I’m a gay man in my late 30s, a decade into a monogamous relationship. My partner and I are well-matched and comfortable together, and we still enjoy an active sex life, though I’ll admit it has become somewhat routine. I work with my partner’s straight (and handsome) older brother—I’ll call him "Dino." Though my partner is unaware of it, I’ve had something of a mild crush on Dino since I first met him, and I think he flirts with me as much as I flirt with him. He’s unhappily married with grown children, and he confided to me a couple of months ago that he and his wife haven't had sex for years. Half joking, I offered him a blowjob if he ever got really hard up.

Two weeks ago, we went out for a drinks afte work, and you can guess the rest. One thing led to another, and Dino took me up on the offer in the front seat of his car. We both enjoyed it, although he declined to return the favor. Since that night, Dino has been the same friendly coworker/brother-in-law he’s always been, but I can’t get him off my mind.

I’m torn. Half of me regrets that it ever happened at all, but the other half wants it to happen again, even though I suspect it meant nothing more to Dino than a little release after a long dry spell. I’m sure he doesn’t see it as betrayal, but I feel guilty because I really do love my partner (and I've never been unfaithful before). Should I try to talk with Dino about it? Confess to my partner? I can’t imagine breaking up with him, just as I can’t imagine Dino leaving his wife to be with me. But how do I get over him?

Brother-in-Law Lover

My response after the jump.

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Before I respond to your question, BILL, I wanna address all the Blogtowners who are already jumping up and down and screaming, "FAKE! FAKE! FAKE!"

Yes, gang, BILL's question does have that Letter-to-Penthouse aroma about it. But here's what leads me to believe that it's not a fake: the ages of the parties involved. If BILL typed this letter with one hand while he jerked it with the other, he wouldn't be in his late 30s, he wouldn't have been with his husband for 10 years, and DINO wouldn't be old enough to have grown children and a dried-up, bitter, withholding wife back at home. (Or a neglected, disappointed, thinks-DINO-sucks-in-bed, sick-of-being-taken-for-granted wife back at home.) Everyone involved would be a lot younger and benefit from default/reasonable assumptions about hotness, i.e. that younger guys are always hotter than older guys. If the letter was fake DINO would be a 22-year-old former college wrestler with a three-day load in his sack and the source of his hardupedness would be a deeply religious girlfriend who won't put out.

And on the off chance that it is fake... eh, so what? I don't want fakes making it into the column or making SLLOTD with any regularity. But every question that makes the column or the SLLOTD is a good hypothetical for all readers save one.

Okay, BILL, you've no doubt heard of situational homosexuality. The term describes scenarios where straight men are so deprived and so desperate that they will resort to having sex with other guys. Think of pirate ships and prisons... and now sexless heterosexual marriages. Most straight guys trapped in sexless marriages will pay a woman for it before they mess around with another dude. But not all hard-up straight guys can afford to pay for it or are willing to to risk arrest for it. And it's these guys—with an assist from Craigslist—who are reviving the institution formerly known as "trade," a.k.a. or straight men being sexually serviced by gay men, a.k.a. situational homosexuality for desperate suburban dads.

Your B-I-L was a spot of trade, BILL. He's not interested in you or your dick or running off with you. He got just drunk enough to convince himself that a mouth is a mouth without getting so drunk that he couldn't keep it up. And that's the end of it. He may want a repeat but he definitely doesn't want a romance. And he probably doesn't want to talk about it.

Nor should you, BILL—not with DINO, not with your husband, not with my readers, not with anyone. This is the sort of ill-advised, one-off betrayal that can destroy a relationship if the guilty party makes the mistake of unburdening himself. Even if your relationship wasn't monogamous, BILL, this simply isn't the sort of thing you confess. I'm in a monogamish relationship and I would never recover if my boyfriend blew one of my brothers—my God, just typing that makes me wanna hurl. (Yes, Bill, I know: you too, you more.)

I would advise you to stuff this blew-your-brother business down the memory hole. Let your husband continue to think you're still the person he married—not a cheater and certainly not a cheater-with-family-members—and work harder at being that person.

Don't even keep this one for the wank files. It was a mistake, never to be repeated, never to be discussed.