Chapter ONE

 

 

Raymond

 

WATCHING A movie with my brother and his boyfriend was like watching the first few minutes of a gay porn video. Coy setup bullshit, complete with lingering looks and sly smiles.

If I kept a log of the number of times Nunzio slid his hand up and down Michael’s thigh, I’d finish a three-hundred-sheet pack of loose-leaf paper.

“Are you paying attention to this documentary you turned on? I could be watching the fight right now.”

Michael tore his gaze away from Nunzio, all distracted and dick-addled. “Huh?”

“Are you watching this motherfucking movie—”

Nunzio brushed his lips against Michael’s neck, and Michael grinned like a teenage boy getting his first blowjob. You’d think they hadn’t been banging eighty-seven times a day for the past five months.

“—or what?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh my God.” I quit paying attention to their lame flirtation dance and unfolded myself from the armchair. “Never mind.”

Was this what newlywed syndrome was like for gays? Mad dick grabbing while watching lame-ass documentaries relating to revolutions in countries I knew nothing about? Or maybe that was just what happened when you got saddled with a gay big brother who was also a nerdy history teacher.

“Well, this has been great, guys, but I’m going to go smoke.”

Nunzio perked up. Pothead. “I’ll come up and chill later.”

“Just brush your teeth before you put your lips on my pipe.”

Nunzio’s baby blues twinkled, and I couldn’t contain a guffaw. I’d grown up with Nunzio and had spent as much time with him as I had with my own brother, but unlike Michael, Nunzio wasn’t shy about sex talk and innuendo. The fact that Nunzio never censored himself or cared about other people’s opinions were the reasons I’d latched on to him as a kid.

“Not that pipe, you gross bastard. Bad enough I know you’ll be down here slobbing his,” I said, nodding at my brother.

Michael cringed but said nothing. To this day, he hadn’t recovered from the knowledge that I’d stumbled upon him being a slutty bottom boy multiple times during the two decades of him mistakenly thinking he was being discreet. His embarrassment was a constant source of teasing. Because making him blush was funny, and because I was still not over the fact that he’d expected me to judge him about being gay.

“Have fun and be safe, children. Slather your cocks well.”

Not waiting for a response, I jogged upstairs to my bedroom and tried to figure out what the hell to do now that I wasn’t stuck watching depressing shit about dictators and military law. I’d received three invitations to go out—a house party in Astoria, some people drinking in Bushwick, and my friend Chris had asked me to meet him at a club on the Lower East Side. At nine o’clock on a Friday, the club was the most appealing, but driving into the city required a level of energy and ambition I would not be able to muster in the next couple of hours.

I sat on the bed, fiddling with my herb grinder, and my phone chirped three times in quick succession, indicating a text message. The bright flashes were erratic enough to give me a seizure. The damned thing spent more time buzzing and lighting up than I did. A quick glance at the screen showed the Facebook profile picture that popped up every time David texted or called—him making a kissy face.

 

David: Did you tell him?

David: Are you out?

David: Call me! I want to know how it went!!

 

I ignored the messages and decided to get well and truly lit. It was more of a necessity than companionship in the form of exchanged text messages.

The last couple of weeks had been an exercise in summoning my nearly nonexistent patience. I needed to come down from the peak of aggravation I’d been so close to, but everything in my life was toppling like dominos.

After losing both parents in less than a year, I’d tried to get my act together and behave like a real adult; tried to become a contributing member of society. It had gone well for a while, but bad habits were hard to kick, and I’d wound up in the place I’d found myself in so many times in the past: being expected to do things I didn’t want to do because it would “pay off” in the future, and wanting to quit when people told me I wasn’t doing those things correctly. Maybe I gave up too fast—shit, I knew I gave up too fast—but it was easier than being constantly informed that I was a screwup.

Not that any of that would matter once Michael found out I’d been fired from my first job. A job where I’d made good money and contributed to the household expenses that were now solely our responsibility. He was going to be so pissed.

The “I do not care, leave me alone, I do what I want” mental chant started up again, but it was harder to float my conscience on that these days. At twenty-five, I knew it was time to step up and quit depending on Michael to handle everything. If only it wasn’t so much work.

My phone started emitting seizure-triggering bat signals again.

David.

 

David: Omg, I know you saw that message. It tells me when you read them, you jerk.

 

I frowned.

 

Raymond: is that why you made me download that dumb app?

David: Yes.

Raymond: stalker

David: Well, maybe if you would reply to my messages, I wouldn’t have to coerce you into things.

Raymond: why dont you go coerce someone into sucking your dick and leave me alone

 

The message earned me a barrage of violent emojis, so I tossed my phone to the far end of the bed.

I’d met David a little less than six months ago, but he’d managed to become an actual friend instead of just an overbearing twink tagging along with me to visit Michael in rehab. David wasn’t anything like my usual crowd of friends, but as far as yuppie white gay guys from Connecticut went, he was an okay person.

David also taught at Michael’s school, so he helped me keep tabs on my depressive, anxiety-ridden sibling whenever I got paranoid that he might backslide off the sobriety wagon. While nothing had happened to cause my brother to regress, Michael was my polar opposite. He took on all the responsibilities and worried too much, while I took on nothing and gave no fucks. However, since Michael’s trip to rehab, the Rodriguez ruminate-and-worry gene had activated in me as well.

I toked from the pipe, rolling the lighter between my fingers, and debated whether or not to turn on the Xbox. Shooting virtual people in World War II backdrops was usually an effective way to shut off my brain, but lately it wasn’t doing the job. Not since I’d had the “you’re a good kid, Ray, but you’re also a moron” discussion with my—former—boss, Rolly McKinney. I’d only gotten the job because I’d grown up with his now-deceased son, and now I had no idea what I was going to do since I was fresh out of job-related connections. I’d coasted on the chunk of money my mother had left, but it was starting to dwindle due to my apathy about holding on to a single dime. It wasn’t like I could take the money with me when I died prematurely like our parents.

Ugh. More pot. Stat.

My room smogged up from the smoke as the air thickened with the sweet, earthy scent of marijuana. I made a vain effort to shove open my window higher than midway. As usual, it was stuck in the frame, but I wrestled with it until the combination of my broken-ass window and the poorly ventilated room drove me to irritation. I returned to my pipe and toked so hard that a bright burst of heat consumed my chest, burned my lungs, and clawed my throat until my eyes teared.

Licking my lips and swallowing saliva failed to slick my parched throat, so I made my way back downstairs for a drink. I wondered if Michael and Nunzio had finished their documentary so I could watch UFC on the big-screen television, but dismissed the thought soon after stopping outside the living room’s archway.

They had swapped documentary watching for fucking.

And it wasn’t exactly sly fucking, either. Shirts were off and jeans were rucked down so low, there was no way they’d be able to get them back on fast enough to keep from being busted. They had no respect for common space.

At least we’d recently switched out our old, fabric sofas for leather. Easier to wipe down.

I grimaced and started to retreat, but my eyes refused to unglue from the sight of Michael slamming his dick into Nunzio. It wasn’t like witnessing gay sex was a new development. I’d seen a lot over the years—it came with the territory when a curious nine-year-old secretly follows his sixteen-year-old brother around.

Because we’d grown up in a household where no one discussed homosexuality, I’d had no idea what I was seeing the first time I’d spied teenage Michael giving head to some older dude in the park’s bathroom. It hadn’t taken long to associate the word gay with his actions, but I’d never recoiled from him. Getting busy with dudes hadn’t stopped him from being an awesome brother, so I’d refused to believe homosexuality was as awful as all of my dumbass classmates had claimed.

In my mind, if something got you off good and proper, it couldn’t be that bad. And Michael always seemed to be having such a good time whenever I stumbled upon his antics.

My own intrigue about sex with both men and women had started up not too long after, but my sexual experience with men was limited to porn and stumbling upon Michael getting it on. I’d seen and heard way more once Michael had finally stopped pretending to be a celibate hetero, and Nunzio had started spending half the week shacked up in our house.

That was how I knew Nunzio used to refuse to take it up the ass. But he was doing it now and looked strung out on it. And that kind of made me feel funny. In all the ways that funny meant horny as hell.

I retreated another step but wound up standing in the shadows, hidden in the archway instead of booking it up the stairs.

“Yeah, Mikey. Just like that….”

Nunzio threw his head back against the sofa, eyes shut and mouth ajar, as sharp gasps and words too low for me to hear formed on his lips. Michael was crouched over Nunzio, holding his thighs open, and thrusting into him so fast that the slap-slap of skin on skin completely drowned out the television. He was going hard, but Nunzio showed no sign of discomfort. Instead, he panted and dragged Michael down for a kiss that amounted to nothing more than them tonguing at each other, sloppy and wet, while I looked on like a pervert.

I didn’t usually have guilt associated with my perversion, but I’d also never been a shady voyeur watching my brother fuck the guy I’d crushed on since I was a little kid. Even in Atlantic City, when we’d been stuck in the same room, I’d rolled over with my headphones on instead of watching them make out like a couple of horny teenagers while blacked-out drunk. Sure, getting glimpses of Michael hooking up over the years had niggled at the untapped curiosity that rushed between my head and dick every once in a while, but… this was different. It was Nunzio.

The more I backed away, the less I wanted to stop watching. Nunzio getting railed was uncharted territory, and a little voice in my head kept whispering, I wonder how that feels…. Judging by the high-pitched, frantic noises elicited from Nunzio’s mouth, I was going to assume it felt damn good.

Michael grabbed Nunzio’s chin, forcing their eyes to meet, and goddamned if he didn’t start riding Nunzio faster.

My hand dropped to my crotch, and I gave an automatic squeeze. I was so hard. Like, throbbing. There was already a damp spot forming where the tip of my dick nuzzled against my shorts. Nunzio released a low, hoarse noise that sounded dangerously like wordless begging, and the damp spot grew. It was definitely time to go.

Forgoing the journey for water, I hurried back to my room, shut the door, and stood with my back pressed against it. Even with a good amount of distance between us, I could hear Nunzio’s voice turning ragged and breathless while managing to get louder and louder. I didn’t want to know, or visualize, except I kind of did, so even after I flipped on my iPhone dock and blasted reggaeton louder than necessary, I jerked my dick with the image etched into my brain. I stood there gnawing on my lower lip and roughly stroking myself, but after a moment I yanked my hand away. Even if the fantasy was focused on Nunzio, it still felt fucking creepy since my brother had been the one banging him.

Growling in frustration, I ripped my phone out of the dock.

Porn. Porn was good. Porn was what I needed. And I had a whole cache of gay videos stashed in my browser for the special occasions when I needed to satisfy my brimming curiosity without involving another dude. Not that I had ever actually involved another dude.

I thumbed to my favorite vid and had lube squeezed into my hand in seconds. I was pumping my dick before the first tinny moans emanated from the speaker.

It was straightforward hardcore porn. There was no scene setting or bad acting. Just a twink impaling himself on a big, tatted-up dude’s cock, while his face was being shoved against the floor.

My eyes zeroed in on the big guy spreading open the twink’s asscheeks. His fingers dug into the smooth pale flesh hard enough to leave red marks.

The combination of roughness and the bottom’s stuttering cries had precome pooling at the crown of my cock. I’d seen the video dozens of times before, but the sound of those helpless moans and the sight of that slim body being manhandled and used still made me breathless.

I got myself off with frantic, trembling strokes, and when the twink came hands-free, I ejaculated all over my jersey.

After that, my brain died, and I dozed off with the video still playing and jizz splattered all over the black-and-white Nets logo on my chest. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes when a loud knock startled me out of my orgasm-induced coma.

“Ray, are you dead in there?”

I shoved my phone in the drawer of my side table, bolted off the bed, and was stripping off my jersey when Nunzio barged in like the no-manners-having goombah that he was.

“Damn, don’t you knock?”

Nunzio flopped onto my bed, shirtless and with his black hair wilder than usual due to his recent sexcapade. Unfazed by the mess, he nestled in the unmade bed and looked at the chaos of wires, consoles, and dusty game cases littering my room. Though the entertainment center was too large, it had enough space to house my multiple consoles. Gaming had always been my favorite hobby. It had been Nunzio’s too, which was why we’d bonded when I was a kid. Michael had always preferred reading to racing games and first person shooters.

“I did knock.”

“Usually when people knock, they wait for someone to say come in.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry, Mom.” Nunzio arched his back in a stretch before rolling on his side to watch me search through mounds of dirty clothing for a clean shirt. “Are you going out tonight?”

I gave up on the shirt and resigned myself to having to sit around half-naked while he reeked of sex, sweat, and my big brother. Things were starting to get a little too cozy ’round these parts, primarily because I was becoming far too aware of what they were doing and when they were doing it.

“No,” I said. “Every time these people invite me out, it ends up being some nonstop drink-a-thon, and I don’t have money for that shit.”

“You don’t have to drink just because you go out.”

“If I’m going to deal with a bunch of idiots, I do.” I sprawled on the bed and leaned against the headboard. “So… what the hell do you want?”

“To smoke? Play some Call of Duty?”

“Knock yourself out—” He opened the drawer in the bedside table to get my pipe, and I nearly bit off my tongue. “Zio—”

I was way too late. Nunzio wasn’t just seeing my open bottle of lubricant—he was picking up my phone and staring at it quizzically. Craning my neck, I saw an ad pop up on the screen for live chat with sexy gay dudes in my area. Nunzio glanced at me, then at the phone, and closed the pop-up with a flick of his fingers.

“Probably, like… a virus.”

“I thought iPhones didn’t get viruses?”

“What are you, a fucking expert? Maybe it’s an act of God. Or terrorism.”

“Hmm.” Nunzio looked about as convinced as he had the time I tried to tell him that I’d forgone job hunting for years due to a lucrative career uploading Xtube videos. But he didn’t question me or make any smart comments until my phone went apeshit with the vibrating and flashing, and David’s insistent messages popped up again. Nunzio’s expression went from quizzical to dismayed with a steady sense of purpose. “I can’t believe you’re so chummy with that kid.”

“Why? He’s not so bad.”

“You think that because you didn’t have to work with him.”

“Yeah, aiight.” I plucked my phone from his grasp and thumbed through the texts. It was nothing more than ongoing, one-sided commentary about the annoying conversations David was enduring at a housewarming party in an uptown penthouse full of people more WASPy than himself. There was also a mopey text complaining that I hadn’t even considered his invitation to join. Because that was totally my scene. “You barely worked with him before switching to that GED center. You’re just all bent out of shape and jealous because he had a crush on Michael for three minutes.”

Nunzio grabbed my pipe and a lighter. “First, it’s not a GED center. It’s an LGBT center, and I teach GED classes there. Second, it was longer than three minutes. Your brother just downplays it so I come off looking like an insecure little bitch.”

“Maybe ’cause you are one.”

His answer came in the form of a flicked lighter and a deep inhale.

I sent a semicomforting message to David, telling him that I was suffering the nosy inquisition of my faux brother-in-law, and he responded with an ugh. Apparently, David hadn’t quite recovered from the days of Nunzio mean mugging him out of jealousy. What a soap opera.

Nunzio blew smoke at me, his hooded eyes more observant than I felt comfortable with at the moment. “What do you even do together? You have nothing in common.”

“So? I’m only supposed to hang out with people who play video games and handball?”

“No, stupid ass. Why are you being so defensive?”

“Because you people act like I can only get along with certain types of people, and that’s annoying.” I held up my hands, pretending to cower before making an exaggerated sign of the cross. “¡Dios mío! Keep back, blanquitos! I’m so skurred ’cause you is more learn-ded than me!”

“I didn’t say that at all, Ray.” Nunzio’s voice went all low and patient, like he was talking down an ornery student. I hated when he did that, but at least it wasn’t as bad as Michael’s teacher-mode. All exasperated and pointing things out and trying to make me see the light. “I’m just curious about what you’ve been up to. Michael and I being together doesn’t have to mean that you and me aren’t close anymore.”

“Uh-huh.” He passed the pipe, but I waved it off. “I don’t know what we do. Just stuff. Go out to eat. He makes me watch his entire Netflix queue, I try to teach him how to hold a console controller….”

“I see.”

“He also smokes with me sometimes.”

Nunzio’s brows shot up. “Do you drink together too?”

“Nah. He knows I don’t drink much, and we never go partying or whatever.”

The idea of going out to get wasted with David’s crowd was as desirable as using warming lubricant on my dick—interesting in theory, but a terrible idea in practice. But David pitched the idea a lot, as if I had anything in common with people who swanned around Williamsburg and talked about the number of hops in their beer like they were too good for a Corona.

“You’re better off,” Nunzio said, still watching me a little too closely. “The guy turns into a needy slut after you put a couple of drinks in him.”

“I doubt he’s always like that.”

“It’s true.” The corners of Nunzio’s mouth started to twitch upward. “But maybe that wouldn’t be so bad for you. The kid is a gold medalist at deep throating.”

“Man….”

“What? Just turn off the lights and let him go to town,” Nunzio said, keen on making my life embarrassing and horrible. He popped his tongue in the inside of his cheek and made a pumping motion with his right hand. When I scowled, he dissolved into chuckles. “I’m just saying, you might as well take advantage of the situation. I know he’s willing.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because you’re a piece of ass, and David has a jones for hot Latino dudes.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

I’d intended to say something more forceful and hetero-horrified, but I was more nervous than disgusted by the possibility of David wrapping his lips around my dick. When we’d first met, he’d hit on me for a few weeks before abandoning the I-will-make-you-gay-for-me thing. I had never taken him seriously. Each sassy comment and cute smile had garnered him nothing more than blank stares and a litany of details about just how much I liked pussy. Apparently flirting with me wasn’t worth hearing about the inner workings of a vagina. I didn’t see what the big deal was. If it wasn’t for vagina, his ass wouldn’t be in the world.

“Are you visualizing it right now?” Nunzio leaned across the bed and started his lame hand-pumping motion again.

“No, I’m not.” I wondered if he could see through my lies. “Why don’t you traipse your ass downstairs and climb on my brother’s dick again? I saw you down there begging for it. A dude can’t even go to his own kitchen without bearing witness to profane homosexual acts these days. What would God say?”

“He’d be, like, ‘That’s why I gave dudes the p-spot. No worries, Nunzio. I still love you.’”

He cracked up at his own joke while I sat there wondering what the hell a p-spot was. Something I’d be googling later.

“Michael has a perfectly good room he can defile your ass in, man.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I started it.”

“What a surprise.”

“But now that you mention it….” Nunzio went serious, sitting up straight. “We were going to talk to you about it in the morning, but I might as well give you a heads-up now.”

“Uh. Okay…?” He studied me, trying to determine whether this heads-up would send me flying off the handle or responding with my usual brand of apathy and sarcasm. “Are you going to talk?”

He rubbed the stubble shadowing his jaw, far too hesitant, given his usual tendency to say whatever the hell he wanted. “We were talking about moving in together. As in, Michael moving into my apartment.”

I stared at him, insolence evaporating. Panicky internal flailing sped my pulse. “But—”

“And he wants to rent the house.”

“Rent the—” I was on my feet so fast, I sent my phone flying across the room. “Where the fuck am I supposed to go?”

Nunzio didn’t get up, but he did fold his hands together in a pleading gesture ingrained from years of attempted religious indoctrination by his Catholic parents. “Don’t freak out. It’s going to be fine. He’s just going to talk to you about it. He isn’t planning to force the idea on you. The house is in both of your names.”

I almost didn’t hear him. I was still stuck on the bit about Michael wanting strangers to live in our mother’s house.

“He can go wherever he wants, but I’m not leaving.”

“Ray—”

“Get out.”

It looked like he wanted to argue, to figure out a way to appease me, but Nunzio knew when to pick his battles. He gave me one last regretful look and left me standing alone in the dark, cluttered room.