Between Brothers

Chapter 1

Our Japanese rep has just started his report when my cell phone rings. As I take the call, my assistant Kevin hits the mute button on the speaker phone and throws me a dirty look. But at this hour of the morning, there’s only one person who would be calling me on this number—everyone else is in on the conference call, listening to Masuko rattle off last month’s sales figures. Despite the mute button, I whisper into my cell, “What’s wrong?”

My lover’s voice sounds hurt at my abruptness. “Hello to you too, Mr. Thompson.”

With a sigh, I massage my temples. “Timothy, I really don’t have the time for this—”

“You got a phone call,” Tim interrupts.

The way he says it makes me think he expects me to know who it was, like I’m a mind reader or something. When he doesn’t tell me right away, I snap, “And?”

I’m not in the mood and he knows it. “Never mind. I guess it can wait ‘til you get home. Or are you working late again tonight?”

Without thinking, my gaze drifts across the polished conference table to where Kevin sits, taking notes on Masuko’s report. Kevin’s a good ten years younger than me and naive enough to think that a few sloppy blowjobs after hours will get him the promotion into marketing that I know he wants. He’s nothing like Timothy, which only adds to his appeal. But there’s really nothing between us, and the moment he balks, I’ll kicking him to the curb like I did my last assistant—there are dozens of young men out there just like him, with hot, tight bodies and willing mouths, eager hands. My interest in him is already on the wane. When he notices me staring, he gives me a quick grin and runs that devilish tongue of his across the front of his teeth, like that’s supposed to be sexy. No, I’m not up for his games tonight. To Timothy, I say, “I should be home on time. Who called?”

My lover’s pout is evident in his silence. Why call me at work and then refuse to speak to me? I want to ask, but that would start an argument and God knows, I don’t need that s**t today. I’ve got another two hours at least in this conference call, and a late lunch with a prominent WeHo ad client, not to mention a staff meeting after that. Today’s long enough as it is without a fight. Trying to tamp down my annoyance, I cajole, “Timothy, baby. What’s wrong?”

For a moment I’m sure he won’t answer, just pull that ‘it can wait’ routine of his, then spend the rest of the day stewing about the whole thing. But there’s something in what he doesn’t say, something that quickens my pulse and makes me think, irrationally, he knows.

Knows what? About Kevin? No, my assistant’s been right here in this office with me all morning, he couldn’t have called my home. No one else who might have that number comes to mind. So why the rush of adrenaline through my system then? Why the trepidation that makes me ask, cautious, “Timothy? Talk to me. Who called?”

In my ear he sighs, a strangled sound that tells me he’s more upset than he lets on. That sound pushes me away from the table, already shifting into damage control mode, and when Kevin looks at me, I mouth, “Be right back.” Then I’m out in the hall, heading for a sunny spot near the windows so I can get better reception, and as I look down over the James River, meandering at the edge of the city, I ask again, “Timothy? What’s going on?”

“Brian,” he starts.

Suddenly I wonder when I held him last, just a quick hug for no reason at all. When did we last kiss? Not the peck on the corner of the lips that I gave him this morning when I left for the office but something deeper, something more. Something real. I should fire Kevin, or promote him like he wants, get him out of my office, hire a pretty girl who’s nice to look at but nothing tempting. I should be more loving to Timothy, more devoted, more honest. Then there would be no fear coursing through me, nothing to make me think I’ve done something wrong when I hear my name in his voice like that. I’m scared of what he’s planning to say. I want to hang up the phone, go back to my conference call, get on with my day. Instead, in a low voice I ask him, “What?”

Finally he tells me, “Some guy called for you.” My mind starts flickering through names and faces, trying to pin together someone who might have reason to call the house, but nothing sticks. “He said it was important, told me to get you to call him back right away.” A heartbeat later, he adds, “He said he was your brother.”

My—“God,” I whisper. My blood turns to ice in my veins—I knew I should’ve hung up when I had the chance. “Joey called? You’re sure it was Joey?”

Now Timothy snaps. “Brian, who the f**k is Joey? We’ve been seeing each other for three years now and maybe that’s not much to you but it’s a lifetime for me. And this is the first time I’ve heard s**t about a brother. So who is he? Tell me. Who the hell is he?”

He’s Joey. “He’s my brother, asshole,” I growl into the phone. “He told you that.”

The pout is back in Timothy’s voice. “Why haven’t you mentioned him before?”

“I’ve never mentioned my parents, either,” I point out, “but if an old guy called saying he was my dad, you’d believe him, right?”

No answer. I don’t expect one, don’t need one, because my head is spinning out in a million different directions right this moment, Joey. I haven’t talked to him in forever. Yet he sends me a card for my birthday every year, I have the stack of envelopes in the bottom of my underwear drawer, his spindly handwriting so familiar that I don’t have to open the cards to know who they’re from. And he has my phone number, imagine that? Maybe he Googled it. When Timothy doesn’t speak, I ask, “Did he say what he wanted? Is everything okay?”

“He said to call him back,” Timothy mutters with a sniffle. “You want his number now, or you want to call him back tonight?”

If I talk to Joey right this moment, the rest of the day will be shot. Hell, it’s already going down the drain…ignoring the reproach I hear in Timothy’s voice, I say sweetly, “I can call him later, I’ll be home on time. Thanks for letting me know, babe. I’ll see you soon.”

Another sniffle—now that I’ve turned on the charm, he’s reluctant to hang up. “Joey, huh? He sounds like a nice guy on the phone. He look anything like you?”

No, I think, he looks like you. But I shake that thought away before it can take root and smile into the phone. “You’d love him, everyone does. He’s great. Look, I’m sorry I never told you about him but he’s…I guess it just slipped my mind, you know? I haven’t seen him in years. He didn’t say why he called?”

“Just said to have you call him back, when you got in.”

I nod even though Timothy can’t see the gesture. “All right. You’ll be home when I get there?”

“Should be,” Timothy says. “I’m off until tomorrow, then I start on second shift. You’re sure you’re not staying late?”

I glance at my watch but don’t see the time—I see my brother’s rugged, bearded face smiling back at me. Timothy has the same warm eyes, the same ‘Mountain Man’ look. The same hands, the same narrow waist, the same thighs and hips and…

Shaking that thought away, I clear my throat. “I’ll be there a little after five. I gotta go, hon. I’m in the middle of a conference call here. Love you, all right?”

Before he can answer I close the phone, cutting the connection. For a moment longer I stand at the window, staring down at the river below, the traffic snared across the James River Bridge, the battered brick buildings downtown. Joey…why the hell would he be calling after all this time? What can he possibly want?

And, more importantly, do I have the courage to call him back to find out?

* * * *

I spend the rest of the day trying not to think of Joey and failing miserably. During the conference call, I stare out the window at the crisp autumn sky beyond the glass, lost in those thoughts. It’s been so long, he meshes with Timothy in my mind, the two of them interchangeable. I try to remember the last time I saw him—a while back, I’m not sure exactly when, far enough in the past that the details of his face have grown hazy, letting him morph into my lover and back again. I never realized it before, how closely they resembled each other. Did Timothy have that burly beard when we first started dating? Perhaps…I don’t recall for sure.

By the time the staff meeting breaks up a little before five, I’m anxious to see my lover again. I haven’t been attentive to him lately, and the first thing I plan to do when I get home is make up to him for my snippy attitude earlier. Anything to put off having to call Joey back so soon. If it were important, I reason, wouldn’t he have asked for my cell?

As I’m straightening my desk to leave for the day, Kevin enters my office, his tie undone and the first few buttons of his shirt open enough to show there isn’t an undershirt beneath it. I knew that already—twice he leaned against me during the day and I felt n*****s like hard nuggets poking into my arm. Coming into my office now, he pushes the door almost shut and tugs at his tie a little, loosing it further. I ignore him as he crosses to my desk, but his hand brushes over mine as I stack the papers in my inbox and I sigh. “Not tonight, Kev,” I tell him, still not looking his way. “I’ve got to get home—”

“Leaving so soon?” he purrs. His hand works around my wrist, the fingers easing beneath the cuff of my blazer to tickle along hidden skin. With a slow grin, he admits, “I had hoped to entice you to stay.”

“Enticing as you can be,” I say, pulling my hand from his, “family calls. Maybe tomorrow.”

Kevin sits on the edge of my desk, that hand drifting to the front of his expensive pants and the erection I’m sure is already hidden there. I’m sporting wood myself, but not for this twink, not tonight. I have bigger men in mind for this evening’s pleasure. Gathering up a handful of papers off my desk, I shove them unceremoniously into my briefcase and then snap the case shut. Kevin watches me circle the desk—when I reach his side, I touch his shoulder and brush my lips against his cheek in a damp kiss. “Tomorrow,” I promise. “Have a good evening.”

Before he can reply, I’m through the door and heading for the elevators, my own hard d**k chafing against the front of my silk boxers.

* * * *

The condo I share with Timothy is a short drive from the office. We live on the sixteenth floor of a high-rise, and the James River winds past the small balcony off our dining alcove, a different view than the one from my office building. At home, when I unlock the door and step into our foyer, I can just barely see the white foam-tipped rapids through the open blinds, and the gutted brick buildings on the other side of the James—our living room opens to the dining area, giving an illusion of space and a clear view from the door to the balcony. The smell of frying beef fills the condo, onions and meat amid a smattering of grease that I follow into the tiny kitchen. There Timothy stands over the gas stove in a worn T-shirt and an old, paper-thin set of boxer shorts, a flat pan of burgers sizzling away on one burner. He glances up and for a moment it’s Joey looking back at me, but when he speaks, it’s Tim. “Hey Brian. How was work?”

I shrug in lieu of reply and begin to loosen my tie. He turns back to the burgers—from the side, he looks nothing like my brother. The beard does it, the shaggy cut of his hair, the shape of his eyes. Brown instead of Joey’s light blue, but the same almond shape, the same heavy lids that make me think he’s trying to seduce me. If I’m not looking at him straight on, I can see the small double-chin that folds under where the beard won’t grow, and there’s more gray above his ears than Joey would have. Still it’s uncanny, the resemblance, and I tell myself I never noticed it before. Probably would never have noticed it, if Joey hadn’t decided to call.

Absently I drift into the bathroom, where I get the tie unknotted and shuck off my blazer, unbutton the cuffs of my dress shirt, open the buttons at the neck. In the mirror I stare at myself, looking for a hint of my brother in my face, but I see nothing there. We both have blue eyes, but his are lighter, prettier. We both have heads full of thick brown hair, that’s about the extent of it. My features are my dad’s—the angular jaw, the smooth skin, the boyish wave of hair across my brow that hasn’t begun to thin yet, thank the Lord. Joey looks like our mother, same round face, same laughing eyes. Plus the beard, of course, his squared shoulders, his tapered waist, lower…

I shake that thought away and stand over the toilet, unzipping my pants. As they fall to my knees in a rush of satiny material, a thick erection strains the front of my boxers. I undo the middle snap and gasp as I take my swollen shaft into my hand, damn. With one hand I stroke myself, legs splayed, the tip of my d**k already weeping. Close, s**t. Who would’ve thought a discreet, lazy massage in the driver’s seat on my way home would get me this hard? And when was the last time I had a taste of Timothy?

Suddenly burgers weren’t the only thing on the menu tonight. Keeping up a steady rhythm, I rummage through the medicine cabinet above the sink until I find an unused condom. I tear through the thin wrapper with my teeth, then ease the wet sheath onto my d**k.

Holding the end of the condom tight against the base of my c**k, I let it lead the way back into the kitchen.

Timothy’s still by the stove, a sheen of sweat beading on his forehead from the heat thrown off the burner. He doesn’t look at me as I come up behind him, but I see the corner of his mouth turn up in a smile. “Almost ready, hon,” he says.

I don’t answer. Instead I run a hand down the back of his boxers—his smile widens and he arches his ass into the palm of my hand. “Good day?”

“Good enough,” I concede, rubbing my thumb into the tender spot between his buttocks that I want to taste. He sighs my name and in my other hand, my c**k jumps at the thought of a tryst right here, now, up against the side of the stove. Without asking, I pull down Timothy’s boxers and guide my length to that tight hole in the center of his ass.

“Brian!” he starts, surprised.

Holding onto his bare hips, I pull him back onto me in one smooth motion. He parts beneath me, buttocks flexing as he takes me in, hands gripping the sides of the stove to keep from falling into the blue-tinged flames. “God,” he gasps. I kiss the back of his neck and breathe deep the scent of his sweat. In my memory, Joey smells like this, hard work and grease and beneath that, a patina of sharp, clean soap that tickles my nose.

No, my brother has a different smell, something that reminds me of summer breezes on the shore, sea salt drying on tanned skin, coconut oil and lemon juice and innocence. I have to close my eyes against the images that flood me—images of my brother and I as young boys, playing on the shore, chasing each other down the boardwalk, giggling into the languid darkness of an endless summer night, each remembrance punctuated by a thrust into Timothy, pinning his face over Joey’s in the pictures in my mind. My hands are hard on his hips, holding him back against me as I f**k into him, again and again. He sighs my name, his fingers clenched around the bar on the front of the oven, the burgers forgotten. I drive in harder, faster, seeking release, dragging him along to a sputtering climax that soils the kitchen towel between his hands and leaves me spent.

“God,” he gasps again when I pull free. With a breathy laugh, he uses the towel to clean himself off. “Damn, Brian. That was hot.”

Dumping the condom into the trash, I redo the snap on my boxers and kiss his shoulder through his battered T-shirt. “You sound like Paris Hilton,” I tell him. “Dinner ready yet? I’m starved.”

Timothy laughs and fakes a playful slap with the spatula. “f**k me, feed me,” he laughs. “You’re a slave driver, you know that?” I pinch his ample ass as I head out of kitchen. “What’s gotten into you anyway?”

My brother called, I think, and my heart soars at the thought of Joey taking a moment out of whatever life he’s living now to ring me up. Without answering Timothy’s question, I head into the living room and the promise of mind-numbing television. One hand drifts to the front of my boxers where, despite just getting off, I’m surprised to find I’m already half-hard again.

* * * *

After dinner Timothy sits at one end of the couch and I stretch out alongside him, my legs bare and flickering in the glow of the television. I’m still in those silk boxers, though I’ve taken off the dress shirt somewhere and just have on the tank top I wore underneath. We look like two old bachelors on a day off, barely dressed, lounging around as if there aren’t dishes in the sink waiting to be done. With gentle motions, Timothy runs his fingers through my thick hair, combing the gel out of the waves to find the cool, unstyled depths. His fingers strum over my scalp, a soothing touch. I lay with my eyes shut, not even bothering to watch the television anymore, as I let his touch rub through me. The front of my boxers tents beneath another erection, one I don’t try to hide.

On a commercial break, Timothy fists his hand in my hair and tugs lightly like a stylist trying to stimulate the follicles. “What’s on your mind?” he wants to know.

The sound of his voice spoils the daydream I’m having of my brother and I on the beach as teenagers, me buried in sand up to my neck and him combing my wild hair into some crazy pompadour full of salt water and seaweed that makes him giggle. The image washes away like a sandcastle at high tide and I shake my head free from Timothy’s hand. “Nothing.”

He tries to touch my head again but I sit up and turn towards him, so intense he shrinks back. “Hey, Timmy,” I say, touching his arm to relax him, the way I would a skittish animal. He gives me a distrustful look as I run a hand through my hair to push it from my face. I don’t know how to ask this, don’t even really know why I want to know, but I’m suddenly curious if I’m the only one…“What do you think of during s*x?”

With a laugh, he catches my wrist and pulls me into his lap. “You, silly,” he says, kissing the tip of my nose. Then something in my expression dries up that laughter. “What about you? What do you think of?”

The answer he hopes for shines bright in his dark eyes. Me, it says, I read it clearly enough. That’s not the truth but I could lie. I could say him. I open my mouth and the words are on the end of my tongue, waiting to be released, when I hear myself answer, “Nothing, really. I try not to think much when I’m doing the deed.”

Wrong lie. Timothy looks as if I’ve slapped him, hurt welling up like tears in those bright eyes. “What gets you off then?” he asks in a small voice.

I shrug. “Just, you know. The motion I guess.”

His gaze drifts from my face down to the bulge in my boxers and those eyes harden. “What about this?” he asks with a poke at the front of my shorts. My hard c**k sways at his touch like a drunk sailor reeling for another drink. “Don’t tell me you got this just from watching Home Improvement.”

Too late, I realize he’s mad at me. Hoping to lighten the mood, I give him a nudge. “That Al guy is kind of cute. He sort of looks like you.”

At another time, Timothy might’ve laughed—he has that same beard, though his is laced with gray, and he also favors flannel shirts and blue jeans when he’s not in skivvies or his work uniform. But at the moment he’s pissed, and whatever feel-good afterglow once enveloped us is gone. When he stands, I make a half-hearted grab for his hand but he pulls away. Without another word he storms out of the living room and down the hall. Two seconds later, I hear the bedroom door slam shut.

Fuck. I don’t feel like placating him, not tonight, so I slip into his spot on the couch and the warmth he left behind, my long legs curled up in front of me. The silk boxers feel heavenly on my damn erection, so soft yet so confining. I reposition myself so the length of my shaft lies along my inner thigh, the head of my c**k peeking from the bottom hem of the shorts. Without thinking of anything in particular, I let my fingers play with the swollen tip, rimming it, rubbing it, picking at it as I watch the rest of the show. Soon my hand is damp and musky with pre-come and I want to jerk off right here, get it over with, find some relief. But I remember the phone call this morning and click off the television as I stand with a slow stretch. My muscles loosened, I head for the phone in the hallway, one hand down the front of my boxers to finger my balls like I’m twelve again and can’t stop touching myself.

There are no numbers written on the pad by the phone. Not surprised, I head down the hall to the closed door that separates Timothy from me. With a faint knock, I lean against the door. “Timmy? Where’s my brother’s number?”

The hand in my shorts squeezes and I thrust into my fist a few times, waiting for Timothy to answer. When he doesn’t, I kick at the door and raise my voice. “Where’s his goddamn number?”

A sniffle—he wants me to feel sorry for him, rush in there and smooth over the wounds, assure him everything’s all right, I was lying, I think of him when I get off, I do, I do. But there’s a mean streak in me and I’m not up for playing the hero tonight. Just as I’m about to kick the door a second time, he seems to realize this, because his voice is muffled but distinct when he tells me, “On the fridge.”

My d**k leads the way. In the kitchen I find a scrap of paper with the word Joey? written on it and beneath that, a number in New Jersey. I recognize the area code. Is that our parents’ number? I’m not sure, I haven’t called it in so long, but as I stand there staring at the piece of paper, I stroke myself absently. My boxers are open now, hanging precariously on my thin hips, my c**k warm and hard beneath the hand that works along its length.

Leaning back against the sink, I jerk off vigorously, my mind a whirl of emotions as my d**k jumps in my hand with each thrust of my hips. At the last moment I stand over the trash can as an orgasm rips through me, stronger than the one I had earlier with my c**k in Timothy’s ass. I f**k into my encircled fingers, small uh uh uh sounds escaping my open mouth, my other hand fondling my balls as if squeezing the juices out of me. A rush of spunk splashes the side of the trash can, leaving behind a pungent s*x smell that overpowers the small kitchen. Using the same hand towel Timothy did earlier, I wipe c*m off my hand, then toss the towel into the trash to cover the rest of the evidence. A can of Lysol masks the scent.

Plucking Joey’s phone number off the fridge, I duck into the hallway to place the call.

* * * *

When my brother answers, he sounds groggy and impossibly young, though he’s only three years my junior. “Hello?” he mumbles into the phone.

I reply, “Did I wake you?”

He sighs in my ear, a sleepy, sultry sound that I imagine many women would love to hear first thing in the morning. “Brian, hey,” he says, as if we just spoke yesterday and there aren’t years between now and the last time we talked. “I was just catching a quick nap…” He trails off and I’m about to mention that most people don’t nap at seven o’clock at night when he gasps, “Oh!” Suddenly he’s wide awake, I can see him in my mind’s eye as he scrambles to sit up—he remembers why he called me in the first place. Without further preamble, he announces, “Mom’s in the hospital.”

“What?” The world wobbles beneath me and I have to lean against the wall to keep from sinking to the floor. “When did this happen? What for?” And more importantly, why didn’t anyone tell me earlier?

Joey yawns loudly in my ear. “She was just admitted today. Apparently she had some bleeding a few weeks ago, when she went to the bathroom? Thought it was spotting and didn’t bother to do anything about it—”

“She’s sixty-five,” I say, my voice wavering as it creeps up a notch or two. I try to remember when I spoke with my mother last and can’t. I want to call her now, and can’t. “Why the hell would she be spotting at her age?”

“I don’t know,” Joey concedes. He lowers his voice in a conscious effort to make me lower mine, too. “This is what Dad told me, okay? Don’t shoot the messenger.”

Struggling to keep my tone even, I ask, “Where is Dad?”

“At the hospital with her. Good thing you called now…” He trails off, probably looking around for a clock to see the time. “I have to pick him up at eight when visiting hours are over.”

“God.” Leaning back against the wall, I close my eyes and try to rein in the thoughts swirling through my mind. I’m all too aware of the fact that my parents aren’t getting any younger here. Sure, I knew it before, I’m not stupid, but for the first time, it hits home in a way that scares me. What happens when they’re gone? Who do I have left in this world then?

Joey.

I take a steadying breath that calms me, then another. “Where are you now?” I ask my brother. “Are you at the house?”

The house, as if there is only one. The house we grew up in, the house we grew apart in. My parents’ home on a wind-swept side street, two long, dusty blocks to the wooden boardwalk that runs the length of the island. The house in Wildwood, New Jersey, where I’m always welcome and very rarely go. The last time I saw my parents, I wasn’t with Timothy and didn’t have my master’s degree. The last time I saw Joey…

I don’t remember, it’s been a while. A long while.

“I’m here,” Joey tells me. “The doctor called me this morning. Get this—she finally went to her regular physician last week, right? He sends her to a specialist in Cape May, but it takes her another three days to bother to go. So she gets to the specialist, gets a colonoscopy…that’s where—”

Annoyed, I say, “I know what that is, Joe. I went to college, remember?”

If that stings, he doesn’t show it. “Yeah well, she has the colonoscopy this morning and whatever they found up there made them send her to the hospital. Only instead of sending her in an ambulance or something, they stick her in the car and give Dad directions to Burdette Tomlin. I get a call from the specialist two hours later asking why they haven’t shown up yet.” Joey pauses for effect, but I’m not sure if he’s kidding or telling the truth. Burdette Tomlin is one of the largest hospitals in south Jersey—both of us were born there, it’s not like Dad has never been there before. Before I can ask what took him so long, Joey sighs. “You know how he drives. Slow…” He draws out the word for emphasis, then tells me, “And his memory’s going, Brian. He denies it but he’s getting up there in years.”

With a bitter laugh, I say, “Aren’t we all?”

“So…” Joey trails off and waits for me to say something else, but instead I listen to him breathe in my ear. My hand has retraced its earlier course and now fists in the damp silk at the front of my boxers. I won’t let it do anything more than that, not while I’m on the phone. All of a sudden it’s like there’s a magnet in my damn fingers that draws them to my crotch. I need to get laid more often, I decide. Then I feel guilty, thinking about s*x when we’re talking about my parents here, when I’m talking to my brother, for Christ’s sake. But maybe if I kiss up to Timothy, he’ll open the bedroom door and we could cuddle a bit before falling asleep. If I say the right words, smile in the right places, touch him just right—

Joey breaks into my thoughts. “Brian, listen. I can’t do this alone. It’s…” He sighs and I picture him sitting on the edge of the blue and white pinstriped couch in our parents’ living room, the coffee table in front of him strewn with back issues of TV Guide and crossword puzzle books, his hair disheveled from sleep. My hand clenches in the silk of my boxers at the image. “I don’t know what the doctors are saying, you know how I am, I believe anything that’s said to me with a smile. They use these big words and I just nod when they want me to, you know? And Dad, he’s a handful all by himself. It scares me. I can’t do this alone.”

“What are you saying?” I know what he’s saying, it’s loud and clear in what he doesn’t say, but I want to hear him put it into words. I want to hear him ask.

“Can you…” Another sigh—here it comes. “Maybe you can come up here for a few days, if possible? I know it’s sudden but she just went into the hospital this morning.”

I wait—that’s not exactly what I wanted. Pleading, Joey adds, “Do you think you can come up here for me? I’d love to see you again, Brian. It’s been way too long and I need…I really need my big brother just about now, you know what I mean?”

There it is. How can I possibly refuse when he puts it like that?