I knew the majority of the other brothers would force their new charges to drink again after throwing up, but I wasn't that big of an asshole. I wonder what Blair c doing with Jeremy right now, I thought as I made another line from the pile of cocaine on the picture of me and Blair.

Things with Blair and I had just kind of petered out after my trip to Palm Springs. We didn't talk much; I didn't go to his room and he didn't come to mine. I'd spent the entire party on New Year's Eve in my room, smoking pot, snorting coke, and drinking beer. I shared everything with Chris, Eric, and Mike. Blair never came up to my room, which didn't help my mood any that night. Especially when Chris came back after refilling a couple of pitchers from the keg and mentioned he'd run into Blair downstairs. "I told him we were up here, and told him to come on up," he said after refilling our glasses, "but he looked at me like I was insane." He shrugged. I could tell he wanted to ask me what was up, but he wouldn't in front of Mike.

Blair had driven back to Los Angeles on New Year's Day, and didn't come back until the weekend before the semester started. I didn't call him, and he didn't call me.

Sometimes when I was alone in my bed at night, I'd think about him and the distance that had sprung up between us, and wondered why it had happened. I knew it was mostly my fault, but until I knew what was wrong with me, there was nothing I could do or say to make things right between us again.

And it was soon obvious Blair didn't give a damn.

My nostrils were already numb from the coke I'd already snorted, and even though I knew doing another line wouldn't bring back the initial high from hours earlier, I still snorted it anyway. I knew all it would do was make my hands shake and make my throat rawer, my eyes sting a little bit, and gag me when the glob dripped down my throat, but I didn't care. It was a waste but I was in the stage I called the "I wants," when the high was on and I just began to mentally crave more and more cocaine. I took a hit off the bong to lessen the edge of the coke when it hit. I held the smoke in as long as I could before it exploded out of me in a massive coughing fit. I grabbed a tissue and spit out a wad of phlegm.

On the bed, Mike shifted and moaned a little.

Chris, Eric, and I had started hanging out together a lot more. I would go over to their apartment when I was horny, and we would get naked and wrestle around until we all shot a load. Coke became more and more a part of our partying, and I was burning through the fifteen hundred dollars I'd made doing the porn movie pretty damned quickly.

I was out of control and I didn't know why.

I took a sip of the soda to cool my burning throat and walked over to the bed. Mike was sprawled on his back on top of the covers. In the moonlight coming through the slightly parted curtains, his skin looked like smooth alabaster. His hairless and hard chest gleamed in the ghostly light. Thick wiry hair sprouted from under his arms. A thin line of drool hung from the corner of his mouth. His face was expressionless. A thin trail of wiry black hairs ran from his navel to the waistband of his white briefs.

He was quite beautiful.

Looking at him, I felt my dick getting hard. I'd started beating off to fantasies about Mike right after I saw him shirtless for the first time. His upper body was amazing, but Chris and Eric had warned me at the New Year's party that he wasn't like us. "He's a straight boy, through and through," Eric had said. "If he isn't, he's completely oblivious. We've hinted to him any number of times, but nothing's ever happened. So be careful."

He'd spilled beer on his shirt at the end of rush party, and I'd offered to loan him one. He came up to my room and pulled his shirt over his head and I'd caught my breath.

"Thanks," he'd said as he pulled my sweater over his head. "I'll wash it before I give it back, okay?"

And now he was my little brother.

I knew I was playing with fire.

Looking down at his chest, I thought, I should have said no.

But you took a little brother because Blair took a new one, replacing you.

Jeremy Whiteside was a nice guy, too, but he did nothing for me physically. I didn't know if he and Blair were fucking, but it didn't really matter to me one way or the other. Blair and I were finished.

I started to make another line of coke, but stopped myself.

I looked over at Mike.

You shouldnt have taken him as your little brother because you want him.

Mike had attached himself to me after I loaned him the sweater. During Rush, I had taken him around and introduced him to the other brothers. Mike's effect on the little sisters was almost painfully obvious, but Mike seemed unaware of the looks he was getting from the girls, remaining focused almost entirely on me and everything I said. He'd accepted a pledge bid that night, and on his daily visits to the house he always stopped by my room first. As the weeks passed leading up to the selection of Big Brothers, I knew that Mike was going to pick me. I also knew that Mike had slept with some of the little sisters after parties, and the girls, who for whatever reason always seemed to confide in me, had told me that Mike had "a big one." Jennifer West, a senior who'd been around since she was a freshman, told me "He's as big as Rory, if you can believe that."

And now there it was, covered only by a thin layer of white cotton, just inches from me.

I want you, I whimpered out loud, and then laughed at myself. I could hear Blanca's voice in my head, asking why do gay men always fall in love with straight boys? Why is that such a turn on for us?

Why, indeed.

Maybe because they're unattainable.

How many times had I dreamed about him, fantasized about him while I masturbated, picturing us lying in bed together naked, kissing, nibbling on Mike's big nipples, trailing my tongue down the flat stomach. I could feel Mike's big strong arms around me, pulling me in closer and more tightly as our lips met, Mike's full sensual lips parting and my tongue sliding into Mike's mouth, feeling his slightly crooked front teeth with my tongue. Mike's beautiful slateblue eyes slightly closed in pleasure as he slowly began to grind his crotch against mine, our erections straining against each other longing for release.

I reached my trembling hand out towards Mike, pausing just above his half-dollar-sized right nipple. Mike's even breathing raised his chest almost to where it would touch my hand and then dropped back down. How does your skin feel, I wondered, is it cool and smooth and velvety or hot and fevered?

As though in answer, Mike moaned a little in his sleep. Reflexively, my hand shot back, and I reached for the bong again. I lit the bowl, inhaling gently until the water began to bubble, and the cool smoke snaked its way up the long glass neck and entered my mouth and into my lungs. I put the bong back on the desk and held the breath as long as I could before expelling it toward the ceiling, a fog of curls.

Mike shifted again in his sleep, muttering incomprehensible sounds, the gibberish of the sleeping. My left hand slid up from the bedspread and rested on my lower abdomen, just above the elastic waistband of my underwear.

I looked at the hand as the smoke began to do its magic on my mind. Mike's hand was beautifully shaped, big and strong with black hairs curling along the side of it just below the pinkie. His fingers were strong rather than stubby and meaty, graceful, an artist's hand.

Yeah, right, an artist's hand, my voice mocked inside my head. He has the IO of a doorknob. He doesn't get the jokes on "ALF", for God's sake. His favorite movie is "Rambo". He has never read a book he didn't have to for class. He has the body of a god and the soul of a, well, face it, the soul of a peasant.