When I first started writing about Jasper and Ben I thought I had a simple tale to tell. My goal was to record what happened to me, what happened to the three of us, in one very remarkable year in our lives. But somehow, before I finished, the story began to change, and now it ends differently than I thought it would when I started it. I've worried about telling this story for a long time. No one will ever believe it, I tell myself. And then I argue the other side. Just tell the story as it happened, I say to myself. It will be for your readers to decide. And I sit down and write a sentence or two. And then I stop. If I could end the story differently, would I? Even now, I'm not sure I understand everything that happened, or perhaps more importantly, I don't understand why it happened. When I think about it, I still can't tell if all of it was accidental, one long chain of random events, or if somehow, in some unexplainable way, I caused it all to happen.

The day I picked Jasper up at the train station in Boston it was snowing like hell. In fact his train from New Hampshire was delayed because of the snow. I remember standing on the platform at the Back Bay station, stomping my feet and blowing on my hands trying to stay warm. Finally, long after my toes had gone numb, the arrival of Jasper's train was announced, and for no particular reason, my heart started to race and my cock thickened in my pants. Already I could feel the power that Jasper held over me. My mind was flooded with the remembered images and tastes and smells of Jasper. I was in the tent on the side of the mountain with my legs in the air with Jasper's cock buried deep in my ass, his park ranger uniform crumpled on the tent floor beside us. I was following Jasper's naked ass down the darkened hallway of his cabin, watching him swing forward on his crutches, my stiff cock bouncing in front of me. Standing on the platform with the train engine bearing down on me I nearly swooned and had to grab the hard edge of a wooden bench to keep myself from falling down. I was suddenly and thoroughly intoxicated with visceral tactile memories of Jasper's open mouth and Jasper's bare feet.

People began to emerge from the train. I held my breath. No Jasper yet. Of course he wouldn't be the first one off. The surge of people out of the train ended. There was still no sign of Jasper. I scanned the length of the train, panicking. Maybe he had missed the train. Maybe this was the wrong train. Maybe we had miss communicated. Maybe he wasn't coming. And then I saw him. His cast emerged first, a heavy wool sock protecting his toes from the cold, followed quickly by the rest of him carried smoothly along on his crutches. He was wearing jeans that were slit on the side, and it looked like the cast covered his whole leg, right up to the top of his thigh. He was wearing a heavy winter coat that was zipped up tight around his throat, but there was something funny about his neck and the way he was carrying his head. "Oh Jesus," I whispered to myself. He appeared to be wearing a neck brace. My cock was a rock. A train conductor was following him, carrying his bag. I ran up to him, breathless.

"Jesus, what happened to you?" I inquired, planting a kiss on his cheek. We'd exchanged only a few emails prior to his arrival, and I really didn't know anything about his injuries other than that he said he had broken his leg.

"Just a little mishap," he replied, returning my kiss. "It looks worse than it is."

Up close I could see that a soft foam collar and not a rigid neck brace protected his neck. There was something about the way he held his head, his chin resting on the white cloth of the foam collar, which made him look even more sexy and vulnerable than I had imagined him looking with just the cast on his leg. I was consumed by a wave of lust. It was all I could do not to knock him down and fuck him right there on the train platform. Exercising the utmost self-control, I took his bag from the conductor, thanking him and even remembering to offer him a dollar, and followed Jasper toward the tunneled escalator at the end of the platform.

I was mesmerized following Jasper with his cast and crutches. It was as if I was in a trance. I could not have walked away from him if I wanted to. A man with his leg in a cast is a powerful narcotic for me and I was suddenly and powerfully addicted to Jasper. He was so masculine, this park ranger from New Hampshire, hauling himself along on crutches with grace and strength, his right leg bent at the knee and encased in a rigid column of white fiber. His short dark hair was framed by the soft contours of the white foam collar that restricted the movement of his head and neck. I ached to touch him, to run my tongue over the length of his body, to lie beside him, to kiss him, to feel my skin against his cast, to cup the cheeks of his ass and his balls in my hands, to play with his toes sticking out of the cast. I wanted to be inside him. I wanted him inside of me.

Instead I found myself trudging through the snow behind him, lugging his heavy duffel bag, on the way to my car. My winter coat concealed my erection, but my rock hard cock made walking uncomfortable. Jasper moved purposefully and confidently forward on his crutches, undaunted by the remnants of snow and ice on the imperfectly cleared Boston city sidewalks. I'd sprung to park in the more expensive lot closest to the train station, but even so we had to walk almost two blocks. I'd offered to drive around and pick him up, but he'd assured me that the walk would not be a burden, and indeed walking behind him it appeared that it was not. His eyes riveted firmly ahead of him, he planted the tips of his crutches on the bits of bare sidewalk he could find and pulled himself effortlessly forward, as if crutching through the snow were the most natural thing in the world.

It was not until we were in the car with the heater blasting and Jasper settled in the back seat with his leg up that the story of how he broke his leg emerged. I listened while I drove, rapt, my painfully swollen and throbbing cock leaking precum all the while. He said he had been trying to help a woman whose car was stuck in one of the trailhead parking areas. The gravel parking lot was pitted with ruts and she'd managed to get her car stuck in the snow and ice, and had spun her tires until the belly of her car was nearly resting on the crest of one of the frozen ridges. Jasper said he had found her just before dark, when he was making his rounds of the trailhead lots to make sure that no one was stuck on the mountain after dark (as Ben and I had been the previous fall). He said that in retrospect he should have just radioed for a tow-truck, but instead he'd tried to rock the car out, pushing from behind and coaching the woman to press gently on the gas peddle each time he rocked the car forward, and to ease off of the gas as the car rolled back. They were making headway, with the care wheels cresting higher on the ridge with each forward push, when suddenly he'd found himself pinned underneath the car. He said they'd never figured out exactly what happened, but it seemed that somehow the woman had managed to throw the car into reverse and back over him. She felt terrible, of course, and managed to use the radio in his truck to call for help, staying with him until they drove him away in the ambulance. He'd banged his head badly on the ice, leaving him with a concussion and a seriously strained neck. He'd also broken his right leg. It seems a rear tire had actually driven over his leg, and both the tibia and the fibula were fractured just below the knee. He'd been in the hospital for two days, and then home in bed for two weeks, and now, amazingly, here he was in my car.

Finally back at my house, I double-parked and helped Jasper out of the car and up the steps to my front door. Once he was safely inside, I returned to the car to get his stuff, racing back up the front steps, and then helped him off with his coat. He said that he was surprisingly tired, that the trip had worn him out, and that he wanted to lie down for a while and put his leg up. I led him to my bedroom, helped him ease his jeans down over the cast, and found some extra pillows to support his leg while he stretched out on his back. I wanted nothing more than to jump into bed next to him, but my car was still double-parked illegally out front, and he seemed to be falling asleep. I drew the shades against the afternoon sun and pulled the bedroom door gently shut behind me.

It took me almost twenty minutes to find a legal parking space, and by the time I got back to the house and peaked in on him, he seemed to be sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling with each breath, his naked toes exposed at the end of his cast. Standing in the doorway I slipped my shoes off and dropped my jeans in a heap in the hallway, and slowly, quietly, gently, eased myself onto the bed next to him. He didn't stir. I lay back with my arms behind my head and watched him sleep. He'd taken the foam collar off when he lay down, and slept now with just a t-shirt and his white Calvin Klein briefs and that long hard white cast on his right leg. Trying not to wake him, I slowly lay down, extending my body close to his, easing myself down onto my side, snuggling as close as I comfortably could. I extended my right arm over his chest, and brought it down gently on his t-shirt, resting it there. After several moments, he brought his hand up and rested it on mine.

We lay like that for the better part of an hour, both of us drifting in and out of sleep. I woke with Jasper squeezing my hand and moving his finger on my palm. I moved against him, throwing my leg over his. Our mouths met, open and hungry, suddenly devouring each other. I was on top of Jasper, pulling his t-shirt up over his head, and pulling his shorts down over his cast and ankles and feet. We were both naked, and my hands were between Jasper's legs, grabbing his balls, fingering his crack, and rubbing the top edge of his cast with the back of my hand. His cock was hard and straining, jumping and bobbing and leaking precum on his lower belly. I turned myself around and leaned low over his long cast, taking his toes in my mouth, my lips and chin knocking awkwardly against the rough lip of his cast. Jasper sat up, straining forward and licking my ass, his tongue darting between my cheeks and then probing my tight pucker with the tip of his tongue. I ground my ass back against his face, caressing his toes and licking both his naked foot and the exposed end of his casted foot. Jasper's hands pulled my hips back toward him, and I spun around again, facing him and straddling his hips, one knee on either side of him. He lubed his cock with a gob of spit and then stuck his wet finger roughly up my ass, pumping his finger in and out as my ass relaxed around his wet digit. I raised myself up on my knees and slowly lowered my ass down onto his cock, while he used his hand to guide his shaft expertly into my hole. We fucked that way, me riding his cock, straddling his hips, sitting back on his cast and grinding my left ass cheek down onto the hard rough fiber encasing his right leg. We had barely spoken since we'd left the car, and yet here we were consuming each other's naked bodies, each of us responding to the familiar touch of the other. He came explosively up inside me, bucking his hips and lifting both of us up off the bed, grunting and pumping and screwing his eyes shut while I stroked my cock feverously, wanking hard until I too exploded, shooting big sticky white ropes of cum up onto his face and chest. And then I collapsed over him, sweaty, panting, holding onto his slowly softening cock inside me with my clenched ass muscles. His wilting cock eventually slipped out of me with a slick wet pop, and I lay down on top of him, my legs between his, both of us drifting again into late afternoon post-coital slumber.

And so began a wonderful week together. To me Jasper felt like both an old friend, and a new lover. Our time together was easy and fun, and the sex was frequent and fantastic. We enjoyed each other's company and shared an intimacy that was unburdened by the kind of anxiety and worry and uncertainty that had hovered everywhere over the fleeting and intense intimacy that Ben and I had shared. I wasn't in love with Jasper, and didn't feel vulnerable and crazy the way I did when I was with Ben, but I loved being with him. He was like a best friend and a sex buddy, and the cast on his leg added an erotic edge to every single thing we did. His neck seemed to be feeling better, and he only wore the collar when we were outside. In the house he mostly wore shorts and a t-shirt. I turned up the heat and we both paraded around half naked most of the time. We would sit and talk, or watch TV or a rented movie, or just read in front of the fireplace. Often we were touching, one of us leaning against the other one, our bodies relaxing into each other. Sometimes, usually at least once a day, that casual touching morphed into sex. Sometimes that sex was gentle and playful, with lots of slow touching and caressing and mutual jacking-off, and sometimes is was more charged, almost violent in its intensity.

On the second or third morning he was there, I woke up to an empty space in the bed next to me. I got up and walked quietly down the hallway, still naked and groggy from sleep. The light was on in the bathroom and the door was ajar. I could hear water running. The voyeur in me couldn't help myself, and I inched my way down the hallway knowing that I shouldn't intrude on Jasper's privacy but wanting at the same time to see him. He was naked too, except for his cast. He was perched on his crutches, balancing carefully on one foot while he brushed his teeth. He didn't know I was there, and I stood in the shadow of the door watching his ass and his back and those lovely toes sticking out of that cast as he leaned carefully forward on his crutches to spit, then setting the toothbrush down on the counter and shifting both crutches to one side so he could scoop some water into his mouth with his free hand. He was awkward and yet confident while he maneuvered, careful to never set his casted foot down or put any weight on his broken leg. My cock had grown hard watching him, and I moved into the light whispering "good morning handsome" into the silence. He grinned back at me, his face wide with his broad smile.

I moved up close behind him, wrapping my arms around his chest and hugging him, my hard cock nesting between his ass cheeks. He leaned both crutches into the corner and put his arms forward onto the bathroom counter to support himself, leaning forward in the process and pushing his ass back against me. That was all of the encouragement I needed. I was already enflamed, and I dropped to my knees, quickly spreading his cheeks and tonguing his asshole. He moaned, throwing his head back, and I tongue- fucked him hard, burying my face in his ass. Then I stood up, and planting my feet wide on either side of him, I pushed my cock into his wet ass. He pushed his ass back against me and we fucked hard, standing naked in the morning light, while he balanced precariously on one foot. It was the first time I'd been inside him since that night in New Hampshire when I had followed him down that dark hallway on his crutches, and like that last time, it felt more like rape than lovemaking-sheer physical animal sex with another man. Jasper used his arms on the counter to push his body back against mine, actively fucking my cock with his ass, all the while the knee of his cast banging against the cabinet door. My arms remained wrapped around his chest, and I held him tight while I fucked him, feeling very responsible for making sure that we didn't crash to the floor while I ravaged his park ranger ass. Even as I came explosively inside him I used my knee to push him hard against the counter so that we didn't topple over. When I had finished, his left leg was shaking from the strain of holding himself up on one foot, and he said he had to sit down. I helped him over to the toilet and closed the lid so that he could sit, and then I knelt between his legs and sucked his hard cock, his casted leg stretched out next to me, until he too came in big white-hot gobs in the back of my throat. "Breakfast of champions," he joked as he caught his breath and I swallowed hard.

In addition to hanging out half-naked together indoors, we also spent a lot of time out and about in Boston. Despite the cold weather and the snow on the ground, Jasper was not hesitant to head out in public on his crutches. We went out to dinner and we went out to Club Caf* for drinks with the boys and we hung out at the mall at the Prudential Center and took a taxi to the Museum of Fine Arts and even drove up to the North Shore one afternoon to look at the winter sea. I liked being out with Jasper. I liked walking slightly behind him, watching him crutch, watching him carry himself forward with his powerful arms, watching his cast swing through, and watching his butt move in his jeans. I also liked the attention we received when we were out together. If we stopped in a bar for a drink, or went into a restaurant for a meal, inevitably someone would ask Jasper what had happened, and they would, inevitably, express sympathy for his plight. It was hard to ignore his cast. He had long legs, and it went from just above his toes all the way up to the top of his thigh. The winter weather required that he wear a sock over the end of his cast to protect his foot from the cold, though I hated to see his lovely toes covered up, and I always made him peel the sock off as soon as we were back home.

As much as I liked having Jasper staying with me, I was still pining over Ben. Jasper and I had great sex, and were great companions, but my heart was still stuck on Ben. It had been ages since I'd heard from him either by phone or by email, and I was getting kind of depressed about it. I had been trying very hard not to let my preoccupation with Ben intrude on Jasper's visit, but one particularly snowy Saturday afternoon while we were sitting in front of the fireplace drinking wine, I spilled my melancholy guts. The wine had made me feel vulnerable, and before I could stop myself, I was giving Jasper an earful about my unrequited love. He let me go on and on, not encouraging me, but not stopping me either, and when I was done we both sat there in silence. He didn't say anything, and eventually I started to feel awkward.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have brought this up."

"No. It's OK. You can talk to me about anything Mike. You know that."

"Thanks." I was feeling sort of sheepish.

"Listen," he said, after another awkward silence. "If you really want to get Ben's attention, I think I can help." He was staring at me with a very serious look on his face that I didn't really know how to interpret.

"How?" I asked.

"When he broke his leg last fall, you took care of him. I mean you really went out of your way. His wife didn't do that. If he found out you had a broken leg, that you were here alone in this apartment with your leg in a cast, he'd have to come out to see you, to help you. He owes you." Now it was my turn to stare at Jasper. I wasn't following his logic at all.

"But I don't have a broken leg," I stammered. "And I'm not about to break it just to get Ben's attention. And it's not like you can fake a broken leg." There was another long silence as we stared at each other.

"Yes you can."

"What do you mean?"

"You can fake a broken leg." The look on his face was deadly serious.