QAF FanFictions By Jane2005 - Get It Here

QAF FanFictions
By Jane2005
Crisis
“Don’t get too comfortable there, Gus, we gotta leave pretty soon to go pick Justin up at the airport.” Brian glanced
down at his son who was sitting in front of the television, staring too intently at the day-glo spidey-sponge-puffwhateverthefuck characters that were prancing across the screen. “Gus,” he repeated, knowing that his son’s intent
focus would only create problems when he was forced to tear the kid away from the screen in less than 20 minutes.
He had learned it was best to pull Gus away during commercial breaks.
Gus finally glanced back at the man reading the paper on the couch behind him. “Huh?”
“Don’t get too comfortable there, kiddo.”
“Huh.” Gus turned back to the television.
Brian shook his head and turned back to the paper. They had about twenty minutes before they had to go, and what
was this? A half hour cartoon? Brian decided to let Gus watch the whole thing. What was five minutes off of his
schedule?
He grimaced, fighting the desire to stick to his original plans, to adhere to his normal instinct for being on time in all
circumstances, or to leave the little shit to his own devices on arrival at the airport. He wondered whether Justin
would be in as pissy a mood as he’d been in when he’d left Brian’s office two days ago, or whether, even worse,
he’d have that cocksure attitude that had started the whole argument in the first place.
It certainly hadn’t been Brian’s fault, that argument. Yeah, he’d been in a bad mood, ever since John or Bob or Dick
or whatever the fuck his name was in the art department who had missed a deadline and forced Brian to push back a
meeting with the client at the last minute, knowing damn well this would force him to make extra nice, even
concede more than he wanted in later negotiations. If the client didn’t find someone else in the interim. He hated
being off schedule once he’d had an organizational structure set up in his head. Thus, his native unwillingness to risk
being late in picking Justin up from his trip back from L.A.
The whole trip had been last-minute, something about the designs on the set of Rage, the movie. Or was it a costume
thread out of place? Brian had been looking forward to just going out with Justin and relaxing that night, or not
relaxing as the case may be, at Babylon and wherever they wanted to go after. Instead, Justin had dropped by midafternoon to announce he was desperately needed across the country.
“Can’t they just email you?”
“Nope,” Justin replied, that tone of flippant self-confidence setting Brian’s teeth on edge. “They need the go ahead
for the set. Besides, Brett said he didn’t think it was quite right, and wanted me to come out and get a feel for it.”
“A feel for it, huh?” Brian picked up the latest design Cynthia had handed him from the Art Department, wrong
again. Fuck! “So I suppose you need me to fix up travel arrangements?”
“Already got them,” Justin answered. “I was just wondering if you had time to drop me at the airport?”
“Oh, yeah,” Brian snapped. “Like I have time to drop everything, because you get called away. Take a fucking cab!”
Silence. Brian looked up, expecting to see anger, or incredulity spread across that beautiful face. Instead, Justin was
smirking at him.
“What?”
“I’m sorry we can’t go out tonight. I was looking forward to that too, you know. It’s just, well, business.”
He really hated it when Justin did that, thought he knew him well enough to not let Brian chase him off. When Brian
was in these moods, he hated having Justin around. It wasn’t that Justin tried to appease him, something that only
made Brian’s mood more brutal; those days were long gone. Now, Justin just smiled and shunted Brian’s sarcasm
aside, more often than not leading him out of his angry mood through misdirection.
But Brian liked being angry. It was effective. For instance, when Dick/Bob/whoever was summoned to readdress
this latest design imperfection, Brian wanted him cowed, wanted him ready to put in the extra time and effort that
fear inspired, so he wouldn’t waste any more of Brian’s precious time.
“Like I can’t go without you. And I know all about taking care of business…” Brian gestured to the fuck up on the
desk in front of him, “…like I have time to drop everything because you what, need me?”
But Justin was never cowed anymore. Instead, he answered Brian’s glare with a shrug. “Fine, I’ll grab a cab. Just
thought you might want to a good-bye blow job on the way over, fine, your loss.” He picked up his bag. “And Brian.
I don’t need you. And I sure as hell don’t need your shit mood.” Letting his own annoyance show, Justin had
stomped out on his way to Los Angeles.
Brian felt better and worse after that. Worse, because he hated actually feeling, okay, kind of bad that he had ruined
Justin’s initial good mood. And that he had missed out on a blow job. But you’d think the kid would know better
than to harass him when he was working and obviously pissed off. Unless Justin had learned to ignore his moods
altogether. That would really suck. For the longest time he had wanted nothing less than for Justin to get the clue
that he was fine all on his lonesome. But now… he wasn’t so sure what
that deep uneasiness was, that tightening in his stomach that would grip him when he had started actually hearing
the words from his lover’s mouth, I don’t need you. Wasn’t that what he wanted to hear, all along? I want you, great.
I need you? No. So why did the negative statement bother him so much?
“Fuck,” Brian muttered. This was bullshit. That conversation was over two days ago. In the past. He’d find out
whether Justin was pissed at him when he met him at the airport, with Gus. He had a good idea Justin wasn’t too
pleased, since he had emailed Brian his itinerary without any note, and nary a phone call. Just the facts, ma’am. No
usual, I miss you. No phone sex. Shit. Justin must be pissed, he must be. Surely he wasn’t just ignoring him.
In any case, Brian figured that showing up at the gate to greet Liberty Air 512 with Gus in tow and a big, sarcastic
“Welcome home honey!” would clear up any lingering bad blood. Justin would roll his eyes, and then break out in
that smile of his, and understand that underneath his lover’s sarcastic, over-the-top gesture, would be a grain of
truth. Plus, having Gus along didn’t hurt. Justin would never give Brian shit in front of the kid. Lucky for Brian,
Melanie had gone into labor the night before and Lindsay had dropped Gus off to stay with him. The perfect foil to
Justin’s pissy attitude. Justin loved the kid, and Brian’s showing up at the gate would be as good as an apology,
without him once having to say anything. The perfect plan. As long as they were on time at the airport.
He conceded to himself that that meant he and Gus would have to motor before the cartoon was over. Just because
Justin’s plane had a stop-over at O’Hare, there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t be in the 10% statistic that did not
immediately equate a stop-over with a late arrival at the destination airport. With the way things had been left, it was
better not to take the risk, even if the odds were in his favor.
He looked up at the cartoon, dreading the drama that would ensue when he pulled the kid away mid-stream. But
even as he glanced at the screen, the cartoon was interrupted by NBC Breaking News, with that damn music that
accompanied every major national announcement. Brian stood up, relieved that he wouldn’t be the bad guy for once.
“Wonder who we’re bombing now?” he thought, turning to pick up Gus. He lifted the child in his arms and turned to
find the remote to switch off the tv.
Before he could, the anchor came on and began, “Breaking news this hour, there has been a plane crash in Illinois, a
flight apparently en route to Chicago’s O’Hare airport. Details are sketchy. We take you to our reporter in Chicago
at O’Hare.”
Brian turned slowly back to the television set. On screen, a stern woman with a perfect blond bob appeared in front
of a terminal with Liberty Air’s logo prominently displayed behind her. “Thanks, David. I’m standing here at
Liberty Air terminal, where we have been informed that one of Liberty’s planes has crashed on approach to
Chicago, going down approximately 20 miles outside the city. We have no solid details at this hour, but we are
being told that air traffic controllers were in touch with the airplane for some amount of time before they lost
contact.”
“Diane, is there any indication that this is an act of terrorism?”
“Where the fuck was it coming from?” Brian’s voice came from behind clenched teeth.
“Daddy!” Gus reprimanded, placing his hand on Brian’s mouth. Brian absently picked the little hand off his face,
held it tightly in his own.
“We don’t know for sure, little information is being released.”
“Diane, I have to interrupt you, we’re getting video from our local news affiliate at the site.” On screen, a field came
into view, smoke pouring up into the sky at a distance. Emergency lights were everywhere, including immediately in
front of the camera taking the shot. The press was being kept far at bay from the scene of the crash itself; all that
could be seen was black smoke billowing from behind a slight rise. Off screen, a voice called to the police man at
the barricade, “Were there any survivors?” The grim woman standing next to the police officer in the forefront of
the screen replied, “No details. You’ll be informed when we have more information. Please stay behind the lines, we
need to maintain access.”
The stern blonde came back on screen. “We’re being told that Liberty is setting up an 800 number for relatives once
the tragic flight is confirmed. Until then, anyone concerned is encouraged to call the main number to check on
specific flights.”
Tragic flight, what the fuck did that mean? Brian felt his arms begin to shake, and he turned to set Gus down on the
couch. He picked up his cell phone, and hit the redial button for Liberty Air, a number he had called not two hours
ago, to make sure Justin’s flight was on time.
“Welcome to Liberty Air.” Brian punched in the numbers to check for flight time and arrival information. Once he
entered the necessary information, he waited for what seemed an eternity. Thank God they didn’t have canned hold
music; instead, a voice patiently explained, over and over, that his call would be answered as soon as possible. Two
minutes went by. It seemed much longer. Brian glanced at the clock. He’d have to leave soon if he wanted to meet
Justin’s flight. Maybe it was delayed, and they were changing the information.
“This is Lilian with Liberty Air.”
A real human being. Brian, startled, recovered enough to say, “Yeah, um, I was calling to check on Liberty 512 out
of LAX, connecting through O’Hare. It was due in Pittsburgh at 12:18."
“Oh… hold on, please.” Again, cut off. But this time there was ringing, and the call was immediately picked up.
Brian told himself that this didn’t necessarily mean anything, even as he felt his heart begin to race, the sudden cold
clamminess of his hands.
“Yes, sir? This is Jack, I’m a representative of the airline. You have a relative on flight 512?”
“Yes, Justin Taylor? Is…” He couldn’t continue, but he didn’t have to.
“I am very sorry, sir, but our reports indicate that flight 512 is the plane that went down just outside O’Hare. We
have reports of survivors, but no details. According to my information, Mr. Taylor boarded the flight in LA.”
Brian closed his eyes.
The man continued, “Are you in the Pittsburgh area?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re arranging immediate transportation of all relatives to Chicago. Again, there are reports of survivors, but we
just don’t know at the moment. The local hospitals will be handling the immediate information regarding survivors,
if there are any.”
“What the fuck happened?” Brian demanded.
“We don’t know yet. Can you get to Pittsburgh International? We can send a cab to pick you up, wherever you are.”
“No… I can get to the airport.”
“Okay. Go to the first class check-in; arrangements are being handled from there. There’s generally no line; if there
is, speak with an attendant who will be there. They’re aware of the situation. And sir… again, I’m very sorry.”
“So am I,” Brian muttered as he hit the “end” button on his phone. He looked down at Gus, who was staring up at
him from the couch. He’d have to drop him off somewhere. But where? The hospital, with Lindsay. But Michael
and Debbie were there, too, and he didn’t want to dump this on them in the middle of an already emotionally
charged situation. And besides, he didn’t know anything, and just couldn’t handle any questions right now.
He brought the phone up, and dialed another number.
Ted had not offered any advice on the interminable drive to the airport, thank God. He hadn’t said he was sorry, and
that Brian could appreciate, because “sorry” was more than bullshit in this case, sorry implied that Justin was… lost,
and they just didn’t know anything yet. Gus was strapped in the back of Lindsay’s car, for delivery to his moms at
the hospital after Brian was dropped off at the airport.
“Have you talked to Jennifer?” Ted asked as they pulled up at the Liberty Air terminal and stopped.
“Shit, no.” Brian shook his head as he got out of the car. “I’ll do that, good thinking.”
Ted leaned over. “I’ll take care of everything on this end. If you can, let us know.”
But Brian had already walked away, his long stride moving quickly through the doors and toward the Liberty Air
desk. He approached the First Class counter, bypassing the longer waits for check-in. He vaguely noted a family
laughing together as they joined the end of the regular line. How odd, they behaved so normally. He stared at them,
as they poked through their bags, talked to each other as if the whole world weren’t shattering. He'd seen families
just like this one in public a million times, but this one... surreal. He shuddered without realizing and turned back to
his own line.
There were two people waiting at the first class counter, while the customer at the counter handed her luggage to the
attendant, who in turn placed the bags onto the conveyer behind her. She turned back to smile at the customer,
handing over a boarding pass. Brian slowed, wondering if he should just wait. These decisions were usually fairly
easy; he usually would just barge to the front of the line, owning the space. These were, after all, extraordinary
circumstance, and he’d even been given the go-ahead, not that he ever needed it. So what the fuck?
“Sir?” Before he could overcome this weird reticence, an older man in the airline’s uniform approached him.
“Are you here as a relative?”
Tactful, Brian thought, biting his lip to suppress a sudden urge to laugh hysterically at the man’s concerned
demeanor. He could only nod, and clenched his hands against the urge to strike that look of sympathy off the man’s
face, to rip at the skin, to see if it was just a mask the corporation gave out for just this purpose. Get a grip, Brian, he
told himself. The guy’s just doing his job.
“Maria will help you.” The attendant gestured to a young woman with that same serious look, who stood at the far
end of the counter, waiting. There was a long, empty stretch of counter space between her check-in and the others.
Discreet, Brian thought as he walked down to speak with her.
“We have a flight to Chicago that’s boarding now,” Maria said, punching information into the computer. “We just
need to ask a few questions.”
“I don’t have any luggage,” Brian replied, biting his lip.
Maria glanced up, surprised. “Oh, no, of course not.” Her shocked face jolted down Brian’s spine. Serious, fuck, this
is all so fucking serious, so fucking surreal…
“We need to see a license,” she said, and, as Brian took his wallet out of the inner pocket of his coat, she continued,
“And, we need to know the name of your relative, and your relationship?”
Relative, fuck. He should have called Jennifer first. “Justin Taylor,” he answered, handing his license over. “He’s
my…” the hesitation had Maria glancing up, meeting his eyes for the first time. “husband,” Brian finished, softly.
He waited, ready to really lose it if she said a fucking word, anything close to, sorry, we’re only accommodating
relatives. Liberty was about to fucking accommodate him. But still, that odd reluctance, like skin stretched too tight
over a feverish body. If he started yelling at Maria, he was afraid he would devolve into screaming, and wouldn't be
able to stop. Not good.
Thank God, Maria only nodded, typed the information into her computer, and handed him back his license along
with a boarding pass. “Gate 21. It’s boarding now, twenty minutes to take off.”
As he moved toward the gate, he remembered Ted’s advice, and dialed Jennifer’s number.
“Hello?”
“Jennifer, it’s Brian.”
“Hello, Brian, what…”
“No, listen, look.” Fuck, how did you break this to someone? “Look, I’m at the airport, Justin’s flight just went
down outside Chicago, it crashed, it’s all over the news, I’m taking off in 20 minutes. Can you get down here and
onto a flight? Just go to the first class desk, they’ll put you on a plane.”
“Oh my God.” There was a catch in her voice, then silence
“Jennifer? Jennifer!”
“Yeah, I’m here…”
“Did you hear me?”
“Is he… Were there any… Oh, my God.” Brian heard the noise of a tv being turned on in the background, heard
Molly’s voice in the distance, questioning, “Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Jesus, Jennifer, turn off the fucking tv and get your ass down here! They aren’t giving out details until we get there,
and they aren’t going to release any information until relatives have been notified. Can you get out to Chicago?” He
was rough on her, he knew, and out of the corner of his eye he saw people in the line casting furtive glances at him.
“I gotta go, I’m going through security.”
“Okay… I’ll meet you in Chicago.”
Brian hung up the phone, and threw it, along with his watch and wallet, into the basket to be x-rayed. Then he was
through, and hurrying off to his flight.
II
Brian normally got a rush out of takeoffs, all that power thrusting the huge piece of machinery forward, the press of
the body against the back into the seat, the gathering speed and then the tilt upward, the vibration of contact with the
ground gone as the metal frame slipped suddenly into air alone, the whine of the engines and the thrust, all that
power absorbed in the contact of body against the seat. Normally, he got a rush. Nothing was normal today. The
landing usually did not affect him at all, only a slight regret at the idea that he was back on earth. Today, though,
knowing that takeoff and landing were the most dangerous minutes in the air, a thought that normally turned him on,
he knew… normally. There that was again. He felt sick with the idea of his normal reaction. The games he played in
his head with death were only for himself. Why did they seem to keep playing out in Justin’s world?
“Mr. Kinney.” He turned his head to look up at the flight attendant, who was leaning into the empty seat that
separated his seat at the window from the aisle. “If I can do anything for you, anything at all, just let me know.”
He nodded, and began to turn away. Then he looked back. “Do they know anything yet?”
“I’m sorry, we really haven’t been told anything.”
“I don’t suppose you can get CNN here.” He tapped the video monitor in front of him, showing the airplane’s
position in the sky over a cut-out section of the Northeast US.
“Unfortunately, just movies and canned video. The captain will be in touch with the ground. If he hears anything,
he’ll tell me and I’ll let you know.” She paused. “Last I heard, they were saying there were survivors. I can’t know
for sure, but…”
He managed a wan smile. “Yeah. Uh… can I get a glass of scotch? One shot, no ice.”
“Certainly, I’ll bring it right over.” She walked away.
He stared out the window at the ground below. An hour and a half in the air, too short to climb far up. The ground
slipped past, all the little houses visible, the trees, the earth below. People going about their normal lives. He always
felt superior to them, but right now he envied them with an intensity that made it hard to breath.
He leaned his head back against the seat. Up to this point, he had been in full active mode, and now, with the sudden
enforced stillness of his body, he could feel the shaking of his bones under the surface of his skin, the blood
pounding too fast in his veins. That sensation had been kept at bay by figuring out what to do with Gus, where to go,
rushing to catch the next plane, calling Ted, calling Jennifer, rushing through takeoff… suddenly he had nothing to
do but wait. Wait and think.
The flight attendant, Diane according to her name tag, came back with his drink. Thank God. Barely a shot, filling
the barest amount of the glass. Probably for the best. Brian took it from her, swallowed it in one gulp, tossed the
empty glass into the seat next to him and then turned back to the window.
Jesus, that argument, how stupid was that. Was that an argument? What a stupid way to leave things, just to end…
No, he didn’t know, damn it, didn’t know anything yet. But no word from Justin in two days, when they always
called each other. Or, Justin always called Brian. Brian rarely made the first move; both men knew that. Brian
leaned his forehead onto the window, his brow touching the cool surface. I’m such an asshole, he thought. The old
Justin would have called right away, he would not have been okay with letting Brian be an asshole, not okay with
letting this argument or whatever this stupid thing was, not okay with letting it just be there, between them. The
Justin prior to this latest phase in their relationship, at least, the one who hammered at him, that Justin would have
tried to shake this stupid wall down, would have let nothing stand between them, that Justin would have called,
yelled, and then soothed Brian’s responsive and unrelenting temper with hot words of a different sort, so that Brian
would not have stayed mad at him, not after an orgasm coaxed by just words over a phone line that would still be a
better experience than any anonymous opening in the back room at Babylon.
The new Justin just let Brian ride, and didn’t do a damn thing. The new Justin kept whatever he was thinking to
himself, and let Brian rage away. Except for that chicken soup episode, as Brian had begun to call it in his head.
Brian hadn't understood, up to this very moment, why he was so fixated on remembering Justin's yelling at him,
fixated but not in a bad way. Now he realized: it had been signs of life in Justin's resistance to Brian's bullshit. And
it had only taken a really, really prick move on Brian's part, throwing him out like that. So Justin took care of him,
sure, he was there, enacting the very arrangement Brian had tried to hammer into his head all those years – words
mean nothing, action is all. But then, what did Justin’s new actions of shrugging off Brian’s bullshit, yeah, okay, it
was bullshit, such petty bullshit in the face of this sudden overwhelming shift in reality, a reality so fucked up that
every little bit of it outlined more clearly the edges of this new and horrifying thing he was flying into, this brave
new world, in the face of the jagged edges of this new Reality all that past bickering was just so much bullshit, dim
and hazy bullshit. Justin used to fight to get Brian to understand that, that that bullshit he was so good at
manufacturing wasn’t worth the time it wasted. The old Justin had been fighting to get Brian to get it. The one who
knew, maybe even more after he’d been hurt by Hobbes, that all Brian’s crap was just that. Life is too short to waste
the time. Wake up, Brian, he could imagine the words in Justin’s voice, the old Justin who knew with another sort of
blow, that physical blow to the head instead of the constant battering blows to the heart, that it all could be taken
away, and who wanted to be left with a life of regret, with what could have been? Brian had wanted to toughen him
up, to get him to put up defenses, to protect himself. Just like me, he thought.
And then there was the fiddler, who showed Justin what Brian already knew all too well about words. Again, not
Justin’s words, but someone else’s. You’re still so young, Brian had told him, over and over. Experience will screw
you. Let me show you exactly how.
And if Hobbes had bashed his head, Brian and the fiddler had bashed his heart. So what was the solution? To walk
around with a helmet because some asshole with issues can do damage? Was that Brian’s wisdom?
Oh, what, you’re so smart? The perfect return, Justin’s belief that it wasn’t about experience, for him, it was
something else. Experience isn’t the only lesson out there, and maybe experience isn’t about shutting down,
protecting yourself. Justin would have said, fuck that. The old Justin. There’s more to life, there’s more to me, more
to you. More to us, fuck the world, fuck what it does. I’m different. You can be too. We can be together.
Brian thought, Maybe that’s what this has been since we got back together, Justin processing his experience with
that guy. I always just dump things into the past, forget them, move on. At least, I say I do, don’t I? That mantra, “I
thought you were past all that,” when I came upon him drawing those slaughter pictures right before the Pink Posse
bullshit, but it wasn’t bullshit, not to him. Putting experience behind you doesn’t mean that it’s forgotten. It gets
translated into action. Pain has a way of not staying in the past, it translates into the future. My own experience
translated, translated into words that said love is bullshit. No one will take care of you. And those words translated
my own pain. Put a helmet around my heart, steel walls, sealing everyone out. So maybe some words did mean
something.
And so here was the new Justin, a new translation. There when Brian needed him, sick with radiation poisoning,
refusing to walk away. But not exactly walking toward him either. Keeping Brian at arm’s length. Watching, wary,
waiting for the next blow.
And what was Brian’s response? You don’t like the way I strike out, get off the playing field. Don’t like that I’m
busy, annoyed, and taking it out on you? Get your own fucking cab.
Fuck. It was never a game to Justin. So why did he suddenly give up his position, when did he start playing Brian’s
game? Was that what had been happening? Or was he waiting for Brian to finally get a clue, to figure that out, to
join him in a world where words matched actions, matched intent? Brian had always thought of that as la-la land.
And, in his experience, it had been.
And Justin… he figured Justin would find that out too. Just like Brian had. And so what, Brian was going to show
him just how cruel the world was by being the face of the cruel world? To turn him away from his idealism, his
belief in love, the belief in things important enough to fight for?
“You want him to deny who he is, how he feels…” His own words, and he’d meant them, had been really angry and
disgusted when he’d spat them at Craig Taylor, coming back to haunt him as he sat here, uncertain in a way he’d
never been in his life, doubting everything he ever thought he knew. He accused other people of living bullshit lives.
But what had he been doing?
Brian bit down on his bottom lip, tasting blood, feeling the pain. It wasn’t distracting him. He bit harder, nope. The
pain was there; it didn’t hurt, it couldn’t hurt him, he wouldn’t acknowledge it. He could master it, he could master
all pain, see, look at this, the tender flesh just inside and under his lower lip, shredding, and he didn’t care, didn’t
care, didn’t *feel* it.
But the other pain, the clog at the back of his throat that was something deep down fighting to rip out past the lip he
was biting down on, that he felt. The shaking in his hands, that he felt.
He opened his teeth, let go of the damage he was causing to his mouth. This wasn’t working, he had to admit it to
himself, the old tricks didn’t work in this situation, no matter how much better it felt to just inflict physical pain on
himself and fight feeling it, and through that reminder, fight feeling anything at all. As much as he would love to
drown himself in the first class whiskey that tasted like shit and felt like balm as it hit his stomach and was picked
up by his blood to spread through each cell in his body, drown out the pain, calm down this awful trembling that
shimmied just under his hopefully still surface, that wasn’t the answer either. He couldn’t do this anymore. Justin
needed him, fuck. Needed him to keep together. And if he was okay… well, he needed him still, more than he knew,
even though he didn’t know why, but Brian did, what was that about shock, opening eyes? Wasn’t there a song
about that? Oh, crap, please no song lyrics bouncing around in my head.
Instead, his partner’s words on the big night of reunion, “I know what to expect…” Yeah, he knew to expect a whole
bunch of nothing, action that might mean anything at all, but just don’t think about it, because you don’t know me,
I’ll give you nothing, no explanations, of intent or of feelings or of expectations, not expressions of anything. Let
that be enough. Always being kept at arm’s length from the natural urge to create something bigger. No
expectations. I know what you expect of me… to just take the bullshit reminders of how little he was needed by the
man he still loved, but differently now. The artist, who lived for expression, facing the blank canvas. And is okay
with that? No, no no no no. Something is not right here. This isn’t right. Why would Justin think this was all right?
Why was he allowing, encouraging Justin to believe this was all right, just giving into himself, his own past, his own
bullshit so easily? And it had taken this to open Brian's eyes to it? When it was too late?
“Fuck,” Brian whispered, then clamped his lips together. No, he didn’t know yet, he didn’t know anything yet.
He knew why he had allowed this, though, it felt safe, it felt comfortable, it felt familiar. Those familiar feelings, all
based on experience, all lies. The only feeling that he knew was true right now was the pain deep inside, in every
cell, the pain at knowing that he might already have lost the most important thing in his life, maybe the only thing
that would lead him away from the bullshit he’d indulged himself in up to now. That, and the rightness of
remembering the feeling of his own body against his lover’s. That he knew, without doubt. Absolute right.
But none of where he was at this moment was right, none of it, he should be greeting Justin at the gate with Gus,
apologizing in his own way without words, without conceding anything to his other, continually denying him points
in a game that suddenly felt completely meaningless in this brave new world he’d just been thrust into. His need to
be on top, always in control, suddenly made ridiculous, worse than ridiculous, meaningless. He wasn’t in control, he
had never been in control. And now… he might have to live, knowing Justin thought he didn’t really care. Not
enough. Never enough.
All the familiar words he normally told himself were wrong, totally out of place here in this airplane, where he never
expected to be, yesterday’s, hell, this morning’s words echoing back at him with a false ring that mocked
everything, his entire life, everything he did and told himself was for the best. It wasn’t for the best, not for him, not
for Justin. He wasn’t in control, he was in a fucking airplane on his way to a national disaster. How the fuck had this
happened? He sure as hell had no idea. He didn’t know shit, his whole life, based on lies, the lies he learned from
two self-centered bullshitters, lies he wasn’t strong enough to fight.
And was he only able to think all of this now, in the quiet of first class, because he knew damn well the odds were
he’d never have to deal with it at all? Never have to solve this, never have to risk any bit of himself by trying to
reach out with words, with more than just his bullshit experience and ego maniacal selfishness, instead of saying
something to Justin, to reveal this? Because he knew…
No. Nope, he didn’t know anything.
He glanced at his watch. Twenty-five minutes gone. Was that what this would be? Ninety minutes of hell, of the
implications of how badly he was fucking up, of how he needed to pay attention to someone else’s sensibilities
instead of his own, to just fucking listen and actually take seriously ideas outside of his own experience, for no good
reason at all, to just take a leap of faith and not impose his own will on everything? Could he do that?
But he considered the idea, for the first time in his life. Just make him okay, he chanted to himself, in his head, over
and over, Just let him be okay and I won’t try to control him, or even myself, I won’t play it so safe so much. Life
isn’t safe, isn’t that the obvious point here? Please, God, don’t take him away from me, don’t be that cruel, don’t
leave me unfinished.
He looked at his watch. Thirty minutes since takeoff. It felt like forever, and an hour to go.
“Um, I’m sorry, are you flying into O’Hare for Flight 512?”
Brian turned his head to look across the aisle at the woman sitting in the seat just slightly back from his. First class
staggered the seating, for maximum privacy, if so desired. He desired, and turned away.
“I’m sorry,” the woman continued, relentless, “but…” her voice was raspy, and she finished, “…my husband and
daughter are… were, on that flight.”
He turned back to her, having no idea what to say as his gaze took in her shaking hands, the eyes bright with
repressed tears, the pinched skin about her mouth.
The flight attendant came down the aisle, addressed them both. “I’m sorry, we still don’t know anything. But if
there’s anything else I can do…”
“Reverse time and make my family miss their flight?”
The flight attendant visibly blanched, and Brian felt a vicious satisfaction. Normally, he would have been the one to
destroy the airline workers’ ongoing attempts to accommodate what they “knew” he was feeling. And here was this
frumpy, washed-out looking woman telling this perfectly clueless idiot, that she didn’t know shit, she couldn’t do
anything. Just what Brian was thinking.
“Just leave me alone, please.” The attendant walked away, probably relieved to return to her normal duties. Serve
drinks, hand out hot towels. Normal routine, normal, normal, normal. What the fuck was normal anyway? His
normal was completely blown out of the water, oh, oops, out of the sky. He saw the attendant, Diane according to
her name tag, leaning in to talk to a passenger on the other side of the cabin. The passenger smiled; Diane’s smile
was natural in response. How was such a conversation possible? How was it possible that people went about their
daily business? Brian glanced at his watch. 12:30. They were due in O’Hare at 1:30… okay, 2:30 with the time shift.
He realized, he should be at the gate. With Gus. Waiting for Justin to come down the corridor 10 minutes ago.
Cursing out the announcement that told waiting relative, including him and this woman sitting behind him that he
should not be even glancing twice at, that the plane was late. Of course. Gus telling him to not say “Shit!” to no one
in particular after hearing the overhead PA. Going to the counter, asking how long it was going to be. Blaming
Justin in his head for the delay, for wasting his time, for making him care enough to actually be there in the first
place. Instead, he was on a plane himself, looking back toward this woman who looked a lot older than her, what,
early 40’s? Impossible to tell with the stress stretching underneath her skin like that, her shoulders shaking slightly,
a small shiver rippling down her body, in waves.
Well, she wasn't the only one, he thought, forcefully relaxing his clenched hands. He answered, “Yeah, 512.”
Mrs. Clark glanced at his hand, checking for the ring. “Family? Girlfriend?”
“Boyfriend.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“I think you can save sorry for yourself.”
“No… you must hate that.”
He raised his eyebrows. It felt weird, that reaction, but he was glad it was possible, that his habits were carrying him
through. He sure as hell wasn’t sure he could manage otherwise.
“I mean, everyone must just assume when they ask you. That it’s a girl. Or a family at home.”
“He is family. Family plus.” Was that true, really? Were they really that close anymore?
She laughed, mirthlessly. “I like that, good way to define marriage. Oh! I’m sorry.” She blushed, an improvement to
the grey cast of the skin around her eyes and mouth, and he saw that she was actually much younger than he had
first thought. Maybe mid 30’s. “Are you married then?”
“I think the wife wouldn’t understand my thing with Justin.”
“I mean…”
“Yeah I know.” Brian sighed, shifted back in the chair to face her more squarely. “I’m thinkng too much. You're a
good target for distraction. Sorry.”
“I don’t mind. As you say, distraction. I’m trying not to think about it, babbling at you. I don’t know any gay
couples. My husband, Jack, he’s kind of…”
“Homophobic?”
“He’s an uberguy.”
“As opposed to an ubergay.”
She actually laughed, and he realized she was a lot younger than he’d thought initially. “Oh, yeah, total opposite
from the ubergay. Out of shape, getting old, bored with his job, bored with me. Bored but entrenched. Judgmental.”
She raised a hand to her face. “Why am I telling this to a complete stranger?”
“Same reason I’m giving you a hard time. It helps not to think about other things.”
“Yeah.” She was quiet for a second. Then, “I’m Mary.”
“Brian Kinney.”
Mary wasn’t in such great shape herself, Brian noticed. “I’m really worried about my daughter,” she said, looking
away from him.
“Your daughter?”
“Yeah, Grace. She was both traveling with Jack. On the way back from his parents in California.”
“I have a son. He’s with his mother though. Safe.” He didn’t add, thank God, he thought that would be cruel.
“Really? So what, you were married and met… Justin, right? And realized you were totally in love, and the feelings
you had all along were real, you weren't, well, marriage material?”
Brian snorted. “Sorry, Mary, that’s someone else’s Lifetime Original Movie.”
“Oh, I’m…”
“Don’t be,” sorry’s bullshit, he almost added, but stopped himself. “A friend wanted my sperm. I’ve never been the
marrying type.”
“Bet Justin doesn’t believe that.”
Brian shook his head. Justin didn’t used to believe that. He had no idea what Justin believed now.
“Probably smart of you, though,” Mary continued. She leaned forward in her seat. “Can I tell you something?” Brian
sighed, gesturing her to move into the seat next to his. Justin would never believe I invited someone to sit next to me
on a plane, he thought. Sometimes I don’t like him next to me. Damn, I really am an asshole.
Mary scooted forward, gratefully, settling in. “I wish sometimes I’d never met Jack. I mean, I don’t regret having
Grace… But my first thought in hearing the news was, maybe he’s dead, and maybe she’s okay. That’s pretty awful,
isn’t it?” Her voice was choked.
“I think something like this brings out feelings we’d rather not think about,” Brian responded. “You need a drink? I
need another drink.” He gestured over to Diane, who moved over immediately. “Can I have another shot? That’s it,
cut me off. And, Mary…”
“Wine, white wine, whatever, I don’t care.” Diane hurried off, and Mary turned back to him. “It’s not that I regret
Grace, it’s that I used to be a dancer, you know? In college. I was pretty good. Oh, yeah, I know you’d never know
looking at me. But I was really good, in fact, the San Francisco ballet was a real possibility, it was almost a for sure
that I’d get in. And then I met Jack.”
“And got pregnant.”
“No, that's somebody else's Lifetime Original. It wasn’t anything that excusable. I fell in love. At least, that’s what I
told myself. Now, though, I think it wasn’t that, I think I was afraid. And let myself use Jack as an out. And I think
that’s why I resent him so much now, not because of who he is, there’s still a lot of good in him. It’s just… he never
helped me help myself. He wanted me to be the woman who would be there for him, what was convenient for him to
believe of me, for me to fit into his way of looking at the world. And I didn’t have enough balls to tell him to go to
hell. To be a dancer, to be great as a dancer which was how I’d always seen myself. I gave in to easily to who he
wanted me to be, in his image of the world. It’s pretty normal, I guess. One partner’s always stronger. We never
fought in the beginning. Maybe if I’d fought him more right off. We only started fighting a couple of years ago,
when I started blaming him. And you know, I know I can only blame myself, that’s what they tell us, right? We can
only make our own choices, stand alone, no one can help us. But that’s bullshit, because he was actually really
weak, too weak to support me, too weak to see that helping me, encouraging me to be for myself and not for him,
which would have made us strong, and been better for both of us. But he
had the power over the relationship, and isn’t that what they say, power corrupts? He thought he knew what was best
for himself, for me, for us. And he didn’t know diddly. He thought he did. And I let him. You know?”
“Oh, I know,” Brian answered. Mary sure could talk, but for once someone else babbling at him was a relief. So
when she stopped tracing her anger and resentment and now guilt because Jack and her child might be gone, and
said, “I’m sorry, I’m talking only about me,” he gestured her to continue, telling her it was okay, he didn’t mind. He
closed his eyes, let her words wash over him. Tried to focus on her voice, ignored the second glass of whiskey and
the mental image of what Justin must have gone through not three hours ago.
And then they were landing in Chicago, and Diane was getting them off the plane, where they were greeted by a tall,
older man with a grim face in a navy Armani suit and tie, who introduced himself as Richard Warburton, and
directed them to follow him to an isolated suite.
III
They followed Warburton into a large private room, and looked around the room at the hundred or so other people
gathered there. Warburton turned around to face him and Mary. Several people approached Warburton, but hung
back when they realize there were new arrivals.
“We don’t have a lot of information right now,” Warburton began.
Brian interrupted, “Are there survivors?”
“As best we can tell, about ninety or so people managed to exit the plane.”
“Out of how many?”
Warburton straightened his spine, and that canned, I’m-in-charge-here look was melting from his face. The mask
slips, Brian noted with satisfaction. Good, this prick better realize real quick who’s about to be in charge. “One
hundred and ninety-seven.”
Mary moaned, an animal sound. Brian didn’t even glance at her. “You must have heard something by now. Do you
have a list of those who were conscious at the scene?”
“We have a list of fifty-four treated for lesser burns, smoke inhalation, who were able to give us their names. We
also have a list of those who… couldn’t… with identification on them. Mr. Taylor and your family, Mrs. Clark,
were not on either list of the known recovered. I’m sorry.”
The woman began crying, silently. Brian said to her, “We don’t know anything yet.”
“I’m sorry,” Warburton continued, “I really must attend to…”
“No, you mustn’t,” Brian interrupted. “Or, if you must, you will go get me someone who will be able to answer my
questions, or at least get me to whatever hospitals your ‘victims’ were taken to. Now. Now, Warburton! Oh, fuck,”
he ended, pulling his phone out of his pocket. It was off. What the fuck? Shit, shit, shit, what the fuck, when’d he do
that? He hit the power button, waited for the voice mail beep, there it was. A number of incoming calls, one from
Jennifer, probably telling him what flight she was on. Three from Michael. None from Justin.
He closed his eyes, then looked up, around the room. Warburton was talking with two women and a man. All were
crying. He looked around the room. Most seemed incapable of standing, holding onto each other, leaning up against
each other, staring at Warburton, waiting. The weight on his shoulder told him Mary had leaned into him. “Mary,
Mary!” She looked up as he shrugged her off. “You can’t fall apart now.” She seemed unable to focus. “Oh for
fuck’s sake.” He turned to a young man sitting a bit away, staring into space. “Hey! Yeah, you! How long have you
been here?”
“Forever.” He practically whispered it.
“No, seriously, half hour? Hour?”
The kid glanced at his watch. “Yeah, waiting for news.”
Brian shook his head, disgusted, and beginning to let that clog in his throat open up. Safer here, on ground again,
where he could fucking *do* something. “Hey! Warburton!” he strode over to the man, who spoke briefly to the
people, promising he would "do what I can," before he turned back to Brian bearing down on him. “If you don’t get
me transportation right fucking now to whatever hospitals the survivors are at so I can go take a look at the people
who can’t give you their names, I am going to go outside to the media I’m sure are camped out there and tell them
Liberty is not helping the families, we all know how that plays in America. If you don't get me fucking
transportation, right now, I'll do it myself.”
Warburton motioned him aside. Brian stepped further away from the others. “Mr. Kinney, I appreciate how
distraught you are…”
“No, you don’t.”
“…but the hospitals have asked that we hold the relatives here until they are not quite so overwhelmed. We have
really good hospitals in Chicago, and their trauma centers are at full capacity, every doctor in Chicago is there, along
with all the staff, they’ve all been called in. I know it seems incredible, but it’s only been four hours since the plane
went down. The relatives whose family members are… dead, or dying, the ones so badly burned there’s no
recovery, if we know who they are, we’ve sent those families along to the hospital. We’ve also sent the families to
be with those relatives who survived. But they don’t want people crowding the hospitals right now. We’re getting
people to take photos of the unidentified, and they will be forwarding the pictures to us as they come in, as soon as
possible.” He paused, noticing how Brian’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I can’t imagine how hard waiting is, Mr.
Kinney.” He hesitated, and Brian prompted, “What?”
“I work closely with Dan Wheeler,” Warburton went on, naming the Vice President of Marketing, a man Brian
knew fairly well. “We appreciate the work Kinnetic does for Liberty. When I saw your name on the list flying in
from Pittsburgh, I spoke with Dan, not an hour ago. We are both terribly sorry to hear Justin was on that plane, Dan
remembers meeting him. Believe me, if we were going to accommodate anyone, it would be you. But right now, this
is bigger than us. The doctors are in charge right now, and there’s nothing we can do but stay out of their way and
wait.”
Brian bit his lower lip, and took a deep breath. Fuck. Me. He opened his eyes. “I’m keeping you from your job. I
appreciate your taking the time to speak with me.”
“I am more than happy to do it. Jennifer Taylor is due in on the next plane, which is on time in just under an hour.
We should have pictures coming in, as soon as we can. We’re encouraging people to leave a description with
Marianne, at the computer, so that any incoming photos may be… shown first to those who may match. You should
do that. I’ll be back, and please ask my assistants for anything you need.” He gestured across the room and Brian
noticed a woman standing behind a counter typing information as a relative gestured, apparently physically aiding
her description of a lost loved one. There was a short line of people waiting to do this. There were also two men in
company uniforms standing on either side in the reception area, one speaking to a young woman whose hand was
clutching at his.
Brian turned back and took a seat next to Mary.
“I think I’m glad I’m with you. Someone who can take charge.”
“Let me tell you, Mary, today I am definitely not in charge. And I’m starting to get the message that it isn’t always a
good idea. We have to go to that line up there, and give a description of our relatives.”
***
“Brian! Have you heard anything?” Jennifer rushed up to Brian as he stood, grabbed him in a huge hug and
threatened never to let go.
He gently pushed her away. “No.” He glanced at Warburton, who had accompanied Jennifer into the waiting area.
Someone had finally turned on the television news, and all they had learned was that it probably wasn’t terrorism,
that the plane had been descending for landing when all hell broke. Survivors were reporting there had been an odd
bang, the plane shook, and then they were tilting, righted briefly, and then fast, down. They had crashed near the
interstate; apparently the pilots had managed to line up on a fairly even field, but at the last second the plane had
tipped, and they had rolled. The pilot managed to tell the air traffic controller that they had lost ability to control the
plane. Both pilots were officially dead. A passenger in one of the cars on the interstate had filmed the first part of the
crash, the plane descending so fucking slowly, looking good except it was headed for a field, and then one wing hit
first and it rolled and a huge flaming bubble engulfed the thing before rising in orange and black smoke.
He had briefly left the room so he wasn't forced to hear 100 people crying out in horror. It was bad enough, to know
Justin had been in that, without having to hear his own reaction screaming back at him in others' voices. He stood
outside the door, glanced down the hall. No one there but a lone security guard. He had pulled out a cigarette. The
guard approached him; Brian had glared. But the man had only handed him an empty soda can. "For the ashes," he
had said, before turning back to his post.
But he had had to go back in, because every so often a new picture would circulate into the waiting room, or a series
of them would filter in, pass around. And then someone would know. He hated watching that, people inevitably
broke down. He did not envy Warburton his job, having to break this to people. What could you say? After watching
Warburton quietly pull aside a group of people the first time, and watching a grown man faint, he’d stopped
watching. Watching those reactions in no way had prepared him for how he felt the first time Warburton pulled him
aside to show him a picture they had recently been sent. Brian suspected that they had a stack each time, but
Warburton and an older woman were the only two who were managing distribution. Probably for the best, Brian
thought. They had added emergency medical technicians to the room. People were needing oxygen. Sedation.
Unreal, this only happened in movies. This didn't happen in real life. You'd think he'd have gotten past this reaction
after all he'd been through. This was why he had never wanted to feel anything. But if he didn't feel anything, who
would be there for Justin? This whole scene, so twilight bizarre, and he would be here, he wouldn't change anything.
If this was Justin's life, he was glad he was here, in it. Justin's life, yes, his life. We still don't know anything, he told
himself. Until then... again and again.
The first time Warburton had pulled him aside to hand him a photograph, he had warned him. “Brian, they covered
this man’s head with a towel, so I don’t know… they thought it best. I’m afraid it’s still…” He hadn’t said anything
more, just handed Brian the picture.
His hands were shaking again. He took a deep breath, felt his stomach twist. Oh God, oh dear God, no please. No.
Finally, he looked down.
The young man’s head was covered with a towel, as Warburton had said, but Brian knew, from the deep laceration
that blossomed up to the hairline, the black burn across the jaw and down the neck, that what was underneath the
drapery would be impossible to take in and remain sane. Now he understood why that man had fainted. He felt the
blood rush from his own head, felt dizzy for a moment, shook his head.
“No, it’s not him.” Oh, fuck, thank God, thank God. He staggered back to Mary, almost fell back into the chair,
leaned forward onto his thighs and covered his head with his arms. Oh, thank God. Mary had rubbed his back. He
hadn’t told her to fuck off and not touch him. It had actually felt good.
Ten minutes later, Warburton had approached again, but this time he had approached Mary. She whimpered. “No,
Mrs. Clark, there’s an eight-year old girl we think is your daughter, who has just revived from a fairly serious case
of smoke inhalation. We think she’s Grace.” He handed her a picture, and Mary started weeping, hyperventillating.
“It’s her, I gotta go.”
“We have transportation arranged, Linda will take you to Cook County.” Mary stood, then turned back to
Warburton. “Jack…”
He shook his head. “She was brought out by another passenger. She gets hysterical when asked, it was best to wait
for you.”
Mary took a deep, shuddering breath. Then she turned to Brian, who watched her, glad for her, but knowing before
he met her eyes, that guilt that would lurk there. He remembered what she said about her husband. Yup, bingo, that
guilt, shame. She squared her shoulders, reached down, clasped his shoulder with a strong hand. “I hope you get
good news soon.”
He nodded, and watched her walk away.
The next photograph came just before Jennifer arrived, and he had been very glad she was spared that. Burns.
Apparently that was the big problem right now. Smoke inhalation and burns. If they survived the initial crash. But
again, not Justin. And it wasn't easier the second time, to look at the face of a horribly injured stranger whose eyes
would never open again, but thank God, thank God, the relief was the same, too.
“Do they know anything?” Jennifer asked as they sat down, to wait some more.
“You don’t want to know,” Brian answered, remembering the video he’d watch. “Don’t watch the tv yet. Not til…
not until we know something.” He watched Jennifer out of the corner of his eye, wondering how she would handle
this situation. He wouldn’t blame her if she’d somehow found a way to take out her anger on him.
Instead, she turned to him and took his cold left hand in both of hers. They were surprisingly warm. “How are you?”
she asked.
“Same as you, I imagine. Is Molly okay?”
“I don’t know,” Jennifer replied. "I dropped her off with a friend of mine." She paused. “I was hoping he’d have
called you.” Her eyes, searching his, knowing he would have told her right away.
He offered what he could. “He leaves his cell phone in his jacket when he travels. And he puts his jacket in the
overhead. He wouldn’t have time to get it, I imagine.”
“But still, he would have called.”
Brian shrugged. “Doubt it. All our numbers are on speed dial, I doubt he’s memorized any.”
Hope seemed to light for the first time in her eyes. “But he’d have the numbers written down somewhere, he’s not
that stupid…”
“In his wallet. In his jacket. In the overhead.” Brian didn’t know if that was absolutely true, but it most likely was
(he wanted it to be).
Jennifer nodded. Then she cocked her head to the side, studying him. He waited, unable to summon any defense to
whatever this was. “You know,” she said, “when I went to the counter at Liberty Air, they told me Justin’s husband
had managed to catch the earlier flight, that I’d be with family when I got to Chicago. I felt… really glad about that.
It was nice to know I had, well, family who would be there. I don’t think I could do this alone. And... I'm glad he has
you.”
He could have said any number of things at that. He could have pointed out that he didn’t want to risk any shit
because his status was not considered legitimate, and that word had seemed the easiest way to bypass issues. Of
course, he could have said he was an uncle. Or a half brother. Well, he hadn’t thought of that, had he, but even if he
had… He still would have said what he did. It was easier. Less bullshit. He just nodded, and they sat in silence.
“Brian?” Warburton gestured Brian from a few feet away. He held another picture. Jennifer shifted forward, but
Brian shook his head. “I’ll go do it, trust me, you don’t…” He saw her face. “I’ll do this, okay?” He gave her hand a
last squeeze, let go, stood, and took the picture. One more deep breath, the odds were getting bad here. “This young
man is alive,” Warbuton said as he handed the picture over.
Brian looked down. Took a huge breath, knew she was just sitting mere feet away, still had to yell with the
explosion of breath from his lungs, its huge release, “JENNIFER!”
Crisis Chapters IV - VI
IV
He was alive. Unconscious, but alive. Beyond that, there had been no information, only that he was at Cook County
Hospital. Warburton was unable to tell them more; the skin on Jennifer’s face looked stretched across those high
cheekbones as she stared at the picture. No burns, no marks, nothing, just…
“Why does he have a tube down his throat?” But Warburton had been unable to answer. Instead, he merely
summoned one of his assistants to bring them down to the car he’d arranged to take them to the hospital. The car
was parked in the back, avoiding the media out front.
“How long will this take?” Brian asked the driver as they slid into the back seat.
“Twenty minutes, sir.” The driver pulled away from the curb, into the back road leading out of the airport. “Usually
longer, but I’m going to go real fast for you. I’m sure any police officer who’d stop us will just give us an escort.”
Brian nodded. Jennifer, who had started to shake, leaned into him, her head bowing into his chest. “He’s alive, thank
God…”
Brian put an arm around her back, somewhat awkwardly, and let her cry as she allowed her fear to pour out. She’d
have to pull together before they reached the hospital. It wasn’t over yet.
He watched the highway slip by, nothing to see, nothing to say. He looked down at Jennifer’s head. She had stopped
crying, but hadn’t pulled away. She wasn’t looking up, was just resting there. He knew how she felt, drained, as if
he’d never be able to get out of the cab on his legs and walk, toward who knew what. But immobility, the desire to
just sink into this seat and never move again, or even worse and of course completely out of the question, to tell the
driver to just keep driving, to never have to face what might be waiting there, that wasn’t acceptable; he knew he
had to do this. He had to know. But still, the impulse to flee… Justin may be alive, but they still knew nothing.
Wasn’t that better, sometimes? Brian stared out the window, glad Jennifer wasn’t watching their car racing through
the traffic, cutting too close in front of an SUV into the right lane, to zoom around the idiot in the high speed lane
who wasn’t moving past the slower lanes quicklly enough. Damn, this driver was good. Brian was going to
remember this guy, next time he was in Chicago. For business, he emphasized to himself. Justin was going to be
fine. Had to be fine.
He wondered if they would have another three day wait to find out if Justin would wake up. When he would. But
except for that tube to aid breathing... He was fine. He looked fine, from the picure. Unmarked, but unconscious...
“Do you want me to find the news on the radio?” the driver asked, coming right up to the bumper of another car that
was driving too slow for him.
“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Jennifer’s breathing had evened out, and he hoped she might be sleeping. Or
at least resting. Hearing details about the crash, though, was definitely not such a hot idea, hearing the numbers, the
percentage of the dead… that was best kept for later. After they knew Justin was fine. And Justin was fine, he
repeated that last line in his head. Please, God. Let him be fine.
The car in front of theirs finally moved aside, tired of the big car on its bumper, flicking the high beams on it. Their
driver took his hand away from the sound system at Brian’s last words, put both hands on the wheel, and hit the gas.
Brian remembered that long ago three day wait at the hospital, not really that long ago, was it? watching the news
obsessively for some hint of what-the-fuck; the reports of Hobbes’ hospitalization (at another medical center; the
system might screw them later, but the emergency personnel were fairly sensitive on the first night). He remembered
the strain on Jennifer’s face then, and he sure as hell remembered the angry, baffled stare every time she looked at
him. Michael would return the glare when he thought Brian wasn’t looking. He hadn’t cared in those three days,
hadn’t cared what anyone thought, totally focused to the exclusion of all else on those words, the same one in his
head now, Please, God… What’s the saying about atheists in foxholes?
The news had distracted him from considering every one else’s pain and fear, the worried looks that he hadn’t been
able to face. The fact that he could only receive his information from Michael, or Debbie after they had spoken to
Jennifer, who had refused to speak to him at all. The doctors would pull her aside, and then Brian would receive the
facts third hand and whenever she decided he’d suffered enough – never, ever enough, he was sure, then she would
dole out the words, seizures, brain swelling, operations, drug-induced coma, he might not revive… and he had been
unable to question the medical professionals himself, to ask any questions, to say anything at all, helpless to do
anything with his despair, only turn it inward, castigating himself. And here he was, reapproaching that hell.
But it was different now. And it was more than the fact that he had not been responsible for 512, because God knew
he had plenty to blame himself for this time, for allowing Justin to get to the airport and on a plane to LA on his
own, for refusing to bend and call him, to apologize without apologizing, to let Justin know Brian was not happy
with how things were left. Nope, that steely, smooth helmet around his heart to shield himself from the blows that
just might come in, gotta make sure that’s in place, all the time, every second,
no one’s getting past it. Everything gets shut out. And he was only watching, doing nothing as Justin picked out a
brand new heart helmet of his own. Hell, he was helping him pick a fit.
He could only admit to himself now, that that obsessive watching of the news those years ago, watching for reports
of Hobbes’ indictment, the charges, the reactions of the media, at the time he’d told himself he needed to stay
informed (when the only information he cared about was kept from him, filtered through Jennifer’s careful editing
of what she wanted him to know, which hadn’t been much, just the big points, probably calculated as the most
painful parts she allowed to batter him - seizures, operation, blood loss…), that obsessive news watching had only
been a recreation the distance he was being kept from Justin, as if he had no right to even feel concern. It had been
his way of pretending that that distance was his choice, that he was in control of where he had placed himself, all
along, at arm’s length, on the outside, looking in. And only seconds before, before that horrifying cracking, that
sound of more than bone being crushed that echoed through the parking garage, his own consideration that maybe,
just maybe, he might move in closer to this boy with the beautiful smile, just toward him, not anything else, no. And
then, the smile was gone. When had he seen it, really seen it, since?
Jennifer heaved a huge sigh, and sat up, passing her hands over her cheeks, wiping away the damp. “Are we there
yet?” she asked.
So different this time. She had not even tried to take control when she walked into the waiting area, just handed
management over to Brian, the contact with Warburton, the approach to the airline personnel to find out if any more
news had come in.
How things had changed, he thought, as Jennifer asked him, “How are you doing?” and he’d answered, “Bout as
well as you.”
Had he changed enough? Things were different this time, and there was no way he was going anywhere once he’d
found his partner, not this time – not that he thought Jennifer was going to tell him to go home, there was nothing he
could do. More specifically, that Debbie was going to tell him that Jennifer wanted him to leave. That it was better
Justin not see him. Nope, not this time, there would be no fighting past the media camped out at the entrance to the
hospital, no almost punching that camera man who got in his way, no rude and unbelievable questions shouted at
him, “Mr. Kinney, did you have a relationship with Chris Hobbes?” “Mr. Kinney, do you blame yourself for this?”
“Mr. Kinney, is Justin dead?” “Brian, do you blame yourself?”
Not this time.
Instead of that, this time there was Jennifer’s face filled with concern, not just for Justin, but for him as well. A
support center that took for granted his place in Justin’s life without comment. The media kept at bay. And that
silent and supportive regard of other people that didn’t terrify him, the way that support had been moved into place
without his permission, there at his back, not just telling him but enacting the fact that he didn’t have to stand alone,
because it was quietly assumed that he was already part of something bigger than just himself, no longer the odd
man out, looking in. He was part of a bigger reality, of him and Justin, this thing that was them. What happened to
Justin happened to him. Everyone seemed to just get that, before he really understood the full implications himself,
and they treated him with the very care he had been terrified of, lifted a control he thought he needed to keep to
himself, the illusion of a control he didn’t really have. And thank God it had been taken from him, so he could focus
on the more important things, namely, being there when Justin needed him, keeping his own shit together so he
could be there when his lover woke up. When, when he woke up. Being there, only for that, keeping his focus where
it belonged, and everyone else taking care of the bullshit that just didn’t matter in the face of Justin who needed him
now. Those same forces that had kept him away, last time, now turned to help him through.
It was more than relief, that external support; it was a necessary part of not losing his mind through this whole
endless day. He did not realize until the groundwork was placed under him by those who would ensure it, that the
security it offered was possible. And he knew that he could never summon it on his own, the man who would take
care of everything, all the time, all by himself. This was something he needed more than anything else, and he
hadn’t realized it until they had placed it under him, without his even asking.
Was that what Justin had been trying to show him, all that time ago with his relentless “I’m killing you with
kindness” tactics, showing Brian that he could have the supporting groundwork of a caring community under him,
ready to move into place when, not if, when life shit on you? Killing him, indeed. He wasn’t the same person he had
been that night he’d emerged from Babylon to see the beautiful boy walking toward him, leaning under that street
lamp so the light illuminated his blonde hair, a halo. Not those beautiful angels from the watered down children’s
stories, not the cherubs. Gabriel, maybe, well, one of the seraphim, that’s how the memory of Justin in that moment
under the light struck him - the mighty Angel who had led the battle against Satan and his minions for control of
heaven.
Oh, God, Kinney, he grimaced to himself, when you start pulling out the symbolism, you really go way out on the
extremes, don’t you? Just like everything else. No wonder you’re so competent as an advertiser for our good ol’
mass produced consumer industry. One cliché fits all. Let’s not turn this into another wild fantasy, he told himself,
Justin was real, and too special for that. He wasn’t an angel; he was his lover, pulling him onto more solid ground,
despite all of Brian’s self-destructive resistance. Justin pulled him more to the civilized center, away from his natural
instinct to careen wildly away, the wild boy goes off. But life, and all its shit, isn’t avoided that way, is it? Just
defamiliarized. The pain, dealt with in more centralized locations, in pursuit after the lost boy, never dealt with,
always left intact. We take it with us. You can run… More clichés.
Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t doomed to his life. If Justin was okay.
And he was fine. He was fine. Please God…
His phone rang. Bemused for a moment at the sound, he took a moment to realize what the sound was, not the
special rings he had for each speed dial number, but the generic ringer for unfamiliar calls. He pulled the phone out
of his coat, looked at display. Completely
unfamiliar, he felt his heart rate pick up. He’d been ignoring the usual suspects; Lindsay, Michael again. But this
wasn’t a Pittsburgh area code and the screen was not bringing up any familiar name, just a number with an area code
he didn’t recognize, and so he flipped the phone open and answered, “Hello?” Jennifer watched intently, her chest
stilling as her breath caught and held.
“Brian! Where are you! I’m a father! Where have you been, you asshole?”
“Michael… you’re not using your own phone.”
“Yeah, I’m using one of Melanie’s friends’ phone who’s down from Ohio, did you hear me, I’m a father! You
wouldn’t believe it, and by the way, you should be here, this reminded me so much of when Gus was born…”
“Michael…”
“I mean, even happening after midnight and all the munchers everywhere…”
“Michael!”
“What? Aren’t you going to say congratulations at least? You were right about one thing, tick tick tick, my God, I
think I’m…” Brian took the phone away from his ear, afraid of what he might say next. He took a deep breath, tried
to gather himself to deal with this without destroying Mikey’s psyche in one sentence.
Jennifer saw the look on Brian’s face, held out her hand, crooking her forefinger and motioning he hand the phone
over. Brian dumped the thing in her slim palm. She lifted it to her ear, her voice smooth and controlled. “Michael,
it’s Jennifer Taylor.”
Pause. “That’s wonderful, Michael, Brian offers his congratulations, and of course, so do I…”
Another long, long pause. Jennifer closed her eyes.
“Yes, Michael, I’m sure you’re always there for each other, but…”
Pause.
“We’ll be there in about five minutes,” the driver said.
Brian looked over at Jennifer, she glanced at the driver, and nodded to Brian that she’d heard. “I’m sorry, Michael,
wait a second, you see… Michael, shut the fuck up.”
Whoa. Brian thought he saw the driver glance back in the mirror. Didn’t expect that from the little woman.
“We’re both very happy for you, we both think it’s wonderful, but Brian can’t talk to you right now because Justin
was on board flight 512, did you hear about the plane that went down this morning? …Yes, *that* airplane crash.”
As opposed to all the other plane crashes this morning, Brian could just imagine what Michael had said to prompt
the dryness in Jennifer’s voice; he doubted Michael even heard the tone that almost crackled with impatience held at
bay, but Brian was treated to the full eye roll illustrating what lay beneath the considerate words on her smooth
surface.
“Of course, he didn’t want to speak with you until we knew Justin was okay. He’s alive, we’ve just learned, and,
oh… we’re pulling up to the hospital. We’ll call later.” And she snapped the phone closed, handed it back.
Brian looked out the window as they took the ramp off the highway, no hospital in sight. He looked back at Jennifer.
She smiled, barely. “You just have to know how to handle people, Brian,” she said.
“You officially scare me.”
“Comes with the job, the mother-in-law handbook, rule number 52, ‘intimidation.’ Sons-in-law should make sure
they’re on mom’s good side at all times.”
Brian’s eyes widened as he stared at her. Wow, two men down in two minutes.
“We’re here.” The driver turned down a side street, and they pulled up to the emergency room door.
When they exited the car, a young woman was waiting for them. “Mr. Kinney? Mrs. Taylor? I’m Ellie Rodriguez,
with the hospital.”
V
“I’m Ellie Rodriguez, with the hospital. Justin’s going to be fine.”
He wasn’t sure he heard her at first, the news so unexpected; his memory had steeled him for much, much worse,
flashing to memories of the last time Justin had been in a hospital. And then, just like that, Justin’s going to be fine.
If he wasn’t quite taking in what he had just heard, Ellie’s broad smile backed it up, her brilliant teeth shining in
beautiful contrast to her dark skin, striking him with its sudden radiance, all the more brilliant for its completely
taking him by surprise. He felt a boulder roll off of his stomach. Ellie was saying, “I can only begin to imagine how
great it must be to hear that, I’m so happy just to be able to say the words.”
Jennifer let out a cry. “Oh, thank God.”
Brian felt his shoulders relax, and, unable to take in anything but the sudden relief sweeping through him, he closed
his eyes. When he opened them, he saw Jennifer shaking, his own expression surely mirrored in her features as they
both exhaled and exchanged a glance, travelers at the end of a harrowing journey. “Can we see him?” she asked.
“Yes, of course…” Ellie turned and walked into the emergency room.
Brian caught up to her. “What’s the breathing tube all about? We saw the picture the hospital sent over…”
“I’ll let the doctor tell you, I really don’t have the details.” Ellie led them quickly down the bright corridor, to a
room toward the back of the department. They passed a woman weeping loudly, a young man standing to the side,
staring at her helplessly, glancing from her to the slatted window behind him. A few people leaned against walls, the
rigid waiting apparent in their every stance. Then Ellie opened a door to their right, and led them into a small room
with two beds. A little girl lay back against the headboard of the first bed. Her head was turned toward Justin, who
lay in the bed next to the window. He was unconscious still, very pale, the breathing tube still down his throat. The
sheet was pulled to his waist, revealing the awful hospital gown. Jennifer crossed the space quickly, Brian a step
behind. “I’ll go get the doctor,” Ellie said, stepping out.
Brian positioned himself over his partner. His eyes greedily took in the rise and fall of Justin’s chest, the movement
of the eyes behind his closed lids. His face was very pale. Brian looked up and met Jennifer’s gaze. She groped her
way over to the chair in the corner, and fell into it.
“That’s it, you’re Rage.”
He almost didn’t realize that the voice coming from behind him was real and not a fucked up fantasy due to his
sudden release from the rack of stress; the words seemed so out of context. He turned around, and saw a skinny
teenage girl sitting in the chair at the other end of the room, next to the little girl on the bed.
“Uh… Actually, I’m Brian.”
“Yeah, but you’re Rage, right? His,” she gestured toward Justin, “comic hero guy. So it really is JT.” Her voice was
coming out in a fit of hoarse whispers and scratchy resonances as she spoke.
Brian nodded at her. “Were you on the plane?”
“In the seat next to him. I’m Leah.” Leah stood, walked around the first bed, and looked up at Brian. That explained
the voice: smoke inhalation. She looked fine.
“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry, it’s terrible what you went through. How are you doing?” Jennifer asked. Trust her to
focus on the girl, when all Brian wanted to ask her was what the fuck had happened to Justin. Obviously, the girl
was fine. She was standing, wasn’t she?
“I’m… okay. Well, thanks to him. Justin… right? I didn’t get his real name on the plane. And then… well, we
weren’t doing introductions after. He saved my life. Both our lives.” She gestured to the little girl. “A bunch of other
people too, they want to thank him. Lots of other people were… not fine. Even some of the ones who got out.”
“What happened, Leah?”
“Brian…” Jennifer warned.
Leah sat on the foot of the little girl’s bed, shrugged. “It’s okay. He can’t tell you, so it's okay. I don’t really
remember the crash, though the other parts, I remember those too good.” She shuddered. “You want to hear this?”
She looked over at Jennifer, who glanced at Brian. He nodded. Leah continued. “So the plane went down, and we
were all in the position, you know, heads down, bent over, and when we hit… well, I don’t much remember that
part, but when we stopped, there was no way to tell where you were in the plane. I mean, who pays attention to the
safety lecture?”
Justin would, Brian thought, looking back at him. Did the eyes look less tightly closed? He couldn’t tell. He turned
back to Leah, who was continuing, almost as if in a trance. “All black smoke and you could hear, but you could
really feel the heat from the flames, almost unbearable. You couldn’t barely breath, though, couldn’t see, the smoke
was just black, like… just blind three feet in front of you. And I heard people, yelling, this way! This way! Those
that weren’t screaming, anyway. Down the aisles, up the aisles, you couldn’t tell where any of it was coming from,
just madness, uh, and then Justin grabbed my wrist, and yelled that the emergency exit was two seats in front of
ours. And I guess he heard Grace there screaming in her seat, screaming, Daddy! Daddy! And he told me to wait for
one second, and he crossed the aisle and I couldn’t really see him for a minute. It’s a good thing I stayed put, most of
the people who went toward the back… well, I dunno. The plane had ended up tilted slightly, downwards, they must
have thought that
was better. But I think something ignited…” her voice trailed away, and she looked over at Jennifer, who was crying
again. “Oh, should I just…”
“No, keep going. She’s fine,” Brian answered, and glared a warning at Jennifer.
“So Justin comes back and he had Grace there, and was she trying to get away? Get back to her dad, I guess, but he
was having none of it. Stronger than he looks. So he had her in one arm, and I grabbed the back of his shirt, and we
got to the emergency exit. He covered her face, because the people in those seats, there was, like, debris blocking the
door, which was why no one was going out that way. Yeah, nobody was moving there…” She stopped, swallowed.
“Anyway. I couldn’t breath, the smoke… in like, less than a minute, no more oxygen, just all smoke in the cabin,
and you could hear all that snapping of fire, people choking. Just moaning, just, just… and leaving them there…”
She looked up at Brian, her eyes troubled.
“Don’t feel that way,” Brian ordered her. “You were lucky to save yourself.”
“Yeah, you’re right…” But her eyes shifted away, and told him she’d feel any way she damned well please, and it
was unlikely to follow his orders. Instead of saying anything, though, she just continued. “So, uh, Justin got me to
move this, stuff, that was blocking the door, he insisted the door was there, behind… well…” She shuddered visibly,
and Brian wasn’t going to ask her what that “stuff” was, “…he handed me Grace who had gone limp at that point,
opened the door to the emergency exit and woosh! A rush of air, swear to God the greatest thing I ever breathed in
my life, but it was like it drew the fire, it was suddenly what I think hell would feel like. So he tells me to jump out
first. About ten feet down, but I didn’t even hesitate, no problem, out I go. Out and on the ground, I almost kissed it,
but I was too busy getting up and trying not to run my ass off, because of course I have to catch Grace. And I hear
Justin yelling at people to go this way, and like, a bunch more people jump out, and Justin right after them. And then
we got the hell away from the plane, and watched it explode again less than a minute later.” She paused, trembling.
“So you were fine. And Justin was fine?”
“Yeah, near as I could tell. We didn’t talk much waiting, people were stopping their cars and handing us water, and
staring at us, or watching the plane burn up, but then the emergency people showed up and chased them off. Fucking
voyeurs, not in a good way.”
Brian liked Leah.
She finished explaining, “I didn’t know Justin’s name til you guys walked in. Wow, he really does do the art for
Rage, didn’t think he really did until you walked in. How cool, Rage comes for JT.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be talking so much?” Brian said. A bit late, but he could be as concerned for strangers as was
Jennifer.
“No, wait, what happened after that?” Jennifer asked. “Why is he unconscious?”
“I can answer that for you.” A tall, slim man in a doctor’s coat stepped into the room. “I’m Doctor Jones, Mrs.
Taylor?”
Jennifer rose. “Yes, Brian and I were just speaking with Leah, trying to learn what happened…”
“Could we step into the corridor? Grace is having a bit of trouble keeping her composure when we try to get her to
leave him. She wants to be here when he wakes up.”
“He has to wake up. I have to be here.” The little girl spoke for the first time, and Brian’s brain kicked in as he
looked at her. “Is your mother’s name Mary?” he asked, as Jennifer moved toward the door Dr. Jones held open.
Leah answered when Grace kept her mouth shut. “Mary? Yeah, she just left before you came in. Apparently they,
uh, found her husband.” She looked away.
Brian nodded, and followed Jennifer out into the corridor. Once there, he turned to Dr. Jones. “So, what happened?”
“First, he’s going to be fine, should be coming out of it. We had to sedate him, but besides that, all he suffered in the
crash was smoke inhalation, and no doubt some muscle sprains. We’ll be able to assess those when he’s conscious.”
“But why is he unconscious?”
Dr. Jones gaze flickered, but only Brian really saw the hint of trouble, quickly masked by professionalism. “Well,
the accident scene was very confused. The emergency medical technicians were getting to the worst cases, and it
seemed Justin was fine at first, but he started having difficulty breathing. We think a panic reaction probably
accounts for the initial level of distress, apparently, he began hyperventilating due to inability to breath.”
“And his allergies,” Jennifer added.
“Yes…” the doctor nodded. “The EMT gave him a sedative and a shot of Roceterol at the scene, it’s a muscle
relaxant…”
“With acetaminophen.” Brian added grimly. “He’s allergic to it.” Of course, how would they know?
“Yes, we figured that out when he arrived at the hospital, mostly because of the rash that developed across his
abdomen. But of course, with the smoke inhalation and a probable anxiety attack, the histamine reaction clogged his
throat to an unacceptable degree. The EMT’s gave him air on the way over, and we gave him an anti-histamine at
the hospital, and the tube down his throat to aid breathing. And a sedative which put him out.” Dr. Jones stopped.
“He’s going to be fine, he should come out of this any time now. We’ll be able to take the tube out when he wakes
up.”
Brian didn’t say a word, he was too pissed off, just turned and slammed back into the room, trailed by the other two.
Of all the stupid, stupid things to happen, escape a disaster only to be felled by human error. He moved across the
room, ignoring Leah’s stare at his grim expression. He pulled the chair up to the side of the bed, and picked up
Justin’s hand, the anger leaching from him on contact with the pulse he felt beneath the tender skin, the fragile
bones. Justin would hate those words used for him: tender, fragile. But in a sudden crash into the earth... yeah.
Delicate as cobwebs, all of us. But Justin was intact now, whole, alive. Fine. Nothing else mattered. “Come on,” he
crooned, “come on, Sunshine, time to wake up. I know how much you like to sleep, but I think you’ve had quite
enough now…”
He hadn’t expected Justin’s eyes to flutter open, but they did, and the blue stare gazed up at the ceiling, and then
turned toward Brian. And just looked at him, cloudy, confused. Brian smiled. “Hey,” he said. “The doctors say
you’re going to be fine.”
“Oh, thank God,” Jennifer breathed.
Dr. Jones moved to the opposite side of the bed from where Brian sat. Justin looked over at the doctor, then back at
Brian. “Bet you want that tube out of your throat,” Brian said to him. He watched the nod that answered him. “See,
my turn to read your mind. And now, you’re thinking, any idiot could figure out I want a fucking tube out of my
throat.” Brian squeezed Justin’s hand again, and the answering grip was almost painful, so strong, as if he would
never let go.
“Hi, Justin,” Dr. Jones said, stepping forward. “I’m Dr. Jones, the one who put that thing down your airway. You
were having trouble breathing, do you remember?” Justin frowned, then nodded. “Okay, we’re going to take it out
now. What I need you to do is take a really deep breath, and exhale when I tell you, okay?” God, if that guy said
okay again, Brian was going to lose it. “Okay, breath in… good, and exhale.” And with the sound of escaping air,
the doctor pulled the tube out of Justin’s throat. Justin started coughing wildly. “Is there water anywhere?” Brian
asked, looking around. He would lose it later. Leah moved to a pitcher on the table next to Grace’s bed, filled up one
of the cups and handed it to the doctor. Brian helped Justin to sit up, and the doctor handed him the cup. Justin
gulped at the contents. He handed it off to Brian, who watched closely as Justin took two deep breaths, and then a
long, final sigh before he began breathing normally.
“How are you feeling, Justin?” Dr. Jones asked, moving to the end of the bed and picking up the chart that hung
there, to make a note. He hooked it back into place, and looked up toward his patient.
“Fine, I guess, considering.” His voice was a harsh whisper. “My throat is killing me. My back hurts.”
“You had an adverse reaction to the shot the EMT gave you on the scene, but the reaction was especially bad
because of the state of shock you were in, along with the smoke inhalation. How’s your breathing?”
“I can do it, so I guess okay.” He glanced over at Brian. “Where am I?”
Brian continued to stroke the back of his hand, as the doctor answered, “Cook County Hospital. Chicago. Do you
remember the plane crash?”
Justin nodded, closed his eyes.
“Maybe it’s better we don’t talk about that right now,” Jennifer interjected. “Justin, honey, we came as soon as we
could.”
His eyes shifted to his mother. “Mom? And, Brian. When’d you get here?”
“We’ve been here, in Chicago, for a little while. We just got to the hospital.”
“I’m glad,” Justin said, turning his gaze back to Brian. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Brian leaned forward and kissed him, feeling his partner’s warm lips sigh into his. And his world, a world that had
shattered just that morning, righted itself, and began to fall together again.
Jones cleared his throat, and Brian pulled back to look at the doctor with an eyebrow quirked up. Justin moved
Brian’s hand up to his face, rubbing his cheek against the sensitive skin of the long fingers that moved upward, into
his hair.
“We’ll check you into the hospital for observation, we want to keep you overnight,” Dr. Jones said, looking as if he
wished he hadn’t put the chart down just yet, as if he needed to do something with his hands.
“No.” Justin said as emphatically as he could, his voice rising to a scratchy gasp that was painful to just listen to.
“You need to stay in the hospital, it’s just one night. Just to make sure you’re okay,” Brian told him.
“I want to go home,” Justin insisted. He breathed deeply and blinked. Brian could see he was fighting to not give
into an emotional reaction that was about far more than being forced to stay in the hospital overnight. “No one can
keep me here if I want to go home.” A tiny bead of wetness eked out of the corner of his eye.
Brian ran his thumb up over the spot, clearing the single escaping tear away. “I’ll be here with you. We’ll move you
into a private room, I’ll watch t.v. with you, all night. Cartoons, if you want. I’ll even watch the Power Sponge Girls.
Whatever you want. Okay?”
“Well…” the doctor began, but Brian glared at him. “We’ll see what we can do. I’ll be back in a little while, and
then we’ll get you moved somewhere more comfortable.” Jones nodded, and walked out.
“You saved my life.” Leah had come up into the doctor’s place. Grace was standing at her side.
“Hey,” Justin said, looking at them. “You guys are okay?”
Grace walked up to him, and put her small arms around his right bicep, the arm Brian was not stroking, and
squeezed. Then she stepped back, still saying nothing, and slipped her hand in Leah’s.
“I got to meet not only the illustrator of one of my favorite comics, I got to meet Rage himself,” Leah said to Justin
with a bare hint of a smile.
“So you believe me now?”
“Yeah, okay, you really are the artist, sheesh, hell of a way to settle an argument.” She glanced over at Brian, who
kept his gaze on Justin, his hand moving across Justin’s neck, into his hair, never still. “Uh… we were only waiting
to see if, um, when you were going to wake up. I promised Grace’s mom I’d meet her in the cafeteria, so we’re um,
gonna go. Grace needs to eat.” She turned to the little girl. “You ready to go see your Mom now, Grace, now you
know Justin’s okay?” Grace nodded. They exited, Leah promising to say goodbye before her mother flew in and
took her back to California.
Tactful for that age, Brian thought. Jennifer stood as well. “I’m going to go make arrangements for a transfer to a
more comfortable room.”
“Private, Jennifer.”
“Yes, of course.” And she left.
Justin turned his gaze away from the door shutting behind his mother, to find Brian coming up out of the chair and
onto the bed. He turned into the other man, as Brian’s arms came up around his shoulders, pulling him closer,
feeling the shuddering breaths Brian finally allowed himself now that there was no one else in the room to see.
Justin held him around the rib cage, squeezing tightly, suspecting Brian was suppressing his own urge to gather him
as closely as possible, so Justin held on fiercely to try and still the tremors he could feel shaking the body pressed up
against his. He pushed back on Brian’s shoulder slightly, wanting to see his face. “I’m glad you were here when I
woke up,” he said when their eyes met. Brian leaned his head in so that their foreheads touched, their breath sharing
the same air. “I’m glad… thank God you’re okay,” Brian answered.
“I’m sorry,” Justin whispered. Much better, at this distance, he didn’t need to try to speak to make himself heard.
His throat felt as though he had had glass for breakfast.
Brian pulled his head back. “Sorry? Why are *you* sorry?”
“That you had to go through this. Again.”
“Oh, Jesus, Justin. This isn’t… I knew you were okay. You had to be. And until I heard or saw anything that told me
anything else, you had to be okay. I was only frustrated in trying to find out where you were, so I could make sure I
was right. You know me, I’m always right. But I needed to know I was right. So… it wasn’t like that last time.
Sorry’s…”
“Yeah, bullshit,” Justin smiled slightly. But Brian was right, of course, Justin thought. This was different from last
time. This time I woke up and he was there. All the difference in the world.
“Even the video of the crash didn’t make me think…”
“There’s a video?”
“You don’t want to see it.”
“I don’t have to. Not yet.” They were quiet again, just holding each other. Justin leaned onto Brian’s shoulder,
content to feel his lover’s warm hands rubbing soothing circles on his back. That felt real good; his muscles there
were starting to ache.
“Justin?”
“Hm.”
“I was pretty… well, unhappy with how I’d let you walk out of my office. And then didn’t call you.”
“Missed the phone sex?”
“Yeah, and the blow job you promised me for the ride to the airport.”
Justin smiled drowsily. He was starting to zone out. “Justin? Justin!”
“Jesus, Brian, I’m fine, just, that feels really good. My back is killing me.”
“We’ll get you some nice happy drugs, drugs prescribed by a licensed pharmacologist, that you’re not allergic to.
Then your mom will get you a comfortable, private room…”
“Or, knowing my day, I’ll end up with the only bed left in the hospital in a ward of four other people.”
“And I’ll raise holy hell until we get what we want.”
“So how many people did you scream at today, getting here?”
Brian smiled, a real smile. “You’d be proud, not many. I wanted to, tried to, even. But… they were all just trying to
help. Jesus, it was so fucked up…” His hand moved up Justin’s back, to curl his fingers into the soft hair at the nape
of the young man’s neck.
Justin felt his grogginess lifting, and he examined the haunted look in Brian’s eyes. “You need to stay with me
tonight.”
Brian nodded. “Yeah, I think you need me to.”
“Yeah.”
Their heads were moving in toward each other again when Jennifer returned to announce that they’d be moving after
Justin had been checked out one last time by a nurse.
“And you’ll stay with me.”
“And I’ll stay with you.”
Crisis Chapters VI - end
VI
“Holy shit.” Justin’s voice carried all of his breath with it. The television mounted on the wall of the private room
ran the 11 o’clock local news featuring the tape of the crash. Brian had seen it already, of course, so he watched
Justin’s face, that lush mouth going slack, the jaws dropping open. Not in a good way. He switched over to CNN,
hoping that the longer pieces devoted to this story alone might have more information and less sensational imagery,
but here, too, smoke shown rising in the distance.
But then they were back to the news anchors. “Amazing anyone walked away from this, but of the 188 passengers
and 9 crew members, 78 people managed to survive, many, remarkably, with little physical injury,” the
anchorwoman said.
“That’s right, Diane,” the anchorman picked up. “And a good number of them credit a single voice coming through
the darkness. We switch now to Robin Ellis at Cook County Hospital.”
The scene switched to a young woman, her dark brown hair tossed in the wind, standing outside the front entrance
of the hospital. The hospital logo glowed against the dark night. “Thanks, John, I’m here at Cook County Hospital,
where several of the victims who survived today’s tragedy were transported. Reports have come to us from several
people who walked away with little more than scratches, having followed the voice of Justin Taylor one of the
several passengers who survived. Apparently, he had managed to locate one of the emergency exits, while grabbing
a little girl and guiding others to safety. Earlier today we caught up with one extremely grateful mother, Mary Clark,
who lost her husband, but whose daughter Grace was the little girl rescued by the young man.”
The video showed the front of the hospital in daylight as a woman in her early forties, somewhat nondescript, held a
child to her. “All I know is, if that young man hadn’t gone back for Grace, she wouldn’t be here…” A reporter
called a question. Mary said, “My husband, Jack…” A tear coursed down her cheek, and her next words came out
through choked sobs, “Grace wouldn’t leave him, couldn’t believe he was, gone – and this young man grabs her out
of the seat, and takes her with him to the only exit on the plane that wasn’t burning… he’s an absolute hero, as far as
I’m concerned. Excuse me, I’m sorry,” She clutched her daughter to her body and turned away.
Next shot, Leah, with an older woman (Brian knew it was her mother, they had been introduced when Leah had
stopped in briefly to say goodbye to Justin and exchange emails earlier that evening). “Yeah, we were sitting next to
each other in the plane. He really kept his head about him, he knew where that emergency door was. I would have
gone toward the back, but I know now that would have
been a really bad idea…” The camera zoomed into Leah’s hand clasped in her mother’s, the knuckles of both
women white from the force of the death grip.
Finally, Jennifer.
Justin moaned. “Oh, my God. How’d they know who she is?”
“She probably got caught up in the craziness leaving the front entrance, and they asked her.” He could imagine, the
audacity of some of those reporters, shouting at random people, asking who they were, can we talk to you. No
consideration for the fact that these people may be going through hell, in the shock of mourning. “She has no reason
to lie about being your mother.”
The on-screen Jennifer said, “Justin is going to be fine, we appreciate your concern. My son only did what he could,
and we all feel terrible, of course, our hearts go out to all those families who were not so fortunate as we are.” There
was a question shouted from off camera, that CNN’s mike did not pick up. Her composure in front of an apparent
crowd of reporters was impressive. “He had a reaction to the smoke and medication at the scene. But he’s going to
be fine.” Another question. “I suppose his doctor can answer that. He needs to rest right now, I’m sure you can
understand that. Excuse me.”
Back to CNN’s Robin Ellis, live in front of the Cook County Hospital front entrance sign, glowing neon. “While
several people still fight for their lives tonight, most who managed to escape the plane in the first three minutes are
alive, and those who managed to find the side door, following the voice of one young man yelling through the
smoke, are the most fortunate of all. Back to you, John and Diane.”
“Lucky, indeed,” John said. The camera cut to Diane. “Officials still have no real answers for what caused the crash
of flight 512. Despite reports of a bang or some kind of explosion, air traffic controllers received distress calls only
reporting loss of control; sadly, both pilots were lost, and details have yet to be released.”
“Turn it off,” Justin said. They had turned to CNN after watching the local 11 o’clock Chicago news. Local news
focused one of the series of reports on this story on the “heroes” of the day, and reported the efforts of the people
who had stopped to assist, the emergency responders. And the stories from other passengers about Justin, at least
nine of whom were crediting him for having saved their lives in the confusion. “I just heard this voice, ‘over here!
The exit’s over here! Come on!’ and I followed it,” said one shaken middle-aged man, responding to the insistent the
microphone shoved in his face. Far less restrained than the national news network, local news had dwelled on the
story of Grace and her mother, Justin’s rescue of Grace after her father’s grisly death. “If it hadn’t been for that
young man, my baby would still be in the plane with her father!” Mary, in full meltdown.
Brian rolled his eyes. “Her marriage was a joke, she wanted the guy dead. Now she’s weeping over him?”
“Brian!”
“It’s true.”
Justin stared over, shocked. “Have some respect, the guy’s dead. And believe me, you do not want to know how.” A
fine shudder ripped through him, remembering. “Can you just give the pot shots at marriage a rest?”
Brian was about to defend himself, to tell Justin that Mary had been sitting next to him on the plane and he had
heard it straight from her, but Justin looked grimly back at the television, where they were showing the video of the
plane crashing again, and Brian decided it was best not to argue.
At Justin’s request, Brian pressed the button that turned off the t.v. He shifted in the chair, searching for a more
comfortable position. Justin looked over at him. “You should go to a hotel, Brian. I didn’t realize there’d only be
one bed, this tiny thing. You won’t be comfortable smashed in here with me.”
“The nurse said she’d bring me a cot. Nice, huh? Besides, *you* wouldn’t be comfortable with me smashed in
there.”
“A cot? Huh. You really don’t have to do that.”
“You want me to stay.”
“I was feeling… shaky when I woke up. I’m a big boy, I can handle a night in the hospital by myself. You’ll be
happier at a hotel.”
Brian bit his lip, put the remote down on the table next to the bed, and got out of the chair. He sat down on the bed.
“No, I wouldn’t. I want to stay here.” He brushed the hair that was falling across Justin’s forehead back, and
dropped his hand down to his neck. Justin moved slightly to accommodate Brian’s seat next to him. He grimaced
with the sudden demand on his back muscles.
“You okay?” Brian asked. Justin nodded, but Brian wasn’t buying it. “I know those muscle relaxants aren’t cutting it
– you wince every time you shift positions. You should take the Oxycontin they offered.”
“No.”
“It’ll make you feel better.”
“It’ll make me feel too good. I won’t want to stop.”
“You were just in a national tragedy, might as well get some good drugs out of it.”
Justin bit back, “Do you have to make a fucking joke out of everything?”
Brian just stared down at him and did not reply. Justin tried to sit up higher against the pillows at his back, bit his
lips to stop the moan of pain that emerged nonetheless, a slight gasp at the back of his throat. Brian stood up, and
helped him to lean forward and shift, moving him so the pressure was off his back. “Every time I want to get mad at
you, you do something like that,” Justin complained.
Brian went back to the chair, but moved it closer to the bed. “You okay?” he asked. “Do you want anything?”
“Do I want anything.” Justin said. Not a question. He raised his hands to his face, rubbed his eyes, then let his hands
rest there, covering his face. Only his mouth visible. “I want another life. Why do these things happen to me?”
“It’s just shit luck. A really, really bad day.”
“It isn’t the plane crash. Well, it is, but it isn’t *just* the plane crash, it’s more than that, it’s my whole fucking life.”
He pressed the bottoms of his hands to his eyes, and then dropped his hands to his lap. He looked at Brian squarely,
with a hint of defiance, but something in the look made Brian uneasy, almost afraid of what Justin was about to say.
“I know, I know, I’m just feeling sorry for myself. And self-pity makes your dick soft.”
Brian said, mildly, “This isn’t about me.”
“It’s ALWAYS about you!” Justin burst out. He lifted his hands to his face again, scrubbed the pads of his fingertips
over his eyes, his cheeks, across his jaw, then placed each hand on the opposite shoulder and held himself, his arms
across his chest. “I don’t… oh, fuck, Brian, I don’t want to take this out on you.”
“Well, fuck, if this isn’t about me, then fuck taking it out on me, just let it out. You obviously need to.” Obviously
had needed to for a while, but Brian kept that comment to himself. “So? this isn’t about the plane crash…” Brian
prompted.
Justin sighed, dropped his hands into his lap. “All this shit that happens to me… it’s not that I wonder why it
happens, I mean, life sucks, it never turns out the way we think it’s supposed to. Maybe I’ve gotten more than my
share of experiences to teach me that, but when is it going to end? I’m so fucking tired, just, so tired. I’m 20 years
old and I’m fucking exhausted. People look at me, and they see this, what? This kid who’s been through all this shit,
and look how well he’s handling all this, isn’t that fucking fantastic, isn’t he just fucking fantastic, isn’t he just a
fucking hero, when inside, it feels like I’m cracking into pieces. But I can’t show anyone that, I gotta show them
what they want to see, even you, maybe especially you. That I’m okay, but I’m not, I’m not okay. And trying to
cover it up only makes it more clear how fucked up I am. I’m not a fucking hero. My life sucks, I’m not handling it
well at all. It always feels like everything is falling apart. And I can’t do anything about it.” He looked squarely at
Brian. “I used to think, if you loved me, you’d be able to fix this, but that was childish, nobody can fix other
people’s problems. Even if you did love me, what could you do? You couldn’t do any more than you do already,
that’s why I agree with you, that it just doesn’t matter anymore, how you feel. I get the idea, but so what? I mean,
it’s good, but it doesn’t really help with how fucked up I am. I just don’t care, and that feels like a huge piece of who
I am just… gone. Gone, nothing replacing it, just this big hole inside. And I have no idea what I’m left with, but I
feel like what’s left isn’t strong enough to hold me up, and I’ve been crumbling inside for just forever, and nobody
can know, because even if they did, what could they do?” Justin moved his legs up into his chest, carefully, and
rested his head on his knees. “I am so far from being a fucking hero, I’m just… tired. Just dead tired of having to
deal with all this shit, all the time, and getting nowhere. I feel like I’ve lost myself, and instead of being able to deal
with that, I have to continually fight just to stay intact, and not let anybody know that I’m…” He shook his head,
unable to finish. Maybe there was no finish.
Brian had no idea what to say, so he just studied the other man. He wasn’t going to tell Justin how much of a relief it
was to him, to hear a rash of words again pouring out of his boyfriend. Justin’s silence since their reunion had
worried him, but a nagging worry, something he couldn’t address directly. There had been just too drastic a change
in the young man’s personality, a dampening of spirit that had not boded well. Finally, after watching Justin breath
deeply a few times, Brian asked, “You’ve heard of the Apocalypse, right?”
Justin turned his head, face toward him. “I’m an artist, of course I’ve heard of the Apocalypse.”
“Brat.” Brian smiled, continued. “People always dwell on the fire, and the destruction, and the death, right?”
Justin’s mind’s eye brought up a painting entitled “The Apocalypse,” depicting the scourging of the earth, barren
waste, destruction, pain. “Sure,” he said. “All the highlights.”
“Yeah, all the highlights, all the exciting and scary parts. They don’t really talk about the main point, that out of all
that destruction, the world is recreated, a better, more perfect world emerges after. When you’re in the middle of
hell, it’s impossible to see the promise of something better that’s coming.”
“But it’s only a story.”
“No, it’s a myth that’s been rooted into the culture so we understand, without any reason to believe, that that’s how
these things work, so that belief in a better world will get you through the hell it’s necessary to go through to get
there.”
“You’re telling me, I just have to have faith?”
Brian just stared back at him.
“You. Are telling me. To have faith for no reason? You?”
“If I didn’t just believe, for no good reason,” Brian answered, very quietly, “that you would walk out of that fireball
you were in this morning, I would have lost my fucking mind.” They stared at each other, saying nothing. Then
Brian sighed. “It’ll get better, Justin. I can’t do anything to help you through this, but I can listen, well, I can try. If
you need to deal with this, just deal with it. Anyway that works for you, including telling me to fuck off if I get
pissy.”
“I do that anyway,” Justin sighed.
Brian laughed slightly. Maybe it was just the relief at being able to say anything at all to Justin, but the words
coming out of his mouth… Huh. It didn’t feel like bullshit in context, though he was glad no one else was around to
hear him talk this way. “And as for your not being a hero…” He stood up from the chair, crossed to the bed again,
and sat down. He just could not stay away, even though he knew Justin needed to rest, he needed his space. Brian
placed his long forefinger under Justin’s chin, and raised his face so the blue eyes looked up into his. “Real heroes
aren’t like Rage. They’re just poor schmucks who do the best they can when life throws shit at them. They don’t
always get in the paper, either. And they usually fall apart afterwards.”
“Do you think I’m just… drama-ing out because of the stress?” Justin twisted his head away.
“No,” Brian replied, moving his hand to Justin’s cheek, pulling his gaze back. “Well, maybe a little.
Understandably.” He leaned in, kissed Justin lightly. God, he wished Justin weren’t so sore, some physical contact
might be just the thing for both of them right now. Instead… “You should try to get some sleep. Here. Scoot back,
you should lie down. I’m gonna get Louise to bring that cot in for me.”
“You can just buzz her.”
“Nah, I want to get some water from the machine, too. Lie down, I’ll be right back.”
Brian walked down the hall toward the soda machine near the elevators. He never drank Aquafina, the only water
they carried in the hospital’s machines. But it was good to stretch his legs. And he’d needed a break after the
intensity of that discussion. Fuck, after the intensity of the whole damn day. He had suspected something had been
bothering Justin for a while. Probably best to have gotten it out in the open. Even if it did just sit there, unsolvable.
But still… having to just listen and not work the problem. It wasn’t his way. He felt that urge to flee, not forever,
just… a little space here. He’d be fine in a minute, once he’d caught his breath.
He studied the vending machine, feeling at his pockets for change. He didn’t really want anything, but he knew he
should get a bottle of the crap to take back. Justin had enough to think about without wondering if Brian’s excuse to
get something to drink was just an excuse to leave the room, to leave him. And of course it was. But with the way
Justin’s mind was working, he might jump from “leaving him” to Leaving Him. And that was the last thing Justin
needed right now. He had enough to deal with. Brian gave himself ten minutes, and two tasks, water bottle, nurse.
Easy, he could do this. One task at a time. First, water.
“Brian.”
Brian turned around, a frown on his face. A woman in jeans and a black jacket, and red strappy Ferragamo sandals
with four-inch heels stood behind him.
“Betsy Feinstein. The media descends. How’d you get in here?”
She shrugged. “I have my ways. How’s Justin doing?”
“How do you think?”
“Hm… I suppose you’ve been watching the news?”
Brian nodded, turned back to the vending machine. “Some. You got a buck?” he asked Betsy. Make the press work
for him.
She handed him a dollar, and he took a quarter out of his jeans pocket, fed it into the machine and punched the
button for a bottle of Aquafina he didn’t plan to drink. He wondered if he was going to have to call security.
“How about setting up an interview for me, Brian?”
The bottle fell, and he reached into the dispenser to grab it. The cold felt good against his palm. “He’s not in shape
for that.”
“How about as soon as he is?”
Brian laughed in disbelief, turning toward her. He had expected more from this particular reporter, though there was
no reason he should. Still, when the media descended immediately after the prom incident, Betsy had been one of
the few reporters who had not shouted insulting demands, staking out the hospital entrance, the parking garage.
Instead, she’d sought him out, tracking him down to the coffee shop just around the corner from the hospital, to ask
how he, Brian, was doing, and she did not push for him to talk. She never asked the question that made Brian want
to kill, “How do you feel about what happened?” How the fuck do you think? had been Brian’s standard response.
And Betsy had politely backed off when Brian had asked her to (well, he’d told her to “fuck off,” but whatever).
More importantly for Brian, her stories were not horrendous exploitation bits, but fairly well researched and
balanced studies of the St. James culture, homophobia in general, the investigation, the people involved in the case
itself. Her articles hadn’t immediately cast Brian as a villain, or Justin as a provocateur, or Hobbes as the stupid
jock, as so many had. Instead, she had written about all of them in a fairly balanced way, their strengths and flaws.
Her pieces were strong because they were about human being, not cartoon characters.
Now, she said, “Brian, you haven’t been outside this little medical bubble, but there’s a huge clamor for Justin’s
story. It’s big news. The big talk shows are already rumbling. Larry King. Oprah. And it’s going to get bigger when
they do some research and find the last big new story concerning this kid. When they turn up you.”
Brian snapped the lid off the bottle, took a long swallow, said nothing. Yuck. There really was a difference in
waters.
She switched tactics, “I can understand why he wouldn’t want to talk. But this isn’t going to go away if you just
ignore it, you know that. He’ll be hounded. If you let one reporter do an interview, we can release it on the AP and
everyone else will be able to draw on that for their stories, and there’ll be less demands on him. You’ve read my
work, I would think you’d want someone sensitive to do the profile that could be the basis of the rest of the
reporting.”
Brian turned back, his lips twisting. He knew he’d regret sending her that email, telling her he’d appreciated her
writing. Off the record, of course. Oh well, fuck, he’d been really drunk. And feeling really sorry for himself – yeah,
yeah, so file a lawsuit, it happened. Sadly enough, a couple of brief exchanges with her in another hospital’s haunts
had felt like warmer human contact than he’d had that whole month.
Betsy saw her advantage, and pressed it. “There’s a better chance, if he gives an interview, that he won’t be hounded
from now until the story dies. And it’s not going to die anytime soon, this is fucking huge, his story is like the only
good news in a year of terrorism, corporate scandal, and now this plane crash with over 120 dead and counting. A
hero story when the public is desperate for one.” She paused, added softly, “And, when the rest of them get a hold of
the information you gave to the woman who issued your ticket when you flew out of Pittsburgh …”
“We’re not married,” Brian said. He knew to keep his mouth shut after he said this. He liked her, liked her work, but
that didn’t mean he trusted her at all.
“Yeah, but think of the feeding frenzy for a story involving gruesome death, heroes, and gay marriage? All hot
topics on their own, but all in one? I’m just saying, Brian, this story’s got the potential to be a monster. You of all
people understand the wisdom of trying to control it early on, maybe even prevent it from going out of control. I’m
just offering my services in helping you.”
“So you’re here asking for an interview, out of the kindness of your heart.”
Betsy ignored that, knowing that what was in her heart made no difference to anyone. “You know as well as I do
that if he refuses to talk to anyone, some of those vultures out there will be wondering what he has to hide, and go
digging. And a lot of them are insensitive hacks, I hate seeing real people get slaughtered by my field, it isn’t right.
Besides, you know I like you guys already. I’ll put a good spin on your story. You don’t have to take my word, just
re-read my coverage of the Hobbes incident.”
“With that idealistic attitude toward your profession, Betsy, you’re completely doomed.”
“So you’ve told me! But I’m just fine,” the woman laughed. “I live fairly easily with my choices, and I know I’m
working against the bad guys in my field, that’s the important thing.” She grew serious. “So, think about it, would
you?”
“I’ll pass the idea by Justin. It’s up to him. But here’s the deal. If he agrees, IF he agrees, I’m in the room while you
talk to him. Just you, no one else. And when I say that a question’s off limits, it’s off limits. No pursuit. If you push,
the interview ends right then. IF we decide to do this.”
“I can live with that.” She reached the pocket of her jacket, pulled out a card. “My cell’s on the back, call me when
you know.”
Brian stopped by the front desk, and spoke briefly with the nurse. When he got back to Justin’s room, he was
pleased to hear the light snoring coming from the bed. He turned the tv on CNN again, but began to flip through the
channels, to see what other news stations were reporting about the story. He learned fairly quickly that Betsy was
right; Justin was becoming a focus of the reporting. How large of a focus he would become, that remained to be
seen. They hadn’t dug up the story from two years ago; Brian knew it was only a matter of time.
VII
Justin was watching the Today show; Katie Couric had just finished interviewing Mary, Grace by her side. Brian
hated the Today show. They always asked about people’s feelings. “Gee, you just won a kajillion dollar lottery!
How do you feel?” “You just won an
Oscar! How do you feel?” “Your daughter was the latest victim of a serial killer! How do you feel?” That was not
news! What are we learning here? That people react exactly as we expect them to? He damn well knew that already.
Justin liked the Today show. He said he liked to be reminded that there were real people behind the headlines.
This morning it was a different matter. “I hate this show,” Justin declared, after watching a weepy Mary, and hearing
his name mentioned again.
Brian smirked. “A little different when it’s personal, huh?”
Justin shot him a look, but couldn’t quite pull off a glare. It was too early, and he was still half asleep. The nurse had
just been through for the 7 o’clock check of his temperature and blood pressure, and he had grumbled his way into
the bathroom immediately after her departure, groaning with hands on his lower back. Brian had been awake for an
hour, and had wandered around enough to know that a) the press was still camped outside and b) there were no
Starbucks in the area of the hospital. He ended up picking up crappy coffee from the cafeteria. Justin stumbled back
to his bed, carefully lowering himself, picking up the remote and turning on the Today show. Brian stared at him, at
the way Justin’s attempt to glare came through sleepy eyes, his lips slack. “What?”
“You look hot in a hospital gown,” Brian practically purred, as he crossed the room.
“Brian…”
Brian reached the bed, ran his hand through the messy hair, leaned down and kissed him, gently at first, then more
forcefully, feeling the soft resistance of Justin’s mouth, probing the perfect lips open with his tongue, to lightly
stroke Justin’s tongue, then licking at the roof of Justin’s mouth. Justin didn’t fight this much, or even at all, after a
moment, his own tongue moved up to stroke against the bottom of Brian’s. Brian took advantage of the distraction
to move his hand under the hem of the hospital gown, on its way upward.
Justin broke away, “Brian…”
“Hmm?” Brian had turned his head, and was watching the leg being unveiled, knee, lower thigh, upper thigh…
“Brian, you can’t.”
Can’t. Hm. There was that word. “You’re hard,” Brian answered, moving from the inside of Justin’s thigh, brushing
fingers against his balls, palming them, weighing, considering. Justin’s dick jumped, got harder. “Brian…”
“Hmm?” His hand slipped away, fingers moving lightly upward, wrapping around, thumb pad catching the bead of
liquid at the tip, rubbing in a circular motion just beneath, in ever widening sweeps. Brian shifted away to watch
what his hand was up to, as if it were not under his control. Then he leaned down, and began licking, starting at the
top, downward, back up. Bare touches of the tongue, almost dry, not quite. Teasing. Catching the next bit of
moisture leaking from the head of Justin’s cock, followed the same motions his thumb had just traced.
Fuuuuuuuuck… Justin’s eyes drooped, hypnotized by the sight of the dark head moving against him. When Brian’s
tongue curled all the way around in a slow circle, lips feeling ahead for the mouth to descend, cock engulfed, tongue
moving downward – Justin’s eyes closed completely, he wanted to close himself to everything, no sight, no sound,
no taste, just the feeling as he rode the waves of sensation of the best blow job on earth, his dick swallowed
completely, deep toward the back of the throat, back out, tongue trailing base to tip, mobile, and back, building the
urgency of movement to sensation, then that familiar thing beginning to coil just beneath his sternum and drawn
down, drawing out, like an electric current …
He came with a gasp that had Brian’s name in it, fingers clutching his hair. When he let his hands drop back to his
sides, Brian straightened up, pulled down his hospital gown, drew the sheet back up. Justin tasted himself as Brian
kissed him.
“Anybody could have walked in.”
Of course, a knock on the door followed this statement. Brian lifted an eyebrow. Justin shrugged. “Come in, it’s
open,” Brian called.
“Yes, I know,” Jennifer said as she walked in. “Did you?” Justin blushed, sudden and scarlet. “Don’t worry, honey,
you only gave the intern an eyeful, I’m afraid he says you’re on your own for breakfast.”
Justin heard Brian’s intake of breath for the only possible comeback to that, and kicked at him with a knee. And then
winced. Fuck, his back.
Jennifer saw Justin’s look of pain, asked, “How are you feeling?”
“He feels like shit, understandably,” Brian bit off. Damn, he hated that question. Katie Couric, and now Jennifer.
“Really,” Jennifer replied cooly, staring him in the eye. “You couldn’t have been that good, then.” She turned back
to Justin, missing Brian’s eyes widening. “How are you, sweetie?”
Justin couldn’t help laughing. “My back feels like shit, the rest of me feels… pretty good. My throat’s better”
Jennifer placed the bags on the floor. “I picked you up a pair of pants, sweat pants if those don’t fit, a t-shirt and
jacket. I figured you wouldn’t want to wear the clothes you had on yesterday.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“The press wants you to hear from you, you know.”
“No.”
“Justin…”
“No.”
Jennifer handed Justin the paper she had picked up in the lobby. The plane crash was in the headlines, of course.
“Page two,” she said, and he glanced up at her quizzically, then opened the paper.
In a side box, “Hero of 512 Survives Earlier Tragic Incident.”
“Tragic incident?” Justin muttered. He skimmed through the article. “Saved nine… oh, bullshit… Holy shit, Brian,
listen to this, ‘Taylor survived an attack by fellow St. James alumnus Christopher Hobbes, following his
controversial attendance at the senior prom, with local businessman Brian Kinney…’” He looked up. “What does
this have to do with anything? Controversial? A bat in the head is ‘controversial,’ for fuck’s sake! Why are they
bringing this up now?”
Jennifer moved over to the window, obviously unable to answer.
Brian looked at the paper. “Actually, about the press, I had a very interesting conversation last night. You might
want to rethink talking to them, or, at least, one of them…”
“I’m not a hero,” Justin answered Betsy’s question, on how it felt to be a hero, ignoring Brian’s rolling eyes at the
question. “Look, all I did was yell to people I saw stumbling around that we had found a clear way out. I grabbed
Grace because nobody else had, yet. And Leah, she was clutching at me, refusing to let go of my shirt. I went to the
emergency door because of the safety lecture, and we were damn lucky we were able to move the stuff that was
there. I could very easily have led us to a dead end.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Luck. I think people need to just, I don’t know, latch onto a story that makes them feel that something stupid and
tragic as a plane crashing, that some human lesson comes out of it. But those lessons are always around, you don’t
need to find them in shit situations and then slap the label of hero on someone to make everyone else feel less
helpless. Like, we can all feel good about ourselves now. I don’t feel good about myself because something bad
happened to me, and I happened to get lucky and live through it. The truth is, it was horrible and terrifying and
chaotic and nobody knew what was going on, me included. I only went to that door because I remembered the safety
lecture, but anyone’s guess was as good as mine.”
“But you didn’t jump out right away.”
Justin frowned. “Well, there was a way out, and people screaming. I yelled so they’d know, but I didn’t wait around,
either.” They’d gone over the details of the crash; Justin was tired of it already.
“Brian tells me you didn’t want to talk to the press at all, but changed your mind. Why?”
Justin looked over at Brian, who stared back blankly. Then he looked back to Betsy. “I didn’t want to go through…
all that public scrutiny again.”
“You’re talking about the incident at St. James prom…”
“Incident.” Justin snorted. “Yeah, I changed my mind about talking to the press when I read the article in the paper
describing my previous ‘incident.’ It’s like calling this plane crash an incident. Only, in that one? I didn’t find the
door out, I wasn’t so lucky that time. I’m an artist, and I still have residual nerve damage. My motor control is
fucked, permanently. And the article this morning, it said I got my brain smashed in, because of the ‘controversial’
fact that I danced with another man at my prom. People need someone to blame, same as they need someone to
praise. And I realized that’s what bothers me – praise or blame, it’s the same thing. People needed to know what to
do with a tragedy of lives suddenly wrecked. So they look for demons to blame or angels to praise – because they
don’t want to think about bits of brains stuck on bats, or the smell of burning bodies or Grace’s dad sitting in his seat
with a piece of metal sticking out of his eye and that poor little girl screaming as she tried to pull it out…” Justin
stopped, closed his eyes, shuddered.
“Justin…” Brian started.
Justin shook his head, waved him away. He wanted to finish, and he opened his eyes to look at Betsy, the blue gaze
fierce. “I know people don’t want to think about those things. Shit, I don’t. But when I read my bashing called an
‘incident…’ I never addressed it publicly, and I’m sure it’s going to do no good, what I have to say. But what I did
was not heroic, same as what I did at prom was not
demonic. I’m just human, like everyone else. I don’t want to become the focus of what people take from tragedy, I
don’t want to have that happen to me again. It isn’t who I am, same as how people looked at me the bashing wasn’t,
either.” He frowned. “I just heard myself, I sound like a naïve idiot.”
Betsy smiled slightly. “Not at all. You sound just what you are: young and idealistic.”
“You think so?” Justin said softly. “You think I’d know better by now.”
Brian interjected, “Betsy, you can get the facts about St. James from all your own old clippings, you’ve got them.
It’s in the past, Justin’s got on with his life, kept his head about him enough when he was in the wrong place at the
wrong time yesterday to help out a few people in a bad situation.” Back on point, in more realistic phrasing.
His leading comment was followed fairly easy; Justin was the media darling of the moment. Why spoil something
that sold? “So you two are still together?” Betsy asked.
Justin glanced at Brian, and nodded. “Yeah, still together.”
Brian added, “More together now than then.” They smiled at each other.
“And not married?”
“No…” Justin looked at her, then glanced at Brian, who was looking at Betsy strangely.
“Uh, can we move on from this line of questioning? It really has nothing to do with recent events.”
Betsy looked over at Brian, saw he meant it, and turned back to Justin. Ah, well, he’d find out soon enough. “And
you’re physically fine?”
“Yeah, except for a strained back. They’re releasing me soon. I just want to go home.”
Betsy’s piece was carried in Pittsburgh’s Sunday paper just over a week later. Justin finished reading it as Brian
returned from seeing Michael. He crossed the room, sat on the couch behind Justin, shrugging off his coat, kicked
off his shoes, and sprawled. “Hand me the entertainment section?” Justin obliged, and stared at him.
“What? How was Betsy’s piece?”
“You read it already.”
Brian shrugged, grunted assent.
“She didn’t include my graphic description of Grace’s father in the article. I’m pretty happy about that. But she still
made me sound like I fucking saved all these lives. Even if she did print my denials of doing anything special, she
made me sound like I was just being modest. It doesn’t matter what I said, they print what they want. Even her, and I
spoke with her directly about it.”
“Yeah, welcome back to the media spotlight. I thought you’d appreciate the part where she ends by reminding her
readers that if Hobbes had succeeded in killing you, all those people, including Grace and Leah, would be dead
now.”
Justin sighed. “That’s not necessarily true.”
“Sure it is.” Brian hadn’t lifted his head from the Entertainment section, but he wasn’t reading the latest article on
Britney’s broken knee and her idiotic personal life, he was waiting. Waiting…
“So, I found out what that marriage question was all about.”
Hm, that was fairly mild. Brian lowered the paper, looked over the top. Justin was staring down at the article again.
“Yeah… well…”
“You don’t need to explain it, even if she did use it as a sign that I survived, that we survived the whole St. James
thing intact. I know it was so you could get information. My mom told me anyway, how she appreciated your
getting out there so quickly.”
“She did?”
“Mm.” Justin’s hand moved up Brian’s pant leg, stroked the instep of his foot. “How’s the baby?” He knew Brian
had been to see Michael. Justin hadn’t left the loft since returning the week before. Brian had wanted him to come;
he knew Justin got a kick out of kids, the smaller, the better. But Justin told Brian he hadn’t wanted to draw attention
away from Michael’s moment.
“It’s a baby. It eats, it shits, it cries. Not very exciting, but you’d never know it to talk to Michael.” Brian grimaced,
then relaxed as Justin began massaging his foot. “God, that feels good.”
“Hm.” Justin ran his thumb up Brian’s arch, kneading lightly on the muscle. His attention returned to the paper.
“She still made me sound like some kind of… I don’t know, symbol, overcoming all this shit. That’s what I wanted
to say just wasn’t the case.”
“It’s the press. They’re going to sensationalize the story, it’s what they do. You just need to try to get your spin into
play. And Betsy did that, she did a fairly decent job. Better than most.”
“I guess…” Justin got up on his knees, and moved between Brian’s thighs, resting his hands on his stomach. “You
know how they told me that if my back didn’t start feeling better, that I should go to therapy within a week?”
“Your back still bothering you?”
“No, it’s better… but I think… I think I might want to talk to a therapist. I mean, for my head.” His hands moved
under Brian’s black shirt, fingertips drawing circles on the skin of his stomach, playing with the fine hair that led
into his jeans.
“Headaches?” Brian sat up a little straighter, lost the glazed look that had started to creep over his features.
Justin shook his head. “Not for that. I think I need to figure out what’s happened to me. My thinking’s kind of
messed up. A lot messed up. And… I’d really like to talk to someone about stuff. Somebody without an agenda
where I’m concerned.” His hands moved onto the bottom of Brian’s rib cage.
“Might be a good idea.” Brian reached down, grabbed his forearms, pulled them out of the shirt. “Hey… I got you
something.”
Justin lifted his eyebrows, sat back as Brian reached into his coat pocket, and took out a box. It had a white ribbon
around it, but Justin focused immediately on the blue box, that color distinct to only one store.
“You got me something from Tiffany’s?” He held the box in his hand. “Really?” He shook it.
“Just open it,” Brian ordered. “It’s the only place for something like this. I special ordered it.”
Justin carefully pulled the ribbon off, and, with one more glance at Brian’s impassive face, opened the box. There,
on a bed of cotton, was a medical bracelet. Justin took it out; the links of the chain gleamed, thin yet strong, securing
a graceful plate. He saw the list of allergies inscribed. “Turn it over.” He flipped the plate, and read the inscription
on the back, “Care of Brian Kinney,” and listed Brian’s name, phone number, address. He stared at it, weighed it in
his hand. Though small, it was surprisingly heavy.
“If you don’t like it, you can replace it, maybe with one of those leather friendship bracelets you and Daphne are so
fond of, but you really should have something…”
Brian had just been teasing, but Justin immediately refuted. “No! I love it, what is it, sterling?”
Brian snorted, sitting up, “As if. Platinum. Here…” he reached out, and took the med bracelet out of Justin’s hand.
“Here.” He secured it onto Justin’s left wrist. Justin fingered the plate, looked at the underside.
Then he looked up. “You’re right, I probably should have one of these.” Brian saw the hesitation.
“You don’t like it.”
“No! I do, it’s just…”
“Spit it out, Justin.”
“Shouldn’t it have my name on the back? I mean…”
Brian laughed, but the sound had little humor. “I am never going through that again, not knowing. They find you,
unconscious, I’m going to know as soon as they do. Never again, that was…” he shuddered. Justin moved up next to
him, brushed the hair off Brian’s forehead. Brian put both arms around him, drew him in closer. Then he moved his
right arm. “And I know you’re going to get pissy one day and accuse me of having my name on your med bracelet
as a way of controlling you or something, and since we’re past that, or,” at Justin’s look, he amended, “I’m working
on getting past that…”
“It is kind of like a pet license or something,” Justin commented drily.
“Funny you mention that…” Brian hooked a finger into the collar of his shirt, and drew out a very fine chain, all the
way out. At the end was an oblong object, very much like a dog tag. Platinum as well, of course. He handed it to
Justin, who turned it over, and read, “Care of Justin Taylor,” the loft’s address, and Justin's cell phone number and
email address. Brian said, “I would never put you through that, either, so I figured…”
But Justin shut him up by dropping the chain and kissing him deeply, devouring him. He broke off too quickly,
before Brian wanted; hell, Brian wanted to move on to kissing more other things too, but Justin had started laughing,
hard. Brian sat up, and looked at him quizzically, before he realized it was a laugh of pure joy, nothing but. He
quirked an eyebrow, and waited.
“I just… I swear,” Justin gasped, catching his breath. “You know how I said in the hospital that I felt like piece of
me was missing? I swear, when I was kissing you just now, I heard my voice echoing from like, somewhere else,
saying ‘You love me, so much…’”
Brian bit his lower lip, then let it go. “Yeah, I do.” At Justin’s expression, he continued, “You know I do, Sunshine,
don’t get that surprised look. I just… I hated that, well, that the thing... the last thing you’d think of was me telling
you to get your own fucking cab, and not about how I, well…”
Justin, knowing how hard this was for him, helped out. “Actually, I *was* thinking of you, how you’d be totally lost
without me …” He said it lightly.
“Twat.” The word was thick with the memory of how close that had come to being true.
“You know,” Justin continued, “It’s a good thing it isn’t two years ago, because two years ago I would be pointing
out, that you not only publicly used the ‘h’ word in describing your relationship to me, you’ve made a point that we
have each other’s names on our persons, inscribed in precious metal.”
Brian looked down at Justin’s bracelet, at the chain around his neck. Then he looked up, and sighed. “I might as well
accept it, I’m fucked. From the minute I saw you, I’ve been completely fucked.”
“Yes, but in a good, life-affirming way,” Justin replied, as his body slid up against his lover’s, hands slipping into
Brian’s shirt, against the warm skin, the beating heart.
Inferno
Chapter One - "Fallout"
He should have been there.
Like marble slowly freezing his tissues, his stomach violently churning under the vice of memory of another night
when Justin and hospital had been all there was. His lungs, suddenly unable to draw air. Stone, his flesh, tissue
immobilized, painfully squeezing his heart. He could not breath.
“Brian. Come on, let’s go.”
He followed Horvath out of the loft. He had almost not answered the door, mid-stroke, goddamn interruption in the
quiet except for the trick’s moans.
That fucking trick. “I can wait for you to get back… you really are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Ever
felt.”
“Get out. Now!” Brian scooped the guy’s clothes up off the floor, threw them at him. The words, so fucking useless,
pointless. Beautiful. He’d heard it before. He’d carefully exploited himself, and he owned it, that beauty.
Worthless. Utterly worthless.
And the cold numbness sinking into his tissues, petrifying him, god, he never knew what that word, petrified, what it
meant. It could only be felt. Felt. That fucking trick did not know what feeling meant. Fucking? the touch of flesh on
flesh? Nerves sunk under the surface, to the beating rush of fluid pushing against the cold, stone surface within.
“Brian, there was an explosion at Babylon. You have to come with me to the hospital. Now.”
Explosion. Justin… Michael. Hospital.
He felt Carl’s hand on his arm. And Carl pulled him out of the loft. The alarm remained unset.
On the way to the hospital. Off to find Justin at the hospital. And where would he find him, his partner, the man he
should have been with, the man who asked him to come with him tonight. Not Brian. None of that community
bullshit for him. Not even for Justin. Everyone knew what Brian Kinney was. No cracks in the surface, no flaws to
decimate the intrinsic value of the objet d’art.
Beautiful. Brian fucking Kinney.
“I’m pushing it, Brian, you’ll be there real soon.” Carl glanced over at Brian, sitting in the passenger seat, his hands
clenched to stop their trembling, the shaking that seemed to be originating somewhere in his marrow. Thank god
Carl hadn’t said everything was going to be all right. They didn’t know that.
None of the calls coming in on his cell had been from Justin. Or Michael. Debbie in hysterics, the manager, one of
the bouncers, Messages that told him only that the explosion had taken out half the building. But nothing else.
Then the emergency room, starkly white, a furiously lit entrance against the darkness of the night, crowded with
ambulances, and hadn’t he been here before? One too many times in the past lifetime. Carl pushed through the
reporters already gathered outside, and Brian heard only a babble and no specific questions as he numbly followed
the other man who flashed his badge, leading him into the antiseptic brightness, past the waiting room filled with
people, to the inner halls.
So many people, lying on gurneys, sitting on the chairs that lined the hall. Carl spotted Debbie, weeping, leaning
against the wall. She saw him, and rushed over. “Michael’s going to be fine,” she told them. “Broken leg, but okay.
That’s all I know. Where the fuck were you?” she spat at Brian, then fell against Carl, who pulled her to him, and
glanced over Debbie’s wig at Brian’s white, drawn face.
Brian couldn’t answer her. Instead, he turned to look down the hall, his eyes sweeping the men and women seated
against the wall in various states of pain, some moaning, others sitting motionless. So many people, too many to take
in, as his eyes swept past them, but then… his knees almost gave way when he spotted a familiar blonde head buried
in a pair of hands. Justin sat in a far chair, black filth across his white t-shirt, ash in his hair, but no red, no blood
anywhere, just soot, thank god. Oh, thank god. Brian managed to move down the hall on legs that felt a thousand
pounds, practically collapsing under the weight. He knelt on the floor in front of the young man, and pulled Justin’s
hands away from his face. Justin opened his eyes. The dull, empty look in them made Brian know that nothing he
could say would help, would ever help. But he was okay, Justin was okay. Brian waited, his hand moving to Justin’s
cheek, the thumb rubbing his skin, rubbing out the dark smudge. Feeling him, feeling the soft, warm flesh, intact,
alive.
When Justin felt the touch of Brian’s palm, his breath hitched, and that bottomless horror receded toward something
more like anguish, along with a pain that could be released now that Brian was there. He leaned forward, practically
falling into Brian’s chest. Brian braced, his arms moving around the trembling body against him.
But then Justin stiffened, pulling back abruptly, so abruptly that Brian lost balance and had to spread his legs to
avoid falling backward. Justin put his hands on Brian’s shoulders, pushed him off, and held him there, his nostrils
flaring. “I guess I don’t need to ask where you’ve been. You reek of sex.”
He spat his contempt. Brian felt about an inch tall, for the first time since he had left his parents’ house at 18.
In his relief, the look Justin turned on him meant nothing. Justin was okay, he was alive. Brian's heart had slowed,
the petrification receding and allowing warmth to return to his skin, the only thing that mattered the feel of that man
under his hand.
Later, when the panic abated, when he knew that the man he loved, to be honest, more than he loved himself, when
that terror had abated, Brian knew that Justin's anger wasn’t just an outlet.
Justin pushed him further back, and stood in the space he had cleared for himself. “Don’t touch me,” he spat. “You
don’t get to touch me. Never again.” And he walked away, leaving Brian sitting on the floor in the middle of the
hallway of an emergency room filled with the sounds of hell, which Brian could not hear through the screaming
white noise filling his head.
II
As they lowered Melanie’s casket into the ground, Brian shifted Gus on his hip. He held the back of Gus’s head as
the boy pressed his cold nose into Brian’s neck. Lindsay was not crying, but her face may have been the model for a
death mask. When the woman in charge of the final words finished speaking, Lindsay moved to the side of the
casket, bent down, picked up a handful of dirt, threw it onto the lid of the box. She stood, staring down into the pit in
the earth. Then she turned, wordlessly scooped Gus from Brian’s arms, and walked away. Her father caught up with
her, and she leaned into the arm he offered. Her mother had refused to attend the funeral.
Brian turned and looked to where Justin stood, speaking quietly to Deb, whose eye makeup had begun to blur
around her eyes. As he handed her a tissue, he glanced in Brian’s direction. Despite the pitch black sunglasses Brian
had on, of course, Justin knew he’d been staring at his former lover. Justin had barely acknowledged him. He had
not looked at Brian once through the funeral. Brian knew, because he could not seem to turn his eyes away from the
other man.
“Are you coming to the house?” Michael asked, quietly, from behind him.
Brian turned to face his friend, who was holding Jenny Rebecca. “I have some work waiting for me at the loft.” He
could never seem to call it home any more. It had stopped feeling like home ever since Justin had stopped being in
it. Now it was a big, empty space that held his bed, his things. Michael glanced at Justin, then frowned. Brian,
knowing Michael was gearing up to ask one of his pointed questions, quickly asked, “How’s Ben doing?”
The look on Michael’s face made him wish he hadn’t asked. “It was just a scratch, barely a nick. Well, obviously
more than a nick. But you know Ben, he didn’t want to act like something so small was a big deal when people
were… well,’ Michael stopped, seeing the grimace crossing Brian’s face, a grimace he just couldn’t help. “Well,
you know. And in most people, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But in Ben’s situation…” Michael trailed off. “The
infection’s really bad. In fact…” He choked up, closed his eyes, then opened them again, the anguish telling Brian
everything he needed to know.
“I’m sorry, Michael.”
“He might have had a chance, if he’d paid attention to it right away. Shit, I should have insisted, I should have…”
“You couldn’t have known,” Brian said, gently, reaching out with his hand and placing it on Michael’s shoulder.
“I’m really sorry.”
Michael shook his head. “Well, he’s comfortable. And we’ll have a chance to say goodbye, without regrets. Better
than Lindsay. Brian, you and Justin…”
“There is no me and Justin,” Brian stopped him, glancing over his shoulder and catching Justin’s eyes on him. The
look was odd. Empty. Brian looked back at Michael. “He’s done with me.”
“He loves you.”
“I’ll come see Ben…”
“No, don’t do that, don’t push me aside like that. Time is short, too short, you can’t waste it. You love him. He loves
you.”
“No, Michael. He doesn’t.”
“But…”
“Michael, I was fucking a trick when Babylon blew up. I went to find Justin and you in the hospital with the smell of
the guy still on me.”
Michael’s eyes widened, and he glanced over at Justin, who had taken the tissue away from Deb and was wiping her
eyes. Jen stood nearby, not looking Brian’s way.
“But… then you know, you know how important to you he is. So? Learn from it, find a way back. Don’t do this to
each other.”
Brian shook his head. “It was a long time coming, Michael, Justin’s better off without my shit anyway. He’s so
amazingly… he doesn’t need my shit. He never did. He figured it out. That’s all.”
“You’re in love with him.”
“All the more reason to let him go.”
Michael saw Brian turn even before he heard Justin call his name. Amazing, how in tune those two were with each
other. He thought of Ben, dying in the hospital from an infection to a ridiculous, small scratch on the leg, barely
noticeable, and he wanted to scream at the sheer stupidity of what they were doing to each other. But he couldn’t
scream, he had too many people depending on him to keep it together. His mother. Hunter, who had dragged himself
home after the blast. Ben, for the next couple of days, if they were lucky. He pressed Jenny to his chest, nodded at
Justin as the younger man moved closer.
“I’m so sorry to hear about Ben, Michael,” Justin said.
“You should come see him. You too, Brian, tonight.”
“I have an appointment,” Brian answered, “but I can cancel it, if tomorrow won’t be good.”
Michael smiled. Brian seemed, well, different somehow. Quiet. No, contained. Like something had stopped trying to
push its way out from inside of him. Or maybe, like he had been covered by a hard material, and he had sunk
beneath it.
“I’ll be there,” Justin said, putting his hand out to touch Jenny’s head. She looked up at him, black eyes shining. “If
you need help with Jenny, I can stay with her.”
“You need somewhere to stay?” Brian asked, then bit his lip. Justin just looked at him, his face set, blank.
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“I appreciate the offer, Justin, maybe I’ll take you up on it in a few days. Or less.”
“That soon?” Justin winced.
“You should come to see Ben. Sooner, not later. I gotta go, but I’ll see you guys at the hospital.” He eyed them,
noting the way their bodies were turning toward each other, the movements, the postures imitating the other as if
they were a single entity. He shook his head, and walked away, to comfort his mother, if possible. To gain comfort,
just as likely, comfort that would be a long time coming.
Brian felt an awkwardness he had never felt before, standing there, waiting for Justin to speak. “Justin, I…”
“I just wanted to ask you, when would be a good time to pick up my stuff?”
His lips pressed together, to keep from offering any time at all, and Brian could only stare down at the face turned
up to him, so perfectly blank, so perfectly… perfect. How had he fucked this up? How had he not for so long?
“Never.” It was as if the word had been torn from him; he had not meant to say THAT. But really, it was the only
answer there, when his mouth had opened to release one. There was simply no other answer to that question.
“Brian…” Justin groaned. “Please. Don’t do this to me. I’m asking you. Don’t do this to me.”
“I’m not doing anything to you.”
“You give me something with one hand and take it away with the other. I can’t do this anymore.”
“I love you.”
Silence, as Justin’s eyes dropped to the ground. Brian took off his sunglasses, and put his hand under Justin’s chin,
raising his head, his eyes, to meet his own. “Justin, I love you.” He stopped, not sure where to go after that. There
was no where TO go. He could only wait. The seconds stretched out, excruciating.
Then Justin licked his lips, and shook his head. “I know that already. I know you love me. But I don’t think… no.
No more thinking. I don’t know if I love you anymore.” He shrugged. “They’re just words anyway. Cheap imitation
of an after school special. They don’t mean anything to me. I can’t… Is tomorrow fine for me to come by and pick
up my things?”
Brian nodded, mute. How could he argue that? His own words, thrown back in his face? Just words. Nothing more.
III
Three Months Later
Justin hunched over the counter of the comic book shop, and stared down at the script Michael had written out.
Michael watched him, his arms folded over his chest.
“No.” Justin didn’t even look up.
Well, he had expected that. “Why? It’s a good story.”
“Let’s focus on Zephyr’s loss in this issue, the man he loves lost to complications of his illness from the wound he
suffered in the last issue…”
“Looking at JT’s anger at Rage, and then Rage actually showing some vulnerability… the readers will love it.
Besides, you always tell me, people buy the comic book for JT and Rage. Not Zephyr.”
Justin smiled a bit. More of a smile than Michael had seen on his face in a while. “I was only saying that to annoy
you. Go figure, me, acting immature. Plenty of fans buy this for Zephyr. He’s kind of cute.”
“But more people want hot, not cute. Justin, you gotta admit, in terms of dramatic purpose, the JT/Rage story
line…”
“We’re not getting back together, Michael. Brian’s never gonna give me what I want.”
“What do you want from him? Romance? Flowers? Because…”
“Yeah, I get it,” Justin interrupted, pushing away from the counter. “I know, that’s not Brian. And that’s not what I
want from him anyway. I just want… I want to be enough for somebody. I always want Brian to give me that kind
of respect, to make me feel like a whole person. He says he wants that for me, but he never understood that he’s part
of that equation. He’s the one who always holds himself apart. The night of the explosion… I realized. He should
have been with me. That night. But even in bigger terms. He just isn’t with me. He’s always looking for something
to fill that emptiness…”
“It’s always been right in front of him. He always comes back, when you need him. When any of us do.”
That ghost of a smile, again. “I don’t expect you to say anything except exactly that,” Justin answered. “You play
into his dysfunction. But so did I. And I’m not going to anymore. I thought, for a long time, I could save him. But it
doesn’t work that way. He was just dragging me under. You know? I feel like I’ve shaken him off, and have finally
hit the surface. And I like the air, I like to breath, more than I like the feel of his body wrapped around mine. So
write about JT and Rage. But really, don’t use me to fuel your stories anymore.”
Michael eyed him. “Okay.”
“How are you doing?” Justin changed the subject, grateful that Michael seemed ready to let it go. He knew he
wouldn’t for long. But Justin was done, all done with Brian. He had his own apartment now. He had picked up his
stuff the day after Ben’s funeral, feeling Brian’s eyes on him, feeling the pain and sorrow emanating from his former
lover, refusing to give in to it. It was a ploy, like the pretty scent on a Venus flytrap. So tempting… But Justin
wasn’t falling for it anymore. He knew the trick. That’s all it was, a trick. Brian and his tricks.
“Fine…” Michael kept watching him.
“Michael, really. Seriously, let it go!”
“He’s fucking miserable.”
“He’ll get over it. He always does. I made him up, I saw what I wanted in him, but it was all just me. He’ll go back
to right where he was before I came along. He’ll be fine.”
“I don’t believe any of that.”
“Not my problem. Don’t make me walk out, Michael, because I will, and then we’ll never finish this issue. So. How
are you doing? I really do want to know.”
Michael shook his head, glanced down at his story notes. “Fine. Being without Ben… it’s really hard. I got used to
sleeping with someone else… you know what I mean. But now, raising Jenny, and Hunter so ill… I don’t really
have time to feel too sorry for myself.”
“I know it sounds cliched, but it will get better, with time.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Then one day you wake up, and you realize that you wasted all the time in the
world being stupid and alone when someone who loves you that much is right there.” Michael’s tone was harsh,
Justin frowned, started gathering his things.
“You can walk out if you want, but I’m gonna say this: Brian isn’t the same person he was before you came along,
and that’s all to the good. You changed him. He needs you. He really needs you.”
Justin gave up trying to shove things into his bag, and just picked up the last papers in his arms and headed to the
door. Pushing through, he paused a second, and turned back. Michael looked at him, standing in the open doorway,
noted the dark circles under Justin’s eyes, knowing they reflected Brian’s. But Justin had a determination, a solidity
in his demeanor, whereas Brian seemed completely gutted. “Brian’s an asshole. He’s a selfish bastard whose service
to his own dick is more important to him than me, than anyone but himself. You can delude yourself all you want,
but I’m done with it. And Michael, what lesson does it teach him if every time he fucks up, he never suffers any real
consequence? What kind of message does it send him if I go back? Now, ever? That he’ll never really lose because
of his actions? Fuck that. I do care about him, I don’t want to, I really don’t want to, but I do and it sucks. You don’t
get that, no one does, not how much, how fucking much it sucks to feel this. I don’t want this, I don’t want him.”
“So you’re doing this for his own good.” Michael snorted.
“I don’t care if you don’t understand. If I go back, ever, none of this is going to mean anything. Why should he
change? He can do anything he wants to me, and never suffer any consequence, never lose. Hell, draw me in one
day, push me away the next, what difference does he make how he acts when he can always count on me taking it?
Why are we rewarding this behavior?”
“Because we love him,” Michael answered, the words slipping easily.
Justin laughed humorlessly. “That’s not love, Michael. Maybe one day you’ll figure it out.” And then he was gone.
IV
Jennifer glanced over at Justin’s profile as he sat in the passenger seat, watched him for a moment as he went
through the bags, looking for something, probably the CD’s. Shopping… retail healing. Not that Justin would admit
that had been part of it. Nope, her son was doing just great, thank you very much.
Right.
“How are you doing?” she asked carefully, looking back at the road. She would speak to him about this. He had
learned so much from Brian, a great deal about evasion. She would not take this from him, her son, her child.
“Um, fine… do you remember where I put that…”
“You threw the smaller bags in the larger bags.”
“Thanks, that helps,” Justin replied dryly, twisting around in the seat to grab another of said large bags.
“No, I mean, how are you… personally?”
“I’m fine Mom.”
Silence.
Justin looked out of the bag, up at his mother. “Really, Mom. I’m fine.”
“How’s Brian?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.” God, what was it about being around his mother that made him feel like he was 13, all
over again? Even the petulant tone, not the mature sound he could now draw out at will. Around everyone except his
mother.
“You don’t care. Really?”
Justin sighed, shoved his hands on top of the bag, crushing it onto his lap. “Okay, fine. What?”
“It’s just…”
“Say it or don’t. Don’t play the waiting game, I really don’t have much patience with this subject.”
“He loves you. Even I can see that.”
“It’s not enough.”
Jennifer pressed her lips together, nodded.
“Goddamn it, fucking say it, Mom!” Justin exploded, making Jennifer jump. “You’re going to say it anyway, just
fucking say it.”
“Fine,” Jennifer snapped back. “Do you really believe in marriage?”
“Of course I do! You think I’d be spending my time doing what I’ve done if I didn’t?”
“Would you have married Brian if you’d had the option?”
“He’s not the marrying type.”
“That’s not what I asked you. Say he asked you, for whatever reason. I’m not asking about him, I’m asking about
you. Would you have married him?” Jennifer pulled the car up in front of Justin’s new apartment building. It was a
shit hole. She hated it. But she kept her mouth shut. About that. Part of growing older was learning to pick your
battles with great care.
Justin choked up. Would he have married Brian? “You know I would have.”
“And would you have meant all the words, sicker, poorer, good, bad, better, worse?”
“Geez, mom, what is it with the third degree?” Neither moved to get out of the car.
“Would you have meant the words if you’d said them?”
“Of course I would!”
“Well, welcome to worse.” Jennifer stopped there, and let the words sink in through the quiet in the car. She could
see they had; the dismay spread across Justin’s face. He looked like a child again, and she wanted to reach across the
seat and hold him, but knew not to give into the impulse. “You’re disillusioned. Usually happens after about three
years. He’s a man, Justin. And I’m not defending him. But you fell in love with the good things in him. The problem
is, you can’t separate those from the rest. You’re so big on the idea of marriage, but it doesn’t seem to me you’re
willing to bear the responsibility it implies, dealing with an entire other person whose life is now yours. I’m not
saying I would choose Brian for you to marry, but I know you would have chosen him for yourself.”
“But…” Justin finally said.
“Come on, let’s get all this upstairs,” Jennifer said, opening her car door. She knew he needed time to process that.
Justin was quiet as he put the clothes, the kitchen things away. The studio apartment was tiny; the living area and
bedroom were the same room. Jennifer sat on the bed and watched him, waited.
Finally, Justin sat on the single chair that graced the tiny table in his eating area. Five feet from the bed. “You got a
divorce, though.”
Jennifer shrugged. “You grow with someone, or away. Your father forced a choice: him or you. For one thing,
you’re my child. That gives you an edge. But more than that. You are the type of person that would never force me
to make such a choice. Craig would. So the choice was easy, in the end. Because I wanted to feel empowered, to
make my own choices. Not have them forced on me. We all deserve that right.”
“You’re saying I’m not giving Brian a choice.”
That surprised her, that he would latch onto that as the point here. “No, I wasn't saying that. But if that’s what you’re
hearing… all I’m saying is that my situation is completely different from yours. And believe me, I have been where
you are, with your father. Even before you were born. At some point, the people we fall in love with become real
human beings. And that either makes a relationship, or it breaks it.”
“You think I should go back to him.”
“No. I think that you should take this much more seriously than you seem to.”
“I can’t believe you said that! Not take this seriously! The man fucks everything that moves! He’s a bottomless pit
of raging ego that needs to constantly feed, and I’m not enough for that!” Justin had jumped up, crossed to the
window, rested his forehead on the grimy surface. “I’m not enough for him,” he said. “I’m tired, Mom. I’m tired of
my needs always being subjected to his. He’s never there when I need him.”
“That’s because you’re stronger than he is.”
“I can’t be strong all the time.” Justin turned around, sat back on the window sill, crossed his arms over his chest.
“What are you going to do when he finds the strength you need from him?”
“He won’t.”
“If he loves you, he will. And he loves you. So he will.”
“Since when are you on his side?”
“Oh, Justin, I’m on your side. Where’s that wine?” Jennifer asked, standing up and moving to the fridge.
“Aren’t you driving?”
“I can have a glass. So can you.” She pulled the bottle out of the refrigerator, poked around in a drawer or two, and
gave the bottle over to Justin when he crossed the room, reached on top of the fridge for the corkscrew. She took
down two glasses, and grimaced at the small amount he poured for her. “I’m not letting you get drunk,” he teased.
“Oh, please.” She sipped; delicious. Well, he had certainly acquired good taste from Brian. Too bad his taste in men
left something to be desired. What was it about Justin, always looking for a challenge. It was no wonder he loved to
draw that comic; he could vicariously save the world. But no one, as he pointed out, no one was there to save him.
Bout time he realized; we can only save ourselves. She hoped Brian would find that out as well, but if he didn’t,
Justin was better off without him.
“Justin,” she started. He sighed, looked up from the glass he had been gazing into. “I’m on your side. I am.”
“I don’t know if I love him anymore, Mom.”
She could feel the pain in her heart at his tone, so forlorn. “Oh, honey. I wish there was something I could tell you.
But sometimes you just have to trust yourself.”
“I don’t know if I can.” Justin’s voice was practically a whisper.
“You can. He does love you.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Then it won’t be enough.” She shrugged. “Give yourself space to figure it out.”
“So what should I do?”
Jennifer laughed. “Nothing. You still think strength is in action. Sometimes it takes all the strength in the world to
do nothing, and just wait. You’re doing the right thing, what you need to do, for yourself. But if you’re the kind of
man I think… that I know you are, you’re doing the right thing not just for yourself. It may not feel like that, but you
never know. Trust your instinct.”
“Yes, Obi-wan.”
Jennifer laughed merrily. Oh, damn, maybe being cut off from the wine was a good idea. “I’m proud of you, Justin.”
“Even in this little shit hole?” He looked around, grimacing.
“Especially here. All right, I’m off, save some of that wine for when I can stay.”
“How ‘bout I bring it with me for a visit to your place?” Justin held the door open, as his mother walked through,
kissing him on the cheek before she took to the stairs. “Even better,” her voice floated up to him.
Justin poured himself more wine, and sat at the table, brooding over the dark coloring. “Fuck,” he muttered, and
took a long swallow.
V
Brian opened the loft door, to find Michael standing there, his hands in his pockets, looking like shit.
“Hey,” Brian greeted, letting him in. “You look like shit.” He moved to the couch and shrugged on his t-shirt.
Mikey eyed him. “Yeah, well, I feel about the way I look. You look… surprisingly good.” Brian’s muscles had
increased slightly. Maybe it wasn’t that noticeable. Michael noticed.
“I've been getting to the gym a little more.”
“Well, I guess I’m relieved you aren’t drowning yourself in booze and sex with that extra time.”
Brian stopped the glare he felt forming at his brow, and glanced over at the t.v., instead, taking a deep breath while
he flicked it off. He moved over to the kitchen, got himself a bottle of water, looked over at Michael who shook his
head, rejecting the proffered bottle. “Nah, booze and sex didn’t work too well last time, figured I’d change my
tactics. You should try the gym. Did you sleep in those clothes?”
“I’m just… I guess I just miss Ben.”
Brian stilled. Then he shut the refrigerator door, very slowly, and turned back. “It’ll get better.”
“How are you doing?” Michael propped his chin up in his hand.
“My husband didn’t die. I don’t have any excuse to sleep in my clothes.” Brian slid onto the stool across from
Michael, rested his head on his hand in a similar posture.
“I don’t know… we’re both kind of pathetic, aren’t we?”
That comment elicited a smirk. Brian realized he hadn’t actually smiled in a while, not even sarcastically. “It’s just
us again. Just you and me. Like old times.”
“Yeah…” Michael breathed, watching his best friend, looking into those amazing, beautiful eyes, eyes he knew so
well.
Brian didn’t break the gaze, just reached out, took Michael’s hand in his. “Do you still wonder, Mikey?”
“About what?”
“I’ve wondered…” Brian breathed, his eyes boring into Michael’s.
Michael shifted, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, but he did not pull away. This was BRIAN, after all. His best
friend. Surely, he didn't mean to make Mikey feel... weirded out. “What?”
“In the end, it’s always just us. You’re always there. You’re the one who’s always there for me. It would just be so
much easier, if I could… just…” He stopped, looked across the space at his friend.
Brian wanted to have that blank filled in. He was leaving the blank open, waiting for Michael to fill it in. Michael
felt a strange flutter in the pit of his stomach, what he once might have identified as excitement. He wasn’t sure what
to call it now. Dread? Something like that. Something like grief. “You and me.”
Brian smiled, but sadly. “Yeah. Together forever.”
“Nothing’s forever. Aren’t you the one who always says that?”
“Great,” Brian returned, letting go of Michael’s hand and straightening up. “More of my words thrown back in my
face.”
Ah. Michael didn’t always get the big picture, but he got Brian. As usual, this wasn’t about Michael. Brian, holy
fucking mother of god, Brian was lonely. But not for Mikey. Michael saw it then, the big picture, laid out in front of
him, those brilliant flashes he got every so often. Michael knew he wasn’t the brightest guy in the world all the time,
but every so often he saw straight through to the heart of the matter. And that heart he saw was usually Brian's.
“Some things last longer than others,” Michael finally said, watching Brian chug half the water in the bottle.
Brian set the bottle down on the counter with a thud. “Like you and me.”
But Michael was shaking his head. “Like you and Justin.”
Brian’s eyes sharpened, but he said nothing, just watched Michael watching him.
“Justin says that you never learn anything because people like me always give you exactly what you want no matter
how you treat us. So, what? you wonder how we’d be together, because you’re feeling vulnerable over Justin
leaving you, and I’m supposed to just jump into your arms? As if we’re some freaking statues, locked in time
forever? I hate to tell you this, but you got brought to life somewhere along the line, and it wasn’t me who did it.
This isn’t about me, Brian. This is about him. Face it. Face it.”
“I’m not fucking Galatea.” Brian stood abruptly, ignoring Michael’s what-the-fuck look, yeah, he had meant to shut
him up with that one. He moved to the pack of cigarettes on the counter by the sink. He lighted one and blew the
smoke toward the ceiling.
But Michael wasn’t shutting up. “You’ve got to deal with the fact that you’re in love with him, instead of just
reaching for the nearest thing to keep from trying to stop feeling something that hurts. You wouldn’t be good for me.
Ben was good for me. You wouldn’t be good for me.” Repeat it, Michael, he said to himself. It’s true, remind
yourself. He would crush you. If you didn’t kill him first.
“I’m not much good for anyone.”
Holy shit, Michael thought, when did he start sounding so pathetic? “Fuck you, Brian, that’s bullshit. You do plenty
good. You do plenty bad. So welcome to the human race.”
Brian flinched, and coughed on the smoke dragging into his lungs. “What?”
“You’re only using what you think I could offer to escape dealing with your feelings for Justin. Well, fuck you, I got
my own problems, you think I have time to let you use me like that?”
Brian watched as Michael stood and moved to the door. “My mom’s having dinner Sunday night. I stopped by to tell
you to be there. Well, to see how you were. But you’re obviously fine. Or at least you want me to think you are,
even though you obviously aren’t. So sit here and feel sorry for yourself but make sure your ass is at my mom’s
Sunday or she’ll hunt you down.”
Brian raised an eyebrow, which slowly moved back into place as he listened to Mikey let himself out of the loft,
slamming the door behind him, only silence left in his wake. Well, fuck.
****
“Oh, well, fuck.” Brian looked up at the sound of Justin’s voice, not having heard it in well over two months. Well,
two months, three weeks, four days, but who was counting?
Debbie bustled past Justin, after shutting the door that let him in. “Can I get you anything to drink, Sunshine?” she
asked, completely ignoring his flustered reaction.
“Yeah, a beer if you have one,” Justin answered, not taking off his coat. He wasn’t sure he was staying.
“I can leave,” Brian offered, straightening from the slouch he had assumed on the couch.
“No, it’s fine, stay, I’ll go.”
“Justin…”
Justin glanced down.
“I had no idea you were invited. Really.”
A flicker of a smile touched Justin’s lips, and the flush that had suffused his cheeks when he saw Brian sprawled out
on the couch receded. “Yeah. I think it’s a Novotny conspiracy.”
“What do you say we just put up with it, don’t take the bait. That way they’ll see, whatever they got cooked up isn’t
going to work.”
Justin took a seat in the chair across the way. He pressed his lips together. “You can do that, you’re used to not
showing anything. I might get a little pissy.”
“Have you learned nothing from the master?”
Justin shot a look at him, but saw Brian’s lips twisted in a grimace of self-mockery, and he relaxed. Well, as much
as he could. His stomach was still lodged somewhere under his tongue. “I am the master of expression, not of the
granite face.” He took his coat off, threw it over the back of the couch.
“Here you go, Sunshine!” Debbie sang, coming back into the room with an open bottle of beer. “You okay, Brian?”
She nodded at his glass.
“Yeah, thanks, all set.”
“Hey, guys. Glad you could make it,” Carl entered the room from the kitchen, and sat down at the other end of the
couch, followed by a nervous Michael.
“Sure,” Justin answered. “Just for the record, Michael, it’s not gonna work.”
“What… sorry,” he finished, glancing from Justin, to Brian, and back. “Ma invited Justin, I didn’t know.”
“And how convenient, we’re the only guests.”
“No one else could make it.”
“Uh huh.” Brian looked over at Justin, who shrugged. “Fine,” he said, as Justin echoed, “Whatever.”
Yeah, Brian thought. We are too cool for school. And I am screwed without lube.
“Stop staring at me,” Justin said sharply, not looking in Brian's direction, just fiddling with the stem of his wine
glass. Michael had left the table to take a call from the hospital; Carl and Deb had moved to the kitchen to get coffee
and dessert.
“I’m not staring.” He wasn’t. Really.
“Fine. Then stop looking in my direction every three seconds. You’re making me uncomfortable.”
Brian pressed his lips together, and looked away.
Justin snorted a half-laugh. “Well, great, for once he does what I want.”
“You told me not to look at you.”
“And you always do whatever I say.”
“Why are you trying to pick a fight with me?” Brian turned his gaze directly onto the man sitting next to him. Fuck
it. But Justin was looking away.
“I’m not,” Justin returned.
“I ask you to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours, and you evade the question. Then you’ll be pissed off
because we don’t talk. I suppose we could sit here and talk about the weather. It’s awfully cold out, don’t you
think?”
Justin looked back now. “Weather, movies, television, all acceptable topics…”
“But nothing about how I can’t sleep when you’re not there.”
“Brian… I thought the idea was to show everyone how civilized we can be.”
“So you care more about what other people think than you do about us.”
“There is no us!”
“And you made sure of that.”
“I’m not the one out fucking everything that moves!” Justin jumped up, pushed his chair back. Debbie turned from
the coffee pot, and stared over, but the two men at the table didn’t notice her, nor the look Carl shot Deb, the slow
shake of his head. They stood, motionless, not wanting to interrupt.
“You fucking well knew who I was all along!”
“Yeah, you’re right. I knew.” Justin turned his back and strode to the couch, grabbing his coat.
“That’s right, run away. Keep running away from me. It’s what you do, isn’t it?”
“Fuck yourself, Brian, give me one good reason to stay and listen to your bullshit!”
“Because I love you!” Brian yelled. Michael had walked in the back door from taking a call in the back. He
blanched, glanced at his mother, closed the door softly.
“It’s not enough!”
“Fine, how’s this, there’s been no one else since Babylon exploded, and I hate the fact that the last guy I fucked
three months ago wasn’t you!”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Justin scoffed, hugging his coat to his chest. But he made no move to leave.
“It’s true,” Brian continued, gripping the back of the chair in front of him so tightly his knuckles went white. “What,
you don’t believe me?”
“So you’re off your game. And I guess… what? That’s my fault?”
“You know what I’m trying to say.”
Justin didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say himself. He was furious, furious that Brian had sprung this little
fact on him. He hadn’t expected it. Fuck, he should have listened to his mother. He should have been prepared for
the sweeping gesture. Brian Kinney, Mr. Showman himself. All in service to his own needs. Justin didn’t doubt it
was true, Brian was really disciplined when he wanted to be. But he wondered if Brian even recognized how much
bullshit was in his own actions. “So what, you expect me to fall into your arms? As if I should congratulate you,
being able to keep your dick to yourself for longer than a day?” And how long would it last? A week? A month if he
was lucky? Brian would have what he wanted. And nothing, nothing would change. Why should it? Brian always
got what he wanted. The sweeping show, but no promises, no sacrifice. Just a big show, based on bullshit.
“Justin…”
“That’s not the point, that was never the point!” Justin continued, his voice tight. He moved forward, stalking
toward Brian, pushing him back down into the chair behind him, towering over him. “You just always have to be on
top, you never give me an inch, and DON’T YOU FUCKING SAY IT, I know ALL ABOUT your nine inches and
so does all of Pittsburgh and half the world! And it’s not that I didn’t know who you are, it’s that you’ve become
every frozen object set against me that I can't move! And you’re as trapped in your own bullshit, bullshit that yeah, I
went along with, but I DON’T ANYMORE!” He leaned over Brian’s body, trapping him in the chair. “I know I’m
making you uncomfortable right now, holding you down like this, but you make me feel this way ALL THE
FUCKING TIME, totally trapped, no way out! You can’t even help it, it’s who you are, it’s what you’ve made of
yourself, Mr. Top Dog himself, no changing, just one permanent pose, it's all about you, only you, just you, not even
an inch, not even for me, and you call that love?! It’s almost like you enjoy how fucked up you are! I can’t stand it,
and I’m sure as hell not going to bash my head against the ungiving material that is Brian Fucking Kinney anymore!
So I’m leaving now,” he straightened, “and don’t you dare say a fucking thing about me running away. I am
choosing to leave, I'm not running from shit.” With that, he stalked across the room, yanked the door open, and
slammed it shut behind him.
Brian sat, breathing heavily. What the fuck.
“Brian…” Michael started, and Brian’s head whipped around, startled. He took in the three people standing like
statues, stunned, across the room. Then he stood so abruptly that his chair tipped over, and he strode to the front
door, opening it and tearing out into the night, after Justin, not bothering to grab his coat on the way.
“Fuck. Brian Kinney hasn’t had sex for three months? Is the world ending?” Deb chuckled, and saw the look on
Michael’s face. “Oh, lighten up, baby.”
VI“Stop!” Brian roared, sprinting to catch up with the lithe figure striding down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets,
hunched forward against the wind. “Justin, fucking slow down, stop!!”
He wouldn’t. Brian caught up, grabbed his arm. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Justin spat, wrenching his arm away
from Brian’s grip.
“Fine, just stop, then!”
Justin stopped so abruptly Brian almost crashed into him. He planted his feet, and glared. “What?”
“That was fucking unfair!”
Justin’s eyebrows raised in disbelief.
“What the fuck was that all about? I make you feel like you’re in a cage? What the fuck? Everything I’ve done to
help you find your own way…”
“What about our way, Brian? What about that? It’s always, this is my way, now find your own and if you don’t like
the way I decide things, fuck off! When did you decide you get to say what’s good for me? for us?”
Brian swiped his hand through his hair, impatient. “It’s not…” he trailed off. Damn it, he’d left the house so pissed
off, and now, face to face with Justin’s anger, he felt gutted. “I don’t… damn it, Justin, I don’t know how to do ‘us’
shit.”
“It’s not about what you know or even what I know! It’s about what we feel, WE, WE, can’t you fucking get that?
You don’t, you just don’t and I’m so fucking tired of fighting for you…”
“You’re fighting me now.”
“Fighting you’s easy, fighting for you’s different, and fighting for us is just fucking impossible when I’m the only
one doing it!” Justin shoved his hands in his pockets, hunched into his coat. “Look, I know you think you love
me…”
Brian glared at him, gritting his teeth.
Justin snorted at the look. “Yeah, just like I loved you that first night.” He had, damn it. But Brian didn't get that.
“Yeah,” Brian answered. “Just like that.”
Again, Brian caught him by surprise. Justin wasn’t sure what to say, and his shoulders braced against the cold wind.
“You should go back in, you’ll freeze solid.”
“No.”
Justin took in a deep breath. More dramatic bullshit. But oh, god, he wanted to think… “Brian…” he started, only to
watch Brian’s body start to shiver involuntarily. Without thinking, he stepped forward, and wrapped himself around
the other man’s body, stepping into the familiar place. “You’re going to freeze.” Shit. He realized what he’d just
done. After all his, ‘don’t touch!’ But he didn’t pull away. His hands met at the small of Brian’s back, rubbing.
“Not now.” Brian’s arms pulled Justin to him, wrapped around the shoulders, relaxing into the feel of Justin’s hands
on his back. He dropped his head down into the warmth of the neck beneath him.
“Brian… I can’t keep doing this for you.”
“So let me freeze.”
“I really should you know.” He didn’t, couldn’t. Fuck. He couldn’t leave Brian out in the icy wind. Damn it! He
should, fucking god, he should, he should just not give a fuck, walk away, the asshole wants to freeze to death, so?
Let him! But he didn’t move, just melted into the familiar form. They were quiet for a moment. Justin did not want
to end this, but knew he was only indulging himself. He turned his head, and saw they were standing next to Brian’s
car. “Do you have your keys?”
“Why?”
“We should get out of the wind. Your car?” He nodded down at the vehicle.
Brian looked to the right. “Right.” He fished his keys out of his pocket, then glanced back at Justin, who was waiting
for him to unlock the door. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
Justin shook his head. “Probably not. Get in the car.” Brian unlocked the passenger door, and elbowed Justin aside
when he moved to open it. “Other side.” He handed him the keys.
Justin sighed. Brian and his symbolic bullshit. The great ad man. See, I can give up the driver’s seat. Big deal. One
night. One time. It never lasted. Or repeated.
He moved around the car, opened the door, and slid behind the wheel. He turned the car on, hoping it would heat up
soon.
“So.” Brian said to him. Now that they were alone, he wasn’t sure where to start. He tapped his thumbs on his knee.
He glanced over at Justin, who was staring out the windshield, not looking at him. He studied his profile.
“Why haven’t you fucked anybody for three months?” Still, Justin didn’t look at him, just stared front.
Brian didn’t answer at once, just looked down at his thumbs, the nervous tapping.
“Brian.”
Brian stilled his hand, looked over. His hands itched to reach out and communicate that way .He knew it was a bad
idea. Justin didn’t know how different touching him was from touching every other non-Justin thing out there, god,
he couldn’t know the difference, because he was only on the receiving end. And Brian had never told him. Never
fucking told him anything. Never told him that Justin was the only one who touched HIM.
But the feel of Justin… totally different. His palm, fingers, itched with the desire to reach out, to remember, to live
the memory. It couldn’t be that good. But it was. He knew how Justin felt. He missed how Justin felt.
He knew he was taking too long to reply. He took a deep breath. “Am I too late?” he asked, instead of answering the
question.
Justin turned his head. He looked at Brian, steadily, considering. “You can only say you love me because I’ve left
you. You’re not really taking a risk, because I’m already gone. It might have meant something when I cared.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Can we spare the degeneration into a he said/he said pointless production? Just tell me if it’s too late. I’ll accept
whatever you say.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to accept it,” Justin mumbled.
“What?” Brian turned in the seat, reaching out when Justin continued to stare down the road, into the night, touching
his leg, turning Justin’s attention to him. “What was that?”
Justin wasn’t sure whether he should repeat something he had not planned to say. He closed his eyes, and leaned his
head back against the headrest behind him. The fighting, the anger, easy to release, to force the barriers outward, to
explode it outward, so easy, satisfying. Burn it to the ground, end of story. But when it came time to actually make
some sort of assessment of what lay in the wake of the years, to actually let go, well, it had seemed so easy three
months ago. And it all hurt, so much. Maybe too much.
The problem was, this was his pain. Not Brian’s. And Justin was beginning to understand pretty much what his
mother had been trying to tell him. Brian couldn’t solve this for him. He had to decide what he wanted for himself.
And then, he had to decide if what he wanted was something that accommodated, that could be accommodated by
this beautiful, beautiful bastard sitting next to him. A bastard who loved him. As much as he could.
Was it too late for them? Was Brian too late for him? More to the point, did Justin trust that Brian really meant this?
Well, he was sure Brian thought he did. But did Justin have any faith in him anymore? He’d had his faith shattered
so many times. He was on his own, too much, emotionally. A partnership was not merely financial, or sharing a
bedroom. He needed to be able to lean on someone every once in a while in other ways.
But it seemed what he needed was never really there. And what was he to go on? Hope? He’d been hoping for far
too long.
Was it too late? No. Not really. Depends on how Brian reacted to whatever Justin told him.
So the point was what to tell Brian now. Not whether it was too late or not; three months ago, he would have said
yes, now, he didn’t know. It depended. He wanted to give Brian a chance here; he would give Brian a chance here,
but he wasn’t sure he wanted Brian to know that. Maybe it was too late. But it depended on what Brian’s reaction
was, not just sitting here in this car, definitely not in the words he could come up with, but from this point out. He
didn’t want Brian to know that; he didn’t want to feel like maybe Brian was on best behavior. Yeah, yeah, Brian
didn’t do that, but the point was, Justin might think he would. Maybe his feelings weren’t quite dead yet. Maybe it
would be better if they were. But he hadn’t quite killed them. Only Brian could do that. And what, was this a breath
of life into what Justin had been sure was dead material? Was it too late? He didn’t know. He knew he had to find
out. Though he didn’t have much hope.
Well, shit, right now all he could focus on anyway was Brian’s hand, still resting on his leg just above his knee, the
fingers flexing, gently pressing into the lower part of his inner thigh, and he couldn’t think with that desire stirring in
him, for that hand, those long, perfect fingers to move upward…
Yup, there it was, as if he and Brian thought on the same wavelength, the touch lifting so that only the tips of fingers
whispered over the material of his pants leg, the hand moving up an inch and stopping, resting, waiting. Flexing,
touching. Brian’s touch. “I told you not to touch me.”
The fingers stopped their press into his flesh, but Brian didn’t lift his hand away. Justin opened his eyes, looked
across the space in the car. Brian was watching him. “You told me not to touch you out there. You’re not telling me
not to touch you in here. Do you want me to stop?” Again, the lifting of pressure, the touch of one forefinger gliding
upward, stopping as it brushed against the proof of Justin’s arousal, at the top of his inner thigh. Flexing fingers
against soft flesh, the brush of knuckles against the head of his dick.
I can take this, it doesn’t make a difference, Justin thought. Like a test or something. I’ll pass this.
Another part of his brain laughed maniacally at himself. Excuses. He always craved Brian’s touch.
He put his hand over Brian’s, stopping the caressing motion. Brian’s hand was still cold. “Brian.” He suddenly felt
very calm. “I used to think when you touched me, it was different. But now it just feels like you’re staking a claim. I
was only ever the proof of how fucking hot you are. But it’s not enough anymore. And I realized, that was a shitty
way to be looked at. Some kind of trophy, in homage of your perfection.”
Justin felt Brian’s arm stiffen, could see his body tense, but he held his own hand firm over Brian’s, and wouldn’t let
him move it when he would have pulled away. “Do you know,” Justin continued, as calmly as he could, forcing the
bitter bile of memory to remain buried in his guts so as not to choke him, “that fuck-off you had with Brandon was
probably the most humiliating thing you ever did to me?”
Brian did not look away. “Justin… it was just a game. It didn’t…”
“…mean anything, I know. It never does. You love me. All those fucks mean nothing. Blah blah blah. It wasn’t the
guys. It wasn’t even Brandon, I never felt threatened by him. You guys weren’t ever going to be a couple. It was the
bet. You literally put your ass on the line, Brian.” He swallowed. He doubted Brian would understand this. He had
been trying for so long to come to terms with what had happened, with that stupid fuck-off, that stupid bet, and he
had been trying to figure it out the night Babylon blew up underneath him, and then he was in the hospital and
leaning into Brian’s body… looking for comfort in Brian and encountering only another man’s smell.
And he had seriously snapped. The entire future spread out in front of him in a split second, one big fuck-off, Brian
never understanding the ramifications of his actions, how they affected Justin, Justin always second to Brian’s dick,
to Brian’s ego.
“It wasn’t the guys, it wasn’t even the terms. It was the payoff. You put your ass on the line. If you lost, you would
have bottomed for another guy. And it wouldn’t have been me. And everyone knew.”
“I wasn’t going to lose.”
Justin smiled sadly. “You don’t get it. Everyone knew. You were willing to bottom for someone. Someone not me.
The result doesn’t matter. And it wasn’t just the public humiliation. You want me to believe you love me? And
that’s how you prove it? I always come in second, to your dick and your ego.” He turned his face fully toward Brian,
not trying to stop the tears that began to form in his eyes. Fuck it. He was man enough to admit he had emotions,
unlike some people, and this particular memory ripped a gaping hole in his guts so deep that he had allowed the
Babylon explosion, and Brian’s unwillingness to commit in more general terms, to cover this one. It was just too
fucking painful.
“Justin…”
“You don’t get it.” The steadiness of his voice surprised him; he would imagine it would have been less firm,
because he was definitely crying now. “You don’t get it. You just don’t get it.” Firm, sure. Just unable to speak
coherently.
Brian bit his lips together, and, with the hand not still held against Justin’s thigh and the familiar feeling of his nowsoft dick, he placed his palm on Justin’s cheek and wiped the wetness away with his thumb. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry’s bullshit.”
Brian smiled sadly. “I know. But I am, anyway.”
Silence stretched out between them, and to Justin’s relief, his eyes stopped leaking. Brian continued to stare at him,
both hands touching Justin now, and Justin closed his eyes, knowing he would feel the soft press of Brian’s lips
against his own in the second before he felt them, the gentle pressure of the tip of Brian’s tongue against the inner
flesh of his lower lip, a brief contact, before its withdrawal. “Tell me,” Brian said, quietly. “Tell me what you’re
thinking, right now.”
“I don’t want it to be too late,” Justin answered, before thinking about what he wanted to say, before thinking about
thinking about Brian’s request, and just complying. It was easier. Just easier. He just wanted one thing to be easy,
just one thing. “But I don’t think it matters what I want. It doesn’t matter what I want with you.”
“It matters.”
“Not as much as what you want for yourself. No matter what I want for us.”
Brian breathed out, a sudden hiss, and leaned his forehead against Justin’s. Their noses touched, and he leaned
down, and kissed him again. He pulled his head back, and they sat, just looking at each other.
“So now what?” Brian asked.
“I don’t know.”
Brian leaned back in his seat, but kept his hand on Justin’s leg. “How ‘bout you drive this car to your place?”
“Um… I don’t think fucking’s going to help us right now. In fact, I don’t really…”
“I thought you’d want a ride home. Unless you’d rather walk?” Brian arched an eyebrow. “And since you’re in the
driver’s seat… I know, fucking’s not a good idea. I wasn’t suggesting that.”
Justin took his hand off the top of Brian’s; Brian’s hand slid away, and he put it back in his own lap. They pulled
smoothly into the street, as Justin drove toward his apartment. “You really haven’t fucked anyone for three
months?”
A grunt came from the side. Justin glanced over at Brian’s pained look. He smiled. Just a little.
“And you hate it wasn’t me. Last time.”
Brian glanced over, to take in the profile as Justin pretended that the road seriously occupied his attention. “Well,
the last time it mattered…” he trailed off, realizing how stupid that sounded. He cleared his throat. “Last time with
you, it wasn’t just fucking.” Not much better. He wanted to say “making love,” but he just couldn’t. He was fairly
overwhelmed with everything he had already said. And he didn’t want Justin to think he was going over the top, just
to get him back. He meant to use these words, he meant what he said. But damn. Words. So fucking complicated. He
wasn’t sure if he was fucking up or not. He hated this. But it was okay, he could hate this. He just had to slog
through to get to the other side. Just gotta figure out if what’s waiting on the other side would be worth it.
Brian studied the firm jaw, generous lips, the high cheekbones, but knew all that was second to what the eyes
revealed. Windows of the soul. Indeed. Yup, worth it. Every excruciating scream of the nerves he had to go through
to force out the truth, putting name to the feelings he would rather keep in, where they were safe. Safely suffocated.
They rode in silence. Justin pulled up to the curb in front of his building, and turned the car off, then turned his body
sideways to face Brian. “Here’s the problem.” He was glad Brian had let him drive himself home; he had had time to
think, time without Brian’s hands on him. His voice was hard again. He saw he had Brian’s attention. “There’s no
reason for me to believe that you mean any of this.”
“Have I ever said anything like this to you before?” Brian’s tone was not in his usual pitch of logical reasoning. Nor
argumentative, the second thing Justin might have expected. More… vulnerable. Sad, maybe. The last line of
defense, a feeble attempt.
Justin’s own voice softened in response. “No. But maybe you think you mean what you’re saying, but won’t really
be able to give me what I want.” Fuck. But what the hell. He wanted. He wanted more than what he’d been given so
far. It was the truth. Might as well admit it. And maybe Brian was right; he hadn’t been fair in holding back what he
wanted, how he felt about the things Brian did. He’d accepted too much, too long.
“What do you want?” Brian leaned toward him, but he did not reach out otherwise.
This time, Justin did. Just a gesture; he put his hand on Brian’s face. “I want to not have to answer that question.”
They stared at each other for a moment, searching. Justin sighed, and moved to open the door, and exit.
“Wait.” Brian put his hand on Justin’s shoulder, restraining him. Justin looked back, questioning. “I want to… um.
Look.”
Justin waited. Brian. Stuttering. Cool.
“I have a meeting in New York next Friday morning. Would you come with me? Thursday night? We could stay
through the weekend. I’ll be done with business Friday afternoon, we can go to the museums. And separate
rooms…” Brian rushed to add. “But. I don’t know. Just us. Away from here. For a couple of days.”
Justin looked into his eyes, saw fear. Brian was scared. Good. “I’ll think about it,” he answered brusquely, and
pulled away to open the car door, leaving Brian to watch him disappear from view as he walked into his building.
VII
The room at the hotel was beautiful. Tasteful, muted, the huge bed – all his – the beige, greens and golds of the color
scheme perfectly muted and balanced. Justin went to the balcony, pushed aside the gauzy curtain, slid the glass door
back, and stepped outside. The building across 26th Street cast a shadow onto this side of the hotel, and Justin
leaned forward, over the railing, peering over at Park Avenue.
What the fuck am I doing here? he thought.
Well, obviously, he was willing to go along with whatever Brian had in mind. New York City, wining and dining.
Maybe get out of the hotel room this time, Justin thought, a smile gracing his lips as he remembered the time spent
with Brian at the Chelsea hotel, years ago. He felt a swift thrill from a long nerve trace an electric shock starting at
his groin and connecting at the base of his balls, and enjoyed it briefly, before willing it down.
No. That’s not why they were here.
Why are we here? Justin thought. More to the point, why did I agree to this?
He had, not even as reluctantly as he would have liked. Not 24 hours after Brian had dropped him off in front of his
building, he had sent him an email. I’m thinking about it, he told Brian. But I might not do this, he told himself. Uh
huh.
It was a sickness, this attachment, this need to know what Brian was up to, how he was, what he was doing.
Sometimes that interest wasn’t even personal; he really LIKED Brian, even when the man was being an asshole. He
didn’t take all of Brian’s bullshit personally, not the way Michael did, forgiving it without a second thought. He
might not like everything Brian did, but you couldn’t just separate the good from the bad in the man; he was
complicated, fascinating. Obviously, that was part of the problem, that he didn’t judge Brian on a personal level
much of the time. In his imagination, he saw Brian outside of their relationship (lack of relationship, he reminded
himself). It didn’t matter how Brian treated him, per se. He didn’t use those terms, with himself as center of the
universe, to form his judgments. Most of the time, the ability to judge on rational, far less emotional terms, stood
him in good stead, forming Justin’s view of the world, defining his character. His emotions were filtered through a
world view that articulated itself rationally. He believed this was why he just might become a great artist one day; it
wasn’t just that he had talent. Lots of people did. He had vision. An impersonal vision that might just communicate
itself, to speak to the world in terms that involved far more than his own tiny slice of it. He thought he could make a
significant statement, not just portray his own reactionary feelings. The key to a mature existence. He was grateful
that he had learned all this so early in life. And his coming into that vision of the world was fully creditable to Brian,
to that incredible man. He knew all that.
But then, suddenly, in one night, everything he had worked so hard, struggled at times so mightily, to maintain all
those self-serving feelings at a distance, to keep intact but separate the Justin/Brian part of him, all that had crashed
in, and it had all been terribly, painfully personal. Unbearably so. And his rational side was rocked on its axis. If his
rational view of things, of Brian, was so good, how could it have led him to such an unbearably painful place?
So maybe… maybe he had hoped that Brian would realize that the good things he did were so much better than the
selfish things. Maybe he’d hoped that Brian would realize the long-term rewards for being… human, were so much
better than quick paybacks of being the idolized prick of Pittsburgh.
Was he still hoping? Shit. Was he to just forget the way his emotional pain had finally ripped the veil from his eyes
and revealed a face of Brian that his rational side had refused to look at, a side only visible through an emotional
focus that he did not allow himself to indulge in? Was he so stupid as to forget such severe pain because the part of
him that liked Brian as Brian, not necessarily Brian as Brian/Justin (“there is no Brian/Justin,” he had whispered to
himself as he had reread Brian’s email), because that part missed Brian the man, even as he refused to acknowledge
his memories of Brian the lover?
He was not that stupid. No. So he’d put up a touch of resistance. I’m not necessarily going to take him up on this
New York thing, he’d thought. Just considering my options. It’s the smart thing to do.
From: JTaylor@pifa.edu
To: BKinney@Kinnetik.com
Uh, hi. I’m thinking about what you asked me last night, about that NYC thing? You have meetings Friday, right?
Um… did you have like, a specific plan or something? I’m thinking about what you were saying. Thought I’d get
my info together, while thinking about it. Haven’t decided. Just thought I’d ask what you were thinking.
From: BKinney@Kinnetik.com
To: JTaylor@pifa.edu
Right now, I’m thinking Thursday night flight. The meeting’s Friday from 10 a.m. and should take through midafternoon. Figured you’d want to go to museums, or galleries, while I’m occupied. Fly back Sunday. Or longer, if
you want to stay a day or three more.
From: JTaylor@pifa.edu
To: BKinney@Kinnetik.com
I don’t want to disrupt your plans, Sunday would be fine. Why don’t I fly up Friday and meet you there? And let me
pay for my end.
From: BKinney@Kinnetik.com
To: JTaylor@pifa.edu
The NYC group’s picking up the bill. Museums on the weekends would be insanely crowded. Your decision, of
course, how long and when. But you know how I am with the planning details. I’m not questioning your desire to
modify plans, just a heads up on NYC crowds, weekend-wise.
From: JTaylor@pifa.edu
To: BKinney@Kinnetik.com
I don’t want to cause Kinnetik’s client to pay extra. Thanks for the warning on crowds – and yeah, I know how anal
you are. But I think I’d be more comfortable meeting you there after your meeting’s done. If I decide to come. I
wouldn’t be going to look at art, anyway. I figure playing by ear would be the way to go.
From: BKinney@Kinnetik.com
To: JTaylor@pifa.edu
The group I’m meeting’s not exactly a client – I’ll tell you more about that later, if this meeting works out as I think
it might. They’re picking up the entire bill – I’ve cleared bringing my partner along for the trip. They’re not going to
quibble at the expense. Have I not taught you to take advantage of your opportunities? I’m taking advantage myself
with this one – we’re staying, if you agree, at one of those boutique hotels on Park Avenue in Midtown. Friday’s
fine if you want to meet me. Playing by ear sounds good. And believe me, you aren’t keeping me from anything. It’s
good to be the boss. Besides, you’re more important than work.
That last line had done it. Despite the fact that he’d snorted when he had read it. But the fact that Brian had written
it… So here he was. A complete fool. Waiting for Brian to get out of his meetings. Waiting to see what happened
next.
He almost jumped at the knock on the door, and he crossed the room to open it.
“I knew you’d just throw the door open. What if it wasn’t me?” Brian asked, cocking his head as he watched the
look of careful neutrality on Justin’s features.
“In this place?” Justin answered, walking back into the room. Brian watched his ass as he walked in front of him,
biting down on his lower lip and forcing himself to look away. “What, the bellboy’s gonna assault me with another
bottle of wine?”
“Ah, you got your wine. Any good?”
“I didn’t try it yet. Want some?”
“Sure,” Brian answered, sitting down in the chair by the balcony.
Justin turned over the two wineglasses next to the carafe, and pretended not to notice Brian watching him. This was
stupid; this was Brian, he shouldn’t be so nervous.
He was pretty fucking nervous.
“You look… really good.” Justin tried only half-successfully to catch the stumble over the words, as he caught the
“gorgeous” that almost tripped out.
Brian smiled. “New suit.” Dark grey Armani, fitted him like a glove. “Mind if I take off the jacket?”
“Um… sure, I mean, no, here, wait.” Justin put the glasses of wine down on the tiny round table by Brian’s chair,
then waited as Brian stood and shrugged out of his jacket, and pulled off his plum-colored tie for good measure,
unbuttoning his collar and taking a deep breath. Justin tore his eyes away from the relaxation ritual, and busied
himself by crossing to the closet and hanging the apparel away, trying to not think of how his eyes had dropped for a
second to Brian’s hips, the form of his body beneath the clean white dress shirt. Fuck, he was acting like the woman
again, hanging up his man’s clothes. Waiting for him to get off work. Lusting. Fuck.
Fuck that. He had just arrived, actually, had just gotten there after being picked up by a car at LaGuardia and
dropped off only an hour before. And he wasn’t being the domestic goddess, it was his room, he was being a good
host. And as for lusting… Shit. Couldn’t really spin that one. Never could.
I am so fucked up, Justin thought, and turned around, to see Brian watching him over the rim of his wine glass, his
long legs stretched in front of him. Justin felt a surge of annoyance. Better. Better to be annoyed than discomfited.
He crossed the room, sat down on the side of the bed facing the other man. “I hate this.”
Brian bit his lips together. He waited.
“What, no sarcastic remark like, you haven’t even tried the wine yet?”
Brian pulled his legs in, picked Justin’s wine glass up and handed it across to him. “I’d rather hear what you mean
by that,” he answered quietly, then sat back, waiting, stretching his legs back out. “But that’s a good one, I’ll
remember it for later.”
Wow. More of a compliment than a sarcastic deflection. Justin relaxed a bit. Just a bit. He sipped the wine. Hm, not
bad. Then he smiled. “The wine’s pretty good, actually.” Shit, who’s deflecting now? He took another sip. “Just, I
feel like I’m walking on eggshells.”
Brian smirked. “Sure you’re not just picking up on my vibe?”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You look so… relaxed,” Justin gestured at the sprawled body. More wine. Gulped.
“I had a glass of champagne or two before I left Sirius,” Brian answered, smiling slightly.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Brian leveled a long, measuring look at him.
“What?” Justin gulped at the wine again. He could enjoy the next glass. This one needed to be in him, sooner rather
than later.
“What were you saying you hated about this?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Move the conversation in another direction.”
“Hmp. You know me too well.”
“Sometimes. More wine?”
“Sure.”
Justin took the wine glass, his fingers brushing Brian’s. Fuck, he thought, turning abruptly away. Why are we here
again?
“I’m not sure I should tell you yet.”
“Tell me what?” Justin noticed the wine slopped a bit into the glass as he poured it. His hand shook slightly. One
more glass to ease the nerves. Then I’ll slow down.
He turned back, moving to hand Brian his now-full glass. Sat down on the bed again. Here we are, he thought,
suppressing what would surely have been a slightly hysterical giggle. But where are we exactly?
Brian took a long drink, then set the glass on the table, and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, hands clasped.
“Okay, do you know what Sirius is?”
Justin thought for a moment, no clue. “No. Should I?”
“Not necessarily. Sirius is becoming the biggest advertising agency on the east coast. They expanded from
California and dominated the west coast in the 90’s. Then they opened offices in New York five years ago. They’re
becoming the biggest agency on the east coast. If they keep going this way, and apparently they will, they’re going
to be the single biggest force in American advertising inside five to seven years.”
“Okay…” An ad agency? But why would Brian be meeting with the competition? And, how could Kinnetik
compete with a company that big? He shook his head. “Okay?”
Those dark eyes watched Justin closely as Brian continued. “They approached me several months ago. They want
Kinnetik.”
Justin was expecting more, but that was all Brian said. He was obviously missing something. Wait… want Kinnetik?
And so here they were, in New York, meeting the competition… who wanted Kinnetik? Wanted Kinnetik? Or…
wanted Brian. Oh. Wait. Oh. “Why don’t you just fill in the blanks for me, and I’ll tell you what I think when you’re
done.”
Brian stood abruptly, and looked out the glass doors, to the office building across the street. Then he turned, stared
down at Justin. Justin knew damn well that Brian had moved himself into a physically dominant position, but didn’t
really resent it. The other man was nervous, moving himself into a physical location that made him feel more in
control. Fine. Whatever it took. Justin just wanted to know what was up.
Brian looked down at the man sitting on the bed, watching him. He took a deep breath. “Okay, Sirius wants to move
big into the tri-state area, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland. They think Kinnetik is positioned optimally for their
needs. They don’t want to break the company up, just turn it into a subsidiary. And, since I’m familiar with the
region and have the contacts they want, they want me to work for them. What I’m looking at is a huge payout for
Kinnetik itself, and then a 3-year contract to work for Sirius, directing their operations in the tri-state region. After
three years, the contract’s negotiable. They want me to get their division up and running, though, that’s part of the
deal.”
“You’d be in charge of the entire tri-state area? A whole regional division in an advertising conglomerate…” Holy
shit, Justin thought, as what Brian was talking about started to sink in.
Brian nodded. “My attorneys have looked it over, it’s a solid deal. Everybody wins. Kinnetik would remain intact.
And technically, after the immediate payout, I wouldn’t really have to work. Ever again. So if they’re just trying to
get rid of me, it wouldn’t matter. But they know I’d be more useful working for them.”
“How much?” Probably an impolite question; Justin couldn’t help asking. How much money are we talking?
“Millions. Right off the bat. Then an enormous salary, but, more importantly, a percentage of every deal I bring in.”
The way that first word was drawn out, Justin wondered just how many millions were involved. Holy shit, Brian
was about to be a millionaire. And no end in sight. A huge field of green. His every wish come true. Justin stared up
at him, studying the familiar face, the intense green flecks in the dark eyes that watched him, the nervous line to the
lips he knew so well, so well. He shivered, feeling suddenly as if he did not know Brian at all. Millionaire. Major
powerhouse business man. What the fuck did Brian see in him, again?
“But they want me here. In New York. Operations are run from the city. I’d be back in Pittsburgh often enough, but
I’d probably have to move the main branch of Sirius/Kinnetik to a more central location, Philadelphia, probably.
And…” He hesitated.
“What?” Justin asked, his voice hoarse.
“Lindsay’s looking at jobs in the New York area. She’s leaving Pennsylvania, wants to move up here, get away from
memories of Mel or some such bullshit. It’s one of the reasons I started looking into this offer, a couple months ago.
Gus is going to be here. And… well. There was nothing keeping me in Pittsburgh.”
Certainly not me, Justin thought. He still wasn’t sure why he was here. Holy fuck, he thought, again. Brian’s got it
made. “Wow,” he finally said, with a small laugh. “Congratulations. That’s amazing. I’m really happy for you
Brian. You always wanted New York. This is like your best wet dream, come to life.”
Brian sat down on the bed. “Not quite. It depends on you.”
“Me.”
“Um.” Brian hesitated.
“What’s to consider? Everything you ever wanted, all yours.”
“Not everything.” That look, that stare, boring into him… Justin could feel it, physically feel the movement of
Brian’s eyes, taking in his features, reaching out and whispering across his skin.
“Oh…” Justin leaned back, needing more distance. Then he stood abruptly.
“I wasn’t sure whether I should tell you now, or after we’d actually spent time together…”
“Brian, when was the last time you fucked someone?” Justin asked abruptly.
“I thought… what?”
Justin stared down at Brian’s form, sprawled on the bed. A surge of anger swept through him. Anger, fear?
Whatever the fuck. He was fucking pissed off. “Are you gonna tell me you haven’t fucked anyone since the
explosion, still?”
The confused look that swept Brian’s features pleased Justin mightily. Good. “I haven’t exactly had time… What do
you want to know…”
“Since when has lack of time ever stopped you?” Justin crossed to the wine again. Fuck it, to hell with trying to stay
sober, this was ridiculous. Just how big a fool did Brian think he was? Was he even thinking of Justin? Or just
himself, as usual? Justin poured his glass full, slammed the empty bottle back down, and drank down half the glass.
Damn, no more wine. Well, that’s what the mini bar was for. “So you give up fucking, and what? I’m supposed to
believe that you’ve changed? You’ve decided you want me because I’ve finally told you to go to hell, but no, we’ve
gotta drag this out to the bitter end, with you getting everything you ever wanted except for your little stalking
worshipper, so what? You want me to actually believe that everything can just change, that YOU can just change?
You expect me to believe that? And what, I’m just supposed to follow you around? Because you’ve CHANGED?”
“No.” The quietly spoken word directly contrasted Justin’s raised voice. “I don’t expect you to believe anything.”
Justin snorted. “Yeah, cause I’m not an idiot, like you seem to think I am! I believed you too long as it is! You only
don’t like losing, you want a chance to throw me out first, you just can’t stand that I walked away… again…”
“That is not true!”
Good, Brian was angry now, too, Justin was glad, he couldn’t stand considerate, nice Brian. Not tonight. He didn’t
know how to deal with that Brian. Truthfully, Brian was freaking him out. Who was this? It had to be a lie. It was a
lie! “It is true! You want me to come with you, to just jettison my entire life, to jump off a cliff for you like I always
do, I’ve been jumping off cliffs for you for years, but you only want me to jump when you say, or when you bodily
throw me off! Not when I’m ready to take a step forward, for US to take a step forward…” He was mixing his
metaphors, but so angry he didn’t really give a shit that he could barely follow what he himself meant. It was in the
tone. Fuck reasonableness. He was tired of always being so goddamned reasonable. “Always on your terms! So
you’ve got this perfect deal set up and I’m just supposed to jettison everything of my own to set up a little life
around the uber of you? There are three kajillion gorgeous gay men in New York, and I’m supposed to believe part
of the attraction to New York isn’t the opportunity to fuck your way through every single one of them?!!” He turned
his back abruptly, moving toward the mini bar. Fuck this. He was going to get drunk. Fuck that he was skipping
around reasons to be angry at this bullshit. There was so much to choose from, he didn’t have to be reasonable! The
time for reason was over, it had been blown out of the water three months ago, and if he forgot that, he had to be the
biggest idiot on the planet.
He heard Brian moving behind him, and then felt his hand on his arm, swinging him around. Brian held him with
two warm hands on his upper arms, frowning down at him, annoyed. Good. “I’m not going to say I can be
monogamous because how the hell should I know? I want to be with you…”
“For now,” Justin scoffed, twisting slightly.
He was held fast, forced to look up, directly into Brian’s face. “I can’t tell you why this is different, but you’ve
always known it is, and I’m enough of an emotional idiot to have just figured out what you already know.”
“I didn’t know shit,” Justin spat back, twisting.
But Brian held him, firmly. “I am NOT asking you to jettison your life for me. If you say so, I’ll turn down the offer
and stay in Pittsburgh. If you want your life there. With me in it. Just tell me, do you want me in your life?
Anywhere. That’s all I want to know.” Shit, Brian thought, staring down at Justin’s features, set but unable to
disguise the real pain Brian could see churning beneath the surface. I knew I should have waited to spring this on
him. He waited, his lungs full, waiting for Justin’s answer.
“I don’t know,” Justin replied, and repeated, “I don’t know…” Fuck! Shit, he wanted to believe this, of COURSE he
wanted to believe this, but people don’t just change overnight, and Brian, damn, he didn’t change at all! Justin stared
up at the face of the man above him, holding him so fast, not allowing him to move, to turn away, and suddenly he
just couldn’t talk anymore, he didn’t want to talk, and he resented Brian’s ability to stop him, to hold him in place
with the simple clasp of his hands on him. Damn Brian anyway! always needing to be in control, even this bullshit
abstinence, whatever the fuck this was, this was all about Brian’s control, and Justin couldn’t take it anymore. He
abruptly placed both hands on Brian’s chest, shoving him away so suddenly that Brian landed with a “whump!” on
the bed, sprawled out in surprise. Justin followed him down, pinning Brian’s hips beneath his own, leaning his
weight into Brian’s body, placing his forearms on either side of Brian’s head, staring intently at the parting lips,
ignoring the eyes, wasn’t going to risk a glance that way, only studied the lips that parted as Brian seemed about to
say something, but Justin wasn’t going to give him a chance, he wouldn’t even allow himself to look for long when
he wanted to taste, to feel Brian’s lips beneath his. His body pressed down from above, his lower region rubbing
hard against the other man’s, and his mouth moved down to taste the warm flesh of Brian’s lips, his tongue
sweeping past to dip into the moist regions of Brian’s mouth, commanding Brian’s tongue to follow his where he
was leading. For a second, he felt the stiffening of Brian’s muscles, and waited to be thrown aside, but the initial
resistance immediately gave way to surrender as the body beneath his relaxed into his onslaught, and he heard a
groan as Brian’s hands moved to settle on the back of Justin’s thighs, pulling him closer.
Justin swatted those hands away, pulling Brian’s arms over his head, firmly pressing his wrists into the mattress,
making clear they were to remain there. Then he sat up, his legs straddling Brian’s hips, and tore open the beautiful
shirt he had been admiring not twenty minutes before, ignoring the way the buttons flew across the bed spread. He
placed one hand on Brian’s chest, his thumb sweeping around his left nipple, bared to Justin’s devouring gaze.
“Justin. Justin.” He could feel Brian’s eyes on him, but he refused to look, refused to hear any message in those
chanted words, whatever Brian might or might not be trying to say. Fuck it, he’d spent too long tuning himself into
Brian’s needs. This was about his own. For once. He leaned down, drew the nipple in between his teeth, bit down,
enjoying the gasp of pain above him, turned to a sigh of pleasure when he changed his caress to a soothing lick,
drawing the turgid flesh into his mouth, sucking on it lightly, before continuing to nip and suck and lick his way
down Brian’s torso, over the taut stomach, down. His hands feverishly freed the fastenings at the top of Brian’s
pants, yanked down the zipper, and pulled out the hard dick straining against the material. Justin’s eyes closed as his
lips skimmed the hot, silky flesh covering the hard member beneath his hands. He parted his lips, to swallow it in
one swift move, when Brian’s fingers tangled in his hair, pulling his head up, away.
“Justin.”
That same tone. Justin looked up, reluctantly, resentfully.
Brian was watching him intently. His breath was hard and ragged. “Do you really want to fuck like this? This
angry?”
Shit. Justin’s hands paused in their movements, and he allowed them to rest, one cupping Brian’s balls, the other
wrapped around the base of his still-hard dick. Brian’s body was obviously ready to let Justin continue. But Brian
himself was trying to stop him. And Justin knew that Brian had never penetrated him in anger. Turned him on and
left him frustrated, sure. But he had never fucked him angry. He thought of that, thought of how that would feel.
How it would leave him feeling. He released his hold, and brought his hands to rest on Brian’s stomach. “No,” he
finally answered. “No, I don’t.”
Brian let his hands slide out of Justin’s hair, to rest on his shoulders. “As much as I would enjoy your mouth on my
dick right now, I think you’d be upset at yourself. And angry at me for not playing ubermale, trying to keep things
from flying out of control. Don’t want you any more pissed off at me for not meeting your expectations.”
That actually drew a laugh out of Justin, surprising him. Brian had pretty much nailed the idea; at that moment,
Brian really couldn’t win as far as Justin was concerned.
Justin felt Brian’s dick swell, where it was trapped under his body’s weight. God… “No,” Justin finally croaked, his
voice rough. “Not like that.” He rolled off and moved up the length of Brian’s body, pulling Brian onto his side, so
they were face to face. “Like this.” He reached down, unzipped himself, took Brian’s hand and placed it on his own
hard length. He let his eyes drift shut, and reached for Brian, stroking him. “Hey.” Justin opened his eyes, to see
Brian studying his face. The other man moved his head forward, and kissed him gently on the lips, all the while
touching him, softly but surely. Their mouths remained touching, open and gasping slightly as they shared breath,
tongues reaching out to gently caress, to draw more sensation, more connection. Brian brought his free hand to
Justin’s hip, stroking the flesh there, drawing down the material, baring his lower body further, and they continued
to touch gently, then more urgently, to a much-needed physical release. Quiet. Intense. Lips meeting in a gentle kiss
as they came down, and continued to lie there silently. Sharing breath and body heat, hands and lips on each other’s
flesh. Not wanting to move. Not daring to speak.
VIII
They sat across from each other in the café in Chelsea. Late afternoon. The sun slanted down the streets. The
buildings weren’t crowded here, nor very tall; the sun actually made it down into the street. Justin stirred his double
chocolate mocha, while Brian watched him, and made a very good show of pretending not to watch him. He
pretended not to see Justin eyeing him back; they had meticulously avoided looking directly at each other all day. At
least in the face.
The very least of it was that Brian had not had sex in three months. Then there was Justin’s sex ban. Then there was
the club the night before.
Shit. This sucked. Maybe he was doing the abstinence thing just to prove he could. Yup. He could. And he had. But
he should have gone on an insane tricking spree right before taking Justin’s ass up to New York because being able
to watch said ass, getting dragged to a club and watching it shake as Justin made a spectacle of displaying his ass on
the dance floor while Brian watched from the bar, watched every gay man in New York hit on his… whatever Justin
was, well. Hell. Then watching…
Fuck.
Was it any surprise, what had happened? Really?
Brian had been amazed when Justin woke him up with a knock on the door that very morning, still there, Justin had
actually come back to the hotel the night before. And then they had spent the day not talking about what had
happened.
But then, they never did, did they?
Justin had seemed more than willing to participate in the silence. Instead of talking, he had dragged both their asses
off to the Metropolitan Museum, to MOMA, to one of the three galleries he had tagged in the copy of the New
Yorker he had picked up the day before. They had spent the day, lost in art, Brian lost in trying to figure out why
Justin was still there.
Justin was definitely still pissed off, that was for sure. Even if he was sneaking glances at Brian’s legs, hips,
pelvis… cock, which stiffened slightly under the caress of his gaze. Justin’s startled glance bounced up to meet
Brian’s look. Finally. Taking in the lust, the desire. Looking away. Sipping on his cocoa.
Brian closed his eyes briefly. Fuck. They had to talk about this. Not that he wanted to.
He had realized something as he tramped around all of New York’s East Side that afternoon, trailing after the
enticing little rump that was always a step ahead, in perfect view. He realized, after the night before, that he had no
idea how the fuck Justin would respond to anything he did. And up to that point, he hadn’t cared. Well, he had
cared. He just hadn’t changed his actions because of that. If Justin didn’t like Brian the way he was, he could leave.
Brian had started to think, maybe that attitude was a slight miscalculation.
He also realized, since coming to the conclusion that he did indeed give a shit, that he was terrified of doing the
wrong thing. Walking around all afternoon, freaked out. Until he realized it wasn’t helping anything, and forced
himself to relax.
He had never been to the Museum of Modern Art before, and found some of the art work engaging. He found
Justin’s response to some of the art work really engaging. He found his ability to watch Justin’s ass, his profile, his
shoulders, the way he carried himself when he studied some piece that caught his attention, most fascinating of all.
He had forced himself to stop worrying about doing, or saying, the right thing.
Like right now, hating the way Justin ignored him. Fuck that. Time to get Justin’s attention. “I want to fuck you.”
“Brian…” What should have been a commanding tone, judging from the way Justin’s shoulders stiffened, came out
decidedly breathless. To say nothing of the way Justin’s face slackened. He was practically drooling. Despite
everything. Despite last night.
Yeah, apparently Brian wasn’t the only one who missed how it was between them. He sat back, oddly reassured.
They still needed to talk. But he felt somewhat reassured. Somewhat.
But the fact that Justin’s body wanted his more than all others, that wasn’t the point, as Justin said himself. Brian
studied Justin’s face, again turned away from him. Yeah, he was still mad. Obviously. Or… indifferent. That was a
whole other problem. Which one? Fuck.
They had been either fighting, or not talking, the night before as well. Before not talking at the club that Justin had
dragged him to, seemingly for the express purpose of demonstrating to Brian that he could get any gay man in New
York should he so desire, there had been dinner.
That’s what they had done, gone to dinner. The first big fight, then jerking each other off, then off to dinner. And not
talking about it. Justin kept trying to pretend it hadn’t happened. Brian kept watching him.
Over dessert, well, coffee for Brian, Justin had finally snapped. It had finally happened when Brian had reached out
with the spoon he’d just used to stir his coffee, and scooped out a piece of Justin’s triple chocolate death cake. Justin
watched him place the sugar overload in his mouth, rub his lips for the last bit of flavor, his eyes closing at the
sensation. Yum.
“If you wanted dessert, Brian, why didn’t you just order something?” Justin said, his words clipped.
“I didn’t want anything.”
“Oh, no, of course not. Not you, Mr. Control himself. You just take part of what I have, and then tell everyone that
the whole dessert was my thing.”
“I don’t tell anyone anything,” Brian answered, carefully. Watching. Always watching. Wary of saying the wrong
thing.
“You know what I mean.”
“I think I’d know more if you talk to me about why you’re upset. And not yell at me about your fucking dessert.”
“Okay, so I’m angry, okay? And… I don’t know. You expect me to think you can change…”
“Do you want me to change?”
“I don’t know what I want!”
Brian watched him. Waiting. Tried to get his dick to forget the sensation of Justin’s fingers on it, the sure stroke of
his hand. Trying to figure out what to say. Um. “I’m sorry I ate your cake.”
“It’s not that, I’m willing to share. I just wish you wouldn’t take for granted that you’re entitled to it.”
This is why he didn’t do relationships. They were too fucking complicated. But it was too late for him, he was
trapped in this one. No, damn it, not trapped. He could leave whenever he wanted. He had practically ensured he
would be left, hadn’t he? But that single moment when it could have been taken away…
Shit. He had realized, the night Babylon had burned, racing down to the hospital to find out if anyone had survived
the explosion, that he wasn’t really in control of anything. But that wasn’t the terrifying part. The terrifying part had
been the thought that Justin might be gone. Realizing that had made him realize; it wasn’t just the loss of control of
external things or even of himself. It had been the potential loss of the most beautiful, desirable, incredible man he
knew. He was about to lose something huge… irreplaceable. And finding his way back to the loft after Justin had
walked away from him, back to his empty bed, all alone, knowing he had really, really, really fucked up…
He shuddered slightly.
“Are you okay?”
And still, even in the midst of a fight in this New York restaurant, in the midst of finding terrible fault, Justin could
still notice Brian’s shiver and express concern.
“No,” Brian found himself saying. He looked up, straight into Justin’s face. “No, Justin, I’m not okay. I am well and
truly fucked.”
“I could have told you that years ago,” Justin answered, shaking his head.
A surprised laugh barked out of Brian. “Well. Now I agree with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
So he fucked up with the cake. And he fucked up after dinner, in the cab, letting Justin know he wanted him. Not
following Justin’s we-shouldn’t-fuck command. They were sitting, silent, in the back seat, on the way downtown, to
some club Justin had found on some “Gay Friendly New York” travel web site. Unbelievable. The kid was SUCH a
tourist.
Feeling Justin’s presence, too much. Maybe a little too much wine. Reaching out a hand to touch that hair, down the
nape of his neck. Feeling Justin not pulling away, leaning in, hands moving down Justin’s back, lips sinking toward
his neck, moving against the soft, warm skin beneath his ear. Moving closer. Practically humping Justin’s leg.
Unable to stop the soft moan that he breathed out. Shifted so his dick’s whole length felt up the hard muscle of
Justin’s thigh. Right there in the back of a taxi.
“Brian…” Justin had glanced at the taxi driver.
“It’s a New York driver, Justin. They’ve seen it.”
“And more,” the cab driver added in a thick Indian accent. “And for a big tip, I’m blind and invisible.”
“Double the fare, then,” Brian growled, before swooping in to claim Justin’s lips, feeling Justin melt into the kiss,
just for a moment, their tongues touching in such a satisfying sensation…
And then being held off with one firm hand. “Brian, no, I’m still mad at you. Really, obviously. I don’t want to
ma… fu… I don’t want fucking you to influence any decision I make.”
“Fine. What do you want?”
“I want to go dancing.”
Dancing. Right. Brian watched Justin sip the cocoa in the warm afternoon sun, remembering Justin dancing the
night before. He supposed he should be angry about that, but he wasn’t. He understood, what had happened. Really,
he understood.
He really shouldn’t feel so… blindsided. He shouldn’t be so… hurt, yeah, damn it, he was hurt.
He shouldn’t want to take away that guilty look Justin had worn all day.
So they had gone to the club. Crowded, Friday night, of course.
He’d been cruised, sure. But Justin had been like fucking catnip in a club full of toms. Men more gorgeous than
himself. Many many more gorgeous, younger, buffer men.
Brian hadn’t been interested, and he had brushed off the pick-ups, choosing to watch Justin who, after sucking down
a double shot of tequila, headed to the dance floor, leaving Brian behind at the bar. Shaking that ass. Glancing over
his shoulder to make sure Brian was watching him rub up against, being rubbed up against by a succession of
increasingly beautiful men.
Brian nursed a beer, and let him do this. Do what he needed to do. Apparently, Justin needed to show Brian that
every man in New York wanted the ass Brian had had to himself, a scant few months ago. Show Brian precisely
what he was missing.
Showing Brian exactly what it was like, watching a man you wanted more than any other, so much it was pretty
fucking pathetic how painful it was, to watch Justin’s hips grabbed by hands that weren’t his own, hands that were
pulling Justin toward a body that wasn’t his, Justin’s head falling back, the man, maybe mid 20’s, perfect body,
taller than Justin, the man’s mouth descending to that spot on the skin just below Justin’s ear, watching the lips
Brian wanted on his, watch those lips fall open in a gasp, watched as the guy whispered in Justin’s ear, and Justin’s
answering smile, watched them leave the dance floor…
Turning to the bartender after a minute or three, knowing he should just wait, just take this… “Is there a back room
here?”
The bartender, waving in the direction Justin had gone with the trick.
He should have just waited, but he knew that he had to go see. He had to see this.
Deliberately seeking out this out, seeking out the pain, needing to see it, needing to be hurt. Not sure why. Moving
toward the back of the club, through the beads in the doorway at the back, down a short staircase, the dim green light
barely illuminating the familiar sight of bodies in various states of undress, shrugging off hands that groped at him,
pushing them away almost violently, walking through…
And stopping. Leaning against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and watching Justin leaned into the wall
opposite, his pants undone and around his ankles, pale perfect ass upturned and offered to the guy who had dragged
him from the dance floor for a different kind of dance down here, the man positioning his long cock at the entrance
between Justin’s cheeks, one thrust and in, Justin’s back arching and legs shifting, his head falling back on the
shoulder behind him as the man moved his hand around Justin’s hips to grab his dick and hold it, letting Justin tell
him when he was ready by thrusting forward into the hand that grabbed him, and back to take the dick that impaled
him, eyes rolling up as he let himself go to the pure pleasure of being fucked.
Brian had shaken his head and barely glanced at the guy offering to take care of his erection, pressed against the
material holding his dick in, painful in its arousal. He wanted to feel the pain, did not want the release Justin was
well on his way toward, his gasps audible across the room, moaning as the man picked up the pace, rocking into
him, pressing himself into that perfect body, Brian could FEEL the memory of it as he watched, Justin’s head rolling
on the shoulder behind him, turning his gaze… seeing Brian watching him. Holding Brian’s gaze with eyes that
remained fixed as his body pounded out the rhythm, no expression on his face but just pure, slackened lust, until his
eyes closed and he shouted, Brian still watching as Justin’s back arched and his orgasm tore through him, and the
man stiffened behind him with one last hard thrust. Posed there, perfect, terrible, terrible beauty.
Brian turned, strode out of the club. Deep breaths in the cold air. His heart beating, too fast, pumping blood painfully
against his temples. He waved down a cab and took it back to the hotel. Assumed Justin would be pissed he’d left
the club. Assumed he had been sending a message. Assumed Justin would be gone, back to Pittsburgh, the next day.
Anything but the knock at nine the next morning, and Justin’s demand that they hit the Metropolitan early…
Brian took a deep breath, set down his latte cup. Saturday’s silence was now coming to an end. He had been so
surprised Justin had been there that morning, had so little idea what it meant, that he had just trailed after him, glad
enough to just look at art and try to figure out, well: Now what? “It hurt.” Shit, was that him? Well, damn.
Apparently his brain was making decisions he was not aware of. Such as, the decision to speak. And such as, the
decision to be honest.
“What?” Justin turned away from the scene of pedestrians hurrying past the café on the other side of the window.
Brian shifted. Well, hell. Things couldn’t get much worse. Or, if they could, he was about to bring them crashing in.
So nothing new there.
“Last night,” he continued, staring into Justin’s eyes, which had finally turned fully toward him. About time. “You
wanted to hurt me. It worked.”
“We’ve never been monogamous, Brian.”
“I know that. It was the context.”
“You think I’m that calculated?”
“Yes.”
“Unlike you.” Sip of the chocolate. Hadn’t he finished that shit yet?
“Do you want more?” Brian gestured at his drink.
“No.” The mug was set down abruptly on the table between their chairs. Justin turned completely toward Brian with
his whole body, for the first time that day. “I was horny, I got fucked. So what? It’s not like it’s never happened
before.”
“You knew I wanted you. You knew I was watching. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“I was getting fucked, just like you do, all the time. It didn’t mean anything.”
“Bullshit. This was personal.”
The smile that came over Justin’s face sent chills down Brian’s spine. “Ah,” Justin said, his voice as cold as the air
outside, “So now you know how I feel.”
Brian passed a hand wearily over his face. “This is about that Brandon thing, isn’t it?”
“I was taking care of my needs, Brian. If I hurt your little feelings, maybe you should find someone who’ll take
better care with them. It seems to be your problem, not mine.”
Wow, going straight for the jugular. “Justin…”
“How am I making you feel, Brian?”
“What?”
“Right now, how am I making you feel?”
Brian’s knee jerk reaction was to say it didn’t feel like anything. What, feelings, Brian Kinney? Then he reminded
himself, his knee jerk reaction was usually a bad idea. “Pretty fucking rotten,” he answered instead. Growled,
actually.
Justin smirked. “Good. I’m getting another, you want anything?” At the shake of Brian’s head, he sauntered off,
making sure to sidle himself out in front of Brian’s chair, ass on a level with Brian’s gaze.
Brian sat, moodily watching the store owner across the street close up his shop.
Was Justin doing this because he had already decided to dump him, and was rubbing it in as revenge for every shitty
thing Brian had put him through? or had he not made up his mind, and only needed to do this, to walk away feeling
that he had reclaimed some of his pride? Or had he not made up his mind, and he was confused, and acting out his
pain, getting it out of his system before repeating that Brian could go to hell? Should Brian call an end to this,
demand a yes or a no now, or should he ride it out, wait to see what happened?
Fucking relationship shit.
“Here.” Justin returned, setting a small latte down on the table between their chairs. “I knew you’d want a mocha
latte after smelling my chocolate for the past half hour.” He sat in the chair he’d recently abandoned, placing his
chocolate next to the cup he’d brought for Brian, leaning over to rummage in his bag, looking for something.
Brian picked up the latte, and took a sip. The flavor blossomed over his tongue like the uncurling of the first leaf of
spring; that good. It was perfect, exactly what he wanted, without knowing he wanted it.
Okay, he said to himself, watching Justin’s backside as he sorted through the bag at his feet. Let’s ride it out. See
what happens.
IX
Brian finished the latte, and looked over to where Justin sat, staring out the window. The New Yorker he had been
rummaging for sat in his lap, open to the “Goings on About Town,” neglected.
“Anything you want to see?”
Justin started, and looked over at him, then down at the magazine, which he closed. He stared down at the cover. He
said, “You have to take the offer. The job.”
Silence. Justin looked up at Brian, his expression defiant. “You know you will.”
“I told you. It’s an option.”
Justin snorted, looked away.
That pissed Brian off. “Don’t do that!”
“Do what.”
Blow me off, like nothing I say is important. But Brian bit his tongue on that one. He wasn’t going to set himself up
for another of Justin’s payback’s-a-bitch comments. Once was enough, thank you very much. He got it. But
apparently, his getting it was not at an end. Instead, he answered, “I meant what I said. Justin, look at me.”
Reluctantly, Justin turned his face toward him.
“I still don’t believe anyone can count on another person for his own satisfaction. But I have Kinnetik, whether I
take the offer here or not. Kinnetik’s a good thing. In Pittsburgh, or here. I meant what I said, though. I don’t want to
lose you unless that’s what you want.”
Justin shook his head. “That isn’t the point. The point is, you’d blame me. If I kept you from this. You’d never
forgive me, if I told you to stay in Pittsburgh. On what you missed out on.”
Well, shit. Apparently Justin was becoming him. Martyr of the day. Fuck, he had to stop that, right now. “I know
what my choices are. Besides, I’m more or less set for life as it is. I have enough money. I don’t need more.”
“It’s not the money?”
“There’s always another step on the food chain. I’d be higher here than I am in Pittsburgh, but once you get to one
mountain top, you only see another mountain, where people are sitting up higher than you. It’s all relative.”
Justin’s eyes narrowed. Oh, fuck, Brian thought, I did it again, said the wrong thing. What the fuck did I say?
Yup. Justin opened his mouth, closed it. Picked up his mug with a jerk, realized it was empty, banged it down on the
table.
Brian waited.
Not for long. “You know, that really pisses me off. You can make a choice not to get on with your life because
you’d prefer to be with me, and you’ll be fine. Because you don’t do regrets, and you know what you’re doing.”
“I wouldn’t blame you for anything I choose to do.”
“But I can’t be so wise?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Justin leaned forward, his neck jutting out. “Every fucking time you decide I have a better opportunity, with Ethan,
in Hollywood, whatever the fuck, I tell you I want to be with you and YOU decide I’m better off not with you. That
I don’t know what’s best for me. Only you do. You can come to terms with your own choices. But you also seem to
be perfectly happy to make emotional decisions for me based on what you decide is good for me. At your own
expense. But I don’t get to have that kind of choice for myself? Fuck you, Brian! You think I’d even consider asking
you to stop your life for me, after our entire history? Even if you were okay with it, you think it’s about you? You
think I want to feel guilty for keeping you from anything you want?”
Oh, well, shit.
In Brian’s silence, Justin continued. “Besides, all these hot guys.” He gestured around the shop. “Keep you from
them? I don’t think so.”
Brian didn’t even look around the cafe. He’d already seen, not just here, but on the street, in the club last night. And
not confined to one section of town either. And not home grown. New York’s gay population was huge. Beautiful.
And everywhere you looked.
“You’re assuming it’s a given I think New York is better for me. But maybe I’d rather keep you in Pittsburgh, you
little idiot.”
Justin’s turn to be silent. But not for long. Nope, Brian didn’t have to worry about him being a little Kinney, that
was for sure. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You look around,” Brian replied. “Yeah, we’re getting cruised, but they aren’t looking at me.” Well, yeah they
were, but then the eyes would slide off him and onto Justin. And stay there. But whatever, the point was the same.
Justin stared at him. Then turned his head. His gaze connected with one particular hottie across the room. As soon as
Justin’s eyes settled on him, the guy smiled, and raised his coffee in a salute. Licked his lips. Justin turned back to
Brian, bemused.
“You’re beautiful, Justin, you fit right in here. I’m going to be 34. I’m in shape, I look good, but I’m not… and
you’re not the kid you were when I first met you. You’re a fucking gorgeous young man. Prime. I’m past. You think
I don’t know that? I don’t know if I want to give up Kinnetik. I do know if we move here, it would be your town.”
Stating facts. His tone soft. He had been thinking about this since the offer was made. Did he want to leave
Pittsburgh? It was up to Justin. He really did not know if it was a good idea, to say yes to Sirius, go back to taking
orders from someone else. He had all the power, running Kinnetik. Was giving that up worth the money, worth the
extra stress of the job he’d be accepting? Jettisoning a lifestyle that he was fine with? Fuck if he knew. He did know
he wanted Justin. So let him decide.
Justin looked back down at the magazine. Then back up. Scratched behind his ear. “I thought it was a foregone
conclusion, that you’d want to do it. If you think I’d be the one fucking around… you don’t still think I want to fuck
all these…” He abruptly cut himself off before finishing, turned bright red. They were both thinking of last night.
“Maybe,” Brian answered. “You’re not like me, I know you’re different from me. But maybe you would want that.
For whatever reasons. I do seem to piss you off.”
“Then why… why are you even asking me to come here with you? if you aren’t even sure you want to accept
Sirius’s offer?”
“Precisely because I’m nobody here. I’m not Brian fucking Kinney here. Here, we could just be us, instead of
Kinney plus twink. Here, we might be able to figure out something we’re both comfortable with, without the
pressure of my reputation.”
Justin’s face softened; the hard look left his features. Brian realized it had been there since he had shown up at the
hotel room the day before. He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable at the intensity of this discussion. “Um.
You figure out what you want to do tonight?” He gestured at the magazine.
“Yeah. Can we just go back to my hotel room, order room service and watch movies? I’m really tired…”
They didn’t talk about the job, what had happened the night before, what had happened all the nights and days
before up to that point. Thank god. They had ordered room service, and Justin had flicked on the television, settling
back against the headboard of the bed to watch absolutely mindless sitcom reruns. Brian sat in one of the chairs,
picking at his salad as he watched Justin devour a steak and laugh at the show. When they finished eating, Brian got
up and wheeled the cart back out of the room with the dishes on it, then came back in, to the opening strains of one
of the movies Justin had bought earlier in the day at Virgin Records in Union Square. The lights were off, only the
pale flicker of the movie lighted the room. Justin was clutching a pillow to his chest, watching opening credits.
“Braveheart?” Brian questioned, glancing at the t.v., and standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed.
“I’ve never seen it,” Justin answered, putting the pillow back down next to him, patting it. “Look, I saved you a
pillow.” He patted it again. Brian climbed onto the bed, and leaned back against the headboard, not touching the
other man, but extremely aware of his presence.
The movie absorbed him for the next two plus hours, so much that Brian lost himself in the story. Until the scene
when Mel Gibson is tortured and about to be killed, and Braveheart’s memories turn to his beloved, killed at the
start of the movie by the hated British. Flashback to the little woman, in happier days. All gone to shit, and
Braveheart’s balls in a vice. Literally. Or castrated. Pretty fucking nasty, whatever was going on down there. But
Brian’s intense involvement with the scene unfolding on screen ended when he heard a strangled little noise, and
glanced over to see Justin, his hands in fists against his mouth, his eyes filled with tears. Again, the sentimental
music, and the choked noise. Brian smiled, about to make a truly dead-on remark, when he thought better of it.
Instead, he unfolded his arms, and put the left one around Justin’s shoulders.
Justin collapsed, turning into Brian abruptly, his arms moving around his waist, and let go, weeping, and not so
quietly. Face hidden against Brian’s chest, his shoulders shaking.
“What…?” Brian bit his tongue, deciding this wasn’t just the movie. I mean, come on, it was just a girl. Course, Mel
Gibson was hot, but not THAT hot.
Obviously, this little break down was not about a tortured Scot. Brian wondered what the fuck it was about, exactly.
The fit didn’t last long, since the movie ended soon after. Justin hadn’t moved his head, although the crying jag had
trailed off into sporadic sniffs. Great, a shirt full of snot and tears. “You okay?” Brian whispered. Justin didn’t
answer. He had fallen asleep. Brian was reluctant to move, even though the room was now full dark. Instead, he just
sat there, Justin’s form heavy against his. Brian watched him breath.
He woke up to lips on his jaw, tracing the line to his chin. His neck felt cramped; he had fallen asleep still sitting up.
Justin’s body was still pressed against his, only now he was awake. Brian sat, perfectly still, feeling the full lips
move to his shoulder. His shirt was unbuttoned, Justin’s fingers brushing against his right nipple. Back and forth.
“Brian?” Whispered. “You awake?”
“Yeah,” Brian answered.
“Good.” Justin unbuttoned the rest of the shirt, slid his hand against Brian’s side, tracing the skin over his ribs.
Brian turned his head, and Justin moved to capture his lips. They kissed, slow and tender.
Brian reluctantly pulled away. “Justin, wait,” Brian said.
Justin waited, his lips moving to the spot under Brian’s ear, then behind his neck. Licked there. One hand molded
itself to Brian’s right pec, thumb brushing against the hard nipple. Brian shuddered. “I don’t want…”
“You don’t want this?” Justin asked, continuing to stroke the skin at Brian’s belly, moving toward the fastenings of
his jeans.
“Are you sure?” Brian asked, turning slightly so he faced the other man. He moved the back of his fingers to Justin’s
face, stroked his cheek.
“Yes,” Justin answered. “I’m not mad at you. I miss you. I miss this.”
“Just this?”
“Do we have to talk about it?”
“No… I just don’t want this if you’re… if we’re not ready.”
“What are you saying?” Justin turned his face against Brian’s hand, caught the tip of his index finger between his
lips, sucked on it, stroked the pad with his tongue, before sucking the full length into his mouth, repeating the
tongue’s caress along the entire undersurface.
Brian took a deep breath, allowing himself to just enjoy that. Amazing, what one simple touch did to him. “I’m
saying… this is going to mean something to me. And I want to make sure it means something to you.”
Justin let Brian’s finger slide out of his mouth, the hand moving back to his jawline, tipping Justin’s face. He saw
that Brian watched him intently in the ghostly glow of the street lights. “I want you inside me,” Justin answered that.
“I want you to… I want you to make love to me.”
“Yeah. That’s what I want too.” Brian studied Justin watching him. And then Justin smiled, a smile that Brian could
not read. But he didn’t have to, didn’t care to, because Justin’s lips were moving toward his own, and they were
kissing and sliding down to lie full length on the bed, pressing their bodies up against each other, seeking more than
a simple touch.
X
Justin emerged slowly into consciousness, feeling the heaviness of his limbs, the blood stirring through his body, the
beating of his heart, still slow with sleep. He became aware of his right arm resting across Brian’s waist, his chest
against Brian’s back, nose tucked up under his shoulder blade. Leg curled against the back of Brian’s thighs. Brian’s
ass against his pelvis.
Justin breathed the familiar scent, unwilling to let go of the comfortable unconsciousness sleep afforded. He opened
his eyes to the corded muscle in front of him, the smooth skin. Reached out with his tongue, tasted the salt from
sweat long dry. They hadn’t showered, just passed out in the early morning, the first light of day bringing a glow
into the room, finally exhausted after… After. His stomach fluttered at the memories – Brian gentle, rough, all lips
and hands and cock… Justin felt his chest flush, the blood surging downward. Felt himself grow hard against the
soft skin of Brian’s thighs. Licked his back again. He brushed his lips in the area between Brian’s shoulder blades;
he loved the way Brian’s skin felt against his lips, when he had it all to himself, before Brian woke up, when he
could lose himself in the sensation of a simple slide across his mouth, those sensitive nerves in his lips tingling over
the smooth, salty surface.
His hips flexed forward almost unconsciously as the lower part of his body signaled a need for closer contact with
the man he was lying against. The fingers of his right hand uncurled, tips caressing the skin at Brian’s belly, then
moved to the crease of hip and thigh, and lower, touching pubic hair, brushing up against the other man’s hardening
length. “Brian?” Justin whispered, raising his head slightly. But Brian’s breath remained even with sleep. Justin
rested his head back down against his left arm, and shifted to rub his aching shaft against Brian’s thigh, moving up
into the space between his legs, pressing against Brian’s scrotum, fitting the tip of his penis into the small space
allowed by the relaxed muscles. Not really thinking, just letting the sensations take over, the nerves shivering down
his legs and curling his toes before racing back up his thighs. He pressed his body against Brian’s back side. His
hand curled around Brian’s penis, completely hard now, and he felt the gasp as much as he heard it, the back
beneath his chest expanding with the sudden intake of air, the hard thrust against his palm, Brian suddenly rising to
awareness. Justin took his hand away, brought it to his mouth to lick the surface of his palm, bringing it back to
Brian’s cock, which slipped easily against the skin, back and forth, Brian’s hips rocking forward into Justin’s grip.
Brian opened his legs slightly, and Justin slipped all the way between them, rubbing himself against the smooth,
warm skin there, laying his forehead on Brian’s back, feeling a gathering tension build, centered at the point of
contact, spiraling out. Brian reached down, pressing his hand lightly where Justin thrust against him. His fingers
moved to apply pressure just beneath the tip of Justin’s cock, holding it down but not immobile onto his firm leg.
The urgency became mindless, sensation gathering under that sure touch. Barely aware of Brian’s own ragged gasps,
Justin came with a sharp intake of air, holding his breath as his body stiffened, and the orgasm roared through him.
He barely registered the throb in his palm, as Brian climaxed a mere moment later.
He breathed. Lay there, the heaviness in his limbs a pleasant, satisfied weight. Then Brian moved, turning onto his
back. Justin shifted onto Brian’s chest, and Brian folded his arms around Justin’s back. His face sought the warm
comfort of the space between Brian’s throat and shoulder, where he could feel the pulse beating through his lover.
One of his favorite places to be.
“Good morning,” Brian whispered, after Justin had settled against him, entwining their legs.
Justin lifted his head, saw the gleam in Brian’s eyes. He chuffed a laugh, then dropped his head back down to
Brian’s shoulder, turned to the side so he could see Brian’s face. “Good morning,” he whispered back.
They lay against one another, wrapped in each other’s presence, the scent. Just rested there for a long time.
Finally, Brian said, his voice still low, “Does it bother you? That I’m not much of a bottom.”
Justin propped himself up on an elbow, slid his weight off to the side. He looked down, where Brian watched him
from the pillow. “Good thing I am.”
“Seriously.”
Seriously. Justin had been hoping they could avoid serious for another hour or two. He shook his head. “No, it
doesn’t bother me. I figure you just don’t like to do it.”
“I don’t. Not really.”
“Is it a control thing?” He wasn’t accusing, and was glad his voice was even. Just curious. Yup. Just curious.
“Never thought about it much.” Brian reached up, fingered a strand of Justin’s hair. “I just don’t like the way it feels.
Never did much for my dick. Or my ass, for that matter.”
“You did it for me, once.”
“I had an itch. It happens. Maybe will again. Probably.”
“Hopefully I’ll be around for that.”
“Yeah, ten years from now.”
Justin bit his lip, looked at Brian’s throat.
“Do you want to? I mean, did you want to fuck me when you woke up?”
Oh, thank god we’re not going there, Justin thought. He was not ready to deal with the implications of this
afternoon, let alone their future together. Instead, he considered the question he had just been asked, and smiled
softly as he responded. “My dick did exactly what it wanted to do with you. It’s creative like that. I know you aren’t
into being penetrated.”
Something flickered in Brian’s eyes, and he looked quickly away.
“What? Brian, what?”
Brian bit down on his lips, then looked back. He raised himself into a sitting position, and Justin’s head ended up in
his lap, looking up at him. “That whole bet thing… it was a shitty thing to do to you.”
“Yeah, it was,” Justin agreed. He felt too languid to care much at the moment. But he stored Brian’s words away, for
examination later.
Again, Brian changed the subject. Touch and go. Probably the best policy right now. “You thinking about breakfast?
I’d kill for coffee.”
“Oh, um… there’s a room service menu around here somewhere. Or we could go out…”
Brian placed his hand on the top of Justin’s head, holding him down as his bed partner sought to rise. “Hey, hold on
there sparky, where you going?”
“I thought you wanted coffee,” Justin answered, almost laughing as he felt Brian becoming hard against his cheek.
“Yeah, but I didn’t say right this second.” He shifted, taking Justin with him, but rotating his body so Justin’s head
remained at his pelvis, while he moved down Justin’s body. “I’m thinking about breakfast first myself…” And he
took Justin into his mouth.
XI
“Mom!” Justin called, after using his key to open the door to her condo. “Hey, Mom, you home… uh. Hello.” He
stopped in the living room, eyeing a man he had never seen before. Young man. Yup, pretty young, okay REALLY
young. Probably not even 30. Way too flushed in the cheekbones. Lips way too red and… shiny. He had moved
quickly across the couch, three feet away from Jennifer, who was rolling her eyes at him. Rolling her eyes at the
man, young man, not at Justin, with a look of easy familiarity, an intimacy that Justin knew.
Er.
“Hi, honey. This is John. John, this is my son, Justin.”
“Hey.”
Justin gaped at him.
“Is that wine?” Jennifer asked pointedly, standing up and gesturing at the bottle Justin clutched in his left hand.
“Uh, yeah,” Justin answered, staring down at the bottle. “Um, it’s the one we started, a couple weeks ago…”
“Oh, good! Is there enough for three?” Jennifer’s smile was bright. Nope, not uncomfortable at all, even though her
mouth was also swollen and there was a sparkle in her eyes that Justin did NOT want to see. It was the same sparkle
he had seen in Brian’s sometimes, when Justin caught him looking at him. Back when things were good. And that
final morning in New York, right before they left. One week ago tomorrow. He hadn’t spoken to Brian since.
“No, no, I gotta go anyway,” John made haste to interject.
Jennifer took the wine from Justin’s slack hand, and kissed him on the forehead. She turned back to John. “Oh.
Really?” She walked over to where he stood, and kissed him. Justin’s eyes grew wide. No kiss on the forehead for
that guy. John’s hands came up to Jennifer’s hips, but then he stiffened, and put her slightly away from him.
“Um, yeah.” John stepped away, squeezed Jennifer one more time at the waist. “Dinner, tonight? Pick you up at
eight?”
“You better believe it.”
“Nice to meet you, Justin.”
“Uh… nice to um, meet you too, John,” Justin returned, watching the guy walk out the door. Shit, and he was hot,
too. Dark, tall, a little bulkier than necessary… well, fuck. That’s just great, Justin thought, he and his mother had
the same taste in men. And now he had to process THAT little piece of information.
“Oh, great, I loved this wine,” Jennifer was saying, as she moved into her kitchen, and took two wine glasses down
from the shelf.
“Um. Mom?” Justin began, unsure of where to start.
“I’m really sorry John couldn’t stay! Well, he had to go home and clean up, he’s taking me to this cute little
restaurant that was just reviewed in the paper, it sounds just divine…”
“Um. Mom?”
Jennifer poured generous amounts into both glasses. “Such a great guy! And he has his own company, can you
believe it? I sold him a house.”
Justin took the glass as if it were a life line, gulped at the wine, picked up the bottle, and refilled his glass.
“Okay,” Jennifer sighed. “So I guess you weren’t expecting to walk in on me kissing a man…”
Justin choked. He made sure to swallow the rest of the wine in his mouth down the right pipe, before setting down
his glass. “I wasn’t even going to GO there…”
“You must have figured I’d be dating at some point.”
“Well, sure! Sure, I thought, okay, she’s going to be… dating. But men your own age! This… boy… he’s gotta be
what, 30?!”
“Well not yet,” Jennifer replied with a giggle, “But I’ll be happy to tell him you thought so.”
“Well, it’s not right. You’re like, my mother! He’s like, my age! Ew! ick, ick ick!!!”
Jennifer burst out laughing. “Oh, my god, Justin, you absolutely cannot be having problems because I’m dating a
younger man! And he’s 10 years older than you are!”
“It’s not right,” Justin repeated. “He’s like… a kid! To you!”
Jennifer continued to giggle as she watched her son’s face turning red. “Excuse me while I can’t take this very
seriously, coming from you! I’m only 15… okay, maybe 16 years older than John. And it’s very different for a
woman in her 40s to be dating a man who has been through college and runs his own business, as opposed to a 17year old virgin and a 29-year old who’s had sex with the entire city.”
“MOM!” Justin didn’t know which part of that he was objecting to. Especially since, technically, it was true.
“Oh, c’mon, you know I like Brian…” Jennifer moved back into the living room and sat on the couch, waiting until
Justin sat in the chair at an angle to it. “Speaking of Brian, how was New York?”
“Well, actually… hey, wait a minute, how long have you been dating this John person?”
“John, Justin. His name is John. My god, you really are my son.” Jennifer took a sip of the wine. “I don’t know, a
month?”
“And you gave me that lovely advice about marriage and faith while you were rapidly going stupid with... whatever
was going on.” He stood to move back into the kitchen, and retrieved the bottle. “It was one of the reasons I went. I
didn’t realize that advice was being filtered through Sunshine Mary.” He refilled both of their glasses, and put the
empty bottle down on the coffee table, slumping back in the chair.
Jennifer looked at him seriously. “Was there a problem in New York?”
He decided to go along with her changing the subject; he had come over for… whatever. Mommy love. Not two
hours ago, over his third drink at Woody’s, he had been brooding about Brian, knowing the clock was ticking, still
torn over whether he should trust his head or his heart. Or if his head and his heart were plotting against him, and
neither one wanted to go back to Brian. Or both did. But if his head and heart were in collusion against him, what
part of him was doing the thinking? Need he ask.
Of all the fucked up clichés, this was the worst. Head, heart, dick. He had no idea if he could trust himself, if he was
being self-loving, or self-loathing. To say nothing of how he felt about Brian! Which he didn’t know. Alcohol was
not helping. You’d think it would.
So he came looking for the one unconditional love in his life. And found a woman stupid with lust about to fuck a
guy Justin himself found attractive, right there on the couch in front of him. Well, shit. Maybe he should tell her the
real story then. As opposed to the other version he’d planned, the sanitized version. And maybe he shouldn’t have
just had drink number five. Oh well.
“Okay,” he started, running a hand through his hair. “I only went to New York because you made me think about…
commitment. And okay, because I wanted to. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to scream at him about how he’d ripped
my heart out and stomped on it, but I couldn’t, because I know the deal with Brian, and I couldn’t expect him to
change. I fell in love with him as he was…”
“No, you didn’t,” Jennifer interrupted.
“What?”
“You didn’t fall in love with the guy who hurt you, the one who ignored your feelings, or went after other men in
front of you. You fell in love with the one who cared for you. Who had a look that was just for you. Who took you
in whenever you needed him, bought you things not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Who held you at
night, and made love to you. And it isn’t wrong to ask the man you love to show that other, cruel side of himself to
the door. The thing that’s hard, is that you can’t ask him to do that just for you. But maybe with the threat of losing
you… Maybe he’ll want to do it for himself.”
Justin’s mouth dropped open. “Uh…”
“You’re oversimplifying, that’s what I was trying to tell you. Why do you think I left your father? Now that was
very simple. Your father started acting as if I didn’t exist. If he really loved me, he would have made more of an
effort with you, because he loved me, and I needed him to pay attention to my needs, not just his own. But my
feelings had stopped existing for Craig, he’d closed himself off from me. Why stay in a relationship that doesn’t
exist anymore?”
“Uh…” Justin had gone somewhat pale, and he leaned over, his arms around his waist.
“Are you all right?” Jennifer leaned forward, put her wine glass on the table.
“No… I’m fine…” Justin took a moment to breath. Took a deep breath in. Breathed out. Better. He looked up at his
mother’s face, full of concern. “I fucked a guy in front of him.”
“What?” Shocked. Jennifer sat back, waiting.
“Brian was great. Really. I pretty much freaked out on him the entire time. Couldn’t stop yelling at him, pretty
much. Nitpicking over stupid stuff. Cake.”
“Cake.”
“He always takes bites of my dessert, he never gets his own.”
Jennifer snorted. “Well, if I didn’t know you were in a real relationship before, that would be the sign proving me
wrong.”
“What?”
“It’s the little things. Not the big ones. Toothpaste squeezed from the wrong end. Who holds the remote. Taking
food without permission.”
“Yeah, well, fucking a guy at a club in front of him was a much bigger deal than taking a bite of my cake. He left me
flat, went back to the hotel.”
“Can’t say I blame him. So, I assume that was the end of your weekend?”
“No, actually…” He smiled slightly, remembering the rest of it.
“So. It got better.” Jennifer was quiet for a moment. “How’d you leave it?”
“I told him I’d call him.”
“Have you?”
“Not yet.”
“Send him a set of mixed signals, then ignore him for a week.”
“You make it sound so harsh…”
“No, not harsh. True. You’re confused. You thought you knew you wanted to go on with life without him, now you
don’t.”
“What should I do?”
Jennifer snorted again. “You expect me to get in the middle of you and Brian? No. I tried that once. You two are a
force of nature, no room for interference from me.”
“And he’s got a kickass job offer in New York.” No need to tell his mother the details.
“New York.”
“Yup. He wants me to go with him.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know what I want, that’s the problem. I was so angry at him, and it wasn’t just the non-exclusive nature of
our relationship, it was a whole shitload of anger over stuff that I thought I’d put behind me, I mean, all the way
back to when I was bashed and he didn’t come to see me once in the hospital. You think if he cared about me at all
he would have…”
“He was there.” Jennifer interrupted.
Justin became very still. Then, “What?” Whispered.
“He was there. Every night. He would go to the hospital after hours, and watch you sleep. He usually looked
completely drugged, blank. Just watching. Not even blinking. I saw him once, and asked the night nurse. She told
me he was there, every night.”
“Why doesn’t he tell me these things? He knows I was pissed about that. Hurt, anyway. Now I’m just pissed that I
was hurt. And he could have just taken that away.”
Jennifer studied Justin’s face, saw the anger that still resided there, so close to the surface. “I don’t know what to tell
you. He keeps things to himself.”
“Yeah, well, he has to stop doing that to me.” Justin stood abruptly. “I don’t want to keep you from your, uh, date.”
Jennifer burst into laughter again. “Oh, honey, you can tell me that you went to New York with one man and had sex
with a total stranger to spite the first, whom you then seduced, but you can’t listen to your mother looking forward to
getting laid?”
____
“Ew. Ew. Ew.” Justin kept repeating the sound as he pushed his way into Michael’s comic shop.
He glanced over at the latest issue of Rage – Zephyr kneeling in the burnt out hulk of a building – before he tuned
into the conversation between Michael and the man leaning against the counter. Michael was leaning back against
the wall behind it.
“I’m really flattered, it’s just…”
“Come on. One beer. Won’t kill you.” The guy was hot. Light brown hair, boyish features, compact body. Light
blue eyes, full lips.
“Hey, Michael.”
“Oh, Justin! Well, thanks for the offer, but my business associate is here, we got some work to get to, if you’ll
excuse me, come again…”
The guy shrugged and turned away to exit.
“Business associate?” Justin asked, as Michael came around the counter, turned the “Open” sign to “Closed,” and
locked the door. “He was pretty cute.”
“Yeah, well.” Michael glanced at the cover of the Rage comic. “Not ready. Can’t even think about a day when I
might be. You know?”
“I guess I can imagine,” Justin answered. “So? How’d you like to go out for that beer with your business associate?”
“Sure, just, give me a minute to get the receipts in order…” Michael opened the cash drawer, and started counting
out bills, lining them up on the counter. “Haven’t seen you recently.”
“I’ve had a lot of thinking to do. Thought it would go better alone.”
“Has it?”
“Not really.”
Michael paused, screwed up his forehead, wrote down a number. Then he picked up a wad of tens, started counting
them. “Have you talked to Brian?”
Justin wondered if Michael was even listening to him. “Not since we fucked in the airplane’s bathroom, and I told
him I’d call him when I was ready.”
“Mile high club, huh?” Michael didn’t even pause in counting bills.
Holy shit. Justin hadn’t thought he could do that, both think AND function. “Uh… no, just seeing if you were
actually listening.”
Michael did look up then. “Oh. So. What really happened, then? Or, never mind. I shouldn’t ask.”
“Yeah, right, since when?” Justin scoffed, gaining a reluctant grin of acquiescence from the other man. “It went…
weird. I was pretty upset. I’d been so sure I never wanted to touch him again, but there was Brian, pouring on the
charm…”
“So you did sleep with him?”
“It’s not all about sex, Michael.”
“Oh, hey, I know that. But, come on. You gotta admit, a lot of it is.” Michael paused, waiting.
“Well, okay. Maybe some of it’s sex.” Justin couldn’t suppress the grin, the shiver at the memory of that last Sunday
morning, in bed until they had to leave to catch the plane in the afternoon.
“That good.”
“You know how persuasive Brian can be when he wants to.”
“Oh hey, I know! Right before you left, I went over to Brian’s and he was all missing you, not that he’d say that, of
course, but then he started in on maybe what if he and I could get together… how great that would be… and he had
that look in his eyes, you know the one he gets where you just want to pet him…” Michael stopped, realized what he
had just said, and jerked his gaze up from the quarters he had begun to dig out of the cash register, to Justin’s frozen
stare. “He didn’t really mean it! I mean… Fuck. He was missing you. He was only thinking of you, he didn’t really
want a relationship with me. Really! It really had nothing to do with me.”
Justin started laughing. Hard.
XII
Brian waited. And waited.
And went to work. And met with his attorneys, going over the details of the Kinnetik deal, for which he had to
figure out an answer within the week. Well, he had to wait for his answer, before he could answer.
Tick tick tick, time’s running out.
He waited. And went to the gym. And saw Gus a couple of times. Normal life. Trapped in its structure. Waiting.
Yeah, normal life. But tingeing the entire experience of moving through his days was the realization, if Justin says
no in the end, that this was it, his life, only no hope, no maybes, just this, and nothing more. A wasteland to wander
through. He supposed it would get easier. But he didn’t really believe that.
He avoided Woody’s. Instead, he worked at night. And watched mindless reality television. Found himself actually
rooting for a contestant on “America’s Next Top Model.” The other girls had ganged up on his contestant because
she wouldn’t eat anything, and he could relate. But hearing himself yell, “Get off her back, you fat jealous
wannabes!” made him realize he was in serious trouble, and if this was it, life as he had known it was officially over.
He turned off the t.v., and surfed a few porn sites. That helped, it surely did. Until he found himself clicking open
his collection of naked!Justin pics instead.
Saturday, he went to the gym. Went by Lindsay’s, found out she had indeed accepted the job offer on Long Island
(oh, Jesus, he’d HAVE to get to New York now, Gus raised on Long Island? Someone had to create a safe zone for
the kid in Manhattan…), came home, took a shower, sat in front of the television. His cell phone lay on the coffee
table. Mocking him.
Fuck it. He reached for the thing to give Justin a call, fuck his “I’ll call you,” he hadn’t, had he? But then he drew
his hand back. Nope, no, gotta respect his, whatdayacallem, “boundaries,” as he’d begun to refer to them. Justin’s
boundaries. Good god, you’d think he’d cut Brian a break, after all, Brian had turned off the high voltage electrical
fence around his own self for the guy. But no, Justin’s BOUNDARIES needed to be respected.
“I am so fucked,” Brian muttered to himself, and stood to make his way to the kitchen, to see if he actually might be
tempted by the take out menus, when there was a knock at the door.
Brian walked over, pulled it open. Justin stood there, looking at him.
“You could have used your key,” Brian said, standing back.
Justin walked in, shrugging off his coat. “I used it for the downstairs door. I didn’t want to invade your space if you
weren’t around.”
“Justin…”
“Michael told me you proposed you and him. Just before we went to New York.”
Oh well fuck. Mikey and his complete inability to keep his fucking mouth shut. Brian felt, literally felt his muscles
bunch up, his body physically taking up a defensive posture. Justin leaned back against the beam in the middle of
the loft’s floor, and folded his arms over his chest. Not good. Fuck.
“Um…”
“He also said that you were really thinking about me.”
“He said that.” Shit! That did not come out the way he wanted it to. How to fix this one? Um, no clue. Wait, Brian,
just wait, wait and see what happens. Obviously, Justin had a reason for being here, and nothing Brian said was
going to make a difference.
Justin raised an eyebrow, watching Brian’s face go carefully blank, the granite mask descend. “Not going to say
anything about it? You’d let me think you’re really interested in starting up a romantic relationship with Michael?
As if I mean nothing? So easy to put me behind you?”
Shit! Brian pushed off the bar counter, and stalked across the room, realized he was going toward the bar area, and
stopped. He whirled around, stared back at Justin, who was merely watching him. Not a clue of how to proceed.
“No. Not easy at all. But I can do it if I have to.”
“You’re a total shit, you know that?” Justin’s tone was almost conversational. “You think that I don’t KNOW that
you were reaching to an old comfort because you were hurting over the break between us?”
Brian bit his lips.
“Say something!” Justin demanded.
“I don’t know what to say,” Brian bit back. “You’ve already made up your mind, obviously, so just tell me what
you’ve decided and go. Or stay. I don’t care.” Brian folded his arms over his chest. Bullshit. This was all bullshit.
Cut to the chase, sonny boy.
But Justin laughed at him, knowing that pose far too well. “Oh, no, no, no. You don’t get off that easy. You keep
making me do all the work for you, you can do some of this. And you do so care.”
“What, torture myself, when an end has already been decided and there’s nothing I can do about it?”
“Yeah. It’s called communicating. The end is not the whole point, it’s what gets conveyed in the process.”
Brian took a deep breath, scrubbed his hands over his face, and moved to the stool at the bar area. “Fine.” He sat,
and violently pulled out the stool next to him. “Sit.”
Justin walked over to the stool and sat on it. They paused, three feet from each other, the space seeming much wider.
“So. Michael. What happened?”
Brian looked away.
“Brian.”
That voice, calling him back to himself. Damnation. “Yeah, okay. It hurt. Your leaving. Even if I totally deserved it.
I don’t deserve you, you think I don’t know that? So I had a little fantasy with myself of something not like that,
some little bit of something easy, not complicated. It was just a fantasy, I should have kept my big mouth shut,
only…”
“Only what?”
“I was lonely.” There. Truth. Pretty fucking pathetic. He felt as if he had just opened his guts and handed Justin a
knife, and made a sign, “cut here.”
Justin smiled, though, and reached out to touch Brian’s knee. “I know.”
“You know.”
“Yup. You know, I heard Michael say that, and I realized, okay. He gets it. Brian wants somebody, he’s ready for
that. Even if it’s not me. And, of course, it would be Michael you showed that to, since obviously it couldn’t have
been me, since I’d told you to fuck off.”
Brian watched him, not really sure what the hell Justin was saying. “Is that my answer? What the fuck are you
saying? You want me to traipse off into fairy tale land with Michael?”
Brian had never heard the raspberry sound used quite so eloquently. Justin licked the spit from his lips, then said,
“No. You know I don’t want that. And I know that you don’t either. And neither does Michael. I’m just saying, it
makes sense that you confided in someone you feel safe with, wanting to open yourself up to someone else.” Justin
stopped, realized from the blank stare that Brian still didn’t get it. “He let me know, in so many words, that there’s
space for me in your heart. That’s what I mean.”
“Space…” Brian repeated, slowly. Justin saw the second he got it. His lips twitched upward slightly, but he fought
to keep his features still. Damn, Justin thought. He just won’t allow himself to hope until he knows. The history of
crushed expectations behind that single schooling of Brian’s features made Justin realize, if he were ever going to
forget, exactly how much work he was in for. But he was in for it. He was.
Was it worth it? He didn’t know. He really didn’t, and it would take years to find out. The question was, was he
willing to take the risk? Was there enough promise for the future? On his walk over here, he realized that he still
wasn’t sure. There were no guarantees. But there was space, he knew. There was space in Brian Kinney’s heart,
space for him. So yeah, he’d take the risk. He and Brian had always been a gamble, all along, a gamble nobody’s
bets were on. Nobody’s, except Justin’s. Not even Brian’s, for a very long time. But he knew now, Brian had shifted
his stake, and he was willing to throw in with Justin. And Justin was damned if he was going to lose the most
important bet of his life.
Well, plus the fact that he loved the guy. He sighed, and watched Brian continue to watch him. “Yeah, space,” he
answered. “But that means you tell me shit. That means you don’t stalk outside my hospital room watching me
while I sleep at night. That means you don’t throw me out when you get sick.”
“I don’t… you mean, I don’t repeat those things. In the future.” The left corner of his mouth twitched upward.
Justin looked away, needing to finish before he allowed the dawning look in Brian’s eyes to distract him from what
he had to say. “It means, in the future, we don’t do that stuff to each other. I realized, coming over here, that you
must have felt the same way I felt, when you heard about Babylon blowing up, that I did about you when I found out
about the cancer. Sick with fear of losing you. And I realized my throwing you away from me was the same as you
tossing me out of the loft. So…” Justin looked back at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think… I was really angry at you for
doing that to me, but I kinda understand now. I thought I’d never do that to you, if I were the one with cancer,
because I loved you more than you loved me. Or something like that. But I was wrong. When I was in that position,
where you were freaked out like I’d been, and you did the wrong thing the same way I’d done the wrong thing by
not telling you I knew… I totally freaked out on you too, and probably hurt you just as bad.”
“Okay.” Brian watched him, but his eyes were sparkling, and he could barely suppress the smile that tugged at both
sides of his mouth, now.
“Aren’t you kind of pissed off at me? For doing that to you?”
“Well,” Brian returned, pushing off of the stool and standing, moving over to where Justin sat, placing one finger on
his jean-covered thigh, “From what you’ve said, we’re even. So I figure, we start from even.”
“It’s not that simple!” Justin tried not to get distracted by Brian’s hands, on his shoulders, pulling him off the stool
to stand, skimming down his back, settling on the top of his butt, pulling his hips up flush against Brian’s pelvis.
Justin stared at Brian’s neck.
“Justin.”
He looked up.
“It’s this simple. Yes or no?”
Justin reached up, cupped his cheek. “Yes, Brian,” he said, sliding his hand behind Brian’s neck. “Yes.” Pulling him
down, kissing him softly. Lips, just touching. A soft sliding, bare brush, a tingle of nerve endings, Justin’s tongue
first to sweep over that full underlip that teased at him, Brian’s tongue finally moving out to touch softly against his,
lips pressing more urgently. Justin felt Brian’s hands slide into his back pocket, pull him against his body, flush.
Kissing him, more deeply now. Justin pulled away, looked up at Brian’s face. Brian grinned down at him, and Justin
returned it with a full fledged smile, feeling something… joy? Filling him. Yup. This was where he wanted to be,
right or wrong. He’d find out, wouldn’t he? In the days, months, years to come. Starting from even, starting from
this moment, with Brian, who was walking him backwards, up the steps, his calves hitting the bed, laying down on
his back. Brian’s lips on his again, down his neck. Brian’s forearm moved around Justin’s waist, and he pulled him
on his side, facing him. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Justin answered, moving his head forward so the tips of their noses touched. “It’s nice to be home.”
“You want it to stay home?”
Justin pulled back. “I figured… you’d want me to move in with you.”
“Here? or in New York?”
Justin smiled again. “I meant ‘home,’ as in, wherever you are.”
“Oh. That.” Brian moved his hand under Justin’s shirt, teased the skin at his waist.
“Yes, that. But since you brought it up… you have to take the offer. You know you do.”
“Do you want me to?” Those beautiful, long fingers, moving up his stomach, over his ribs.
“Yeah, I want you to.”
“And you…?”
“I told you. Home is where you are.” Justin dropped his hand onto Brian’s forearm, feeling the familiar skin, soft,
warm, under his fingertips. He ran his fingers lightly down to the top of Brian’s hand, which moved out from under
his shirt, to twine his fingers around Justin’s. “Besides, it’s New York. I’m an artist. It makes sense for me to live
there anyway.”
“Mmmm…” Brian agreed. “However….” He rubbed his thumb over Justin’s index finger knuckle, pulled his hand
up, kissed the palm. Justin shivered.
“However… what? Brian?” he prodded, trying not to get distracted by the sensation as Brian’s tongue licked a path
to his wrist, teeth biting lightly on the tender skin there.
“If you want to be all domestic…”
Justin felt a brief flare of panic at those words in Brian’s mouth, and he stiffened slightly.
“…it should be sanctioned, don’t you think?”
Justin’s heart could have stopped beating in that moment; he wouldn’t have noticed. Even Brian’s sucking on the
base of his middle finger didn’t distract him. “Um… what?” Whispered.
Brian pulled Justin’s hand against his chest, so it lay flat. “Sirius has domestic partnership benefits. Progressive,
aren’t they? They were also almost falling over themselves to tell me that not a week before our little visit, a judge
in New York declared the ban on gay civil unions unconstitutional.”
“Yeah… I know… but.”
Brian waited. “But…?”
Justin blinked. “Um, I just figured you’d interrupt me with something before I could finish. Like how Bloomberg’s
appealing and they’ll overrule the judge anyway and nothing will change.”
“Hm. Well, maybe not. It’ll be nice to be somewhere things are more relaxed about our issues, anyway.”
Our issues. “Yeah,” Justin agreed, as his eyes began to shine.
“Well, the Sirius thing is just a formality so you can legally pull the plug on me and take my retirement fund, and I
won’t have to worry about affording your medications the next time you cough out a lung… oh Christ,” Brian
groaned, moving his hand to swipe at the corner of Justin’s leaking eye.
“Is that, like, a proposal?” Justin asked.
“Um…”
“Fine.” Justin laughed slightly. “Brian, would you like to join with me in your company’s domestic arrangements?”
“Yeah. Maybe I can do that,” Brian replied. “I’m afraid you’re not going to get much of a honeymoon, Sunshine,
I’m going to be killing myself with work. You do understand that?”
“I’ll be too busy enjoying living off your wealth to mind a lost vacation.” Justin’s hand drifted down to Brian’s hip,
traced a lazy pattern against his leg, drifting from the outside of the thigh, over the top, inner thigh, up the leg.
“Besides, you’ll take me to Florence when I talk you into it. We’ll go see David.”
“David?”
“The statue,” Justin laughed. “I always wanted to see it.”
“We’ll find time for a vacation. One day. When you aren’t in school. Lots of good art schools in New York. Places
to finally get your degree.”
“Yeah…” Justin hesitated. Trailed a finger up Brian’s cock, fully aroused.
Brian hissed his breath in, but didn’t miss the hesitation. “Yeah? Yeah… what?”
“I just thought… I really wish I hadn’t fucked that trick in New York,” he said.
Of all the times to bring that up. “Not a big deal,” Brian answered, taking his hand, pressing it fully against his
arousal, rotating his hips to maximize the sensation.
“Yeah, it was… are you still not with anyone else?”
“No. Just you since Babylon.” Brian was rapidly losing his interest in the discussion. they could talk about all that
after, after when he wasn’t unzipping Justin’s pullover, pulling it off him, the t-shirt following, and unsnapping the
fastening at the top of Justin’s jeans.
“I was thinking…”
“Oh, god,” Brian moaned, not sure if that was in response to Justin’s “thinking” or due to the fact that his lover’s
hand had found its way to the bare skin at the top of his cock, after Brian practically destroyed his pants in kicking
them off.
“I was thinking… um…”
“You said that.” Both naked, Brian rolled Justin onto his back. Justin’s legs fell apart, and Brian settled himself
between them, his hand moving to the outside of Justin’s thigh.
“I just… I don’t know how you’re going to react.”
“I’ll consider what you have to say, and then, god help us, we’ll communicate. Just tell me, so we can get to the
make up sex, my dick’s going to stage a coup if we don’t, like, right now.”
“Okay, fine. I want you… all of you, Brian. No barriers. I want to feel all of you. Even if it’s just once.”
Brian became very still. He raised himself up on his forearms, and looked down into Justin’s face. “Six months?
We’d have to wait six months, and get tested now, then three months, then at six.”
“I know.” He hadn’t shot the idea down out of hand. Justin felt a stirring in his stomach, at the idea of being able to
have Brian, no condoms, just them.
“The things you make me do…” Brian ran his hands through Justin’s hair, bit his lips, then stared down. “I can’t
guarantee I can do that.”
“I know. But I know you’d tell me if you didn’t.” Justin pressed his lithe body up against the more muscular one of
his partner, feeling the heat and hard length of Brian against him. “It’s a lot to ask… but it’s a lot to look forward
to… just me… and you… and nothing between us, just skin on skin, inside, inside me, bare…” Feeling the increase
in Brian’s heart rate.
“Six months…” Brian breathed into Justin’s ear, licking at the lobe, then biting down on it. “All I can do is try…”
He kissed his neck, up his jawline, took his mouth as he rolled Justin’s body beneath his.
“That’s all I ask,” Justin answered, and closed his eyes as he gave himself over to the sensations sweeping through
his body, the promise sweeping through his heart.
END
Swept Away
Chapter One
This had not been a good idea, Brian thought.
When he had signed up for this two month cruise as part of the yacht crew, he had only been thinking that he had
needed to get the fuck away from his life, which had gone to shit. It had seemed almost a sign, coming across the
advertisement on line, “Needed immediately…” He had fired off the email on a complete whim, never expecting
that his experience in working on board cruise ships during college summers, and that two year stint of working on
pleasure cruises after college just to see the world, would actually get him the job of working on board this particular
boat. And what a boat! Yacht, Brian, he told himself. Big, big, beautiful boat.
All because Ethan Gold, the violin virtuoso, celebrated throughout the world, had needed a vacation, immediately, a
long vacation with experienced crew members to sign up for two months, take off, tomorrow. Spoiled brats, all of
them. I want, I want, NOW. And Gold sure as shit had what it took to get what he wanted, when he wanted it. If his
fame and fortune in the squealing of the strings that Brian suffered through day and night due to practice or just the
entertainment of the other guests on board weren’t enough, Gold’s family had money to burn. Old money. He might
never play again, and it wouldn’t matter. The yacht was his family’s, anyway. Or had he just bought it on a whim?
Who knew? Who cared?
What really bugged Brian, though, were these people, these guests. It’s very different, he thought as his eyes swept
the sun-drenched deck, looking for anything out of place, finding nothing but the naked sunbathers across deck, their
drinks and coke and bags of pot strewn about them. There’s a big difference between being 22 years old and treated
like a second class citizen, beneath notice except to be ordered about, and being 32 with a bit more experience under
the belt, and being treated like a second class citizen. Especially when those doing the ordering are no more than 22
themselves.
Yeah, he had not exactly thought this one out.
Well, fuck. What the fuck. He’d needed to get away; he was away, all right. His eyes flicked out over the huge
ocean behind them, swept in toward the brief spit of land. Where were they, anyway, Tahiti? Somewhere around the
Philippines? God knew. And Brian didn’t give a shit, not really. Away from Pittsburgh, no phone, no computer, no
nothing to reach him. He had another month to figure out what to do before he got back there. For now, he played
the humble servant, almost as if it were a game. In a way, it was. A different type of vacation, a vacation from
himself, so different from the vacation these idiots lying out in the sun were taking. Their vacation seemed to
intensify their sense of who they were. Unfortunately, they were all assholes.
“Hey, yo, didn’t you hear me calling you?”
Brian’s eyes cut over. Oh, great. That fucking blonde again. Just what he needed. Justin Taylor. Ethan Gold’s boy
toy. The kid sauntered over to him, with a real shit-eating grin on his face. He had at least pulled on a pair of linen
pants, but they were so thin as to be see-through, and Brian could see the kid’s impressive cock through the material.
Justin swaggered toward him, his grin teasing. He knew how he looked, a walking wet dream. Brian hadn’t made
any reference to his own sexuality, certainly not among the other working guys who spent evenings ranting about
the boobs and butts of the chicks who were in the Gold entourage, who flaunted themselves in front and then went
off to vocally fuck their brains out with the more privileged boys, guests of Gold. There were about eighteen of them
in all, all like rabbits. But Gold and this Taylor kid were the worst. Brian didn’t know if Gold had picked up on him,
he expected he did, though it was hard to tell because he ignored Brian as if he were a piece of mobile furniture.
Brian knew damn well, though, that this Justin knew exactly what he was doing, knew exactly how to push Brian’s
buttons. As if Brian weren’t just a piece of furniture. More like a toy, placed there for his own personal amusement.
“I need you to lotion me up,” Justin said now, his gaze flickering over Brian’s body, very briefly, but pointedly, to
come back up to meet Brian’s flinty gaze.
“Can’t one of your friends help you out?”
Justin shrugged. “Don’t want to make them move, they look pretty comfortable.” Brian looked over; indeed, half of
them seemed asleep. The other half just seemed drugged. “And your hands seem ready to reach those… hard to
reach spots so well. You don’t appear to be doing much at the moment. Watch’a looking at?”
Brian shook his head. “Nothing. Just the water.”
“You know, Freud says water is a sign of sexuality,” the golden beauty teased him. “And the ocean… well.” Brian
looked at him sharply, noticing that Justin’s gaze had come to rest on his dick, which was actually responding to the
other man’s suggestive words. Fuck!! Just fucking great, he’d been doing that all week, turning Brian on with a
mere word, a lick of the lips, his knowing eyes telling him he knew exactly what he was doing, and then taking Gold
off to come to screaming orgasm in the master cabin. Once, he’d accepted a drink Brian had brought him on request,
thanking him by running his fingers down Brian’s bare shoulder, resting briefly on his bicep, then sauntering off
with a backward smirk that Brian could not miss, to grab his boyfriend and pull him into the cabin. Leaving the
drink, untouched, on a table on deck.
One month of this. No other gay men on board. Only brief stops in port, and often having to work through, rarely
getting his own needs met. Yeah. Not well thought out.
“Fine,” Brian snapped now, grabbing the bottle of 30 SPF that Justin held out to him.
“Ooh, testy, testy,” Justin teased, totally amused. He turned around and walked back to the chair he’d been lying out
in. As if it weren’t enough that Brian could see the crack of that bodacious butt through the linen trousers, he slipped
them off completely, flashing a full view of his glorious nakedness, before lying face down on the folded-down
lounger. “Okay, you may service me now,” he called. And giggled. Actually giggled!!
Brian gritted his teeth, but moved forward. Except for this shit, the job was great. And, if he admitted it to himself,
this shit wouldn’t be so bad in another context. Rubbing the warm lotion into his palms, setting his hands on that
silky flesh, feeling the taut muscles just beneath… to touch, but not TOUCH, now, that was something of torture.
Brian willed his dick down as he moved lower to the small of Justin’s back, kneading the tight musculature there.
He heard Justin sigh. Brian’s lips twisted wickedly, and he placed his hands on the top of the kid’s buttocks, and
slowly, slowly pressing his fingers in. A small whimper was heard from where Justin’s head was turned into the top
of the folded down sunning chair. Brian sat back, picked up the bottle, and dripped lotion down each of Justin’s legs,
massaging it in, in turn. Then he reached the tops of each thigh. Justin had spread his legs, just slightly, and Brian
could hear his increased breathing. Shit, he could feel his own heart rate increased. As his palms cupped the lower
part of Justin’s ass, he spread the cheeks slightly, looking at the sac between them. It had began to strain upward,
moving with the rapidly hardening cock beneath. Brian wondered how the frontal view would look. His hands
moved onto the kid’s ass. Holy…
“Having fun?”
Brian almost jumped at the dry tone in the fiddler’s voice, looking up at Gold staring down at the spectacle before
him.
“Uh…”
“Oh, hey, Ethan,” Justin said, completely casual, as if he weren’t lying there with a rock-hard dick from a suddenly
sensual massage. He turned his head, eyes half-open, like a cat. As if he expected nothing more from the service at
hand, but of course a spreading of lotion would become more of a service. Did the greatness of his spectacular self
deserve any less? Brian wanted to flay himself, no, to flay this kid. Fuck!
Justin was continuing, “You done practicing?”
“Obviously.”
“Need practice at something else?” Justin teased, using the same tone he’d just been using with Brian. He sat up, not
even bothering to cover his hard-on, grabbing a towel as he stood and making the act of draping it around those lean
hips seem almost as sensual as a strip tease. Tease in reverse. Of course, that was the point.
“Now that you mention it…” Ethan answered, any anger drained away with Justin’s hand on his cheek. Justin took
his hand and pulled him toward the cabin. Neither turned back in their eagerness to appease their desire, to see Brian
rising and stalking off in the other direction.
Chapter Two
“Hey, Brian, the little blonde fag is demanding you.”
Brian shot a look over at Andy, who purposefully strode up to where he stood, smoking, at the back of the yacht. His
eyes narrowed, but Andy didn’t see that behind the sunglasses. “What?” He flicked the cigarette over the side.
“That kid, Gold’s butt buddy, he’s demanding, quote, ‘Send Brian to me.’” Andy’s voice lifted two keys in register,
and he gestured with one hand, imperiously, in mocking imitation. “Geez, Brian, doesn’t that bother you?”
“The little shit’s demands?”
“Not just that,” Andy responded, leaning back against the rail. “The way he’s after you.”
Brian raised an eyebrow. “Hardly. He thinks I’m beneath him. It’s just a bullshit game.”
“He’s a faggot, Brian, he’s decided he’s wants you, ugh. You’re putting up with it better than I would, I’d beat the
kid silly, fucking faggot.”
Brian leaned toward Andy, so his face was very close to the other man’s. “You don’t have anything to worry about,
Andy. Right now, YOUR shit’s pissing me off way more than his. He’s an asshole, but not for the same reasons you
are. And you’re lucky THIS faggot doesn’t beat the shit out of YOU, right now.” With that, Brian stalked off to the
prow, where the other asshole waited for him.
Justin was sitting there, sipping a mimosa, gazing out over the water. He had those white linen trousers on again,
and a matching white pull-over with long, loose sleeves and a v-neck. He wore asymmetric sunglasses, black as
night, the only dark thing on him.
“You called?” Brian asked dryly, stopping a few feet from the chair Justin occupied.
“Yeah, I want you to take me to the beach.”
“The beach?”
“Yes, the beach!” Justin snapped back. “My friends left notice they went off to some cove on that island over there.
I want to go meet them.”
Brian eyed this kid. Then he turned his eyes out over the ocean, to the island the yacht was anchored offshore from.
The waters were treacherous around here; they were a good two miles out. “They took the boat.”
“There’s the other boat.”
“Not in this water.” The wind was high, not terribly so, but enough to kick up the waves. And the boat the idiot
mentioned was a tiny thing, fairly sturdy, but not for long-distance. It might seat eight. If you crowded it. And it was
basically for emergencies. Not for travel. He said as much.
“Listen, I’m not debating this. Ethan left me this note,” Justin handed it imperiously to the man watching him, “and
told me, get somebody to bring me. So you will bring me to the beach. Isn’t that your job? To follow our orders?
You do like your job, don’t you?”
Brian glanced down at the note to mask the way his teeth were grinding together. He read, “Hey Jus! Sorry you
overslept, next time try coming off the fly a little sooner!” Brian knew that was a reference to the white powder he’d
watched Justin snorting up his nose long after the others had left for bed. While the others slept peacefully, the little
blonde twerp was dancing around on deck, in the moonlight. Brian, up by the wheel room, had watched him. Brian’s
sleeplessness had to do with real demons. This kid’s… just a plain ol’ coke fiend. Just when he couldn’t get more
boring. Still, the sight of the moon glinting off that blonde hair, the sinewy movement of those hips… Shaking the
memory out of his head, he continued reading. “So get somebody to take the other boat out to the cove. Here’s the
map, and coordinates, according to Jack. Anyway, hope you don’t sleep too late!”
“See?” It wasn’t a question. “So Ethan says it’s okay. So? Take me to the cove. You do know how to read
coordinates? That is why you were hired, isn’t it? For your… skills,” Justin added, his eyes lingering on Brian’s
chest, hugged by the black t-shirt.
This just plain pissed him off. He later told himself that was the reason for this monumental mistake, he was too
angry to exercise good judgment. What was it about this kid? He had dealt with rich shits like this plenty, and plenty
a lot older and smarter than this self-destructive idiot. “Fine,” he snapped. “Get whatever you want to take, meet me
by the boat in fifteen minutes.”
He had known it was a bad idea, but he had had no idea just how bad until three hours later when they were drifting,
and the land disappeared behind him, the yacht long gone.
Stupid boat. He had known, known that this boat was not meant to battle the tide going in the opposite direction, the
waves just a bit too high, the distance just too long. What he hadn’t counted on was the fan throwing a blade, and the
whole thing overheating. Next thing he knows, the kid is screaming at him, and now whimpering, “You have to fix
it! What are you doing? Why aren’t you fixing it? I’m gonna be late! We’ll miss them!”
“Shut the fuck up!” Brian barked back. His hands were covered in grease from taking the engine as far apart as he
could without tools. The single screwdriver from the emergency kit was not helpful; he needed wrenches. He sat
back on the seat, and stared hard at Justin, who was holding one hand against his head to keep that stupid floppy hat
on his head. Well, good thing he wore it, keeping this vicious sun off that thin skin. “I already explained this, it isn’t
the fan belt, it’s the actual fan, it threw a blade, the whole engine overheated, and shut down. Permanently. I think
something melted.” And of course, for some reason, the boat didn’t have oars. Not that that would really matter. But
it might. Isn’t that what they say about disasters? It’s not just one mistake, one piece of bad luck? Disasters happen
when there’s a conglomeration of them. Of course, the batteries in the GPS phone that was in the emergency kit in
the bottom of the boat were dead. And Justin had left his phone on the yacht. He said he had expected Brian to have
communication. But Brian knew he just didn’t want to admit forgetting it. Well, so they both had made mistakes
here.
“You think? You THINK something melted? Aren’t you supposed to know? Isn’t that your job?”
“It isn’t my job to ferry spoiled blonde boy ass in a boat that shouldn’t be out on the ocean in the first place!” Brian
yelled back, losing his temper.
Justin shook his head and looked away.
Thirty-six hours. Brian could not believe this. Thirty-six hours, drifting on the ocean. Water, water everywhere, and
not a drop to drink… Well, not quite true. It was an emergency boat, after all. There were six bottles of water. And
six power bars. There were supposed to be more. “Where the fuck is the dried fruit, the trail mix shit this thing is
supposed to come with?” Brian had asked.
“Well, there was more…”
He’d looked over at Justin, who was looking away. “But?”
“Well, we had the munchies, and Ethan remembered the snacks in the boat…”
“You couldn’t just go the kitchen!?”
“The steward was sleeping! And the snacks were closer…”
“They weren’t snacks! They’re supplies! Jesus, don’t you people ever think!”
And so they had already argued over rationing.
“I’m thirsty!” Justin whined when Brian grabbed the water from him mid-gulp.
“Yeah, but you want to run out and still be out here three days from now?” Brian had taken a small sip, and then put
the cap back on, scooting the bottle under his seat.
“Three days,” Justin had responded, almost a moan.
It was midnight now. Brian eyed the younger man, sleeping uncomfortably at the other end of the boat. Shit, when
he was quiet, he was actually… beautiful. But then he woke up, and ruined it all. All he could do was bitch. Or look
at Brian with those sullen looks, and refuse to answer any questions.
Brian turned back to the emergency kit. Pack of razors, kept him clean shaven, but not much more than that.
Shaving without soap sucked, but he’d managed. Justin had refused; he had a thin beard coming in. It was not his
thing, that was for sure. Some antibiotic cream, a few band-aids, medical tape. A couple of rain slickers, folded tight
up in packs. The water and power bars, almost gone. A sewing kit, flashlight. Batteries worked in that one, but
weakly, so they were almost dead. Of course. How long since anyone had checked this boat? Outside of that
godamn party raid, that is… Yeah, it hadn’t been his job, but he should have… well, regrets were stupid. What was
done was done. At least this thing stored matches, which Brian slipped into his shirt pocket. He shivered in the cool
night air, and clutched the overshirt around him, glad he had thrown it on over the t-shirt, but wishing he had taken
his windbreaker as well. He was in better shape than the other man, curled up in the other side of the boat, in any
case.
He turned his gaze back to the immense fields of ocean, stretching out to the horizon. Off in the distance, he saw the
spout of a whale, and he drew in his breath.
“What?” The soft voice from the other end of the boat startled him, but Brian just nodded. Justin looked over, in
time to see the flukes rising out of the water which in turn ran off the dark fins, cascading back to the ocean’s
surface, sparkling in the glow of moonlight.
“Shit, I hope they kill us, just like that movie, put us out of our misery” Justin muttered, huddling back into the boat,
curling up and closing his eyes.
Brian glared at him, and turned back to watch the huge creature in the distance.
Four days. The water was coming close to running out. Justin was moaning in the back of the boat. The skin at his
throat was a nasty red. He kept glaring at Brian, who had taken to reciting Shakespeare sonnets and soliloquies,
Frost poems, even song lyrics to amuse himself.
“What the fuck is that?” Justin had finally opened his mouth to say.
“You don’t know Shakespeare? ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds…’”
“Okay, okay! You don’t need to repeat it! Sheesh.”
“You’d think a poor little rich boy would have received a better education…”
“I got it. Just didn’t recognize it right away. ‘My mistress’s hair is nothing like the sun…’ Yeah, Shakespeare,
right.”
Brian turned away, continued to recite, “It is the star to every wand’ring bark, whose worth’s unknown, though its
height be taken…” Bullshit. But better than silence, filled with sighs from the other end of the boat.
“Hey, isn’t that land?” Justin’s comment was so casual that Brian didn’t at first grasp what he’d just said. He
whipped his head around, and saw the almost invisible grayish-purple outline, just coming into sight, an island rising
out of the water, in the distance.
“Hey! That is land!” Justin realized what he’d just said. “It’s land!”
“Yeah, thank god,” Brian replied, watching the dim outline coming into view. Let’s hope it has something to eat.
“So? Get out!”
“What?” Brian had no idea what this kid was talking about.
“Get into the water! Push us!” Justin actually moved across the boat and started pushing on Brian’s arm, almost
shoving him off balance over the side. The little shit was stronger than he looked.
But not stronger than Brian. “Sit down!” Brian told him, pushing him back on the seat. “You see how the island’s
getting easier to see? It’s coming closer. We’re being pulled in with the tide. If we weren’t, any pushing isn’t going
to make a difference. That’s how we got swept out in the first place. Get it?”
Justin reluctantly sat, and stared at the island. Then he cut his gaze back to Brian. “Think they’ll have phones?”
They dragged the boat up the beach… well, Brian dragged the boat up the beach. Justin had merely gotten out once
the boat hit the sandy bottom of the shoal and marched up, looking around.
It was a decent-sized island. The beach they stood on was long, and wide; at the top where the sand ended, trees
stood, mostly palms, Brian noted thankfully, looking at the coconuts and feeling the saliva rise in his mouth. To the
right, the land rose sharply upward toward high mountainous jungle. The beach didn’t end, but swept around the
headland. He had watched from the ocean, and thought it probably curved around to the back side of the island.
It was the only land in sight, and obviously deserted.
“This is great. Just fucking great!” Justin was yelling at the jungle which stretched up toward the foot of the sharp
rise. Brian wondered if it was volcanic. Luckily, the growth of greenery on the slope upward in the distance implied
that if so, it was long dormant. He dragged the boat up to the top of the sand, and into the trees a ways, putting it
down, and retrieving the emergency kit. He shrugged off his shirt, and stored it in the boat.
“Well?”
He turned around, to see Justin standing there. Raising his eyebrows, he asked, “Well… what?”
“What now? Do we build a bonfire? Signal the rescue planes?”
“Yeah, you see any rescue planes?” Brian smirked, and turned back to the boat.
Silence. Brian wondered if the idiot was actually searching the skies. He didn’t really give a shit. He was opening
the emergency kit, and getting out the screwdriver.
“Well, what the fuck do we do now?”
“I don’t know about you,” Brian said, “But I am going to go check out the island.”
“Fine, bring me back something to eat,” Justin commanded. With that, he flopped down next to the boat, in the
shade, and pulled the hat over his face.
“Hey!” Brian yelled. Justin tilted the hat up, and opened one eye. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? It’s
going to be dark soon, we have to get our asses in gear.”
“Oh, leave me alone. I have a headache,” and the eye closed again, the hat back in place.
Brian stared at him for a moment. Then he walked over, and placed one foot on either side of the boy’s hips. Justin
opened his eyes, and almost squawked when he saw Brian towering over him. He lifted himself up on his elbows,
and glared.
Brian spat down, “Look. We’re on a deserted island. You have a headache because you’re dehydrated. We have to
find water, or something to drink. It’s getting dark, and we need to get something to burn. Unless you want to keep
freezing at night?”
“Yeah? And I’m tired, I think the sun sucked all the energy out of me. You’ll forgive me if I need a second to catch
my breath, maybe just take a minute.” Justin flashed a smile upward. Brian’s breath caught in his throat; that was the
first time that particular winsome look had been turned in his direction. Shit. No wonder this kid was able to get
away with all he did. Brian was no idiot; he knew this was just one more game. Another game at his expense. Still,
his stomach… he told himself the tightness was from hunger. Fine, the kid wanted to play? Fine. He did not know
what game playing was. Brian turned and stalked away. He had signed onto this stupid cruise to get away from the
bullshit. And here he’d run into it all over again, but on such a petty, stupid level… this kid had no idea who he
thought he was playing. He was about to find out.
When Justin woke up, he could see the glow of a fire a short ways away. It was dark, and his tongue felt fuzzy.
Thirst clawed at his throat. He picked up the water bottle he had taken from the boat, the last of the water. He drank
a final gulp, which appeased his thirst, but only made him more aware of how long it had been since he had eaten.
He could see, against the firelight, Brian sitting on a rock or something, working on a long, narrow stick. The boat
was propped up behind him, upside down and propped up on one end by a stick, forming a crude shelter. Justin
stood, and moved closer. Brian looked up from where he was whittling the end of the long stick into a point. When
he saw Justin, he clicked his jackknife back down, and slipped it into his front pocket, setting the stick aside. Justin
saw there were three or four of those sharply pointed things lying on the ground behind the other man. Brian turned
to his other side, and picked up a shell of some sort. Or, no. Coconut, cleaved in half. Peeled a chunk away from the
tender center, popped it into his mouth. Justin’s mouth watered.
“Give me some,” Justin said.
Brian slowly turned his head to look at the boy approaching the fire. Insolently, he picked out another piece of the
coconut, and brought it to his lips. “Milk’s pretty good. Too bad you missed it. Slightly bitter, but not bad,” he said.
“So give me some!”
Brian raised an eyebrow. “Well, first. Let me ask you something. Exactly why is it that you think you can order me
around?”
Justin stared at him, his mouth dropping open.
Brian continued, “Do you really think because you have a ton of money? or do you think I’m some monkey, to just
jump at the command of your wealth and social cachet? Do you really think that makes any difference here?”
“You’re going to let me starve to death? Or thirst to death! Because you have some, what, political issue?” Justin
choked out, disbelieving.
Brian’s calm answer stood in stark contrast to the outrage in the other man’s voice. “Oh, no. Not a political issue.
Purely personal. I’m all done with you thinking you can command me, play with me, and your word makes your
every wish come true. Bout time you start learning, it don’t work that way. All the money in the world won’t let you
play that here. All that money your family gave you, it don’t mean shit to me.”
“Do you know who my father is?” Justin demanded.
“Yup.” He did indeed know exactly who Craig Taylor was. Owner of a string of swank hotels, more money than
god.
“Look, you help me out, and my father will give you a huge reward. Hell, I’ll give you a ton of money myself.
Guaranteed.” Justin crossed his arms, confident.
A confidence that evaporated with Brian’s next word. “No.” Brian eyed the play of the firelight over Justin’s
features as they collapsed into outrage. He picked out another piece of the coconut, and ate it. “Maybe I could see
my way to giving you some of this,” he mused, almost to himself.
“Well, good! The voice of reason!”
“Take off your shirt.”
It took Justin a minute to absorb what Brian had just said. “What?”
“Strip. Slow, you know. Like you did on the yacht. Give me a nice show. I want to see those sweet pecs you’ve got.”
“You think I’m going to put on a show for you? For food?”
“Sure,” Brian chuckled, his gaze not rising above Justin’s neck line. “You did it often enough on the yacht for
nothing. Treated me like I’m some kind of animal, some toy for your amusement. Dick on demand, game to get up
the poor deluded working man, flaunting yourself, fucking teasing me for weeks. Getting off on it. So. Strip. I want
you to get me off for once.” My turn to play, Brian thought, raising his eyes to Justin’s outraged face.
“No fucking way!”
“Fine. Starve to death.”
“You can’t do this!”
“Watch me.” Brian picked out the rest of the coconut, dropped the shell on the sandy ground.
“You’re a sick fucking shit. Just wait until we’re rescued, you are so going to pay for this.” Justin turned and
stomped away.
Brian smirked. Yeah, maybe he would pay. But not tonight. In the meantime, that had been fun. He placed a few
larger pieces of wood onto the fire, sure they would smolder through the night, keep the fire going. He didn’t want
to waste matches. God knew how long they’d be here. Then he lay down, the fire warming his back, a smile playing
over his lips as he replayed the way Justin’s perfect ass had looked as he stomped off. “Mine,” Brian promised
himself.
Chapter Three
Justin returned to the camp site later the next day, when Brian started cooking the fish. It had taken him the whole
morning to find them, as he explored the waterline of the island. Around the spit that formed a hairpin turn in the
beachline, there was a rocky cove on the other side of the island from where they had washed up. The beach yielded
to rocks, forming a deepening pool, a drop-off that allowed the fish to come right up to the shore line. Brian had
climbed over the rocks that lined this backside of the island, before he was stopped by the sudden upward slope that
began to yield to the mountain that continued far back, to the island’s far end. It had taken him two hours to trace the
beach that curved around the arm at the top of the island, to reach the cove at the far side, where the fish swarmed.
After that, it had taken him another hour to figure out the right trajectory of the spears he had carved the night
before, realizing that the water created a sort of magnifying effect, so that the spear had to be thrown slightly in front
of where the fish appeared to be. He managed to spear five fish, not a bad catch. Still, it had taken forever; he hoped
this would get easier with time. The rocks formed little pools that began to fill and overflow as the tide came in, and
Brian noted crabs scurrying about. He made a mental note to return for them. As he returned, he made another
mental note to check out the boat’s engine, to see if there was anything that could be turned into a hook for fishing.
Much easier, more relaxing, for sure.
He was starving, and exhausted, by the time he returned to his original camp site, and found Justin laid out under the
shade of the boat.
“Don’t suppose you can scale fish?” Brian asked, not surprised by the grimace Justin turned to him.
“Please… Brian…” Justin rasped. Brian turned and looked at him sharply. “Thirsty…”
Brian sighed, and put the stick with the fish speared through to the side, before picking up one of the coconuts he
had tossed to the side. “Couldn’t figure out how to open one of these on your own?” he asked, not expecting the
obvious answer. He took the screwdriver from where he had left it in the box underneath the boat, and picked up the
rock he had cast to the side the night before, placed the fruit on another, flat rock, and knocked the rock against the
screwdriver against the shell, until it broke open, spilling a bit of milk. “Come here.” He held out the shell.
Justin practically flew over, and grabbed the shell, raising it to his lips and gulping. He didn’t notice Brian’s hand in
his hair until his thirst had been slaked, but when he finished, he was kept in place by the firm grip, his head being
tilted back by the fingers firmly gripping at him. “What, exactly, can you contribute here? How will you pull your
own weight?”
Justin tried to twist away.
“Ah ah ah,” Brian reprimanded him, keeping his grip firm, eyes tracing those lips, the coconut milk dripping from
the edge. “You going to just pull away from my desires, when you’ll just get hungry, or thirsty, again? Careful
there.” Justin went still, his eyes shooting resentment even as he looked away. Brian brought his other hand to wipe
the drop of milk at the corner of Justin’s mouth away with his thumb. Justin licked his lips, almost reflexively. Shit,
Brian thought, it has been way too long… He thrust Justin away from him, expecting him to scramble off, but Justin
just leaned back on his elbows, sprawled out where he was thrown, studying the other man.
“You think you can at least keep the fire going while I’m gone?” Brian snapped at him, turning to the smoldering
wood that he had banked earlier that morning.
“Can’t keep your own fires up?” Justin snarked back.
“Look, you idiot,” Brian responded, losing patience, “we have like twelve matches. Do you get that?”
“So? Someone will come.” Justin sat up, circling his arms around his legs and resting his head on his knees,
watching Brian rebuild the fire.
Brian shook his head. The kid was in denial. He himself had seen not a glimpse of a boat, not a trace of any sort of
aircraft, not in the entire time they had been drifting, and god knew how far the tide had taken them, if this island
was even on any maps. There were hundreds of these atolls dotting the Pacific. And he knew no one would be
looking for him, not for a while, if at all, although Craig Taylor would probably blanket the area as soon as reports
of his missing son came up. But Brian had learned never to count on faith in other people’s actions; he figured he’d
best prepare for the worst. Only the foolish trusted fate to provide. You had to take care of yourself in this world.
And fuck, it’s not my job to take care of this spoiled brat, he thought, glancing at Justin, who was eyeing the
coconut. “You hungry?” Brian asked.
Justin nodded reluctantly.
“Ever clean fish?”
Justin shook his head. Of course not.
“Time to learn. Go get me one of those palm leaves. Go!” He barked, when Justin seemed to hesitate. Justin got up
and walked toward the jungle behind them, while Brian took the jack knife out of his pocket, and slid one of the fish
off of the spear. Justin came back in a moment with three large leaves.
“Good boy,” Brian said drily, taking one of the leaves and placing it on the flat rock.
“Woof woof,” Justin answered, using the same tone.
Brian smiled wolfishly, but said nothing. “So, watch.” He slid the knife blade underneath the gill on one side of the
fish, and neatly slid the blade through the head. He opened another attachment on the tool, a fork. With this, he
scooped out the guts, and then ran it up the body of the fish, so that the scales popped off. He scraped it clean, then
placed it on one of the other leaves, for washing. “Think you can handle it?” he asked Justin, tossing him the jack
knife.
He couldn’t. Between the grimaces, the moans, and finally, one large yelp when he almost cut his finger off
(according to Justin; but it was barely a sliver which didn’t even raise any blood), Brian finally snatched the knife
and the fish from him, and told him to go find some more wood. “Make sure it’s dry!” Which of course didn’t
prevent the kid from coming back with mostly green sticks.
“You’re totally useless, you know that?” Brian said to him, as Justin looked sullenly away. Brian had finished
cleaning the fish, and used one of Justin’s green sticks to start cooking the fish over the stoked-up fire. Maybe if he
sent him out for green sticks, Brian thought, he’d come back with a few dry pieces of wood for the fire. The sun had
descended behind the mountain, so they were in the shadows of the coming night, while the light continued to
sparkle off the ocean, the waves plashing onto the shore in a pinkish froth.
Brian looked away from the descending day, over to the boy on the other side of the fire, who had been ignoring him
all the time he prepared the evening meal. Brian was starving himself, but he had at least eaten that morning. He
could only imagine how Justin was doing. “Hungry?” he called.
Justin’s head snapped up, and he looked warily over. But his eyes gave him away; too eager. “Gonna strip for me
now?”
Justin came up on his knees as his arms dropped to his sides, and then, with a vicious jerk, he pulled the shirt off of
his torso, threw it aside, crossed his arms over his belly. The gold hoop through his nipple glinted with the firelight.
“That’s not very sexy,” Brian purred, taunting him. He picked up a flake of the white, steaming fish, held it out in
his fingers, his hand extended. “Crawl to me, baby.”
“I’m not your baby,” Justin snapped.
Brian just raised an eyebrow. “Fine, be my dog. Crawl to me, puppy.”
An immediate reaction of outrage. But suddenly, the mutinous look on Justin’s face disappeared, wiped away. Brian
could practically see the wheels turning in that devious brain. Hm, what was this? The arms around his waist
dropped, and Justin licked his lips, running his hands up his torso, pausing to flick the nipple ring, before dropping
onto all fours. He practically stalked around the fire, like a cat, not at all awkward as he moved forward on his hands
and knees. Brian stared, transfixed. The boy’s physical grace, when he chose to employ it, was startling, and
unexpected. Justin reached Brian’s extended hand, and opened his mouth, his tongue unfurling to lick at the bit of
food on the fingertips before him. He moved forward a bit more, so his mouth encircled Brian’s index and middle
finger, the lips closing around them, his tongue sweeping around from the knuckles onto the sensitive flesh of the
pads, sweeping the food off and into his mouth, swallowing, but continuing to suck on Brian’s skin, before releasing
the fingers with a final nip on their ends. Then he sat back, his hands resting on his thighs, face smug as he watched
Brian watching him. Brian remained expressionless but he was fighting to control his breathing, and could not
control the sudden surge of blood to his dick. He reached out, ran his hand down Justin’s neck, to the nipple ring,
and pulled. Justin drew in his breath, closed his eyes. Brian picked up some more of the fish, and fed it to him,
before taking some for himself.
Finally, his stomach was satiated, but the rest of him wasn’t. He stood up, shedding his shirt, practically ripping his
t-shirt as he pulled it over his head and threw it aside. He dropped next to Justin, pushing him back onto the sand and
grabbing the cord that held up those damn linen pants, pulling, pushing Justin’s trousers away.
“Don’t!” Justin protested, making Brian pause, but only for a moment. He grabbed Justin’s hip, and held him down
as he straddled his body, raising himself above him, his thighs holding the other man immobile, as he reached down
to open his own pants. “What, don’t like what you started?”
“I started! You started this! You’re making me…”
“Who started this?” Brian leaned down, and grabbed the hands that were batting at his thighs, drawing them over
Justin’s head, and held them there, imprisoned. “You may not think that all that teasing on board your boyfriend’s
yacht meant anything, but I was the one who had to go below with a bunch of homophobic assholes while you got to
work off the sweat I put you into. Admit it, you were fantasizing about me the whole time you were fucking Ian…”
“Ethan!” Justin gasped, as Brian’s mouth descended onto his neck, nipping the flesh there.
Brian transferred Justin’s wrists into one hand, so that his other hand traced the pale flesh, down his stomach,
brushing against the tip of his prodigious hard on. “Tell me you don’t want this. Your body’s got another answer for
me,” he smirked, barely brushing the shaft beneath him, Justin’s groans sounding sweet to his ears. He pushed his
hips forward, unable to stop himself, grinding out his own singing sensations against the other’s body, rocking
against him. Justin whimpered, and began to lift his hips in rhythm. He was young, and used to getting his needs
met; Brian watched his face as his mouth dropped open when Brian’s hand took Justin’s prick in his warm palm and
squeezed lightly, his thumb moving up over the shaft to sweep against the leakage at the head. He raised himself on
his knees, not letting go of his grip on Justin, as he positioned himself over the open mouth, and slowly descended,
watching through drooping lids as Justin’s mouth instinctively imitated the motions it had earlier applied to Brian’s
fingers, only this time to Brian’s straining cock. It took only a moment for Justin’s muffled moans to descend to a
swallowed scream as he came into Brian’s hand, and Brian pressed his palm against him once more, before he
released his grip, and rolled to his side, taking the boy’s head in both of his arms and pulling him hard against his
groin as he deep-throated, his own explosion following in seconds. He lay, stunned and breathless, listening to the
ragged breath against his belly, the sudden limpness of the body pressed against his. Then he rolled away,
refastening his jeans, and reaching for his shirt. “Get rid of those guts, toss them in the ocean, make yourself useful,”
he spat out at Justin. The blue eyes stared at him, almost sightless for a moment, before they cleared, and he slowly
pushed his naked body into a sitting position. Brian turned back to the fire, noticing it had died down. “Go, damn
it!” He watched Justin shakily reach for the garbage, and move away, toward the ocean, not bothering to clothe
himself. Then he leaned forward, and stoked the fire with one of the larger pieces of wood that lay nearby. He
watched Justin’s pale flesh, barely visible at the water’s edge, and refused to think of anything at all.
Swept Away Chapter Four
“You know,” Brian mused idly, cutting out a chunk of coconut, “If you ever lost all your money, you could make a
real go as a whore. You’re very good at it.”
Justin’s head jerked around, and he stared at the other man, opened his mouth to respond hotly, but then closed his
lips tight on whatever it might have been. He looked away.
“Hey!” Brian barked.
Reluctantly, Justin looked back. He saw Brian extending the chunk of coconut to him, and he shook his head.
“Come on, don’t be a twat. You earned it.”
“How are you measuring? One blow job gets two fish and half a coconut? What do I get for a rim job?”
Brian almost laughed, but bit back his amusement. The kid was actually funny. Who knew? “Now, now,” he chided.
“A bad attitude will get you nowhere.”
“Not a bad attitude. Trying to be a good business man, just like dear old dad. First step is to know the value of your
assets. So, how much is my ass’s value?” He stared cooly back at Brian.
“I don’t need your ass,” Brian snapped. “I need you to start pulling your weight.” Shit, why did he feel suddenly
backed in a corner?
“You don’t need it but you want it,” Justin replied. He took the chunk of food Brian offered, popped it in his mouth,
and stared moodily at the fire.
Later, when the fire had died down and the cooler night air had set in, Brian shivered slightly, before feeling a warm
body settle against his back, Justin curling his hips around Brian’s backside, pressing his thighs and chest to Brian’s
legs and back. Brian turned his head slightly, but Justin’s nose was pressed into his back, and he didn’t look up.
Brian sighed, and turned back, admitting to himself that this was definitely more comfortable than the night before.
“I’m not completely useless,” Justin’s muffled voice came to him. His arm slipped across Brian’s waist, and his
hand settled on his stomach.
“Can I come with you?” Justin asked him the next morning. Brian had woken to the banging of Justin’s attempt to
break open breakfast… with reasonable success, only spilling most of the juice. Still, he’d gotten the thing open.
Damn. Brian was starting to actually enjoy reeling the kid in with bait.
“Where we going?” Brian asked, sitting up and eating some of the white meat Justin handed to him. On a leaf. Cut
up. He bit back a laugh.
“I figured you’d want to go get more fish. I saw you head out around the island’s premonitory, and then come back
that way. So? Can I come?”
“You can come,” Brian answered, raking his gaze down Justin’s body.
Justin looked away.
“Are you blushing?” Brian laughed.
“It’s the sun,” Justin replied. “No sun block.”
“Ah, of course. Funny how it only took three seconds to burn your skin.”
“Ha ha.”
Justin sat back against a rock and watched Brian standing, motionless, over the pool, holding a spear drawn back. He
had taken his shirt off, and the muscles of his back stretched, corded. He was an absolutely beautiful man; Justin
didn’t wonder he’d been drawn to him, even with his shitty attitude, on Ethan’s yacht. Even there, he’d had intense
fantasies about his dick and Brian’s lips. Yeah, Brian had been right about that one, even when he was screwing
Ethan. Ethan… Mr. Gold had not been pleased with Justin’s obvious thing for Brian. And it had been pretty stupid
to play that game, but… Justin sighed, and rubbed his eyes, making himself stop thinking about that guy. The yacht,
that whole life seemed very far away, suddenly. Here, right now, in front of him, was this absolutely fucking
beautiful man. Who had no slight gut, no disgusting soul patch… he was shaving, huh. Wonder if he’ll actually let
me have a razor, Justin thought, rubbing the ridiculous wispy beard that was coming in across his jaw.
And who thinks I’m a waste of oxygen, Justin thought, and sighed again. And who just might be right.
Brian’s arm flashed suddenly downward, the spear piercing the water, as Brian lithely jumped down one rock to
retrieve it, bringing the dying, wriggling fish on the end over to where Justin sat, at the foot of the a small pool that
held seven other fish corpses. He shook the eighth off. “It’s amazing I was able to snare anything, with you heaving
those huge sighs back here. Anyone tell you, patience is a virtue?”
“Good catch,” Justin said, ignoring that last reprimand. Was the man capable of ever saying anything nice?
“You don’t need to add flattery to your many vices, puppy.” Brian looked off into the distance.
Justin gritted his teeth. “Why can’t you just take a compliment?” He had long since stopped trying to tell Brian his
name was Justin.
Brian looked down at him, raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re trying to weasel your way into my good graces? So
I’ll let you off from doing anything?”
Brian’s pelvis was practically right in front of Justin’s face; he itched to put out his hand and touch the thigh, to see
if it was really as hard as the rest of him looked. You’d think he’d know, after last night. But he hadn’t exactly had a
chance to explore that incredible body. Again, he ignored that last comment from the other man. He was well
practiced at turning a cool face on another’s contempt. Lord knew, he’d spent his teenage years, half his life, doing
just that. Of course, Brian’s disdain for him was not exactly unwarranted. He’d definitely been behaving… okay, out
of control on the yacht. But he had reason. At least, he told himself that, especially since having Brian’s contempt
for him shoved in his face. Literally. Probably a defense mechanism; his behavior really had been... he turned his
thoughts away, and back to the more interesting matter at hand.
“Aren’t you hot? I mean, in those jeans?”
Brian laughed at him. “You trying to get me out of them?”
“Maybe.” Well shit, he was being honest. And he’d never hidden his desires, never denied who he was. Shit, wasn’t
that what had gotten him into his current position? Not that this particular view was as bad as it had been a week
ago, he thought, watching the bulge in Brian’s jeans, licking his lips. Still, Justin wasn’t going to change for
anybody, wasn’t going to lie about who he was, wouldn’t apologize. Not for that. Not for anybody. No matter how
much trouble it had gotten him into. He was who he was. Fuck the world if it kicked his ass for it.
He looked up, and was unprepared for the look that had come over Brian’s face, the intense engagement with the
view in front of him, the tongue snaking out to caress his lower lip. Justin wondered if Brian was aware he was
licking himself that way. It was totally hot. Brian’s eyes seemed to hone in on his face and pierce him, before they
glazed into indifference. It was strange; Justin could see him willing himself to feign lack of interest, could
practically hear the command in Brian’s head that ordered himself to stop showing Justin his desire. Ah, well, he
could change that. He reached out, then, and touched Brian’s leg. Yup. Hard. And the muscle jumped. Well, well.
Then moved his hand to the jeans zipper.
Brian stared down at the blonde head as Justin’s eyes dropped from watching his face, to watching his dick harden
underneath the denim. Fuck. Did he want this kid… Shit. He had planned to have this kid’s mouth on him at some
point that day, but he definitely did not want him taking control so easily. Brian backed off, raised an eyebrow. “I
don’t think so. Maybe later. If you can control yourself.” He added a smirk to underscore exactly who was in control
here, and watched the consternation wash over Justin’s face. Yup. Just as he suspected. The little shit’s trying to gain
control, the only way he knew how. Wasn’t going to happen.
Justin watched Brian cross his arms, watched the gate close over the brief glimpse beneath that hard façade, and
groaned to himself. Well, he’d fucked up, pushing the man, hadn’t he? But he could hardly resist, wanting to see if
his dick was as perfect as the rest of him. Justin had toyed with art up to this point, his small efforts not too bad for
an amateur. Brian’s body appealed to his aesthetic sense, so sue him if he wanted a closer look. His father had told
him, his impulsiveness would get him into trouble. He could hear his voice now, “You need to discipline yourself,
you weak…” Every fiber in his body rebelled against that, always had.
Nope, nope, nope. He wasn’t going to think about that, he told himself, but he felt the old, familiar anger and
frustration boil up.
And spilled into his reaction now. “Fine,” he replied, getting up with a pout. “Fish away. I’m gonna go explore a
little ways inland.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Brian answered, turning back to his perch.
Justin sighed again. And then he turned, and fought his way into the undergrowth, intent on tracing the base of the
volcanic rise.
When he returned to the fishing spot, it was getting dark, and Brian had left. Justin looked down the beach, content
to walk back alone. The ocean was dark, but sparkled with the moonlight on its surface.
Brian had built up the fire, and was poking at it with a stick, when Justin came into the warm light. He saw the fish
lined up, with only a couple left to be cooked.
Justin came closer, and threw down a cluster of what looked like banana. Brian raised his eyebrows. “I think they’re
plantains, actually,” Justin said. “And I think I saw mangoes, but couldn’t reach them.” He sat down in the firelight.
“See. Not useless.”
Brian didn’t say anything, just speared the last of the fish flesh for cooking. Obviously, that comment had bugged
the kid. Who’d have thought? Not him. He figured Justin would just ignore it, and continue bossing him around until
he was put in his place. Brian watched Justin out of the corner of his eye, uneasily. He had this kid pegged, though;
obviously, no fool, Justin was changing his tactics.
“Unpeel one for me,” Brian commanded, testing to see where this was going.
Justin wrinkled his brow. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help with the fish…”
“Lot of use you are with that,” Brian muttered.
Justin ignored this, “…but I think you can peel your own banana.”
“Maybe I want you to help me with my… banana,” Brian replied, smirking.
Justin gritted his teeth. “Look, you obviously don’t like me. Fine. But can you please stop toying with me? Can we
maybe talk about working together here?”
“Sure,” Brian replied, still not looking at him. “Here’s how we work together. I’m in charge. You do what I say.
Now peel me your banana.”
Justin jumped up. “That’s not what I meant! I mean, work together, like negotiate a truce or something. Not this
Neanderthal ‘me lead, you suck my dick’ shit. Does that make you feel like more of a man?”
“I don’t know,” Brian shot back. “Did it make you feel like more of a man when you were playing the same game
with me on your little boat?”
Oh, well, shit, Justin thought, sitting back down, slumping a bit. Then he straightened his spine . “Okay, you’re
right, I’m sorry for acting like such an asshole. Happy now? Can we get past this?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” Brian repeated, his voice cool, “…because I know you’re just sucking up to me now to make your own life as
easy as possible. As soon as we get back to the real world, you’ll turn right back into the demanding little shit you
actually are. The only reason you’re not being a demanding little shit now is that you see it’s not working. So you’re
trying a different tactic to get me to do whatever you want. Ain’t gonna work, puppy. So, for now, yeah, it’s ‘Me
lead, you suck my dick.’ Got a problem with that?”
There was no talking to this guy. Justin turned his face to the fire sullenly. Brian set aside the cooked fish, and took
his shirt off. Justin turned back, eyeing him warily. Brian leaned back on his elbows, sprawled out. “Come here,”
Brian said, practically purring at him. “Bring me… your banana.”
“Banana for fish?” Justin asked, almost laughing. Shit! This guy was unbelievable! He was ready to kill him one
moment, that imperious bullshit speech that was practically tailored to raising his hackles, and now he had him
choking back giggles at that awful, terrible pun. Besides the fact that the man practically oozed sex and power in
those sleek muscles he had bared, knowing, he had to know! how that would work on Justin’s libido. Well of course
he knew, Justin thought, irritated that it was working. And irritated that his irritation did not stop the snaking coil of
desire from unfurling deep in his guts.
“Come here,” Brian repeated, holding up his stick o’ fish, waving its scent in Justin’s direction.
Justin broke off a plantain, and peeled it. He waved it in the air. “Deal?”
“Come here.”
Justin moved closer, until he was at Brian’s side. He held the fruit forward, watching as Brian’s mouth engulfed the
tip, and he broke off a piece, closing his eyes. “Well?” Justin asked. “How is it?”
“You already had some, you tell me,” Brian returned around chews. He tore off a chunk of fish and held it out for
Justin to suck off his fingers, before eating some himself.
“Starchy and sweet?”
“That’s it.”
They ate in silence, and then Brian threw away the empty stick, and reached out, placing his hand at the back of
Justin’s neck, drawing him forward, touching his lips against the younger man’s. Justin groaned at the contact, better
than he’d imagined. His tongue swept out, over Brian’s, unable to resist, tasting the leftovers of their dinner, as well
as heady taste of the man pressing into him. Brian pulled back, studied his face with hooded eyes. “So? Suck my
dick.”
Justin had a brief feeling that he ought to try to negotiate before handing Brian any more power over him, but he
didn’t care at the moment, he didn’t want to think, he just reached down to help bare the rest of that magnificent
body in front of him, as Brian crushed their mouths together again.
Chapter Five
Justin woke up the next morning, his head tucked between Brian’s shoulder and his neck, his left hand on the other
man’s stomach that rose and fell with his sleeping breath. He shifted his head back slightly, and allowed his gaze to
linger on the high cheekbones, the straight nose, those unbelievable lips, so amazing… his hand flexed slightly, to
feel the hardness of the muscles at Brian’s waistline. Justin’s dick twitched. So far, he’d been jerked off plenty, but
nothing else… and jerked around a lot. That just wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. It wasn’t like he’d planned to get
stranded. And maybe he shouldn’t have insisted on going after Ethan that morning, what? A week ago now? But
he’d been drinking, for fuck’s sake. Brian had only himself to blame for not just saying no. Or even just sending him
off with someone else.
But, damn, if there was anyone to get stranded on a desert island with…
“Looked enough yet? Gonna do something more useful?”
Then again, maybe not. “You think a good morning might work better?” Justin returned dryly. Geez, this guy even
woke up snarking at him.
Brian opened his eyes. “You want to take care of my dick?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” He sat up, turned his back, looked around. Great, sun again. They were lying in the shade, thank god. He
already had a slight burn on his exposed skin, and hoped he got used to this real soon.
Justin heard a snicker behind him. And then felt shoulders and chest bear down against his back, his head pressed
forward, as the lips he had just been admiring began to caress the tender skin of his neck just below his ear. “But you
will,” Brian whispered in his ear, his entire tone gone soft.
“Jesus, don’t you ever get enough?” Justin moaned as Brian’s right hand crept around his hip to cup his balls.
“Never enough. And not yet. Let’s see, I have a good month to catch up on your bullshit. And you might think of it
this way, at least you’re getting off in this arrangement. See how generous I am.”
“Only hand jobs. I can do that myself!” Justin bit back, pissed, even as he squirmed under the palm that rubbed
upward, pushing the material of his pants against his hard shaft.
Brian abruptly pushed off him, so Justin sprawled prone. He then stood up in one fluid move, towering over the
smaller body. “What, you want me to suck you off?”
“It’s fair!” Justin yelled, louder than he wanted, hating that angry sound of frustration. But fuck, he was horny.
“Haven’t earned it,” Brian returned, smirking down at him.
“You got to be kidding! I got your damn wood, I even brought you fruit, and…” Justin clamped his mouth shut.
“And…?”
The blue eyes narrowed to slits. “If I tell you, will you blow me?”
Brian almost laughed. The kid wanted to negotiate. That took balls. Had to admire that, and the bluff wasn’t bad.
Too bad he was trying to outwit Brian. Couldn’t be done. “What, you make something up to get a blow job out of
me? And then what? Lord your power over me after producing nothing?”
Justin gritted his teeth. “Fine. Fuck yourself.”
Brian dropped down, pushing Justin back, trapping him on the ground with his hands on either side of his hips, chest
pressing into his thighs.
Justin glared at him. “Yeah, I got it. You’re stronger than me. Bully for you.”
But Brian was leaning his head down, nosing his shirt up to nuzzle the skin at Justin’s belly button, moving lower,
and Justin’s breath caught. The man’s teeth caught at the waistline of Justin’s trousers, shifted the material before
releasing it, then moved lower to press his lips against the tip of Justin’s rock-hard dick, which strained for release.
Justin moaned, low in his throat.
Brian shifted his head to rub his cheek along the lower part of Justin’s hard-on. “I could make you howl,” he
murmured. “But you need to be housetrained…” And he got up, standing, stretching. Justin saw that he was hard,
watched as Brian winced and shifted his dick.
Well, well. Justin reached down, pushed his own pants down to his thighs, grabbed himself. “I told you, I can jerk
myself off.” Nothing wrong with a morning jerk-off. He rubbed the bit of pre-cum across the head of his dick,
started to thrust into his palm. He watched Brian’s gaze drawn and held for a long moment, before the other man
turned abruptly away, his contemptuous look replaced by something very different. Justin would have laughed, but
he was too busy cumming.
Brian was cursing the kid as he turned away. How the fuck did he do that, take control so easily? Brian heard the
rapid panting yield to harsh groans, and stifled an echoing rumble in his own chest, trying to calm his own breathing,
suddenly visioning those lips wrapped around his dick, visions of the night before rising unbidden in his memory.
Maybe he was taking a bad approach. When he had pressed his mouth against the hardness filling rapidly under his
lips, he hadn’t wanted to move away, had wanted to stop teaching a lesson, and just indulge himself. Frustrated and
angry for such uncertain feelings, for feeling anything at all, Brian moved to the fire.
Which had gone out.
“Fuck!” he almost yelled.
“What now?” Justin sighed, sitting up and adjusting himself, moving to the last of the plantains. Well, shit, gonna
have to go scavenging. Again.
“The fire went out.”
“So? We have more matches, right?”
“WE don’t have shit! I have eleven matches. I have! I, me, and now we’re about to have ten!”
Justin bit his tongue on pointing out that Brian, in mid-rant, forgot to use “I.” “What, you think this is my fault?”
Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, fighting me isn’t helping. At all.”
“Like I’m the one who’s…”
“Yes, you’re the one who’s…”
“What, should I prostrate myself before you then? Suck your dick on command? I apologized for being an asshole to
you on the yacht, what else can I do?!”
Make up for kicking me when I was down, Brian thought, glaring at him, make up for making me feel completely
helpless just for your amusement. Make up for allowing yourself, with all your privileges, to develop a character that
was spoiled and rotting, from years of having it easy, taking it easy, and being easy. Make up for having nothing
better to do with your energy than toy with those not in a position to protest. Brian hated bullies. And his own
bullying of Justin on this island, that was just giving the kid a taste of his own medicine. So that was different. “You
can do what I say until I’m satisfied.”
Justin sighed, and looked away. He had a feeling Brian and satisfaction had been strangers for a long, long time.
After taking a moment to collect himself, he looked back. “Can’t we just call a truce? Try to get along, to work
together or something? And then suck each other off to seal the deal?” The smile was real, and Brian felt it make
him want to soften. Or harden. Or…whatever the fuck.
But then he looked up into the twinkle of those blue eyes. Games, he thought. It was all games. He knew those, too
well. “No,” he answered, looking away.
“You really are an asshole, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Why?”
Brian looked back, startled. “What?”
“Why are you such an asshole? You get your heart broken before coming on board, taking off to forget your
troubles?” He saw Brian’s eyes narrow, and realized he’d hit a nerve. “Holy shit, did you really…”
“Drop it,” Brian ground out.
“Hey, you can’t take your pain out on me because someone else was a dick to you!”
“You don’t know shit!” Brian put his hand to his head, running it through the hair that, Justin realized, was suddenly
whipping about. Justin looked over his shoulder, at the thunderheads rising over the incline in the island. “Uh oh…”
“This sucks.”
Justin was shaking; he was surprised he even heard Brian’s voice above the howling wind. Talk about
understatements; this more than sucked. This wasn’t just a storm; it was the most violent storm he had ever been in.
At first, they had retreated underneath the propped up boat, Brian handing Justin one of the rain ponchos that had
come in the emergency kit. “Orange is not my color,” Justin had quipped, earning a raised eyebrow from Brian.
Orange was definitely Brian’s color. Of course it was. He wondered if the man looked bad in anything.
Well, that had been when he had still been able to joke. The boat had provided no shelter at all for rain being blown
in sideways; they were both soaked and miserable in minutes of its onset. And then stuff started falling. The leaves
and razor-sharp grasses from god alone knew where were bad enough, but then there was the sand. And then, as
Justin buried his face against Brian’s shoulder, a harsh crash into the top of the boat, and the stick that propped it up
knocked abruptly off kilter, and Brian’s harsh “Fuck!” as the boat came down.
“Holy shit, are you okay?” Justin looked up, as Brian held the boat up with his left arm.
“Besides wrenching my shoulder catching this thing… Fuck! Yeah, I’m fine. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.
Lie down.”
“Are you sure you’re in the mood for that now? I personally prefer a more romantic setting…”
Brian looked over, almost laughing when he caught a glimpse of the teasing twist of Justin’s mouth, despite this
really shitty situation, despite the rain and all this crap, the kid still managed to dredge up a sense of humor. That is,
until the next thing crashed onto the top of the wood over their heads. Then Justin started violently, and hurried to
lay back on the flattened and wet grass and sand. No more jokes.
Brian lay down himself, and lowered the boat over them, closing them in darkness, except for the gloom coming up
from where the edges of the boat didn’t meet the ground. Justin managed to roll onto his side, and pulled off the
poncho and stuffed it toward the top of the boat, following Brian’s lead. Not exactly a need for that thing now; it
was muggy and uncomfortable enough. After a while of listening to the wind howl, the rain pound into the boat, and
every once in a while a solid “thunk,” Justin said nervously, “I suppose those trees’ll stay where they are? Not crash
down, turning this thing into a thousand splinters?”
“Has anyone tell you you’re the soul of positive thinking?”
“That’s a redundant question, isn’t it?”
No answer to that. More minutes passed. “So, you didn’t answer my question.”
“What question is that?” Brian returned.
“So who broke your heart?”
Brian’s answer was basically a growl.
“Let me guess,” Justin continued, undaunted. “Hm… well, he’d have to be a bottom, because there’s no way you’re
not in the dominant position. Let’s see, started out as a casual fuck. You probably ran into him in nightclubs…
maybe, oh, I got it, you sailed into his port every so often!”
Brian couldn’t stop a disbelieving huff of laughter at that one. “Sailed into his port? Are you kidding?”
“Well, sure, bet you have a guy in every one, but this guy was different, and it was probably New York, since it’s
gotta be somewhere you probably hang around enough to get used to his face and even start to like it. Then, after a
while, you realized, true love, and when you at last worked up the nerve to let go of your insane control issues and
actually use the ‘L’ word, he answered that he was just a garden-variety slut, and you, of course, were worthy of far
better ass than his…”
“Justin.”
“I imagine this was in Chelsea, when you weren’t hanging out on the docks waiting for your next ship to sail…”
“Justin…”
“And of course he was right, because you were waiting for the ass that is absolute perfection that you had to be
stranded on a desert island with…”
“Justin!”
The yell stopped him. “Jesus, pop my eardrums.”
“Would you shut up?”
“Uh, well, I tend to babble when I’m nervous. And I’m fucking terrified right now. I mean, those trees didn’t look
too solid to me. So, unless you have a better subject for me…”
“The trees… you’ve got to be kidding. You think this is the first storm they’ve been in?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh…” Unfortunately, at that moment, another something crashed into the side of the boat with a huge crack,
effectively bouncing the frame off the ground for an inch or so. Justin jumped himself, as much as he could with
four inches of headroom. He turned his face into Brian’s shoulder. “Bet he was a red head, red heads are just plain
wicked…”
Brian sighed. Unless he wanted to be subject to Justin’s fairy-tale fantasy of Brian’s mythical magical fuck buddy,
he decided to broach a subject that he’d been thinking of since this storm started. “Okay, look. Obviously, fighting
hasn’t gotten us anywhere but in this stupid boat with you shaking like a leaf. We’re going to have to start working
together so this isn’t repeated.”
“I could have told you that.”
“Are you going to start up another argument?”
Justin shook his head.
“Fine. Look. I know I can be a bit domineering…”
Justin snorted.
Brian ignored that. “…but it’s only because you are obviously at a total loss in a survival situation. I’m usually more
level-headed, but frankly you piss me off.”
“You don’t do too bad a job of finessing me when you want to,” Justin stated.
Brian chuckled. Justin had no idea how good at finessing he was in his usual life. “Anyway, this is making it fairly
clear we need to stop yelling at each other and organize some shelter. Store up some supplies. Find a place to build
some kind of signal fire, in case any sort of ship or plane actually passes by. If we had planned in advance, we might
have been able to find some, fuck, I don’t know, gourds or something to collect water from this rain. I’d love some
water instead of that coconut crap.”
“Actually, I don’t think that last part’s gonna be necessary.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” Justin looked uncomfortable for a moment. Then he shook his head, as if clearing his thoughts. “Actually,
that’s what I was trying to negotiate for a blow job. The information I mean. There’s a pool of fresh water, I think
it’s from run-off from the higher ground, there’s a wearing down in the side of this rock face on the other side of the
island. Or maybe it’s a spring. But it’s fresh. I found it when you were fishing. The plantains were growing around
it.”
Brian pulled back and looked at him.
“I was going to tell you! It’s just that you were acting like such an asshole…”
“And you liked the idea that you had control over something important.”
Justin bit his lip. “I know. Stupid.”
“Look, we can’t afford to do that to each other anymore. I understand. You haven’t exactly been brought up to
exercise judgment in this sort of situation…”
“Were you?” Justin shot back, frowning.
“Have you ever even gone camping?”
“Does the Four Seasons count?”
Brian twisted his lips. “I rest my case. No room service here, puppy.” That last was not said snidely. Far from it.
Justin’s eyes ran over Brian’s features, and licked his lower lip. “So? You want me to continue with the story of
your life? Or can you come up with some way to distract me?”
“Turn the other direction.” The husky voice was barely heard over the storm that continued to rage without.
“Huh?”
“We just negotiated a truce of sorts, didn’t we? So, I liked how you proposed sealing a deal earlier.” Justin heard the
zipper on Brian’s jeans being pulled down. He didn’t move right away, though; instead, Justin reached out with his
hand and stroked Brian’s cheek. Brian watched the other man as he leaned forward and kissed him. When Justin
pulled back, he was smiling, and Brian felt something in his stomach that wasn’t lust alone. Then Justin moved,
pulling his shirt off and wiggling around. Amazing how limber he was, how quickly he managed to negotiate the
small space. Brian found himself confronted with a smooth, tight belly. He rested his hand on Justin’s hip, and drew
the fabric down. Justin’s ample cock rose up in front of him, and Brian smirked, before reaching out with his tongue
to lick the sensitive area on its underside, just beneath the head. Justin moaned, and Brian felt the rumble against his
skin as Justin rested his head on Brian’s groin, just taking in the sensation as Brian’s lips wrapped around his dick
for the first time.
Well, thank god this worked out, Brian thought. He’d been dying to do this for days. Okay, weeks. And then Justin
was reciprocating, and thinking time was over.
Chapter Six
They stood on the beach, looking at the branches and coconuts littered about. Looked pretty much the same as when
they showed up.
“Think these storms are common?” Justin asked.
“Seems that way. Okay, want to show me that pool?”
“Really? At this time of day?” It was late afternoon; the sun, just coming out from the swiftly retreating cloud line at
the edge of the storm front, was moving down the sky.
Brian glanced over at the smaller man, who was putting his shirt back on.
“Mm hm. We might as well think about setting up over that way. You said there’s a rock face, right? We’ll want to
look around there, see if we can set up a shelter using the wall as a stable location, instead of this.”
“What about rock slides?” Seeing Brian’s look, he laughed a bit. “I’m sorry, I’m being negative again, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, well,” Brian answered, moving to the boat, and gesturing to Justin to follow. He lifted the boat up and told
him, “Grab the ponchos and the emergency kit there, would you?” Justin ducked under the boat while Brian held the
boat with his left hand, just using the right to balance it.
Justin saw him wince as he lowered the boat upon Justin’s retrieval of the material. “You okay?”
“I strained my right shoulder catching the boat when it collapsed. I’m fine. As to your negative thinking,” he
continued, as he took the ponchos from Justin and began folding them, “I have a feeling that forecasting worst case
scenarios is going to be a good idea. You have quite an imagination…” Brian chuckled, thinking of the magical
mystery fuck story. “So you be the ideas man, play around with the possibilities of ‘what if’, and I’ll come up with
assessing your ideas, working the logistics of addressing the potential problem or situation, whatever it might be.
Sound good?”
“I do have quite the imagination,” Justin agreed. “I can come up with some really fun distractions, too.” Brian’s plan
sounded good to him. But he sounded more like a business man working a meeting, less like a sailor type. He had
begun to wonder where Brian was from; the more he talked to the man, the more he wondered.
Brian smirked, leaned over, and caught Justin’s lips in his own, teasing his lower lip until Justin sighed and reached
out with his own tongue, licking the sensitive corner of Brian’s mouth.
Reluctantly, Brian pulled back. “We better go.”
“What about the boat?”
“I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
“You think we don’t need it as shelter? Maybe we should stay here for now?”
“I’m willing to gamble that’s it for the rain for now. So we can probably sleep on the beach over there. Body heat
should work tonight, unless you have objections?” At Justin’s vehement shake of the head and sly grin, Brian
continued, “And I’d really like a drink of water.”
“Okay.” Justin began to walk down the beach.
Brian caught up to him in three quick strides, reaching for the box Justin was carrying.
“I can carry it,” Justin said, taking it away from Brian’s hand. “You can carry the rain gear. Both my shoulders are
working, you know.”
Brian paused and Justin continued walking. Instinctively, Brian resisted the idea of letting someone else do the bulk
of the work, even if it was only carrying something. Then he rolled his eyes, at himself more than anything else. He
walked quickly to catch up, reaching out again, but this time catching Justin’s ass against his open palm with an
audible smack.
“Ow!” But Justin was laughing. “Let me guess, you’ve been dying to do that for days.”
“Weeks.”
“Bet it’s gonna be a lot more fun for you to pull down my pants, put your hands on my naked ass, and mark that oh
so tender skin, when I’m actually enjoying it. Especially if you kiss it better after,” Justin teased.
“Oh, hell, puppy, you can’t say things like that ‘til we get where we’re going, or I’m gonna throw you down right
here.”
Justin almost paused, but groaned, forcing himself to continue walking. “Then we better shut up, because I can’t
walk too good with a hard-on.”
“Are you capable of not talking?”
“Sure. But talking dirty’s much more fun.”
Brian couldn’t argue that.
Brian woke up before Justin the next morning, and stared at the young man’s sleeping features. After more than a
week without any parties, and no booze or drugs, the purplish circles had receded from beneath Justin’s eyes, and
his face had lost a fatigue that Brian hadn’t realized had even been there, until he could compare then to now. Oh, to
be young and able to hide anything beneath that elastic skin, he thought. Elastic, and resilient. Ten days or so, now,
beginning with the near fast as they floated on the ocean, and then a diet of fish and fruit had added a glow to
Justin’s skin, and with the light labor and extra rest, his already lean form was shedding the slight party puffiness, so
that his muscles were taking on a sleakness beneath the translucent skin, not quite as pale as a week ago. The sun
had penetrated the white of his clothes, turning him lightly bronzed. The slight burn on his neck and face had faded
to a healthy glow. He really was beyond fucking beautiful. Brian reached out his hand and stroked Justin’s jawline,
its smoothness; he’d given him one of the straight razors the night before, but ended up shaving Justin himself after
Justin had practically opened up his own jugular. “Hey, I’m used to electric…” Justin had explained, as Brian swam
over to take the razor, and tilt Justin’s head back. He was probably used to soap, too. Without the aide of any
slippery agents, though, it took extra care to result in that smooth flesh as the fuzz fell away. Much better. He looked
so much younger, but fuck... Brian hadn’t even tried to resist kneeling down in the water, pulling Justin against him.
The desire to do this, to put his mouth, his lips on this other person was becoming overwhelming. This was not
good. Pretty fucking irresistible, but not too good. Well, hell, they had a truce, right? And it wasn’t as if he had a
reputation to keep up on a desert island. He’d worry about the fact that this wasn’t bothering him more some other
time. For now…
For now he just enjoyed swallowing the young man’s dick, having his served in turn. Enjoyed getting blown as he
kneeled at the edge of the pool, then leaned back and floated away with the water holding him up, his body feeling
incredibly light, incredibly content.
Some pool. The rain had filled in the grotto, and the trickle Justin had described had turned into a veritable waterfall.
The water was clear and cold, absolute heaven. Brian hadn’t even realized how thirsty he was until he put his lips to
its surface, drinking in the water as the last of the sun’s rays reflected off its wide surface, sparkling in the foam at
the foot of the run-off coming down the rock face that announced the beginning of the rise in the island.
Yeah, he liked the truce a lot better than fighting. They hadn’t really talked a lot, just explored each others’ bodies,
all night, as if they had been only waiting for a mutual agreement to be able to do so. That was fine, as far as Brian
was concerned. Finally, falling asleep, exhausted, at the side of the pool, wrapped around each other, warding off the
wind the storm had left in its wake, the slight chill from the water they had been immersed in.
Brian wondered what time it was; mid-morning, judging by the sun. He felt no urgency to disentangle himself.
Instead, he leaned forward, kissing the small cut at Justin’s jaw line. Good thing they had antibiotics in the
emergency kit. God alone knew what an infection might lead to. The kid couldn’t even handle a straight razor. Well,
that was probably a good thing, Brian thought. Justin had a pretty big temper, who knows what he might be tempted
to do with a blade if Brian pissed him off too much. Besides, shaving him had been… fuck, erotic. Remembering the
way Justin had held himself absolutely still, as Brian pressed the razor over the major veins in his neck, the utter
trust this required, the way Justin’s life was totally in his hands at that moment… and the way Justin had been
unable to stop his prick from rising to complete attention as Brian pressed himself against it even as the rest of his
body remained immobile… Brian moved down Justin’s body in the morning light, his own cock filling with the
memory. He bit lightly on a shoulder, moved to a nipple, his hands moving to squeeze that incredible ass.
Justin was awake, his eyes closed, his breathing increasing. “Jesus, Brian…” He pressed himself up against Brian’s
leg. Brian pulled him closer, their dicks rubbing up against each other. His hands shifted, and his middle fingers met
within the center of Justin’s back side, pressing lightly but insistently into his hole. Justin moaned as he felt himself
invaded, Brian’s fingers moving into him further, and he pushed back, letting Brian fuck him, adding another finger.
Fuck, he was tight. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Brian thought, why did I start this? It’s making me want…
“Fuck me, Brian… Fuck… me…” Justin was panting, his leg thrown over Brian’s hip, his dick thrusting up against
his stomach. Brian opened his eyes to see the slack look of mindless lust on the face before him. Mindless, can never
be mindless when it comes to this. Gently, he reminded him, “No condoms… can’t.” And continued to manipulate
his fingers within Justin’s ass, his palm cupping the cheek as his fingers delved within, his other hand moving to
hold Justin’s penis, giving it a receptacle to thrust up against.
“Don’t care…” Justin panted. “Don’t care, fuck me raw…”
Well. That broke the haze of lust that Brian had been moving within. “Are you crazy?” he barked out, stopping
everything, his hands gone still. He pulled back and stared into Justin’s eyes, which had snapped open. They stared
at each other.
“You really think I’d risk that?” Brian continued, making sure Justin had heard him.
Justin hesitated for a minute, unsure how to respond. Well, shit, yeah, he’d meant it. Obviously a mistake. Now that
he was thinking about it. No, it wasn’t too smart, but he didn’t think Brian… which meant… “You think I’m
diseased?” Justin asked him. He pulled all the way back, not caring now that Brian’s hands had moved off of him
totally, that the other man was sitting up and staring at him with an incredulous look on his face.
“Justin…”
“You do. Just a dirty little slut, that’s how you see me, isn’t it?”
“Justin…”
But Justin wasn’t listening. “I didn’t… I don’t… Oh, fuck it, fuck this.” He turned and moved quickly and
purposefully, still naked, long strides taking him, practically running away.
Brian practically growled. Little fucking... did he think he'd go after him? Brian Kinney did not chase anyone. Of
course, Justin was pretty upset, and god knew the kid had almost killed himself with a razor the night before. And
they did have the truce. And it was a desert island, did he want to lose the only blow job in town? Okay, so it was
the best blow job he could remember in any town he'd been in, for a while. Still.
Yeah, still. The kid had been pretty upset, and had jumped to some mighty conclusions. And he was more than a
little inept, god knew he might drown himself by accident. And they did have that truce, they had agreed they
couldn't afford to play a game with each other based on whatever bullshit had gone on in their own lives. Not if they
planned to make their existence here at all comfortable, to say nothing of survivable. Okay, Brian thought, this truce
is going to be harder than I thought. He sighed, and lifted himself up to follow Justin's retreat.
He found Justin on the beach just down from the fishing spot, staring out at the huge waves crashing into the surf,
leftovers of the storm’s fury from the day before. Justin had wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on
his knees. Brian sat down next to him, careful not to touch him. After a few minutes, when Justin made no move to
get up and run away again, Brian said, “It has nothing to do with you, with your being dirty. I don’t know anything
about you. But the same goes for you with me. You don’t know where I’ve been either. I’m not just thinking of
myself.”
Justin turned his head, so his cheek lay against his knees, and he looked sideways at the other man. “Yeah, I know.
It’s just…” he hesitated, and Brian waited. He turned his head away, not wanting to see Brian’s reaction when he
said this, forcing it out anyway. “What I was doing on the yacht, it *was* pretty fucking dirty.”
“Did you bareback with Ethan?”
“No, never had to. I’ve never wanted to fuck and not had a condom right there. It wasn’t even a question. That’s not
what I meant.” He hesitated again, and Brian vowed not to interrupt him this time, since this seemed hard enough for
the kid without Brian’s questions getting in the way. “It’s just… I’d been drunk for a couple of weeks when you
came on board in New York. So what I was doing… I wasn’t really thinking about it. Really didn’t want to think
about it. On that yacht, that was pretty fucking easy.”
Uppers, downers, narcotics, sedatives, alcohol… Brian knew what he was talking about, but kept his mouth shut.
Lord knew, before taking off to sea himself, he’d had no small binge of his own. Seeing other people indulging like
that, without the excuse Brian had had, though, made him realize how unattractive, and stupid, it really was. So he
was hardly in a position to judge, although maybe he had been, a little, and maybe it hadn’t been just the idiocy of
those he had been watching from across deck he'd been judging. Maybe it had been his own as well.
Justin continued, “The thing is, I’d been in a really big fight with my father right before hooking up with Ethan. I
didn’t much even like that guy, but he’d been after me, and he offered an excuse to get the fuck away from New
York…”
Brian bit his lip, but Justin had turned back and saw the look on Brian’s face, even managed a small laugh. “Yeah, I
know, you hated Ethan. You hated me more, though.”
“That’s not true.” He couldn’t not respond to that. Justin had frustrated him more, yeah, definitely, but part of that
was due to desire. Hated? No. Ethan, everything that man was, had really repulsed Brian. Justin never had. Not
repulsed. More like, inspired self-disgust that he, Brian, could want a young man so obviously spoiled, careless,
wasted, seemingly without redeeming value. Seeming. That was the word, wasn’t it? As he had just pointed out to
Justin, they didn’t really know each other at all.
“Yeah, it is true,” Justin insisted. “But I can’t blame you. I’d gone with Ethan more to piss my father off than
because I liked the guy.”
“Oh, you seemed to like him well enough,” Brian said, lightly, but there was a tone beneath that that Justin picked
up on.
“You’ve never fucked anyone you didn’t like much?” He saw the answer in Brian’s frown, the way he looked away.
“Doesn’t matter,” Justin continued, “it didn’t make it right of me to act that way, to use one asshole to piss off
another. Maybe Ethan really did like me, though I certainly did my best to prove he had no reason to. And it isn’t
much of an excuse that the drinking and drugs only allowed me not to think about what an idiot I was being. No
excuse. I was using him. Fucking the brains out of some guy only to piss off somebody else. Playing the slut my
father thinks me. Take that daddy.”
“Your dad doesn’t approve of your being gay, huh?”
Justin’s snort was answer enough. “That’s bad enough. The fact that I’m completely incompetent to take over his
business, I think that’s worse. It’s all about the companies for my dad. I’m not a worthy successor, I’m not even
close to what he wants in a son…”
That last was spoken softly, but the pain behind the words was more than clear. Brian reached out, finally, put his
hand on Justin’s shoulder, then cupped his elbow, pulling him out of the tight ball he had wrapped himself into.
“You’re not dirty, Justin.”
Justin bit his lips together, to stop any more words from coming out, to keep the emotion that had come too close to
the surface in. Fuck, no wonder he had drugged out since that last, awful fight with his father… feeling this, this hurt
more than he imagined it would. And to do this in front of Brian, of all people… well, fuck. He wasn’t even going to
be left with his dignity.
“I don’t think you’re dirty…” Brian continued, pulling him next to him.
“How would you know? You don’t know me.”
“I’m starting to. I know that you can act like a spoiled brat. And I know that you delight in driving men crazy…”
“Yeah, I’m a fucking asshole tease. Got nothing to do but play the sex card. What else is there? Oh, yeah. The
drinking and drugs.”
Brian leaned back on the sand, pulled Justin against him, and rubbed his back, soothing the incredibly tense muscles
there. “Nah, you just want to use your body to play at power, because you feel like nothing in your life is actually
under your control.”
Justin raised himself on one arm, and looked down into Brian’s face. “Are you a psychologist in real life? I mean, I
get you’re not really a deck hand. You aren’t, are you?”
Brian chuckled, glad to feel Justin relaxing against him. “Nah, I just took some courses in college. Maybe you can
take the time you have now to figure out what you want to actually do with your life. Maybe you can go to school
after we get off this place. You can set your goals on catching up with my obviously superior intelligence.” He was
only half teasing, hoping Justin would actually consider his words, start thinking about his life in more constructive
terms. He obviously had issues. Such an attractive guy… seemed a shame to waste himself.
“Superior intelligence… I have a feeling I’m a match in the ego department, even if I am a stupid shit.” If he was
kidding, Brian didn’t hear it.
“I don’t know,” Brian said lightly, his hand moving to Justin’s hip, shifting them both onto their sides, facing each
other, moving back into the position they had only recently abandoned. Wanting, needing to finish what they had
started. “You did demonstrate superior intelligence when you readily agreed to our little truce. Obviously, you know
what’s in your best interests…” Brian’s licked at his jawline, up to his ear, bit the lobe lightly, receiving a gasp in
response, an immediate increase in Justin’s breathing. Okay, Brian thought, MUCH better.
“Yeah, well,” Justin answered, placing his hands around Brian’s neck, moving his leg over Brian’s hip and shifting
their bodies closer, “If I get off track, you can point out the way back.”
Oh, hell, Brian thought, when did I become guide to a life here? But he didn’t let the idea bother him, he didn’t
allow himself to consider that the small glow in his midsection had anything to do with anything but the lithe body
pressing against his, the taut muscles flexing against his hand as he found Justin’s lips with his own, his tongue
moving out to meet Justin’s eager return. Justin’s leg over his body spread his backside to Brian’s questing fingers,
which moved back to the position they had so unwillingly abandoned less than a half an hour before, and Brian sank
into his own state of non-thinking, and into the beautiful body surrendering to him.
Swept Away Chapter 7 –
Brian sat in the shade, lazily whittling. Lazy. Whittling. Definitely two words he had never thought to ever associate
in the same thought train with any activities of his.
He wasn’t very good, as Justin delighted in telling him. Actually, most of his creations didn’t resemble much of
anything. Justin used them as excuses to make up stories. Brian would shape out something that vaguely resembled
some sort of creature (there was meant to be a tail on the thing, but it ended up looking as if it’d grown a fifth leg out
its maybe ass). And Justin would say, “Hey, did I ever tell you the story of the time I was at MOMA and there was
this painting of this pig farmer or something…” and off he would go, weaving another one of his endless stories.
Maybe about meeting some guy in front of that painting and ending up scouring Chelsea with him for a drag queen,
for some stupid treasure hunt his fraternity sent him on. Or maybe it had been the Louvre, and he ended up with
some guy from the Foreign Legion. And then fucking him. Justin always fucked them. “The end.”
“In the end?” Brian would ask.
“Always.”
“Didn’t take you for a top dog.”
“You don’t know a lot about me.”
He was learning. Such as, Justin was a fantastic story teller. There were always plots, searches, quests, drama,
tension in his tales, and the people he fleshed out had character, shape, even the idiot frat boy whom Brian would bet
would fade into the paneling at any social function. In Justin’s words, he became the unsung “everyman” at the heart
of a fantastic quest. Fantastic story teller. Not bad company. Could swim like a fish. Managed to find that cove with
all the crabs. Learned where the vines were, exactly how far they could be separated before they became useless.
Had grown calluses, and didn’t complain.
“What, didn’t take on the whole frat house?” Brian had teased, not wanting the frat boy fuck be the end of the story.
“Yeah, hard to do them all when you weren’t there to lend a hand… or a dick, as it were,” Justin had teased back.
Oh, yeah, he’d also learned that Justin was, at heart, basically a really great guy, and that smile… yeah, kinda like
the one he got in return to that smart-ass question, and that low voice softening in just that way, that tone that meant
he really really wanted to feel Brian on his lips… “One boy at a time…” and then he would press closer, and there
would be another kind of story telling, a physical story two bodies told to each other.
But why did he always have to fuck them in those stories? Why not just suck them off? Brian kept that particular
frustration to himself. He did not want Justin to know how much he yearned, yeah, he said it, yearned, like a stupid
fucking pussy. Came way too close to “needing.” But there it was. He wanted to fuck Justin… shit, sometimes he
wanted to be fucked BY Justin.
But yeah, he had to admit it to himself. He paused in whatever it was he was working on. Apparently, he was
whittling the stick into… a smaller stick. Eh. Didn’t really matter; Brian kept shaving away at it. He wasn’t really
paying attention to what he was doing, he was remembering that one morning, what? two weeks ago? ten days? It
was the morning he’d stopped counting days. That morning, it had been fifty-two days since he’d gotten on the boat
with the brat.
And now he was on this island with this man.
Justin had hardened up, fairly quickly. They had found the depression in the rock face, a natural alcove, and had
managed to set up a fairly decent shelter, with bamboo held together with those vines found deep in the forest. Justin
had been right about the mangoes, and there was some other fruit that Brian didn’t recognize. Justin seemed to. Still,
Brian bet his sushi days were over. Enough fish! They’d both lost weight, and Justin’s muscles had begun to clearly
define themselves with the hard work, all that traipsing around the island. They’d made it all the way to the top of
the highest point of the rise; the flat, slightly depressed opening in the jungle-like growth at the top announced that
this was indeed a volcano. Brian had gotten no small amount of satisfaction from telling Justin all about volcanoes
that night (he wasn’t as good at stories as Justin, not by a long shot, but he’d started taking his turn). He served up
the story of Krakatoa and the death of thousands in the volcanic eruption. Later, when kissing and touching had
begun to take on more urgency, Justin had whispered, “I don’t care, if we’re going to die, then, fuck me anyway.”
And Brian had whispered back, “No,” as he always did, every time Justin found a new way to tell him without
telling him how desperately he wanted the one thing they could not have.
“If it starts spitting up ash like Krakatoa, and raining fire, will you fuck me then?”
This time, Brian whispered back, “Yes…” He nipped his way down Justin’s back, scraping his tongue at the dip in
the small of the back that was arching toward him, down to the crack at the top of his ass, “I’ll stick my tongue in
you, just like I’m about to do now…” He nipped the top of one cheek, placing his hand to soothe the spot he had just
wounded, then pulling the muscle there so Justin arched further, completely exposed to him. “I’ll loosen you up, get
you wet…” He placed his tongue beneath the opening before him, licking at the base of the balls, then the tender
flesh at that spot just between the legs, back up, touching his tongue as Justin’s muscles relaxed and he opened to the
man touching him. Brian’s tongue teased the most sensitive nerves, and Justin held himself perfectly still, his
breathing coming in shallow gasps… “and then I’ll move up your back, while you’re on your hands and knees,
ready to take me, and I’ll lay my body over yours, every inch of our skin touching, I’ll bury my face in your hair, my
dick heavy against your ass, rubbing against you, leaking, so filled with desire and need, and then I’ll penetrate
you…” and he penetrated with his tongue, and Justin came with a ragged gasp, unable to stop. Brian chuckled as he
moved back up, rolling Justin onto his back, taking Justin’s hand and placing it on his own hard dick. “You are so
easy.”
Justin smiled. No more tantrums over Brian’s careless words. Justin knew he didn’t mean anything by them.
Besides, he had told Justin enough about himself during story time, that Justin knew Brian Kinney outfucked him by
far.
They built their potential bonfire on day thirteen, at the top of the beach. In the little shelter was the engine from the
boat, its chamber still full of gasoline to ignite the fire. On day fourteen, Justin had looked from the bonfire to the
nearby palm trees. “What if they catch on fire?” he had asked nervously.
“I don’t give a fuck if the whole island goes up, if it gets us off of here.”
“Some people might say that’s a pretty unenlightened view, torching nature in your service, leaving only destruction
in your wake.”
Brian had looked over sharply at that, but Justin had merely turned his gaze to the horizon, as if a ship would
magically appear. “Some people can blow me.”
Justin had laughed.
“No, seriously. Blow me.” Gotta love the boy, Brian thought as Justin turned toward him, saying, “Fine, you first.
This time.” And dropped to his knees. Brian had come to believe that he was abandoned with the only other human
being on the face of the planet as consistently horny as he was.
The Krakata story had been day twenty-seven. Brian had fretted, and fed, and watched for ships, and sucked, and
touched, and slept, and sucked some more, for fifty-one days.
On day fifty-one, he had woken up at the top of the beach. They had taken to crashing just about anywhere, usually
in sight of the ocean, if it were nice out, and nice days were far more common than bad. Thank god it wasn’t
typhoon season. He had woken up, and rolled on his side, not feeling the need to get up, or do anything at all. It was
early. The sun was rising, and sparkling on the water, where the calm ocean was sending small wavelets up onto the
sand. He was still half asleep, looking out over the ocean, when Justin, who had been engaging in his usual early
morning swim, rose out of the water.
The morning sun was rich and golden, and it caught the bronzed body’s fine hair so the skin seemed to glitter.
Sunlight sparkled off the water, so that Justin seemed to be standing, up to his thighs, paused for a moment in a pool
of pure light, his body, gold against it, not dark, the whiteness of the water’s reflected light dancing with the sparkle
of the direct sunlight shining on the fuzz against his skin.
He shone.
Brian blinked, overwhelmed for a moment. Justin had not seen him watching him, and he placed his hands on the
top of the water, cupping it, then raising his arms overhead, stretching, while letting the water spill down. It was a
movement with such unconscious grace, such pure joy, such life…
“Fuck,” Brian whispered, unable to look away.
Justin turned slightly, feeling Brian’s eyes on him, and smiled, softly. Not the wide smile, but the small one Brian
had seen Justin wear when he caught him just watching him.
They watched each other for a long moment, and finally Justin turned, and dove back into the ocean, leaving just the
sparkling surface behind him. Brian lay there for a long moment, before rolling on his back, looking up at the tree
tops overhead, and groaning.
That night, Justin had asked Brian for a story. “Your turn,” he’d said, after laughing at the penis Brian had carved
that day. Now that looked like a penis. His whittling talent finally discovered.
So Brian had leaned his head back against Justin’s thigh, and began. “Once upon a time there was this guy who was
in charge of the best advertising company in the entire world…”
“Was it located somewhere specific in the world?”
“Pittsburgh.”
“Pennsylvania?”
“Yeah.”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah, but shut up and listen. So this guy had his whole life and it was good. He would work hard all day, and at
night he would go to his favorite hangouts, bars, baths, clubs. He went with his best friend in the whole wide
world…”
“Named…”
“Michael. He had two other friends, Emmett and Ted. Ted was boring, Emmett was pretty interesting. He wore
tangerine and pink. Ted and Michael and the guy…”
“Does the guy have a name?”
“Uh… no…”
And Justin was certain at that moment that Brian was finally telling him something about himself. All the other
stories, there were names, descriptions, exaggerations. Besides, he just knew, and he vowed to shut up and let Brian
just talk.
“He would fuck three guys a day.”
Well, that vow went right out the window. “A DAY!!”
“Not every day. He liked to fuck. A lot.”
“Bet he had condoms,” Justin grumbled.
Brian sighed. “Are you going to let me tell the story?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Justin replied, placing his hand in Brian’s hair, doing the nightly ritual of raking his fingers through
the lengthening strands. They had no comb or brush, and Brian insisted on getting every snarl out, every night.
“Well, the guy fucked and sucked and worked and he was happy. He did what and who he wanted. And Mikey was
always there to talk to, and hang out with, and even though he gave shit to Ted and Emmett, he liked that they were
their own little exclusive group.
“So one day this guy named Stockwell, the chief of police, decided to run for mayor. And because Pennsylvania was
such a swing state, he hopped right on the Republican bandwagon, and targeted Pittsburgh’s gay community as the
Enemy to target so people could know he was fighting the good fight against evil, against every club and fuck zone
the guy played in. The guy was pretty well known and way out of the closet, and he made clear this was fascism, as
far as he was concerned. So he fucked more at home, because the police were everywhere. Well, except when it
came to protecting gay people.. Stockwell promised everybody he’d make the streets safe. He said nothing about
which streets. Crimes against gay people rose exponentially. He closed the baths, he closed as many of the clubs as
he could, he closed the fuck room at the bar the guy liked to go to. But it wasn’t until the guy’s two lesbian friends
had the front of their house painted with the words ‘Dykes burn in hell,’ that the guy decided this shit could not go
on. See, his friend Mikey was the father of the lesbian’s 4-year old daughter. And Mikey came to the guy in tears
over everything. Bad enough, politics, repressive atmosphere. But this was fuckin’ scary shit. This was really real
bad shit. It wasn’t just words.”
Brian’s voice was hollow. Justin had gone very still. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the ending. He already heard
it in the tone.
“So…” Brian continued, looking up at the stars, desperately wishing for a cigarette, “the guy threw all his money
behind the opponent. The people who supported Deekins weren’t nearly as rich as those who supported Stockwell.
And Deekins was telling people the truth, that we’re in tough times, and the solutions wouldn’t be easy. Stockwell
was telling them, the godless sex-crazed liberals are ruining our god-fearing community and infesting it with godless
gays, we get rid of them and all our problems are solved.”
Silence. “So, what happened?” Justin whispered.
“Stockwell won. There was talk of a fixed election, but nothing came of it.”
“And the guy?”
Snort. “He had put too much money into it, lost perspective, had taken it very, very personally. Well, it was
personal. It wasn’t just about principles. It was about protecting his friends. And himself. Crimes against the gay
community rose eight percent in the six months Stockwell did his worse. The local paper pointed that out, supported
Deekins, got called a fag rag and lost a huge amount of its advertising support. Had to lay off a bunch of people. But
Stockwell didn’t care about Pittsburgh’s citizens, as long as his politics protected Pittsburgh’s citizens. ‘Course,
because the guy supported the wrong side, Stockwell came after him. Hard. Not really after him. After his accounts.
And business men go where the money is, where the power is. It’s all about the money, all about who owns the play
book. And that wasn’t the guy. He was forced to declare bankruptcy, lay off sixteen people. No one in the city
would touch him. He couldn’t get employed as a dog walker. Within six months, he had lost his business, his home,
his reputation. He had been the stud of that part of the city, but that blow knocked him out of the running. Everyone
with a grudge, every trick he’d pissed off, kicked him when he was down. He was the world’s punching bag. No
more top dog. Tricks wanted him to bottom for them.”
“But… that’s awful! Why… you’d think the community would support him!”
“If he’d won, maybe. But he’d lost. People were angry, they needed a target. Couldn’t target Stockwell and the
police, too powerful. So…”
“But that’s just not right!”
Brian chuckled humorlessly. “That is life, though. But his friends stuck by him. More or less. He was sleeping on
Mikey and his husband’s couch when he woke up one morning and said, ‘I’m getting the fuck out of here.’ And
went on line, looking for any job he could escape into, hopefully something involving travel to exotic locations,
anything to escape, since whiskey and self-pity just wasn’t cutting it anymore.”
“I can’t see you the self-pitying type.”
“Who said this is about me?” Brian’s voice was soft, and Justin stared down at him. He’d known Brian for less than
two months, but everything about him radiated control, and power. He couldn’t imagine how frustrated he must
have been to find himself so abruptly out of a position of control. And to end up on Ethan’s yacht…
“I’m sorry, Brian.” Justin finally said, stroking the other man’s cheek.
Brian’s eyes opened, and he looked up. “What? Why?”
“I said I’m sorry. After all that… you did everything in your power to do the right thing, to protect your friends and
yourself. To protect your community. And got kicked in the nuts for it. So you decided to take a break and regroup,
and met me. I had to be the most…” Justin trailed off, his hands falling away from Brian’s body.
Brian sat up, and took Justin’s hand; it was balled up, on the ground at his side. “You didn’t know me, Justin. You
have nothing to be sorry for. Those were all my decisions. My problems.”
“Yeah, but that’s precisely the point, I *didn’t* know you,” Justin replied, angry with himself. Man, he’d known he
had been a shit, but how much of one… “So it’s even worse that I treat someone I don’t know like shit, without any
consideration at all for what their story might be. Like they’re objects. To just play with for amusement, without any
sense of them as human beings, just objects for personal use. I really am my father’s son.” He looked away,
clenching his jaw, his lips firmly shut between his teeth.
Brian grabbed his jaw, turned him to face him. “Look, so we misjudged each other. And you are not like that,
anyway, not here. We were both going through a bad point when I came on board.”
“But it’s not just you. You really care about your friends. I don’t really have friends. I mean, I had party buddies,
like those people on the yacht. It’s not that I don’t have anyone who cares about me, I’ve never really cared about
anyone else. Never cared *for* anyone else. Care, like, an action. You know? I wonder how many other people I’ve
hurt by being such an asshole, not even thinking…”
“You can’t change that, don’t think about the past. Listen to me, Justin, you can move in another direction in the
future. Take this as an opportunity to change yourself, if that’s what you want.”
“Oh, god, so this whole lost at sea thing is a life lesson from the powers that be?”
“If you don’t learn from the things that suck, what’s the point of trying to move past them? Why not just roll over
and die?”
“What did you learn from Stockwell, Brian?”
“I learned,” Brian answered him, “That taking a stand for what you believe in may get you fucked, and not in the
healthy, life affirming way, but it makes you understand your own humanity. It makes you understand who your
friends are. And it makes you understand what’s really important.”
“Then why’d you run?”
“Maybe I needed to just get away from it all with beautiful blonde boy ass.”
“Like you’re god and planned this.”
“Hardly god. What god runs away?”
“What if god was one of us?”
But Justin was laughing at him, as Brian intended. And then Justin had stopped laughing, and turned that small smile
onto him.
“What?”
“You really are beautiful.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Now I know you’re an ad man,” Justin answered, moving forward to kiss him, pressing feather-light touches down
his body, “you’ve been tossing clichés at me until something works.” And he licked Brian’s waist, right over the hip
where he had a major erogenous zone, and talk was done for the night.
The next morning was day fifty-two. When Brian woke up, he had stopped counting.
So it was probably somewhere around two months they’d been washed up on shore, the day Brian was whittling his
little stick out of his bigger stick, sitting on the beach, watching the horizon through pure habit. Somewhere on day
fifty-two, he realized, he had relaxed. He had lost the tension in needing a ship to appear. Whatever. However long.
He had never felt this way before. Relaxed. Letting himself just float. Go with the flow. A big… okay. I can just be.
And Justin. It was… well, weird that he never got bored with him. Probably the tension of not being able to actually
fuck that kept the interest up. Among other things. They’d explored ways to prolong sex, and they both became
experts at the perfect erotic massage of the other. Lasting forever, not that time mattered. Starting at the scalp,
moving all the way down to the toes, teasing every erogenous zone on the way, coming back, each attentive touch a
little less teasing as the massage deepened, taking forever to reach the most sensitive areas… after these marathon
sessions of foreplay, at the end of which muscles were turned jelly, every cell having individually reached its own
height of erotic pleasure, spread out, bodies lying against, on, under each other, reaching to penetrate as they could,
to stroke each other to the final peak in an unbelievable series of them…
Or quick, swimming and suddenly a mouth from under the water surrounding the cock and bringing to sudden, hard,
quick release, on waking, or even just on walking, to turn and see that look, and just on each other…
Innumerable possibilities. Everything except that one act.
Yeah. Bored? Not even close.
And yeah. He yearned. He yearned to bury his cock up that perfect ass, to push into the body writhing beneath him,
to feel the surrounding warmth and the gasp of desire and fulfillment, to fill Justin with himself, to watch the body
under his shudder, to hear him beg for more, more, more…
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, no matter how many times he told himself not to go there, he just couldn’t help it. He
focused his gaze, away from the stick and on the horizon, on the greyish shadow of a ship that was cresting the edge
where water blended to sky.
Uh.
Ship.
Holy fuck.
Holy fuck.
“Holy fuck!” he yelled, jumping up, running to the banked embers of the fire that they never let go out, that glowed
in front of their little shelter. He thrust a waiting stick into the embers, muttering, “come on come on come on come
on” until it caught, then running down the beach, to the small rise where they’d built the bonfire. The engine with
the gasoline was gone from the shelter, that meant Justin had to have seen the ship, and would meet him there.
They’d discussed this.
He got to the huge pile of sticks. Justin indeed was there. But he hadn’t tossed the gasoline onto the wood they’d
built up. He was just toying with the fuel tank cap.
“You saw it, right! Well!” He waited. Justin just looked out at the ocean, then down at the engine. But not at him.
That’s when he realized something was wrong.
“Justin. There’s a ship. It might go away. We haven’t seen one in all this time. Throw the gasoline on the fire.”
“You sure you want to go back?”
Justin looked at him, then, and Brian felt… well, his own excitement died down, quickly.
“We’ll get our lives back.”
“But…” Justin looked back. “What if I don’t want mine back?”
Oh, hell. “It’s not going to be the same life. Change it, if you want.”
“I don’t know if it’s going to be that easy.”
“Nothing is.” Brian tried to keep his impatience in check, not terribly successfully. “But you can do whatever you
want.”
“I want you. And here, I have you. And… and, I have myself. I’m good at this. I don’t know… I don’t know if I’m
good at anything back there.”
Brian moved over to him, keeping the burning stick well out of the way. He stroked his cheek. “You are good here.
But we have to go back.”
Justin looked away.
“Justin, I really need a drink. I have for a while.”
Nothing.
Okay, wrong tactic. “Soap, Justin, we’ll get this stink off us.”
“You like the way I smell.”
Couldn’t argue that. Okay… big guns time. “Justin. There are condoms on that ship.”
Justin looked up swiftly. He huffed, once. Then he shook his head, grimaced, and grinned over at Brian. “I’m kind
of being a twat, aren’t I?”
“Only if you choose to. Now cut it out, and pour.”
Justin yanked open the fuel cap, and dumped half of it on the stack of wood. Brian kissed him hard, and asked, “Tail
ready, puppy?”
“Woof!” Justin replied with a grin, and Brian threw the burning stick onto the woodpile. It became a bonfire with a
whoosh.
Chapter 8
Justin spoke perfect Italian to the boat hands who had come to retrieve them, and bit his lip at their reply.
“Justin?” Brian asked.
“Yeah. It’s Countess Gemini’s yacht.”
“You know her?”
“Sort of.”
Sort of. When they climbed on board, they were greeted by a tiny whirlwind of a woman, silk scarves billowing
about her. There was a small gathering of six people looking up from their positions on the deck chairs behind her.
The sailors had merely climbed back on board, and went about their business.
“Justin!!” She launched into rapid Italian, but Justin held her off as she would move to embrace him.
“No, I’m filthy, please don’t. Maria, this is my friend and fellow strandee, Brian Kinney.”
“Ah…” She turned her large black eyes on him, glancing up and down, a small smile. “What are you… No, no, it is
enough. The rumors were you had run off together! What, to a deserted island?”
Brian quirked up an eyebrow, as Justin looked confused. “What? No… no, we were on our way onshore when the
boat threw a blade and we drifted for days, ending up here. Thank god you came by.”
“Threw a blade…” The woman looked puzzled.
“The engine broke,” Brian supplied, “in the middle of the ocean.”
“Ah… well. Hm. This is indeed strange. We thought… well, never mind!” She turned back to her friends, who had
all straightened, unsure what the protocol was for greeting strangers who had just been rescued. “Roman! Come
here.” A tall man, probably Brian’s size, stood. “This is my friend, Roman Gregorov, Roman, my friend Justin and
his friend, Brian.” They all nodded at each other. “Formal introductions after you clean up, I’m sure you’d like that,
no?”
“God, yeah,” Justin replied, as Brian watched Roman size him up.
“Roman, you are about Brian’s size, no? Can you volunteer some clothes? and supplies for toilette?”
“I think I’d kill for good conditioner right now,” Brian smiled, thinking of hot water.
“I’m about your size,” someone else called. Justin turned to look at a young woman, who grinned at him. “Sorry
bout the gender, but my stuff’s basically unisex. If you don’t mind?”
Justin laughed. “Yeah, hardly. Anything for a change of clothes…”
“Christina,” the girl supplied. She stood gracefully. “I’ll go grab some stuff for you. Meet you below.” She walked
off.
Justin glanced over at Brian. Maria saw the direction of his glance, and said to Roman, “Show them the empty
cabin. Justin, you can use Christina’s bath? You’ll have to share the other room, d’accord?” And she turned to
Justin, saying something else, this time in French.
Justin turned bright red, hesitated, then grinned and shrugged.
“Hm…” Maria looked Brian up and down. “Take as long as you need. I understand, such an ordeal… We’ll be here
when you’re feeling social again.”
Then she moved to rejoin her friends.
“What was that all about?” Brian asked as they followed Roman into the lower portion of the yacht.
Justin shrugged. “I don’t think anyone else there speaks French, she was giving me some privacy to ask if it was
okay we had to share space after being forced together for so long.”
“Bullshit. She wanted to know if we were fucking each other.”
Roman faltered in a step, but recovered his balance almost perfectly. Brian noticed.
“So. Just a shrug?”
Justin looked at him. Before he could reply, Roman interrupted. “Here’s the cabin. Go right in, I’ll bring you razors,
soap, whatever. Be right back.”
“Hey, Justin, down here!” Christina called, sticking her head out of the doorway.
Brian was still staring at Justin, waiting.
“Later,” Justin told him, and walked away to where the girl was beckoning him.
Roman left Brian in the cabin, but returned scant minutes later as Brian was waiting for the water in the shower to
heat. He was loaded down with shaving supplies, shampoo and conditioner, soap, a comb, towel, skin lotion, even a
new toothbrush and toothpaste. He dumped that, along with a pair of black pants and a white shirt on the bed.
“You look like an Armani man,” he grinned, gesturing at the clothes.
“How’d you know?” Brian answered, moving to the bed, and examining the label. “One size smaller than my
usual… but I’ve probably lost weight.”
“You look…” Brian glanced up, caught the appreciative once-over, “…healthy. You need anything more…”
“Condoms.”
“What?” Roman caught himself in mid-stride, turned back. He was not sure he’d heard properly.
“I need at least three condoms. I’d like about twenty. Three will do, for now. You got any?”
“Uh…”
“Not for you,” Brian smirked.
The man actually blushed, but then shrugged, and nodded his understanding, smirked a bit in return, even. “Ah.
Desert islands are not exactly convenient.”
“You have no idea.”
“Just a moment, then. I’ll leave them out here if you’re in the shower.”
Brian would ask him to be discreet, but he figured it wasn’t worth wasting his breath. He didn’t care if the entire
boat knew, he planned to have Justin screaming his name in less than an hour anyway. The rest of the people on
board could get their own rocks off; his had waited way too long.
“Hey, Brian, you want…” Justin stopped, just inside the door, and stared. Brian returned the intent gaze.
Both cleaned up. They had forgotten the impact the other man could have. Or maybe they just hadn’t looked at each
other through the fully appreciative eyes of the lover before, back on the yacht — but the moment suspended, as
they drank the other in.
Brian was the first to speak. “Come in. Shut the door.” He turned from the tiny closet, where he had actually been
about to fold the filthy clothes he’d been wearing all this time. Hearing Justin’s voice, he’d let them drop on the
floor. He slid the closet door shut.
But Justin didn’t move for a moment. He was too busy sweeping his gaze up Brian’s black pants, the white shirt
open at the throat, the sleeves rolled back, the freshly shampooed hair, the skin of the jawline smooth from a real
gelled-up shave…
Hearing Brian’s chuckle, he shook himself, casting his eyes around the room, anywhere but on the knowing look in
Brian’s eyes, and stepped into the room, leaving the door open. “Uh… Christina let me know they usually have
cocktails topside around five, that’s around now… bet you’d love a drink, I sure… uh …” As he spoke, Brian had
reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a familiar flat, foil-wrapped object. He held it between his thumb
and forefinger, and flicked it. Justin stared at the object in Brian’s hand, then finally up into his eyes. Brian cocked
an eyebrow. “Close the door.”
His mouth suddenly dry, he complied.
“Come here.”
He walked over to Brian, his stomach feeling as if it would rush up and out of his mouth any moment. He reached a
few feet from where Brian stood.
“Justin.”
Justin snapped his gaze up, from where it had drifted to the muscle cords in Brian’s neck. He could see the pulse
beating, hard, in the indent at the base of his throat. That made him feel better. Slightly.
“Is something the matter?” Brian asked softly.
“Um, uh, I seem to be unbelievably nervous, and I don’t know why,” Justin answered, cringing as he heard the
words come out of his mouth. But before he could say anything more, fix that, he felt his mouth crushed beneath
Brian’s, Brian, who had swooped down to kiss, nip, bite at his lips until he gasped, Brian taking advantage of their
opening to reach into his mouth with his tongue, Brian demanding a response as Justin was swept up against him
and into him, and curled his own tongue upward into the relentless, rhythmic stroking, as Brian fucked him with his
mouth, in a promise of what was to come. Coming, now. No cocktails, screw the cocktails. Fucking, now. Need,
need and desire, unleashed, knowing they did not need to stop, and now Brian, unable to wait, not allowing any
compunction over the fact that they were on board with a bunch of strangers, not allowing something as trivial as
that to get in their way, nothing, clearly, was about to get in the way of this, this urgency, this now. Justin found
himself borne backward with Brian onto the bed, into Brian’s lap, Brian’s hands at his waist, forcing him to straddle
the other man’s hips and brace himself with his hands on Brian’s shoulders.
“Nervousness? from the guy who woke me up sucking on my dick,” Brian chuckled, before moving his mouth to
Justin’s neckline, putting his hands under the cream cable-knit cotton sweater, and drawing it over Justin’s head. His
mouth moved to the bared collarbone, traced it from one end to the other, alternating nips and licks, his arms moving
fully around Justin’s waist and pulling their bodies flush up against each other. Pure sensation where his mouth
touched, shot straight to the juncture at Justin’s thighs, sparks firing, and Justin arched back as his hips rocked
forward, okay okay, forget the drinks, mouth quite happy with this, his aching hard-on was quite happy with rubbing
up against Brian’s strong thigh, nestled between his legs. He heard a strange mewling noise, realized it was coming
from himself.
And then he was flat on his back on the bed, the black draw-string pants he had just put on pulled off, Brian’s weight
disappearing to be replaced by the sudden mouth engulfing his dick, moving lower, and Justin gasped, arched as that
long tongue delved deep into him, strong, brown hands encircling his cock, touching, stroking, pulling, all for the
preliminaries as Brian’s mouth left him… right now, just too much need for release, this was it, finally, finally,
touching in the most intimate way, Justin knew this was all the foreplay there would be, the urgency was too great,
the need too immediate. Wetness left in the wake of Brian’s mouth as he rose to his knees, yanked his pants open,
his cock surging out. One tear of foil, one condom was rolled on.
“Clothes,” Justin panted, his hands moving to frantically begin unbuttoning Brian’s shirt, managing to push it off his
shoulders but only to his elbows, as Brian failed to cooperate, too busy spreading Justin’s legs, placing his calves
over his shoulders, then moving into position, pulling Justin’s ass up and toward him, exposing the smaller body to
his need to have him, now. Justin felt the tip of Brian’s dick at the point of entrance to his body, and a frission,
electric, raced through him.
“Can’t wait,” Brian muttered, and he pushed forward. “Sorry, it’s lubricated, best I could do… Fuck… you’re
tight… So fucking tight…”
“Oh, god,” was all Justin could muster in response, “good… god…” Felt the fullness of Brian’s entrance, the
exquisite pain on the heels of the exquisite pleasure, and he shut his eyes, so damn good, but, but, just a second…
Brian’s second thrust forward, so hard on the heels of the first, buried Brian more fully within him, so full, too
much… he couldn’t stop the hiss of indrawn breath as his whole body tensed.
Brian stopped at that sound, and with an effort, he opened his eyes, looked down at the young man beneath him,
whose eyes were squeezed shut. “Fuck, Justin, I forgot, you’re not really a bottom.”
“I am now,” Justin answered, his eyes remaining closed.
Brian chuffed a laugh, and held his body still, even as the nerves in his legs and dick screamed for movement, hips
twitching with the effort not to push forward again, immediately. He somehow resisted their demand, resisted the
urge to bury himself completely, to collapse on the body beneath his and tear into it like a wild animal. He moved
slightly backwards, shifting his weight from Justin’s legs, and moved the hand that had been clutching at Justin’s
hair back, to stroke the calves, knees, thighs that slowly relaxed under his touch, turning his head to kiss the side of a
knee, his other hand moving to pet Justin’s stomach, before trailing his forefinger over the tip of the dick beneath
him, his palm opening, slowly stroking the velvety hardness… gentling him, waiting…
Justin didn’t open his eyes, but Brian could tell the moment he relaxed, the large intake and release of breath that
accompanied the back’s bowing forward to move the lower body closer, the urge for pleasure outweighing the pain.
Under his hand, Brian felt the accompanying surge of blood as the sex urge rose to the fore at the masterful touch.
Justin’s eyelids finally drifted up; he met Brian’s gaze, and smiled.
“Okay?” Brian asked.
“Fuck, Brian, just shut up and fuck me…”
So long, so long, he had waited for this for so long, he did not want to cause pain and that had kept him in check, but
on this command, he leaned forward and caught Justin’s lips with his own, sinking down, hard, in a final, sweet push
that brought him flush up against the beautiful body finally opening, finally accessible, beneath his. He pulled
Justin’s hands from finishing with the last button on the shirt which hung open to his waist, and anchored Justin’s
hands above his head, intertwining the fingers with his own. He didn’t think he could stop again, and Justin didn’t
ask him to, just took the weight, the friction of Brian’s thrusts into his body, the urge to rub his erection against
Brian’s torso, and no more talking, just the sounds of sex filling the room, until Justin began to chant with the
gathering sensation that began tingling where Brian was a part of him and spread outward, to his thighs, his ass
muscles, tingling in his balls, spreading upward to the tip of his dick, and he chanted, “Brian… Brian… Brian…
Brian, oh, god, Brian, Brian, oh god… oh… god…” and then that odd whimpering noise again, his thigh muscles
slackening as the wave of sensation gathered itself and temporarily shut down any higher control over his body.
Brian took advantage of this fully helpless state through which Justin’s orgasm gathered itself, to pull back and with
a final deep rut lodged himself in as far as allowed. Calves clamped down against his shoulder muscles; with a series
of gasps and a strangled final holding of breath ending in a harsh, drawn-out, guttural groan, Justin came hard. Brian
rode the pulsations clenching at him, Justin’s orgasm providing the final stimulation to trigger his own, and he
moaned, low in his chest, his back arching, shooting release. He held that position for a very long time, until he felt
Justin’s legs slide down to his waist. Then he lowered himself to lay his head against Justin’s chest, hearing the
rapid heart rate begin to slow. Justin’s legs fell further, to wrap around his.
“I can move,” Brian whispered.
“I don’t want you to,” Justin replied.
Silence, while they lay against each other.
Justin finally broke into the quiet. “I think we’re going to have to shower again.”
“But then we’ll only get dirty again.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, in, like, one minute…”
“Isn’t it kind of rude to stay down here and fuck before we’ve even met everyone?”
“It’s rude to deprive my dick for two months. Besides, Roman can give our excuses.”
“What? Why?” Justin was quickly leaving the post-sex haze with the mention of this, but Brian would have none of
that. He leaned down, captured Justin’s lips, undid the last button of his shirt and shrugged out of it, tossing it to the
side. He lay his naked chest down on Justin’s, and moved his lips to the nearest shoulder, to that spot at the base of
Justin’s neck that drove him crazy. Yup, there it was.
“You’re hard again.”
“Yeah, so are you…” Justin responded, moaning a bit as Brian pulled out of him.
“Mm… yeah.” He took the condom off, tied it off, dropped it in the trash. Then he pulled Justin against him,
drawing him in for a long kiss.
“Thought you,” Justin said when Brian stopped licking, sucking on his mouth, “wanted more…” Brian’s tongue
reached out to trace the line of his upper lip, pulled back, “than once…” Long kiss as said tongue returned to lead
into Justin’s mouth, another long silence but for deeply drawn breaths…
“Hm,” Brian finally said, hands roaming down his back, hips, ass, “Want it to last this time. Had to be inside you…
this time, I want to feel you, all of you, not just my dick in your ass… besides, if I stayed there, I’d blow out that
condom with another load and waiting would have been for nothing.”
“You are so romantic,” Justin replied with a snort.
“Nah, romance would be your dick, my ass.” He saw Justin’s eyes light up. “In your dreams, puppy.”
Justin wasn’t going to push, not with Brian’s hands lazily roaming everywhere. Well, not at the moment.
Chapter 9
“So,” the Countess Gemini said, waving a drink in Justin’s direction. “The rumors were almost right. You did take
off on some wild illicit sex romp, it’s just that it was incidental, not intentional.”
Brian could have picked the woman up and dumped her over the side and into the ocean for her complete lack of
tact. And her characterization… He stole a look at Justin, expecting to see complete mortification spreading across
his lover’s transparent features, but Justin’s only response was a frozen smile. “Really, Maria, it wasn’t like that.”
Brian rattled the ice cubes at the bottom of his whiskey, wondering why Justin’s response made his stomach clench.
It was close to what Brian himself had been thinking, after all. He had thought there’d be a different response from
Justin. That was all.
“Ah, well, what was it like?”
“None of your goddamned business,” Brian snapped, gaining the gaze of the other five people still on deck at this
late hour. “And if everyone was so concerned about what we were doing with each other, why wasn’t anyone
looking for us?”
Roman jumped into the conversation at that point, distracting Brian from Maria’s shrug. “Actually, Ethan inquired,
and one of his hands, Andy? told him that Justin had left a message that you and Justin had decided to part company
with the yacht. Your clothes were gone, Justin’s things were gone…”
“My things were… gone? What do you mean?” Justin asked.
Maria answered. “Who knows? Ethan just said your things were gone. Passports, all of Brian’s clothes and his…”
She floundered.
“Duffel bag,” Roman grinned, reaching over and patting her hand.
“Hm, yes. That,” Maria answered. “Anyway, Ethan will be meeting us at Marseilles. We called him to let him know
we had found you, while you were, occupied, earlier this afternoon. He was a bit, hm, upset when you’d
disappeared, so I wanted to let him know it was not intentional.”
“So he’s meeting us in Marseilles?”
“Oh, yes!” That tinkling laugh from the woman, was really starting to grate on Brian’s nerves. “He feels terrible that
he misunderstood the situation.”
“Misunderstood? Maybe he should feel bad that he’d listened to a homophobic deck hand whom I’d just threatened
that afternoon after he’d raged about the faggots on board,” Brian bit out, drawing the startled looks of the others.
“Let me guess. The ever so helpful Andy disappeared at the next port. Probably with all of my stuff, and Justin’s.”
In response, a shrug. “Oh, people come, people go, I don’t know what happened to that man…”
“And there are always replacements to pick up the slack,” Brian laughed bitterly. He glanced over at Justin, who had
turned, and was moving off, down the deck, trailing his hand along the rail, to stop a ways off, where the shadows of
the night concealed his expression. The wind was blowing through his hair, pushing it into his face, further
obscuring the features Brian couldn’t make out from this distance. He stood, and walked over, to join the other man
at the rail, while the conversation, after a startled silence, picked up, fading behind him. He could just imagine,
behind his back, Maria’s Gaelic shrug. People come, they go, they snark, there are always others to replace the one
who stomps off… Great friends you got, Justin, he thought. He reached out with a hand, pushing Justin’s hair off his
forehead so he could see his face. “What’s wrong?” he asked in a low voice.
Justin glanced over briefly, and smiled half-heartedly. “Oh… nothing.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been acting weird since we got on board.”
“Weird… oh. Well. I’m fine. Really.” The gaze moved out across the water, again.
Brian caught his chin, looked at him. “No, you aren’t. Is it Ethan?”
Justin looked away.
Well, Brian thought. Here it comes. He should have known… he should have known. When they were on the island,
Justin needed him. They’d worked out that truce… but the conditions requiring the truce were over. And they were
back in the real world. Time to face that little fact. “Looking forward to going back to your lover?” Brian taunted
softly. He couldn’t seem to help himself, knowing this sign of jealousy was stupid. Really stupid. For one, he didn’t
do jealous. For another… well, it wasn’t like he and Justin were going to stay together. The island was one thing.
This was the real world. The truce was over. They had moved East of Eden. He knew all this. He knew it.
“Yeah…” Justin replied, leaning against Brian’s body. Brian stiffened, completely thrown off by the mixed signals
between the touch and the affirmative response. Feeling his reaction, Justin turned a startled glance upward, then
laughed slightly. “Oh! You mean… No, no, Brian, I’m not looking forward to seeing Ethan, I meant I’m looking
forward to going back with you. I’m… fuck, this is so hard.”
Brian had relaxed, and he moved his hand onto Justin’s neck, stretching his fingers to curl into the hair at his nape,
so soft and silky with its recent washing. Damn, he felt he couldn’t get enough of that. “Yeah, it’s hard,” he
murmured, pressing his leg against Justin’s. He didn’t want to address Justin’s little fantasy of their staying together.
“No, Brian,” Justin continued, pulling back slightly. “I mean… it’s just, I feel so weird. Roman’s Ethan’s godfather.
He and Maria, they’re, well, kind of together…”
One eyebrow raised at that. “Really? My instinct must be really off, I didn’t realize we were away that long.”
Justin smiled. “No, he’s bi. So your instinct’s still working. She’s married… not to him. They just get together on
these vacations…” Justin shook his head, as if to stop himself from rambling. “The point is, they both know Ethan.
And they know about me with Ethan. I mean, that Ethan wanted me, and I acted like a complete asshole to him. And
then showing up in thrall of someone else… even if it didn’t start out that way. The reason no one came looking for
me, for us, was because they thought I actually would just disappear with another man to fuck, on a whim.”
“And that bothers you?”
“Yeah, that bothers me. Mostly because it’s accurate. I mean, I really acted… well, pretty bad.” He dropped his
gaze, somewhere around Brian’s chest.
Brian studied him, unsure of how to respond. His hand massaged the skull underneath his fingers, and finally he
said, “What do you care? With all that money, you can tell them all to fuck off.”
Justin’s eyes swiftly flew to Brian’s face. “It has nothing to do with the money. It’s just… I suddenly don’t know
who I am. Or even, who I was. And that fucking terrifies me. Especially since it’s being played out in front of an
audience.” You, he thought, but he didn’t say that. He felt raw enough, far too open, too vulnerable. The defenses
he’d had to this point were stripped away; they had been stripped on the island, but on the island, that hadn’t
mattered. Here, back in the real world, was where the danger lay. He felt like an open wound, far too exposed to any
attack. Before, it hadn’t mattered; all of his defenses had rallied to repulse any pain from without. Suddenly, they
were gone, and he was caught out in the face of a brave new world, in the open, exposed to the mercy of the
tempest.
Oh, shit, Brian thought. He dropped his hand from where it had moved to caress Justin’s neckline. Despite the
psychological bullshit he’d impressed Justin with on the island, he was not equipped to deal with this. And hell, he
wasn’t going to be this kid’s counselor. No, uh uh. He had enough problems of his own. So he probably could have
softened his response, but oh well. “Don’t worry there, puppy, a couple weeks in a penthouse apartment in New
York, and you’ll be back to feeling your oats in no time.”
But Justin did not pick up the bantering tone. “You think… You really I’m going to do that? Go back to what I was
like before? Act like none of this happened?”
As he stared down into the wide eyes gazing up at him in incredulity, Brian thought of his ongoing impression, that
this was one kid who knew how to take care of himself. Master of the game, Brian thought. Now that we’re back in
the real world… Well. Well, yeah, that’s exactly what he’d figured. Still, something in that expression appealed to
him, made his chest tighten. Maybe he was wrong. Shit. There it was again. Hope… He had learned what happened
when you allowed hope into the battle with realistic expectations. The world ends up kicking you in the ass. Still…
fuck.
So he chose his next words more carefully. “No, I think it’s just… we were somewhere strange. And now we’re
back in the real world. And I think you’re still feeling the effects of that strangeness. But that’ll fade. In time.”
Justin was silent for a moment. Then he said, “So you think I’m just gonna turn right back into that little dick I was
on Ethan’s yacht?”
“You’ll never be a little dick.” He caught Justin’s glare, and sighed. “Oh, hell, how the hell do I know? I don’t
know. What I do know, is money is important. You might not go back to being that little shit totally, but yeah, you’ll
relax into the privilege all your money gives you. Why shouldn’t you? But… look, there’s nothing wrong with that.
But… yeah, I think you’d go back to your comfort zone. Money is everything, power, privilege. You can’t just give
all that up, it comes with the kind of privilege you have.”
“But…” Justin hesitated, then squared his shoulders, turning fully to face Brian. “The money’s not important. You
are. This… this, what I am when I’m with you.”
Brian stared at him. Then his eyes darkened. “It’s not that simple, Justin.” He held up a hand as Justin started to
speak. “We’re not on the island anymore. You have to be realistic. Romantic fairy tales don’t survive out here.”
“Because of the money,” Justin sighed.
“Things are different here. We’re different.”
“So you don’t think this is me? Who I am, now? Who you are to me?”
Brian grew impatient. “What, are you going to set me up in your private penthouse suite? Gonna set me up in a
cushy job at one of Daddy’s companies? Could you really respect me? Shit, I wouldn’t respect myself. I’m not going
to be your lapdog, Justin.”
Unfortunate choice of words. Justin choked out, “Puppy… that’s why you still call me that, to remind yourself. Not
that I crawled for food at your command, but to remind yourself of who I am, what I represent. All that unearned
money. All my father’s money. You can’t respect me, and you think I don’t have the character to overcome it.” He
laughed, bitterly. “And you know, there’s absolutely no reason you should think so.”
Brian stared at him, not saying anything, just stared as Justin studied his face, looking for something. The younger
man seemed about to say something, then his lips clamped together and he shook his head. The dismay over his face
hardened into something else, some decision, but he didn’t say anything.
Brian didn’t ask. The situation was what it was. “There’s nothing to overcome,” Brian said softly. “You’re lucky
you’re as fortunate as you are. But we live very different lives…”
“And I’d use my money to make you my lapdog. Or you couldn’t respect my character, which you assume will just
slide back into decadence, weak as it is…”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s all I’m saying,” Brian cut him off, sensing a rant on the way.
“It was all a lie?” Justin whispered, looking back out to the ocean. “There was nothing to any of it?”
Brian turned him back toward him, pulling his body against his. “There’s this,” he ground out, before he crushed
Justin’s lips under his own.
Again, the oh so familiar touch, as he arched his back into Brian’s caress once they’d reached their cabin, actually
managing to separate long enough to make their way below. Those beautiful lips molded to the skin of his clavicle,
moving down, the tongue playing out to catch a nipple, moving down to trace the bare trail of hair pointing a line
straight to his dick, standing at attention, waiting. He doesn’t believe in me, Justin thought, watching Brian’s head
lift up, nudging his cheek against Justin’s cock as he nipped and then sucked on his hip. Justin shifted, pushing
toward Brian’s mouth. The answering laugh was low, rumbled against Justin’s thighs, and he felt a warmth that was
more than physical flood him at the sound. Fuck, he thought. I’m in love with him, and he doesn’t have any faith in
me, none at all. He felt tight all over, wound up for sexual release, wound up and needing emotional release even
more. The latter wouldn’t come, not tonight, he knew, even as the first was assured as Brian’s mouth opened to
swallow the head of his straining cock, moving his firm tongue down the shaft, eliciting a gasp as Justin’s thighs
flexed in response, raising him slightly off the bed before settling back on the sheets to just absorb the attention.
They would be at port in Marseilles sometime soon, later this week, and then… no more of this. And he’ll let me go,
back to the little shit he’s sure I’m going to return to, no, is sure I never really stopped being, only took a vacation
from. And there’s nothing I can do to but tell him it’s different. That I’m different. But that’s just words, anything I
say. And there’s no reason to believe me. There’s no reason anyone should believe me.
“Brian…” he whispered, unable to say more, and the other man looked up at him, paused at what he saw, and gently
nudged Justin onto his stomach. Justin raised himself onto his knees, gripping the pillow tight under his head,
expecting to hear the sound of a condom wrapper ripping open, but instead jumped slightly at the firm touch of
Brian’s tongue, his hands cupping his ass to still Justin’s initial surprised movement away.
“Sh… hold still…” and Brian’s mouth moved down to capture one of his balls, sucking on it, suckling for a
moment, before turning to the other, then back up, licking upward, nipping on each cheek before moving between
them. Justin’s body trembled with the effort to stay still under the physical need coursing through him, singing along
his nerves to the place where Brian’s tongue touched him, probed within, lingered, pushed, prepared Justin’s body
for what was to come. And then lips kissed their way up Justin’s spine, to his shoulders, “Making you wet, opening
you up, ready for me…” For a moment, Brian’s body lifted from his, and now he heard the welcome tearing sound,
then the hard body descending to cover his back, “Just like this, on your hands and knees, you’re ready to take me,
aren’t you, Justin?”
“God… yeah…” Justin breathed back, spreading his legs wider as he felt Brian’s hard member rub against his inner
thigh.
“You’re ready for me to fuck you, open to take me, my body touching every inch of your skin…” Brian’s hands lay
themselves over Justin’s, entwining his fingers through the younger man’s. Brian’s face came down, burying itself
in Justin’s hair, at his neck. “My dick is so full, so hard, can you feel it? god, you’re so…”
Fuck, could he feel it… Brian shifted his hips, the top of his cock moving to press itself into the opening in Justin’s
body, and Justin relaxed his muscles, wanting, needing more than just the pressure from without, needed to feel the
hard presence from within…
“I’m so heavy with my need to fuck you, to fill you up, to be deep inside you…” the rasping whisper in his ear as
Brian pressed into him, so fucking slowly that he began to whimper in protest and push back, eliciting the beautiful
sound of amusement from the man over him as Brian moved his left hand to Justin’s hip, slowing him. “Sh… slow
down, puppy, we have all night, I want you to remember this, I want you to remember how fucking me feels…” And
that “puppy” sounded like a caress instead of the damning reminder of who he was, who he wasn’t to this beautiful
man. He cried out as Brian thrust forward, moving deep within his body. God, I love you, Justin thought, and the
thought echoed so strongly through his consciousness that he froze for just a moment, sure he had spoken the words
aloud, terrified he had let slip, that his admission would make only too clear how he had been penetrated by far more
than the mere physical presence of his lover within him, that Brian would recoil from the raw need the words
revealed. But he had not spoken aloud, thank god; Brian continued to surge into him without pause, his arms
gathering Justin’s body to brace him, holding him in place, and Justin surrendered himself to the feeling, to
remembering, vowing to himself before the physical sensation took over completely, that he would find a way to
prove the words he could not speak, should not have to speak. He would find a way. And then the sensation began
gathering deep within him, forcing all thoughts away, and he surrendered himself to this moment, this moment of
being taken by the man he loved.
Chapter 10
One year later:
Brian swiveled his chair around, and looked out of the big office window behind his desk. Mid-town. Manhattan.
New York fuckin’ City. He was indulging himself, he knew, what with the presentation he had to give in twenty
minutes, but what the hell. The deep breath, good to give his brain a breather before gathering it in force.
“Hey, Brian.”
He swiveled around, looked back at John Connely, who stood, leaning against the side of the doorway.
“You ready to go?”
Brian glanced at his watch, then printed out a last chart to serve as a reminder, not that he’d need it, but he could
glance at the breakdowns he already had committed to working memory in the moments before the clients were
shown into the conference room. He looked up at John, grabbed the material he needed. “Yup, let’s go.”
He followed John down to the smaller conference room, where they would be meeting with the five executives from
Seton’s, the jewelry chain, and glanced across the wide shoulders in front of him. He laughed at himself slightly,
shaking his head. Too bad the guy was hetero. Yeah, he’d fuck him if he had a chance, if only as a thank-you.
He’d been back in the States less than a week after that whole fucked up misadventure last year, when John had
called him.
“Hey, Brian!” the voice had come through his cell, the one that still carried the Kinnetik number. He had no idea
why he hadn’t thrown the thing in the trash. He hadn’t even remembered he’d had it, not really. Not until the damn
thing started ringing from out of a pile of clothes still stacked to the side of Mikey’s living room.
“Who the fuck is this?” he’d barked. Yeah, charming as ever.
The man on the other end hadn’t been deterred, had only chuckled. “Charming as ever, Kinney. It’s John Connely.”
Yeah, fucking John Connely. Big rival, back in the day. A rivalry that stretched back to college. John had gone to
work at one of those big firms in New York. And Brian had battled him for accounts, off and on, through the years,
usually winning. But not always. So what the hell. “And?” Fuck if he knew why he hadn’t hung up immediately.
Maybe it was his hangover; he didn’t have the energy. His eyes fell on the paper, Page Six of the Post, which he’d
brought with him from New York, littering the floor next to the couch with the empty bottle of whisky. The report
on Justin Taylor, son of scion Craig, arriving in New York with Ethan Gold, violinist extraordinaire, after being lost
at sea with deckhand Brian Kinney. See photo. The beaming Gold, the small smile on Justin’s face, Brian long gone.
Yeah, he’d missed that little reunion, he could only imagine. Justin still with Gold, all the way back to New York
from France. Just like a little cat, always landing on his feet, cat, uh huh, he sure could rub up to the warmest lap…
nope, nope, Brian wasn’t going there. The kid was taking care of himself, couldn’t begrudge him that, now could
he? But such a waste… Arm candy for a violinist. That’s fucking great. And it was. Great. Fuck it, it was Justin’s
life.
They’d gotten to port the night before Ethan had shown up. At least, Brian assumed Gold had arrived the next
morning. Brian himself had slipped out of bed before the sun was even up, falling away from that warm body, the
body whose photograph now stared up at him from the floor, that smile. On his way off the yacht that night, as the
morning’s first tentative light announced the coming day, Brian had taken the cell phone that had been left on deck
along with a shitload of euros, hell, they’d never be missed, and wasn’t he owed a huge amount of back wages
anyway? He’d called Michael from the platform of the train that would take him to Paris. Michael, who hadn’t even
realized he’d been well and truly lost for weeks, just hoping he’d turn up eventually. Well, what did Brian expect
after that note that had announced his departure on Gold’s yacht, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back in three or four
months…” So Brian was still in the time limit he had allotted Michael to not worry, so why was he so pissed? And
then, after arrangements with the embassy, emergency passport (they already knew who he was because Gold had
kicked up shit in the media — nothing like a long lost lover and media-frenzied reunion to orchestrate a bit of extra
publicity for the release of his latest CD), and he was on a plane back to Pittsburgh, no harm, no foul, safe and
sound, back on Mikey’s couch with a fucking evil hangover and the picture of his… no, no, a picture of Justin
Taylor, son of scion Craig, arriving stateside with his boyfriend, just in time for Gold’s launch party. Looking like a
dream. Fuck, he had been a dream. What a rude awakening, here he was again. On Mikey’s couch, back in the Pitts.
No reason to be pissed. Depressed, sure. No job, no life, nothing had changed, running hadn’t changed anything.
Some extra cash in the bank account; thank god for direct deposit, he’d never had to deal with contacting anyone
about his wages. They’d even paid him for the time entire time he’d been contracted, despite the fact that he’d been
missing for more than half of it. No reason to be pissed that everything he already knew had only been confirmed,
and he’d been an idiot to think “taking a break” would make anything better. He had the money, he’d gotten the
break, that had been the point all along.
He snatched the paper from the floor, and crunched it into his fist. “Yeah, John, I remember.” His voice, weary now,
responding to his old rival.
“So I did some investigating and found out that, indeed, the Brian Kinney of said deserted island castaway fame is
you, not only that, but it seems that you are currently at loose ends.”
“So what, you’re calling to rub it in? Okay, yeah, you win this one, you happy now?”
“No, Brian, shit,” John interrupted, sounding sincerely sorry he’d been so flip, his tone immediately becoming
serious. “No, I asked around through people I know, and found out what really happened to you. Man, that fucking
sucks, and it isn’t right. I’m really sorry that Kinnetik was brought down in what amounts to a witch hunt.”
“That’s life.”
“Yeah, I know how it works, but what the hell, one man’s loss is my gain. I’m hoping you’ll come up to New York
and work with me.”
“What?” Well, that had stopped him, and he quit convulsively flexing his hand around the newspaper in his fist.
“Yeah, there’s an opening you’d be perfect for, I’ve already talked to the guy in charge of hiring for it, I showed him
some of your work, and it’s pretty clear he’s impressed. Plus, I’m in on whoever gets hired, and I want to work with
you. Keep all the sharks in the tank with me.”
Shit. “Shit, John, what…” fuck, it was way too early for this. He leaned over, put his forehead on the palm of the
hand that was not clutching the phone. “I’m not exactly a shark these days.”
“Oh, pft, you’re having a bad year, it happens. Come to New York, interview here. You think I’m gonna miss the
opportunity to get you on board? Serious, Brian, one man’s poison…”
“Another man’s meat,” Brian completed. “Yeah, I get it. Okay, I’ll be there.”
And here he was.
The presentation went fine, and the clients seemed suitably impressed.
“I’m totally behind this, Brian,” Jake Dryfus, the man who seemed in charge of the Seton three, as Brian was calling
this group, told him. “We’ve got to take this back and pass it up the next step. I’m sure it’s a formality, we’ll let you
know, probably by the end of next week,” Kelly Dryfus told Brian.
“Oh… I’m sorry, I thought you were in charge of making the decision,” he said, confused. This wasn’t like him, to
have missed something in research. More specifically, it wasn’t like Cynthia. His assistant was almost more
thorough than he was. Almost.
“Well…” Jake glanced down the table, saw the two women he was with talking to John, and lowered his voice. “I’m
sorry to have given you that impression, and I know I did when we set this up. The truth is, Seton’s made a deal with
Craig Taylor, Ltd. for installment into his hotel chain, and part of the deal is that all business goes through them
before getting the okay. The micromanaging is driving me crazy, but you know, what do you do?”
Brian felt his stomach clench hard on the mention of Taylor’s name, and his brain blanked out for an instant, before
coming to fast, furious life. He had known some of the stores were installed in the Taylor hotels, but the direct
connection to advertising approval was obviously very in-house information. No wonder it hadn’t turned up in the
standard background research. “Craig Taylor… I had no idea.” His voice was remarkably calm, if he did think so
himself.
“Yup, John’s handling the Laramie account.” At Brian’s blank look, he smiled slightly. “Laramie’s the reason we’re
here. My liaison, one of the VP’s at CT, gave us the head’s up on the sweet campaign you, well, John, cooked up for
them. We agreed, and here we are.”
Brian nodded, not really trusting himself to speak, but forcing himself to murmur the polite good-byes. After the
Seton crew had left, he followed John into his office, taking a seat in front of the other man’s desk.
“So, hey, that went great! I loved that part where you told Karen, ‘a diamond may be forever, but you don’t want
your customer’s forever satisfied with just one type of gem. Women.” He chuckled, but then noted that Brian did not
seem as satisfied as he with the results of their work. “Hey, you okay? We got ‘em.”
“No, we haven’t got them yet.”
John waved his hand in the air. “Formality…”
“So you knew about the connection to Craig Taylor’s company? That it needed to be cleared up the ladder?”
“Yeah, sure. We’ve been working with them for… what, two years? We’ve picked up a bunch of their subsidiaries
since snagging Coughlin, but not CT, Ltd. Not the main fucker.”
“I didn’t realize there was a direct connection in terms of the advertising approval.”
“Oh, it’s not really a big deal, that fucker Taylor is a control freak. Let Laramie deal with him, as far as we’re
concerned, our involvement ends with the front men, well, front people at Laramie. That’s their problem. You
know…” he leaned back in his chair, considering Brian’s face, “we should get together and start planning a strategy
to take the CT campaigns away from Varleset. That’s where the real money is, and shit, you and I could pull
something together that would just kill ‘em. Now that we have… okay, are about to have the Seton account, the two
of us, #1 ad guy and #2…” He noted that Brian just eyed him, and didn’t rise to his usual bait by reminding him just
who #1 was. “Hey… you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered, wanting, needing to get away from John and his euphoric post-presentation high. But
not yet. “John, how did you know I needed a job?”
“What, a year ago?”
“Yeah. A year ago.”
“My clipping service sent me that piece about Taylor’s kid… oh. Oh, shit. Hey, you okay with this? You knew we
had those CT Ltd. accounts, didn’t you?”
Brian shook his head, watching John carefully. He had known they dealt with subsidiaries, but shit, all corporations
are interconnected. He wasn’t aware of how direct the connection was. “Did you hook me up here because you
thought I’d be a good in for the larger account?” This wasn’t, of course, what he was thinking at all, he just wanted
to see John’s reaction. What he really wanted to know, was whether he had been hired from word from without. Or,
should he say, a bark from on high.
“What… No. No, Brian, I didn’t get you hired I thought your misadventure would give you an in with Taylor. I did
think you’d get accounts, but only because you’re the best at what you do… well, second best.”
He eyed John, not saying anything.
John shrugged. “If you’re able to start a conversation with Taylor sometime, all the better. But he’s not exactly tight
with his son.”
“I know that.” Not that that would make a difference, if Justin used his name in the right ears. And who the hell
knows what went on in families? It was likely his father realized what he’d almost lost and forgave all. Ethan had
seemed to, judging from that picture.
“Yeah, probably better than I would.”
Brian returned to his office, knowing he wouldn’t get the real story out of John. If there was a real story. It probably
went back to Justin. It was too coincidental, and Brian didn’t believe in coincidence. If John wasn’t saying anything,
it would be because he was told to keep his mouth shut. Or, more likely, he hadn’t been told anything at all. Brian
sat heavily in his chair and booted up the company’s web site, checking out Laramie’s stats. Yup, there it was. John
Connelly and David Grisham, V.P. The man who had hired him. Yup. There it was. And Laramie answered directly
to CT Ltd. Unofficially. Of course.
It had to go back to Justin. God knows his own thoughts did, too much. Last Friday, at a club in Chelsea, sipping on
a beer and suddenly seeing out of the corner of his eye a shock of blonde, which his head snapped around to bring
into view as his stomach leapt into his throat… not Justin. Okay, New York was big. But, man, not really. You ran
into everyone here, on the street corner, in restaurants, openings, museums, subway platforms, everywhere. Just the
other day, he had started arguing over a cab before he realized the man yelling at him had been sucking his dick the
week before. Manhattan was what, seven miles long, maybe two wide? Lots of people, not much space. Yeah,
people popped up.
But not Justin.
And it hadn’t been until the Friday before that he was fully aware he’d even been looking for the little fucker, not
that he was, exactly. Damn it, he wasn’t.
He pulled open the top drawer, and stared down at the photograph, the old Page Six society bit, Justin and Ethan,
still slightly crumpled, despite its having lain flat under his pens and paper clips for the past year.
Justin was out of his hair. That was what he wanted, right? That was what he’d left him for in France. Sayonara, it
was lovely, have a nice life. All even.
Only, maybe Justin didn’t see things that way. Maybe he’d felt the need to even things up. Only it would be more
than evening up. Brian remembered the look on his face, when Justin had accused him of calling him a puppy to
remind him of who he was. Or wasn’t. You think I’d make you my lapdog…
Well. Yeah. That’s exactly what Brian had thought. And there was no reason to think he’d been wrong. Justin sure
seemed comfortable on the fiddler’s arm, didn’t he? And then he had disappeared, no more Justin in the society
pages. He wondered if he’d made a deal with daddy. Keep it on the downlow, son, keep your face out of the public
eye, and we’ll be right as rain.
Brian could imagine.
But he could only imagine.
“Fuck!” he growled, slamming the drawer shut. This was so not his problem. The kid knew how to take care of
himself, so fucking what? That was a good thing.
But not if part of Justin’s taking care of business was to put Brian in his debt. Maybe, Brian might concede, maybe
the kid thought it was paying off a debt. But Brian didn’t see it that way.
Well, he could quit his job. But hell, interviewers for any other position would surely want to know why he’d left for
no good reason. And personal reasons were never good reasons. And the market sucked right now. Okay, so maybe
not quit, maybe just leave his job after finding another one. But really, the fact that he would be coming from the
secure position of having this job on his resume would be the in to another job, so it would still go back to Justin,
who’d gotten him out of the gutter in Pittsburgh, and into a dream job in New York fucking City, and a two and a
half million dollar loft in Chelsea that was simply to die for.
Or play the lapdog for.
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“You okay?” Cynthia asked, pushing into the office, eyeing him warily. She had a handful of letter to be signed.
“The presentation not go well?”
“The presentation went fine,” he snapped. She frowned, and he softened his tone. “It went fine, we probably got it.”
“Well, good.” She handed him the correspondence, and he signed his name after scanning each one carefully. Damn
Justin Taylor, he refused to think about him, that little shit, he was determined to keep him out of his thoughts.
He managed to keep that vow for a whole three days, until the weekend. And then he found himself on Google,
looking for him.
Nothing.
And he meant nothing. There were reports of him, even that Page Six thing, right up until a year ago. And then he
seemed to drop out of existence.
Course, Google sucked. There were a lot of Justin Taylors, even in New York City, a grad student at Columbia, a
lawyer about a block away from where Brian worked, and some fucker out in Brooklyn. None of them his Justin.
Well, Craig’s Justin. Whatever the fuck.
He shut his computer off, and went to the gym. Fuck it. This was stupid, and the kid’s disappearance was telling in
and of itself. Fine.
And then, one week later, he saw him.
It was at the meet and greet cocktail parties that Dryfus had set up to announce the official go-ahead for Brian to
take the Seton account, some stupid thing with the executives at Seton and their minions, and Brian and John and
their minions. Brian had taken a drink from Dryfus, and shook hands with Anabel Leon — gotta remember all the
damn names, whether you give a shit or not — and then Jake was up at the podium in front of the hotel’s reception
room where this was taking place, next door to the Seton’s Jewelry Store in the lobby of the Taylor downtown hotel,
some stupid set speech about working together, blah de blah blah.
“…Mr. Brian Kinney!” and the applause, and his rise to the stage, a short joke, brief thanks, looking forward to
working with you… more blah blah blah, exit stage left, finally making his way to the bar even though he was
stopped every three feet to talk to people. Party face fully engaged.
And then he saw him. Hell, why hadn’t he seen him before? Two bartenders, one short and dark. The other Justin
Taylor. A beacon in the boredom. He froze, ten feet away.
Justin finished handing off a martini, and turned his head to see Brian standing there, staring at him. And he smiled,
a real smile, wide. As if he were really happy to see him. “Hey!”
What, Brian thought, approaching slowly, glad to see your assistance paid off? He stopped immediately in front of
him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
The fair eyebrows scrunched up, and he remembered in a shot that quizzical, what-the-fuck expression. “Uh,
bartending? Want a drink? Let me guess, whiskey. How you doing? Well, that’s a dumb question, you’re doing
great. Obviously. Where’d you go, by the way?” He turned to put ice into the glass, and Brian noted that the ice
cubes clacked against the sides before the whiskey quieted their rattling. Justin’s hands were shaking.
Interesting. Justin was nervous.
“Hey, Brian, congratulations! White wine, please?”
He turned to look at Joan Armstrong. Fuck, how many managers did this store have? Was she a manager? or no,
sales executive. Right. “Actually, Joan, we should all profit from this deal, so I hardly think the congratulations
should be limited.”
“Ah, Kinney, cut the shit, it’s your night, enjoy it,” Joan answered, accepting the wine from Justin. “I was just
talking to Bob, he said if your work comes through he’d pass the word down through the Board.”
Bob Jones, member of the board at CT, Ltd. Now that was big. He arched an eyebrow, and looked over at Justin.
“I’ll be sure to talk to him, then.”
“Oh, good, well, looking forward to working with you, Brian… oh, John!” and she was off.
Brian turned back to Justin. “Well, one of us should be congratulated. You certainly landed on your feet.”
Justin shrugged, and Brian reached out and touched the lapel of his jacket, running his finger down the fabric. “Not
exactly your usual standard.”
“Standards change.”
“Yes, they do.” They stared at each other. “Can we talk?” Justin blurted out.
Talk. This should be interesting. “Sure,” Brian said.
They slipped out the side door, and walked down the hall to a small conference room. Justin sat on the big table
gracing the center of the room, and Brian leaned against the wall opposite, watching him.
“How you doing?” Justin asked, after the silence stretched out.
“You tell me,” Brian replied.
Justin laughed. It had a nervous edge. Good, Brian thought. “You seem to be doing well.” He was quiet for a
moment. “Where’d you go?”
“New York. Obviously.”
Justin frowned. He eyed the man standing across the room from him, his arms crossed across his chest. Wow, he
looked… shit, even better than Justin remembered. Not that he hadn’t taken peeks. He was right here in New York,
after all, and Brian showed up at ad functions every so often. It was easy to lurk in the background, catch a glimpse
and then go. But now, his eyes drank the other man in. He hadn’t wanted to meet Brian until… well, until he was
ready. And tonight, with the Seton announcement cocktails, perfect. And shit, he just couldn’t stay away anymore.
“No, I mean, in Marseilles.”
“Ah. Well, we were done. I left. Went back to life.”
Justin bit his lips, studying Brian’s eyes, which were giving nothing away. Back to life. “And got the job with the
best ad agency in town,” Justin noted.
“Yeah, funny, isn’t that?”
“Funny? Why?” What the fuck was going on? Justin thought. He was missing something. Something was not right.
Brian ignored the question. “And you ended up back on Ethan Gold’s arm.”
Oh, well, damn. Brian was jealous? No way! Justin couldn’t help the grin from escaping.
Yup, thought Brian, watching him, I knew it. The little chameleon can take care of himself. He wrapped Brian
around his finger on the island, he wrapped Ethan on his return. Hell, he went back to wrapping Ethan. The man
with a yacht.
“Ethan’s in Europe,” Justin said, putting his arms behind him to brace him as he leaned his body back, his legs
swinging out and back. His coat gaped open, and Brian’s eyes zoomed immediately to the outline of Justin’s dick
against the fabric of his khaki pants. He looked up to see the little shit grinning at him, challenging him, setting off
his own response.
“His loss is my gain,” Brian growled, and with two strides, was forcing Justin to collapse back completely on the
table.
“Brian!” Justin gasped, completely not expecting this, and then the other man’s mouth was descending on his, his
tongue reaching out and demanding entrance to Justin’s mouth, admittance that was willingly given. Brian
plundered within him, biting at his lips until they were swollen, and Justin felt something elemental rise up in him to
meet the other man’s rough contact. Here was what he craved, had been craving for a year, that no club fuck, no
one-night stand could satisfy, and he pressed his body closer, his hands on Brian’s shoulders, pulling him in. This,
this was all his wanted to say, all he stumbled over in words. Brian grabbed his hands, and stepped away, his face
dark and unreadable, and then Justin was flipped onto his stomach, face down against the cold mahogany of the
table beneath him, his pants unzipped and yanked from him in one pull. Justin heard a zipper behind him being
disengaged, then the tear of a condom, the cold feeling of lube and fingers and cold and then heat, and then Brian
was pushing inside…
Oh, fucking hell. He’d forgotten how good this was, no matter how it happened, even the shock of an almost animal
coupling with almost no foreplay whatsoever. His body relaxed into the suddenness of the intrusion, welcoming it.
Brian’s torso lay against his back; even with their clothes all but on, they fit together perfectly. Justin’s head was
turned to the side, his cheek hard against the table, and there was a long pause while they both took in the feeling of
their bodies’ union, in utter stillness. Then Justin felt the tops of his hands covered by Brian’s palms, and fingers
interlaced with his, as Brian began to move, thrusting slowly at first, then building to a steady rhythm, Brian’s breath
harsh in his ear. The movement steady, until Brian let out what might be a very small groan, and took his right hand
away from Justin’s, to move it under his hips, running his fingers along the hard surface of the younger man’s cock,
sweeping fingertips across the sensitive skin at Justin’s balls so that Justin gasped at the sensation gathering there,
then moved the length of his index finger up the hard shaft, rubbing the weeping tip with its natural lubricant,
curling his thumb and other fingers around to create a well of friction for Justin to thrust down into, and he did, he
couldn’t stop, feeling the completion of Brian inside of him from behind and grasping him in front, and Justin
allowed himself to just give into this perfect sensation, deprived of this for over a year now, and he came with a loud
moan, setting off Brian, who emptied himself without a sound, but with a shudder.
They lay there for a long moment. Then Brian pulled out, tossed the condom in the nearby trash, and adjusted
himself in one quick movement. Justin turned over, stood up, pulled his pants up. He looked at the man in front of
him, but Brian was looking away.
“As you can see, I’m fine,” Brian said. “And you even got a bonus fuck. So you needn’t check on me any more.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Justin asked, spurred to sudden anger. What the fuck? The man had just turned
him around and fucked his brains out, and now he was getting the full snark? What the hell?
“What are you doing here, Justin? Playing bartender in one of daddy’s hotels? At a party where I just happen to be
guest of honor?” Arms crossed against chest. That again.
“Playing… I *am* a bartender, Brian. It’s my job,” Justin said quietly.
Brian stared at him. “Job. You have a job. That’s cute.”
“Cute. Cute like a puppy?” Justin replied, really angry now at Brian’s attitude. His temper fully engaged at Brian’s
shrug. “And no, I didn’t just happen to be working here, I’m friends with Tony, the other bartender, and when he
told me he was working this party, I asked if he could give me the job for the night because I wanted to see you.”
“See how I was doing.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I miss you.” Fuck, well, shit, he said it, it was true.
But all he got was that damn smirk.
“The fiddler not enough for you?”
“Ethan’s been out of the picture for over a year.”
“But you rode him all the way back to New York.”
“He said I owed him something, and he was right. I gave him a shitload of free publicity for his new album. He gave
me a way back to New York. You weren’t there to help me figure it out. You just left me, Brian.”
Something in the tone alerted Brian; it sounded like real devastation. But Justin was good at assuming faces he
wanted people to see. Brian knew this. He knew it. “You obviously managed,” he replied.
“If you’re angry over Ethan… I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“I’m not angry over Ian!”
“Then what are you angry over? You’re the one who decided to cut out on me…”
“You know,” Brian returned, “this little victim pose really doesn’t suit you. I liked you better when you were
waving your money and ass in my face. But showing up at Daddy’s hotel to check on your favorite pet project… I
didn’t need your help in getting this job. And I’m really sick of people thinking my career, my life, is some kind of
pawn on their chessboards.”
Justin stared at him, before laughing sharply. “You think I… I had nothing to do with your getting that job, Brian.”
“Hm. Funny how you and your disgusting lifestyle disappeared from public view after the whole island incident.
You reach some agreement with Daddy?” Brian shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, puppy, I certainly don’t begrudge
your taking advantage of your opportunities. We all have our talents.”
“And mine is to put my ass in service to whoever has what I want. You, my father. Ethan. The perfect whore. And
hypocrite. Is that what you’re telling me?” Justin spat back.
Brian shrugged.
“And this?” Justin gestured at the table.
Again, the shrug. “Like I said, taking advantage of the opportunity. I wanted to fuck you, you enjoyed getting
fucked. Simple.”
Something disturbed him in those blue eyes, which became very bright, so bright that Brian looked away. But he
couldn’t stop his ears from hearing Justin’s low voice.
“You know, a year ago, I would have said you were right. In fact, I did accept that you thought badly of me. Fine, he
thinks you’re a whore, can you blame him? But I’ve spent the last year working like a dog for everything I have. I
know exactly who I am. If you think what I felt for you on that island was just a whore reaching for the nearest
dick… when I was with you I liked myself. You made me feel like I could be better than I was. And I let you touch
me just now, because I miss feeling that, everything seemed to make sense when you touched me, and it’s been so
fucking difficult since…” Justin paused, cleared his throat from the sudden tightness. When he started talking again,
his voice was firm. “But fine, I’m just a whore. Believe what you want. You’re wrong, but what the fuck. I don’t
need you to validate me. I know what I’m worth, and it has nothing to do with Daddy’s kajillions. I proved what I
was to you on that island, and I proved it to myself in the last year. And I deserve better than being treated like a
cheap fuck.”
He stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
Brian stood, motionless, for a very long time.
Chapter 11
Fuck.
Brian sat, at his desk, staring at the report spread out in front of him. The private investigator had given him the run
down, but he went through the reports, the pictures, meticulously, all over again, alone.
Fuck.
He hated being wrong. Especially when, looking back, he could see that his error could be traced to nothing less
than his desire to see only what he wanted. Hell, he knew he could be prejudiced toward the negative, and generally
was. But his prejudice usually fit to the details of the situation; he was rarely willful in it. He kept his eyes open, he
could be cynical, but not arbitrary.
Never arbitrary. Well. Rarely arbitrary.
“Fuck,” he muttered, staring down at the picture of Justin coming out of the apartment building in Brooklyn —
Brooklyn! Mr. Upper East Side, commuting into the city from across the river. How the mighty have fallen. So that
Google search had turned up his Justin, but Brian was so determined to believe Justin had gone back to his old tricks
that he hadn’t fathomed that the phone number of Justin Taylor in Brooklyn had indeed been the man he had been
looking for.
Pictures of Justin bartending at Chadwick’s, in Chelsea. So that was true. He really was bartending. “Good tips,” the
P.I. had told Brian. “Apparently, he’s a big hit with the customers. You know Chadwick’s is a…”
“Gay bar. Yeah. Got that.” Upscale. Big money. When he went out, Brian preferred dance clubs, or a more laid back
atmosphere. Chadwick’s was a bit too stuffy for him. He had been there with a client once. Justin hadn’t been
working. Brian wondered how many other times they may have come thisclose to meeting. Surely, Justin knew
Brian was in town. He’d admitted that much, when they had finally, um, seen each other, at the Seton’s
announcement. So why would he avoid Brian up to that point?
Brian slid the photos out of the way, and stared down at the two reports in front of him. SAT scores, for the test
taken three months ago. 1500. The second report was from NYU, an art history course. A.
Well, he knew Justin was smart. Seems he was turning his native intelligence to better uses than what Brian had
seen on Ian’s yacht.
“He’s currently enrolled in an art course. The Human Form,” the detective had told Brian when he had handed him
the report earlier. “Not much surprise he’s doing as well as he is, considering he’d done very well in school up to the
10th grade.”
“Tenth grade?”
“His mother died the summer before his junior year. It was a big story at the time. They were on the way out to the
Hamptons and a piece of debris on the Long Island Expressway kicked up through the window and impaled her.”
Jesus… “They?”
“Justin was in the passenger seat.”
Jesus.
“He went back to school, but his grades plummeted. Just barely graduated, and one of his former classmates seems
to believe his dad basically bought his diploma.”
Brian raised his eyebrows. The PI chuckled. “You wouldn’t believe what people will tell you if you catch them in
the right circumstances. And with enough alcohol in their systems.”
Brian hadn’t cared, but the next words he had definitely cared about. “This classmate’s assumption was that Jennifer
had mediated between the two. With her gone, apparently the bad blood could flow until Craig cut the kid off last
year. People thought it was a point, but apparently he meant it. He dissolved their relationship legally.”
“Cut…?” Dissolved their relationship? What the fuck was this?
“Check out the bank statements, the legal documents.”
The bank statements Brian now pushed the school reports aside for. That would explain why Justin was taking only
one course a semester. It was all he could afford. And Brian wondered how he did that, NYU was expensive… but
he knew, Justin had found a way. Obviously. And remembering Justin’s diatribe as he spit out the words, “I’ve spent
the last year working like a dog for everything I have…” Yeah. He had found a way. Only pride, and self-respect,
commanded that kind of angry defiance. A memory that sent Brian to the PI who had just dropped off his report,
after fighting to forget the kid, again for two weeks. The report had been worth every penny. The guy was good.
It was all here, computer records documenting the elimination of Justin’s trusts, the shutting down of all the bank
accounts he’d once commanded. The final signatures eliminating all of Justin’s affluence, cutting his life officially
off from any connection to his father’s status, both personally and as a corporate entity. Everything dated five weeks
before Brian had first laid eyes on him, walking onto the yacht and seeing that beautiful boy, draining a martini,
starting at the skyline of New York. Brian remembered clearly, the way the alcoholic flush only accented the
cheeks’ fine structure, the redness of the lips. Justin’s eyes had descended from the city, to meet Brian’s, widened,
then narrowed. And then he had smirked, and licked his lips. And Brian had been ready to hate him from that
moment, hate him for being rich, hate him for having everything he wanted with a snap of the fingers. Just another
gaze that had targeted Brian in its sites. Hated being some rich boy’s toy. So he’d mistaken him, all along. Had
Justin only been trying, desperately, to distract himself?
Had Ethan known?
The PI’s words on that subject had not comforted him. “The gossip I got indicates that people were fairly surprised
your man went off on that yacht with Ethan. Apparently, Gold had been chasing the boy’s ass for about a year, and
always got the brush off. The ride you ended up in the middle of, seems to have been whipped up a week after Craig
Taylor disowned his son. One source states they think Gold took advantage of Justin’s situation to finally get what
he wanted.”
“So Gold knew?”
“Can’t be sure. Craig’s business with his son was not common knowledge. But people knew. As I said, one source
says yes. But it’s speculation.”
Brian had thanked the PI, and was left to brood over the material in front of him alone.
Fuck.
Brian stood up abruptly, and turned to stare out his window. But he wasn’t seeing the magnificent cityscape, the
dying rays of the setting sun gleaming gold and red against the windows of the skyscrapers down on Wall Street.
He was seeing the sun reflecting off the ocean, and Justin’s body as it rose from the surf, shaking the water out of his
hair, turning with that knowing smile towards Brian, who sat up the beach, just watching, watching the beautiful
blonde boy stretch his body toward the sun. He was hearing Justin’s plaintive words on the island as they watched
the boat on the horizon, “Here, I have you… and I have myself…”
Brian closed his eyes.
Fuck.
Justin thanked the patron who left him a five dollar tip for a ten dollar drink. Thank god. He hated Tuesday
afternoon shifts. The business was beyond slow. Even Mondays were better; on Mondays men came in to drink to
forget that the week had actually begun, or just to prolong the idea of the weekend one more day. By Tuesday,
they’d given up, and gotten to work. And they stayed out of Chadwick’s. And the money stayed out of Justin’s
pockets. And tonight he was due to go off shift at 8:00, so he’d miss what little bit of the dinner crowd there was.
Lord knew, he desperately needed the money. He was beginning to understand what Brian had been talking about…
no, no, nope, not going to think about Brian, damn it, Justin repeated to himself, a litany since their disastrous
meeting a month ago. “Fucker,” Justin muttered to himself. But it was true, money did make all the difference. Oh,
he had known money was important, in an ideological sort of way, but this past year had taught him what it was
worth. It was a lesson he’d learned well.
If it hadn’t been for Tony, Justin just might have learned another kind of lesson altogether. The kind that left scars.
He had been lucky, and he knew it. And he owed Tony more than he probably could ever repay.
Ethan sure as shit had been no help. Bad enough Justin had had to stand by his side, as the reporters that showed up
in Paris jostled for interviews of the jet setter rescued after his traumatic stranding at sea, instead getting the
promotional bullshit of Ethan’s latest release, and promises that Justin would talk in New York. Where Ethan’s CD
was being released to great fanfare. Of course.
“But I’m nobody,” Justin had sighed, trying to get Ethan to let him off the hook. He felt shitty for having used Ethan
after his dad had disowned him. He had never really liked the guy, but at the time, in Justin’s panic, he had seemed a
soft landing place. Anyway, with enough alcohol, hell, anybody would do. But after all the publicity, Justin
considered whatever debt he owed him would be paid.
“They don’t know you’re nobody,” Ethan had insisted right back. “Don’t let them know until after they mob us in
New York.”
Thanks a lot, Ethan. You’re a champ of a guy.
Justin hadn’t stuck around in New York. Ethan got Paris, and the free buzz. On landing at JFK, facing the
photographers that Ethan had doubtless called out, he’d cut and run with less than fifty bucks in his pocket that very
day. And then he had stayed awake for 48 hours, wandering the streets of New York, with no idea what he was
going to do. He couldn’t go home… Home. That was the problem. He didn’t have one.
So he had been somewhat delirious after two days on his feet, otherwise he probably never would have called Tony.
After all, what had they had in common? That one drunken night they’d met while Justin was cruising the bar at his
dad’s hotel where Tony happened to work? sharing stories about their male conquests? One drunken kiss in a club
downtown, before they both burst out laughing and agreed there was no chemistry for a quick fuck? But sure as shit
for friends. Yeah, sure as shit for friends. Justin hadn’t followed through. Same as he hadn’t followed through on
anything back then. And here he was, following through eight months later. And not out of fond memories. More
like desperation. Oh, hell, exactly like desperation.
Yeah. Delirium. That was the reason he’d called a guy he’d hung out with one night, after not talking to said guy for
eight months.
Tony turned out to be just a plain great person. Offered him the couch for starters, “until you get back on your feet.”
Good thing too; by the time, Justin was practically collapsing. One easy step to getting advice on how to work a bar,
then putting in applications for actual bartending jobs, with Tony as reference. Justin was young, good looking, great
ass, and on Tony’s advice he had targeted the gay bars where he knew his looks would influence those hiring him to
overlook certain gray areas in his credentials.
Landing at Chadwick’s had been a coup. Of course, Tony knew Barry, the bartender who was to relieve Justin in 30
minutes, and Barry had put in a good word for him. “Don’t fuck me over on this,” Barry had warned Justin, his eyes
narrow. Justin could have sworn the guy could read “fucked up past” on his face. Justin had felt he had a sign
advertising his lack of worth. It was a thousand pounds, and he’d never get out from under it.
But Justin had proven that look unwarranted. And he had taken it one day at a time, eventually shrugging that
weight of shame from him. He had worked his way out from beneath it, and could stand proud, no more shame.
He’d earned the right; he was his own man. And now he was rooming with Barry’s sister, Daphne, who commuted
into NYU from Brooklyn — Brooklyn! “Who can afford Manhattan?” she’d scoffed, when he had asked her why
she didn’t live downtown, closer to school. “Not me. Besides. I like Brooklyn. It’s got atmosphere. And I get a lot of
reading done on the trains.”
Justin got no art done on the trains. Although she’d been right about the reading when he’d been in that Art History
course.
He’d forgotten, in the last two years of high school, after losing his mother and the constant battles with his father
and the slow decline into just wanting to shut all the pain out, he’d forgotten how much he liked school, to absorb
new information, to push the boundaries of his imagination. And now, without his father policing his transcript,
insisting on the right courses that would gain him entrance to Dartmouth or Sloan or some such fucking bullshit
business management school, now school was actually that much more interesting, because he was absorbed in
subjects he actually enjoyed. And, after one year of officially being poor, his taxes would reflect that he qualified for
financial aide. Daphne had recommended taking an art history course before a fine arts course. “So you can have a
writing sample to apply with,” she’d said. He’d studied in his limited spare time for the SATs. And he had the
applications to art programs in his room, waiting for him. And with this course, and the one he planned to take over
the summer, he would be building a good portfolio. It may take another year, but he should get into school, and have
enough money saved to not starve in the meantime.
Practical wisdom. He was learning to look ahead, to plan his daily activities around what would be his next step, to
think about how what he did today built what he wanted for tomorrow. Yeah. Brian was right. Money, or the lack
thereof, really did change everything.
Brian. Fucker. Justin sighed, and picked up the cloth to wipe the bar after the big tipper left, leaving the bar
practically empty except for two tables at the far end of the room. He hated thinking about the man as much as he
did. Tony had gotten him that gig at the Seton’s announcement because he knew the woman who arranged the
conference spaces. Tony had arrangements with her for bartending service when she needed people; he already
worked the hotel bar. Tony had told Justin about the gig, asking if he had wanted extra work. Justin always wanted,
needed, extra work. And Brian. It had seemed like fate, that this opportunity had come just when he was feeling
good about himself. Justin had been so excited at the idea of seeing Brian again, really seeing him. Talking to him.
Proving to him that that last conversation on the yacht was undeserved, now. He had been excited. Nervous. Excited.
Terrified. Hell, everything he had done in the past year was with Brian in mind. He’d be proud of me, Justin would
think. After a year, he figured, he’d proved that he was capable of being a man Brian could respect, maybe even
admire. And he knew what Brian had been up to, and was happy to see his life working out for him. Hell, he ran
Google searches on him all the time, like some love sick puppy.
Well. Exactly like that.
Justin glanced over at the occupied tables, noting the still mostly full drinks. The tips were fewer but bigger on slow
nights, when he enjoyed giving patrons extra attention, getting to the tables just before they would have wanted him
there. It was a great feeling, being good at his job. Too bad he didn’t have the excuse to walk across the room now,
to distract him from the anger that rose, unbidden, every time he remembered Brian’s last words to him, almost a
month ago. It was one thing to be called a whore when you deserved it, it was something else entirely to be called a
whore when it was completely unwarranted.
When they had been on the Countess’s yacht, Justin had only been thinking of his own situation, whenever Brian
mentioned their return to civilization. When he’d said, we’re not the same people we were on the island… Because
Brian had been so focused on telling him who he would be, Justin hadn’t even considered who Brian might be in his
real life. To Justin, he was just Brian; Justin had fallen in love with the man, he hadn’t thought that person he had
fallen in love with might not even exist in reality. Or that Justin had just allowed himself the luxury of believing
there was more than just convenience in their love play all along, that it had been more than just play. More than
convenient use of the nearest body.
It had been more than play to Justin.
Those final words, after Brian had almost brutally taken him… It was just a convenient fuck. Mutual use. What was
Justin upset about? They’d both gotten what they’d wanted from the other. Same as they had, all along.
But it hadn’t been that way for Justin. Or had the island really been just a fantasy, as Brian had tried to tell him? No.
It was real. His body remembered.
No matter how it happened, remembering the feeling of Brian’s body against, inside him… Justin closed his eyes,
feeling the blood rise in other areas of his body. It hadn’t been just convenience. He admired Brian’s toughness, his
ability to get whatever he wanted accomplished, his tenderness once he’d decided something deserved his gentler
attention, the opening up of something much warmer… the feeling Justin had when he was with him. As if he had
found the home he had lost.
“Fuck,” Justin whispered, opening his eyes. It wasn’t enough. Brian had made clear he wasn’t interested in Justin’s
situation. He hadn’t cared enough to even ask. And he sure as shit hadn’t come looking for him, almost a month
after that infuriating encounter at the Taylor hotel. He sighed, took one last swipe at the spotless bar, and brought his
gaze up from the counter to the patron who was taking a seat on the bar stool directly in front of him.
And came face to face with hazel eyes, straight nose, killer bone structure, and oh, those lips.
Brian.
Fuck.
Swept Away 12
Justin shook himself out of his stare, then got a tight grip on himself. “What can I get you, sir?” His throat managed
to swallow his heart back where it belonged, out of his mouth and back under his ribs, somewhere. It might be
beating fast, but that was only because of its efforts to escape. He was pretty fucking proud of keeping it locked
down. If he did say so himself.
Brian watched the fluster shoot across Justin’s features, and raised one eyebrow at the formal words despite it. Huh.
“Answers.”
“I’m not familiar with that drink.”
“Apparently not. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what.”
“Don’t play with me, Justin, why didn’t you tell me your father kicked you out? That all your money was gone?”
His voice was low, but heated.
Justin stared at him, his mouth dropping open, taking in Brian’s hard stare. Wait a minute… Brian was mad at HIM?
“It wasn’t like I earned it. Easy come, easy go. What, can’t I use your philosophy?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means,” Justin said, leaning forward on the bar, “that you left ME.”
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“I didn’t… you’re unbelievable!”
Brian rolled his eyes. “Get me a glass of whiskey.” Justin stared at him. “It is your job, isn’t it?” He ignored the
huge sigh that gusted his way as Justin turned his back, and took the Jim Beam, without asking, from the lower
shelf. He watched Justin pour a generous amount into a glass and slam it onto the counter in front of him.
“On the house,” Justin stopped him when he reached for his money.
Brian shrugged, put his wallet back in his coat pocket. “I mean,” he said, after taking a long pull on the drink, “that I
might not have taken off if I’d known.”
“Yeah, that’s comforting,” Justin said, glancing over at the tables. “Excuse me a minute.” He left the bar, and
walked over to the only occupied table. Brian watched him move, watched the grace of his back as he smiled down
at the customers, and took the two empty glasses. He moved back to the bar, and proceeded to open a new bottle of
wine, taking down clean glasses and filling them. Brian just watched, watched him carry the glasses back to the
table, watched him come back reluctantly, pick up the bar rag. Brian put out his own hand and covered Justin’s to
stop its nervous energy. Justin looked up, met his eyes.
“You should have told me,” Brian said softly.
Justin shrugged, shaking off his hand. “Why? I didn’t need rescuing. So Ethan wasn’t a treat, but he did give me a
ride back to New York. Course, all I had to do was help promote his album. Just a little more tail shaking on my
part. Are you just upset I didn’t play whore for YOU? I’ve got to be somebody’s whore, it’s what you figured,
right?”
“You’re not a whore, Justin.”
“I know that.” Justin stared at him.
“Hey, Justin.” A young man interrupted them, then stood back as he stared between the two.
“Hey, Barry. Barry, this is Brian.”
“Um, hi.” Barry stared. Wow. So that was the asshole. Wow. Hm. I’d forgive him, Barry thought, stealing a quick
look at Justin. Well, Justin obviously had other ideas. “Well, relief is here, you’re free.”
“Good, we can get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Justin agreed. “I have homework.” He ducked out from behind the bar.
“Come to my place. We can talk.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Justin laughed bitterly. Talk. Right.
“Cut the crap, puppy…”
“Fuck you, Brian!” Justin exploded, slinging on his coat as he slammed out the side door of the bar, onto the street.
“I’m not your puppy, you might as well call me a whore, you mean the same thing!”
“I do not!” Brian yelled back, grabbing him by the arm, stopping him. People moved around them, as Justin stared
up at Brian’s face. “Look… look. Come back to my place. Really. We should talk.”
Justin hesitated.
“Please.”
The blue eyes went from granite to maybe softer granite. Maybe. Brian found he had to force himself not to lean
down and catch that plump bottom lip between his own, that lip that was pouting out at him, making him feel not the
coldness of its resistance, but only how hot was his own desire. Damn. But something told him he should wait until
he had Justin back in his loft, first. Otherwise, he might be abandoned, here on the street. Abandoned and bleeding
from the mouth.
Justin eyed him suspiciously. “No funny stuff?”
“No funny stuff,” he said. Course, Justin hadn’t made him say what “funny stuff” meant. As far as he was
concerned, funny stuff meant the crazed monkeys in Jumanji. Everything else was up for grabs.
Justin accepted a beer as he slung his coat over the chair. “Nice place.”
“Not as nice as my place in Pittsburgh, but not bad for New York.”
Not bad at all. Nice, open loft, the bed on a platform at the far end of the space, looking out on the street. Third
floor, not too bad. Looked out over a café, and a rug store. Brian crossed the room and flipped on the overhead track
lighting, on low. Justin moved over to the couch, sat on the edge. “Why am I here?” he asked, as Brian came over,
and sat on the rug. “What are you doing?” Justin asked, as Brian reached for his feet.
“Don’t like shoes in my house,” he said. He undid the laces, pulled one shoe off. Fingers tracing the arch of Justin’s
right foot. Justin almost groaned. Fuck. He was doomed. “You said no funny stuff, Brian.”
Brian looked up, all innocence. “What? Fine, take off your own shoes.” He stood, and walked to the bedroom area,
opening his closet, and undressing.
“What are you doing?”
Brian sighed, taking off his work clothes, reaching for a pair of jeans. “Jesus Christ, Justin, it’s not like you haven’t
seen it. I could just narrate all of my movements, that way you don’t have to keep asking. I am now putting on a tshirt, because my button downs are too starchy.” He pulled a white t-shirt over his head. Justin realized he was
wearing the exact outfit they had been stranded on the island with. Memories came flooding back, as Brian walked,
barefoot, across the space. “I am now walking toward the couch to sit next to you. If you think that’s okay.” He sat
on the other end of the couch.
“Fuck yourself.”
“Believe me, if I could…” He stared over at the other man. “So,” he said after a long look. “You’re actually really
poor.”
“Yup,” Justin said, somewhat proudly.
Brian shook his head and chuffed his breath out.
“What?” Justin asked, kicking at him with his now sockless foot. Brian grabbed it, held on.
“I never knew anyone proud of having no money. I sure as shit wasn’t.”
“I had nothing to do with your getting that job, Brian.”
“Yeah, I know.” Those beautiful hands began to move, massaging his heel, into the arch, across the pad, down to the
toes.
“How do you know?” Justin asked, trying to distract himself. His head started lolling back, his neck muscles
suddenly jelly. Good thing he was sitting down. Fuck, this was not good. They had to talk. Talk.
“I hired a private investigator.”
“What!?” Justin yanked his foot back. “You had me investigated!?”
Brian rolled his eyes. “Well, what the hell was I supposed to do? You weren’t telling me anything.”
“You’re fucking unbelievable! I wasn’t telling you anything because you weren’t asking!” Justin struggled to his
feet, weak muscles and all. He realized he was trembling, and hoped it was anger. He suspected not, but decided to
believe it was. “You just can’t stand to have to humble yourself to actually ask me, in fact, you wouldn’t have asked
me because you’d think I was lying, so you go out and VERIFY the real story by buying it instead of giving me the
simple respect of allowing me to speak for myself like a human being instead of a commodity for your consumption!
How does that make you any better than I was when I was fucking with you on the yacht?” He grabbed his sneakers,
sat on the floor, and yanked one on, tying the laces furiously, when Brian’s hand came over the tongue of the shoe,
blocking his movements.
“Justin.”
Justin wouldn’t look up. This was stupid. The man was hopeless. Justin wanted something this asshole would never
give him. The only thing he wanted these days. Respect. More important than anything. More important than love.
Way more important than sex.
“Justin.”
Justin looked up, biting the soft tissue just beneath his lower lip. He would not cry, damn it. He hadn’t cried since
his mother died… well, okay, since his last fight with his dad… okay, well, since being on the street for 36 hours.
Okay, so maybe he did cry sometimes. So fucking what. It was never in front of anyone. And he wouldn’t cry now,
in front of Brian. He looked up.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Brian said, softly. “You’re absolutely right.” He hesitated, then asked, “You’re going to
school?”
A question. Finally, a question, not a demand. Justin stared at him, then relaxed. It was a start. “I’m taking classes.”
“And a 1500 on the SATs.”
Justin twisted his lips. “Did he tell you every blow job I’ve gotten in the last year, too?”
“Only if the information’s stored on a computer.”
“Not unless someone’s been following me with a video cam.” He saw the look on Brian’s face, quickly shuttered.
But Justin just shook his head. “Great, pictures too, huh? You didn’t need to do that, Brian, you only needed to ask
me.”
“Yeah, you could have told me your circumstances. Why didn’t you?”
Justin leaned back against the couch, his cheek pressed into Brian’s thigh. “You seemed so convinced you knew
exactly what I was, and I couldn’t tell you any differently. Plus…” Justin closed his eyes. What the hell. “Plus, I
wanted to prove to you, to myself, that I wasn’t what you thought. And that whole episode, you only had my saying
I’d changed, after being stranded. And you were insisting that it wasn’t real…”
“But I didn’t know it wasn’t just getting stranded with me that had you saying that.”
Justin opened his eyes, looked up into Brian’s face. “What difference did it make? I mean, look at my reaction to
losing all my access to my dad’s money. I ran off with Ethan.”
“Why?” Another question. This was getting better.
“I didn’t know what else to do.” Justin was silent, thinking. “I wanted… when I went to that Seton’s thing last
month, I really thought… I don’t know, I thought you could see that I was actually trying to do something. I've done
all this for myself, maybe you made me mad enough to want to prove to you I could, but... I'm proud of what I've
done. But it would be so much better... well, if you...”
Brian understood, didn't make him finish. “I’m sorry I spoiled your ability to tell me yourself. It’s amazing. I didn’t
expect it.” Brian laughed softly. “I really didn’t expect this. I was shocked as shit when the PI gave me the report.”
“In a good way, though, right?”
“Yeah,” Brian answered. He placed his hand on Justin’s head, playing with the hair. “In a really good way. You
deserve better than what I had assumed.”
So he understood. Justin toed off his sneaker. Brian raised his eyebrows as Justin got up, then straddled his lap,
setting his butt down on Brian’s legs, which stretched out to accommodate him. “I know how you can make it up,”
Justin teased, leaning in and kissing Brian lightly on the forehead.
“Oh?” Brian asked.
“You can, um… YOU can play puppy for ME,” Justin breathed, pressing a kiss against his temple, trailing his
tongue lightly down the sensitive skin just behind his ear, nipping at his throat.
“You think sex solves everything?” Brian arched his neck.
“Me…” He laughed, then, getting the joke. “I think you showing how sorry you really are might solve this, anyway.
For now.” He pulled back, his hands running down Brian’s arms, drawing up gooseflesh.
“I guess you’re not the puppy anymore…” He groaned as Justin’s hands worked their way under his shirt, and he
moved his hips in a circular pattern around Brian’s lap.
“And…” Justin breathed, pushing his pelvis forward, rocking rhythmically.
“I guess you’ve earned whatever place you want. For now.”
Justin smiled, and then swooped forward to kiss him hard. He decided Brian needed him to get very used to this,
whether Brian had planned for him or not. The man needed him. They needed each other. Yeah, Justin thought, as
Brian’s tongue touched his lightly, then with growing urgency, we’re going to be just fine.
END
Justin's Excellent Adventure
JEA Chapters I-III
“I’ll have to think about it.”
I could tell that Brian was really bothered by my response to his asking me to move back into the loft with him. He
hesitated, and bit the flesh inside the lower lip, a way of stopping the words from coming out before he’s thought
about them. He thinks no one notices that, but I do; the lower lip slightly thins, and the skin just beneath his mouth
indents slightly inward. Sometimes I wonder how much he hurts himself by biting down there. I’ve kissed him after
one or two of these wordless self-mutilations, and tasted blood. I wish he wouldn’t do that. I wish there was a way I
could let him know that he’s hurting himself a lot more than he would ever hurt anyone else by policing his
immediate response, his natural emotional reaction, in that way. But Brian needs to figure out things for himself.
God knows I've always had faith in him. He’s so fucking amazing, so fucking strong, and so fucking smart about
everything else. But the idea that he may never transcend the emotional limitations that have been imposed on him,
that are not a natural part of his character, the real doubt that’s begun to creep over me, well, it’s been like a snake
coiling just under my ribs, where my heart beats. I don’t know if Brian, as he is now, the slow progress he’s been
making, if that’s going to be enough in the long run for me. For us.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I say. And he bites that part of his flesh inside his mouth, and something changes in his
eyes. They were so vulnerable, and it seriously made me hate the position I was in, having to put him off. I hadn’t
expected this, though – I’d practically been living in the loft as it was. Eventually I would have moved in without
either of us acknowledging the change in my status.
Oh, I can imagine that conversation.
“That’s not a very sunny expression,” he would say upon arriving into the loft after work, coming to kiss me as I
frowned over ads in the Pittsburgh rentals on line.
“Yeah,” I’d say, “Daphne’s giving up her lease with the end of the school year. So I need to find a new place to
stay.”
“When’s this happening?” he’d say.
“Uh… three days.” I’m crafty like that. "I guess I procrastinated a little bit." Right.
He’s onto me, of course. But then, it suits his own purposes, so he'd answer with something like, “Well, I suppose
you could stay here while you look.”
So I’d haul my crap over, pretend to look up roommates and other places to live, and stay with him until we got into
another fight, and then I’d find somewhere to move and he’d let me. Or, more likely, he'd kick me out himself.
That’s what I had expected. I had learned not to expect much from our relationship. I was starting to hate that.
I always have wanted the acknowledgement, the proof he cares about me. And here it is, in Brian’s way. He wants
me to move in with him, he’s actually asking me instead of just letting things take care of themselves.
His request took me by surprise.
When I was out at Brett’s place, and Brett asked about my “extra-marital” activities, I could feel my heart flutter,
just a little, just enough to let me know damn well how much I love other people assuming Brian and I have that
level of commitment. And the response I gave, the usual blather about being together because we want to be, not
because we have to be… nobody forces anyone to get married, do they? It’s a choice. So’s divorce, and they are
equally viable options. You do them because you want to, not because you have to.
See? It’s just plain logic. So Brian’s position is complete rhetorical bullshit, illogical. There are no locks on marriage
doors.
But language is a form of denying his real feelings, which he doesn’t trust. Take how he asked me to move back in
with him. There he was, saying he’d do things differently. And just when I hoped he’d say he’d do me, do us,
differently, make some sort of declaration. There I was, heart fluttering. And then he starts talking about
redecorating the bedroom. God, I am such an idiot. What did I expect?
It’s so totally him, and I know that - but at that moment I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scream in frustration or just
punch myself in the head. The whole thing about Gus, of course he meant a lot more than teaching the kid how to
dress, and same as when he finally asked me to move back in – burying the one thing I wanted to hear beneath
everything else, socks for God’s sake… I wouldn’t mind if you were around. How… yeah, I know, I’m not
supposed to use the word, even in the negative. But there it is. How unromantic. As Brett commented on the bullshit
spiel I spouted out, like some Kinney-fucked, Kinney-trained monkey, “How Rageian.” And he’s right. Those are
Brian’s words. Not mine. Why do I want so much more?
And the thing that kills me is, I should know better than to expect any more than that. As I said when we got back
together, I know what to expect. And I don’t expect more than that from him.
I just want more.
So I asked him, are you proposing? I realized, right then, damn it, how much more I do want. I do. His response,
swift, brutal, "of course not" – I didn’t want him to see my expression. I pretended to rub my eyes, putting my hands
over my face. Of course not.
And so I put off telling him about accepting Brett’s offer to work with him. I’ll have to tell him, soon enough.
Michael will find out as soon as he talks to Brett, which mean Brian will find out. So I have to tell him first, soon.
I know exactly how that conversation will go. I know what to expect.
“Hey, Brian, well, Brett’s given me this really great offer to go out to work on the movie as assistant art director.”
“Oh?” He’ll look at me, just watching, waiting.
“Yeah, actually, and… I told him I’d do it.”
“What about school?”
He would bring that up, that fucking bet. I’ll answer, “It’s just, this is such a great opportunity, think of how it’ll
look on my resume!” Something Brian would be sure to understand, professional ambition. “And I can re-enroll at
the Institute when the movie’s done. It’ll only be six months or so. I’ll be back in time for fall classes. And then I'll
move in here, with you.” By that time, I'll have sidled up to him, probably rubbing something of his with something
of mine. Doesn't matter what.
He’ll pause, watching me. Then that slow nod, and he’ll bite the soft, tender flesh just beneath his lower lip, already
having made up his mind that I won’t be coming back.
I’ll want to yell at him, “Give me more! More than that fucking ‘I wouldn’t mind having you around,’ more than 'of
course not' when I ask if you're proposing! Something, anything! I know this is huge for you, asking me to move in,
but I’ve compromised myself for you, changed myself for you, never ask for flowers, am happy as shit when we end
up actually eating Chinese food on the floor even if we never do call it a floor picnic, I accept the crumbs I get and
right now I could use a crumb to think you would put up more of a fight than just tossing me off at the first counter
offer I get to what you offer me! This isn’t Ian all over, is it? Before, romance, this time, job – it’s always going to
be something, and I would give it all up in a heart beat if you just…”
I can hear the speech echo in my head. How many times has it played, different version, but basically the same
speech, the same fucking humiliating, prideless plea, please, Brian, god, please take a leap of faith and help me out
here, help us out here, compromise your rigid fucking illogical terror of emotional commitment and just once trust
yourself enough, trust us enough to just tell me you love me, tell me you want me to stay! I’ve heard the echoes of
this speech while riding the bus, working at the diner, waiting for classes to begin, babysitting Gus… everywhere.
Bouncing around in my head.
My mom has told me, and I know she’s right. No one changes for anyone else. They change because they have to.
But I know that’s not true – I’ve changed for Brian.
Only, have I? Essentially, have I changed, has my desire for Brian's feelings to come out in some sort of declaration,
has that changed?
Oh fuck, fuck, fuck me, I am so fucked here.
I know it would hurt him if I left. I don’t need that kind of proof anymore. And don’t get me wrong – I know how
big the request I move into the loft is. But would he have made it if he had known about the counter offer I had
received just the day before from Brett? I seriously doubt it. He would have tossed me off in a second. Brett’s better
for you, the movie’s better for you, everything’s better for you than I am.
He has to stop doing that to me. He needs to stop doing that to us.
I want him to just get it – that what he offers me, his love, the community, the family I have here, is valuable, it’s
important. I want him to have faith in what we have here, and I need the words that show he gets it, that he has faith
not just in me, but in us. The real problem, of course, is that he needs to always be proving himself, because he
doesn’t really trust himself, he doesn’t really have a great deal of faith in himself. So how can he count on us, when
he’s part of that? So we need to keep proving, over and over, that “we” are reliable, important.
And I’m just so fucking tired of it. Because I’m a part of us too. And it feels like I have to keep fighting him.
I know not to expect it, but I want him to tell me he loves me. I want to think he would ask me into the loft, into his
life, if he knew about the other offer I have. I want to believe that he believes in what’s between us. I want the words
to be there in the air between us, binding us together in a way that two bodies can’t, unless they’re making love.
Even we can’t be in each other all the time. Fucking always ends at some point. Words, once they’re out there –
they’re always there, in memory if nowhere else.
That’s what marriage is. It’s the words, “performatives,” they’re called. Words that actually perform action. The
speech makes whatever you’re saying so. “I do,” and you’re married. Special words, they're not just bullshit.
I know I’m expecting too much.
But I know what I want.
II
“He asked you to move in with him?” Daphne asked her sometimes-roommate, who leaned against the foot of the
couch, and accepted the pint of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream, handing off the Cherry Garcia. Weird
combination, but it worked. And God knew, only two pints would do for this discussion.
“Yeah, can you believe it?” Justin answered, sucking in the pink ice cream.
“And you said…”
“That I’d think about it.”
Daphne paused, looked up from her spoon’s digging around a chunk of Heath. “What do you mean, you’d think
about it?”
“Well, I am your roommate, just moving out suddenly would be kind of rude…”
Daphne snorted. “Yeah, right. What’s the real reason?”
Sometimes it sucked, having a friend who knew him that well. Though it definitely saved time. And not having to
defend himself, explain, backpedal, evade, say one thing while working his way to a seemingly unrelated point…
and he could tell Daphne anything and not worry about it getting to sources he’d rather keep it from. “Um, well,
Brett offered me a job. Assistant art director on Rage, the movie.”
“Holy shit!” Daphne stared, wide eyed. “Wow! So, what, you’d like, move to California?”
“Just for a few months. Well, sixish.” Or eight. Or more, Justin had heard about movie schedules, he wasn’t an idiot.
Daphne reached for the Cherry Garcia, handed off the Heath Bar Crunch. “So, what? What did Brian say when you
told him about that?”
“Uh, well. I haven’t yet.”
Daphne stared at Justin. She said nothing. Waited.
Justin stared back. Then he stood abruptly, avoiding her stare, walked over to his coat, took a pack of cigarettes out
of his jacket.
“Hey, don’t smoke that shit in here,” Daphne said. Justin just raised an eyebrow, withdrew a joint from the pack,
waved it at her. “Oh,” she said, a smile lighting up her face. “Okay, that’s okay.”
“Yeah, I know,” Justin said, lighting up. He puffed on it, walked back, draped himself on his back on the couch,
handed the joint to her. “I think we did this wrong, should be joint first, ice cream second.”
Daphne shrugged. “We still have Dove bars and Hagan Daz Crème de Leche in the freezer.”
“Chips?”
“Salt and Vinegar and barbecue. You said you had a Brian crisis, I happened to be shopping when you called."
"I said I had a personal crisis, not a Brian crisis."
"There's a difference?"
"Daphne..."
"Yeah, anyway. Figured we’d need all this to fill the void.” She gestured at him with the bag of chips.
“You are the best. When you aren't the worst. Did you get…”
“Two six packs of Molson and a bottle of Stoly.”
“Molson? We’re flush this week?”
“Got a check from home. I know you detest Budweiser, and if you’re going to pull the drama princess thing, the
least I can do is supply the proper drinks. Hang on.” Daphne handed back the joint, walked to the kitchen and came
back with two beers and the bags of chips. She sat down on the floor, and turned a scowl onto Justin. “Okay, now
tell me why you’re being a complete moron and not talking to Brian about this?”
“I’m not being a moron, I just don’t know what to do.”
“You’re being a moron.”
“If I had told him about the job, he wouldn’t have asked me to move in with him in the first place.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Sure I do. He’d tell me it sounded like what I wanted, good career move if that’s what I wanted, he wouldn’t hold
me back from what I wanted, blah de blah blah blah. Everything else is so good for me to experience, except him.
It’s never about what he wants. It’s never about us.”
“He wants you to move in with him,” Daphne pointed out.
“Yeah, as long as he thinks I was a sure bet to say yes.”
Daphne sighed, but Justin was steaming up to full rant mode. “You’d think he’d stick out his neck for us just once,
but it’s like, he expects me to be him at that age. And even he’s not himself at that age anymore, so why should I be?
He thinks I should fuck everyone else and take care of my own needs, even at his, even at our expense, just all out
into an early brilliant career and fuck anyone who gets in the way, never more than once of course… so he still
doesn’t really believe I’m really interested in being in a RELATIONSHIP, and fuck it if I won’t use the word. I
can’t seem to figure out a way to make him hear me when I try to tell him in so many words: Brian, I am not you!”
Daphne washed down a salt and vinegar chip with her beer. They exchanged bags. “You’re both morons,” she
declared, taking a final toke off the joint and passing it to Justin, who stubbed it out in the ashtray.
“Uh… there’s one other problem.”
“Yeah?”
“I kinda told Brett I wanted the job. And I’d be coming back. To Hollywood. For the job. I kinda said yes.”
Daphne stared at him, biting back her initial response, deciding instead to lull him in before letting him have it.
“Really. Why?”
Justin sighed. “I don’t know, really. Well, I do. It really is a great opportunity. And… I guess I was on kind of a
high, I mean, just getting in from fucking Conor James…”
“YOU FUCKED CONOR JAMES??!!!”
Justin giggled at her reaction. He had been looking forward to springing that on her.
“HE’S GAY??!!!” She stopped, scowled at him. “Oh, fuck you, Justin, you’re only trying to distract me.”
Damn, so close, but worth another shot. “Yup, he’s gay, and yup, he likes to take it up the…”
“Stop!! Stop, stop! Okay, I get it, you’ve sufficiently crushed another illusion. Of course he’s gay, I was far too
attracted for him to be straight.” She shook herself, got back on point. “Doesn’t matter anyway, a buzz from fucking
a celebrity is no excuse. You want to try explaining the real reason you didn’t discuss a major life decision with your
life partner before making that big a commitment to a job across country?
“I don’t know if we are. Life partners.” The giggling had stopped. Back to maudlin.
Daphne grabbed a handful of barbecued chips. “Oh, please. Frankly, I’m surprised you and Brian haven’t killed each
other yet, but I’m getting close to doing it for you.” She took a long swallow of beer. “Which do you want, your
relationship or Hollywood?”
“It’s not that simple,” Justin replied.
“Why not?”
“Because,” he glared at her, “He tosses me out of his life like every other week. He won’t open up to me when
major life shit like, oh say, cancer? happens. And lately, it seems we’ve been apart way more than we’ve been
together. I mean, we’ll mention vacations but never actually take them – and I say mention because I can’t
remember the last time we actually talked, the only quality time we’ve spent together in the last, what, months? was
competing for a trick, and then, when Brian actually did get back on his feet, he was training for the ride.”
“And you wish he were… riding you?”
“Uh, no that’s fine. But maybe communicating?”
“Brian.”
Justin sighed.
Daphne continued, “C’mon, you know how Brian is. It’s easier for him to just fall back into himself when things get
nuts. He resists the Vulcan mind meld thing.”
“You’re such a geek, Ms. Spock.”
“Well, you know the reference, what does that make you?” Daphne stuck her tongue out at him. “Besides, who’s not
communicating? So what, are you going to fix this by running away? Again, I might add? But, I guess that’d show
him.”
Justin froze as his glare turned into something more like dismay. Then he slumped, and closed his eyes. “Fuck. Fuck
fuck fuck a duck.”
“Really. A duck. Is that your latest thing?”
“Fine, fuck you, Daphne.”
“Nope, nobody twice except Brian, remember?” She stopped teasing. “You have to tell him. Seriously, Justin.”
“Yeah, I know. But I don’t want him to think I’m running away from him. I’m not. I mean… I just need some space
to figure out how I feel. It’s like, I’ve just felt kind of, blah lately.”
“You seem more, I don’t know, confused. Maybe, angry?”
Justin’s eyes popped open. He didn’t deny it. But he just shrugged. “So what do I do? How do I tell him about this
job without him thinking I’m leaving him?”
“You’re going to have to just tell him and encourage him to respond with more than his tongue down your throat.
But hey! that’s probably a good place to start. He’s more likely to feel, um, charitable toward your side of things if
you, you know, soften him up first, get him in the mood he likes to be in.”
Justin smirked. “Believe me, Brian doesn’t soften up in those moods.”
Daphne rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean, I don’t mean physically, I mean when he’s more receptive to
suggestion, to your side of things. Like, emotionally, sort of, you know, rub up on him, tell him when he’s feeling,
um…”
“Hot? Use my seductive powers?”
“Yeah, when he’s less likely to rip your head off… DON’T,” she warned, seeing the teasing glanced slanted her way
at that last bit.
“Fine, but you,” Justin said, “are one sneaky ass bitch.”
Daphne beamed brightly. “Yeah! That’s why you talk to me, we do good battle strategy.”
“Call you General Chanders.”
“Heh heh… I like ‘sneaky ass bitch’ better. Is it time for vodka?”
“Unfortunately, I think you’re right. I’d better go tell Brian what’s up.” Justin stood, grabbed his coat and bag. “If
Michael talks to Brett before I talk to Brian, this’ll be very bad for me.”
“Fucking Michael.”
“Ugh, don’t give me any mental pictures.”
“He’s an asshole,” Daphne clarified.
“Not helping…” Justin teased, shrugging into his coat.
She growled in frustration. “Fine! You and Brian may be morons, but Michael is dumb as dirt! He has no clue! He
thinks he’s protecting Brian but he’s only protecting something of his own that doesn’t even exist, if it ever did, a
fantasy relationship he made up for himself that doesn’t help anyone, not even Michael, which he would realize if he
weren’t as thick as a post! And he needs to hold his utensils like an adult, not a four-year old!”
Justin tried not to laugh at the pleasure of having a friend who was totally on his side. “Daphne!”
She scowled. “Fine, go talk to Brian before Michael gets to him. But Justin…”
Justin turned, his hand on the door.
“Brian loves you, maybe not as much as I do. Just don’t forget that he really does love you.”
Justin’s smile faded as he walked out.
In the apartment, Daphne went to put the vodka in the freezer so it would be cold when Justin returned, in tears more
likely than not. She sighed. They really were a couple of idiots.
III
Justin really did mean to go home and talk to Brian. But instead, he found himself entering the diner, sliding into an
empty booth. He had been on the way to the loft, when he realized he was enjoying the sun on his face a little too
much, the way the early spring breeze lifted his hair, caressed his cheek. And he wasn’t thinking much of anything,
just feeling a winding tension in the pit of his stomach. Must be hunger, he told himself. Or dread. Shit. He couldn’t
figure it out. He just ate a ton of crap at Daphne’s. And he wasn’t exactly dreading the conversation with Brian. It
was just his future life. He had two good choices in front of him. Really. All good. Wasn’t that it? What exactly,
how exactly should he approach this? What was his objective? He had to be prepared… but with this buzz on, he
really couldn’t think clearly. Damn, a cup of coffee would help. And then he found himself in front of the diner. He
wasn’t procrastinating. Really.
“What can I get you, honey?” Kiki was there, her pen poised over the pad.
“Just coffee, Kiki.” Across the diner, Deb waved at him. The place was mostly empty. He glanced at the clock. The
crowds would descend soon enough for the dinner rush. Brian would be home, working. Waiting. Pretending he
wasn’t.
Damn it.
“Here you go, sweetie” Kiki had returned, and was sliding the cup of coffee in front of him.
“Thanks,” he breathed, picking up the cup and drinking it black, gulping at it, almost scalding his tongue. But the
caffeine began its work by the time he had finished it; he felt that he could almost think. One more cup while he did
not procrastinate. He looked up to find Kiki, or Debbie, someone walking around with a pot of coffee, wasn’t
someone always walking around with a pot of coffee? Shit, he had to get rid of this floating, disconnected feeling.
He gestured at Kiki, held up his cup. She nodded at him. He turned his body back into the booth.
And his gaze collided with a pair of brown, almost black eyes. Oh, fuck, he really didn’t need this, Michael, sliding
into the booth across from him. And he had a dark scowl on his face as he shook his head. Justin tensed.
“So,” Michael drawled. “I just talked to Brett…”
Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!
Justin felt it then, part of Brian’s legacy to him, what he personally called the “Kinney calm” settle over him. It was
weird. Before, when he had watched that carefully blank look settle onto Brian’s face, he assumed it was because
Brian knew exactly what he was doing and did not have time or patience for the idiot standing in front of him,
wasting his time. The look conveyed sheer contempt for the preposterous presumption of whomever stood there,
questioning Brian Fucking Kinney. Justin hated that look turned on him; it made him feel insignificant, as if he had
no right to his own point whatsoever. It made him feel like an insect, scurrying about beneath the devastating gaze
like a boot raised above him, ready to descend, crushing.
Then, one night not too long ago, they had been at the bar in Woody’s, when he had been approached by a former
classmate from PIFA who had spent the last term in Italy.
“Hey, Justin! How’s it hanging? You and Ethan still together?”
Justin froze, feeling a sudden tightness in his gut, a wave of confusion and uncertainty crashing over him. He liked
this guy standing in front of him, this kid just waiting for a reply, smile of greeting fading as he watched Justin’s
face and began to realize he’d said the wrong thing. At that moment, Justin had no idea how to answer him, his brain
freezing on him as the factors needed to calculate the consequences of his responses were just too varied to allow for
a split second decision, especially not a casual reply. He and Brian were sitting on the bar stools, lower legs casually
entwined. It hadn’t helped that Brian’s calf had jumped and then went still, pressing Justin’s bone, hard, into the leg
of his stool. He had no idea how to respond. Ethan was a taboo subject. They never talked about it. Never never
never. And there was this kid standing in front of him, waiting for Justin’s reply. He couldn’t blush, couldn’t let
Brian see how agitated he was, sure as shit couldn’t let this kid see how agitated he was. And suddenly, like a flash,
this understanding that he didn’t have to react, he could just not react at all. Sheer will, he willed it all down into a
tiny little place in the pit of his stomach, and leaned back against Brian’s side. Felt that icy calm fall down over him.
“No,” he’d answered the kid, nothing more. Waited. Fuck off, I can’t handle this, Justin thought, hearing a wild
screaming laugh echoing deep in his gut but way down inside. Not a ripple on the surface. Just a stare.
“Oh,” the kid had answered, as Brian’s arm snaked around Justin’s waist, pulled him in closer. “Oh!” He stared at
Brian for a second. “Well, then, uh… see you ‘round.” The kid had fled.
Justin turned to face front, Brian’s hand dropping into his lap, fingers curling over his junk. Comfort? Ownership?
Fuck if he knew. As he’d raised his beer, Justin had caught a glimpse of his own pale face in the mirror behind the
bar. His and Brian’s, both with identical casts of That Look, the classic Kinney calm. Brian's eye caught Justin’s in
the reflection. And then Justin knew. That look that had always infuriated him so, that he thought was a way of
annihilating the person on the receiving end, annihilating him, that wasn’t it at all. Instead of a sign of utter control,
it was just a cover for the complete opposite, vulnerable uncertainty in exactly how to proceed. Knowledge that his
own immediate emotional reaction was probably way out of proportion to what he was faced with. Had much more
to do with throwing up a big wall around his own fucked up shit than the person on the receiving end.
You’d think he’d have figured all this out before that moment. But wasn’t that typical Sunshine, had to figure out
everything by experience. No wonder his life was so fucked up.
That particular blank stare sure as hell proved useful, though. For instance, right now, staring down Michael as
Debbie took over Kiki’s table, since Michael had shown up.
“More coffee, Deb? Please,” Justin asked, wondering if he was going to get to drink it.
“Usual, Ma,” Michael said, absently wiping away the lipstick she left behind on his cheek. He stared at Justin, saw
that look that made Justin appear to be channeling his lover. That look that never failed to infuriate him. The look
making clear that Michael had no clue. Bad enough when it came from Brian. Showing up on Justin’s face,
though…
Not that it made any difference. This time, Michael had a more concrete reason to be infuriated, besides the fact that
his best friend and Justin seemed to be turning into another entity altogether, not Brian and Justin, but a singular
Them. Michael didn't have enough perspective to say that his antipathy was irrational, but he did understand that it
was like an insect biting under his skin, in an area he couldn’t reach. He only knew it irritated the fuck out of him,
and there was nothing he could do about it. He had gotten used to the constant sting. But that did not mean it had
gone away.
However, this latest situation, that he could actually address.
“Does he know yet?” Michael asked.
Of course, Justin did not need to ask who “he” was. “Michael…”
“I guess that means no. Were you planning to tell him before you left? or were you going to let him figure it out on
his own? Again?”
“Tell who what?” Ben asked, sliding into the seat next to Michael.
“Justin has accepted Brett’s offer to be assistant art director on the movie.”
“Wow! Great opportunity, Justin!”
“No shit?” Deb asked, filling up Justin’s coffee cup, and patting him on the cheek with her free hand.
“No, no!” Justin exclaimed, pulling away. Damn it, That Look only worked on one person at a time. And now three
people knew, before Brian did? Debbie, for god’s sake? Shit! “It’s actually… well, I did tell him I wanted to do it,
but… it’s complicated.” He was not going to tell them Brian’s offer to move into the loft made things a lot more
confusing. His head was clearing. He took a gulp of coffee. Why, oh why hadn’t he told Brett not to tell Michael?
Oh, yeah, he didn’t want Brett to think he was having second thoughts, that he wasn’t thrilled about the job. And,
damn it, why shouldn’t he be thrilled?
Brian, that’s why. Always Brian. Whether that was good or bad made no difference. It was simple fact.
“So you didn’t accept the offer?” Ben asked.
They all stared at him. Justin sipped on his coffee. “I haven’t talked to Brian yet.”
“Ah,” Debbie said, her voice filled with an understanding that she didn’t really have.
“You might want to do that,” Michael stated, staring at him.
Ben turned his level gaze from Justin to Michael.
Justin responded, “I didn’t think Brett would say anything to you. I was planning to talk to Brian before making any
announcement to anyone else…” Justin didn’t want to explain this much, but he needed them to understand why it
was important they leave him alone to handle this, to not interfere.
“So you’ve already decided. Gonna run off then?”
Ben interrupted. “Michael, maybe we might want to ask Justin about this before you jump to conclusions. What’s
the story, Justin?”
He liked Ben, he really did, but he wasn’t prepared to go into it at the moment. “It’s a movie, so it’s a limited period
of time. I’m not running anywhere.” Glare, real glare at Michael.
“If you don’t just stay, bright lights, big city,” Michael grumbled, attempting a joke to hide the real thrust of his
words.
“How long?” Debbie asked.
“Few months,” Justin answered.
“More like eight,” Michael ground out, tossing in a glare of his own for good measure.
Damn it, damn it! What exactly had Brett told Mikey anyway? “Look, I was actually on my way to talk to Brian
about this, so I would appreciate it, if you all would just let me work this out, okay?”
Debbie and Ben nodded. Michael’s eyes narrowed. “You got 24 hours to tell him, JT,” Michael said. “If you
haven’t, I will.”
“Whatever, Michael,” Justin tossed over his shoulder on his way out, his coffee left behind, undrunk.
Michael turned back to the table, and found his mother and husband staring at him. “What?”
Debbie just sighed in disgust and turned away. Ben tried harder; he did have to live with the guy. “Maybe you
should follow Justin’s advice, just leave it alone.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, that’ll work. I’ve seen the way they’ve worked it out. The last time Justin was left alone to work it
out on his own, Brian almost drank himself to death.”
“Yeah, I know, I was there, remember? Brian can take care of himself. I don’t want you to disappear into Kinney
Land again.”
“I just…”
“Want to protect Brian from the forces of evil? I think he’s got it handled.”
“Yeah, well, Brian acts all tough, but…”
“He is tough.”
“Jesus, Ben, is this how it’s going to be?”
“How what’s going to be?”
Debbie came back with a hamburger platter, which she placed in front of Michael, and a bowl of Wheaties for Ben.
He turned his automatic grimace into a smile, and thanked her. He’d been more in the mood for salad. Gotta humor
the mom-in-law. What a difference in her attitude from the first few months he was dating her son. “Can I get a side
salad, too, Deb?” She nodded, but waited.
Michael did not disappoint her need to be involved. “This whole marriage thing, you going to interrupt me and start
telling me what to do all the time?”
Ben stared back, considering how to respond. This was not the time or place for this discussion, though he knew
Debbie would back him up. He had more tact than to remind Michael that a marriage was between two men, not
three, in front of his mother. And Michael, while he had gone through with marrying him, had immediately started
to question the validity of the entire ceremony. Ben knew that second guessing himself, wondering if they should
have had a long engagement first, did no good now. He glanced over at Debbie, and threw her a smile. “Of course
not,” Ben soothed, shelving the conversation for later. Debbie just shook her head.
Justin pulled open the loft door, and headed toward the kitchen, placing the Starbucks bag on the counter and
opening it to take out the two cups of latte, fully loaded for him, skim milk decaf for Brian. Soften him up, Daphne
had said. That hadn’t been the reason he’d picked up two cups instead of just one for himself. But bringing Brian his
favorite drink (well, after any number of alcoholic beverages, guava juice, and water), such consideration sure
couldn’t hurt. He glanced over at the computer desk. Brian was watching him. Justin headed over with the coffee in
his hand. “Hey,” Brian said as he approached.
“Working?” Dumb question. It may be Saturday afternoon, but Brian worked all the time. At least he got to wear his
comfortable clothes, black tank, jeans, when he worked Saturday afternoons at home. As Justin walked toward him,
he shoved back from the desk, lifted his arms to stretch his back. Wow, Justin thought, his gaze traveling the line of
Brian’s jaw as his head leaned back to flex and crack his cervical spine. The odd tension in his stomach turned to
something much more familiar. He waited for Brian to drop his arms, and leaned down to kiss him, capturing his
lover’s lips in his, allowing the kiss to convey that strong feeling behind it. He pulled back, and they smiled at each
other.
“I got you a latte,” Justin said, handing him the coffee. Brian nodded his thanks, brought the drink to his lips. Justin
added, “Decaf, skim milk.”
Brian took a long swallow, sighing in appreciation. “Of course it is.” Justin knew him, what he wanted. Brian knew
anything Justin handed him would be just right. “I took down the light over the bed,” Brian added, his voice casual.
Took another sip of the coffee. Looked back at the computer. Glanced up at Justin’s face, then back at the computer.
The tone held… what? Justin decided to investigate this before starting the talk they needed to have. He wasn’t
procrastinating, really. But clearly, Brian wanted his opinion, even if he would never ask for it. That last glance, no
smirk, no seductive softening of the mouth, that last look had been… uncertain. That was it. Justin didn’t get to see
that look very often.
He mounted the steps to the bedroom, and stopped on the threshold. His art, one of his final projects before he had
been kicked out of school, hung over the bed. It had been computer-generated, the apotheosis of his attempt to
represent harmonious balance on a discordant visual field. The assignment had asked for a landscape, and Justin had
drawn inspiration from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” so a dark, mechanical urban landscape formed the background of
this piece. Blues, greys, blacks – and then a thin beam of white light with a bare suggestion of brilliant yellow
exploding upward into that dark sky as in the distance, from far off in the heart of the city and of the painting, a bare
bit of brightness that brought the entire landscape into balance around that central beacon, small and receded in
distance as it was. Justin loved this project, not only because he had gotten an A for it – the formal element of the
dark buildings unsettled the composition even as that single shot of light restored the visual field into balance. The
professor had said it was disturbing and soothing at once. Justin loved the fact that the other students had felt
compelled to try and tell the “story” of the light that strained toward the sky. The story, to Justin, was completely
beside the point. The fact that people felt a personal connection to it was far more relevant.
The piece looked absolutely perfect in its place over the bed. He looked at it, reabsorbing its impact, again unable to
believe that it had come out of him. He always felt that way about his art. It seemed bigger than he was, and that
strangeness continually struck him, the oddness that he had produced something so amazing. He was about to turn
back to the main part of the loft to let Brian know his approval, when his gaze skimmed the wall over the dresser.
And the sketch hanging on the wall there. He froze, stunned. He hadn’t seen that sketch in over two years. Brian,
asleep, naked in bed. His first show, his first sale. Brian had it, all along. Holy shit.
He felt the arm move around his chest, and he leaned back into Brian’s warm body. Felt the soft lips press on his
neck. “You like?” Hands, moving onto his stomach, tugging up his shirt.
Justin turned around. Brian rested his forearms on his shoulders. His eyes were closed.
Justin sat on the bed, so abruptly he practically fell out of Brian’s embrace. Brian’s eyes popped open, surprised,
then he followed Justin’s gaze, which still fixed on the sketch. He sat down on the bed, next to Justin’s hip. Rested
his chin on Justin’s shoulder. Sighed. Waited.
Justin tried to pull his thoughts together. He could have said any number of things. He finally settled on, “Why…
why did you buy it? I mean, back then?”
Brian shrugged. He kept his lips busy, licked at the pulse at the base of Justin’s neck. Justin shuddered; that never
failed to send signals screaming straight to his dick. “Brian…”
“I wanted it.”
Justin almost smiled. Duh, he thought. Such a predictable response. He could pursue that later. For now…
“Brian.”
“Hm?”
“We need to talk.” Hand moving up his thigh, making him want to put off this conversation. No, no, no, he’d
procrastinated enough. He slipped his palm against Brian’s, entwined their fingers, lifted the hand off his thigh.
Brian lifted his head. “You don’t like the color scheme? Let me guess – you prefer orange?”
A small huff was Justin’s reply. “No, it’s not that. This, this…” he gestured at the walls, “It’s great. Surprising…”
Brian turned his head to look at the painting over the bed; Justin knew he really was avoiding looking at him. So he
grasped Brian’s chin, turned his face back toward his. “I love it, I love you.” He kissed him, took a deep breath.
“But, I have to talk to you about something else.”
IV
He was so damn exhausted.
It was probably for the best; he didn’t have the energy to think about anything. Shooting was scheduled to begin in a
week, and the set, which sprawled across the back lot, was not even close to completion. Tom, the Art Director, was
running everyone ragged. Eighteen hour days were not unheard of.
Justin pushed open the door of the tiny bungalow the studio had provided for him, not bothering to take off his
clothes before falling onto his back on the bed. He glanced over at the tiny kitchenette crammed into back corner of
his room. Nah, forget food. Who had time or energy to eat?
Tom hated him. Well, he didn’t hate him so much as he resented the fact that the director seemed to defer more to
Justin than to him, the few times Brett had showed up to check on progress.
“It’ll be done! It’ll be done!” Tom assured Brett, even though nothing was near done but for the alleyway in which
the first scene, the assault and rescue, was to be shot. Brett had a frown stamped on his forehead as he toured
through the back lot, noting the slow progress. There was a week left to pull it altogether. The alleyway was perfect;
but the second set, the loft… uh, Rage’s lair, wasn’t anywhere near complete. And shooting there was to begin
shortly after the bashing scene.
“Yeah, it better,” Brett clipped off. Then he turned to Justin, and asked, “What do you think of Rage’s lair? Is it on
target?” Justin had been waiting for Tom to finish sucking up to the director, so he could hand over the materials list
Tom had requested Justin research. He expected he would next be ordering supplies per Tom’s request, and had a
very good idea of which materials were best. But he had found out the hard way not to do anything without Tom’s
go-ahead. His job seemed to be doing whatever the Art Director told him to. And the art director hated him. When
Brett came down to the set, Justin tried to keep his head down, but Brett would inevitably call him over.
He wasn’t quite sure how to handle his unique position on the set. He and Robin, the other Assistant Art Director,
mostly ran errands for Tom, researched material, and pitched in to help build the actual sets when they could. To say
nothing of getting Tom’s coffee, which he drank non-stop. No wonder the guy seemed as if he would vibrate out of
existence, explode with nervous energy. All that caffeine. But, since Justin had actually designed the comic book,
and Brett had made clear the film was to stick as close as possible to the original vision, whenever Brett showed up
on the set, he would have Justin show him around, and Tom would lag in their steps, explaining the mechanics of
the set’s construction, the cost estimates, and the projections for completion. But Brett would invariably turn to
Justin, seeking his approval as to whether Tom’s work lived up to “their” vision.
Tom had issues with this.
Today was typical. After Brett left, complimenting Justin on his work, and barking at Tom over the delay in the
construction schedule, Tom had snatched the materials list out of Justin’s hand. He scowled, and said, “Fine, he
wants the sets up faster but can’t hire me any more fucking workers? Robin!” Robin appeared, shooting a quick,
worried look at Justin, who shrugged at her. “Where’s my fucking coffee? Go get me more, and not that cafeteria
shit, go to Starbucks!” Justin had brought him cafeteria coffee earlier that day, and had been rewarded with a long,
raving rant.
“Uh, Tom, the cafeteria only serves Starbucks coffee,” Robin informed him.
Which had been Justin’s point.
Tom glared at her. “Then the cafeteria’s switching the grounds and pocketing the difference, wouldn’t be the first
time. Go to the fucking Starbucks down the street, and then get your ass back here.” Robin left, and Tom turned to
Justin. “You’re going to help put up the set. Robin, too, get your ass over to the lair set.” He glanced down at the
list. “Fuck, you forgot Rothman’s!”
“You didn’t tell me…” Justin began.
“Do I have to tell you everything!” Tom yelled. “Fine, I’ll call them myself, just go to work.”
The rest of the day had been spent actually lifting walls into place, carrying pieces of furniture, painting walls,
setting up a platform.
Robin wasn’t at all sympathetic to his problems. She had laughed at his complaints, the one time they managed to sit
down in a café and eat lunch together.
“Tom’s supposed to be the guy in charge,” she explained. “You got the director looking for your approval, of course
he’s going to make your life shit when Brett ain’t around.”
Justin had picked at his salad. What there was of it. People didn’t seem to eat a lot, at least, they didn’t at this place
Robin had brought him. “Yeah, but, I just… I don’t know. I guess I’m an idiot, I kind of expected, since I created
Rage in the first place, that the art director would be more interested in what I had to say.”
“Yeah, but you’re an *assistant*, his assistant. That’s your place, that’s the way it works, it doesn’t matter that you
created the vision, these are his sets, not yours. In fact,” she leaned forward, shoving her plate aside, “do you have
any idea how many people out there want your job? I mean, people who have degrees in art. People who have a hell
of a lot more experience than you do. This just dropped in your lap, maybe for good reason, I’m not gonna judge
that, but you would never have gotten this job with your resume as is. You can learn a lot here. I know Tom’s hard
to handle for even the most favored. But you can learn a lot, just focus on the positive.”
Justin figured she meant well. “You’re right. I guess I just expected something different.”
Robin smirked in response. “What, the glamorous movie industry? It’s a business, just like anything else. I hate to
tell you, this is as glamorous as it gets.”
His forearm and hand had started aching after only four hours into the grueling work of raising the lair set. By the
end of the day, he was painting the walls with a brush in his left hand. And that was only the first coat; they had a
full day of the same for the next day. He would kill for a bath, but this tiny room the movie had supplied for him
only had a shower. A tiny, cramped shower. He supposed he was fortunate to be put up, and not have to scramble
for housing. Not that he would have time to look for somewhere nicer to live, even if he wanted to. He lay on his
back on the hard mattress, massaging his right arm with his left hand. Didn’t help. Sharp pain punctuated through
his numb fingers, the muscles in his forearm cramped horribly. He could feel the twinges of beginning spasms. He
would not say anything about this, though – what was he supposed to do, beg off heavy labor? No way. If he said
anything, he’d look like he was trying to get out of work, that he couldn’t take the bullshit Tom dished out. So he
would say nothing. But fuck, this hurt.
He missed Brian. He was tired, in pain, and he missed Brian with an ache that had lodged firmly in his gut.
Not that he would tell Brian this. They might be fighting. Justin wasn’t sure. What was certain, was that they were
both insanely busy; something had come up with the Brown Athletics account, and god knew Justin barely had a
free moment himself. When he did, he slept. If they were fighting, it was a cold war. It had started when Justin had
informed Brian of the opportunity out in Hollywood. He had known that was going to cause trouble. But he had no
idea how to get around that.
Seeing that sketch on the wall of the bedroom in the loft, his first sale, learning that Brian had bought that all those
years ago, hanging in the bedroom, *their* bedroom… that had thrown him. He had seized on Brian’s lack of
responsiveness when he had asked him why he had bought it, steeling himself to have this conversation. Maybe he
should have been more sensitive. But he was tired of always worrying about Brian’s feelings. When was it going to
be about his?
Still he couldn’t forget that look of resignation that came over Brian’s face when Justin had told him, “Um, when I
was out in California, uh, Brett asked me if I wanted to work for him, on the movie?” Justin had paused. Brian
watched him. He said nothing, just waited. Justin knew this tactic; he’d watched Brian use it a thousand times, but
he’d been too nervous to counter with anything of his own. So he just spilled. “Anyway,” Justin continued, “he
offered me that job of Assistant Art Director…” he trailed off, looked back at the sketch. His stomach knotted more
tightly, if that was possible.
Brian’s forefinger caught his jaw and pulled his face back to look at him, imitating the very motion Justin had just
used on him mere moments before. “It’s a good opportunity.”
“He asked me before you asked me to move in.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
Brian dropped his hand onto the bed, watched Justin. “You’re thinking of moving to California, then?” The mask
was in place, oh so calm. Watching, Waiting. His eyes were almost glazed, not in a good way.
“No! Not moving, just, relocating for a couple of months. For the duration of the movie shoot.”
“I see.”
Justin could imagine what Brian saw. “Brian, it’s only going to be for a couple of months. And it’s a great
opportunity…”
“And lots of fresh starlet meat,” Brian tried to joke, leaning back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “When do you
leave?”
Jesus, he already has me out the door, Justin thought, but he forced that thought back. It’s just Brian, he reminded
himself, but the phrase had been repeated in his head so often that it had long lost meaning. Sure, it was just Brian to
pretend he didn’t care. To accept reality, in Brian’s words. Justin could tell himself a thousand times, that this didn’t
mean that Brian didn’t care, but it didn’t tell him what Brian did feel. So he does care, but how much?
“Next month sometime… the movie starts shooting in two months, but there’s stuff that needs to be done before
that.”
“Ah. So you’ve already said yes.”
Shit. “I should have talked to you first.”
“Your life,” Brian shot back, getting up from the bed, crossing the loft to his desk, and picking up the cup of coffee,
taking a long swallow. The mask was back.
Justin followed him. “But it’s our life…”
“Apparently not.” He clicked mouse to restart his program, stared at the computer screen.
Fuck, this was bad. “Don’t. Brian. Brian!”
Cool eyes looked up at him. “What?”
“Don’t shut me out.”
Brian pushed back from the computer, leaned back in the chair, and crossed his arms over his chest. He considered
the man in front of him. “No big deal. We’re not married, you don’t owe me anything, we’re not joined at the hip.
It’s a good opportunity for you.”
“Then why are you acting so pissed?”
“I’m not!” Brian bit his lip, hearing himself. That probably came out a little more forcefully than it should have, for
the effect he intended. He uncrossed his arms, gestured at Justin to come over. When he approached, Brian reached
up, took him by the hips, and sat him down on his lap. “Fine… maybe I’m a little… surprised. I’m not upset with
you. It could be a good career move. Unless you just want to fuck Conor James again?”
Justin wrinkled his nose, “Hm, not twice. He might get attached, never leave me alone.”
“I know what that’s like,” Brian grumbled. Justin punched him lightly on the shoulder.
“Maybe I just want my shot at Tom Cruise…”
“Everyone knows he’s not gay,” Brian answered.
“He hasn’t met me yet.”
Brian burst out laughing, and turned Justin so he was straddling him, reaching up to pull his neck, meeting his lips
with his.
A month later, lying on his bed, cradling his aching arm, Justin wished he had pushed Brian harder. He always let
him off so easily, never tried to push him anymore. He had pushed like hell when they first met; what had happened
since then? He had begun to wonder about that, he felt so fucking lost lately… and now there was no time to think at
all . Even less time to contact Brian, to send email, to phone. Anything.
They’d spoken on the phone only a couple of times since he’d been out here, but not about anything important.
Justin wasn’t about to admit that he missed living with Brian. His eyes closed, and before he drifted off to sleep, he
allowed himself the luxury of remembering the fierce fuck session in the chair that had ended that half-assed
conversation, and memories of Brian saying, once they’d caught their breaths, “You know, if you move in here
before you go to California, you’ll have a home to look forward to coming back to…” and his own whispered,
“yes…”
Justin’s arm throbbed. He took a very deep breath, willed the tears that threatened back, back to the depths. He
couldn’t cry. He had to sleep. He already felt bad enough. Crying was for sissy faggots.
“Brian? I have to talk to you.”
Brian glanced up from his computer, to see Ted hovering in the doorway of his office. He saw the look on his
accountant’s… well, accountant/account assistant’s face. “That is becoming my least favorite sentence of all time,”
he muttered to himself.
“I’m sorry… can I come in?”
“Yeah, Ted, just a second.” Brian closed out his email, shut down the message he was trying to write to Justin. The
“save draft?” message blinked for his attention. He hesitated, then clicked on “no.” Everything he would say came
out sounding stupid. And fuck if he knew what he wanted to say. He had written emails just recounting how his day
was going, but those sounded dumb too. Fuck, he wanted Justin home. Fuck all this communication shit. Full body
contact was so much better. How long was that damn movie going to take? “Okay, Ted, what’s up?”
Ted sat down in the chair across from his desk, and twitched.
“Ted…”
“Yeah, uh, I have to talk to you about Drew Boyd.”
“What about him?”
“Uh…”
“Ted. I do not have all day. Fucking spit it out.”
“Emmett had an affair with him.”
Ted looked on, aghast, as Brian burst out laughing. “What?”
“No, Brian, I’m not kidding. That guy… he apparently, uh, likes a little bit on the side. Boy bits.”
Brian rubbed his hands over his face. He did not need this today. Or any other day for that matter.
“I had no idea, I swear, I didn’t know until Emmett told me. He ditched him, though, for being a closet case…”
“Well, thank god he’s a closet case! What, was Emmett trying to work his fairy godmother magic and turn the
ripped linebacker into a princess?”
“Isn’t he a quarterback?”
“WHAT THE FUCK, TED!!!”
“Sorry…” Ted knew this was going to be bad, but he hadn’t expected Brian to be quite so pissed off. Well, yeah he
did, he had just hoped he wouldn’t be. “It’s over, though, I just thought you should know.”
“You’re damn right I should know, he’ll have to be replaced. Any ideas?”
Ted could not figure out the tone of voice, was that sarcasm? Would Brian entrust him with finding another cover
boy for Brown? “Uh…
“Yeah, uh. Guess that’s no. Fuck.”
Ted tried to make this better. “Look, if it helps any, Emmett told me that Drew said he’d never risk his reputation by
coming out of the closet. Too much money riding on it, apparently.”
“Thank god for small favors,” Brian muttered.
“Well, since Brown’s so pleased with this guy, and actually brought up keeping him longer than the original
contract, I figured you’d want to avoid the risk of scandal that comes with him.”
Brian raised an eyebrow. “Not so dumb, Schmidt. In the meantime, we’re just going to have to ride out the next
couple months, and hope that nothing gets out. You do know what this could do to Kinnetic’s reputation?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m telling you. And nobody else.”
“Well, tell Honeycut to keep his mouth shut.” Fuck. Thank God Brown was in Chicago. And Brian would have
heard if word was out in Pittsburgh, so Boyd had been smart enough to remain under the radar – or gaydar, as it
were. Still, he had bad enough judgment to get involved with Emmett, who was not exactly discreet. Especially
when he was pissed. Not that Brian minded that under ordinary circumstances, hell, he admired Emmett for his fuck
‘em all attitude. But this was business. It had nothing to with his personal opinions, his preferences. It had to do with
reality. The average heterosexual American guy would not buy sports gear from his queer brethren. And while the
average heterosexual woman would be more likely to buy sports gear for her guy from a hot guy regardless of
orientation, they were not the market, and besides, women hated cheating, dishonest assholes. Hell, nobody ran to
buy products from them. It was just a bad bet all around.
“We’re going to have to ride out the next couple months and just hope it all works out.” Ted echoed Brian’s words.
“I don’t just let things work out on their own,” Brian growled, unconsciously grabbing and squeezing the stress ball
Justin had brought him just before he’d left, saying, “Since you won’t have me to take your stress out on…”
“Unfortunately, I’m not sure we have a choice,” Ted returned. While Brian was trying to figure out when Kinnetic
had become a “we” endeavor, Ted continued, “Here’s what I thought. I figured I could come up with a selection of
replacements and then pass them by you. After you narrow them down to two, we’ll hire an investigator to scope
them out and then you can decide who you prefer, and we can approach one or the other. We can’t do much about
Drew but hope he doesn’t fuck up while he’s on our billboards, but we can try to prevent it from happening again.
And, maybe, you could propose to Brown that we have a rotating face, keep it fresh.”
Brian raised an eyebrow. Ted had obviously thought this out, had come up with a proposal of his own to run by
Brian, well planned before he approached the office. Not that Brian would ever tell Ted he was impressed by this.
Instead, he just heaved a great sigh, and shook his head as he looked over at the man across from him. “Yeah, fine,
pull something together, you got a week to show me what you’ve come up with. And Ted,” he added as Ted nodded
and got up from the chair. Ted looked back. “You should know I’m aware of how big a mess this could still become.
And I don’t like being forced to stand by, doing nothing.”
Ted nodded, seemed for a moment as though he would say something, and then just turned to leave.
“Oh, Ted?”
He turned back.
“Look at guys from California. L.A. area would be best.”
Ted bit his lips to keep from smiling before he went back to work.
“Oh, hey, Brian, come on in.”
Brian stepped into the foyer of Drew’s house, and said, “I’m not staying. In fact, I would have saved time and just
called, but this is not a conversation I want to risk on recordable media. There’s no one here, is there?”
Drew stopped, his wooden face becoming stiffer, if possible. He paled. “Just me.”
“I see you understand where I’m going with this,” Brian continued. “Neither Brown Athletics nor I would appreciate
any of your extracurricular activities getting out while you’re fronting our campaign. So you will restrain yourself
for the duration, and keep your dick out of anything that isn’t your girlfriend. Otherwise, you won’t have a dick to
stick into whatever you like when all this is done. Are we clear?”
Drew stared into the hard eyes of the man standing across from him. “Frankly, Kinney, I’m surprised you seem so…
judgmental about this. I know your reputation.”
“Yes, that’s the point, isn’t it? I’m not in the closet, billing myself as the all American het sports star.” He turned to
leave, and threw over his shoulder, “And, Boyd, I’m not kidding. If I find out you’re fucking around anytime in the
next six months, you will be minus your junk.”
“Six months? The campaign’s hardly two more!”
“Extra four months for safe distance.” He slammed out, headed down the long staircase to his car. Damn it, what a
day. All he wanted… but he couldn’t go bury himself in blonde boy forgetfulness, now could he? Fuck, he needed a
drink. A lot of them.
Michael found him at Woody’s, a glass of whiskey in front of him. He slid onto the stool next to him.
“Oh, hey, Mikey,” Brian slurred. Michael raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t seen Brian this drunk in a while.
What’s up, Brian? Bad day?”
“Nah, my days are just peachy.” He drained his glass, gestured to the bartender. “How’re the Huxtables?”
“We’re fine… Hunter just got his report card. He’s doing really well. He says he wants to beat Justin’s score when
he takes his SAT’s.”
Brian snorted. “Yeah, that’ll be the day.”
“I don’t know, he’s pretty smart. Speaking of Boy Wonder, have you heard from him?”
“Yeah, phone, he’s busy, busy.” He almost smiled, remembering the phone sex from the night before.
Unfortunately, their actual conversations were much less satisfying. Work. That seemed to be about it for both of
them. Brian needed some contact. Speaking of which… his eye was caught by a promising looking trick across the
bar. If he could stand up. He tried, and stumbled. He sat back down. Well, shit.
“Guess that’s out,” Michael said dryly, having followed Brian’s line of sight. “Justin should be happy to hear you’re
too drunk to fuck.”
“You won’t tell him, would you?”
Wow, Michael thought, he really is drunk. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Good.” Brian put his hand around his glass, but didn’t lift it. Too drunk to drink, he thought, I’m not supposed to
be abusing myself this way, anyway.
“I’m going out there next week,” Michael offered, “to see the start of the shoot, first scene. Justin said the set’s
coming along nicely.”
“If you talked to him and know all this shit, why’d you ask me?”
“I just wanted to know how you’re doing.”
“Oh, I’m just peachy.” Brian managed to get the amber liquid up to his lips. There, he thought. Just peachy. Fuck
you all.
“He seems to be doing well.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Think he’ll want to stay in California?”
Brian did not want to talk about this. Shut up, Mikey, he thought. “He says he’s coming back.”
“Yeah, but can you imagine? Hollywood, big success. Would you come back?”
Brian closed his eyes. He wished he could close his ears.
But, as usual, Michael was too caught up in his own considerations. “I sure wouldn’t. If I didn’t have Ben and
Hunter, I’d gowork for Brett. Make a shitload of money, have my name up in lights over movies. Hey, I’m *going*
to have my name up on the screen! Well, it’ll be on the credits that nobody sits through, but shit, who knows how far
Justin could go, he could even become a star, he’s sure good looking enough, well, he’s not you, but he’s not…”
“Shut the fuck up!” Brian exploded. The conversation around them lulled as Michael’s mouth dropped open. Brian
realized that was a bit harsh. And loud. He lowered his voice, but continued anyway. “Why the fuck are you
bringing up shit that might never happen? He says he’s coming back.”
“Yeah, well, there’s what Justin says, and then there’s what he does.”
Brian stared at Michael, hard. Then he laughed. “Okay. So why do you think I shouldn’t believe him?”
Michael answered, softly, “I just… I dunno, I guess I want to remember what he’s capable of. So you don’t get hurt.
Again.”
The bartender set another drink in front of Brian, without his asking. He stared into the glass, and spoke again,
hoping Michael was listening, but not really caring if he was. “You know, you of all people know why it’s so
fucking hard to keep my shit together through this, but I’m doing it, for once in my goddamn life I’m actually
trusting something besides my own instincts. You know how fucked up this is to me? I’m about to go fucking
insane, and all you want me to do is doubt him, doubt myself. Doubt anything that’s not you.” Brian glanced over, to
see Michael staring at him, for once not responding. Brian went on, “I know you’re there for me, but with Justin
it’s…” he stopped, searched for the words, shook his head impatiently, and started again. “You couldn’t handle all
my shit, Michael. You couldn't handle half of what I've dumped on him, and he can handle it, it’s fucking
unbelievable. I love you, Michael, but you’d break, but with him… And you keep wanting me to keep him at a
distance? He’s already at a distance and it sucks. But he said he’d be back, what else am I supposed to do?”
“Holy shit, Brian…” Michael paused, watched his friend put his hands on the bar, place his forehead on them. “I am
so sorry, I had no idea… I’m sorry, you know I wouldn’t hurt you, I just worry…”
Brain lifted his head, and looked over at Michael, who looked like he’d been punched. Thank god it hadn’t gone that
far, this time. Michael meant well, but his intentions sometimes got lost in the delivery.
Michael continued, “I had no idea…”
“Well, shit, I’m surprised you don’t. Your mother figured it out a long time ago, I figured she’d have gotten on some
PA system somewhere.”
“Yeah, but you know I never listen to her.”
They both laughed.
“Hey,” Michael said when they’d calmed down. “Let me drive you home?”
“Yeah, okay. You just wanna drive the ‘vette. Hey, don’t tell him, okay?” Brian stumbled off the stool.
Michael shook his head. That these two were together at all was nothing short of a miracle. But he guessed that’s
what Brian had been trying to tell him.
V
“Hey.” Ben looked up from his book.
“Hey,” Michael said idly, tossing his coat on the coach, bending over and kissing Ben.
“Ugh, you smell like a cigarette.”
“I was at Woody’s.”
“Ah. Brian?”
“Yeah.” Michael fell into the other side of the coach, slouching down. Ben smiled. Michael and Hunter were picking
up each other’s postures, imitating mannerisms. “I stopped by for a drink after seeing Mel and Jenny. Poor Mel,
she’s really…” He gestured, helpless.
“Caught up in the baby? Missing Lindsay? Depressed?”
“Yeah, but you’d never know it to talk to her. You know how Mel is, totally tough, she’s convinced that whatever
happened is all Linds’ fault. Won’t even talk to me about it.”
“Some things are best left alone.”
“Yeah, I guess. She’s a lot like Brian, though, she won’t let you know she’s feeling anything less than totally in
control. Course, Brian wasn’t exactly ironman tonight.”
“Oh?”
“Hm, yeah. He nearly bit my head off for even suggesting Justin might want to stay in Cali.”
“Cali?”
“Hey, I’m hip!”
Ben burst out laughing. “Oh, Michael, you’re just so… cute, yes. Hip? No.”
“You’re pretty cute yourself.”
They started to kiss, only to be interrupted by the opening door. “Hey, hey! Impressionable heterosexual guy coming
through!” Hunter snorted a laugh, as the two men on the couch turned to look at him. “Well, that was definitely
worth those looks! ‘Sup?”
“Now, Hunter could say Justin was staying in Cali,” Ben said.
“Really? The blonde’s out of our dark hair?”
“Ugh, please don’t call him the blonde - twink, kid, maybe even his name, *Justin,* anything, just, don’t call him
‘the blonde.’” Michael grimaced.
Hunter looked at Ben, who shrugged.
Michael went on, “And no, he’s not staying in California, I was just telling Ben that Brian almost took my head off
when I suggested Boy Wonder might want to stick with the glam life.”
“Glam…” Ben repeated, shaking his head, receiving an elbow in the ribs.
“You didn’t tell Brian that? Bet he didn’t like that, he’s totally in love with the guy, even if I can’t see why.”
“Heterosexual guys forego crushes on other men,” Ben reminded him dryly.
“Brian transcends limitations as trivial as sexual preference.”
Michael nodded, twisting his lips.
“Anyway…” Ben sighed. “So, Jenny’s fine, and Melanie’s acting like she’s fine with Lindsay moved out. Uh..
“The lesbians broke up! No way!”
“Way,” Michael answered him. “I just wish there was something I could do. You know, she’ll be alone with
Jenny…”
“Well,” Hunter said, moving toward the kitchen, “Why don’t we move in with her? You could help with the baby,
and maybe we could have like, a real place to live. I wouldn’t have to fall all over you guys. Y’ain’t my type.
Besides, Ben can cook for her. Melanie cooks for shit.”
Ben and Michael looked at each other, astonished. Then they looked back at Hunter, who came back into the living
area with a bag of pretzels. “What?” the young man asked.
“Come home.”
Justin shifted the phone. He had managed to find a couple minutes to phone Daphne. “I can’t Daph, I have to see
this out.”
“No you don’t. Come home. Don’t you miss me? And I know you miss Brian.”
“Yeah, of course I do. I do miss you, too.”
“And that Tom guy sounds like a real asshole.”
“He is.”
“So?”
Justin sighed, glanced over his shoulder. Tom was nowhere in sight. Two days ago, he’d been interrupted while
trying to talk to Brian. Talk about shriekfest. God.
“So what? I’m not here for him.”
“Don’t tell me you’re there for Brett.”
“In a way… it’s hard to explain. Rage is mine. Well, mine and Michael’s. It’s the only thing, really, that I feel I have
that’s really mine. I need to be here, to make sure my… the project’s integrity is kept intact.”
“Hm, the telling slip. You have things here that are yours, Justin. What about school?”
Justin laughed bitterly. “Those fuckers.”
“Yeah? So fuck ‘em, get your diploma from the best art school around, and when you march up on the stage, tell
‘em to shove it.”
“Oh, God, not you too.” That phrase’s popularity was growing. Robin had stopped telling him to fuck off, and now
delighted in telling him to shove it.
“Well, you have Brian.”
“I’ve never had Brian, Daphne.”
“Oh, bullshit, you’ve always had him.”
“And he always lets me go without a fight. I wish just once…”
“What?”
“Nothing. Oh, shit, Tom’s headed for me, I gotta run. Call you later?”
“Yeah,” Daphne began, but the phone was already dead in her hand. She took it away from her head, scowled at it.
“Brian?”
Brian hit the button on the intercom. “What?”
“Uh, Daphne’s here to see you?”
Oh, hell, now what. “Send her in.”
Daphne marched in, and said without preamble, “Go get him.”
“Charming as always, my dear.”
“I’m not kidding, Brian, go get him.”
“Daphne…”
“No, forget your tired bullshit of letting him go to find his own path through life, blah blah blah it’s boring Brian, go
get him.” Daphne’s face was mutinous; she crossed her arms over her chest, her legs spread, braced as though for a
mighty wind.
Brian eyed her; she looked like a Valkyrie, rebelling against Odin. “Wow, Daph, you seem serious. And you look
incredibly hot.”
Daphne glanced down at her stance, dropped her arms from her upper body. Her response told Brian that Justin’s
situation was not terribly dire; if it were, she would not have engaged in his bullshit. “Here you go, then, feast your
eyes on the boobs and cool down. Bring him home, put his ass back in school.” Daphne moved to perch on the edge
of Brian’s desk. She crossed her arms over her chest again, her eyes narrowing, jaw set.
“Justin’s his own man. He makes his own choices.”
“Oh, please! He makes his own choices because you make certain choices easier for him by opening the door wider!
You might as well escort him out, with a ‘buh bye, have a nice time figuring your life out, you know where I’ll be
but in the meantime we’ll both be idiots and waste all our time apart’!”
“Did he say that?”
“He didn’t have to.”
Brian smirked. She didn’t get it. Ah, well, women were weird. Thank god he was gay.
“Don’t get that smirk, Brian, I’m serious. He’s not happy, but he says he’s sticking it out there because Rage is
quote, the only thing that’s mine, unquote.”
Brian’s tone when he next spoke had an edge. “So?”
“So! So he doesn’t think you are! He doesn’t think you’re his, and don’t tell me he’s right because I already know he
isn’t and so do you. So why are you letting him think that? You can’t be happy with him out in LA, he should be
here, in school, in our lives.”
“Daphne, I really don’t have time for this. I have a meeting in twenty minutes.”
Daphne sighed, and got off the desk. “Fine, you just don’t want to talk to me about this. But, can’t you unbend, just
once, unbend those rigid standards of yours? He needs more than that, and I think impressing your tough guy thing
on him has really fucked him up.”
“You think I’ve corrupted him?” Brian smirked, trying his best to brush this off.
“No, I just think he’s not you. I think he’s confused about who he’s supposed to be. And I know I’m tired of
listening to him try to pretend he’s fine when he’s obviously not. I’d fix it myself if I could, but the only thing I can
do is come to the one person I think might be able to. Go get him.”
Brian shrugged, but Daphne was already on her way out. Fuck, he did not need this today.
“Michael!”
Justin hugged the other man, much to Michael’s surprise.
“What are you doing here?”
Michael stepped back, looking around the set, the long shadows cast in the setting sun. “First day, well, night, of
shooting. Wouldn’t miss this,” Michael said. “Want to show me around?”
Justin nodded, and they started walking through the set. “I’ll take you to see Rage’s lair, it’s totally cool.”
“Just like in the comic?”
“A little different. But still okay.”
“Ah, you pushed for our vision.”
“Hm… well, it isn’t exact, but it’ll do.” His input was sought out, but just as often rejected for a variety of reasons.
Budget. Coordination of material. Conor asshole James insists on red sheets, which set off his skin tones better than
blue. Justin was really starting to hate that prima donna. “How you doing?”
“Well, you heard Lindsay and Mel broke up.”
“What! No way! What happened?” Justin stopped,
Michael shrugged. “Not really sure. They won’t talk about it. Well, not to me.”
“Can’t blame them there,” Justin grumbled.
Michael punched him, but not hard. “Hey! Well, okay. Maybe you got a point.” He hesitated. “Hey, I wanted to ask
you…”
Justin paused as he put his hand on the door to the sound stage. “What?”
“Are you staying here? I mean, in California. Like, are you planning to come back? ”
Justin opened the door. “Why do you ask that.” Great. He knew where that had to be coming from. Now Brian had
him permanently relocated.
“Well, I suggested you might, and Brian freaked out.”
They entered the darkened room; Justin flipped on the lights. He could not see Brian freaking out. Well, he had
punched Michael that one time… “Really? So you told him you thought I’d move here, and…”
“Yeah, he basically told me to shut the fuck up. Oh, wow, this is amazing!” Michael headed straight for the bed on
the raised podium. “Red?” he asked, looking back at Justin, who just shrugged. “Not bad,” Michael said. “But what
about the dark blue?”
“Well, you know, you got a hundred people yelling at each other, the endless argument, and finally, I decided, JT
looks good against red anyway,” Justin grinned. He wasn’t about to tell Michael how discouraging losing that fight
had been. The first loss in many. He may have helped create the comic, but that was then. Now, he was assistant art
director. Tom’s lackey.
They walked across the lot, toward the back part of the set. The back alley was flooded with lights. A crowd stood
around, waiting near the cameras, floodlight, adjusting equipment while Brett spoke with three muscular men in the
center of the alley on which all the equipment was trained. To the side, Justin saw Alan, who was playing JT. Alan
noticed him, jogged over. “Hey, Justin.”
“Hey, Alan, this is Michael Novotny.”
“Oh, hey, I love your comic.”
Michael grinned, shook his hand. “You’re perfect for JT, what are you, twelve?”
Alan frowned, and Justin told him, “Yeah, don’t worry ‘bout that, that’s a shot at me, private joke.” He ignored
Michael, ignored his own annoyance. Still no tact, Mikey, he thought.
“Oh, yeah. Okay,” Alan said, but he didn’t seem so okay. He eyed Michael before turning back to Justin. “Hey, I
just wanted to ask you… I read the comic, of course, you know Brett made us read it a thousand times, but I wanted
to ask, should JT hear something? seem to be apprehensive for a moment before the attack? Or is it out of nowhere.”
“Out of nowhere,” Michael said, confident.
“Well, yeah,” Justin answered, knowing better than Michael how things worked around here. “In the comic, he
doesn’t see it coming, just out of nowhere. But you should ask Brett how he wants you to play it.”
“Yeah, gotta wait for him to finish with the thugs. He doesn’t want me to talk to the actors. He wants it to be ‘real,’”
Alan added, before strolling off to wait for the director.
That last comment worried Michael. “Uh, Justin, are you going to be okay through this?”
Justin glanced over, the lingering feeling of annoyance making him brusque, though he appreciated that Michael
thought to ask him something no one else seemed aware might be a problem. “It’s just a movie, Michael. I have to
be here, it’s my job.”
As if to prove the point, Brett yelled, “Justin!” from his place in the spotlights. Michael gestured that he’d be at this
spot, and Justin jogged off. Michael watched for a moment, a frown on his face, and then pulled out his phone.
The young man walked through the alley. He was coming from his first show taking place at the Center for Gay and
Lesbian Youth, which had gone spectacularly well. Yeah, his father wasn’t there, but his mother had been, and his
best friend, and a number of art people who were encouraging him to apply to art school. JT almost whistled, cutting
through the alley on his way to the coffee shop where he was to meet Willow, to celebrate.
Whoosh! He had no time to tense against the sound of something very heavy swinging, splitting the air, before the
object crashed into him. He cried out as pain exploded on his shoulder, and fell to the ground.
“CUT!” Brett yelled. “Damn it, Alan, you gotta fall with your jaw up and your head tilted to the left. Give it a run
through, back off thugs, let’s try to get this right, huh?”
Justin dropped his hand from his mouth. Oh, god, thank god Brett had stopped that. He laughed slightly, trying to
shake it off. That feeling, like a mailed fist squeezing his heart, freezing his brain… And then the lights went out and
the shoot was beginning again.
This time, there was no voice calling for a stop from the dark. The young man appeared around the corner, smile
breaking across his face, happy, a good night, no, a great night. On either side, further down the alley, in two
darkened doorways, pain waiting. JT walks past them, and from the right, the man with a bat, that sound… the cry
of pain, the yells, animalistic, almost sexual, from the men who towered over the boy, beating, leaning over to get
the weight behind, no words, just those grunts and cries of pleasure, of pain, JT with blood pouring down his
forehead from a kick…
It didn’t matter that Justin knew it was all choreographed, that Alan had padding at his back where most of the
blows might land because they couldn’t be pulled so easily because of the camera angle… a sensation like ice
creeped up his head, he felt a sharp pain in his head, right *there*, but that was impossible. His arm was cramping,
his throat closing, choking, hard to breath as he watched this beating that he himself had designed, god, what had he
been thinking? And he knew no one was looking at him, they were all watching the actors, but he felt all alone and
hemmed in, as if the very air were pressing in against him. He took a deep, hitching breath, and his hand was
shaking, it had been bad all week but every nerve ending was suddenly alive, spiking pain where bone met ligament,
spasming through muscle. He picked his hand up with the other, closing his eyes on the scene being shot, and
pressed his thumb into the palm to try and control the hurt…
And he would have lost his shit when he felt the body press into his back and take his hand from him, except that he
knew Brian as soon as he felt him move to mold himself against Justin’s back, and Justin exhaled, fitting himself
into the oh, so familiar place. The strong, warm hands massaged his cramping muscles, easing the pain, as Brian set
his chin on Justin’s shoulder, and breathed into his ear, “You okay?”
Justin nodded, unable to speak. Everything was fine now, with Brian’s arms around him and his mouth against his
neck, softly moving onto his jaw. He turned his head, and looked into those beautiful eyes as everything else fell
away. “I’m okay,” he whispered in return, moving to take Brian’s lips with his own.
VI
“Justin. Justin. Justin!”
So easy to tune Tom out, and just lean up against that hard, warm body that could make him forget that they were
standing on a movie set, to just allow his tongue to stroke Brian’s, to accept the caress in return, to feel Brian’s
hands play with the small hairs on the back of his neck, to move his own hands over Brian’s forearms, to feel the
smooth skin under his palms, feeling the goosebumps rise on the skin as Justin ran his thumbs against the tender
flesh at Brian’s wrists…
“Justin!”
Damn, too close. Brian broke off kissing first, and looked over at the skinny, twitchy guy headed for them with a
clipboard. “Tom?” he whispered in Justin’s ear, sending a shiver down his spine.
“Mmh…” Justin responded.
“Fuck him.” Brian licked Justin’s lower lip, and leaned in for more, but Justin had noticed that the lights were up
and people were starting to stare. He reluctantly pushed at Brian’s shoulder, even as they shared a last, lingering kiss
of hello. A greeting that had gone on for twenty minutes. Maybe more.
Tom stared at Brian for just a moment, then turned to his assistant. “Where’s Robin? I need her to confab with the
lighting guys, she seems to have a rapport with them, they keep using the wrong green, keep switching to the
yellow…” He peered at Brian again.
Justin would not introduce them. “I can go talk to them if you like,” he sighed.
“Really? Robin…”
“I can do it, Tom,” Justin grated, turning to Brian. “Stay here, I’ll be back.” And he headed off.
Tom turned away abruptly, and Brian watched the younger man move around the congregation of people where the
shoot was taking place, to disappear into the building that formed the left side of the alley.
“Hey,” Michael said, moving to Brian’s side. He had enough tact to leave them alone for their reunion. Besides, he
had been fascinated with the scene being shot, then reshot from another angle. That, and he enjoyed watching Conor
James, even if the guy who was to play Rage was just lounging in a chair, doing nothing.
“Oh, hey. Thanks for calling.”
“Is he okay?”
“Fine, I didn’t let him watch it.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Michael smirked. “I know you didn’t want to watch that scene…”
“And I didn’t,” Brian answered, slinging his arm around Michael’s neck, punching him lightly in the arm and
smiling as Michael shoved him away.
“Hey, Michael!” Both men turned toward the lights. Brett waved them over.
“Ready to thrill your fans, Rage?”
“Born ready,” Brian repeated the well-worn phrase.
Thank god that was over, Brian thought. Movies were boring. Worse than photo shoots. Thirty minutes to prep the
scene, two minutes to shoot, thirty minutes to set up for a retake, another angle, another two minutes of action, over
and over. Boring. Apparently the lights for Rage’s mind-distortion field needed to be filmed four thousand times in a
variety of colors. The lights were mounted from a cat walk over the alley, between the buildings. Tom and Brett
huddled after each scene, discussing pros and cons of each shade. Every so often Justin had to run up a different
shade, which Brett and Tom needed to personally examine before sending it up, and off Justin would run, up three
flights so the lighting guys could put it in place. Thrilling job. Not that Brian didn’t understand that sort of quest for
perfection. But hell, he’d have figured it out, well beforehand. Or at least limited the possibilities. These guys must
have money to burn.
He had wanted Justin to come back with him to the Four Seasons, but Justin said he had to be up early and his place
was right around the corner. Since he was already yawning, and Brian wanted as much quality time as he could get,
he sent Michael with the car to take advantage of the reservation after dropping them off at the compound where
Justin lived. He followed Justin into the tiny room, not bothering to look around before plastering himself onto
Justin’s back and bearing him onto the futon that was shoved up against the far wall under the single window. They
tore at each other’s clothing, bodies moving together fast and furious, coming quickly and hard. Only after did Brian
manage to get a look around.
“Jesus, this is where you live?”
Justin shrugged, leaning back against the pillow, suddenly exhausted. “Where did you live when you were 20?”
“Hm, good point.”
“I’m not here much. Besides, the studio picks up the tab – you know, you get what you pay for.”
They were silent for a while, just touching each other. Justin figured he wouldn’t get any sleep tonight, the way
Brian’s hand was teasing out those familiar sensations as it brushed against his stomach, moving up his side...
“You’ve lost weight.” Brian propped himself on his elbow, looked down at Justin’s body. He ran his gaze up to his
face. “And you’re not getting enough sleep, are you.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m busy. You know what that’s like.”
“Hm…” Of course, Justin was right, he was not one to tell anybody else to eat and sleep. He wanted to pursue this
anyway, but had no idea how to do it. He didn’t do the concerned mother thing. Shit, he resented the concerned
mother thing. So what the fuck was he supposed to say, while not sounding like a total hypocrite? He had watched
Justin get ordered around by that asshole Tom; Brian had hated the guy on sight, and no, it had nothing to do with
the fact that Justin had gone on ad nauseum about how much this guy sucked, every time they talked on the phone.
That’s where you started in any business, right at the bottom. Not that Justin should be here at all… But shit, that
was not his call, was it?
Justin propped himself onto his elbow, facing Brian on the bed. His eyelids fell half-way down, and he reached out
to touch the hand Brian was stroking his rib cage with, lacing their fingers together, pulling Brian’s arm away from
his frame.
“You know, Daphne came into my office and ordered me to come and drag your ass home.”
Justin groaned, pulled his hand away and used it to pull the pillow over his head. “I hope you told her to go to hell.”
“Hm... I told her you probably hadn’t finished fucking your way through the clubs. How are they?”
Justin’s voice was muffled. “Who has time to go clubbing? Some of the guys have asked me, I always end up
passing out and sleeping instead. Nobody sleeps around here…” Then Justin’s head peered out from under the
pillow. “Don’t tell me that’s why you’re here? To tell me that Daphne wants me to come back?”
Brian couldn’t read his face at all. “I actually have to go down to San Francisco tomorrow, feel out a new face for
the Brown Athletic campaign.”
“Decided not to go with that Drew guy again?”
“Nah. Mikey and I piggy-backed our way on a flight out.”
“Ugh, I just got an awful mental picture, don’t do that to me.”
“Now now, it’s all fun and games. Or, it’s NOT all fun and games.It’s not as much fun without you around.”
“Please tell me Daphne hasn’t gotten to you.”
Brian stared at him. Did he want to show his cards at all? Had they gotten to that point? “Did I tell you I won that
bet?”
“What?”
“The bet. The trick. You know, I take you to Ibeza, you go back to school.”
Justin stuck the pillow behind his head. Man, it felt good just to rest it. Even if the pillow wasn’t goosedown, like
the ones in the loft. “How come you never told me?”
Brian put his hand back on Justin’s chest, played with his nipple. “Well… I didn’t bring it up before because, well,
the guy was an oncologist.”
“An oncol… oh holy fuck. Don’t tell me that’s how you found out?”
“Only I could come up with a way to get a testicular exam and blown at the same time,” Brian returned, twisting his
lips.
Justin was not laughing. “Holy fuck, and you walked around with that, for what? All that time, and no one knew.”
Brian sighed. Damn it, he did not want to bring this up again. “That isn’t the point, the point is, I won the bet…”
“No, Brian, that is the point. You can come to see me and not tell me you want me back in Pittsburgh even though
you obviously do, you can put the words in Daphne’s mouth, you can point out how shitty my room is and that we
could be at the Four Seasons right now or even at the loft all on your dime, but your own actions make very clear
exactly what you think of a guy who would do that.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know, when you showed up tonight, I was watching that scene being played out. It was hard, but I was getting
through it. Then, when I felt you against my back, it was such a relief to sink into you. It’s too easy to do that, to
close my eyes and just lean into you, when things become too overwhelming.”
“What’s wrong with leaning a bit?”
“What the fuck do you mean, what’s wrong with leaning a bit? You know exactly what’s wrong with leaning a bit.
You never lean. And besides, you can’t always be there for me to lean into. You wouldn’t even have been there
earlier tonight if you hadn’t had business in California. You’re here right now for Kinnetic, not for me.” Brian
winced, but Justin continued. “And anyway, how do I know you’re going to be there at all, that you won’t just throw
me out of your life because you’re too tempted by my presence to forget you aren’t superhuman, that superman is
actually tempted to lean a bit himself? It’s okay if I do it, but you… No way.”
Brian stared at him, saying nothing.
And Justin went on, relentless, “You really want me to lean on you because when I’m weak, you feel stronger. I
can’t do that anymore. I’ve had enough of making a complete ass out of myself when I first met you, chasing you
around like some goddamn puppy. I’m pretty sure I caused myself enough humiliation to last this lifetime. I’m not a
child to be coddled by sugardaddy Brian. Clinging like a needy weakling.”
“Justin.” Brian finally found his voice. He ignored the “sugardaddy” comment, not sure why Justin seemed
determined to piss him off. Shit, this was not the way he wanted this conversation to go. “We’ve all been there.”
“Not you. It’s okay for everyone to be weak and dependent, but not you.”
“No, even me.” Brian tried to play the waiting game, but Justin raised his eyebrows, clearly wanting more than that.
Brian sighed. “College, sophomore year. I was the teacher’s assistant. Couldn’t get enough of the guy. He enjoyed
the attention. Loved the attention. Fucked constantly, told me I was special, beautiful, he couldn’t believe he was
doing this, but he couldn’t help himself… Found out the hard way I was in a long list of that teacher’s pets. Nothing
special about me. I’d dogged the man, licking his ass for almost a year. And then, all I heard was get away, I don’t
want you, I’m done with you now. So I know what it’s like.”
“What happened?”
Brian shrugged. “Well, his wife found out via anonymous note. Then the dean found out, right after the chair of his
department. In the most obvious way of course – it was my job to lock his office door, oops. Probably a bad idea to
send a note to the chair requesting a meeting right at the time I had, uh, session with him. Again, oops. The entire
student body found out, of course, he was fired, divorced. Rumours were he was teaching composition at a
community college in Florida, last I heard. Fuck if I cared. I sent the message out - No one fucked with me. Ever. I
went after him, I got him. And never again, I was never going to feel that way again, humiliated. For the rest of the
time I was there, people didn’t know whether to revile me or just be scared of me.” Brian chuckled sourly,
remembering. He was not proud of what he had done, but the memory of that man, that feeling, still struck a nerve.
“And you weren’t afraid I was going to do something like that to you?”
“Everyone already knew I was an asshole who screwed every hot guy in sight and never got attached. What did I
have to lose?”
“Oh, nothing… just your reputation as an asshole who screws every hot guy in sight and never gets attached?”
“Down, puppy.” Brian twisted his lips, amused at the look Justin shot him at his use of that word. “Anyway, your
revenge has been much, much worse than mine was.”
Justin snorted, swatted at him.
“Well, so after that, I fucked everything in sight, lots of guys fascinated with the bad boy.” He stopped the story,
looked hard at Justin. “That’s not your way, Justin. I ruined the guy’s life, sure, he deserved it. But you don’t have it
in you to be that way.”
“I never wanted to be you. I only wanted to be with you.”
“Yeah, I forget that sometimes. Or maybe I just didn’t get that.” Brian was silent, and Justin expected that to be it,
but Brian surprised him by adding, “When you first started coming around, maybe that’s why I put up with it. I
didn’t want you to get hurt like I had. And, well, I saw myself in you. When I was younger. You knew what you
wanted and went after it. And anyone who got in your way would get run over. I didn’t want you to hit the brick
wall I did.” Brian shut up. Words couldn’t make clear the wrenching pain of learning who he actually had been,
well, who he had not been, to that man he adored. Even crushing the guy’s life had not restored his emotional
balance, what there had been of it. And even if it had been deserved… learning at 21 that you can ruin someone
else’s life, getting a taste of that kind of power, for better or worse, he had learned the lesson once, and it led him to
where Justin had found him.
But even now, the memory made him cringe. He had entered college with hope that his parents were the exception;
he certainly had said to them, to others, that they were full of shit. He knew loving households existed. And he had
hoped that someone with whom he would feel that essential bond, that organic connection you only find in families
and lovers, that he would find that in someone who would recognize his essential worth.
Professor Garrity had crushed his hope, brutally. There had been no turning back after that.
“No brick wall, just a bat,” Justin said quietly. “You couldn’t spare me that. And you can’t spare me from what I
have to do here. This is for me.”
“What, staying in a shitty room and getting bossed around by an asshole while your fabulous director consults you
when it’s convenient?”
“Yeah,” Justin shot back. “I’m doing what I can to protect what’s mine, what’s really mine. Rage is the only thing.”
Brian opened his mouth to say something, but Justin held up his hand. “I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to say this
to you ever again, god knows I’ve been walking on eggshells enough – no, not because of the cancer, because of me,
so just let me say this.” He took a deep breath, and looked away from Brian as he went on. “You had that asshole
teacher crush your romantic dreams, I had Hobbes. With one swing of that bat, it was like an essential piece of me
was just gone. You know, that whole Pink Posse thing, I could have killed Hobbes? I had that gun in his face, I
could have pulled the trigger. But I walked away, thinking, then, that he wasn’t worth it. And it was like I was high
for days after that.”
Yeah, Brian remembered that, Justin had seemed transformed, not angry anymore, but not exactly happy. More like
feverish, or on uppers. And then he had settled down, and seemed, well, subdued. And then there had been Brian’s
medical issues, and Justin’s emotional affect had taken a back seat. And then there had been Brian’s determination
not to let a little thing like cancer stand in the way of biking over 300 miles. And Justin’s seat in the back seemed to
recede, further and further.
So Brian kept quiet, letting Justin have front seat tonight. Shit, it was about time he did. Obviously this was long
coming.
“But I think now that I walked away because I realized that Hobbes had nothing to do with it anymore. I could have
killed him, and nothing would have changed. Well, I might have gotten locked up. That’s about it.” Justin lifted
himself up, leaned against the wall at the head of the futon. “He didn’t matter. It wasn’t about him anymore. Before
he bashed me, I had, well, belief. No one could stop me. Not you, not my parents, nobody. I knew, deep in my heart,
from the minute I met you, that you were the one, and the more you let me around you, the more you fucked me, the
more I was certain that you felt the same way, I knew it, everything in me shouted it. It wasn’t just that I wanted
you, it was that our lives wouldn’t be right if we weren’t together. The Universe would weep, it was The Truth, not
just my truth, but really, really the truest thing I had ever encountered, bigger than God. And all I had to do was to
convince you to see the light, and you would get it. You would be convinced. How could you not? It was the truth,
you were big on that, no bullshit.”
Brian bit his lower lip, wishing he could stop this; he did not want to hear this, but he forced himself to listen.
“After Hobbes hit me… I woke up realizing that I was wrong, about everything. It was just me, all along. Anyone
could stop me, anytime they wanted. I was really freaked out.”
“Yeah, I know,” Brian said, quietly.
“And I started walking on eggshells around you, because I realized, it wasn’t just a given thing, me and you. That
thing between us. I had made it all up, out of sheer will. And I was terrified you were gonna call me on it, tell me I
was full of shit, just completely wrong, all along. And that would be the end of it. So I needed to hear, I so needed to
hear from you that it wasn’t just me, that you knew about that thing I used to believe in, I needed you to help me
find it again. But you didn’t. And so I found someone who would tell me that thing existed, even if it wasn’t with
you.”
Brian closed his eyes, with no idea of what to do about this. He could feel a pressure building inside him, nowhere to
go.
“But Ethan was bullshit too, it was all just me making up stuff to believe in, again.” Justin paused, took a deep
breath. “Brian, I know you love me. When you took me back without punishing me for fucking up with Ethan…”
“You did what you had to do.” Brian did not open his eyes. He couldn’t bear what he might see.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean. When you let me come back, understanding it all… I knew then that you love me. But
then, it was like…” Justin stopped.
Brian opened his eyes, saw that Justin had crossed his arms and was looking away, toward the door. “What? It was
like what?”
“It was like… I realized that I made everything up. I knew you loved me, and I still love you, but…”
“Justin, damn it…”
“It just wasn’t the same. I was afraid. I’m still afraid, all the time, that it’ll just go away. Before Chris hit me, I
thought there was something there, something that wasn’t just me or you, something bigger than us, meant to be.
After I woke up… it was gone. That belief. The conviction. I felt like I couldn’t believe in anything.” He shifted,
closing the distance, putting his forehead on Brian’s shoulder. “Everything that happened to me after I came out, my
father, Hobbes, even you… I just felt, I lost something. Something essential to who I am… was.”
Brian reached over, stroked his hair. “It’s better this way.”
Justin barked a laugh of disbelief, raised his head, and grabbed Brian’s hand. “Better? It feels like shit!”
“Yeah, and you’re in the real world. You see the way the world is. You find what you want to believe in, you don’t
make things up, instead you find things that really exist. Not the fairy tale shit, none of your roses and signs from
God. Real world, every day, gritty things that mean something. You’re in control of where you want to be, which of
those shitty things you live with.”
“I guess that’s what I’m getting at. Rage is mine. It’s not someone else, outside my control. I’m just not so sure I
like this new world I woke up into. Sometimes I’m not sure I like myself anymore.”
“I do.” Brian shifted, turned his weight on the body next to him, forcing Justin down on the bed. He stretched over
him, leaned down, took the flesh of his neck in his teeth, sucked on it gently. Then he lifted his head. “But maybe
I’m wrong.” He leaned in again, kissed Justin, then turned his attention to the jawline.
“About what? You don’t like me? Brian?” Justin shoved at his shoulder, half-heartedly.
Brian propped himself up on his elbows, framed the young man’s face in his forearms, twined his hair around his
fingers. “Not that. I think we create what we believe in. But maybe… anything you create, even with someone else,
well, maybe it’s bigger than just your idea of it.”
Justin chuckled. “I know you don’t believe that.”
Brian raised his head from exploring the space at the top of Justin’s jaw, just below the ear. “You don’t know what I
could believe. Besides, you’ve been gone two months. The world has changed.” He kissed him again, lingering, then
pulled back, laughing at the way Justin’s head strained upward, following his retreating lips. “And I’ve been through
life-changing events myself, recently.” He became more serious. “Things always change. But if you figure out you
can change with them, then you can stay on top. You can’t just mourn what you’ve lost, you can also appreciate
what you’ve gained.”
“Do you ever listen your own advice?”
Brian knew then how to relieve the pressure that had built inside, as if it were ever in doubt; he ran his tongue along
Justin’s clavicle, then bit his way up his neck. He hesitated at his chin, pulled back. Justin opened his eyes, a smile
on his lips for the first time since they had walked in the shitty little apartment. Better. Brian said, “That advice is
just for you, not for me. You keep telling me you’re not me. From the first night you showed up, you were well on
your way to being your own strong, outspoken, incredibly hot homosexual. No matter whose life you chose to force
your way into.”
“Ugh, that again, I must have been so totally annoying.”
“Yeah…” Brian rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “There was this kid, following me around, and fuck if I
was responsible for him, but fuck if he wasn’t the most…”
“What?” Justin ran his hand down Brian’s chest, lingering in the spot just over his right biceps, an area of
heightened sensitivity that never failed to gain a reaction.
Brian drew in his breath sharply. “Ever the persistent one… You were just ripe, the temptation was too big for me. I
had to keep biting into you.”
That did it; Justin was instantly hard. He pounced, pinning Brian's arms overhead. “Yeah? Did you expect me to bite
back?” Justin leaned down, nipping at his neck, on the way down. When he reached Brian’s stomach, he looked up.
“Hey, Brian…”
“Hmph?” The feeling of the sure fingers lightly skimming the inside of his thighs, moving upward, had brought him
closer to his favorite place, all sensation, no thinking.
“You should just ask me yourself.” He meant, if you want me to come home, but he didn’t add that. He was afraid
Brian would actually take him up on it. And he didn’t know how he could respond.
“For fuck’s sake… fine. Will you please blow me?”
Relieved he had been misunderstood, Justin pressed his lips to Brian’s skin, and joined him in feeling without
thought.
VII
A few weeks later, he caught up on his sleep, and actually accepted a couple of invitations out, when production was
held up for several days after Alan went into rehab. It was too late to replace him; suspending production to rework
the schedule would actually be easier and cheaper in the long run. Still very expensive, but not exorbitantly so.
Brett was ready to kill. “That asshole couldn’t wait five months to have a nervous breakdown, no! He had to do it
smack in the middle of filming!” He snatched a pencil from his supply, and marked a huge cross through the
calendar that lay across his desk. “Fuck!”
“Uh, Brett, he did almost die,” Justin reminded him, hoping that this would calm the guy down. The story had
reached Justin’s ears as soon as he hit the set. Alan and a bunch of the extras at the Mosh Pit, doing lines off the
table. Lots of drinking. Did anyone know what Alan had been doing before arrival? No one claimed to have been
witness to the actual intake, of course. Convulsions in the bathroom, luckily someone who gave a shit was with him
when they started. Ambulance ride, hospitalization, stomach pump. Rehab and recovery, at least a week. Brett had
been awake since three a.m., trying to quash the story from hitting the press. He had phoned every contact he had in
the media; the best he could get them to go along with was exhaustion. Of course, the tabloids weren’t going to
cooperate, but thank God there had been no photographers around. That was just shit luck.
“He could die for all I care, but next year, after Rage is wrapped! Fuck! Fuck, fine, where’s Tom? We need to figure
out which shots we can manage without JT in them. And then get that together. What about the Zephyr shots, can’t
we shoot those…”
“We’re shooting the Rage/JT shots because Mark is playing Hamlet on the Common in Boston,” Brendan, Brett’s
assistant, reminded him.
Brett sighed heavily, “Go find me Tom, Brendan. Bring him back here.” He turned to Justin. “Jesus, this sucks, you
got any ideas?”
“Well, most of the movie involves the three main characters, but I’d think you could probably get some of the club
shots, filler stuff.”
“Yeah, yeah, we could do that. Good idea.”
Brendan and Tom came into the office. “Okay so,” Brett started without greeting. “We can probably get Rage shots
at the club without JT…”
“Uh uh,” Brendan shook his head.
“What do you mean, no?”
“You might want to talk to Alison, but she told me that the club we’re using for the long shots won’t let us in until
Mondays and maybe Tuesdays, during the day.”
“So, find another one.”
Tom actually squawked. “And totally rework the reproduction of the bar we’ve already built to match something
new?”
“Besides,” Brendan answered, “hiring hasn’t even started on the extras, which will take just as much time as finding
a new place than waiting for next Monday if we can manage to get them to accommodate an earlier shoot…”
“Well, shit, just grab people off the street…”
“You know damn well we can’t just do that. Besides, the foreground extras, including the big dance sequence
thing…”
“I thought it was an orgy scene,” Justin raised his eyebrows.
Brett looked somewhat uncomfortable. “Yeah, well, there’s no way we could get that by and still maintain an R
rating, and NC-17, we all know, is the kiss of death. Rage is going to be kind of tough to keep out of that rating as it
is.”
“Because it’s gay sex?”
“It’s a miracle we’re getting by with it at all in a feature film,” Tom put in. “Anyway, we can’t exactly pull together
a hundred extras in a day, block out the scene, to say nothing of the fact that today’s Wednesday and we won’t have
the club for what, five days anyway. If next week at all.”
Brett was silent. “Okay, how about this. We shoot a scene of Rage establishing his sexual dominance some other
guy besides JT in the loft…”
“Yeah, but where are you going to put it in the script?” Justin asked. “The only scene with another guy, JT’s there, it
established his loss of naïveté. Rage isn’t cruel, he’s got integrity, it’s just kind of fucked.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Tom bit off, “when it comes to hundreds of thousands of dollars, integrity kind of takes a back
seat.”
Justin frowned, looked over at Brett, but Brett was staring down at his calendar. “Shit, don’t tell me we’re going to
have to work a script change,” he muttered. Then he looked up, saw Justin staring at him. “Yeah, I know. But think
of it this way. If we don’t compromise some, save some of what the losses are going to total, the producers will just
cancel the whole thing, take it as a tax write-off. Happens all the time.” He returned Justin’s stare.
Happens all the time. Shit. Justin studied Brett’s face, searching for some reassurance he did not find. Instead, Ben’s
warning rang in his words. Why, exactly, hadn’t he and Michael retained creative control? A tweak of the script
here, the loss of an orgy there… what exactly would this thing look like in the end, anyway? He had a sudden,
uncomfortable conviction that it wasn’t going to be at all what he had imagined.
But what would he have done if he had retained creative control? Would he have told both these guys that there was
no way they’d be tampering with the original script they’d all agreed on? Halted production and pushed back the
original schedule? This was hardly art school, where he could get taken out with the flu and then go ask his
professor for an extension on a project that couldn’t be worked on for three days. “How about the ad agency, then?”
he suggested. “Shoot those scenes now.”
Brett looked over at Tom, who raised his eyebrows. Then he turned to Brendan, who had been sitting by, waiting for
instruction. “You think you can talk to um, what’s her name at Millenium…”
“Linda.”
“Yeah, Linda, do you think she’ll go for turning her office into a movie set a month early?”
“With the amount of money they’ll be collecting handling publicity?” Brendan smirked. “Yeah, I think she’ll go for
it. If we stay on schedule for a Saturday/Sunday shoot.”
Brett rubbed his lip. “Yeah, okay… see if you can line up the club for scene and the dance shot on Monday and
Tuesday, and talk to Linda about this weekend down at the office. If not this weekend, then the club scene. If not
that, then Millenium for the weekend following, and don’t tell me, for fuck’s sake, that we’re going to have to
consider anything beyond a delay of more than a week and a half. ‘Kay?” He glanced over at Tom. “Think we can
do this?”
“Sure, not much set up needed for the office. But someone’s going to have to get the script to Conor and tell him
why he needs to learn a different scene in two days.”
“Oh, fuck. That guy…” All four men glanced at each other and shook their heads. Then three pairs of eyes zeroed in
on Brendan.
“Yeah, yeah, fine, I get it.” He stood up. “I’ll go get a copy of the scenes and go deal with him.”
“In the meantime, we’re shutting down for at least a couple days, send people home, I’m not gonna pay for them to
loaf around. Justin, that includes you, go get some sleep.”
Justin stood up. “I don’t know how you do it, Brett.”
“Oh, he’s a madman,” Tom said dryly.
Brett just laughed.
So technically everything was settled; they were just shifting scenes around. But he still had a bad feeling two days
later, when he found himself sitting with Robin and a bunch of other people from the film, on the terrace at a café
looking out over the Pacific. The sun was on his face, he had caught up on his sleep, he’d be working on the movie
again tomorrow, he had spoken to Brian that morning, who just might be coming back to California sometime soon,
everything was fine.
So why did he feel so uneasy?
That damn contract. No definitive creative control. Brett still deferred to him, but mostly because he believed in the
project. Hundreds of thousands of dollars did a lot to sway belief.
Justin sighed, and sipped on his beer, eyeing the beautiful men walking by on the sidewalk that fronted the beach,
just across the road from where they sat.
“Hey, Justin!”
“Uh, sorry?” He turned his gaze back
“See anything you like?” Robin teased.
“Pretty much everything,” Justin replied with a slight smile.
“A little better than out in Pittsburgh, huh?” This from Gail, who Justin remembered from the sets but had no idea
for the life of him what she did, there were so many people crawling around the lot that he couldn’t keep track of
anyone.
“All but for one,” Justin agreed, vaguely annoyed at the casual dismissal from these people of his home. Still, as a
particularly toned young man strolled by, his blonde hair accentuating his tan – and he wasn’t even the best of the
bunch out there – Justin found himself inclined to agree with the comparison.
“Yeah, that real Rage guy is beautiful. That why you haven’t let Conor fuck you?” This from Steve. Conor had
made more than a couple, unsubtle passes at Justin, once on the set, actually telling him, fairly loudly, that he should
come blow the big star. Justin had declined. After that, Robin had informed him that there had been a bet set up
among everyone else on the set – who could get a blow job from Justin? Well, Justin himself had gotten a couple of
blow jobs out of the competition. But he had yet to return the favor, and that’s what the gambles were riding on.
Robin hadn’t told anyone she’d told Justin what was going on; she was too busy making money betting against
people. Justin let her, since she gave him a cut of her take. And he hadn’t let Conor touch him, no way, not just
because he was making money from resisting. That guy’s personality did absolutely nothing to make Justin want to
fuck him again.
“Brian,” Justin supplied, in response to Steve’s comment. Brian was not “that real Rage guy.” Somewhere along the
line, recently, Brian had stopped being Rage for him. He wondered why, even as he knew without doubt it was so.
“Yeah, Brian. If he’s Rage, you’re hardly monogomous. Details?” Gail demanded.
Justin shrugged. Brian was not for sharing with these people, fuck you very much.
“Oh, please, I practically walked in on you with Garrett on his knees in front of you. And you’re withholding now?’
Robin chided him.
“Hey, Robin, you’re not exactly one to talk,” Gail snorted. “At least Justin was in an office with the door closed.”
Justin rolled his eyes at Robin, who had obviously told everyone she could find about the Garrett thing. Gail
continued, “I’m still not thrilled at walking into Rage’s lair and seeing you up on all fours with that guy…”
“Robbie, the best boy,” Robin supplied. “He was only pretty good, not the best.” Everyone groaned at the pun.
“So, Conor’s not everyone’s type. I can see why Justin would want to save his ass for Brian,” Grace, another
assistant, thought she was helping Justin out. Damn, Justin had hoped the conversation would get away from his sex
life. He certainly did not want to discuss his relationship with Brian with anyone right now, especially these people.
Gossip was like a sport of choice around here.
“Really?” Steve asked. “I thought Conor was everyone’s type. I mean, I know why he doesn’t appeal to me, but
that’s only because I prefer pussy. Didn’t stop him from trying with me, anyway.”
“Oh, shit, Justin, you’re not missing out on much. ‘Ooh, Gail, lick it harder, oh, God, you’re so good, you’re the best
baby…’” Everyone laughed at that, even Justin, who remembered pretty much the same soundtrack, insert your
name here.
“Nah, I’ve just been adjusting, working most of the time. Catching up on sleep. How does everyone do it around
here? Work all day, then party all night?”
Grace supplied, “Brett’s just weird like that, but he’s the exception. A freak of nature, he only needs like, three hours
of sleep. He just works, and parties to network. The rest of us, we just pop a little helper when necessary. How else
would you work without falling asleep constantly?”
“Hey, you think that’s part of what put Alan into a coma?” Robin asked.
“He didn’t go into a coma, he just went into convulsions,” Steve returned. “Besides, Rox told me he was doing
speedballs like a madman before they went out to the club. You think after River Phoenix, they’d know better…”
Robin said, “Yeah, well, Justin’s apparently not quite up to speed,” she emphasized the last word, “But I’m sure we
can hook you up. That way, you won’t need to wait for another delay in filming to catch up on your energy.”
“Another delay?”
“Oh, please, we’re talking Brett here. He’s a genius, but tends to sweat every detail. If it isn’t perfect, exactly what
he wants, we all wait around. You haven’t noticed that yet?”
“I know Tom sure loves to micro-manage,” Justin grumbled. That guy would make him go over the brands of yogurt
he planned to choose if Tom sent him down the street to pick him up his favorite afternoon snack. Which he was not
above doing.
“Yeah, that guy’s an asshole,” Robin added, sipping her beer. “So just let us know if you need an extra kick.”
Justin shrugged. “Well, thanks, but I can’t do that shit. I’m allergic to like, everything. The things I can take are not
conducive to work.”
They all laughed at that. “I’m sure we can get that other stuff for you too!” Grace returned.
“Yeah, just keep it away from Alan,” Robin finished dryly.
“You think if you take his drugs away, he’d be able to keep it up? Alan doesn’t really fuck anyone, too into upper,
downers…”
“Sidewards,” Robin finished. “But is he gorgeous or what?”
“Don’t forget rich,” Grace added, signaling for more drinks. “If he does clean up, I’ll take a shot at that dick. Or is
he pure gay?”
“Is there a term for sexually attracted to narcotics?”
Justin felt tired again, and suddenly very, very bored. His gaze turned away from the people at the table, skimmed
over all those beautiful bodies littering on the beach, moving out over the ocean, reaching past the horizon for
something that was not there.
“Oh, God, Brian, thank you so much for doing this for me,” Lindsay said for the twentieth time, putting in her
earrings and looking at herself in the mirror over the sink.
Brian put Gus down on the floor in front of the television, and moved toward the bathroom, looking at her retouch
her lipstick. He leaned against the door jamb. “You look fine, Lindsay, now come have a drink and calm down.” He
walked back out into the living room, and crossed into the kitchen.
He had not been sure what to expect, and was gratified at how beautiful her apartment was. The living room, kitchen
and eating area were all in one big, open area. On the walls hung a variety of art deco pieces, and at least one Sam
Auerbach work that had to be worth a fortune. The furniture was slate colored – Brian supposed this was a nod to
Gus, picking a color that could absorb spills. The art on the wall and the pillows on the couch were magnificently
colorful, offsetting the darker grey of the furniture and the light grey of the walls.
Brian opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of Chardonnay, and filled the two wine glasses he’d found in the
cabinet to the right of the sink. Right where they belonged, child safe and logical for guests.
“Glad you got away from that ‘all Pottery Barn, all the time’ look,” Brian commented, coming back to the living
area and handing her a glass.
Lindsay took the wine from him, gratefully taking a sip. “Well, that was Mel’s preference, actually. I just went along
with it because…” She stopped, laughed slightly. “Well, it was just easier. But thank you. This is much more me.”
“And is dating men much more you, too?” Brian reclined in the chair across from her. He shoved Gus’s books aside
to clear a space for his bare feet on the coffee table, a funky job with a metallic frame supporting a surface of grey,
white and black stonework.
Lindsay sighed, took a longer sip. “You know, I don’t know,” she said finally, watching Gus pick up a plastic
hammer, before he started hammering oddly shaped plastic pieces into place on the work bench that came with it.
“I’m a lesbian. I know that. But I started wondering, if I was saying that to keep the peace with Melanie. I fucked up
with Sam, I did, but part of me… he was right. I wanted more, more for myself. So much of what I said in that last
month was just a continuation of the same old song, making sure no one was upset, making sure I was the right
partner, the right daughter, the right everything.” She groaned, put the wine glass down on the coffee table, buried
her face in her hands. “Why am I dating, at all, anyway?”
“Because you need to discover who you are,” Brian said dryly.
Lindsay spread her fingers, peeked out between them with a scowl. “Couldn’t I have just been satisfied with the new
apartment for at least a few months? Or even years?”
The intercom, signaling someone at the front entrance, went off. Lindsay jumped. Brian didn’t. “Hey, invite him up,
so I can meet him.”
“Hm, somehow, I don’t think so,” Lindsay said, standing, grabbing her wrap, and bending down to kiss Gus on the
top of his head. “Bye, baby,” she said, heading for the door.
She returned four hours later, collapsing into the chair and eyeing Brian’s sleeping frame. “Brian. Brian!”
He opened an eye, then two, yawned, and sat up. “Hey.”
“How was Gus?”
“I ate him. Want the leftovers?” He lifted his arms overhead, and stretched. “He’s fine, of course, didn’t cry,
sleeping like a rock. How was your man? Get laid?”
Lindsay rolled her eyes, stood up, and walked to the second bedroom to peer in on Gus. When she came back, Brian
had two beers in front of him, and was busy popping the caps. Lindsay took one gratefully, sank down on the couch
next to him.
“God, what is wrong with men?” She moaned, after downing a good third of the bottle’s contents.
Brian raised his eyebrows. “Well, someone really has joined the other team, you’re reciting the anthem of straight
women everywhere.”
“Hate to tell you, Brian, but that’s a line for all women, not just the straight ones.”
“So, did you get laid?”
Eye roll in response. “No. But I’m thinking I definitely prefer women.”
“Ah.”
“Seriously, what is wrong with men? He spent the entire night talking about himself. I mean, this guy is a major art
dealer, so yes, I’m interested in the subject matter, but were we ever going to talk about me?”
“You let people run over you. You need to stick up for yourself.”
Lindsay’s mood was not exactly conducive to what she perceived as an attack. “Oh, bullshit, Brian, just because I’m
considerate doesn’t mean I have no sense of self. Maybe I’m looking for the person with whom it won’t be a
competition for dominance right out of the gate.”
“People do that until you shove back.”
“Excuse me, men do that until you shove back.”
“And Mel didn’t do that to you?”
“What, are you saying I was with Mel because I really wanted to be with a man?”
Brian raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t thought that at all, but if she wanted to pursue the idea, hey, who was he to stop
her?
“That’s just great, now you think I’m just looking for a man in a woman's body.”
“Or maybe,” Brian said, wanting to steer this conversation away from female anatomy, “you want a woman who’s
going to be the kind of woman you need, not a man at all.”
Lindsay lowered her beer bottle, and looked over at Brian, really stared at him. That stopped her from the rant that
had building up in her throat. Damn. She had been so ready to take out her frustration and misery on the man sitting
across from her. “You know, just when you seem to be needling for no good reason but the sheer perversity of it all,
you come out with these truly perceptive statements.”
“Too bad so few hear them.”
“I know, I am exceptional,” Lindsay grinned. Brian laughed slightly, not expecting that. Usually Lindsay was so
modest. He credited himself, of course. He should have been hanging out with Lindsay and Mel more, all along.
Providing the good influence.
“I am off, my words having been received, my job here done.” He stood, looked around for his shoes.
“Going home?”
“Michael called, I think I’ll grab a drink at Woody’s.” And maybe a blow job. He doubted Lindsay would want to
hear about that. Did she read that last thought? She was looking at him so oddly. “What?” he asked sharply. It
always annoyed him when he couldn’t read other people’s thoughts in return.
“Nothing,” she said softly, looking away.
He shrugged, pulling on his socks, and then his boots.
“It’s just…”
Oh, god. He hated any conversation that started out that way.
“I just worry about you, Brian. You offer helpful words to me. I know I shouldn’t say anything…”
“Either say it or don’t,” he clipped off.
She set the now empty beer on the coffee table. “I just worry, with Justin in Hollywood. About you… and Michael.”
Brian laughed. “What, you think Michael’s going to swoop in and plant his flag on my vacated ass?”
She shook her head. “Not that necessarily. It’s just that you have this picture of Michael as this innocent, lonely kid,
Brian, and he isn’t. Michael has his own agenda. What’s good for other people doesn’t necessarily get in the way of
that.” She looked away. “Maybe I’m just reacting in the extreme because I’m facing a pending divorce, I seem to be
seeing the downside everywhere…”
Brian just shrugged, patting the pockets of his jeans to be sure his car keys were there, and hadn’t slipped out while
he slept on the couch. “Michael’s married, with kid. He’s got what he always wanted. There are no hidden
motivations, he’s way too transparent for that.”
Lindsay shook her head, but shut up. Brian always was an idiot when it came to Michael; he had a blind spot there.
But she was not about to pursue this tonight. She was not the person to undo twenty years of a slowly increasingly
dysfunctional pseudo-friendship, she had too many of her own fucked-up relationships to deal with. She had a
feeling Brian could handle Michael on his own; he always had. But she wished he would do a little fighting for his
relationship with Justin. But how can you fight when you don’t see the enemy? She sighed. Maybe she really was
just being cynical, seeing danger lurking behind every lovers’ pairing because of the breakup of her own. She
accepted the kiss on her cheek that Brian left her with, and turned on the television, picking up the half-empty beer
Brian had left behind. Oh, hell, why waste it?
“So, how ‘bout that guy?” Michael gestured with his glass, and Brian glanced over his shoulder at the dark man
bending over the pool table. He shrugged, turned back to face the bar, took a sip of whiskey. Had it always been so
fucking loud in here?
“Had him already,” Brian said shortly.
“Oh, well, so what? He’s hot, and Justin isn’t around to enforce that,” Michael urged.
“Hey, how bout you go after him yourself? He’s hot, and Ben isn’t around.” Justin had nothing to do with it. Brian
just didn’t do seconds. Justin was not the rule enforcer, just the exception to the rules.
“Yeah, right,” Michael returned. “I’m married, remember? You’re not, and it’s not like you’re ever going to do the
faithful thing.”
Brian raised an eyebrow. Well, that was probably true. But he hated anyone telling him what he would and wouldn’t
do. Knee jerk reaction, he knew, dismissing his immediate flare of annoyance, taking another sip of whiskey.
“How ‘bout him?” Michael nodded to a sandy-haired kid who had taken a seat at the end of the bar.
Brian took one look, and laughed. “Yeah, what is he, like ten?”
“That never stopped you before,” Michael pointed out, not naming names, of course.
“And how is faithful little family life?” Change of subject. He thought he had wanted a blow job, and was surprised
that once he got here he had had no real desire to actively pursue anyone. Force of habit had him eyeing the goods,
and of course, as usual, they were all eyeing back. Michael’s encouragement used to be all he needed. Hell, he
hadn't needed any encouragement at all. But the audience he played to these days wasn’t around, and it sure as hell
wasn't Michael. And a great deal of the thrill had left the state with him. “Well?” he asked, definitely needing to
change the subject. And the line of thought that had come with it.
“Huh?”
“How are things at the Novotny-Bruckner home?” God, it drove him nuts that Michael had not pushed to keep own
surname in the dominant position. Nope, had to be Ben’s name . Ben sure loved that, Brian had no doubt. Not that
there was any doubt, if he ever faced that kind of a thing, where his name would go. Definitely Taylor-Kinney,
Justin would just have to… well, fuck me. What the fuck. What the fuck!?!
He ripped his attention back to Michael. “Well?”
“Actually, it’s the Marcus-Novotny-Bruckner home these days.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Melanie asked us to move in, and since there’s a lot more space, we’re moving in this weekend. I was going to ask
you help moving, but Ted said you were headed back to California.”
Remind him to thank Ted for that lie later. Or maybe it wouldn’t be a lie, not if he wanted to spend the weekend in a
non-stop fuck fest… shit. He would not go running off to Justin every five minutes. The kid had an entire life of his
own going on, on another entire coast. He’d made his choice. Fuck if Brian was going to run after him. “You’re
moving in with Melanie?”
“Yeah, she needed help with the baby.”
“So Lindsay's help was out of the question? Isn’t that her child, too?”
“But they split up!” Michael gazed at his friend in astonishment.
“Yeah, like five minutes ago.”
“It’s been months, Brian. It isn’t easy, being a single mother…”
Brian groaned. Loudly. “Maybe Mel wouldn’t be a single mother if she had to ask Lindsay for help? Maybe it might
be better if Linds and Mel had the option of trying to work things out.”
“Better? Better for who?”
Not for you, Brian thought. So this was what Lindsay had been trying to tell him earlier. That conversation made a
lot more sense now. “Hey, I gotta go,” he said, throwing down a twenty on the bar.
“But you just go here!” Michael protested. “It’s not like you have anyone to get home to.”
“But you do, so why aren’t you with them?” Brian bit off, before turning his back and heading out. Apparently
Michael had found a situation where he could come and go at will. There would always be someone around to take
care of Jenny, and Michael could play up close happy dad while still meeting his supposed best friend out for drinks
to remind him of everything he, Michael, now had surrounding him, while said best friend went home alone to an
empty loft. Mikey no more, Michael Marcus-Novotny-Bruckner, thank you very much.
Brian shook his head, getting to the corvette and sliding in for the drive home. Michael wasn’t that manipulative.
He, Brian, was that manipulative, and obviously capable of projecting his own deviousness onto Mikey, who was
just clueless sometimes.
Brian certainly wasn’t about to admit feeling pissed off. Just another knee-jerk reaction, it meant nothing, and would
pass.
On the way home, he called Justin’s cell. There was no answer, and he hung up on the answering service.
“So, here are the contracts for Buzz Stanhope.” Ted supplied the paperwork with a flourish after finishing his
explanation of the details. “Browning Investigations gave an all clear – the guy’s not married, and has a very active
sex life with pretty much the entire straight female population of the Bay area. Not kinky, just plain old
straightforward fucking, in his own home, or hers. Likes them gorgeous, blonde or the occasional redhead,
preferably mid-twenties.” He smiled slightly as Brian looked over the papers. “And, his agent says he is thrilled to
be given the opportunity.”
“Yeah, of course, they all say that.”
“Hm. Well, since it’s my first gushing suck-up, I’ll take it before I devolve to blasé. If I ever do. Who knows when
anyone will kiss my ass again. Oh, and the numbers are nicely crunched on page four. I think we’re all set,” Ted
finished.
“Good work, Ted. Oh, and excellent work in telling Michael I’d be out in California to finish this up, as if no one on
the West coast has faxes.”
“Hmph, well, actually, you’re welcome, but I did it as much for me as you. For the record, *we* are out in
California getting the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed.”
Brian glanced up from the contract, surprised. Ted had gotten a set somewhere along the line. Hm, maybe the spirit
of Brian’s own eliminated ball had permeated the air at the agency. The Ghost of Testicles Past. He smirked at that
thought. Too bad Justin wasn’t here to take that idea to the next level, he would definitely elaborate on the
possibilities… fuck. He was thinking about him again.
“Just be sure to stay out of the clubs for Saturday night. Maybe you can go to Lindsay’s, I’m sure she won’t rat you
out. Unless she has another date…”
“So you know all about Lindsay’s dates, then.”
“Well, when you actually were out in California, she needed someone to sit for her because she had some art gallery
thing, and called me since her usual babysitter canceled at the last minute and no one else was around. Said a guy’d
asked her out, and if I was maybe free the next weekend… shocked the hell out of me. I guess she and Cynthia can
have a few conversations now.”
What the fuck did that mean? “I don’t think Lindsay’s gone straight,” Brian responded, annoyed now. Lindsay was
going through something. Maybe Melanie wasn’t her soul mate, but fuck if that meant she should throw in the towel
on women. By her own words, she considered herself a lesbian. Fuck, she just liked rolling over and taking bullshit,
a lot more than was good for her, so she gravitated toward more masculine types. At lest she was starting to see it.
So what, she was supposed to suddenly give into the life of a straight woman who sought out jerks, doomed to that
fate? Fuck that.
“No, I mean because Cynthia plays for both teams.” Ted caught Brian’s sudden look. That got his attention. “Don’t
tell me you didn’t know?” he chuckled. “The topics of business and pleasure only mix when the subject is horny
men, not horny women? Well, far be it from me to chide you for that. Horny women like me, it’s a curse.”
“I’ll bet,” Brian replied smoothly. “Thanks for the contracts, Ted, I’ll be sure to look these over before our weekend
get-away.” He shuddered, imagining sitting on a plane next to Ted for eight hours.
Ted got the hint. “All right, let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
“Hey, Brian, you wanted to see me?”
Brian looked up at his secretary. “Yes, I did, Cynthia.” He paused, looked up at her. She was very different from
Melanie. That would probably be good. She was still a very tough chick. But she knew when to back off, when to
accommodate. God knows she read him perfectly. “How long have we known each other? Five years?”
“Seven,” Cynthia answered him, starting to get nervous. Oh, god, what had she done wrong? Her mind flashed back
through the morning, the week. Should she try to remember back a month? Shit, Brian would have screamed bloody
murder long before this if anything had gone bad that long ago. Unless he was planning a murder… nah, not that.
Well, maybe.
“And in all that time, I haven’t asked you about your personal life at all. You’re single, though, right? You do date.”
Okay, what was this? had she gone out with a rival ad person recently? She couldn’t think of anybody in the same
field as she that she’d sat across the table from recently in a non-work capacity. Maybe one of the rival agencies had
sent in a decoy to try to pry their upcoming campaigns out of her with liquor and sex. Not like it hadn’t happened
before. And hell, she’d gotten free liquor, food and a couple of satisfying fucks out of those deals without giving
anything up. That must be it; Brian had caught wind of that incident when they were at Vanguard, two years
ago…“I’m sorry, what?” She had missed what he was saying.
“What I’m about to ask you may be… unusual, so feel free to tell me to fuck off.”
Oh. Well, toss that idea out the window. He would just have told her to stay away from whoever it was that was
trying to get her drunk and into her head. Not that she ever talked about current projects outside the work place. She
wasn’t an idiot. “Um… let me sit for this one.” Cynthia pulled up a chair, and crossed her arms over her chest.
“You are single?”
“Uh, at the moment, basically.” She frowned, trying to figure this out. Then the look on her face turned much
darker. “Please, please tell me you aren’t expecting me to whore for accounts now, Brian, that’s going a bit far, even
for you. There are limits to what I’ll do for you, you know…”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Brian reassured her. Then he cocked his head to the side, in a way that Cynthia found
completely bone-melting, that fucker. He had to know how he looked, the effect that look had on, well, pretty much
everyone. She would not be surprised to learn he practiced in a mirror. Or on Justin. Probably not on Justin, every
look from him turned Justin on. She shook her head from turning her mind’s eye to some of her favorite mental
pictures of walking in on the two of them. Yum, yum. But no. This conversation was getting downright weird, she
needed to focus.
Brian allowed that look to sink into her bones, and was asking her, “Would you whore for an account? There’s this
orange juice company I’ve got my eye on, the owner’s just divorced… Cynthia, I’m kidding,” he added quickly
when she started getting up. She sank back into the chair, and crossed her arms again, lips tightly closed.
Well, fuck, Brian thought, why am I doing this again? “You know Lindsay?”
“Yeah, blonde, mother of your child, married to Melanie, arty type, Justin loves her. I know her.”
“She and Mel broke up.”
“Oh, wow. That’s too bad. What, you want to find the right consolation gift, sort of, sorry you’re sleeping alone, get
her one of those giant plush teddy bears to sleep with at night? Rub up against?” Cynthia actually smirked.
“Or something…” Brian muttered. This was really, really stupid. He cleared his throat. “Uh, you know, I know I
haven’t really asked which side of the plate you swing on…”
Cynthia’s mouth almost dropped open. Brian, using worn-out clichés, really really tired metaphors to get at her
sexual preference? What the fuck did this have to do with Lindsay?… and then light dawned, and she almost
laughed, but was more than sensitive to the horrifyingly pained look on his face. “Brian, are you trying to set me up
on a date with the mother of your child?” Poor Brian, he had no clue when it came to doing this sort of thing for his
friend, showing his family-oriented side. She had always done this type of work for him, bought gifts for him to give
Debbie, Lindsay, Gus even. How cute was this? Normally, he would have handed the "set up a date for my friend"
job to her. He was so absolutely not good at doing this sort of thing himself, showing that he gave a shit about
someone else, putting himself out this way. And being Brian, if he couldn’t be the best at something, well, why
bother even working to improve? So here he was, fumbling. Brian. She'd never seen it.
Brian looked away, muttering, “Yeah, I knew this was stupid.”
But Cynthia was laughing. “Are you kidding? Lindsay’s totally hot. I’d love to. So how’d you find out?”
“Find out what?”
“That I’m bi.”
“You are, then.”
“Well, I actually do prefer women. But hey, nothing wrong with a good hard dick every so often.”
“You know I’m not going to contradict that. I haven’t actually asked Lindsay, you know, I wanted to feel you out
first.”
Yeah, I wish, Cynthia thought. Some days she really wished she were a guy, usually when Brian was in the kind of
mood he seemed to be in today. Actually, she wished she were Justin, sometimes. But then Brian would start
demanding the impossible, and become a complete pain in the ass in the face of all logic, decency and common
sense, at least once a day. She thanked god she only had to deal with it at work.
“Sure. Have her call me. If she’s interested. I’m assuming you have some fabulous date tickets available?”
“How about off-Broadway Rent tickets?”
“That’ll do. They better be good seats,” she finished. “And reservations at one of those fancy Italian places you like
so much. On your tab? Just to get us started out, of course.” She stood up. “That all?”
Brian handed her the contracts Ted had dropped off earlier. “Can you fax these out to Buzz’s agent?” She grinned
and saluted before turning her back and leaving the office.
Brian shook his head, wondering what the fuck he was doing, and then turned back to work. So much easier to
handle.
Justin called while he was driving home.
“Hey, what’s up in Pittsburgh?”
“It is the first absolutely gorgeous summer day of the year.”
“Birds singing, sun shining?”
“You got it.”
“Every day’s like that out here.” Justin’s tone was not gloating, though.
“You don’t seem so thrilled, something wrong in La-La Land?”
“Not really. Well, there’s a problem with one of the actors, and the set had to be shut down for a few days. They had
to re-work the shooting schedule, it played havoc with the budget, but I got a couple of days off.” Days that were
stretching out into more than a couple.
“That why you didn’t answer your phone last night? Too busy finally working your way through the clubs?”
“The guys here are unbelievably hot.”
“Yeah, I saw them. So, how many blow jobs did you get?”
“Two blow jobs, and fucked two other guys, in three clubs. I think my dick was ready to fall off. I should have
gotten more sleep instead. How ‘bout you? Between Woody’s and Babylon, how many?”
“Actually, I was babysitting Gus last night, and I've had a ton of work.” There was a pause. Brian laughed slightly.
“I didn’t realize that was a conversation stopper.”
“No, I just… miss the little guy. How’s he doing? How’s Lindsay?”
“Well, he misses you. He seems to think we’re a set, he asked me three times last night when you’d be over.”
“Oh. What’d you tell him?”
“I told him that Justin was off having a most excellent adventure, and he would see him when he was back in town.”
“Oh.”
Shit. The question begged to be asked, when are you coming back? And Brian would never, never ask for
information like that. Justin had his own reasons for coming, or going, or telling him anything. It was his life.
Brian was almost tired of that phrase’s repetition in his head. Even if it was the truth.
He cleared his throat. “By the way, did you know Daphne blind copied me on that last email she sent you?”
“What? She bcc’d you?” Justin thought back to that email, which he had responded to a bit sharply. He felt bad
about that; he’d been tired, but she had been pushy.
“Yeah, can you tell her that you’ll be home when you’re good and ready? It’s getting old.” And too much of a
reminder of the futility of trying to push Justin to do anything when he had his own ideas of what he wanted in life.
“I already did. If I had known she’d cc’d you, I would have copied you in my reply. I can still forward you what I
wrote to her.”
“Unnecessary, I felt like an eavesdropper as it was.”
Justin paused. He really wanted to ask if it were true, what Daphne had said in the email, that everyone missed him,
especially Brian who was too much of a shithead to admit, even to himself, just how much. He could imagine
Brian’s reaction to that; good thing it was email and not face to face. But then, Brian already thought he should get
back into PIFA and get his education, and since that was the substance of most of the email, “even if you don’t miss
us as much as we miss you, you are doing yourself a major disservice by not completing your education. PIFA is
one of the best art schools around, and you may be blinded by the money you’re making, the bright lights and all,
and even all of the hot beautiful bodies out there, but you know the expression, beauty fades, dumb is forever. And
don’t tell me that part of Brian’s appeal isn’t just his fucking unbelievably beautiful face and spectacular body, he’s
also smart as they come – and that’s in part because he’s well educated. Think about it, who’d you rather be talking
to at a cocktail party, who’d you rather take to your first art opening attended by the WELL EDUCATED art elite of
New York - physical appeal aside, Brian or Michael?” Justin assumed Brian had forgiven the “shitthead” comment
in the balance with that last part. He laughed.
“What?” Brian asked.
“I’m just thinking about how much you must have enjoyed that last part, Daphne’s going off on your spectacular
beauty and wisdom.”
He didn’t want to discuss the end of that email. “Look, Justin,” she’d finished, “If you’re going to be that rich
Hollywood mogul Brett keeps saying you got a shot at, it’s going to be for your ideas and your work as an artist.
And you ain’t gonna develop those running coffee for some asshole on a grungy movie set. You’ve proven you’ve
got the talent by selling Rage to the movie people, now get back here, develop Rage further and come up with the
next awesome idea of your own, without Michael. And you know you can only do that by building a base starting
with a good education, by learning what the big ideas are in the art and entertainment world – so get back here and
get on with your real life, instead of chasing after a dream that exists only in your head!”
“Hey, Daphne’s a perceptive girl,” Brian responded to Justin’s last comment. “She knows both gifted and gorgeous
when she sees it.” There was a pause, and Justin waited. The question was begging to be asked. Daphne’s email
hovered between them, the real substance unmentioned but palpable in the not-said. Justin waited. Come on, Brian,
damn it, he thought. Just fucking once, unbend.
“Well, I gotta run,” Brian finally said. “Although I would certainly love to discuss my gorgeous brains, which are
not threatened by your catching up with them anytime soon.”
That was as close as Brian would get to saying he agreed with Daphne.
“Yeah, we’ll see. You getting out this way again anytime soon?”
“Maybe, I’ll see what I can do. Later,” and the phone went dead.
“Later.” Justin hung the phone up, propped a leg up onto the wall separating the walk from the beach, watched the
setting sun. He ached to sketch the emptying beach, the open water, the huge sky, all the open vistas stretching out
before him. The tiny little people, to capture their smallness against the spectacular, overwhelming land and sea
shaping this part of the earth. He hadn’t sketched anything since he’d gotten here. He’d been too busy. And it was
just as easy not to; his hand always needed to rest.
“Hey, Justin, we’re off to this cool new place downtown, you’re coming, right?” Gail pulled him away from his
contemplation of the water. He put his phone into his back pocket, turned toward the others, and plastered a smile on
his face. Sure, the clubs waited. He wondered if Robin could score him some E. Sure, he’d go along for the night.
Not much else to do.
VIII
“This definitely sucks.” Steve put the title on the looks they must have been wearing when they had showed up that
morning and heard that there would be yet another delay in the shoot, this time supposedly for a day - which just
might stretch out to two, three, or four days, more time on the ten days the shoot had been suspended already. But
Mark was scheduled in from Boston for the next day, which Justin logically deducted would allow him to settle in so
they could begin work again not tomorrow, but the next day. At the earliest. So at least two more days, not one.
Anyway, they were all expected to be on the set tomorrow by seven, even if they were just going to be sent home.
Again.
Justin, Robin and Steve had gone to the Starbucks down the street for the morning coffee, same as usual. But this
morning, they stayed there, lounging at a table by the roadside, watching the cars go by. If Justin had known the
delay would stretch out this long, he would have gone back to Pittsburgh, been with Brian, stopped in on Gus and
Lindsay, Debbie and Carl. Gotten more sleep. He had time now to talk to Brian on the phone. But Brian didn’t. He
had a business to run.
So Justin had been partying, hitting the clubs at night and lounging around the beaches during the day. The assistants
hung out with each other, and waited. Conor had called him once or twice, and he was running out of excuses to not
go out with the guy. That last call, Gail told him he was crazy for not going out with Conor and his group of
buddies, five semi-known tv and movie stars who were all regularly in the tabloids for stirring up shit when they
went on the club scene. Justin was beginning to think maybe he should, just for lack of anything better to do.
He had managed to finally start sketching the beach scene he wanted, now that his hand had a decent rest.
Unfortunately, the scene he really wanted to capture, with the sun setting, the beach emptying, needed to be caught
in the evening. And, with nothing else to do, the assistants had taken to hanging out and getting the party started
well before cocktail hour, long before sunset.
He stirred his coffee with the plastic stick, even if he was drinking it black and there was nothing to blend in. “This
is not turning out as I expected,” he said, raising his cup to his lips.
“It’s always like this. Road to riches, gotta start somewhere,” Steve replied, cheerily. “You gotta just roll with it.”
Brian wouldn’t roll with it, Justin thought. Neither should I. He decided to go speak to Brett later, see what was up.
It wasn’t that the director was avoiding him, it was just that with the delays, they hadn’t been forced into close
contact with each other recently. And Brett was always busy, the mile-a-minute guy. Justin got exhausted just
watching him. He wondered if he ever fucked around. Didn’t seem like it. He only worked, stopping for a couple
hours every so often to sleep. The guy lived his work. He had nothing else, but he didn’t really need anything else
either. He didn’t seem to, anyway.
“I don’t feel like I’m rolling,” Justin finally said. “More like I’m standing at a decision. Should I stay here and wait
around? Or go back home?”
“What, give up? Just at the start of your whole life here? Think about it, how many Pittsburgh kids are starting a
whole new life in Hollywood? You gotta live the dream,” Steve replied.
“Nothing’s quite what you expect,” Robin agreed cheerily, sipping at her latte. “But you know, this really is the way
to the classic American success story thing, do what Frost tells you, choose the road less traveled.”
Justin looked at her strangely. “What do you mean?”
“You know, the poem. ‘I took the road less traveled by and that made all the difference.’”
Justin snorted, shook his head. “All the difference, sure, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.”
“What are you talking about? He’s Frost, he took the less traveled road and became the poet of the century.”
“But the poem’s not about Frost, it’s about choices. And there was no real difference between the roads in that
poem.”
Robin and Steve were looking at him as if he had grown a dick where his head was supposed to be, but Justin didn’t
care. He quoted, “‘Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy
and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same…’ The speaker hasn’t
stepped on either road yet, so both are untrodden, and his choice isn’t based on what they actually offer, only an
arbitrary desire at the moment to take one over the other. And his entire life turns out different because of a single
choice. There’s no turning back, so it doesn’t matter for better or worse, you live with the choice regardless.”
Steve snickered. “Man, if sucking dick didn’t do it, I know you really are gay, you’ve got whole poems memorized.”
“It’s not about being gay, it’s about being educated,” Justin bit back, annoyed. “People think Frost is telling them
one thing, but if you actually read the poem, you find out that’s not the case.”
“Yeah, well, I like the story where choosing the less worn road leads to being the poet of the century better,” Robin
replied with a smile.
“American dream, all the way.” Steve hoisted his cup, toasting.
Justin wouldn’t have been surprised if he took a tiny flag out of his back pocket and waved it. Thank god, no
jingoistic props were available to the guy at the moment. Justin said dryly, “Not exactly realistic, though, you’re
more likely to just end up a failed Frost. And that is a very well-worn path.” He chose not to cut Steve down
completely, though that would have been too easy. He was just in a bad mood, and didn’t think Steve deserved to be
the victim of it.
“Hey, this is Hollywood, not shit reality!”
“Yeah, my shit job and these shit delays are telling me a different story.”
Steve shook his head. “Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the futon! Put some Irish in your coffee boyo.”
“It’s eight in the morning.” And it’s eleven in the morning in Pittsburgh, and I could be sleeping in, convincing
Brian to stay late in bed, Justin thought, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, willing the caffeine through his
veins. Why am I not there again?
Rage, he reminded himself. Rage was his baby. He needed to protect the integrity of his vision. Damn it, he had
made a commitment, Rage was his.
Now if they could only get back to shooting the damn thing.
“Yeah, I know, but terrorism is the big thing now, and you know this story is just waiting to be told, terrorists taking
over a major news network by infiltrating… no, it’s not just another Manchurian Candidate, but it sure doesn’t hurt
that the idea has proven successful, does it?” Brett waved Justin into his office. Justin took a seat, and waited for
Brett to get off of the phone. “Are you kidding, explosions, who do you think we’re talking to? Besides, Greg’s
already working with me on the project I got going now… yeah, it’s going … yup, okay, hey, I gotta go, call me
back when you take a look at that, will you?… what, you’re joking, aren’t you, of course you don’t need to read the
book, I’ll forward you synopsis in a day or two… All right, call me after you take a look.” He terminated the call,
and turned to Justin. “Hey, Justin, what’s up!”
“You tell me, are we going to start shooting this thing again or what?” Justin got right to the point.
“Actually, I have really good news on that one,” Brett rifled through the papers scattered on his desk, pulled out a
few pages stapled to each other, and handed it to Justin. “We managed to get Greg Hanville on board, and, with a
slight rewrite, the ending isn’t going to be dependent on the actor’s schedules, the shooting with all the actors can be
finished up three weeks earlier, basically on the original schedule factoring in the delays with the new ending…”
“New ending.” Justin took the proffered pages, and glanced through. Greg Hanville, Greg Hanville, he’d heard that
name…
Oh, yeah. Big time stunt guy, specialized in car chase scenes. Retired, and coordinated the stunt work now,
specifically in terms of highway race and crash scenes.
Oh, shit, Justin hated chase movies. There was absolutely no imagination to them, as far as he was concerned. Run,
chase, explosion - which was fine, but the effects meant nothing when they did not support the plot line. Very few
chase movies were actually successful, as far as Justin was concerned. He looked up at Brett, who was smiling down
at him. “How great is that, Greg Hanville!”
“Uh, Brett, this is kind of different…”
“Yeah, I know, but we’re just going to have to cut back on some of the Rage/JT scenes. There’s enough hotness
between them to light up the screen…”
“But it’s not about sex, it’s about the way the relationship develops…”
“And the audience will get that. Besides, Conor’s committed to another project for September, it’s going to be a
tight enough squeeze in his schedule with the way this delay because of Alan’s… problem has us scrambling here.
We could stay on the original script, but if we choose to do that, we’re going to have to wait for Conor to get back
from shooting in Mexico for this other thing he’s contracted to, and god alone knows what would happen in the
meantime. We have to get his scenes shot before the end of August, and cutting in the new ending will allow us to
end the movie with even more of a bang. Read it, Rage saves JT in that multi-car explosion. That’ll actually translate
better than JT stepping in and helping Rage bring down that pig guy he’s promoting in his everyday job, more
attention-grabbing, and stays consistent to the story line. What do you think? Think we can work it?”
Justin kept hearing “we.” If he stopped lying to himself, he would have to admit that he could no longer believe that
that included him. He placed the new script back on Brett’s desk. “Oh, I’m sure we can ‘work it,’” Justin answered,
gaining a grin from Brett which he did not return. “It’s just that this isn’t exactly the Rage story I wrote.”
“But it doesn’t betray the characters, Rage is still gay, I know that’s important, and that’s not changing, I made that
real clear when I talked to the producers…”
“When was that?”
Brett actually looked uncomfortable for a moment. “I had to pass the changes by them. Getting Greg on the project
was a huge plus, we’ve got him contracted for September.”
Contracted. It was done then. And what could he do about it? Absolutely nothing.
“But don’t worry. There are slight changes, but Rage, JT and Zephyr are essentially who they are, the movie’s just
going to tell a slightly different story line than the comic does, at the end. And, most important, we’re going to be
able to open for the summer line-up next year.”
Justin nodded. He stood up. There really wasn’t a lot more to ask about.
“Anything else? How’s everything going? You enjoying California while you have some time to look around now?”
“Sure,” Justin answered. “California’s beautiful. Conor’s offered to show me some of the clubs, but I’ve gotten to
some with Robin and Steve…”
“Huh, you should let Conor show you his side of things, he’s got VIP status, you’ll see how stars are treated. That’s
the side you should be getting used to, Justin, so take advantage.” Brett flashed that smile.
Justin smiled weakly, and turned away. The characters were still who they were, the movie was just going to tell a
slightly different story. Like another edition of the comic, that could work. Readers would probably want to see
something besides a tired recycling of what the comic book offered. Maybe Brett was right. And Justin hadn’t
allowed himself to relax and take advantage of some of the luxuries that had been offered him, that was for sure.
Why shouldn’t he hang out with Conor? The guy rode in a hot car, went to the front of the line at clubs, got what he
wanted, spent the money he needed to for the best of everything. Sound like someone I know? Justin thought. That
must be it, part of the reason he was feeling so homesick was because he missed the life he was able to live
vicariously through Brian. Yeah, he definitely didn’t want to depend on it, but maybe a little indulgence in the high
life would help him feel less… lost here. Crossing the empty set, he pulled out his phone, dialed the number Conor
had given him. What the hell.
“Hey, Justin!” Conor greeted him as he slid into the limo. “Glad you finally found time to fit us in!” The other two
people in the seat facing the one Justin slid onto next to Conor laughed, the absurdity of the idea that it was Justin
fitting them in and not the other way around. “This is my friend Del, and this is…”
“Shannon LePrel,” Justin filled in, reaching out and shaking her hand. “I love your music.”
“Wow, I’m amazed you know it.” The young woman with the ribbons braided through her streaked hair crinkled her
darkly lined eyes at him.
“I have a great reputation for being attracted to the new and hot performer right before their music takes off,” Justin
told her, grinning, accepting the flute of champagne from Conor and taking a sip.
“I can see Conor’s taste in devastating young man is consistent,” Del told him.
“To say nothing of talented. Remember I told you, Justin created Rage,” Conor added.
“Actually, co-created,” Justin reminded him.
“Wow, and he gives credit instead of stealing the glory for himself!” Del saluted with his glass, before knocking its
lip against the bottle Conor was holding, asking for more.
“You definitely are an anomaly out here,” Shannon giggled.
“Yeah, you’re not stealing or sleeping your way to the top,” Connor added, leering at Shannon.
She laughed. “Hey, talent and sex, the only recipe for success!”
“Are you developing a new album?” Justin asked. “I’d love to have more of your stuff, kind of sucks for us
consumers, just twenty-two songs.”
“Twenty-two?” Del frowned. “I thought there were only fourteen tracks on that album.”
“Ah, but Justin apparently has a copy of the bootleg of the show from when I was with the Withering Blows. Is that
so?” she asked.
Justin turned somewhat red; he indeed downloaded most of his music from the web. He should have remembered
that this was a sensitive issue for the music business.
“Don’t turn red! my god, someone who still blushes, how fresh. Not your fault, Justin, I’m flattered that apparently I
have real fans who know about my turn with the WB’s.”
“Are you kidding?” Justin added, “The club I go to in Pittsburgh plays ‘Two Steps Back’ every night around one,
and everybody gets up on the floor.”
Shannon laughed. “Yeah, and that’s the only good track on that entire piece of shit release! I’m amazed you
downloaded the whole thing. I’ll have you know, though, that I was reading Rage from when it first came out. I love
comics, especially when they follow an original storyline, gay superhero, who can resist?”
“You’d get along great with Michael then.”
“Michael Novotny, the writer, right? Can you introduce me then? I’d love to meet him if he’s around.”
“Sure,” Justin returned.
“Uh, can we get away from this mutual admiration society?” Conor asked.
“You’re just jealous you’re not in on it,” Del said, drawing a laugh from everyone.
“So where are we going?” Justin asked.
“A friend of mine is having a party,” Conor answered, filling his champagne glass again. Justin vowed this would be
the last of the bubbly, the stuff went right to his head. “Name’s John Poole, puts on pretty exclusive shindigs.”
“Not to everyone’s taste,” Shannon said, wrinkling her nose. “He has a variety of themes in different rooms. But
there’s generally something for everyone, and a regular good ol’ drunken rock and roll party for the rest of us out
back.”
“I’m just glad he’s not demanding the mask thing this time.”
“The mask thing?” Justin asked.
“Yeah, served to allow people to design these amazing, gorgeous headwear, and also to be anonymous all night.
Very interesting party,” Del said.
“No, tonight’s pretty straightforward. Sex, drugs…”
“Rock and roll,” Shannon finished off. “I’m actually included in the invite to sing for my supper, as it were. He’s got
a bunch of us coming to showcase the music we’re working on. He actually contacted my agent, and since I know
this fucker,” she kicked at Conor, “wouldn’t bring me as a guest, I just hijacked his ride.”
“Hey,” Conor said, looking over at her archly, “John told me I could bring two beautiful boys, one gay, one straight,
so I couldn’t ask a slightly off-her-rocker rocker with me, unfortunately.”
“Oh…” Shannon’s face had fallen with this last. She shook her head, gazing intently at Justin. “So you’re gay. That
figures. Too bad.”
“Not for me,” Justin grinned.
They were all laughing as the limo stopped at the gate of John Poole’s house, got the all-clear, and pulled in.
The house was gorgeous, set in the hills over Los Angeles. Justin spent most of the first couple hours there in the
huge living room with its back wall made almost entirely of glass, looking out to the back terrace where the stage
was set up. Music was piped into the house from outside. Shannon was asked to perform within the hour; until then,
she had stuck by Justin’s side, introducing him as “That Rage Art Guy,” while he introduced her as “That Hot New
Singer Girl,” to everyone they didn’t know, becoming increasingly drunk. He thought Daphne would love Shannon.
Then again, he thought, feeling the trace of Shannon’s hand trailing down his arm as she took her leave to do the
proverbial sing-for-her-supper, maybe not. Daphne would not give up official best female friend spot easily. Even
when she was pissed at him. And he wouldn’t give her up, even if she was a pain in the ass. But she sure would not
appreciate his enjoying anyone or anything that drew him further from Pittsburgh, PIFA, and her. And Brian.
He thrust that thought out of his head. He was here to have fun, to get away from his homesickness. It was
ridiculous, anyway. The place was gorgeous, the drinks were top shelf and plentiful, the men were hot, the lights of
Los Angeles spread out beneath them, stretching across the valley as if the sky had fallen and lay beneath them.
Conor caught up with him sometime after midnight. Justin was trying to speak with a minor actor whom he found so
beautiful he had wondered he hadn’t had star billing yet, until he started trying to talk to him. The guy had nothing
to say. At all. Justin had tried everything, asking him about his work, his travels, his childhood for god’s sake, and
had gotten one-word replies as the kid kept looking down at Justin’s dick. Oh, hell, maybe I’ll just fuck him then,
Justin thought, wondering if they could escape further into the house, when Conor showed up and dragged him
away.
“Thank you,” Justin said.
“No problem,” Conor replied, throwing his arm around Justin. Justin was just drunk enough to ignore it. “Have you
seen the play rooms?”
“Play rooms?” Justin asked.
“Ah, obviously you haven’t. You need the tour.” He turned, and steered Justin toward the back of the house. As the
music faded, Justin could hear other sounds, familiar. “Hm…” Conor said. They stood at the foot of a staircase, and
Conor walked him up it. “Okay, het sex is in the rooms to the right, I don’t suppose you’re interested in that. A
variety of alternates to the left, though,” he added, opening a door. They walked in.
The lights were down, very low, with a green tinge. Naked men everywhere, doing lines in the corner, fucking
against the wall, getting blown on the divan that dominated the center of the room. Conor gestured at the wall to
their right, where a closed door led into the next room down. “This is how it works, the four rooms along this wing
open up into each other.” As if to prove this, the door in the wall opened, and revealed a man exiting a room bathed
in violet light just beyond. “The amusements get increasingly… intense as you go through. This room apparently is
for couples who want to get it on. Would you like to see the whole thing?”
“Sure,” Justin shrugged. Conor’s hand on his arm stroked down to the sensitive spot inside his elbow, and he felt his
body respond to the familiar smell and noises around him. Couples, huh. Maybe he’d find someone more available
further in.
The violet room was for multiples. The same layout as the green room, but more interesting. Justin eyed a very hot
man who reminded him of Brian getting a blow job and rimmed at once, and thought he’d probably linger here if
Conor didn’t seem so determined to pull him through. The next room was lit in orange, a toy room. Dildos, cuffs,
whips, silk ropes for tying up. Not so many guys in here, just as many watching as playing. Conor and Justin paused
to watch a blindfolded man on his knees servicing a man in a mask while a third ran a riding crop around the
kneeling man’s hole, every so often cracking the whip across his ass, leaving a red welt where it passed.
“Makes you wonder what’s in the last room,” Justin murmured.
“Probably the slaves,” Conor answered.
“Slaves?” Justin asked.
“Mm… Want to see?”
Sure, he wanted to see, what the hell. Conor had been watching Justin’s face as they wandered through the rooms,
and Justin almost laughed as he thought of how this was tame compared to some of these scenes he had actually
participated in, back in Pittsburgh. Fucking Conor, thought he was some rube from out of nowhere or something,
waiting for his eyes to widen in shock. Believe me, Justin thought, after three years with Brian, shock is just a word.
They entered the blue room.
The room was bare of furniture. Suspended from the ceiling, in the corner to his left, and in both corners at either
end of the far wall, were harnesses. Two were full, including one in the right far corner, where a very young man
was suspended, younger than Justin, a boy really, surrounded by four naked men, one thrusting into him, another
supporting his head, directing the kid’s mouth to his engorged cock. A third man waited, watching, rubbing his dick
against the kid’s hip, watching him get fucked, while the fourth man ran his hands up the kid’s penis. “I’ll get you a
drink,” Conor said, gesturing to the bar that was set up against the far wall. Justin barely managed a nod. He needed
Conor to get the fuck away. Right. Now. He was frozen, that word suddenly more than a word, but not quite shock,
and not quite horror either. More like… memory. He watched the kid, the harnass, those guys going at him. Then he
ripped his gaze away to look toward the bar, followed Conor’s retreating back, to the right of the bar where the other
harness held another kid, his head lolling back, his arms held up, legs spread. Obviously, completely out of it. As
Justin watched, two of the guys who had been standing against the bar moved out of the way to accommodate
Conor. They turned their gaze from watching the group scene in the corner, spoke briefly to each other, and walked
toward where the boy floated, opened, waiting for anyone who wanted him. One of the men ran his hand down the
bare ankle, licking his lips. The second man unzipped his pants, and moved in closer. Justin jerked his head to the
left when he heard a voice, slurred, raised above the other sounds of moans, the thumping music playing from near
the bar. A man was holding yet a third kid, obviously the third slave, tugging him toward the last corner. As Justin
moved closer, he saw that the kid could barely speak, but he was definitely fighting being physically overpowered
by this man who was pulling him toward the last corner of the room. “N..no…”
“Hey,” Justin said, raising his voice, “Hey!”
The guy turned. The kid stumbled, pulled out of the man’s grip. “Hey, good, you want to help me here?” He reached
for the kid again.
But Justin had already snatched the boy’s arm, and was propelling him toward the door out in the hallway. The kid
stumbled, his head slumping, rolling toward his shoulder. “Hey!” the guy called, and it was the last sound Justin
heard as he left the room with the kid. He started pulling him down the hall, toward the staircase.
“Hey, Justin! What the fuck!” Conor came out of the room, and ran down the hallway to catch up. A party-goer
coming up the stairs paused to look curiously at the naked boy slumping against the wall and Justin wheeling on the
big movie star. Justin glared at the curious face, who just shrugged, and turned into a room at the right.
“Justin, you can’t just take the hired help away, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Hired help?” Justin spit out, rounding on the big a star. “This kid can’t be sixteen.”
“Oh, please, I guarantee he’s way more experienced than he looks, in fact I think I’ve seen him at other parties, hired
to do just this. Believe me, John hires these guys, it’s all professional, what the fuck is your problem?”
Justin was not going to discuss this with this idiot who had no clue, who had never in his life, Justin *guaranteed*,
been in danger of ending up unwillingly in one of those contraptions, propelled there by unknown hands because he
was young, broke, and clueless about the fine line that sometimes existed between business and rape.
“Call your limo for me. I’m leaving, and I’m taking him,” Justin said, his voice barely holding his rage at bay.
“Justin, for god’s sake.”
“Look, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. Either you call your limo and I leave quietly with this kid, or I
raise holy hell, or I call the police and an ambulance. Which do you prefer?”
Conor did not question whether Justin was bluffing; the deadliness of his delivery spoke for itself. He took out his
cell phone, spoke into it, hung up. “The limo will be out in the front at the door. Send it back when you get wherever
you think you’re going.”
Justin pulled the kid down the stairs, bypassing the glass-fronted area of the mansion where the main part of the
party continued, spilling out down the hillside. He walked out the front door, into the limo, and directed the driver to
the nearest hospital.
Conor was sure to think him some hick but at this moment, almost two hours later, Justin really didn’t give a shit.
He sat in the waiting area of the emergency room, and waited. Nothing to do but stare at the blank walls and think.
He hated hospitals, hated the smell, the sounds, the squinch of the nurses’ rubber soles against the tiled floor, the
glaring brightness everywhere. Brian had spared him this, during his cancer treatment. He said he did it for himself,
not telling Justin. But Justin knew that part of the reason Brian hadn’t said anything, was that he knew what it was
like to sit here, in this horrible place, on the outside looking in, while someone you loved battled pain, sickness, and
death alone.
He still shook from the suddenness of his reaction on entering that room. Conor going to get him a drink, while
around the room this scene played out, other men standing around, watching this horror, as if nothing were amiss.
Fucking Christ, Justin thought. Even “fucked up” didn’t do that justice.
He couldn’t think, he was still physically reacting to the ride down from the hills, holding the naked kid next to him
and trying to warm him up, the kid puking into the ice bucket Justin held up for him, passing out while Justin tried to
keep him awake, tried to ask him what he was on, though if this was anywhere near Justin’s own experience, he
would have no idea. Then the hospital, practically carrying the kid in, making up some bullshit story about finding
him on the street passed out. Then sitting down and waiting.
Brian. It was all he could think of, that familiar pull for the older man’s hand, the need to feel Brian’s presence, to
close his eyes and sink into him. Justin took a deep breath. Brian can’t always be there, he reminded himself. You
have to get through things on your own. Stand on your own. Figure these things out, be a man. Handle this shit, deal
with your own shit. Brian can’t help you. You have to do this, you can’t always lean. Brian can’t always be there.
Yes, another voice answered, but he may be there now.
He dialed without letting himself think anymore, he needed to hear Brian’s voice, damn it. He could hate himself for
giving in later.
“Hey,” the familiar voice answered on the third ring. “You getting in from the clubs?”
“Something like that,” Justin sighed, relieved, immediately feeling the ground under him had been restored. “Where
are you?”
“You don’t want to know what I’m wearing?”
“Hm… what are you wearing?” Justin heard his voice turn to the familiar purr it fell into only for Brian, as
comforting at this moment as a cool touch on a feverish brow. The woman sitting two seats down from him in the
uncomfortable plastic chairs looked up from her magazine, smirked, and looked down again.
“Well, I’d love to say nothing, but Gus is sleeping on your side of the bed at the moment, and Lindsay made me
promise not to raise the boy with the mistaken notion that men don’t wear clothes at home.”
“Hm… so? Is Lindsay taking the night off Gus? Is she still separated?”
“Lindsay is dating my secretary.”
“Cynthia? Are you serious?”
“Please tell me you didn’t know she was gay, too.”
“She’s bi,” Justin answered, actually feeling a small smile tug his lips at Brian’s groan and his comment that he was
the last person on the planet to hear this news. “It would help, Brian, if you asked people how they’re doing in their
personal lives.”
“Hm, okay. How are you doing in your personal life?”
Justin’s stomach dropped out and his throat closed up as the events of the night crashed back in on him. “Things are
not great back here,” he whispered, unable to continue.
“Tom riding your ass? Not in a good way?”
“No,” Justin started, then closed his eyes, struggling for control.
“Justin? What’s wrong?”
He had to say something, but wasn’t ready to speak the words; the real problem was too big, it stuck somewhere in
his throat. “They’re turning Rage into a chase movie,” he said instead.
Brian snorted. “And we know how much we love those. Except for the Hitchhiker, of course.”
“And Terminators.”
“Yeah, those too. So you couldn’t talk Brett out of mangling things, hm?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, everything is. But that’s business , the guy in charge buys the idea, and your soul is sold. So is that what’s
bothering you?” Brian knew him way too well. He’d be angry, ready to spit, yelling about changes to his script. Not
unable to speak. Brian knew something else was up. He just did.
But when it came time to open up on the rest of it, to let him know just how big this was, Justin was silent. He
couldn’t. Brian didn’t even know about that party that Justin had almost been raped at. And the horror still rolling
around inside him, it was too big, it was too soon to address it. He hadn’t managed to process this, to get over
feeling as if he had just been in a train wreck and was looking at the mangled remains he had managed to escape, but
hadn’t been able to bear looking down to see where he was bleeding, or how much.
“Justin?”
Justin took a deep breath. He couldn’t talk about this, he was barely holding his shit together.
“Justin, damn it, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Justin managed.
“Bullshit, something’s wrong.”
.
He took a deep breath. “I just… fuck.” Whispered
“Oh, hell, I’m not gonna do this. Are you expecting me to show how much I care by demanding you share your
feelings, throw in a little begging maybe? Would that help you out? You know I don’t play that game.”
“Fine, fuck off then!” Justin yelled into the phone, slamming it shut. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck!!! He knew better
than to call Brian in the first place, what did he expect? He rubbed his temples, and willed Brian to call him back, to
just fucking give him a minute, to get that something was very wrong here. He willed the phone to ring.
It didn’t.
IX
Justin approached the front desk, and asked the nurse who looked up at him, “Uh, miss?” She looked to be about
fifty, and she raised her eyebrows at that. “Uh… hi, I came in with a young man, about three or four hours ago? I
was wondering how he was doing?”
“Oh, sure. He’s awake, not too happy about it. He’ll be fine, we’re giving him a glucose iv, should be fine, bit of a
hangover.”
“That’s it? Just drunk?”
“Well, he had pretty much everything under the sun in his blood tests, but he wasn’t comatose, just apparently
unconscious. The doctors pumped his stomach, and he’s been sleeping it off.”
“That’s it?”
“You were expecting more?”
“No…
“Do you know his name?”
“No.”
The nurse sighed. “They never do. Jenna,” she called to a young woman behind her. “Can you show this young man
to exam four?” Apparently the misplaced “miss” worked some magic after all.
Justin trailed behind the girl and entered the room after her. She smiled at him shyly, then left. Justin looked down at
the kid in the bed, whose eyes were just opening. He stared at Justin. He started, and sat up abruptly. “Fuck!”
Jesus, he looked even younger sober. He looked at Justin. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Justin. And you are…?”
“Call me Ishmael.”
“I don’t think you’re what Melville had in mind.”
“Oh, a smart one then?” the kid sneered. “Call me anything you want, just tell me what the fuck I’m doing here.”
“Well,” Justin said, crossing his arms. “I dragged you out of a party at John Poole’s house where you were about to
get put in a harness and raped. You didn’t seem too pleased with the idea…”
“Poole… oh fuck!” He looked around. “Where are my clothes? My jeans? Damn it!”
“I didn’t exactly have time to collect them,” Justin said, narrowing his eyes.
“Well, my cell phone was in there, along with two hundred down payment for the evening. Wait… harness?”
“Yeah, you don’t remember?”
The kid leaned back against the pillow, calming down. He studied Justin. “No… shit. I told Joey we shouldn’t have
taken all that crap before the gig. You’d think I’d know better…” He glared up at Justin. “I’m still out five hundred
bucks for three hours’ work. And fuck, not like I would have remembered it anyway.”
Justin continued to stare at him.
“What?” the kid demanded, squirming.
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“What year were you born?”
“1986. Don’t be an asshole, I’m eighteen. And if I had my pants with my wallet, I could prove it. Poole’s no fool…”
he stopped, giggled. Then said, “You think you could get me some jeans? Or at least a pair of sweats?”
“Sure, I can pull them out of my ass,” Justin snapped.
“Yeah, well, looks like you got a regular trunk back there… Which hospital did you say I’m in?”
“I didn’t, but it’s St. Vincent’s.”
“There’s a Walmart two blocks from here. Think you can get me a pair of medium sweats, any t-shirt, medium, and
a pair of flip flops? The store’s two blocks, take a right out the emergency room doors. Think you can do that for
me?”
“Sure,” Justin said, “Except it’s five in the morning.”
“Open 24 hours, man.”
Justin was leaving the Wal-mart, when he heard a sound like hissing steam to his left. He turned and saw the kid
crouched down, in a pair of doctor’s scrubs, leaning against the wall. “You know you cost me 500 bucks.”
“I got a deal for you,” Justin said, handing him the bag and watching him pull out the plain black t-shirt, take off the
scary green top and draw the t-shirt over his head, then pull out the flip-flops and put them on his feet. “I’ll hit an
ATM, pay you three hundred bucks to make up the part you’re out, which I’ll give to you after I buy you breakfast.”
The kid eyed him. “You want to fuck me, then? That gives you an hour.”
Three hundred bucks an hour? Yeah, right. “No,” Justin replied shortly, grabbing his arm and pulling him with him
toward the Denny’s he saw further down the street. “I just want to talk to you.”
“Ooh, kinky.”
Justin figured they’d hit an ATM on the way. There were always ATM’s on the way, thank god.
He watched the kid pack away two orders of pancakes, but Justin only picked at his own blueberry waffles. They
were awful, and he wasn’t hungry. His eyes felt gritty, as if sand had been blowing in his face.
“I guess I should thank you,” the kid said as he attacked his second order of pancakes. He didn’t sound particularly
grateful, but Justin figured he should take what he could get. “I don’t do that bondage shit. I make that pretty clear
right up front. That was not what I signed up for.”
“But you do other things,” Justin said, watching him.
The kid looked up, studied Justin’s face, and then relaxed, at whatever he saw, or didn’t see. “Yeah, I do other
things. It’s a living. Not a bad living. Not great, but a living.” His smile was not quite convincing, but then he
shrugged, and turned to the side of sausage. He looked up again. “Are you going to try to turn into one of those dogooders? Turn my life around? Help me out? You don’t have a bible packed away in those hot leather pants you got
on, do ya?”
“Do you want help?” Justin asked.
The kid thought for a moment. Then he shook his head. “Nah, don’t think I do. I’m managing. I mean, you got any
more money, like a thousand bucks? I wouldn’t mind that. You look like you got a thousand bucks. You’re fucking
gorgeous, man, what are you, new star on the horizon?”
Justin shook his head. “Just an artist.”
“Hey, I know you get the three hundred dollar questions, but mind if I ask you one?” The kid was obviously not
going to let the money go; he’d made Justin give him a hundred and show him the rest before he agreed to go to the
restaurant with him.
Justin nodded.
“Why’d you do it? Take me out of there? Why do you give a shit?”
“Because I could have been you.”
The kid started laughing, choked on a pancake. Justin started to get up, alarmed, but the kid waved him back down,
picked up his orange juice, and got himself under control. “Seriously.”
“Seriously,” Justin answered.
Intense grey eyes pointedly examined Justin’s silk Yves St. Laurent shirt, the one that specifically went with the
leather pants. Brian had bought them for him as part of a “going to Hollywood” shopping spree. Seven outfits, one
for each day of the week, Brian had said. “And I hope you know you can mix these up, so you really have a lot more
possible outfits than just seven.” “Yeah, Brian, I got that.” “And don’t, for God’s sake, pair Prada with cargoes, only
the Armani can carry those pieces of shit.” “YES, Brian.”
“Yeah, right,” the kid scoffed. “Hardly a struggling artist, though, huh? You must have yourself a nice sugar daddy
to bankroll that outfit.”
“What’s your name? Really. I can’t call you Ishmael. You want personal information, you tell me your name.”
“Yeah, Ishmael is a little old fashioned for this town. Call me Jake, then.”
“Jake. And actually, I sold some of my work recently. So I do have money of my own”
“No sugar daddy? I know you’re not straight.”
“Well, I do have a very well-off boyfriend.”
“Ah.” Jake plowed back into the pancakes.
“He loves me,” Justin said softly.
Jake shrugged. “Then you are one lucky son of a bitch. You love him?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, that’s too bad. Always better to receive than to give. Love is leverage lost.”
Justin watched him eat. The kid’s metabolism was unbelievable. Five hours before, drunk as they come, and now,
this. “Jake,” he asked, getting his attention again. “How’d you end up doing this?” The waitress walked by, and
Justin held up his cup. She filled it with more coffee.
“Well, I went to this party, blacked out and woke up in the hospital, and here I am with this beautiful freak who
wants to feed me and pick my brains. For three hundred bucks,” he reminded him.
“No, seriously,” Justin said, leaning onto his forearms on the table. “You seem like a really nice guy. Cute, even, if
you’d get some sleep and clear up those bags under your eyes.”
“Cutting back on the drinking wouldn’t kill me, either,” Jake added, finishing the second plate of pancakes.
“Want more?” Justin asked.
Jake shook his head, pushed the plate to the side. “Pretty usual story. I’m not from here, but who is? Nah,
Nebraska’s no place for gay boys. My parents are Methodists, pretty hard core. Obviously, I’m not. They probably
wouldn’t have sent me to college even if I was their dream boy. People in the town I'm from don’t really have
ambitions beyond the CVS cash register.”
“Would you have wanted to go to college?”
“Maybe. But it didn’t work out that way. And this is okay, for now. I mean, I make good money. Shit like last
night… good reminder not to get that out of control.”
“Reminders don’t help if someone slips you something in your drink.”
“Speaking from experience?” Jake saw Justin’s face. “Oh, shit, man, I’m sorry, that’s harsh. I’ve been pretty lucky
so far. Besides, I generally only drink from bottles I open myself or see opened. I’m not sure what happened at
Poole’s… I don’t really plan to spend the rest of my life doing this.”
“What do you want to do?”
Jake shrugged. “I used to play guitar, piano. Well, saxophone too. A little banjo, you know, I could pick up a few
more things. Played pretty well. I know, musician’s far fetched. My music teacher wanted me to apply to some
music school in Boston, he knew some people. I play with some people around here, sometimes…” he trailed off,
looked away, shrugged, looked back. “Geez, sun’s coming up. I gotta go, find my friends. See if they’ve rescued my
pants.” He chuckled, started to slide out of the booth.
“Hey, Jake, don’t forget your money.”
Jake reached out, his hand hovering a few inches away. “You’re a decent guy, Justin. I sure as hell would have just
walked away from me, if I’d been a party guest. I almost feel like I shouldn’t take your money.”
Justin lifted an eyebrow, kept the twenties extended.
Jake shrugged, and took them. “You’re right, it’s a tough old world. See you round, maybe.”
“Yeah, see you.”
Jake walked out. Justin never saw him again.
He sat in the booth, drinking cup after cup of coffee for a very long time.
What had he been looking for out here? He sure as shit wasn’t finding it.
Rage. Ah yes. But Rage was one thing. And Rage, the movie, was turning into something quite different.
His thoughts automatically fell back into that familiar place, back to Brian. He was here, in part, because Brian had
let him go. Always letting him go. He had always been so angry at Brian for never saying the words to keep him.
For not being who he wanted. For not extending himself, for not changing for him, for them. For not
accommodating Justin’s desire that he speak the words, supply the props, for not creating little fanciful bubbles
containing the stuff of love, like props on a stage, the clichés of sentiment, roses, champagne. Instead, letting him
go, to follow his work, his dream. This time, Justin hadn’t asked. He hadn’t even bothered. He wasn't angry
anymore. Just frustrated. And tired. Love's leverage lost. Good one, Jake. Justin wanted leverage. He was tired of
feeling tossed about by fate, subject to other people's agendas. He needed to establish his own.
But Brian was always there, to catch Justin whenever he stumbled, whenever his quest for a life faltered. He was at
his back, in a way no one had been once he emerged from childhood to claim a man’s life - not his father, not his
mother, no one else. Not just after the Sap’s party. Justin was only at that moment, staring into his rapidly cooling
coffee, beginning to appreciate exactly what Brian’s support meant, in allowing him to return to school, in having a
place to stay, in having options. That’s what it was all about, it wasn’t the money, it was the options it afforded.
Where would he be, right now, if Brian hadn’t been there?
Brian let him do whatever the hell he needed to do, and there he was, when Justin was done with it. Even if it meant
risking Justin’s being done with him. Letting him go, over and over.
I don’t want him to keep letting me go, he thought. I want him to hold onto me. Not too tightly, but I want to feel
that touch. I need to feel it. And there were days, he just didn’t. Maybe, Justin thought, it was time he started
reaching back. Reaching back and touching what he knew was real, maybe not the romantic dream he’d always set
in front of him as the ideal – the fairy tale that didn’t exist. Hollywood was turning into that, all over again. He’d
been seduced by a dream, that seemed better than the reality of his life.
But the reality of his life could easily have been similar to Jake’s. Waking up in a hospital, drugged. Almost raped.
Shrugging it off, all in a night’s work. Yeah, I used to draw. Maybe one day…
He didn’t know. He was so damn tired. He just couldn’t think clearly.
God knew, if it weren’t for Brian, Justin would have been the poster boy of hustler ideal. Not just the whole Sap
fiasco, but running away to New York, too. He had been determined to shake his ass, to prove, well, something. The
easiest road to easy money. He had the goods, that was for sure. Brian hadn’t let him get away with that, had he?
He’d probably be East Coast Jake right now if it hadn’t been for Brian, if alive at all. Telling some guy in a diner
how he’d once have dreams of being an artist.
Brian had always given him all the possible options. “You choose where you want to be.”
Justin heard that, over and over, his stomach sinking. You choose.
But Rage. Rage was still his, in a way Brian never would be. And wasn’t that important, too? It was his creation,
well, his and Michael’s. There were things worth fighting for. His dreams were on that list.
But could he protect Rage? Could he control the way this movie was going? Brett still seemed to defer to him, but
this latest script change was pure bullshit. The characters were the same… crap. Even Brian wasn’t Rage for him
anymore, and Justin hadn’t been able to figure out why. But he was beginning to see, as the waitress poured him a
fresh cup of coffee and he stirred in some milk to spare his stomach the punishment he was pouring on. Rage was
both idea and ideal. For Michael, it was his dream of Brian, an even better version, because he could create the story
as he went. For Justin, Rage was the dream too. But it wasn’t his dream of Brian anymore. Now Rage was an
expression of his own possibilities as an artist. And Brian was his lover, a flesh-and-blood man. He could place his
hand on Brian’s chest and feel the heart beating, feel his lips against his own, curl up in the bed he missed so much
and feel the lean body curl up against his back. Rage was just an idea. Lovely in its own way, but he couldn’t hold it,
feel it holding him.
So was this a choice? Did he need to choose between his artistic potential out here in California, and his life back in
Pittsburgh?
He was so confused. And so tired. And he wasn’t going to make any big decisions sitting here, slowly turning circles
through his brain, what was functioning of it.
And he was so late. It was almost ten; he’d been sitting here alone for over four hours, staring at his coffee. He got
up, and paid the bill.
The waitress smiled at him. “Honey, believe it or not, you don’t even come close to the record for caffeine
consumption. But you’ve hit the point of enough to float away.”
“What’s the top spot?” Justin asked, tipping her twenty bucks, knowing he’d taken her table for a while.
“Hey, thanks! Top spot is either convulsions, or the longest piss you’ll ever have.”
“Or both,” said the waitress behind her. Justin was laughing as he left.
He went to see Brett when he got onto the set after taking a taxi across town.
“Oh, hey, I’m glad you’re here,” Brett said after he’d hung up the phone on another call that appeared to be pulling
together his terrorism picture. Justin wondered what that was all about, obviously it was something big, but he really
didn’t give much of a shit, just idly noting that Rage didn’t quite seem to have all of Brett’s focus these days. “I
heard from Conor who told me the story of your disappearance from John’s party. We were worried about where
you were.”
“Yeah, Conor doesn’t know the story,” Justin said, sitting in the chair across from Brett’s desk.
“I’m sorry about what happened, Justin… have you been home?” he asked, noting the outfit Justin still had on.
“No. I took the kid to breakfast. After the hospital.”
“Was he okay?”
“He’s alive,” Justin answered.
“Look, I probably could have warned you about Poole’s parties…” Brett began.
“You didn’t need to,” Justin waved his words away. “I’ve been someplace like that before. Once.”
“Oh, well… look. You shouldn’t let that upset you. Guys like those kids, well, they know what they’re doing.”
“Yeah, Jake seemed to have a good head on his shoulders.”
“Jake…”
“That was the kid’s name. The one I took to the hospital.”
“Oh. Yeah, so you see, they know what they’re doing,” Brett continued. “It’s not like they’re pulled off the street
and held against their will. They’re professionals.”
“Professionals, like us?”
Brett snorted. “Hardly like us.”
“Well, see, I don’t really see it that way, Brett. What I see is that we sell what we got. Terms are agreed upon. And
then, as we do our work, compromises get made. The parameters of the party, the conditions of the shoot, keep
changing. The agreement changes to accommodate changing conditions. There’s always reasons, you know, the
stars o.d., producers demand scenes on schedule, the guests at the party expected a little public bondage or an orgy
instead of straight sex acts in private rooms. What do you do? Placate the hustlers, throw money around, and go
about with the business that needs to be done.”
“Justin, we’re nothing like those kids. You’re nothing like that kid, you have the talent, the whole world opening up
for you.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Brett. I’m just like that kid. I just got lucky.”
“Luck has nothing to do with Rage, talent does.”
Justin laughed, and leaned forward. “I’m not talking about Rage, Brett, I’m talking about Brian. But if you want to
talk about Rage, then maybe we should talk about the script changes, since you’re so enthusiastic about my honesty.
You don’t need to encourage me to share some of it.”
Brett eyed him. Shit. Justin was a valuable asset. Relatively cheap, too. There was no reason to set him off against
the project. The conditions really had become difficult. He hoped Justin would continue to work with him under
unfavorable circumstances. Of course, he’d already bought the story… but no need to pull out the big guns. Well,
not at the moment. “You haven’t been to sleep since last night, have you?” He took in the exhausted look on Justin’s
face. “Look, it’s not that I’m not willing to discuss this. Why don’t you come back at five, after getting some sleep,
when we’ll be able to have a clearer discussion.”
Justin’s first thought was that Brett must be hoping he’d be more rational, at least, Brett’s idea of rational, and thus
more conducive to persuasion. He’d been so cooperative to this point. And he was feeling decidedly uncooperative
now.
But the wave of exhaustion that had slowly been building over him was starting to crash. He realized that his desire
to start yelling at Brett was really a desire to let out his exhaustion, rage, frustration, confusion. And he really had
made that vow last New Year’s not to be such a drama princess. To think before screaming.
So he held his tongue. Indeed, he might not be thinking as clearly as he’d like for this particular discussion. It would
not hurt to clear his head with a few hours sleep. So he nodded, said, “Yeah, you’re probably right.". Brett watched
him walk out.
The apartment manager caught him as he stumbled out of the cab, unable to face walking even the half mile home
from the studio. “Hey, Justin! Justin Taylor!”
Justin turned to see Mr. Alverez waddling toward him. “Yeah, Mr. Alverez?”
“I let a delivery man into your apartment. I wanted you to know, so you know I made sure nothing was taken.”
“A delivery man?”
“Yeah, it’s all good, I just wanted you to know.”
“What they bring? A package?”
“No, you’ll see.” Mr. Alverez walked away, laughing.
What the fuck? Justin thought. He was tempted to question the man more closely, but curiosity got the better of him.
He walked to his apartment, put the key in the door, and swung it open. Then he stepped inside.
His jaw dropped. There had to be hundreds, maybe a thousand, flowers, everywhere. Yellow and white roses, all in
clear glass vases, on every surface, crowding the window ledge, into the bathroom. On the counters in the kitchen,
on the shitty little table, on the chair, a fleet of bouquets in clear vases, the yellow and white flowers blooming
across his tiny room as in a field. He could see the floor only where the small path was cleared, that the delivery
person had left to wind from the kitchen, and into the living area, over to the futon which was covered in yellow and
white petals, the odd flower thrown here and there. And on the pillow, a perfect calla lilly, Justin’s favorite flower,
with a single red rose lying across it. He walked across the room, drawn by the bright anomalous color, a beacon in
the sea of yellow and white.
He thought, for a split second, that maybe Brett had done this, but it was too soon after their meeting. And besides,
only one person was capable of this kind of over-the-top, obscene, ridiculous, inconvenient-bordering-on-comedic
display. Only Brian could both give in and give the finger at the same time.
The card was near the flowers on the pillow. Justin sat down on the mattress, picked up the red rose, and opened the
envelope, took out the card.
“Chase scenes blow. How about taking the starring role in the porno I’m producing instead?"
Justin stared at the message. Then he started laughing.
X
Brian was becoming increasingly nervous. Not that he would admit that.
He had taken the day off. Well, it was a Saturday. And last night had been hell, in fact, that had been the reason for
this whole ridiculous situation in the first place. He’d been working at 10:30 in the evening with no end in sight, a
Friday night for fuck’s sake. Lindsay had dropped Gus off since she and Cynthia were off on a date, so he had ended
up playing with Gus instead of getting work done. What in god’s name had he imagined he was doing, setting up
those two women? What was the classic Seinfeld expression? Worlds colliding? He could only imagine the
discussions they were having. If they were talking at all… shudder, ugh, ack, run away from that mental picture…
Okay, there really wasn’t much of an excuse for losing his shit on Justin. He had been glad for the phone call at first,
even if all that work waited for him. Owning your own business was more work than being partner … and definitely
worth it. Some nights, though, it really dragged out. Especially Fridays. When Justin started complaining about the
movie, that was fine, he could relate. Maybe if he pulled the discussion another direction, he could get some hot
phone sex going here, much more interesting than a mutual bitch session. Fuck, he wanted… no, no, this was fine.
When it became obvious something more drastic was up, Brian had been fairly straight to the point, wanting to get it
out of the way. He hadn’t exactly shifted out of work mode at that point, and had naturally just reacted like a
completely impatient prick. Par for the course, just ask Ted.
Fuck.
It wasn’t really his, Brian’s, fault. If anyone’s fault, it was Justin’s, damn it. It was his fault Brian now had a
baseball player fronting Brown Athletic when he could have had a New York Knick. Everyone knew basketball was
the hottest sport these days. At the time, he’d reasoned he’d chosen baseball over basketball because Kinnetik
needed to focus on a sport that tended to be less scandal-ridden, and thus a safer bet after the close call with that
fuckup Drew. And Leo Brown loved baseball. But if he were honest with himself, he knew, he’d chosen Buzz
because he was in California.
Shit, even he couldn’t spin the blame game on this one.
But that didn’t mean he about to go chasing Justin’s ass out that way again, tossing work aside, making decisions
based on where his boyfriend was hanging out at any given moment. So when Justin had suddenly gotten choked up
in mid-conversation, and Brian had felt the sudden desire to hop on a plane the second his lover whimpered, he had
snapped. Okay, maybe he had been a little harsh. Or maybe a lot.
He had tried to just put it aside and get back to work. Yeah, right. That nauseated feeling, what the fuck? He
couldn’t work with it. He’d grabbed some ice water, hadn’t helped, Pepcid, nothing. Couldn’t drink himself silly, he
really had to finish this project. Finally, he’d given up, given in, got up on line and placed that ridiculous order.
Impulsive, really. Then he had called to cancel twenty minutes later, and somehow ended up only giving more
specific instructions.
The whole thing had been stupid.
And then it was Saturday, and he took Gus back to Lindsay’s, and went to the gym, and got the new weight trainer
to blow him. It hadn’t been great, but what the hell. Gone home, gotten some leftover paperwork done, not really
work, but it filled the void. Watched some really bad t.v., and then “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” just because.
Took a call from Mikey, who said they all hadn’t been out together in too long. So plan to meet the guys at the diner
at 10 p.m., grab something to eat, hit Woody’s at 11. All day, coasting, routine without thinking. Same old Saturday
shit. And here he was, sitting in the corner of a booth at the diner, Emmett and Ted across from him, Mikey and Ben
in the booth behind them. Drinking water, not really hungry. Not being nervous. Not waiting for a call that hadn’t
come.
Maybe Justin hadn’t gotten back to his room yet. Who knew what the hell was going on? Fuck if Brian knew, if
Justin wouldn’t tell him. He did not play 20 questions. Maybe it was something else. So maybe… he would just go
through his jaunt through the clubs, and then maybe, maybe he’d think about tracking Justin down. A couple of
drinks might help facilitate his willingness to do that. Being told to fuck off had really… honestly? Worried him.
There. He’d thought it. Justin hadn’t told him to fuck off since, well, that Hobbes shit. So maybe he was worried.
Shouldn’t he have heard from Justin by now? Maybe something was really, really wrong. Maybe he should call him,
now instead of later.
Damn it, no. That impulsive gesture, shit. What, was he going to get on his knees, next? No way, not even for
activities more interesting than begging. He’d need to see a lot of bending over by one blonde twink ass to help
balance these scales after that ridiculously romantic gesture. If Justin knew what was good for them… uh, good for
him, he’d be the one dropping to his knees, giving up that ass ASAP. Brian had stooped low enough.
He knew Justin was physically fine anyway, he had been talking about the movie, nothing else seemed wrong. And
then, boom, out of the clear blue, total freak out. Maybe Brian had lost his temper a little too quickly, pushed him a
little bit too much. Or a lot too much. Okay, obviously trying to push Justin at all at that moment had been a slight
miscalculation.
So what, to counter that stupidity, he’d gone right off the other end, dropping right off into the other extreme? Justin
would probably see this as a sarcastic mockery, wouldn’t he? Well, of course he would. Brian Kinney did not do
romance. Ever. And besides, a bouquet was romantic. A virtual garden’s worth… yeah, just a bit off the deep end.
This is why he didn’t do emotions, he obviously had no idea what the fuck he was doing. You’d think Justin would
have figured that out by now, and would have stopped trying to get Brian to use a faculty that just didn’t function
properly in him. Not that Justin had asked him for much of anything recently. Hm, that was true, wasn’t it? What
was up with that?
“Brian. Brian!”
Brian looked over to where Michael was leaning over the booth, in the space between Emmett and Ted. “Hey, did
you hear they’re having the Pecs of Steel competition at midnight? Do you think that guy we were checking out the
other night at Woody’s’ll be in it?”
“Oh, yeah, that guy,” Brian said sarcastically.
Emmett had twisted slightly, leaned back, and was stabbing at Michael’s hand with his fork. “Do you mind, personal
space? I’m trying to eat here.”
Michael moved a bit sideways, but still hung over the back of the booth
“So, anyway,” Emmett continued around a bite of chicken kiev. What passed for chicken kiev. “I hired this waiter
for the party who looked just like Greta Garbo? Only, about seven inches on her.”
“In all the right places,” Ted added.
“Huh,” Emmett chortled. “Let me tell the story! This party, I had all the greats there, Lana Turner, Greta Garbo,
Brigitte Bardot, Clara Bow, no Marilyn though, she was declared too tacky.”
“As opposed to Bardot,” Brian commented.
“Shush, you! The customer’s always right. So anyway, Greta was a bottom, who’d have thought that! Nothing but
she would have it so. There we were, cleaning up after the party, all the guests had gone home, the hostess was in
the kitchen, and Greta leans over to me, and whispers, ‘So, darling, are you going to fuck me my tip or not?’”
Emmett’s Garbo was perfectly rendered.
“And of course you did,” Michael added.
“No, my dear, I did not. I am a professional. I would not fuck in a customer’s house while there on a professional
basis.”
“Unless you’re working as a naked maid.”
“Or going by to pick up the check.”
“Or maybe if he’s just hotter than the job.”
“I didn’t realize Emmett was versatile?” Ben put in his two cents.
Emmett turned red. “Well, anyway, I was professional that night.”
“Garbo never was your thing.” Ted summed up the reason Emmett wouldn’t fuck the guy in the walk-in.
“No, Garbo’s fine, but he was so… I don’t know, I got the feeling he’d just lie there. And any self-respecting
receiver knows, that just won’t do.”
“So you fucked him after you were off premises,” Brian stated, impatient with the story already.
“Yes, well…” Emmett’s attention was grabbed by something outside the booth. “Well, well.” Ted, suddenly
smiling. A puzzled squint from Michael.
And Justin was dropping his bag under the booth, and sliding next to Brian’s feet propped up on the seat of the
booth. “Hey.”
“Hey… hey!” They stared at each other for just a second. Then Brian leaned forward, reached out with one hand and
grabbed the front of Justin’s t-shirt to haul him forward. Brian’s right leg slid off the booth as he opened the space
between his legs, clutched at Justin’s hip with his other hand to pull his entire body over, settling Justin against him
and zeroing in on those lips. Then he paused, and his eyes shifted off the deep red to look up into light blue, but
Justin only smirked, and at that look, any conversation could wait anyway, and Brian reached for that ever-present
pout, bringing their mouths together, and no talking, good, even better, lips in connection, mouths and tongues in
electrifying contact and not yammering at each other, so good, close, closer. Justin braced himself with one hand on
Brian’s chest, as his left foot slid onto the floor and he almost fell in the eagerness of the other man’s final pull
forward as Brian’s hand moved off his hip and onto his ass, pressing him upwards. Lips, tongue, scent, all were not
enough, he was going for full body contact, and he got it. Justin ripped his mouth away. “I’m gonna fall under the
table,” he gasped.
“That’s okay, Justin, he’ll follow you,” Ted put in.
“Yeah, but then we wouldn’t get to watch,” Emmett added, gesturing with his knife. “Use your knees, scoot that butt
up.”
Brian would have glared, but he was too busy taking Emmett’s advice and lifting said butt onto his thigh so Justin’s
knees had a better purchase straddling his hips, bringing Justin’s arms up around his neck, settling his own around
his waist, pulling him in. Then they were kissing again. This went on.
“Justin. Justin,” Michael called, unable to get his attention.
“Give them twenty minutes,” Ben told him. “Better yet, try talking to him tomorrow.”
“Are you kidding?” Emmett called over the booth. “Try Monday.”
“But we’re going out tonight!”
Ted snorted. “What’s this ‘we’ shit, paleface? I’m not sure those two are going to make it out of that corner.”
Debbie had walked over, and stood there, watching for a minute. “Hey, Sunshine, you here for a visit, or you
staying?” she asked.
Justin lifted his head, and Brian’s teeth promptly took his ear lobe. He yelped. “Staying,” all he managed to get out,
before Brian nudged his face back in the place he wanted it. Justin gladly gave back in, squirming as he felt Brian’s
dick, hard under him. His own had responded to the first kiss. His breath was turning ragged, and then he started to
pull air into that deep place in his chest, the movement of his hips unconsciously responding as his body moved into
the singular beat. Shit, this was getting too intense.
Brian didn’t care. He squeezed his arms around Justin’s waist and released, falling into the unconscious rhythm, just
wanting him closer, closer than this.
“Jesus, I always joked about it, but I think they might actually lose all control.” Deb stared. Everyone in the diner
had turned to watch the two men move from making out to something far more primitive.
“Yeah, like that’s never happened,” Michael replied, turning back to Ben, crossing his arms across his chest and
rolling his eyes.
Ben raised his eyebrows. “Would you like a controlled stroll over to Woody’s for a drink at least?”
“Yeah, I do, and Pecs of Steel await, you guys ready?” Michael replied. Emmett and Ted looked at each other,
surprised. They would have expected Michael to bag the whole evening, but he was sliding out of the booth and
shaking his head at Ben. Ted put in, “I’m up for a game of pool, but Babylon’s out for me.”
Ben smiled down at Michael. “Think I have a shot at winning the competition?”
“Oh, absolutely, baby,” Emmett answered as the four walked out of the diner.
“Michael?” Ben asked as they walked out.
“Are you kidding? I’ll be the consort of the best chest in Pittsbugh! How can I pass on that?”
“Uh, guys,” Debbie said, back at the table. “As good as you are for drawing customers…” As she spoke, several
men came into the diner, and watched, nodding and grinning as they passed the booth Brian and Justin were, uh,
sitting at. Debbie repeated, her voice firmer, “Boys.”
Finally, Justin pushed off of Brian’s chest, turned 90 degrees, and looked over at Debbie. Brian nuzzled his neck. He
felt a shiver race down his spine, but he held him off, turning the whole way around to see what Debbie wanted.
Brian arms went around his waist, and he hauled his butt firmly into his lap, putting his head on Justin’s shoulder.
Deb smiled down at them. “You two…” Brian was actually smiling back, who’d have thought? For just a moment,
then he started kissing Justin’s neck again.
“How’s Carl?” Justin asked.
“Good, thanks for the postcards, Sunshine, we loved them. Well, I loved them, Carl was a little embarrassed by
naked men making out on Rodeo Drive.”
“Yeah, I liked that one.”
“They got postcards?” Brian asked.
“You got phone sex,” Justin shot back.
“Geez, I’d definitely prefer that,” Deb responded. “So when’d you decided to come back?”
“I walked into my apartment at 10:30 this morning after being out all night. I decided about five minutes after that.
In fact,” he continued, grabbing Brian’s hand, scooting out of the seat and dragging Brain out after him, “I came
here straight from the airport. Can we go home?” He turned around, and Brian leaned down to kiss him again. Then
he grabbed Justin’s bag and propelled him toward the door, plastered against his back, Justin’s arm reaching around
to pull him up to his side, and they were through the door and hurrying off.
They didn’t speak the whole race home which was fine with Justin, who was exhausted, and Brian, who was
thinking of speech only as some odd foreign concept he’d probably dread if he decided to grace it with his
consideration. Out the car, up the elevator, into the loft, bag dropped, keys tossed, and Justin slammed against the
loft door as Brian dropped to his knees to pull his pants down for him. “Uhn…” Justin breathed as Brian’s mouth
took him with no preliminaries.
“A few measly blooms, and you come running. Behold his mighty hand!” Brian chuckled at the last bit, deepening
his voice and throwing in the necessary gravelly tone. He had decided to grab the proverbial bull by the horns once
he’d re-familiarized himself with the other function his tongue was good for, and decided to get this out of the way.
He stared up at the ceiling as Justin propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at him.
Justin shook his head. “This isn’t the Ten Commandments, and you aren’t Charlton Heston.” Brian glanced up with
an eyebrow cocked. “Yes, you are indeed better looking. Although Charlton Heston on the raft in a ragged loincloth
and chains after the battle scene in Spartucus…”
Brian smacked him. “That was Ben Hur, dolt, Spartucus was Tony Curtis.”
“And I didn’t come running because of those flowers,” Justin went on, ignoring the last, “I actually felt bad leaving
them behind, they were beautiful.” Mr. Alverez said he could arrange for them to be sent to the local hospitals. And
his wife worked at a shelter. They would be lovely there. He'd kept the red rose. But Brian didn't need to know that.
“Why’d you send them?”
That caused Brian to hesitate. He had expected Justin to supply his reasons for him, so he could just deny everything
while enjoying the results. “Took care of my ever needing to do it again. And you won’t expect me to repeat that
one.”
But Justin was shaking his head. “No, seriously.”
“You mean you haven’t figured it all out to your satisfaction in that diabolical head of yours?”
“I’m not doing it for you anymore, Brian.”
That sounded serious. “What, no more rim jobs?”
“Uh… I hope that’s a joke. No, I’m not filling in your blanks anymore.”
“Blanks… I have blanks?”
“Yeah, the part where you act from the heart and expect me to fill in the blank of your true motive because you’re
talking shit? That. I’m not doing that anymore. I have enough blanks of my own to work on, I really don’t have the
time or energy for yours.”
“I hardly ask you to do any of that.” Brian had curled his brow upward and twisted his mouth.
“Maybe not, but you expect me to.” Justin continued to stare down at Brian’s face, waiting for him to meet his eyes.
He wondered if he would feel this level of equanimity if he weren’t so exhausted that he felt he had entered another
plane, but Brian’s scowl didn’t bother him at all. He had thought about this on the plane, when he wasn’t dozing.
Besides, he had decided to return to Pittsburgh not because of Brian’s gesture alone, but because of a lot of things.
He wanted to be sure this was clear. “Why did you send the flowers, Brian?”
Brian tossed a forearm over his eyes and laughed. Justin knew that laugh, the I-can’t-believe-you’re-actually-askingme-this laugh. This was Justin’s cue to push Brian on the arm, to say he understood, to let him off the hook,
somehow.
But Justin remained silent. Brian dropped his arm, looked up at the young man staring down at him. An enigmatic
smile played on the lips hovering just over him. Brian’s eyes shifted.
“No sex either, talk to me,” Justin commanded.
Groan. “Oh, I can come up with all kinds of things to say to you…”
“Not sex, Brian. Why’d you send ’em? It’s not a contest, it’s a question.” He waited. Nothing. “Fine, if you don’t
want to answer me, I can really catch up on my sleep…” He started to roll onto his back.
Brian pounced on him. “You’d actually withhold sex?”
“What are you talking about?” Justin rolled his eyes. Good god, sometimes, dealing with this… “You call the last
four hours withholding sex? I’ve had like three hours of sleep in the past two days. I’m in this weird twilight zone.”
Brian relaxed his body to cover Justin’s. He lay his head down on his chest. Justin was enjoying the feeling of
floating, his head cushioned on the wonderful goosedown pillow, his favorite flesh blanket covering him…
There was a mumbling sound by his sternum.
“What? Brian?”
“I said I wanted you home.”
Justin touched Brian’s shoulder, ran his hand up through his hair. He could feel Brian’s breath, warm on his skin. In
the quiet that followed Brian’s words, Justin fell into a deep sleep.
And was awoken by pounding on the door. “Brian! Open up! I gotta talk to Justin!” Pound pound pound…
Justin blinked his eyes open and looked over at Brian, who was raising himself on an elbow and squinting into the
sunlight. A sound like steam escaped his lips. “What the fuck…”
“What time is it?” Justin mumbled, glancing around, finally settling on the clock. Noon. He yawned, stood up, and
walked into the bathroom. Brian pulled on a pair of jeans and walked across the room to open the door, letting
Michael in. Michael didn’t even greet Brian, just barged past him toward the bedroom.
“Good morning,” Brian said sarcastically, and then he shut the door with a slam.
“Justin! Justin, damn it, come on out.”
“Jesus, Michael,” Justin answered, opening the door and talking around his toothbrush. “Give me a minute.” He shut
the door again.
Brian shook his head as Michael gravitated toward where he was pouring coffee beans into the grinder.
“Did you know that Brett…” Michael started, but Brian pressed down on the grinder, and the horrendous whining
filled the room. When Brian let up to shake the grounds in the mill, Michael tried again. “Did you know…” Brian
pressed down on the top again, and the noise again drowned him out. Finally, the whirring wound down.
Justin had walked into the kitchen by this time, tugging a red shirt over his head. Brian smoothed down his partner's
bedhead as he walked by, on the way to the fridge.
“Justin.”
“Hm?”
“Justin!”
“WHAT Michael?” Justin closed the refrigerator and leaned against the door, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Do you know Brett’s been trying to call you since last night? Apparently, someone had a meeting scheduled that he
never showed up for.” This last was directed to Brian, who raised an eyebrow, wondering what the fuck he had to do
with it.
“Yeah, a meeting that I demanded in the first place,” Justin answered. “And yeah, I know he was trying to contact
me, that’s why I turned my phone off.”
Michael stared at him, his jaws clenched. “Why’d you come back?”
Brian absolutely hated it when Michael got this way, beating around the bush, never getting to the point.
Justin seemed quite used to this, though. “Is the coffee done yet? You know, I just woke up,” he complained. Brian
turned to get a couple of mugs.
“Want some, Mikey?”
“No, I’ve been up since nine.”
“Why don’t you all hang out in the living room and I’ll bring you coffee when it’s done.” That was directed toward
Justin, who got immediately that Brian was not in the mood for this. Shit, who was?
Justin nodded, and moved toward the living room. Michael frowned at Brian, then trailed in Justin’s wake.
“I figured I’d send an email to Brett to let him know I’ll call him tomorrow, after I’ve had a chance to sleep.”
“And figure a few things out?” Michael prodded. “Like, when you’re going back?”
“So he called you? What’d he say?”
“Not a lot, just wondered if I’d heard from you because you were supposed to meet him yesterday. I told him you
were in Pittsburgh, and he seemed…”
“What? Surprised?”
“No, not surprised at all.”
Justin grimaced and shook his head. “That figures.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Not a lot. In fact, a whole lot of nothing was happening. Alan o.d.’d…”
“We heard that was exhaustion!”
“Well, it wasn’t. There were set delays, and Brett wasn’t telling me, but I heard the budget is going through the
roof…”
“So you just left?”
Brian leaned over the back of the couch, held out a cup of coffee. “Here you go, dear,” he said, in his mocking
falsetto.
“Thank you, honey,” Justin answered with a grin.
“Ahem,” Michael cleared his throat.
“What, you want some now?” Brian asked.
“No, I just wanted to get back to the point.”
“Which is?” Justin asked, sipping on the coffee. Brian moved over to the computer, and sat down to check his email.
Michael sighed, leaned forward. “Your not being out there.”
“It was counterproductive to my goals,” Justin said dryly. He thought he heard a snort from behind him, but he kept
his attention on Michael.
“Brett seems to really need you there!”
“No, he doesn’t, believe me.”
“Well, what about me!”
Ah, thought Justin, there it is. “What about you, Michael?” he asked carefully.
“Rage is all I have! If you’re not out there to watch our interests, who will?”
“Too late, we sold the story rights…”
“And Brett still wanted you,” Michael interrupted. His voice was low, the way it got when he was saying something
that had been hanging around, unsaid, for god knows how long. Justin’s eyebrows went up. “Yup, he still wanted
you, you go out to Hollywood, things aren’t exactly the way you want and you come running home. Art school lets
you back in, and you go crying off at how they suck because they didn’t lay out the goddamn red carpet. I didn’t
even get a chance to go to school, for fuck’s sake! Don’t you ever know what you have! Even with Brian you keep
treating him like he’s a time share…”
Brian called from behind them, “Some of the best sex happens in time shares, Mikey. And for the record, I’m also
the duplex, condo, vacation home, and primary residence. And I aspire to be a pied-a-terre. Just so’s you know.”
Thank god he’s in the mood to joke about this, Justin thought, given a second to pull his thoughts together around
this attack.
Michael ignored Brian, and rounded back on Justin. “You get this great chance not just to sell our comic to
Hollywood, but to actually go out there and safeguard it, and here you are, right back here. Well, what did I expect!”
“Michael, you have no idea what you’re talking about. They were turning Rage into a chase movie!”
“And what were you doing about it!”
“There was nothing I could do about it! You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about!”
“I know I would never in a million years have any of the chances in life you keep throwing away!”
“You know something, *Mikey,*” Justin said, slamming his cup down on the coffee table, “Maybe you’ve just been
lucky enough not to have to deal with the kind of crap I have, but I’ll give you a real life demonstration at exactly
how good I am at walking away from bullshit.” And he stood up and marched toward the door.
“Hey,” Brian called, and tossed him a cell phone. Justin caught it, put it in his pocket and left, slamming the door
behind him.
Brian stretched, unfolded his long frame from the chair, stood, picked up his mug, brought it to the living area and
sat in the spot Justin had just vacated. Then he looked at Michael.
“What?” Michael bit off.
“What was that all about?” Brian asked mildly, placing a coaster under the mug Justin had left behind.
“Don’t give me that, you heard,” Michael answered, looking away. “It wasn’t about you.”
“It is when you just chased off my afternoon plans.”
“So go to the gym, or the baths.”
Brian shook his head. “Mikey, Mikey…”
“What?” Michael lifted his head, turned on him. “Great, so now he got bored with his latest amusement, and it’s bad
enough I barely see you as it is, but he’s walked away from probably the only big thing in my life! Sure, he’ll have
them dropping from trees, but this is a big deal for us poor schmucks!”
Brian took a long sip of his coffee, moved Justin’s cup, and put his cup down on the vacated coaster. Then he rested
his hands on his stomach, and turned a deceptively casual gaze on the smaller man,. “Are you jealous?”
“It’s not that! It’s that… He has everything! He has art school on a stick, Hollywood waiting for him, and…”
Michael stopped, clamped his mouth shut.
“Me?”
“He walks in and out of your life like it’s vacation land,” Michael replied. “It has nothing to do with jealousy, Brian,
maybe it’s because I’m not just handed these things like he is, I actually appreciate what those opportunities mean, I
mean, you’re my best friend… What?” Brian had started to smile. “What’s that smirk for?”
“Mikey, let me ask you something. How’d Ben do in the Pecs competition last night?”
“You heard us talking about that? I’m surprised your face wasn’t too busy getting sucked off…”
“Michael.”
“Oh, fine. Well, he won. Of course he won! Ben’s got the best pecs in Pittsburgh, and you should have seen the guys
he had to beat out. Swear to god, they had to get into a chest pumping competition…”
Brian held up a hand. “So, you had fun, huh?”
“Sure.”
“And who did you go to Water World with last week? And who tagged along to the comic book explosion…”
“Symposium.”
“Whatever.”
“Yeah, well, Hunter pretended not to dig it, but he did. And Ben actually found some rare illustrated Lovecraft…”
“You have a great time with Ben, don’t you?”
“Well, of course I do, he’s my husband.”
“So why do you keep insisting that I’m your best friend?”
Michael was silent, staring at his former best friend’s face, searching for something other than what he saw there.
“Brian…”
But Brian was shaking his head. “Don’t. Just… let it go, okay? It’s okay.”
But Michael’s eyes were filling with tears. “If it’s okay, why do you insist on making a big deal out of it?”
Brian bit his lower lip. He picked up his coffee again, drank out of it. “Things aren’t as easy for Justin as you think.
You grew up surrounded by people who protected you.”
“People like you.”
“When I was there. And your mother. And you both protected me, when you could. And, when you got out of
school, you had a job that was safe. I’m not saying that to belittle you, you know I’m not. It’s just different from
what Justin has in front of him, and behind him. He is brilliant, you know. When he almost lost the raw talent he’d
been given…” Brian paused, and cleared his throat. “But he’s different.”
“And you watch out for him.”
“We watch out for each other. I know you don’t get that.”
“I get it. You need each other.” Michael continued to watch Brian’s face, but Brian had turned away, and bent
forward to pick up the mugs. He stood and walked into the kitchen.
Michael trailed behind him. “I’m sorry, Brian…”
“Sorry’s bullshit, Mikey.”
“Yeah, maybe I should just apologize to Justin.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Brian poured another mug of coffee. “He’s had enough bullshit in his life.”
“Well, at least I can go get back your afternoon delight.”
“Now that might be appreciated, but,” Brian added, walking Michael to the door and opening it, “That’s why I
tossed him the cell phone.”
“You’re a real good friend, Brian, to whatever degree,” Michael said, leaving the loft and turning to look back.
“Yeah, it’s a curse.” Then Brian slid the door shut and leaned against it for a moment, shaking his head. Justin had
his cell phone. He walked over to the bed, stared around. Where the fuck would Justin keep his own mobile... pants?
Now, where had they thrown those last night? Brian turned around, frowned at the living room, spotted a piece of
clothing over by the loft door. Ah. He retraced his steps, intent on the pockets of Justin's clothing. Time to track the
boy down, get his ass back to the loft, naked and in bed, where he belonged, at least for today.
XI
“Justin!” Daphne flung herself out of the doorway and into his arms. He barely managed an “umf” as she hit him,
and felt himself engulfed in a hug that threatened not to let him go.
“Uh, Daph, want to introduce me?”
She finally stepped back and into the apartment, clutching his arm. “Oh, Justin, this is Rich,” she said, gesturing
toward the young man sitting on the couch. He stood, and Justin could see that he was gorgeous. Tall, dark hair.
Looked like a swimmer’s build, yup, Daphne loved that.
“Hi,” Justin said, moving forward to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you. How do you know Daphne?” It was a
natural question, but Justin immediately kicked himself mentally. They were both wearing sweat pants, and
wrinkled t-shirts. No shoes. Or socks, for that matter.
Rich let go of his hand after giving it a firm shake. “Well…” he paused as he glanced over at Daphne. “Holy god,
girl, are you blushing? Well, I was going to say we were shagging like rabbits, but since Daph seems embarrassed, I
guess I’ll settle for ‘we’re seeing each other.’”
Daphne made a strangling noise. Justin burst out laughing. Oh, he was going to like Rich.
Rich smiled. “We met at the bookstore. She was grumbling about buying econ books, I was buying Adam Smith for
light reading. She decided she needed a tutor, I decided she needed…”
“RICH!!!”
Rich shook his head. “You’d think a girl would appreciate her boyfriends bonding…”
Daphne didn’t know who to hit first. She settled for a glare at Rich and a whack at Justin, who rubbed his arm and
complained, “What did I do?” before she plopped down on the couch. “Okay, so sit! Why are you back? And when
are you going to tell me despite that shitty reply, I was right in my email? And why aren’t you at Brian’s… I mean,
your place?”
“Um…” Justin flopped down on the floor. “Let’s see… Rage was hijacked by delays and a bad plot revision, you
were right in your email but excuse me, that was a lucky guess…”
“You need to finish school,” Daphne insisted.
“And as for why I’m not at Brian’s… Michael’s there.”
“Oh…” Daphne’s brow darkened.
Justin turned to Rich. “Michael’s my boyfriend’s…”
“Best friend, yeah, I’ve got the 411 on the whole situation. Believe me, if there was video, she would have run it by
me.”
“There is video,” Daphne said dryly. “I just haven’t gotten my hands on a copy. Yet.”
Justin scowled at his friend. “My life is not a soap opera for your voyeuristic fantasies.”
“Of course it is. And the first time Rich pisses me off, you’re going to have a front row to the sitcom of my life.”
“As long as there’s an open snack bar.”
“Hey!” Rich seemed to have an issue with this.
Daphne turned and puckered her lips to blow an air kiss at him. Rich shook his head. Justin watched this, thinking,
maybe this one has a chance with the girl. Bout time.
She turned back to the young man sitting on the floor. “So Michael…”
“I swear to god, Daphne, if Brian hadn’t been there, I would have thrown Michael out the window. He came over to
yell at me for abandoning the film before he even heard what was going on, before I could defend myself at all. Not
that he would care anyway. Seriously, six floors, and I wouldn’t have opened the window first, give him some good
glass cuts as an introduction to the drop.”
“Brian would have killed you,” Daphne said.
Rich added, “Throwing the guy to his death isn’t exactly good manners.”
“I meant for breaking the window.”
Justin laughed, and it felt good, he knew he had come here for a reason. And then Beethoven went off in his pocket.
He took the phone out; the display read, “Justin.” Brian was calling from his phone. Justin clicked on and answered,
“Brian Kinney, God’s gift.” Daphne looked at him funny; he pointed to the cell and mouthed, “his phone,” before
turning his attention to the demanding voice on the other end.
“Hi, this is the twat, where the fuck is my boyfriend?”
Justin’s grin got wider. “Do you know your phone is programmed on ‘Ode to Joy’ for my calls?”
“…”
“…”
“I just threw different rings on for different names. Had no idea.”
“So, it’s just a coincidence your phone rings ‘Joy’ when I call.”
“…”
“Kind of convenient that I would never have known.”
“Justin…”
“I’m at Daphne’s.”
“Yeah, I figured. I’m out front, get your ass down here.”
Justin hung up, went to the window and looked down. He sighed, and turned back to the other two. “I’m becoming
predictable.”
Daphne closed the distance and hugged him again. “So don’t be a stranger, stop by anytime.”
“Might want to call first,” Rich added, “I hear you’re allergic to hetero sex.”
“Not exactly,” Justin replied. Obviously, Daphne hadn’t told Rich EVERYTHING. He shook his head at her. “Gotta
go. Stop by the loft, Daph. I’m just hanging out for a couple weeks.”
“And then…?”
“We’ll see.”
“Fine. Tell Brian I said hi,” Daphne finished, and shut the door behind him.
He slid into the passenger side of the corvette and exchanged phones with Brian.
“How’d you get to Daphne’s so fast?”
“You have the taxi service on speed dial.”
“You snooped in my phone?” Brian glanced over his shoulder, and pulled away from the curb.
“Um… I was just walking, and needed distraction…”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Justin watched out the window, Pittsburgh going by. Pittsburgh again. He hadn’t really absorbed this yet. He was
back. At least it was summer.
“You shouldn’t have left.”
Justin glanced back. Brian was staring at the road. “I know. But… I don’t know, going to California seemed like it
would have done things for me, how was I supposed to know between the delays and the fact that an assistant art
director has absolutely nothing to do with art, and then fucking Conor dragging me to that party with the boys in
bondage that brought back The Sap’s go-go boy nightmare special…”
“I meant you shouldn’t have left the loft. A half-hour ago. And of course you should have gone to Hollywood, it was
something you wanted to do for yourself. How’d you know whether it was the right thing unless you pursued it?
What do you mean, the Sap’s go-go boy nightmare?”
“Uh… not important. Your point first. That I shouldn’t have left the loft?”
Brian completely ignored that. Of course. “What go-go boys in bondage?”
Silence.
“Justin.”
Justin sighed. “Friday night, Conor dragged me to this party. Well, not exactly dragged, it was in one of those
houses in the hills, beautiful, overlooking the city. It had a this series of backrooms, relatively tame, until you got to
the fourth, which had semi-conscious boys in harnesses.”
Brian made a disgusted sound.
“Yeah, all totally out of it. One was protesting being pulled toward the last hook-up by this really skeezy guy. So I
intercepted him, took him out of the party. I ended up taking him to the hospital after he puked all over the back of
the limo and starting shaking all over. That’s where I called you from, the hospital. I was pretty freaked out, so I
wasn’t exactly… I know I made that New Year’s resolution not to pull the drama princess thing so much…” He
tried to make a joke.
“You’re allowed,” Brian responded tersely. “What does the Sap have to do with it?”
“Remember when I accepted tuition from you? After you got in from being in jail with Michael.”
Brian pulled the car into the parking garage. He parked in his space, cut the engine, and turned to face Justin, who
was staring at the blank cement wall. “Yeah.” Apparently Justin had heard the story of his boring, painful night. And
apparently, he had not heard about Justin’s. Brian tapped him on the shoulder, and Justin looked over, smiled, but
not very brightly. He took Brian’s hand, held it, loose.
“That after hours party Sap wanted me to go to. Walking into that room the other night was like walking into that
party all over again. Only at Sap’s party I was not a guest. More like a drugged out party favor.”
Brian put his hand on Justin’s neck, stroked the skin. “What happened?”
“I kicked someone in something painful, maybe the Sap, I hope it was him, knee, dick, who knows. Then I got the
fuck out. Passed out in the alley behind the building, woke up next to a rat. It could have been a lot worse.”
Brian watched Justin for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, I was embarrassed. For being so stupid. I felt… weak. I didn’t want you to think I was just some kid who
couldn’t take care of himself. You know, though, that kid I took out of the party Friday, well, yesterday morning, I
took him to breakfast after the hospital. He was a nice kid, just shit luck. I realized, that could just as easily have
been me.” He leaned across the space between the seats, put his hand on Brian’s cheek. “You’ve always given me
all the options to be anything I choose. When I walked into that flower garden waiting for me in my apartment…
well, I realized that just because you’ve always given me enough rope, doesn’t mean I have to keep hanging myself
with it.” He leaned forward and kissed his partner, softly at first, then more deeply. Then he pulled back. “Now your
turn, what were you saying?”
Brian had no idea what he was talking about, and besides he didn’t give a shit anyway, who cared? Blah blah blah…
far more interesting were those lips… but Justin was pulling back. “Brian! C’mon, I shared, your turn.”
The gear shift was poking him in the hip, damn it. “Share? Where did you learn that filthy word?”
“That’s it? Nothing else to say?”
“Yeah, unless you want me to fuck you so hard you set off all the car alarms down here, I suggest you get your ass
back into the loft.”
Justin exited the car; two doors slammed and they raced toward the garage entrance.
“And this wouldn’t have been an issue…” Brian said to him as they entered the building, “if you hadn’t left the loft
in the first place. It’s your home, Justin. If Michael pisses you off, kick him out.”
“But he’s your friend.”
“Yeah, and you’re my partner.” The elevator slid open, and Brian grabbed Justin by the arm and dragged him in, hit
the button for the sixth floor, then pulled him up against his chest. “It’s more important to me that you feel
comfortable in our home. Especially since I was looking forward to you sucking me off as soon as Mikey got the
fuck out.” He slid his hands up under Justin’s shirt, slid them around to the small of his back, and pulled their
pelvises together, sliding his hands into the waistband of his pants and squeezing the soft flesh there. Justin reached
for his neck, but Brian reared out of his grasp. “No, uh uh, you’re going to have to follow my directions, you’ve
been very, very bad, running away like that. Teach you to make me come after you…”
“So I guess me getting to fuck you’s right out of the question?”
Brian just laughed, spun him around so Justin’s back was to his chest, and slid his hands down the front of his
cargoes, pushing him toward the door as they reached their floor. He murmured into his ear, “Maybe, if you’re very,
very good…”
They walked out of the elevator, Brian’s hard-on urging Justin in front of him, Justin craning his neck around to try
to get Brian to relent and whining when he couldn’t reach the taller man’s mouth, Brian trying to look severe, but
unable to keep from laughing down at Justin’s shameless puppy-eyed look.
Brian’s sister watched them come out of the elevator, in the few seconds before they saw her. She had been sitting
on the floor, and stood as they emerged. Brian saw her first and his face froze. Justin frowned, instantly detecting the
change in demeanor, and turned his head to see Claire watching them. Brian’s hands slid up to his waist, and he
pressed him back with his forearms now wrapped around Justin’s mid-section. “Claire. What the fuck are you doing
here?”
“I was hoping you would let me talk to you.”
“Hm, well. Seeing as I’m planning to fuck my boyfriend senseless, I would say, how about never?”
“Brian, please.”
Please. From his sister. Fuck, from anyone in his family. He nudged Justin toward the door, allowing him to slip out
of his grasp and open the door with his key. He glanced at Justin, who preceded him into the loft. Gesturing at his
sister, he followed her in.
“What do you want?” he asked, right to the point, crossing to the kitchen and opening the refrigerator door, grabbing
a beer.
Justin reached across his waist and grabbed a water. “Would you like something, Claire?” Justin asked.
Oh, fuck, did he have to be polite?
“Actually, do you have another water? Justin, right?”
Justin nodded at her, and then began to move away.
“Don’t,” Brian said to him, and Justin halted on his way toward the bedroom. He looked back, confused. Brian just
shook his head at him.
“Can we sit?” Claire asked.
“Must we?” Brian answered.
Oh, hell, Justin thought, what the fuck do I do about this? Well, that was fairly easy. Make it as easy as possible on
Brian.
“How about the couch?” Justin suggested. Claire moved in that direction, sat on the chair at a corner angle. Brian
draped himself across the couch, gestured at Justin to join him. He grabbed Justin by the hips, and sat him down on
his lap. Justin sighed and leaned back, giving in. Brian’s arms came around his waist, tight.
“What do you want?” Brian demanded of his sister. His hand slipped under Justin’s shirt, stroking his stomach.
Fuck, Justin thought, he’s going to fondle me right here in front of his sister… shit, I really wish this didn’t feel so
good.
Claire did not bat an eye. “I came to apologize.”
Justin could feel the eyebrows shoot to the top of the forehead behind him. “For what? Believing your brother would
rape your son?”
Claire visibly winced. “Yes, to begin with. Brian, I am so sorry I went along with that. I didn’t really believe it, but
John made sure Mom was there, he already knew that game, when he told me, and the thing just took on a life of its
own. Before I knew it, Mom had called the police…”
Brian started sucking on Justin’s neck, and Claire finally began to look uncomfortable. Justin twisted his head
around to shake it, and slid down to sit on the floor. Brian’s hand moved to his shoulder, and Justin reached up with
his own to intertwine their fingers.
“Fine, is that it? I really have better things to do…” Brian’s other hand moved into Justin’s hair.
“No… oh, shit, this is hard. I quit drinking.”
“Oh, fuck, is this like an amends thing?”
“So, you’re familiar with the idea?”
“Yeah, seems to be quite the thing these days.”
“Well. Things were real messed up. But after that whole damn day… it was a pretty bad 24 hours. You don’t
know… but it’s hard, Brian, you don’t know. Being single with three kids, I really felt like I had no options…”
Brian just stared at her.
Justin said, “Quitting anything like that is hard.”
“Yeah, it is,” Claire rushed in, with a grateful smile for the opening. “After that disaster, and a couple other things…
well, I realized, Mom is getting really bad. I mean, she was always pretty religious, but she’s gone off the deep end.
She’s either in drunk or in church, or both. I realized I was on my way to doing the same thing, only with me, it was
more like drinking and Mom. And look at what was happening to John.” She snorted a laugh, without humor. “I just
wanted you to know. Quitting drinking wasn’t enough, I moved away from Mom, and made clear she can’t come
around if she’s been drinking. I took the boys out of that Catholic school and put them in public school. John’s so
much happier, he’s doing really good at sports, and he has to keep his grades up to stay in.”
“What, football I suppose?” Justin noticed that Brian’s mockery did not have quite the earlier edge to it.
“No, actually, track.” Claire smiled briefly, then her face grew weary again. “Mostly, though, I’m sorry I didn’t do
anything to help you out, all those years, growing up. I thought I was just protecting myself, but I wasn’t even doing
that.”
“It’s over, Claire. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, I see that,” Claire finished, smiling very slightly at Justin. “I was putting this off for a while. But Mom, one
night, called me, really drunk of course, yelling about how she’d done nothing to deserve us as children, and she
said that God had cursed you with cancer. I realized, that maybe I didn’t have all the time in the world for this…”
“They caught it. I’m fine.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Cancer free. Despite what our mother would love to think, I’m not Sodom and Gomorrah redux.”
“Good.” Claire leaned forward. “I’ll let you get back to your afternoon, I’m sorry I interrupted.” She stood. “Thank
you for letting me speak to you. You certainly didn’t have to.” She walked toward the door.
“Hey, whatever works for you.” Brian said, but his words were curiously flat. “Justin, can you make sure the door is
locked behind her? And then come back here.”
Justin went to close the loft up. Claire stood waiting for the elevator; she looked over her shoulder at the young man
framed in the doorway. She smiled at him, an uncertain smile that looked so out of place on her face. Justin returned
it, and Claire’s smile turned more certain. Wow, Justin thought as he slid the door shut, she isn’t that unattractive.
Well, with those genes…
He walked back to the couch. Brian’s entire length was sprawled out on the cushions. He had kicked off his shoes
and taken off his socks. “Come here,” he said, softly. Justin walked toward him, and as he rounded the end of the
couch, by Brian’s feet, Brian told him, “Stop.” He halted. “Take off your shirt. Slowly.” Justin crossed his arms and
took the hem of his shirt in his fingers, and slowly drew it over his head, letting it drop to the floor. “Run your hands
up through your hair, I’m glad you’re letting it grow all the way back, did I tell you?”
Justin felt his own hands as if they were the touch of another’s, and the coil of desire, sparked with Brian’s hands on
his stomach in front of his sister, spun outward. “I thought…”
“Don’t speak. Unbutton yourself. Slow”
Justin lowered his hands to the button fly on his cargoes, and undid the buttons, slowly, sliding each out of the slit,
feeling the metal slick through the fabric against his finger. His breathing began to pick up. His hands brushed
against his cock; he trailed his right hand against its surface under the material of the pants.
“Don’t touch yourself yet. Slide your pants to the floor, and step out of them. You’re not wearing underwear, are
you? No. Good.”
Justin stepped out of his pants, and stood, naked, watching Brian watch him. Brian said, “Come here.”
He walked the length of the couch. Brian held up a hand, touched his hip, stopping him. He pulled his hand back,
and then extended his index finger alone, running it down Justin’s hip, to his thigh, watching his finger trail down
the pale skin. He looked up, his gaze taking in knees, thighs, penis, hips, stomach, chest, arms, shoulders, neck,
face… “Straddle me.”
Justin complied, his knees on either side of Brian’s pelvis. Brian reached up and held his hip bones in his hands,
gently, stroking the skin around the small of his back with his long fingers. Justin moved his hands toward Brian’s
face, but Brian shook his head. “Don’t touch. Unzip me.”
The eroticism of sitting on his fully clothed lover’s lap while bare and exposed, and unable to touch, had Justin’s
cock reaching out even as he was denied. His hands were shaking as he slid the zipper down.
“Expose me.”
Jeans slid down hips until Brian’s dick sprang out, hard, ready. Justin rubbed himself forward.
“Don’t. Get a condom. Put it on me.”
He reached under the coach for the box of supplies that was always there, took out a condom. He took it out, started
it off on top, then leaned down, and rolled the rest of it down with his mouth.
“Ungh… Sit up. Lube… Now, impale yourself. Slow.”
So slowly. Brian reached over his head, and grasped the armrest of the couch in his hands, forcing himself to
stillness as Justin let himself down by centimeters. At last, as far as he could go, Brian trailed his gaze up the body
over him, to meet Justin’s eyes with his own. “Slow,” he said, his voice a whisper, and Justin began to move, the
slowness of the motion dragging his cock against the cotton of Brian’s shirt, the merest drag against skin where the
fabric pulled up against the lowered waistband of his jeans… and still Brian did not move, his eyes watching the
face of the man above him, teeth sinking into his lower lip, body still, receiving the sensation of Justin’s slowly
rocking hips.
“Brian…” Justin groaned, his hands moving toward the chest under him.
“Put your hands on your thighs. Slower…”
An excruciating drawing out of desire, he did not know how long, just a spinning out of that coil to timeless,
heightened sensation, and when Justin was sure he was going to implode, collapse in on himself with the staving off
of release, Brian let out something close to a groan, and grabbed Justin’s hips at the top of an undulation, bringing
him back down hard onto him even as his back arched off the couch and his dick slammed upward, once, twice,
three times before he froze with his body in a perfect arc that lifted Justin over his hips, and he was coming hard,
with a guttural gasp swallowed in the back of his throat. Justin fell across his lover’s chest with his own climax.
Quiet hands resting lightly on Justin’s back, and Justin reached out to finally touch, unbuttoning the shirt beneath
him, exposing the skin for his cheek to lay down on, against the rise and fall of Brian’s chest.
“We gotta stop letting people in,” Brian finally said. Justin looked up at him, and laughed quietly, dropping his
forehead back downward.
XII
“So, what are you doing with your day?” Brian asked Justin, coming up behind him and running his hands through
still-damp hair. Ah, yes, why do showers have to run cold? And why do work weeks have to begin? Brian leaned in
and pressed his chin against the top of Justin’s head, a pressure almost painful. Justin ducked out from beneath it,
turned his head to the side, trying to focus on the computer, but a telling smile tugged at his lips. Brian drew his
breath in sharply. Holy fuck, what that boy does to me, just sitting there… but wasn’t it the point that he was there?
Oh, yeah, definitely, fuck it, home where he belonged. And it felt right, Brian hadn’t felt quite right with Justin
across the country. Doomed, he thought, I’m so doomed. But he was smiling as he thought it. Who knew that giving
up and giving in would be such… well, so okay?
Justin finally turned away from the web site he was examining, smiling upwards and reaching out to yank at the knot
in his boyfriend’s tie. “I have a few things to take care of. Then, I thought I’d come by your place for lunch.”
“Where are you taking me?” Brian asked, straightening up and glancing around for the briefcase he’d left… there,
by the door. Wow, smart of him, right where it should be.
“Anywhere you wanna go baby,” Justin drawled.
“Funny boy,” Brian breathed. “Be careful what you promise…”
“Words to live by,” Justin thought to himself as he watched Brian’s back, and the door closing behind him. He
turned back to PIFA’s home page, noting that one of the professors he wanted to see had summer office hours. For
the other three, he dashed off quick email messages, before shutting the computer down. Eight a.m. What in god’s
name was he doing up at this hellish hour? Except that he was jazzed with the idea of getting started, and hey, an
early morning shower with Brian was always a fabulous way to start the day, week, month, year, life.
And he had things to take care of.
He swiveled in the chair, and watched the early morning sun flood through the windows into the loft, and thought of
how he could set up an easel over where the light bounced back, so the corner almost glowed with its reflected
glory. Or maybe PIFA would let him have some studio space now, before fall classes began. He was looking
forward to going back to school, settling in, having time for his art again. He crossed his hands over his stomach,
and relaxed. The whole day stretched out, and he was exactly where he was supposed to be.
Home. Right up to walking into the diner and back into Brian’s embrace Saturday night, right up to that point, he
had felt so unsettled. Ever since the elections, getting kicked out of school… oh, hell, ever since not being able to
graduate because he had been in a coma. Or since coming out, for that matter, running away from home… he hadn’t
had a place he felt he belonged since taking his first steps out of childhood and into his man’s life. But now,
watching the sun fall over the hard wood of the loft floors, imagining his ongoing work over there, against the
window… lingering in his memory over the day before when everyone was finally gone and he and Brian had spent
the rest of the day naked, lounging. And not lounging. He glanced into the bedroom, looked at the sketch of naked
Brian where it hung, over the dresser, and smiled. Home. Home at last.
The bell over the comic shop door rang as Justin pushed his way in. It was just before 11:00; the shop was more or
less empty prior to the usual lunch hour business. Michael looked up from the cash register, his lips thinning as he
spotted who had entered. “Hey,” was all he said.
“Hi, I have to call Brett. Thought I’d do it from here.”
“Don’t let me interfere with your life,” Michael bit off, throwing the comic he had been looking at aside.
“Don’t be an asshole, Michael, what’s your problem?”
That stopped Michael, and he went still. He just looked over at Justin, and said nothing. Justin could see he had his
thinking face on, considering, do I speak or not? Of course, Justin knew, Michael’s speaking was a foregone
conclusion. It would come out eventually, sooner or later. So Justin continued, pressing for sooner. “Is it just me? Or
is it Brian too? Come on, you seem to have enough to say when Brian’s around. Or is your bitching just for his
benefit?”
“My first loyalty is to him,” Michael finally said. “Not to you. And to be honest, you have this fucked up way of
jumping from spot to spot, looking for the softest cushion for that remarkable ass of yours to land on. I swear, the
second anything gets rough, off you go, and if we’re lucky, so lucky for us, you may grace us with your presence
again. If the next landing spot has proved disappointing, back you run.”
“It isn’t like that. And anyway, if Brian’s okay with it, why aren’t you?”
“He isn’t! He lets you go because what the fuck else is he supposed to do? You know he’s not one for holding
people with guilt, he had too much of that crap from his own family. And besides, it helps him believe that he has
some control over the whole situation, like he has a choice in what you do when he ‘lets’ you go off. He’s
completely helpless to stop you, and you keep disappearing on him.”
“I do not. I may have been in California, but I didn’t leave him. So again, what’s your problem? Are you still in love
with him?”
Michael laughed. “You know, Brian accused me of the same thing when you left yesterday. Jealousy.”
Really? Justin’s eyebrows shot up.
“But you’re both wrong, and you both piss me off.” Michael came out from behind the counter, then leaned back
against it, crossing his arms over his chest. “Brian’s as close to me, if not closer, than a brother. That kind of
tightness, you don’t just find it, it finds you, and I’m grateful every day that I have a friend in my life like him. He’s
there, he’s solid. Despite what he says. And watching him pretend, even to himself, maybe especially to himself,
that what he feels for you doesn’t rip him apart sometimes, and there’s nothing I can do about it… What can I do?
Get mad at him for loving you? Or get angry at you for not taking better care with him?” Michael looked hard over
at the younger man.
“Yeah, well, if I’m so awful for him, why does he stay with me?”
“Oh, we all know he also feels things on the other side of the spectrum, things he didn’t until you came into the
picture. He may think that balances things out, but I don’t see it that way.”
Ode to Joy, Justin thought. He shows me how he feels, every day. He said, “I can’t answer this to your satisfaction
right now, not in a way you’ll believe, and actually, Michael, I don’t give a shit if you believe me or not. I love him,
and you’re just going to have to back off both of us, okay? Maybe in time you’ll see it, and stop hopping all over my
case.”
“We’ll see,” Michael answered. “We’ll see.” They stared at each other, acknowledging an impasse. Then Michael
picked up the comic he had thrown down, and put it back into the display next to the register. “So,” he continued,
offering a truce in so many words, “What have you been up to in the meantime?”
“In the meantime,” Justin replied, “I just got back from PIFA. One of my professors is giving me credit for the class
I was suspended out of, as long as I turn in the final project. I’m pretty sure I can work the same arrangement for the
other three classes, since they were paid in full, and I have a year to make up the incompletes. And the rest of the
summer to finish the work. And as of one hour ago, I’m also registered for fall courses. And paid up for the year,
with Rage movie money.”
Michael studied his face, and a small smile touched his lips. “Good for you.”
“Now, do you mind if I call Brett from the phone in back? And that will take care of my whole day’s ‘to do’ list.
Except for lunch with The Man.”
“Yeah, hang on…” Michael crossed the room and locked the door, drawing the “Closed” sign down. “Five minutes
won’t kill me.” He looked around, shook his head. “Obviously.”
They called Brett from the speaker phone in Michael’s back room.
“Hey, Brett, Justin Taylor. Michael’s here with me.”
“Hey, Michael, I see you found the stray. Talking some sense into him?”
“No, I think Justin’s sense has nothing to do with me.”
“Hm, sounds ominous.”
“Yeah, Brett, listen. The whole movie thing just wasn’t working out for me. It was a great opportunity, don’t get me
wrong. But it just wasn’t working out the way I’d hoped.”
“Tom’s going to shit, you were one of the best assistants he ever had.”
Justin almost laughed. Man, he had been there, and still. The bullshit never stops flowing, he thought, but he only
answered, “Yeah, well, I’m sure he’ll have no problem replacing me.”
“I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to replace you, Justin. We’re scheduled to start shooting tomorrow, Alan’s back on
the set.”
“Well, hey, if you need consult work for anything, Michael and I are both a phone call away. And Michael’s the best
one to consult on the reworking of the story board. You got the whole look down, my contribution would be
minimal from here on out, anyway. And… I’ve got things to work on back here, instead of wasting time hanging out
at parties with Conor.”
Silence for a moment from the other end. “Yeah, I guess I can understand that… well, look, I’m gonna run. I’m sure
I’ll be in touch with you guys, keep you up to date.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Justin said.
“See ya, Brett,” Michael closed, and hit the off button. He frowned down at the telephone, then looked up at Justin.
“Uh… that was weird. Did we agree to anything? Or was that, not in this lifetime?”
Justin burst out laughing. “Welcome to the world I just walked out of! Who the fuck knows?”
“So, think Rage is ever going to actually show up on the screen?”
“Once again, who knows? Do you care?”
“Well, more money would be nice… and actually, speaking of making more money, the buzz on the movie being in
the works has spiked interest in the comic. Orders are way up. So I was thinking, we get at least two more issues out
before the movie, because what if it’s a bomb? Then sales will tank. So we should get the new readers hooked on a
couple more issues, or at least sell a bunch before the movie comes out. If it ever does.”
Justin shook his head, trying to keep up with the logic. Okay, so Michael wasn’t a complete fool. Actually, he was
pretty slick when he felt he had something at stake.
“So, for the next issue…” And Michael was off, and they were back on more familiar ground, which was just fine
with Justin, who was already imagining how to work in Rage actually sending flowers to JT. Maybe Rage could
teleport the two of them to Giverny, the garden of Monet’s Japanese bridge, and they could make love in a grove of
yellow and white roses with the bridge in the distance… He started laughing. Brian would kill him. It had to be
done.
“Something funny?” Michael asked.
“Oh, just an idea. Tell me if this is too off character. Or if I’d survive publication…”
At Kinnetik, he caught a glimpse of an angry Melanie through the windows into Brian’s office. So that explained
Cynthia’s absence from her desk. “Hey, Mel,” he said, as he pushed through the door.
Melanie straightened, and glanced over at Justin. “Oh, hello, Justin. How are you?”
Wow, formal, Justin thought.
Brian wasn’t deterred from the conversation Justin had obviously interrupted, however. “It isn’t my fault you’ve
moved a ready-made family into your house to replace the one you’d just gotten rid of. If Lindsay’s dating my
assistant, hey. You want it fixed, fix it, but don’t forget that you put that barrier there yourself.”
“And you did nothing to help,” Melanie spat back.
“Why should I?” Brian returned. “I have a lunch date, you’ll have to excuse me. Fix your own life.” He turned to
Justin, who came over, into his arms to be squeezed. “I’ve got my own shit to deal with. We’re not done missing
each other yet.” He sat back in his chair, pulling Justin with him. “So, unless you want to witness some heavy
petting…”
Melanie fled, and Justin extracted himself to sit on the desk. He didn’t like sitting on Brian’s lap in his office, it
made him feel so… trivialized. Brian placed his hands on Justin’s knees, tapping out a rhythm. “So… lunch?” Brian
was eyeing the bulge facing him at close to eye level.
Justin answered, “So, I’m shit to be dealt with?”
Brian looked up at him with ridiculously flirtatious eyes. “Skipped right over the missing each other, heavy petting
parts, hm. You really are too focused on the negative, Sunshine.”
“Okay, fine… you missed me, then? How much?”
Brian continued to tap out a beat on his knees, a strange smile playing over his mouth.
“Brian?”
The taps settled down, and Brian’s fingers smoothed tiny paths up and down his knees, running onto his thighs,
tracing the tender flesh on the inside of his legs. Justin could feel himself start to respond to this and almost groaned,
damn, not in the office. “Brian…”
Brian looked up, bit his lower lip and then released it, looking, really looking into Justin’s face. “You know,” he
said. He hesitated. Justin knew when to keep his mouth shut; he waited. Brian took a deep breath as his gaze shifted
off somewhere past the far wall, and then he let it out as his eyes came back to meet Justin’s. “I think I might be in
love with you.” He cocked his head to the side, considered that, and then said, “I’ve been looking for the right words
for it. But… they just don’t seem quite enough for what you do to me.” And then he stopped.
Justin’s breath stilled as his chest filled with something else, something unnamed. He slid off the desk, and against
the other man’s body, suddenly completely unconcerned with where they were. “They’ll do,” Justin replied, and he
kissed him.
End
Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead
One
The banging on the door made Justin jump, so that the charcoal he held skipped the paper, across a drawing that was
forming itself into curtains, turning a gentle rounding with the incoming breeze into a slashing scar. “Shit!” he
exclaimed. His attempt to use the soft medium had actually seemed to be working well, and he loved working in
curves. Curving sweeps didn’t bother his hand so much, straight slashes did (go figure), and not a second before, the
image was forming so that the curtains on the page were looking soft, floating, as if the wind were really in them.
And then the knock, loud through the quiet, a jump in all of his nerves, and a slashing line in the middle of the
paper. And the wind-swelled charcoal imagery turned into just a white and black mess of a ruined project. Thank
god he hadn’t been working on it too long.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Justin muttered as he walked across the loft to open the door. This damn well better not be
Michael. Or maybe it should be, then he could take out his frustration. He and Michael seemed to be settling into a
weird sibling-type rivalry. Mostly, they got along. A lot of times they didn’t, but they seemed to actually
acknowledge that without much rancor. Or, Michael didn’t take as many shots at him, and Justin didn’t just ignore
Michael so much anymore.
But it wasn’t Michael, he saw, as soon as he pulled open the door.
“Come on in Claire,” he said, standing aside to let her walk in.
She didn’t, just stood there and eyed him through red-rimmed eyes. “I’m looking for Brian. Is he here?”
“Should be on his way…” Justin suggested, holding the door as he gestured she come in.
She moved in carefully, never looking away. He slid the door shut and walked over to the kitchen to wash his hands.
“I’m sorry, this is still my brother’s loft, isn’t it? Brian Kinney?” She stood, slouching, staring at him.
Justin dried his hands on a paper towel, and threw it out before turning back around. “Yup, it sure is. You don’t
remember me, do you?”
She stared at him. “Vaguely…” Then her eyes widened. “The bracelet.” If possible, her face went redder, hiding the
blotches as the crimson spread to cover the pale splotches beneath her eyes, across the skin of her neck.
Justin shrugged. “It was a while ago. Can I get you something to drink?”
“Yeah, I suppose my brother has whiskey. Is that what you drink when your mom dies?” And she burst out crying.
Oh, shit. Justin stared at her, not too well versed in dealing with hysterical women. Then what she’d said sunk in.
Well. Shit again. Brian’s mom was dead.
He took out a glass, and then reached to the cabinet where they kept the spare bottle, and poured her a shot, neat.
“Here,” he said, pushing the glass across the counter.
“Thanks…” She gulped it, gestured for more.
He poured, and said, “I’m sorry, Claire.”
“Why should you be sorry? She’s not your mother. You didn’t know her.” She glared at him, then burst into tears
again.
“I’m sorry you’re dealing with such a loss,” Justin clarified, struck yet again, as he was every time he dealt with
Brian’s family, at the levels of caution these people required. It was like walking through a minefield.
“Yeah, well,” Claire returned. “What’s your name again?”
“Justin.”
“I guess my mom didn’t know about you.”
“Not really,” Justin evaded. He wasn’t going to tell Claire that he’d sort of been responsible for outing Brian to his
mother. So he had officially met her, for about 10 shocked seconds. But he hadn’t lied; Joan knew nothing of
Brian’s relationship with him. She hadn’t wanted to know.
There was an awkward silence, as Claire swirled the liquid in her glass.
“How’s John doing?” Justin asked. He hoped the kid had clued in. A long shot, but nonetheless…
Claire snorted. “What do you care?” She took another sip, not looking at him.
“Why don’t I try to find out where Brian is?” Justin cautiously stepped backward, keeping an eye on her and getting
some distance before turning his back. He moved across the loft toward the his cell phone, next to his easel at the far
end of the room.
Claire called after him, “Knowing him, he’s probably off having fun. Try the baths. He wasn’t at Vanguard, I tried
there. Apparently he doesn’t work there anymore. Oh, I’m sorry, you do know all this, don’t you?” She sure as hell
didn’t sound sorry.
Justin bit his lower lip, picked up his phone and hit the speed dial. He couldn’t resist, watching her face as he bit off,
“Yeah, Claire, I probably know a lot more about my partner than you do.” Her shocked expression as she finally
turned her gaze onto him with that piece of news almost made him smile. Almost. He actually already regretted
giving her any information about him and Brian.
“I’ve had a for shit day, you better be naked and waiting,” Brian greeted him, his voice laced with static. The
connection at Kinnetik was clear; Justin assumed he was driving, and not at Woody’s. Or elsewhere. What a bitch,
he didn’t need to have the idea that Brian was at the baths planted into his imagination right now. Not that it really
mattered, but still.
“Sorry your day’s rotten, and I’m even sorrier I’m not going to make it any better …”
“Where are you? I’m pulling into the parking garage, but I can get to where your ass is, just tell me.”
Again, Justin was reminded of how other people sucked, reminded to remind himself not to let anyone else influence
his feelings, especially where Brian was concerned. Brian wasn’t at the baths. He didn’t go much anymore, if at all,
anyway. But once people had an idea of who you were, who you could be, SHOULD be, in their minds, often they
held on with teeth. Especially those with marked insecurities.
“I’m at the loft,” he told Brian. “And so is Claire.”
Silence. Then, “Fuck. What does she want?”
“Just come home.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
Justin heard the car door slam over the phone line. He glanced over at Claire, whose back was to him as she sat
herself on one of the stools at the kitchen counter, and reached for the whiskey. He dropped his voice. “Uh… I’m
afraid she set me off just a little…”
“What, you tell her we were married?”
Frightening how close Brian came to the mark. Of course, he figured way into the extreme, but was right along the
right lines. “Just used the ‘partner’ word.”
“Should have told her we were married, piss her off that her fucked up brother’s queer relationship would last longer
than her husband did.”
Oh, well hell, Brian was in a good mood. Damn it, didn’t Mrs. Kinney have to ruin things even from beyond the
grave. A final manipulative twist.
“I’m on my way up, give me 30 seconds.” And he hung up.
“Brian’s on the way,” Justin called to Claire, and she nodded but didn’t turn around.
After a very awkward couple of minutes, during which Justin slowly took the sheet off of the easel and crumpled it
up thoroughly, replacing it with a clean piece of paper, the door slid open and Brian entered. He glanced over at his
sister, and dropped his briefcase, then shrugged his jacket off. “Claire,” he said to his sister, as she turned to him. He
cocked an eyebrow, seeing her bloodshot eyes. “What, did your demon spawn pick on the wrong man this time? Let
me guess, you need bail money.” He moved into the loft, slammed the door shut, and shrugged his jacket off his
shoulders. He looked over at Justin, who was hovering in place, not quite sure what to do. “Hey,” Brian nodded.
“No need to be coy just because we have company, get your ass over here.”
“Brian…” Justin moved across the space, not sure Brian’s obvious desire to bug the shit out of his sister was
something he should participate in. “Let me take that for you.” He reached for Brian’s jacket, but Brian grabbed him
by the waist and that mouth that Justin marveled at every time it touched his own, captured his lower lip in a searing
connection, the tip of his tongue reaching out to run along sensitive flesh that tingled in response. He bit back a
moan and commanded his dick down (lot of good that did!), then reached up with a hand and pushed against Brian’s
chest, moving him off.
Justin couldn’t help but smile slightly, accompanying that with an eye roll to which Brian responded by twitching
his eyebrows briefly upward. They both turned to look at Claire, who was turning redder than she already was,
glaring at them. “Brian, can you cut it out? Mom’s dead.” And then, again, she sobbed, bit it back. “Mom’s dead.”
Brian froze, and Justin felt his hand tighten on his waist. He gently took the jacket, and tried to disengage himself to
go hang it up in the closet. But Brian held him firmly in place, against his side, and stared at his sister. “What, did
she fall down drunk and hit her head?”
Claire abruptly stopped sobbing and gaped at him. “Who told you?”
Brian laughed, humorlessly. “Oh, that’s just great. Have another drink, Claire. Better yet, give me one.” He released
his jacket to Justin’s care, and moved into the kitchen to grab himself a glass and pour a healthy shot, which he
downed. Justin sighed, and moved away.
“Why didn’t you just call me?”
“Is it something you’d want to hear on the phone?” Claire answered. She sighed. “We have to talk about this, I
didn’t want to take the risk you’d hang up on me. Or not even listen to me past my voice.”
“Yeah, well, if Justin hadn’t been here, you wouldn’t even be let in the door. You should be grateful my partner’s
much better mannered than I.” He lifted his gaze, instinctively searching out Justin’s form.
“You can’t blame me for trying to protect my son…”
“Can’t I!?” Brian slammed the glass back down. “You didn’t even ask me what the fuck happened, you just
assumed…”
“Can you blame me? Your *partner* is little more than a child himself…”
“I’m 21,” Justin replied, coming down the stairs from the bedroom. “Do you want some privacy?” This last was not
directed at Claire. Fuck what she wanted.
“God no,” Brian replied, staring at his sister. “I want you to come over here.” Justin moved over, uncertain. Claire
glanced away, embarrassed by her remark, on being confronted by the man she had just insulted. “Claire, this is
Justin. Justin, this is Claire.”
“We’ve met.”
“Not officially. You have this tendency, dear sister, in the grand Kinney style, to delusion yourself with your own
fucked up view of everything. Say hello, he’s the closest thing to a brother-in-law you’ll have. So it’s a wash,
basically, lose one relation, gain another.”
“Only you,” Claire answered, her voice low and deadly, sounding in this moment terribly and horridly like her
mother, “could make a joke at a time like this.”
Brian raised his eyebrow, not noticing that Justin’s eyes had widened with his last pronouncement. Justin so did not
want Claire to consider him a relation. He knew Brian only said it to piss her off, and he certainly wasn’t going to
bring the point up now. But hell, he hadn’t been around Brian all this time without learning a thing or two, and he
mentally filed the comment away.
“Who said it was a joke?” Brian replied. He shrugged it off, then, and continued, “So, she’s dead. Not a lot I can do
about it.”
“There is so things you can do. You think I’m planning the funeral alone? It’s bad enough I had to go identify the
body at the hospital not two hours ago…” She stopped mid-stream, and started to hyperventilate. Justin moved to
the sink, filled a glass with water, and returned to hand it to her. She grabbed the glass and gulped at it.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you just want me to pay for it.” Brian stared at her, wishing Justin had just let her pass out,
given him a break for a couple of minutes.
“Can you? I called Vanguard, what, you lose your job?”
Justin moved away, and leaned back against the far counter in the sink, studying the tension in Brian’s back. For
sure, Justin had had his own family issues, but the venom here was simply… sad. He moved forward, put his hand
on Brian’s waist, felt him relax slightly. “Mother didn’t tell you then?” Brian asked, moving his hand below the
counter surface where Claire couldn’t see, and cupping his palm around Justin’s left ass cheek, pressing his
fingertips into his flank. Claire just stared, waiting. “I opened my own advertising company,” Brian said, and while
the edge of anger was still there, Justin heard the pride there as well. Buried, protected, deep down. But there
nonetheless.
Claire snorted. “What do you advertise, sex shops? Bet that’s a smash.” Derision dripped scorn in every word.
“Why don’t we get to the point,” Justin intervened, feeling the sudden complete stillness in Brian’s body where it
came in contact with his own, and feeling a sudden ache blossom within himself. He knew exactly the nerve Claire
had struck in her brother, and Justin’s anger over her insulting him was swept aside in the face of a much more
painful sadness. “Claire, have you contacted a funeral home? That’s the first step, isn’t it?”
“So you see,” Brian said quietly, after a long pause in which the silence filled the spaces between them, “the *child*
is the most adult person here.”
Claire reluctantly looked up from the spot on the counter she had been staring at intently, looking up at Justin. “No, I
haven’t.”
“Where is… your mom?”
Brian’s hand shifted higher, clenching Justin’s hip. He seemed content to let Justin deal with Claire.
“Allegheny General.”
“Okay, why doesn’t Brian handle contacting the funeral home, and you can handle contacting your relatives. And
then you can call him tomorrow morning, so you can meet to go to the funeral home together.”
Claire seemed much calmer, now that someone had taken charge. “I’ll contact Father Tom, Mom loved him, she’d
want him to perform the service. And he can make arrangements with the church.”
Justin sighed. Thank god, they seemed to have exited the minefield.
“You all set, then?” Brian spoke up, releasing Justin, and moving to slide open the door, not so subtly commanding
she go. Claire stood, slightly wobbly.
“You want me to call a cab?” Justin asked.
“No, I have my car,” Claire answered. “I only had two drinks.”
That’s just great, Brian thought, wondering how large the drinks were. And how many she’d had before she got to
his place. At this point, though, he didn’t give a shit. He just wanted her out.
As she left, before Brian could shut the door, Claire turned around, offering a parting shot. “I hope you have more
respect than you did at Daddy’s funeral. And if you have any respect for the dead, you’ll come by yourself.”
Brian slammed the loft door shut. Then he leaned up against it, resting his forehead against its cool surface.
Justin leaned on his arms, against the bar’s surface. “*Are* you going to go to the funeral?”
“What, after I undoubtedly pay for it?”
“Why subject yourself to anymore of that shit?”
Brian turned around, leaned his back against the door, and studied the concern in Justin’s face. “If your Dad died,
would you go to his funeral?”
Justin was silent for a long moment, but then he said, “I’d go. To support Molly and my mom.”
“What if they couldn’t be there? Total hypothetical, just go with it, what if?’
Justin compressed his lips. He knew his answer wouldn’t change.
Brian read the affirmative answer in his eyes. “Why? Even though I’d be telling you to forget him, put it behind you.
Move on, don’t look back.”
Justin looked away. “He’s my father. I wouldn’t be mourning his hatred of me, I’d be mourning what I’d lost. I
guess that deserves to be marked, one last time. There’s like a black hole in me where that relationship is supposed
to be.”
“And even the great Brian Kinney can’t fill it?” Brian’s voice was mocking.
Justin moved over, placed his hand on Brian’s chest. “If anyone could fill it, it would be you. But it doesn’t work
that way. So okay, I get it.” He took Brian’s hand, led him across the room to the futon in the sitting area, lay him
down, took off his shoes and socks, and then stretched out next to him, propping himself up on his elbow, looking
down at Brian’s face. The other man was staring up at the ceiling. He did not have long to wait for Brian to continue
with the point he didn’t really have to make. But Brian surprised him, adding information he hadn’t considered.
“Good choice of words, Mr. brilliant Artiste. I wanted someone to fill that black hole. When I was fourteen, there
was Michael and his Mom. It’s taken me a long, long time to figure out what you already know. No one can really
fill the void left when you don’t get your needs met in the beginning. Doesn’t work that way. You miss out on a
good childhood, the vacuum always sucks.” He turned his head to face Justin, their eyes, mouths, inches apart. He
could feel the younger man’s breath on his skin, the piercing blue trying to stare into the heart that felt it had cracked
open, just a little, for just a minute.
“But you can build up other relationships, so the initial loss doesn’t hurt so much.”
Brian smiled, rolled over on top of him, then relaxed, and just lay there. He buried his head in Justin’s neck. Not
seeing his words received made talking easier. “More likely, other relationships get sucked into the great blackness.
Michael did. I’ve been a real shit to him over the years.”
“Brian…”
Brian shook his head, his cheek causing Justin’s flesh to prickle, in a good way. “Yeah, I was, and Debbie knew, all
along. She knew exactly what was going on there, she’s pretty smart.”
“She loves you. We all do.”
Brian didn’t reply, merely swept his lips against the side of Justin’s neck. Justin began to feel the blood surge
through his veins, a slow but strong surge. Good god, what this man did to him. He was supposed to be providing
comfort, and all his body could think about was sex. He tried to focus back on Brian’s words, despite Brian’s left
foot moving against his ankle, a thigh flexing against his groin. Brian seemed to be attempting to actually talk, but
his body instinctively moved to stop all conversation. Justin had no idea which signal to respond to. This was
fucking ridiculous. He started laughing.
Brian raised himself on his elbows. As his torso lifted, his groin pressed into Justin’s stomach, his growing erection
digging into the flesh. “What’s funny?”
“I think your body is trying to outsmart your honest-to-god attempt to communicate with me,” Justin moaned in
reply. “You are a living, breathing self-contradiction.”
Brian smirked. “Great. I don’t even need to try. You see the crap I put people through?”
“You sure didn’t put Michael or Debbie through this…” Justin placed his hand on Brian’s side, held his body in
place as he pushed his stiff cock up between Brian’s legs. The soft material of his sweat pants pushed back against
him, but he was able to rub himself against the soft cotton, even as Brian’s strong thighs closed around him. He
moaned, low in his chest.
“No, much worse, continual delay of gratification of any sort.” Brian brought his hand against Justin’s rib cage,
holding him down, Justin’s erection held still.
“Brian…”
“Greedy little thing, aren’t you?” He was teasing, and again, Justin didn’t know what he should do to best respond.
He knew what his body was urging.
“You’re distracting yourself,” Justin pointed out. “And you’re trying to distract me.”
“I’d say it’s working,” Brian replied, leaning down and catching Justin’s full lips in his own. He didn’t move any
other part of his body, and Justin could feel a pulse throb through the tip of his dick, surging desire to weep from the
head. He pulled his mouth away. “Brian…”
“Justin…” Brian leaned down, leading with his tongue, and just licked at Justin’s top lip, stroking the tip across the
very red expanse, moving to the corner of Justin’s mouth, caressing the sensitive edges, but never quite dipping in.
Justin received Brian’s tongue passively, his breath coming in short, shallow pants. He felt Brian’s penis slowly
growing to its full size, hard against his stomach. Then the weight was off him, and Brian bent down over Justin’s
body, his hands slipping the sweat pants off, down Justin’s legs. Their eyes stayed open, on each other’s faces, as
Brian reached under the couch to retrieve the supply box. He pulled the zipper of his pants down, rocked back on his
ankles, spread Justin’s legs, lifted the ankles over his shoulders, preparing Justin and himself. The fine silk of
Brian’s Armani shirt whispered under Justin’s Achilles tendons, and for a moment he had a flash of them from a
distance, Brian in full dress, his cock jutting outward, moving into the lubricated opening at the apex of Justin’s
exposed lower half. Then Brian pushing in, his weight settling down, the familiar, so familiar feeling of stretch as he
took Brian against the back of his legs, and into his body, the silk of the Armani shirt which Justin reached up to
unbutton, even as Brian leaned forward, settling downward, his forearms cradling the sides of Justin’s head, his eyes
closing, and Justin knew he was retreating, retreating, away from the inner core he had allowed to be exposed for
just a brief moment. Justin pushed the shirt aside, pushing it back so that his cock rubbed now against the skin of
Brian’s torso, equally silky; he knew that cum on this shirt would not be appreciated when brain matter took over
once again. Brian stopped, his cock firmly ensconced, expanding, filling Justin’s body, forearms around Justin’s
head, weight resting on Justin’s thighs, their stomachs pressed up against each other. So familiar, this experience so
familiar it was like a physical location, at home in each other. Justin stared up into Brian’s face, at the swollen, lush
lips, the closed eyes, the nostrils on the fine nose the only mobile feature as they expanded as breath was drawn in,
exploded out. He could feel Brian’s chest move more rapidly against his as their breathing picked up, the pulse of
blood swelling and retreating beneath the skin with the tide of sex within them, even as Brian held his limbs utterly
still, but pushed, so slightly, firmly, forward, back. Justin felt his penis slide against skin as he responded to the ebb
and flow, and with the slight press of the organ within him, the pressure against the outer ring, his breath quickened
to shallow pants, he was unable to endure the delay, his cock twitching, his thigh muscles involuntarily flexing.
Brian’s hand moved down, settled on his hip bone, holding him still, even as he rocked forward. “Sh…”
“Oh, my god, Brian…” Justin moaned, as he felt Brian’s cock swell as it pulled back, then pressed harder down to
completely fill him. Justin’s hamstrings flexed automatically, his toes curling, a fine trembling racing over him and
pushing the sensation up to gather at the spot at the bottom of his groin as he lost control of his body’s responses, the
orgasm taking him, and he came hard, shooting cum up against Brian’s torso, against his own chest. Brian settled
onto his body, riding the waves of the throbbing muscles that clenched around him, and he came down for a final
hard push against Justin who had gripped against him, seeking to be filled, just before teeth clamped onto the muscle
at the base of Justin’s neck, hard enough to break skin, low moans muffled, lower bodies pressed together, Brian
climax ripped through him so that his stomach and groin drew up and his torso bowed upward, groin pressed hard
against Justin’s lower body, mouth firmly attached at his shoulder, the rest of him swept off the other man by the
force of the sexual explosion sweeping through him, breath stopped, cum shooting out of his body, holding him
there, frozen in its grasp. Then the spasms of aftershocks, fast and hard, slowing as he released Justin’s shoulder
from his bite, drew in a long, ragged breath, and collapsed, exhaling slowly. Justin dropped his legs, moving them
around his lover’s hips. Brian licked at the puncture marks that indented the skin underneath his lips, then rested his
cheek on Justin’s chest, his thumb caressing the sore spot. “You okay?” he asked.
“That was fucking amazing,” Justin replied, not answering the question, silly as it was. Brian rested for a moment,
before pulling out and rolling off, and Justin stretched, and pulled off his shirt. They lay there a while, idly touching,
quiet.
The silence broke with Justin’s question. “You sure? I mean, going to the funeral. You sure you want to do that?”
“What, and miss seeing that cunt buried deep, shut up for all eternity? You kidding?”
“Well, okay,” Justin answered, rising to his feet. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“Actually, there is.”
Justin paused on his way to the shower, not having expected that. He looked back. Brian raised one eyebrow, and
continued, “You ARE planning to stand by your grieving partner on his most difficult day?” His tongue poked into
his cheek, and Justin stared, not having expected that question.
But the look told him all he needed to know. “And if said partner’s support happens to completely appall and
discomfit the entire family and friends of the dead woman…”
“Grief is obviously not allowing the poor orphan boy to think straight,” Brian answered, pulling off his shirt, and
shucking his pants. “Shall we?” he asked, gesturing to the shower.
Justin rolled his eyes. “Even though your sister said, if you had any respect for the dead, you’d leave me out of it?”
“Huh,” Brian responded, shoving him in front of him, tossing his clothes on the bed, “I do hope she remembers that
comment when we show up.”
II
He woke up, emerging from sleep as if from a cocoon, burrowed somewhere in the warmth of the sheets, the pillow
cradling the crown of his head. He opened his eyes, slowly. Something was wrong.
It was early; he could tell, earlier than he usually awoke. The light was thin, delicate. The sun might not even have
risen, just sending the first pink blush into the sky.
No, nothing was wrong. But something, something was off.
He drew a deep breath into his lungs, and reached up to take the pillow from where it was bunched between his head
and the wall, and placed it under his cheek. He felt Justin shift slightly, detecting Brian's movements, a warm hand
coming to rest against his thigh where Brian's leg intertwined with the slightly smaller one. Justin’s features evened
out as he slipped back into the depths of sleep.
Oh, right. Joan was dead.
He watched the features of his boy, his man, lover, whatever you wanted to call him. His. How the fuck did that
happen? Despite all of it. Despite himself. Despite that witch. Despite his life.
Damn, he really was beautiful.
And she would have kept him from this, if she could. Kept him from this man, this moment, in more ways than just
condemning him to the pits of hell.
She would always have denied him this, denied him who he was, denied him from ever reaching this moment where
he lay, right now. He drew a deep breath, let it out. And now she was dead. So maybe there was a God. He watched
Justin sleep, the pale skin against the expansive whiteness of the sheets, the blonde hair and fair features cradled in
the soft pillow. So fucking beautiful.
He moved his arm from where it had been curled up against his chest, and placed his hand on the back of Justin’s,
sliding his palm lightly and slowly up the forearm, feeling the tickle of the baby-fine hair, up to the elbow, smooth,
and damn well should be, his little king was taking after him all right, bathing the ol’ elbows nightly in product
straight from Israel, nothing like the Dead Sea salts for exfoliation… Brian’s lips drew upward slightly, laughing at
himself. Yeah, he did it, though only where no one could see him, here in this bed, the next best thing to alone, or, if
he were being honest with himself, a thing that was better than being alone, being free to indulge himself fully with
his thoughts with Justin asleep next to him, knowing he could stay here for a little while anyway. God, he so did not
want to get out of this bed. He did not want to deal with this day. Never. Just, damn, stay here. Keep Justin here with
him. His.
His hand had lingered around the skin at Justin’s elbow, and now he moved up the biceps, over the back, and he
watched the sheet being drawn away as his fingers found the smooth contours of the low back, and rising up a hip,
gently down a thigh.
Justin was awake. He didn’t need to look up to know he was being watched now. Brian shifted forward, his head
dipping as he pressed his lips against a rib, tracing his tongue against its outline, then moved up to the chest, up for
now, Justin was especially ticklish in the morning, closed his lips over a puckering nipple and drew it into his
mouth. He could feel Justin’s response in a slow hardening against his stomach, and rolled him onto his back, rolling
on top of him.
Justin stared up at him, eyes half open, mouth dropping open. They kissed, slowly and for a long time, tongues
gently touching lips and mouths, touching and nothing more.
Brian dropped his thighs around Justin’s hips, and sat up. Justin watched him, his eyes drooping lower as Brian
rocked against him, his dick rubbing itself against Justin’s stomach. He reached over to the supplies they kept near
the bed, and took out a condom, and lube. Justin watched, waited for Brian to shift his position, to ready him for
entry. He was still half asleep; Brian seemed fine with his relative lack of motion, all but the rise below.
But Brian didn’t shift, instead, he closed his eyes, and continued to rock, ripping the condom wrapper open with his
teeth. He reached behind himself, and, blind, he rolled it down Justin’s suddenly absolutely full erection. The lube
was snapped open, squeezed into Brian’s hand. He reached behind himself, and Justin watched Brian’s shoulder
move as he ministered to himself.
Justin felt oddly breathless, for all that his lungs were laboring the air. He heard Brian’s breathing matching his, loud
in his ear as his lover bent forward, down to kiss that spot at the base of his neck just over his collarbone that never
failed to send an electric shock straight down his body to the corresponding spot between his legs just under his
scrotum, and Brian was settling down against him, pushing, a slight shift backward and a sudden gasp in his ear, and
Justin was inside, the groan torn out of him as Brian’s hands settled onto his torso, pushing himself back and down,
rocking again. Brian picked up Justin’s hand, brought it to the cock thrusting against his stomach, the cum leaking
out and providing natural lubricant just when Justin thought he might need some help. The side of his thumb slid
beneath the head as Brian’s hand stayed on top of his, keeping Justin’s palm still, only his thumb moving, Brian
alone rocking them both to satisfaction.
His climax, when it came, was not the usual intense shot into the stratosphere; it felt as though he were surrounded
by the sun, filling every cell and beginning to glow especially warm where Brian’s body met his, and he was lifted
gently but firmly upward, his body tensing with the rise of heat within it. “God… Brian…” he gasped as the
sensation that had taken his dick did not end, but lifted him further up, a never-ending arc, the steadily
intensifying… and then, there, holy shit, suddenly, shooting upward, there, there, holy shit, nothing could feel like
*this*… fuck fuck fuck fuck holy shit…
When he became aware of the man on top of him again, Brian was tracing one finger in the liquid covering his
stomach. He must have cum while Justin was blind, deaf and dumb to the world, even to the man bringing him to
that phenomenal climax. He looked up, into the hazel eyes that seemed more green. Maybe it was the light. Brian
smiled down at him. “Good?”
“Bwah.”
“Bwah?” Brian’s smile widened slightly, and he leaned forward, extracting Justin from him, taking the condom off
and dropping it on the floor. He rolled Justin onto his side, facing away, and fit himself into his back.
“Ick.”
“My, we’re monosyllabic this morning,” Brian replied, pulling back and wiping away the offending substance with
the corner of the sheet. They needed to be washed anyway. He moved back to where his body fit so well against
Justin’s, like pieces of a puzzle. Shower, he thought. Not that he was looking for ways to delay facing daylight.
“It’s too early to talk,” Justin replied, enjoying Brian’s hand moving on his arm, his lips touching his shoulder. His
voice was husky with the hour.
“Mmm… I don't suppose we can just stay here?”
But as soon as the question was asked, they both knew. Of course they couldn't. And they both knew why they
rather would. Justin turned his head. "It's still early,” he said, meeting Brian’s gaze, and was rewarded with a hard,
long kiss that was happy to agree
III
“You want me to go with you?”
Brian glanced across the room, taking in Justin’s hesitation. He shook his head. “No, Claire’s meeting me at the
funeral home.”
“I suppose you don’t need more trouble.” Justin picked up his backpack, made sure the supplies he needed for his
morning class were in it. Art history, thank goodness, no bulky portfolio to shove awkwardly into the Corvette. He
definitely had to get his own car... Well, now was not the time to address that issue. He walked past where Brian was
perched on one of the seats at the kitchen counter, dropping his bag on the way so that it was close enough to the
door to grab on his way out.
“No,” Brian replied, trailing his hand across Justin’s side as he passed him, “*you* don’t need the trouble.”
Justin opened the refrigerator door and took a water bottle to bring with him to school. He turned back around. “It’s
no trouble, Brian. I want to help. Is there anything I can do? Besides keeping Claire off balance. But that’s not
*doing* anything, that’s just existing.”
“Unfortunately, Claire will find a way to act out regardless. Too good an opportunity to mount the stage of
martyrdom.” He stared off into space for a second, but was aware that Justin was looking at him intently, and
snapped his attention back. No need to descend into the morass of melancholy, a bog of self-involvement just
waiting to swallow one up, a state his family seemed prone to. He hated that. “Actually, there is something.” Justin
raised his eyebrows, waited. Still, Brian hesitated. He wasn’t sure he should ask this, but… “You could stop by Red
Cape after you get out of class and tell Michael. He should know. I might not have time to tell him today.” He
looked away, but Justin knew the real reason. Brian didn’t want to deal with the outpouring of “I’m so sorry!” that
was sure to accompany the announcement, the shock, the expressions of sadness he could not himself feel. But he
did want the people in his life to know. Justin wasn’t sure if Brian wanted the support, or if it was Brian’s
acknowledgement of a certain form of decorum that went along with these major life (death) events, even though his
natural inclination was to simply get this over with, with as little attention as possible. But Justin did understand that
despite all their friends knew of Brian, all they knew of his feelings, they didn’t really get it. Shit, Justin didn’t, but
he understood that he didn’t have to. We may be connected to each other, Justin thought, but connection happens
through vocalization of feelings. Not through having the same ones. And Brian was definitely a different breed of
cat altogether. Not a domestic by any means.
“You sure you want me to?”
“I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t.”
“Of course, I’ll tell him, if that’s what you want. You want me to tell Lindsay, too?”
Brian flipped his cell phone open, fingered one of the buttons. “I forgot about her. I’ll call her later, probably will
have to put off that dinner she wanted to have with us.” He flipped the phone shut again, deciding to put off calling
Cynthia. She’d probably be calling him anyway, as soon as she got to the office and he wasn’t there, and then didn’t
show up after nine. She’d call, all worried, that note of concern. Brian shrugged mentally. He knew it was perverse
of him, but some part of him did not despise that tone, hearing it spoken to him in someone else’s voice. He hated
that he did not always despise the concern directed at him. He’d never admit it out loud. But he would let Cynthia
call him.
“Oh, right. Okay. You sure?”
Brian smiled thinly. “I’m always sure.”
“Riiight…” Justin answered, pushing off the counter to leave the kitchen area. “You ready to go then?” He walked
over to his bag, put the water into it, and picked it up, slinging it over his shoulder.
“Ready, huh. I suppose I better be.” He picked his jacket from the chair back and slung it on. “We’re off...”
9:30. So here he was, with Claire, sitting in the funeral director’s office. The man had a placid, appropriately
sympathetic expression set over his smooth features. Brian took in his high cheekbones, the lush lips that were
consciously thinned, a slight wrinkle to the forehead so that the eyes widened ever so slightly. Not gay. Pretty
annoying, in fact, although Brian supposed Claire, sobbing not so quietly in the chair next to him, appreciated the
man. He was sure she liked the expression of pity he lavished on her. Shit, if Claire were like this now, what the
fuck was the actual funeral going to be like? He could only imagine. He stopped thinking of the future. Just one
thing at a time. First, this guy.
“Very good, Mr. Kinney, we’ll arrange the pick up from Allegheny General, and take care of the details here. Two
days of viewing, Thursday and Friday, then Saturday transport to St. Anne’s Cathedral for the service at noon and
burial after.” Mr. Leslie, the funeral director, had seen who would be in charge of arrangements, and who would,
most likely, be paying, as soon as these two walked in. Good thing it was the man, but it usually was, and thank god.
He was trained in grieving relatives, he knew, in fact, that he was good with them, and he enjoyed his excellent
reputation. But, to be honest, he much preferred the stoic relatives who seemed determined to handle business with
as little fuss as possible. It was almost impossible for the over-the-top grievers to make up their minds about even
the simplest things. He would never admit this, not even to his wife. Lord knows, she wouldn’t understand his
resentment at how mourning people just got his goat sometimes, at least when it came to the nitty gritty of business.
Now, Lydia was excellent with huge displays of grief. But then, did she have to make the arrangements, ensure
payment? Oh, no!
He made a mental note to have Lydia on hand to deal with the mess sitting next to the gentleman who was making
all of the decisions. Lydia thrived on the pain of others. He thought, at times, that must have been why she married
him, because of the business he was in. Sometimes, it felt there could have been no other good reason. There sure
seemed no reason for her to stay with him, except for money and death. His good ol’ ghoulish Lydia.
He pulled his attention back to the people sitting in front of him as Brian frowned and interjected, “Three days? Is
that usual?”
Leslie shrugged. “It’s standard. I was told this is what you preferred.” And more expensive. He, of course, did not
mention this.
Claire raised her head, swiped the moisture off her cheeks. “I told him when I called. Momma deserves two days of
mourning. Besides, all her friends at the church, they’ll all want to stop by.”
“Joan deserves shit,” Brian shot back. “One day of viewing, Friday. Four days from now. That’ll give her relatives
time to get here if they want. Service and burial Saturday.” That way those who couldn’t get out during the week
could at least make the funeral. He wished he could be one of them. Shit, he wished he could skip this whole thing.
Was it possible…? Nah, Claire would haunt him. Worse, Deb would never let him forget. And then there’d be
Lindsay’s reproachful looks. And Michael’s concern… Nope, better to just get through this as quickly as possible.
Get it over with, get on with life.
“Why are you making this so difficult?” Claire cried. “You never loved her, I did, I was always there for her…”
“Um,” Mr. Leslie interrupted. “I understand how difficult this must be…”
“It wouldn’t be difficult if Brian, if you would just…”
“What?” Brian answered, shifting in his chair, facing his sister.
“If you could just stop being so bitter. Why do you have to hold onto your anger? Why can’t you just let it go, have
some respect for the dead?”
“She never earned my respect in life, she’s not getting it just because she kicked the bucket. And anyway, Claire,
just think, the less time this lasts, the less time I can embarrass you with my bitterness, the less time there is that I
might actually tell people how our lives actually were spent in that house. And even, how they’ve been spent since.”
Claire’s lips thinned, and she thought about that, remembering their father’s funeral, Brian’s languid retelling of the
story of her father’s demand that their mother get an abortion when he was a mere fetus, right in the middle of the
gathered friends and family. Hm. “Fine,” she finally agreed.
“How about caskets, Mr. Leslie?” Brian turned back to the funeral director and dismissed his sister, his face as
placid as if there had been no argument at all, while Claire began to noisily fall apart again.
Well, this is going to be one hell of a funeral, Leslie thought. But he only said, “We have a wide selection, if you’ll
come this way…”
“Hey, boy wonder,” Michael greeted Justin, finishing the sale of a stack of comics to a pimply kid who grinned back
at him. The kid picked up his package, and said, “Hey, thanks, Michael, this is an awesome selection!”
“Yeah, well don’t let your mom see the second Rage issue, she’ll have my balls!” Michael called, chuckling as the
kid raced out of the store, probably to dive into said issue and whack off. Michael shut the cash drawer with a thud,
and grabbed the soda behind him. Taking a swig, he swallowed and said, “You know, I do love giving back to
young men who so remind me of me, but even more, I love taking their money. So, what’s up with you?”
Justin looked around the store, noted that the two other people browsing the merchandise were out of hearing range,
and said, “Brian’s mother died.”
“Oh…” Michael immediately registered the news, and his face dropped into a classic pose of deep sympathy, his
brow wrinkling up, his eyes widening. “How?”
How? That was a good question. Strange, they really hadn’t gotten the details on that, had they? “I think she fell and
hit her head. His sister wasn’t too clear, she was too busy sobbing and yelling at Brian.”
“Dyech,” Michael responded, grimacing. “Good ol’ Claire. So she brought the news by? How’s Brian doing?”
Justin shook his head. “He seemed fine when he called me half an hour ago. He and Claire are arranging the details
as we speak. Apparently she’s making a fuss over coffins, wants a $15,000 model. On Brian’s tab, of course. He’s
being pretty… unemotional about it. Has been since he found out.” Except he fucked himself on me this morning,
hard, before I even really woke up enough to truly be there with him. That was definitely not information to be
shared. Justin forced the memory back, feeling the skin around his thighs tingle.
“Yeah, he would be, but if you could have seen him the night his dad died…” Michael glanced at Justin, cursing
himself. Shit, shit, shit! Why couldn’t he ever keep his mouth shut? Right from the brain to the tongue, it was a
curse. As if Justin needed reminder that he hadn’t been welcome into Brian’s life back then. “He ever tell you about
that?” Michael asked, trying to let Justin know he hadn’t said what he had to exclude him from memories of the
past.
Justin shrugged. “Only general things. He said it was harder than he expected. We both kind of lost our dads around
the same time, in different ways, but still. He said he’d told his dad he was gay, and Jack told him he should be the
one dying, not Jack. He told me the story, and his face was impassive, but there was something in his eyes… he
seemed hurt, but in the non-demonstrative, unconventional way Brian is. You know.”
“Yeah, I know. The night his dad died, he was a fucking mess. Got really, really drunk. Tried to fuck me.” Oh, fuck!
There he went again!
Justin’s eyebrows raised. “Really! And…”
Michael shrugged, shook his head, really annoyed at himself. “It was obvious why he was doing it. And it wasn’t
because of who I was. He was trying to hurt me, share the Kinney love.”
Justin actually laughed. “Oh, hell, we’ve both been on the receiving end of that. But you said no.”
“I said no. We’re meant to be friends.” He left it at that, deciding to shut his mouth. Kept a lid on anything else he
might say. For once. Ben loved his openness, and Michael didn’t have to watch himself around his husband; he
could relax and just blab. Brian and Justin kept pieces of themselves closely guarded. Yup, Michael and Brian were
definitely meant to be friends. Michael would have killed Brian within a couple of years, hell, months, if he had had
to work as hard as he did around either of these guys sometimes; there was an edge to both of them that never
allowed him to really relax. ‘Course, that was a lot of the fascination, that dark, mysterious… exhausting bullshit.
Michael knew, for him, it would get real old, real quick. “So why the fuck isn’t he telling me this news himself?”
The edge of anger in his voice wasn’t real, it was more thrown in there to shift the focus from this discussion, which
had gotten away from the point, and fairly out of Michael’s comfort zone. “Is he afraid I’ll see him upset? He
doesn’t want any of us to witness that he actually cares?”
“I’m not sure he actually does.”
“She’s his mother.” Michael’s jaw set.
Justin sighed. There was no use in trying to explain this to Michael, whose love for his mother was allencompassing. Remembering when Michael had been on the run with Hunter, with Deb complaining that she was
missing their usual, three-time-per-day talks (at least!), and the look on Brian’s face as he turned to Justin and said,
“Explains a lot, doesn’t it?” Yes, it certainly did. No use trying to explain to Michael that not every woman is a
natural mother, like Michael’s, like Justin’s. Some mothers eat their young.
So Justin only said, “I don’t think he’s against seeing you, Michael, I just think that he doesn’t want to have to face
the looks of initial sympathy. I don’t think he knows how to deal with it. It’s not welcome, and he has enough
bullshit to wade through. Plus, if I tell you, you’ll tell everyone, and then everyone will just know and we can
proceed from there, without this bump in the road of pretended pain he’s not feeling because that’s what people
expect. You know how he gets about expectations he doesn’t think he can live up to. There’s plenty of real pain
there, but it isn’t because his mother’s dead.”
Michael eyed the young man. “I see you’ve got your copy of the Kinney handbook back.”
“And this one’s an up-to-date edition. Just as much background material, but some nifty upgrades.”
“Let me guess, you’ve been given the codes for access to emotional trigger points….”
“With their red labels, ‘Sensitive areas! Use only in emergency!’”
They grinned at each other, and Michael shook his head. “What do you think? You think this is good? That she’s
dead? You think it’ll be good for him?”
Justin shrugged. “I think the next few days are going to be really rough, and not for the reasons people think. But I
think… you know, I hate to say it, but I think Brian’s much better off with his mother out of the picture,
permanently.”
“And I get to be the spreader of the news. That’s great, you just figure I’ll blab it across town.” Michael snorted, and
straightened up a comic that was leaning slightly in its place on the rack next to the counter.
“Hey, Michael, how many times has my lover tried to fuck you? What is it, as you’ve been sure to tell me, twice
now? Any more sensitive topics you want to share with Brian’s life partner about the love of his life?”
Michael had to laugh at himself with that. “Yeah, fine, so I’m not one for holding information back. I guess I’ll start
with my mother. She’ll be sure to bake a casserole.”
“I guess Claire’ll appreciate that, for whoever goes to the house after the funeral.” He turned to go.
“Hey, Justin,” Michael called after him. Justin turned. “Take care of him.”
Justin smiled. “I’ll be sure to let you know if we need any help.”
“Thanks,” Michael whispered, as the door swung shut.
IV
Brian practically growled when he entered his Joan’s house without knocking, and saw John sitting in the corner of
the sofa, thumbing through a comic. “Hey, where’s your mom?”
John looked up, saw it was Brian, and looked away. “Upstairs,” he mumbled, turning back to the comic.
“Accuse any innocent relatives of molestation lately? Give ol’ grandma a stroke, didja? That how she hit the ol’
noggin’?” Okay, he was being perverse, hell, this house brought out a sickly aggressive streak. But he didn’t expect
John to completely freak out. His nephew burst out crying, jumped up, pushed past Brian, and ran out the front door.
Christ, the kid was what? 13? Shouldn’t he have better self-control? Did he love ol’ Joan that much? Well, he was
young… and his mother was Claire.
“What did you say to him?” Claire called from the top of the stairs. “No, forget it, you know, I don’t want to know. I
can’t figure out which dress to bring to the funeral home. And I want to know what you want to keep, we have to go
through all this stuff.”
“Oh, hell, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Brian muttered, following his sister up the stairs. “Claire, put her in a
potato sack for all I care. You called me away from work for this?”
“It’s our mother, Brian!” Claire returned, her breath hitching, the tears falling. Damnation, it never ended. She
turned into her mother’s bedroom, and gestured toward the dresses she’d laid out on the bed, blue, black… red?
“The cranberry one,” he said. He looked at his sister skeptically. His mother NEVER wore red. Joan would hate it.
So, definitely. “Definitely, the cranberry.” Better not call it red, Claire might hear how wrong that word sounded.
Besides, it was dark red.
“Really? I saw it in the closet, figured it was new, maybe she was saving it for a special occasion. And this would
be… would b-b-b…”
Oh, hell. “Claire. It’s fine. The dress is fine. You did good.” He spoke patiently, as if to a child. “Is that what you
called me out here for? I do have to a business to run…”
Claire swung on him, moving from grief to rage. Just like that. “You always think of yourself! Mom was right, you
are so totally self-absorbed! Like I don’t have a life, like I don’t have better places to be. But there are all these
*things* and we have to decide what to do with them!”
“Burn them.” Brian shrugged.
“Brian! Your baby albums? Our family photos?”
“You keep them, Claire. I don’t want anything.”
“You can’t mean that,” his sister scoffed, scooping up the two rejected dresses and hanging them back in the closet.
“This is part of your life. You can’t just throw it away.”
Brian groaned. “I do mean it. Unlike you, I can just leave things behind me, especially when they’re these things.
And now I’m leaving. If you need someone to help dispose of the estate,” he almost laughed at the satiric wit in his
choice of words, but figured Claire would not appreciate his being his own audience, “I’ll get my assistant to hire
someone for me.”
“Yeah, you do that, just throw money at the problem, that’ll make it go away.”
Brian turned and practically hopped down the steps, feeling like he was 14 and on his way out to spend a couple of
nights at Mikey’s. Getting the fuck out of this hell hole, blessed relief. “It is going away, Claire,” he thought to
himself. “Far, far away…”
But first, he’d have to wade through the next three days. One more day of Claire bugging the shit out of him, then
the day for viewing, then the funeral. Christ, why couldn’t they just toss her into the ground in a garbage bag? Or
even better, burn her, toss the ashes out the car window as he drove away from the funeral and back to his life. But
oh, no, Joan actually believed that her body needed to be preserved for the resurrection, when the Lord would raise
the dead. “They don’t mean that literally, Mom,” he’d said to her when she expressed horror at his suggestion that
they cremate Jack. She looked at him as if he were speaking in tongues, inspired by Satan. “Jesus will raise our
bodies from the dead, Brian, where will we be if our bodies aren’t there for Him?”
Too bad Claire was around. He would definitely have burned her. He idly wondered how much it would cost him to
get someone to burn the house down.
***
“Goddamn it, this is for shit! I did not order this!” Brian threw the board down on the conference table as his art
people cringed in their chairs.
“Brian, what do you want changed? I thought this was fairly up to specs,” Ted replied. He had been keeping an eye
on the details of this campaign, hoping to learn more of the day-to-day workings of the business that employed him
beyond the financials. He found his background as porn site operator and accountant equipped him surprisingly well
to get the basic idea of the advertising business. It was all about sex and money, and an obsession with details. He
was familiar with all those things.
“Yeah, you thought, I’m sure you did Ted, are you seriously questioning me? That blue is not right, I told you azure,
not fucking periwinkle!”
“The second board is azure, Brian,” Gary piped up. “You asked we use both so we could see which worked better.”
“Yeah, so YOU could see which worked better.” Brian grabbed the second board, glared down at it.
“…and then bring you both.”
“What, you couldn’t make the decision for yourself?” Brian glared. “Here’s how it works, you make the decision,
and THEN you bring this shit to me.”
“Azure looks right to me,” Ted spoke up, hoping to draw Brian’s wrath from Gary. The kid had just started at
Kinnetik that week, and he seemed to be working out pretty well. Ted did not want him quitting, or cowering in a
corner, unable to work.
Brian glared at him, then glared back at the boards, then glared some more at Ted. Unfortunately, Ted had just
agreed with his own opinion, so he could only growl, “Fine, whatever, if this campaign falls to shit it’s your ass,
Ted. Now, about the font…”
Part 2
Justin dropped by on his way back from school. He winced as he approached Cynthia’s desk, hearing the raised
voice emanating from behind the closed door to Brian’s office.
Cynthia looked over from her conversation with Ted as Justin approached, and said, “He was at his mother’s house
this morning.”
“What now?”
Cynthia shrugged. “In that mood, I ask no questions. I suggested he take a few days off, and he just said that there
was no reason, that work help keep him focused and that I should mind my own business.”
At that moment, a shout penetrated the closed door to Brian’s office, and they heard a muffled, “You told me
Wednesday and I fucking expect Wednesday, not Wednesday night!… Wednesday night is not Wens-Day. Wens
Day, Wednesday! it’s not fucking Wens Night!”
“Uh, I don’t really need to be here,” Ted said, firmly gripping the boards he had been fumbling with, and walking
away. “Can you just make me an appointment for next week?” He nodded at Justin.
“Coward! You know he wants that by tomorrow!” Cynthia yelled after him. She turned to Justin. “He’s been like
this all week. You sure you want to go in there?”
Justin just smiled. “Yeah, give me twenty minutes, keep everyone out.”
Cynthia gestured at him to go right in.
Brian barely glanced up from his phone call when Justin walked in. He was on his feet, his chair pushed back as if
he had leapt out of it, rolling it away. He leaned on the hand that was planted on his desk, while the other hand held
the phone to his ear. “How much business have we sent your way? Do you realize how much competition there is…
I don’t care if you know I only hire the best, don’t try to flatter your way out of this screw up…!”
Justin dropped his bag on the floor, circled the desk, and moved behind Brian’s chair, pushing it back to where it
belonged. The chair hit the back of Brian’s legs, just at the knees, and they buckled so he sat abruptly. He frowned,
looked over at Justin. “No, five o’clock is simply not acceptable, am I not being clear here?…” Justin swiveled the
chair around, and dropped to his knees, reaching for Brian’s belt buckle. Brian raised an eyebrow, swatted at his
hands, but Justin was nothing if not persistent, and Brian had only one hand for Justin’s two. His dick was out in no
time, and Justin’s tongue set itself to work. “Uh… okay… okay, oh, Christ… What? No, uh, uh, look, fine, I guess
we’re going to have to live with five, just don’t let it happen again.” He dropped the phone in the cradle, and his
hands moved to wind into the blonde hair at his lap, pushing Justin’s head down, surging up into his mouth.
***
“So, did you stop by because Ted and Cynthia screamed for help? Come to blow Mt. Vesuvius?”
“Noooo,” Justin responded, his face screwed up in disgust that Brian would ever suspect such a thing. He rolled his
tongue, licking the last of Brian’s cum from the back of his mouth, yummy. “You seriously think I’d play whore for
them?”
“No, I thought you’d play whore for me,” Brian smirked, trying to take the edge off his question. Well, shit, he’d
just been kidding, he hadn’t meant to insult his boyfriend. “That was just what I needed.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes I just know what you need. I don’t need anyone else to tell me.”
Oh, shit, he’d really stepped in it. “You always know just what I need.”
Ah, that did it. That smile he loved so appeared across the lovely face. “Actually, I stopped by to ask if you have a
movie preference. I’m stopping by the video store on the way home.”
“We’re doing a movie night?”
“Yeah, I think you could use a night of just hanging out and relaxing. No phone, no Claire, no funeral plans, just
us.”
“Hm…” That blow job had only whetted his appetite. He sighed, as if put upon. “Well, Michael sent me an email
that he and Emmett were meeting at Woody’s around 9… but I suppose, if you insist…”
“He probably wants to see how you’re doing, before the whole funeral thing starts. How bout we just relax, watch a
movie, and then see if we’re in the mood to go out?”
“That sounds just about right. Fine, movies… I want something as gruesomely violent as possible, absolutely no
redeeming value, no moral message, no sentimental value. Blood and guts.”
“Anything in mind?” Justin picked up his bag and moved toward the door.
“Nope, use your imagination.” Brian turned back to his computer. Then he tossed over his shoulder, “I’ll try to be
home around seven.”
***
“Christ, movies at home,” Brian commented, eyeing Justin’s ass. “Next thing you know, we’ll be breeding.”
Justin straightened up from inserting the DVD into the player, hit the play button on the remote, and walked back,
falling into the far end of the couch. “Who’ll be breeding, Daddy?” He kicked Brian’s bare foot with his stocking
one.
“Shut up and watch the show.” He tugged on Justin’s foot. “Come here,” he ordered.
“Yes, Daddy,” Justin replied, moving eagerly to the other side of the couch, his back against Brian’s chest.
“Cut that Daddy shit, sonny boy.”
“I’ll have to be spanked.”
“Or something…”
On screen, “Dead Alive” kicked up.
“Never heard of it,” Brian said, fitting his chin in the space between Justin’s shoulder and neck, breathing against his
ear.
“The kid at the store said it was directed by Peter Jackson.”
“The Lord of the Rings guy?”
“Yup.”
Forty-five minutes later, they were laughing hysterically as the hero of the film beat up a zombie baby on a
playground, and two horrified mothers, not knowing that the child was the undead, looked on.
“This is by Peter Jackson?” Brian asked in disbelief, gasping for air as the baby was drop kicked across the yard. At
least this scene spared them the consumption of zombie pudding pus from earlier, falling eyeballs, and copious,
oozing brain matter. They should have seen it coming; in the first three minutes a man bitten by a rabid monkey had
had various body parts chopped off by his machete wielding colleague after a horrified, “You’ve got… the Bite!” He
had never seen so much gore in one film. And that was saying a lot.
“Yeah, guess it’s one of his really early films. I can’t believe this, this has got to be the sickest movie I have ever
seen,” Justin snickered. Yup, he’d thank the girl who gave him the recommendation.
Just as the zombie baby was being violently stuffed into its own diaper bag, there was a pounding on the loft door.
Justin lifted his head and looked back, while Brian hauled himself up and away from the other man’s body,
bounding easily over the back of the couch, padding across the floor and hauling open the door.
“Brian!”
Justin’s brows scrunched up as a stocky man he had never seen before barreled into Brian, grabbing him around the
waist and lifting him up.
“Jesus, Liam, put me the fuck down!”
“Oh ho! Still the lightweight, are we? Sorry to hear about your mum.” He put Brian down, patting him on the
shoulder. Justin saw the man was probably about Brian’s age by the way he carried himself, but he looked a lot
older. Not in shape, bit of a gut, red hair thinning a bit. Still, in his face one could see the fine structure, the high
cheekbones that weren’t obscured by the bit of chub, the lush lips that made clear he was related. Brian stepped
back, away from Liam, and sighed. He glanced over at Justin, who had put the movie on mute and stood.
“Oh, hey, sorry. I didn’t realize you had company,” Liam remarked as he took Justin in.
“I don’t, just you,” Brian bit back. “How you doing, Liam? You want a drink?”
“Foolish questions! I’m fine. You have whiskey?”
Brian moved into the kitchen. “Justin,” he called across the space. “This is Liam. My cousin. Liam, this is Justin.
My…” He paused. Liam waited, expressionless at first. Then russet eyebrows shot upwards as Liam waited for
Brian to finish. “What are we calling each other these days?” Brian asked, busying himself with pouring the
whiskey. “Want some?” he asked Justin, off hand, pretending not to watch Liam’s face.
“Life partner?” Justin offered, moving across the room. “Uh… boyfriend? Lover?” Revenge for Brian’s dumping
the definition of terms in his lap. “I prefer love of his life.” And that was just being perverse. “Nice to meet you,
Liam,” he finished, holding out his hand for Liam to take, albeit a bit limply. Justin wondered if it was just surprise
or if this was an indication of things to come. He let go of Liam’s hand as the other man stared at him. “I’ll just have
a beer, Brian, thanks though,” Justin finished, moving to the refrigerator.
“Asshole works, too,” Brian said to him, softly, as he passed, an edge in his voice.
“It certainly does,” Justin grinned, ignoring him.
“So. You’re gay.” Liam took the shot glass, knocked back the liquor, held the glass out again. Brian poured more in.
Damn, at this rate, his relatives were going to drink him out of his alcohol supply. He made a mental note to pick up
a cheap bottle for these occasions. A few bottles.
“Yup,” Brian answered.
“And Justin’s your boyfriend.”
“I prefer partner. He lives here. You shocked?”
Liam paused. “Nah. I mean, I’m surprised. Just because, you know, this is the first I’ve heard of it, and we used to
hang out a lot when we were kids.”
“Liam and I used to run away and hide, immediately, whenever our families got together,” Brian explained to Justin.
“Yeah, believe me, there was plenty to run from,” Liam added.
“Your mom was fairly sane,” Brian commented.
“Sane enough to divorce my dad when I was fifteen. I was only sorry I didn’t get to see you so much after that. But I
didn’t miss seeing my dad, or Aunt Joan. Sorry! I shouldn’t speak bad of the dead, huh? Anyway…” He knocked his
glass against Brian’s. They both downed the contents. Justin watched, took a long gulp of his beer. He was not going
to stay stone sober in the face of this.
“Anyway,” Liam continued, “I’m surprised. But it makes sense. There were never any girlfriends that you talked
about at all. And then that time you emailed me a couple years ago, about moving to New York…”
“Moving to New York meant Brian’s gay?” Justin didn’t get it.
“No, but writing that he heard there were, quote unquote, some fabulous clubs in Chelsea, kind of made me think,
huh.”
“Yeah, I wondered if you’d pick up on that one.”
“Obviously I didn’t really. Probably just didn’t want to think about it. Anyway, here I am. Holy God, what are you
watching?” Liam stared across the room at the t.v., where a man was running with a lawnmower extended in front of
him through a crowd of people. Blood and body parts rained across the screen.
“Just a little something to forget my troubles,” Brian smirked. “Seemed appropriate way to get mentally prepared for
dealing with the family.”
“I’ll go turn it off,” Justin offered, moving out of the kitchen.
“That’s no way to get your mind off death,” Liam reprimanded, eyeing the screen before it went blank. “Only two
things for that, sex and booze.”
“Well, we were…” Brian started, but Liam coughed loudly, following that with a slight strangling noise.
“No, no, no details, please. All American guy gagging here! Unless it’s pussy, I don’t want to know.”
“Pussy, gross,” Justin commented, seemingly to himself, but quite audibly, his voice dropping in from the
background.
Liam’s eyebrows twisted at Justin’s comment, but then he thought about it, and laughed at himself. Brian joined
him. Liam just might offer more amusement than that sicko movie. He always had been pretty much the one relative
Brian had been able to stand. “So, why’d you drop by?”
“My dad dragged me over to Aunt Joan’s house. Apparently Claire’s moved in…”
Brian’s eyebrows shot up at that.
“Huh, didn’t know that one? I see you two are getting along same as usual.”
“Some things never change.”
“Nope, and as usual, as soon as the family gathered, I ran the hell out. Came looking for you. Claire said you
couldn’t be there because you had this big business to run, but I figured that’s what you’d told her. Or she was lying
to make it look like you might actually want to be there. I kinda figured it was that last one, so I just came here.”
“I’m surprised you came at all. You never got on with Joan.”
“My dad got a thing in his ass that I should come, and you know him, it’s easier just to go along and get the crap
over with then the grief you earn for years by setting your head against the tide of those assholes. Besides, I wanted
to see how you’re doing. Seems you’re doing well.” He looked around the loft, taking everything in. “Beautiful
place, beautiful things.” He watched Justin walk back toward them.
“So, I suppose I should get going,” Liam said after the slight pause. “Don’t want to interrupt your movie.”
“Why don’t you come out with us?” Justin asked. “We were going to meet a friend out for drinks.”
“Oh, we were?” Brian echoed.
“Hey, I don’t want to intrude…”
“Well, Woody’s is hardly a titty strip club, but there’re drinks.”
“Hm, if you insist. Definitely, let’s go get drunk and bitch about our fucked up family. Woody’s a club? Not a gay
club?”
“Nah, just a gay bar. Although we could take you to Babylon…” Brian began, his eyes sparkling as he considered
the shock value.
“Brian…” Justin warned.
“…but you’d like Woody’s better. You’ll probably like my friend Michael, too. I picked up with him right after you
moved with your mom to New York.”
“Uh… a gay bar?”
“You want to go out drinking, or hang out at a motel with your dad?”
“Well, if you put it that way…”
“Trust me, Liam. Nobody’s going to pick you up.”
“Fine. And, by the way, I’m staying at a hotel. My dad’s the cheap fuck, not me.”
Brian knew there was a reason he liked his cousin. Even if he was a relative.
***
Liam managed tolerably well, but mostly because he was on his way to ensuring a state of blind drunkenness,
matching Brian shot for shot. He had convinced himself that he wouldn’t remember anything in the morning
anyway. “So you’re married to Michael,” he said to Ben.
“And you’re straight.”
“Yup.”
“Not many straight guys show up here.”
“Except for that Pool Boy cooler guy,” Michael laughed. “And he ran screaming. Hey, didn’t Brian bring him down
here, too?”
“So, what do you think?” Ben asked Liam, nodding around the bar.
Liam looked around. It was fairly late, after midnight, and the lights had gone down. There was a couple making out
in the corner, but besides that and some flamboyant outfits, not much different from the straight bars Liam hung out
at in New York. He had seen plenty of guys making out there. It was Wednesday night, so the atmosphere at
Woody’s was fairly tame. “Seems like every other bar out there. Only no girls.”
“There are a few, sometimes.”
“Yeah, usually your mother,” Ben joked.
Michael scowled, and changed the subject. “You should see Babylon if you want to see a scene.”
“Fairly carnivalesque,” Ben added.
“In the Bakhtinian manner?” Liam asked, almost knocking down his beer as he mis-estimated the distance between
his hand and it. Shit. Time to start sipping, boy-o, he told himself. “Or the Rabelasian definition?” He meant to be a
smartass, and was shocked when Ben replied, “Oh, I’ve always thought that Bakhtin’s ‘Rabelais and His World’
could be applied to gay culture…”
“Oh, sweetie, don’t get him started,” Emmett sighed, reaching over and patting Liam on the knee. “He’s beauty and
brains, but unfortunately you can never bullshit around him, not even in a bar.”
Ben laughed. “Sorry, I’m lecturing on Bakhtin for one of my classes. Part of the idea is that the gay club might be a
current example of the carnivalesque, in its suspension of the ordinary, a tearing down of daily hierarchical
distinctions in the wild indulgence of excess, sex, drugs.”
“You should talk to Brian about that,” Michael spoke up. “Bring him in for your next lecture as the perfect example
of the carnivalian, same as I lectured on your gay comic heroes.”
Unfortunately for Michael, Liam did not pick up on the point in the conversation he had been hoping would rivet
attention.
“Brian’s gotten around, huh?”
The three men around him roared.
“Oh, my god,” Emmett gasped, after he stopped laughing, “Brian’s had sex with probably every fuckable guy in the
city!”
“Even the straight ones?” Liam joked, somewhat uncomfortably, but drunk enough to ask.
Emmett’s face twisted in puzzlement. “Straight guys aren’t fuckable, they don’t…” he trailed off, not wanting to
insult Liam by pointing out his obvious need to hit a gym.
Liam ignored Emmett’s discomfort. “Really? Would you fuck me?” Okay. So maybe he was really drunk.
“No, honey, I’m a bottom.”
“What?”
“I prefer getting fucked. Well, most of the time.”
“So you’re versatile.”
Emmett grinned suddenly. “Well, you seem to be picking up on things. Maybe you aren’t so unfuckable! Yeah, I
might suck you off. What size are you, exactly? I have a size requirement, you must be this big to get on the ride…”
Emmett peered downward, between Liam’s legs.
“Brian!” Liam twisted around, searching for his cousin.
“He’s harmless, really,” Brian called over, having caught the last part of that conversation. “Just tell him no and
swat him on the nose.” He straightened up from the pool table, where he’d just missed his shot, and wandered over
to the side of the room, where everyone was sitting, leaving Justin studying the line up on the pool table. He moved
to where Liam and Emmett sat. “Emmett, how many times do I have to tell you, you try to fuck the straight guys,
you’re only going to get hurt. If only by me, if you don’t at least leave my poster boys alone. And now my cousin?”
He reached for his beer, which seemed to be on the verge of multiplying. Shit.
“He doesn’t fuck them, Brian, he only bottoms or sucks dick, right?” Liam drained his glass, looking at Emmett for
confirmation. Emmett beamed encouragingly.
Brian stared at Liam, then flicked his gaze to Emmett. “What is it with you?” he asked.
“I have the magic,” Emmett replied, “it just sucks them in.”
“It sucks their dicks in,” Michael snickered.
Justin came over to join them. “I won,” he announced, leaning his stick up against the wall.
“What? What do you mean? I left the cue ball behind my two and the shot on the eight.”
“I banked.”
“I didn’t see anything,” Brian griped. “Anybody see that shot?”
“Hey,” Justin replied, poking him in the ribs, “I don’t need anyone watching to prove anything. You’re just going to
have to trust me.”
Liam watched as Brian paused, his eyes moving to meet Justin’s. Something passed between them. Then Brian
smiled. “Fine. I believe you.” He reached out and touched his partner’s cheek.
The moment was a bit too intimate for Liam. He could take in strangers across the room making out. Hey, he was
just drunk enough that he hoped that some of those guys might go further, just so he’d see what the deal was. But
this, between his cousin and the blonde kid, that was just too… intimate. It was as if everything around the pair had
faded away. Him included.
“So where’d you guys meet?” Liam asked. “Was it at that Babylon place?”
Emmett snickered, and Ben rolled his eyes. Justin glanced at Brian, who smirked back.
“They met on the school bus, Brian was playing monitor,” Michael replied before thinking. Ben squeezed him in a
warning. “Hey, I’m kidding, it was a joke!”
“Seriously?” Liam asked.
“No,” Brian ground out, glaring at Michael. Damn it all anyway, he probably should have been prepared for
questions of this nature, if he was planning to drag Justin to face his family. He reached over to the table next to
Michael, and picked up the shot waiting for him. He hadn’t been planning on downing that one, but, what the hell.
But Justin spoke up, surprising him. “Actually, I came down to Liberty Avenue for the first time a few years ago.
Brian was coming out of Babylon, so you’re kind of right. He spotted me across the street, and sort of…”
“Picked him up.” Brian finished the sentence.
“Really? So, love at first sight?”
Brian and Justin looked at each other, and then everyone was laughing. Liam looked around, confused. “What?”
“Love at first sight for me. I stalked him.”
“The twink that wouldn’t leave,” Michael added, lifting the beer to his lips, willing himself to shut up. Too much of
an edge there. And he didn’t feel the way that sounded, testy. Not anymore. But recall is a funny thing, bringing
back the memory of old feelings, even if we no longer hold onto them.
“I didn’t resist that much,” Brian added, causing Emmett and Michael to both choke on their drinks. Ben just
listened; he hadn’t been around at the time, and had only heard the story through Michael’s obviously biased point
of view.
“Oh, he tried everything to get rid of me, but I just moved in. Brian was not a commitment kind of guy.”
“King of the carnivalesque,” Ben explained, and Liam got it. No doubt, apparently Brian was to dick what he, Liam,
aspired to be to pussy. Although at this point, he would settle for a girlfriend, if only for the regular sex. Watching
the way Brian had been eyed all night by almost every guy walking by, somehow, Liam didn’t think that lack of
opportunity was an issue for him.
“So what happened?” Liam asked. “I mean, you’re obviously serious about each other now.”
Silence again. “Oh, fuck me, I’ve entered the shit field, haven’t I?”
“The shit field?” Ben asked.
“Sometimes, you know, you’re just walking along, and you feel your foot slip on something. And you’ve stepped in
shit, only it’s in the tall grass, hell, it’s a field of tall grass, and there’s shit all around, and you had no idea you’d
wandered into it. Seems a common occurrence in our family,” Liam nodded Brian’s way.
“I call it the minefield,” Brian answered. He looked over at Justin, who shrugged. Brian moved closer, in back of
him, put his arms around his shoulders, hugged him into his chest. He could use the support, feeling none too steady
on his feet. And of course, all the chairs were taken. He found himself saying, “I went to Justin’s senior prom…”
Liam’s eyebrows raised slightly at that, but he said nothing, sensing he should just shut up. He got that, even
through the tide of alcohol.
“One of the kids there took serious issue to my boyfriend showing up to dance with me,” Justin finished, realizing
Brian wasn’t continuing the story, just breathing heavily and leaning on him a bit too hard. “He took a bat to my
head. In front of Brian. Crushed my skull, I was in a coma for a while, then rehab for a really long time.”
“Holy shit!” Liam breathed. He glanced up at Brian, who had bent his face down into Justin’s hair. “Holy shit…
holy shit.” He could think of nothing better to say. Finally, he came out with, “I guess that’s gonna turn things
serious.”
Justin breathed out, relieved. He’d been worried Liam would say something stupid. That was one of the reasons he
avoided talking about this. People never knew what to say, or they would say something like, “Well, at least you
lived.” And he had repressed his feelings over it for a very long time. But now that he’d brought it up, the first time,
in fact, since confronting Hobbes, he realized, while the subject was still upsetting, the intense, sickening rage that
burned through his gut at its very mention, that was gone.
“Yeah, it was bad.” Justin left it at that.
Liam was nodding. “Shit, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put a downer on the evening.”
“You didn’t…” Justin assured him, but it was obvious he had. Brian was holding him far too tightly, his head not
coming up, leaning too heavily against him. “You couldn’t have known, it’s a pretty depressing story.”
“But it brought you two closer.”
“Don’t tell us we should look on the bright side of things,” Brian spoke up, his voice muffled. “That’s bullshit.”
Justin sighed, and patted Brian’s hand, where it convulsively gripped his shirt. “I’m fine. We’re fine.” He was
speaking to Brian, not to Liam, but the only response was another squeeze, the arms drawing him in tighter.
“Well, it’s getting late, we should be getting along,” Michael said, looking at Ben, who nodded back at him. “Liam,
you need a ride somewhere? I’ve only had two beers since I’ve been here.”
“I can take a cab,” Liam answered, getting up off his chair and stumbling a bit.
“No trouble, we’re giving Emmett a ride home, he lives across town,” Ben filled in, reaching out to steady the other
man. “Only, no puking in the back seat. It’s a rule.”
“Cool, thanks. Hey, Justin, I’m sorry if I brought up bad memories,” Liam said, turning back to his cousin and his
significant other. Justin just smiled slightly.
“Hey, Brian, we’ll see you Saturday,” Michael finished, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer. He turned to leave.
“Tell Brian I’m sorry, when he comes out of it,” Liam added.
“I will. It’s nice to meet you,” Justin finished, and watched the group walk away. “Brian. Brian?” He heard the
breathing against his ear, and how heavy Brian’s body was against his back. Mentally, he counted the shots of
whiskey backward, and watched as Ben practically carried Liam through the doorway. “Brian!”
“Hm? They go?”
Oh, just fucking great. Justin pushed backwards slightly, and Brian swayed back with the shove, enough so Justin
could turn around, and catch him by the shoulders. “That sucked,” Brian commented. At least he was standing.
“Like we need to think about that. Fucking family.” His words were running into each other, his eyes visibly
working to focus. That last shot… damn it, he knew he shouldn’t have done it.
“You want to get a cab?” Justin asked.
Brian peered down at him, squinting with one eye shut. “Uh huh. You should be in charge of that. Take the love of
your life with you.” He enunciated those last words slowly but not so clearly, then chuckled.
“Asshole,” Justin answered, grabbing his hand and pulling him out of Woody’s, so they could find a ride home.
***
“Come here.” The whispered command belied the drunken state he knew Brian was in, coming through the darkness
as Justin knelt at the foot of the bed, pulling off Brian’s socks.
Justin finished his ministrations, then climbed upward, pulling his own shirt over his head, dragging off his pants,
throwing them aside. He lay next to Brian in nothing but underwear, and began unbuttoning Brian’s shirt.
“He’s right, you know.”
Justin pressed his hand against Brian’s shoulder, swept the shirt off his arm. “Here, lift up, let me get this…” Brian
struggled up, and Justin peeled off his shirt, then ran his hand over the warm skin thus exposed. “Who’s right?” He
reached for Brian’s belt buckle.
“Liam,” Brian said, pressing his hardening dick against Justin’s fingers as his zipper came sliding down. “That was
going to get things serious. Why did it take a fucking bat to your head to make me get it?”
“Brian…” Justin began, his tone a clear warning. In it lay the whole mantra, it’s not your fault, don’t blame yourself,
you probably saved my life by being there. He didn’t need to actually say the words.
Brian kicked off his pants, and slid his hands down the back of Justin’s underwear, sliding them down around his
thighs, clearing the way for his hands over his rear cheeks. “Sometimes I wonder if I would have just kept being an
asshole to you, if that hadn’t happened. That’s shit, that I’d be grateful to something that almost killed you. That’s
sick.”
“No, it isn’t, it’s human. And I don’t think that’s true at all.”
“Whadjya mean?”
“I mean,” Justin answered, trying hard to form the words into coherency even as Brian’s lips nuzzled at that
sensitive spot just above his collar bone. “You yourself said that night was ridiculously romantic. Did you mean it,
not ironically? It was romantic, wasn’t it?”
Silence. Lips moving up, against soft skin at the neck, jawline, tip of tongue moving into play, tracing a warm, wet
path across the skin. “Yes.”
“I think we were moving into something more serious anyway. I think *you* were moving into something more
serious. I was already there.”
“I can’t lose you,” Brian said, his hands moving down the back of Justin’s thighs, grabbing his hamstrings and
pulling him in, closer. His words were thick with alcohol, and there was something else in his voice, a kind of
tension, something that Justin could not identify. “Take these fucking things off.” His knee hooked the underwear,
drawing it down Justin’s legs to where his foot could pull them all the way off. His knees nudged apart Justin’s legs
so he could tangle his own in them, entwining their bodies ever closer
“I’m not going anywhere,” Justin answered Brian’s former statement softly. He wasn’t sure what this was, and
didn’t want to say anything to break the strange but oddly comforting mood. Not that that seemed likely, now that
they were both fully naked, and Brian’s lips were moving over his cheek, grazing his mouth, Brian’s tongue coming
out to trace a slow, excruciatingly slow pattern across his lips, then leaning in, mouth possessing Justin’s, invading
tongue sliding over teeth, into the deep recesses. Then Brian pulled back, shifted them both onto their sides, their
bodies lined up, Brian’s chest at Justin’s back. He pressed his erection against the space between Justin’s upper
thighs, and placed his hand on Justin’s hip, kissed his shoulder blade, rested his forehead on Justin’s upper back. “If
I loved you…”
Justin held his breath, afraid to move. He took in the sensation of Brian’s hand as it opened up on his hip, slid down,
grasping Justin’s shaft as it jutted up against his stomach, moved his thumb onto the sensitive tip, letting it rest there.
“Just, let me love you, just shut up, let me…” Brian trailed off, his hand moving to create the friction, glorious
sensation, and before long, the satisfying burn of Brian pressing into him, slowly filling him, his movements careful,
and easy, and Justin realized he was recreating the time they had first made love after he had been injured. He
arched his back to take Brian in more fully, and turned his head back to the lips that waited for him.
***
Daylight poured into the loft when Brian awoke to find Justin propped up on one elbow, watching him. Oh, shit.
That look, what the fuck? What was that look about? “What?” he barked out, and winced. His head throbbed as
answer to his vocalization.
Justin grinned. “So you were fairly drunk last night.”
Right. Liam. And Justin with that look on his face. Like the Cheshire cat. “Oh, fuck, what did I do?” He flashed
through the evening, it was spotty, but there they were, oh, yeah, Liam and his stupid questions...
Oh, well, hell. He sat up, gasped in regret at the piercing pain that flooded him at his sudden action, and dropped
back down into the pillows.
“Don’t worry, Brian. I know what it was all about.”
Great. He couldn’t wait to hear this. Justin had been thinking. Worse, analyzing. That never boded well. He closed
his eyes. He did not have long to wait.
“Really, it’s okay, Brian. I know all that shmoopy stuff really wasn’t about me, well, not completely. Although I did
appreciate hearing how you feel. I know you really are upset over everything that’s happening with your family and,
even if you don’t admit it, Joan’s death. You’re somewhat in denial about how upsetting this is, even if,” Justin held
up a hand to forestall the words that would surely follow Brian’s drawn-in breath, “…even if you aren’t sorry Joan’s
dead, this whole situation brings back feelings you don’t really want to think about because they’re painful. So you
transferred the pain you buried, that’s been triggered by the death of your mother onto the memory of my attack,
because it’s safer for you to process. In psychoanalytic terms, you performed an act of transference away from the
uncontrollable object and onto the safe one. That would be me. Which is actually kinda cool, besides being kind of
fucked up.”
Brian snorted. “Thank you, Dr. Freud. Are you going to shut up and let me suffer in peace now?”
“It’s perfectly normal to feel upset about the death of your mother, and to be unable to acknowledge the level of
anger you have for not being allowed to love her. So instead, you asked me if you would, quote, let me love you.
Unquote. I think that was about a lot more than me, if it was about me at all. So don’t worry, I’m not going to get all
weird about what you said.”
“That’s just great.” Brian tried sitting up again, winced. “Either I’m all drunken sappiness over you, or I’m having
latent and unwanted sorrow about my bitch of a mother.”
“It’s okay, Brian, it’s okay to feel upset under the circumstances…”
“Can you please shut up? Seriously. You can shut the fuck up now. My head is killing me, and you’re going to
finish me off.” He covered his face with his hands, dropped back down to the mattress, and curled up into a ball.
“Told you I’d kill you with kindness.”
“I was hoping you’d fuck me to death instead.”
Justin laughed, and bounced out of bed. Brian seemed back to normal. Whatever that was.
Author’s Note: “Dead Alive” really is a movie directed by Peter Jackson, one of his early works. It is just as
described, and has to be seen to be believed.
V
Knocking, again. Justin opened his eyes slowly, coming out of the warm cocoon of half-sleep he’d been floating in,
sprawled out on the bed. The slant of the sun told him it was late afternoon, so he’d been asleep for longer than he
expected. Well, it was to be expected. He’d had an early class, getting up so Brian could drive him in, hung over
after their late night.
Knocking.
He’d kind of hoped it was Brian who would wake him from his nap, those wonderful hands and lips slowly drawing
him out of his state of sleep, dragging Justin up for the kind of comfort Brian seemed to need a lot of in the last few
days. Not that he would ever admit it. But Justin knew, despite Brian’s words, he was instinctively seeking warmth
to counter the cold shock of his mother’s death, the sudden change in his world. For whatever reason. Brian’s
resistance to admitting any emotion at all, his fierce rejection of any feeling whatsoever as far as this latest turn of
events, was just… wrong. Justin felt some weird lack of balance whenever Brian touched him, as if he were slightly
off-center. Or maybe he was merely projecting his own feelings onto Brian, the desire to not believe that Brian could
be so hard-hearted. He had to feel something.
Knocking.
“Yeah, yeah,” Justin called as he dragged himself out of bed, and walked barefoot, clad only in the sweat pants that
hung around his hips, “I’m coming.” Didn’t know why, the only knocking lately had been for Brian. “I just live
here,” Justin muttered, as he pulled the door open.
And came face to face with Claire. Oh. Just great.
“Uh… hi. Claire. He’s not here. I can tell him you stopped by.” He was not going to babysit his lover’s sister as she
got slowly drunk. Not again.
“Actually,” Claire replied, moving into the doorway. “I figured Brian would be at work. I’m here to see you.”
“Me?” Justin turned and walked to the bedroom and picked up the t-shirt he’d thrown aside earlier. Then he returned
to the kitchen, where Claire had seated herself on one of the seats at the bar counter. “You want some coffee, or
tea?” he asked. Not something to drink. Just like approaching Gus, he reasoned, offer only those choices you want
accepted.
“Coffee would be great.” Claire studied him as he turned to get the coffee out of the refrigerator. “I always
wondered what you were like,” she continued, watching him pour the beans into the grinder. Justin pressed his palm
down on the lid, and the whine of the machine filled the space, giving him a second to consider that.
“You knew about me?” he asked, pouring the grounds into a filter, and placing the filter into the machine. He took
the pot to the sink.
“Not exactly. There was that prom thing that was in the papers. Then, when Brian opened Kinnetik, there was a
picture with his arm around you in the social section. Mom almost had a heart attack. Her successful son, outed to
all her friends, the city.” Claire’s smile was sour. Justin turned on the water to fill the pot. Huh. He vaguely
remembered Ted mentioning that picture, but he had only glanced at it over Emmett’s shoulder, mostly noting that
he looked okay, but Brian looked awesome. Brian hadn’t said anything about it at all. “Mom called you ‘that boy,’
as in, if Brian doesn’t care for his own immortal soul, he should at least worry that he’s dragging ‘that boy’ into a
sea of iniquity. I’d tell her, he’s been with you this long, maybe he actually loves someone for once. She never
listened to me, that bitch. She never listened to anyone, but the voice of God in her head. Personally, I don’t think
that was God…”
Justin returned to the coffee machine and poured the water in, carefully putting the pot into place. He didn’t quite
know how to respond to any of this.
“I’m sorry I insulted you in your own home the other day,” Claire continued, meeting Justin’s eyes with her own. “I
get pretty bitchy when I’m upset.” She smiled, her lips a tight line. “Inherited trait.”
“Yeah, well…” The coffee pot gurgled. Else, nothing but quiet. Finally, Justin asked, “Are you here just to
apologize?”
She looked uncomfortable for a moment, then shook her head, the stringy hair swaying in front of her face. She
brushed it impatiently aside. “I don’t know how to reach him, Justin. I was hoping you could help me.”
“Reach him…” Justin repeated. He held himself absolutely still, much as he would if he were to come across a
rattler, curled up, head back, tail shaking.
“I can’t do this alone,” Claire continued. “I’ve got relatives descending, to say nothing of Mom’s church biddies.
You’d think the Church would be helpful at times like this. I’ve got Father Steven saying stuff like, it’s all for the
best, and I know if I ask him what the heck he means, he’s only going to say, you must have faith… Faith in what?
No one’s helping me. I’ve got to get that house together, do you know my mom didn’t leave a will? You know how
much the state takes when you don’t make provisions? The whole thing’s gonna go, and I don’t know who to call. I
can’t afford an attorney to sort this out. You’ll laugh, but I need to write an obituary and I just keep writing ‘Joan
Kinney, selfish drunken icicle, beloved by no one except for a supernatural being who may or may not exist.’ You
know, the only thing I’ve been able to do is pick out the dress to put her in, and that’s only because Brian actually
stopped by one of the twenty times I asked him, and...” She started laughing, almost hysterically. Justin became
worried when she didn’t stop. The coffee stopped perking. He took a mug out of the cabinet, poured coffee into it,
and slid it in front of Brian’s sister. She slowly stopped laughing.
“Want to share what’s so funny?” Justin asked, getting himself a mug.
“Um, not sure.” She peered at him over the rim of the cup, took a sip, and put it back down on the counter. She
smirked. “We’re dressing Mom in red for the funeral, forever in red.”
Justin stared, not sure he heard her correctly. “Red?”
“Yup,” Claire practically crowed. “I had two other dresses lined up, but then there was the red one. Oh, I really
wanted to just send it over myself, but… and I couldn’t send over the other ones. And one had to go, or she’d go into
the ground naked. It was like I was paralyzed, just like writing that obituary.” That red dress. Now Brian could be
blamed for it, and Claire got what she wanted. She smirked, considering the horror her mother would feel if she
could see her own corpse. “I mean, I loved my mother, but I hated her too. You know how much I hated her,
Justin?”
“I'm starting to have an idea,” he replied, extremely uncomfortable. He did not really know Claire. He felt he was
invading some territory he should stay out of. Through no fault of his own, but still.
“Brian took a look at those dresses, and said, ‘the red one,’ he made the decision, got another dig in I would never be
able to. He’s hard like that. I wanted to kiss him, but… you just don’t touch relatives affectionately.” She looked up,
a hard stare as she gazed intently at the man across from her. “You love him, don’t you?”
Justin wondered if she’d had anything to drink before getting here. “Yes. Very much.”
“Why?”
“Do you? Love him?”
She seemed taken aback for a moment, then a sly smile returned. “Sorry. I’m getting too personal, aren’t I?”
Justin nodded shortly, and sipped his coffee to hide his perplexity. Damn, these situations really made him feel his
age; he hated being made to feel so inexperienced. He wasn’t, either. It just struck him that Claire had an agenda,
and he had no idea what it was.
“Claire, why don’t you tell everyone to fuck off, and do what you want? Write a bitchy obit, say that she never did
anything for anyone who fell out of her step, and you’re not grateful.”
“I can’t.”
Justin sighed.
“It’s my community,” Claire explained, “the church. Those people. My sons are altar boys. It’s all I have. I clean
offices at night. My colleagues don’t speak English. I have no friends, no skills, no experience. I have a GED. There
are no other jobs. The only people who talk to me are people I see on Sundays at church. If I show how I really
feel… I’ll have nothing, and nowhere to go. Especially after the state takes Mom’s house.”
Man, what kind of job did their parents do on these kids, Justin wondered, eyeing Claire. “More coffee?” he asked.
Claire shook her head. “She loved him, you know. Both my parents did. He disappointed them about as much as
they loved him, so the fall from grace was big. Yeah, it’s screwed up, but at least they loved him. I didn’t even exist
as far as they were concerned. He was it, bet you didn’t know that.”
Justin shook his head. What the hell was she talking about?
“From the time he was born, he was the golden child. He was good at everything, sports, school, you name it. Me, I
was awkward. Gawky. The second he popped out and started talking at 18 months in whole sentences, teaching
himself to read at age three because my mom wouldn’t read as much as he wanted her to… they might not even
have had another kid. There are boxes of stuff that my Mom kept of his, packed away in the attic. You know he was
on a soccer team that went to nationals? He headlined the Pittsburgh sports section one Sunday. My dad cut it out,
and carried it around in his wallet, showing it to everybody. But he had nothing on Mom. Until about two years ago,
when she came home, and told me I had betrayed her by not telling me about my brother’s sinful lifestyle… was that
you she walked in on? She only said, ‘my son, corrupting that angelic boy…”
Justin almost spit out his coffee when he started laughing, but he managed to keep his lips closed, and so instead
only choked a bit. Angelic. Him.
“You okay? You fit the description,” Claire commented. “You’re gorgeous. But then, Brian would settle for nothing
less than the best. Mom used to say that, ‘my son has my refined taste. He certainly didn’t get that from his father.’
My father was pretty crude. Had a way of bullying everyone in his way. Everyone who disappointed him. The only
one more disappointed than him was Joan.”
“Uh…” Justin could think of nothing better. Then he shook himself mentally. He shouldn’t be listening to this.
“Claire, I can’t help you. You know how he is. I don’t influence him.”
“I don’t believe that. And do you think this is good for him, just shutting out his whole history, as if it doesn’t exist?
If nothing else, Mom’s death is closing a huge chapter in his life, in our life. Doesn’t that deserve some kind of
acknowledgement?”
Justin considered this, and remembered his own feelings earlier, that Brian’s urgent need to take comfort in Justin’s
body was as much of a release from the tension of the situation, and probably not the best way of handling his
emotions. But since when did Brian ever handle his emotions? He channeled them through his dick, letting out his
anger at the vulnerability he could not control through aggressive, physical means.
“I told you, she deserves nothing from me. What didn’t you hear?”
Both Claire and Justin jumped at the sound of Brian’s voice. He was leaning in the doorway to the hall. Claire had
failed to shut the door on her way in; Justin had been too distracted to double check.
Brian stalked into the loft, and walked into the kitchen, foregoing the coffee and grabbing the whiskey bottle under
the sink. Shit, Justin thought. This is not good. “Brian…”
“What, honey?” Brian returned, in a tone that could freeze the fresh-perked coffee in Justin’s mug. Justin pursed his
lips, deciding silence was best. For now.
“Brian…” Claire tried.
“What? Isn’t it enough that I don’t return your calls? Or emails? Can’t you take a hint, Claire? You want this done
right, whatever the fuck that means, you do it the way you want. I really don’t give a shit.”
“I can’t believe that,” his sister returned, pushing back the chair and standing up. “Not because she was our mother,
you think you’re the only one who suffered in that house, but I hated the old witch, probably more than you did. At
least you escaped. And you got this great place, your own business, a gorgeous boyfriend who loves you… and all
you can do is bitch about how much your parents sucked? What do I got? I got nothing, all the crap, and now the
state’s gonna take the house since mom didn’t leave a will, I’ve got relatives milling around the place, Father Steven
wants to know about the service, and I can’t even write… I can’t even write…” She started sobbing, laying her head
down on the counter. “And worst of all, I have to pretend, all the time, that I actually loved the woman, I have to go
around with this oh, poor momma dying… like that crap at the funeral home, pretending…”
"At my expense. Thanks, beloved family member. You really make me want to help you, Claire."
She looked up, her expression woebegone. "I don't know what else to do. If I come out with how I really feel, they'll
all abandon me. Then what will I have? Huh? I sure don't have you."
Brian stared at his sister, realizing she was possibly more fucked than he was. Not that that excused her. He looked
over at Justin, his expression completely neutral. “She get to you?” he asked. “Don’t bullshit me, Sunshine. What’s
going on in my gorgeous boyfriend’s head?”
Again, Justin heard the metaphoric rattle of the snake’s tail, but he was backed into a corner, and this was no time to
freeze. Fine, fuck it. “I think she’s right,” he said. The look of surprise on Brian’s face at his response quickly
dissolved into one of disgust. Claire sobbed on, as the two men faced off. “For yourself, not for Joan. This closes a
chapter in your life, one you yourself say you’re glad is ending. Isn’t the point of its ending the fact that the irritant
is gone? So do the work, put the period on it, and when it’s over, it’s over. Don’t look back. What do you have to be
so pissed off about anymore?”
Claire sobbed. Brian stared down at her. Then he looked back up at Justin. “That?” Justin spat out. “You’re kidding,
right?”
Brian’s arm snaked out, and wrapped around Justin’s waist. He drew him in, and kissed him, fiercely. When Justin
swam out of the heady sensation, he realized Claire had stopped sobbing, and was staring at them. “Claire,” Brian
said, not looking away from Justin’s face.
“Yeah?”
“Justin has a notebook and a pen over by his easel, across the room. Would you go get them?”
“Uh, sure…”
KINNEY, JOAN (nee McAfee), of Pittsburgh, on September 23, 2005. Wife of the late Jack. Bore children Claire
and Brian. Grandmother of three. Viewing Friday, 3-5 and 7-9 PM, at the Leslie Funeral Home, 220 Glen Street,
Pittsburgh. Funeral Mass at the Church of St. Patrick, Saturday, 10 AM.
“Can’t we say, celebration of death instead of viewing?” Claire asked wistfully.
Brian shook his head. “Can’t offend your community, Claire,” Brian mocked her. “Unless you're willing to say you,
not I wrote it?" Claire was shaking her head, as he knew she would, so Brian only continued, "Besides, a lot of time
it’s what you don’t say. Trust me. The message is clear to anyone who knows the usual format of these things. A lot
of the usual crap is missing, ‘beloved,’ etc.”
“I only have two children, Brian,” Claire reminded him, pointing at the “three grandchildren.”
“Yeah, I have one,” Brian returned, studying the copy for any last changes. Looked fine.
Justin glanced up, saw Claire staring at her brother. “What?” she whispered.
Brian looked up, calmly. “My friend Lindsay has a son. I’m the father.”
“I have a nephew?” Brian almost groaned, damn it, not the waterworks again. “Everyone’s going to ask about that,
everyone knows Joan only had two… well, they thought they knew… You have to bring him.”
“No.” That was definite.
“Brian…”
“No, Claire, he’s not to be exposed to that. I’m not going to bring him there as some sort of last ‘fuck you’ to my
mother. He doesn’t deserve to be used like that.”
“Besides,” Justin added, half-joking, “That’s my job.”
Brian’s eyes turned to him, and he sucked in his lower lip. “You don’t deserve that either. I shouldn’t do that to
you.”
“Oh, you have to,” Claire said before thinking. Damn it, not only a last slap to her mother, but the erasure of all
those old biddies’ ideas that Brian was the perfect child, Claire the loser. Easy for them to believe that. They never
saw Brian.
“I don’t have to do anything,” Brian returned.
“You’re bringing me,” Justin declared. “You’re not doing that *to* me, we’re doing that together. And do you really
want me there only because it’ll shock people?”
Brian wrestled with his answer; he really did. But Justin knew him, and that psychoanalysis he’d gotten in bed that
morning, well. It had made him think, despite his desire to avoid all of the ideas Justin had suggested. His wellestablished guilt over Justin, he could handle that. The idea that he was using that guilt to mask other, less desired
emotions, that he had not been prepared to consider.
Truthfully, he felt stripped. His drunken breakdown last night in front of a cousin he actually liked had been
unexpected, and embarrassing. Justin had been there to chill him out when, swear to god, he had really been about to
lose it; Justin’s “I’m fine, we’re fine,” echoing in his head as the one sane thing to hold onto. That’s right, we’re
fine. Last night had reminded him of a bad trip he’d had once in college; he had almost seriously lost his shit,
convinced under a dose of really bad LSD that his parents had discovered everything about his drug and sex life in
college, and had sent the police out to drag him off to prison forever. Kids he’d known for years suddenly turned
into undercover agents in his drug-addled mind, planted as students all along to haul him off to jail. And then his
friend Bobby, who’d been killed the next year in a motorcycle accident, Bobby had seen something like terror in his
eyes, and had told him, “It’s just the drugs, Brian. Go home. Put on Pink Floyd. It’s just the drugs, everything is
fine.” So he had. And everything had been fine.
Last night had echoed that bad trip. He wished he’d stayed home, watched the rest of that fucked-up movie with
Justin. He’d felt spacey all day, and then Liam, a blast from the past, all that whiskey, but what other way to distance
himself from the strange tension, his nerves on edge, a feeling like biting on tinfoil thrumming through him, and the
tension of concealing it, the need to escape the tension from without, from within? The only problem was, he’d felt
not only the tension, but that distance too, all day, all week. Like if he came in too close to any sort of reality,
allowed himself to feel anything at all, he’d lose it, as he had last night. Justin had it, spot on, he’d been practicing
emotional transference, turning his fucked up condition onto the safe object, the safe *subject,* the only one he
wanted to lean on. And the Great Kinney did not lean. But Brian ached to just relax from this tension, into the one
place he knew could hold him, nonetheless.
So did he want Justin at this funeral only for shock value? Honestly? No. Could he admit that? With Claire
watching? No. Even without her? He hoped he might… he didn’t know.
Justin watched him, and waited, but the only response from Brian was a stony stare. Justin sighed, and looked away,
over to where Claire was picking up the piece of paper on which the obituary was written out. “Thanks for this,” she
said, getting up to leave. “I’ll send it into the paper when I get home. Could you…” she hesitated. “Could you come
to the house tomorrow at noon? Father Tom’ll be there to talk about the service.”
“Claire, how did she die?” Brian asked. “Okay, she hit her head. But what happened?”
Claire just shrugged. “Not sure, but it was in the church. Father Steven found her. Ask Father Tom, he probably
talked to Father Steven about it.” She turned to Justin. “Thanks, Justin.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Claire smirked. “Uh huh. Brian? Could you come?”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll be there,” came the grudging return.
After she’d walked out, Brian wandered over to the couch, his glass of whiskey in hand, as Justin closed the door.
“Lock it,” Brian said. “Turn off the intercom, I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“I was gonna order Thai,” Justin answered.
“Okay, fine. Only open for the delivery.” He picked up the remote and switched the tv on. Gotta see the end of that
movie…
But Justin came over, and sat across from him, staring. Brian tried to pay attention to the action on the screen, but…
He sighed, and looked over at the piercing blue gaze. “What?”
“I know you hate this question, but really. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. What else would I be?” Eyes back on the tv.
“No, you’re not.”
“Why do you ask if you already know the answer?”
“Because I don’t know what to do for you.”
“You can suck my dick.”
“Brian.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“I know. Why were you ready to kill Claire, and then totally switched gears?”
Brian shifted his eyes back. He was very aware of the fact that Justin’s gaze was held steadily on him, as Brian’s
own darted all around, seeking, avoiding, away, returning. Stop doing that, he commanded himself. He shrugged.
“I just worry, Brian. This funeral’s gonna be hard for you. But I’m not sure how, exactly.”
“Well, if that’s true, then you better be with me so I don’t hurt myself, little caregiver, light o’ my life.”
“Fuck you, Brian.”
“Uh uh, you said you’d suck my dick, now come here.”
Justin grinned, knowing that Brian’s command that he “be with me so I don’t hurt myself” was the admission he
wouldn’t give earlier when directly confronted with his reasons for wanting Justin to go. He wanted Justin there, not
just for shock value. Justin was happy; he’d gotten the reply in Kinney-speak. He got up from his position, and
moved toward an infinitely preferable one
Part Three
VI
Warning: There is a scene in the following chapter which may be considered “sacrilegious” or even may be thought
of by some as “desecration.” If you have a strong belief that the places and stuff of religious institutions should be
held sacrosanct, I strongly encourage you to not upset yourself, and just skip this one.
“Hey, Brian,” Melanie greeted, holding the door open with one hand while the other clasped the baby against her
shoulder. “Come on in. Is Lindsey expecting you?”
Brian shook his head, noting Melanie’s subdued look. “Is she here?”
“She’s getting out of the shower. Gus is having breakfast. I’d offer you a bagel…”
“No, thanks,” Brian returned, heading into the kitchen.
“How ‘bout coffee, then?” Melanie asked, following him in.
“Daddy!” Gus yelled, pounding his spoon against the table, sending oatmeal flying.
“Gus…” Melanie started, but Brian had already crossed the room and plucked the boy out of his seat, holding him
up against his chest.
“Not a fan of oatmeal, sonny boy?” He smiled at his son as Melanie watched. She thought the smile was a bit sad.
Or maybe she was just projecting her own feelings. She had felt pretty down lately. The doctor had told her it was
perfectly natural, post-partum. Lord knows she’d been all over the place with the hormones during the pregnancy.
Her original instinct resisting the idea of getting pregnant had been spot on; it had really done a number on her. She
glanced down at the baby in her arms. All worth it, she thought. Now, just getting through these damn blues…
“I think he takes after his father,” Melanie observed, dryly, in an effort to distract herself, and a half-hearted attempt
at being her old self. Not that she was sure of who, exactly, she wanted to return to being. “Finicky eater. He’ll only
eat the apples and cinnamon oatmeal, not the plain, not the brown sugar and maple. Guess he’s got the same highly
developed taste.”
Brian glanced over. “You okay, Mel?”
She twisted her lips. “Yeah, I know, I’m not coming out swinging with the obvious gut shots. Quite a change, huh?
Just, not enough energy.”
“Don’t worry, slugger,” Brian returned, “give yourself a year or two, and you’ll be ripping me a new one all over
again.”
“Ripping new one!” Gus echoed.
Brian raised his eyebrows, looked down at his son. “Do you repeat everything?”
“Everything!” Gus agreed.
Melanie laughed. “Yeah, seriously, no swearing around the kid anymore!”
“Shit!” Gus yelled.
Brian sucked his lips between his teeth, bit down on them to stop himself from laughing. “Oh? We learn this the
hard way?”
“Yes, indeed,” Lindsey answered, coming into the kitchen, raking her fingers through her still-damp hair. “Mommy
messed up.” She took Gus from Brian, kissing the latter on the cheek before putting Gus back into his seat and
handing him the spoon. “Finish your oatmeal, Gus,” she ordered. “How you doing, Brian? What brings you by? Is
Justin okay?”
Why did everyone always assume it was about Justin? Brian wondered, considering how to tell Lindsey about his
mother. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to take Gus tomorrow …” he started, hedging over the real issue.
“Damn it, Brian, you promised!” Lindsey said, raising her voice.
“Damn it!” Gus echoed, beating his spoon. Melanie moved to the chair next to Gus, and picked the spoon out of his
fist, surreptitiously eyeing the two across the table, squaring off. She was staying out of that. Hadn’t she learned the
hard way? When Lindsey told her that Brian had encouraged her to leave right after Jennie was born, Mel had at
first been furious; a whole new (or old, depending on how one looked at it) reason to fight had been spawned.
But then, somewhere in the middle of one of her and Lindsey’s blow outs, she realized she was too tired to fight.
Who had the energy for it? It was a huge waste of time. Literally in mid-shout, she’d stopped, and unconsciously
echoed Lindsey’s own statement from a few months before. “I can’t do this anymore, Linds. Fuck Brian. He’s got
his own problems. You’re the one listening to him. That’s the problem. You always listen to him. You never listen
to me.”
“That’s because you always just criticize me,” Lindsey had returned, suddenly put off the fight herself by the
unexpectedly level tone of her wife. “You always want everything your way, you’re never willing to accommodate
what I need too. It’s always all about you… you’re just like him.”
“What?” Mel had not been expecting that.
“You have your ideas about how you want to live, and no one gets in the way of that. You’re just like Brian. Look at
what happened when his life got disrupted by Justin’s needs. Look how he solved that.”
“They seem to be getting along just fine.”
“Sure, now. But you blame Justin for running off on him over and over? And look what he had to do when he came
back, he practically rolled over for him.”
“He wasn’t running off this last time, he was fulfilling his career goals.”
“Oh, sure,” Lindsey scoffed. “But Brian pulled that door wide open by never trying to compromise, by never trying
to talk to Justin about his needs, where he was coming from.”
Mel did not want to talk about Justin and Brian. She wanted to discuss Lindsey. “You ever consider that Brian has
his own agenda when he told you to leave me?”
“What?”
“He had a hellish childhood. First sign of trouble, he checks out, and pulls the door wide open for an exit out.
Lindsey, come on, consider the source. And I may make all this about me, but baby, I was fighting you for us, all the
way. I wasn’t fighting you to keep my own private sense of self intact, with you on the outside. I was fighting you to
try to keep intact my sense of us. Maybe I need to revise that, but I’m trying, I’m begging you to tell me what the
hell is going on with you so I can at least see where we might be able to go from here.”
Lindsey had stopped then, and frowned. Then she started to smile. “We’re really nothing like them, are we? I mean,
are we really comparing ourselves to two emotionally fucked gay men?”
“I think we may be too close to being able to,” Melanie conceded, twisting her lips in reply.
“Let’s not then. Maybe what you just said is the problem.”
“What’d I just say?”
“You were fighting for your sense of us. Do we really know who ‘we’ are anymore?”
Melanie sighed. “I thought I did… but that whole Sam thing changed my vision of you, which changes my vision of
us. I just don’t know anymore…”
“So how about we skip the drama, and try therapy?”
That simple. Well, not that simple, there had been a hell of a lot of work since. Long, painful work, with two
demanding children. But it was in therapy that it had first been suggested that Melanie may be suffering from postpartum depression.
Was that fight the moment they had started to work together, begin to get back together?
They still had a ways to go. Now, Melanie kept her mouth shut when she watched these two. Her fight wasn’t with
Brian, she knew that now. Her fight was with Lindsey, and the fact that her wife had a thing for guys, a thing
Melanie had been forced to acknowledge since the Sam debacle. She had been unwilling to acknowledge that
before, and had instead cast her hostility onto Brian, so she could allow herself the luxury of believing there was no
real trouble with the way she saw Lindsey. It was better that she admit it, though, if only to herself. She hated this
part of Lindsey. It threatened everything she believed in. Who was it who said, familiarity breeds contempt? She
sure as hell didn’t want that to be their fate. They had a lot still to work on.
But she had stopped brow-beating Brian. He had chalked it up to her baby blues. Whatever, she thought. She sure as
hell didn’t want him to know the real reason. Although Lindsey would probably spill her guts to him about it at
some point. Mel hoped Lindsey would be too embarrassed to admit her thing for guys was really a thing for Brian, at
least too embarrassed to admit it to the guy at the heart of the whole issue. But Mel just didn’t know anymore.
“My mother died, the funeral’s this Saturday. Claire’s insisting on a wake, so Friday’s out too.”
Silence. “Oh, Brian, I’m so sorry,” Melanie murmured, secretly glad at the look of shame that spread over Lindsey’s
face at her asshole response before she had even given him a chance to explain. There was a lot of resentment in
Lindsey, bottled up under that cool, perfect exterior. Melanie had only begun to see it, and had screamed, as was her
way, from the moment she had caught a glimpse, from the moment she had learned about Auerbach. Lindsey kept it
all in, hidden away, even from herself. It was that last bit that scared Melanie the most.
“Yeah, thanks,” he replied, offhand, not sounding upset at all.
“Are you okay?” Lindsey asked, carefully, watching him.
“You know I’d much rather hang out with Gus,” Brian said, placing his hand on his son’s head. Gus grinned up at
him.
“When’s the funeral?” Lindsey asked.
“Saturday. You don’t have to come.”
“Don’t be silly,” Melanie replied. “Of course Lindsey should go.”
Lindsey looked over at her, her eyes softening, and mouthed silently, “Thank you.”
Mel nodded back. “Do you want Gus there, Brian?”
That startled Lindsey. Gus hadn’t been at Jack’s funeral; Brian hadn’t wanted him there, too many questions from
family, and she just assumed he wouldn’t want Gus there now, either.
“Claire knows about him,” Brian said, almost off-hand. “I wrote up the obit with the correct number of Joan’s
grandchildren. It’s bound to raise questions.”
Lindsey blinked. More surprises. It was almost as if… almost as if she didn’t know him anymore, but no, that was
ridiculous. She shook her head, and Brian took note. “If you don’t think he should be there, then he shouldn’t.”
Lindsey gazed levelly at him. “What do you think would be best?”
That took him by surprise. Where Gus was concerned, he had not had much input. But since he had started taking
care of the child, especially during the more turbulent moments, days, of Lindsey and Mel’s breakup, reunion,
whatever it was, he had been deferred to on a regular basis. “I think it might be best if I field questions about Gus
before he’s presented. Suddenly having him at the center of attention… it might be overwhelming for him. Not an
appropriate forum for introduction.” He reached out, took Gus’s little hand. “How you doing, little man?”
“Up Daddy!” Gus held his arms up, and Brian picked him up easily.
Lindsey looked over at Melanie, who smiled back. Wow, Brian thinking outside the rarified atmosphere in the two
feet around himself. Melanie was impressed. “I’ll watch him and Jennie on Saturday. You won’t mind if I don’t go,”
she said. The last was not a question.
“I wish I didn’t have to go, I wouldn’t curse anyone with this, not even you, Mel.” He looked over, around the little
hand that was attached to his nose, and Melanie couldn’t help but laugh. Thank god, a dig, a small one, but the
familiar tone was a welcome relief.
Justin got into the Corvette and buckled himself in, as Brian tore away from the curb, spinning the wheel at the same
time so that the back of the car spun out, turning them completely around, before Brian’s foot hit the gas and they
accelerated up to 50 in seconds.
“Jesus, slow down!” Justin gasped. “The city speed limit’s 30!”
And there it was - his own little public service announcement with him at all times. He was wondering when one
would pop up – it had been while. He glanced over to the pasty cast of Justin’s cheek, and smiled. “I just adore the
look on your face when I do that,” he teased. “You know I’m in complete control…”
“Hmph,” Justin grunted, glaring at him. “Yeah, I remind myself of that every time you freak me out.”
“So what, reminders daily?”
“At least,” Justin conceded. He stared at Brian’s profile. “But it isn’t just me that prompted that little display of
power, as much as I love your flattery.”
“What flattery?”
“That it’s all about me.”
“Do I have to keep reminding you? it’s all about *me.*”
“You’re nervous, aren’t you? You always get aggressive when you’re nervous.” Justin continued, ignoring that last
bit. “Well, more aggressive than usual.”
Brian’s turn to glare. “Nervous. About this? Claire and a couple of priests? If those guys give you the shakes, just
remember Father Tom on all fours. You know, I bet you could have him this afternoon, if you wanted…”
“Yeah. I doubt that. Father Tom’s not the problem, it’s Claire. Your sister makes me really nervous, even if you got
her locked away in the cooler that is your brain,” Justin continued. He knew better than to ask Brian directly if he
was angry at him for Claire’s little visit the day before. He still could not figure out why Brian had given in; he
knew it wasn’t just because of what he, Justin, had said.
Brian looked over, really looked at him, assessing. “Do you not want to do this with me?” he asked.
“No! I do! It’s just… I don’t get her. She freaks me out.”
Brian laughed at that, and looked back at the road.
“I’m not kidding! First she tells you she loves your mother and out of respect, you’re not to bring me to this thing.
Then she comes to see me herself, and tells me she hated her mother, and that she’s wondered about me, and
actually gives me enough credit to be able to get through to you, after suggesting that she’s actually okay with the
idea that we actually love each other…”
“Did she say that?” Brian turned onto the main artery that would take them across town.
“Not in so many words…”
“Nope, just enough to suggest what you might want to hear. You’re her tool, Justin. Everyone’s a tool to her. Let me
tell you about my sister, she is a real piece of work. She worshipped my Dad; in fact, her temperament is almost
exactly like his, totally self-serving and right out there. My mother may have been a bitch on wheels, but at least she
was consistent. With my dad, and with Claire, you never know. Her temper suits what she wants at the moment. You
can’t believe anything they say.” He glanced over at Justin, whose mouth had dropped open.
“I just figured…”
“Yes?”
“I just thought she was really upset that first time. She seemed so sincere yesterday.”
“The excessive crying, telling people what they want to hear… you think I didn’t know about that red dress? I
figured it out about twenty minutes after I took off. In fact, I bet she actually went out and bought that thing herself,
knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist dressing our mother up in Satan’s color.”
Justin stared at him. “Surely she wouldn’t go that far…”
Brian bit back a laugh at what sounded so endearingly naïve to him. He knew Justin wouldn’t appreciate his
amusement. “I just haven’t been around Claire enough lately to clue in immediately. But her little visit to you behind
my back brought it all back.” He hesitated, but added, “I’ve actually started being around *you* too much, you
make me forget about things like Claire’s little tricks.”
“Thanks,” Justin acknowledged, a genuine smile gracing his lips. He reached out and stroked Brian’s shoulder.
“It’s not a compliment,” Brian snapped as he shrugged the hand off. “You make me forget things I should
remember.”
“It is a compliment. And it should make you realize, while a lot of people are shits, not everyone is. The trick to
living well is figuring out who’s who, and sticking with those of us who love you.”
Brian rolled his eyes. “Anyway… Claire’s like my father. Our mother hated him. And she hated Claire because
Claire was like him. I was more like her, hate to admit it, but there it is. Single minded, and fairly sharp.”
“And not a little full of himself.”
“Yeah, okay, she was a self-absorbed cunt, and so am I. Happy?”
The tone made Justin draw his head back, and he drew his lips together tightly, afraid of saying the wrong thing.
Brian glanced over at him. “I never wanted to drag you into any of my family shit.” His tone had changed yet again,
tinged with regret, and softened. Justin took this as an apology.
“I can deal with it. I mean, this is tough for you, it would be for anyone, all this crap. And let me guess, your mother
was moody when stressed, too…”
Lips twisted at that last. “I mean, I never wanted anyone else dragged into this. My life. I’m fucked up, okay? But
it’s not just me, anyone I touch gets dragged in, they’re like emotional vampires, suck the life out of you. Claire’s
visit, you think that surprised me? You asked me why I gave into her, why I turned that 180 yesterday?” At Justin’s
silence, he continued, “If I didn’t go along with this, she would find a way to get to me through you. That was only
the beginning, her lure of sweetness. She’d switch tactics, until one works. You were right. I need to just get this
over with.”
“So… Claire’s the Borg? Resistance is futile…”
“You have to stop watching those Star Trek re-runs.”
“Maybe she’s sick. You wonder if she’s bipolar? Maybe all she needs is someone who really cares about her.”
“All she needs is love?” Brian snorted.
“It didn’t hurt you.”
Face off, Brian’s look sour, Justin’s patient. Finally, Justin gave in. “Don’t worry, Brian, I can handle her. Besides, I
have you to protect me. Right?” He batted his lashes.
Brian only nodded, not sure if Justin was really kidding about that last part. Brian certainly took it seriously. He was
more worried than he let on. No one “handled” Claire; that was part of the problem. She had a persecution complex,
huge insecurities, and a need to control everything she came into contact with. She lied with little compunction, but
the worst thing about her was that she believed her own lies; so when she told Justin “I always wondered what you
were like” (yes, Brian had been standing outside the loft door for the entire conversation), she really meant, she had
been interested in him since she realized he could be useful, probably somewhere around 10 a.m. that morning. But
she had, actually, convinced herself that she had indeed been interested long before that morning, she had convinced
herself she had been interested in Justin since becoming aware of his existence in her brother’s life years before. She
believed that her interest was real and long-standing, when it was anything but. And Justin… well, Justin was a truly
good person. And he’d had that innocent, idealistic part of him hurt enough by events in his life. Justin’s bones and
skin were made of the same substance, there was no mask, it was all genuine. His deep structure was securely
connected to what the world saw. Secure. That was the word. And Brian was damned if he was going to let anyone,
himself included, ever allow that quality, the thing that made Justin move beyond attractive into truly beautiful, the
thing Brian had finally figured out accounted for that dazzling glow of his partner, that genuineness (and he still
couldn’t believe it, every time he thought about it, that Justin was even real, and that someone like that would be at
all interested in someone like Brian, to actually really and truly love him), there was no way in hell he was going to
allow that security of Justin’s spirit to be bruised as deeply as it had been, not ever again. Not if he had anything to
do with it.
But all he said was, “I’ll handle Claire. All you need to think about is handling me,” and he leered across the space
Justin’s turn for the eye roll. “I know it’s part of why you never wanted to get involved with anyone. It’s not just
because your history made you think people would always screw you, it’s because you never wanted to have
someone you cared about that much get hurt. It’s why you always kept Michael at arm’s length, isn’t it?”
Brian looked away. They had pulled up to his mother’s house; he parked in front on the street, and cut the engine.
Justin took off his seat belt, then turned his body fully against Brian, who hadn’t moved. “I’m a lot tougher than
Michael and you know it. We both know we can end up abandoned and alone because people suck, and shit
happens. Even Michael could, he just doesn’t know it, he’s never had anything that drastic happen to him, but it
could. I am going to go through this shit with you and it’s not going to shake me. Nothing will, not anymore. You
shouldn’t doubt my ability to handle not just you, but all that shit that comes with you.”
Brian kissed him, softly, a kiss that lingered, their lips touching and holding, a kiss that conveyed all of the love he
deeply felt for this incredible person. Maybe one day the vocal expression of those feelings would match his use of
the physical expression of them. The actual words just didn’t feel natural; he wanted so much, when (when! It had to
be *when*) he said them out loud, he wanted them to sound right, not to feel alien or strange when they emerged
into the air between them. He loved Justin, deeply, and those feelings deserved the homage of rightness. He just
didn’t know if that kind of vocalization was possible for him. It all went back to the very shit that he was dragging
Justin into.
Justin’s smile, so gentle as he pulled away. “I love you too, Brian.”
Brian reached up and stroked his cheek, for just a moment. “You ready?”
“Yup.”
Father Steven gave Justin the serious creeps.
Claire had let them into the house, and Father Tom smiled warmly at Justin and Brian when they walked into the
living room. No problem with Father Tom. He always had been quite easy to, uh, get along with. After a brief hello
with Tom, Claire had introduced Father Steven. “Father Steven will actually be conducting the service.”
“Your mother was very generous with her time, and was devoted to the church. I’m moving to another church soon,
but wanted to be sure to give her my last gift.”
Give her my last gift? Justin thought as he watched Brian’s hand clasped in the fat, graying priest’s hand. That’s a
weird thing to say.
“And who might this be?”
“I *am* Justin,” Justin replied. Brian glanced at him on hearing the edge in Justin’s voice.
“My brother’s boyfriend,” Claire added. She smiled at Justin, who gave her a lopsided grin in return. Snake or not,
she was playing charmer, and he could handle that. Brian’s glance moved to his sister, and his lips twisted.
“Oh…” Father Steven said, but reached out and shook Justin’s hand. Justin felt his palm taken in by damp, cool
skin. He shivered, a very bad reaction running through him, and pulled his hand away as soon as he could. What the
fuck? he thought.
“Why don’t we all sit?” Claire said. “Anyone want coffee?”
“Please,” Justin replied, desperate for something warm inside him. “Do you need help?”
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” she waved him off as she left the room.
Damn, he thought, sitting on the couch, and scooting as close to Brian as he could without appearing to be weird
about it, pressing his right thigh against Brian’s left. Brian looked over, raised an eyebrow, but placed his hand
behind the small of Justin’s back, open palm warm. Justin sighed and relaxed, and Brian looked over again,
murmured, “You okay?” Justin nodded once, and cut his gaze over to Father Steven. Brian followed his partner’s
glance, wondering what Justin’s sudden stiffness was all about. Well, there were other things to be dealt with at the
moment. He could ask Justin later.
“How did my mother die, Father Steven? I understand you discovered her body?”
Father Tom opened his mouth to speak, but Father Steven cut him off. “Yes, unfortunately, so terrible. I had been in
the office working, so I did not even know she was there. She must have been praying, alone in the church. No one
else was there.”
“And no one else was around? Isn’t that, well, strange?” Justin asked. Maybe it wasn’t strange. He had no idea,
really, why the scenario struck him that way; God knows he hadn’t been in a church since he’d been baptized as a
formality as a baby. He had no idea what strange was when it came to Catholics.
“The church’s doors are open to the public at specific times during the day, Justin,” Brian said. He apparently knew
the policies. Justin wondered what Brian’s religious background was, exactly, beyond “Catholic.” He’d never asked
him for details. It was not exactly a hot topic.
“Yes, and Joan had access even when it wasn’t,” Father Tom said, his tone clipped. Father Steven’s eyes cut to the
other priest, just for a second.
Something was up, Justin thought. He just knew. He never talked about this sort of thing with Brian, or anyone for
that matter; he could imagine the response. Still, he got these weird feelings every once in a while that alerted him to
currents he had no way of understanding through any logical explanation. These feelings weren’t like voices, or
anything that might be put into words. It was more like a sensation, sort of like a muse. When he got the urge to
draw something; he would see something in the world that caught him, as if it had sharper edges than everything
else, or glowed with a light of its own. Might only be a picture in his own head, but it spoke to him. Not exactly
spoke, just presented itself, strongly. Some presence that his human consciousness was too undeveloped to clearly
perceive, but could sense on the outer edges of instinctual knowledge, and only came to life after he’d started
working the idea out on a piece of paper, or the computer screen. That was the best he could explain these odd
sensations, and he’d tried to explain them, if only to himself. There was some connection that sometimes caught him
in certain situations, resonating to his heart or soul or whatever you wanted to call it, opening up the future so he
could read the future as if what was coming at him had already happened. Like that Kip Thomas thing. He’d known
not only that Brian was going to be okay, he’d also known that Kip would cave to pressure applied, and so he’d
sought him out and applied the pressure. He had felt guided by something beyond himself, and he hadn’t been
nervous for a second, even though what he was doing was nothing short of blackmail, with no logical guarantee of
success. And it wasn’t just Brian situations, either, although his instincts when it came to Brian were nothing short
of perfect. Well, until after his head crushing. Then, he’d been blank for a long time, nothing vibrated, everything
presented as a blank surface he could not penetrate. But then, when Brian had taken on the Stockwell campaign,
suddenly there was that vibration again, and he had known he needed to act. THAT was scary, but only because it
had been in opposition to Brian’s wishes. And still, he’d known, that instinct was telling him, everything was going
to be fine if he did what he had just known had to be done. And everything had been fine. Thank god.
Here again, looking at Father Steven, something was just… off. He glanced over at Brian, who was listening to the
priest express his sorrow at finding Joan, obviously dead, lying in the center aisle of the church, cold on the cold
stone floor. She’d apparently tripped, and hit her head against a pew. They already knew, the autopsy had revealed a
blood alcohol level of .25. Brian removed his arm from behind Justin’s back as Claire re-entered the room and
placed the coffee service on the side table, and began pouring coffee for everyone. “Thanks,” Justin murmured,
leaning forward and accepting a cup.
Finally, Claire sat. “Father Steven,” she said, placing her cup in its saucer on the coffee table in front of her, “how is
the service going to go? I think we just need to know what we need to do. Is there a form we follow?” She glanced
over at Brian, who had crossed his arms over his chest, and was gazing blankly at the fat priest.
“Well, yes, actually,” Father Steven replied. “Many families prefer to have readings. There are places in the service
where personal tributes can be worked, readings, for instance, should you want her grandchildren to read a poem, or
a personal piece…”
“No.” Brian’s voice was abrupt. “Is it possible that you can just do one of the Catholic numbers, straight forward,
right out of the book?”
“Brian,” Claire started, then stopped. She looked over at Father Tom. “Father Tom, I assume you could say
something about my mother’s work in the church, how much it meant to her.”
“Oh, of course,” Father Steven replied in Tom’s stead, “She was just a gem in handling so much of the necessary
work for the church, helping out with the needy, organizing the swap market fund raisers…”
“Fuck that,” Brian interrupted. Both priests visibly winced, but Brian didn’t appear to notice, or care. “Just the
service, the graveside ashes to ashes bit. You want my input, Claire? You got it. Fuck the personal shit. I want this
simple, straightforward, and over with as soon as possible.”
“You aren’t the only one who felt anything, Brian,” Claire snapped.
“Oh, you think John’s going to want to get up and recite 2 Corinthians? Love is patient and kind, love is not jealous
or boastful… like that travesty at Dad’s funeral? As if either of our parents knew anything about that passage, what
it meant. I wanted to puke, I won’t put myself, or anyone else through that again.”
“Now, Brian, a funeral is a good time to bury any lingering feelings of anger…” Father Steven started, but stopped
abruptly with the acidic glare turned his way.
Father Tom jumped in. “Funerals are, of course, more about the feelings of the living, and coming to terms with the
larger specter of death. If you feel the straightforward service without embellishment is best, it may be the best for
you. And, Claire, John has seemed upset enough by recent events. Brian may have the best idea, to have a simple
service, and let everyone get through as best he can.”
“Or she can,” Claire replied, and sighed. “I suppose.”
“You know I’m right.”
Justin wondered at the steely edge in Father Tom’s voice. He watched the look that passed between the priest and
Brian’s sister, and then he glanced over to Father Steven, who was busy studying his fingertips, then over at Brian,
whose entire body language was stiff, and defiant, his arms crossed over his chest, legs sprawled out. Brian saw
Justin staring at him, and raised an eyebrow. Justin offered a small smile, that seemed to shake Brian out of his
mood, slightly. He sat forward. “Good, Claire, are we in agreement on that one? Father Steve here wants to give
mother his… what was that? The final gift of your tongue?”
“I’d like to conduct the service, yes,” Steven blushed slightly. Justin put a hand on Brian’s thigh, which Brian
ignored, completely, not even a relaxing of the muscles beneath his palm. Okay, then…
“Fine. Claire, straightforward, then?”
“All right,” his sister agreed, looking into her cup of coffee.
“Okay, then,” Brian said. “Now, about the wake. You get the afternoon viewing, I’ll be there for the 7-9. Got a
problem with that?”
Claire shook her head, saying nothing, still not looking up. There was silence.
“Fine,” Brian finished. “Father Tom, I want to see the spot where my mother died.”
Father Tom started at that, frowned, and hesitated. “You want to see…”
“Yeah, you know where it is, right? I want to see it.” He stood, grabbed Justin’s forearm, and hauled him up. Justin
managed to get on his feet without spilling his coffee all over himself, and set the cup down on the coffee table.
“Certainly, Brian, if you feel it will help you,” Father Tom said, standing himself.
“Okay, Claire, you need me, you know where we’ll be.” He paused, laughed. “Well, out fucking’s not quite exact, is
it? You have my cell phone number, right?”
Claire looked away. Father Steven practically fled the room in front of them. Father Tom just shook his head.
“Care to explain that?” Justin asked, staring at Brian’s profile as he drove them toward the church.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? You think you could have done more to offend the priests?”
“Tom hardly deserves my respect, I’ve been in that man’s ass. And Father Steven… give Joan a final gift. She was
just a fucking gem to the church, wasn’t she?”
Justin decided not to address this; it didn’t seem to be the right time. “Why are we going to see where your mother
died? Isn’t that kind of…” He let the suggestion hang, not really sure what it was. Creepy. Weird. Morbid. Pick one.
Brian glanced over at him, and didn’t speak for a long moment. Finally, he took a deep breath. “Last time I left that
church, I vowed I wouldn’t be back. And here I am. Okay, not exactly the same as returning with Joan alive and
lording it over me, but still.” He wasn’t going to tell Justin that he felt Joan’s advantage on home turf was too great
in that place, and he felt, well, diminished, like he was a kid again, whenever he walked into the church. God, just
think of how outrageously Joan had spoken to him at Kinnetik, where he was Master of the Universe! Well, at least
owner of the company. She had no comfort zone or support within the walls of Kinnetik, and still she somehow
reduced him to that angry (okay, scared) kid again. Bad enough, the way she spoke to him there. The church was
enemy territory, the way his mother reduced his sense of self lingered over the place. He wanted to experience it
alone, before he had to face that again, with an audience of family and friends of Joan Kinney, an audience of the
enemy, watching him, watching. But he only said in response to Justin’s question, “I want to see it before the
funeral, so I don’t do something like a jig over the spot. If I need to do that, I want to do it when no one else is
around. It’s going to be strange enough, being in that place….”
Justin eyed him. A jig? Was he kidding? “Yeah, I guess I can understand that,” Justin answered, letting it go. He
was glad, in any case, that the subject of discomfort had come up. “Father Steven really weirded me out. Did he
strike you as, well, off?”
The breath exploded from Brian’s lips in an incredulous burst. “All priests strike me as off. Steven’s right up there.”
“Well, I know he pissed you off, but it was something else I couldn’t put my finger on…”
“He’s obviously completely repressed.”
“You think he’s gay?”
Brian shrugged. “Not necessarily. But he’s got a bug up his ass on a sexual level.”
“You think he’s a pervert?”
“Jesus Christ, what is this? What difference does it make? All I wanted him to do was shut his mouth about Saint
Joan and tell me what I wanted to hear! All right?”
Justin shut his mouth. Whoa. Then he ventured, “All right. Brian… Are you gonna be okay?”
“Just fucking peachy.” The rest of the ride was in silence. Luckily, it didn’t take too long.
“She died right here.” Father Tom indicated a spot three pews back from the front, in the central aisle, to the right
side. “They think she hit her head on the corner of this pew.”
There was a new runner that covered the right side of the central carpet. “We will have to replace this section of the
carpet; it’s stained with her blood.” Brian lifted the small runner that had been placed over the spot, revealing the
slightly darker red of the original red carpet. He dropped the smaller piece back down. “Left her blood staining the
church, bet she died happy.”
“Brian.” Father Tom directed his attention to himself. “I am sorry you never got to make your peace with your
mother. If it’s any consolation, she told me she loved you.”
Brian shook his head. “Joan didn’t know what love was.”
“Yes, she could not accept the lifestyle choice you made.”
“Coming from you?” Brian sat at the end of the third pew, “I’m afraid I can’t credit your opinion much either.”
Justin hovered back from this conversation.
Father Tom sighed. “I know. She said she loved me on more than one occasion; I told her what she loved was what I
represented. She just smiled, I don’t think she understood what I meant.”
“How could she? You never allowed her the courtesy of taking off that priestly mask you’ve got on. But,” Brian
sighed, “we both know how wonderful a person my mother was, if she discovered anything resembling human
beings, as opposed to the perfection that is your God.”
“I can understand your pain,” Father Tom soothed. “We all live our lives the best we can. And you found love,
despite how you perceive your parents’ interests in you. Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive your mother?”
“She never asked me to,” Brian stated, turning his eyes to the front of the church.
Justin felt a constriction around his chest at Brian’s tone. He looked up at the high, vaulting ceiling, then over to the
shadowy corners at the far aisles where the pews ended. The place was huge, and cold.
“I understand what you’re trying to do,” Brian continued, “Not that I don’t appreciate it.” Justin heard his tone,
though, knew this was his “pretense-at-concession-while-trying-to-get-this-person-the-fuck-away-from-me voice.
“Do you think you could give us a few minutes, Father Tom? I’d like some time, alone.”
It seemed to work. “Certainly,” Tom replied. “I’ll lock up, I’m on my way out anyway. Exit at the sacristy, just
make sure the door shuts behind you.”
Brian nodded, and continued to stare hard at the giant crucifix hanging above the altar, just beneath the stained glass
window. Justin looked around, felt the hushed atmosphere, watched Brian’s grim countenance settle on the cross, at
the bloody figure hanging off of it. Why do they want to scare people like that? Justin wondered. He wondered, too,
if that was the last thing Joan saw, and wondered how it could possibly have made her feel in her last moments.
Comforted? He couldn’t imagine. “I can go, too, if you need a moment,” he said, in the low voice this place seemed
to demand of him. Brian’s arms were draped over the pew in front of him. He looked up at Justin, an inscrutable
expression on his face. His lips relaxed, and he smiled slightly as he stood, and took Justin by the elbow. “Is he
gone?”
The side door slammed shut. “Apparently.”
Brian stood, and walked Justin up to the front of the church, until they reached the railing that separated the altar
from the congregation, Justin resisted. “I’m not Catholic.”
“Haven’t you ever wanted to see the view from up here?” Brian slid his hand down to slip into Justin’s, tugging him
up the three steps, to just in front of the altar. “Besides, don’t you want to share a moment of my youth?”
He couldn’t say he didn’t. “Which moment are we talking about?” Justin asked, allowing himself to be propelled to
the altar. He looked at the cloth-covered bulk at the center, the candles on either end.
“I was an altar boy,” Brian told him. He moved to a seat against the wall, to the right of where Justin stood,
watching him. “I used to sit in this seat…” he sat, “…and watch the people in the congregation. There were two
guys, a married man probably in his twenties, and a kid, a little older than me. Something about them… I would sit
here, and not hear a word of the sermon. I could see my mother’s face, she would have me pinned in her gaze,
waiting for me to fuck up. If she decided I did, when we got home she’d tell Jack. He didn’t go to church. But he
was willing to let me know exactly how big a failure I was, that I would never amount to anything. Detail exactly
how big a piece of shit I was. And she would stand there, her lips a tight line, arms crossed over her chest, nodding.”
Brian’s eyes turned from the empty pews over to Justin. “Good thing a hard on was concealed in all those robes. The
other altar boy and I would fool around sometimes. But only in the back. I had a fantasy of fucking him on the
altar.” He seemed lost in that thought for long moments. Then his eyes refocused, centered on Justin, who held
himself motionless at the center of the hallowed space. Brian stood, and approached his lover, who began to shake
his head, mouthing, “No.” When Brian continued toward him, Justin said aloud, “No, Brian, no, no fu…” he
stopped, appalled at his use of that word in this place, and corrected himself, “no, no way.”
But Brian continued to stalk through the space, moving to the altar itself. He took first one candle, then the other,
and place them both on the floor behind him. Then he lifted the sacramental service – apparently the whole thing
was on a tray - and placed it to the side. “Come here.”
“No.” Justin couldn’t move, not even to back away. Everything in him screamed to back off, but he couldn’t. He
was trapped by that expression in Brian’s face, determination along with fierce conviction, combined with raging,
hot lust, freezing Justin where he stood.
“This place… it trapped me. It condemned me. Everything I was. It took my mother, turned her against any chance I
had to experience something like love, this place that says it is what love is and doesn’t know shit about it, and it
sucked the life and warmth from her and then it killed her. I wanted to take Timmy Ellsworth and fuck him on the
altar of this church since I was fifteen, and until this very moment that desire has always burned inside me. But now
I have you, and you’re even better for what I need to do. You have given me more than this place, more than anyone
in this place ever did. I need to fuck you, Justin, I need to fuck you right now, to take what you give me, to take it
here, in this place that has taken so much of what’s mine, this place that had no right to take all it has, to take you
and take back what’s been taken from me.” The words, seductive in their rhythm, their low cadence, the power
behind them, the power of a conviction that commanded and would not take no for an answer. Inexorable, relentless,
irresistible. “Come here.”
Justin swallowed into a suddenly dry throat. Dry with dread? Or a mounting desire that had wormed down into his
bones, from Brian’s voice, into his ear, into his blood, his beating heart. “Brian…” But Brian was unrelenting,
Justin’s words did not affect the tension radiating from Brian’s body. “It’s just… we can’t,” he finished weakly, one
last token resistance, even as he heard his own voice echoing to him from across the years, as he had once spoken to
Daphne, “He can do anything he wants.” And it was that that had seduced him, all along. The face of god.
“Come here.” Irresistible.
And he felt his legs carry him forward, to stand in front of this man whose intense gaze blazed out at him, reminding
him of those preachers he had glimpsed on those religious programs, fierce in their conviction of their right, their
attachment to the glory of something greater than themselves, that same fiery gaze now pinning him against the
wood of the altar he felt in his mid-back, before he was grabbed by the hips and hauled upward, sitting at Brian’s
chest level. The top button of his jeans was ripped open, the zipper torn down, and he was forced back, with Brian’s
mouth on his engorged cock. “Brian… you can’t,” he moaned, even as Brian did, and even as Justin felt himself
leaning back, falling back, so he was sprawled out across the altar, his legs over Brian’s shoulders as he was taken
by the sensations of lips, of tongue, of worship on his body, and couldn’t resist. “God…” he gasped, and his open
eyes took in the cross overhead. “Brian,” he managed to get out, in one last weak attempt to turn away what he
really didn’t want to stop, grabbing a handful of chestnut hair and yanking Brian’s head up. But Brian twisted out of
his grip, his mouth descending determinedly, all of his years of skill in this particular act coming into play, and with
the final curling lick around the head of Justin’s dick, Justin gasped and came, the hands in Brian’s hair not pulling
him away any longer, but pushing him closer, down further, as he surged up against the back of his partner’s throat.
Brian thoroughly licked him clean, and then hauled himself onto the altar, turning Justin so he lay face down on the
hard surface. Justin lay gasping, shocked at the force of his orgasm, and he felt his pants yanked down, heard
Brian’s zipper, then the tear of foil, the pop of a cap, the sudden cold of liquid on him, and the sensation as Brian
pushed into him, hard, filling him. His senses revived, and he scrabbled with his hands in an attempt to hold onto the
edge of the wood as his jeans held his legs captive, the skin of his stomach catching the smooth surface as Brian’s
hard thrusts inside him allowed him nothing to hold onto, no purchase at all. Brian’s harsh gasps resounded in his
ear, and he felt his hand curl into his hair, as the other descended over his shoulder to catch the forward trajectory of
his body, keeping him in place. Oh, fuck, he thought, as Brian’s heartbeat pounded against his back, the breath at his
neck increased, and then a harsh gasp in his ear, and groan, and the pulsations hard inside of him, on and on, lasting
a very long time, even for the very accomplished sexual being now holding him, tightly locking them together.
Justin lay in the quiet after, stunned. The stillness after the explosive release of whatever that was, the stillness was
palpable. Holy shit, he thought. What the fuck was that? Something huge. And long-standing. He thought of the time
Pink Floyd had come on the radio in the car, and Brian had turned up the sound at the lyrics, “And if I/show you my
dark side/would you still hold me/tonight? And if I open my heart to you/show you my weak side/what would you
do?” He had turned to Justin with an eyebrow raised, and Justin had laughed at him.
Justin wasn’t laughing now.
“Let me up,” he commanded, and Brian rolled off him without hesitation, and lay on his back, his arms spread out.
Justin adjusted his clothes, and turned to Brian, cleaning him up, grimacing at the full condom he was going to have
to carry out of the church, and then just sighed, and zipped up Brian’s jeans. He got off the altar, letting himself
down carefully, and took Brian’s hand. Brian was staring up at the cross, his face grim. “Brian.” The hazel regard
turned to him, slightly glazed. “Get down.”
When he had Brian propped against the side of the altar, Justin straightened the cloth (I mean, how do you suggest to
the priests that they might want to wash that? or even throw it out?) put the candles and sacramental service back up
on the altar, hoping everything was in the right place. Was there a candle specifically for the left side, one for the
right? Fuck if he knew. He didn’t even really care much, not at the moment. He supposed he’d lie awake tonight,
worrying, but that worry was for later. He had a much more immediate concern; it leaned against the altar. He
grabbed Brian’s hand, and led him out of the church.
Once in the open air, he took a long, deep breath and turned his face toward the sun, amazed that it was still shining.
He felt as if he had stepped out of his own tomb; the fresh air against his cheek had never been more welcome. Brian
was staring straight ahead, that frozen look cemented on his face. “Brian, give me the keys.” Woodenly, his
command was followed. Justin led Brian down to the Corvette, and opened the passenger side, sitting Brian, who
did not protest being placed into the unfamiliar position, into the car. Justin went to the driver’s side, and slid behind
the wheel. He shut the door, but rolled down his window. Then he turned to Brian, who avoided his gaze. “Care to
share what that was all about?”
“I told you, you shouldn’t be in the middle of all this.”
“And I told you I could handle it. I’m pretty sure that was the dirtiest thing we’ve ever done.”
He received that same grim look, but at least Brian had lifted his eyes, and was looking at him. “I just… fuck.”
“And you fuck amazingly well. But that may have been pushing even your limits.”
“You went over them with me.”
“I went out over that edge with you, yeah. I told you I would. But that was plain fucked up.” And he was getting
horny recalling it. “Hot, but fucked up.”
“Hot as hell, huh.”
Justin’s breath caught. “No, not like hell. Not like hell at all. Like the release of a lot of pent-up anger and confusion
of a flesh and blood kid watching a faceless, made up superbeing getting all the love and attention he isn’t getting,
but desperately wants. Desperately needs.”
Brian visibly started, and his eyes locked on Justin’s, softening with a vulnerability and confusion Justin had had
rarely seen. Brian sucked his lips into his mouth, bit down on them. Then he released the grip his teeth had on the
tender flesh. “Maybe I’m not so okay.”
Justin let out a deep breath he had not known he was holding. “Pretty big demons have been having their way with
you the last week. I kind of expected that.”
“I didn’t.” The expression, so lost for that brief moment, turned off as if a switch had been thrown, but Justin felt the
sadness it had reflected continue on inside himself. Brian turned to look for the seat belt as Justin started the engine.
“How did you end up behind the wheel of my car?”
Justin glanced over his shoulder, checking the blind spot. “I think I should be driving right now, don’t you?”
Brian slumped back in the seat. “Yeah, you’re probably right. But don’t get used to it.”
As if you’d let me, Justin thought. He drove in silence. Then, Brian said, “I think maybe I should go through my
stuff that was left at Joan’s house.”
Justin glanced at him. “Okay,” he answered.
“After the funeral. We should get Michael to help with that.”
Justin looked away, back at the road. “Okay.” We. We should get Michael to help. Justin had no idea why “we”
would want to do that, but “we” would most likely get answers to that question eventually. He glanced over at Brian,
seeing only the back of his head as he stared out the window. Obviously, he thought, we are not as certain as we
usually are about any of this. I’m glad “we” figured that out.
Author’s Note: It’s about time I started thanking Carlyn, a truly awesome beta, not just for fixing up the glitches in
my writing, and her ability to remind me of details I’ve missed or mistaken from past episodes (to say nothing of my
own earlier chapters!), but also for her wondrous contribution in brainstorming sessions. I’m lucky to have the
bootiest beta willing to work with my stuff.
VII
You look nice,” Debbie observed, as Justin took a seat at the counter of the diner. He was wearing dark grey –
charcoal pants, light grey shirt underneath a dark grey cashmere sweater, dark and light grey patterned tie, shot
through with the slenderest of yellow threads, picking up the gleam of his freshly-washed hair.
“Wake,” Justin explained.
Her face melted into sympathy upon his words, and she nodded. “Want anything?”
“Just water.”
She poured out a glass of water, returning to set the well-scratched glass of water in front of him. Then she leaned
onto her forearms, and fixed him in her eye, with the “I’m-fuckin’-serious” look. “How’s he doin’, honey?”
Justin shrugged, sipped at his water. “Not great. But not for the reasons you’d think.”
“What, he’s itching to dance on his mother’s grave, but has to keep it bottled up until after all this ceremonial family
and church shit, but it all keeps leaking out so he escapes it by pouring that rotgut down his throat? Fucking
everything in sight? You mean, the shit he’s used to dealing with just took a turn in an unexpected direction, so he’s
become Brian distilled, acting strange even for him, while pretending that nothing’s changed?” She snapped her
gum, grinned at his look. “I know him, Sunshine, probably better than you. Oh, I don’t mean with the crap like what
soap he likes or where he likes to be licked. Well, actually, with what I hear around here, maybe that last one… but
you know what I mean. I’ve been watching Brian for a long time. I got a grip on that boy.”
He hesitated. She had been only partly right, but close enough. Still, he wasn’t sure he should confide his worries.
“Come on,” Debbie encouraged. “You know you want to say something, spit it out.”
“You don’t know everything, Deb,” Justin told her. “He’s got family coming to this thing, and as far as I can telling
he’s outing himself, more or less.”
“By bringing you. That a problem for you?”
Justin shook his head. “He’s not exactly one to discuss these things, he just does them. But, I’m wondering, if this is
the right way to do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, shouldn’t this sort of decision, outing yourself after years of not making an issue of it. Shouldn’t that kind of
decision be made at a less emotionally fraught time?”
“Well, I’m not sure what ‘fraught’ means, but let me ask you, how’d your family find out about you being gay?
Seems like you fraught that one out.” Debbie laughed at her own joke, and Justin joined her, feeling slightly better
for it.
“Point taken,” he said.
“Listen, Justin, Brian’s family, and his mother’s friends, they should have known about this a long time ago. Yes, I
know, he had a hell of a childhood, and it’s always easier to just let things slide and not deal with them. Claire knew,
his immediate family knew eventually. But if he had let this fact of his life out in a more general way years ago, you
wouldn’t be sitting here ‘frought-ing’ yourself.”
“Fretting.”
“Oh, okay! I know what that means. Look, honey, it’s always been his choice, to not let people know who he really
is. If Joan had known sooner, maybe she wouldn’t have been so much in his life, and he would have been better off
in the long run. But it’s no good thinking about ‘shoulds’ – all you need to do is stand by him and support him. He
needs you now, whether he’ll ever admit to that or not. I’d say him having you by his side through this makes your
position, and his position where you stand pretty clear. This isn’t just a finger to his family. It’s a message he’s
sending you, more than them. You’re a smart kid! I know you’re smart enough to know where the line in bad
behavior is, if Brian goes over it. Has he?”
Justin hesitated, then shook his head.
“Well,” Deb continued, “I would say his asking you to help him get honest with his people is NOT over the line. Oh,
hang, on, I’ll be right back” And she turned away to take the order of a young man who had settled in at the end of
the counter.
Justin just nodded. He thought, let’s just pull that line back to exclude the altar of Joan’s church. That was… he felt
his heart rate pick up, and wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but willed it down.
“Hey.”
He hadn’t heard Brian enter the diner, so the soft lips on the back of his neck made him jump slightly. “Oh, hey,” he
said, turning his head to receive a kiss on the lips.
Debbie returned. “How you doing? You look nice.”
“I’m fabulous. How else would I be?”
“Cut the shit, kiddo. I know you’re not looking forward to this.”
“I’ll be fine, Deb. I am fine. Are you coming to the funeral?”
“Didn’t know I was invited. I wasn’t exactly a friend of your mother’s.”
“Good enough to deliver the news of my late great illness,” Brian snorted.
Debbie looked away, then back. “Do you want me there, Brian?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
She studied his face for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll come with Michael. I’d love to be there for you, honey.”
Brian shrugged, and turned back to Justin. “Are you ready?”
“Are you?”
“Born ready.”
“That campaign’s run its course, time to come up with a new slogan,” Justin teased.
“Hah.” The look on Brian’s face turned serious. “You sure you want to do this? Liam’s father, my Uncle Mike, he’s
kind of… he was in the navy. He never really came back from his last voyage.”
“What, he’s crazy?”
“Well,” Brian replied, placing his hand on the small of Justin’s back as they walked out of the diner. “He’s military.
Even if he did blow up his last Nazi 60 years ago.”
Part Four
Brian’s Uncle Mike was 83 years old. He looked 70. He was completely bald, with a long nose like a hawk, that he
peered out over with sharp black eyes. Liam trailed behind him, his significant frame somehow dwarfed by his
father’s presence, although the man was a good two inches shorter, and at least 30 pounds shy. “Claire. Brian. I am
so sorry to hear about your mother.”
“Thank you, Uncle Mike,” Claire responded, barely, the last of the sentence swallowed somewhere back in the
throat. Brian studied her from the corner of his eye before cutting back to his uncle.
“Uncle Mike. You came a ways.” Mike lived in Boston.
“She was my sister-in-law. It’s the least I can do, pay my respects. Now you two are left to carry on. When are you
going to reproduce, Brian?”
Great. Here we go. Every time he’d seen the man since he was 23 (thank god he could count the number on one
hand). Babies! Give us babies! Sow your seed in the world, fulfill your duty to family! Mike had not had a great deal
of respect for his younger brother, though he voiced a great deal of respect for the idea of family, or, at least, the
need to add to it. Brian avoided looking behind Mike at Liam’s grin upon that familiar refrain from the man. Liam
quickly suppressed his smile. It was a wake, for God’s sake. There was a corpse not twenty-five feet away at the far
end of the room, across from where Brian and Claire stood, receiving those who came to pay their respects.
“I think you better be happy with Claire’s kids, Uncle Mike,” Brian hedged.
Uncle Mike frowned. “But those aren’t Kinneys. Those are, what’cha, anyway, not Kinneys.”
“Don’t you worry, Pop, I’ll give you some one day.”
“Yeah, I’m not holding my breath,” Uncle Mike retorted, glaring at Liam and then back at Brian. “I’m going to go
pay my respects, we’ll talk later.”
Brian sighed as Uncle Mike marched away, down to the coffin. Liam moved closer. “So! When are you going to
introduce my dad to Justin?”
“We just may skip that one,” Brian answered, glancing around the room. Only a few people were there, including
Mrs. Leslie, a small bit of a woman dressed in black who had greeted him in great consolation, and now hovered at
the margins about the mourners, looking sad.
Mike had gone to the coffin, and had dropped to kneel, to pray over Joan’s corpse.
“You think he’s praying for her to prepare his way? Please, St. Joan, make sure I’ve got a ticket?” Brian asked.
What the fuck did people pray over corpses, anyway?
“I’m gonna pray it’s HIM next.”
Claire turned swiftly on the two men standing next to her. “You will not make this a sideshow about your personal
issues! Not about your queerdom,” she glared at Brian, “not about your battle with your father!” She glared at Liam.
“Queerdom, Claire?” Brian raised an eyebrow.
“Just, can you please try to remember, this is a wake, have some respect. Keep your fights with your father out of
this room, Liam. And try not to paw your… your, Justin, Brian.”
“Hey, he packs those fights and takes him when he travels, what am I supposed to do?” Liam asked. “I’m gonna go
keep your Justin company, Brian.”
“Yeah,” Brian answered, not contradicting the term Claire had invoked. My Justin. He watched Liam make his way
to where Justin sat, watching John play a video game, over on the chairs set up across the room. Glancing at his
watch, he saw it was on 7:30. Half an hour, and he would be free to “circulate,” or as he liked to think of it, stop
having to play nice. Thirty minutes. Anyone coming in later could find him if they wanted. He had no idea why the
fuck he was doing this. What was the point?
Justin wasn’t bored, he was puzzled. He had moved over to the only other person in the room he even sort of knew,
as Brian and Claire had positioned themselves at the start of his interminable wait, and sat down in the chair next to
where John was sitting. This attested to his desperation for mental occupation, to a certain degree. John was playing
with a GameBoy, and Justin felt a stab of envy. He was still fairly young himself, and sometimes, having to school
himself to act more mature than he actually was… well, it kind of sucked sometimes. Worth every moment, since
the prize was life with Brian. But still. He would love to get his hands on that game. Go sit in the bathroom and
scream at the villains as he kicked their ass. He blamed Michael for this bad influence. Michael loved video games,
and was starting to stock them at the store. Justin was a little addicted to Kingdom Hearts at the moment. Sure,
Disney was the ultimate evil heterosexual breeder brainwashing bullshit. He was still addicted to that damn game.
Anything was better than thinking about that dead body across the room, even checking out what John was doing.
Open viewings gave him the willies. Catholics were fucking creepy; Brian seemed to have no problem shaking his
ass in their arcane temples; what was the expression, familiarity breeds contempt? But it was all strange hocus-pocus
to Justin, and he got shivers, not in a good way, over the weird attachment to some past tradition, as if the chanting
and darkness and symbols linked directly back to when evil actually did walk the earth.
“What you playing?” Justin asked, taking the seat next to John.
John didn’t glance up; he stared at the tiny screen unblinkingly, his thumbs and fingers spasmodically pushing
buttons. “Mortal Kombat, Tournament edition,” he answered. Something went wrong, he groaned. At this break in
the action, he glanced up at Justin. “Oh. You.”
“Yeah. Me. I kick ass at this game on Xbox.”
“Huh, totally different on the GameBoy.”
“Bet I could kick your ass.”
“You ain’t getting near my ass. Just a second. Hang on.” John pushed several buttons. “Head to head. You go first.
Only, we gotta keep it down or she’ll take it away. That’s why it’s on mute. Same buttons as Xbox, basically, just,
the back buttons here,” he pointed, “and the control stick’s the arrow buttons, okay?”
Justin glanced across the room; no one was watching them. He took the game from John, said, “You’re on. But,
when the room starts filling up, I gotta pretend I’m an adult again.”
John smirked. “Lucky you.”
Sarcastic shit, Justin thought, looking down at the screen.
Five minutes later, his ass was seriously kicked.
“Man, you suck at this,” John said, taking the game back. Justin watched the kid focus on the game.
“How are you doing, John?” he asked.
John didn’t look up. “Kicking your ass. Told ya. I’m already way ahead.”
“I always find those games kind of… hard to watch, sometimes. Then I remind myself, they’re just games.”
“What, you don’t know the difference between death on screen and something like the dead body across the room?”
Shit, he had the Kinney blood, all right. Sarcasm and hardness, like second nature. One suit of armor issued upon
birth. Take it, kid, you’ll need this. “No,” Justin answered, “it just reminds me of getting hit in the head with a bat a
couple years ago.” It was a risk, but he was easier with bringing the subject up this day.
And he began to suspect his instincts for how to get to this kid were right when John hit a button, put the game on
pause, and actually looked up. “You got hit in the head with a bat?”
“Yup. I was in a coma for a long time. Messed me up real bad.”
“What, were you playing baseball? You play baseball?” John eyed him up and down, seriously questioning the
possibility.
Justin shook his head. “No…” He wondered why he started this, again. The kid had seemed so distant. He hated
that, being ignored. Maybe he really did need to start acting like an adult again, not letting John’s indifference get to
him. John’s attitude bothered him, though, and even now, he couldn’t let it go. Ever since his insane accusations of
Brian. So young, and so hardened. It was just wrong. “There was this guy who was pretty pissed off that I’m gay. So
he tried to kill me.”
“No shit. Well, maybe you can’t blame him.” John glanced back at the game.
Justin felt his heart pause, then race. Oh, hell, what did he expect from the little shit. Talk about games, that was
safe. Anything else… not so much.
But John looked back at him. “Did you do something to him? Like feel him up?”
How the fuck did he get into this conversation again? “Uh. We made out.” Like he was going to tell the kid more
than that. “But he enjoyed it.”
“Maybe he remembers it different. Maybe he didn’t like it at all.” John was staring at the screen, but he hadn’t
turned the game back on. In fact, he sat very still.
“That’s no reason to take a bat to my head.”
John jerked his head up, glared at Justin, eyes blazing. “I know the difference between kicking someone’s ass on
video, and that,” he said, nodding toward the coffin. His voice was low and tight. He sounded about ten years older
than his actual age. His eyes caught onto the sight of his grandmother’s pallid face, just visible above the lip of the
walnut casket, his great uncle beginning to kneel at the side of the box. Something shifted in John’s eyes, and he
turned back into a young, very young kid; he seemed to shrink down into himself. “No one deserves that,” he
whispered. “Nobody…” He looked back at the game, but still his hands did not move.
“John…” Justin started, not sure what he was planning to say. What the fuck? Had he been that close to his
grandmother?
“Hey, Justin!”
Justin looked up, saved from having to figure this one out by the appearance of Liam. John bolted, not looking back.
Justin watched the boy retreat, to disappear past his mother and Brian, ignored by both of them.
Liam dropped into the seat John had just vacated. “How soon before we can get a drink?”
Justin glanced at his watch and sighed. Too long.
The room was filling up, mostly with women Brian had never met, although they professed to know him. Claire
introduced them; apparently they attended Joan’s church, or played bridge with her. Or cards. On introduction, they
had invariably clucked with sorrow that they had not had the pleasure until now, of meeting the son Joan spoke so
highly of. One sallow biddy’s response was fairly typical: “Joan was always going on about how successful you
were. It was a shame your work didn’t allow you to spend more time together.”
“Yes,” Brian responded. “A shame.” He glanced over at the side of the room where Justin sat, Liam next to him.
Then he looked at his watch. 7:50. Ten minutes, ten more minutes, and he would get off Claire’s idea of a reception
line, consisting of him and her. And go sit next to his partner. And resist the urge to lay his head down in his lap, and
feel Justin’s fingers weave into his hair, that soothing feeling, a feeling he’d never admit to needing, that Justin
knew about anyway.
Damn. Five minutes now. Five minutes that dragged, as Claire asked him when he planned to show up the next day
at their mother’s house, if they could talk about dealing with dispersal of the assets, maybe talk about hiring a
lawyer (he knew that meant, maybe him hiring a lawyer), and could he please go through his stuff in the attic? It was
fine if he wanted her to have all the contents of the house (and sure, that was fine, he knew the veneer of neutrality
that overlay the fear tautening her tone, a fear that he would change his mind and decide he wanted the silver). To
which he replied, after the funeral. After the funeral. After the funeral. And yes, Justin had convinced him to pick up
the stuff he wanted. No, not the silver. And Michael was coming to help him. Of course, she remembered Michael.
Finally, when his watch informed him 8:00 had been reached, he turned to his sister and stated, “That’s it, Claire,
I’m done with the meet and greet. If anyone needs me, I’ll be grieving in the corner.” His sister’s face set, but she
just turned away, and looked toward her mother’s body.
Brian reached the two men sitting at the side of the room, and Justin stood. “Hey,” he said, touching Brian’s arm.
“How are you doing?”
“What I want to know is when we can get out of here and get a drink.” Liam kicked Brian’s shoe with his, an old
habit from childhood. Lord knew, no one in their family actually touched each other.
Brian looked down at Liam. “You read my mind. One hour, fifteen minutes, and someone remind me why we didn’t
set up a bar for this thing?”
“Claire.”
“Ah, yes. Claire. My mother would have been terribly displeased. No alcohol.”
Liam chuckled slightly, but this pleasant sound ceased immediately upon the advent of another.
“Brian!” Uncle Mike came up behind him, and planted himself at the side of Brian Justin did not occupy. “I wanted
to tell you, your obituary of your mother. Three grandchildren, should be corrected.”
“It’s correct,” Brian answered. “Uncle Mike, this is Justin.”
“Nice to meet you,” Justin said, shaking the man’s hand. Uncle Mike had the perfect handshake; firm, warm, dry,
one pump, released.
Uncle Mike grunted, ignoring his nephew’s lover, intent on the issue at hand. “What do you mean, correct? Did I
miss something?”
“I have a son.”
Pause. Liam watched from the sidelines, gleefully waiting for the old bastard to get thrown.
“And I don’t know about this because…”
“He’s not a Kinney.”
“Course he’s a Kinney! He’s your blood, that’s a Kinney! Who’s the mother?”
“A friend of mine. She’s gay. I was the donor. He has the blood, not the name.” He could have been more explicit.
What was it about staring in the face of an older generation? It was as though his terms became subject to another,
better established set of terms, and he could no longer claim the language for himself, but had to stay inside the
definitions of what was considered acceptable to this other, older person.
“Huh. Why advertise it then, if there’s no connection?”
“Mourning is for the living, Uncle Mike, not the dead. I have a relationship with my son. My mother didn’t approve
of my life. But that doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of it.” As he spoke to his uncle, his hand crept up Justin’s back, onto
the warm skin of his neck, his fingers weaving into the soft hair at Justin’s nape, subconsciously recreating the very
caress he craved.
Uncle Mike stared, understanding. He was many things; he was not a fool. There was a long pause, as Mike finally
took Justin’s presence in. Then, he said, slowly, “You’re right. She wouldn’t approve. Neither can I. You would
never have survived the navy. We had a way of taking care of guys like you.”
Justin drew in his breath as he felt Brian’s hand still, but it was Liam who spoke up. “Maybe, Pops, if you’d had
actually left the navy all those years ago instead of taking it with you, you wouldn’t have to find out about the
members of your family this way. Maybe there’d be room for us.”
“You too? Don’t tell me, you’re queer too?” Uncle Mike rounded on his son, relieved that he could turn from a
confrontation he hadn’t expected, to one he was familiar with. “Why am I not surprised?”
“What would you know about it? You don’t know shit about me, you don’t even want to,” Liam answered.
“Watch your mouth,” Uncle Mike answered. “I suggest you say your goodbyes to your aunt, it’s the least you can
do.” He then turned back to Brian and Justin. “I’ll be at the funeral tomorrow. But I’ll be there for her. And Claire.
Not for you.” He turned, and left
Liam watched him go, as Justin looked up at Brian’s impassive face. “How long for drinks?” Liam asked, again,
plaintively.
Justin laughed, a choked sound, and buried his head into Brian’s shoulder, drawing stares from around the room as
Brian’s arm came around his back, drawing his lover closer. Justin looked up at the older man. “I think he was right
about one thing.”
“Really?” Brian chuckled. “Only you would find something of value in a ton of shit.”
“Hey, look what I found in you, a buried diamond,” Justin returned.
Brian rolled his eyes.
“Now I know you’re an artist,” Liam groaned.
But Justin would not be distracted. “Seriously. You should say goodbye to your mother.”
“Say… Why?”
“It’s the last time you’ll see her in any way. At least let yourself see her in red.”
“It’s quite the scandal,” Liam added.
“Yeah…” Brian actually wished he hadn’t gone along with Claire’s little plot. Joan really did look bad in red. And it
was petty. He did not do petty. Well, Justin would say he hadn’t been himself that day, otherwise he would have
resisted the impulse toward the red dress when Claire had manipulated him into the choice. He looked down at the
beautiful man at his side. Yeah, before Justin, he would have just castigated himself for having been duped. Now he
had Justin, and Justin didn’t even need to speak for Brian to hear his faith in him, an understanding that allowed
Brian to be human, to make mistakes. Well, if he made this mistake, he might as well go look at it. Fine, so be it.
“Fine, I’ll be back.” He kissed Justin briefly, and walked toward the coffin.
Justin sat back down.
“I think the red dress just stopped being the scandal,” Liam said, nodding Justin’s attention to the little ladies across
the room who were staring at him, then turning shocked faces to Brian’s back as he walked toward the corpse of his
mother.
Brian looked down at Joan’s face, its stillness, its ungodly whiteness. Shit. She really should be in blue. He knelt
down on the pillow placed for just that purpose, rested his arms on the side of the coffin.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, Mom.” He stopped, feeling stupid. Was he supposed to say something now that he
hadn’t, that he couldn’t have said when she was alive? Was he supposed to profess a love, a sorrow he just didn’t
feel? What the hell. He’d say what he did feel, then. “You really failed me. You failed yourself. I think you knew,
though. Didn’t you? You kept turning into religion instead of outward to the people who you claimed to love. I don’t
think you knew what love is. That really fucked me up, did you know? did you care? You know, though, somehow,
in spite of all that, I seem to be doing okay. How’d that happen? I’ve been lucky enough to find people who actually
manage to keep me from hurting myself too badly. Or, they found me. Fuck if I know. I just know I’m really lucky.
I’m also really glad you’re dead Mom. You and Dad. I’m hoping I can let all this shit go, now that I don’t have you
around to remind me of how big a failure I am, a failure of the expectations from someone who didn’t love me. Now
all I have are the expectations of people who do love me, and I still fuck up, but they love me anyway. I’m a human
being to them. They think I can fuck up. That I don’t need to be punished. They think I’m human. Was that it,
Mom? Did you not know what it meant to be human? You know something, I’m learning that. Just now, I’m
learning that. I’ve been unbelievably lucky. I sure as hell never learned what that means from you. But you never let
me. But maybe you never knew. That’s pretty fucking sad. And I’m glad you’re dead. We’re both out of your
misery.” Well. Once the mouth opened, the confession poured out. That went well, he thought. He stood, and turned
around, noting that the room was less populated. He glanced at his watch. 8:15. Well, maybe this would be over
sooner rather than later.
He walked back to Justin. “Did we clear out the room?”
Justin shrugged. “Do you care?”
“Where’d Liam go?”
“He went to talk to the funeral director’s wife.”
“That little crow flitting around?”
Liam returned. “Boys, I have found the wellspring of life, and it is in Mr. Leslie’s office.” He held forth a pint of
tequila. “Anyone care to join me in the men’s room?”
Justin burst out laughing, as Brian shook his head. Liam looked confused at their amusement. “Liam,” Justin said,
“If Uncle Mike were listening to you, I have a feeling he would know exactly why that was so funny.”
“Makes you wonder about Uncle Mike, doesn’t it Sunshine?” They all turned to make their way toward the men’s
room for a break and a shot. Or two. “Are you adopting my family now? Uncle Mike?”
“Mother Taylor?” Justin responded, receiving a sour look in return. He smiled, and Brian took his hand and pulled
him along. At least Brian wasn’t asking for a blow job on the coffin. He grimaced, feeling ashamed at the thought,
knowing he should have more faith in Brian’s judgment and character; by now, he should know that Brian toed the
line, he never really went over it. And that Freudian nightmare was definitely over the line, and that was coming up
nowhere but Justin’s own imagination. Feeling guilty, he squeezed Brian’s hand, receiving in return a grip that
tightened its hold on him.
“You know, I’m not quite sure how I ended up here,” Liam commented, shouting at Emmett over the driving beat at
Babylon.
“It’s called tequila! Let me get you another margarita,” Emmett answered. He turned to the bar. “You look very
nice, by the way.”
“That’s SOMEBODY’S fault!” Liam leaned across Emmett’s space, and yelled at Brian. “If you had let me go back
to the hotel, I could look like you.”
“You could only dream of looking like me,” Brian answered, grabbing at Justin’s elbow to stop its jab into his side.
“You insisted we get to the drinks, ‘fuck the hotel!’ Let’s get drunk!’ I seem to recall someone insisting.”
“Well, if I can’t have a body like that,” Liam gestured toward a man walking past, wrinkling his brow at the insanely
defined pecs revealed by the see-through shirt, and the well-toned buttocks framed by cutaway leather pants. “I
might as well look elegant, while you look like you came in from the loading dock.”
“Yeah, load me up,” Justin breathed, running his hand down Brian’s white tank, under the hem, palm flat against the
skin on his abdomen. Justin had insisted they at least stop by the loft before moving on to Woody’s, by whining
about smoke getting into his cashmere. No one had pointed out he could just leave the sweater in the car. Really,
he’d wanted Brian in comfortable clothes, relaxed, putting that wake behind him, forgetting the day they faced
tomorrow. Brian needed some down time. At Woody’s they’d met Emmett, gotten a little shloshed, and somewhere
around midnight, Liam was dragged along (well, insisting on being dragged along) to Babylon.
“I got the delivery for you,” Brian returned, nipping at Justin’s ear. “Later. Dance, now?”
Justin nodded, and they headed to the floor. The crowd parted before them, and they took up in the center of the
space, rubbing up against each other, Justin sliding his groin up against Brian’s thigh, Brian’s hands moving down
Justin’s backside, as they lost themselves to everything else.
Liam turned to face the bar, and Emmett turned around, joining him. “Too much information, honey?”
“Yeah, you could say that. I mean, Brian. Just getting used to the idea.”
Emmett eyed him over his drink. “You seem to be immersing yourself in it fairly well. But you’d better stay out of
the back room, if it’s getting a bit much.”
“Back room? What’s that?”
“Room for fucking. See where those guys are going?” Emmett nodded toward the blue-lit corridor that lay toward
the back of the club, beyond the bar.
But Liam’s eye was caught by something else on its way to what Emmett indicated. “Hey, Emmett, tell me
something, that’s not a guy, is it?” He nodded down the bar, to a female type who was watching Liam from the other
end.
Emmett stared, his eyes narrowing, then eyebrows shooting up. “Oh my god! A real live girl! And it’s not even dyke
night!”
“Hm. Okay, I’m going to go do some investigating.”
Emmett stared at Liam’s back as he walked away. “Great,” he sighed to no one in particular. “That figures.”
Brian finally dragged Justin off the dance floor for another drink. He already felt the tension easing from his
shoulders, under the skillful touch of his lithe partner’s hands and body. Time to consider other activities.
“Hey,” he turned to Emmett after ordering two beers. “Where’d Liam go?”
“Your cousin found the only woman in the place.”
“A woman? Here?” Justin asked, taking the beer from Brian.
“Heterosexual woman, no less. I think. He was on the dance floor for a while… your cousin can’t dance either.”
Emmett eyed Brian, who rolled his eyes.
“Heterosexuals,” Brian answered. “Put two in a room, they’ll find each other and fuck. No discrimination.” He took
a swig of beer.
“You think they’re fucking?” Emmett returned. “How is that possible? He’s here two seconds, finds a real woman in
a gay men’s club…”
Brian smirked. “He’s related to me, you expect anything less?”
“Kinney!” The holler came from down the bar, as Nick Simons pushed his way through the crowd. Brian eyed him;
he’d gotten a blow job from the guy when he’d first shown up on the scene, would have liked to do more, but
Simons made clear, he was a top, and only wanted a piece of the legend before he established his own buzz.
Twenty-five years old, and already making a reputation for himself. “I’m given to understand that PERSON came in
with you?”
“What the fuck are you talking about, Simons?”
“Hey, Justin.” A twink named Kirk, appearing in Simons’s wake, greeted Justin.
“Hey,” Justin returned, and turned back to the scene playing out in front of him. Brian’s back had straightened;
Justin loved it when he got all butch.
“A guy, about your size, about 25 pounds on you, dressed in a navy suit with a cranberry tie, fucking a woman,
FUCKING A WOMAN!!! in the backroom! Did THAT come in here with you?!”
Justin turned to Kirk, who shrugged and nodded.
“Of course, he didn’t cum with me, Simons, he’s apparently cumming with that woman. But yes, actually. He’s my
cousin.”
Kirk turned to the men who had followed behind Simons, and telegraphed this news back. “He’s Kinney’s cousin…
Of COURSE he’s related to Kinney…” Murmurs echoed back, and Justin smothered a laugh. Hardly the time to
show his amusement. Nick and Brian were all but pawing the ground between them. Next thing you know, Justin
thought, they’ll lower heads and rush at each other. Kirk tried to interrupt, plucking at Simons’s elbow. “Hey, Nick,
ya know, I know a good corner of the alley in back…” Nick shook him off.
At last, Brian just shrugged, dismissing the other man. “Look, Simons, you only need to do what I do when I see
something fairly distasteful, such as when I see you going at it. I just look away. Even heterosexuals need to get
their rocks off. What, is she your sister?”
“Nick…” Kirk pleaded. Nick looked down at him, and the twink trailed a hand down Nick’s half-zipped jeans.
Nick’s face softened slightly, and he said, “Just a sec.” He then turned back to Brian. “Your cousin’s from out of
town?”
“New York.”
“Let him fuck up Chelsea, send him out of my territory, back home where he belongs.”
“I think we know whose territory this is…” Brian returned, nodding toward the entrance to the back room, where the
few men who had followed Nick out were going back to start playing again. “Didn’t you get the verdict? He’s a
Kinney, he gets a free pass through my magical kingdom.”
“Nick…” Kirk begged, sounding literally in pain.
“Fine, if you just can’t wait,” Nick snapped, grabbing Kirk’s hand and pulling him in the other direction, across the
dance floor toward the back exit. Kirk twisted his head around to catch Justin’s eye, and winked, before scampering
to keep up with the other man’s long-legged stride.
Emmett leaned toward Justin. “What, you running a workshop, tips on how to snag a big bad top?”
Justin glanced over at Brian, who was leaning against the bar and scanning the room. “Kirk’s on his own with the
big bad top, Emmett. My man’s sweet.”
Brian turned and smiled, a rare, real smile, before leaning in and kissing his lover. Emmett sighed.
Part 5
VII
He floated into a hazy half-aware dream, warm, safe, just drifting… oh, ohh, yesss… the feel of lips and tongue
right there… drifting closer to awareness from out of the surrounding thickness of sleep, dark lightening slowly to
brightness, the sensation of bodily presence washing over him, and now with that caressing touch against his skin,
still encased in sleep’s heavy warmth and comfort, and gently coaxed upward by the added, pleasant, more than
pleasant sensations washing over him, lifting him out of the pool of unconsciousness, surfacing, and then…
cumming, his entire being focused on the gathering intensification, and the tightening, tightening… and being
washed outward on slow but intense throbs, nerve signals coursing to the tips of his fingers and toes, tingling. He
emerged into full consciousness with such little disruption between his sleeping and waking state that he couldn’t be
sure he wasn’t just still dreaming. His hands moved down, to entwine in Justin’s hair. Silky. Fingertips skimming
the skull beneath the softness sliding through his fingers. Felt real. Brian opened his eyes, took in the blue gazing
back at him, the cocky grin that greeted him. “Good morning,” Justin whispered, moving up Brian’s body, to kiss
his jawline, his lips.
When they parted, Brian moved his head back and raised an eyebrow. He asked, his voice still husky with the
remnants of sleep, “What was that for?”
“Setting the tone for the day,” Justin answered, sitting up.
Oh, yeah. The funeral.
“What time is it?”
“Time to get up.”
Brian put his forearm over his eyes, knowing Justin was right, but denying any immediate response. Get up. He had
been up. Now he was definitely back down. He peered out from underneath his arm, watching Justin’s naked
backside move toward the bathroom.
“Come on, Brian. We gotta be at the church in two hours.”
Ugh. That place. Brian smirked, remembering.
“And I’m not gonna be able to picture anything but you and that altar, it just isn’t right…” Justin’s voice came to
him from the bathroom. The shower was turned on.
Brian sat up, smiling despite a gathering dread in the pit of his stomach that Justin’s wake-up call had dissipated
somewhat. That was pretty funny, Justin was still freaked out. Wonder if he’d be bringing that up years down the
road? Probably. Brian chuckled slightly, even as he wondered how Justin did that, read his mind, then say just the
right thing to get him into or out of the moods that ran through him. Well, he wasn’t going to think about it now, not
when there was a cascade of nice hot water calling to him, to say nothing of the nice hot body it was pouring over…
He sat in the corner of the limo, staring out the window, waiting for Claire, who was shaking the hands of a couple
of old women at the doorway to the church. Thank god that was over. How long had that fat priest rattled on, how
many of Claire’s ridiculous sobs had he counted? He’d stopped at sixty-something. One a minute. Was she timing
them? Wouldn’t surprise him.
Justin reached out, took the hand which had been lying on the seat between them, picked it up and squeezed it. He
then released his grip, but Brian found himself tightening his own hold, and resting their clasp on Justin’s leg.
“How’s it going?” Brian asked.
“That should be my question to you.”
“Ah, beat you to it.”
“Doesn’t get you out of being asked.”
“Well, damn.”
There was a silence, and Brian watched Claire detained by an old man. Wait, it was Uncle Mike. Wow, he was
looking his age. And Christ, would that woman never get down here so they could get this show on the road?
“Brian.”
Brian didn’t look over, but knew Justin waited for an answer to his implied “how you holding up?” He shook his
head, not in refusal, but out of uncertainty as to how to answer. Finally, he managed, “I just keep remembering Vic’s
funeral. I felt… sad. Like I knew how much I’d miss him. All this is, is relief.” He could feel the features of his face
harden as he said this, and realized he felt a kind of sadness in the fact that this was so. How fucked up was this?
When would it be over?
Justin leaned into him, and brought his free hand to Brian’s jaw line, turning his head away from the scene outside
of the car. “You can feel that way, you know. It’s perfectly fine.”
Brian shrugged. “I know. But… still.” But still, he leaned his face toward Justin’s caress, as the young man’s thumb
slowly traced a pattern on the skin just beneath his cheek.
“Love is only given without thought by children, after that, it’s gotta be earned. It’s not wrong to feel nothing for
people who don’t deserve it.”
“You should take your own advice.”
“I do,” Justin replied with a slight smile, and leaned forward to kiss him. Brian allowed himself the brief comfort of
his partner’s soft lips, but broke away just as the comfort began to yield to something else. Brian smiled slightly.
“Don’t you think it would be inappropriate to seduce me in the limousine in the middle of my mother’s funeral?”
The blue eyes sparked with wrath at the words, at the teasing tone, and Justin drew in his breath, no doubt, Brian
knew, to lecture him on appropriate behavior in the shadow of this very church, yup, still freaked out, but just then
the door opened, and Claire moved in, John and Peter preceding her. Peter shoved John across the seat, but John just
moved over, staring out the window toward the street, ignoring the vehicle’s other occupants, lost in his own world.
“You timed that,” Justin grumbled.
“How could I? I was looking at you,” Brian returned, and turned his attention to his sister, who was wiping the tears
from her cheeks and straightening the veil on her hat.
“Poor Uncle Mike. He really misses her.”
“Same as you, huh?”
He received a glare for that from his sister, and another squeeze of his hand from Justin. He paid attention to only
one of the two.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…” Father Tom’s voice droned on. The bright sunlight made Brian glad he had an
excuse to wear his sunglasses so he could eye the battle lines drawn across the gravesite without anyone knowing
that he had even taken note of them. On this side, Brian and his cohorts, his lover, his cousin, his best friend and the
best friend’s mother, the mother of his own child, and then Emmett and Ted. On that side, Claire, looking oddly
right in place among the aging crowd of his mother’s cronies, Peter and John standing next to her. Peter looked
bored, fidgeting, and John just looked spaced out, his face pale as he stared at the casket. Brian was amazed that he
was actually paying attention, that this meant something to him. Well, what the fuck did he know about the little
shit? Not a lot, and he planned to keep it that way. And, of course, Uncle Mike, standing on Claire’s other side,
gripping her arm. Claire had her hat’s veil drawn down over her eyes. He could imagine them gleaming behind its
shadow.
He glanced over at Justin, who was squinting up at the fat priest behind Tom. Definitely needed to get him
sunglasses, maybe what? Ralph Lauren? Versace? Nah, since Gianni’s death, the line had gone to shit, even the
accessories…
“Hey, Brian, how you holding up there?” Mikey’s voice, all concern, and Brian realized the service was over. Over,
over. Thank god. Only Claire’s little post-service gathering at Mom’s house to get through. Well, not even that, he
had the perfect excuse of going through his stuff, so he’d be able to duck out for the upstairs as soon as he’d had one
cup of coffee and twenty or so “thanks for coming, yes, it’s sad, thank you, thank you…” Claire’s thank-you’s. He’d
probably just keep his mouth shut. Then back to the loft. He had plans that involved making his eyes all big and
troubled, and gaining the sympathy of a certain blonde ex-twink. Not that he was that calculated. He did feel, well,
off. And he did need distraction, damn it. Sure, he could just tell Justin to drop trou and bend over, but there was
some sort of extra… shit, he didn’t know, some extra something in that morning’s blow job, the caress on his jaw in
the limo; he wanted a replay. Besides, Justin didn’t necessarily ask how high to his commands to jump anymore.
And what, was he supposed to tell Justin, no rough stuff tonight, honey, I want your gentle touch… He shuddered,
just thinking of those words coming out of his mouth. Uh-huh, no. Ain’t gonna happen. The bambi-eyed thing
would work just as well. Besides, Justin would think he was kidding if he actually said something like that. Not that
he ever would. And he didn’t need to make excuses for himself, did he? Shit, no. He was Brian fucking Kinney.
Bambi eyes, here we come.
“What?” he asked, realizing Michael was waiting for him to say something, and Deb hovering just behind him,
concerned looks plastered on their faces.
“I asked how you were doing.”
“Fine,” Brian replied, shortly.
“Justin told me you were hoping for help in sorting out your stuff?” Despite himself, Michael couldn’t help but light
up at the mere consideration of going through Brian’s old crap. He tried to maintain that sympathetic look, but he
just couldn’t do it.
“Yup,” Brian replied. “We get to see what goes on the bonfire.” They began walking away from the gravesite, as the
others trailed in their wake.
“Brian! Hey, if you’re just going to burn it, I get to keep some of it, then, don’t I?”
“All that old high school shit? Why would you want to?”
“High school was great!” Michael replied. “Well, it was for me. I know you didn’t have fun.”
Brian flung an arm around Michael’s shoulders. “That had nothing to do with you. But I think Justin wants some of
that shit kept around in case Gus wants memorabilia of his old man.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” Michael grimaced at himself. Why didn’t he ever think of those things? He glanced over his
shoulder, to where Justin and Deb were trailing behind them, deep in conversation. Justin looked up, flashed
Michael a smile, which Michael couldn’t help returning. He was good for Brian, that was for sure. And that was the
only important thing, right? Right.
“But,” Brian was continuing, dropping his arm as they reached the cars, “I suppose we might be able to let you have
something.”
Michael smiled, shook his head. “Nah, I don’t need any of your stuff.”
“You sure?”
Michael nodded. “Yeah, I got the memories. Justin should have access to the pictures and stuff, since he wasn’t
there. And Gus, when he grows up. But it’ll be fun to go look at, anyway.”
That got a smile from Brian. He leaned in and surprised Michael by kissing him on the cheek. “You really are a
good friend, you know that?”
Michael frowned up at him. “Has grief addled your brain?”
Smack! Shit! “Ma!” Michael cried, rubbing the back of his head. He turned to Deb. She shook a finger at him.
“Have some respect, Michael.”
He rolled his eyes.
“It’s okay, Deb,” Brian answered. He nodded at Lindsay as she passed him and smiled. “Are you coming to Claire’s
little thing?”
Lindsay shook her head, wrinkling her nose. “No, I really do need to get back to my wife and kids. Mel’s still not
feeling up to par. And your son is a real handful.” She headed off to her car.
Deb patted Brian on the hand. “I gotta go work, myself, honey. But come by later, okay? Before you go out?”
Brian nodded, and felt Justin’s hand at his back. “Ready?” He nodded in reply.
“This is your old room?” Justin asked curiously, looking around. The walls were yellow, with a border of vine-work
applique traced just beneath the ceiling; a white eyelet coverlet lay over the bed with a yellow blanket at its foot, the
lamps white with white lace shades, prints of pussy willows, lilies, white roses, one print on each wall. He looked at
Brian, and raised an eyebrow. Brian rolled his eyes, and took off his jacket, tossing it over Justin’s head, his tie
falling in his lap. Justin smirked as he pulled the jacket off and placed it behind him on the bed, throwing the tie over
it.
Michael answered for Brian, who moved to the window and lifted the shade, letting the sunlight in. “Well, it used to
look a lot different. Blue.”
“I came back from college to find my room converted into a guest room. All yellow,” Brian spat, ignoring the décor
and heading for the closet. He slid open the door, and pushed aside some random shirts. “Damn, they should have
put in a light…” Justin heard him say as he disappeared into the part of the closet that stretched off behind the wall.
“Shit, damn it…” He backed up, carrying a box. “Here’s one. Probably old high school stuff. Claire said there’s also
a couple of boxes up in the attic, that’s probably the baby books, elementary crap. Who knows.” He set the box on
the floor, and squatted down, ripping the duct tape off. On the side, block letters read, “BRIAN.”
And then the oddest look crossed over his face. He stared for a moment, and then reached into the box. He pulled
out a very strange stuffed animal. It was a… dog? Horse? Definitely not a teddy bear. Violent purple. With black
ears. Only one eye, a black shiny button hanging by a thread. Most of the, uh, fur, was worn down; the thing looked
moth eaten. Justin wrinkled his brow, looking at it.
“Oh my God!” Michael cracked up. “Booboo!”
“Booboo?” Justin smirked, eyeing the ratty thing.
Brian looked up, a small smile on his face. “Don’t make fun of Booboo, he’s older than you are. I got him when I
was four.” He held the thing in his hands, staring down at that dangling eye.
“So it’s, what? 30?”
“Twenty-nine!” Brian insisted. “That thing was my only friend for years.” He glanced over at Michael. “Until I got a
real one. Then Booboo…”
“Slept with you at night,” Michael supplied.
“Hung out on the window seat,” Brian corrected, scowling. He stood, and put Booboo down on said window seat,
before moving back to the box.
Justin eyed the stuffed animal. “I can’t believe your taste was so… bad.”
“Actually, Claire picked him out,” Brian answered.
“Really? Claire did something nice for you?”
He shrugged. “She was seven. I was in the hospital. Concussion.” That last was muffled as Brian turned back to the
box. Justin took a breath, ready to ask, but Michael caught his eye, and grimly shook his head.
“Here, Michael,” Brian said, handing him a high school year book. “Get it over with.” He leaned back, and watched
as Michael grinned, and sat on the bed next to Justin, opening the year book to pages he already knew, having an
identical copy at home. “Here, that’s me,” he told Justin, pointing to a picture of a goofily smiling man with hair a
bit too long. Next to his picture was written, in big, loopy writing, “Hey asshole, I’m not going to write anything
since you aren’t getting rid of me just by graduating!! Yr best friend, you know who!”
“Original,” Justin observed, looking up at Michael, who punched him in the arm, and flipped back a few pages, to
Brian’s picture.
“You wouldn’t believe how hard the photographer tried to get him to smile,” Michael said.
“I didn’t do that.” Brian put in his comments, pausing to watch Justin’s reactions.
“Too cool for school?” Justin glanced up only briefly before turning his gaze back to the young man, unbelievably
thinner than Brian was now, but with those high cheekbones, the lush lips, the “fuck you” expression.
“Something like that.”
“Here,” Michael said, flipping through yet again, to the sports section. Justin would have liked to have looked a little
more closely, but he knew he had time, later. He glanced over at Brian, who grimaced, but didn’t look too terribly
upset by all this. “There,” Michael directed Justin’s attention to the page.
Wow. On the soccer page was a black and white shot of Brian in his uniform, taken from the side as he moved into a
kick as an opponent approached; arms out to the sides balancing for the kick, the leg all muscle, the focus of his
gaze upon the ball all-consuming. Then Michael was pointing to a smaller, color shot in the next page of Brian
again, ball in hand, the other hand on his hip, relaxing on the sidelines, a beautiful, beautiful boy. “I think the
photographer was in love with him.”
“Everybody was,” Brian said, and Justin and Michael both made gagging noises, Michael shutting the book, placing
it in Justin’s lap. “Anything else interesting?” Michael asked.
“Varsity letters, some old pictures… a couple notebooks, those can probably go. Hey…” Brian stood up with a
couple of comics in his hand. “Here.” He handed them to Michael.
“Oh my god! Robot Man and Infinity Zone!” Michael looked at them, turned them over, shook his head at the flakes
of paper that fell away. “Too bad these weren’t put in plastic, they’d probably be worth something. What do you
think happened to the rest of your collection?”
“Might be up in the boxes in the attic,” Brian answered.
“Oh?” Michael’s voice was so hopeful.
“You want to go check that out? I’ll be up in a sec.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want,” Michael answered, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice. He moved out of
the room.
Justin opened the yearbook as Brian dug back into the box., He opened the yearbook back up to the soccer page and
gazed down at the picture of the kid in the number 11 jersey, holding the soccer ball, glancing sideways into the
camera with that arrogant sneer that had apparently attracted the photographer’s eye for good-looking, smart,
athletic, and untouchable. Brian had had the formula down, even back then. But Justin knew, that was also the start
of that veneer he wore as he wore Armani now, a hard cover over the child who had learned that softness was
deadly, and love didn’t exist, and to exist without pain in the world you had to give up everything you really wanted,
close yourself off. To not know joy, to only know pain, a pain that made you want to burn through the world,
desecrate the altars of life, take everything it had to offer to try to and fill that hole inside that could only be satisfied
by the one thing you sensed existed, had heard existed, but never experienced for yourself. Justin felt a prickle at the
back of his eyeballs, a tightness clamping around his temples. A single drop fell onto the laminated page, and he
wiped it idly away, passing his hand over teenage Brian’s picture.
Damn it, he thought as he felt the mattress dip underneath Brian’s weight. He didn’t want Brian seeing him this
upset for the kid his lover had once been. But his chin was caught by Brian’s hand, his head raised. Brian took the
book from Justin’s lap with his other hand, and set it aside. Justin took a deep breath and blinked, willing the tears
away. “You were so young,” he tried to explain. “You seem so… hard already. Angry. You were what. Seventeen?”
“I had to be,” Brian started, hesitated, seeming to search for the words. “For my mom, love was something you dole
out so people gave you what you wanted back. All that shit I was doing, the grades, the soccer, it was to get out of
their house but…” He hesitated.
“What?”
“I was hoping if I was really good, then they’d love me. But they just thought they weren’t doing anything wrong,
because I was making them look good. They got what they wanted. And I got shit. Nothing I did was ever good
enough. Joan told me all the time, there was something wrong with me. I was unfeeling, cold. Unnatural.” He
snorted. “Bet she loved it when she found out I was gay. She had been right, all along, as far as she was concerned.
She hadn’t done anything wrong, it was all me.”
“You’re not cold, Brian. There’s nothing wrong with you. And you’re even more gorgeous than you were then,”
Justin flattered, glancing down at the picture and back up to the present-day Brian, who was rolling his eyes, but
looking pleased. “Like when you’re with Gus. And I know you were an asshole to me in the beginning, but that first
night… you let me in. You did. Even then, I knew that attitude was covering something else. Why do you think I
stuck around? You let me see you. And that’s coming out more. Maybe that’s why you had to build up angry-boy,
because you really did know what love is. Your mom never did. You do things for me that show me you love me all
the time. You’re not unfeeling, and you’re not cold.”
Brian hesitated, and leaned his forehead to rest on the other man’s. “Yeah. Shut up. Okay, listen. I want to say this.”
He straightened again. “When I do things for you… it’s because, well, I want things for you, not for myself. I know
you feel that way about me, I just didn’t know that’s what you meant when you blathered on about your ‘feelings’.”
Justin swatted him, and Brian leaned back. “Look, Justin, if I could, I would just say the stupid words. But for better
or worse, all of this is who I am,” he nodded around the room, at the high school yearbook. “If I say it, I want it to
be as right as the feeling is. And it is.”
“I know,” Justin replied. “I love you too, Brian.” Brian smiled, and leaned forward, but Justin pulled back. “Can I
ask you something? If it’s out of line, just forget it.”
“So?”
“If it’s not natural to you, how come you can say you love Michael?”
Brian froze, then abruptly straightened as if bitten.
Justin wished he hadn’t asked; he had known the question was a mistake. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask you that.”
“No, I’m just…” Brian stared at him, hard. The silence stretched out.
“Seriously, Brian, forget it, I shouldn’t question your relationship with Michael, it’s not my place.”
“Fuck worrying about your place. You know you should just ask me if something’s bothering you.” Brian took a
deep breath. “Look, what I’m going to tell you… I don’t want it to go beyond this. Michael wouldn’t understand.
And I’m not proud of this.”
Justin nodded. Usually, if Brian didn’t want something repeated, he would keep it to himself. And he knew he didn’t
have to tell Justin not to take out public announcements on their private conversations.
Brian stared hard at him, then said, “I told Michael I loved him the first time he let me retreat to his house. I think I
said something like, I love you guys, to both him and Deb. It didn’t really mean anything. Glib bullshit. Learned the
game from Joan. But he gave me this look… No one had ever been that happy at something I’d said, ever. I was,
what? hooked maybe. And I didn’t say it so much after that, as agree with him when he said he loved me.” Brian
hesitated, then continued. “Once, right around that whole Stockwell mess, Michael accused me of wanting to take
off to New York without a backward glance, and I told him that no matter what, I’d always love him. He just said
‘bullshit,’ and I almost laughed, I was so pleased he was finally clueing into my crap.”
“But you do love Michael,” Justin insisted softly.
Brian returned, equally insistent, “It’s different. I love him, but I don’t ever give back as much as I get.” He saw
Justin’s look, twisted his lips, and continued, “Anyway. I want those words to let you know what I feel *for* you,
not what I get *from* you. With Michael and you, it’s different. How I love him, it’s not how I love you.”
Silence.
Then, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, saying it wouldn’t sound right. That sounded okay to me.”
“Only because you were challenging me,” Brian answered, slightly disconcerted at how easily the words had slipped
out.
Justin chuckled. “So you can only tell me you love me when we’re arguing. That sure sounds about right for you.”
Brian just stared at him, making Justin laugh harder. “Oh, my god, you’re totally freaked out, aren’t you? If it makes
you feel any better, I’ve known all along.”
“Twat.” But Brian relaxed, and let Justin lean into him. “So that sounded okay? Only okay?”
“Well… I don’t want to panic you by using words like ‘amazing’ or ‘heart-stopping.’ You look like a deer caught in
the headlights as it is.”
“A deer? You’re comparing me to a deer?”
“Yes, my dear,” Justin replied, laughing as Brian groaned at the pun. “It sounded more than okay, and you know it.
Is your ego stroked adequately?”
“It’s not the ego that wants stroking…”
But Justin only stood, and moved to the window, much to Brian’s displeasure. “Later. Besides, Booboo needs a lot
more stroking than you do, after what, 20 years in a box?”
“Fine… I’m going to check on my best friend, make sure he doesn’t end up drooling on my old comics.”
“You’re going to give them to him anyway,” Justin returned.
“Probably. There’s one more box in the closet, by the way. If you feel the urge to pry more into my past…” With a
slight smile, Brian left the room.
Justin’s hand came off the stuffed animal, and he moved across the room. Hm, what else could be hiding in the back
of this closet? Considering the possibilities, he walked in and shoved aside the shirts, barely able to make out the
small box that huddled against the far wall. “Shit!” he said, tripping over a pair of old boots on the floor, catching
himself on the wall.
And heard voices behind him in the room, the sound of the door closing. He froze, as he recognized the fat priest’s
voice.
“John, you need to calm down.”
“I am calm! I’m fine! But… but…” John seemed about to cry.
I really should say that I’m here, Justin thought, but before he could speak, Father Steven’s next words changed his
mind.
“She’s dead, isn’t that enough for you? Your hysteria isn’t going to change that, it’s only going to make it worse.
Worse for you.”
“But it’s my fault! She saw… she saw…”
“And look what happened. What do you think is going to happen if you open your mouth about this? Who are you
going to tell?”
Justin heard the door open as he sat, frozen, in the back of the closet.
“Father Steven? What are you doing?” Father Tom’s voice.
“Nothing, Tom. John was upset, we were just having a little talk.”
“John, your grief is understandable, but death is beyond all of our control. You do remember what I told you?”
“Yes, Father Tom, I remember.” John’s voice, sounding drained of its usual belligerence. Mechanical. The small
hairs on the back of Justin’s neck prickled.
“Why don’t you go share your sorrow with your mother? She is equally distraught.”
The door opened and closed again, and Tom’s voice turned from its soothing tone to something much harsher.
“What are you thinking?”
“He was getting hysterical. I was just reminding him of how much trouble his speaking up would cause.”
“Tell me you weren’t threatening him.”
“Of course not! I was merely reminding him…”
“Do me a favor and shut up. Take your own advice. Be grateful all I’m doing is moving you out of the parish.”
“You know I am grateful for your charity.”
“You need help, Steven, the Lord will punish you as he sees fit. It’s bad enough that we’ve had to go against Joan’s
will, bad for the parish. The house could have done a great deal of good. So don’t forget how lucky we are that that
boy’s mother is as interested in avoiding a scandal as we are, and keep your mouth shut. Don’t let me see you alone
with that boy again, ever! One more week, is that too much to ask?”
Father Steven replied, “Of course not…”
And the door’s click as it opened was heard, and the priests’ voices faded. Justin waited a minute or so before
peering out into the now-empty room. He walked over to Booboo, picked up the little animal and unthinkingly
hugged it to his chest. “Holy shit,” he whispered, and then laughed slightly but with no humor at the appropriateness
of that phrase. He repeated it, “Holy fucking shit.” What the fuck were they going to do? This was… Holy shit.
He put Booboo down and left the room, intent on finding the attic and Brian, but before he reached the stairs at the
end of the hall, he heard broken sobs coming from a room on the left. He pushed the door open, to see John
sprawled across the bed. “John?” He alerted the kid to his presence before approaching.
John snapped to attention, springing out of his fetal position, upright. “What… what the fuck do you want?”
Justin remained standing a few feet away. “I heard what Father Steven said to you,” he said, coming straight to the
point.
“It’s nothing! It was nothing, nothing happened.”
“John…”
“No! Nothing happened, nothing…” And then John’s face crumpled, and he turned his back, hugging his knees to
his chest, and burying his face down, curled up in a ball, hyperventilating. Justin moved to sit on the bed, and
reached out to touch his shoulder.
John uncurled, springing back to the headboard, as if shot. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“Did your grandmother know?”
“Why do you think she’s dead!” John was moving into pure hysteria, tears streaming down his face, his breath
catching somewhere in his chest and not expelling. His face was red, twisted out of shape.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Brian came into the room, having heard Justin’s voice. He had been on his way to
his old room, to find out how Justin was doing with the rest of his stuff.
“All of you, you’re all… All of you! All of you!” John yelled, pushing past Justin, then Brian, who stumbled back
against the doorframe with the force of John’s egress. They heard his noisy progress down the stairs. Then Brian
looked back at Justin. “What the fuck was that about?”
Justin took a deep breath.
DDTWiD Part 6
X
Brian stared at Justin for a long moment, and then his eyes closed. Justin realized he wasn’t clenching his jaw, no
vein throbbed at his temple, he was just utterly, utterly still.
“Brian?” Justin whispered, afraid to touch him, fearing to set off an explosion. He couldn’t predict this one; Brian’s
reactions tended to be icy, but erupting beneath until all hell broke loose.
Brian’s hand came up, though, to rub across his cheek, and over his eyes, and then his head was falling into his
hand, his other arm moving to hug himself at the waist. He simply slumped into himself. Justin’s initial alarm
underwent a quick and unexpected turn; he reached out, scooting across the bed to sit, thigh to thigh, his hand
resting against Brian’s upper arm, but still not ready for the weight when Brian suddenly turned into him, burying
his face against Justin’s chest, so Justin was looking down at the top of his head. Woah. “Brian…”
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Justin found himself squeezed too tightly in Brian’s grip; arms had snaked around Justin’s waist and hands dug into
the skin of his back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck this family. Why…” He stopped, breathed deeply.
“Brian…” Brian never asked why. He just dealt. Reacted, sometimes forcefully, oh hell, always forcefully, but he
always just dealt.
Brian raised his head, and Justin drew in his breath at the bleak look. “It never ends. I can’t…” He shook his head,
looked away.
Justin got it then. He could practically feel his heart pounding as it picked up speed, and Brian’s head lowered to his
shoulder. “What can I do, Brian?”
“Tell me what to do.” Very muffled against Justin’s shirt. “I can’t kill a priest. And that’s all I can think of right
now. But then, your fucking voice comes into my brain, telling me, that’s not a solution.”
“That’s not a solution,” Justin murmured, hand stroking Brian’s back.
“Fuck, where’s John?” Brian’s head came up suddenly, eyes sharpening.
“I don’t know, he just took off.”
Brian stared into Justin’s face, the bleakness clearing, and then gone as if it had never been. He took a deep breath.
“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. I think I know where he might be. I want you to go out to the car, and wait
for him.” He reached into his pocket and fished out the keys. “Take John to the loft as soon as he gets there. Go rent
some movies or something, keep him occupied. Don’t let anyone up, or anyone in. Nobody, not even Michael. Just
pretend you’re not home.”
“You think John’ll go there? With me?” Justin took the keys, but looked at Brian skeptically.
“Yeah he will. I want him out of the way. I’m going to raise some serious hell.” He saw the look on Justin’s face.
“Don’t worry, Justin. I’ll take care of it. Don’t I always?”
“Wait a second. Just a minute ago, you asked me to tell you what to do.” Justin ignored the answering look of
chagrin on Brian’s face, and pressed, “You can’t always be the one to fix everything, Brian, this might be beyond
that.” Another look. “That’s not what I mean, I get this is serious and we just can’t let it go. But maybe we should
call in an outside authority.”
“The police?”
“Maybe we should talk to Horvath, at least.”
Brian did not dismiss this immediately, and the tension leached from his face. He leaned forward and kissed Justin’s
lips softly, then pulled back. “How about we just see what’s going on first? And then maybe we’ll see if we have to
call in reinforcements.”
He felt that kiss softening him to go along with Brian’s reasonable words, and knew Brian was manipulating him. So
Justin held onto his worry, even as he felt himself reluctantly agreeing with Brian’s plan. “I’m concerned about
you,” he repeated. “You’re in enough of an emotionally charged situation…” He saw Brian’s grimace, and caught
his lover’s face in his hand, held him so Brian was forced to look back at him. “Brian, you admitted you haven’t
been exactly in great emotional control this week. And now this, on top of all the other stuff. You’re at least used to
carrying that other stuff around with you, this extra stuff is, well, maybe too much. I just worry…”
“I know. I know. Didn’t I just tell you, it’s your voice in my head telling me not to just go off? You think I’m going
to let my sunshine give way to storm clouds? I know what that does for my sex life.”
Justin held him there for a moment, searching his eyes for something, completely ignoring the teasing tone, knowing
Brian was really pushing for his way. But then Justin nodded. “Okay. Okay, you go find John, and I’ll go take him
to the safe house.”
Safe house. Brian liked that; it summed up the loft so well. He stood, took Justin’s hand and hauled him up. “Trust
me.”
“It’s not you I don’t trust.”
Brian exited through the kitchen door, which opened out behind the house, and walked to the bottom of the lawn.
The yard sloped down, ending in a tangle of overgrown hedges that separated Joan’s property from the neighbors’.
Ignoring his suit, he dropped to his knees and pressed through a slight thinning in the thick branches that grew all
the way to the ground. It was harder to do that than when he was a kid, so much smaller and skinnier, but that small,
protected space where four of the hedges grew so closely that the branches couldn’t grow inward, that hidden area in
the midst of the hedges, it was still there. And John was sitting in the middle of it. The young man started, and
looked up, his breath hitching.
Brian stopped as soon as he saw his nephew, and balanced himself into in an awkward squat. “This was my spot
when I was a kid too. When I had to get out of the house. I came in here a lot.”
“What the fuck do you want?” The kid unfolded his arms from around his knees, ready to flee, but unfortunately
Brian was at the only accessible exit point.
“Look, I’ll stay right over here, okay? I just want to talk to you.”
John didn’t look at him, but he made no further moves to bolt, either. Brian took that as an encouraging sign.
“John.”
John turned his face toward his uncle.
“Want to tell me what’s going on?”
John took a deep breath, but then his face twisted, and he just looked away again.
“Justin told me he heard Father Steven threatening you. Is that priest hurting you?”
Nothing, the face burying in the knees.
Brian hung back, trying to figure out a way to reach John, to encourage him to open up. Not as if he had great
experience with kids, and this wasn’t just any kid, this was a Kinney kid. Just great, Brian thought, like I know how
to communicate with anybody anyway, to say nothing of a belligerent 13-year old, to say nothing of this particular
belligerent 13-year old. He moved himself a bit closer, and reached out to touch his nephew’s shoulder. John
flinched.
“Fuck, John, you know I’m not going to touch you like that!”
“You flushed my head down a toilet!”
“You…” asked for it, Brian stopped himself from saying by biting his tongue. He thought for a moment, and then
said, “Okay. Not my finest moment. But you know I never touched you in any other way.”
“But you hurt me.”
Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!! He stared at the curled up boy for a moment, and realized they were getting off track.
Deflection. He knew this tactic, far too well.
Well, shit, he did know this tactic, the avoidance maneuver John had just deployed, didn’t he? Who the fuck did this
kid think he was playing? Time to cut through the bullshit, and if anyone could do it, that would be me, Brian told
himself, before saying to John, “So fine, then, just listen. Don’t say anything. Just either nod or don’t. Okay? John,
listen, okay? Are you listening?” Patience, he thought to himself, feeling his too-quick temper rise. He heard Justin’s
voice in his head, and the emotion receded.
John nodded, his head still buried against his knees.
“Can you look at me, at least?”
John lifted his head, and Brian caught his breath, not because the face was red and swollen from crying, but because
something was suspended in that face, and something else was peeking out. Pain, sure, but… the usual scowl was
missing, and Brian saw just a 13-year old, bewildered kid. Not demon spawn. Just a scared, hurt kid. Had he ever
looked like that? But even he hadn’t been through this. And sure as shit, no one had been there for him. This was
worse than his experience, and he’d be fucked if he abandoned this boy to it.
“Okay.” He thought for a second. “When you sent me to jail…” John looked away, but Brian reached out and
touched his shoulder with the tips of his fingers again, and John looked back, not jerking away this time. “It’s okay,
I just need to ask this. All you have to do is nod if what I say is true, or shake your head no if it isn’t. Okay?” John
nodded, so Brian continued, “The report you gave the police was fairly detailed.” Yeah, and he hadn’t thought about
how a kid would know all about blow jobs, testicles, leakage, what some sick fuck might demand from a kid, or how
a kid would know about gagging from a dick being shoved down his throat. At the time, he’d just figured John had
picked shit up on the internet. But he hadn’t exactly had time to do research between Brian’s… uh, chastisement,
and the police report. And Brian hadn’t stopped to think of why a homophobe in training would cruise those kind of
web sites, anyway. This was starting to make more sense. Awful, horrendous sense. “Did you know about that stuff
because of Father Steven?”
John hesitated, but then he stared straight into his uncle’s eyes, and nodded.
Brian had to force himself to remain in a crouched position, to not just get up and go find the good father right then.
“Does your mother know?”
Again, nod.
“Father Tom?”
Nod.
“Did your grandmother know?”
Hesitation, then the tears, and John choked, “…she didn’t… until… until…” He stopped, and swallowed, began
whimpering.
Shit, he needed Justin for this. “Okay, listen. Here’s what we’re going to do right now.” John watched him, warily.
“I’m going to take care of a few things here. But right now, we need to get you away from all these people. Right
now, I’m going to go back into the house. And you’re going to go back to my place with Justin, who’s waiting for
you by my car. You go right down there, I’m parked in front of the house. My place is in a secure building, Justin
won’t let anyone near you. Okay?”
John frowned, and bit down on his lips. “But… but you guys…”
“John, you know I never did anything like that to you. Justin never would either. Anyone who touches children is
sick. It has nothing to do with whether they’re gay or straight. Gay men don’t molest children any more than straight
men do. Only sick shits do that.” He watched John struggle with this, and he added, “I’m going to help you.”
“That’s what Father Tom said.”
So I am going to kill me two priests, Brian thought. But for now, he just said, “Well, this is me. And I’m never
wrong. You’ve heard of how successful I am, right?”
John nodded again.
“That’s because I always get my way. And right now, my way is to make sure you’re safe, away from all these
people. So? will you go meet Justin by the car? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything back here for you.”
“So you believe me?” John whispered.
“Yeah… Justin believes you. And I believe him. You can trust him, he’s a really good guy.”
“He helped you.”
“He’s like that. He’s a good guy. Are you okay with going with him to my place?”
“But…” John stared at his uncle, the emotions crossing his face too variable to read, but fear certainly
predominating. “But what’s going to happen to me?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t want to see you hurt anymore. And I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be hurt again.”
John shook his head.
“Yeah, okay, so we’re on the same side.” John still hesitated, and Brian pushed, “Look, I know you don’t have any
reason to trust me. You just have to decide whether you will or not. But those priests aren’t. And your mom’s not
doing a great job of being on your side either.”
“No.” John stared at Brian for a long moment, and his face set. “Okay. You got that Corvette, right?”
“Yeah. Right out front.”
“Can I drive?” A peek of the kid again. Maybe even a glimpse of a sense of humor there.
Brian smiled, a little sad at how young John seemed. “Maybe when you’re my age.”
“That long?” Cutting smirk. Definitely, his nephew.
Michael was actually reading one of the comics in the box he had discovered tucked way in the back of the attic,
where Brian found him. He looked up as Brian approached, his eyes filled with an awe that bordered on worshipful.
“Do you know what you have here? And they’re almost perfectly preserved in this dry attic.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s all yours.”
“No way!” Michael started to jump up, but then laid the comic carefully back in the box. Then he did spring up, and
hugged his friend. He stood back, realizing Brian’s return hug was less than heartfelt. “You okay? I mean,
besides...” He looked embarrassed, realizing what he had just asked.
“I’m fine,” Brian said, “But I sent Justin home. Time to deal with family stuff, and you know how that is in the
Kinneyland. Why don’t you just take that stuff and take off yourself?” Best way to get around the truth, just omit
certain information. It wasn’t exactly lying.
“Really?” Michael returned. “Do you need me to stay, help you out any way?”
Brian shook his head. He knew Michael would, and he certainly appreciated that fact. But he really did not want him
involved. Shit, he didn’t want to be involved, but he had no choice. “No, I’ll be fine.”
“You sure? I mean, with Justin not around…”
Michael’s genuine concern, and his acknowledgement of Justin’s role, made Brian actually regret having to send
him away, not having that sincere support to hold him up. But Michael could do no good, and this was not
something he needed to add to his list of worries. Lord knew, Michael seemed to collect them, like other people
collected coins, sometimes. “I’m sure. You go home to the hubby, fuck your brains out, celebrate life. Isn’t that what
you do after a funeral?”
“I’m sure it’s what YOU do after a funeral,” Michael chuckled, picking up the box. “And after the wake, and after
breakfast, after lunch, after work…”
Brian hugged him briefly as he passed. “You’re a good friend, Michael.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Michael stared at him for a second. “You sure you’re okay?”
Brian sighed. “I’m fine. Go. I’ll give you a call later.”
“Okay. You take care, try not to destroy your sister’s fragile psyche.”
The snort in reply to that was not the joke that Michael certainly took it as. After Michael had left, Brian paused,
looking around. There were three boxes waiting for him. He’d take them back to the loft after this was over; he did
not want to stay in this house one second longer than he absolutely had to.
Part Five
“All right, that’s it, funeral’s over, everyone out.”
“Brian!” Claire’s shocked voice resonated through the living room, as Brian’s announcement took the old women
lingering about by surprise.
“Time for a family conference, which means everyone out, except,” he turned to the sofa, where the priests were
sitting, “you two.” He glared at Steven, who looked over at Tom, who had gone still as he watched Brian.
As Claire ushered the last of the guests to the door, apologizing and casting worried looks over at her brother, Brian
walked over to the coat rack and picked up John’s coat, patting it down until he found what he was looking for. He
crossed the room to Peter, who was looking out the window, bored. “Hey, Peter.” The kid looked over at him.
“Here, take John’s game. Go up in your grandma’s room, there’s a tv up there. We gotta talk boring stuff down here.
Okay?”
Peter looked at him suspiciously. “Where’s John?”
“He took off with a friend.”
“That lucky shit,” Peter grumbled. “Mom said I should stay down here for now.”
“That was then. NOW, you can go upstairs. Your mom said it’s okay, right, Claire?” he asked his sister who was
slowly returning into the room, now that the last of the guests had been escorted out. Only Uncle Mike and Liam
were left, lingering in the doorway.
“Yes, Peter, you can go watch t.v.” Peter needed no second urging. He grabbed the Gameboy Brian held out to him,
and raced up the stairs.
Brian turned to Mike and Liam. “You don’t need to stick around, this is nuclear family business.”
Liam nodded, and seemed ready to leave, but Mike shook his head. “You said family business, we’re family.”
“Dad…”
“Don’t you ‘dad’ me! Forget ‘nuclear,’ we’re family. We may not get along all the time, but I’m not going
anywhere. And neither are you. Grow up and get with your responsibilities, boy.” Mike sat in the hard-backed chair
that had recently accommodated some old lady, and crossed his arms over his chest. Liam sighed, and leaned against
the doorframe.
Brian hesitated, glanced at his uncle and cousin. Well, fine. Fuck it. “Sit down, Claire.” Brian held John’s jacket in
his hands, gripping it so hard his fingertips began to go numb.
“Brian…”
“Sit the fuck down!” he yelled, then bit his tongue, trying to calm down.
“Brian, do you think that’s any way to talk to your sister?” Mike asked, eyeing his nephew.
Brian’s hackles came up, recognizing Mike playing alpha dog, as he always did, when he was as far from in charge
of this. Hell, he didn’t have any idea what this was. Time to dispel Mike’s illusion of his position as all-knowing. He
answered Mike’s criticism by saying, “It is when my sister allows Father Steven there to molest her son.”
That little declaration had Liam straightening right up. Mike stared at Brian blankly, then half-rose out of his chair
with a roar, “WHAT?”
“Sit the fuck down, Mike,” Brian said. “You want in, fine. But I’m in charge of this particular family business. And
right now, we are going to have a little talk. So sit. The fuck. Down.”
Mike sat.
“Where’s John, Brian?” Claire asked, watching him warily.
“Oh, now you’re concerned with your son’s welfare?”
“Maybe I should…” Father Steven began to rise, making his break for it.
“You will sit down before I slowly dismember you,” Brian interrupted, curtailing the priest’s flight. If that wasn’t
enough, Mike made a counter move that mirrored Steven’s, effectively blocking the priest, while Tom murmured,
“Sit down, Steven.”
Brian turned back to his sister. “John is with my partner. In other words, he’s safe. Which is something he isn’t with
you.”
Claire looked down at her hands. There was a silence. Mike flexed and unflexed his hands. Finally, Liam spoke up.
“Brian, want to fill us in?”
Brian stared at Father Tom as he answered, almost casually, belying the effort it took to maintain a façade of calm.
“Sure, Liam. Justin was in the guest room closet pulling out some of my old shit when Steven brought John into the
room and told him to keep his mouth shut, or he’d end up like Joan. Tom here came in next, and made clear that
Steven was being transferred out to avoid a scandal. Doesn’t take much to figure this out, does it? But, I spoke to
John about 15 minutes ago, who basically confirmed some fairly nasty details, although I didn’t want to press him
too hard. For obvious reasons. I have no such compunction with these sick fucks. So, how did my mother die,
Tom?”
Tom maintained Brian’s gaze. “She saw. Claire came to me after John came to her. I arranged for Steven to be
transferred out.”
“Your own, child, Claire!” Mike turned to his niece, deeply shocked.
Claire’s white, strained face dissolved, and she burst into tears. “I didn’t know what else to do! I just, I just found
out, in five minutes, that my son is being molested, and my mother died running out from seeing, from seeing…”
She gestured, unable to go on. “And it’s bad enough that she left everything to Father Tom in the first place, then her
own church kills her! What the hell was I supposed to do, Tom tells me that the scandal would be bad for John
anyway, but ending up in a hole in the wall…”
Brian interrupted what was turning into a babble. “Wait, what? She left Tom everything? What’s that?”
Claire spun her head around, the pleading, pathetic look directed toward her brother. “Yes, that bitch! You think I
hated her for no reason! She left everything to him!”
“I thought you said she had no will?”
“Oh, there was a will, there is a will, Tom has it…”
“She left everything to the church?” Why did this not surprise him?
But Tom was shaking his head. “No. Not to the church. To me.” He reached beneath his jacket to an inner pocket,
and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He handed it to Brian, who did not even open the document, but eyed it.
“Don’t you see, Brian?” Claire pleaded. “If that didn’t come out, we’d at least get something after the hell she put us
through, all our lives! And what was I supposed to do, put John through the hell of a scandal? He begged me not to,
he begged me to just get him away from that priest, and that was it, we’d get the house, Tom was going to get rid of
Steven, and I promised John he’d never have to go to church, never again, and with the money I could get him into
counseling…”
“You better be right there with him, Claire,” Mike interrupted, “to let him know why his mother was willing to sell
him out and forego justice.”
“We thought it was best for John,” Tom put in, quietly, “but obviously, it was wrong. God put your young man in
the closet. I was never easy with this…”
“But, Tom,” Steven finally spoke up at last, meaning to continue, but Liam told him to shut the fuck up, and he did,
mouth closing with a snap.
Tom sighed, closed his eyes. “We thought it would be best for John and Claire, best for the Pittsburgh church. But I
will abide whatever decision John’s family wishes. I relied on Claire as his representative. Clearly, though, if Steven
is threatening John still,” he glared over at the man sitting next to him, but Steven’s head was bowed and he was
saying nothing, “then clearly I made a wrong decision. And God is correcting that.”
“No, Justin corrected that,” Brian corrected the priest. “The question is, what are we going to do?”
“Call the police!” Mike barked. “Up in Boston, they have a zero tolerance policy, the Church locks those guys up!”
“When the church leaders aren’t refusing to release personnel records, and that doesn’t stop the victims from
suicide, feelings of lack of worth, depression, and shame at the onslaught of publicity. Yeah, Mike, I read the news,”
Brian told him.
“What, are we just going to let this guy go? To what, track John down and threaten him?”
“He won’t get near him,” Brian said.
“I’ll make sure of that,” Tom added.
“Your word isn’t exactly too great right now,” Brian shot back.
“Brian,” Mike spoke, “you know damn well if we let this guy go, we won’t see him again.”
“If we choose to call the police,” Brian answered, “They’ll be able to track him down wherever the church sends
him.”
“Then you’re not following the news that closely. Boston, at least, has a zero tolerance policy. They’ll fire the guy
as soon as Father Tom calls in the report, and you think he’s going to stick around?”
Brian chewed on his lower lip, and glanced over at Liam, who grimaced, and nodded in agreement with his father.
“Hate to say, he’s probably right.”
Brian stared at his cousin. He thought for a moment. “Let me make a call,” he said, taking out his cell phone.
They entered the loft, and heard two voices over the sound of shots and grunts, clearly from a video game.
“You are so dead! I thought you said you were better at the X-box!” John’s voice.
Justin’s responding. “I am! I thought you’d never played this before!”
“Oh, I am the master of all gaming,” John answered, laughing. Brian shut the door, and walked over to where the
two were sitting on the floor in front of his big screen, so intent on the game they did not notice him and Liam
entering the room. Strewn at their feet were pizza boxes, soda cans, and four other games that hadn’t been opened
yet.
“I thought I told you movies,” he said, making both guys jump, and look over their shoulders.
Justin shrugged, and flashed a guilt-free smile. “Always wanted one.”
“Hah! Rule 512! Never remove your eyes from the action!”
“Shit!” Justin exclaimed, turning back to the screen.
“Uh, boys?” Brian asked, vaulting over the back of the couch, and placing his hands on Justin’s shoulders. “Ready
to take a break?”
John stared down at his controller, putting it reluctantly aside after Justin paused the game. Then John looked up at
his uncle and cousin.
Justin asked for him, aware of the young man’s discomfort. “So, what’s going on?” He hadn’t spoke with John
about this, telling him as they drove back to the loft that they didn’t need to talk about it. John had shrugged, not
saying much. He had been almost invisible, until Justin had asked what he’d want to do, if he wanted to see some
movies, and John had asked if he had video games, since he had mentioned his skill with the X-box. Justin had had
to admit that it was Daphne’s system… But maybe they should stop by the Best Buy and get a set-up? So easy to
light the kid’s fire, and the next thing Justin knew he was sitting in front of the tv, wondering why he hadn’t gotten
one of these things a long time ago…
Now, Brian answered his question, “We wanted to talk to you first, John. Me, your mom, your Uncle Mike and
Liam, in other words, your family, all tried to figure out what was best for you. But we thought we should talk to
you first.”
John looked up reluctantly, and nodded. “Am I gonna have to…” he took a deep breath. “Am I gonna have to see
Father Steven again?”
“No.” Brian’s voice brooked no possibility of disagreement. “You won’t.”
“So, what’s gonna happen?” John seemed to loosen up some, and Brian took this as a good sign.
“The options are fairly straightforward. We can press charges against the priest, and he’ll go to jail. Or we let him
go, the way your mother wanted in the first place, and he leaves town, you never see him again.”
“But then he’d be free,” John said.
“Then he’d be free, but he would never bother you again.”
“But he might bother other kids.”
“Yeah.” Brian wasn’t going to lie about that one.
John bit his lip. “Can’t he get away now, though?” He sounded as if he almost wished the priest would, indeed, just
disappear. Brian cursed to himself; maybe he should have let the priest go. Take the decision out of the kid’s hands.
Christ, he was only 13!
“He’s in jail.”
“But… but!” John’s response was almost panicked. “But that means the cops know!”
“No, John, it’s okay, he’s not there for what he did to you,” Liam jumped in, hastening to assure him.
“Is he there for killing grandma? Can I be arrested for that to?”
Justin reluctantly broke the silence that followed that question. “John, what happened to your grandmother?”
John took a deep breath, glanced at the men in the room, each in turn. “I was in the confessional with, with…”
“You don’t need to talk about it,” Brian quietly assured him.
“Okay, so, Grandma, she opened up the door, and, and… she turned and ran, and next thing I know, she’s on the
floor, with blood all over…” The boy broke off.
“So she ran out and tripped?” Brian clarified.
John’s eyes were closed, but he nodded.
“That wasn’t your fault. John! Open your eyes, look at me.” Brian held his nephew’s gaze. “It was an accident.
Besides, you ever think that maybe your grandmother’s death was God’s way of making sure you got taken out of
that situation?”
John gaped at him. Clearly, he hadn’t thought of that. But then the mouth snapped shut, and the vague look
descended again. “God wouldn’t kill anyone.”
Justin almost laughed, but didn’t. But hell, didn’t these kids read the Old Testament?
Then, John mumbled, “He wouldn’t, not for me.”
Brian continued, “God works in mysterious ways, right?”
“What do you know about it?”
“Lot more than you think I would. Maybe God realized that what was going on with you was fucked up. And even if
people found out about what was going on, people like Father Tom and your mother, maybe God realized that even
after you told your mom, and Father Tom, about what Father Steven was doing to you, maybe God knew all those
people would make the wrong decisions in protecting you, so Father Steven could still at least scare you, like he did
this afternoon. So maybe he had to make sure that Justin overheard Steven threatening you, and the only way Justin
would be there to hear that was if he had to be at your grandmother’s funeral.”
“Why would God have chosen those people who were supposed to protect me, if they were just going to fail?”
Shit, this kid was smart. Brian was, for the first time in his life, glad he’d had this religious crap shoved down his
throat. He could answer this one. “Free will. You know that, God gives us free will, we know we’re supposed to do
the right thing, right? But following that rule is a choice. So, unfortunately, all the people around you chose wrong.”
John studied him for a long moment, then nodded. He took a long breath. “Okay… so you’re saying, Father Steven’s
not in jail for what he did to me? So I can still decide if I want to have him arrested for that?”
“We want to know what you want for yourself. Fuck Steven, don’t you worry about him.”
“What’s he in jail for?” Justin asked, curious.
Brian shot him a look that told him this was not the time, but Liam answered nonetheless. “Patriot Act violation.”
“The Patriot Act?”
Liam started laughing. “It would be funny if it weren’t so appalling.”
Brian couldn’t help explaining. “It seems Horvath has reason to believe Father Steven was told something
potentially related to money laundering for possible terrorist organizations in confession. Only suspected, of course.
So they’re holding him for 48 hours.”
“They can do that?”
“Horvath seems to think it’s enough. The magic words, possible ties to terrorism. And even if it doesn’t come to
anything, they’re just holding him. Apparently, they don’t need any more than that. But it gives us time.”
“Time for what?” John asked.
Brian was glad to hear John speak up. The kid seemed a little more engaged. “To decide what you want to do. Look,
John, what happened to you… that really sucked. And we’re worried it’s going to mess you up. If Steven goes free,
you may feel scared for years that he’d come back, and we don’t want you feeling that way. But we’re also worried
that if we have him arrested, you’ll have to be in a trial. And that’ll be really hard for you too. But,” Brian
continued, “everyone also knows, what happened to you is not your fault.”
“Yeah?” John asked, fiddling with the controller. “But…”
Brian waited.
“…he was so nice to me. He took me to baseball games. My own dad… he’s kind of an asshole. I never see him.
Father Steven… I mean, I liked him. So when he, he…” John paused, then continued, “I didn’t want to stop hanging
out with him. So I let him.”
“He should never, never have done that to you, John,” Liam jumped in here. John turned slightly to look over at the
other end of the couch, where Liam sat. “Seriously, John, the guy’s nice to you, of course you’re going to like that.
We all like it when people take interest in us. But Steven knew that you were probably lonely for a guy who could
do what your dad never did for you, and he took advantage to take something that he knew damn well you’d never
want. He wanted it for himself, not for you. What he did was not good for you, and he knew it, but he didn’t care.
And that’s just wrong. And we’re gonna try to keep anyone else from ever doing that again.”
“Your Uncle Mike says you can live with him in Boston, if that’s what you want to do,” Brian added. “And Father
Tom knows some boarding schools in New York, they’re not church-affiliated, so no priests. But you can go away
to school if you want to get away from here.”
“And I live in New York, so I’d be close by to check in on you,” Liam said.
“Or, you can stay here.”
John was fiddling with the controller again. “Do I have to decide now?”
Brian shook his head. “No, you have plenty of time.”
John looked over at Justin. “Do you think Father Steven should be arrested?”
Justin nodded, reluctantly. “But it would be public. And people would know.”
“But if he gets away, he could do this to other kids.”
Again, Justin nodded.
John took a deep breath. “I want to lock him up. For a long time.”
“You don’t have to decide right now,” Liam reminded him.
“I want him locked up,” John repeated, his voice beginning to sound stressed. “I want to stay with my mom, and
Peter. I like my school. I just want to be normal.”
“That’s why I’m saying you don’t have to decide right away, John. If there’s a trial, you probably won’t have that
normal life you want. At least, not right away.”
John really did look ready to cry then. “Why can’t he just be locked up, and I can be normal, and nobody else
know?”
Shit, who said life’s fair? Brian cynically thought, but he kept that to himself, even as Justin shifted under the
tightening pressure of Brian’s grip at his neck. “Why don’t you just think about it, John? And tomorrow, we’ll come
up with something. We’ll see what we can come up with.”
“Promise?” The boy’s eyes, that spark of hope through desolation.
Brian had to turn his own gaze away. “I can’t promise. I wish I could. But we’re going to try to do what’s best for
you. Not for the church. Not for your mother. Not for us. For you. Okay?”
“Okay.” John stared at his uncle for a while, then at Justin, who had leaned into Brian’s legs. “Okay.”
“In the meantime,” Brian continued, more than thankful to change the subject, “You’re going to spend tonight at the
hotel with Liam. That okay with you?”
“I can’t go home?”
“You’re mom’s a little upset. She wants you there, but we think it would be best if she has time to recover from the
funeral, and from this afternoon. And we think it would be best if you have a place to chill out, away from your
mom. She didn’t do the right thing, John.” He couldn’t wait to tell Justin Claire had used John’s molestation as a
means of subverting Joan’s will and claiming the house for herself. “Unless you want to go home, and Liam can stay
there with you? Or one of us?”
John snickered. “Yeah, there’s no room in that place. Besides, I think you guys want to be alone.” He eyed Justin’s
position, comfortably tucked between Brian’s legs. Brian looked at his nephew sharply, but realized there was no
malice in the statement. In fact, John might even be teasing him.
“Uh…”
“So okay, hotel. Cool. Can we get room service?” John asked Liam, who replied with a hearty, “Of course!”
“But,” John continued, “Can we hang out here? Just for a little while? I gotta finish kicking your boyfriend’s butt.”
“I don’t think so!” Justin answered, picking up his controller, and turning back to the game, taking it off pause.
Brian winced at the noise, and turned to Liam. “How’d you feel about a drink?”
“I think we might become kissing cousins if you were taking it out in trade.”
Brian rolled his eyes, and moved toward the whiskey, Liam right behind him.
DDTWiD Part 7
X
Brian closed the loft door on Liam and John, after telling them he’d call them the next day. Then he turned back, and
looked across the room, where Justin had switched on the evening news, and settled back on the couch. He turned to
Brian as he came around the couch, sat down next to him, and then kept moving down, his head burying itself into
Justin’s lap. Justin wove his fingers through Brian’s hair. “How you doing there?” Justin asked, and gasped as he
felt Brian mouth against his soft penis, which wasn’t remaining in its acquiescent state by any means, not with that
hot breath steaming through the fabric. “Brian…”
“Ask me after,” Brian said.
After, Justin didn’t ask him anything, just enjoyed the pleasant hum coursing through his sated body. Brian had
made love to him, slow and sweet; and sure, Justin knew he’d never call it that, would be fairly embarrassed or
downright hostile if Justin put it in words, but that was exactly what it had been. Love-making.
“Aren’t going to ask me?”
“Do you want me to?”
“You’re going to anyway.”
Justin sighed, giving in, knowing now was not a time to fight this particular battle. “How you holding up there,
honey?” He grinned widely at Brian with that last, enjoying the eye roll that answered him. He’d learned how to
deflect getting drawn into Brian’s bullshit. It was as if the man couldn’t help himself.
Worked like a charm. One deflected Brian replied, “I suck.”
“I know.”
“This sucks. Better phrasing?”
“Phrasing yes, situation, no. All this does suck. What are you planning to do?” Finally, Justin turned serious.
Brian rolled on his side, propped up his head on his hand, toyed with a strand of hair, spiky with sweat, that curled
around Justin’s ear. “I don’t know. I don’t think this should be in the hands of a 13-year old. But is it right to make
all these decisions that are going to affect him, without giving him a say? But, shit. He shouldn’t have to face this at
all.”
“Well, true, he shouldn’t have gone through what Father Steven put him through. But giving him some say over
what happens now, may just give him back some idea of control over his life. Over his bodily existence. And
besides, it’s not all in his hands. He’s got you. And me. And Liam.”
Brian snorted.
“Seriously, Brian. You’re handling this pretty well for the fact that the issues are pretty difficult. I’m proud of you.”
Brian made a face and turned away; Justin grinned, knowing his lover didn’t want him to see the blush that spread
across his cheeks.
Melanie stared at the man sitting across from her, his usual insolent lounge nowhere to be seen. Instead, he sat on
the edge of the plush chair stiffly, leaning forward, staring at her and waiting.
She’d been surprised when he had shown up at their door and replied to her explanation that Lindsay and Gus
weren’t home, that he hadn’t wanted to see them. That was surprising enough. This was… well. He’d told her the
situation with John, ending, “What can we do, legally? Without it ending up more of a trauma for John?”
He was holding himself stiffly, but this particular intensity was something she had only caught glimpses of; she had
never been at the receiving end of an absolutely no-bullshit Brian. Even with that Kip lawsuit years back, Brian had
played his games, sure, he knew it was serious, but he had never allowed her to see that it was being taken terribly
seriously, even though she caught the same look she was now witnessing, out of the corner of her eye, when he
hadn’t realized she’d been watching him. The look he wore in full view right now.
Maybe it was because this wasn’t about him. For himself, he could walk through fire, through hell, with that
swagger that announced he wasn’t touched even as his bones turned to cinder. He’d be fucked if he ever let anyone
know he could be touched, hurt. But if it were someone else…
That, that Brian couldn’t control. He couldn’t clamp down on someone else’s pain and give them the trick of
imagined Teflon coating that was really a big lie. If no one knows, pain is one’s own secret. A masterful, beautiful,
downright awe-inspiring lie, but in the end, just a cheap parlor trick. Melanie understood that particular trick. She
never believed in the Kinney magic. It was all a cheap pose, as far as she had been concerned.
But other people’s hurts… those, Brian couldn’t stand, couldn’t take, couldn’t bounce back. No wonder he resisted
caring, she thought, looking at his carefully composed features, the tension shooting through his body. Her own
muscles ached in sympathy, just looking at him.
Well, this was surprising, coming to all these revelations about the asshole in such a short period. She was surprised
he was putting himself out for his family, but there it was. She had been surprised he had put himself out for Justin.
Hell, no one was more shocked than she when it became clear (she was probably the last to know, but then, this sure
ruined her image of Brian, and what the fuck was she supposed to do with him when she couldn’t keep him in that
neat little compartment she had constructed for him, and safely hate him from the distance?), when it became clear
how much he loved his partner. Brian. Love. Who knew?
“Mel?”
“Yeah, I’m thinking.” Probably not about legalities, but tough shit, motherfucker. She almost snickered at the idea
of how Brian would react if he could hear that one, but suppressed it. Brian couldn’t control HER, he never could,
and she delighted in being the one person on whom his charm really didn’t work. “Well, the church has zero
tolerance these days. You’d think it would be for moral reasons, but it’s not, it’s the…” she trailed off. “Well, that’s
it, of course.”
Brian waited. He was no fool, never had been. Was as successful as he was, in fact, because he knew when to keep
his mouth shut. How to draw people to him.
Still, Melanie couldn’t help fucking with him, just a little. Yeah, she thought, not too nice of her, but she couldn’t
help it. People thought she and Brian had a totally dysfunctional relationship, bullshit. It functioned just fine. But on
wholly selfish terms, and never to the other’s primary benefit. She smiled again, this time allowing the grin out.
“That’s a nasty smile there, Mel, want to share?”
“Well, I was going to say the church is really addressing the problem to avoid lawsuits. And people criticize
American lawyers for forcing this kind of reform. You know what would happen in Italy if there was a rash of
molesting priests? Absolutely nothing. They’d probably worry their rosaries, and trust the punishment to god since
there’s not the same recourse to the law. And nothing would change.”
One eyebrow lazily rose at that. “That’s nice, but I need advice in this case, not an overview of the wonders of
America’s legal system, which is pretty fucked up, but let’s take a raincheck on that, shall we? What about John?”
Melanie nodded, feeling some sort of old fire ignite in her. Hopefully, this signaled the tail end of those baby blues,
thank god. And she had Brian to thank for it. Not that she would ever tell HIM that. But she wouldn’t forget, either.
“Lawsuit, that’s the answer. From the situation you describe, and if you really want this to end now for John so he
can get on with his life, it would be best for this Steven character to plea to a lesser charge, endangering the welfare
of a minor or something, assault if you can manage that, even sexual assault, though his lawyer would fight that one.
You need to have John’s statement on record, but avoid trial altogether. Will the other priest cooperate?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“The problem is, with zero tolerance, the endangering charge might force the church’s hand, and the sexual assault
certainly would. But you do want Claire to press some sort of charges. Probably the best way to do it would be to get
Steven to resign his commission or whatever the fuck they call it, then plead to the charge from the status of a lay
person.”
“Believe me, this Steven guy is as far from a lay as you can get.”
Melanie shot him her death look; he had the compunction to not return the look with that insolent tongue-in-cheek
thing. “You know what I mean, cut the bullshit. If you get Steven to go along with this, agree to a lesser charge,
you’ve got a statement, and hopefully he’s only thinking of how he can weasel out of more jail time, thinking you’re
only protecting John now, and not thinking of how John has around seven years to file a civil case, for which all
statements made can be used. Of course, his lawyer will fill him in on that one. But any criminal defense attorney
will point out that a year or two is better than ten. And then, John will have time to decide if he wants to push a civil
case, until he’s about twenty. However, of course, it’ll be more difficult to get to the church’s money, since a cover
up will be impossible to prove, and Steven won’t be jailed while still a priest. But it’s not impossible to get to the
church’s wallet, if John should choose to proceed that way. OR he can settle now, and the church will do its
damnedest to keep it quiet, pay him off, and put a no-tell clause in any settlement.”
Brian flexed the fingers of his hands against each other, pressing the pads of his fingers together to form a steeple in
front of his mouth as he considered all of this. “I don’t know if John’ll care about the money. Claire will…”
“Well, the best thing to do will be to convince Tom to hand back the inheritance. But to John, not to Claire. Unless
Claire doesn’t mind looking like a for-shit mother?”
“Mine didn’t,” Brian answered compulsively, then pursed his lips.
“Neither did mine,” Melanie added, not knowing why she wanted to ease his embarrassment at that slip. Shit! That
fucking Kinney charm… Nope, she had repellant, wouldn’t work on her. They looked at each other, assessing. “You
want me to talk to my contact in the D.A.’s office?” Melanie asked, changing the subject quickly. “She’s very
discreet.”
Brian thought a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. They have to let Steven out on Monday. So something needs to be
decided by then.”
“I’ll email her at home.”
Liam called him as he was walking into the loft on return from speaking with Melanie; apparently John was bugging
him to get over to the loft so he could kill more zombies or some such bullshit. He told Liam to let John know that
Justin was out, but he could come over and kill all the zombies he wanted, wondering as he hung up why he hadn’t
just let John take the damn thing with him. Hell, Justin had to be pried away from the tv set that morning. He was
not going to compete with electronics for his lover’s attention.
He was helping himself to a beer and telling himself he really should be working when the loft door slid open and he
could hear Jennifer’s voice following Justin into the loft. “But spending my sudden riches on my children is part of
my privileges, honey…” They’d been out shopping apparently. Justin dumped a bunch of bags at the foot of the
couch. Macy’s, Sak’s, some shoe store he’d never heard of, a bright fluorescent bag that he didn’t recognize. Well,
shit, this did not bode well. More bag-man look for the boy. What was it with that generation, did they think their
looks would last forever? Let’s see how unattractive we can make ourselves? Guess what, people? it goes. Make the
best of it while you can.
“It’s bad enough Brian wants to dress me up all the time. Besides, I do have my own money. You and him, Mom,
sneaking behind my back to buy shit for me.”
“I never sneak,” Brian said from the kitchen, knowing Jennifer was rolling her eyes even though her back was to
him.
Both of the people across the room jumped. “Shit! I didn’t know you were home.”
“Hi, Brian, how are you?” Jennifer’s voice was all concern. She didn’t ask, but there was no doubt Justin had filled
her in, at least on the funeral details. Brian tossed her a quick nod on his way to inspect the contents of the bags.
“Fine,” he replied. “Shopping, again?”
Jennifer watched him cross the room, his eyes fixed on the bags, his long fingers reaching out to open them, pulling
out a pair of sneakers Justin had insisted on buying and rolling his eyes. She was not fooled; the inspection was only
an excuse to get into the same space as Justin. Those two were just… she watched, still slightly disturbed at
recognizing her son as a man, not just that, a gay man, not just that, a sexually active gay man, not just that, a
sexually realized gay man in a relationship with another who was his match. She wondered if she would ever really
get used to it. Knowing that the power of her maternal relationship with her son could never compete… not even for
attention. She wondered how it would be when Molly brought home a lover. Would it be different because she at
least understood that? But it was more than just his homosexuality; it was as if she had melted out of the room when
Brian turned to look at her son, and the formerly childlike face, a face she couldn’t help but see whenever she looked
at this child of hers, turned up to his lover, an expression as far from childhood as you could get rising up into his
eyes, his lips, in the slight flush under the skin. Nope, if that look crossed Molly’s face, Jennifer thought, it would be
just as disturbing. I’m getting old, she thought. But who ever gets used to the idea of her child taking over the realm
of adulthood? who ever gets used to the idea of mortality?
“Yeah, I know,” Justin was saying as Brian stared at the bright red sneakers in his hand, then back at Justin. “It’s
your fault for throwing the old ones away. If you had just waited for them to fall apart, maybe I wouldn’t have
needed to replace them with a brand new pair.”
“I told you he’d hate them,” Jennifer reminded Justin.
“My mom was quite delighted to remind me of how much you’d hate my choices, and then she wanted to pay for
everything,” Justin snickered. “But like I told you,” he turned, speaking to Jennifer now, “I can pay for myself. I do
have money of my own.”
“I’m your mother, honey, we never get past wanting to take care of you, you know that.”
She must have said the wrong thing, because Justin tensed up, and looked over at Brian, who reached out and pulled
Justin back against his chest, kissing the top of his head, whispered something in his ear. The tense look evaporated
from Justin’s face and he even looked vaguely annoyed, at Brian, not at her. But she still felt awful. Of course, not
all mothers wanted to do whatever they could for their children. So impossible to fathom that fact, so easy to ignore
what surely could not be the case. “So Brian,” Jennifer continued, needing to fix her faux pas, “Since this one seems
to be abdicating his proper role of letting me pamper him, how ‘bout you?”
“Me?” The surprise was real; Jennifer almost chuckled, but stifled it. She actually liked Brian, unbelievable, but
true. He was so easy… not in the way she had heard, but emotionally, once you learned the right buttons to push.
For some reason, as Justin’s mother, ever since he’d actually fallen in love with her son, and she’d known pretty
much the second he had actually tripped into the abyss, poor man, she had felt access to this singular power,
knowing she had some sort of honored spot as the Lover’s Mother. Probably because his own mother had been such
a shit. Jennifer was no fool; she took advantage. “Christmas is coming, what do you prefer? Prada? Gucci? Or even
better, what do you say we take a weekend at a health spa? I’d ask Justin, but he’s so stubborn, he’d probably insist
on paying his half. And then how would I satisfy my maternal urges? What do you say?” She was babbling, but she
didn’t care; Brian’s eyes crinkled at the corners as amusement played over his face, and she felt very powerful,
having erased his tension, if only for a moment.
Justin couldn’t see Brian, though, with his back turned against his lover’s chest, and his head tucked under his chin.
“Jesus, mom, what is this, you replacing me?”
“Now, now, your mother knows a good deal when she sees one,” Brian teased. It felt good, to let Jennifer play this
game, to actually be included in the little family unit. When the two had walked in, before they’d realized Brian was
there, he’d listened to that easy communication and had felt so outside of it, so isolated, as if he’d missed something
huge. He had missed something huge, and he felt a sharp pang and hated it, hated it, wouldn’t allow it, self-pity was
for losers, reality was to be accepted, not avoided. He’d taken a swig of beer, forcing himself to calm as he’d
watched them.
But Jennifer had somehow picked up on the sharp pang that had remained, somewhere in his mid-section. She
couldn’t remove it, but as she spoke, its hard edges dulled.
“Maybe a more expensive deal, but I know Brian would appreciate an all-expense paid vacation to a resort where
they wrap you in mud, make you work out like an indentured servant, feed you rabbit food that wouldn’t keep a
sparrow alive, then deep muscle massage you til you drop asleep, all on someone else’s dime. He knows how to call
that ‘taking advantage’ even as the giver receives the joy of giving only mothers… some mothers, experience.” She
knew to qualify it this time, and was repaid with that small smile Brian could produce, almost a real one.
“See, Sunshine,” Brian said, his voice low so she had to strain to hear, “Your mother is selflessly trying to fill the
void for your poor grieving lover. She knew all along I’d take everything I could from you. She just didn’t know it
would end up being her, too.”
Jennifer snorted. “Oh, I knew. I just had to be sure I was being taken in by worthy hands.” And now I know I am,
she thought, but she didn’t say that. Brian stared at her, thoughtfully, before a grin stretched at the corners of his
mouth.
Justin pulled away from the hands that were rubbing against his shoulders, stood back, looking from his mother to
Brian, both of whom were now grinning like idiots. He hated feeling that the joke was at his expense. And he had
wanted them to get along? “I’m not even going to try to understand either of you freaks. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I
have some tasteless rags to go try on again…” He grabbed a bag and marched up to the bathroom.
Jennifer picked up her purse and a Tiffany’s bag, which she had set down with the others she had carried in. “So.
You okay, Brian?” She was serious this time.
“Yeah, fine… thanks for asking, Mother.”
He’d dropped the “Taylor,” Jennifer noted with a thrill shooting in her stomach despite the sarcastic emphasis on
that last word. “I’m not kidding about the spa,” was all she said, moving toward the door.
“Fine, but put your son on the bill and get us a room with a two-for-one mud bath, and we’ve got a deal.” She
grimaced; he saw that. He laughed slightly. “You’d think you’d have gotten over that by now, we do live together.
And you did walk in on…”
“Please do not remind me,” Jennifer interrupted, quickly moving to block the mental image of coming home from a
conference a day early, and finding her son, who was only supposed to be turning on the lights she had forgotten to
leave on to discourage burglars, her son naked on all fours on the rug of her living room, covered with an equally
naked, sweaty Brian, clothes tossed everywhere… nope, nope, not gonna remember that one. “Seriously. You need
anything…” She let it hang.
Brian moved to shut the door behind her. “Yeah… I appreciate that.” He looked away from her smile, suddenly
overwhelmed, and banged the door shut. Turning back, he made his way into the bedroom, admiring Justin’s ass in
the pair of fitted black trousers he’d taken out of the Macy’s bag. “Not bad,” he said, sitting on the bed to watch.
“Yeah, figured these would be okay… Can’t exactly wear them in the studio, though.”
“John’s on his way over. Says he wants to quote, kick some zombie ass. Unquote.”
Justin sighed deeply. “What is it about you Kinney men, you all want to play with me…” He turned, pulled the tshirt over his head and tossed it aside, bounding across Brian’s body, straddling his hips, pinning Brian’s arms over
his head. “How long?” he asked, running his tongue up the side of Brian’s neck, drawing out the goosebumps.
“I don’t know.” Brian reached for the zipper on his pants. “Long enough.”
XI
“I want to put that fucker away.”
John’s face was set.
Liam gestured with a hand. “He wakes up, this is the first thing he says.”
Justin looked over at Brian, who was frowning worriedly. “John,” Brian said, “Did you hear what I just told you?
My friend Mel thinks we can set it up so you can sue…”
“No.” The boy’s face was set. “I want him to fry. Are we done here? Justin? Can we play another game?”
“Uh…” Justin glanced over at Brian, then back at John. “John, I think Brian’s worried that you’re not thinking
clearly…”
“I’m thinking clearly for the first time in over a year,” John shot back at him. “You said you’d stand by my decision,
didn’t you?” He had turned toward Brian again. The sudden defiance in his eye wavered, as he searched his uncle’s
face.
Brian returned the look, cursing his family all over again. The kid had been terrified by that priest, and why?
because John had known he would be thrown to the wolves, to his family’s sense of propriety, of keeping up
appearances. Of duty and resentment. No one ever satisfied, everyone vaguely aware that they’d been sacrificed to
bullshit, but either unwilling to acknowledge it, or too weak to do anything about it. And spent their lives justifying
the decision to suffer, by spreading the misery around. Even to the most innocent, hardening all within reach into the
good old family tradition. No one escapes. And if you got real troubles, well, shit, you think your family’s going to
help you? More likely to ask what you did to deserve it. You feel bad? You don’t know what pain is, you don’t
know what MY pain is, how I’ve suffered, and now you’re going to make my life worse by telling me your
problems? Suck it up. Suffer. You’re on your own. It’s a hard world, better learn how hard as soon as you can. You
think family’s ground for safety’s purchase? Think again.
Brian had made his nephew a promise, the promise he’d made himself. No More Bullshit. And it was about time the
rest of the family – Claire, anyway – started understanding that Brian was just as bull-headed as the rest of them, but
about the escape, not the trap. John was really asking him for help, for more than that damn priest, he was asking for
something he didn’t know he even needed. A way out. He had no idea there was another way. Brian glanced over at
Justin, his eyes pulled to his partner like a beacon. Justin’s eyes were filled with pain, pain and anger. Not the
resignation Brian saw in his own eyes, every so often when he looked into the bathroom mirror early in the morning,
before he’d fully woken up. Justin, his pole star. Who was now smiling at him slightly, sadly. But with a
determination that Brian had never known until he had met him.
“That’s right, your decision. We’ll try to lock the fucker up.” Brian’s gaze, locked firmly on John’s.
“You know, though,” Justin added, his voice cautious, “we can press charges, and he may still get off. There are no
guarantees. And you may have to go through a trial, and a possible shit storm of publicity. For your attacker to get
off.” Justin’s voice was bitter.
John stared over at him, started to say something, then shrugged.
“What?” Justin asked.
John shook his head, looked away.
“John, seriously, what?”
John pressed his lips together, then looked back. “You went through all that, though, right? The bashing? By that
Hobbes guy? I looked it up on Liam’s computer last night, after he’d passed out.”
“Oh…” Liam looked sheepish.
Justin shook his head at Liam, not his fault, then turned back to the boy. “Yeah, and it was that bad. I felt like a freak
for a long time. Right in the eye of a storm of media.”
“Did you testify?”
“He pleaded guilty, so there was no real trial.”
John was silent for a moment. “Were you mad you didn’t?”
“John…” Liam started.
But Justin cut him off. He knew what John was asking. “I was too freaked out to testify. Back then, I was just glad it
was over, that I didn’t need to say anything. So no, I wasn’t mad. Not then. But now… sometimes I wonder if I’d
said something publicly, if that bastard would have been strung up.”
“Would you do it? Now, I mean? Looking back?”
“There’s no second guessing this, Jesus!” Brian swore. “Justin did what he had to do, it’s a completely different
situation. Hobbes pleaded guilty. The judge was a homophobic prick. Child molestation is a whole different league
as far as assholes like those judges are concerned, they don’t shrug at it the way we… the way Justin got shrugged
off.”
John turned a curious eye to Brian. “Did you testify? That attorney called YOU a child molester.”
“John…” Justin began, seeing the look crossing Brian’s face.
“No.” Brian’s voice was much calmer than it had been a moment ago. “Do you see, John, this is what I’m talking
about. You saw those reports? That’s what it’s going to be like. Only, it won’t be about me, it’ll be about you. How
will you like having articles in the paper questioning whether you asked to be raped because you let a man you liked
take you to a ball game?”
“Brian…” Liam spluttered.
But John was shaking his head. “Okay, okay. I get it. I didn’t mean, I mean…” He blushed. “I know you’re not a
child molester.”
“I know you know.”
“So maybe Father Steven’ll plead guilty.”
Brian took a deep breath. “Hobbes was arrested in the act. This is different. And… you’re on record of having done
this before. Made an accusation. A false one.”
“But…” John’s eyes widened. “But, I did that, just ’cause of Father Steven, I mean, I know you didn’t, but…”
Brian shook his head. “This is what I mean, John. I don’t want to scare you, and I don’t want you to think we don’t
believe you. We know what happened. But this is what I’m saying. In a trial, the defense attorney will only want to
win. And he won’t care about what the truth is. He’ll want everyone to think you’re a liar, and he’ll go for your
blood.”
“So, because I’m just some stupid kid, he’ll say nothing happened. And because I accused you, they’ll believe him.”
“Father Tom has a confession,” Justin added, thanking god the subject of his bashing was past, but wishing they
could get away from this one. For fuck’s sake, John was in tears.
“Yeah. Father Tom. Has a confession. That’s protected by law from being divulged,” Liam reminded them. “Can’t
use confessions to priests.”
John’s face had been darting between them all, slowly crumpling from its defiant expression, into plain old pain.
“So,” he finally said. “It’s gonna be complicated. And even if we get him on trial, people’ll probably know it’s me.
And they’ll know I’m a liar. Because of the last time this happened. I’m sorry, Uncle Brian, I really shouldn’t
have… I just…” He trailed off.
“I’d like to tell you better news,” Brian answered, gruffly. He thanked god his cell phone saved him from having to
say anything more. What John had done to him wasn’t okay, not by a long shot, but this particular repercussion was
pretty severe. “Kinney… Yeah, fine, we’re here.” He turned to the others after ending the call. “Your mom and Tom
are on the way over.”
***
“Hi, John.”
“Mom,” John mumbled his reply, not wanting to look at her.
Claire came around the sofa, to squat down in front of where her son sat. “Honey, I am so sorry, I really am…”
“You say that all the time!” John exploded. “Why can’t you just not have to say it in the first place!!”
Brian turned away, but not before Justin saw the look of pain that crossed his face. Justin moved closer to him, and
squeezed his hand. “You okay?” he whispered.
“Fine, just… flashback,” Brian answered, turning toward Tom, but not dropping Justin’s hand. “How’s it hanging,
padre? Or,” he added, glancing over to John to make sure he was still listening to his mother’s hissing pleas, “is that
only a question for padre Steve?”
Tom did not respond to that. Smart man, Brian thought. Rude, but the alternative would be to punch the man.
Sarcasm worked better. Justin squeezed his hand more firmly.
“We think we came up with a solution,” Tom said, his voice pitched low.
“Hey, John, the father wants to talk to you,” Brian called, rescuing John from responding to Claire’s sobs. God, that
woman just did not stop.
John extracted himself, and walked over toward the kitchen counter. “Yeah?” he asked Tom.
“We…” Tom began, glancing over at Claire, who had moved to join them. “We think we have a solution.”
“I want the fucker to burn,” John said. He was angry again. Good, Brian thought.
“John!” Claire exclaimed.
“Oh, cut it out, for Christ’s sake, Claire, the kid has a right to call that asshole whatever he wants! you’re going to
keep up these forms of propriety when all this bullshit is going on! Where the fuck are your priorities?” Brian made
himself shut up. This was about John… but it wasn’t. He felt Justin’s hand slip out of his and move to his back,
where it begin rubbing soothing circles. Damn it, this was getting ridiculous; he reached behind his back, grabbed
Justin’s hand, and threw it back at him. Justin only raised an eyebrow, and moved away. But not too far. Shit, Brian
thought, sometimes this emotional closeness was just fucking annoying.
“I want the fucker to burn,” John repeated. He had moved around the kitchen counter, and stood closer to Justin and
his uncle.
Tom sighed. “We’re still worried about a trial. Neither Claire nor I think that’s a good idea…”
“We’re all in agreement on that,” Liam added. Brian shot him a look. “Brian, we have to figure this out. Find some
common ground, so, John, we can do what’s best for you.”
John looked at Liam, then up at Brian, and finally his eyes fastened on Tom. “Do you think it’s still in my best
interest to just shut up?”
“No. No, John, and I apologize deeply for doing the wrong thing. I thought… well, clearly, I wasn’t thinking. I was
thinking about the scandal, and how it would affect you, and I wasn’t considering other issues. But, I do want you to
know, I spoke to my brother, he’s the headmaster up at Henley School, outside Phil