Work Text:
Altair was two-beers into a six-beer kind of football game when the thumping against the wall behind his couch started in (again). “Oh come on!” he shouted and reached his hand back to beat fist against it. The walls of the (cheap, crappy) apartments were thin enough to share sound but not so paper thin that he could hear voices with any distinction. The sound of someone shouting was evident but the actual words was hard to make out. He dug the remote out of his couch to turn the TV twice as loud and shoved his back against the couch like he could push it into the wall in such a way to silence the rhythmic thumping.
--
Those neighbors, to the right of his door, were a pair of brothers. One of them was a head-ducked, ear-buds-in, round-baby-faced blusher with a bag on his back every single time Altair ran into him. Clearly not the breadwinner of the apartment, he was often found chewing on the bright red cord of his headphones but rarely spoke. The other brother was almost never seen, slipped in and out at odd times and went mostly without notice.
Altair had the habit of waiting for the bus with the cute-faced brother, sharing the same space on a corner through rain-and-shine but going in opposite directions. He’d never bothered to talk to the kid, never had much of an inclination but the morning-after a long-long week of listening to that (enticing) thump against his living room wall he was still angry enough to try. So he reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.
The kid looked at him with wide-open blue eyes and an instant deepening blush of color on his cheeks. He clearly already knew what the whole interaction was going to be about because his face was pretty as an apple before he managed to pull one ear bud out of his ear. “Yes?” he said.
“Can’t you move the bed to a different wall?”
There simply was no blood left in the poor kid’s body that wasn’t in his face. It was amazing he hadn’t fallen over from the sudden head rush. For a second, there was a wild-fear in his eyes and then he nodded his head. “I’ll talk to my brother.” He paused a moment longer to be sure there was nothing else to say before tucking the ear bud back into his ear and stepping noticeably farther away.
--
That night, after a satisfying dinner of canned soup and freezer bread, Altair laid on his couch reading another instructional manual from work (his oh-so-favorite pastime) to the lazy soundtrack of furniture being moved in the room next door. It was common courtesy, as far as he was concerned. It was just something he’d taken into account when he’d put his own bedroom together. (For a while, it had even been relevant.)
The noise stopped at the half-point in the manual (dry reading, instructional material was) and there was a blessed silence (as much silence as you could get in an apartment complex stacked eight units deep with ten on each floor. Then there was that damn noise again, a much duller thud, and Altair slapped the manual against his legs and glared at the wall for existing. (Or perhaps at the brothers for being obvious sex addicts.)
--
Altair missed the kid at the bus stop the next day but he caught the older brother when he was coming home. The older looked like a man who sold used cars, cheaply expensive with a customer service smile. He was carrying a sack of groceries in one arm with a bag hanging at his side obviously weighted down with a laptop (or a heavy sack of papers). They managed four floors in silence until they reached their landing and Altair opened and held the door for him.
“Did moving the bed work?” the brother asked when he came to a stop at his door. The keys in his hand were a merry jingle as he worked through the ring to find the one he wanted. But he looked up (all slick dark hair and shrewd narrow eyes).
“Well it’s better,” Altair conceded. “Thanks.”
The ironic twist of a smile on the man’s face undermined his friendly nod of acknowledgement. Then he was disappearing into his sex den and closing the door behind him.
--
Maria delighted in the discovery. She stood on his couch in her flesh-toned-tights and pressed her ear against his wall to listen. Her pretty pale face all caught in pink highlights as her mouth dropped open and she said, “listen to them go!”
“I frequently do,” Altair mumbled. He had invited her over for nachos and she’d brought beer and cards. “I thought we were going to play blackjack or rummy or something.”
But her face was pressed against the wall as the tempo of the thumping changed into something slower and dragged on-and-on-and-on (it had to have been the older brother’s bedroom. He had that look of a natural born sadist that liked to fuck someone to the point of orgasm and then deny them). She actually turned to look at him with a hand motion at the wall. “We need to take notes. You should talk to them, we’ll move your bed in here and synchronize or something.”
“Yeah,” he said as he picked at the broken bits of the hard taco shell on his plate. “I’ll just knock on their door and mention my horny friend who wants to do a duet.”
“Technically a quartet,” Maria corrected. “Unless you only count the fucker and not the fuckee and then—yeah, duet. Listen to this!” She pulled back from the wall with a breathless grin and stepped off his couch to pick up her beer (it had probably grown warm in the time she spent listening in to his neighbor) and take a long drink of it while she assessed him for potential. “We could do this,” she said.
“You said it was a bad idea after last time,” he pointed out (because she had.) His objections, largely just a repeat of the ones she’d laid out for him when she decided they shouldn’t have sex, died in his throat when she grabbed his hand and dragged up to press against the damp drag of her panties-and-tights. “Oh,” he said.
“You have condoms?” she said.
“Yeah in my bedroom.” Then she was dragging him out of the chair and away from the spread of cards and half-eaten tacos.
--
The younger brother, he found out accidentally, was intentionally hiding from him. Altair would have persisted in ignorance of that fact if not for how he had forgotten one of his stupid work papers and had to jog from the corner all the way back into the apartment complex. He missed the bus he normally took and kicked the out-of-date (and out-of-service) pay phone hard enough to hurt his own toes.
There was the little brother with wide-wide eyes filled with a deep-seated horror. His face was heating up red while Altair spit curses in a colorful variety of languages. They took a moment to regard one another and then Altair sighed and said, “you never told me your name.”
“Kadar,” he said very quietly. “You don’t take this bus. You take the eight ten one.”
“I missed that one, also I find it strange you know that.” It only occurred to him as an afterthought that Kadar was avoiding him. Because while he was standing there in front of the kid with the pretty blue eyes he found himself trying to figure out how the kid lived in the apartment with his sex fiend brother and still managed to be embarrassed about anything.
“Sorry,” Kadar said softly. When his bus came he jumped on it with unashamed gratefulness.
--
Desmond hosted game night even though it was supposed to be Altair’s turn. Maria was pink with amusement about the last-second amendment to the long-standing date they kept. Leonardo was curious (but not in a prying way) as he rocked back in his chair and listened to Ezio and Lucy argue about whether or not it was fair to play trivia games with a genius.
“What is the point in playing if we don’t stand a chance?” Lucy asked.
“You play with Shaun!”
“Shaun only thinks he’s a genius,” Maria pointed out. “We’ve already proven that Leonardo is smarter than him. Please note the absence of Shaun.” Yeah he hadn’t taken being knocked off the pedestal of smartest member of the group with grace.
“Fine,” Ezio said. “But we’re not playing cards because Maria cheats. So what are we supposed to play? Shut up, Desmond we’re not playing that.”
Desmond frowned. “You shut up or we’re going to play Monopoly.”
Ezio started threatening him in Italian and Desmond just laughed-and-laughed. Altair was warm, well-fed and deeply amused by everything. He just slouched in his chair and enjoyed the company and the utter lack of obnoxious neighbors taunting him with superior sex lives.
“So you never did tell me why we’re not doing this at your place,” Desmond said when Ezio got up under the pretense of retrieving another bowl of pasta. He was still mumbling in Italian as he went.
There was a whole mass of people turning their faces to look right at him. Maria with her arrogant knowledge pushing a peanut into her mouth and grinning around chewing on it. Altair sighed, “my stupid neighbor’s bedroom is right there and—I swear he’s always fucking someone.”
This earned a gale of laughter from everyone. Lucy laughed so hard there were tears in her eyes and Leonardo was chortling while Desmond bent forward and put his head on the table. It was only Maria (who had to explain what had happened to Ezio) that wasn’t laughing along. “No, no,” she said, “you don’t understand this isn’t like a five minute thing. This is champion level fucking. Like, clear Olympic contender. I need you to introduce me to this guy.”
“Perhaps introduce all of us,” Leonardo said.
“Not me,” Desmond said. “I don’t want to be introduced.”
“Wait,” Ezio said as he took his seat next to Altair. “Is it the same person or a different one every night?”
“Uh…” Altair had never paid attention to that detail. It hadn’t been important in the face of the steadily growing Pavlovian response to the wall behind his couch. “I don’t know.”
“This is important to know,” Ezio assured him.
“Right, because you need tips on how to get a new date every night,” Lucy said with a scoff.
“Perhaps tips on how to keep the same one for two nights in a row,” Leonardo said. And he smiled so sweetly at Ezio when he got glared at. The whole conversation broke down into a discussion about Ezio’s inability to keep a girlfriend and segued into the gentle suggestion that he try men for a while. He played along with grace, even swooned into Altair’s lap with great dramatics.
“Take me,” Ezio said to him, “I’m yours.”
“I think your mother would object,” Altair said softly.
“It’s only cousin incest,” Ezio protested. “That doesn’t even count.” Then he sat up straight and kissed Altair on the cheek wet-and-sloppy.
--
Once the idea was in his head, it wouldn’t get out again. Altair listened for the sound of opening-and-closing doors in the hallway while he made dinner. He waited until the sky was going dark and the shuffle of noise started from the wall behind his couch. Night-after-night-after night.
--
The kid shuffled up to the bus stop (in the rain) with a miserable expression on his face and a trash bag providing poor cover. “I hate rain,” he said to Altair. His hair was flat to his head, the length of it surprising without the waves and curls that shortened it. His hands were shoved into pockets in his cotton jacket and he stood on a low abutment to keep from getting his shoes any wetter. “What’s your name?”
“Altair,” he said.
“I bet people say that wrong all the time,” Kadar said. Then he looked at his watch and frowned all the harder from under his trash-bag hood. “My brother’s name is Malik and seventy percent of people say it wrong and then I have to hear about it.”
“Sounds accurate,” Altair said. “I try not to complain too much about it. Are you in school?”
Kadar nodded. “You?”
“No, I’m just poor.”
Kadar laughed at that. And shivered a little. A car horn honked at him and Kadar made a rude gesture toward it. “Keep smiling dick face,” Kadar snarled (in Arabic). Then his bus rolled up before he could say anything further and he jumped across two puddles to escape inside.
--
The thing was, though, that the thumping noise (long since a nightly occurrence) stopped that night. And the next night and the night after and the night after that. Altair had just about gotten used to the quiet again but his dick had all these preconceived notions about late evening hours and the expected entertainment. (So what if Altair sometimes masturbated in the shower thinking about beds thumping and Malik’s stupid face and black-black hair.) He spent all Friday evening being resolutely grateful about it before a knock at his door interrupted his pitiful party of one.
When he opened it, Malik was standing there looking at the door jamb with great concentration. He had the recently harassed look on his face and a worn out pair of jeans gripping his thighs and ass. For half-a-breath the thin stretch of the white shirt across his richly tanned skin was too distracting to form thoughts around. “Hi,” Malik said when it became apparent Altair had forgotten how to speak. “Want to go get a drink? You know as an apology or in the interest of friendship or because I’m bored.”
“It’s like nine thirty on a Friday,” Altair said.
“I am aware of the day and time. I know the date as well. This isn’t, by the way, a date. I just don’t want to listen to my brother whine about his cold anymore. I thought about murdering him but this seemed preferable.” Like he could show up looking like he did, ask Altair out to a bar and then say it was a date without consequence.
“Are you buying?” Altair asked.
Malik’s lips slid up into a smile (a sweet customer-service thing, hollow and hanging crooked). “Kadar did mention you were poor. I can buy. That doesn’t make this a date.”
“I got it, no homo. Let me get some shoes.”
“The homo is not the problem,” Malik said from the doorway. (Much like a vampire, he didn’t seem to have the ability to step inside without a direct invitation.) “I’m just not available at the moment.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Altair said.
Malik’s smile (that time) was entirely sincere and entirely pleased with itself. He motioned them down the hallway and said nothing about his sex addiction until they were outside in the parking lot and Altair found himself saying, “what’d you do to piss him off anyway? Must have been something big.”
“Didn’t drive him to school,” Malik said off-hand and then stopped dead in mid-step and closed his eyes with a curious guilt before turning back to look at Altair. “Wait, what are you asking?”
“I’m asking about the lack of noise coming from your room this week,” Altair said.
“Ah,” Malik said. He waved his hand. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he said. “Everyone’s got to take a break sometime.” Then he led them to his car.
--
Actually, they wound up in a college bar with dozens and dozens of horny girls-and-boys that were a few years too young to go home with but old enough to make fools of themselves. A set of the boys were in the booth next to them, making an attempt at public sex interrupted only now and again by a set of girls that kept throwing ice and cocktail napkins at them.
“What do you do anyway?” Altair asked two-drinks-in. “Steal souls? Sell cars? Answer phones?”
“I work at a hotel,” he said. “I’m training to be a manager. It’s a lot of bullshit—fixing people’s pillows and kissing their asses and apologizing for inconveniences.”
“Figured you’d be into that,” Altair said. He wasn’t drunk enough to slur yet but given the strongest drink he had on a regular basis was a beer, it wasn’t going to take much more. “Ass-kissing, I mean.”
“I am a fan of rimming,” Malik said. “But I’m also a fan of telling people they are stupid and they should learn how to read. What about you?”
“Tech support, the over the phone kind where people call about printers they never plugged in complaining about how they don’t work. Who is a fan of rimming? That is someone’s tongue on your asshole. Or your tongue on someone’s asshole.”
Malik laughed at the indignation in his voice. “You’re drunk,” he said.
“No I’m not. Answer the question.”
“A lot of people are fans of rimming. It can be something of an acquired taste but most sexual inclinations are, in a way. It’s not exactly like I woke up one day thinking to myself: I would really like someone licking my asshole right now. I also didn’t wake up one day and think, I’d love to fuck that guy in the ass and pull his hair. I discovered these things through repeated trials. You are drunk. Time to go.”
Altair protested but he also couldn’t walk straight and Malik graciously assisted him to the car. Then from the car to his door and unlocked it for him.
“My wallet is pleased you are such a lightweight,” Malik said as he watched with some concern from the doorway. “Drink water. Lots of water. Don’t fall asleep until you drink some water.”
“Yeah, I got it. Go away.” He collapsed on his couch and the last thing he saw was Malik closing his door for him.
--
On Sunday, when Maria came over to watch sports all day (and fuck during half-time), Altair said: “neighbor guy is apparently a freak in bed.”
“Define freak,” Maria said. She was sprawled in his armchair, naked legs spread open and sports bra still on. Her skin was spotted here and there with finger marks that took forever to fade and pink exertion from the last time they’d fucked. It wasn’t until the commercial that she actually turned to look at him. (He was respectful enough to put pants on.)
“Hair pulling, rimming,” he said. The list was pretty slim actually. “Ok—but you weren’t there when he was talking about it. That’s clearly the tip of the iceberg.”
“Wow,” Maria said, “that’s so freakish. Who does things like that?” Every word dripping with sarcasm. And then she turned in the chair, put one of her legs over the arm of it and rubbed her fingers up and down her thighs. “You are obsessed with oral sex, Altair. I’m pretty sure that giving head is your secret calling in life. There is a reason you got a date to prom and it was not your face or personality.”
Altair sneered at her. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t blow the guy. I’m just saying that’s someone’s asshole.”
“How about an experiment?” she said.
“For what?”
“An experiment to prove you’re stupid and rimming should not even register on the freak scale. I’m surprised you haven’t done it. Just, indulge me. I bet you like twenty dollars you’re a bigger freak than hair-pulling and rimming.”
“No way,” Altair said. “Fine, experiment.”
“Alright,” Maria said. But football was on again and her attention was instantly drawn to it without delay. The next commercial was seven minutes later and Maria said, “get on your knees and crawl to me and I’ll let you eat me out.” She didn’t even look at him, didn’t even glance in his direction. The tone in her voice was conversational, uninterested, the least of all seductive sounds.
But Altair’s breath was stilling in his chest and he was halfway off the couch before he could catch enough rational thought to be pissed about it. He had to go around the ugly coffee table to get to her and she looked down her body at him, put one of her feet on his shoulder to stop him before he could touch her.
“Freak,” she said. She pushed her toes against the side of his head like a reproach and then hooked her foot around his neck to pull him closer. He came (willingly, happily).
--
Sunday night, though, the next-door-thumping started again. Kadar was recovered from his cold Monday morning, looking delightfully chipper with the red cord of his ear buds caught between his white teeth. He was wearing a jacket zipped straight up to his neck (odd with warm weather) and a pleasant smile as he said, “hey Altair.”
“Hello,” Altair said. He had a sex-hangover and a deep burning (love) hatred for Maria still stuck just behind his face. The freshly reacquired knowledge that he was perfectly willing to crawl around like a dog for the privilege of pleasuring her had haunted his dreams. “Guess your brother’s heart has reached full fondness, then?”
Kadar looked confused about the question.
“He said—Friday when I went to the bar with him, he said that he wasn’t having sex because absence makes the heart grow fonder. You weren’t there. I don’t know why I said anything.”
Oh but Kadar’s angelic little face twisted into something demonic (no so unlike when he frowned at his brother’s car leaving him the week before). “No. Do not let him lie to you. He wasn’t getting any because he’s a dick.”
“Well, whatever. How do you even live there?”
There was the blush again and Kadar’s face looked a little pained before he turned with great interest toward the approaching bus. “I think this one is yours.” And he all but shoved Altair onto when it finally stopped.
--
Monday night there was a polite knock on his door and Malik was standing there with a stressed smile on his face. He was wearing jeans that weren’t as shaped to his body and a shirt that was unhappily loose on his shoulders. “Need company for your Monday night game?” he said.
As a matter of fact, Maria was coming over to watch it with him and Altair was working around to a polite way to decline Malik’s presence when the door to the stairs banged open. Maria stood at the end of the hall with a positively evil gleam in her eyes when she saw-and-realized who Malik was. “Hi,” she said when she was close enough to do it without shouting. “It is so nice to meet you. You have inspired so much greatness.”
Malik didn’t even blush, he didn’t even pretend he didn’t know what they were talking about. He just shook her hand and accepted her hug. When she pulled him inside, he went willingly (and easily) and sat next to her on the couch while she fawned over him.
“Totally gay then?” she asked. “Like you won’t even consider doing me this favor and then we’ll both pretend it never happened?”
“He’s gay and taken,” Altair said from the chair where he’d been mostly abandoned. “It’s now safe to introduce him to Desmond.”
“Who is Desmond?” Malik asked.
“Altair’s cousin that’s always getting hit on by gay guys. I’d introduce you to him but you’d hit on him.” Maria turned completely on the couch so she was sitting with her back to the arm of it and pressed her fingers against Malik’s shoulder. “What about if we did like a wife swap? Your—boyfriend?—for Altair. Just for like one night. Not even one night, just one occurrence. This is quality product I’m offering here. There is nobody that gives a better, more thorough, filthier—”
“Maria!” Altair said.
“Think about it,” she said. “He’s into it.”
Malik nodded with his customer service smile. “I can assure you that it simply won’t happen, but it’s nice to know I have a fan.” Oh-what-ridiculous-bullshit.
--
“I heard your lady friend wants to fuck my brother,” Kadar said the next morning out-of-nowhere. The words were seething in anger in a way that Altair would not have thought possible coming from the boy. The steely distaste that stuck on his face was another tilt of the impossible becoming real right in front of him. “He laughed about it half the damn night. Whatever happened to propriety?”
“Uh,” Altair said. “I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure it left a few weeks ago when your brother fucked his—boyfriend or whatever—in tune with the music I was listening to.”
Kadar’s unhappy dislike of Maria and her offers did not waver. He stuck the ear buds in his ears and gnawed on the cords in a way that was sure to render them useless. All the while glaring at Altair as if he were singularly responsible.
--
“Ezio,” Altair said when they were both hiding in Mama Maria’s kitchen eating the Tiramisu out of the pan. The rise and fall of the conversation was echoing through the swinging door that separated them from the dining room. Desmond was holding court over his extended family with rousing tales of his failed proposals to Lucy.
“What?”
“If I had sex with you, how wrong would that be?” It was one of those moments in his life when the question that came out of his mind sprang straight from the center of his subconscious without consulting his brain.
To his credit, Ezio only stopped eating for the span of a second. His lips were pressed around the tines of the fork as it slid out of his mouth in slow motion. His clever-and-quick eyes were assessing Altair for potential as a mate, settling on his mouth before dropping down to eye his flat chest. “Wrong because I prefer women, wrong because I’m your cousin or wrong because you’re missing a golden opportunity to make Desmond cry with this question.”
Altair smacked him. “We agreed to stop assaulting Desmond with sex proposals, remember? After he hid in the closet when you told Leonardo to try to kiss him that one time. A man can only take so much.”
Ezio was laughing at his own evil until his face was pink and his Mother was shouting at him about sneaking the dessert. Ezio threw the fork into the sink and took Altair’s to do the same with. Then they snuck out to the backyard like guilt little boys. “I had sex with a set of twins once. I got the feeling I was more or less an accessory,” he said. “Kind of like an inflatable doll. If that wasn’t wrong—except in the good ways—then I’d say you having sex with me wouldn’t be either.”
“For the record,” Altair said, “I’m not offering.”
“So you’re just checking for future reference? Is this going to be a birthday gift? I’m going to tell you this now because you just propositioned me with sex, but I’ve always been a little sad that I’ll never know for sure if you’re the best blow job in the world. I’ve had a lot of them; I’m a qualified judge.”
“I hate you,” Altair said.
“You started it,” Ezio countered.
“Yeah but you’re serious.” Altair took a step away from him and Ezio knocked him down with a tackle. They were wrestling in the dirt when Mama Maria opened the back door to yell at them about the Tiramisu and neglecting Desmond when he’d come to announce how he’d finally asked Lucy to marry him.
--
It was seven hours later, the three of them (Desmond, Ezio and Altair) sitting around the breakfast nook in Mama Maria’s kitchen drinking delicious coffee and trying to work up the urge to leave for work (Ezio was graciously delivering him to his job) when Ezio looked at Desmond—both of them still blurry with sleep—and said, “Altair wants to know if you think it’s wrong to fuck your cousins.”
Desmond spit coffee all over the table. “God damn it!” he shouted. “I’m getting married.”
Altair kicked Ezio under the table and Ezio kicked him back. Desmond tried to shove his way free from the back corner he’d been put in and Ezio was giggling too hard to be pushed. He managed to get enough breath to sob out, “but wait-wait.” He was strong enough to push Desmond back into place with one arm.
“I’m not participating in this,” Desmond said.
“I wasn’t asking about you,” Altair said.
“Oh so you want to fuck Ezio?” Desmond said (far too loudly).
Ezio was laughing again.
Mama Maria was standing in the door way of the kitchen in her bathrobe with her hands on her hips. Ezio’s helpless laughter got even higher in pitch and he all but slid off the bench as his body went boneless. “Perhaps he’s interested in Federico, the only one of my sons with any sense.”
“I don’t want to have sex with him either!” Altair shouted. “It was theoretical, alright?”
Ezio was hiccupping to a stopping point in laughter. “Oh your face,” he said.
Mama Maria was making herself a cup of coffee. “Boys,” she said with her hands in the air, “I should have been blessed with girls. They make sense.”
--
Maria showed up to his house on Thursday (for no reason, just showed up) with a package of condoms between two fingers and her hand braced against the door frame. She said, “we had an agreement to stop torturing Desmond with gay proposals, Altair.”
“For fucks sake,” Altair snapped.
“And if you’re going to go off blowing Ezio for science, I need you to convince your hot neighbor that I need him to dick me once for science.” Then she threw the condoms at him and invited herself in.
“I will be doing no such thing. The last time you said something his kid brother looked like he was going to slit my throat.” He swung the door shut and tried not to take the fact that he’d had a box of condoms thrown at him to mean he was going to get laid. (Maria was confusing like that.)
“Why does he care?” Maria asked. But she didn’t care as she grabbed a zipper at the top of her dress and pulled it straight down to the bottom, slid it off her arms and stood before him naked save for a pair of panties and the shoes she was stepping out of. “For the record, if you want to blow Ezio, I want to watch.”
“I’m not,” Altair snapped again. “I wish people would let it go.”
“You should, he has a nice dick.”
Altair cursed at her in Arabic and she grabbed him by the face and dragged him down to kiss the taste of the words out of his mouth. They ended up on the floor with the rug scratching a burn into her shoulders and his knee. By the time they’d finished (and she’d shoved him down to what seemed to be fast becoming her favorite place for him to be) the knocking on the wall next door had started and Maria burst into a fit of giggles.
“I’m moving,” Altair said.
--
“Is she your girlfriend or something?” Kadar asked him at the bus stop. The red ear buds had been replaced with black ones (so gnawing on them was bad) and his perpetual blush seemed to be pinking his cheeks already. “You understand the whole floor now knows you want to blow your cousin.”
Altair just banged his head against the metal pole that marked the bus stop.
Kadar was smiling, at least. “Hey, I’m not going to judge you. Maybe you should bring him around sometimes and I can give you a fully unbiased opinion on what you should do.”
“He’s my cousin,” Altair said.
“Is he an adult?” Kadar asked.
“Yes. He’s older than me.”
“Is he willing?”
“Apparently.”
Kadar shrugged. “Then what does it matter? The cultural bias against incest is a fairly recent development in history. People figured out fucking your sister didn’t give you viable babies so they decided it was wrong. I’m against birth defects but I’m pro doing what gets you off.” And his sweet baby face was tomato red when he said it.
“That’s very liberal of you,” Altair said. “The problem is that I never actually wanted to blow my cousin.”
“Then why does everyone think you do?”
Altair groaned. Looked around for the bus that had always appeared when convenient before and then huffed. “I have the reputation of being really good at them. We were talking about—look, he just told me out of the blue that he’s always been sad he will never know if I’m actually that good at giving them and now this has happened.”
Kadar smirked. “There’s your bus.”
Of course it was, two minutes too late to save him.
--
Malik invited himself over on a Friday with a six pack of beer and some dish he proclaimed to be ‘home cooking’ that smelled deliciously like the one time he’d gone to visit his father’s family before his Dad died. He even cleared off a place on his often abandoned dining room table and cleared the extra chair. They ate at the adults like civilized adults, exchanging stories of customer stupidity.
“I heard you want to blow your cousin,” Malik said around the rim of a beer bottle.
“I hate you,” Altair informed him.
Malik smiled just like his brother. He took a long drink and then set the bottle down. “Your girlfriend assaulted me.”
“Technically, I think it counts as harassment. She’s not my girlfriend.”
“You clearly talk about me,” Malik said.
“Not as much as it seems like. Maria was the one that regaled our friends with the tales of your fantastic sexual prowess. I can’t remember if she mentioned it but one of our friends is an actual genius and he was very interested in your rhythm and its innate attractive qualities.”
Malik didn’t blush and it was strange considering how very often his brother did. Malik just looked pleased-as-anything, full of secrets and sex, waiting to be worshipped. He balled up the paper towel he’d used to clean his fingers and dropped it on his empty plate. “Don’t fuck your cousin,” Malik said (with finality), “it’s a fun idea when everyone is laughing but they won’t look at you the same if you do.” Then he raised his bottle in salute to the thought.
“Finally, a voice of reason.”
Malik cleared the dishes and rinsed out the pan he’d brought the food over in. They talked idly about absurd hotel requests until there was a knock on the door and Altair answered it to find Kadar with both hands shoved in his pockets and curiously averted eyes. Malik looked at his watch and then at his brother and said, “what?” (in Arabic).
“I’m finished. If you’re still interested,” Kadar answered (in Arabic).
“Ah,” Malik said. He picked up his pan and his half-finished beer and headed for the door. He paused to smile (customer service) at Altair. “It seems I’m permitted to return to the apartment.” He paused there, in the muggy space just in front of Altair (all sex and secrets) and the smell of him was enough to make any man’s mouth water. Kadar had already left the doorway, shuffled on socked feet and long pant legs back to their apartment. “Stop telling your friends my secrets, Altair,” Malik said so close to his face it was almost a kiss.
Altair nodded and Malik left.
--
But the thumping started not even ten minutes later and Altair sat on the couch staring at his reflection on the TV screen thinking (in crazy tilts-and-spins) that nobody had opened the door. Nobody had entered that apartment but the brothers themselves.
Thinking of Malik’s face,
thinking of his face when he was saying:
(Don’t fuck your cousin, Altair), and wasn’t that strange but then there was the look in his eyes and the absolute certainty when he said,
“Nobody will look at you the same again.”
Oh-fucking-Christ.
--
Desmond hosted a party Saturday because he refused to visit Altair’s apartment after news of Malik’s fantastic skill was spread like a virus. Shaun was there so Leonardo was not, but Ezio was there with a great deal of chips and salsa. They were playing video games, screaming about racecars and falling off tracks and Altair was just sitting in the old recliner that Desmond stole from him a few years ago with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap.
Thinking (oh thinking) all about the interior of Malik-and-Kadar’s little apartment.
“Are you alright?” Lucy asked him eventually. “You look like you’re going to hurl.”
Maria touched his forehead and shrugged to indicate he was neither hot nor cold. Ezio stopped playing long enough to look at him, really look at him and whatever he saw was enough of a reason for his overly protective big-brother-and-cousin nature to stall the whole party to a stupor. “No,” he was saying to everyone, “I’ll take him home and be back. I bequeath my racer unto Maria until I return.”
Then his hands were gruff and insistent, pulling Altair to his feet and out the door. The air was after-dark chilly and Ezio was a great whistling show of perfectly-peachy-fine. In the car, Altair had the presence of mind to say, “I’m fine, Ezio. I was just thinking about something.”
“You and I,” Ezio said, “we grew up together for years, Altair. I have seen your every dumb face. I have heard your every dumb secret. I know you are thinking about something. I know you are useless until you have made up your mind. I know you are not unwell at all. But they don’t. Better to think in peace than to be the butt of a joke.”
But Ezio would not leave him until he was safe inside of his own apartment. Altair walked all the way up the stairs, caught in the same cycling thought (again and again). He stopped at the door of his place with a sudden twist of (sick) inspiration and stepped five steps to the side and beat on Malik-and-Kadar’s door. It was Malik that answered the door looking vaguely angry to be rudely called but Kadar wasn’t far behind him, wearing a hoodie and some sweats and a curious expression. Altair didn’t push Malik out of the way but he looked straight-at-Kadar and said, “this is my cousin.”
Kadar came to the doorway and smiled his sweet-innocent smile right in Ezio’s face. Altair was oppressively close to him, leaning in across the threshold even as Kadar (several inches shorter than him) turned his face toward him. His eyebrow lifted and his lips quirked as his shoulders lifted and fell. “I would,” he said.
Malik’s face was livid and Ezio was just confused.
“Yeah,” Altair said to Kadar. “I bet you would.”
“Go home,” Kadar said, “come see me in the morning.” Then he turned away from the door with a casual roll of his body and Altair moved out of the way just in time to miss having it slammed in his face.
Ezio—delightful and oblivious—rocked back and forth on his feet. “What was that?”
“Go home,” Altair said to him.
“Now I’m not sure you’re okay,” Ezio said quietly. “You are, aren’t you?”
No he wasn’t. He didn’t stop to reassure his cousin either but opened the door his apartment and slammed it again. He stood on the inside with his mouth open in a soundless shout of something unknown and his dick as hard as fucking steel.
--
Altair got drunk, fell asleep, woke up hung over and wallowed in misery until the symptoms abated. He showered, ate, went for a run and found himself standing in front of the door next to his feeling entirely too unsure to commit.
--
All Sunday afternoon (a lonely one, since Maria was visiting non-sex friends) he sat on his couch listening to the drone of his TV, thinking about Malik-fucking-Kadar. He thought about it until it was a pulse in his body and he couldn’t figure out if it was disgusted or intrigued and what the hell he was going to do about it either way.
By five-o-clock that night he was miserable with indecision, avoiding all phone calls to ascertain if he were still alive and contemplating getting drunk all over again. At six-thirty, his door opened and he expected to find Ezio in full-protective-mode but couldn’t even feign surprise when it was Malik. He didn’t slink in like a repentant freak but stride into his apartment as cool as you please with all the same appeal and authority of any other day. He was still wearing his hotel-manager-in-training clothes, smelling like air-freshener and hotel soap as he stepped over Altair’s legs where they blocked his path and then sat on his coffee table.
“I fuck my brother,” Malik said (right out loud).
Altair blinked and focused on him. On the angle of his jaw, the neatly trimmed goatee on his chin, the narrowness of his nose and finally his eyes. Altair straightened up, pulled his body up and leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees in a mirror of Malik’s. “Yeah,” he said, “I figured that out.”
“I see you’re taking the information in stride.”
“Why?” Altair asked.
Malik sighed, leaned back and slapped his palms against his legs before squeezing and looking left-toward-nothing. His mouth opened and then closed. His eyebrows drew down and then he said, “I expected to be asked how old he is. I had a speech prepared. I have been thinking about this all day. You have completely ruined my efforts.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We are four years apart in age. He is twenty two now,” Malik said softly.
“But why,” Altair asked again.
“You want to fuck him,” Malik said. As if that made it perfectly okay. As if Malik hadn’t grown up with his baby-fucking-brother all his life and then one day decided that he was old enough to have sex with. As if the whole history of their lives was irrelevant simply because Altair wanted to fuck Kadar. “I love him,” Malik said in the next breath. “I went away for school, I returned to our home and he was not the same as the stupid boy I had left behind. I did not intend to fall in love with him, I cannot explain why I wasn’t strong enough to resist but I did and I could not.”
“Plus, he’s all pro fucking who you want,” Altair said. Then he shook his head and cleared his throat. “He loves you?”
“Yes,” Malik said.
His door opened again and Kadar was stepped inside (wearing those sweats and the hoodie) and stopped long enough to lock the door before coming over and standing close enough to bump his knees against theirs. “I asked you to come see me,” Kadar said.
“I was working on it,” Altair said. He looked up at Kadar (away from Malik) and just barely caught the sight of him stripping the hoodie off over his head. His skin—the same deep tan of Malik’s—was smooth across the defined muscles of his chest and his smooth-soft-belly. He put one of his knees against the outside of Altair’s thigh and lifted the other across his lap, sank into the couch as the old cushions gave under the weight. “What are you doing?”
Kadar’s thumb traced his bottom lip and Altair could not have stopped the intake of breath to save his life. His dick was plumping up in his loose pants and Kadar’s sweet-blush was spotting on his cheeks. His eyes (so blue and so innocent) went pleased and narrow as he tipped his head. “Just once, Altair. Just once and if you don’t like it we’ll leave and you’ll never see or hear us again.” His breath was sweet-and-hot across Altair’s parted lips. “Just once, for me.”
Altair moaned the instant Kadar’s lips touched his, that teasing little brush of soft-and-wet and then gone again. His hands were coiling up in the loose sweats on Kadar’s thighs as he tried to find any handheld in common sense. He found himself looking at Malik. Felt (didn’t see) Kadar tip back and Malik’s hand slid up the back of his neck and turned his baby-brother’s face toward his own. They kissed like lovers sweet-and-lewd all at once. Kadar’s back in an arch, the softness of his belly interrupted by the cut of muscle and bone that led down to the dragged low waist of his pants.
Kadar made a light-airy-noise when Malik’s hand pushed him away—forward, toward Altair. Kadar’s lips were rubbed-red and his two hands were gripping Altair by the face to pull him forward. There was no fighting it when Kadar kissed him with the taste of his brother’s tongue still in his mouth. Altair dragged him forward with blunt-fingers into smooth-skin and kissed him with sloppy-dirty-eagerness. Their tongues licking and lapping at one another’s mouth. Kadar with easy exploration and Altair searching for that definable something that did not belong here.
There was a hiss when Kadar broke the kiss. His head tipped back and the faint outline of almost-healed hickeys on his neck caught the light. The hand on his cheek slid into his hair as Kadar rocked his ass down against Altair’s dick. Altair was drawn forward, his mouth pressed to the sweat-salt-skin-taste of Kadar’s throat. The jumping of his pulse (erratic and chaotic) was strong against his tongue as he dragged his teeth across the flesh. Kadar’s every little noise was an echo inside of his head until Altair found the one he liked the best. Right-there-right-there that little whimpering noise when he dug his teeth in and sucked at that spot just under his jaw.
“You fantastic bastard,” Kadar mumbled to him. He kissed him again, lifted up onto his knees and wiggling. Altair’s hands were following the slow descent of the awful sweat pants, tracing the warm skin beneath, dragging over the roundness of Kadar’s ass. He squeezed his hands there and the sound Kadar made was like bubbles in his mouth. “I’ve heard awfully good things about your mouth,” Kadar panted against his lips. There was his thumb again, dragging across the slick-sensitized length of his lower lip.
Malik was there, next to them, dark as a storm cloud. His starched white shirt and his vest and his little nameplate were all discarded. He had one-two-hands working on getting his belt and pants undone, watching (just staring) at the two of them. Kadar turned just enough to look over his shoulder and the smug-approving-ownership in his face was a funny jolt of heady arousal. The differences in their bodies were the stuff of fascination, the hair on Malik’s chest, the ripple of muscles all down his stomach and arms, the sturdy set of his shoulders compared to the baby softness of Kadar’s.
“I wasn’t finished with you yet,” Kadar said when Altair was staring (rapt and unblinking) at the zipper of Malik’s pants coming apart. But the splay of Kadar’s fingers across his face pulled him back. “Are you going to get on your knees for me, Altair?”
He was nodding and Kadar was so-fucking-pleased with his sweet-butterfly kisses and his soft-warm-skin. Altair let him go long enough to slide off the couch and turn onto his knees. It was a convenient height to watch Malik step out of his pants, a damn good height to stare at his dick—heavy and thick--bob with the motion. To see the flex of the muscles in his thighs and his ass as he bent to pick up his pants and drape them across the rest of his clothes on the chair. It was a perfect height to look up at him.
“Kiss him again,” Altair said.
Kadar was leaning back into the couch, heels-and-hips at the edge of it, knees open as wide as they could manage. His arms reaching up between his open thighs to catch at Malik’s wrists and forearms and drag him down. Kadar licked his lips before he kissed his brother. Malik fisted Altair’s ratty-old-couch and ran a knowing hand down his brother’s arching body. His fingers just skimmed across the surface of his thighs, from hip to knee and down again, skirting away from his balls and then gripping his dick as he tipped his chin away from Kadar’s. A long line spit stretched between their mouths as Kadar’s fucking pink-cheeks went rosy-red and his eyes fluttered closed. His hands tightened and loosened in the grip they had on Malik’s forearms as his hips moved with the lazy rhythm of Malik’s fist.
Then there was the bastard himself (all secrets and sex) looking back at him. “I really want to fuck you,” he said.
Kadar’s eyes opened at those words, his nails dug into Malik’s skin.
Yeah, yeah Altair could see that. He looked at Malik’s dick, at the dampness gathering at the tip and then back up at his face. His head was moving and he couldn’t figure out if it was a nod or shake but he was saying, “him first. Fuck him.”
“Good boy,” Kadar whispered at him. His legs came out and pulled Altair closer, one under his arm and one over his shoulder until Kadar’s fingers were going through his hair. The touch was affectionate but purposeful, pushing Altair’s head down to his dick. Malik’s hand was moving away, his whole body was moving in the periphery of his vision, settling next to Kadar’s with infinite patience. “Show me,” Kadar said.
Oh-with-pleasure. Kadar slid into his mouth slow-and-easy, the scent and taste of a recent shower coupled with bitter arousal. His hands stroking through Altair’s hair, brushing it away from the natural growth and letting it fall flat again. Altair ran his hands down Kadar’s thighs, curled his fist around the base of his dick and then flattened it out against his belly. It was one good breath and then he went down, swallowing back against the instant gag reflex.
That moment of disbelief and then the uncontrollable shift of Kadar’s hips up against his face. Kadar’s voice in a strangled sound as his hands tightened around his head and held him in place. His hips were flexing and Altair bobbed his head up-down-up-down again, hummed with delicious triumph in those few brief seconds before he pulled back entirely. Shook Kadar’s hands off his head.
“Yeah but you can’t do that to him,” Kadar said like it was a challenge.
Altair licked his lips and glanced at Malik’s dick (thick and long and oh so very hard) then back at Kadar. “I wasn’t nearly finished with you yet.”
“That means he can’t,” Kadar said to Malik. Malik nodded (oh-so-sad) and looked down at his dick as he stroked it like an apology for the things its impressive size and width kept them from having. Kadar patted his brother’s dick too and bit his lip in the same ridiculous show of sympathy and sorrow.
“Either you want me to do this properly or you want me to show you I can deep throat his mammoth dick. You can’t have both,” Altair said. He would have sat back but Kadar’s legs tightened when he tried and held him just-right-there.
“Show me,” Kadar said again. (Hard to believe this kid blushed his way through weeks of conversation.) His legs loosened and he rolled onto his side on the couch and watched intent as Altair shuffled on his knees until he was settled between Malik’s legs. Everything about this brother was bigger, from his knees to his dick to his shoulders.
Malik leaned forward as Altair was assessing the problem at hand. He didn’t grab Altair’s face but duck close and kiss him: sudden and intense. It was brief and strange, tongue and lips and gone again. He flattened out against the couch with Kadar’s arm behind his shoulders and his arm around Kadar’s back.
Altair was full-dressed, on his knees, servicing a set of incestuous brothers grasping for some sense of shame and finding only a feverish pitch of want in its place. He licked his lips and lifted Malik’s dick away from his belly, stroked it once or twice while the man watched him without concern. “I should have bet money on this,” he said. Then he started, took just the tip in his mouth at first, (mind blanking out all the sound around him). It was a slow build, working Malik deeper-and-deeper into his mouth and pulling back. The slippery-wet spit drooling out of his mouth and onto his fist as he stroked the inches he hadn’t managed yet. His face was burning-red and Malik was still just watching like an impartial audience member.
“Looks like you’d be losing money.” (Kadar.)
“You are so impatient.” (Malik.)
Altair licked his lips again, drew in a breath and tightened his hand around Malik. It earned him a little hiss of protest and the undivided attention of the brothers. Then he put Malik’s dick back in his mouth, closed his lips around him and drew a breath in through his nose before he went down and the full weight-width-length of Malik was pushing into his mouth and the back of his throat.
“Oh holy fuck.” (Kadar.)
Malik’s response was some gagging noise and the tight fist in his hair. Altair pulled up far enough to breath and went down again, and then once more with a little hum of pleasure at the burning sensation before he was pulled up-and-away by that fist in his hair. Malik crashed into him, teeth-and-lips-and-tongue.
Kadar pulled him over again, sweet and insistent. It was a tug-of-war that Altair could only stand to win, really. That must have been how he ended up between them, Malik sucking marks into his neck and Kadar spread out beneath him all skin to rub against. “I can’t believe you did that,” Kadar mumbled, “do you like it?”
“Yeah,” Altair said. And the hoarseness of his voice knocked both of the brothers against him so he was pinned in place, Kadar’s dick a wet press to his belly and Malik’s an insistent pressure against his lower back. “Why do I have clothes on?”
“Do you want to watch him fuck me?” Kadar asked. “I’ll do it for you. It won’t even take that long, I’ll let you have him the longest.”
Altair’s head was spinning-spinning as he nodded. “Bed? Maybe? I have a bed.”
--
They didn’t make it to the bed. They made it to the wall by the bed, Kadar shoved face-first against it by his bigger-stronger brother and oh-so-pleased to be there. Altair was sitting on the bed with his mouth gaping open and his clothes still half-on. Because Malik’s fingers were pushing into Kadar’s round little ass as his voice hissed out a stream of expletives (in Arabic) that made his brother smile.
Kadar was looking right-at-him and Malik was looking-down when he fisted his dick and fucked into his baby brother. Altair moaned and Kadar had one elbow to the wall and his other hand reaching out toward him. “Come here,” Kadar said when Altair didn’t move immediately.
Then he was on his knees again, compelled by the wet slap of Malik’s body against Kadar’s, the shiver in Kadar’s spread thighs and the way his dick bounced up-down as Malik fucked into him with measured little thrusts. Altair had enough space between the wall and the brothers to get on his knees and Kadar was whispering such-pretty-things to him about how-very-good he was. (Altair should have been disgusted with himself, but) he was harder than he’d ever been in the whole of his fucking life. Every measured slap of Malik against Kadar drove the dick further into his mouth. He closed his eyes and ran his hands up Kadar’s belly to his chest, toward his wide-open mouth mangling moans and catches of breath.
“Oh, oh, oh fuck me,” Kadar gasped. Altair opened his eyes long enough to see the way Malik’s arms tightened around his brother’s chest just before he started pumping his hips faster-and-faster and Kadar was all but crying with his mouth open and his eyes closed. His body quaking and his dick leaking a steady stream into Altair’s mouth just before his hands slapped against the wall and he was saying, “fuck, fuck, fuck” and he came all at once in a fantastic rush.
Altair barely had time to suck the taste off Kadar’s dick before Malik was grabbing him by the jaw and pulling him upward. Kadar’s wrecked-little-voice saying, “he gets like that,” and Malik knocked Altair against the wall. Malik kissed him, dick wet-and-hard against Altair’s bare belly and tongue licking the taste of his brother’s come out of his mouth. There were hands on his pants and he didn’t have any idea who they belonged to just that his clothes weren’t going to survive.
It was Malik-not-Kadar who grabbed him by the thighs and hoisted him off the ground. It was Malik-for-sure that grabbed his ass and bit his neck. It was Malik, all that strength in his stupid body, that was grinding forward against his body and holding him up with such ease. Altair’s head was spinning and he was on the verge of orgasm with his mouth burning (well-used like well-fucked) with both of his hands scratching red-bloody-marks into Malik’s perfect-skin.
“Don’t you dare,” Malik growled at him just seconds before Altair was going to come.
Oh-hell. (He was in over his head.) But he nodded and Malik let him down one leg at a time, looked at his body (slimmer, not less defined) and then at his bed. He wasn’t impressed by the bed but he seemed pleased by Altair’s body. “We should lay down,” Altair said. “I don’t—you’re just very—we should lay down.”
“Got it,” Kadar said. He was walking in the room wearing his sweats and Altair’s shirt carrying a box of condoms and a container of lube as if anyone in the world was aware he’d left. His smile was so sweet with sweat soaked through his hair. He tossed the goods on the bed and stripped naked again. “What did I miss?”
Malik’s answer was to pick Altair up and dump him on the bed. Altair scooted back with his elbows and heels and Malik crawled after him, pulling his leg out to the side and making a space for himself right between them. “Have you done this before?”
“Yes,” Altair said.
“Often?”
“Not as often as you.”
Kadar snickered. “He bottoms too,” he said. Then he laid next to Altair and turned his face to kiss him. “I love your mouth,” he said. Then he was kissing-and-kissing him while Malik sucked marks into his chest and rubbed slippery fingers all around but not into his hole. It was maddening, knowing it would happen and waiting and not having the satisfaction of it. Altair bit down on Kadar’s lip and Kadar slapped his brother and Malik pushed one-two fingers inside of him all at once.
Oh-holy-fuck, and it was perfect. He dropped his free hand down to stroke his dick because it was a need not a want and he was coming, body clenching and Malik hissing to the backing-track of Kadar’s little pouting whine. The two of them staring at him like they didn’t understand what he’d done. “No it’s good,” Altair said with his head back and his body like jelly. “You can still fuck me. Proceed as planned.”
Malik looked at Kadar and Kadar looked comically confused as he shrugged. They must have decided to take his word for it because Malik ducked his head back to leaving marks all over his chest and Kadar snuggled up to kiss him again.
“Next time he’ll tie your hands down,” Kadar whispered against his cheek. (Take that, Maria, Malik was a freak.)
Malik moved back long enough to get a condom on and then shoved his brother away from Altair and pulled him around until he had him exactly where he wanted him. Malik’s bent legs spread and Altair’s ass resting just against them. He expected (or maybe thought he’d get) a kiss but Malik was too busy rubbing the fat head of his dick against Altair’s hole to manage it. Altair suffered a faint twinge of embarrassment at the amount of attention being paid to the largely forgotten part of his body and then Malik looked at him like he’d caught the thought somehow.
“Sure?” he said.
“Fuck me,” Altair said. Then Malik was pushing in and oh-holy-God he was bigger than anyone Altair had gotten naked with before. It was a burn-and-stretch and his whole body feeling like it had to expand just to make room. Steady hands on his thighs holding his legs out of the way and Malik’s dark-dark-eyes watching him flop like a landed fish. Kadar was stroking his own dick, looking at Altair pulled all out of shape by his brother’s dick. “Oh hell,” Altair said with his eyes closed and his head tipped back, “you really do this every damn day?”
“I told you he bottoms.”
“Same drummer every night,” Altair said to that insane notion.
“Well he’s very controlling,” Kadar conceded. Then he was kissing Malik (like a reward, like a compliment) and collapsing back to watch.
Malik started moving, the familiar rising beat that had been steadily drilling itself into Altair’s head every-damn-day for weeks-and-weeks-and weeks. He groaned, rubbed his face with one of his hands and looked up at Malik. Watched the sweat on his face, the steady flicker of muscle in his gut and his chest. He was split-wide-open and scratching his fingers around Malik’s waist to pull at him for more. His body didn’t have the practice and the patience to withstand the marathon of effort that Malik was capable of. It was the opposite flash-burn of wild rabid need that Altair wanted to wring out of him.
“Fuck me, fuck me harder,” Altair said in Arabic. The hands on his legs tightened to painful points and Malik’s hips jerked so hard against his that he saw stars for a second. “Make my teeth rattle,” he snarled. Then it was his fingernails breaking into Malik’s skin and Kadar’s rapid little moan slick-flesh-on-slick-skin to the side. Malik ducked forward and kissed him, bit at his jaw and his neck and sank his teeth in hard enough to draw blood. He pulled back-and-out, grabbed Altair by the arm and rolled him flat on his stomach before crawling over his body and thrusting back in. “Yes,” Altair hummed. He stretched out, grabbed at the sheets as Malik pulled his hair and fucked him hard enough to leave bruises: a steady, pounding pace. He was marinating in the sensation, pushed to the point of pain and still yowling for more.
Malik came with a moan and Kadar fell off the bed and got back to his feet just in time to brush the hair away from Altair’s face and spread come across it instead. His voice like a stutter going oh-oh-oh.
--
Malik must have poured him into the shower like a great vat of human jelly because there was no way Altair had the energy to do it. He might even have been there to take him out again and dry him off. He was definitely there with a vague shamefaced embarrassment as they assessed the damage.
There were bite marks all over his neck and chest, hickeys like red-purple bruises freckling up where the bloody teeth marks were not. Kadar sat on his bed in his sweats and rubbed salve over the broken skin. “These get infected,” he said softly.
Yeah, human bites and all. Nasty shit in the human mouth. Malik’s back was scored from Altair’s bloody nails and Kadar rubbed salve on all his wounds too. “For the record,” he said, “I don’t like getting bitten or scratched. But I don’t mind getting slapped in the right moment. And you have to teach me how to deep throat because that was mind blowing.” Then he was standing and dropping the salve somewhere on Altair’s bed. “You need to eat.”
“Pizza is not food,” Malik said. “You still with us?”
“Sorry,” Altair said (trying to wake up), “I—this—I get really tired after really good orgasms. This stupor thing? This reflects positively on you. I’m good.”
“It’s troubling,” Kadar told him. “I’ll be back with food.”
--
A few hours later (maybe, Altair was sure that there was food and then Malik-and-Kadar still confused by his sleepiness had decided to watch a movie and stay a while) someone was knocking on his door. Altair woke up then, a sudden surge of reality and anxiety rushing through his veins. He had been sleeping against Malik’s side with Kadar arguing physics with an action movie but he jerked up and looked over at the door.
He was shirtless too, that was a problem.
“Someone has to answer that,” Kadar said.
“It’s your door,” Malik reminded him.
“Look at me,” Altair said. He got up and looked around for anything that might work as a shirt. Kadar tugged the hoodie he’d been wearing off and threw it to him. It was body-hot when Altair pulled it on and it scratched against the still-raw bites on his collarbone and shoulder. He made it to the door and unlocked it before the shouting about how-come-he-wasn’t-answering started. Altair opened it enough to slide through and found himself standing in front of Ezio who had his mouth open to shout. “What?” he said.
The trouble with the hoodie was the V of the neckline and the trouble with the V was that there were hickeys and bite marks on his neck. He knew (for sure) his face was a soupy-stunned expression of post-coital stupidity. All this and Ezio looked at the hoodie with his head cocked to one side and his finger pointing over toward Malik-and-Kadar’s door. He took a step back and assessed the situation, arrived at all the most correct assumptions and put his hands up.
“It’s not—” Altair started.
“The little one,” Ezio said (as if Ezio who was probably half an inch shorter than Kadar to start with had the right to call anyone ‘the little one’), “he’s legal?”
“Yeah,” Altair said.
“Then bless you, I’ll console Maria.”
“Of course you will, with your dick.” Must be the stupidity that followed sex that made him say that.
Ezio did not deny it. “I leave you to it, cousin. And I’ll buy you some turtlenecks for Christmas.” Then he was turning with all the earmarks of leaving without another word or comment on the matter.
--
“I was expecting some kind of shouting and violence,” Kadar said when Altair came back in the room. “You look like you got mauled by a bear. Was that your cousin?”
“Yes,” Altair said. He threw himself back on the couch, fumbled around until he found the blanket that must have gotten kicked under it, bunched it up and used it as a pillow and stretched out so his feet were across Malik’s lap. “One of you is coming up with a good excuse for calling out sick to work tomorrow. I can’t go in like this.”
“How long does the weird sex hangover last for?” Kadar asked.
“I think he means the hickeys,” Malik said blandly. “Stomach flu is a reliable excuse. Nobody wants you puking at your desk. How long does the hangover last for?”
Altair hummed a reply that wasn’t very informative, something about how he wasn’t sure and he hadn’t been savagely fucked ever and it was all fine just he was tired.
--
Altair woke up to Kadar kissing his temple and pushing his phone into his hand. “People are texting you. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Altair blinked awake enough to really look at the hopeful light in his face. “You want to?”
“If you do.” Then Kadar kissed him on the lips again, as if he were trying to memorize the feel of it and didn’t like the thought he’d never be able to do it again. He pulled back and went toward the door. Malik was sitting there on his coffee table again, rubbing his neck and wearing most of his manager-in-training uniform. Kadar went out the door and back to their apartment next door.
“What about you?” Altair asked.
“I want you,” Malik said plainly. “Before you make a decision—a real one—think about what you will tell your parents about your relationship with us. If the thought of telling them is worse than the thought of being with us is good, stay away.”
“My parents are dead,” Altair said.
“My parents aren’t,” Malik said and did not explain. He stood up and headed for the door. “I’ll see you, Altair.”
Altair picked himself up long enough to get a glass of water, some more pain killers for his many, many aches and pains. (Clearly a stretching regiment (of all kinds) would be necessary before future attempts at sex.) He threw himself into bed and wallowed in the stink and memory. He checked his messages, found a few concerned questions about his well-being, one invitation to another party and one from Mama Maria saying she heard he wasn’t well and inviting him to dinner any day of his choosing. (Nothing cured wait ailed you like tomato paste, basil and olive oil.)
Then there was Ezio saying, ‘might want to get tested for rabies.’
And, ‘seriously, which one is starving to death?’
Then, ‘not the little one, though right? He looked so normal.
Then, ‘Maybe use a muzzle next time?’
Then, ‘I’m serious. You are not allowed at group or family gatherings until the marks are faded enough Maria can’t get an accurate dental mold off them.’
Then, ‘speaking of Maria, you might want to get your new guard dog to stand around with his locking jaw when you tell her you fucked the guy she’s been gagging to fuck for weeks.’
Altair was rolling his eyes at his idiot cousin when he sent back, ‘his name is Malik, he does not have rabies, he isn’t starving. Kadar is the little one but he is most definitely the least normal of the two. A muzzle would ruin the fun.’ And he sent that to start a second message that said, ‘I thought I’d just invite her over for a special midnight showing, seemed easier than telling.’
It was after midnight and he was drowsy again, kicking at his blanket to crawl under it and dislodging the lube, condoms and tube of salve in the process. They landed on his floor and he cared only long enough to be sure they hadn’t broken before wiggling into his bed.
Ezio answered, ‘I bet you gave them blow jobs. God damn it.’
‘Freak,’ Altair sent to him. Then he put the phone on its charger and turned the lamp off.
--
It was less easy, in the stark morning light, to normalize everything. The night before it had been as easy as the echoing sensation of being so aroused he couldn’t think straight. Now it was looking at his naked body in the mirror, realizing the extent of the damage he had done to it in a single attempt and grappling with the notion of brothers.
His parents were dead and Mama Maria (who took him in) would not have batted an eye at Altair if she saw him stark naked and covered with bite marks. (Her husband, perhaps, might take a moment to comprehend the massacre of bruised and broken skin.) The woman had raised Ezio who had been amused-not-affronted. It was too easy to think about inviting Malik-and-Kadar to her house and watching her suck them in with her sweet-and-stern maternal love. She would smell the blood of heartbreak and loneliness on them and they would never escape.
So he thought of Desmond. Terrible running jokes aside, Desmond was the most-normal of them all. The one that had been raised with morals and societal norms and expectations. The one that didn’t view sex as a fluid-easy-thing but a box with black lines. It wasn’t as simple to lay it out for him, it wasn’t a simple-little-statement going: “I’m dating these brothers.” Because Desmond would have to know why and how and work it through in his thick skull and arrive on a conclusion. But Desmond loved-him (first and foremost, beyond all his own bias and prejudice) and he was a good-guy with a terrible father who fucked him up.
“Yeah,” Altair said to his reflection.
--
It was after nine before Altair knocked on Malik-and-Kadar’s door. Malik answered it shirtless with a cup of coffee cradled in one hand. He did not smile or frown, (looked vaguely proud of how red those teeth marks he’d left behind were) but motion him inward.
“Should I deduce something bad from how you waited until Kadar was gone?” Malik asked.
“I could have slept in late,” Altair said.
“But you didn’t.” Malik sat down at the little table in his little kitchen and motioned for Altair to sit across from him. There was a pile of bills laying open on the table and a detailed list written on graph paper next to it. It was written like those unreadable letters from his father’s family so it could have said anything at all.
“So, my parents are dead. My Aunt and Uncle won’t care as long as I’m happy. My idiot baby cousin will probably freak out for about a week and a half because he’s got mental problems but he will either come around or Ezio will intervene and make him come around. You’ve met Maria and she is very similar to anyone else who I care enough about to value their opinion.”
“How fortunate for you.”
“That was fantastic sex,” Altair said. “I might not ever need to have sex again. I might actually be set for life after that.”
Malik scoffed. “You’ve lived next door to me often enough to know that is unacceptable.”
“Yeah,” Altair said. “Which leads me to my sole question—I’m sure I’ll think of more, I’m sure there are more important ones to ask, but this is the one stuck in my head.”
“I cannot wait to hear it.”
“Why me?”
Malik set the cup down. He made a grumbling noise in his throat and leaned back against the chair, flinched when those scratches on his back hit the wood and leaned forward again. “Kadar has been interested in you for some time. He has crushes on people. He never talks to them. I haven’t given up hope he’ll find someone better than me someday. He decided early that he liked you and has been nagging me to make friends with you since then. For me,” he made a vague motion with his hands, “well look at your neck, look at my back. There is something about you that feels familiar to me.”
Altair nodded. “We should probably talk about how all this is going to work.”
Malik tipped his chair back, stretched across to grab a notebook off the counter and then tossed it on the table toward him. “Kadar has been working on this problem since he decided you were going to figure us out. As I said, he decided early on that he liked you. These are his ‘early drafts’ of how he feels it should work. It is entertaining reading if nothing else.”
“Is it in English?” Altair asked. He lifted the cover of the book and found the tight little scribbling cramped across the page. They were in English (at least) and that he could manage. “You don’t sound excited by his ideas.”
“He has a lot of ideas, not all of them make sense.” Malik took another drink of coffee. “Your sex hangover is very troubling. I wasn’t sure we should leave you unattended last night.”
“I’m usually fine after a short nap. I’ll adjust. You really have sex every day?”
“Yes. I like sex.”
Altair picked up the notebook. “I bet this says we can’t have sex without him,” he said.
“Not for the first six months,” Malik said. “You should go. It would be a poor start if we pissed him off on the first day.”
Altair grinned, all flushed and pleased and unsure as to why, and stood up to go. “Come see me when he comes home?”
“Nothing on earth could possibly stop me,” Malik said without looking up from the bills he was making an admirable show out of looking at. “I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t just go directly to your apartment.”
--
Five hours later, when Altair had finished reading through the ramblings of Kadar’s horny mind, paying his own bills and sorting through his closet to find something he could wear to cover his wounds, his door open and Kadar was there dragging Malik in by the hand.
Kadar kissed him with two arms over his shoulders and nothing but whole-bodied-relief in his touch.
--
Maria showed up at the end of the week. She came late on a Friday, knocking and entering his apartment to find Kadar straddling his lap with two hands up Altair’s shirt and his lips plumped pink from kissing him slow-and-deep for the better part of whatever movie they’d put in to wait for Malik to get home from the hotel.
“Oh I hope you’re happy,” Maria said as she swung the door shut and threw her things on the chair. She put her hands on her hips and glared right at Kadar who was turning violent red under her direct stare. Her stern expression melted into a bubbling vat of adoration. “You are adorable,” she said.
“Thank you,” Kadar said. He pulled his hands free but didn’t move. “I’m pretty happy too.”
“Um, of course you are. You have possession of the best blow job in the state right there between your thighs. See, this is why we shouldn’t have had sex, Altair. This is exactly why. Because I get all comfortable and used to it and then bam! It’s gone again.” She threw herself back into the chair over her things.
Kadar was an alarming shade of red at that point. Altair grabbed him by the legs as he stood up, carried him out of the room and dropped him in the safety of the bedroom where he could be embarrassed without Maria’s prying stare and crude language. “That was hot,” Kadar said. “I didn’t know you were that strong.”
Imagine the little bastard getting even more turned on by overt manhandling. Altair said, “if you come out here she’s going to ask about your brother’s penchant for biting and the size of your dick.”
“Why?” Kadar whined and then threw himself across the bed.
Maria was flipping through channels when he made it back to the living room. She stood up, tossed the remote and set to unbuttoning his collar. Her mouth dropped open when she found the worst of the marks—faded as they were—and her fingers pressed against one of the newer ones. Her giggle was nervous at his hiss of pain. “You freak,” she said to him. “Want me to give him some pointers? It’s the older one right? Malik? I hate you.” She pulled his shirt away from his chest and peered inside. “How far do these go down?”
“Pretty far,” Altair said.
“Kinky little shit,” she mumbled. Then she released him and pretended to throw confetti into the air. “Mazel Tov,” she announced (even if she seemed to have no idea what that meant) and reached back to grab her things. “Oh wait,” she said when she was halfway to putting her purse back on. “Sex coma?”
“I’m giving them your number. They keep trying to communicate with me while I’m delirious. You can just quietly reassure them I’m not dead and I can sleep.” He was absolutely not giving them Maria’s number. She would do nothing but ask horrible, invasive questions and then chortle. “Don’t tell everyone, okay?”
“Your secret is safe with me,” she assured him. “But you probably shouldn’t have told Ezio first. Everyone knows except for Desmond. Mama knows.” She kissed him on the cheek and fluttered her hand in good-bye as she went toward the door. “So think about inviting them over for dinner tomorrow because you’re going to be mugged if you don’t.” She opened the door and slid out, stopped just before it shut all the way and all but shouted. “Oh, why hello you.”
Kadar was out in the living room in record time. “That sounded like Malik.”
“Fucking finally,” Altair said. He went over to the door, pushed Maria toward the stairs and smiled innocent at Malik who had not yet even made it inside of his own apartment. “How’s the toilet emergency?”
“Fixed,” Malik said.
Kadar wiggled out from behind him and dragged him out of his own apartment. “Our place has better food.”
“I’m taking a shower,” Malik said, “two showers. Three showers.”
“We’ll make food,” Altair offered. But Kadar was sliding a hand down the back of his pants with one eyebrow up and perfect innocence on his face. He had no intention of making any food (at least not first).
“Sure you will,” Malik said. “I am taking a shower.”
--
As it turned out, Malik did bottom. Altair came first (courtesy of Kadar’s stalwart determination to learn the fine art of deep throating and having nobody else to practice on but him) and then sat on the bed next to them. He was ate ramen while Malik fucked himself with his brother’s dick, his long-strong-arms gripping the headboard as he moved. Kadar holding on for dear life until he gave with a soft stutter (oh-oh-oh) and Malik kissed him and rubbed his dick against Kadar’s slick belly until he came too.
“This is an every night thing,” Altair said again.
“Unless he pisses me off,” Kadar said all sweat-soaked and sated. He brushed his hair away from his face and let out a breath when Malik rolled to the side. “It hasn’t always been so athletic. We’ve kind of worked our way up to it.”
“I remember someone was making food,” Malik said. “I’m starving.”
“Altair is,” Kadar said. Then he was summarily shoved out of bed and sent to the kitchen. The brothers came after a brief stop in the bathroom and offered him helpful suggestions and comments.
--
There was dinner at Mama’s the next night and everyone was bursting at the seams (except Desmond) to ask him questions. Ezio managed not to bring up the brothers around the table (but the effort must have exhausted him because he was quiet in a loud room). Altair avoided getting cornered well enough, deflected questions about his choice in a buttoned-up polo shirt and participated in conversation about modern events and banking news (neither of which he cared for so much). Then Mama Maria told him to clear the table and followed him to the kitchen.
“Your son cannot keep a secret,” Altair said when it was obvious that he’d been tricked. He leaned back against the counter by the sink.
Mama Maria didn’t respond to the statement (because she knew her son) but said, “When you’re ready, I would very much like to meet your friends, Altair.”
“I’ll bring them,” Altair promised. He hugged her and she squeezed him a little harder than normal before pulling away.
“Also,” she added, “perhaps in the future tell your toothy friend a collar only hides so much.” Then she was swishing out again to the dining room.
--
It was after midnight before Desmond dropped him off at his apartment complex. He was skittish in the driver’s seat (frightened of more terrible jokes) but he said, “so what is it this time? Everyone is dying to say something—even Lucy knows—so what is it?”
Altair looked fondly at the safety of his ratty apartment. “I started dating these two guys.”
“Two? Why two? Was one not enough?”
“Well, they’re brothers.”
Desmond actually turned in his seat to stare at him. It was almost exactly as predicted where the information seemed to throw him for a spin. “You’re dating brothers? Both of them at the same time?”
“Yeah,” Altair said. “Anyway, Ezio found out and so now everyone knows but it’s only been like a week.”
“Brothers,” Desmond repeated. He sighed and shook his head. “Well, whatever works for you.”
--
So it was late-late when he finally made it to his own place and he was full and tired and feeling ever so slightly lonesome. The wall behind his couch was quiet (and why not after midnight) and there were no taunting messages on his phone. He took a shower and headed for bed.
There was a message on his phone from Malik saying, ‘breakfast, tomorrow? I’ll buy.’
Altair was grinning like an idiot at the phone when he sent a ‘is this time a date?’
It was a few minutes later before Malik’s reply popped up. ‘yes.’
‘Call and wake me when you’re ready to go.’ Altair was still grinning when he flicked his light off to go to sleep.