by Todd Gregory
What the hell? He’s fucking gorgeous.
I take the phone from him and look at it more closely.
Yes, he is model-gorgeous.
He’s smiling in the picture, wearing a sleeveless dark blue soccer-style jersey with a gold stripe just below his pecs. His arms are muscular and defined, a thick vein running down from the shoulders along the biceps. His skin is dark, like Rubin’s, but it glows in the sunlight. He has thick eyebrows and a strong nose, perfectly straight white teeth, thick lips, deep dimples carved into his cheeks, almond-shaped warm brown eyes. The soccer shirt is tight enough to show the ridges in his stomach.
He plays soccer, I think, unable to take my eyes off his face. That means he has amazing legs and a perfect ass.
Dear God.
So, what is wrong with him? It must be bad.
Rubin takes the phone away and tucks it back into his jacket pocket. “His name is Ricardo, we call him Ricky.” He clears his throat again. “My brother…” He stops talking, makes a face, continues. “He married a girl from Mexico. She’s very devout, very Catholic, goes to Mass every day. He is their youngest, they have two older kids, not very ambitious, no desire for college. He was the last one, you know, and it was a difficult birth…she had to have a hysterectomy after…”
Why is he telling me all this?
“And she got more religious, she shouldn’t have ever gotten married, she wanted to be a nun but she fell in love with my brother, and Carmela, she well, well…she kind of pushed him to be a priest.”
“A priest?” I raise my eyebrows politely, but it seriously is taking all my self-control to not burst into laughter.
He nods. “Like I said, Carmela…she’s very religious. She practically lives at Mass, always saying her rosary…she wasn’t much of a mother to those kids.” He hesitates. This is a lot of personal shit he’s dumping on me. He’s probably wondering how much more he should tell me.
I am so getting that check out of him.
“She wanted one of her kids…she always wanted one of the kids to go into the church, like that was some kind of extra credit or something she’d get in heaven.” He rolls his eyes. “My mother was religious, but not crazy like Carmela. My mother thinks Carmela is crazy.”
I mentally add another thousand to the check.
“Ricky was always a sweet kid, and my brother…my brother wasn’t as involved with Ricky as he should have been.” He scratches his head. “She always pushed Ricky toward the priesthood. And Ricky seemed to really, you know, want it.”
“But not anymore?”
“He’s been at Notre Dame the last two years, preparatory to entering the seminary.” His face darkens. “He’s smart, had some scholarships, but I was helping pay the rest for him, and Notre Dame isn’t cheap.”
“That’s very generous of you, Brother Rubin.”
He flushes even darker. “I’ll keep paying for his schooling, of course, but now—now he’s decided he doesn’t want to be a priest anymore and he wants to come to school here—he’d already put in the transfer and got accepted before he told us.” He looks grim. “On the one hand, I have to admire his determination.” He twists the ring on his right hand. It’s a Beta Kappa ring. I’ve never seen him wear it before. “But I think he should have talked to me about all this first.”
Of course you do, since you’re paying the bills.
“So, he doesn’t want to be a priest anymore?” I find Ricky’s dilemma mildly interesting. I’ve never met anyone with a deep religious faith, at least not to my knowledge. Then again, he was probably quite boring. “Lost his calling?”
Rubin is uncomfortable, which is a much more interesting twist to me than his nephew’s supposed loss of faith. He shifts in the chair, takes another drink of the expensive Scotch, clears his throat, won’t look me in the eye. Finally, he manages to say, so quietly I can barely make out the words, “He’s gay.”
You homophobic bastard.
“Beta Kappa takes our commitment to pledging standards very seriously, Brother Rubin,” I say in my most self-righteous voice. “And of course, the university’s diversity commitment—”
“Oh, yes, your generation and all that PC bullshit.” He waved his hand in a dismissive way.
Because he’s not Latino.
He goes on, “I know we pay lip service to that idiocy, but you and me—we know how things really work, don’t we? I don’t want Ricky to getting blackballed because he’s, you know, a homosexual.” He lowers his voice as he says the word, like he’s ashamed.
Because, of course, he is ashamed his precious nephew is gay.
I bite my lower lip, trying to keep my own temper under control.
I want to tell dear Brother Rubin, president of the alumni association, that I’m actually a red-blooded get down on my knees so much I have callouses on them cocksucker.
I’m kind of surprised he doesn’t know.
Which makes me wonder if any of the alumni know, or if they just pretend that the whole diversity movement of the university, all the progress we’ve made here at the house, is all just for show and something we wink at, pretend like we’re complying and not really doing anything to comply?
But saying something to him now won’t do any good.
We need that damned check from him.
It’s pretty fucking galling.
Then again, did any of my predecessors ever report to the alumni that we actually have ten openly gay brothers in the house? There’s bound to be some homophobia in the alumni association. Probably some racists, too.
We have a couple of Latino brothers, some Asians, an African American…
I glance over at the framed composite of last year’s active brothers.
There’s an awful lot of white faces.
If they didn’t know about the gay brothers…it would be easy to look at that composite and think…
“I can assure you, Brother Rubin, that I will make sure that Ricky will be welcomed into the chapter with open arms,” I say with a big smile on my face, making a mental note to make sure we actively recruit pledges of color during Fall Rush. “Does he know yet what he’s going to major in?”
“Physical education.” He couldn’t sound more contemptuous if he said he was going to be a gardener. “He wants to be a soccer coach. He would have been a teacher at a Jesuit school had his homosexuality…”
It’s amazing how uncomfortable he is just saying the word.
He takes another gulp of the Scotch. The glass is now empty, but I don’t move to refill it again. “Ricky’s a good boy, Phil. He’s honest. He couldn’t, in good conscience, serve the Church with the kind of desires he has…He was sinning in his heart, if not in his body, he said, and so he couldn’t devote his life to God.” He gets up and walks over to the air conditioner. He pats the top of the window unit. “I’m very glad to hear it, Phil. It means a lot to me that I can count on you to take care of Ricky.”
You have no idea, Brother Rubin.
“Yes.” I stand up. “Ricky is in very good hands here, Brother Rubin.”
“I understand there’s some issue with the air-conditioning system?”
I nod. “It needs to be replaced.”
“It’s a wonder it’s lasted this long.” He sits back down and takes his checkbook out of a pocket inside his jacket. “It was installed when I was a JA.”
“Thank you, Brother Rubin.”
“I’m counting on you, Phil.”
“Ten thousand should cover it,” I say. The quote was for five thousand, but why shouldn’t Brother Rubin pay for the party as well?
Homophobic asshole.
He tears off the check and places it on my desk. “I’d like for him to move into the house for the summer and live here during the pledge semester.” He hesitates. “I want him to get the full benefit of the pledging experience, but…don’t let the brothers be hard on him, okay? I can count on you?” He starts writing another check. “How much is the rent for the summer and the fall semester
?”
I tell him and put both checks in the drawer where I keep the checkbook. “You can always count on me, Brother Rubin.” We give each other the secret fraternity handshake, and I wish him a safe drive back to Los Angeles.
And once he shuts the door behind him, I smile.
I’ll make sure we take very good care of your nephew, Brother Rubin.
And I know the perfect guy for the job.
BRANDON He runs out to the end of the springboard, muscles rippling beneath tanned skin, and bounces once on the end. He catapults up into the air, his muscles all tensed, his toes pointed, and presses his face to his knees and rotates several times at the peak of the leap. I watch, again amazed at the perfection the human body can attain, the beauty of the perfect lines he forms, his tight white bikini clinging to his hard, muscular ass like a second skin. His rotations complete, he straightens out into the air and knifes cleanly into the blue water of the pool with barely a splash.
“Bravo!” I call when his head pops up out of the water, his hair slicked back against his scalp, a broad smile on his face as he swims to the side of the pool.
It’s the least I can do, since I’m not going to fuck him again.
No matter how much he begs.
And he will beg.
They always do.
I check him out again as he climbs out of the pool, water beading up on his skin and streaming down from his crotch as he shakes his head, sending drops flying as the wet curls unstick from his head and spring back like coils. He’s handsome, no question about that—I’m sure the co-eds at Stanford can’t drop their panties fast enough when he smiles at them. His skin is tanned very dark and the skin is smooth everywhere, no telltale hairs anywhere besides the ones poking out at the top of his almost obscenely low-cut bikini that doesn’t hide the cleft between his ass cheeks in the back. Those dishwater blond curls that probably turn into ringlets, those long, deep, soulful almond-shaped green eyes…when he’s finished diving, he should try to model.
The body is good enough for gay porn, but the dick leaves a lot to be desired.
The water in the pool might be cold, but it isn’t that cold.
I slide my sunglasses back up my sweaty nose and reach for my poor margarita, melting in the afternoon heat. I take a sip. I have a bit of a buzz from the joint I smoked about half an hour earlier, and the tequila is keeping that edge going.
I’m in that almost perfect state of just buzzed enough to enjoy it.
And what is about to come.
He stands at the foot of my lounger, the tight Lycra hugging his package.
So beautiful.
Pity he’s such a boring fuck.
He sits down on the edge of my lounger, dripping water onto my legs, and places one of his hands on my right calf, smiling at me. He’s pretty, really pretty, but like so many other pretty “straight” boys, he’s a boring fuck. He just missed the US national diving team at the trials a few months ago, and he’s the diving star of Stanford. He’s pretty boring about that, too. How many times have I heard about how he would have made the team if he hadn’t blown the last dive?
I swear half the time I put my dick in his mouth to shut him up.
I’ve already fucked him a few times, but really, all he does is lie there and look pretty. Because that’s all he’s ever had to do. I’m sure all of his life pathetic girls have been so thrilled and honored to be with him that they are more than happy to suck his little dick until he shoots a load or fucks them.
I’d bet my next semester’s tuition that Jaden Strauss has never given a woman an orgasm.
He wants me to fuck him.
He’s got that look on his face, and his dick is getting hard.
Hard to hide that in a Speedo, even with a dick as little as that.
I’m a little buzzed, and a little horny, so why not?
His parents aren’t home, and who cares if the housekeeper sees?
I take his hand and put it on my dick. “You want me, don’t you?”
He licks his lower lip and nods.
“Go get the lube and a condom.” I reach for the margarita. “And be naked when you come back out, lubed and ready to get fucked.”
He bends over and kisses my dick through my bikini. I’m getting hard.
If only he could suck a dick worth a shit, I’d just let him blow me. It takes a lot less effort.
Little does he know this will be the last time.
“I’ll be right back.” He barely breathes the words out as he stands up, muscles rippling with every movement.
I knew he was a closet case when I met him. I only went to that party because I was bored. I’m still bored, really. Is there anything worse than the San Joaquin Valley in the summer? It must be a hundred and twenty degrees today. But visiting my aunt here in the international hotspot of Polk (that’s sarcasm, if you’re wondering) for a week or two is required by my mother, and it keeps the credit cards from getting cut off. She doesn’t ask a lot from me—she’s been a hands-off mother for as long as I can remember—and two weeks in this overheated hell is more than enough.
Even if I didn’t need to get away from Jaden.
So I was invited to this party. My high school grades weren’t good enough for the UC system, so I had to do penance for two years here at CSU–Polk. I joined Beta Kappa here and was so glad to get the hell out of here and head for San Felice I can’t even begin to tell you. But I still know people here and got invited to go to this party in the Olive Grove part of town, where the old money of Polk—the ones who made money from raisins and the gold rush and the railroads built their houses and still lived well even as the money dried up—lived. That’s where I saw Jaden, all five-eight of him, across the room in his muscle tank and shorts and dark tan. Someone told me he was a diver at Stanford and was engaged to his high school sweetheart.
I knew as soon as I saw him I could fuck him if I wanted to.
I was bored.
It really wasn’t much of a challenge. The old joke about the difference between a straight guy and a gay guy being a six-pack is funny because it’s true. A hard-on has no conscience, and straight boys want to get off. As long as no one else ever finds out, of course.
I fucked Jaden that night. At the party. In one of the spare bedrooms.
I think that was part of the thrill for him, you know? Knowing anyone could walk in at any moment, catch the straight boy with a big cock in his ass and loving every inch of it, begging for more.
And like so many other idiots who can’t tell the difference between a good fucking and falling in love…
Yeah, leaving town would be the easiest way out.
He’s entertaining enough for a couple of weeks, but love?
Boring.
He’d probably go back in the closet. Not my concern.
I already have my plane ticket booked.
I wipe sweat off my forehead.
I watch his ass flex as he walks across to the sliding glass door, the muscles moving under the skin of his back. I’ve given him some good training—the next guy who fucks him will be in my debt. He really likes getting fucked, but he still has a long way to go before he gets a gold medal for fucking.
That makes me smile.
I’m pretty funny.
My phone vibrates and I pick it up. Phil’s face is there on the screen, with that big cocky smile on his face, but impatient at the same time. He wants me to do something for him, that’s what that facial expression means. He’s up to something but he needs my help. He’s smart about that kind of thing—you can’t get elected president of the house without having someone to do your dirty work for you so your hands are clean.
If the brothers only knew. But they’re idiots, for the most part.
Straight boys usually are.
I debate not answering it for a minute, and then figure what the hell and touch the Accept button. “What?” I ask.
“I got the money for the air-conditioning and for the Baby Bash party,” he says.
We’re on FaceTime, so I can see he is in his bed in the presidential suite back at the house. A thin line of smoke is rising from the bowl in the bong on his nightstand. “You’re at the pool? It must be hot as fuck there.”
“Yeah, at Jaden’s.” His parents are both at work. Got to pay for that diving training. They think he’s going to the Olympics. They’re going to be disappointed.
“I thought you were done with him?” He smirks. “Don’t tell me you feel something for him?”
“Hardly. Just one more time for old time’s sake before I break it off.”
“You’re so generous. You give and give and give.”
“After all, Beta Kappa is all about charity, right?” I take a sip from the margarita. It’s melting, and the tequila’s bite is almost lost in the watery taste. I reach for my baggie and start rolling another joint, putting the phone down between my legs so he can see my hard cock.
“Lovely view, bro.”
“I thought you’d like it. It misses you, Phil.”
Phil knows what to do with a cock. We had several memorable nights together when we first met, but soon realized we were too much alike. We’ve been friends and allies ever since.
Partners in crime.
But seriously, he’s one of the best I’ve ever had.
He ignores it. I knew he would. He always does even though he knows I’m not serious. “You need to come back to San Felice as soon as possible.”
“San Felice is only slightly less boring than Polk in the summer.”
“But I need you here in San Felice, Brandon. I have a plan I need your help with.” He licks his lips again and smiles. He really has the most terrifying smile.
Someone is going to get fucked over.
It is kind of tempting.
“So tell me.” I smile back at him.
“I’d rather not tell you on the phone. You can be here by tonight.”
“I’m coming back for the Baby Bash in a couple of weeks. Can’t it wait till then?”
He sighs petulantly. “It could, but I don’t want to wait that long. I mean…” He thinks for a minute. “I want it to be you.”
