It's funny, sometimes it seems like a distant nightmare, and other times it's all too real and vivid. The real times have been getting further and further apart for a long time now. I'd say we've nearly healed. As well as we can, anyway. As much as we'd want to. If healing completely would mean changing the way we are now, then I'm happy as I am.

I really don't understand what drove him. I don't understand what makes someone sell two young boys in his care over and over again. I don't think I ever can understand that, it's just so alien. I don't suppose we were really difficult to trap into it - we felt like we were a burden and ought to do anything we could to ease the strain of taking care of us. After Momma died, Dad had to work such long hours, and he was so grateful to him for offering to keep us at his place on weeknights. It made us easier prey for his persuasion.

At first it wasn't a problem, we were treated exactly the way we should have been. But after a little while, he started laying on the hints that we were costing more than Dad was paying, that we were taking up so much time from a tired, ill man. The first time he tried to sell me to one of his friends, I wouldn't cooperate at all. He tried talking me round, explaining that I'd just be paying my way, but I wasn't about to go for it in spite of the nagging feeling that I was being unfair by letting him support me. So then he got up with a heavy sigh and said okay, in that case he'd just ask Jeff to do it instead. After that, I volunteered so fast anyone would have thought I really wanted to do it.

It's weird how that sort of thing becomes mundane. It becomes a part of your daily routine and you don't even think about it much. I guess that's probably a survival tactic. But it broke down my self-esteem, which is delicate at that age anyway, without me even realising it. I just woke up one day and discovered I was allowing him to dominate me completely, meekly servicing whoever he told me to without a second thought. By the time I realised everything I knew as myself was gone I was too emotionally weak to care.

Somehow, I started sleeping around with people a little older than me, my friends' older brothers and stuff - it stopped me thinking, and I was convinced I was making myself keep a neutral view on sexual matters that way, instead of getting all icy. I was almost dead on the inside, and I wasn't really bothered about that. So long as Jeff was okay, it was all worth it. I believed that for years.

Then there was the night I showed up late. I'd been out with some friends, not doing anything special, just hanging around. Like kids do. Just trying to be a normal teenager. The ironic thing is, I'd realised that night I could never be a normal teenager. I couldn't relate to the things they talked about. I mean, they were going on about first kisses and early sexual experiences, and I just wanted to laugh and tell them to stop fucking sugar coating it. To see someone sighing over a kiss or some fumble in the back of a car... it was just so far removed from what I knew.

But I was late. And when I got there I thought the house was awful quiet. He'd normally have two or three of his friends there for me to take care of. I found out later that when they'd said they were going to a bar he decided to go with them. All I thought at the time was that it was like a ghost house, that there was something sinister around me. As I walked through the house I kept expecting some crazy axe murderer to leap out at me or something.

There was nothing there though. Jeff's room was shut so I assumed he was already asleep. I headed off to my own, telling myself I was just being silly. My room wasn't exactly the most comforting place. I'd never bothered to make it feel homely because I was barely ever there - I'd go off somewhere with his friends for the evening and when I came back in the small hours I was so exhausted I'd pass out the second my head hit the pillow, often still with my boots on.

As soon as I went into the room I could tell Jeff was there. I couldn't see him or anything, it was dark, and he never made any noise. I just knew. I always did. He asked me who I'd been hanging out with, so I told him. Then he said he thought since I was gone so long I must be with my other friends.

I was pretty shocked. I didn't even realise he knew about them. I wasn't going to lie to Jeff though, so I just told him that I hung out with them sometimes, but not tonight. He told me he knew what I did with them, and I didn't deny it. Partly because there wasn't much point, he knew anyway, and partly because I didn't need to add deceitfulness to the list of my sins.

He asked me why I did it. It wasn't really a question I was expecting, and back then I hadn't thought it through enough to really understand my reasons. So I told him that it felt good, and he laughed and said he didn't believe me. That's when I realised he was crying, and that there was something he wasn't telling me. I asked him to tell me what was wrong, and he took some persuading but eventually he opened up and told me everything I didn't want to hear.

All these years, that fucker had been selling Jeff too. I couldn't stand to think about how young Jeff was when it all started. He'd wait for me to leave with my assignments for the evening, and then call the customers he'd set up for Jeff. Through the years, the one thing I'd clung to was the thought that at least Jeff was safe. As long as he was alright, it didn't matter what happened to me.

Jeff was fourteen then. Fucking fourteen. Which was actually older than I was when he started whoring me out, but that wasn't the point, that was only me. Fourteen years old and Jeff had already had more men than most people have in their whole lives. I very nearly fell apart thinking about it. I felt so many things, I didn't know what to focus on. I was furious, I was heartbroken, I was a failure as a brother. Momma asked me to take care of him, and look what I let happen.

I made myself keep it together though, I had to be strong for him. I pulled my little brother into my lap and held him while he cried. I stroked his hair and told him it'd be okay, that I wouldn't let anyone do that to him again. He wept for hours, but eventually he settled down. We sat there in the dark, saying nothing, feeling like it was us against the world.

Finally, he asked me if it honestly felt good, and I told him that yes, depending on the circumstances, it could feel really good. But then he asked me to show him, and I'm glad I was sitting down because I would definitely have fallen over if I hadn't been.

I didn't know what to say. I knew it wouldn't be right - not only was he too young, but he was my brother too. I was sure it was just about the most wrong thing I could do. Then he looked up at me, and I could only see his eyes because they were shining with tears, and he asked me to make him clean again.

I couldn't say no to that. This was way more important than sex, or some system of morals which had already let us down. So I kissed him, and the second our lips touched I knew I was doing the right thing. I suddenly saw how empty and pointless all my stupid little conquests had been, because that kiss made me feel more than any fuck I'd ever had.

It was like walking through the gates of Heaven. He kept asking me for more and more, and I couldn't turn him away. When I was finally inside him I felt his body shaking with sobs, and I tried to pull out, but he wouldn't let me. He told me he needed this, and I was making him complete and safe again. So I carried on, and when we were done we lay in each other's arms, breathless.

He told me he was scared to say it, in case I thought it was just silly pubescent hormones talking, but he loved me. He said he wasn't sure until we made love - my heart skipped a beat hearing him say that phrase, it wasn't exactly one I heard too often - but now he knew for certain that he wanted to be with me forever. For all that I'd never thought about it until that night, I knew that was what I wanted too.

We slept curled up together that night, and I resolved that we would never spend so much as one more night in that house. We didn't, either. I was seventeen then, and I made arrangements for Jeff and me. I was old enough, and finding out what had been happening to Jeff pushed me to change the situation. I hadn't cared about what happened to me for a long time, but I had to get him away from there. I took care of my baby brother, just like I promised Momma.

In time, Jeff made me realise it wasn't my fault, that I did everything I could think of to protect him. Our relationship, built on our brotherly bond, grew stronger and stronger, and now it's hard for me to think of us as separate people. We're just two parts of the same thing. We loved together, cried together, shouted our rage together, learned to cope with our past with each other's support. Jeff used to say that sometimes he could feel this darkness seeping into him. He also says the moment I kissed him, he felt like he was watching a sliver of silver flame walk into the darkness to guide him out. I don't think I can say it as nicely as he does, but that's how I felt too.

When I look at him now he seems so different from that fourteen year old boy, but I know he's still the same too. He's grown into a big, strong, tough, confident, beautiful man. But he still has the same eyes, the same smile, he still squints the same way when he's concentrating. That's cute as hell, by the way.

We're doing really well now. We barely ever have nightmares anymore, and I can't remember the last time I started feeling bad about sex. Jeff told me the other day that if the only way he could get to be with me was to go through all that again, he'd do it, without a second thought. God, I snivelled like a baby when he said that.

I know we don't exactly have the most conventional relationship, but we haven't led the most conventional lives. Maybe we're only in love with each other because those experiences twisted us. Who knows? I sure don't. I like to think we would have been together anyway. If we were like this without all the abuse, would we be more fucked up, or less fucked up? Whatever, I wouldn't want to be any other way, no matter how sick it is. We love each other, trust each other, know we're safe together... I'm one hundred percent dedicated to him, and I know he is to me too. That's more than I could ever have asked from life. It's certainly more than I expected in my early teens.

And now the bastard responsible for all our misery is dying. Some kind of cancer, or something. I didn't really care enough to listen properly. I know I'll tell Jeff about that - as much as it will upset the apple cart, he deserves the chance to decide whether he wants to go see him.

I know I will. Not because I've forgiven him, or because I want to tell him on his deathbed that I don't hate him so he can rest easy or anything like that. I just want to say, look at us now. Fuck you.