and he had the same sharp features. Christine, who was an intermediate between David and me these

days, was the one to tell me he had a boyfriend. When I first heard I was so jealous I had to throw up.

Worst thing was that before, David and I would never run into each other on campus but now we did

and he had this guy with him. I almost bumped into them and when David saw me he looked startled and

embarrassed. I acted coolly and shook the other guys hand.

“I’m Michael, David’s brother,” I said.

“Yeah I know,” he said. “I’ve seen you around on campus and David has your picture like

everywhere.”

I looked at David who had now turned scarlet red. I felt ashamed because I’d never even been to his room

so I didn’t even know he had pictures of me there. I wondered which ones he had on display there.

“We’re going to a movie,” David said, sounding considerably more shy than normal. “Do you want to

come?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m meeting Glenn, we’re going out for drinks later.” He looked

disappointed.

“Alright,” he said. “Will you call me?” It almost sounded pleading.

“I’m busy this weekend,” I replied brusquely.

He looked really hurt. I twisted the knife even further.

“I met this guy...”

Jack was looking at his watch. He clearly wanted to go. I didn’t blame him because the atmosphere

between David and me was weird.

“I’ll see you at home when the summer break starts,” I told David.

He nodded and then Jack told him to hurry up before they would miss the beginning of their movie.

That week I heard from Christine that David had finally lost his virginity and that he told her it had hurt

while the other guy fucked him for the first time. I was grinding my teeth while I listened to my sister.

“He told me you also met a guy,” she said. “What’s he like?”

“I already finished things with him,” I said and she sighed. More and more she thought I was an asshole

I think. There had been no guy for me for a while now but I didn’t need to tell her that. The picture of that

other guy straining on top of David stayed in my head for days. The thought of him hurting David made me

sick. But I guess what I was doing hurt him worse anyway.

David and that guy broke up quickly anyway. When David came home for the summer break Jack had

already dumped him because he wanted to be available to fuck every other guy he met while staying at his

parents place in Minnesota. David was hurt and Christine told me he had cried when he told her. I was

glad and didn’t bother to hide it. Christine thought I was just being an asshole again.

When I first saw him again at our parent’s place he looked tired. We pretended nothing had changed

between us, in front of my dad and Juliette. We barbecued with them until late and played with the twins

who were happy we were home. David talked about Jack to Christine. He never mentioned getting

dumped to either dad, or me but my dad made a remark about it during dinner anyway. David must have

spoken to Juliette about his heartache too and she must have told my dad. When we were sitting down to

eat our charcoaled steaks he told David to: “Lighten up, you’ll find a new beau soon enough.” David

looked embarrassed.

“I don’t get you,” my dad went on. “You just sit here with a sour face all the time when you could be

having fun like Michael.”

David looked at his plate. I knew for sure that he was thinking that I had fucked a thousand guys, just

like my dad and the rest of our family thought. They all thought I was having so much fun… My dad

actually felt proud thinking I was some macho stud who was whoring around. I bet he thought David was

such a dweeb for not being like me and crying over this one stupid guy. I actually thought it was really

sweet that David could be infatuated like that. For myself, other guys just didn’t measure up to what I

couldn’t have.

When we’d finished dinner Christine helped Juliette clear the table and my dad left for his study to do

some more work. I caught David sitting by the pool on his own.

“Don’t say anything to embarrass me even more,” he said before I even sat down next to him.

“I won’t,” I said.

“You didn’t call me for weeks,” he said bitterly, “Why do you want to hang out now?”

“I don’t,” I said harshly. “I was just checking you’re alright.” When he didn’t say anything I continued.

“It’s not such a big deal you know. Everybody gets fucked and dumped a first time.”

“Fuck you,” he said, “I’m guessing that you’re the type of guy who does most of the dumping.”

“You guessed right,” I said angrily.

This conversation was really going in a wrong direction. I expected him to get up and go up to his room

but he didn’t.

“I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“Like you said it’s no big deal,” he snorted but his eyes said something else.

I put my arm around his shoulder and he eased into my touch.

“It’ll be better next time,” I said and I wanted next time to be with me.

“I was in love with him, a least I think I was… But, you know, it really fucking hurt the first couple of

times he fucked me,” he said softly.

“I wasn’t relaxed enough and he just wanted to fuck me anyway.”

I felt queasy while he continued with the gory details.

“I was bleeding too that first time and that stupid dick just said it was normal.” I stroked his hair.

“You did use a condom, did you?” I just had to ask. He looked at me like I’d gone insane for a second

“Yeah of course I did it safe, what do you think!”

“I just needed to know,” I said.

“The first time we did it, he just pushed me on to my stomach and then fucked me from behind. There

was no foreplay or anything, just some sloppy kissed and then he just pushed his dick inside of me. He

didn’t even bother to use some lube, just spit. It really hurt. And he just kept pounding it in to me while I

was almost smothered by his pillows. But then I was too afraid to say anything. I guess I wanted to get it

over with.”

“Why?” I asked quietly.

“I was starting to feel ridiculous, still being a virgin. Even Christine has had sex you know.”

“I didn’t know and please don’t tell me about it.”

I stroked his arm. I could feel the soft hairs on his lower arm brush against my fingertips. It was almost too

much…I wanted him so badly.

“I never thought you were ridiculous. I thought you were being sweet, waiting for the right guy and all,”

I whispered.

“You know there’s only one guy I really wanted,” he said. “You would never hurt me like that.”

Before I could even respond to that, Christine was calling us from the house, saying that there was a

great movie on and we should come inside to watch it. We did.

After that night talk where he’d basically said that he’d wanted me to be the one to deflower him I felt

like I was getting closer to the edge. If I went over, only bad things could happen…

I still tried to be as normal as I possibly could around David while we were both at home. We still

played basketball and talked about music and movies like we did when we both lived at home but things

had changed more than the rest of our family could know.

During the day I spend some more time with Christine than usual and with my dad, who was still

making plans for me to join his firm. I didn’t want to let things escalate between David and me like had

happened on my birthday. But at night I had feverish dreams about fucking David and jerked off smelling

one of his shirts that I’d picked out of the laundry basket.

11. Spiraling out of control

Then university started again and we were back to the East coast and our lives there. This time, no