* * * *
Graham observed the two young men seated next to each other at the table and deep in conversation.
He felt a justifiable pride in Barry, who was reserved but self-confident. At that age, Graham hadn’t had his own act together. It didn’t hurt that his son was the stuff of which military recruiting posters were made. Barry was a stunner and Graham could at least take half the credit for that.
Barry and Hector, he thought, made an interesting contrast. Hector was boisterous and outgoing, which was no doubt an asset when it came to dealing with the charter boat company’s clientele. Hector was handsome enough to make Graham wonder why he seemed to have fine-tuned his personal appearance in order to call additional attention to himself. Hector had one of those gel-stiffened, spiky hairstyles, complete with frosted tips that made him look as though he’d just been electrocuted. His earlobes were not just pierced, they were stretched by large acrylic plugs. Of course he was tattooed with a particularly lurid image of skull-headed winged demons riding motorcycles spread across his right shoulder, chest, and back. Hector had his nipples and his navel pierced with large-gauge rings inserted in them. He was the only man Graham had ever seen who clipped his key ring to his navel ring for safekeeping when he was on the beach or out on the boat.
Despite his basic conservatism and lingering sense of Thank God Barry isn’t like that, Graham actually found his stepson rather sexy. If Hector wasn’t related to Hernan but was just another local gay boy bumming around on the beach, Graham might have been tempted to make a play for him.
But Hector was Hernan’s son so he was off limits. You can look, Graham told himself, but you can’t touch.
Chapter Two
With a control freak like Hector in charge, the wedding went off without a hitch.
Having pared the guest list down to fewer than two dozen of their closest friends, the couple insisted on keeping the actual ceremony simple. They were married on the beach at sunset with everyone, including the officiating minister, barefoot in the sand. With two grooms, there of course had to be two best men, namely Barry and Hector, who performed their duties impeccably.
Afterward, at least, Hector was able to compensate for this show of austerity by throwing one hell of a party at the house with Barry as his proud co-host. They had the dinner catered to avoid the trouble of cooking and the champagne flowed freely. So freely, in fact, that many of the guests did end up going outside and romping in the surf in various degrees of undress under the stars.
The newlyweds finally gave in to peer pressure and agreed to get wet, too. While they were standing waist-deep in the ocean, embracing and kissing, with their friends cheering them on, Hector and Barry took advantage of this opportunity to haul their wedding present out of its hiding place. Returning to the house and grabbing towels to dry themselves and each other off, Graham and Hernan were confronted by a large, garishly gift-wrapped box set in the middle of the living room floor.
“We said no presents,” Hernan protested.
“But this is something useful,” Hector said.
“Depressingly utilitarian and practical as a matter of fact,” Barry added. “From both of us.”
“Okay, now you’ve got my curiosity aroused,” Graham had to admit.
In front of the assembled guests, he and Hernan unwrapped the package, opening the cardboard carton inside to reveal a brand new toilet, streamlined in shape and made from a particularly unlikely shade of soft violet-gray porcelain.
“You’ve been talking for months about replacing the john in the master bathroom,” a gleeful Hector reminded his father. “Barry and I’ll install it while you’re away. Then you guys can fight over which one of you gets to try it out first when you come home.”
“Oh, my God,” Graham exclaimed. “It matches the bathroom tiles! Perfectly!”
“I won’t tell you the hell we went through trying to find one in that color,” Barry said. “But it was worth it if you guys really like it.”
“We love it. It’s the most magnificent throne I’ve ever seen,” Hernan said. “Talk about the gift that keeps on giving! I can’t wait to try it out.”
“So, don’t wait,” Hector urged. “Try it on for size now!”
Hernan did so, followed by Graham. Then of course, everyone wanted to take his turn, sitting on the toilet and being photographed for posterity while doing so. A few of the more adventurous guests dropped their trousers first to add realism to the photos.
“I told you this was going to be a high-class affair,” Hector gloated, addressing the room in general.
In the morning, the newlyweds drove to Miami where they’d catch their flight to the Virgin Islands.
After seeing Hernan and Graham off, Hector and Barry finished the post-party cleanup, then worked together to replace the old toilet with the new one.
“Not my favorite way to spend a little quality time with an attractive guy,” Hector admitted after they’d turned the water back on and given the new toilet a test flush.
* * * *
Barry was a bit flustered by Hector’s casual remark. He wondered if his soon-to-be stepbrother did find him attractive or if Hector was just kidding. After all, Hector was about as openly gay as a man could get. He no doubt found any guy with a functioning penis attractive.
“You’re handy with those tools, I do have to admit,” Barry said to cover up his confusion.
Hector grinned at him. “Oh, you have no idea. You should see me in action with this power tool,” he specified lewdly, giving his crotch a squeeze through his jeans.
“Okay, I guess I should’ve seen that one coming. What are we going to do with the old john?”
“Put it outside, fill it with dirt, and plant flowers in it.”
“Hector, you are kidding, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. But now that I think of it, let’s do it. Come on, I dare you. Imagine the look on our dads’ faces when they come home and that’s the first thing they see out in front of the house! My old man will freak. But Graham is always so damn polite, he’ll probably force himself to say that a recycled toilet planter is what he’s always wanted.” Hector scrutinized the other young man. “You’re a lot like him, you know. In all sorts of ways.”
“Am I? I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It is. I love Graham. I really do.”
Barry flushed a little. Hector was always such a joker, always kidding around and saying such sexually provocative things in particular that Barry didn’t know quite how to respond when the other young man said something serious. Maybe Barry had been guilty of underestimating his sibling-by-marriage. There might be a depth to Hector that he hadn’t seen until now.
* * * *
The two young men now had the house all to themselves for a week. After dinner that evening, they went to have a round of drinks in a neighborhood bar. It was a gay bar, of course, although Hector wasn’t sure that fact even registered with Barry. It wasn’t lost on Hector though, that all of the other men stared at Barry—lustfully—and then, as an afterthought, stared at Hector—enviously.
The dude isn’t even gay and he’s getting more potential action than I am, Hector thought. Damn! I must be slipping!
When Hector introduced Barry to some of his friends as his stepbrother, they all assumed he was kidding.
“Sure, Hector,” one of these guys said as he continued to eye Barry from head to foot. “You don’t have to put on an act around us. We know damn well you picked him up hitchhiking into town from that army base down the road. The haircut is a dead giveaway.”
“All right, you’ve got me. I admit it,” Hector declared. “We’re not stepbrothers, we’re lovers.” He put his arm around Barry’s broad shoulders and pulled him close against his own body.
“If you try to kiss me, I’ll slug you,” Barry warned.
“Isn’t he butch?” Hector gloated. “I just love it when he gets rough with me.”
“Oh, Hector, you lucky bastard,” his friend
said.
“But we really are stepbrothers,” Barry protested.
“Whatever you say, big guy,” Hector’s friend replied as he backed away a little. “Don’t freak out and go all commando on me, okay?”
Hector laughed. “Let’s all have another drink. You ready for a refill, baby bro?” He gave Barry not only a hug, but a reasonably chaste kiss on the cheek.
Barry glared at him, but said nothing.
When they left the bar, Hector chortled over the incident.
“My buddy actually did think you were just some dumb, muscle-bound Basic Training number I picked up,” he gloated.
“Yeah, very flattering.”
“You ought to be flattered. Everybody in that bar thought you were hot. They all wished they were the ones taking you home instead of me.”
“You’re not exactly taking me home with you, Hector.”
“No? It sure looks like it, to me.”
Upon their arrival at the house, Hector suggested that they go into his apartment for a while to watch television or something as he slyly put it. It was the something he was angling for, not anything in the way of television programming, and he was already trying out various seduction scenarios in his imagination. Barry might be straight, but he must have his sexual needs like any other male. Maybe Hector could offer to give him a massage or something, and with any luck, he might be able to talk Barry into at least trading hand jobs with him.
“You haven’t seen my place yet,” he pointed out. “Come on, I’ll show it to you. It’s really kind of decent.” He led Barry down a hallway and unlocked a door with a key.
“What’s in there that’s so valuable, that you have to keep it under lock and key?” Barry asked.
“Nothing at the moment. Brace yourself for a nasty shock,” Hector warned as he ushered Barry inside his apartment. “I’m a lousy housekeeper at the best of times and, as you probably know, I’ve been spending all my time lately making sure the rest of the house looked shipshape for the party. Thanks for helping me with all that, by the way.”
“Don’t mention it. I can help you clean up in here, too, if you want.”
“Be careful what you ask for, Rambo. Isn’t the first thing you learn in the military never volunteer?”
Barry laughed. “You’re right about that.”
* * * *
But when Barry got a look at the place, it wasn’t bad at all. Hector’s apartment was small, just one room with a half-kitchen and a bathroom. But it looked bright and lived-in, with posters on the walls—male nudes, captured in full frontal shots, of course—and cheap but comfortable furniture. A box of condoms and a partially used tube of lubricant left out in plain sight on an orange-crate table next to the bed were the only really tacky evidence of Hector’s sexual versatility. Barry pretended he didn’t see them. The place could use a dusting, but it wasn’t messy at all, despite Hector’s apology. It looked like what it was, a responsibility-free young stud’s crash pad when he wasn’t sleeping elsewhere in somebody else’s bed.
“This is nice,” Barry commented as he looked around. “How does that work out, you living here under the same roof with Dad and Hernan?”
“It works out fine. They give me my privacy and I let them have theirs.”
“But doesn’t it get awkward at times?”
“Huh? Awkward at what times?”
“Do you ever, uh, actually bring guys here, to, you know…have sex with?”
“Yeah, all the time.”
“And that doesn’t bother them? Dad and Hernan, I mean?”
“Why the hell should it bother them? I’m an adult. I grew up with a gay father. So did you. Before Graham met Hernan, didn’t he ever bring any tricks home with him?”
“Not to my knowledge. I guess I assumed he was celibate.”
“Celibate, my ass. They probably just went to the other dude’s place. To spare your delicate feelings,” Hector elaborated sarcastically. “Jesus, you are naive, aren’t you? Especially for a goddamn Marine,” Hector scoffed, once again making Barry blush.
“I hadn’t joined up yet back then,” Barry pointed out. “I was still in high school.”
“Yeah, that’s right, you were one of those star jock types, weren’t you? I bet you got plenty of pussy.”
Barry’s blush deepened. “Not really. I was actually kind of shy. With girls.”
“What about with guys?”
“I liked to hang out with them.”
“I liked to hang out with my buds back in high school, too, but I also liked to fool around with them,” Hector declared. “You know, doing it,” he added, unnecessarily. “Do I have to spell it out for you, man? Doing each other. Sucking and fucking.”
“Oh,” Barry said, feeling stupid and turning scarlet to the roots of his silky blond hair, which had just begun to grow out of its most recent severely macho Marine Corps close-to-the-scalp cropping.
Hector looked at him curiously. “Come on, level with me. You know I’m a cocksucker. Always have been, always will be. Haven’t you ever had sex with another guy? I mean, not even trading hand jobs or anything?”
Barry tried his best to imitate Hector’s matter-of-fact way of talking about homosexuality. “I’ve let a couple of guys, other grunts, go down on me, sure. It was no big deal, just a fast blow job. We were all drunk at the time. They wanted to blow me so I went along with it. No guy in his right mind is going to say no to some good head every now and then. Despite what you think about me, I’m not that much of a fucking prissy little innocent, for Christ’s sake!”
* * * *
“Thank God!” Hector exclaimed. “I have to be honest with you, man. I’d hate to think that anybody could be as much of an innocent when it comes to sex as you seem to be, most of the time.”
“Sure, go ahead. Bust my balls.”
“Aw, don’t be so goddamn sensitive. I was just yanking your chain. I would’ve thought you’d have developed a tougher skin, in the Corps. Come on, sit down and get comfortable,” Hector invited Barry. “You can have your choice of what to drink. Beer or beer. Unless you want me to go see what’s left over from the party, last night. The beer’s cold, at least.”
“Don’t go to any trouble. I guess I’ll just have a cold beer.” Barry excused himself and went into the bathroom to take a piss.
“Besides booze, what other vices do you allow yourself to get talked into?” Hector called from the main room.
“I don’t know. Suggest one.”
“Want to smoke a joint?”
“Sure.”
“So you are human, after all. I’m relieved.”
“So am I, now,” Barry retorted as he finished pissing and flushed the toilet.
When he returned to the outer room, Hector was sprawled on the floor in front of his stereo with his shoes off and his back propped up by two huge pillows, a beer bottle in each hand.
He handed Barry his drink as the blond sat down beside him. Hector had turned out the lights and lit three thick candles in glass holders. They kept plenty of candles on hand in the house in case the power went out during one of the Keys’ frequent tropical storms.
“The candlelight is nice,” Barry commented.
Hector grinned at him. “It occurred to me that it might help to create an appropriately seductive mood.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. But nobody’s going to be seduced here.”
“No? We’ll see about that.”
“Yeah, we’ll see. And you’ll still end up sleeping alone.”
Barry tasted his beer.
“Is it good?” Hector asked. “It’s a local brew.”
“It’s refreshing. Hits the spot.” Barry drank again from his bottle, more deeply this time.
Hector was now busying himself spreading his smoking equipment out on the floor next to him and rolling a cigarette expertly with one hand, licking the paper with his pink tongue.
“What do Hernan and Graham think about you smoking weed?” Barry asked.
&n
bsp; “Hernan and Graham don’t know, which is one reason I keep my door locked. You’re not going to rat me out, are you?”
“Of course not. What do you think I am?”
“I think you’re almost too damn straight for your own good.”
“Oh, shut up and light the joint, will you? I’ll show you how fucking straight I am.”
“That sounds promising. This is supposed to be pure Colombian and dynamite shit,” Hector scoffed. “Well, it looks okay, but the proof’s in the puffing.”
He touched one end of the unusually long, fat joint he’d rolled to the flame of a candle and sucked the smoke down into his lungs and held it there, then grunted with satisfaction and passed the roach to Barry, who inhaled deeply.
“Good, isn’t it?”
Barry nodded. One puff and he already knew that he would get high on this stuff very quickly indeed.
Hector loaded a jazz record into his compact disc player and, as they listened to it, they drank and smoked, taking their time, not talking much. Barry could feel himself beginning to get stoned and very pleasantly so. Somewhat to his surprise, he was completely relaxed and at ease in this gay guy’s company. Then again, why shouldn’t he be? After all, Hector wasn’t just any gay guy. They were family.
“Why don’t we get more comfortable?” Hector asked casually as he rolled a second joint.
“You mean, get naked?”
“Yeah, let’s take all our clothes off.”
Barry smiled warily. “Are you trying to get me to have sex with you?”
Hector grinned insolently. “Can you be had that easily? I’m just trying to get you naked, stud. So I can enjoy a little eye candy while I get good and wasted. What happens after that is up to you.”
“Okay, why not?” Barry shrugged as he unbuttoned his short-sleeved shirt and eased it from his shoulders and off.
It was no big deal, after all, or so Barry thought. Nudity was a fact of military life in the barracks. And, since his arrival in Florida, he and Hector had been virtually naked in front of each other on the beach on several occasions. Here inside the house, too, none of the occupants had a fetish about modesty. Barry had seen him coming out of his apartment fresh from the shower and wandering around the rest of the house in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. The white terrycloth had contrasted strongly with Hector’s skin, which, dark to begin with, had been further burnished by the sun. The tattoo covering his shoulder and chest provided a further contrast of bright colors, and along with his piercings the ink made Hector look a bit wild, like the kind of guy who’d be ready to try just about anything. That memory, his mental image of Hector’s semi-nude, tanned body, strangely excited him now.
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