To say that I had mixed emotions when Heather's slacker brother moved in to our basement suite would be too kind. I hated the idea.

We had a bit of a fight about it too, Heather and I. His lifestyle was hedonistic. Whatever he wanted, he just did, regardless of consequences. Big screen TV. Put it on credit - no problem. Video games all night. Whatever. Drinking, smoking up, whenever. No job. No prospects. No chance of him ever paying rent.

"With Mom gone, I have to take care of him. I just have to," was her weak argument.

"But he's your older brother. He should be taking care of himself ... or even helping you out, not sponging off of you and your boyfriend."

I was appalled by his lifestyle, but even more appalled that I was expected to subsidize it.

"No way, " was my answer. But I guess you can figure from the opening line of this story that I eventually relented.

The thing is, Heather is so damned cute. She's a bit tomboyish in the way she normally presents herself, but when she decides to use her charm, she blows me away. Seriously, when she flirts with me, she can make me blush instantly ... and we've been dating for over a year. So when she turned on her pouty, flirty, "I'll be your bestest friend..." <wink, wink> stuff, well, I was wrapped around her little finger.

When Rick moved in, it definitely complicated things. Financially, it really put us in a pinch. He was collecting welfare, but we weren't seeing any of the money. It just disappeared into the comforts of his basement suite. On the welfare paperwork, he was claiming to pay me rent, which was going to complicate my tax situation immensely. All in all, it meant that Heather and I had to take some extra shifts to make ends meet.

With the extra time at work, we often found ourselves working opposing shifts. I worked mornings steadily, and Heather worked a lot of evenings. She's a waitress, and her tip money really came in handy for the budget. Like I said, when Heather turns on the charm, she can make quite an impression.

Even on the nights that Heather was home, we often ended up down in the basement suite hanging out with Rick. It was cool to slack off a bit, don't get me wrong. He had comfortable furniture and some seriously nice entertainment hardware. Every once in a while, it's kinda nice to zone out with a beer or two and watch a movie, or play some video games. I just couldn't live like that long-term. Besides, I was getting impatient for a little one-on-one time with Heather.

"Don't worry, " Heather whispered in my ear one night, after Rick had dozed off on the sofa beside us. " It won't always be like this."

I wished I could trust her on that, but before I had much time to argue, she was kissing me softly, and then she led me upstairs, and everything was right in the world again.

I seriously tried to make the best of it, but time alone with Heather was getting less and less frequent. More often, I ended up alone upstairs for the night, or even headed downstairs to hang out by myself with Rick. It was on one of those evenings, after a fairly stressful day of work, that Rick brought out some pot to share with me. I'd brought home dinner, so I guess he figured he was returning hospitality.

Normally, I would have said no. Heather and I had only done pot together a few times. But today I was more than a little tense from work, and so I joined him.

Before long, I was a lot more charitable in my thinking towards Rick. Heather wouldn't be home for hours. We were drinking beer, smoking pot, snacking, and watching whatever we wanted on TV.

Later in the evening, he popped in some porn. I don't know why. As mentioned, Rick doesn't have much in the way of restraint, even in his more sober moment. He just sort of does what feels good at the time. Right then, he was feeling horny, and wanted to watch some porn.

We were both pretty stoned by now, and we just sort of sunk back into the sofa and got into it. I almost didn't notice when Rick began to rub himself through his shorts. I was into my own thing, horny as hell, missing Heather, but not nearly uninhibited enough to jerk off in the open.

When I did notice his rubbing, I just sort of stared in stoned disbelief. It felt kind of surreal, laying back on the sofa with Heather's brother, watching porn, while he pleasured himself just a couple of feet away.

He noticed me watching, and by all indications, didn't mind having an audience. He soon pulled his shorts down, and had his dick out. So long as I wasn't objecting, he wasn't holding himself back.

"That girl looks like Heather, " he laughed, nodding towards the screen.

The brunette was kind of cute, but not in Heather's league. She held my attention for a minute, but then I was back to watching Rick jerk himself. The whole scene was so off-beat to my regular life, I found it hard to ignore.

"You liking this, Grant?"

I couldn't hide the bulge in my pants, or the way I was aching to do the same thing Rick was. As stoned as I was however, I couldn't quite get myself to the point where I'd pull it out. It was the difference between us, I mused through a haze of marijuana. He was a hedonist, and he was just doing what came naturally to him at the moment. I was more inhibited, and just sat there, watching, frustrated, and getting hornier by the minute.

It was taking Rick a long time to get off. He paused to drink a beer part way through, and then began stroking himself again.

"Jeez ... these girls are hot."

I nodded in agreement. They were. I was so fucking horny that it hurt.

He paused in stroking himself. I was watching him intently, now, waiting for his impending cum. Then he did something that caught me off-guard.

Rick looked over in my direction. He grasped his cock at the base, between his thumb and his pointer finger, and just sort of wagged it back and forth a couple of times, and shifted his hips towards me a bit.

"You wanna... ?" he said.

I can't explain what happened next. I'll blame it on being drunk, stoned, and horny, and having not been laid regularly in a long time. When he motioned to me like that, I just leaned forward, natural as anything, and took him in my mouth.

He groaned. I was completely stunned by what I was doing, and somewhat at a loss for what I was to do now that I had his somewhat thicker than average cock between my lips.

I won't go into details. He didn't require anything fancy. He just watched the rest of the scene on the big screen, and when he was ready, he pumped my mouth full of jizz and was done. Rick was asleep soon afterwards. I stumbled up to bed, with my heart in my throat, and when I woke up, it was still there.

Over the next couple of weeks, I did everything I could to put it out of my head. A lot of guys experimented with jerking off with other guys, I figured. They just did it when they were in their teens, not their mid twenties. Besides, I had been quite stoned. And it wasn't like I had any attraction to guys. It was just an oddball thing that had happened when I was watching porn, and got a little too worked up. It didn't mean anything.

As much as I justified it as a single stupid mistake, I wasn't about to fess up to Heather. I didn't know quite how to handle it with Rick, either. Luckily, it seemed like he had either forgotten it, or that he thought it was no big deal, because when we saw each other around the house, he didn't act any different. He still mooched meals. We were still doing his laundry. He still didn't pay for anything. Nope, no difference.

The biggest difference was that I avoided hanging out with him. That would just be awkward. If I could keep it that way, I figured I could ride it out.

It was busy at the restaurant for Heather, and my job was hectic too, so it wasn't until a couple of weekends later that we had a night off together. I was aching to have her to myself.

"Let's hang out with Rick, " she suggested sheepishly, knowing that I would disagree. Before I could get a word in, she pressed into me for a heated kiss, and whispered in my ear, " I'll make it worth your while later tonight."

Despite all my reservations, we ended up that night on Rick's sofa, watching some action movie and drinking beer. Rick took his usual position on the left of the couch, and Heather nestled into me from the right.