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“What? Jordan is family. Do you think he’ll think any less of you? Nonsense, Asher.” Mom folded her arms in the middle of her torso and shook her head at me for having such a low opinion of my stepbrother.
As if he thought anything of me…
“That’s cool, man,” Jordan said, his jaw stiff. Oh, it bothered him to be called my brother. Before the words were out of his mouth, Jordan’s attention drifted to the TV. “He’s good. I think he has a good chance to qualify for the Olympics.”
I could tell that this new information made no difference at all to him. I was still just some guy occupying space on the sofa. I would have bet that Jordan wouldn’t react if I had said he was my crush, my only type, my sole desire. He’d shrug and move on just the same.
“See? Asher, you’re almost eighteen. Honestly, you shouldn’t have kept it a secret,” Mom said.
“I wasn’t keeping it a secret,” I said sullenly. “I just didn’t think it was important.” And I hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it. I had known which team I was on since I was eleven. I had never pretended otherwise, but it had never seemed like something I needed to announce. My friends from school had same-sex parents; I had a lesbian English teacher; three of my friends were queer, and a dozen friends admitted they were bi-curious. I had a straight teammate who was always trying to kiss guys ‘jokingly.’ No one cared. It was as simple as that.
If, long ago, I had had some concerns about it, my mom’s gay friends dispelled those. She wasn’t a bigot.
“But all the talks we had,” Mom said like it was important.
I shrugged. She had vaguely taught me about the birds and the bees. I had been uncomfortable with seeing my mom put a condom on a banana that I’d had no desire to tell her about my sexuality for weeks after that. “It’s fine, Mom. I already know what I need to know.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Mom said sternly and gave a determined nod.
I wanted the ground to swallow me. George was paying attention to everyone in the room, Jordan to no one. Mom was focused on me and I knew exactly what she had in mind. I gave an exhausted sigh because I could see where this evening was going.
Mom found her laptop and said she must not be disturbed. George patted my shoulder again and said, “It’s all good, Asher. I hope you know that.” I nodded. Jordan was doing something on his phone.
Two and a half hours later, I was called out of my room for the most embarrassing family gathering of my life. Mom had cast her laptop screen to the TV in the living room and the PowerPoint presentation had a very suggestive eggplant sticker and the two male symbols next to the title. Sexual Health and Tips in Male-Male Relations.
I was on the verge of screaming, except that my mouth was so dry that I could barely make a sound.
“Oh, God,” Jordan muttered, moving reluctantly. “I thought we’d play Risk or something.”
“We are talking about risks,” Mom corrected him. “And benefits. And the equal importance of consent.”
“Mom?” I pleaded.
George mediated, as always. “Come on. Let’s do this, you all. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to win.” And so began the slow, embarrassing torment of my mother’s presentation. It was a neat thing and I half suspected she’d made it five years ago when she’d done the same but for straight sex. She did begin with, “I shouldn’t have assumed, Asher, when we last had this conversation. It’s my personal failing, but I am going to correct that tonight.”
Why Jordan had to be present — or George, for that matter — was beyond me. I hated that my stepbrother sat next to me, partially interested, mostly uncomfortable, and occasionally snickering. Mom droned on about PrEP and PEP, the importance of protection even when your partners tested negative for the obvious, and the sorts of symptoms and tell-tale signs for various things I didn’t want to think about. And when it was over, I was hugging a pillow that decorated the couch, trying to curl into a tiny ball and become invisible. I was nearly eighteen years old. I didn’t need to be humiliated like this.
But George wore his little smile throughout, supporting his wife. Jordan slipped away as soon as it was over, and I didn’t see him anymore. His room was once again next to mine, although not even a bathroom separated our walls in the summer house. When I finally escaped the torture of my mom’s lecture, I paced my room along the wall that was between Jordan and me.
Our rooms faced the forest behind the house. The backyard seamlessly transitioned from a mowed lawn and tended rosebushes to wild nature without even a fence to separate the two. A well-used dirt path led from the house to the lake on the other side of the forest. I would make that journey tomorrow morning in hopes of avoiding everyone who’d witnessed the horrors of my mom’s presentation.
My room was modest but functional. It had a desk and a quality chair on the left side, a big bed with a wrought iron frame and a thick, firm mattress, a round carpet on a dark hardwood floor, a dresser with a large mirror above it, and a small built-in closet all to my right. A nightstand stood under the window that faced the forest. Next to it was the balcony door I never used. The balcony itself covered the entire back side of the house, giving Jordan and me equal access. A spare bedroom opened to the balcony, too, but it was never used. Mom and George used the downstairs master bedroom that faced the front lawn instead.
When I was younger and more naive, I had spent nights dreaming of Jordan stepping out on the balcony, bathed in moonlight, wearing little or nothing at all. In my dreams, he crossed the short distance between our rooms. My door would be miraculously left open and he would silently slip inside. The thin, see-through curtain would alert me that he was wearing only his boxers or, sometimes, a towel around his waist. I would pretend I was asleep, but he would hear my breathing change and come to the edge of my bed. “I love your slutty lips,” he purred, and my groin would catch fire. I would bite my lower lip and whimper, waiting for him to make the next move.
But he had never crossed the invisible barrier that separated his side of the balcony from mine. He had never been curious enough to see what was going on inside my room. He’d never even pulled a prank on me, let alone spied on me in dirty, sexy, shameful acts.
That night, my dreams were full of men. Some I knew well, others only from a distance, but they were coming and going all night long. None of them would have attracted me in real life, but dreams had a way of changing that. The ones I least expected turned me on the most, an erection waking me up before anything happened. And then, frustration followed. Why isn’t it you? I demanded of an imaginary Jordan, quickly reminding myself that he was best left alone. I didn’t want to pine. I didn’t want to be this person. It filled me with both guilt and shame that I had spent so much time fantasizing about my stepbrother. At times, I had simply blamed my mother for her lack of foresight. Other times, I thought I was plain wrong. Something had to be fucked up to make me want him so badly.
And when the morning finally brought me some relief from the dreams that lacked Jordan, I packed quietly, made some sandwiches for myself while Mom and George had a quiet breakfast in front of the house, and snuck in the back to visit the lake.
There, I sat on the edge of the pier, watching the ripples on the surface. The early morning sunshine kissed my skin, and I undid the buttons on my light cream linen shirt, letting the sunlight caress my torso. A pair of dark sunglasses protected my eyes as I let my head hang back. My denim shorts were tight, warmed up quickly by the sun’s strengthening rays. My feet dipped into the lukewarm water.
Nothing was happening around me. Gentle gusts of wind made the deep green leaves of the forest behind me rustle. Water splashed lightly against the shore. And then his footsteps scraped the wooden pier and I swallowed a groan. “If I were you, I’d be hiding out here, too,” he said in that husky, deep voice of his.
I didn’t flinch or move. I kept my eyes closed and focused on the sensations around me that didn’t include Jordan Mitchell. After a moment, I sighed. “Yeah, well, I didn’t choose to be born to a control freak.”
“Yeesh. That’s not nice.” Jordan made some sounds behind me. His backpack dropped on the planks. Something else moved. And I realized he was undressing.
