I was drunk as a skunk when I first met Bruce at my nephew's eighteenth birthday party in Oxford. I remember his suave American voice appealed to my British ears and his French after-shave to my nostrils but his face was merely a distant blur as vanity had made me leave my glasses behind and I was seeing everything and everybody through an alcoholic haze.

I realize now, just how close I came to never meeting him at all. I was spending the summer in Cornwall and had only accepted the invitation under duress. You see I'm a solitary soul who usually avoids family affairs like the plague. In fact, I was far happier painting in a fisherman's cottage in Truro than standing beneath portraits of my ancestors exchanging pleasantries with people I hardly knew. But my nephew Alex was special and I felt somewhat responsible for him seeing that my big brother, his father, had died suddenly of a heart attack three years previously. He had only just turned forty too. Denise, my sister-in-law, wasted no time finding another husband and went from black to white in a very short time. She was pregnant before Alex was sixteen.

There was no love lost between mother and son and I'm sure she had never really forgiven him for being a boy. Denise was a well-known artist and, just before Alex was born, she had completed the illustrations for a new edition of "Alice in Wonderland" and was longing for a girl. She'd bought everything pink and the baby was naturally going to be called Alice. She wasn't far wrong either as Alex turned out to be gay but I'm the only one who's been let into that particular closet so far. I'm sure his mother must have known but strangely enough there appeared to be no room for gay fairies in Denise's wonderland. After his father died, Alex and I inherited the family house but I kept a low profile while Denise was around. Fortunately, she moved to Scotland with her new husband and gave birth to singularly unattractive twins --- a boy and a girl, ludicrously named Lewis and Carol. They were so ugly I was tempted to call them Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Anyway, I couldn't very well not turn up for Alex's party as I'm all the family he has left. I'm thirty-four by the way and was in my early teens when Alex was born. In fact everyone took him for my younger brother when they saw us out jogging together.

Bruce was an exchange student from Boston and originally supposed to stay with my nephew for a month but ended up staying with me much longer than that. I was wearing my glasses the next time I set eyes on him and I hadn't seen anyone quite so sexy in a long time. In fact until that fateful meeting I thought my sex juices had all run dry. I staggered into the communal bathroom the morning after the night before and there he was naked before me. He'd just come out of the shower and the water was dancing in drips from his wet forelock and running down his firm brown torso towards that mat of hair that we budding adolescents used to call the forest. Unfortunately he threatened to become a blur for me a second time as the heat in the bathroom steamed up my glasses. I'd put them on to read the instructions on a box of headache tablets I knew Alex kept in the bathroom cabinet. By the time I'd wiped off the vapour and got them back on my nose Bruce had turned round and was reaching for a towel. He had the perfect ass. The kind of bubble butt I loved, with a little shelf at the top where I instantly lined up my piggy thoughts like porcelain figures on a mantelpiece. I tried to act natural but my feelings seemed to bounce giddily across the room like a frisky puppy on unsteady legs.

These we were but a few animal images that his bare butt conjured up in my sex-starved mind and I decided there and then that I was going to goose Bruce before the month was out. Insert my quill between his pretty feathers and make him honk with pleasure. Instead I stood there wordless, waiting for the storm in my head to pass. He wasn't fazed at all. He bade me good morning and nonchalantly wrapped one towel around his waist and let another hang loosely around his neck.

I wanted to be either or both of those towels. Drape myself around him. Lick him dry. Forge my way through his dark forest and bury my face in its roots and branches.

He smiled warmly and moved over to make way for me to enter the shower. "Hope I haven't taken all the hot water," is all he said. I knew I was going to have to get out of my pajamas but could feel my dick growing like a tree trunk. I decided to play it cool and hung the jacket on a hook. Then I kicked off the trousers as I stepped into the shower. The water was lukewarm but not cold enough to douse my inflamed dick. "Better take off your glasses," he said laughing. In my confusion I turned to hand them to him.

Once again he became a pleasant blur for me but my dick must have been in full focus for him. He may or may not have been gay but I had made it patently obvious by now that I certainly was. I wanted the ground to open and swallow me but, paraphrasing a classic line from a Mae West movie, he quipped, "Nice to know you're so pleased to see me." This broke the ice for me a bit as only somebody gay would be able to quote Mae West but I was still hellish embarrassed. It was a lame excuse but I told him I always had an erection when I undressed in front of anybody for the first time. "It happens to me too," he said as if to console me and then slipped into one of Alex's bathrobes. "See you at breakfast." And with that he was gone. The image of him lingered like cigarette smoke in one of my favourite Woody Allen movies: "The Purple Rose of Cairo." I stared at the space he'd just occupied as if waiting for the projectionist to cast light on it and fill it once more with his radiant presence and disarming smile.

The thought of his sensual Angelina Jolie lips, neat nipples and beautiful butt sent dopamine relayed messages to my dick. I jerked off at the thought of him and felt strangely purified. He looked a little older than Alex but even so I was almost twice his age. I couldn't afford to have lustful thoughts about him. Or so I told myself. When I went down for breakfast he was sitting on the sofa reading a newspaper. I couldn't see his face but his legs and the newspaper were wide open. The sprawl of those long white-jeaned thighs soon had my dick pulsating again. If Alex hadn't been there I think I would have helped myself to a creamy cappuccino from his crotch. I felt breathless and dizzy as if I'd climbed a hill or a mountain too fast. Alex looked at me strangely and asked if I had a hangover. I had to admit I had. He said all I needed was a hair of the dog that bit me and went into the kitchen to fix me something. I wondered what kind of dog he was going to come up with. Meanwhile my eyes were firmly fixed on the hot juicy one that seemed to be contained inside Bruce's pants. I realized I'd seen almost all of him but I hadn't seen his dick. My glasses had misted over just as I was about to take it all in.

I sat down at the breakfast table and tried to concentrate on spreading butter on my toast. But all I could think of was lubing that magnificent ass of his and fucking my way to heaven. Alex came back with some concoction and I sipped it thankfully. It was very comforting and I sure was in need of care and attention. To my dismay the conversation turned once more to man's four-legged friend and he told me they were going out to walk someone's dog. I was left with the open newspaper but not the open legs. I wandered dolefully upstairs and found my way to Bruce's bedroom. The bed was unmade and there were clothes spread everywhere. On an impulse I looked under his pillow and found a discarded pair of briefs. I put them to my nose and then into my pocket. I'd never ever done such a thing before. Never felt the need. They smelled sweetly of him. The same after-shave or body lotion that had met my nostrils only the day before.

I was ready to jerk off again but first I looked through the pile of photos on his dressing table. There was one of him in swimming trunks, the wet forelock easily recognizable and his nifty nipples pointing towards the camera. I slipped that in my pocket too, my hand brushing against my hard-on as I did so. I rubbed the photograph over it and almost came in my pants.

I went back to the bathroom where it had all happened and serviced myself once more. Then I took off my own briefs and slipped into his. They were a size too small for me so the smooth cotton caressed my dick. I knew it wouldn't be long before I grew hard again. I was turning into your actual pervert and revelling in it. Was this love or lust I asked myself.

I eventually settled down to reading the newspaper aware that Alex had left me alone because he knew how grouchy I could be in the morning. As I said before, I was normally a solitary soul and liked to pick and choose my companions. Even when I went to a gay bar I invariably came home to an empty bed as I wanted to avoid embarrassing goodbyes the next day. I needed my own space. Now I only wanted to fill it with essence of Bruce. His perfume was still in the air. On the sofa. On the newspaper. Everywhere.

I wondered if he and Alex were a couple. I began to hallucinate. Imagine Alex's head between those spread-eagle legs, a ribbon of semen down his chin as I came home unexpectedly one day. In my mind's eye I could see little white pearls of cum glistening on Bruce's dark forest of pubic hair.

I stretched out my legs so I could feel his tight perfumed underpants against my intimate parts. I was just about to take his photo out of my pocket and study it when Bruce came bounding in with a big black dog. It was a ridiculous creature and looked like an overgrown, unstripped poodle.

"Come on couch potato," he said energetically. "On your feet.

We've come to give you some fresh air. It will clear your befuddled brain."

So he'd been thinking about me. My image had been lingering in his head too.

Alex was just behind him. He shrugged apologetically and said, "I told him you liked to be left to yourself in the mornings but he insisted. We came back to take you and Daphne for a spin."

It appeared Alex was dog-sitting for a neighbour. Earning some much needed pocket money. He'd been on a pretty tight allowance since his father had died. Denise had seen to that. I'd written him a cheque for his birthday but had forgotten to give it to him. I was packed in the back of the car with Daphne. Right behind Bruce who was in the driver's seat.

"Got to get the hang of driving on the other side of the road," he said laughing.

I didn't reply. I was too busy studying the tightly curled frond in the hollow of his neck. I wanted to unravel it with my fingers (or tongue); undo him slowly with bated breath like a longed for Christmas parcel.

We left Oxford behind us and were soon in what's known as the heart of England, the beautiful countryside that includes Shakespeare's birthplace. We parked the car near a pub and took Daphne for a stroll by the river. She made us smile. She had such a dignified way of walking.

"Just like her mistress." Alex informed us.

I wondered what kind of dog Bruce would have. A Doberman probably. Tall and sleek like him. Though for the moment he seemed quite attached to Daphne who ended up staying with us longer than we expected as her mistress was away visiting a sick relative. Actually she turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Before the week was out I'd grown very fond of her and particularly appreciated the fact that she kept herself to herself and didn't fawn over you.

After our walk, I played the rich uncle and bought everyone drinks and lunch. We'd forgotten to bring anything for Daphne but she seemed quite content with the bits and pieces we fed her from our own plates. Particularly the sausages. We put some mineral water in a large ashtray and she lapped it up gratefully. I'm describing all this in great detail as it was one of the happiest days of my life. The weather was glorious and I was in the company of two people I loved. It seemed so relaxed and natural to be spending this time together.

The conversation flowed and by the end of that idyllic afternoon I felt like I'd known Bruce forever. Which was exactly how I wanted to know him. Alex and he seemed to get on well together but I didn't detect any special intimacy between them. I made up my mind to come clean and tell Alex how I felt. But first we went swimming in the Avon. Or at least Alex and Bruce did. They hadn't brought swimming costumes and stripped down to their shorts. I would have joined them but I didn't want Bruce to see the guilty secret that was lurking under my pants. They tried to insist but I begged off. Said I was a bit drunk and wanted to sleep it off under a tree. Instead I put on my glasses and watched them diving into the river like brown dolphins in the hot afternoon sun.

Alex was an excellent swimmer and soon left Bruce far behind. He splashed about a bit and then gave it up as a bad job and ran back to dry off.

"Came to keep you company," he said.

It seemed he was always either coming back to keep me company or standing half naked before me. I watched the wet tumbling forelock changing from bronze to gold as it dried in the bright sunlight. Suddenly I understood what girls meant when they said, "I like his hair." There was something so silky and sensual about it that promised greater things. In fact I could see the rigid outline of a very promising dick beneath the thin material of his wet boxer shorts.

I heard myself saying, "Why don't you slip out of those and hang them on the tree to dry."

He gave me another of those smiles I'd grown to love and said, "I thought you'd never ask."

Bated breath and Christmas came all at once as I finally got to look at his dick. And, as Mae West would have said, it was certainly pleased to see me.

He laughed again completely unruffled. "I told you the same happened to me when I undressed in front of somebody for the first time. Now you know I was telling the truth."

Don't ask me why but I was reminded of my first porno movie in the eighties when Jeff Stryker showed off his long dong to some college stud and said he could use a little help to make it go down. I wanted to say just that but it sounded so gross and banal that I refrained. I'm basically a shy person and much better off in the dark when I can let my hands do the talking. But it was so beautiful and so much a fantastic extension of him that I stared at it in blatant appreciation and then nearly blew everything by saying, "Are you and Alex having an affair?"

He looked at me nonplussed for a moment and answered, "No, it's you I'm interested in. Haven't you noticed?" And with that he put my hand on his dick and kissed me. In broad daylight. Under the tree. With Dignified Daphne looking on. It was a gentle exploratory kiss but it had an extraordinary effect on me. My bones turned to butter and my dried up juices seeped enough sap to fill a rubber tree. I literally melted in his embrace. The impossible was happening. He felt the same as I did. What an asshole and a dickhead I'd been. I wasn't too old. He wasn't too young.

I felt his tongue in my mouth and his dick in my hand and was where I'd wanted to be since the moment I set eyes on him. In the middle of it all he deftly removed my glasses.

"Don't want to get these all steamed up again do we?" he said as he pushed my head due south. I thought of the events leading up to that moment and smiled internally at the irony of it. In that split second he thought I was hesitating and said, "Don't worry, there's no one around and I'll keep my eyes peeled." I didn't need asking twice and was soon savouring the sweet nectar of him.

We lay down on the grass together. His hands kept moving to the front of my trousers and I kept moving them away. Finally my dick wanted him so much that I left off sucking his for a moment and said, "Sod it. I'm wearing your underpants."

This must have really got him turned on because he tore open my fly and jerked my dick free from its cotton prison. We were in full throat and throttle when Alex came back. Fortunately Daphne barked a warning but the smell of semen is pretty potent even in the open air and there wasn't much we could do to disguise it. He stood there embarrassed and shivering.

"Hope I didn't come back too soon. The water was freezing otherwise I'd have stayed away longer."

I was feeling pretty shaky myself and in a state of semi-shock having just had my wettest dreams come true. Even Bruce looked like he could do with a stiff drink. So I took them both off to the pub which by now had reopened and we all had double whiskies. Then I drove them straight and safely home. They were both so precious to me. Bruce sat next to me with his hand on my inside leg and Alex sat in the back with Daphne. I felt a little guilty about stealing Bruce away from Alex. I knew now that they weren't lovers but Bruce was still his best friend. I looked in the driving mirror at Alex cuddling up to Daphne and hoped he would find a soul mate soon. I mean you can give a dog a bone but a full-blooded teenage boy with a boner needs something more than a dog to keep him happy.

Talking about Alex now I realize that I haven't told you very much about him. I'm afraid in my enthusiasm to tell you all about Bruce I've selfishly reduced my nephew to a mere cipher in the equation. An anonymous depersonalised go-between like the @ in the middle of an e-mail address. In fact I might just as well have called him @lex! However as I said before he's very much like me. Physically and emotionally.

We both have swimmer's bodies although mine's been swimming in beer or whisky a little too long for its own good. We also have fair curly hair. I cut mine short but Denise used to keep Alex's hair so long that my brother and I called him Goldilocks. Small wonder he grew up gay. We were always very close. So close that we understand each other without words actually being spoken and he told me later that he knew straight away Bruce was the one for me. He also confided in me that he liked men with muscles and that Bruce was "too smooth and silky" for him.

So now I had Alex's blessing the only problem now was that I wanted to spend all my time with Bruce which left Alex somewhat out on a limb. We'd all three go out for a walk with Daphne but as soon as we got back to the house there was so much latent lust in the air you could have cut through it and served it up in generous slices.

At such times Alex tactfully excused himself and went off to his father's study. I must say I found the whole menage a trois very difficult to manage. First trying not to offend Alex and then making love to Bruce with family portraits frowning down on us. My parents were dead but their memory was alive and well and still living in the house with us. Like my brother they had died young.

I hoped it wasn't too much of a family trait as I intended to spend a long lifetime with Bruce. And I intended to treasure every single second in his company which meant I began to resent Alex's presence more and more, though I did my best not to show it. For his part he tried to keep out of our way as much as possible. We kept up this not so stylish comedy of good manners for nearly a week.

I began to dread the day we had to deliver Daphne back to her mistress. Alex would really be alone then. Fortunately on one of his long walks in the woods 'Goldilocks' found his own bear. He was part of a team of environmentalists in charge of forest development and preservation. He was a mass of muscles and hairy with it. His name was Henry but Bruce and I secretly called him Hirsute Harry.

As soon as it appeared that Harry was here to stay we discreetly left the house and the family portraits and went off to Cornwall with a clear conscience. We took three days to get there because I wanted Bruce to see Stratford and Thomas Hardy country and show him all my favourite seaside nooks and country crannies. It was almost like being on honeymoon as we stayed in quaint little hotels and ate in all the best restaurants. We also discovered everything about each other on the way.

We made love two or three times a day and I finally got to stick my quill between his pretty feathers although he managed to ruffle mine up quite a bit too. In fact I don't know who honked the most. We were so relieved to be footloose and fancy free and sharing life's sweet pleasures. You know, the simple things you take for granted and then begin to appreciate when you see the joy reflected in your loved one's eyes as he discovers them for the first time. Bruce was crazy about Dorset and felt completely at home in Cornwall. The little fishing villages reminded him of Cape Cod and he said he couldn't wait to show me New England. Especially in Autumn, or 'the fall' as he called it.

I put myself on a strict diet but filled Bruce with culinary delights such as Cornish pasties and thick Cornish cream. Thicker than the rich white semen my lover produced whenever I made a meal of his dick or let him whip it up inside me. I cut down a lot on drinking too. Soon I shed pounds and seemed to lose years as well as weight. Of course the constant fucking helped. We would fuck like ferrets and then lay there quietly and tenderly exploring every inch of each other's bodies until we got turned on and started all over again. There didn't seem to be enough hours in the day although we did find time to send a postcard to Alex. And Henry of course.

Bruce was an anal virgin the first time I 'had my way with him' and I opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the forthcoming event. We were pretty drunk at the end, or rather before the beginning of it, and I was so full of bubbles myself that I was half afraid my dick wouldn't do his bubble butt full justice. Also we were laughing so much that it was hard for me to get a hard-on and hard to think we were serious. But that afternoon he'd been wearing one of my caftans and I'd slipped my hands into the side slits when I kissed him and cradled that awesome alabaster butt of his and could already feel my dick in the tight crease of his ass cheeks.

That thought was still with me as I put down the over cold champagne bottle and attempted to slip my fingers into his tightly coiled rosebud. I drew a soulful sigh from him as my icy tendrils touched his tender muscle and then a scream as my hot rod hit home. He shuddered like a freshly caught fish on a slab and the cold champagne went up my nose and gave me hiccups. This made me fuck him in short sharp stabs and was a turn-on for both of us. There'd be an interval between each spasm and then I'd hiccup and hip-fuck him till we both popped like champagne corks and were drenched with an almost painful convulsion of flowing love-juice and soul-filled beauty. Neither of us could quite believe it had been so good and neither of us has ever forgotten it. We achieved the almost impossible and came as one flesh.

Sex continued to be great between us but never quite as great as that first tumultuous butt toast we made together, with the help of a little champagne of course. In the midst of our euphoria we received a postcard from the Forest of Arden bearing an ecstatic message from Alex. It seemed he too was having a great time buried in the lush undergrowth of Henry's expansive chest and making full use of his chopper. Bruce handed me back the postcard with a smile.

"What's tickling you now?" I asked.

"Nothing and everything," he replied.

"I was just remembering our own adventures in the Forest of Arden and thinking we should really re-christen it the Forest of Hard-on!"

I rolled over and kissed him and we laughed together and opened another bottle of champagne and drank a friendly toast to Dignified Daphne and Alex and Hirsute Harry and the Forest of Hard-on and made love again ... and again ... and are still living happily ever after.

Ain't life grand!