All characters in this story are over 18 and purely fictional.
Chapter 1
"Come on, guys, what do you say?" Dad sounded like he was leading a pep rally again. He was into his forties, but he somehow still exuded a kind of boyishness, especially when he was really excited about something. None of us knew it yet, but the something he was so excited about that day was going to change our lives forever. I don't blame myself for not having seen it coming though. No one could have.
"Yeah, man!" Sean said, "I'm definitely in!" He was leaning against the kitchen counter, shirtless, cold energy drink in hand, still sweaty from his work out with Logan, which Dad's latest brainwave had just interrupted.
"Totally in too!" Logan echoed between gulps of water. He also wore only shorts, sweat still rolling down his body.
Sean and Logan were my twin brothers, two years older than me. They had both been competitive wrestlers in high school and still worked out together in our home gym in the basement, keeping in good shape. They were non-identical twins. Sean wore his brown hair short and, for all his prowess at wrestling, he had more of a swimmer's build. Logan, meanwhile, was blonde, with a much hairier, stockier frame. Their personalities were no more identical than their looks. Sean was more out-going, more focused, and Logan a bit more retiring. But for all their differences, true to the old stereotype of twins, they tended to think alike. So that they were in agreement with each other was no real surprise. It meant, however, that all eyes turned to me.
"Tim?" Dad asked. "What do you say, sport?"
What could I say? The idea that had so excited Dad that day was a family vacation. Dad had suddenly decided that we didn't spend enough time together as a family, and that we needed to remedy that by going on a vacation together over winter break. Sean, Logan and I had all immediately begun to protest. I was 20 and Sean and Logan were 22, and we all had the same initial gut reaction: we're a little too old for family vacations. But then Dad told us what he had in mind: a secluded beach house on an otherwise deserted, semi-tropical island off the coast of Florida. It was an offer that outdoor sports lovers like Sean and Logan couldn't refuse. And for a sun and beach lover like me, well....
"Yeah, of course," I said. "I'm in too."
"Excellent! That's the old Torrelli team spirit!" Dad exclaimed, pumping his fist. "This is going to be the best vacation ever!"
I wasn't sure why I had hesitated. In hindsight, maybe some sixth sense had warned me that this was all too good to be true. If only I had listened. But you know what they say about hindsight....
Dad had gotten the idea for this vacation from his brother, my Uncle Matt, who had himself just returned from a vacation on this very island with his own family, his sons Tanner and Kevin. They only lived an hour away and were the only relatives we saw regularly. Tanner and my oldest brother John, who had moved out of the house some time ago, were pretty much besties. In fact, John had watched their house while they were away on vacation. We hadn't seen them, or John for that matter, since they had gotten back, but Uncle Matt had raved about the island to Dad on Skype, and, surprisingly, after checking out the website, Dad had gone for it. I say surprisingly because while Dad is a pretty high-energy sort of guy, he's a teacher by profession, a phys ed instructor to be more precise, and has a personality to match, which is to say he's pretty straight-laced and really not the spontaneous type. And yet, here we were. With an overexcited Dad playing field marshal, we were packed in no time, and the snow storm that threatened to delay our departure failed to materialize. Our plane actually arrived slightly ahead of schedule, and our welcoming committee was waiting for us at the docks.
In hindsight, that welcoming committee was our first real sign of trouble. Their names were Cal and Jay, and they were the ones scheduled to ferry us over to the island on their motor boat. At first, they seemed pretty cool. Cal was in his late forties. He was from Texas, which seemed appropriate since he was good-looking in that hyper-masculine, cow-boy sort of way. You know the type -- tall, really muscular, broad-shouldered and square jawed. He wore sandals, board shorts, a broad-brimmed hat and a bright red life jacket with no shirt underneath, which only served to emphasize his impressive physique. The other guy, Jay, was Cal's twenty something son. He was dressed the same way and was in many ways even more impressive. He was less muscular than his father, but he was ridiculously handsome in a boyish sort of way that would not have been out of place on a fashion runway.
Anyway, they greeted us exactly as you might expect a couple of Texan guys to do, with a "Howdy folks!" and a vigorous hand-shake. On the way, they told us all about the island and what it had to offer, pretty much confirming everything we had read in the brochures. So why was any of this a warning sign, you might ask. Well, first, there was Cal's evasive answer to Dad's question about the price. Dad hadn't told us this, but the price was apparently ridiculously low.
"Owner's really loaded but too busy to enjoy the island," Cal explained. "Wants to give people who couldn't necessarily afford this sort of thing a chance to experience having their own private island for a little while, and to see this beautiful part of the U. S. of A." Dad nodded as if this made sense to him. It struck me as kind of suspect, but given that we were on the boat to the island, it seemed a little late to be raising those kinds of doubts.
Next, there was Cal's bulge. Yes, I said his bulge. Ok -- full disclosure: I am gay. But honestly, gay or straight, you would have noticed it too. To put it bluntly, it was enormous. I tried not to look, tried really hard not to look, but I just couldn't help it. The thing was just so.... so in your face large! Then came the really really creepy part: in the moment I snuck a look at it, it moved. Actually, no, move is the wrong word. It's not like he got hard or anything. His dick, I guess, something at any rate, seemed to writhe in his shorts, like he had a snake down there, an actual snake... or something with a mind of its own. Cal caught me looking, but didn't frown or scowl at me, or call me a faggot and throw me off the boat. Ok, given that we were paying customers and that we had him outnumbered, that last one seemed unlikely, but in hindsight, I think I might have preferred it to what he did do. He smiled at me. Now, as I said, I'm gay. I generally consider it a good thing when a really good-looking man like Cal smiles at me, no matter how age inappropriate it might seem. But this had to be one of the creepiest crooked smiles of all time. There was nothing enticing or alluring about it. There was something downright evil in that grin, and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.
I hurriedly turned away from him and found myself looking right at Jay. I blinked. Yet again, I found myself momentarily staring at another guy's crotch, and again, I swear, gay or straight, you would have noticed it too. He was wearing pretty thin bathing shorts, and no, it wasn't large like his father's. Jay seemed to have the opposite issue: what his father had in excess, he seemed to lack altogether. There was absolutely nothing visible there, as if he had no dick and balls at all. I quickly averted my eyes before he noticed me staring, and, after that, I kept my eyes firmly locked on the horizon.
Unfortunately, the creepiness didn't end there. After we reached the island, Cal and Jay helped us get our gear up to the house and gave us a brief tour. As Cal took us through the roomy kitchen and out onto the even roomier deck, I saw his crotch twitch again. This time, I wasn't looking, well, at least not right at it. I just saw it out of the corner of my eye. I blinked and stared at it briefly wondering if I was seeing things when it moved yet again, making that same weird writhing motion I had seen on the boat, a motion no dick I had ever seen could make, well, no human dick anyway. Dad, Sean and Logan were too busy admiring the view of the ocean to notice. Cal and Jay caught me staring though, and, this time, both of them gave me that same ultra-creepy, evil grin. It occurred to me that they might have just been playing with me, but something about their expressions I couldn't quite put my finger on made me think otherwise. Another shiver instantly went down my spine. I excused myself and went to unpack the gear while the tour continued. I was all too glad to finally see the back of them when they finally left us.
As unsettling as all that had been, I soon forgot all about it. The island and the house were exactly as described in the brochures, and for the first couple of days, everything went well, really well. We went hiking around the island, swimming, and just lazed about on the deck, enjoying the sun and the surf. Everyone was in a good mood, so much so that things that were normally irritating and sources of conflict seemed to have the opposite effect; Dad's boyish exuberance and eagerness to 'do do do' seemed endearing, Sean's competitive bravado seemed kind of charming, and Logan's excessively introspective moments seemed calming.
"Look sharp, sport," Dad said to Sean at one point toward the end of our first day, as he threw him a ball. Sean actually hated being called sport, but the mood was so mellow that he just smiled and caught it. A vigorous game of beach volleyball followed. The first two days were full of moments like those, moments that would soon acquire an idyllic, dream-like quality in the harsh light of a very different reality.
