Life On The Other Side (Patreon)

They say that the grass is always greener on the other side, but I’ve learned from experience that it’s more about what could be than what actually waits for you.  Once you get to the other side you discover it’s just another day-to-day, another routine with its own pitfalls and drama.  There’s no miraculous change or sudden lack of worries.  Things may be different, but better?  I’m not so sure.  What they fail to tell you is that once you get there, the life you just left becomes the other side and the cycle starts all over again.  

By all accounts, Bryan and I had it good.  Looking in at our lives from the outside, there shouldn’t have been anything that I was lacking.  We were both college educated with solid jobs in IT that made us more than enough money.  We had a spacious house that we kept well maintained and a steady, if sparse, social life.  

Bryan and I had been married for almost a decade, and while I still loved him dearly, my mind was starting to wander.  He was the same kind, handsome man I’d met so many years ago, but that was part of the problem.  He didn’t change.  He kept his lean body in shape through the same kind of regimented diet and workout plan that he approached the rest of his life with.  There was no spontaneity.  Everything had to be planned down to the last meticulous detail.  It was starting to wear on me.  

So it was no surprise that my thoughts drifted to what life would be like with someone else.  The surprise was in who they landed on.  Never in a million years would I have imagined myself thinking about Bryan’s slacker, stoner brother Justin like that, but one day it just happened.  He’d come over for dinner, and as I was watching him guzzle down a beer in his frumpy shirt and ill-fitting jeans, the thought hit me.  What would my life be like if I’d wound up with him instead of Bryan?  Over the next several weeks I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.  It was becoming an obsession.  I was actually researching ways to get over it one night when I stumbled on the website that changed everything.  It promised the impossible, a way to actually live out your fantasy, for a price.  

I should have walked away right then and there.  Bryan and I could have gone to counseling, or we could have tried to talk it out.  Instead, while laying in bed on a night when Bryan was working late, I called the number listed.  My phone said I was dialing somewhere in Argentina, and while I knew I was probably getting hacked and robbed blind, I didn’t hang up.  The phone rang and rang, but something told me to keep listening.  Finally there was a click, followed by a mechanical hum.  I waited for someone to speak but was greeted with more silence.  I was just about to hang up when the mechanical hum changed tones and I realized it wasn’t a hum, it was quiet, rapid speech.  Like a recording that was being played in fast-forward, the gibberish grew in volume until it was piercing.  I dropped my phone as the room started spinning and my vision faded.  

I knew something wasn’t right before I even opened my eyes. Cheap cologne mixed with the stench of stale cigarettes hung in the humid air. The mattress felt lumpy and the sheets were rough. This clearly wasn’t the room I’d gone to sleep in, yet it somehow felt familiar. 

“Oooohhh fuuuuck,” a voice behind me groaned. I froze, suddenly realizing where I was. I opened my eyes on Justin’s disheveled bedroom, not knowing why I was there, let alone in his bed. “I’m so hungover,” he laughed, turning and draping an arm over me. I felt his naked body press against my equally bare backside as his scraggly goatee scratched against the back of my neck. 

I was paralyzed. The sensation of Justin’s naked body against me was as comforting as it was alarming. Part of my brain knew that this was entirely wrong. I’d seen Justin in his boxers before but I’d never been in a position to know what his naked body would feel like. Yet another part of me was entirely calm. That part of my brain was telling me that this was all routine. Of course Justin was hungover, it said. It was a miracle that I wasn’t.  After as many pints as we’d finished it was no wonder my memories of how I got in bed were hazy. 

The room spun momentarily as memories of a dingy, smoke filled bar flashed through my head. I was with Justin, who’d just gotten off work, and we were drinking with a group of people I didn’t recognize but felt that I knew. Bryan was nowhere in sight, but I started to wonder why I expected him to be. Justin was my focus. I stopped questioning why I was in such a dive bar to begin with. My gut reaction that I wouldn’t hang out in a place like that, or with a crowd like that, faded. Fancy cocktails and wine bars now seemed ridiculous. That wasn’t for people like us. 

The “people like us” thought stopped me cold. This wasn’t a drunken night that ended with me passing out in Justin’s bed. As impossible as it seemed, I knew the man dozing behind me wasn’t my husband’s brother, he WAS my husband. 

The realization sent me reeling. The lumpy mattress vanished and I plummeted down into a seemingly infinite void. Images of my life with Bryan rushed by. Our first date, marriage, house, friends, jobs; all of it blurred together as I fell. The deeper I went, the more I felt like I was looking at someone else’s pictures. I remembered that life happening, but from a distance, as if I’d just been told stories about it instead of living it. 

Eventually the images changed. Instead of Bryan, it was Justin’s face I saw. Now I remembered a very different first date. No fancy bistro with an expensive menu this time around, but a chain restaurant followed by a cheap bar. It couldn’t have been further from what I usually went for, but unlike my memories with Bryan, I could feel how smitten I was with Justin. He was trying so hard that I couldn’t help but be charmed.  For a stoner like him, a frumpy polo and clean jeans was an almost Herculean effort.  Instead of being attracted to his brother’s clean cut good looks, Justin’s messy hair and unkempt appearance came off as exciting. I wasn’t annoyed by his slacker attitude anymore; it’s what I loved about him. I knew that underneath his crusty exterior lurked a total sweetheart.  Like his brother, he was always so bashful and embarrassed whenever it came to displaying emotion that just thinking about his blushing face made me smile.  Unlike Bryan, though, Justin would get a few drinks or a little weed in him and become ultra affectionate, whereas his uptight sibling could never seem to unwind. 

I kept falling. Everything was different.  Whereas everything with Bryan was fastidious, life with Justin was much less structured.  There were no gym routines or careful diets. Justin worked on his feet in a greasy kitchen for hours at a time, so the last thing he wanted after that was to exercise. He wasn’t out of shape, but his copious drinking and snacking habit left him with a small beer gut and less tone than his more disciplined brother had. I certainly didn’t care. I loved his little belly and soft arms. I still kept up my trim build because I knew how much he loved it, but the pressure was off to keep up. 

It meant we could have more fun. His carefree attitude was infectious. Instead of sitting quietly in a booth by ourselves when we went out, Justin’s rowdy charm always attracted a crowd. Sometimes it ended in a fight or us getting thrown out, but we never lacked for a good time. Sure, money was tighter. He didn’t bring much in, but our needs weren’t the same. Our small apartment was much cheaper than a large house, and other than spending money at the bar and on weed, we didn’t do a whole lot else. It was a much simpler existence. 

It felt like my descent was speeding up. The images had stopped but I was still hurtling through the Jovian depths. The sensation that something was waiting for me at the bottom was growing stronger. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew it was there. It loomed large and monstrous in the darkness, waiting with open jaws to swallow me whole. I felt a gust of frigid air and went stiff at the unseen force that crept up my spine. I was being swallowed. 

“Gah!” I gasped and jerked in bed, my eyes shooting open. 

“Geez!” Justin laughed behind me. He still had his arm over me and I felt his hand wrapped around my solid cock. “You scared the shit outta me!”

“Sorry,” I panted, trying to catch my breath. “Weird dream…”

“I was trying to give you a nice wake up...” he whispered, nibbling on my ear and grinding his equally solid member against my back. 

I shivered at his warm tongue on my neck and pressed myself back against him before rolling over to face him.  Our lips met and the familiar taste of his breath mixed with my own.  There was a flash of misplaced expectation as my hands traveled down along his soft sides to grab his fuller rear.  Part of me was still expecting Bryan’s firm, flat frame, but Justin’s small curves were turning me on in a way that his brother never did.  Justin gave a loud sigh when I started tugging on his aching member, the one similarity he and his brother shared.  They were both long and thick, but Justin was much more eager with his.  Sex with Bryan had sometimes felt mechanical and restrained, like he was afraid to let himself go.  Not so with Justin, who was all too happy to whip himself out at a moment’s notice.  

I rolled over so that I was on top and couldn’t hold back a smile at the sight of Justin’s sleepy, lustful expression.  He was always so horny when he was hungover.  I bent down and licked my way through the scraggly hairs that covered his small pecs, eliciting a loud yelp as I bit at one of his nipples.  I worked my way lower until I was running my tongue along the underside of his throbbing cock and around the edges of his heavy, hairy balls.  

“Ooohhh fuck yeah…” he moaned, squirming against the bed as I swallowed him.  His fingers stroked through my hair as I bobbed and he continued to groan and whimper.  “Fuuuuck...suck me harder...oh yeah...come on...make...make me...cum…” he grunted.  I started bobbing my head faster and faster.  Bryan hardly ever said a word in bed, but Justin’s blissful commands were music to my ears.  They were peppered with quick laughs and high pitched whines until he gasped, tensed, and sprayed down my throat.  He clutched at the mattress as he bucked and spasmed, sending a few stray spurts all over my face and the bed.  “Sorry about that…” he grinned at the cum running down my face.  “I just can’t help it when you do that to me.”  

“I know,” I said, feeling more proud than embarrassed at the sticky fluid on my cheeks.  

“So I guess it’s my turn then, eh?”  He raised an eyebrow and looked over at me with a kind of mischievous expression that I never saw on Bryan’s face.  Before I could respond he’d tossed the sheets off the bed entirely and had me pinned.  My stomach fluttered as his hungry eyes traveled up and down my lean, naked body.  “You’re so fuckin’ hot…” he let out a deep breath while his hand brushed against my aching cock.  “Let me see you work it.”  

Our eyes locked as I reached down and started jerking off while he watched.  I did it slowly, making a show of it with my free hand running across my flat stomach while I pumped away.  This never would have happened with Bryan.  I could count on one hand the number of times we even fooled around with the lights on, but here I was exposed and stroking while Justin took a hit off the vape from the nightstand.  He held it in and blew the smoke over my face before holding it down for me to do the same.  It was how we started most mornings.  Once we’d each taken another hit he put his hand on top of mine to stop my pumping and replaced it with his eager mouth.  

I loved the feeling of his scratchy goatee between my thighs and tickling my tight balls as he worked his lips like a pro.  With Bryan I’d always felt a pressure to stay quiet, but with Justin I was groaning and grunting like he had.  

“Oh, you like that?” He’d laugh every so often, holding me tightly in place while he licked around the oozing head, or burying his face deep into the sweatiest part of my thighs.  Instead of feeling stilted or rigid, fooling around with Justin was playful and easy.  I knew he had a wild side.  I had memories of him strapped down while I pounded into his bouncing cheeks alongside images of me spread across his lap while he delivered a rough spanking before doing the same.  I remembered jerking him off under the table at bars and him blowing me in the back row of a movie theatre, things that never would have happened with Bryan.  

Justin pulled his head away just before I came, sending my ample spray straight up like a geyser.  We both laughed as it splashed against my stomach and the bed, the damp spots joining the other copious stains that covered the sheets.  We fell into a heap and lay naked in each other’s arms for hours, dozing and taking the occasional hit off the vape until we were both contentedly baked.  

It was our stomachs that eventually forced us up.  Where his brother would have headed directly for the shower, Justin rolled out of bed and slid on a pair of ratty boxers, scratching at the hairy patch on his belly as he lumbered into the kitchen.  I felt a rush of embarrassment when I kicked my legs over and grabbed a pair of small black bikini briefs.  I’d been a boxer briefs guy before, but I knew Justin liked how these looked on me.  The wolfish twinkle in his eye when he saw me enter the kitchen drove away any doubts I had.  

While he cooked, one of his other talents, I looked around the small apartment, feeling more at home there than I had in the large space Bryan and I shared.  It was a one bedroom, with ratty, hand me down furniture and even rattier carpet.  Unframed posters hung on the walls and there were piles of stuff and dirty laundry everywhere.  It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks because it hadn’t been.  That wasn’t how Justin and I lived.  

It was early afternoon by the time we’d finished eating and Justin cracked a beer and took up his spot on the worn sofa to play videogames.  Instead of cleaning up the dishes immediately like Bryan would have wanted, I stretched out at the other end with my feet in Justin’s lap and looked at my phone.  Pictures of our new friends, all of them just as rough around the edges as Justin, filled my social media feeds.  They weren’t the kinds of people Bryan and I would have hung out with, but the sheer volume was staggering.  Bryan and I had a handful of friends at most.  Now there were dozens of people Justin and I saw on a regular basis.  It was a different life, but clearly not an unhappy one.  

“You’re distracting me,” Justin laughed, stroking my calf as my foot kneaded his crotch.  The thin cotton of his boxers was tented and twitching.  

“Am I?” I said in mock surprise.  I moved my foot and deftly fished his solid pole free, stroking it with my toes.  He just laughed and sat rigid and exposed, something his brother never would have done.  We were quite a sight, me in my trashy bikinis and him sticking out of his loose boxers on the ragged couch, but I was content.  I knew things with Justin weren’t perfect.  We argued about bills and money and all the things that any couple fights about, but at the end of the day I loved his bashful smile and dumpy body as much as he loved me.  I bobbed his throbbing cock around with my foot some more until he sighed in frustration.  

“Fine...let me help you with that,” I said as I switched positions and swallowed him again, loving his loud sigh of pleasure.  I could hear the controller clicking away above my head as he continued to play his game.  I knew this would go on for a few more hours until we met up with everyone at the first of many bars that night.  We’d stay out late, stumble home, drunkenly fuck, and do it all again the next day.  

I still don’t know if this life is “better” than the one I had. It’s not like I can go back, so ultimately the point is moot.  However I got here, it was a one way street.  The “price” for living out my fantasy was the life that I would have had with Bryan.  Whatever the force was that made all this possible, it fed on potentiality.  The entire timeline that would have happened with me and Bryan was plucked from the universe and devoured whole.  I still remember the life I had with him before, but now I can’t imagine being with anyone other than Justin.  Even seeing Bryan with his new wife doesn’t bring about any sense of regret.  They seem happy together, so I’ll settle for that.  If he remembers anything of what came before, he hasn’t shown it.  I haven’t seen so much as a spark of recognition in his eyes when we’ve been together.  I suppose I should feel sad about that, but I’d be lying if I said I did.  I don’t know if my mind will start to wander again like it had with Bryan.  Maybe the novelty of this life will wear off and I’ll come to regret my decision, or maybe I’ll forget my old life altogether.  I try not to dwell on those thoughts, or on what could have been.  The grass is plenty green where I am now.