said, reaching underneath it for Nick’s crotch. “Oh shit, dude,” Nick groaned as Kyle stroked his instantly stiffening cock through his pants. They both kept pedaling, their activities unseen by any pedestrians walking along the canal. Kyle laughed. “Stop pedaling. I can’t get your pants undone with your legs moving.”

“Let’s stop there,” Nick said, as they approached a stone bridge. They slowed down as they glided under the arch, into the darkness. Kyle lifted the blanket and bent down underneath it, his face in Nick’s crotch. Nick didn’t move, for all the world looking like he was just resting. Kyle unzipped Nick’s shorts and pulled out his hard dick. He wanted to deep throat it, to bob up and down enthusiastically, to feel Nick’s hands forcing him down to the root. But instead Nick just casually put a hand on top of Kyle’s head, as if resting it there. Only Nick’s low groans gave the game away as Kyle licked the shaft, tongued the head, just nipping at it as if trying to get Nick to jump. “Oh, you fucker, stop that. Hey, how’s it going!” Nick said, returning a greeting from a passing boat. Kyle smiled, continuing to jerk his stepbrother off with just his tongue, running it up the underside of the shaft, then down, again and again, his head barely moving. Soon he was rewarded with a dash of precum on his tongue. “Fuck. You fucker,” Nick whispered. As Kyle moved down to lick Nick’s big shaved balls, he could feel them tensing, tightening, preparing to blow. He licked Nick’s stiff pole faster now, with only upward strokes, telegraphing a message straight to Nick’s prostate. Nick actually whimpered as he edged closer and closer. The pain must be unbearable, Kyle thought. Then he changed his line of attack, his lips bobbing furiously just over Nick’s swollen head. Nick exploded at last, pumping Kyle’s mouth full of fresh young salty mancum. It still tasted to Kyle like the elixir of life, as if his stepbrother’s vital essence could be consumed, taken in to renew his own energies, like a fountain of youth. When he’d sucked Nick’s cock clean of every drop, he threw the blanket up just enough for Nick to see his grinning face as he licked his lips. Nick laughed. “Little piggy. My little piggy. Good job.” Nick waved to another passing boat. “Come on, let’s go do some sightseeing.” Probably because it was winter, they had one of the rarest and most magical moments a tourist can ever have – an empty museum, all to themselves. The Rembrandt Museum had been Nick’s choice. Kyle was still amazed by what he still didn’t know about his stepbrother. He knew Nick was a voracious reader, that he’d passed the long boring hours in North Dakota with book after book. But now he saw that his brother was a true art aficionado as well. “This is amazing,” Nick said in the Master’s studio. He stood in front of a large easel, tilted to catch the diffused light from the many windows. “I would kill for this. It’s like a Vermeer painting in here.” “Kill for it? What, to paint?”

“Well, to draw,” Nick said idly, his eyes traveling around the studio, to the empty frames stacked against one wall, a white “sail” hung at an angle over one window, presumably to reflect more light onto the easel. “What? You…draw? And you never told me?” Nick shrugged. “I’m not very good. Amateur hour. Just something I did bumming around Europe before you got here.” “Well, I want to see,” Kyle said, slightly hurt that Nick had kept a secret from him. “Nah, dude, it’s nothing to see. I suck. Hey,” he said, noticing Kyle’s perturbed look. “It’s no big deal, just a…shit. I’m sorry.” Kyle couldn’t stay upset with Nick for long. He smiled at him. “So you never talked some guy up in a bar and said, ‘why don’t you come up to my place to see my sketches’ or something like that?” Nick laughed. “No, dude. But it does sound like a hell of a great pickup line.” “We gotta try this!” Nick said enthusiastically, hopping off his rented bicycle at a food kiosk. “Um…it’s…a herring stand.” “Yeah! Come on, are you chicken?” He tickled Kyle, making him squeak. “Are you too chicken to eat fish, huh? Huh?” “Ow, stop! Okay, okay, I’ll eat a herring.” Kyle made a face as he ate the pickled herring. Nick laughed at him. “It’s not that bad.” “Well, I did it, okay? I tasted it. Now let’s get something to wash it down with.” They pedaled down the lanes, and Nick stopped at a coffeeshop. “You wanna smoke some pot?” “No, I never liked the stuff. But… it would get the taste of herring out of my mouth.” “I thought you liked salty fishy stuff in your mouth.” “Very funny. Do you wanna smoke?” “Nah,” Nick said. “My body’s a temple…and the god it serves is alcohol. Let’s get some beer.” In one of the classic “brown” cafes, they let their waitress keep the different beers coming, each of them sipping from the other’s selection. “I’m mad at you,” Kyle blurted after three beers and a shot of jenevers, the local gin. “What for?”

“You have a whole secret life I know nothing about. Nick the artist…that’s so hot. Shit, if I’d known that, I would have jacked off in my dorm room twice as much, thinking about you.” Nick frowned. “I’m not an artist. I’m just fucking around.” Nick looked up, his smile returning. “Hey, mister I’m-gonna-be-a-writer, I haven’t read any of your stories, have I? So we’re even. Besides, that’s not the way this works. You give and I receive,” Nick winked. Kyle rolled his eyes, but kept the poker face he was finally learning to make. He had a story for Nick, that Nick would play a role in soon enough… They wandered the Red Light District, where prostitutes in picture windows sat or stood in their underwear, some smiling and flirting and others sitting idly talking on their cellphones. Kyle frowned at the loud young British men who stood in front of one woman’s window, laughing at her. She was trying to make a living, in one of the hardest ways there was to make one, and these assholes thought it was funny. Kyle tore away from his stepbrother to confront them. “Hey, fuck off. Leave her alone.” “Oy, fuck you,” one shaven-headed lunk in a soccer jersey said, his eyes narrowing, clearly ready for a fight. “You gonna stop me? You and what army?” “This army, bitch,” Nick said in a cold steel voice, suddenly appearing by Kyle’s side. “Now do what the man says and fuck off.” “Fuck you, American pricks,” the yobbo said, but his eye caught a policeman wandering their way, and fuck off he did. “Thanks for having my back, man,” Kyle said. Nick shook his head. “You coulda got hurt, little bro.” “Yeah. But I woulda landed at least one good punch in his ugly face.” Nick laughed. “Talk about having secrets. You’ve turned into a new man since last summer.” They stopped in a sex shop, where Nick fingered leather paddles and whips, his eyes dilating – clearly thinking about using them on Kyle. Kyle shivered but smiled. He had a surprise of his own in store. He waited until Nick was checking out, having settled for now on just a bottle of lube. “I gotta go back to that other store for a minute, meet me there, okay?” “Sure,” Nick said, “I’ll be there in a sec.” Kyle waited for Nick to pass by. It was a risk, of course – Nick might walk right past without looking, but he doubted it. He’d rented the little room with its picture window

from a woman who was glad to get out for an hour, and get paid for the pleasure. Once he had to open the door and shoo away some gawkers. The last thing he needed was a crowd that Nick had to avoid. But then, Kyle was one of a kind here. He’d stood barely moving, his eyes fixed down the street. Then, he saw Nick, and he started to dance in the window, the red light shimmering on his smooth hard body. Kyle was in his tighty-whities, and nothing else. He stroked his legs, running his hands up his body, turning around and twitching his ass, like a white flag of surrender. Nick nearly passed by and Kyle’s heart sank. Had it all been for nothing? Then Nick did a double take, realizing that it was a dude in one of the windows. Kyle winked at him, wagged a finger, wiggled his hips some more. The look on Nick’s face was worth every euro this had cost him. The shock as he realized that it was Kyle, replaced a moment later by pure lust. Kyle went to the door and opened it just a crack, just like the pros on the street did. “Hello, American boy. Are you looking for some company?” “May…maybe,” Nick whispered, his voice cracking. “How much?” “For you, fifty.” Nick nodded. “Okay.” Kyle let him in and drew the curtain on the window. “Money first, please.” Nick reached into his wallet, pulled out two twenties and a ten. “What do I get for that?” he asked, as he stuffed the money down the front of Kyle’s undies. “A blow job and a fuck.” Kyle went to his knees and undid Nick’s cargo shorts, freeing his already rock hard cock. Nick lifted him back up to his feet, pushed him against a wall, attacked his neck. Kyle groaned a real groan of pleasure as Nick’s stubble scratched his skin. Then Nick went for his lips and Kyle turned away. “Kissing is extra.” “How much?” “Twenty euros. Or…you can draw a picture for me. You look like an art student.” Nick nodded. “Yeah. I am.” He moved in, his lips on Kyle’s, his tongue slipping into Kyle’s mouth. “I’ll draw you,” he whispered. Kyle was so turned on, so excited, his breath started coming hard and fast. Nick put his hands on Kyle’s head, holding it still, staring into his eyes. “Do other men excite you like this? Other customers?” “I don’t know. You’re my first.” “And your last,” Nick said in a firm steady tone. “I’m taking you away from here.” Kyle held his gaze. “Yes. Anywhere you want to go. I’m right there with you.”

Their kiss was electric, passionate, both of then knowing something had been said, some line had been crossed. This wasn’t a fling, a vacation, a lark. No - it was just the start of a very long adventure. Kyle couldn’t wait. He got to his knees and engulfed Nick’s cock, savoring it, like a favorite meal. Nick’s hand was steady on his head, but light, encouraging rather than commanding. Kyle broke off and looked up at him. “You’re such a sexy man. Do you have a brother?” “Yeah, I do. I have a little brother.” “And do you play with him? Do you include him in all your games, like a good big brother?” “Hell yeah. I beat up his bullies, and always pick him first for my team, and take the blame when he breaks something. I’d do anything for him.” “He’s a very lucky man.” Nick lifted Kyle up, and pushed him onto his back on the little bed. “So am I.” Nick tore off his own clothes, stopping only to rifle his coat for the bottle of lube he’d just bought. He got between Kyle’s legs, spreading and lifting them, anchoring Kyle’s feet on his shoulders. He squeezed some lube onto his fingers and gently probed Kyle’s asshole. “You’re so tight. Can you take me inside you?” “I think so. You’re so big… But I want to take it all.” “I’ll be gentle,” Nick promised. Kyle’s face opened to his stepbrother, vulnerable, trusting. “Not too gentle.” Nick’s nostrils flared. “You asked for it.” His single thrust was slow, but insistent, and Kyle opened for him, welcoming him. He gasped as Nick tightened his abs, flexing his midsection to embed himself fully inside Kyle. Kyle thought this might be the hardest and most swollen that Nick’s cock had ever been. They didn’t speak any more. Nick moved inside Kyle, their eyes locked on each other until Nick’s began to narrow, his second orgasm of the day approaching. “I wanna cum inside you. I wanna fill you up.” “If you mark your territory, you gotta protect it. You gotta hold on to it.” “Yeah. Fuck yeah. My fucking territory. Oh shit…” Nick froze for just a second, as if trying to stop the flood, but it was too late. Then he gave in, pounding Kyle’s ass, forcing his cum as hard and as deep inside his lover as he could. Nick collapsed on top of him, both of them breathing hard. A knock on the door startled them.

Kyle smiled. “Time’s up, sailor. That’s the other occupant.” Nick laughed. “Oh, is that how it’s going to be? Wham bam thank you ma’am, huh?” “Yep. Come on,” Kyle said, playfully pushing Nick off and getting up. “I’m so hungry I could eat a herring.” It was late when they got back to the hostel – so late that Matt and Terry, their Aussie roommates, were both passed out in their bunks, curtains drawn, both of them snoring to beat the band. “Somebody partied hard tonight,” Kyle whispered, stripping down to his underwear. Nick nodded. “Good. I wouldn’t want them to see this.” He opened his backpack and pulled out a sketchbook. He sat down on the lower bunk. “Come here.” He patted a place on the bed next to him. Kyle sat down and reached for the sketchbook. Nick yanked it back, wagging a finger. “Be gentle with me.” “Always.” Kyle looked through Nick’s drawings, slowly and deliberately. They were all sketches of people, all kinds of people whom Nick had seen on his adventures. Old folks on park benches, young people playing Frisbee in the park, two young hippies kissing, a club kid dancing wildly. “These are good.” “Liar.” Kyle looked at him solemnly. “No. Listen to me. I’m not blowing smoke up your ass. You have a problem doing hands, but those are the hardest thing in the world to draw. Your eyes aren’t always perfectly even. But…fuck, dude.” Kyle shook his head. “Amazing.” Nick got up and shut off the lights. “Now you tell me a story.” Kyle smiled. “I wrote one for you tonight already.” “Ah, right. Well,” Nick said, pushing Kyle down on the bed and climbing on top of him. “Now I want a bedtime story.” Nick drew the curtain behind them. He put on an Elmer Fudd voice. “Be vewwy quiet…” They kissed, long and languorous, two lovers with forever in front of them. Through the wall between them and the next room, Kyle could hear the Black Keys singing. “I’ve got all…the…time…in the world…” It was true. Kyle knew it. Winter break would end in a few weeks, he would go back to school, but it didn’t matter. Their brotherhood was something more now – brothers grew up, went their separate ways, lived their own lives. Not Nick and Kyle. From now on, partings would only be temporary.

Kyle wriggled underneath Nick, turning over. Nick’s cock pressed against his ass, and he spit on his fingers and reached back to grease his hole. But there was hardly any need, it was still slick with lube, and Nick’s cum, from their red light encounter an hour ago. Nick and Kyle both sighed as Nick pushed inside. It was like a plug in a socket, neither one any use without the other. Nick moved so tortuously slowly that Kyle’s ass could read the contours of the now-familiar flesh, his sphincter’s expansion telling him how much of Nick’s fat cock was still left to take before its thick base was engulfed…the familiar pressure of its mushroom head on his prostate, like a soft glove on an iron fist… Nick’s hot breath in his ear, his steady heartbeat pulsing in the arm around Kyle’s neck… “Listen,” Kyle whispered. “What?” “Nothing. I mean…nothing. No snoring.” “Ah. Yeah.” The roiling sounds from the other beds had stopped. But not entirely. Kyle could just make out the rhythmic sounds of wet hands on hard flesh. He smiled. The two big Aussies had heard them. And were jerking off to the sound. “Fuck me a little harder. Just a little. Give ‘em something to jack off to.” Nick’s repressed laugh was a shudder against Kyle’s back. “You got it.” The bed began to creak, the rhythm interspersing with the sound of the masturbation across the room. Nick lifted a corner of the curtain, so he and Kyle could peek out. Both the curtains on the other side were open just a crack as well. Just enough for the surfer dudes to look out. Nick yanked their curtain back, fully exposing the two of them, the streetlights from outside giving the room its only illumination. The two young men’s bodies moved, together, Nick’s thrusting into Kyle’s, and Kyle’s arching up to receive it. They could hear heavy breathing now, and faster stroking. Then, Nick wrapped his arms around Kyle like a python, hard as he could, and blew his load inside him. “Fuck…” came a whisper from across the room, and the sound of fast hisses, choked off, the cry for mercy a man pleads to himself just before his hand finishes the job. Then, silence. Still inside Kyle, Nick drew the curtain again. “Tomorrow morning,” he said to Kyle, “act like nothing unusual happened.” Kyle smiled. “Dude, compared to what else we’ve done? This wasn’t that unusual.” At breakfast the next morning, they saw Matt and Terry come into the dining room, looking abashed, uncertain. Nick and Kyle waved as if nothing had happened, beckoned them over to the table. “Hey man, what’s up?” Nick said. “What’s on your agenda today?”

“Um…” Terry said. “We don’t know. Probably gonna take it easy today. Not drink so much.” “Good plan,” Kyle said. “You should rent a couple of bicycles, ride off that hangover.” Matt and Terry looked at each other, and Matt clearly delegated Terry to speak. “Hey mate, listen, about last night…” Nick raised a hand. “No worries, mate. Sorry if we woke you up.” Terry grinned. “That’s alright. Me and uh, me and Matt talked about it this morning.” He looked at his friend with an unbounded affection, a relief in a discovery that Kyle knew all too well. “We realized we, you know, that, together…we should…” Nick grinned. “Fuck yeah. Hey, you know what? I got a present for you guys. Me and my little bro here are heading out today, but the room’s paid for one more night. So you guys can have a little privacy. All right?” They grinned like schoolboys rewarded with a snow day. “Right, mate, thanks!” Outside, Kyle laughed. “I didn’t know we were leaving today.” “We are now,” Nick said. “No schedule, no clock, right? We can always hop on the train and come back if we want to. Besides…those two have probably been jonesing for each other’s hot bods for a long time.” “I know the feeling,” Kyle said, taking Nick’s hand. “So where to?” “Well shit. After what you’ve shown me here, little bro, I don’t think there’s much left in Berlin that would shock you now…”

KYLE’S NEW STEPBROTHER VII: BOUND FOR BERLIN “Wow,” Kyle said, feeling a little dizzy. The view from the top of the Reichstag dome was amazing. The German Parliament had been topped with a dome made of glass, giving visitors a 360 degree view of the city. It also had a glass floor that looked directly into the legislative chamber – a clear signal to the world, that nothing in German government would ever be secret or hidden again. “It’s like flying over the city in a big soap bubble,” Kyle said. “Like some kind of Willy Wonka shit.” The city was covered in a light frosting of January snow, and the dome itself was cool inside. Kyle shivered just a little. Nick laughed. “It’s pretty awesome, huh.” He threw an arm around Kyle to turn him slightly, and pointed east. “There’s where we’re staying. Friedrichshain.” “I like it when you speak German,” Kyle said. “You sound so rough.” Nick raised an eyebrow. He leaned in and whispered in Kyle’s ear. “Lutsch mein’ Schwanz.” Kyle felt the blood rush to his face. “Even I know what a schwanz is, you know.” “I know you do,” Nick said, letting his tongue dart into Kyle’s ear for a blink of an eye, just long enough for Kyle to discover he had one more erogenous zone than he thought he did. Kyle knew he should be concentrating on the sights, the sounds of Berlin. But the clock was running and there were only a few more days before he had to go home, back to Berkeley, back to school. And like most nineteen-year-olds, all the broadening culture in the world couldn’t hold a candle to the needs of his raging hormones. Kyle turned and kissed Nick on the lips, just as quickly, enjoying the look of surprise on Nick’s face. Since it was winter, there were few tourists sharing the viewing platform with them. And besides, Kyle thought, what better place, right on top of the Reichstag, for two men to kiss, and prove how much had changed here in Germany? Berlin had been a shock to Kyle, in a few ways. It was such a young city, so full of artists and bohemians and technology workers. At least, in the Friedrichshain neighborhood where they were staying. “Staying.” That seemed so temporary. But that had been the other shock to Kyle. He’d sort of assumed that they were crashing with Nick’s friends, friends he’d made in his long sojourn in Berlin. But when they’d arrived at the rickety old flat, and greeted Nick’s friends – Sasha the

painter and Greg the DJ and Hans the barista-slash-actor – he realized that the “guest bedroom” was…well, kind of, sort of, already Nick’s room. The room was cold, the heat set at a temperature appropriate to artistic budgets. There were books on the table, and drawings stacked up too, that he recognized as Nick’s. He remembered that yeah, Nick had spent a lot of time in Berlin this last fall, but… This looked as if he’d put down roots here. Kyle suddenly felt this terrible pang, almost a sensation of loss. Nick noticed immediately. “Hey, what’s wrong?” “I just…you live here.” Nick shrugged. “Sort of. I come and go, you know, other people crash here when I’m not here.” “Oh. It just feels…I don’t know. Permanent.” “Ah,” Nick nodded. “Like I’m not coming home, to the States.” Kyle shrugged, instinctively crossing his arms, trying to wrap himself up, shield himself against something, a loss, a change… “Whoa whoa whoa,” Nick said, pulling him in. “Whoa nelly.” He pushed Kyle onto his bed and clambered on top of him. He pinned Kyle’s wrists back over his head, his eyes boring into his stepbrother’s, his lover’s. “We’re gonna be together, you and me. We’re gonna have a life together. Somewhere.” “I know…” “And you’re going back to school, in a few days. And I’m…” Nick sighed, put his head down next to Kyle’s, kissed his neck. “I’m tired of traveling. I like it here. I’ve got friends. It’s a good place to be young and artistic. And while I wait for you again, I wanna wait here.” He pulled back, a questioning look on his face. “Okay with you?” Kyle smiled. “Yeah. As long as I know where to find you.” Nick chuckled. “Here. I’ll draw you a map.” He changed his grip on Kyle’s wrists to pull one hand down. “You start here,” he said, stroking his own face with the back of Kyle’s hand. “Then you take the Lat road to Six Pack City,” he grinned, and Kyle’s fingers eagerly traversed the landscape of Nick’s torso as Nick guided him. “From Six Pack City…” “You head south,” Kyle interrupted. “Down Crotch Gully.” “I was gonna say V-Cut Lane,” Nick said, moving Kyle’s fingers along his fatless hips, down the channel towards his groin. “Then,” Kyle said, sliding his hand between their pressed bodies, and slowly wrapping his fingers around Nick’s dick. “You have arrived at your destination.” Nick closed his eyes. “Fuck…that’s it. Just hold it. It’s yours. It’s not going

anywhere.” “It better not,” Kyle said, gripping it tighter. Nick laughed. “You ready to eat your first German sausage?” “Fuck yeah,” Kyle sighed. “Roll over.” Nick flipped onto his back and put his hands behind his head, watching lazily as Kyle undid his pants. Kyle smiled as he pulled Nick’s cock out; even in winter Nick didn’t wear underwear. ‘You’re always hard when I get you naked. Like, rock hard before I even start on you.” “Why wouldn’t I be? When I know what’s coming?” Nick gently put a hand on the back of Kyle’s head, stroked it, then wrapped his fingers in Kyle’s hair, and pushed his head down onto his shaft. Kyle sighed, closed his eyes, let Nick guide his head, rubbing Kyle’s face across his tool. Kyle was smooth, he barely needed to shave, and he knew that his soft skin was like silk sliding over Nick’s cock. He nuzzled it like a cat nuzzles a leg, showing love, looking for love, and a little tasty treat too, if you’re so inclined. He loved Nick’s dick, it was so beautiful, so perfect… They were teasing each other now, and themselves. How long could they hold out, before Kyle slipped his tongue across the shaft, moistening and enraging it, how long before Nick just had to put the tip of it into Kyle’s warm wet hole. Time was dilated, they had so little time left and yet right now they had forever… Finally Kyle broke first. He opened his eyes and ran his tongue up Nick’s cock, one swift stroke. It responded with an involuntary twitch. Kyle put his lips over the head, and smiled at the now-familiar taste of Nick’s juices. Slick and salty, but clean and fresh. “Suck me,” Nick whispered, and Kyle shook his head. “No,” Kyle said. He started lapping his tongue at the base of Nick’s shaft, quick darts that sent all Nick’s attention right there. “You fucker,” Nick said, eyes closed, as Kyle kept doing it, his tongue darting like a cat’s in a bowl of milk, the smallest possible strokes he could make. “Oh shit!” Nick said, his eyes widening in surprise. “Oh my god fuck shit…” Kyle kept at it. Nick’s balls contracted, and Nick cried out. “No fucking way… FUCK!” he shouted as he shot all over himself, Kyle now, finally, licking the whole shaft, all the way up, fast, urging, forcing more of Nick’s cum out of his pulsing cock. When the last agonized pulse was spent, Kyle’s tongue went to work on Nick’s crotch, licking up every drop of seed, his mouth traveling over Nick’s abs, which twitched as if tickled. Kyle worked his way up Nick’s chest. Nick was a big strong shooter, and his load had blown all the way up to his neck. When he got there, Kyle grinned. “You got a little on your chin.” He took a finger and

wiped it off, and put it on Nick’s lips. Nick opened his mouth obediently to taste it. “That tastes terrible,” Nick said. “Like seaweed.” “No, it’s delicious. It’s your DNA. It’s little copies of you, little pieces of you, I get to keep inside me forever.” “Jesus, Kyle,” Nick said, astonished. He pulled Kyle in for a kiss, tasting more of himself, tonguing Kyle’s mouth, feeling Kyle’s own tongue reaching back, reclaiming every drop of seed from Nick’s mouth. Kyle rested his head on Nick’s chest and sighed. “I could just spend the rest of our trip right here.” Nick laughed. “Oh, no you don’t. We got plans tonight. You’re gonna find out what nightlife means in Berlin, baby.” Partying in Berlin wasn’t something you “just did” when the weekend came, Kyle learned quickly. Clubs like Berghain opened late on Friday night and stayed open until Monday morning…and yes, there were those who didn’t leave the whole time. “It’s like the Mall of America,” Nick explained Friday evening, “only with sex and drugs and hot bodies and…huh, guess it’s not like the Mall of America at all.” Kyle laughed. They were engaging in a typical young Berliner’s ritual, called the Vorgluhen, or “pre-drinking.” It was cheaper to get a buzz on at home, and then go out on the town where you could parcel your money out to maintain the buzz. David Bowie’s “Heroes” played on the iPod dock, one of the albums the artist had made while he lived here in the 70s, drying out from his crazy rock star lifestyle. Sasha, Greg and Hans were all ready to go out, and looked stylish. Kyle felt a little underdressed in his generic tourist wardrobe. “I, uh, don’t have any clubbing clothes.” Sasha laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s not Manhattan, you don’t have to have the right outfit on to get in. Well, if we were going to a kink club you would need some vinyl or some high heels or something. But mostly, Berlin’s about being yourself. Cute American boy, that’s more likely to get you in a door than any trendy outfit.” Hans nodded. “Besides, you’re with Nick. You can get in anywhere with Nick.” Kyle looked at his stepbrother and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you’re that popular, are you?” Nick grinned. “I’m known, let’s put it that way.” “And he’s beautiful,” Greg added. “Nobody can resist that million dollar smile of his.” Kyle instinctively moved closer to Nick on the couch, knowing that Greg’s flirtation was harmless, but still. Nick threw his arm around Kyle’s shoulder, and pulled him in affectionately. Berlin really was different, Kyle thought. At home, the idea of two stepbrothers in love

would have been…eyebrow raising, if not mortifying. Here it raised a different kind of eyebrow. “Hmmm,” Berlin seemed to say appreciatively, “interesting…” If they’d been biological brothers, Kyle realized, that would have only made them more interesting. Some things were, unfortunately, the same everywhere now. Nick’s roommates complained about the bankers and billionaires forcing the artists out of the cool neighborhoods, as they always did. “It makes no sense,” Nick said. “They want to live with the cool people, the artists, and as soon as they get there, the artists have to go. You’d think they’d learn.” “They think that once they move there, they are the cool people now,” Kyle said, to general laughter. “Okay!” Hans said. “On to the Spati!” It was a cold January night, but Nick’s arm around Kyle’s shoulder kept him warmer than his coat. Kyle racked his brain, but he couldn’t remember a club called Spati in his Lonely Planet guide. “What’s Spati like?” he asked Nick. “Ah, Spati’s not a club. Well, it is, when we make it one.” Kyle was surprised to see people sitting at tables outside a convenience store. The gang bought a few bottles of liquor and set up outside the store, which had put the tables out there for just that purpose. Back in the States, you’d get a ticket for drinking from a bottle on the street…in Berlin, they put a table out for you. The Jagermeister was ice cold, but warmed him up quickly. The conversation swirled around him, arguments about who was the most seminal German punk figure, with Nick weighing in on the side of Nina Hagen, whereas some of the others dismissed her as just a crazy person – more for the excitement of the debate, it seemed to Kyle, than anything else. As the alcohol returned sensation to the tip of his cold nose, and he watched Nick and his friends laugh and argue, a thought occurred to Kyle. Berlin was so…free. Nick was so happy here. Kyle thought about the Nick he’d known back home, a Nick who had casual acquaintances, “bros,” but nobody, really, with whom he was like this… There was a sparkle in Nick’s eyes here, a wide open smile, that Kyle hadn’t seen anywhere else. Hans noticed that Kyle looked a little left out. “So Nick says you’re a writer. Is Berkeley a good program?” “Oh, I don’t really know yet. I’m a sophomore, I’m still reading Beowulf and grinding through boring math classes. Piling up student loan debt taking classes I don’t care about and will never need again.” “Right,” Greg said. “College is practically free here. I forget how ruinous education is in America.”

“You don’t need college to be a writer,” Sasha said. “You need experience. You need to live. You should drop out and move here!” Kyle looked at Nick to see what he thought. But his expression was neutral, and he was looking away idly. Kyle didn’t know how to read it. Did Nick want him to stay? To go back and study? “Well,” Kyle said idly, “who knows what tomorrow brings…” It seemed to be a very Berliner thing to say, as everyone toasted that, even Nick. Finally it was late enough to show up at Berghain, the ultimate, the legendary nightclub. Sure enough, Nick and his friends were well known, and when they got to the door, they were waved inside easily. Kyle was overwhelmed. Berghain was a former power plant, and had the massive interior required for generators and other big electrical stuff. The walls were painted with colored spotlights that were almost overwhelming in their palette – it was like the “Wizard of Oz” when the Technicolor kicked in. Kyle had been in big clubs before, and they’d always felt…tense. Competitive. Especially the gay ones. But Berghain was different. There was no VIP section, no snobbery, nobody quietly judging your wardrobe, at least not in a negative manner. He noticed two pillars in the middle of the floor, with round cages on top of them. “What’s that?” he asked Nick. “Oh, that’s for the dance-off.” “The dance-off?” “Yeah, two cage dancers battle it out for sexiest dancer. The audience decides the winner, and the winner gets a 100 euro bar tab.” “Are they pros?” Kyle asked, an idea forming in his head. “No, anyone can sign up…where are you going?” “Come on!” Kyle said, pulling Nick by the hand. “You know I can dance,” he winked, reminding Nick of their night in Amsterdam, when Kyle paid a prostitute to take over her Red Light window, where he shimmied and shook and seduced Nick right off the street. Nick laughed, pulling back. “Oh no, dude, no no no.” Kyle turned around. “You’re gonna make me sign up to dance off against a stranger? Don’t tell me you’re not an exhibitionist, Nick. I’ve seen the photos.” “I can’t dance,” Nick said sheepishly. “You can just copy me. Follow my lead.” “I don’t…” Kyle took both Nick’s hands now. He moved in close to his stepbrother, so he could

whisper in his ear. “No? You’re not even gonna play the game? My big brother is going to default, and let his little bro win?” That did it, Kyle thought with a smile. Nick’s eyes darkened, he frowned, his competitive nature trumping any dance-related inadequacies. “Come on then,” Nick growled. “Let’s do this.” He smiled. “But first, let me find the guys and borrow a pair of underwear.” They entered the contest as the “All American Brothers,” and the audience cheered them as they climbed the ladder to the cages and locked themselves in. Nick looked a little awkward, but his friends had gathered around the bottom of the pillar to wolf-whistle and cheer him on. Kyle watched with pride, with love, as Nick’s sheepish grin replaced his discomfort. He was so gorgeous… The beat started, and Kyle started to warm up, closing his eyes, swaying, turning his head towards Nick and regarding him through half-lidded eyes. The two pillars were only ten yards or so apart, spotlit from above in a soft pink light. Nick didn’t move yet, only put his hands on the cage, facing Kyle, watching him. There was a pole in the middle of each cage, and Kyle began to rub his butt against his pole, facing away from Nick, his hands on the bars of the cage as if bracing himself. The audience screamed its approval. Kyle turned to see how Nick would counter. Facing Kyle from the other side of his pole, Nick wrapped his hands around it as he would around Kyle’s neck, and began to ever so slowly grind his crotch against it. Slow, teasing movements and then, to the ecstasy of the crowd, a series of powerful thrusts, hammering it home. Kyle responded by pressing himself up against his pole, but facing Nick now, his ass crack sliding up and down on the hard shaft, begging for it… Their eyes locked, their movements synchronized without thinking, without trying, Nick’s thrusts and Kyle’s eager acceptance of them in perfect tune. The crowd screamed, it was clear the two “American brothers” were lovers, so intimate with the needs and desires and rhythms of the other… Nick’s friends shouted and he looked up. That was when someone from the floor above threw a pair of gymnastic rings towards him, on a long set of straps. They were probably used in some kind of Cirque du Soleil thing or, then again, maybe they were there just for times like this. Nick caught the rings through the bars of his cage, to great applause. He stepped out of the cage onto the platform, and looked at Kyle. Kyle laughed, and opened the door of his own cage, wagging a finger at him – come and get me. Nick laughed, got a grip on the rings, took a step or two back in the cage, and then got a running start, launching himself over the heads of the crowd below. Kyle thought his heart would break from terror and love, watching Nick sail like

Tarzan across the distance. But Nick’s feet landed on the pillar, and Kyle grabbed him by the waistband of his underwear and pulled him in to thunderous applause. Without turning around, without breaking eye contact, Nick reached back and shut the cage door behind him, trapping Kyle in there with him. Kyle smiled, danced around to the other side of the pole. Nick laughed, slowly chasing him, prowling like a cat as Kyle matched him step for step, keeping the pole between them. The crowd’s frustration reached a fever peak, they wanted to see the predator reach the prey… Finally Kyle let himself be “cornered” against the bars. Nick moved towards him slowly, as slowly as a panther. Kyle’s hands were up, wrapped around the bars. Nick kept his hands to his side, as his face neared Kyle throat. He just sniffed him, just like cat. He slowly moved to the other side, and then, tentatively, licked Kyle’s face, tasting the sweat. The crowd roared. Kyle slowly let himself sink to the floor, and Nick matched his pace. Then Kyle turned, offered his neck up like a sacrifice….and Nick struck, only with kisses and not teeth, tearing not at Kyle’s flesh but at his soul… The light above them went out, the music nearly drowned out by the crowd’s approval. “I don’t want to get up,” Kyle whispered. “I want you to take me, right here.” “Yeah,” Nick whispered, his eyes an inch from Kyle’s. “I can’t wait one more second to fucking tear your ass up.” Then Nick’s friends were on them, having climbed up the ladder to slap them on the back and congratulate them. Reluctantly, they climbed down the ladder where an employee presented them with not one, but two 100 euro bar credit slips. Nick handed them to his friends. “You guys get started. We’ll join you in a bit.” Sasha laughed. “You going to introduce Kyle to Lab.oratory?” Nick shook his head. “No, I’m going to introduce Lab.oratory to him.” Kyle had no idea what they were talking about, but Nick was pulling him roughly towards a doorway, and he didn’t resist, wanted to go wherever they were talking about, wanted to do whatever Nick had in mind. Lab.oratory, it appeared, was a club within the club, and of course again Nick was able to sweep past any line. There was a clothes check, which they obviously didn’t need, and that was when Kyle started to realize that this was a sex club. The room was wide open, broken up only by cages, some with slings, bunk beds, a pommel horse, even an old oil barrel, just about the right height for bending someone over…which, in fact, someone was indeed bent over at the moment, taking a pounding from a big muscle beast, with a couple more standing there, waiting their turns. There were men everywhere, fucking, sucking, pissing, spitting, slapping, fisting… Kyle’s eyes widened, unable to focus on any one scene before being stunned by the next.

Nick kept hold of Kyle’s hand as they moved through the space. Men stood still, turned, reached out to touch the beautiful young men, their fingertips grazing the stepbrothers’ bodies, but Nick didn’t stop. Nick pulled Kyle into a dark corner, his eyes drilling into his lover’s. “Just like old times.” Nick said. “Got it?” Kyle nodded, his sudden erection threatening to tear his underpants. Just like when we first met, Nick meant…no mercy, no affection, just use and abuse… Nick’s hand on Kyle’s shoulders thrust Kyle to his knees, then forced Kyle’s face into his crotch, smashing it against his huge hard boner. “Fucking work that dick,” Nick hissed. Kyle opened his mouth, eagerly licking the cotton of Nick’s tighty whities, moistening his dick through the fabric. “Yeah, you want that fucking cock, don’t you?” Nick said. “Fucking work for it.” Kyle made love to Nick’s shaft, just nipping at it with his teeth. Nick pulled his face back and slapped him. “Watch the fucking teeth.” “Yes sir,” Kyle nearly gasped. He wanted Nick’s cock more now than ever, more even than the first time… Nick grabbed his cock through his undies and shook it. “You want this? You gonna fucking take it the way I give it to you?” “Yes sir!” Finally, Nick pulled down the elastic of his drawers and pulled it out. That was when Kyle realized they had an audience…an audience who moved in closer every second. Nick thrust his cock into Kyle’s mouth, forcing the head to the back of his throat, rough, brutal, careless. Kyle loved every second of it…it had been so long since they’d done this, like animals, like strangers… Hands reached for Kyle, touched him, and then he heard Nick’s voice, guttural and steely. “Nein. Meine kleiner bruder,” he said. Sighs and groans of appreciation and frustration echoed around them. Kyle knew that much German anyway. No. My little brother… All these men, all this lust, all this sex, but here was an island, look but don’t touch… Nick and Kyle, family, brothers, untouchable… Nick fucked Kyle’s face slowly, deliberately, pulling out, smacking his dick against Kyle’s face, Kyle’s look of drugged delirium telling everyone how much he loved it. He looked up at Nick and he knew Nick fucking loved this, teasing them all with his massive horse cock…all these men, all this desire, and what he had was only for Kyle… Soon there were willing chaperones, keeping busy hands away from them, forming a protective cordon. It was as if through all the rough sexual energy, they could see it, feel it, the connection between them, its inviolable nature.

Nick pulled Kyle up and shoved him roughly against the brick wall. The bricks were sharp against Kyle’s face and he loved it, loved every scrape and scratch… Someone must have handed Nick some lube, Kyle knew, because his stepbrother’s rough fingers were suddenly jammed up his ass, making him cry out. “Ahhh,” the men murmured, Kyle’s pain like a drug. “Yeah, fucking get ready for me,” Nick said. “Just like old times, when I caught you outside my window…and fucking gave you what you wanted…’ “Fuck yeah…fucking take my ass….” He shouted again when Nick thrust inside him, all at once, a ring of pain in his sphincter radiating outward. “ “Ficke ihn,” a man hissed. “Ficke ihn hart…” “I’ll fuck him hard. Fuck him the way he likes it,” Nick said, his hands wrapping around Kyle’s torso. His thrusts were savage, painful, fantastic, deliriously magnificent. Kyle groaned, sighed, cried out. “Come in me. Make me yours.” “Ahh fuck,” Nick sighed. “You ready? Huh?” “Yeah. Do what the man said. Ficke ihn…” Nick roared like a lion, like the king he was, the king of all the beasts in this jungle, and he hammered away at Kyle’s ass until he was close, so close… And stopped, edging, putting his face next to Kyle’s ear, the sweat from his curls dripping onto Kyle. “My lover,” Nick whispered. “My brother.” “Oh god,” Kyle sobbed, as his own dick began to pulse, cum splashing on the brick wall as he felt Nick in turn start to pulse inside him… Then Nick drew back, and thrust, hard, savage, again and again, emptying himself deep inside Kyle’s ass. When he was spent, the men around them reached for them, touched them, stroked them…it wasn’t even sexual at that point, Kyle thought. More like they wanted to touch something so beautiful as the two of them locked together, to appreciate it, to thank them for what they’d seen… They staggered upstairs and found their friends, who cheered their ragged, exhausted, exhilarated faces. “Drink up!” Hans shouted. “You’re in Berlin, baby, and the night is still young!” Kyle woke up late that afternoon, and turned to see if Nick was still in bed. He was, still sleeping, his broad strong back to Kyle, his breathing deep and steady.

I don’t want to get up, Kyle thought. And he knew what he meant. He didn’t want to leave Nick’s bed, Nick’s side, he didn’t want ordinary life to start again. He knew what Nick would say. Nick would give him that shaggy grin and say, hey, stop thinking about the day after tomorrow. You’re here now, let’s live now. “I don’t want to go,” he said to the ceiling as quietly as he could. Nick stirred, sighed. Kyle turned on to his side and wrapped his arms around Nick, sliding one under his neck and the other around his hips. Nick mumbled, some incoherent message from the land of dreams. “Meine bruder,” Kyle whispered in his ear. And he knew he’d made his decision. If Nick would let him… That evening, the house was full of activity. Nick’s roomies put on a small cabaret every month, a throwback to the old Weimar Republic, the decadent shows where men were women and women were men and anything goes… There were some other, permanent cabarets around town, but of course with all the arrogance of talented youth, Sasha and Greg and Hans dismissed them as “second rate.” “Come see us in action,” Greg said, “and you’ll really get a taste of old Berlin.” The Garten der Lüste took place in a small, experimental theater space. The little tables and chairs each had a little cactus as the centerpiece, a little joke about the “prickly” nature of the entertainment. Nick and Kyle were given the place of honor, a front row table. “So have you seen the show before?” Kyle asked him. “Oh yeah. It’s crazy. Hope you’re not easily shocked.” Kyle just looked at him. He and Nick had made love on Nick’s rooftop under a fireworks display, in a deserted picnic spot by a popular park, on a funicular that took one minute to make its journey, in a Red Light window in Amsterdam, and now even in an underground sex club. Nick caught the look and laughed. “Right. Too late for that.” The show was entertaining. A sexy, tatted up, and chiseled young man did a strip tease to the sound of Donna Summer’s “Could It Be Magic.” He got down to his undies before stepping off stage and giving Nick a little lap dance. Nick’s hands just barely touched his new companion’s body, his fingers dancing over his hips, his torso. He looked to Kyle to see if he was jealous, but Kyle was anything but. He spread his legs and tilted his head to say, send that over here. “If you give me a dance, you have to give my little brother one, too.” The dancer’s eyes widened. “Oh, brothers…nice…” Kyle willingly took his turn. It wasn’t America, there wasn’t any draconian “no

touching” law to be obeyed here (not that anyone would). Kyle appreciatively touched his skin, his eyes on Nick’s the whole time. The dancer smiled. “You’re more than brothers, eh?” “Much more,” Kyle said. The dancer went back to the stage, for his big finish. To the whoops and hollers of the crowd, he put his thumbs into his undies…then tore them off to reveal that he was transsexual, FTM, with his original genitals still in place. Nick and Kyle whooped enthusiastically, especially at the big finish, as he performed a magic trick that involved pulling an endless magician’s scarf out of his vagina. Then an extremely limber young man came on stage naked, and in a very good voice, sang the song “Dancing With Myself,” until he got an erection. Then he lay down on a table, folded himself up with amazing flexibility, and began to suck himself off in time with the song. “This is great!” Kyle said. Nick winked. “There’s one more number you’re really gonna like.” There was a break between acts, mostly so that everyone, including the performers, could get more cocktails. Nick excused himself to take a piss, after making sure Kyle’s drink was refilled. Kyle was in heaven. This is the life, he thought. And then another thought came, hard on its heels. A life I’m not leaving. I’m not going back. Nick would try and talk him into it, he knew. He’d tell Kyle to go home, go back to school, blah blah. It wasn’t just Nick. He was in love with his stepbrother, he was resolved not to be parted from him again. But it was more, it was… He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed in…what? Just over six months? He’d come home from his freshman year in college a virgin, a dumb bunny, naïve and shy. And now, here he was, sharing a FTM lap dancer with Nick, fucking in public, seeing Europe high and low. To leave all this behind to go back to some fucking seminar on “The Meaning of Tables and Chairs in Wuthering Heights”? The MC came back onstage. “We have a very special entertainment for you tonight. This is his first time on stage, so please give him a big hand! Presenting…Mr. Nikolai!” Kyle clapped with the rest of the crowd, wondering what was taking Nick so long to come back from the toilet. Mr. Nikolai was a man (maybe, Kyle thought) in a classic Hollywood tux, black tie and tails, white gloves and cane, his black top hat tipped over his face. He began to dance, well, really more of a light step or two as a piano player off stage tinkled out the opening of a song.

Mr. Nikolai started to sing, more a musical talking than actual singing. “Falling in love again, never wanted to, what am I to do, can’t help it…” Then he put a hand to his top hat, lifting it just a smidge as he turned towards a spotlight, and one eye became visible… staring right at Kyle, just as it winked. Kyle gaped. It was Nick! He laughed, delighted. Nick stayed in character, continuing to talk-sing about the men who clustered around him like moths to the flame, as he wandered through the crowd, teasing the boys with a white gloved finger across the cheek or a gently consoling pat on the shoulder, every gesture telling them all, sorry, darling, but no. Then, at last, he got to Kyle. He went to his knee, arms extended like Al Jolson as he finished song. “What am I to do, can’t help it…” The crowd applauded, and Nick doffed his hat. Kyle clapped hardest of all, laughing, delighted. “One more part to my act,” Nick said to Kyle. He reached into the hat and pulled out a silk purse that had been pinned inside it. “Open your hand.” Kyle opened his hand and Nick undid the purse, dropping two rings into Kyle’s hands. Kyle looked at his stepbrother, his brother, his lover. Nick’s eyes were grave, serious. “Pick one. One for you and one for me. It’s not a wedding ring,” Nick smiled. “Unless you want it to be, but I don’t think we’re that bourgeois, are we.” “No,” Kyle said, and meant it. He couldn’t imagine the two of them in some formal ceremony, blessed by the world, being all…normal and approved. The whole point of them was that they weren’t official, their relationship was forbidden, they were outlaws, outsiders. And yet Nick still wanted him to have a ring. To make it unofficially official. “Here,” Nick said. “The rented tux even came with a monocle.” He pulled it out of his vest pocket and handed it to Kyle. “Read the inscriptions and pick the one you want.” Kyle put the rings up to the light. It was hard to read them in the dim light, but that didn’t matter, because from the first two words, he knew what they said. There had been a night, late in their summer together, when they’d borrowed Kyle’s mom’s car. They’d driven out into the countryside, far from the lights of civilization, to watch the Perseid meteor shower. They’d kicked back on the hood of the car, reclining against the windshield, and watched the streaks of light, the ancient rocks vaporizing, their existences ending in a short and brilliant blaze of glory. It hadn’t been an entirely silent night. They’d left the doors open and the car stereo on, and Kyle couldn’t say how or why he’d chosen the CDs he’d brought. He hadn’t recalled the Okkervil River album that well, but subconsciously he must have known. There was a beautiful song on it, lush and achingly beautiful, called “Your Past Life as a Blast.” Near the end, there were two lines, one of which repeated again and again. When they

heard them, they had looked at each other, and smiled. Then the last line came, the surprise, the signature on the contract. It said everything there was to be said about being brothers, about being family. Kyle supposed now that he’d known then, that he and Nick would be together forever. Nick hadn’t forgotten that night either. Engraved on each ring was one of the two lines. No one, no one is going to stop me from loving my brother… ….not even my brother. “I’m not going home,” Kyle said. Nick smiled, leaned in, and kissed Kyle on the lips. “You are home, brother.”

Click here for Other Kindle Titles by Brad Vance Brad Vance Romance… Would I Lie to You? (Game Players #1) Software billionaire Marc Julian’s orderly life is shattered one night by a cyber-intrusion into his company’s servers. He’s always surrounded himself with the best people, but finding the culprit behind this might require a real expert…and sometimes it takes a thief to catch a thief. Jesse Winchester and his team of “grey hat” hackers are suddenly available to Marc. Marc doesn’t know if he should trust Jesse with the keys to his company’s kingdom. After all, Jesse’s a convicted felon, sent to prison for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. A felon sentenced to thirty-five years in prison, who mysteriously served only three years before being released… Marc’s first company, his whole life, was shattered because he trusted the wrong person. This time there’s even more at stake, but few other options. Especially when his evil enemies, the billionaire industrialist Krom brothers, are revealed to be the source of the intrusion. Is Jesse there to help Marc, or does he have his own history with the Kroms, his own score to settle? As Jesse and Marc spend more time together, their growing intimacy is at war with their need to win their respective battles. Soon the game they start to play with each other, against each other, becomes more exciting, more exquisitely frustrating…and more

dangerous. Strength In Numbers (Game Players #2) They’re back! In their first adventure, Marc Julian, software billionaire, and Jesse Winchester, hacker extraordinaire, survived the evil plans of the Krom brothers and Jesse’s first lover, Chip. But Jesse has old debts to pay to Russian gangster Leonid Ivanov. Now Leonid is calling in those debts, demanding that Jesse find a great treasure for him, and a new game is set in motion… The mysterious “Satoshi,” creator of the cybercurrency Bitcoin, has been hiding $375 million worth of the currency for years. But now, he has chosen to start a quest for the keys to the Hoard, and he who controls the keys controls the fortune. And this will be a quest that will test the strength, the will, and the character of those who pursue it. But Marc and Jesse aren’t the only ones on the hunt, as old enemies resurface to try and beat them to the treasure… And even if they reach it first, they must ask themselves – do they really want to give a Russian gangster $375 million to pursue his deadly enterprises? And what would be the consequences if they don’t? The pursuit will take them from Andorra to Barcelona, through the museums of Tokyo, the streets of Buenos Aires, and the coast of Mexico, in a desperate and dangerous race to keep the fortune in digital gold from the hands of all their enemies… Have A Little Faith In Me When Rocky met Dex, it was hate at first sight. Country superstar Dex Dexter represented everything that budding rock star Rocky McCoy had left behind him in the Deep South – the religion, the homophobia, the hypocrisy, the lies. And Rocky represented everything that Dex had denied, had turned away from, had refused… When Rocky met Dex, it was love at first touch. Double booked in the same slot on the main stage at CrossFest, they fought for the microphone like two dogs fighting over a bone. And when their hands met… Rocky has had enough. “No more falling for straight guys. No way. No matter how hot. Especially if the ‘straight guy’ looks to me like a major closet case.” Dex has had enough. “No way. I can’t be gay. I can’t lose my family, my friends, my career. I can’t.”

What they’ve had enough of doesn’t matter. It’s what they’ve never had enough of that will bring them together… Given the Circumstances Two promising college athletes meet, each needing something only the other can give him… When Roger and Brian lock eyes on the first day of school, a friendship is born. Both men are hungry for connection – Brian needs the acceptance, encouragement and support he never had growing up, and when he finds out his new best friend is gay, it brings his own identity into question. Roger needs a big brother, a best friend, but that will never be enough, especially not when he’s this close to big, strong, handsome Brian. And both men want something more – careers as professional athletes. For Roger, the demands of the closet, the need to reject the love of a man to fulfill his love of the game, will be a crushing burden. For Brian, his downfall will be the substances he uses to get an edge over the competition, and to suppress his gnawing self-doubt and guilt. One set of desires will bring them together, the other will force them apart… A Little Too Broken When Jamie walks through the door of the Humane Society, it’s not just an animal who needs rescuing that day. Tom is there to adopt another service dog into the Canine Comrade Corps, but it’s Jamie his heart goes out to. But each man turns away, walks away, from the potential pain, the rejection, the knowledge that it’ll all end in tears… Jamie knows damn well that the HIV he contracted from an unfaithful lover has put him out of the dating game forever in the small town of Santa Vera. Tom lost his legs in Afghanistan, and got new ones, yeah, but with a side order of PTSD to go, he thought grimly. The real problem is that only now does he realize he’s gay, now that the revelation would be just one too many things to put his family through, after everything else they’ve had to deal with. So both men grin and bear the loneliness, put their feelings on a shelf, even as Jamie’s volunteer stint at CCC turns into friendship and, despite their resolve, something more…

Apollo’s Curse

All Dane Gale ever wanted was to be a successful writer. After a few sessions with his new friends Rose and Sherry at a romance book club, well, the more romances they read, the more they’re convinced they can do better. And do they ever! They join their creative forces to become “Pamela Clarice,” self-published romance novelist. When they look for a cover model for their first book, Dane sees the photos that will change his life. Paul Musegetes is the world’s most popular romance cover model, and the most secretive. Dane soon finds himself obsessed with this supernaturally handsome man, and when he meets Paul at the Romance Writers’ Ball on the Summer Solstice, he and Paul connect for one night of passion… After that night, Dane’s a writing machine. He can’t stop writing romances, and every story he touches turns to gold. But he also finds that he can’t write anything but romances. And soon he’s spending every waking moment of every day writing another after another… Then Dane finds out that this Midas touch has a heavy price. After the next Summer Solstice, he’ll never write again. Not a romance, not a serious novel. Nothing. Not even a grocery list. And that leaves him with only one option – find Paul, and get him to break the curse. But before he can do that, he’ll have to track down Paul’s equally mysterious photographer, Jackson da Vinci… The Worst Best Luck Peter Rabe’s luck is about to change. Taking a co-worker’s car into the shop nets him a desperately needed $100 tip…and the attentions of Matt Kensington, master mechanic. Peter can’t believe that someone as hot as Matt could be interested in the young man his tormentors used to call “Peter Rabbit.” But, incredibly enough, he is. And when the Quadrillions lottery jackpot is up to $700,000,000, wouldn’t it be crazy of Peter not to buy a ticket on his lucky day? Matt doesn’t think much of money, having grown up on New York’s Upper East Side in the lap of luxury. He’d walked away from the professional drudgery his Harvard degree had qualified him for, to become a mechanic, to touch things that were real, to fix things that were broken. And a hot shy guy like Peter is another machine Matt wants to believe he can fix. But when Peter finds out he’s won the lottery, it almost feels like his luck has run out. Especially when Cody Burrell, his emotionally abusive ex-boyfriend, mysteriously reenters his life just before he cashes the ticket and reveals his good fortune to the world…

Peter must wrestle with the pressures of wealth on someone who’s grown up poor, the pressure of fame that comes with so much instant fortune, and most of all, with his own demons, the demons that Cody knows all too well how to manipulate. Brad Vance writing as Orland Outland… A Serious Person Adam Bede has it good. Writing pop songs for teen idol Christie Squires isn’t much of a creative challenge, but it pays for his champagne lifestyle. He’s got his boyfriend Lyle, a Serious Person and regular CNN geopolitical contributor, his bestie and songwriting partner Callie, and his partners in ChrisCo, the industrial combine behind their manufactured superstar. And he’s even got his bipolar illness managed without completely dulling his creativity. Until one day, Christie decides she wants to be Taken Seriously, and sues ChrisCo for child labor violations. And just like that, Adam’s cash cow is no more. As if that wasn’t bad enough, along comes Sam Sparks, brilliant talented young songwriter and social activist, who’s got the hots for Adam’s boyfriend – and who may be the Serious Person who’s a better match for Lyle than frivolous Adam… When a cable channel creates a reality show to find the best singer/songwriter in America, Adam knows he has only one way to save his career, and his relationship. And if winning that contest involves going off his medications, going a little crazy (just a little, he swears), isn’t it worth the risk? Especially when he discovers that Christie, and Sam, are his competition… Different People Cal Hewitt and Eric Hamilton grew up just across the street from each other, but far across a cultural divide. Both young men are gay, but where Eric has been raised in a happy, sunny, liberal household, Cal has grown up in a conservative, religious family for whom being gay is anathema. But their attraction to each other is not to be denied, not over the span of a decade or a continent. Their lives will intersect again and again as each lives through their own version of gay life – AIDS, drugs, activism, the pain of loss and the solace of family. This is also the story of two strong women, Carol Hewitt and Emma Hamilton. Both their journeys as mothers will take them far from where they began, far from where they expected to end up. It’s the story of families, broken and healed, the story of an era that

ends with the promise of a new millennium… Brad Vance Paranormal… Werewolves of Brooklyn Darien Mackey wasn’t looking for an adventure. For ten years, he’d been happy living in Brooklyn, working as a butcher in the same job, living in the same apartment, dating some “nothing-special” guys. Until one night his buddy Jacob talked him into taking ayahuasca, the soul-changing drug. And Darien had a vision…of a wolf, its all-too-human eyes on him, its paws on his chest, its enquiring mind in his own… Darien Mackey is changing. He’s more confident, more assertive, hungrier, hornier. And his world is changing around him – his job, his home, his beloved Mechanic’s Library all falling victim to the predations of unscrupulous developers, bent on demolishing the old Brooklyn he loves and replacing it with a forest of condos. But he’s no longer a passive observer of his own life, and as this thing, this power, grows inside of him, he resolves to fight back, to preserve the way of life he loves. And he’s not alone in the fight. The Lipsius Preservation Society of Brooklyn stands ready to assist in the battle, even though it seems like a bit of a joke to Darien, with its King and its Duke, Marquess, Earl and Viscount. But there’s nothing funny about his growing attraction to Albeus Finley, King of this mysterious Court. And when slumlords and condo-mongers start to die mysterious, violent deaths at the hands of savage animals, Darien begins to realize that something is afoot in Brooklyn – something supernatural. And it’s afoot in him, too… The Chronicles of Rob the Daemon Rob the Daemon When Sol meets Rob Sabat at the ski resort, it’s magic…literally. But their hot sexy romance could be short-lived, because Rob is really Barbatos, immortal daemon, cursed by an evil magician to spend the eight months of Daylight Savings Time buried underground. So now it’s up to Sol, descendant of King Solomon, the original daemon wrangler, to break the curse on his beloved. And to do that, he’ll have to become a sorcerer himself, maybe the greatest sorcerer ever. He’ll need Rob’s help, of course, as well as that of his faithful sidekick Celia - who just happens to be the descendant of the Queen of Sheba -and his dog Gary, once Sol understands Dogspeak. But daemons are a dangerous lot, and Sol’s experiments with the power may unleash and unlock more things

under the earth than just Rob… Phoenix Caged Sol’s days are long without Rob, as his daemon lover returns again to the earth, bound there from March to November by the Daylight Savings Curse. And he knows it’s not a good idea to get involved again with Phoenix, the daemon who turned him into a raven in the First Chronicle. But when Sol’s mother hands him a mysterious package left to him by his Uncle Ethan, and Phoenix asks for Sol’s help in defeating a sorcerer who’s draining Phoenix’s powers, Sol’s magickal education can’t wait for Rob’s return. And when Sol finds out that Celia’s met a man, a doctor of medicine, and philosophy named Phil Gabeta, he knows something’s not right. Is “Dr. Phil” too good to be true? With the aid of his new familiar, Lucy the cat, Sol will do battle with The Great and Terrible Jeff, the Wizard of Wall Street, and Phoenix’s life, and Celia’s, will hang in the balance. Brad Vance “Heteromance”… A Great Prince He’s Niko: Orphan, street rat, gengzter in the biggest crime syndicate in the former Communist country of Danubia. He’s Nikolas Almásy: Danubia’s last surviving aristocrat from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He’s Nikolas I, King of Danubia by the Grace of God: willing pawn of the oligarchs and gengzters who put him on the throne. He’s Niko “The Punk Prince”: Bad boy, party animal, tabloid fodder, the meal ticket of every royal watcher in Europe. She’s Francesca Albertine of Burgenland, Princess of the House of Hapsburg-Esterhazy. Daughter of a love marriage between a King and a movie star, born to privilege, and raised to do her duty. She despises the irresponsible brat across the border, who cares only for himself. Never mind how devilishly handsome he is, how full of life and energy, never mind how much she envies him his freedom, to do anything he wants, take anything he wants, anytime he wants it… Their two nations were one, before World War II divided them. Now the real powers

behind their thrones plan to reunify the nations…and the monarchies. To prevent a royal wedding neither of them wants, Nikolas and Francesca will have to work together, and risk it all – their thrones, their freedom…even their lives. Niko must learn from Francesca – how to become a better man, a “Great Prince,” to save his nation, and himself, from this unwanted alliance. And Francesca must learn from Nikolas – how to break the rules, live dangerously, act fast. Together they’ll do anything to save their people…yes, even go through with a royal wedding, if that’s what it takes… Brad Vance Erotica… WARNING: The following stories are heavy duty M/M erotica with (eventual, sometimes, it’s complicated!) romantic overtones. You’ve been warned – now have fun! Sam and Derek: The Whole Story All four Sam and Derek stories, AND Eddie’s MMA Submission! $14.95 worth of stories for only $4.99! Sam’s Reluctant Submission Sam’s down to his last five dollars when he meets Derek, who makes him an offer - come to my estate for a manhunt, evade me for two days, and you’ll make ten grand…but if I catch you, you surrender your ass to me! Sam’s got SERE training and he’s pretty sure his straight ass is safe, but anything can happen when the hunt is on… Sam’s Reluctant Submission II: Urban Manhunt In Part I, Sam lost his ass to Derek, but kept something more important – Derek submitted him, but didn’t break him, and that’s what Derek really wanted. Now Derek wants a rematch – fifty grand for an urban manhunt, if Sam evades Derek’s crew…if he doesn’t, it’s four on one and Sam’s ass is toast! Sam’s Reluctant Submission III: Search and Rescue In Part 2, Sam lost his ass to Derek again – and loved it! Which left him wondering if he was gay after all. Maybe a three way with Jake and Eddie will help him figure that out… And when Derek calls Sam to get his help with a search and rescue effort, what sexual sparks might be generated if they clash again in a “threematch”?

Sam’s Reluctant Submission IV: Avenging Devils The epic conclusion to the saga of Sam and Derek! When Derek’s dark past rears its head to jeopardize the couple and their friends Jake and Eddie, Sam will have to call on his old Special Forces buddies to do battle with The Factory, a malevolent cartel bent on revenge. Will Sam and Derek rescue Eddie from his kidnappers? Will seeing Sam explore his top side with Eddie make Derek jealous…or make him want Sam to do that to him? Most frightening and dangerous of all, will Derek finally say the L word! Eddie’s MMA Submission – Only available as a BONUS story in Sam and Derek: The Whole Story! Eddie works across the street from Downtown Fight Academy. And he can’t stop thinking about Jake, the hot MMA fighter he ran into at the store. When Jake offers to train him, Eddie’s ready to throw down in the Octagon. But when Jake has him submitted, and pulls out a weapon you won’t see on TV, will Eddie tap out…or take the punishment? Colum’s Viking Captivity The monastery at Iona is destroyed, all the monks slaughtered by ruthless Vikings… almost all of them. Now Colum is taken into slavery by a new master, a warrior prince who will teach him the Viking Way of pleasure! Colum’s Viking Captivity II: Riding the Dragon In Part 1, Colum the monk was taken from the smoldering ruins of Iona by Viggo, his new Viking master. Now in the trading town of Birka, Colum will learn to serve – and to fight, for the Viking’s seeress has foretold his future as a great warrior, fighting by Viggo’s side as his brother, his lover… But first Colum must beg Viggo for his freedom, so he can fight the wicked trader who’s going to use and abuse his friend Niall. What price must he pay Viggo for the chance to serve out justice for his friend? Colum’s Viking Captivity III: The Warrior Slave Colum has earned his freedom, by proving his worth in battle! But if the end of his slavery means the end of Viggo’s sweetly cruel tutelage, is it worth it? And Colum is a slave owner himself now – will he do what he must to protect his friend Niall, and show the other Vikings that Niall is his property by using him like the lowly thrall that he is? And when a man from Viggo’s past calls them to do battle with the Franks, is Colum ready to fight by his lover’s side as an equal? Colum’s Viking Captivity IV: Trial by Combat Colum and Viggo have taken their place at the court of King Godfrid, in advance of the

Vikings’ great battle against Charlemagne and the Franks. And while they wait, the strange, dark sexual games he and Viggo play together are now skirting the edges of mortal danger… But there’s another danger, too – treachery is afoot, and Colum falls into the hands of his enemies! Could Niall, his friend-turned-slave, really be his betrayer? When reason and logic are no match for the forces marshaled against Colum, there’s only one way he can regain his freedom – TRIAL BY COMBAT! SEVEN HITS! Get Your Ass Ready! Seven of Brad’s early stories for .99! That’s like, I dunno, a penny per orgasm! Good Cop, Bad Boy Rough Workout in the Locker Room The Sexual Network – Severin’s Revenge Beck’s Cruisy Motel Hookup Tyler’s Pirate Island Audition Tyler’s Pirate Island Gangbang Tyler’s Pirate Island Manhunt Get more Brad Vance at http://bradvanceauthor.com BradVanceErotica on Google+ @BradVanceAuthor on Twitter facebook.com/brad.vance.10 https://www.pinterest.com/bradvanceerotic/ [email protected]