Chapter 1.
It was not only frustrating but a little humiliating in a way. Flat-sharing had worked well for me for years, but at 32 I was more then ready to be independent. I wanted the freedom to do what I wanted, when I wanted, walk around in my underwear or less if i wanted - basically become an independent guy. I'd been looking around for a place to buy for ages, but the market in the city was out of control. Prices had shot up even more in the last year or two, and after several experiences of finding a place I liked and being hopelessly outbid, I began to worry I'd missed my window permanently.
To make things worse, the house I'd been sharing with 2 friends from work was being sold.
It was owned by Dan's parents, and although technically we had rights as renters, I'd been paying friends rates since I moved in. It didn't feel right to make things complicated, so I'd agreed to move out in the Autumn. At the time that had seemed a long way off, but by the end of summer I was faced with the cold realisation I could end up homeless.
It was in that mindset I met with my friend Samantha for a spontaneous Friday drink. We'd hit it off at a party a few years earlier, but weren't especially close. She was a little older than me, only a little shorter than my 194 cms, glamorous and always immaculately dressed. Most of all, she had her life so under control and was so naturally confident, she always made me feel like the world was a saner and safer place than I usually felt it to be. The relationship had settled into a pattern of a flurry of drinks and the odd dinner at her place, and then nothing for months. I'd always assumed she or her family were pretty wealthy, because the huge apartment she lived in with her brother was in the most expensive area of the city.
After some catching up she asked about my flatmates. She'd never met them, but that was just the kind of person she was. Before I knew it, I'd laid out the whole sorry tale. Telling it must have made me show all the anxiety about it I'd been pushing away for months, because by the end of it, I was flustered and even a little teary. Sam came around the table and put her arm around me, which was as surprising as it was welcome. I couldn't remember us ever touching before except for the briefest of cheek kissing, and it struck me anew what an impressive woman she was. And true to character she wouldn't hear of me going home to eat alone in what I knew would be an empty flat. As she paid up, she told me to order an Uber to her place so she could cook and as she put it, "spoil my boy".
When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was the door to Tony's room wide open. It was shockingly empty, although as I recall there hadn't been that much in there to begin with.
I'd always found it a little strange that his door seemed to be permanently propped open, showing a room so tastefully but sparingly decorated it could have been in a seminary. And if I'm honest, I was always a little tittilated that he never had anything covering his windows either.
"Did Tony move out?" I asked, realising as I said it how stupid it was.
"That's a sad story," she said, with a wry smile.
"Why? What happened?"
"He met someone, and now he's living with her. I mean I'm happy for him, but..."
"You'll miss your brother being around?" She gave me an odd little look as I said it.
"Yes. Yes. To be honest I didn't think it would ever happen though."
That seemed an odd thing to day, because Tony was an extremely handsome guy. Anytime he'd been there on previous visits, I'd always have to be on my best behaviour to avoid staring at him too much. Something he didn't seem to be aware of, because he didn't make it easy for me. His usual house attire was gym gear. Thin running type shorts, deeply cut sleeveless T's that let his pecs and large brown nipples peek regularly into view.
And on one memorable occasion randomly stripping his shirt off while we were having drinks, torturing me with his perfect torso, trying to stop my eyes flicking down to his belly trail and the waistband of his underwear as he stood talking to me in the kitchen. Damn.
"Why ever not? He's a gorgeous guy, well spoken, good job, loaded. Fuck, I'd marry him to be able live here." It was only half a joke.
"What do you mean?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. I felt myself blushing. Maybe that had crossed a line since we probably didn't know each other well enough for me to be making these kinds of assumptions.
"Loaded? Whatever are you suggesting Andre?" she asked sternly, staring at me for a few moments.
"I... I always just thought, seeing where you live..."
She let me swim for a moment before laughing at how easily she'd embarrassed me.
"Trust me, Tony isn't loaded, financially or any other way. This is my place, not his. As you can see," she said, nodding to the empty room. She sighed.
"Come with me to the kitchen, I suppose I can spill now he's gone."
She soon set me to work, chopping vegetables and pouring us drinks. Once the food was in the oven, she took some snacks and we settled into the huge sofa in the equally huge living room.
"Tony isn't my brother," she said flatly. I didn't quite know how to process that.
"Oh, sorry...I, er." Hadn't she told me he was the first time I met him?
"I used to call him my little brother. But it wasn't literal, at least not in the way you thought it was. We had... an arrangement."
She could see the questions written on my face I suppose, because for the first time she began to tell me her background. She was an only child, and older than I thought - nearer 50 than my own age. Her parents had both died when she was in her twenties - tragic but leaving her independently wealthy. She'd had many who pursued her, but had always mistrusted their motives. Given her looks and wealth I could understand why that might be. And then she asked me something unexpected.
"Do you know what solosexual means?"
"Someone who enjoys self play more than sex with others."
She looked as surprised by my immediate answer as I had been by the question.
"How on earth do you know that?"
I felt myself blushing again.
"I've dated some really great guys, but somehow when it comes to the sex part, it gets awkward and.."
"And?" There was the eyebrow again.
"..and I realised I don't really need physical contact that way when I can do it better myself." I finished, lamely. She sat there for a moment, her eyes oddly intense on mine.
"Maybe that's why I've always enjoyed your company Andre. Not just because I know you're not interested in me as a woman but as a person. Maybe I sensed we have something else in common too. I enjoy men's company, and I sure enjoy being around the ones who are nice to look at too. But I don't need all the psychodrama and the little games that go on when it's starting to become more than that. I'm used to my independence, and most men don't seem to know how to handle being with someone who has more money than they do and is used to calling the shots."
Sam had always been someone who did that. Her general demeanour was always one of a person used to telling others what she wanted and how she wanted it. I guess I was the kind of guy who was happy to let her decide where we'd have drinks, or be summoned to her place at the last minute.
She was sitting nursing her drink, still giving me that look. It made me oddly uncomfortable so I seized on the subject I hoped would break the silence.
"So what did you mean about Tony?" She stared at me blankly.
"You said he wasn't literally your little brother. Is there another way?"
She gave a short sharp laugh, snorting very un-Sam-like into her drink.
"Oh Andre." The small faded from her lips and she began to tell me how they'd met
3 years earlier in some kind of online chat group she was in. They'd started private messaging outside the group. Finally, they'd met up. She realised she'd enjoy someone around the apartment and he needed somewhere temporary to stay.
"It was fun for a while. Easy, the way things should be between friends, right? But then things shifted. I think it was his attitude I noticed first. He'd was challenging me about the way I do things around the house. When I'd have friends over. And I noticed he was spending an odd amount of time walking around in a towel. That room's bathroom is right across the hall, yet he couldn't seem to avoid coming to talk to me like that, or getting himself a beer before or after his many showers. That progressed to him parading around in his underwear half the time."
"Not when I was here dammit!" I burst out.
"Well you actually got closer than you think there Andre." She laughed again, more quietly this time. Unwilling to interrupt her, I let that rather strange remark go.
"It was obviously deliberate. And I suppose not surprising considering how I met him. With his lizard brain he thought he could get me interested in him with his buff body. Which was impressive I know.
"Sorry - how you met him?"
"OK Andre, if I tell you this it's in absolute confidence," she said. the stern look apparently real this time. Of course I swore to keep her secret.
"Pretty much by accident I found this small chat group. A lot of them are pretty random but this one seemed to have some actual real people in it. I got more and more interested and I stayed. It was a BDSM group, specifically for submissive men. I was one of the very few women.
I'd never interacted directly with Tony but I'd seen some of what he posted so I knew pretty much what he was into. So it wasn't entirely a surprise when one night he came waltzing out in his little briefs with what was obviously an erection in them, standing right in front of me as I sat right here. That was a line he shouldn't have crossed, so he didn't get the reaction he was hoping for.
My head was spinning at this. Sam into BDSM? Tony running around in his undies with a hard on, right here was I was sitting? I had to ask.
"So what did you say to him?"
"I took my time looking him up and down. Let my eyes settle on his little undies, then looked him in the eye and said,
" 'Thanks for reminding me to take the shrimp out of the freezer.' And instead of being cocky as he'd been recently, he sort of shrunk before my eyes. Yes, also literally."
"It was something my online persona might have said. I felt a little guilty about doing it face to face though, but I can't help deflating male egos when they're misdirected at me. It reminded me he was only a boy of 25, trying to find his way in life and not really knowing how to interact with women. But I made myself stay stern, because I knew if I didn't break whatever was driving this behaviour, I'd have to ask him to leave. I didn't want that either. I made him stay standing there until he explained himself. It turned out to be just as naive and obvious as I thought. It turned him on to be as he put it 'almost naked' around me and he'd hoped it would mean we could.. you know. Well obviously I soon put that little dream to bed for him. But as I watched him sag even more, I have to admit I was enjoying his discomfort. Online it had been mostly text, so I was fascinated to see the effects of my words playing across his face in real time. If I'm honest it was even turning me on. More than a little."
