By the time we got back to the group, the party was fizzling out. Allan was already taking a last shot with Craig and Josh.

“Hey, hon,” said Benji when I approached. “Where ya been off at?”

“I went to the bathroom,” I said quickly. Benji raised a suspicious eyebrow, so I added, “Got lost in all the rooms. This house is so big.”

“Whoo-ee, those mushrooms hit nice, don’t they?” Amir said, lounging across a wooden bench.

“Yessiree, they sure do!” I chuckled as I copied his Western lilt, the shape of it tickling my mouth. The two of us dissolved into a fit of giggles.

“Oh, so you ate some too?” Asked Benji, an accusatory note in his voice.

“Uh huh,” was all Amir could get out between his hoots of laughter.

“When?”

“After flip cup.”

“Well, shit, I want some.” Benji declared and headed off toward the kitchen. “Don’t leave without me!”

“Leave?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Amir, finally coming down from the giggle high and sitting up. “Yeah, we’re getting ready to head out.”

“Time f’ dinner!” Said Josh, suddenly appearing at my left. “Weh goin’ f’ pizza!”

He looked absolutely wasted.

“Awesome!” I said, leaning slightly away from his tequila breath. “Couldn’t hurt to get some food in you. Water too.”

“Wha’?!” Josh blurted, offended. “‘M totally fine. Look a’ me!”

He threw out his hands in an almost valiant effort to strike a confident pose and prove his sobriety. Unfortunately, his left hand sent a finger directly up Craig’s nose and his right knocked the cocktail out of Benji’s hand just as he returned, munching on a few chocolates.

“Oh shit,” he said dully. “Guess you’re right, big bro.”

And with a laugh, I draped his arm around my shoulder and we led the group out of the dying party, Benji still flicking loose drops of gin and tonic off his shirt and grumbling about dry cleaning.

The pizza restaurant was a few blocks down the road, where the main strip of town began. It wasn’t far, but our drunken group was taking its sweet time.

“Shit, gurl,” Amir sighed, flexing his fingers and staring in awe at the leaves overhead. “Them mushrooms got me all fucked up.”

“How many did you take?” Asked Craig.

“I had like three or four cubes.”

“Three or four?!” Allan said with some alarm. “Which is it?”

“Gurl, that’s about as accurate as I can get right now.” He stumbled a little. “How many’d you have?”

“None for me,” said Craig.

“Josh and I had two,” Allan answered. “Danny had…”

“Three,” I finished.

“And you not seeing these colors?” Amir was amazed and incredulous.

“No, not just now,” I laughed. “But everything does seem a little wavy still.”

“Oh wow. I mean, this is just a – a vibe.”

Allan and I caught each other’s eye and stifled some more giggles.

“Josh?” Benji asked the ragdoll that was my brother, leaning heavily on me as we walked.

“Hm?”

“How ya doin’, hon?”

“Bitchin’,” he said without energy, his head and eyelids droopy. We all laughed a bit.

“You sure?”

“Fuck yeah!” He said with drunken bravado. “I got m’ bro wi’ me,” he tapped me on the chest, “I’ll be jus’ fine.”

I grinned lightly and redoubled my grip on his weight as we walked.

“We’ll be at the pizza shop soon,” said Allan. “Good thing too, I’m starving!”

We rounded the corner on the main street just then and ran right into another group of guys coming the opposite way.

“Danny!”

“Oh shit!” I said in surprise. “Hey Logan!”

Our entire group came to a dead halt. Even Josh found the strength to look up in surprise.

“How’s it goin’?” Logan asked with a dashing smile.

“Yeah, p-pretty good,” I squeaked and felt my face redden. “And you guys?” I looked over at Ty, Cornelius, and Gus, who loomed over us all from behind the others.

“We good,” said Cornelius, and he turned to look at Josh. “Is this your brother that’s getting married? He look like you.”

“Yeah,” I said, disarmed once again by Cornelius’s direct questions. “This is Josh.”

I introduced them all to each other. Everybody nodded politely and engaged in pleasantries, but both crews seemed to be standing behind our obvious points of connection: Logan and myself.

The flush in my cheeks and neck deepened.

“So,” said Logan, “We’ll be seeing y’all at the underwear party tonight?”

“Underwear party?” Asked Amir, swaying almost imperceptibly to unheard music.

“Yeah,” said Ty amiably. “We’re gonna be at the Mermaid Lounge. Logan, I thought you invited them already.”

“Yeah, I – uh – I hadn’t gotten around to telling them yet… uh… sorry.” I piped up meekly.

“Well, damn,” said Benji. “That’s better than what we had planned tonight! I’m definitely in!”

“M’ too,” slurred Josh while the others agreed. “But isn’t th’ Mermaid Lounge, like, sssuper hard t’ get into?”

“Oh, no worries,” said Logan, raising his sunglasses to reveal his shocking blue eyes and flashing a reassuring smile. “Ty’ll get Danny’s name on the VIP list for tonight, and y’all can come on in with him! Just skip the line when you come and pay the cover.”

“Wow, uh -” I stammered. “Thanks, th- that’s so nice.”

“Ain’t no problem, darlin’.” His accent once again tickled my spine.

“And thank you, Ty,” I turned to him. “Logan said it’s gonna be your birthday at midnight, right?”

“Ugh, I’d just forgotten for a blissful half hour,” he said ruefully.

“Well, I bet your set’ll bring the house down.”

“You know that’s right!” He called out, perking up again.

I leaned over to Josh and the others to explain. “Ty’s gonna be DJing the set at midnight for his fo-” I caught Logan’s warning eye “… his, uh, his birthday.”

“Oh fun!” Said Josh.

I thought I could detect a suspicious look in my drunken brother’s eye as he looked between Logan and myself.

“Well!” I said, desperate to bail out of this uncomfortable moment. “We’re just gonna grab some pizza and get ready for the party then.”

“Oh yeah, for sure, don’t let us keep you.” Logan made a gentlemanly sweep of his hand as he sidestepped out of our way. “But looking forward to seeing you tonight, darlin’.” And he gripped my shoulder with a final bright smile before they all walked past us and up the street.

There was a ringing silence in the group as we were left alone on the corner. Just a momentary collective brain reset before –

“Ummm, what the fuck was that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Benji added more sass to his voice, “what the fuck was that?“

“Um…” My face burned with embarrassment. “It’s just – just some guy I met last night.”

“Some guy? Last night??” Amir demanded. “We were invited to an underwear party by Logan Brooks LAST NIGHT and you didn’t say nothing?”

“No!” I defended, but demurred immediately. “He- he invited me at the beach today. When I swam out to the sandbar.”

“Oh so that’s who you were flirting with, huh?” Benji taunted.

“I wasn’t flirting!”

“Mhmm.”

“He seemed pretty into you, not gonna lie,” said Allan, a cheeky glint in his eye. Something about Allan’s approval felt – was it – reassuring?

“I… but… ugh, it doesn’t matter!” I mustered a tone of exasperation and turned to walk toward the pizza shop door. “The point is that we’re on the list for a party tonight. And that’s what we’re looking for, right?”

“Uh uh, dude,” rejected Craig. “That was the point. Right now, the point is that you need to tell us everything. How are you getting invited to VIP parties by Logan motherfucking Brooks?!”

“Why do you keep calling him ‘Logan Brooks’?” I asked, confused. “Is he famous or something?”

“Yah!” The whole group spoke in unison.

“Gurl, he’s HUGE on OnlyFans,” twittered Amir. “And I’m not just talking about how many followers he got.”

Craig and Josh both howled and laughed.

“He’s got a really big dick,” Allan mouthed to me, pulling a sardonic face and making a show of measuring his forearm.

“Yeah,” I said to him deadpan. “I got that, thanks.”

Allan grinned, satisfied that his needling worked.

“Whatever, can we get this pizza, please? Josh can barely hold himself up!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Josh said groggily, quickly standing up off the public trashcan he’d been draped over. “Layoffff, I’m just takin’ a lil’ break over here.”

The others laughed and we all helped guide him inside to sit at an open table.

Apparently, we’d missed the rush because there were only a few slices left, enough for us each to have one and some extra. We all split a large salad to make up for the lack of pizza. I recounted how I’d met Logan “motherfucking” Brooks at the club the night before and the hangout on the sandbar. They hung on every word.

“I can’t believe you danced with him!” Gushed Josh, wiping a fake tear from his eye. “I’m so proud.”

“Ugh, shut up!”

“And he was obviously flirting with you just now,” said Allan. “I bet he was at the sandbar too, huh?”

“I mean…” I hesitated uncomfortably. “M- maybe? Up until I mentioned I was straight.”

“Wait, you told him that??” Interjected Amir.

“Well, yeah,” I admitted. “But only by accident, I let it slip that I was hungover ‘cuz I wasn’t used to drinking like you gay guys.”

“Usss… gay guys?” Josh said in a Miranda Priestly voice; I know because he made us watch that movie all the time growing up.

I rolled my eyes.

“The thing is,” said Craig thoughtfully. “Knowing you’re straight might make him even more interested. Guy like that’s always gonna want the challenge of turning a straight guy.”

“T- turning?” I asked dumbly, catching Allan’s eye fleetingly. He stifled a smile.

Ha! The bastard’s proud of himself, I thought with a small huff, but I had to kill my own urge to grin.

“Yeah, man! So you’ve got some decisions to make tonight.” Craig finished with a nudge to my shoulder and raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, ok,” I scoffed, trying feebly to maintain my facade. “Not gonna happen…”

The others continued to banter on about other things and Josh began to look livelier as the food hit his stomach and I kept making him drink water. By the time we left the restaurant, he was standing on his own again and already talking about what underwear to wear to the underwear party. I followed the group from behind as we made our way back to the house.

What am I doing? I asked myself, expecting an answer. But the mushrooms had long since crested their peak, and I could no longer count on them to reason with.

I really wish I’d known I was talking to a porn star, I thought. But would that have changed how I’d acted with him? He’s a nice guy, easy to talk to. Definitely charming, which is a new feeling to have toward a guy… But what is going ON with me? I just fucked Allan and now I’m flirting with burly pornstars in the street?!

This weekend was definitely unfolding in unexpected ways.

It’s gotta be the mushrooms.

If I suppressed reason, I could maybe just forget what I knew to be true – that I was flirting with Logan and long before the mushrooms.

It’s gotta be the mushrooms. I repeated in my head. A dark self-avoidant mantra. It’s gotta be the mushrooms.

“Hey, big bro,” Josh had hung back to catch me in the back of the group. The others continued chittering and cackling up ahead. “Can I talk to you a sec?”

“Oh, uh…” I was caught off guard by the sudden jolt out of my grim spiral. “Yeah, man, what’s up?”

“I noticed you got kind of quiet after we were joking around with you about Logan Brooks,” he said. “I hope you didn’t take it too seriously. The guys are like jackals for a juicy bit of tea and they just eat that shit up too much sometimes.”

“Oh,” I said, understanding what concerned him and drumming up a chill voice. “Hey, yeah, no worries. I know it’s just shootin’ the shit.”

“Ok great,” he sounded relieved. “And I know we’ve got this dumb bet going, but you know you can tell me to go fuck myself at any time, right?”

“I know, little bro.” I grinned graciously then tried some bravado. “But you better dust off your controllers when you get back home.”

“Ha! You’re on!” Josh cracked his own smile but looked a little meekly at the road beneath his feet before continuing. “B- but yeah, the weekend has just been going so well, and I’m honestly just so glad you came with us.”

“Yeah, me too!” I replied.

“Mom was so worried that you’d be… I dunno… uncomfortable.”

I laughed with a sigh. “Yeah, she worries too much.”

“And you’re getting along with us, right?”

“I am! Your friends are a hoot,” I said honestly, though my face reddened thinking about how well Allan and I had been getting along just an hour ago.

Josh grinned widely. “They’re too much, actually.”

We both turned to watch the group up ahead continue to hoot and holler its way through the sleepy beach town streets. The evening was cooling from the daytime highs and the sea breeze gently animated the tips of the trees and shrubs. A magnificent palace of fluffy clouds was drifting lazily across the pink, peach, and indigo sky.

The evening felt cozy; it felt safe. I wondered about my inner torment again. I wondered if I should just tell my gay brother about my budding curiosities. If anyone could understand, surely he would.

“Hey Josh?”

“Hm?” He was still admiring the view.

“I have so- something to tell… um…” Oh no, I’ve lost my nerve, “Some- something to ask you. K- kind of an embarrassing problem for tonight.”

“What’s that?” He said, concern on his face as he turned to me.

“I- I only have boxers with me and I feel like that’s not going to cut it for the underwear party.”

Josh’s concern quick-changed into wicked excitement.

“I can’t believe we didn’t even think about that! But don’t worry, we’ll get you set up, no problem.” He said quickly, then he paused to think. “How – uh – how brave do you feel tonight?”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean, I think ‘Danny’ might wear something a little risqué to an underwear party.” Josh gave me a sporting smack on the ass that made me jump.

“Uh, I don’t know about that,” I groaned uncertainly. “The speedo was fine last night – eventually – but I don’t even wanna think about what you consider more risque than that!”

“Oh, nothing too out of the ordinary.” Josh giggled mischievously – which I did not find reassuring – and asked again, “So, how brave do you feel tonight?”

“I- I don’t -“

“Hey guys!” Josh cut me off by calling to the others. “Should Danny wear a jockstrap tonight?”

“Oh my god, yes!” Said Amir immediately, turning back to face us.

“A jockstrap??” I whisper yelled at Josh, backhanding him in the shoulder. The flush on my face flared again.

“Ooh, that’ll look hot,” said Benji, catching my eye with a suggestive face.

I scoffed. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“Yes,” said Allan emphatically. “It would.”

My protest died in my throat as Allan’s support once again stifled my discomfort.

“I- I mean -” Cornered again! I sighed. “But… do you guys even have a jockstrap I can fit?”

“Yay!!” Josh, Benji and Allan all clapped their hands excitedly. Josh pointed at Craig and Amir, the bigger guys in the group. “They might have something you could use!”

“Don’t look at me, gurl,” said Amir. “I only got thongs.”

“I think I got you covered,” said Craig, coming up to my side and taking an appraising look at my ass. “What’re you, a large?”

“Yeah,” I croaked, feeling for the umteenth time like I’d just bitten off more than I could chew.

“Excellent!” He said, spanking me as Josh had done and grabbing me from behind by the shoulders to lead me through the front door as we finally made it back to the beach house.

Craig took me right to his room and pulled open his suitcase. After rummaging for a few seconds, he tossed me an unopened box of underwear with an odd logo.

“Nasty Pig?” I asked dubiously, reading the bold lettering on the package.

“Yeah, man,” he said as though it were as obvious as Nike or Adidas. “It’s that or these.” He held up a box with a picture of a lace-front jockstrap; the model’s dick was clearly visible through the fabric.

“Nasty Pig it is.” I said, pulling the box closer to my chest. “Thanks!”

“That’s what I thought,” Craig laughed with a wink. “This is my look tonight!”

“Oh and also…” I hesitated, but then I figured that I’m already taking his underwear. “Do you have like – some shorts I could borrow too? I’m getting too hot in these pants.”

Craig’s eyes lit up but he said he didn’t. “The jockstrap should fit just fine, but you’ve got a juicier ass than I do.” He twerked for emphasis, making me chuckle bashfully. “I don’t think any of my shorts will work for you. You should ask Amir!”

Amir gave a quick gasp and pulled me swiftly into his room when I knocked a few moments later. “Oh my god, yes! Let’s see what we can find you.”

Unlike anyone else in the house, Amir had arrived and actually put his clothes away in the drawers and closet. Maybe it’s because he brought so many things; the drawer he pulled open to show me his collection of shorts was very nearly full.

“Gotta have options,” he said dismissively when he clocked my look of shock. “You never know how the mood will strike.”

“I guess…” I decided not to argue since I was here to borrow some of his vast trove anyway. I looked at all the colors he had in there and felt a bit overwhelmed. “I think my shirt is fine, right? So… I think… I just need something to go with that?”

“Here,” Amir said, handing me a pair of white shorts. “Try these on, I’m not sure about the waist but they’re also some of my more stretchy, comfy shorts too – so it’s worth a shot.”

“Thanks,” I said, tucking it under my arm with the box of jockstraps from Craig.

After taking a shower – scrubbing off a full day of salt water, mushroom sweat, and fucking – I returned to my room to face my fear and crack open that box of jockstraps. It wasn’t anything shocking – if I ignored the basic fact that my bare ass would be hanging out completely uncovered, free for the world to see… and touch…

A memory of the dark room at the club last night flashed through my mind; a pair of hands roughly grabbing my bare ass; a warm cock sliding up and down past my virgin hole. I shivered as I felt my taint clench and my dick twitch.

I laid the two jockstrap options from the box out on my bed, trying to psych myself up to put one on. One was pink with white edges, the other was black with lime green edges, lettering, and logo – which I now could see to be something like a pig snout.

Funny… I thought absently as I ran my finger along the stitching.

Since pink had been the color last night, I decided to go with the black and green ones. I put them on facing away from the mirror. The neon straps smacked snugly against my ass and the jet black pouch cupped my junk in a neat yet prominent bulge. I chanced a glance back over my shoulder at my reflection.

The backless underwear fit in – I had to admit – a pleasing way. I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed the effect. I dared to turn and face the mirror front on. The neon green trim drew the eye – as did my thighs, which were naked all the way up to the waistband. When I quarter-turned to check out my ass again, I saw that the straps underneath my plump cheeks were putting in overtime to define my buttocks and give them a certain lift – a certain… bounce. I hopped lightly to see the effect – and grinned cheekily when I saw both my ass and package jiggle and sway, betraying to any observer the heft in each.

I was a little concerned that my pubes stuck out of the top of the jockstrap a bit, but they led directly into a happy trail that crossed up my stomach and became my dusting of chest hair, so it wasn’t so jarring to see. I handled my slightly pudgy midriff and felt a small twinge of regret that I didn’t have defined abs like most of the guys here.