THE HARDY BOYS AND THE SECRET OF SMUGGLERS COVE
I've got a mystery for you.
The thing is, all those adventures, all those `mysteries', it was all Frank's idea. Well, I mean, it was the kind of stuff he liked, getting into danger, solving riddles, finding clues; half the time I was scared out of my wits. I mean, so scared I couldn't even talk, couldn't move: smugglers pointing guns at us, kidnappers tying us up; I was sixteen, I was terrified, but Frank loved it. Lived for it and if Frank was going to go down some freshly revealed hidden staircase, well, I wasn't going to let him go alone. Not that I was brave, that was also Frank's department; I just loved him. He was my brother and I loved him with all my heart and if he was going to figure out a way to break into the haunted fort, then I wasn't going to let him go alone.
You have to understand, he was a year older than me, ("twins the hard way," Aunt Gertrude used to say.) Taller, smarter, faster; I grew up half a step behind him, always in his shadow, always looking up to him, wishing I could be him, as quick on my feet and smart, and handsome; you could watch when he'd go through a room, all the girl's heads would follow him, with his dark hair and curious green eyes, I was just a bleached out imitation of him. My eyes were blue, he always used to say, "Joe, blue eyes aren't a very good color for detecting. All the great detectives have green eyes." Our father had green eyes.
Once, when we had to wear wigs to disguise ourselves, I wore a dark one, the color of Franks hair. "Look" I told him, "I'm the new Frank Hardy", he just snatched it off and told me it wouldn't be a good job of concealing our identities if we just disguised ourselves to look like each other.
Anyway, you get the point, he was my brother and I worshipped him in that way little brothers do. Loved him. Or so I thought, but that, in classic Hardy style, turned out to be not exactly what it appeared. Here was my first clue:
I'll never forget it was on the Mystery of Fingerbang Wharf, we were on the trail of some nasty smugglers who were trying to plunder a lost treasure on the wreck of some old boat off the coast. It was nighttime under the full moon and Frank and I were going to explore these creepy old coves for clues, based on some old map he'd found rolled up in an old the hollowed out leg of an antique sitting chair. Anyway, it's dark but the light of the moon is so bright it's like it's almost half-daylight, only the light is slivery-blue-ish and the water where it beaded up on our skin twinkled under it. According to the map we had to swim into a small crack in the rockface to get into an underground sea cave.
Well," Frank said, standing at the water's edge, "Let's hope the water isn't too cold" and with that he pulled off his sweater vest. He neatly folded it and then began unbuttoning his shirt to the waist. He folded this as well and then pulled off his undershirt, and then he was bare-chested in the night air.
"Don't you think we should keep our shirts on at least?" I said.
"I don't know, they'll get wet as we swim into the cave and it might give us a chill." he said, thoughtfully.
I scrutinized him and then, all at once, something changed between us. I guess looking at him in the unnatural, too bright light of the full moon, I really looked and noticed something I had never seen before. I immediately marched right up to him and poked his chest roughly. "What's THIS!" I poked again. There, between the mass of his two chest muscles (I think Biff calls em pecks') was the thin, reedy, downlike sprouting of hair.
Chest hair! It was so thin, so almost immaterial as to look like it had been spun from spiders webs, but there it was, dark against his pale chest.
"What's what?"
"You know what! Since when do you have chest hair?"
"Well it only makes sense, our dad has chest hair," (this much is true, our father is covered in the stuff, it puffs out of the collar of his polos) "You have it too,"
This was a plain lie and he knew it, I am covered in fine blond hair in my arms and legs that is all but invisible. I made him stick up his arms. Sure enough, in the crook of each arm were matching thick black patches, swarthier than the stuff on his chest. The hair there was probably honey-colored but in the stark light of the moonlight, they shone black.
"What's the big deal?"
Momentarily though I was transfixed, and I stopped poking him abruptly and moved my hand slowly to his exposed arm pit. Quietly and very determined I put my fingers out and ran them through, feeling the soft tickle first of the downy hair, till my fingers stopped against his skin. I slowly dragged the fingers down and then, between my thumb and forefinger, gently rubbed the strand of hair together, feeling the softness of this mysterious new substance. I was utterly mesmerized, seeing now the mysterious evidence of his body's transformation to adulthood, one that I would make eventually, but hadn't yet. I was so curious, what would my chest hair look like, feel like. Would it feel like this, soft, like Frank's? "That tickles," he finally said. Quietly.
"Well what's the big idea?" I asked, my fury returning.
"Joe, it's not like I have any control over it."
"So what're you gonna do, go grow up and be like dad?" and leave me behind I thought but couldn't say out loud, and the thought stung me so hard that tears sprang to my eyes.
"Joe, what has gotten into you?"
"Nothing," I said, quickly dragging my palm to my eyes and turning away. "Nothing!" I pulled off my shoes and socks angrily, and yanked off my chinos. Out of pride more than modesty I kept my undershirt on. Chill or no chill.
When I turned around Frank was standing in his underwear in the moonlight. My anger at him left as strangely and as suddenly as it came and for a near perfect moment I looked at my brother, now fully an adult, I could see. The boyish softness around his edges was slowly being eroded, a tautness replacing it. From just under his belly button a wispy, crooked line of hair pulled downward, thickening and darkening until it met the elastic rim of his briefs and then became secret beneath them. My brother, I realized all at once, was handsome. Well, I had always known this, but it wasn't just his face, his torso was handsome, his arms and shoulders were handsome, his dark, hairy legs were handsome, but you didn't call these things handsome of course, they were something else, some other word . . . standing as he did, his hip cocked slightly, his weight on one foot, his hands on his waist, he stood arrogantly, cocky. Frank was good to look at, but you wouldn't just say you liked looking at him, it's more like you wanted to look him, you didn't just like it, you wanted it, or I don't know, Franks the good one with words.
"Are you ready?" he said and his eyebrows raised for effect.
"I'm keeping my shirt on," I said. And we both made our way into the water.
We swam into the cavern, Frank went first, when we came up it was in a wide open cave.
Surprisingly it was well lit from utility lights that lined the cavern walls. The smugglers had been using this cave to stow their stolen goods. We got out of the water and examined the crates and palettes of smuggled goods. Well, Frank examined them. I examined Frank. His wet briefs clung to his body. The dark mass in front revealed what had been hinted at earlier, I don't know why his body hair fascinated me the way it did, I looked at the pouch of his briefs and the pale column of his cock could made out, swimming like a minnow through the dark sea of his pubes. He certainly had enough of it, and he was right, soon he'd be hairy like our Dad.
"Here, help me pry this open,"
I could see what looked like the head of his pushed up against the pouch of his underwear, flaring, stretching out the fabric. Was Frank's dick bigger then mine? I would have guessed that it was, just because he was my bigger brother; I mean, it stood to reason. In gym class at school, in the lockerroom for athletics, I had, once or twice, snuck a peak at some of the other guys. I blame Frank for training my mind to constantly be curious and noting even the most obscure details. Biff and I were on the JV team and once after showers, I caught a glance at his dick. Biff was blonde, like me, his pubes were a rich honey golden color, thicker and more unruly than mine (like, apparently everybody's were) He stood next to me shagging the towel through his hair, and I stole a shot at his dick while he couldn't see. It was thick, and he had a particularly loose ballsack, that hung down low on his leg, but my cock was clearly longer. My cock was bigger than most of the guys on the team. I guess I took a particular pride in this, always checking a guy out on the sly just to confirm I was still king of the roost. But Frank, maybe Frank was bigger than me. I'd like to be better than him, though, in at least this one category. I looked at his wet underwear, sticking to his body. The pouch pulled down in front, mine did too, my cock curled up over my balls, and then something terrible happened. It started to get hard and stick out, right in front of me. My dick naturally hung down (I wondered if Frank's did too) and as it got harder instead of shooting bolt upright it continued out almost perpendicular to my body, looking down I could see it plain as day through the invisible material of my wet briefs. It was humiliating. I just hoped Frank was too busy prying into boxes to notice. Though as much as I tried to get control over it, it wouldn't go away. Looking over and seeing Frank in his see through briefs only made it worse.
"Look at all this stuff, Joe! This is the evidence we need! We just have to figure out how to get it out of this cavern." Suddenly we heard a noise! Someone was coming! I looked at him stricken. He pointed and mouthed the words "into the crate". We slipped quickly and quietly into the crate. Me first, and then him after me. We heard two distinct voices, Frank strained to hear what they were saying. I was sitting on my haunches with Frank right in front of me. We had assumed a similar position countless times sneaking down stairs or spying on someone from around a corner, but never half naked. Whoever the two speakers were they passed around the crate we were hiding in. Frank pulled back close to me to hear what they were saying. His body touching mine, and my poor dick that had started to soften from the panic fairly throbbed from the proximity of his body. I was terrified if he moved in just the right way, pushed back a little bit, he could feel it, that my dick would literally rub right up against his ass. I held my breath. And I was terrified about the smugglers too.
"mumble mumble . . . skelton key . . ."
Frank turned to me. "A clue!" he mouthed.
The smugglers spoke a little more then slowly their voices trailed as they disappeared deeper into the sea caverns.
"There must be a secret entrance somewhere out in the sand dunes"
"Let's get out of here!" I said.
We crept out of the crate we were hiding in. Just as I hoisted my leg over I heard a loud rip. My undershorts had gotten caught in a splinter in the wood, they were torn nearly off.
Frank turned to look. He could see the top of my dick where it hung free below the ripped underwear. I was mortified! "Joe! How many times have I told you to be careful"
"Frank!" I cried, I was nearly naked. "What do I do?"
"You're just gonna have to swim back naked"
"I can't Frank!" I covered myself. Well, I grabbed my cock and tried to cover it that way, but some still stuck out.
"Oh, c'mon, it's nothing, no one will see,"
"Give me yours!" I said "No!"
I looked up at him, my eyes pleading.
"Please Joe!"
He rolled his eyes, "Oh, alright" he hopped on one leg and in one quick motion pulled his underwear off. And there it was, nestled in it's bed of honey brown pubes, thicker and fuller than I would imagine by the sparse sprinkling of hair, that dusted his chest, his cock flopped, a heavy tube of pale skin, generously round with an angry flared head. It was thick, even the soft blue veins that covered it were thick and it swung pendulously once free. Seeing it gave me an instant boner, my dick popping straight out, but I hunched over and tried to conceal it while I put on his underwear. I turned around so he wouldn't see me. I pulled my stiff cock up and to the right, where the head rested against my pelvic bone from where the underwear trapped it. Hopefully Frank wouldn't notice. When I turned back around there was Frank standing naked as the day he was born. He was lean and muscular from athletics, his shoulders naturally broad like our dads'. He was well proportioned, his chest evenly defined, two small, quarter-sized nipples crowned each peck, his were a deeper brown color, where mine were more pink. His waist was trim and his cock swung heavily out of his dense pubic bush, proud and formidable. He was, what I had had sometimes heard coarse girls call, hung. Thick cocked, like my own and bullish. A natural runner and great at soccer without even meaning to be, his legs were articulate and muscular. And hairier than I'd thought before. My brother was so handsome then, I wanted to kiss him like a girl, I wanted to tackle him to the ground and kiss him on the mouth with my tongue and put my hands around his fat cock and feel how thick it was in them and lick the light hair around his nipples and roll around on the ground till he was on top of me, till he . . .
"Joe, we have to go, those smugglers . . ."
He jumped into the water, (oh my god he even had an amazing ass, muscular and firm) and I jumped after him, we swam through the crack in the cave wall then back up to the waters' surface, I looked up underwater at him ahead of me, the light of the moon illuminating the seawater, his muscular legs kicking, his thick dick bobbing his balls bouncing, and then we broke the waters' surface and swam to the shore. Quickly we dressed and as he pulled his pants up I snuck one last, quick peek at my naked brother, and he turned back and looked at me.
"Joe!"
Oh no, had he caught me? I should have known better; he's a great detective, he doesn't miss anything.
"Joe look!!!" The smugglers, running from someplace out in the sanddunes we saw three flashlights coming our way. We immediately began running for our motorbikes. A whizzing noise pinged nearby and I realized we were being shot at. Another bullet whizzed by near my head, then suddenly a hot, searing pain in my calf, I'd been hit!! "Frank!" I stumbled and Frank turned, horror stricken! I fell to the ground and suddenly he was on me, lifting me up in a fireman's carry, "You'll be okay Joe, you'll be Okay, I'm so sorry I got you into this"
He got us to our motorbikes and sat me on the seat, he hopped on in front and put my arms around his waist.
"Hold on Joe!" he said as he kickstarted the bike and we sped away. I wrapped my arms around his midsection and held on for dear life. The pain in my leg was intense, I rested my head on Frank's back. I was so worried I was going to die, I just let go of everything and held on to the one thing that mattered to me the most.
As he pulled up to the hospital ER he once again picked me up, pulling me against his chest.
"Hold on little brother," he said.
"I love you Frank," I said looking up at him.
"I love you too, little brother," he said, his voice choked with emotion.
"No," I said. "I'm in love with you, Frank." and then I fell unconscious.