The Truce I Made with My Brother’s Friend

Most love stories I know begin with a rescue. A prince who arrives in time, a light that falls just on the two of you, and a promise of forever. Mine wasn’t like that. No one came to save me, and I didn’t save anyone either.

What we had was more like a truce. A quiet cease-fire between two broken people who, for one single night, decided to stop hurting each other. I like remembering it, not because it was perfect, but because it was the truest thing that has ever happened to me.

I’m nineteen years old and I never felt special. I’m of average height, skinny, with brown eyes worn out from so many nights in front of the console. I don’t play guitar, I’m not good at soccer, I don’t have a smile that stops traffic. For a long time I believed that a guy as ordinary as me could only hope for an ordinary love. The kind that never comes.

For almost two years, that love that never came had a name: Bruno.

Bruno was everything I wasn’t. Tall, confident, with that kind of beauty that makes people turn to look in the street. He was my best friend, or so he said. He was also the first person I ever did more than just look at.

He only came looking for me when he was drunk, or when he was too horny to pretend I wasn’t useful to him. Then he’d speak to me in a low voice, very close to my ear, and I’d melt like an idiot. It was enough for him to drag out his words a little for me to follow him to his room without thinking.

I remember one of those afternoons. His parents weren’t home, we’d drunk half a bottle of cheap rum, and he let himself fall onto the bed with his legs spread, looking at me like someone waiting to be served something.

—Come here —he said, and just unzipped his pants—. Get it out for me. You know what I want.

I knelt between his legs like so many other times. I unbuttoned him and yanked his boxer briefs down, and his cock sprang up hard, thick, the tip already shining with precum. I took it in my hand and felt it pulsing against my palm, hot, heavy. I licked it first from the base to the glans, slowly, savoring the salty taste of his skin, and I ran my tongue slowly around the crown, feeling his stomach tighten.

—Don’t tease, suck it properly —he growled, grabbing my hair.

I opened my mouth and took it all in, until the tip hit the back of my throat and my eyes filled with tears. He threw his head back and tangled his fingers in my nape, setting the pace, thrusting every time I went down, fucking my mouth with no gentleness at all. I swallowed around his cock and ran my tongue under it every time I came up, sucking him with hunger, with that stupid hunger to please.

—Just like that, right like that —he panted—. No one sucks me off like you. You’ve got a perfect little mouth, you little slut.

And I believed him. I swallowed his pleasure and his words at the same time, convinced that it meant something. I let go of his cock for a second to lick his balls, sucking them one by one while I jerked him, and went back down to the very end, choking a little when he held my head and pushed me even deeper. I sucked him until his thighs tensed, until I felt the tremor in my stomach that announced what was coming. He came with a long grunt, grabbing my nape so I wouldn’t pull away, unloading shot after shot against the roof of my mouth. It burned my throat, thick and bitter, and I still swallowed everything, the last drop, because I knew if I spat it out he’d get mad.

Afterward he just lay there, satisfied, eyes closed, his cock still half-hard against his thigh. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and moved closer, looking for something more. A kiss. Just that.

Bruno turned his face away.

—Not that —he said, soft but firm—. Kissing isn’t for just anyone. Kissing is something else.

Just anyone.

That word got stuck inside me and never left for months. I could kneel, I could swallow him whole, I could let him use me however he wanted. But for him to kiss me, I had to be someone special. And I wasn’t.

The rest of the time Bruno disappeared with older guys, the kind he met in bars and who had no problem being another body on his list. With them he did the filthy things he didn’t do with me “out of respect,” he said. He let himself get fucked on all fours, swallowed random cocks in bathrooms, came on strangers. With me he was careful. With me, really, he was only sparing himself the guilt.

—It’s different with you —he swore—. I want to take care of you.

It took me far too long to understand that caring and wanting aren’t the same thing.

***

That winter everything broke all at once. My brother Damián was admitted one night, vomiting, doubled over in pain, and what looked like an infection turned out to be something much worse. My parents practically moved into the hospital. The house fell silent, and I was inside it, not knowing what to do with so much fear.

That’s when Andrés started showing up.

Andrés was my brother’s best friend, twenty-seven years old and carrying a calm that seemed impossible in the middle of all that disaster. At first he just came by to take me to school because my parents couldn’t. Then he stayed to cook. Then, simply, he stayed.

He washed the dishes without being asked, folded the laundry with a strange precision, left food ready. He moved through my house as if he had always belonged there. And he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, alert, as if he feared I might come undone at any moment.

One of those afternoons, while we folded T-shirts in silence, he told me his grandmother had raised him, that he barely remembered his father, that loneliness was an old acquaintance of his. He didn’t say it sadly. He said it like someone who had already made peace with his story.

—And you? —he asked suddenly, without lifting his eyes—. Who takes care of you in all this?

I didn’t know how to answer. No one had ever asked me that. I was always the one who knelt, the one who waited, the one who didn’t quite fit into other people’s conversations. Having someone worry about me knocked me off balance more than anything else.

—No one —I said at last, and it sounded so pathetic I wanted to swallow the word.

Andrés left the T-shirt half-folded. He looked at me for a long, heavy second and said nothing. He just squeezed my shoulder with his hand and kept it there longer than necessary.

***

The night we signed the truce, my parents had stayed at the hospital. Damián had had a bad day and they needed to be with him. Andrés brought me back home and, when he turned off the engine, he didn’t get out.

—Can I come in? —he asked. It didn’t sound like an invitation. It sounded like he didn’t want to be alone either.

Inside, we sat on the couch, not too close and not too far apart. He stared ahead, his shoulders tense, as if he were carrying something he didn’t know where to put.

—I’m not good at this —he said—. At knowing what to say when everything weighs so much.

—You don’t have to say anything —I answered.

Then he looked at me, really looked at me, and something shifted in the air. I saw in his eyes the same exhaustion I carried, the same loneliness, the same longing for someone to stay for once. Two broken people recognizing each other.

—I’m tired of hurting myself —he murmured—. And of hurting other people.

Me too, I thought. Me too, for a long time.

I don’t know who closed the distance. Maybe both of us at once. What I do remember is his hand on my cheek, rough and warm, and his mouth coming closer slowly, giving me time to run if I wanted.

I didn’t run.

Andrés kissed me. He kissed me for real, slowly, deeply, his tongue seeking mine without hurry, holding my face with both hands as if I were something worth holding. And for the first time in my life I didn’t feel like just anyone. I felt chosen.

A sound escaped against his mouth, half relief, half need. He took it as permission. He laid me back on the couch carefully, his weight on top of mine, and kept kissing my neck, my collarbone, every inch he uncovered as he undressed me. He lifted my T-shirt slowly and licked my nipples one by one, barely biting them, making my back arch against the couch.

—Slowly —he said against my skin—. We’ve got all night.

No one had ever told me “slowly” before. With Bruno everything was fast, urgent, a transaction in the dark. Andrés, on the other hand, took his time with everything. He traced my chest with his lips, ran his tongue over my navel, nibbled softly at the edge of my hip and sucked the skin of my lower belly until it was marked red, while I begged him wordlessly, arching against him, my cock already rock hard trapped against my jeans.

He unbuttoned my pants calmly, kissing the bulge over my briefs, breathing hotly against my cock until a sharp moan slipped out of me. When he finally pulled my underwear down and took my cock in his hand, I was already trembling, the tip wet with pure desire. He stroked me slowly, looking into my eyes, running his thumb over the glans, spreading the precum all along the length, watching every change in my face. And only then did he lean down and take me into his mouth.

Pleasure hit me all at once. His tongue wrapped around my cock, going up and down with a slowness that was killing me, sucking me with hunger but without hurry, as if he liked the taste. He took me out of his mouth to lick me from my balls to the tip, taking them in one by one, tugging gently, and then swallowed me whole again, until I felt myself bump against the back of his throat. It wasn’t just what he did with his tongue, it was that he did it for me, for nothing in return. I buried my fingers in his hair, just like Bruno had buried his in mine so many times, and for the first time I understood what it felt like to be on the other side. To have someone want to give you pleasure.

—Stop —I gasped, tugging his hair—, or I’m going to cum already, this is over before it even starts.

Andrés laughed softly against my cock, lifted his head to kiss me again and let me taste myself in his mouth. He guided my hand to his crotch. I undressed him clumsily, needy, and when I freed his cock I caught my breath: it was thick, long, with veins standing out and his balls tight against the base. I worked it slowly while we kissed, feeling his breath catch against my mouth each time I tightened my fist. I slid down over his chest, his belly, and took him into my mouth without thinking. He was hot and thick against my tongue, and he groaned deep, grabbing my hair carefully, not forcing me, letting me go at my own pace. I sucked him hard, looking up from below, and realized he was looking at me too, as if my face mattered to him.

—I want more —I told him, climbing up to kiss him again. I was surprised by my own voice, steady for once—. I want everything. I want you to fuck me.

We stumbled to my room half naked, kissing against the hallway walls. He threw me onto the bed on my back, spread my legs, and crouched between them. He slicked my entrance with his tongue first, licking me slowly, pushing the tip in a little, and I nearly screamed in surprise. No one had ever done that to me before. He licked me, sucked me, opened me with his tongue until my voice kept breaking, until I was writhing in the sheets, gripping my cock so I wouldn’t cum right then and there.

Then he spat on his fingers and prepared me with a patience that made me want to cry. First one, going in slowly, turning it inside me, waiting for me to relax. Then two, opening me carefully, searching for that spot inside that made me moan out loud when he touched it. Three, with more rhythm now, fingering me while he kissed my mouth, while he whispered that I was beautiful like this, open for him. He didn’t stop looking at my face for a second, attentive to whether it hurt, to whether I wanted him to stop.

—Are you okay? —he asked—. Tell me if I stop.

—Don’t stop —I answered, grabbing the back of his neck—. Fuck me. Please, don’t stop.

He got on top of me, spat on his hand and slicked up his cock, and set the tip against my entrance. When he entered me, he did it centimeter by centimeter, holding my gaze, giving me his hand to squeeze. I felt myself being stretched open, filled, that thick, hot pressure rising and not stopping. It hurt a little at first, it burned, and he stayed still all the way in, buried deep, letting me get used to having him inside. Then it was the opposite: a slow, hot tide building inside me as he moved, deep and unhurried, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back in slowly, repeating my name as if it mattered.

He kissed me between thrusts. That was the difference. He kissed me all the time, on the mouth, on the forehead, on the temple, on the eyelids, as if kissing me were part of the act and not a prize you had to earn. He pushed his tongue into my mouth at the same time his cock buried itself between my legs, and I felt everything twice, inside and inside.

The rhythm kept building. I gripped his shoulders, hooked my legs around his waist so he could get deeper, and stopped thinking. He changed the angle, lifted one of my legs onto his shoulder and from there started fucking me harder, deeper, hitting something inside me that made me see lights every time he drove in. The bed creaked, my back pressed into the wet sheets, and I moaned without shame, panting his name like a prayer.

—Like that, like that —I got out—, don’t stop, harder.

—You’re so tight —he panted against my neck, biting me—. You’re driving me crazy.

He turned me face down without pulling out, lifted my hips and sank back into me with a thrust that tore a cry from me. From behind he fucked me even deeper still, his hands gripping my waist, slamming against my ass with a rhythm that made his thighs smack against mine, a wet, obscene sound filling the room. He laid himself over my back, found my mouth over my shoulder and kissed me there, twisted, while he kept fucking me, and that was the most intimate thing I had ever felt in my life.

Then he turned me over again onto my back, said he wanted to see me, wanted to look at my face. He settled between my legs and went back in to the hilt. He slid his hand between us and jerked me in time with his hips, his palm gliding over my cock slick with precum, squeezing me just below the glans in that way that made me lose my mind. I couldn’t hold on anymore, I felt everything tightening inside, the orgasm rising from my balls, unstoppable.

—Look at me —he begged, breathless, picking up the pace—. I want to see your face when you cum.

I looked at him, and I came like that, with his eyes locked on mine, my cock throbbing in his hand, spilling hot bursts between our bodies, staining our bellies, moaning his name broken apart. I clenched around him with the orgasm, and that finished him off. A couple more brutal thrusts, all the way in, and he came inside me with a long shudder, growling against my neck, filling me with that thick warmth I felt seeping through me. He collapsed slowly onto my chest, still inside me, both of us breathless, soaked, trembling.

He stayed there for a while, breathing against my neck, only easing out of me when his pulse had calmed. I felt a warm thread of his semen run down my thighs and I didn’t feel disgust, or shame; I felt like crying with relief.

***

We stayed wrapped around each other in the dark for a long time, without speaking, his heart beating against my side. He didn’t promise me anything. He didn’t say “this is forever,” or “tomorrow we’ll fix everything.” And it was good that he didn’t say it, because it would have been a lie.

—Thank you —he murmured at last, against my hair.

—For what? —I asked.

—For letting me stop hurting myself for a while.

Then I understood what we were. Not a rescue, not a prince, not a movie happy ending. Just two broken people who, for one night, had decided to treat each other carefully instead of going on hurting each other. A truce. A cease-fire.

I don’t know what happened after that with us, or whether what came next was worth it or ended up hurting, like almost everything does. But that night I learned something Bruno never let me learn: that I could also be someone worth kissing slowly. That I wasn’t condemned to be just anyone.

And even if it wasn’t perfect, it was real. Sometimes, that’s enough.