"Would `ménage à quatre' work?" I asked.

"Hell, maybe next week Steve will want to invite someone else in," Daniel said, his voice really quite scornful, "we just as well call it a `ménage à tous' and be done with it."

"I don't want to invite anyone else," Steve said. He sounded a little hurt.

"Well, I don't see how it would work," Sammy said. He seemed quite matter of fact, considering the truly bizarre topic of our conversation.

"Just like it's working now," Steve said. "Whether you like it or not, we're doing it. I just think we should admit we're doing it and continue doing it when we get back to Oxford."

"And just exactly how do you think we could get away with that, Steve?" Daniel said. His voice was a little lower now but he still sounded angry.

"Well, think about it, guys," Steve said. "Rob and I have more or less been a couple for the last four or five months. Nobody has ever even suggested that we were anything more than good friends."

"I think that's because you guys are both jocks," Sammy said. "You two sure don't act queer so everyone assumes you're just good friends, you work out together, you hang out together. It seems perfectly natural."

"Well," Steve said, "what do you expect they'd think about us? We're just four friends who pal around together. Besides, like you said, we're all jocks and jocks can't be queer, right? I really don't think anyone would ever say a word."

"So are you saying we should live together, the four of us?" Daniel asked.

"Well, not this spring, Daniel. We've all got private rooms, right? Maybe we could figure out a way to live together next fall if it seems to be working." He looked around at each of us. "I may not be right about this. Maybe by next fall, maybe by next week, we'll all hate each other. If we're still making it when this term ends we can think about what comes next."

"You really do have this figured out, don't you?" Daniel said with a chuckle.

"I sure as hell hope so."

"Well, like I said before, this is going to get very complicated."

"What's complicated?" Steve said. "I meant it when I said I love you guys, each of you guys, individually and collectively. I hope if you don't love me yet you will eventually. I hope we all end up hopelessly in love with each other. If that's what works out, we'll work out the details."

"So you're saying we should just continue doing what we've been doing, sleeping around among the four of us?" I said. "You want us to continue this when we get back to Oxford."

"Yeah," Steve said, "I guess we could come up with some sort of system. If you and I wanted to spend the night together, we could let Daniel and Sammy know. But you've got to remember, when we get back to campus we're all going to be damn busy. There may be days at a time when we'll all be so busy we'll have to hunker down and study, no sex at all."

The four of us remained silent for several minutes. Daniel and I still sat on one sofa, me with my back against his chest, his arms around me, his hands playing slowly, gently over my chest and stomach. Daniel wore shorts, I was naked, the towel I'd had around me, long slipped to a point of being irrelevant. I was erect. Daniel was as well, his rigid cock pressing against my rear through the thin fabric of his shorts.

Sammy still reclined on the other sofa, also naked but not fully erect.

Steve still reclined on the big towel he'd spread on the carpet between the two sofas. "Well, I can see how it might work," Sammy eventually said, breaking the silence. "Are you saying that you want some sort of agreement between the four of us that we'll only have sex with each other, not with anyone who isn't part of our little club?"

"Yeah, something like that," Steve said.

"What about `prior arrangements?'" Daniel said.

"Like Star?"

"Yeah, like Star."

"Well, I guess we'd have to talk about it," Steve said. "I guess I wouldn't have a problem with it is she's important to you, Daniel."

Daniel didn't respond.

"What about it, Daniel?" I asked. "Is Star an issue?"

"Frankly, I don't know," Daniel said. "Let me think about it."

"I think we should just leave that for you to deal with, Daniel," Steve said. "I, for one, trust you to do what is best."

"Well, like I said," Daniel said, "let me think about it."

"There is one issue," Steve said, "that we need to take care of within our own little circle."

"What's that?" Sammy asked.

"Well, Sammy, think about it."

"What?"

"If we are going to complete this circle the way I proposed, each possible pairing needs to be fulfilled."

"I think we've done that, Steve," Sammy said. "I mean, I've had sex with each of you and each of you have had sex together."

"Not quite, Sammy," Steve said, rolling over to face the smaller guy. "You've not fucked me."

Sammy was silent for a moment. I guess he was thinking about what Steve had just said. When he did speak, his voice was low. "So do you want me to spend the night with you?" he asked.

"Yeah, that would be nice," Steve said, "but I want you to fuck me right now."

"Here in the living room?"

"Yeah," Steve nodded.

"In front of Daniel and Rob?"

"Yeah. Do you have a problem with that?"

Sammy was silent for a moment but I saw his cock was increasingly erect.

"I guess not," he said after a moment. "They've seen us both enough to know everything about us and I think it might be sort of hot." He was silent a moment, looking from Steve to Daniel and me, then added, "I guess I don't see why you want to do it here, though, instead in the privacy of one of the bedrooms."

"Call it ceremony," Steve said. I want you to take me with Rob and Daniel here watching. I guess in a way it's a sort of conformation on my part of the apology I just made, and maybe a sort of commitment on my part to us as a group."

There was again silence as we all considered what Steve had said.

Daniel had stopped stroking my chest but he held me tight against him and I felt the increased pressure of his hands on my bare skin. His palms were flat against my stomach and his fingers were spread. He pulled me back against himself as if he wanted me to merge with him. My cock was hard and as it throbbed it bounced against the back of his hand, oozing a steady stream of clear fluid. Daniel's cock was equally hard. I could feel it pressing into my naked butt through the thin fabric of his shorts.

After a long pause, during which time was marked only by the rhythmic drone of the overhead fan, Sammy rose off the sofa. He stood for a moment looking down at Steve. Neither of them spoke.

Then Steve, who'd been sitting up, lay back, stretching out on the big towel, and spread his legs to welcome Sammy.

Despite his smaller stature, Sammy looked like a combatant, erect and potent and elegant. His body did not have Steve's mass, but it was honed like sculptured stone. In the soft light of the late afternoon he seem to glisten with an internal glow. For a minute or more he just stood there, looking down at Steve, who lay there like a fallen gladiator, awaiting his fate.

Steve remained completely still. Only his muscular chest rose and fell with his expectant breath. He was looking up at Sammy, completely yielded to him. If Sammy had chosen to strike out against him, to take some sort of physical retribution against him, I'm sure Steve would have done nothing to defend himself. Steve was the prize and Sammy was ready to claim him.

In that pulsing moment, so charged with emotional and sexual energy, I leaned back further against Daniel and turned my head so my lips were almost pressed against his right ear. "Get those damn shorts off," I whispered. Watching Steve's submissive attitude toward Sammy was making me horny as hell. I didn't fully understand what he was doing and I certainly didn't understand its effect on me, but I knew I wanted Daniel in me more than I'd ever wanted any sexual contact before. I was driven by lust but also by the almost palpable need to be a part of this strange rite which Steve had initiated.

I leaned forward to give Daniel room to move his legs but his shorts were soon blocked against his knees and there seemed to be no way for him to get them off without me moving. I rose hurriedly and, once up, decided to make a quick trip to the bedroom. Within seconds I was back, carrying the tube of lubricant.

In my brief absence Daniel had risen, stripped off his shorts, and reclined again on the sofa. The towel I'd had around myself was now under him, covering the area of the sofa on which he sat, and his legs spread to accommodate me.

As I write about those events, so many years later, they strike me as absolutely bizarre. It is hard for me to think of myself behaving in such an adventurous and exhibitionist manner. Perhaps Steve had woven a more amazing web than even he intended or understood, but it was clear that the four of us were all caught up in it. Looking back, I can explain it, at least to some degree, as youthful exploration, but the reality is that such behavior became the norm for the four of us over the next three years.

A bond was forged that afternoon which, in some ways, has never been broken. All these years later I still regard Steve and Daniel and Sammy as more than special friends, in some ways, more than brothers.

Sammy was still standing where he'd been when I left. He was fully erect and it looked as if his body was frozen in place, except for his cock, which pulsed with each beat of his heart.

Daniel opened his arms to me but I knelt beside him, my knees on the floor, and lowered my lips to his hard cock. He moaned as I pressed my lips over its oozing head and slid slowly down until it was completely in my mouth, its tip pressed against the opening to my throat. He thrust up a little but I held him still. My intent was not to get him off, but to get him wet.

I fumbled with the tube of lubricant and managed to get it opened and a generous glob of the stuff squeezed onto the tips of the fingers of my right hand. As I continued to kneel over Daniel's cock, circling it with my tongue to get it as wet as possible, I reached back to lubricate my own ass, working the cool salve as deep into my hole as my fingers would reach.

In seconds I felt loose and open, ready to be fucked. I stood up, straddled Daniel as he lay back on the sofa, and lowered myself. Holding his cock in my right hand, I aimed its head at my pulsing ass and then, with no hesitation, impaled myself.

As he entered me we both moaned loudly. Joined securely with him, I leaned forward and lowered my mouth to his. Our bodies pressed together and his arms enfolded me. We kissed deeply, our tongues exploring each other's mouth as his cock pressed deeper into me than he'd ever been. In that position, his cock easily struck my prostate, sending a continual charge which radiated out through my body. I didn't dare move. The slightest additional stimulation would have been more than I could bear. But holding very still, my body pressed against his, our mouths and tongues expressed a new level of caring and affection between us.

"Do it, Sammy," I heard Steve say, and looked slightly to my right. The smaller guy was still standing, frozen in place as if he couldn't get his body to move. But as Steve's command sank into his conscientious mind, he finally stepped forward and knelt between Steve's legs. Then lowering himself so that his chest was pressed firmly against Steve's muscular body, they too, moved into a deep, slow, loving kiss.

I lifted my mouth from Daniel's and we both turned to watch the ritual unfold.

Steve's cock was hard and pulsing, pointing up against Sammy's ass so that with only minimal movement he could have pressed its huge head into the smaller man's twitching hole. But that wasn't what Steve had in mind. As they continued to kiss, Steve brought his powerful legs up until his knees were nearly against his shoulders. By doing so, he exposed his own ass to Sammy's cock. As they continued to kiss, Steve reached down and around his legs and guided Sammy to his ass. I wondered later if Steve hadn't lubricated himself while he was showering, knowing what he intended to do. Even given the smaller size of Sammy's cock, it seemed to take only minimal work for Sammy to penetrate him.

They never broke their kiss. Sammy was soon fully in Steve and they began to move with such ease that it seemed as if they'd already done this a dozen times.

As they moved together in an slow, easy rhythm, Daniel and I also began to move in unison. My mouth returned to Daniel's and, apart from the continual murmur which Steve and Sammy made, we were unmindful of our compatriots a few feet away.

It was slow, gentle lovemaking at its best, but eventually we all four reached our own limits and our murmurs became more pronounced, driven by our increasing ardor, until as if in one shared breath, there was a collective gasp as we each slipped over that inevitable line into oblivion.

What happened that afternoon? All these years later I'm still not sure I can explain it.

>From my previous experiences with love and affection and sexual union, I knew, or thought I knew, something about love. I knew I loved my parents, but that was not sexual and therefore lacked the dynamic of physical love. I loved my brother Ted and felt a powerful bond with him, even when he was his most obnoxious.

I had loved Rick. In many ways I still loved him then and still love him now.

In a different but no less meaningful way, I loved Joyce.

Steve had come into my life as a force of nature, a force to be reckoned with. I knew I loved him and I knew he loved me, but I never felt, even when we were most connected, as if it was a love which could ever be permanently exclusive.

That afternoon something happened in my being. I know it also happened in the innermost beings of Steve and Daniel and Sammy. It sounds too dramatic to say a new door was opened, but in some ways that is the only way to explain it.

I think Steve, with his greater sexual experience, may have suspected that something like the four of us had experienced was possible, but he later admitted to the rest of us that he'd had no idea how truly powerful our relationship would be.

Over a year later I had a chance to talk with my brother, Ted, about his relationship with his fraternity brothers. It seemed to me, as I watched him interact with them, that they had some sort of bond which went beyond what would be expected in a social organization.

Ted told me how his fraternity brothers had achieved that bond through the shared experiences of pledging and later membership in their brotherhood. It was a powerful bond and he and at least some of them, have remained very close over the intervening years. In some sense, the process of pledging and secrets of initiation had been conceived, even contrived, to produce that kind of unity.

Sex, on the other hand, holds its own secrets. When bodies are joined, there must be, at some level, a joining of souls.

It's no wonder that almost every culture has condemned casual sex and, especially, prostitution. For anyone at all sensitive to the powers of physical union, it is a step into treacherous dominions.

To be continued.