My Half-Brother Left and I Can’t Forget Him

I’m twenty-two years old and for the past few months I’ve been carrying something that won’t leave me in peace. I don’t know if I should call it obsession, fantasy, or sin, but the weight is the same. It started little by little, like almost everything that ends up breaking you from the inside, and now I don’t know how to stop it anymore.

My half-brother is named Adrián. He’s thirty-eight, lives in Lisbon with his son and his ex-wife, and we share a father but not a mother. I grew up with my mom in another city; he stayed with my dad. We see each other rarely, we talk by text, and every time he shows up in my life he gives me back that mix of tenderness and loss of control that I already know far too well.

Adrián is one of those men who has no idea what he causes. White skin, almost pale, tall, brown hair that curls when he lets it grow out. He has full lips, a mouth that looks carefully drawn, and serious eyes that rarely ever really laugh. He doesn’t go to the gym, but his body is naturally built: broad shoulders, long legs, a firm chest with just a few fine hairs in the middle that run down in a dark line until they disappear under his pants. When he gets nervous —not often, but it happens— the color rises to his ears, and that, I don’t know why, melts me.

He doesn’t say much. The women who know him turn stupid around him, I’ve seen it, and he gets them off him patiently. He’s had girlfriends, a couple of long-term partners, several casual relationships. I listen to him talk about his life with a tight knot in my throat.

The closest I ever got to his body was one hot afternoon, two summers ago, when I saw him come out of the bathroom in black briefs and nothing else. I froze in the kitchen doorway, a glass in my hand. The wet fabric stuck to his bulge, outlining everything: the thick shape of his cock hanging to one side, the weight of his balls bulging underneath. He looked at me, smiled sideways, and kept walking. I drank the water in one gulp so my voice wouldn’t shake when I said hello.

That image never left me. It came back to me in dreams, in showers, in moments when I shouldn’t be thinking about my half-brother. I learned to live with guilt the way you learn to sleep with a constant noise: it never leaves you, but you get used to it.

***

Three months ago he left to live abroad. New job, new life, an apartment in a neighborhood I’ve looked at on Google Maps more times than I’d admit. At first we stopped talking so much. I told myself that was better, that distance would cure me, that I’d be able to look at other men without comparing them to him.

It didn’t happen.

A few days ago I texted him. Something short, a stupid little thing: “How are you? What are you up to?” I was worried, seriously, because the last time we’d talked I’d heard something off in his voice. Adrián replied a while later with photos. Three photos. Him on the beach, shirtless, with a bit of beard, his hair tousled by the wind, a beer in his hand and that half-drunk smile of someone who’s already had too much.

I stared at those photos until my eyes burned. I felt a shiver start in my stomach and run down my legs until I noticed my cock was already hardening inside my pants. My half-brother, that serious man who used to lift me onto his shoulders as a kid so I could see the parades, was now sending me images like that, without knowing what he was doing to me.

I saved them in an unnamed folder. It’s ridiculous. It’s sick. I know. But I looked at them all afternoon, with my hand inside my briefs, touching myself slowly, the tip already wet with precum, while I imagined licking his chest salty from the sea and going down until I could tear off his swimsuit with my teeth.

***

The fantasies started long before the photos. They were always there, lying in wait, waiting for an excuse.

The most vivid one I built on a Sunday, on the way back from Tobías’s birthday, his son’s. Adrián had driven me in his car. I was in the passenger seat, window down, pretending to watch the road while out of the corner of my eye I watched his hands on the wheel. He has big hands, long fingers, a silver ring on the pinky of his left hand.

In my head, while he was talking to me about some work problem or other, I imagined him stopping the car on a dark street, saying nothing, just looking at me. I imagined him placing my hand on the back of my neck, pushing me slowly toward his crotch, and me unbuckling his belt without asking permission. I’d unbutton his jeans, pull down the zipper, and pull his cock out of the briefs with both hands: thick, pale, veins standing out and the pink head peeking from the foreskin. It was already hard, throbbing in my palm, a thin strand of pre-cum shining at the tip.

I’d lick it first from the base, slowly moving up the thick vein along the side until I reached the tip and took the whole head into my mouth. I’d taste him, salty and thick, and he’d let out the first moan: a low growl, hoarse, almost involuntary, gripping the wheel with both hands. I’d take him deep, feeling him hit the back of my throat, and he’d grab my hair, not to force me, but to guide me, setting the pace, moving my head up and down on his cock while the car stayed off and the street remained empty.

—Like that, little brother, like that, don’t stop —I imagined him telling me, with that deep voice broken by his breathing—. Suck it all, fuck, suck it real good.

I’d suck his balls, one and then the other, taking them into my mouth slowly while I worked his cock with my hand, feeling it getting harder and hotter and veiny. I’d go back up, swallow him whole, cough, saliva dripping down my chin until it soaked the dark hairs of his crotch. He’d throw his head back against the headrest, eyes closed and mouth open. I’d feel his stomach tense, his thighs trembling, until he’d grab my neck hard and pin my mouth to the base.

—I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum in your mouth, swallow it all.

And he’d fill my throat with thick, hot cum, heavy spurts that almost made me choke, and I’d swallow everything, every drop, then suck his tip afterward to get the last bit out of him.

—Are you listening to me? —he asked at some point, Adrián’s real voice bringing me back to the car and the day.

—Yeah, yeah, I’m listening —I lied, with a dry throat and my cock hard against the seam of my jeans.

We got to my house. I got out, gave him a quick hug, and went in without looking back. That night I jerked off three times. Three. Thinking about my half-brother and a dark street that didn’t exist.

***

Then came the bedroom phase.

When he came to visit and stayed over, I waited until he went to work to go into the room where he left his things. I didn’t rummage. I didn’t touch anything important. I just opened the closet and smelled his worn T-shirts. Most of them didn’t smell like anything, just a faint warm trace of his deodorant, that woody scent he also wears when he goes out.

Once I worked up the courage and smelled a pair of briefs. It was folded on top of a backpack. I picked it up with two fingers, like someone lifting something forbidden and not mine, and brought it to my nose. It didn’t smell strong. Just a little dry sweat, barely there, almost imaginary, and on the front a faint yellowish trace, that intimate smell of a man’s cock and balls that had been sitting there for hours. And yet that little bit hit me like a hammer. I felt heat in my face, my ears, my chest, and my cock went hard instantly, so hard it hurt.

I pulled my pants down right there, kneeling in front of the closet. I pressed the briefs against my nose with one hand and grabbed my cock with the other. I stroked it fast, angrily, smelling my half-brother, imagining him wearing those same briefs, imagining tearing them off him with my teeth, imagining licking his ass with my tongue buried between his cheeks until I made him moan. I came in three minutes, a thick load that splashed onto my hand and fell on the wooden floor. I cleaned everything with toilet paper, left the briefs folded exactly as they were, and left the room almost running, my heart pounding.

That night I didn’t sleep well either.

This isn’t going to go away on its own, I thought at dawn. And I don’t want it to go away.

***

The masturbation with his photos was the final step. The one that confirms I’m already on the other side of something.

One Saturday night I was watching porn videos, the usual ones, the ones that work for me, and nothing was happening. Nothing at all. Like I was watching an ad. I changed pages, changed categories, tried something else, nothing. Then a voice inside me, the voice that no longer bothers pretending, told me: “look at his photos.”

I opened his Instagram. I scrolled past the old photos. I found one from a trip to Cancún, shirtless, laughing with some friends, water up to his waist and wet hair stuck to his forehead. The bulge of his wet swimsuit was obvious, and I could guess the line of his cock lying along his thigh. I closed my eyes. Opened them again. Swiped to another. Adrián at a birthday party, gray suit, white shirt open two buttons, that sideways smile he makes when someone takes his picture without warning.

I slipped my pants off. I pulled my briefs down to mid-thigh and spit into my hand so my palm would be good and slippery. I started stroking my cock slowly, pulling the foreskin up and down with the slow rhythm I like, while I looked at a photo of him laughing and imagined that mouth wrapping around my cock. Thinking of his voice saying, “Down, little brother, get on all fours for me,” of his hand gripping my neck, of me face-down on his bed, ass in the air, and him spitting between my cheeks before putting his tongue in me.

I imagined him wetting my hole with saliva, opening me slowly first with the tip of his tongue, then with one thick finger, then two, while he whispered in my ear how tight I was, how closed up, how much of that was still untouched for him. I imagined asking him to fuck me, begging him, and him lining the head of his cock up at my entrance, pressing in little by little until he broke me open from the inside, until I let out a muffled cry into the pillow.

—Hang on, little brother, hang on —I could hear him saying in the fantasy, while he dug his hands into my hips and pushed in centimeter by centimeter, thick and hot, until he buried himself all the way inside me—. There, now you’ve got it all inside.

And then the rhythm, first slow, then harder, the bed banging against the wall, his balls slapping against my ass cheeks, his heavy body on top of mine, both our sweat mixing together. I felt like I was floating. A shiver in my legs, in my stomach, in my lower back. I let go of my cock and shoved two spit-wet fingers into my ass while I kept stroking myself with the other hand, imagining they were his, imagining it was him opening me. I came with my mouth covered by my other arm, biting the sleeve of my sweatshirt so I wouldn’t make a sound, even though I was alone at home. My cum shot all the way up to my chest, thick spurts, more than usual, and I was left panting on my back with my fingers still inside.

After that I lay there on the bed for a long while, staring at the ceiling, cum cooling on my skin. I didn’t feel guilty right away. That’s the worst part. The guilt came later, after I’d already showered and lay back down. And it came with a question I still don’t know how to answer: how far am I willing to go with this?

***

Now, every night before going to sleep, I think about him. I don’t mean to; it just happens. His face appears and behind his face his body appears, and behind his body that old fantasy of the car appears, or a new one where he comes back to the country and asks me to pick him up at the airport and, on the ride back, without saying a word, puts his hand on my leg, slowly moves it up to my crotch, and squeezes me over my pants until he feels me hard.

I beg him to write to me. When my phone rings, I get this ridiculous racing heartbeat. Most of the time it’s not him. When it is him, I read the message four or five times before answering, weighing every word, trying not to sound too eager.

A week ago I asked him to send me more photos of Lisbon. I told him I was thinking about traveling to see him. It was half a lie: I’ve been thinking about the trip for months, but not to see the city. He replied with a happy emoji and a promise to put together an itinerary for me. I imagined arriving at the airport, hugging him after so long, feeling that body again that I know by heart on the outside and don’t know at all on the inside. I imagined arriving at his apartment, leaving my suitcase in the hallway, and him cornering me against the door, putting his tongue in my mouth, grabbing my ass with both hands over my pants, rubbing his hard cock against mine until both of us were left panting and unable to speak.

***

I know this is wrong. I know we’re brothers, even if only by father. I know he would never see me the way I see him, that if he knew what I think he’d look at me with a shame that would split me in two. I know I should go to therapy, talk to someone, unload this before it eats me alive.

But there’s something in me that doesn’t want to let him go. Something that would rather live with this obsession than give up the only fantasy that truly makes me feel alive. When I touch myself thinking about another man, it’s not the same. When I go out with guys my age and kiss them, I compare them to him without meaning to. And none of them win. None of them have those hands, that voice, that cock I’ve imagined so many times I feel like I know it.

I’m writing this here because I need someone, somewhere, to read it and tell me if something like this has happened to them. If anyone else has carried a desire like that, forbidden and with no destination, for someone of their own blood. If they stopped in time or if they ended up giving in, fucking that brother, that uncle, that cousin they couldn’t get out of their heads. If it was worth it or if it was the beginning of something much worse.

In the meantime, I keep saving the photos in an unnamed folder, I keep smelling the air in the room when he leaves, I keep stroking myself thinking about his mouth and his cock, and I keep dreaming about a car parked on a dark street where my half-brother turns off the engine and looks at me, finally, the way I always wanted him to look at me.