My Brother Asked Me to Hold Him That Early Morning

My name is Mateo, and I live with my older brother, Andrés, in a tin room built in the backyard of our aunt’s house. The town where we grew up sits right on the border, in that strip of land where smuggling and misery blend together as if they were the same thing. We never had anything. Our father left before I learned to walk, and our mother broke her back cleaning other people’s houses until she got sick and could no longer get up.

Andrés and I started using drugs when we were just two scrawny kids trying to forget hunger. First it was the soft stuff, the kind you could get cheap on any corner. Then came the other stuff, the kind that burns you from the inside and promises you you’re the master of the world. I loved that feeling, I admit it. That rush that speeds everything up, that makes you feel invincible, able to stay awake all night and fear nothing.

But what goes up always comes down, and it drags you down with it. We stole from our own house. We lied. We lost everyone who ever loved us. I’d always been gay, as long as I can remember, and Andrés had known that since we were kids, without it ever being a problem between us. He, on the other hand, was into women: he always had some girlfriend hanging around, two children scattered across different towns, to whom he sent a few pesos whenever he had a little left over from selling fruit.

There was one night that split us in two. I’m not going to tell the details, because I still struggle to sleep when I remember them. I’ll only say that I ended up for two days in a public hospital bed, hooked up to a machine, and that when I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was Andrés’s face, swollen from crying, holding my hand as if I were about to slip away from him. That early morning we swore to stop. We tried in a government clinic, but the rules were suffocating and we left after a few weeks, begging the family for one last chance.

***

Our aunt let us have the room in the yard on one clear condition.

—You behave, or I throw you out on the street —she said, and there wasn’t even a hint of doubt in her voice.

That room was an oven by day and a freezer at dawn. One narrow bed, a cooking stove, a bucket for bathing, and nothing else. And it was there, in that square meter of poverty, that without realizing it we became something else. Andrés left early to sell fruit at the border crossing and came back with just enough to eat. I washed his clothes in the bucket, fried him arepas with eggs, rubbed his feet when he got back dragging himself from exhaustion.

We slept pressed together because the bed couldn’t fit any more and because, deep down, neither of us wanted to be alone with the emptiness left by withdrawal. Those nights were the worst. Your body screams for what you no longer give it, you sweat as if you had a fever, your hands shake, and the only way to endure is to hold on to something. We held on to each other. At first it was only that: two bodies looking for warmth so they wouldn’t go mad.

The first time something changed was in one of those crises. We were both trembling under the same sheet, turned away from each other, listening to the insects buzzing against the tin.

—Hold me tight, Mateo —he said softly, almost voiceless—. I can’t take this shit anymore.

I pressed myself against his back and wrapped my arm around him. I felt every muscle in his body tense, vibrating. And I felt too, without being able to stop it, my own erection pressed against him. Andrés didn’t move away. On the contrary, he shifted slowly, getting comfortable, and in the darkness I noticed the subtle movement of his hand on himself. We didn’t say a word. Only our breathing, getting faster and faster, filling the room.

***

The second time was in broad daylight. We were washing ourselves with the bucket after a long day, taking turns pouring warm water over our bodies. I was running the soap over his broad back, marked by the sun, when I felt his hand slide down to my ass and squeeze it slowly. Then he gave it a firm smack and let out a nervous laugh.

—You’ve got a fine ass on you, brother —he said, biting his lip.

My body reacted instantly, without my being able to hide it. He saw it. He lowered his eyes, swallowed, and kept soaping me as if nothing had happened, but the air between us was already different.

One afternoon we smoked to take the edge off, lying on the dirt floor with our legs tangled together. The smoke left us loose, heavy, hot. Andrés put his arm around my neck and dragged me against his chest. His hand began to move up my thigh, slow, until it reached higher. When he pinched one of my nipples, just rolling it a little, a moan slipped out of me that I couldn’t hold back.

—Oof, man —he murmured, smiling lopsidedly—. You like that, don’t you?

I didn’t answer. I shifted against his leg, searching for him, letting him understand what words didn’t dare say.

***

The weeks blurred the border between what we were and what we were beginning to be. One sweltering night, unable to sleep because of the heat, we took off our clothes and lay naked on the damp sheet. Andrés turned over and started rubbing himself slowly against me. His hand found my cock and squeezed it hard. I answered him, and like that, in silence, we jerked each other off, stifling our moans in each other’s neck so our aunt wouldn’t hear from the house.

Another night, while I was stirring the arepa dough over the stove, I felt him press against my back. His hard erection against me, rubbing slowly. I turned around and, for the first time, we kissed. It was a hungry kiss, tongues tangled and hands that didn’t know where to stay. He squeezed my nipples again, harder than before, and I moaned loudly, shaking all over.

—You get so hot when I touch you there —he laughed against my mouth.

That early morning, already in bed, he caressed my chest for a long while. I had gained weight from the anxiety of withdrawal, my body was holding on to everything, and Andrés noticed it but never made me feel bad about it. He squeezed me with a tenderness I didn’t know he had.

—You’re soft —he said in a low voice, as if it were a secret—. Softer than any woman I’ve ever had.

I laughed between moans. Every time his hands moved over me like that, I lost my mind.

***

The night came when I couldn’t take it anymore. I spent the whole day hot, pacing the yard, desire aching in me like a wound. When night fell and we were alone, I told him straight out, without beating around the bush.

—Andrés, I need to be with you for real. I can’t take it anymore.

He looked at me steadily, breathing hard, his eyes shining in the half-light.

—I’ve always been into women —he said slowly—. But with you it’s different. Do it.

I kissed him as if my life depended on it. I pulled down his pants and knelt in front of him. I took him in my mouth slowly, breathing in his smell of man, sun, and border, while he tangled his fingers in my hair and let out a rough grunt.

—Like that, brother —he panted—. Don’t stop.

After that I got on all fours on the bed. Andrés wet his hands with the oil we used for cooking and eased into me, centimeter by centimeter, with a patience I hadn’t expected from him. It hurt and at the same time it was the most intense thing I had ever felt. When he really started moving, gripping my hips, his sweat dripping onto my back, the whole room smelled of the two of us. I touched myself to the rhythm of his thrusts and came with a cry I muffled against the pillow. He came not long after, repeating my name like a prayer.

But he didn’t stop there. That same early morning, still catching his breath, he sought my eyes.

—Now I want to feel you inside me —he said.

I took him slowly, carefully, reading every expression on his face so I wouldn’t hurt him. And when I felt him give in, when I heard him moan softly, asking me not to stop, I understood there was no going back for either of us.

***

In time we stopped keeping track of who sought whom. We gave each other pleasure in the morning before he went out to sell, at night when he came back wrecked, in the middle of withdrawal when the body begs for something to hold on to. To the rest of the world, what we had would be unforgivable, a line no one should ever cross. But we had spent our whole lives on the wrong side of every border: poverty, drugs, and the way I love.

There was no guilt, and I think that’s what would be hardest for whoever judges us to understand. There were only two brothers who had no one else left in the world, holding each other up in the only way they had left. Sometimes, when I see him asleep pressed against my chest in that narrow bed, I think life tore everything from us except this. And this, however forbidden it may be, is the closest thing to a home I’ve ever known.