Everything at Once Ch 1-21
by plumsuede

We walk to the bedroom. He’s pulling me, but I am cooperating. I am tired much earlier these days now. I stop at my nightstand to remove my watch, empty my pockets, my nightly ritual. He sits on the bed with his legs tucked under him just watching me with that eager face and those trusting blue eyes that never change. I start to loosen my tie and he tells me to stop, to sit down on the bed, to let him do it. So I do.

I look down at his slight fingers as he slowly unbuttons my sleeves, one and then the other and then moves his attention to my tie. He unravels it slowly, looking into my face the entire time. I want to touch him, to speed this up, but I can tell that it’s not what he wants, so I don’t. My tie is loosened and his warm hand moves inside my dress shirt and begins unbuttoning my shirt. I keep my head lowered and try to stay quiet and calm as I listen to the sound of his breathing and feel his warm breath on my neck and chest. He is leaning into me and kissing me so gently that I feel wrong to act on the instincts I have right now-to roll him over and fuck him hard.

Eventually, though, I lean forward, pushing into his kiss, thoughts of tasting him crowding out every other thought in my mind.

I think I hear Pat Benatar? Love is a battlefield?

He stops me with a hand to my chest.

“Brian, that’s my cell.”

“Fuck it.”

“That’s Mel or Linds. Stop.” He moves out from under me, ignoring my frustration. I watch him cross the loft to his jacket to silence the annoying ring. He has one for everybody; Justin and his details. I hear him talking to Lindsay.

“No, he’s here. His cell must be off. Hang on.” I am already in the kitchen with him, taking the phone.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” I am short with her, but concerned.

“Nothing,” she says. “You were supposed to call me to let me know when you guys were going to come see our new place and you didn’t—that’s all. And then I tried to call your cell and your loft and no answer. I just got…“ she pauses…”I guess I just got impatient or something. That’s all.”

“Sorry. Ringer must be off. I forgot to call. Justin told me about your new place. I can probably come tomorrow sometime. You guys are settled in?”

I can hear Gus raising hell in the background and the real reason for the call in Lindsay’s voice. It has been two days since I told her about the cancer. Two days since she yelled, slapped me, and then cried—for me and for her. Two days since we both realized what all of this means if she and Mel are really splitting up. I wanted to tell her at a time that wasn’t like this, when she wasn’t breaking up with her partner, but things don’t always work out like that. I told her that I was going to play a bigger role in Gus’ life and that I was going to change my life insurance policies and my will. It’s been two days since she calls every few hours or so for some reason or another. She is speaking to me again.

“I don’t just want you to come. I want Justin to come to.” Her voice sounds lonely. It makes me uncomfortable.

“Okay, we’ll both come.” I agree as I lean back against the kitchen counter and reach to open the refrigerator. My eyes stop on the picture that Gus drew today.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Justin and I are getting ready to go out.” I lie, tell her goodbye and pull Gus’ picture off of the refrigerator. My kid cannot draw for shit. Lindsay had graciously written what he was trying to draw next to each scribble on the page. “Mommy, daddy, mommy, car, baby, and Justin.” I fold the picture in half and put it on my desk. I don’t want it on my refrigerator anymore.

I don’t want any of this on my refrigerator anymore. I want my life back. I want my Thursday nights back. I don’t want all of these new roles, all of this bullshit under my name, beside my name, anywhere near my fucking name. I want to walk into Babylon alone, drown in the beat, the smell, and own the back room. I want to know that when I glance at someone, his night has just gone from shit to memorable—that when I choose him, he won’t be sorry. I was. I was always sorry—almost always.

I return to the bedroom with a bottle of water for Justin and a bottle of Scotch for me. I know how to alter my mood. Justin is tucked under the covers, his nose stuck in a book.

“You’re reading?”

“Yeah and I’m freezing. You keep it so fucking cold in here Brian.”

“It matches my personality.” I hand him the bottles and finish undressing. He watches me, drinking the Scotch.

“I love watching you undress and fuss with your clothes Brian. Watching you, standing there, naked and anal, is so fucking cute. It drives me nuts.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You get this serious look on your face,” he’s laughing and imitating me a little, “almost as serious as when you’re working, except you’re naked.” More giggling.

“You ought to show a little more respect Sunshine. After all, you are in the Holy Land right now. Your long journey through the desert on your camel has finally brought you here.” Justin lets you fuck with all of him. It’s his way of being charming. I hang the rest of my suit in the closet before turning around to look at him. I’m trying not to smile—really, really, trying--but it’s almost pointless.

He leans his open book towards me. “I know. I was just reading about my journey in this sacred text. Apparently it took me some twenty years to get here and not one good woman along the way. Really amazing story.” He plays with me.

“Excuse me, one woman.”

He corrects himself, flipping pages. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It says so right here. In the ancient city of Babylon, our weary traveler befriends a young maiden named Daphne one evening in order to secure safe passage through Lesbitamia for the next two years.”

Now I’m laughing. “Lesbitamia? Well, now that you have arrived safely into the kingdom, what’s first on your list of things to do?”

“I think I will go seek counsel from the three wise men: Armani, Prada, and Gucci. They will advise me about the next leg of my journey.” He is way too into this now. I have to end this or he will play with me all night.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” I slide into bed, under the covers.

“Why not?” He turns on his side so that we are facing each other.

“The king has thrown them in prison for selling their wares in the streets without a permit.”

“He’s a lonely, old, narcissistic tyrant. But I hear he’s reeeall—ly hot,” he is talking to me in his teasing voice, walking two fingers up my chest, and kissing me in between every word. “I will go to him and beg for their release.”

“The king does not allow visitors.” I try to suck on his bottom lip.

“Oh, he’ll see me.”

“What makes you so sure? The king hasn’t entertained a peasant in years.” I kiss him again.

“I have something that he wants, something that he needs,” his hands are behind my head, his fingers in my hair. He is kissing me urgently, his tongue pushing into my mouth. He moves like he has something to prove. Not to me. I return the favor. After awhile we stop kissing to breathe and just look at each other for few seconds. I become aware of my body again.

I badger him about how many blankets we’re under, how he’s not sleeping in the king’s clothes, but then I lift up the covers so I can see him better. His body is so, well, irresistible like this. My gray knit shirt is long on him. It stops right below his hips, clinging to him like I want to right now. Every part of him looking as innocent as he did the first night he was here. Every part of me knowing that he’s not. It is then that I notice that my shirt is all that he has on.

“Wait.” I stop him from undressing. He smiles at me, reaching to put his book on the nightstand behind him.

“Leave it on?”

“Leave it on.” I tell him.

“Still cold?” I ask, offering him some more Scotch.

“Not really,” he answers, drinking a long swallow and looking at me without blinking. He gives it back to me. I drink some more and put it down. I don’t need it anymore. I move in closer to him. I am starting to sweat under all of these blankets, but I could care less right now. I prop myself on my elbow and look at him for a second. I feel his fingers behind my ear, pulling my face in, our lips pushing together. I close my eyes. I kiss him for days—his intensity matching mine and always upping the stakes. He is no novice; he never was.

I can feel his legs fighting with me, arguing with mine, trying to pull my body on top of his—the urgency in his timeline. I fight back, above him, but not on top. His frustration pushes through.

“Brian, come on,” he urges. He is sweaty too. It makes me smile.

“Be patient,” I whisper in his neck. “You’ll get what you want Sunshine.” I say it even softer as I reach back to throw one of the blankets off the bed. We are both too hot. He sighs a little.

“I’ve changed my mind. Take this off.” I pull at my shirt to help him. It is damp with sweat and caught underneath me, and we struggle to get it off, laughing in our efforts. Once it is gone, I pull him back close to me, as we were, and tuck us almost totally under the covers. I whisper to him again.

“Come here.”

“I am here.”

“Come here.” He inches his warm body closer to me. I run the back of my hand down the side of his face, over his ear, down his neck, down his arm, down his chest. He shivers a little. My lips touch his eyes, his cheek, his nose and his chin. My eyes stay wide open as a quiet smile rests on my face. I move my warm hand down his chest. His goose bumps come and go and his hips move toward me.

I place the heel of my hand on his stomach and slowly move down to his legs, letting my fingers walk around his pubic area. My face buried in his neck. His moaning breaks my concentration.

“Brian, please, pleeeaase. I can’t take this.” He is pushing his hips toward me, his hand pushing my hand toward his cock. “Please.”

But I want this slow. I like this slow. It’s almost always so fast, so rushed. I reassure him.

“You’re okay. I’ve got you.” I take my hand out of his and slide it down to his inner thigh, gently but firmly, listening to his breathing to guide me. He is alternating between shallow breaths and an occasional moan that goes straight between my legs. I want him to know what this feels like for me.

“Do you like this?”

“Yes.” It is a desperate answer.

“Tell me what you like.”

“I like this. I like you touching me….I like …I can’t…Brian please ….”

“Tell me.” He purrs at the sound of my voice. He wriggles in my arms, but he can’t go anywhere.

“I don’t know what to do with my hand,” he spits out, exasperated. I laugh a little, by accident. He can always surprise me. “Don’t laugh at me.” I don’t mean to embarrass him. I take his stray hand and tuck it underneath the pillow, underneath his head for now. I raise up a little, my very stiff cock falling on his stomach. He doesn’t like that or seem to like that or something. He is frustrated. His descending hand comes back to my chest, my stomach. His words come back to my ear.

“I want to touch you. I want to suck you. Mmmmm……now……Brian……now.”

It’s hard to believe that two weeks ago I was worried about being able to do this at all. Tonight I’m feeling like I can’t hold back. I want to tell him, to show that him that just having him underneath me, in my arms, is often more than I can stand. I stop his hand before he wraps it around my cock. He is close enough to know that I am already oozing. I put my mouth over his to try kissing him and telling him at the same time to let me drive. I plant his hand on the back of my head.

“You made dinner. Just…let…me…entertain…you, okay?” I was pushing my lips into his face. Kissing him is almost better than fucking him sometimes.

“Okay, fine. I’ll just lay here and look pretty.” I don’t want him to talk if he’s going to be a smart ass.

“Ssshhh,” I put my finger over his lips to quiet him. “When I hold you like this, Justin, look at you, touch you like this, ….” I pause. “I want you to listen to me. Are you listening?” He nods.

“In a few minutes, I’m going to be inside you and I want you to be ready for me. Can you do that for me? Can you be ready for me?” He opens his eyes and looks at me, almost searching my face. I kiss him before he can answer.

I pop the lube open with my free hand, emptying only a small amount into my palm. My hand disappears under the blankets. My lips are next to his ear.

“Are you ready?” I ask him. The back of my fingers run down his chest, tracing the outline of his cock, his balls, tickling his inner thigh.

He breathes “I want you” so softly into my ear that I almost don’t hear it.

My warm, slippery fingers tease and then ignore the entrance to his hole as lightly as I can and heard him suck in air, or rather, anticipation.

“Spread your legs, Sunshine.” A loud moan escapes as he starts to spread his legs for me.

“That’s far enough.” I stop him with my leg over his—to keep him from running a touchdown on my play.

I slide my middle finger partway in as I tighten my hold around the upper part of his body. I have all of him now. I feel his muscles tighten around my hand. As I slide farther in, I feel him pushing, still trying to get even closer to me. He moans and rotates his hips to meet my hand. I slowly back out and re-enter him with more, moving in and out of him slowly, listening to the sounds our bodies make, pressing where I know he can’t tolerate for long, talking to him about what is happening.

“Justin, do you like this? Do you like it when touch you like this?”

“Yes. Please, Brian. Christ, please.” I almost can’t understand him.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” I asked him as I thrust my fingers farther inside his ass. It almost makes me feel cruel to ask, but it is making me really hard.

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

His voice wavers back and forth, “Yes, I want you to fuck me.” His eyes are wet and fixed, frozen somewhere between desire and satisfaction.

I want to be inside him so bad. My slippery fingers leave him to fumble with the condom. I feel like I’m moving in slow motion or something.

“Roll over.”

He steals a quick glance at me before he rolls over. I glide on top of him, letting him feel the weight of my body as it covers him, the steel of my erection as it slides between his cheeks and hovers outside his hole. I pull myself up a little and adjust myself for him, find my center of gravity, and push.

Everything. I watch as it falls over the edge. I tighten my grip on his hips, pushing harder, feeling him tightening around me, pulling me in. It makes me groan, makes me make that sound I make lately when I have to climb the stairs because the elevator is down. I pull back, my last controlled thrust, and fill him again. I close my eyes for a minute to feel this warmth, this heat, this rush, this swirl I get sucked into every time I fuck him. Every single time.

I open my eyes and I see him reaching for himself, hear him panting, watch him start fisting himself, feel his stomach muscles start to constrict.

“Don’t.” I swat his hand away. He mews frustration at me. My hand covers his cock and I match the rhythm of our bodies. I feel him start to shoot right before my release arrives. I am never ever letting go of this….this shiny, loud, cozy, razor-sharp, buttery piece of everything. It is over in less than a minute, I think.

I collapse on top of him. Soaking in the sheepish smile he wears after sex. I wish I had a camera…right…this…second. He wiggles out from under me. I ditch the condom and turn to look at him. I think he’s crying.

“That was too much? Too fast? I hurt you?” I search his face, not sure of what I’m seeing.

“No, intense. It’s happened before you know. You just don’t see it. You’re asleep.” He is saying these words softly, but warmly, without looking at me. I don’t push him. A few minutes pass with only our breathing to fill the room. I want to tell him that he is wrong; I am not asleep. But I don’t.

When he does speak again, he changes the subject.

“I can’t believe that Mel and Linds are splitting up. And because she fucked some guy? Jesus, I’m getting the impression that they haven’t even really talked about it.” This is what he wants to talk about.

“Sometimes people grow apart, I guess.”

I don’t want to talk about this. He turns to his side, away from me, looking out the window. I slide in behind him, holding him. Our bodies are still sticky with sweat and cum, and he pulls the blankets back up. I’m roasting again, but I don’t care. I run my fingers over his arm, kiss the back of his neck. He nuzzles back against me, starting to get comfortable for the night.

I ask again, my hand on his hip, my words in his neck, “Are you sure you’re all right? I feel like I’ve hurt you.”

He lets me know that he’s okay in a way that only he can, a way that doesn’t require any words. He moans a little and continues to push back against me. As long as I live, I’ll never be able to break the spell that is cast over us right before, during, and after sex. As long as I live.

I just want to stay like this. I want to stay stuck to him in this sticky way. I lie there looking at the back of his head, remembering how I used to feel like he was a piece of gum stuck on the bottom of my shoe. I almost start laughing. That’s the thing about Justin, he’s so damn sticky. And I chew a helluva lot gum. That’s the thing about me. Fuck. Nevermind.

My hand roams to his. I cover it with mine. We are not speaking, but we are. He scratches the back of his head three times and I know he’s settling down. And once he finally turns his pillow the way he wants it, sets the alarm, and turns the clock backwards, he leans back against me and picks up his conversation right where he left off:

“So, it’s really true then? That’s crazy, Brian. What about Gus? You’re telling me that Lindsay is leaving, make that left, the one person she loves more than anyone in the world without even really talking about it?”

“I guess so, Justin. When are you?”
 

Go on to Ch 3 & 4

Chapter 3

Chapter 3.1 Justin's POV

It’s been raining off and on all night. When it rains, it pours.

Nothing is moving fast enough. Nothing. Not my hands, not my feet, not the stairs, not the traffic lights. The rain isn’t even falling fast enough. And the guy who’s in front of me, halfway letting me follow him into the building is definitely moving too slow. He needs to mind his own fucking business.

“You live here?”

“Yeah, move.” I shove past him and take the stairs two at a time until I get to the door.

Fatigue.

Deep breath.

Knock.

Nothing.

I knock again. One. Two. Three. “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” I hear voices.

“Is Hunter here? Is he in his room?”

“It’s Brian. His car’s outside.” And then the chain rattling. And then the door opening. I see Ben’s sleepy face. I hear Michael. The Novotny-Bruckner clan goes to bed early.

“He’s here Ben. He’s in his room.”

“Justin, hey…” I put my hand on the door. I can’t do much more. This is Ben. Getting past him is like getting past the Great Wall of China.

“I need to see Michael. Now.” He yields the door and Michael is standing there, shirtless in sweatpants. His face couldn’t look more lost.

“Hey. What’s up? You look like sh--.”

“Why’d you tell him?”

“Tell him what? Tell who what?” He needs to get that fucking innocent look off of his face.

“Don’t stand there and act like you don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.” Ben looks like he’s watching an exciting game of ping pong, but I know he’ll come to Michael’s rescue any minute.

“Okay, well then I’ll just tell you. I don’t know what the fuck you're talking about." He is so full of shit.

“You had to do it, didn’t you? You had to be the one to tell him what I was doing? You couldn’t let me have one chance, one fucking moment with Brian that was just mine—just ours. You fucking couldn’t do it!” Breathe. My tears competing with my anger. My anger’s winning out. “Fuck you Michael. Fuck. You. And to think that I thought that we were partners, colleagues, on this mother fucking comic book bullshit—but you know what—that’s not even it is it? It’s just another way for you to be involved with him, isn’t it? Well, you can find someone else to illustrate your unfulfilled, unrequited, pathetic excuse for a fantasy life!”

My screaming finally stops because I can’t cry and fuck with my keys at the same time, my wet hands struggling to remove the key to the loft from my key chain. Michael looks dumbfounded as I throw it at him. It hits his chest and lands on the floor, just a few feet where I am now, sliding down the door frame, my face in my hands.

I’m crying so hard I’m choking.

I wait for Michael to say something or Ben to lecture me, but no one says anything. The next time I speak isn’t as loud, but my body keeps jerking from crying so hard.

“Did it dawn on you Michael that I wanted to tell him myself, needed to tell him myself in my own way? That I needed time to figure out how to tell him that I have to leave? Did it?”

Finally, after what seems like fucking forever, Michael speaks too quietly, picking up the key. “I didn’t tell him, and I don’t need this. I have one.”

“You didn’t tell him?” I have the hiccups. Ben brings me some water. Always the healer.

“He already knew.” I look up from my water when I hear a noise. Hunter is standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

“Is it safe to come out here now? What the fuck is going on?” Christ, the last thing I need is to deal with him. Ben can tell, I guess. He walks into Hunter’s room with him and closes the door.

“So you didn’t tell Brian about your job offer?” Michael attempts to put the pieces together.

“No. I couldn’t figure out how to tell him. If you didn’t tell him, I don’t know how he found out.”

“He knew when he came by the store today. He told me you were taking the job.”

“How the fuck would he know I was taking a job when he didn’t know I had a job to take?” Ben emerges from Hunter’s room checking to see if everything’s calmed down.

“It’s okay. Everything’s fine.” Hunter runs out of his bedroom and into the bathroom. I think I’ve actually seen him wearing clothes inside this apartment once. I’ve seen him in his underwear at least seven. “When Brian came by the store today, I asked him if you were taking the job, and he said you were. So he knew.”

“Well how the fuck did you know? I didn’t tell you about the job offer.” I’m so fucking confused right now. I have a bitch of a headache.

“Brett told me. He called me today…….and told me. Oh, wait….that was when….”

“When what?”

“He was there when I was talking to Brett. I asked him then if you were taking the job. Oh shit. Shit. Justin, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. But why the fuck didn’t you tell him in the first place?” Michael will blame himself for only so long, I guess. I don’t know what to think. I’m really fucking pissed at him right now.

“I have about one hundred and one reasons, but I guess I just don’t want things to change.” He nods. I think he gets it now, feels like he’s felt this way before. “For once, Michael, he’s starting to open up to me. He’s finally letting me love him back. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for that?” I just finished off his box of Kleenex. He lets me love him back in increments, never all at once. He rations it, gives you only what you need to survive. It’s become a comfortable cruelty between us.

“Yeah, I do. You've waited longer than anybody should have to, and longer than anyone else ever would have. Believe me, I know exactly what you mean.” Michael’s walked this path so many more times than I have, but I’m catching up. I know the shortcuts. Ben isn’t in the room right now, but I know that if he was, Michael would've never let those words come out of his mouth. I stand up and hand him his empty Kleenex box. He laughs.

“I’m sorry I came over here and queened out all over your ass.” I am. It wasn’t his fault. He laughs and tells me I’m not getting anywhere near his ass and offers me a brand new box of Kleenex for the road. I decline, but he makes me smile.

“Are you going to be all right?” Fuck if I know.

“Yeah. I just need to clear my head, to think.” I’m in the hallway, ready to leave. He hugs me. I’m pulling away when I remember. “Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“If he calls…”

“Haven’t seen you. You’re not here.”

“Thanks.”

***************************************************************************************************************

There are few things more exhilarating than driving Brian’s corvette, not that I do it often. I can get into his ass quicker than I can get behind the wheel of this car. I feel powerful. In control.

Something about driving back to the loft knowing that he’s waiting for me and not the other way around, gives me a rush. Drive down Liberty Avenue in this car and a hundred guys will cruise you just for the fucking car, or maybe they think I’m Brian Kinney at first glance. That’s probably it. Then they take a better look and think, “Oh, that’s Brian Kinney’s bottom boy.” It pisses me off that I’m so proud of that.

I park in front of the loft to collect my thoughts.

Three cigarettes later and a lot of pacing back and forth in front of our building, and I’m nowhere. Where do I want to be? I can’t answer any of the questions that are cluttering up my brain. And I know if I walk back in there that we’ll be fucking in no time. We’ll never talk. No more pacing during the forth cigarette. Maybe I can think better if I stand still.

Doesn’t matter. Time waits for no man.

He’s standing right in front of me.

It's now or never.

It isn’t like I haven’t been alone in my bed before. Or been alone in my bed or my head right after I’ve fucked him. Or waited for him to get back. Or get home.

I light a cigarette. Stay on my back. Stare at the ceiling. Try to keep my mind on something other than what just happened.

“Yes. That’s all you can say. Just ‘yes.’” He was outlining the rules for the game we were about to play. The game we played last night. Last night wasn’t tonight.

“I’ve never played this game Justin. This ‘yes’ game. How do I know I even want to play it?” I’ve decided that he does this because he knows that I miss the scene. He knows that I want to be at Babylon in the backroom having my dick and my ego stroked at the same time. And he is protecting me from what I really want. He is building a moat around the castle of Brian Kinney. He is guarding the castle with a ferociousness that he cleverly disguises as unwavering devotion. And he knows that I know that he’s doing this, but I will never tell him that I know. And he knows that too. He is a better top than me sometimes, a better parent. There is more irony in this bed sometimes than there is fucking.

It was Wednesday night. And we were home. In bed. I was looking over campaign ideas and Justin was next to me, his head at the foot of the bed, playing with the drawstring on his pants and talking to Daphne on his cell phone. It was distracting but watching his expression change every time she told him something he wasn’t expecting made it all worthwhile. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. I wasn’t really getting anything done anyway.

“Where did you meet him Daph?”

“You already fucked him?”

“Daph! I can’t believe you did that! You did not. You did not.”

“Wait, how did you guys?” He leaned on his side for a minute, like he was trying to keep the conversation private.

“Ooooo. That’s the first time you’ve ever done it like that.” My eyebrow goes up. Good thing he’s not looking at me.

“See, I told you that you would like it. That’s why you should listen to me more often.”

“Are you going to see him again? When?”

“Okay.” A pause. He unrolled his drawstring and then rolled it back around his finger.

“It’s him? You’re kidding? Don’t you dare fuck him two nights in a row Daphne. He’ll think you’re a slut.” That’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?

“Okay, fine. Call me tomorrow. Bye.”

He rolled back over and looked at me, stretching his arms over his head like a cat. I bit.

“Daphne sounds like quite the sex kitten.”

“You shouldn’t eavesdrop, Brian. That’s rude.”

“It’s rude for you to be in my bed, making me hard by talking to your hot-het-girlfriend about sexual positions. If you want to get technicial about it.”

“I want to get technical about it.” He sat up.

I put my work down on the floor beside the bed. I was ready to focus on my new project. “Well, for starters, you have no business calling Daphne a slut. You’re much more of a slut than she is.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely. And I want to know what sexual positions you are recommending to her.” I really do.

“Why?”

“I’m concerned for her safety and, frankly, I don’t know if I trust your recommendations.” I almost pulled this off convincingly.

“You think you’d be a better advisor?”

"I think I’m more qualified.” I know I am. I think I am. Of course I am.

“Prove it.” What is with him and this “prove it” thing lately? I got up to turn off the lights and started to return to the bed. I do my best work in the dark. My dark brown shirt and black pants hung loosely on my body. I hadn’t even changed out of work clothes when I came home tonight. He rose off the bed, meeting me in the darkness. We couldn’t see each other, our eyes still adjusting when he folded himself into my arms and laid his head against my chest for a few seconds. I let my hand cover his head and stroke his blonde hair. My fingers missing its length. I will be so glad when it all grows back. He had worn my cologne.

The challenge he had just issued me felt like it was waning in the blackness of our bedroom. I wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted or if we were both just smitten for a moment. Either way, I wasn’t going to let him get me off track. I tugged his head tighter to my chest so I could whisper in his ear:

“I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Huh.” He never quits. The fact that he’s standing in my bedroom four years after we met was testimony to that. He can challenge me without being threatening. A skill few people have. He raised his head to kiss me, and when his lips touched mine, they were strong, and wanting, but not desperate. That is precisely what it is about Justin that kept me here last night and not at Babylon.

When some men kiss you, when they want you, they cannot hide their desperation. It leaks through every move they make while they suck you, bottom for you, and, sometimes, even when they fuck you. They cannot incorporate themselves and their desire. You are always fucking one or the other. It is never that way with Justin. Justin is integrated. Hobbs hit him in the skull with a fucking baseball bat, and he still came back like this. Like the Justin I met that first night. The Justin who stays with you every second for the whole entire ride--even when he doesn’t know where the fuck you’re going.

“Brian. Earth to Brian.” I felt his fingers run over my face. “What are you thinking about?”

“You.” It’s always best to stick with the truth, especially when there’s an evil grin on your face.

“What about me?” We had relocated to the bed now. I didn’t remember getting there. I was lying on my back and he was taking off my socks. My eyes had adjusted. I could see him well enough in the darkness.

“Guess.”

“Guess what?” He stopped crawling up my body for a minute.

“Guess what I was thinking about you.”

“No fair.” He pouted a little. Pouting lips in a holding pattern over my zipper. I was about to remind him that he was cleared for take-off. I didn’t get the chance. “I have a better idea.”

Oh great. “What?”

“We’re going to play a game.” And that’s how it started, the “Yes” game. He continued. “I’m going to ask you a question, but the only answer you can give is “Yes.” And you have to answer me, or the game stops. No more fondling, no more sex, no nothing.”

“This is stupid. You made this game up. Probably with Daphne.” He was sitting on top of me and had unzipped my pants. His hand was between my pants and my underwear.

“Are you ready to play?”

“This is dumb.” He took his hand out of my pants, got off of me and moved to his own side of the bed.

I protested. “Justin.”

I was inundated with his bratty determination. Make that accosted. Fine. He won. “Yes.”

He happily jumped back on top of me, his hand back in my pants. I breathed a sigh of relief, which in retrospect, was probably premature.

“Do you want me to take your pants off?”

Deep breath. Eyes rolled. “Yes.”

“Okay.” He was beyond eager. Okay. Beyond adorable.

“Hey, time out.” I made the gesture in the shadows. “I thought this was only questions and ‘yes?’”
“No, you can only say ‘yes.’ I can do whatever I want. And that was your only time out.” He unbuckled my belt. I’d like to use that belt right now. Slid it out of my pants. I heard it hit the floor. He knew that just totally pissed me off. I don’t throw my clothes on the floor.

“Sorry.” He apologized. I rolled my eyes.

“Yes.”

He smacked me on the chest for speaking out of turn, but we were both laughing.

“Don’t do that again Brian.” I tried to stifle it, but he could feel me chuckling underneath him. “Do you promise not to do that again Brian?”

“Yes.” I tried desperately to stop laughing, but so did he. I watched him as he regained his composure. His body aligned with mine. I was kind of bummed that he quit taking my pants off until he started kissing me.

“God, you’re hard Brian,” he breathed into my face as his lips meet mine. He pulled at my bottom lip with his teeth. Drove his tongue softly but firmly into my mouth, encouraged mine to do the same. He ran his hand behind the back of my head to lead me where he wanted me to go. My hand covered his and the other sprinted for his back, for the waistband of his pants. I sparred with his underwear and slid my hand underneath them, resting my hand in the crevice of his perfect bottom. I pressed him to me as hard as I possibly could. It wasn’t enough. I moaned.

“You like my ass, don’t you Brian?” His voice morphed into a seductive whisper. The game had changed. He had changed. He wasn’t goofing around anymore.

“Yes.” Neither was I.

“You want to suck it?”

“Yes.”

“You want to fuck it?”

“Yes.” He hovered above my face, watching me deliver every answer.

“Do you know that I love you?”

“Yes.” He leaned in and kissed me again, and it took everything in my power not to take over right then and there. Everything.

“Your pants are coming off now.” He moved down my body and began unbuttoning my pants. I kind of liked this game, but my frustration level was rising. He laid my pants neatly behind him on the edge of the bed. It made me smile a little. He turned around and took off his long sleeve blue t-shirt. Threw it on the floor. That didn’t bother me. I bent my knees and accepted his body as it fell on top of me again. I absorbed his warmth as he kissed me. Closed my eyes and felt his hands in my hair. My hands returned to their former resting places. Firm in their resolve. When his lips wandered over to my earlobe, I growled a little when his teeth came out.

“Would you rather be at Babylon tonight?”

I forgot what we were doing. I thought we were finished. I was wrong.

“Yes.” I can do this.

“Fucking somebody else?”

“Yes.” His game. His rules. He hesitated for a minute. I felt him lift his face off of my neck. He was thinking. I continued with my attention to his face, his ear, his neck, his shoulder. I can multi-task.

“Are you sorry you brought me home that night?” He wanted to dive head-first into the danger zone. Brave little fucker.

“Yes.”

“Sorry that I let you fuck me?” To kiss me like that and then ask me that question was utterly cruel.

“Yes.” At least my hand was still in his pants.

“You know that I am never going to let you fuck me again, right?”

“Yes.” He began to slide down my torso.

“Do you want me to kiss your chest?”

“Yes.” His lips and hands moved down my chest, and he sucked on my nipples slowly. I kept one hand in his hair.

“Are these goose bumps for me?”

“Yes.” He moaned a little and sucked a little harder, causing me to arch into him. Fucker. I didn’t realize that I was pushing his head lower.

“Are you being impolite and impatient?”

“Yes.” He slapped my hand, and then made fairly quick work of slipping my underwear off my hips and down my long legs. So quick that it surprised me a little. I gasped.

“Did I just hear you moan like a slut?”

Yes. I am done for. Toast.

“Brian.”

“Yes.” I felt his breath on my cock, just his presence in the region was sending me through the stratosphere. My hips would not stop following his face. They were embarrassing me. I felt his fingers drawing lines from my navel to my inner thighs and back up again. Uncle.

“Do you like this?”

“Yes.” His fingers wandered to the wetness I’d created. Finally.

“Do you want me to stop?”

No. No? “Yes.”

“Too bad.” His warm mouth began to cover my cock. My body ignored my mental pleas for restraint and bucked underneath him. I made a noise that I am not entirely proud of.

“Aaaahhaahh.”

“You know that you are a bigger slut than I am, right?”

“Yes.” It was true. He sucked me hard, pressing on the base of my shaft, making me make and break promises in my head over and over. And then he stopped. Christ.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t even ask you anything Brian.” He couldn’t hide the satisfaction in his voice. His mouth moved down to my balls, and he took the reigning champion in his mouth and toyed with it with his tongue. I held myself still. If I moved right now, I knew I’d fall off the edge of the world. His lips moved below my balls and I barely heard him.

“Do you want to roll over?”

“Yes.” It was an unfair question on so many levels. I started to roll over, and he stopped me. He unbuttoned the rest of my shirt and helped me take it off. Laid it neatly with my pants. He took the rest of his clothes off. I had forgotten he was wearing anything. He rolled me over gently. I buried my face in my pillow to keep him from hearing all of the other words I was saying besides “yes.”

I closed my eyes. Felt him straddling me. Felt his entire body on top of mine. My shoulders began to get cooler as his body descended to my waist. I felt his firm hands on my back, and I inhaled as I rode the ride they took to my ass. I held my breath. He noticed.

“Can you breathe for me?”

“Yes.” I exhaled. He knew that this was different for me than it was for him. His left hand reached up into my hair, stroking the back of my head. His right hand remained.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes.” I did. Not all the time. Not every night. And not from anyone else.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I didn’t have any other choice, did I? His hands roamed back to their original destination, and I inhaled again as I felt his mouth sucking on the beginnings of my crack. His tongue slid lower, and I pushed my face farther into the pillow. Please. Something inside me quivered, shook, and broke.

“You know what you taste like, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Who the fuck needs anyone else?

I saw something that looked like red, and rain, and anger, and embarrassment, and bravado but I pushed it away as hard as I could. As hard as I could. I thought I smelled liquor on his breath but he was nowhere near my face.


When the only thing I could see behind my eyes was pitch black, I felt him again. Felt him nudging me to lift up. Felt him quietly tucking a pillow underneath my hips. He knows when words are superfluous. And I felt him return to me. Felt my eyes and my hole become warm and open and wet at the same time. And I let them both get soaked.

“You know I am going to fuck you, don’t you?” I was asking the questions now. I reached down between my legs and pulled the pillow away, crashing his staging area. I turned over and pulled him on top of me for the moment, kissing him urgently.

“The rules are still the same Sunshine. You know I am going to fuck you, don’t you?”

“Yes.” He answered me with the truth.

I kissed him again and again until there wasn’t any part of his face that still tasted like me. His facial expression was a combination of surprise, arousal, and “I’m up for anything.” One of the perks of fucking the young.

“How do you want it?” He gave me a quizzical look. “Sorry. Do you want to be on top?”

“Yes.”

I handed him the condom while I grabbed the lube. He made quick work of his task. On the job training. But that’s the thing about training. It can never prepare you for real life. Sometimes things happen in life that you just weren’t expecting.

“Do you want to get across my lap?” The look on his face. The smirk on mine.

“Yes?”

“Good.” I sat up. He was already on my right side on his knees. I kissed him again and when our lips parted, our eyes didn’t. I looked at him looking at me. He was there. Just like always. My right hand slid down his back a ways and urged him over my lap. He fought me only to the extent that he knew that I wanted him to. The view from this location was breathtaking. I had to force myself to remember the rules of the game.

I ran my hand over his ass and between his legs while looking at his face. His head was turned sideways on the bed, and his face locked on mine. More arousal now, less surprise. My left hand reached underneath him and took his moisture. I ran my hand down the side of his face, letting him hold my fingers in his mouth. My words were gentle.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Time out. I mean really.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know. I won’t let you. I trust you.”

“Time in?”

“Time in.”

My hand went back to his ass. My eyes stayed on his face. I pushed his legs back together. He didn’t like that. He made a pouty face.

“Are you pouting at me?”

“Yes.”

“Because I won’t let you spread your legs?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why I won’t let you spread your legs?”

“Yes?”

“Because you threw my belt on the floor.” I rubbed my hand on his ass slowly. One side and then the other. He was moaning underneath my touch. This was too easy.

“You know I’m going to spank you, right?”

“Yes.” A very hesitant yes.

“And you know why?”

“Yes.” Less hesitation.

I rubbed his ass a few more times and raised my hand up. I glanced at his face. He was watching me like a hawk. I brought it down on his bottom pretty hard to show him that I meant business. Always keeping it balanced. His expression changed. The hue on his ass changed. Everything got a little darker. I liked that.

“You liked that, didn’t you Justin?” I caught that face he makes.

“Yes.”

“Good. So did I.” I stroked his ass again, my hand slipping between his thighs to brush his balls and glide over his cock before I swatted him several more times, not very hard, but hard enough to make him flinch a little bit. Hard enough that my hand print was still there for a few seconds even though my hand was not. My face became mischievous. My dick became cement. I made sure that he could see the pleasure on my face.

“Did that hurt?”

“Yes.” I kept stroking him the entire time. His hand had moved to cover his face.

“Why are you covering your face?”

No response. My fault.

“Are you covering your face because you’re embarrassed?” That was making me harder than anything else right now.

“Yes.” It was making him hard too. Harder. I could feel it on my legs. He was dripping on me.

“Do you know that you’re making a mess?”

“Yes.”

God. I wish I had more patience. I couldn't do this much longer. I covered the hand on his face with my hand and brought my other hand down on his ass a few more times. Our fingers tightened together.

“Do you know that your bottom is all red now?” I licked my lips and raised my eyebrow at him.

“Yes.” Desperation. So underrated.

“Do you know that it’s warm?”

“Yes.” I slid my fingers in my mouth and then down his crack. I had to fuck him soon if I wanted to feel this heat against me. Otherwise, I’d be spanking him again. My wet finger slid past his hole and he couldn’t hide is disappointment. Poor Sunshine.

“Did you want something?”

“Yes.”

“Did you want this?” I slid my finger into his hole and felt him pull me. Slut.

“Yes.” He wanted to say so much more.

“Don’t you think that you’re a bigger slut than I am?”

“Yes.” The moan that left his lips came from some new place inside him. It almost destroyed me.

“That’s what I thought.” I entered him with more and didn’t argue with him when he broke the rules and called out my name.

“Get on me.” I ordered him. I found the lube while he straddled me. My slippery fingers confirmed what I already knew while his lips devoured mine. He was ready. So was I.

I watched the look on his face as he started to take my cock. His eyes fluttered as he got past the head and as his ring of resistance let go. I felt myself being invited in. I knew when he was comfortable because his eyes opened and he looked at me and leaned forward. I began to move with him, at his pace, until he let me know that he was free and clear. I pulled his face to mine and kissed him before planting my hands on his shoulders. It was almost a warning kiss. Our lips parted, and I pushed him, hard. The sounds he made competed with mine. The more he opened up, the more I felt like he was resisting me. And he knew it. He fucking knew it. He took my hands, placing one on his hip with his and the other on my chest underneath his and leaned forward enough to take the lead. Or I let him have it. The warmth of his ass on my thighs sped up my endgame. I felt myself tighten and my hand dug into his hip, pressing him harder and harder into me. I was determined to push him through the floor. When the crash hit me, I yelled out something incoherent, some shit that can’t even be translated with our alphabet. So did he.

“Fuck, Justin, fuck.” My face was buried in his chest. I was trying to remember how to breathe. I don’t think I really cared anymore. He came around eventually and climbed off of me. It was the saddest moment of my life. For some reason, I started laughing.

“What’s so funny Brian?”

“I felt like that orgasm was trying to kill me. Like it was trying to hunt me down and kill me. I think it did.”

“So are you saying you enjoyed that game I made up?” We were both too fucked out to even look at each other. We were just lying on our backs staring at the ceiling.

“Yes.”

But that was last night. And this was no game. And I’m lying here now, smoking this cigarette, looking at this fucking ceiling by myself.

Goddamnit.

The spell is broken. He is gone. And I still want an answer to my question. Only now I’m pretty sure that I just got one. I turn on the water in the shower and stand there while it runs over me. It is a good ten minutes before I realize that I have washed my hair at least twice already. I lean against the tile, close my eyes and tell myself that he went out for take-out. There is no soap in the soap dish. Just condoms. That is fucking perfect. I leave the warmth of the shower to drip over to the medicine cabinet to get another bar. His pain meds are gone. They were here after dinner. Before we fucked. He hasn’t even taken that shit in months. He doesn’t need them. There are only seven pills left in there, which I know because I took one once after a particularly evil night of indulging and he went off on me. He has no more refills. Stay out of his shit. Queened out all over the place. Like it was oxy or something. But that was ages ago. And they’ve expired anyway. I slam it shut and refuse to look at my face in the mirror. Now or ever. This is my last bar of soap.

The water cannot get hot enough tonight. I stand there and let it transport me somewhere else, anywhere else—a one way ticket to any-the-fuck-where else. But every time I get there, I end up buying a round trip ticket right back to where-the-fuck-I-am. Finally, I shut off the water, wanting to get out, dry off, and think about what to do. Only I can’t. I sink to the bottom of the shower and just stare at the hinge on the shower door. I feel like I felt when he was out with Cody, only much, much worse. Because at least then I knew he wanted to come back. Why did I take a shower? Now, I can’t even smell him anymore. He has been gone for an hour, tops.

I don’t want to walk back into the bedroom, but eventually I’ve done everything in the bathroom that I can do. My hair is dry. Every part of me looks good and smells good and feels smooth and is prepared to go Babylon, except that I am naked. I have to go in there to get clothes. I open the sliding door and try not to even look at the bed or the wadded up pile of dark blue sheets in the corner. Or the shattered clock on the floor. I glance at my cell phone to see what time it is. He hasn’t called. He’s probably at Daphne’s or worse. I’ll go to Babylon, have a few drinks, enjoy the scenery. I don’t know what the fuck else to do. I shut the door to my loft and take the stairs. I can’t look at anything but my boots on the way down. Flight after flight. I’ll go back up. Leave him a note. Fuck it, that’s what cell phones are for. I push open the door of my building and the first thing I see is him. What the fuck?

He is leaning against my car. Smoking a cigarette. I don’t understand the expression on his face. Has he been standing there this whole time?

“Get in.” Get in? I can’t hide the relief on my face. I want to, but I can’t.

“Where have you been?” I sound like a nagging wife. I sound like Michael.

“Just get in.” I don’t like his tone.

“Shouldn’t you be over at Michael’s, reaming him out?” Why am I picking a fight with him?

“Been there, done that.” Oh, great. I am going to hear about this. I acquiesce.

We get in my car and I watch him behind the wheel. His jaw is firm. He looks determined, like he looked those nights when he went out with the posse. I really don’t want him driving my car, especially since it is getting ready to start raining.

He throws the first punch.

“You took a shower.” Artists are observant.

“You took a hike.” I am honest.

“You fucked me like a high school girl on prom night and then provoked me on purpose.” Sometimes observation is overrated.

“Not on purpose.” If he wants to play rough, I can play rough.

“You never do anything that isn’t on purpose, Brian. From the night you met me under that streetlight, everything you’ve done has been on purpose.”

“That isn’t true.” I swallow hard. That really isn’t true. I don’t think I can convince him of that right now, or myself, but that really isn’t true. He’s also stolen part of it …..

We ride in silence for a few minutes. I look out my window as the storefronts go by; my thoughts retreating into places they haven’t been in a long time. Some of them standing in front of St. James Academy the morning after our first night together, some of them with me as I regretfully walked alone into the gymnasium that night in my tux, some of them leaning against me as I leaned against him as he leaned against my jeep. I make them stop there. I always make them stop there. My mind is a thousand miles away. I don’t think I even realize that he is talking to me.

“Brian.”

“Brian.” I turn my face from the window, but I don’t face him completely. I don’t want him to see my face right now.

“You were right you know. About what you said earlier when we were in bed.”

“I was right about what? That you’re leaving?” I wish I knew where we were going. I wish I didn’t sound like an asshole.

“That too. But that’s not what I mean. You were right when you said you thought you hurt me. You did.”

“I’m sorry. You should have stopped me.” Yeah, that’s good, it’s his fault.

“Don’t be obtuse, Brian.” I stop pretending that I don’t know what he means.

“Where are we going? Inspiration point?” I ask him this as he merges onto the freeway. He ignores my sarcasm.

“We’re just driving. Okay? I need to process.” He’s at the speed limit.

“And I’m here because…?” I am having a hard time not driving, literally and figuratively.

“Because sometime in the next few hours some important shit is going to come out of my mouth, and I need you to be around when I say it. Hand me my bag. It’s in the back.”

I hand him his bag. He pulls out a small sketch pad, a pencil, and throws cds on the dashboard. I stuff the bag by my feet. I don’t even think I’ve been a passenger in my own car before. I watch him closely as he puts the sketch pad on his left leg and the pencil in his left hand. He’s not left handed. I really don’t want to interrupt him at first because I think I recognize the state he’s in. It kind of looks like the same state I’m in when I’m in the back room and some nameless trick is sucking my dick. I can hover outside myself for a few minutes--if I’m lucky--if Michael doesn’t come interrupt me and break my flow. But unlike that, this seems dangerous.

“You’re going to draw, while you’re driving, with your left hand?” The fuck he is. Of all the deaths I’ve planned for myself, not one scenario plays out like this.

“I have to do this right now. It’s not drawing; it’s pre-drawing. And I’m ambi-dexterous. You know that.”

“Please don’t kill us tonight. And what the fuck is pre-drawing?”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t?”

“I’ll give you two. First, if we die tonight, my will stands as it is, and you’ll get nothing. Two, I haven’t gotten around to asking Jesus for my eternal salvation. So, if we die tonight, you are I are in separate beds for all of eternity.” All of that is true.

“Yeah, well, the first one’s compelling. The second’s a given. You know what pre-writing is. Same thing. When there are a lot of ideas in my head, I have to do this. So I don’t lose them.” I’m afraid to look at that sketch pad right now. “Put on some music. Put that blue cd in. That one that Daphne made me.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“It’s just a mix.” I put it in, letting the music fill the void between us for a minute. I don’t even really pay attention to what it is. At this point, I think I’m just relieved that it’s not Highway to Hell. I light a cigarette and offer it to him. He declines. It’s not like he has a free hand to smoke it with anyway.

We ride in silence for a few more minutes. I continue to watch him. He watches the road. I think I’ve seen him like this before, maybe. He’s frustrated like when he got back from taking care of that Bewitched guy. Darren? But more focused. He looks at the road and then back at his sketch pad. A glance up. A glance down. Back and forth. Back and forth. He flips the page. I feel like I’m watching a movie. A movie I shouldn’t be watching. Like one of those indie films that they hype the shit out of but then they only release in NY and LA. Fuck LA right now. I try paying attention to the music. Try to get comfortable in my seat.

You see 'em comin' at you every night
Strung on pretension they fall for you at first sight

That’s what I need right now. Fucking Billy Squier. Squire? Can’t remember. What is this shit we’re listening to? Now I want to know.

You know their business--you think it's a bore
They make you restless--it's nothin' you ain't seen before

“What the fuck are we listening to?”

You crave attention--you can never say "no"
Throw your affections anyway the wind blows

I grab the cd case off the dashboard and start to read the playlist—out loud. “Your’e So Vain, Heartache Tonight, Don’t Bring Me Down, Hungry Like the Wolf, Bad Reputation by Halfcocked? Is that a joke? Everybody Wants You. What is this crap? Songs in the key of Brian?”

You always make it--you're on top of the scene
You sell the copy like the cover of a magazine

“Maybe the song’s not about you Brian. Maybe it’s about me.”

Everybody knows you
Everybody snows you
Everybody needs you...leads you...bleeds you

That’s what I’m afraid of.

You got your glory--you paid for it all
You take your pension in loneliness and alcohol

Daphne made this my ass.

The more you understand, seems the more like you do
You never get away...everybody wants you

“Surely you’ve got something better than this in your bag of tricks Sunshine.”

He ignores me and speeds up. I start rummaging through the glove compartment, looking for my dictaphone. Okay. Ted’s dictaphone. I have this idea that I could offer it to him. That he could record his ideas on this instead of drawing and driving at the same time. It’s what I do in the car when I have campaign ideas in my head. I finally find it and a blank tape and offer it to him. A peace offering of sorts.

“Here. Why don’t you use this? You can record your ideas on this instead of writing them down. It’s voice activated. It’s safer.” I want you safe. “Here.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Will you at least give it a try?”

“I don’t want to. I don’t want to say my ideas out loud. My ideas aren’t oral. I don’t know if you can understand that, but they’re just not.”

“Well, what you’re doing isn’t safe. I think you should just try it and see. Just put it on the dash here--.”

“WOULD YOU PUT THAT FUCKING THING AWAY?!.” He finally looks at me. The dictaphone hits the front windshield, and all but shatters. Piece of shit.

I turn the music off and find the nerve to re-start the conversation after two exits.

“I guess we should talk.”

“You think?” Sarcasm.

“I shouldn’t have said what I said or how I said it.” A cloud passes over his face as I admit this to him. Apparently, I do apologies and regrets on special occasions. He looks straight ahead, but his words are anything but.

“Do you know what I felt like when you said that to me? When you asked me that like that? I felt like a dog Brian. Like a fucking dog.”

I don’t understand, but I listen. I listen to him and the pounding rain. They are both getting more intense, as if competing for my attention.

“Have you ever given medicine to a dog Brian? That’s the way you do things sometimes. You just come up to people that you know love you, give them what you think they need and then hold their mouths shut until they swallow it.”

Jesus Christ. I don’t say anything. He’s speeding up again. His hands aren’t drawing anymore. They are hardly driving. Mostly, they are gesturing wildly. I could have left the music on. You could hear him in LA right now.


“And you were wrong about what I needed. You know what I needed? I needed to tell you in my own way—in my own time that I was leaving. And you snatched it away from me. You won’t let me show you that I love you. You won’t let me even know that you have fucking cancer—that you are having a fucking testicle removed—and then you some how find out about my job offer and don’t even give me a fucking chance to tell you in my own way. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I love you? Please stop this car.

“You think that I am just some yo-yo fuck toy that you can yank around. Pull him close when you need him. Toss him back when you don’t. There are only so many times you can break someone’s heart Brian. Only so many times. And then all the while, I’m thinking that you must not love me because you act like such a shit, but then I remember everything Brian. And, you know what? That’s the worst fucking thing of all. Because I want you to know that there is nothing worse than being in love with a man who fucks you like you’re the only man on the planet, when you know you’re not; rescues you in a hotel room after you’ve run away on his dime; shows up at your prom and lets everyone know that you are the most beautiful person in your entire school, in the entire world; then lets you set your own rules and then break them; pays for your fucking tuition even after you break up with him; waits for you while you date other people, dance on a bar, and get revenge on your worst enemies; and then lets you use him as the subject for your fucking motion picture that you’re going to have to leave him to make…. There is nothing worse than that Brian. Nothing. Oh God.”

He is right. There is nothing worse than that. His head collapses on top of his arms which are hugging the steering wheel. His sleeves soak up his tears. And this is because of me. Because of what I did or didn’t do or didn’t mean to do.

And I am helpless again. I don’t know what to do or what to say. I watch the lines in the road go past and try to focus on them. I don’t wait very long because I can’t. We drive under a bridge, and the rain stops for a few seconds. The space we occupy gets eerily quiet for a split second. Finally, I just tell him the truth. It’s the only thing I have left.

“Justin, I think we should turn around.” We should turn around.

I put my hand over his hand on the steering wheel, and it is the first time that I feel like I even have the right to touch him since we have embarked on this journey tonight. He doesn’t push me away. I just want to hold him, to make all of this stop, to tell him that I didn’t mean for it to play out like this. I swear to God I didn’t mean for it to play out this way. But I just keep one hand over his on the wheel and another on his shoulder and comfort him the only way I can when he’s furious and sobbing and driving a corvette down a wet highway in the pouring rain at 85 mph in the middle of the night.

He wipes his face on his sleeve and calms down, and I feel like it’s safe to speak again.

“Can we stop somewhere Justin? I really need to piss.” He laughs and actually smiles.

“There’s a rest stop a couple of miles up. I’ll stop there.”

************************************************************************************************

Finally, the rain is letting up. He gathers his composure, for the most part, and I watch as he pulls off the interstate and into the parking lot. There aren’t many people here tonight, just a few truckers and a random family or two. He kills the engine which makes everything suddenly very still between us, almost spooky. I glance at his face. He is in between places right now, unsure of his destination. His expression looks a lot like the one he wore the first night when I picked him up, only it’s sadder, not as optimistic. I look away. My expression is changing too.

“Brian?” He isn’t loud anymore. I answer him, but I don’t look at him.

“What?” There is not much to look at out my window, but I’ll manage.

“We have to talk. I mean, I need to talk to you. I have a lot that I need to say. Before I leave and all.” I think he had more he wanted to say right then but couldn’t. And that was okay because I couldn’t either.

“We have time. For all that. We’ll do all that.” I open my car door to signal that I have reached my saturation point. He follows my lead. We start the walk up the sidewalk to the men’s room. He slides his hand in mine. I don’t pull away.

There’s nothing like fluorescent lighting, cleaning solution, and sub-zero temperatures to jar you back into reality. I let the stark environment sober me up a little, let my body feel the relief of an empty bladder. I wash my hands, shake them dry, and wait outside for Justin. There is an old tree that makes a great prop for me to lean against while I smoke and try not to think. I watch the men file in and out of the rest room. Slim pickings tonight. And ugly. He’s taking way too long. I kill my cigarette and go back in.

“Justin?”

“What?”

“Are you almost done?”

“I’ll be out in a minute.” His voice isn’t right.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” I locate the stall next to the one he’s in and climb on the toilet so I can see into his. He’s not all right. “What are you doing?” He’s standing in there, leaning against the wall, his hands pulled into his sleeves, his face buried in his hands.

“Please get out of there Brian.” I hop down. “Is there anyone else in here?” He asks me in a vulnerable voice he has that always melts me. I look around. Kick the stalls open. There is no one in here but us right now. I prop a maintenance sign outside the main door and kick it closed.

“No, just us. What’s wrong?” He hasn’t sounded like this since right after the bashing. He is kind of scaring me.

“I’m just kind of freaking out.”

“About what?” I lean against the outside of the stall door. This is absolutely the last place I thought I’d be tonight.

“About everything. I walked in here, in this bright light, and everything looks and feels different. I shouldn’t have said all those things to you. I just feel like a stupid faggot right now, okay? Can you just not make this any worse for me?”

Can I ever not make anything worse?

“You’re not a stupid faggot Justin.” I listen to see if I could tell if my words mean anything. It is very hard to tell. “I mean it. You’re not.” I need to get in there. I need to be with him, right now--not do this through the door of a bathroom stall.

“Yes, I am. And I think I said those things just to hurt you.”

“No, you didn’t. And besides, it’s okay. I can take it. You can say anything to me, okay?” I sigh. There are so many intimate things that Justin and I can do face to face, and there are some that we just can’t. The silver door is cold against my face. I resign myself to leaning against it with my eyes closed and just listening to him. It’s as close as I can get to him right now, so it will just have to do. “You can say anything you want to say to me, anytime, anywhere, no matter what, okay? Let’s just get that straight.”

“Brian?”

“What?”

“I’m terrified to take this job. I’m afraid to go to LA. I’m really, really scared to be out there by myself.”

Now we are getting to the bottom of this.

“I know. You shouldn’t be afraid to go. You should be afraid to stay. Will you please come out of there now?”

“I can’t. I don’t want to. I’m really pissed at myself right now, and I don’t want you to see me like this.” He isn’t crying anymore. His voice is calmer. He is starting to sound like the Justin I recognize again. The one who is always trying to right every wrong, no matter whose wrong it is.

“I’ve seen you like everything. It’s a matter of national security that you come out of that stall in the next thirty seconds.” First I am trapped in my own car, then I am trapped in a men’s room because he has trapped himself in a stall. Fuck entrapment.

“Why?”

“Because I have something important to tell you Justin, and I don’t want to say it to a cold, crooked door on a bathroom stall in a smelly men’s room at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere in the freezing cold at 1:27 in the morning.”

A row of fluorescent lights dim over my head. I look up just as I hear the stall door click and feel it move.

He lets me in.

The door opens and he is leaning forward writing something on the bathroom wall. I lean in to look.

“What the fuck are you doing? Leaving your number?”

“No, yours.”

I look again at the wall, at the concentration in his hand. There are no numbers on the wall. Instead, there is a sketch of me—from the chest up. More of a caricature really.

“What the fuck?” This isn’t like anything he’s drawn of me lately. My shirt is open, my chest is open, and a heart is revealed—my heart, like a valentine.

“I’m almost done.”

My eyes roam over to the diamond shape construction sign that is connected to my heart. It reads: “Pardon our mess. We’re remodeling.”

He is right. That is my number.

I lean back against the side of the stall, and all of a sudden this doesn’t seem like such a bad place to be anymore. He puts his pencil behind his ear, and I think I’m going to cream my jeans just from watching him do that. He positions himself between my long legs and leans against me. I feel like a high school senior waiting for a bell to ring.

How can you feel nostalgic for something you never had?

I think he can tell what I’m thinking because he remarks about the look on my face.

“You look like the cat that just ate the canary.” I’m trying not to, but he knows when I roll my lips in that he is doing something I can’t resist.

“You drive me crazy when you tuck your pencil behind your ear.” My eyebrow gets in on the act. I have no self-control.

“You mean like this?” He removes it and does it again, only this time his other hand is inside my jeans. He doesn’t play fair. Somebody somewhere must be playing Jack & Diane. I am such a sucker for John Mellencamp.

“Every time I would see you do that at the diner,” I pause for a second to remember it, to smile at him, “it would, um, delay my exit a little. If you know what I mean.” He does. My lips meet his cheek and the pencil meets the floor. It has served its purpose. I kiss his face, his ear, his lips and keep my hand on the back of his head. When I end the kiss, it is slow and soft and warm and a beginning and an ending all at the same time.

“You said there was something important you wanted to tell me. That’s the only reason I let you in here.”

“You made me forget. You put your hand in my pants.”

“Don’t change the subject.” His hand comes out of my pants, but slides under my shirt, which is almost as wonderful, depending on what mood I’m in. I guess I better do this before the bell rings. I lean my head forward so our foreheads are touching and close my eyes for a second. When I finally speak, my eyes are fixed on his.

“I want you to listen to me for a minute, okay?”

“Okay.” He settles against me.


“You said earlier that you feel like a stupid faggot.”

“Uh, huh.”

“You are not a stupid faggot.” I take a long breath and tighten my hold on him. “You are your own man. You have been your own man since the day I met you. And I don’t care if you sleep in my bed, or if you sleep with my dick up your ass, or yours up someone else’s, you are your own man. You are strong, you are smart, and you are beautiful, whether you are here with me or halfway around the world. And you deserve whatever good things come to you in life. Because no matter what happens, you make my life better. And I don’t want you to forget that.”

I am silent for a moment because I want my words to sink in. I have never been more serious. I think it takes a minute for him to realize how serious I really am. I watch the very quiet words come out of his mouth.

“I won’t forget it. But you don’t have to do this, not now and not here.” The look of concern on his face almost wounds me. It is the same look he had when we met for the first time after the bashing. He cared so little for himself and worried more about me.

“I’m not done Justin.”

“Okay.” It’s just a whisper.

“The other day you said that I couldn’t sell the loft because it was the first place we made love or something.”

“Yeah.”

“And I said that that wasn’t love. That I just gave you a rim job and fucked your brains out.”

“Right.”

“Yeah, well, that was then.” And I close my eyes and bury my nose in his hair and just inhale. He doesn’t say anything. He lets me just be, next to him like this, where I want to be, for as long as I want. Until finally my voice finds my lips, and my lips find his ear.

“And this is now.” And that is enough. And is eyes are bluer than I remember, and his lips want me more than they ever have, and this is probably the last time I will ever kiss anyone in a bathroom stall. I am making sure that I never forget it.

***********************************************************************************************

We start to walk back to the car, but I pull him over to the tree by his jeans so I can kiss him again. I close my eyes as tight as I can, wrap him inside my jacket, and devour him. People are watching us. They think they know what they are seeing, but they don’t. Sometimes when I kiss him, it’s just never enough. Never, never enough.

“Hmmmm. Mmmmm. Brian. Brian....” He frees himself from my feast.

“What?”

“I want some gum.”

He wants gum. The kissing stops. We walk back to the car as I pat myself down, trying to figure out which pocket I put the gum in. I find it and offer him some, and he pops it in his mouth and picks up his pace. I focus on the scenery he offers me as we walk the long sidewalk back to the car.

“You weren’t planning on coming back to the loft tonight Sunshine.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Those are your ‘fuck me’ jeans.” Actually, those are his topping jeans. The ones he wears when he is in the mood to be in charge. They are old, too tight, too faded. I love them.

“They are just the first ones I found Brian. I was in a hurry.” He glances back over his shoulder to smile at me—to let me know that he wasn’t planning on fucking half of the back room tonight. “I’m not the one who goes out and fucks half of Pittsburgh when something is bothering me. That’s you, remember?”

He doesn’t have to rub it in.

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t mock my dysfunctions, considering that you profit from them.” Score one for me.

“Ha. You cause mine.” He isn’t looking at me when he says this, but I see the regret in his body before it even plays on his face. He stops walking and turns around. I can’t even stomach the look on his face. It makes me nauseous.

“Brian, I didn’t mean that. I really didn’t.” Of course he didn’t. I’m not an idiot. I didn’t take it that way. I shake my head and gesture for him to keep going toward the car with my hand. He obliges me. When he gets to the car, he unlocks my door for me. No.

“Let me drive.” I reach for his hand, reach for the keys. He doesn’t let go.

“I want to drive Brian.” He moves in between my body and the car, the door open. He raises his face to mine, his arms around my neck. He blocks me from doing anything but focusing on him. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes, you want to drive.” I try to look at him without looking at him. It doesn’t really work.

“I said I didn’t mean that.” He watches my face for some sort of agreement from me, and I know he won’t move until he gets what he wants. I have taught him well.

“Okay.” I lean into his mouth and kiss him to let him know that I mean it. He closes my car door for me. I watch his lithe body walk around the stingray.

He starts the car, and we pull out of the parking lot and start our journey home. I am lost in my thoughts for awhile, the exhaustion of the night winning out over everything else. I watch him drive. He is so different now than a couple of hours ago. No sketch pad, no anger, no yelling. He is almost serene. He is so fucking beautiful. I put my seat back a little and try to stretch out as much as a I can in this car.

“Penny for your thoughts?” He asks me with a quiet voice and a warm smile. He runs his hand down the side of my face and tucks my hair behind my ear. I need a haircut.

“I only take Visa, Mastercard, or American Express.”

“Figures. Just my luck. These jeans are so tight, they won’t even hold my wallet.”

“I was thinking about some shit I have to do at work tomorrow.” I don’t know why I lie to him.

“Try again.”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes, I really want to know.” He is definitive but uneager. I turn a little so I can see him better and tell him the truth.

“I was thinking about this thing that you do to me.”

“What thing?” He sort of laughs at me. “Make you hard as a rock when I wear these old levis?”

“No. It’s way worse than that.” I look off for a minute before I continue. He’s looking at me with a curious smile. “You make me miss something I never even had.”

I cannot go into any more detail than this. And I’ve thought about it eight ways from Sunday. How being with him makes me nostalgic for football games, marching bands, bleachers, autumn—all that shit I never enjoyed when I had it because I couldn’t—because it was never mine to enjoy. How my presence at his prom that night guaranteed that all of his memories of those things are ruined forever too. I will never forgive myself for that. Never. The sadness sits on top of me like a rock. My thoughts are really expensive, but not nearly as expensive as my actions.

He is so nonchalant when he tucks his hand in mine and rubs his thumb absentmindedly over my fingers. He isn’t trying to break my train of thought or get me to emote or anything. He brings my hand to his face and presses his lips to the back of my hand. I move my gaze from the world flying by to him sitting still.

“You’re exhausted Brian. Just go to sleep. We’ll be home soon.” He smiles at me and releases my hand onto his thigh where I leave it for a few seconds. I don’t want to be separate from him right now. He turns up the heat a little and turns the vent in my direction. I am going to sell this car and buy a Hummer or something with a lot more fuck room. What’s the point of having a “fuck-me” car if you can’t fuck in it? Beats me.

“I should have fucked you back there, when I had the chance.”

“You can fuck me when we get home.” That’s the most romantic thing anybody has ever said to me.

I slept all the way back.

Everything at Once—Deleted Chapter—5.1

BRIAN’S POV

He's gone.

I turn on the water in the shower and stand there while it runs over me. It's probably ten minutes before I realize that I'm on my third round of shampoo. I lean against the wall of the shower, close my eyes and pretend that he went out for take-out. Finally, I shut off the water, wanting to get out, dry off, and think about what to do. Only I can't. I sink to the bottom of the shower and stare at the hinge on the shower door until I'm stone cold. He's been gone for an hour tops.

I towel off and throw on some clothes. He’s probably at Daphne’s. I’ll go to Woody’s, have a drink, relax. I shut the door to the loft behind me.

My car is gone. That little twat took my car.

I’m fucking going to kill him.

I call his cell. No answer. Big surprise. Goddamnit.

Michael. I need to talk to Michael. I call his numbers. He answers at the apartment.

“Hello.”

“Mikey, I need to talk to you.”

“Go ahead.”

“In person. I need to come get you.” In what, I think?

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. No, not really. Just be ready. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll meet you out front.”

That was almost too easy. I call a cab. It takes awhile for the cab to arrive, but not long at all to arrive in front of Michael’s. He's standing out front, bundled up.

“Where’s your car?”

“Justin has it.”

“You let Justin drive your car?”

“Not exactly. Come on, get in. We’ll go to Woody’s or something. I need a drink.” Michael’s quiet on the cab ride, quieter than usual. We get to Woody’s and it isn’t that busy for a Thursday night. When we walk in, half of me is disappointed that Justin’s not here. Somehow, I feel like Michael is too. We take our drinks to a table. I’m starting to feel a little better.

“How’s Jenny?”

“Brian, what the fuck is going on?”

“Lindsay and Gus moved into a new place. I’m gonna see it tomorrow. Do you want to go with me?”

“Fucking tell me what is wrong. Is it the cancer, or work, or something?”

Or something. “Don’t be a queen. I want to be with you. I just need to be with you right now.”

“When does Justin leave for L.A.?” He goes for the jugular.

“I wouldn’t know.” He knows I’m pissed. “You’ll know before me. It’s your movie.”

“Yeah, it’s my movie,” he nods his head. “It’s my movie and you’re my friend, my best friend. And I want you to listen to me. This is the last time I'm doing this.”

“Doing what?” I interrupt him.

“This, Brian. Sitting here, across from you, having this conversation with you. This is not our conversation to have. You don’t need me for this. This is a conversation you need to have with--and I can’t believe I'm fucking saying this to you—with the man you love.” He pauses, drinks his drink, ignores my rolling eyes, and continues….

“Christ, I sound like my mother. In case you’ve conveniently forgotten, I've been there, Brian, for almost everything,: Gus, the road trip to NY, the bashing, this comic book, the Stockwell saga, the herb trip to rekindle your lost ‘fire’….”

“What?”

“Sorry, I don’t think you knew about that. Anyway, all of these moments in your relationship with him--I've been there.”

“So the fuck what?” I came here to escape a little, not to immerse. He’s a lot of fucking help tonight.

“So, like you told me once Brian. I know some things….I know you and I know Justin. And I know that you more than love him. And I know that the last thing you need right now tonight is to be sitting at this uncomfortable table at Woody’s, drinking this watered-down drink, making useless conversation with me. So—this is it. This is the last time I’m doing this. Being the silent partner in your threesome. I’m going home to my husband. And if you have any sense in that fucking stubborn head of yours, you’ll tell Justin whatever it is that you thought you needed to tell me tonight. Because whatever it is Brian—good, bad, fucked up, he deserves to know. Anyone who's put up with you for as long as he has fucking deserves to know.”

“Are you done?”

“Yeah, I’m done. Let’s go home.”

I follow him outside. During the cab ride back, I lay my head in his lap. I tell him that he’s no fun anymore now that he’s married. He tells me that some people grow up quicker than others. In some ways I feel like this is a big turning point in our relationship, but in another way, I feels like I always feel when I’m him--a little nostalgic, a little drunk, and a little vulnerable. After he’s gone, I feel like shit again. I try Justin’s phone again. Still off. I try the loft. Nothing. The cab driver wants a new destination. I hand him fifty bucks and tell him to drive. I don’t want to go home.
************************

JUSTIN’S POV

The inside of the ‘vette is kind of warm, but the most comforting thing about Brian’s car is that it smells like him, like us. I smell like us. I really don’t want to go anywhere. I feel frozen, but I don’t want to see him like this, so I start the car and pull away. There’s nowhere I want to go. Part of me knows that Brian has probably blown a gasket by now because I took his car, but so the fuck what.

I ride by Daphne’s, but her boyfriend’s car is there, so I don’t go up. I ride by Mel and Linds and then remember that it's just Mel’s now—new baby, bad idea. My mother’s? Too much inquisition. I don’t want to be with anyone right now. I want to be alone. Finally, I pull into the alley where I hung Stockwell’s posters. A few are still there, either stuck on the buildings or torn on the ground. Guess it doesn’t matter anymore. I extinguish the engine and the headlights. I turn off the radio. If I hear one more fucking love song that feels like it is being dedicated to me I will rip the radio out of the this car and personally smash it into a million pieces. It’s fucking cold tonight.


I close my eyes and try to think, but I can’t with this escalating headache. I didn’t have to try very long anyway because the blue and red lights behind me kind of put a stop to that.

Shit. Cops. I flip the seat back up and roll down the window.

“May I see your license and registration?”

“Here.” This whole night is going downhill very fast.

“Mr. Taylor, this isn’t your car. What are you doing here? You can’t loiter here.”

“It’s my boyfriend’s car, officer. I was just, um, clearing my head.” He’s looking at my blotchy face like he’s not buying my story. Jesus Christ.

“Your boyfriend’s car?” He hands Brian’s registration to his partner. Tells him to run it.

“Yeah, my boyfriend’s car.” I’m in no mood for this. He’s back in a couple of minutes.

“Mr. Taylor, I’ll need you to step out of the car.”

Goddamn mother fucker. “Why?”

**********************

BRIAN’S POV

‘Where do you want to go?” The cab driver is pestering me.

“I don’t know. Just keep driving.”

“Um, we’ve been ‘just driving’ for 30 minutes and my shift ends in 10, so pick a destination. How about Babylon?”

“Why the fuck would you automatically think I'd want to go to Babylon?” Who is this asshole?

“Because I know who you are.”

Oh Christ. I probably fucked this guy. “Sorry, not tonight, not interested.”

“It wasn’t an invitation, asshole. You might be Brian Kinney, but you’re not the only top in this town.”

I look at him again. I do sort of recognize him from the bars. “Sorry, bad night.”

“Where’s your boyfriend? What’s his name? Sunshine?”

I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone who didn’t know Justin personally call him by his nickname. It really hits me the wrong way.

“His name is Justin. And I don’t know where he is.” And then I wonder, what bothers me more, that this jerk is calling my boyfriend by his nickname or that I have no idea where my boyfriend is? My boyfriend. Oh fuck.

“Sorr-y. I only called him that because Debbie calls him that at the diner. No harm intended. I didn’t know his real name. He’s a cute kid—a good-looking guy. You’re lucky, you know? That guy loves you inside and out.”

I wish this guy would shut the fuck up. “If I wanted a bartender, I’d be sitting at a fucking bar.”

“Bartender, cab driver, same thing. Either way, you’ve only got five more minutes. Pick a destination.”

“You know where Debbie lives?” My last hope.

“Yep. Bright red door.”

“Take me there.”
***********************************************
I pay the man and walk up the sidewalk to Deb’s bright red door. I debate about knocking and decide that’s a bad idea, so I call. Horvath answers. Just the man I needed to see.

“Horvath, this is Brian Kinney. I’m standing on your front porch. I need to talk to you.”

“Now? It’s late.”

“I know. Sorry.”

A light flicks on and I hear him coming down the stairs. Alone. The door opens.

“What’s wrong Brian?”

“I need a favor.”

I pace in Horvath’s, or rather Debbie’s, kitchen as he makes some calls for me. He puts out an APB for my car. I listen to him. I'm beyond relieved that Deb is working tonight. I hope that Em is out. I’ve had my share of drama.

“Don, just put out the APB. Find the car and call me when you know where it is. That’s all. Call me here. Thanks.” He hangs up and we wait. He’s about to sit down at the kitchen table with me and give me the third degree when the phone rings again. That was fast.

“Hello. Yes? You’ve found it. Where? Okay. Okay. No. Wait. No. Just wait. Tell them to wait for me.”

This doesn’t sound good. I watch him hang up the phone.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” I’m standing now and impatient.

“Did you have pot in your car?”

Oh fuck. “Probably. A little. Why? Why?”

“He’s already been stopped. They’re tossing your car for drugs right now. He’s in the back of a squad car.”

“How the fuck did that happen? What'd he do?” Justin could be a piss ant to people sometimes, especially authority figures. He probably opened his mouth when he shouldn’t have. “Was he speeding? Did he get pulled over or something?”

“No, he was loitering in an alley. Over where you guys put up all of those posters.”

“They busted him for loitering?”

“Your registration’s expired. They ran it. It wasn’t his car. They thought he looked, well, “fucked up” to use your terminology. They tossed your car and found marijuana. And he’s not busted yet, he’s sitting in the back of the squad car wrapped in a blanket. They think he’s ‘coming down.’”

“He’s not ‘coming down’ for Christ sakes. He’s cold.” He’s freezing. He’s always freezing. “Fuck. What can I do? This is my fault. That pot was hidden. I remember now. They really had to be looking to find it. Horvath, give me some options here. I mean, for god sakes, arrest me. It’s my fucking weed.” I don’t know who I’m more angry at: myself for having weed in the car; Justin for pulling this stunt in the first place; or city cops for busting someone for sitting in a fucking car. It's pretty much a toss up. “What can we do?”

“You can’t do anything but wait here. I’ve got to do this.”

“You can fix this?”

“I’m going to try. Wait here.” And with that, he goes upstairs to change into something more detective like, and I step onto the porch so I can smoke. A few minutes pass and I hear him open the door.

“Thanks, Horvath.” I say to his back as I watch him get into his squad car.

“Don’t thank me yet, Kinney.”

I sit on the porch, light another cigarette and watch him drive away. So much for no more drama.

**************************
JUSTIN’S POV

The back of the patrolman’s car stinks and the lights are really, really bothering me. I have no idea what’s taking so long. Both officers keep walking back and forth between me and Brian’s car and taking notes and telling me that they are going to take my statement in a few minutes. What statement? I have no fucking statement. This is bullshit. I really want to get out of this fucking police car and tell them that I have no fucking statement to make because I didn’t steal his fucking car, but no one seems interested in talking to me right now. At all. I’ve never been in the back of a police car before. I came damn close when I screwed around with Cody, but this is as close to the long arm of the law as I want to ever get. I’m afraid to use my cell phone because they keep looking back at me and writing stuff down. My head fucking hurts. Now they’re looking in the trunk. I hope Brian doesn’t have any drugs stashed in that fucking car. That’s got to be it. They’ve found drugs in the car.

My catastrophizing stops momentarily when I see another police car arrive. The car says “K-9 unit” on it. This is just fucking great. Here come the drug dogs. I’m going to fucking kill Brian. Leave it to Brian Kinney to decide that the only shit you should keep in your car is a roadside assistance kit, a greeting card from your boyfriend thanking you for sex, and pot.

I turn on my cell phone and it immediately starts going nuts because I have tons of messages. I decide that I'm going to try to send Brian a text message, maybe something short like “SOS,” but then I remember that Brian doesn’t even know how to retrieve a text message. I'm so fucked. I hear one officer tell another officer:

“I’ll take his statement.” I know that voice.

“This is our collar.” Oh Christ, I’m somebody’s collar.

“He might be your collar, Hendricks, but he’s my C.I. I will take his statement.”

What the fuck? I'm someone's confidential informant?

The next thing I know there's a flashlight in my face and a man’s face way too close too mine. I shove my phone in my pocket, next to the greeting card. The man speaks to me again. His breath smells like coffee. Bad coffee.

“Mr. Taylor, I need you to come with me.” Oh my god, it’s Horvath. I know this is a good thing, but it doesn’t feel like a good thing because his hand is squeezing my arm way too tight and he is practically dragging me out of the backseat of the cruiser.

“What’s going on?”

He’s whispering to me in a very firm way, like I’m seven years old or something. “Get that stupid blanket and yourself in the back of my squad car now. Don’t say anything and don’t look up. Just walk like you’re guilty.”

How do you walk like you're guilty?

I feel guilty. Very guilty. I have fucked up royally tonight. I will never hear the end of this. Horvath talks to the other cops and we, or rather he, watches them drive away. I’m afraid to look up. After they’ve rounded the corner, I finally look at him.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. The only thing I want to know about this whole situation is: Are you all right? Because you look like shit.”

“I’m okay. I just have a really bad headache now.”

“If I let you have the key back to that car, can you follow me back to Debbie’s, or are you going to bolt? Because I’m not looking for you twice tonight.”

“You can follow me. I’m not running anymore tonight.” He hands me the keys, and I get back in the ‘vette and start driving to Debbie’s. It’s a good thing it’s a short ride because I’m exhausted, and I’ve had enough adrenaline for one night. We stop in front of Debbie’s red door and that’s the first time that I see him—looking hopeful and defeated at the same time--smoking a cigarette in his brown leather jacket, his long legs covering almost the whole stoop. I stop the car and get out. Horvath walks right past both of us, lets himself in the house and shuts the door. Debbie would have stayed for the fall out; Horvath knows better.

I walk up to Brian. There is not one part of me that knows what to say. So I don’t say anything. He looks at me for a few seconds and rolls his lips in. He discards his cigarette before he says anything to me. I know that he is getting ready to touch me, and part of me feels like I should flinch, that he's probably going to hit me or something, blow up at me like he did when his loft was robbed or my mother brought him all of my underwear that day, but he doesn’t do anything of the sort. He puts his arms around my waist and puts his forehead on mine and asks me a simple question:

“Did you really think I was going to let you steal my mobile phallic symbol?”

I laugh. It feels good to laugh. There's so much that I want to tell him, and I just don’t know how. I don’t even know where to start. I look at his face—that snarky little smile, and I just start to cry. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. He pulls me in closer and let’s me cry for a minute.

“Let’s go home,” he says. My feet feel like cement and I don’t think I can move them, partly because the emotions are starting to come. I’m afraid that if I don’t say what’s on my mind right now that I’ll never have the words or the guts to say it again.

“Brian?” He pulls his head back and looks at me.

“Hmm?”

“We need to talk.”

“I know.”

It’s almost a whisper, he says it so softly. I let him lead me back to the car, and we ride in silence back to the loft. A very peaceful silence.

CHAPTER 5.2—DELETED SCENE—RESCUED—BRIAN’S POV
Author’s notes: This was the original debut appearance of Twink, the kitten and Elvis, the obsession. The action picks up at the end of Chapter 5-Rage when Brian and Justin are walking back to the ‘vette from the men’s room where they have been lovey-dovey and from the tree where they have been kissy-kissy. Yes, parts of this are completely and utterly ridiculous, and other parts I was v.v. sad to let go. I will not weave song lyrics through text anymore. I got that out of my system.

I do a v. fast beta on these, so if you find a mistake, please feel free to point it out in a comment. I am not offended by that AT ALL.

**********************
He is squatting down, looking at something under the car.

“Look Brian, look.” He points to something. “Look, it’s a kitten.” I prepare to lift up my left boot, so I can stomp on the ground, next to the tire, to scare it away and he blocks me. “Don’t you dare. Go over there and block that side.”

“Justin.”

“Go. I’m going to grab it.”

I don’t want to do this. This is a bad idea, but part of me wants to see if he can actually do it. He zips up his jacket, lies down on the damp sidewalk and reaches for the kitten. It’s a dark color, so all we can really see are its eyes. It bolts right toward me. I grab it. I got lucky.

“I’ve got it.” He’s so happy. He comes over to my side of the car to look at it. Look at her. He takes her from me. She’s cute.

“Look Brian. She’s so little and her eyes are so green. Hello, little kitty cat. Where is your mommy?” I haven’t heard him use that voice since Gus was a tiny baby.

“Okay, you got to pet her. Put her down. Let’s go.”

“No way. I’m not leaving her out her in the freezing cold.”

He’s bound and determined to be sure I pick up something tonight.

We have the whole argument about why we are not having a pet in the loft, and he finally convinces me to take her with us and give her to Gus. Unless Lindsay throws a fit, in which case, we’ll try Ted. (I can picture it now: “Here Theodore. Justin busted the fuck out of your dictaphone. Want a kitten?”) Or worst case scenario: a shelter. He’s thought of everything. Even a name. All in the course of fifteen minutes.

I make a deal with him. He can rescue this kitten as long as our rest stop catharsis doesn’t become front page news at the diner. It came out really stupid, something like: “What happens at the rest stop, stays at the rest stop.” I don’t need to make deals with Justin; I just do it to entertain myself. Tonight I’m doing it to lighten the mood.

“Twink. I’m going to name her Twink.”

“Don’t you think you should let Gus name her?”

“Too late. Her name is Twink.” He’s right. It suits her. He’s always been good at naming things.

“I’ll drive us back,” I offer.

“No, I want to. I really like to drive. You can entertain Twink.” Oh joy. He disappears in the trunk of the car for awhile. I sit in my seat playing with her. She is a really pretty gray tabby with some striking markings on her face. I put her in my lap and watch her roam all over the place. Justin finally returns with a blanket.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Out of that emergency roadside kit in your trunk. Here, she can cuddle up in this. It’s all fleecy.”

He makes a little bed for her in the back so that when she gets tired of exploring the ‘vette she’d have a place to snooze. Hopefully she’ll be doing that sooner rather than later.

“Are you ready to go yet, Sunshine?” I’m ready to go. I have to be at work in the morning.

“Almost. I want to get something to drink and empty the ashtray. I’ll be right back.” And he’s off again.

I let Twink walk on the dashboard. I watch Justin as he walks back towards the car. There’s a spring in his step just like the day he found out about his Hollywood prospects. It feels good to see him happy again. When he gets to the window, he actually knocks on the glass, waves to Twink and talks to her from outside the car:

“Hey, little girl. Are you ready for your first ride in a Corvette?” His voice may be muffled, but it’s still idiotic.

I raise her right front paw and pretend to wave at him. I muster my best “Twink” voice and respond:
“Please get your ass in this car, so we can get the fuck home sometime in this century!”

He opens the car door, gets in, and chastises me immediately. “Don’t teach her bad words Brian. That’s uncalled for.”

I explain to Twink that Justin is the most fidgety person I know, all this while he puts the bottles of water where he wants them, replaces the ashtray, yadda, yadda, yadda….

“Twink wants to know if we are ready to go yet.”

“Almost. Can you hand me my bag?”

“God. You are worse than a woman.” This is why I do the driving.

“Shut up. Here it is.” He pulls out a white cd. Oh no. I’m afraid to ask.

“What is it?”

“Elvis. His thirty all–time number one hits.”

“Who burned that for you? Judy at Time-Life?” He’s too young to know who that is.

“I burned it at my Mom’s. I think my mom is seeing somebody.”

“No shit. Why do you think that?” Go Mother Taylor.

“Because my mom only listens to Elvis when she’s horny.” Too much information. I conduct business with this woman.

“How do you know that?” I have no idea what my mom listens to when she’s horny. Perish the thought. Right now.

“There are some things a gay man knows about his mother, Brian.”

“If you say so, Sunshine. I always knew I liked your mother. I just wasn’t always sure why. Now I know her secret.”

“Oh yeah, what?”

“Little less conversation, little more action.”

He punches me in the arm, but he knows his mom can “bring it.” I think I heard Hunter say that about Daphne the other day. If this is true about Jennifer, I’ll have to bust her about it someday. Please tell me that we are ready to shove off now. Even Twink has settled down in my lap.

I pop the cd in and let that track play. It’s the club version. The one I like.

A little less conversation, a little more action please
All this aggravation ain't satisfaction in me

He likes it too because he’s doing that car dancing thing he does. I shield Twink’s eyes. She shouldn’t have to see this.

“Apparently your mother isn’t the only one who has a thing for the King.” My hand wanders over to his jeans to see if I’m right.

“Grow up, Brian.” Ha. I'm right. Like mother, like son.

Come on baby I'm tired of talking
Grab your coat and let's start walking

Too bad for him that I’m not going to jerk him off while he’s driving my stingray.

Come on, come on
Come on, come on

Even I’m not that horny.

No procrastinating, don't articulate
Girl it's getting late,you just sit and wait around

Fuck, I’m tired. I’m glad I’m not driving. I read somewhere that when you yawn when there isn’t enough oxygen getting to your brain.

A little less conversation, a little more action please
All this aggravation ain't satisfaction in me

I really do like this song.

Come to think of it, I really do like Elvis. I must be way low on oxygen.

A little more bite and a little less bark
A little less fight and a little more spark

Come to think of it, Justin is my Elvis. And my oxygen.

Shut your mouth and open up your heart and baby satisfy me

Whoa. Where the fuck did that come from?

Satisfy me baby

Is he still dancing? How can he have so much energy, when I’m so fucking---yawning?

He still hasn’t answered my question. I still don’t know when he’s leaving. Fuck it.

I slept all the way home.

Apparently, there are fifty ways to leave your lover. I cannot think of one. Well, I can think of some, but, trust me, they all suck. Everything in my life feels so fucked up right now. I am so …conflicted. Yeah…conflicted.

And I deserve to feel this way because I was so confident, so sure of myself, sitting there all eager and hopeful waiting for Brett to get back to us about our movie—like I didn’t know full well that this might change everything or something. And then going out there to that gratuitous “we’re all gay, but we’re not” party of Brett’s, being seduced by the glamour and the “this is Justin Taylor; he created Rage” bullshit. My overwhelmed smile lighting up the room, dazzling movie stars, gaining me entrance to their asses!

And then coming home, disguising my dilemma with well-practiced smiles, unfinished sentences, a willing body, and country-club charm employed my millions of miserable, rich housewives every day. My mother has taught me so many things she is hardly aware of. But I got what was coming to me, just like always. The powers that be in my life are never hesitant to dole out punishment, are they? Only this time, it was so subtle, unlike so many of the other times.

I got home from my trip, resumed my comfortable role with Brian. (Did I just say comfortable?) He was even letting me take care of him. It felt so good. We were becoming normal. Normal is what I wanted right?

So I went to my “this is your life dvd player” and hit “play” thinking that that’s all it would take to move my life forward. Try again Taylor. This function is not available on this disc. What? I pushed it like 400 times. Son of a bitch was stuck on “pause.” I knew I should have saved my money and bought a better one.

I mean I had just figured that any day now would be the right day to tell him that: “I got this great job offer Brian, and I sort of accepted it without even talking to you about it….” But I was kind of stalling because I’m a chicken shit.

But as usual, Brian took care of everything. He went over to my “this is your life dvd player” and hit “play,” and it worked on the first try. Of course it did.

Everything works on the first try for Brian Kinney.

I know why that is.

I think I have it figured out.

He’s the action figure in this story. Not me. I’m not even the stupid sidekick. Hell, I’m not even the writer. I’m just the illustrator. I get paid to wait for shit to happen and to react to it—and not even verbally. I get paid to draw, which, if you ever sit down and really think about it, is a very slow way to react to something. It doesn’t always lend itself well to real life. You don’t always have time to sketch your feelings, and sometimes you just don’t want to. I wanted to be sure, to be careful, when I talked to Brian about going to LA that I didn’t hurt him. I can’t bear to hurt him.

I hadn’t drawn anything since Brett offered me the job. My pencil tapped on a blank page a few times, but nothing ever came out. The longer that went on, the more trouble I knew I was in. The worst part about that whole situation was that I couldn’t talk to Brian about it. Or I guess I thought I couldn’t or something.

Then Brian asked me to move in with him. Everything just started swirling down the drain from there, getting away from me, moving too fast.

I thought I had everything I wanted. This was what I wanted from the moment I could ever remember wanting anything, and I could never remember wanting anything as badly as I wanted Brian. The picture may have blurred once or twice during the last four years, but it always managed to come back into focus. Sometimes that was because of me, sometimes it was because of him, and sometimes it was because of shit that I just don’t fucking want to think about right now.

But last night was my fault. He may brew the potion, but I drink it.

It started to happen again, like it always does. I was, as usual, entranced by the spell he was casting over me. My body becoming almost dream-like as he gradually drew every bit of desire out of me, from the tip of my toes all the way to the parted pink of my lips. And even as I tried to fight the good fight, to agonize about what it meant to sleep in his bed one more night without being honest with him, I couldn’t worry about anything when he was seconds from inside me and promising me things I knew I didn’t deserve anymore.

But I waited too long for the right words to come to me, and I ended up hurting him anyway. I should have stuck with what I knew. I should have just drawn him a picture. Anything would have been better than the theater of the absurd that I forced him to attend last night—in the front row, no less.

The ride home went so much faster than the ride there, as if I had a destination in mind. I had nothing. There was nothing but fear and panic in the gas tank. Literally. We were about forty-five minutes from home when I realized that we really were on “E.” Brian was completely asleep and snoring off and on. I felt so bad for dragging him all over the outskirts of Pittsburgh. I found an exit with a gas station right off the ramp. As I brought the car to a stop under the obnoxious lights, Brian stirred a little.

“Are we home?”

“No, we’re not home yet. Go back to sleep. We’re on ‘E’.” I turned off the engine and realized I really didn’t know where my wallet was. Shit.

“I don’t have any E.” He shifted back on his side, the way he likes to sleep.

“I’m not asking you for ‘E,’ Brian. I’m getting gas; we’re on ‘empty.’” Fuck, I needed money. I am a kept man after all. I stepped out of the car into the cold night air and immediately jumped back in to get my coat. I swear it had dropped at least ten degrees. I walked around to Brian’s side of the car and opened his door.

“Fuck, it’s cold!” He pulled away from me a little. I leaned over him and whispered in his ear.

“I need your wallet.” He mumbled something about “back pocket” and “shut the fucking door.” I reached into his back right pocket and removed his wallet, my hand lingering there longer than it needed to.

“I said shut the fucking door.” I did what I was told.

The stale air inside the Exxon felt welcoming for a second, and I took the opportunity to grab some more cigarettes and junk food. I hadn’t eaten in hours. The girl behind the counter looked too young to be working at a place like this by herself at this time of night. I can’t believe I even thought that; she’s older than me.

I smiled. After all, I was on camera and recording.

“$34.57.” I opened Brian’s wallet and was a little taken aback by how much cash he hand in there, well over three hundred dollars. There are just some ways he and I will always be different. I handed “Megan” a fifty dollar bill, the smallest bill in his wallet. She handed me my change, and I fussed with getting it back into Brian’s jammed billfold. I guess, unlike me, he’s always prepared for everything. I had just felt the blast of cold air hit my face when I heard her calling me.

“Sir? Sir.” I caught the door before it closed. I am not old enough to be a “sir,” am I? “You dropped this.” She handed me a white card and reacted to the perplexed look on my face. “It fell out of your wallet.”

“Oh. Thank you.” I took it from her and stepped outside the door to study the dog-eared offering. It took a minute for everything to register. I had seen these before, a long time ago, my patient information cards from Allegheny General Hospital: my name, my room number, my nurse, my therapists, my attending, and the visiting hours. I remember autographing Daphne’s for posterity when I was released, a private joke and a good luck charm between us, now and forever. I flipped it over and read the names of every doctor who worked with me at every step of my recovery, every therapist of any kind, every charge nurse at every shift, the third shift nurses all underlined or starred, and in the corner, the name Miguel. I remember him. It was a lot of information to keep on a 3 x 5 card, and it was a long time to keep it. I slid it back inside his wallet, hoping I put it back in the right place, hoping that he wouldn’t have to know that I accidentally saw this part of him that he almost always hides from me. I returned to the comfort of the ‘vette and resumed my place behind the wheel.

Behind the wheel. I wanted to be here, and I was terrified to be here. Part of me tried to tell myself that the risk in all of this was going to LA by myself, working on Rage, but I knew that it wasn’t. That was the easy part. I focused on getting us home as soon as possible. He needed to get in bed; I didn’t think I’d ever seen him sleep so hard.

I wasn’t prepared for what I’d see when we walked into the loft, least of all for what I would be stepping on. Brian had trashed our bedroom, rock star style. There wasn’t much of anything breakable left unbroken. I kept shaking my head back and forth as I picked up the picture frames and put them back in their original places, sans glass. I picked up the big pieces I could grab quickly, righted the lamps, and located what looked like the base of the clock.

“Jesus.”

He pissed and walked out of the bathroom, heading for the bed, and I re-directed him to the sofa to give me a few minutes to clean up. I re-sheeted the bed and picked up as much as I could. If Brian owns a broom, I didn’t even know where the fuck it was. The rest would just have to wait until morning. It was just too late. I went back out to the sofa to get him. He was starting to get undressed.

“Don’t Brian. Leave everything on.”

“That’s a new one.” His eyes were barely open.

“I don’t know what the fuck happened in there, but there is shit all over the floor. Just come to bed, and I will help you get undressed. You can’t walk in there with bare feet.” I helped him up and walked with him to our bedroom.

“I broke some shit.”

“I can see that.” Glass crunched underneath our feet as I lowered him onto the bed. I removed his boots, his clothes, but didn’t bother with his underwear. “Go back to sleep.”

I kicked as much of the glass as I could over to the corner, needing to vacuum. I wasn’t going to do that in the middle of the night. I removed my shirt and pants and slid into bed beside him, sliding my arm around his waist, adhering myself to his weary, fetal-positioned body.

“Mmmm.” He purred against me, and I felt his hand looking for mine. Our fingers intertwined. I kissed his shoulder blade and nestled my face against his back. “Goodnight Sunshine.” He squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.

“Brian?”

“Hmmm?” I knew he wasn’t really listening to me, his breathing was too deep and too slow. I really didn’t want him to be.

“Thank you for coming with me tonight, for not telling me ‘no.’” I felt his left shoulder pushing toward me, felt him easing onto his back. He pulled me underneath his arm, readjusting the blankets.

His drowsy voice reassured me in the chaos of our bedroom.

“Justin, there isn’t a bone in my body that can tell you ‘no.’” He ran his fingers through my hair and told me to stop wearing him out, to go to sleep. I closed my eyes and kept my head on his chest, concentrating on his fingers as they continued their journey in and out of my hair for the next few minutes. He was asleep again, before I was, his hand finally giving up, falling onto my shoulder, and eventually off of me and onto the bed.

I turned over on my side to look out the window, wishing that sleep would envelop me as it did him, but I was not so lucky. I tugged on his arm a little as I tried to get comfortable, and he followed me, holding me like I wanted, his generous hand covering my stomach and folding me into him, his steady breathing in my ear. I buried my hands underneath my pillow and looked for the clock to see what horrible hour of the morning it was before I realized that the clock was gone, no longer part of our world. It didn’t matter anyway. No matter what time it was, it couldn’t be time to leave him.

*********************************************************************************************

I only got two hours of sleep. I am exhausted, but it’s seems to be the wrong kind of exhaustion. Whatever kind it is, it’s working for him. He’s still snoring. I am sitting on the sofa with my feet tucked under the cushions, doodling on my sketch pad, the same place I have been since a little after 7:00 am, when I gave up on trying to sleep. I can see Brian well enough from here. I have to keep an eye on him.

I have to think. I have to go. There is no way Brian will let me stay. He’ll throw me out. I should want to go. Who wouldn’t want to go? I should be excited. I am excited. This is every person’s dream. It would be selfish for me to want to stay here, to pass this up. If I go there and actually make something of myself, I mean, just think, I’ll be rich, maybe famous, fuck famous. Who cares about famous? Rich would be good. And then my parents, my father even, would be proud of me. Brian would be proud of me. I would be proud of me. Fuck it, that’s stupid. I’ll learn so much. And it’s my work, my story, my life, what I want.

Fuck, I don’t know what I want. I know I made a commitment to Brett. And to Brian. Fuck commitments.

There are very few blank pages left in any of the three sketch pads that are with me on the sofa. I have spent the last few hours making up for lost time. I wish Brian had a quieter pencil sharpener. I am down to my last pencil. I hear this very bizarre buzzing sound that I don’t realize is my cell phone on “vibrate” until it starts moving across the coffee table and almost hits the floor. I catch it just in time. Fuck.

The display shows an 818 area code. 818?

Shit, that’s California.

“Hello?” It’s Brett. It’s like 7:30 am there or something.

“Didn’t want to call you too early.” He laughs. I seriously need to think about this guy’s “late to bed, early to rise” shit, if I’m going to go work for him.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“I’ve got some good news about Rage.”

I get off the sofa, and walk farther away from the bedroom, so I won’t wake Brian. “What good news?”

I’m never going to ask anyone that question again. I listen as he tells me about the scheduling conflicts with the studio, the locations, the actors he’s signing, and how all of this is pushing our timeline forward. Fast forward.

“Monday. You are fucking kidding me, right?” You probably shouldn’t talk this way to your future boss, but I could care less right now. Brett is prattling on in my ear, but someone else is pounding on the door to the loft, which is going to wake Brian up, so now I have to go answer the goddamn fucking door. “Brett. Hang on a second.”

I slide open the door and am mostly relieved to see that it is just Michael. And he is alone. Thank god. I motion for him to come in and return to my other problem. He shuts the door for me. I don’t think Brett ever even stopped talking that whole time.

“Brett. Brett. Listen to me. Today is Friday. Monday is—Monday is no fucking way. You told me at least a month.” Michael’s face is changing with every word. Sometimes he is like a Mr. Potato Head, but in a good way. I try not to sound so much like a total bitch.

“It’s just that I need a little time.” I need more than a little time. My pleading is alarming Michael, his expression is settling on “concerned.” Regardless of the tantrum I threw for him, and Ben, and Hunter last night, he is still my colleague and my friend. I listen to Brett’s explanation.

“I know it’s a lot to take in Justin, but it’s now or never. We move or we lose. So we’re moving.”

Michael refuses to blink while all of this is transpiring, like he’s afraid if he closes his eyes for a second he is going to miss something. I sigh and capitulate.

“It’s just that I wasn’t expecting this. Brian just found out last night that I even had the job.” Michael’s hand rests on my shoulder. My forehead is in my hand. Brett tries to cheer me up.


“Well, then it’s probably a good thing that you guys have that ‘open-marriage’ thing or whatever, right? Together because you want to be, not because you have to be?” He means well, but he has no idea what the fuck he is talking about.

“Yeah. Sure.” What the fuck else am I going to say?

“I’ll email you with your e-ticket info for Monday. Call me if you have questions or whatever.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“Oh, and Justin?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell Michael I said congratulations on the birth of his daughter, and tell Brian I said congrats on the birth of his boyfriend’s career.” Again, the man knows not of what he speaks. So, Brett, just shut the fuck up.

“I will Brett. Thanks. Later.” If Brian wasn’t still asleep, I would have flipped the switch and ground up my cell phone in the garbage disposal. Michael and I just look at each other. He could hear every word Brett was saying. The man cannot modulate his voice. He’s so LA. I put my hand over Michael’s on my shoulder and I study his face before I speak. My mind wanders to something I heard over and over on the ride home last night.

Just slip out the back, Jack.

I force my brain to get back on track.

“I’m going out for awhile.” I start to head for the door.

“Oh, no you’re not.” He pushes me back toward the kitchen. “I came over here this morning to be sure that you were okay, after last night and all. But there is no fucking way that you are walking out of here and leaving me with that.” He points to Brian’s haphazard sleeping form on our bed, a form that is starting to stir. “I also came to give you this.”

He hands me back my key to the loft. I had forgotten about that.

Drop off the key, Lee.

“Yeah, sorry about that, throwing it at you and all.”

And get yourself free.

“I’ve never had someone throw just one key at me before. I’ve had people toss a whole set to me, but not quite like that. It’s a good thing you didn’t hit me in the face or something. Ben probably would have kicked your ass.”

Yeah, I know. That thought had crossed my mind. He isn’t done.

“Although Hunter wanted me to tell you that when you get to LA, audition for some soap opera roles. He thinks you’d make a great daytime soap star after your performance last night.”

“Heh, heh.” I smirk.

“Anyway, as I was saying, I’m not doing the third wheel with you two anymore. I’m a married man, with my own business, a teenager, and a new baby. I don’t have time to be your marriage counselor. From now on, you two talk to each other about your shit.” He points to me and then points to sleeping beauty.

Okay, I get it Michael. Your life is wonderful. I know you’re right.

But let’s face it, there is way more to it than that.

When have Brian and I ever dealt with each other without Michael around for the ride? Suddenly, I feel like the floor has dropped out from under my feet. I thought that this was what I wanted, just me and Brian. The look on my face says something different.

“This is fucked up Michael. I love him, but I don’t know how to handle him by myself sometimes. I don’t even know if I want to.” What the fuck is that about? If I cry anymore, I am going to have to sign up for tear replacement therapy.

“Look. None of this will change overnight.” When did Michael become so fucking reasonable?

“Except that now I have to practically leave overnight. And he’s going to fucking freak Michael. He doesn’t even know.”

“Then you will tell him. He will act like a total asshole. You will let him calm down. And then you will tell him again.”

“You are better at this than me.” I suck at this.

“Only out of necessity. With a little practice and a little time, you will be too. Give him a chance Justin. I’m going to go.” He looks at his watch.

“Wait, Michael. There’s one more thing I’ve got to ask you before I leave on Monday. Fucking Monday.”

“What?” He pauses and waits for my question.

“While I’m gone, you’ve got to look after him for me. Make sure he’s not working too hard, or getting sick, or whatever because he hides everything, and I might not be able to tell. Okay?” It was so reminiscent of the talk Michael had with me about taking care of Debbie when he thought he was leaving Pittsburgh to live with David. Deja-vu all over again.

“Of course, Justin. You don’t even have to ask. You know that. Don’t look now, but your prince is awakening. That’s my cue.” He hugs me and darts out the door. I follow him.

We stand in front of the elevator. I don’t know what to say. All of a sudden, I just really don’t want him to leave. He can tell. He grabs my wrist.

“Let’s synchronize our watches, okay?”

“What? Why?” I don’t understand. He unhooks my watch and hands it to me.

“10:41 am. Set yours. In seventy-two hours, I’ll be ready to take over, okay? Don’t worry. Now go.” He pushes me a little. “And don’t forget, this is your big break, our big break. Go out there and make us a household name, okay?”

“You know you are turning out just like your mother, right?”

“You are probably the thirteenth person to tell me that today, and I haven’t even had lunch yet.”

“I meant it as a compliment.” I did.

“Just promise me that if I start wearing buttons that say stupid shit or putting crap in my hair that you’ll put in a mental hospital okay?”

How will I know? I’ll be gone.

“Deal.” I swallow hard and smile. Our heads turn simultaneously as we hear a sharp, lost cry from the loft.

“JUSTIN!” Oh shit. He’s awake. Michael has no desire to wait for the elevator now. He heads for the stairs.

“I’ll leave you with Rage. I’ve got enough characters to deal with at my store.”

“Bye Michael.” I watch as his dark hair descends quickly down the stairs and turnaround to face my day.

************************************************************************************************

“JUSTIN!” He is yelling for me again, but now I am at the stairs of our bedroom and that just really isn’t necessary.

“I’m right here, Brian.”

“What the fuck time is it?” He has the worst case of bed head I’ve ever seen him have. He really needs a haircut.

“It’s 10:43 am. Don’t get out of bed.” I throw my hand up for emphasis. I look just like one of The Supremes. He is trying to get out of bed. He doesn’t remember, I guess.

“Why the fuck did you let me sleep so late? I’ve got a meeting at noon.” He is untangling his body from the sheets. His voice is beyond irritated.

“I called your office. Told them you weren’t feeling well. But listen to me: you need to stay put for a minute. I’ve got to vacuum. There is glass on the floor from where you smashed everything. I didn’t want to do it until you woke up.”

He looks over the side of the bed at the shards of glass and internal springs and parts of the clock everywhere, like his memory of smashing it and everything else are just coming back. I listen as he berates me for calling his office, for thinking I know his schedule or that his office does, for making decisions for him. I am so happy when I finally plug in the vacuum cleaner and drown him out. It makes a horrible sound as it sucks everything up, but it is better that listening to him bitch. Sometime during my domestic moment, he finally shuts the fuck up.

“Okay, you can get up now.”

He throws the sheet off of himself and sprints for the bathroom to piss. I roll my eyes. Such drama. I hear him resume his rant.

“I’ve got to go in for that noon meeting. It’s a new client.”

“Just let Ted handle it okay?”

“I don’t let Ted handle brand new clients Justin.” He flushes the toilet, washes his hands, and starts brushing his teeth. “Look at me. I look like shit.”

“Exactly. You’re exhausted.”

“Call Ted. Tell him I’m coming in.”

I hear him start the shower, and I give up. I am not fighting with him anymore. I find my cell phone, switch my phone off of silent mode, and call the office. Ted is on the phone so I talk to Cynthia.

“Hey, it’s Justin. Brian wanted me to call and let Ted know that he will be there for the noon meeting with that new client.”

“Hang on. Let me tell him.”

I wait and listen to the hold music. I’ve told Brian before that he needs to change it. It fucking sucks. She is back in a flash.

“Justin, that meeting is cancelled according to Ted.”

“Really? Do you know why? He’s going to ask me, so you might as well tell me now. Otherwise I’ll be calling back.”

“One second.”

More shitty music…..

“Client cancelled and rescheduled for Monday at 10:00 am. That happens a lot with Friday meetings. Not many people want to start something new on a Friday, you know? Friday is a good day to end something.”

Sometimes Cynthia is the smartest person I have ever known.

“Okay. I’ll let him know. I’m assuming that no one needs him there today then, right?”

“Not really. Ted’s a check signer, so he signed payroll. We’re fine. We’ll call him if we need him.”

“Thanks Cynthia. Have a good weekend.”

“You too, Justin. Take care.”

I end the call and head for the bathroom to tell him that everything is copasetic. We can start our weekend, our last weekend for awhile, right now.

************************************************************************************************

He is almost done with his shower. I know his routine. I stand outside the shower door.

“I called the office. Your meeting is cancelled.”

“Why?” He is pissed now.

“Cancelled by the client Brian. They rescheduled for Monday morning at 10:00 am. You didn’t lose the client.” I know that this is what he is worried about.

“Well, I still have to go in. I have things I have to take care of. It’s my company Justin. I can’t just not show up.”

Right. I am immediately sorry when the next words come out of my mouth, but I am not quick enough to stop them.

“Can’t we just spend today together?”

He shuts off the water and answers me.

“Tonight. Not today. Can you hand me a towel?”

I hand him a towel off of the shelf and exit the bathroom. I am about three seconds from killing him, so I need to do something else.

I have never loved someone and hated someone so much at the same time as I routinely do with Brian. Sometimes I feel like I should have gone to school and majored in “How to deal with impossible people—that you accidentally fell in love with” or some shit like that. He is lucky that I got rid of that gun that Cody let me play with for awhile because right now I would go cock it at the side of his head. But then I regroup and take Michael’s advice and come up with a new strategy. Yeah.

Make a new plan, Stan.

Suitcases. Fuck, I don’t have any luggage here. Think again.

Hmmm……. Legal pad. Check the desk. Second drawer. Bingo. Find a pen. Back to the bedroom. Sit on the bed. Occasionally say shit out loud.

Make a list. “Things to pack for LA.”

Clothes, underwear, sketch pads, art supplies, toiletries, meds, shoes, coat, day planner, condoms, lube, socks, tap pencil while I think….

Cell phone, charger, both types, checkbook, credit card, camera, photo album, computer, sheets, towels, pillow, blanket, suit, tie, dress shirts, think, think, think….

I need to call my mom and ask her where my luggage is. I hope it is at her place and not at my dad’s. I don’t want to have to deal with him. Maybe she would go get it for me and not make me have face to him. God, I am such a pussy.

Brian is trying to decide what suit to wear. Nothing is making him happy today. I guess we have that in common.

Think.

Tap.

Think, tap.

Dancing queen…. Dancing queen?. Oh wait, that’s my cell. That’s Emmett, which reminds me: I need to pack my ipod, my headphones, all the shit that goes with it, my cds….

I walk over the to the bar to answer my cell.

“Hey Em.”

“Sweetie? I just heard from Michael that congratulations are in order and that you are leaving us on Monday. Is that right?”

I am back in the bedroom now, back on the bed, doodling on my list.

“Yes. You heard right. I’m flying out on Monday morning.” I don’t really care if Brian hears it like this. He can go to hell right now.

“Well, I hope for your sake that the flight is standing room only.” Emmett talks to me in his sing-songy voice.

“What?”

“Honey, your ass is going to be sore as hell, come Monday morning.”

God I hope he’s right. I give Emmett the laugh he deserves for that comment. Maybe Emmett is smarter than Cynthia.

“I hope so Em. It’s not looking too promising at the moment.” I cut my eyes in Brian’s direction, but he is hiding his reaction from me. For an out and proud gay man, he sure spends a helluva lot of time in his closet. Nothing is lost on Emmett, though, as usual.

“Um, honey, I guess that’s why they call it the blues.” Leave it to Emmett to hit it on the head. “So, you have any big plans for the weekend or are you just gonna look at the ceiling?”

“I wish I knew.” I’m being cunty, but it’s Emmett, so that’s okay. “Actually I’m making a list right now of everything I’ve got to pack, got to buy; there’s just not enough time. By the way, how did you know all of this so fast?”

“Honey, we were on a 3-way before Michael’s feet were down that stairwell. Stay with me here.”

“I figured as much.” I can hear Em in the background giving the play by play of my conversation to Ted. He must be at Kinnetik.

“Brian’s being a cunty bitch to Justin. Justin’s making a list—he’s got to shop, pack, that boy is going to be bus-y this weekend, if you know what I mean. Teddy, don’t..”

Apparently, I am speaking to Ted now.

“Hey.”

“Hey Ted.”

“Do me a huge favor and fax or email me that list. Auntie Em has absolutely nothing to do today but sit in my office and chat my face off, and I need to close the month. She can go shopping for you. Oh, and congratulations and good luck—which you won’t need. You are obviously the chosen one.”

“Thanks Ted.”

“Hey, one more thing.”

“Yeah?” This is the longest conversation Ted and I have ever had with each other.

“Be careful out there Justin. LA is a whole different world. You won’t have your fire breathing dragon to protect you.” I hear Emmett grab the phone and fuss at Ted.

“Don’t scare him Teddy. He’ll be fine. He’s got youth and bliss on his side. He’s not you.”

And then the part I’m supposed to hear:

“Honey, don’t mind him. He’s on the rag. I would love to go shopping for you. It’s my second favorite past time. Please, please let me.” I know he’s jumping up and down.

“Sure.” I’m relieved, actually. “What did Ted just say?” I heard him mumble something.

“Oh, he said that I would pass up a Drew Boyd fuck-session to spend Brian’s Kinney’s money.”

“He’s right Emmett.” We are all three laughing really hard now. Brian is pissed because he doesn’t know what’s so funny.

“Watch it, sweetie. I know what you won’t pass up. You may be Brian Kinney’s fuck, but you’re still my bitch. Now, rattle off that list to me.”

There isn’t a fag in this town that won’t put me in my place, is there? I read my list off to Emmett and laugh when Brian yells at me to “add soap.” I do.

“I’ll see you a little later honey, packages and all.” And he’s gone. And I’m back to me, Brian, and my list. And it’s all quiet again.

I’m not even going to bother looking at Brian’s face for the inevitable disappointment. I don’t have time to be disappointed. I cue my phone to my mother’s cell number and hit send.

My mother knows about my job--what she just doesn’t know that I am leaving on Monday instead of in a month. I break it to her the best way I can. Maybe Brian can listen to my conversation with her and realize that it isn’t just his roller-coaster of emotions that I have to juggle. Not everything in my fucking life revolves around him. My mom is a little flabbergasted at first, but she adjusts. She is excited for me. I get to the real reason I am calling.

“Mom, where is my luggage? I’ve got to pack.”

“It’s in your father’s attic.” Shit. That’s what I was afraid of.

She has to go because a client is calling in, so we agree to talk later. I look back down at my list and add “luggage.” Fuck. Just what I needed. Brian interrupts my train of thought.

He is standing beside the bed as close as he can get to me in his gray suit pants, the dark gray ones, which are unzipped, unbuttoned, and unbelted. My eyes move up his body: his legs, his crotch, his stomach, his chest, his face. I wouldn’t say he has an entirely pleasant look on his face.

“What?” He does smell good though. I’ll give him that.

“So what ring do you have for me?” It takes me a minute to realize what he’s even talking about.

“None of your fucking business.” I look back at my list. Start drawing columns and shit. I am seriously not in the mood to play “Guess My Avoidance Behavior” right now.

“Fine.” He gives up and goes to the kitchen. I hear him open the refrigerator. I start making a list of the errands I have to run before I leave.

My cell rings again. It’s him. Mother fucker. I answer it.

“Very funny.”

“Well, you won’t talk to me.”

“I wonder why that is Brian.”

He won’t stay on topic. What a big surprise. “I like that ring you have for me.” He has never heard my special Brian Kinney ring tone before-until now.

“I’m getting ready to change it.” I am, that decision was made a few days ago.

“Why?”

“Because I think my mother is seeing somebody.” I lean over and look at him. He is standing in the kitchen with his back to our bedroom, focused intently on our conversation. I shake my head, grin, and give up. I guess there are some things that Brian and I can’t do face to face.

“I don’t follow.”

“I had dinner at my mom’s the other night. Remember?”

“Yes.”

“Well, when we were done and cleaning up and everything, she played that very same song and danced like an idiot while we were clearing the table.”

“Your mom is an Elvis freak? So what?”

“My mom is an Elvis freak when she’s horny, Brian.”

“Get out. Go Mother Taylor.”

“Shut up.”

“But I don’t see why I have to suffer just because your mom has found her mojo. That song is me. I am a little less conversation and a little more action.”

“Not today you’re not. Today you are a pain in the ass.” Sometimes it’s my job to point out the obvious.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I think Brian is trying to make up for a lifetime of “no apologies” in twenty-four hours or something.

“Yeah, well sorry is bullshit and a waste of time. Time, incidentally, that I don’t have. So unless you have something to say that is going to move the plot along, I’m hanging up.”

I corner him, and he makes his move. “You didn’t tell me that you were leaving on Monday.”

“I just found out about fifteen minutes before you woke up Brian. I thought I was leaving in a month. But, in retrospect, it’s probably better this way because there is no way in hell that I could put up with you acting like this for four weeks.”

I lie back on the bed, pushing my list to the side. I can hear him breathing into the phone. I listen to his footsteps as they get closer to me. I should hang up, but I don’t. He doesn’t either.

“Well, I want to keep my ring.”

“No.” I already know what I am changing it to, and I am not going to tell him, even if he is lying beside me on the bed now.

“Can I have another Elvis song then? Burning Love maybe?”

“No.” He cannot have Burning Love. We are both lying on the bed staring at the ceiling talking to each other on our cell phones. This has got to be one of the stupidest things we have ever done.

“Heartbreak Hotel?”

“No.” Like I want to hear that every time he calls me. “I am about to change it to Walking on Broken Glass if you don’t shut the fuck up about it.”

“You know what Elvis song reminds me of you?”

This I can’t wait to hear. “I have no idea.” He turns his head on his pillow and raises his eyebrow at me. I get instant butterflies in my stomach every time he does that thing with his eyebrow, and he fucking knows it too. He’s doing it on purpose.

“Devil in Disguise.”

“Wow, that’s quite a compliment.” It is. It really is.

“You should be nice to me now and compliment me back.” Leave it to Brian to be subtle, especially when his eyes are locked on yours.

“What do you want me to say?” I might as well ask because he’ll just tell me, and then I can just say it, and we can hang up.

“Something really nice, like, ‘Brian, you are my Elvis.’”

“Um, that would be a really nice compliment, but I don’t know if I really feel that way about you right now.” God, that was so mean, but he totally deserves it. I’m such a bitch. “I don’t really think of you as my Elvis, more like my Fonzie. You know?”

He digests this information, doesn’t seem to like it that much.

“Is that right Sunshine?” I nod, scrunch my nose a little. I am in way over my head. “Well, then, I suggest you take cover.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m getting ready to jump your shark.”

Finally. End of conversation. Cue the action.

It’s been a while since we wrestled like this. Oh fuck. He’s going to kick my ass. God knows where my cell phone just went. His knees fly between my legs and glue me spread eagle on the bed. He’s on top of me on all fours in a flash. Like I mind.

Advantage: Brian.

He starts tickling me. Jerk.

“Stop it, Brian. Stop it.” I try in vain to get out from under him. Hopeless. “I mean it. Fucking stop it.” He seems to be finally satisfied with my complete and total helplessness and quits assaulting me. I don’t trust him though; I know he’ll start back up the minute I let my guard down.

“You think I’m your Fonzie?” He rolls his lips inward and smirks at me and my stomach flips again. My body is tense with mistrust and I refuse to blink. I am smiling though, underneath him, like a complete idiot. I can’t stop. Maybe he is done tickling me.

“Well, you know how on Happy Days it was always kind of distracting how Fonzie could be the idol of all those kids when he was clearly so much older than they were?” I figure I’ll just go for broke.

“Taylor, you are on very thin ice right now.” I am kind of mad that my dick is getting hard when I am trying to hold my own here. My dick is such a traitor.

“Yeah, well, I had a crush on him anyway.” It’s true. I did. I’m not proud of it, but I did. We can all thank TVLand for that. Brian grins at me, like I just made him the happiest Fonzie in the world. I feel so swoony inside. My body finally relaxes.

“Well, I do love motorcycles and lovesick teenagers who hang all over me.”

True. “And you have great friends who act like idiots sometimes.”

He has stopped listening to me, and I have stopped listening to myself. I don’t know if it was the motorcycles or the lovesick teenagers or what, but he is all over me. Happy days are here again.

“I haven’t fucked you on white sheets since I tracked your ass down in New York.” His words are breathy in my ear, and I welcome the warmth of his body on mine as he relinquishes his predatory king of the jungle stance. I am so ready for this.

“You were out of dark sheets. These were all you had left.” My words come out in between his attacks on my face.

“You put me to bed last night didn’t you? You tucked me in.”

I keep my lips close to his. He is so warm. “You were out cold. You slept on the couch while I put sheets on the bed. Do you remember that?” He can’t answer me for a while because my tongue is in his way.

“I remember that I was trying to take my boots off, and you wouldn’t let me.”

“Because there was glass all over the floor.”

“I guess I was Rage last night, you know, after you left and all….”

It takes a minute of kissing, sucking, nibbling, and pausing for him to realize that he just made me think of the movie, and LA, and leaving again. And then I realize that he’s sorry he made me realize that, and then I feel everything I don’t want to feel right now. Now is a good time to forget.

I can tell by the look on his face that he wants to forget it too, that he’s trying to concentrate, to focus on just what we’re doing right here, right now. I should help him. I should try harder.

I try looking at him while he’s kissing me, but I can’t. And to be fair, he can’t really look at me either.

And that is when I realize that there is nothing more fragile than being loved by Brian Kinney, and that sometimes I just want him to break me.

His eyes open briefly right then and, I swear he feels my quandary without me even saying anything. The expression on his face has changed. I’m not the man who is going to leave him; I’m just the man he is getting ready to devour. He has made the transition. I wish I could make it too.

I feel him rise up off of me and hasten his pants off like they are on fire. I think his underwear just vanished. He discards my clothes like junk mail, in a way that makes me feel guilty for even owning any.

He presses me close to him and steals kisses from me before I can even offer them. Sometimes they are fast, feisty, drive-by kisses, and sometimes they are slow Gone with the Wind kisses that break my heart into a million pieces. I can’t leave this man. I just can’t.

I let myself melt into him. His hand travels down my back, on top of the crisp, white sheets. I moan a little into his neck, and he rewards me by letting his fingers glide down the crevice of my ass like he’s touching a very expensive crystal goblet. He molds the material to my body, making it tighter and tighter and tighter against my back, my ass, my thighs, his hand cupping my bottom. I can feel the warmth of his hand through the cotton, the possessive squeeze. Oh god, I’m going to miss that so much.

“You have no idea what you do to me Justin.”

His hand is moving again, tugging at folds he’s made, working it’s way underneath the covers.

He begins the process of gently preparing me, so much slower than I want, so much slower than I deserve. I feel him massaging my hole so softly that I don’t know if I want to scream or cry or just give him all of my money. He leaves it all alone, and I am about to say something I’ll regret, but I can’t because that very same finger is in my mouth. Asshole. I suck on it harder than I’ve ever sucked on anything, and it is gone before I can finish, replaced by his lips, his tongue, and his words.

“I don’t know what you’re waiting for.”

I crush my face into the pillowcase and inhale. God, I love these sheets, this bed, this room. I love his hand running down my back again. I love the promise of knowing what’s coming next. I feel his left arm slide underneath my chest and pull me close to him. Fuck. This is what I want. My right hand reaches for my cock.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

My hand leaves the scene of the crime, but not before he tucks the empty condom wrapper in it.

I am wrong; I am not prepared for anything.

I am not prepared to pine for that wide, familiar burn that rips through my body when Brian fucks me like this. I feel like he is chasing me off of the end of our bed, and I don’t want to get away, but I am still running. Why am I still running?

He is bigger and stronger and faster than me, and I am no match for him. My hands cling to the mattress at the head of the bed, my fingers digging into anything that will give way.

His hands grab my hips and pull me back in one swift move, and I feel his hot steam in my ear.

“You’re not going anywhere. Do you hear me, tight boy?”

God, I hope he’s right.

I push up on all fours in an effort to participate in some half-hearted way, and he laughs at me a little and smacks my ass.

“Don’t bother now, Sunshine. We’re almost done.”

I let my head fall onto my arms, and hold on for the home stretch. I should have never cut my hair. It would have really come in handy right now.

I offer him some sort of consolation prize and clench my ass muscles as an afterthought.

“Oh, now that was a really nice gesture. Oh, fucking Christ,” he falls on top of me, pushing every last inch of himself right through me. I lace my fingers through his and squeeze as he rides out every twitch, tingle, and syllable that is me. That is us. That is almost Monday. That is the next few minutes of breaths to catch, thoughts to organize, and mostly just sounds of silence.

“Justin?”

“Hmmm?” His hair is in my mouth.

“Can I be your Elvis now?”

I think about it for a minute, mostly just to make him suffer. Fair is fair.

“Okay, but only on one condition Brian.” After all, I actually have a negotiable position now; well, not right now. Right now, I’m still flat as a pancake.

“What condition?” He’s still Brian, always Brian, reticent to give up anything, even for a permanent piece of tight, extremely sore, blonde boy ass.

“You can be my Elvis as long as you quit playing the part of Rage in real life. Okay?”

I start to wonder if he is going to agree to this because he doesn’t answer me right away. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Maybe what happened at the rest stop stays at the rest stop.

“Okay. Deal. I’ll take Elvis over Rage any day.”

“Then it’s settled. You can be my Elvis. We could shake on it, but I kind of can’t move here.” I guess we just fucked on it.

He lifts up a little so that I can breathe easier and nuzzles me before collapsing again.

“Justin?”

“What?”

“Thank you very much.” He thinks he’s really funny.

“Anything for the King, Brian.” He pulls out of me slowly and my reaction is audible. He tore through me, and he knows it, but there is no way in hell that I am going to complain.

Too much paperwork.

CHAPTER 6.1—DELETED SCENE—DISCOVERY—JUSTIN’S POV

Author’s notes: This scene was part of the beginning of Chapter 6—Nostalgia. The first chapter that was written from Justin’s POV. I think I pulled it because it was essentially unnecessary and because I had pulled the earlier incident with Horvath, so the discoveries in this scene never even came to light. Again, there are elements in this I like and elements I don’t. The scene opens with Justin in the ‘vette at the gas station after he's paid for the gas on the way back from the rest stop, after he's found his hospital information card that Brian's been carrying in his wallet for all these years. Brian is asleep in the seat beside him.

As always, if you see an error, please comment. Thanks.

JUSTIN'S POV
**********************
I pumped, paid, and pulled the ‘vette over to a parking space out of the way. I left the car running and walked back to the trunk to see if the emergency roadside kit that I gave him a long time ago was even in there. I was pretty sure it had a thermal blanket in it. It’s one of those “terrorism proof models” that comes pre-sealed because it has bottled water and some space meals or some shit like that in it. You aren’t even supposed to break it open until you use it for the first time, like it’s a virgin or something. That is pretty fucking stupid.

Sure enough, there was my bright red “emergency roadside kit.” It was the only thing in the trunk. I flipped open his knife and grabbed the kit to turn it so I could open it. No need. It had already been opened. The contents started to fall out. Shit. He’s used this thing. At first I thought that he’d cut it open for the water or the snacks or something, but they’re still there. The fire extinguisher? No. The first aid kit? No. It was still sealed. Whatever. I found the blanket and pulled it out, laughing at the bag of pot that was tucked inside it, and that’s when I saw it. It was the envelope holding the greeting card that I had given him when I had given him this thing. He kept it—in here. I grabbed the card and the blanket, closed the trunk and sat back behind the wheel.

I pulled the blanket up around my neck and tried to think, to form a plan, but I couldn’t stop crying.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about the day I was in the Big Q and bought that stupid thing.

I think what upsets me the most is that I can’t remember very much about the prom at all, but I can remember that night, the night of Gus’ birthday party. That night has become my prom. That night has become the most romantic night of my life, and I wanted to tell him that so badly. That’s what’s so hard about loving Brian. He makes it impossible, scratch that—prohibitive--for you to show him that you love him back.

So, one day I was wandering in the Big Q, killing time for some reason, and they were playing some totally sappy love song over the sound system. They were playing it and I was just wandering aimlessly around the Big Q, and I was standing in front of the display of “roadside emergency kits for $14.95,” and I didn’t even realize that I was listening to the song until they cut into it with some obnoxious call for an Assistant Manager. And that’s when I realized that I was hopelessly in love. I knew it because I was actually angry at the Big Q for interrupting my romantic musak daydream with their fucking announcement. At the time, I guess like I felt like it was something he needed, something he didn’t have. What the fuck do you buy for someone like Brian? Someone who has everything and the means to have anything else? It was something I could afford, a way to show my appreciation, my love, my something.

Then I needed a card to go with it, so I wandered over to the stationery section and looked at the endless array of idiotic stupid cards that I knew he would read and throw right in the trash. Then I saw the one I wanted. All it had on it was a picture of a can of coffee beans that were halfway open; the inside said: “This is your wake up call.” All I wanted was the coffee beans, so I went and bought some white out. The whole purchase cost me less than twenty dollars, which was a lot of money to me back then. I brought everything home to the loft, knowing it would be a while before Brian got home from work.

I white-ed out the message inside the card and wrote what I wanted to say, what I knew I would never be able to say to him face to face because he would probably never let me get it out, or I would be too chicken shit to do it. I never really knew if it meant anything to him because after I had the balls to write it, I left the gift in the loft and was never there when he saw it. I had never seen it again.

I pulled the card out of the envelope really slowly, like I was afraid of what was inside it, like I hadn’t written it or something—overwhelmed with feelings of stupidity. I looked over at Brian and silently begged him not to wake up. I opened the card and read my words:

Brian,

Before I met you, I was just like these coffee beans: vacuum sealed. There’s this thing you do to me that I don’t really know how to explain, but I guess this is sort of it: you take every molecule that is me, suck them all up into one place and then release them again, over and over and over. Please don’t ever stop.

Justin

p.s. You don’t have one of these and you should. Sometimes bad shit happens when you’re least expecting it. I’m proof of that.

And then I realized, that all this time, he’d kept that kit and the card. He kept it while I was gone with Ethan and now I’m getting ready to leave again. Oh my god, my fucking head is splitting from crying so hard. Life was so much easier when there were fewer choices.

I dried my face off on the blanket, unfolded it all the way, and covered him with it.

I needed to get him home.

Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?

I open my eyes and squint at the sun barging in my bedroom. Everything is way too bright in here with these white sheets and this blonde pot of gold nestled beside me. Whoa.

Why Gus fights me when it’s time to take a nap I’ll never understand. Naps are way better than drugs, especially when you’ve got real sunshine in your bed.

Fuck, I need to wake up. I’ve got a lot of shit to do in the next few hours, but letting go of his warm, sleeping body doesn’t seem to be one of them. I guess I’m staying put for a little while. I continue to hold him snuggly against me, the way we’ve been for a little over an hour.

He doesn’t really move much when my hand releases his and starts to stroke his pubic hair. It takes him a minute to acknowledge me. It is one of the best minutes of my life.

He rubs his hand over his nose half a dozen times and scratches the back of his head. “Brian, that tickles.”

“You’re no fun.” His hand pauses mine, so I stop and focus on something else. “You’re hard.”

“You’re smart.”

“Shhhh.” I burden his body with mine and push my intentions into his ear. “I want this, okay?”

He gives me that sleepy smile, and I lean over to kiss him—mostly out of obligation it seems. It seems wrong to fuck him while he’s asleep without at least frenching the shit out of him first. He isn’t very interested in my suave moves, deciding instead to punctuate my effort with a half-assed moan that is clearly just for my ego. He rolls back over and cuddles up with his pillow.

My lips slide off of his onto his cheek and onto his neck while I reach over him for a condom. My dick settles in the niche of his ass where it will always belong.

His hand darts out from under the pillow and flicks the condom from my fingers.

“You don’t need that.”

He’s a fast little fucker. I barely saw his eyes open. I snatch it before it flies off the bed. I’m fast too. His hotness is only ever surpassed by his twatness.

My arms slide under his chest, wrapping around his shoulders. The lower half of my body is getting ready to betray the upper half. I feel the disappointment in his body underneath me, although he’s trying not to show it. Sometimes he misunderstands me, just like everyone else.

I forget sometimes that he’s so young, that there are some things I guess I just shouldn’t expect him to know or understand yet. And there are others that I’m just not ready to tell him.

I won’t tell him that he will never, ever get a spare set of keys to any car I ever own ever again.

I won’t tell him that I fuck him raw in my mind at least five or six times a day, every single day—or that that number was a lot higher when he preferred classical music.

I won’t tell him that there isn’t a part of me that ever wants to put one of these fucking stupid things on, even as I lie here and do it anyway--like I want to dull any part of me that experiences any part of him. I ought to tell him that I’m insulted.

But then there are some things I will tell him. There are some things he needs to hear from me and only me, especially when my cock is centimeters from his slippery hole. I inhale and close my eyes before I whisper anything to him.

“You know, you shouldn’t be such a twat when I’m showing you how much I love you.”

My words sink in just as I do, granting him the resistance that I gladly suffer through, that has become my guilty pleasure. And I am there for him when he reaches back over his shoulder, touches my face, strokes my hair, and tries to hold onto me. God, I want him to hold onto me. At least for now. At least until Monday.

Shit. The expression on his face right now is worth more than this fuck to me. I smother him with my mouth and french the awkward fuck out of him, ignoring him when he gasps for air. The kissing stops, his breathing resumes, and my thrusting quickens. A cloud darkens our bedroom.

I am not so gentle anymore, pushing him where I want him, my hand roughly gathering the skin on his ass.

“Fucking squeeze me like you did this morning.” I am gruff in his ear, my unshaven face scraping his neck. I get what I want. I am getting it now. Oh fucking Christ, oh fucking Christ. He reaches for me again, but I stay too far—

“Aaaaah. Fuck. Me. Oh god Justin. Oh god.” He doesn’t have to say a word to get what he wants. I come closer. “Hold onto me.”

And I thought cancer would kill me.

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Author's notes: I was looking for something else and found this. I cut this scene because Brian was emoting to the wrong Taylor basically. It was re-written eventually, but I've always liked it and the emotional integrity of it rings true for me--although it would have been tightened up more than this had it been used. The scene opens with Brian and Jennifer in the hospital cafeteria.

As always, this is un-beta'd. Feel free to comment if you see an error. Thnx.
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Everything at Once-Deleted Scene 7.1-Comfort--Brian's POV

BRIAN'S POV

Dr. Madsen is talking with Jennifer when I return to the cafeteria.

“Here's the list of names I promised you. Who wants it?” He hands us the list of neurologists in the L.A. area.

“I’ll take it, if you don’t mind Jennifer?”

“Just make me a copy.” I agree to do that. Dr. Madsen sits with us for a minute.

“I did some checking because part of Justin’s chart is so thick and so old, it’s been archived. He hasn’t been in over a year, except once.”

“When was that?” I ask him.

“When his meds ran out, and he wanted a refill—which for the record, any of the docs here would have been happy to do, but he wouldn’t even sit for a basic neurological exam. It didn’t really make any sense, there’s nothing to it. I mean, basically, you check reflexes, eye-hand coordination, etc. He wouldn’t let us check anything. He just got angry, yelled at us, and left.”

“That sounds like him.” I look at Jennifer.

“Since when?” She doesn’t believe me.

“Depends what day it is, really. I’ve never really thought about it before, but he goes through phases like that. I just always chalked it up to his frustration from living with me. He’s moody.”

Jennifer nods. “And stubborn as hell. He gets that from his father.”

“So basically, you’re telling us that you have no way of knowing what kind of shape he’s in because he won’t let you examine him?” To me, that’s the bottom line.

“Pretty much. And if he’s really leaving on Monday, then getting him a point of contact out there is the best thing to do. Whoever you choose can call me if there are any problems. People with post-traumatic stress disorder can regress in new situations, and since there won’t be anyone out there with him who knows him well enough to monitor him, it might be hard to tell. I hope I’ve helped you. Now, I’m going to eat.” He smiles at Jennifer.

“Thanks. You’ve been a great help, Scott. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and for Justin. I’ll keep in touch.” Jennifer and I face each other with this information, and I ask her the question that has been bothering me the entire time we’ve been here.

“How did we even get to see this guy and get past doctor-patient confidentiality?”

“Scott and I have the same divorce lawyer. He has a teen-age daughter a little younger than Justin, and we belong to the same country club. Sometimes you do what you have to do.”

“So what now?”

“Good question. You know, he’s really torn up about leaving, about leaving you.”

“I know. We sort of had a fight about it last night.” We fight like we fuck—all night long.

“So do you want to talk to him about this, or do you want me to? Because I don’t want it to turn into a screaming mess or upset him so badly—I don’t know what to do, Brian.”

“I’ll do it. I’ll talk to him.” There are other things I wanted to talk to him about anyway, so I’ll just add this to the list. “Are you ready to go?”

We walk outside down the long brick sidewalk to the parking deck, and I’m smoking again, my thumb tapping on my ever-creasing forehead. I’m not a happy man right now. I stop and sit on a bench.

She’s a few steps beyond the bench before she realizes that I’m no longer beside her. She doubles back and joins me.

She asks me if I’m okay. I’m not. She asks me what’s wrong. I tell her. I should have told her a long time ago.

I tell her that now more than ever I truly understand that this is my fault. That whether Justin needs a whole lot of help or just a little is really immaterial to me.

He shouldn’t need anything.

I tell her that what I did that night was selfish. That I made a spectacle out of her son, pulling him onto the dance floor like that in front of those kids, that I made a spectacle out of the two of us, that I made him a target. That I had no right to take him away from her—in whole or in part. That back then I honestly believed that if I saw something I wanted, I should just be allowed to have it.

And I wanted him.

I tell her that if anyone ever does anything like that to Gus—exploits him like that, puts him at risk, they will have me to deal with. That I see things differently now.

It’s almost impossible to cry and smoke at the same time.

I tell her that my father was a selfish piece of shit, and that I wake up everyday now looking in the mirror, seeing if I have become that kind of man. That when the cancer came, when I realized what I had done to Justin, when I realized that Gus hardly knows me and that I wanted him to know me before now, I started to feel like the pieces were falling like dominoes. Highly destructive dominoes.

And then I stop because even though I have more to say, I can’t.

For some reason, I cry harder when she starts speaking to me, and I could care less that people are looking at us or that she is holding my hands.

“You know, I used to think, a long time ago, Brian, that I needed an apology from you to make all of this make sense in my head. I truly believed that, and I truly hated you or that part of you. But I was completely wrong. All I needed to see was the look on his face every time he looks at you, or says your name, or draws your picture, or says or does anything that is remotely related to you. That fixes everything.”

Her hand is on my face.

“Maybe if you would look at that, too, it would fix this for you. He may be stubborn like his father and have his father’s temper sometimes, but he has his mother’s heart.”

True.

“And every square inch of it is completely rented out to you, Brian. What happened that night was horrible, and I wish that we could go back and fix it, but it was one night. One bad night. That’s how I look at it. It works for me.”

My eyes are drying.

“I want you to know that I love him.”

“I know. The only people who haven’t known that are you and, sometimes, Justin. It’s painfully obvious to everyone else. Now, let’s plan Sunday night while you drive me back home in your ‘stud-mobile.’ I like being seen with you; it makes me look so young!” She grabs my hand and pulls me off the bench.

Justin is the luckiest son in the world.

Brian's POV

Doctor, doctor, give me the news
I've got a bad case of lovin' you

The label on this turkey sandwich says “lean” or “low fat” or some shit like that, but that is total bullshit. This is complete, processed crap. And this salad is nothing but a light green, cold, cry for help, but I’m fucking famished. I guess I’m eating it anyway. It seems counterintuitive to serve food that will obviously kill you in a hospital cafeteria.

At least I’ve got good company.

“Here. You can have these chips. I don’t want them.” Jennifer can tell I’m still hungry and dissatisfied with my lunch. I take them. She looks at her watch. “It’s going to be at least fifteen more minutes before he gets back down here.” She sighs. I nod.

“I’m going to step outside for a second and smoke if you don’t mind. I won’t be long.”

“Go right ahead. I’ll be right here.”

 

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Justin’s POV

“I called the office. Your meeting is cancelled. KNOCK
You know, you shouldn’t be such a twat, when I’m KNOCK showing you how much I love you. KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
You’re not going anywhere. Do you hear me, tight boy? KNOCK, KNOCK
Because no matter what happens, KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.”

“FUCK. FUCK. Shit!!! I’m awake. I’m awake. I’m awake.” And I’m naked. And I overslept. Oh shit. Where are my fucking sweat pants? Shit. Here they are. “I’m coming.”

I have never been so happy after opening a door in my life.

“Oh thank god it’s just you Em. I thought I overslept. What time is it?”

“It’s 3:30, honey.” He pushes through the door with all of his packages. “What the fuck happened in here? This place looks like shit and smells like fuck!”

“Long story not worth telling.” I trudge back to the bedroom and climb back into bed. He follows me.

“I take it you had a long night?”

“You could say that.” I bury myself under the sheets. Emmett’s eyes scan our bedroom, which still looks worse than the rest of the loft.

“Well, okay then. I knew you two had a wild sex life, but this is a little wilder than I even imagined.”

“Brian and I had a fight. Everything’s okay now.”

“Okay, that makes more sense. Makes me feel a little better.” He rubs my shoulder. “I got everything you needed and I bought you a pres-ent!” He runs back out to the kitchen and starts digging through the bags. I wish I had his energy right now.

“What did you get me?”

He yells at me from the kitchen. “Close your eyes.”

“Okay.” I hear him walking toward the bed.

“Are they closed?”

“Yes.” I feel him sit on the bed and sit something beside him. I’m afraid to open my eyes.

“Okay. Now before you open your eyes, let me just tell you that this is a special gift from me to you. I have used this myself, well not this one exactly, but it works wonders, and I think you’ll really love it. Okay, you can open your eyes.”

Now I’m really scared. I open my eyes.

“Emmett!”

“What? Don’t you like it?”

“It’s a 64 oz. tub of ‘Butt Butter’!”

“Honey, this is what all spoiled bottoms everywhere use—you know, to recover. Or to stay in tip-top condition--if you know what I mean. Michael uses it.”

I hide my head under my pillow. Since when am I a spoiled bottom? Since when do I want to know about Michael’s personal sexual habits? Gross.

I mumble to Emmett from my hiding place. “You embarrass me.” He pokes me.

“You’re so cute. I’m surprised Brian hasn’t bought you some already. I’m sure he knows about this stuff.” He picks up the jar and starts reading me the ingredients. I kick him.

“Get out!!” I’m so mortified. He leaves the tub on the bed and goes out to the kitchen to unpack everything.

“Sweetie, I’m going to put all your stuff in a little pile over here. Are you just gonna sleep all day or what?”

“I have to get up in forty-five minutes because Gus and Lindsay are coming to take me to the diner for dinner.”

“They’re coming here to this mess? Oh no. You go back to sleep. I’m gonna clean this up a little. You can’t have a small child walk into Brian Kinney’s natural habitat. He’ll be traumatized.”

“Wake me up in forty-five minutes, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

I wait until Em is totally involved in what he’s doing before I open the vat of Butt Butter. It smells really good. I put some on my ass. I hope this stuff works.

 

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We're caught in a trap
I can't walk out
Because I love you too much baby

1:41 a.m. Saturday morning

My last cigarette. Justin’s last cigarette, I think. I don’t know; I can’t find mine.

The window is ice cold, but it feels good against my skin. I like this view from the living room, hot smoke filling my lungs, cool glass against my shoulder, a car driving past once in a while. Not much going on out there tonight, way too much going on inside my head.

My cold shoulder. The only part of my body I can even feel right now—that and my hand every time it brings this cigarette back to my face—otherwise nothing-naked and numb.

It’s always the same, but always different. This thing that makes sleep a joke, that makes the morning start at two a.m., that makes two a.m a good time to pedal miles away from here on a stationary bike. This thing that makes me know that I love him, and that I hate him for loving me. I fucking hate it.

It’s nothing to love someone.

And it’s always the same, but always different. And I fucking hate it because I can’t control it. I tell myself every night that I can change it, but I can’t, at least not the way I want. I’m so fucking tired of this. Tired of waking up exhausted because I’m busier in my sleep than I am during the day. Tired of waking up in the morning thinking "Thank God. Now I can get some fucking sleep.”

These fucking dreams need to stop.

“In the first phase of the campaign, Mr. Kinney, we’re going to use some of these images you see here to familiarize the customer with your product, to give them a sense of what it’s about. I think you can see from what we are showing you what direction we’re headed in.”

I can see it all right. This part of the dream is always the same. I can’t even look at what they are showing me. I don’t have to. I know what it is. I don’t even fucking want to think about it.

I look at my watch. Justin is late. He’s never late. Why the fuck is he late today? This is important. He should be here. Why the fuck isn’t he here?

Apparently we are business partners.

“So, Mr. Kinney, as I was saying, after this, we’ll move into the second phase of the campaign. In this phase, we plan on taking a few more risks---“

“Sorry, I’m late.”

He takes a seat beside me. I don’t even realize he’s walked in the door. He sees everything when he walks into the room; he sees everything that I can see—even my thoughts, and it doesn’t even phase him. He doesn’t even flinch. I start to wonder if he really sees what I see—something that is obviously such a fascade, but if he does, he doesn’t care.

“Mr. Taylor.” Mr. ShutTheFuckUp stops his presentation. Time stops. Everything stops. For some reason everyone leaves the room; they politely excuse themselves. I get excited for a minute because I think I’m back in my office, that I’m going to get to fuck him. I hate this part of the dream. It always goes too slow. It’s like fucking torture.

So I look at him sitting next to me. He looks beautiful in his gray suit; it’s always something different. He smiles at me. He kisses me, running his hand down the back of my head.


“Sorry, I’m late.” Again.

“Where were you?”

I hate the way I sound when I ask him this. I try to change it every night, but it always comes out sounding the same. This is where it gets really fucked up. This is where it’s always the same but different, the same, but different. Sometimes he’s just come from the prom in his tuxedo, sometimes art class, sometimes the diner, sometimes he’s dripping wet from my shower with only a towel around him, sometimes straight from Babylon high on some shit and covered in glitter, and once he was dripping with blood. Tonight, it was different again.

“I was in L.A. Remember? Making the movie?”

“Oh yeah. I forgot.”

“You always forget.” His hand rubs my thigh. I keep thinking that those people are going to walk back in any minute and that if they do, I’m going to hurt them because I need time to remember where he was. I can’t think very fast, and that’s not my fault.

This part of the dream moves in slow motion. My mind feels like it’s swimming in jell-o.

“I don’t know why I can’t remember where you are.” He’s looks at me and smiles. I’m looking at my lap.

“Because you don’t want to.” He just sits beside me and reassures me. He holds my hand.

“I don’t?” The blue of his eyes goes on forever when I look at him. He shakes his head at me like I’m a small child who just doesn’t understand things.

“No, you don’t. You don’t want to remember. You tried, though. That’s the important thing.”

I tell him that I’m going to try again tomorrow. I’m going to keep trying until I can remember.

Somehow the people know that it’s okay to come back in. The presentation starts up again. I don’t want to be there. I want to leave, but I look over at him, and he’s calm and peaceful and happy and relaxed, so I try to be. I try to be the beautiful, confident, self-possessed man that he is, that some part of me is telling me that I taught him to be. But I can’t. Or I won’t. Or something.

So Mr. ShutTheFuckUp starts up again. “In Phase Three of our campaign Mr. Kinney—Mr. Taylor—this will be the phase where we’ll really drive your message home, where we’ll make our----excuse me—your product will make it’s strongest impress---“

“Your ideas are for shit.” I get up and start putting my shit in my briefcase.

Mr. ShutTheFuckUp keeps right on talking. My behavior bothers Justin.

“Brian, sit down. You’re being rude.”

“Justin, are you coming?” He ignores me. I walk to the door with my briefcase. “Justin, I asked you a question.”

Always the gentleman, he asks Mr. ShutTheFuckUp to excuse him for a second. He joins me in the hallway.

“Brian, what the fuck is wrong with you?” He’s really pissed. I’ve embarrassed him. “Why are you walking out in the middle of this? This could be a good thing here. And why are you talking to me like that?”

He doesn’t get mad at me like this that often, but I’ve pissed him off. And now I’m mad too. “Because, Justin, that guy’s a fucking idiot. He doesn’t know what we want. He hasn’t listened to one fucking thing I’ve said, or given me one thing I asked for, and this is a total waste of my fucking time. That’s why.”

“You just don’t want to listen to him because he’s my father. Because you think you know what’s best for me.”

I glance back in the room, and Mr. ShutTheFuckUp has his back to me, but I believe Justin. I believe him when he says that it’s his father. I tell myself that I won’t go back in that room again for the rest of dream. I feel like there are other fathers in there. I close the door. I always forget to lock it. I should have locked it.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. And it’s all just fucking screwed up in your head Brian. That’s your whole fucking problem.”

“How could I possibly know what’s best for you when I don’t even know where the fuck you are? Have you even thought about that?”

That’s the only part of the dream where I feel confident. It makes no sense. And then I just keep yelling at him.

“I can’t remember from one minute to the next where you are or when you’ll be back, or where or when I get to fuck you, or when I’m just paying for shit and not fucking you, OR…”

“Or what, Brian? Or what?” He’s still yelling at me.

And then we’re not in Mr. ShutTheFuckUp’s office or building anymore. I don’t know where we are. Some place dark. Some place inside. I can’t tell. I’m still yelling at him.

“Or why it feels just as good to me to take care of you, to put you through school, to worry about whether or not you get home safe at night as it does for me to have you in my bed waiting to be fucked every single night! THAT is my fucking problem Justin!”

He just looks at me, and I can’t stop. Nothing will stop.

“SO, ARE YOU COMING OR NOT? I’m not going to ask you again.”

“Okay. Just let me get my stuff.”

“Fine.” And I’m relieved that we’re done arguing, that we can get the fuck out of here, and I’m not even bothered by the fact that we’re back in front of Mr. ShutTheFuckUp’s office again. I lean back against the wall to wait for him.

A cold blast of air hits me when he opens the door, and right when he does, he turns around and smiles at me and says, “I’ll just be a minute. I’ll meet you at the elevator. Just let me tell them good-bye.”

Mr. ShutTheFuckUp’s office is full of people that weren’t there before and full of stuff. It’s all Justin’s stuff. I can’t see it, but I know that it is.

I walk down the hall and press the ‘down’ button. The moment the elevator door opens, I hear Stockwell’s voice.

“If you say it, mean it. Right boys?” And the unmistakable crack of a bat.

I drop my briefcase. I try to run. I try to say his name. I can’t move. My legs are cement. They won’t budge. The hallway stretches out farther and farther in front of me. I open my mouth again and again, but nothing comes out. Absolutely nothing.

Gus is standing in the elevator smoking a cigarette.

“Come on Daddy. Let’s go. He’s gone.”

For some reason, I can pick up my brief case now, and I can get on the elevator. Gus isn’t smoking anymore.

“Daddy, hold me up so I can push the button.” I lift him up and show him which one to push, and we descend.

This is where I always wake up.

It’s nothing to love someone. It’s letting them love you back that’s unwarranted.


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2:23 a.m.

Justin’s up. I can hear him in the bathroom. It’s probably just as well. I’m fucking freezing.

“Brian?” He sees me. I don’t feel like saying anything. I’m sure he’ll drag half the bed with him when he walks over here. “Did you smoke my last cigarette?” He folds me in his arms, me and the blanket, as I laugh a little and nod.

“Yeah.”

“Fucker.”

I turn around so I can pull him in front of me, so we can both look out the window, so I can bury my nose in his hair. I just stop thinking. We stand there for several minutes, both of us, not saying anything. Eventually, he turns around and looks at my face. I’d rather he didn’t.

“What are you looking at?”

He lays his head against my chest, and I re-adjust the blanket. His body warms mine. He gives me more space than I deserve sometimes—most of the time. I lift his chin off of my chest and bring my face to his. I almost don’t want to kiss him because once I do, the rest of me will thaw, but I do it anyway. I don’t even know what I want from this kiss--everything—I guess. I want the innocent part of him that kisses me like he really doesn’t know what’s coming next, that relies on me, the tease in him that wants to entice me and please me, and the aroused, surrendering part of him that fits my body like a glove. I want everything at once. The light coming in from the window makes streaks in his hair, making it seem lighter than it is. Our mouths part long enough for me to answer him, for his arms to find their way around my neck.

“Street lights.”

I’m not sure how long we stood at the window, it couldn’t have been very long, or whose idea it was to finally go back to bed, but he fell asleep facing me. I think I fell asleep watching him.

It’s nothing to love someone.

 

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Cause your kisses lift me higher
Like a sweet song of a choir
And you light my morning sky
With burning love

8:17 am

Morning has broken. Justin is deep in thought. I am deep in Justin-almost.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Captain Astro.” He never ceases to amaze me.

“Captain Astro? Why would you be thinking about Captain Astro when I’m almost in your ass?”

“Yeah, do you mind?”

This is one of those mornings that I almost couldn’t resist the cardinal sin. It took everything in my power to briefly unravel myself from him, to make myself adhere to my own rules. I should have fucked him when we got back into bed last night, at least then he would slept more soundly. I toss the condom on the bed; I hadn’t even opened it yet.

“I should have fucked you last night when we came back to bed. You drove me nuts all night pushing your ass against me and hogging all the covers.” He can do that ass-pushing thing now if he wants, though. I’m all for that now.

“You're one to talk Mr. Kinney. Sleeping with you is a nightmare, no pun intended, between all of your thrashing and kicking and talking in your sleep.”

“I don’t talk in my sleep.”

“Like hell you don’t. You said my name four or five times last night after we came back to bed.”

“I must have been dreaming about fucking you.” Which is what I want to be doing right now. I’d appreciate some cooperation. He keeps his gaze on the window.

“I don’t think so. That’s not the way you were saying it. You were giving me the creeps.” He doesn’t want my hand on his dick right now. Fine. We’ll just spoon. “I tried to wake you up.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I’m not surprised. You opened your eyes, sucked in this huge breath, and grabbed my arm. You scared the shit out of me Brian.” Fuck. I did?

“Did I hurt you?” I try to look at his arm, but he’s laying on it. “Let me see.”

“No, you didn’t hurt me. You just scared me. You were looking at me, but you really weren’t.”

“Let me see your arm Justin.” I roll over onto my back, and he rolls onto my chest. I look at his left arm. “I don’t see anything. Does it hurt?”

“No, not really.”

“What did I do after I grabbed you?” I’ve never had the benefit or curse of someone sleeping with me. I guess I don’t know my own sleep habits.

“I told you to let go of me--that you were hurting me--but you didn’t hear me, at least I don’t think you did. It was weird. You just let go and kind of threw me back on the bed.”

I rub his arm. I can’t believe I did that. Shit. “I’m sorry. I guess I was just having a really bad dream.”

“You have them a lot Brian.” He wraps his fingers over mine. “Do you remember it?”

“No. I never remember them. Never have.” Neither of us say anything for a minute or so. Let’s just drop this.

“You’re lying. That’s why you were standing at the window last night, wasn’t it? Because something woke you up?”

“Don’t worry about it, okay?” I pull him tight against me. I don’t want to talk about this.

“How can I worry about it when I don’t know what it is?” I can feel him starting to get upset in my arms. This is not the kind of morning I want to have.

“Justin.”

“Brian, if there’s something bothering you, you can tell me, no matter what it is—even if it’s me.” He lets go of my hand and tucks his hand under his chin.

“It’s not you.”

“So you do remember them?”

“I remember enough to know that it’s not you. I promise.” I stare at the ceiling my hand passing over his head. He feels less upset, less tense now, I think.

“At least you’re telling me the truth now. I can feel it.” He lets out this sigh, and I feel him relax a little. For once I’m relieved that he can read me. I’m lost in my own thoughts before I even realize that his head is no longer on my chest; it’s in a much more useful location.

For some reason I don’t even feel right having him suck me after all that. I feel like I should stop him. “Justin, it’s okay.” I stop him for a second, and he just looks at me like I’m crazy.

“Whatever’s bothering you, just forget about it for now.” And I do. I lie back on our bed, my hand lodged in the crook of his shoulder and forget about last night’s nightmare, hurting him, everything. I can’t think about anything when he sucks me off, especially first thing in the morning. I flood his mouth in no time, something completely idiotic coming out of my mouth, and he is back in my arms, lying with me while I regroup.

“So, anyway, back to what I was saying about Captain Astro?”

“Jesus, can’t you wait at least sixty seconds after you swallow before you start talking?”

“Just listen.” He kisses me. “I was thinking that all of this is Captain Astro’s fault.”

“How do you figure that?” He lies back down on my chest again, oblivious to how destroyed I truly am after he blows me.

“Because if Captain Astro hadn’t fucking died in the first place, Michael would have never wanted to make this stupid comic book, and I wouldn’t be leaving. I think he should just kill Rage off in the next issue.”

No wonder I have bad dreams. “Well, I hate to tell you this but ‘major character death’ is considered very poor taste in the fandom.” He moves up and off of me a little, onto his side, propping his head on his elbow.

“How would you know? You’re not part of the ‘fandom’” He makes little quotation marks in the air. I fucking hate it when people do that. Although when he does it, it’s kind of cute.

“Well, for one thing I ‘grew up with Michael Novotny’”, I add my ‘air quotes’, “and I am ‘Rage’, thank you very much.” And I don’t appreciate being killed off without any warning. So there.

“Okay, well, it’s just that I just don’t want to have to make Rage two, three, four, five and six. I don’t want to be gone all the time.” His voice gets quiet as he lies back on his pillow again. I slide over to him, propping my head on my elbow this time, putting my arm around him.

“I think you’re jumping the gun a little. You haven’t even sold one ticket to Rage I yet.” His imagination works overtime.

“Yeah, but you know people are going to love it. Watching Rage rescue JT, and watching JT suck Rage off. It’ll be so hot. I can’t wait.” His face lights up again. There’s my Sunshine.

“Me either. If I actually see that onscreen, I really will celebrate. I might suck somebody off.” He turns back toward me, all smiles.

“It better be me.” I go crazy when he runs his fingers up and down my chest like this, tracing little circles around my nipples. I don’t know how he expects me to carry on a conversation like this, but I’ll give it the ol’ college try.

“Oh, it’ll be you. And it will probably be in a movie theatre while you’ve got a mouthful of popcorn.”

“And you can time it so that I come right during a loud action scene, so when I yell out, nobody will know it’s because you’re sucking me off.”

Justin Taylor—The President of Imagination Nation. “Yeah, and you can yell out “RAGE” instead of “BRIAN,” so everybody will think that you’re really watching the movie…” I pull him closer to me.

“That’ll be perfect. Oh my god, I can’t wait for that. We have to do that. Promise me we’ll really do that.”

He is more excited right now than Gus was about that cat last night. “We’ll do it.” I climb on top of him, pushing him on his back and study his face, play with his hair and think about how much I love Saturday mornings in bed, how this will be our last one for a while.

His eyes are still far away. “This is off the subject, but”

“Your middle name is ‘off the subject.’” I kiss him slowly; he doesn’t even stop talking. Maybe I need to work on my technique…

“Mmmmm. Cut it out. This is off the subject, but you know when you fell asleep last night while I was reading to Gus?” Cut it out. He means the teasing, not the kissing. He loves the kissing.

“Yes.”

“He looked at me and said, ‘Uh oh, Mr. Justin, look at Daddy.’ I just can’t get over how fast he’s growing up. It’s amazing.”

“It’s terrifying. What’s amazing is that all three of us managed to squeeze into his twin bed.”

“All four of us. You forgot Twink.”

“I don’t count pussy.”

“You know what? I’m not even sure she’s a girl. It’s really hard to tell when they’re that young.” He’s so animated. He might as well be a cartoon character.

“Well, if it turns out to be a boy, he can still call it ‘Twink.’ Boys can be twinks.”

“Very funny.” He sticks his tongue out at me. I eat it.

“You were a twink.”

“That you picked up and brought home….an annoying stray that just wouldn’t leave you alone.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you feed them. They just keep…coming… back.” I don’t think I’ve ever kissed him as much during one sentence as I did during that one.

“And weasel their way into your heart.” He gives as good as he gets.

“Only the intelligent, well-bred, extremely-fuckable, candy-ass ones.”

“You forgot unbelievably beautiful.” Such a modest twink.

“That’s a given. I wouldn’t pick one up in the first place if that weren’t true.” He grins at me and stops running his fingers through my hair for a second.

“You’re so sweet and romantic in your own twisted, fucked-up way.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“More like an observation.”

“Well then, I’ll take it under advisement—as soon as I’m done taking you under advisement.” My lips spend an inordinate amount of time behind his ear and down his neck.

“You’re not taking me anywhere.”

“That’s what you think. You better quit being such a smart ass. You know what’s gonna happen if you don’t cut it out.” He whispers in my ear. “That’s right. You better settle down.” He moans in my arms. This time when I kiss him, he stays with me for the duration. It’s about damn time—my ego was starting to bruise. God, I need more mornings like this.

“So anyway, about Gus…” I should have bought him a muzzle at the pet store. “Wasn’t he so cute last night dancing in the car? We should take him to Babylon with us the next time we go.”

When will that be?

“I’m sure the munchers would really go for that.” I give up for awhile because he just needs to get this out of his system. He just needs to think out loud. His eyes are so blue this morning.

“Couldn’t you just see it? We could put Gus up on the bar or on one of those risers, and he could dance with Emmett.” He thinks this is a great idea. I bust out laughing.

“Yeah, and then four hours later when it’s time to go, and we can’t find him anywhere….”

“He’ll be in the backroom.” The realization that comes over his face when he says this is priceless. The world doesn’t need another Brian Kinney.

“Maybe I’ll talk to Debbie and see if he can spend some time with Horvath and just put the kibosh on this dancing fetish he has.” These thoughts of Gus ending up like me are making me sicker than watching dykes play tonsil hockey.

He scrunches up his nose. “Yeah, I see what you mean. What got me off on that subject anyway? What was I talking about?” His eyes look off to the right, and I give him a few second because he’ll remember, he almost always does. “Oh yeah, Gus, reading to Gus, and you fell asleep while I was reading.”

“I fell asleep because of the way you read Dr. Seuss. You get this sing-songy rhythmic thing going with your voice that just lulls me into dreamland.” I imitate him.

“That’s not the only rhythmic thing I had going last night.” God I’m hard.

“Now see, you thought you were off the subject. Turns out you were dead on.” Sometimes if you leave Justin to his own devices, he’ll end up exactly where you want him.

“I really enjoyed it. Did you?” His sultry voice and the way he moves underneath me when he says that gives me chills. He can go from being so sweet to so seductive in no time flat. It makes my head spin.

“Um, yeah. You could say that.”

“Good, because so did I. It was hot.” He slides beneath me so he can kiss my chest, suck on my nipples. “I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t have any intention of seducing you last night. It just sort of happened.”

“I think it was that lotion you were massaging me with. That stuff smelled incredible. It made my skin so smooth.” Which he can clearly tell since his hands all over it right now. Fuck, I love watching him doing this. He starts laughing.

“You can thank Emmett for that. It was this cream he gave me yesterday—called ‘Butt Butter.’” I rise up off of him, yank him back up by his hair, look at him like he’s crazy. “Brian.”

“What?”

“Calm down. It’s just called that. It’s just lotion. It’s not really for your butt. I read the container. They just sell it in one of those faggy boutiques that Emmett goes to.” I don’t believe him. “I’m being serious. It’s a huge container, and it smells really good, so I just thought I’d use it. I’m going to leave it here anyway. I’m not going to go through airport security with a tub of Butt Butter in my suitcase.”

“You can leave it at your Mom’s.”

“Fuck no, I’m not leaving it my Mom’s, you asshole. Get over it.” He hooks his arms around my neck, pulls up, and kisses me hard, pushing his tongue into my mouth. I swear he’s going to make me see stars. I guess I’m over it. I take advantage of him hanging off me and slide my left hand inside his pillowcase. I’m taking charge of this now. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for your offering to the ‘Topping Fairy’.” Bingo. “Don’t think I don’t know about your little nightly ritual.”

“It’s not a ritual, and I don’t do it every night.” He puts his head back down as I slide my hand out. I flash the condom in his face.

“You put a brand new condom inside your pillow case every night before you go to sleep—your offering to the ‘Topping Fairy.’” I tease him while I open the wrapper. “I guess it worked last night, huh? Your wish came true.”

“It’s not my offering to the ‘Topping Fairy’ you jerk; it’s just because I don’t like to reach all the way over to your stupid ‘party favor condom basket’ every time we fuck.”

“Condoms make perfect party favors.” Don’t they?

“If you’re going to give out party favors, you should be a little more creative.”

“Like what?” I open the wrapper. I guess I’m putting this thing on myself.

“Like you could take that Butt Butter and put it into containers and give it to your tricks when they leave, you know. Sort of like: ‘We hope you’ve enjoyed your one and only visit to The House that Fuck Built. Here’s a lovely parting gift.’”

“That’s cute. Very creative. I might just do that. You’ve never complained about my condom basket before.”

“That’s because it’s not polite to insult the furnishings when you’re just a guest in someone’s home. Do you want me to roll over?”

“No, you’re fine. Point taken. Can you bend your knees, please?”

“Sorry.” He yawns and stretches his arms over his head, his body to arching into mine. He lets out this irresistible sleepy moan. “Mmmmmm.“

That was fucking spectacular. He hands me the lube. I know he doesn’t keep that under his pillow.

There isn’t a bad position to fuck Justin in. There are only degrees of ecstasy—depending on my mood, but watching him like this is almost poetic. And I don’t think he has any idea. This view of his body strewn on our bed is a work of art—especially on these white sheets. That alone is driving me fucking nuts.

“Is there anything in particular you’d like this morning?” I’m in a generous mood all of a sudden.

“Um, let me think.” I suck on his neck while he ponders my question. He better hurry up, or I’ll decide for him. I may be generous, but I’m not very patient. “Come here.” He whispers in my ear. Little devil.

“Oh no—not this morning. We’ll never get out of bed. Later, though, I promise.” We’ve got a schedule to keep today.

“Okay. Well, then I’ll just have whatever’s on special.” Leave it to Justin to think of breakfast during foreplay.

“I knew you were hungry.”

“For you.”

“For pancakes.” I smile at him as he strokes himself. God, that is so hot. “I can get you some maple syrup if you want.”

“Stop talking about pancakes when your fingers are in my ass. I’ll come too quick.” He’s not kidding. He will.

“I could talk about sausage.” That’s making me harder. Maybe I’m hungry.

“Only if you want to hear my stomach growl through this entire fuck. I think I’m ready.”

“See all that talk about sausage paid off.”

“Shut up and fuck me.” This is what I’m really going to miss. Saturday morning specials.

He looks at me as I hover over him. “Close your eyes Justin.” I wrap my arms around him and nudge my way into the sweetest, most claustrophobic place I have ever been. There is nothing more overwhelming than the first few seconds inside of him. My push to get inside defeating his to get me out. Fuck, I could hang off the edge of this cliff all day. I can’t describe this.

“Justin.”

Oh fuck, it is so hot in here, and so narrow. My private, little tunnel for one. God, I almost forget he’s underneath me. I haven’t even moved yet. I’m not even all the way in.

I am now.

“Oh. Oh. Fuck, that feels good Brian.” My rhythm starts, slow. I just watch him and go with it. Nobody looks more beautiful at a moment like this than Justin Taylor. I’m honored just to be here, really. I keep him calm, so we can enjoy this, at least for a while. Fuck him slowly, kiss him slowly, get him to look at me, instead of all over the place, to focus on this fuck. Get his eyes back on mine. “So what do you want to do today?”

That figures. He wasn’t done talking. Wishful thinking.

“Oh, I don’t know. Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight?”

“I’m being serious Brian.”

“So am I. Wrap your legs around me.” His hips tilt upward for me so I can slide in deeper.

“Do you want me to put my legs up?”

“Up to you. If you want. I’m fine like this.”

“Maybe in a minute.” He arches into my arms again as I hit something wonderful inside him. It makes me smile. “Ah, do that again, that was amazing. Fuck Brian. I don’t know how you do that.” His fingers dig into my skin.

“It’s pretty simple. Put Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor in a bed and stir. The directions are on the….back….of….the…box.”

“And people say you can’t cook.” Our kissing should render him speechless for awhile. I can’t ever fuck him without kissing him. The closer I get to Grand Central Orgasm the stronger that desire becomes. I swear if he doesn’t shut up, though, I’m going to spank the shit out of him.

“Okay, little less conversation, for a minute, if you don’t mind.” My lips meet his every time my dick sinks back into his ass.

“Can I just say one more thing?” This is it.

“Fine. One more thing.” I stop for just a second and give him my attention.

“I love it when you fuck me like this.” I guess that was worth stopping for.

“Get your legs up.” His legs are on my shoulders in a heart beat, and I fuck him hard now. I can get to all of him like this. His eyes pop open so wide when I hit his prostate again and again—once, twice, I’ve lost track.

I feel him shift in my arms, feel his warm breath in my ear, that fucking hot thing he does with his voice. “Tell me.”

“Tell you what?” He clings to me, our foreheads pressed together.

“You know what. Tell me Brian, please.”

“Oh, so now you want me to talk?”

“Brian, please.” He tightens his grip around my neck and starts licking my ear. He’ll bite me.

“What? That I’m going to fuck your sweet little ass?”

“Yes.” He brings his lips to mine and slides his tongue in my mouth. “Keep going.”

“That you’re my little bottom boy?” He purrs, practically growls, in my arms.

“Yes.” His moaning sends me into orbit. “More.” He bit me. Fuck, I love that.

“That all little bottom boys get their asses fucked like this? Is that what you want to hear?” God, I love it when he makes that “fuck me” face.

“Yes. God. Yes. Fuck. Yes.”

“And you know it, don’t you? That you’re my little bottom boy, and you will always get your tight little ass fucked like this —no matter where you are? Right?”….Right?”

“Right. Fuck. Oh my god. Fuck.”

Jesus Christ, I haven’t fucked him this hard since……….the last time I fucked him this hard. His ass is so tight, and warm, and slippery, holy fuck, this is nirvana.

“And you know that this is nothing compared to how I’m going to fuck you this afternoon……….and tonight?” His hand slaps the mattress. “Get your hands back on me.”

“Brian. Fuck. Stop. Oh my god.” His face looks like the first time. I could come from that alone.

“No.”

He’s about to come, but he doesn’t want to, or maybe he does. He has no control. I do. I love this part.

“Please, oh fuck, please, Brian.” His head thrashes on his pillow. He’s almost there.

“No.”

I don’t even need to think about my release. As soon as he goes, I’ll be right behind him. No one could watch him come like this and not spontaneously erupt. It’s fucking beautiful.

His fingers dig into my biceps, and then my hair, behind my ears, and down my back. He’s everywhere. He manages to grab his cock again and jerk it a few more times. I’d do it for him, but I’m holding him, my arms wrapped around his head and shoulders, his head tucked tightly against my chest—our unspoken agreement. His eyes are closed again. It won’t be long now. I can feel him tightening around me. Christ, that’s like heaven.

“Aaaaaaah. Brian. Now. Now. Oh please. Oh my god. I love you.” And Justin springs eternal. I am maybe ten seconds behind him. I feel myself rush into him, rush to catch up, my experience paling in comparison to his. His body begins to collapse in my arms. Fucking Justin is like skydiving. It’s not the plane ride. It’s the jump and the fall.

His body peels off of mine after a minute or so, and we sink into the sheets.

“You okay?” I ask him as I realize that we're back at the beginning again, me lying on top of him, kissing him, playing with his hair.

“Yeah. Just hold me for a minute, okay?”

“As long as you want.”

Well, please don't ask me what'sa on my mind
I'm a little mixed up, but I'm feelin' fine
When I'm near that girl that I love best
My heart beats so it scares me to death

10:42 a.m. Saturday morning

Daphne has arrived, in more ways than one, and right on schedule. I’m waiting for her outside my building.

“You look hot, Brian. Those are my favorite jeans on you.” Daphne—sweet and enchanting as usual. She leans in to me, on her toes, and kisses me on the cheek.

“Thanks.” Why did she have to compliment me first? Now, I’m totally off my game. Shake it off, Kinney. “Slight change of plans.” I put my arm around her and lead her towards my car.

“Why? I thought I was supposed to come over here at 10:45 sharp and surprise Justin and take him to lunch—or brunch, I guess.”

“You are, but he’s not ready. Get in.” I open her door for her. “I’m going out for cigarettes. We’re all out.”

“So he’s still in the dark?”

“Yeah.” She opens her purse and pulls out her cigarettes, offering me one. I accept. I light hers and mine while we stop at a traffic light. “So, did you fuck that guy two nights in a row?” I smirk at her.

“What guy?”

“That guy you were talking to Justin about on the phone the other night. The one he was telling you not to fuck-“

“Oh, him, Andy, god, no. He’s history.” I knew there was a reason I liked this girl so much. Justin has the best hag.


“Why’d you dump him so fast?”

“He had a lot to learn. Let’s just leave it at that.” She cracks her window, blowing her smoke out.

“Like what?”

“Like none of your business.”

“Oh, come on. “You can’t just tell me ‘he had a lot to learn’ and leave it at that.”

“You are worse than Justin.” She rolls her eyes. I’m probably better than Justin at some things too. I’ve always been so curious about that, about how Justin was with Daphne. I don’t know why I’m wondering about that this morning. “All I’m going to tell you is that he should’ve keep his mouth shut. They way he carried on, you’d think he knew a lot more about…well, you know what I mean.”

“About pussy.”

“Right. I can’t stand guys like that. Seriously, he should’ve kept his mouth shut—for both reasons--because, quite frankly, you probably know more about it than he does.”

“I’ll have you know that Justin and I picked up some pussy last night.” I’m going to get so much mileage out of this kitten.

“Did you eat it?”

“Um, no.”

“Well, then, the three of you have something in common.” Justin’s taste in women impresses me more and more every day. She kills her cigarette as we pull into the store parking lot. I need to stop hitting on this girl for sport; she’s totally out of my league.

“I’ll be right back.”

Daphne is on the phone with one of her girlfriends when I get back to the car.

“What am I doing right now? Riding around town trying to score cigarettes with the hottest uber-gay guy you’ll ever meet. No, you don’t know him. No, not Justin—Justin’s evil-half. I’ll call you later. That guy you set me up with tonight better not be a troll. Later. And if he’s even remotely a troll, he better pay for dinner.” For some reason, I want to give her fifty bucks, just so she’ll call and tell me all about it. “Okay, so tell me what’s the big secret? What do you have up your sleeve?” She turns in her seat to face me, all excited.

“This.” I open the glove compartment and hand her the brochure with everything in it, the reservation, the details for today and tonight. She looks a little stunned.

“Wow. This is really nice. I can’t believe you’re doing this for him.” She looks at me. I look at her. She knows I can’t get emotional right now. She doesn’t want to either. “You know that there’s a huge bible convention or something going on there this weekend, right?”

I didn’t know that. “No.”

“Yeah, one of my girlfriend’s fathers owns a Christian bookstore. This place is going to be packed.”

“So?” Bible-beaters aren’t my style, but I’ve been known to unbuckle a bible-belt or two.

“So, it’s going to be almost impossible for you to drop him off in the front, with all of the buses and everything.”

“I wasn’t planning on dropping him off in the front.” Why would I?

“Well he isn’t going to be able to go with you into the parking deck.” She looks at me like I’m crazy and then it sinks in. “He hasn’t told you, has he?”

“Told me what?”

“Oh shit.” She sighs and lays her head against the back of her seat. “That he won’t, can’t, go near a parking garage. I shouldn’t have told you this. You didn’t know, did you?”

My hand is on her wrist. I want her to look at me. “Whatever you’re talking about, he hasn’t told me.”

“Probably because he’s embarrassed about it, and afraid—that it will happen again.”

“That what will happen again?” I pull the brochure out of her hand and throw it on the dashboard.

“He has pretty severe panic attacks Brian.” She looks at me for my reaction. “He’s very ashamed of them.”

“Since when? He was walking around with a fucking gun Daphne.”

“I know.”

“I mean, he has nightmares, and I think he still has flashbacks sometimes, but when did this start?”

“I don’t know how many he’s had, but the first one I know of was the first time he went to a follow-up appointment at the hospital by himself, you know, without his mom. And you know the way that hospital is set up. You have to walk through the parking garage and over that covered walkway to go in, no matter what.”

“I know how that hospital is set up. It’s fucking stupid.” I know that place like the back of my hand

“Well, he took the bus there that day.”

“And what happened?”

“All I know is what he told me. He freaked out in the parking garage after he got off the bus. He couldn’t even get to the walkway. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move; felt like he was going to die. He said all of the smells and noises echoing made him feel like everything was crashing down on him—something about being in that claustrophobic space, you know. He felt like he couldn’t get out, like he was lost in a maze. It was so bad that another person who was trying to find a parking spot saw him, thought he was having a heart attack or something, found an attendant, and they called the paramedics. He won’t go near one now. It makes him feel out of control, or something, I guess.”

Fuck. “He told you about this, but he didn’t tell me. Why? Why didn’t he tell me or ask me to go with him?”

“You guys weren’t together then. He was with Ethan.” Her voice fades away as she tells me this, and we are both quiet for a few seconds.

I am fucking going to kill him. “So he didn’t tell me, or his Mom?”

“Apparently not.” She looks agitated, like she’s done something wrong, but it’s not her fault. Justin is the most stubborn person I know, except for me. “He’s embarrassed, I guess. And don’t take this the wrong way, Brian, but he knows that you see things in a very black and white way sometimes, and he just can’t. It’s not something that he can just snap his fingers and fix, so he hides it. And since he refuses to go back to the hospital, he hasn’t gotten any treatment for them either.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense. I know he’s been in a parking garage since the bashing. You guys go to the mall.”

“I drop him off out front and meet him inside. His mother does too; she doesn’t ask questions. He’s very, very creative about figuring out ways to avoid them. And honestly, Brian, now that I think about it, I think he just doesn’t bring it up with you because he knows that the whole subject is painful for you too. He doesn’t want to make you remember it any more than he does. He doesn’t want to hurt you, so he just keeps it bottled up, until-.”

“Until something sets him off.” Like Thursday night. “And then the damn breaks.” This is why he’s so nervous about going to L.A. by himself. I wish I could stop all of the thoughts that are flooding into my head right now. “Why didn’t you tell me? You told me about that posse crap.”

“I wasn’t sure that he hadn’t told you for one, and, two, he hasn’t said a word about them in months. I think he basically ignores the problem until he can’t. I know that he was with some friends at PIFA one day who wanted to go have lunch, and they all started walking out to their cars, and he begged off. He can’t deal. I just didn’t know that you didn’t know. I mean, I figured with all this, this new job and all, that he would have told you by now.”

“I don’t know whether to go ring his neck or yell at him or…” or just go back to the loft, cancel everything, and just do whatever it takes to convince him that he’s okay, that everything is going to be fine. We can spend the rest of the weekend walking up and down every parking garage in the fucking city if we have to. We're back at my building. I stop the car. She’s watching me.

“Brian, I can’t tell what you’re thinking. I can’t tell if you’re really pissed or really worried.”

“A little pissed and a lot worried, but I’m glad you told me because I would’ve had a fucking disaster on my hands.”

“Well, you can’t be that pissed, Brian. You wouldn’t even tell him you were having a testicle removed. You two deserve each other, if you ask me.” I want to give her a dirty look, but I can’t. She’s right. Sometimes Justin and I are more alike than I ever realize. “You aren’t going to cancel your plans are you?”

“No. I was planning on telling him where we were going, but I’m not going to now. I’ll just pick him up from the diner, and he’ll just have to be none the wiser for a little while longer.” I was getting excited about telling him too. “I don’t want him to know that I know all this. Not now.” I’ve learned more about Justin in the last forty-eight hours than I have in four years. Not to mention that I’ve got the wrong list my wallet. I don’t need a list of neurologists; I need a list of psychiatrists. That ought to be a fun conversation.

“Yeah, that might put a damper on things.”

“I guess I’ll just call the hotel before I get to the diner and tell them I need curbside valet service. I wasn’t planning on spoiling him that rotten.”

“Aw, he’s worth it.” She’s smiling again. She’s right. He is.

“We better go back in. He’s going to call me any minute. It doesn’t take him long to look pretty.”

“I know. I hate blonds. He looks prettier than me half the time.” She makes me laugh. “I won’t miss walking down the street and having everyone gawk at him instead of me.” Her face gets a little more serious as she looks out the window.

I will.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * *

It doesn’t take me long to pack what we need and check in with Laverne and Shirley and make sure they’re on schedule. I call Ted’s phone, but Emmett answers. I guess he knows it’s me.

“Everything’s fine.”

“Let me speak to Theodore.”

“Hold, please.”

“Teddy, Brian would like a word with you.” I hear a lot of rustling.

“Ted Schmidt.”

“No shit. How’s it going?”

“As well as can be expected. Emmett’s a little, well, opinionated, but he’s getting over it.”

“Keep it simple. Tell him to let Paul do his job.”

“That’s what I’m doing. We’ll see you at the Fairmont.”

“Don’t forget to come by here and pick up my suit. It’s in a bag in the closet.”

“We won’t. Don’t worry. We’ll see you soon.”

****************
Justin is surprised when I walk into the diner, grab my lunch, and say, “Come on.” He tells Daphne he’ll see her tomorrow and follows me out to the car with a quizzical look on his face. It doesn’t take him long to realize that we’re not driving towards the loft.

“Where are we going? You promised me that we could stay in the loft all afternoon and fuck.”I scarf my sandwich and enjoy his mild aggravation at me. “Did you have a good time with Daphne?”

“Don’t change the subject. Answer me. Where are we going?”

“Do you want to spend a lot of time fucking this weekend?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Then fucking quit asking me that. If you ask me again, I’m going to blindfold you and put you in the trunk.” He cuts his eyes at me, which he knows I see, and then revs up one of those trademark little grins that make his eyes twinkle and make me sorry I wore these jeans instead of the looser ones. I want to stop the car and fuck him right now.

We turn onto the street that the Fairmont Hotel is on, and Daphne wasn’t kidding. The traffic is bumper to bumper with bible-beaters and their buses. We aren’t going anywhere fast, but Justin keeps himself busy, as usual.

“Oh my god. Look at all these cars. What the fuck is going on at the Fairmont?”

“I have no idea.” I watch him turn around in his seat. Nice view.

“Every church bus from the state of Pennsylvania is in their parking lot Brian.”

“Maybe Jesus is here doing a book signing. I hear his original signature goes for a lot on e-bay.” I see the valet a few hundred feet ahead of us. He sees my car. He’s patiently waiting while we inch forward in this traffic, enjoying the smoke break. I’ve had enough business meetings and conferences at the Fairmont to know the staff fairly well. They’re top notch; they take care of their customers. Justin is still turned around in his seat counting buses.

“There are at least nineteen different churches here, and I’m sure I missed some. Holy Jesus.”

“He’s the reason they’re here.” And we’re about to be.

“Thank god I don’t have to be anywhere near this place. Bunch of hypocritical lunatics. I’ll bet Reverend Tom and your mom will be here.”

I really needed to hear that. “Don’t thank him too soon.” I pull over to the side of the road where John is standing, no cigarette now, looking like a crisp, clean Fairmont Hotel professional. Daphne was right. There’s no way in hell I would’ve ever gotten into the entrance. I put my hazard lights on and get out. “Justin, this is our stop. Get out of the car.”

I dart around to the trunk to get our stuff and then around to get Justin out. He still looks dazed and confused. “Justin, come on. We’ve got to get out of the way.” I hand John my spare key. “You can leave it at the desk. I’ll get it later.”

“I’ll leave the garage location with it, Mr. Kinney. Enjoy your stay.” And he’s gone. I put my arm around Justin’s shoulder and lead him into the lobby, his head turning all over the place, taking in the bible-beaters, the convention hoop-la, and then the lobby of the Fairmont. I don’t think he’s ever been here before. It’s a little bit breathtaking your first time. I feel like I’ve got Gus at Disneyworld.

“Holy shit! This place is incredible. What are we doing here?”

The lobby is packed, and it’s almost impossible to stop walking, so we don’t. “We’re celebrating.” I bend my head down to his, his tucked underneath my arm. He looks up at me like he doesn’t understand, but I don’t have time to explain it to him right now because I’m too busy steering him through this crowd of cross-wearing, bad-dressing propaganda pushers.

We’re at the counter when I feel him leaning against me as I check in, the newness of this place wearing off a little, I guess. “Here, take this.” I hand him the room keys and some paperwork. I’m carrying everything else.

“If you need anything Mr. Kinney, just let us know. Your suite is ready.” I give Justin one of my, “So, whadda’ya think” smiles,” and he wraps his arms around my neck and kisses me like he hasn’t seen me in a year. I don’t think the Christian cronies appreciated that very much. The clerk behind the desk found it rather amusing.

“Brian, which elevator do we take?” He’s walking ahead of me. There are four to choose from, and I have no idea off the top of my head. He figures it out. “You have to take this one to the fourteenth and then you have to get off and take this one to the twenty-eighth. We’re almost on the top floor!”

“Yeah, well the top floor is the honeymoon suite. I’m not staying in a honeymoon suite. Too much pink.” He laughs.

“Come on.” The first elevator is packed. Justin tells me that he figures many more people stay on the first fourteen floors because they are cheaper, so this elevator will always be more crowded, statistically. Sometimes I think he thinks I’m an idiot and can’t figure these things out on my own. “Oh my god, this isn’t the place that you almost fucked that client is it?”

“Not above the fourteenth floor.” I wink at him. He rolls his eyes and looks a little amazed and proud. The things that make him happy sometimes….

The second elevator clears out by floor nineteen. It’s just me and him. “It’s nice that there isn’t a doorman in this elevator.”

“I requested that. Cost me a little extra.” He presses his body against mine as I lean against the back of the elevator. We’ve just passed floor twenty-one.

“I don’t know why you did this for me, but I don’t really care right now. I’m just very, extremely, fucking horny.” I close my eyes for a second and inhale the scent of the shampoo I used on him this morning. Floor twenty-three.

“Um, so am I, and if you don’t get your sweet little lips off of my neck and your hot little hand off my dick, you’re going to have to clean this elevator because I’m going to come all over it.” Twenty-four.

“I don’t care.” That’s because you won’t be the one paying to get jizz out of the brand new carpet. His palm makes repeated runs over my denim dick. I lick my lips.

“I’m not kidding. You know I go bananas when you do that.” Twenty-five.

“Tell me what you’re going to do me. I want to know.” Keep one hand on the luggage and the other above his waist.

“What would Jesus do?” Twenty-six. Dear Lord, deliver us from evil, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. God was comforted by a rod? The man is no help.

“What would Justin do?”

“What wouldn’t Justin do?” Twenty-seven.

“Nothing. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do.” He unzips my jeans, slipping his hand inside. Sweet Jesus.

“I can think of one thing you won’t do.” I look down at him as he starts lowering himself to his knees.

“What?” He looks up at me.

“Get the fuck off the elevator. We’re here.”

Twenty-eight.

Salvation.

* * * * * * * * * *

Everything at Once- Deleted Scene 11.3—Tease—Brian’S POV—NC-17

BRIAN’S POV

“I don’t know why you’re even bothering to pull your pants up. You’re just going to walk three feet across the hall and take them off again.” He better not throw that shoe at me. I paid damn good money for those shoes. “If you throw that shoe at me, I’ll lock you out.”

"Ow!" That little fucker has good aim. That fucking hurt.

I don’t have the heart to lock him out.

He just walked across the hall with no pants on. The kid has balls. I can’t stop laughing. Plus, I can’t tell if he’s going to kiss me or hit me. He’s funny like that sometimes. I wait until he’s standing right in front of me in the middle of the outer room before I hang his necktie back around his neck.

“Truce?”

“I fucking hate you.” Ooooh, that is one mad little face.

“You do not. You love me.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“No big words. We talked about that.”

“Okay. Let me dumb-it-down for you. You—are—an—ass—hole.” He hands me his pants. “And now you don’t get to charm me out of my pants because I’m already out of them!”

He’s not that mad. He’s just hamming it up. I have to think about a way to make him happy really fast. “There are candy bars in the mini-bar.”

“Really? Will they cost you like twenty-five dollars a piece?”

“At least.” I’m sitting on the back of one of the sofas in here. He’s thinking about that.

“Okay, truce.” I knew that would work. He’s standing in front of the mini-bar, naked from the waist down, bent over, trying to figure out which candy bar he’s going to eat first. I've never been so fucking turned on in my entire life. He turns around with one in each hand. “They’re practically frozen.” I’m just staring at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you look hot as hell trying to pick out a fucking candy bar. How come I’ve never seen you do that before? Bend over and get something out of the refrigerator?”

“Because there’s never any food in the loft. Duh.”

“Oh yeah.” Must buy groceries. Lots of candy bars. “I’m waiting for my brain to reboot.” He walks over and starts kissing me.

“Let me do that for you. If we wait for you, it’ll take all night.” He’s such a little smart ass.

The candy bars go somewhere--fuck, I don’t know where--I’m sure he does—as he leans against me, settling between my legs, comfortable because he belongs there. I feel this warm sense of relief wash over me as I hold him like this, my eyes closed at first as I pray in some forgotten church somewhere for time to stop—just for a little bit. Nobody hears me--but him. And I don’t have to say anything.

He knows.

His lips remember every part of my face, his hands in my hair---

“Your hands are freezing.”

“That’s your fucking fault, Brian.”

--my head against him. I hear him loving me, smell his mouth on mine, that irresistible, pushy sweetness that he tastes like. That thing he does--

Making love to me when I still have all my clothes on.

His new shirt feels a little long on him. I pull him away from me.

“I want to look at you.”

This loose necktie hanging around his neck, inside his collar. This crisp white shirt, three or four buttons open, the only other thing he has on. He lost the jacket somewhere in here. I run my fingers down the tie. He looks down and smiles.

“This is actually one of yours.” I laugh.

He reaches down and pulls the tie out of my fingers, making me look at him. I hold him again, my hands around his waist, lower than the hem of his shirt.

Warm and sweet and soft against me. Wet.

He tells me what he wants.

“Please take me to bed.”

“After you.”

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11.1—DELETED SCENE—ARRIVAL—TED’S POV

Author’s notes: This was the original arrival of Temmett at the hotel a little before 2:00 pm on Saturday. What you wouldn’t know at this point in the story, but I will go ahead and tell you is that they are dressed as The Captain and Tenille. One guess as to who is Tenille. The concept I was going for had something to do with Shop Around, and it would’ve worked beautifully if I was writing a television show (ahem) and not fanfic. Spare yourself the trouble of commenting on my retardedness. It’s been done.

Feel free to comment with errors. I don't burden my betas with these.

TED'S POV
1:47 pm

“Emmett, I told you this was a bad idea.”

“Shut up Teddy and wave to the nice people. Act like a gentleman. You’re dressed like one.”

“I’m dressed like the last remaining fan of The Love Boat who just happens to be escorting the most hideous cruise director anyone has every seen. What the fuck are all these people doing here anyway?”

“Maybe they’re all here to see Brian profess his love to Justin. That would draw a crowd anywhere.” He gasps. “Oh my god. Do you think that’s it? Do you think these people know that Brian’s finally gone head-over-heels for Justin?”

My eyes cannot roll any farther back into my head without getting stuck.

“Em, do these people look like the kind of people who would be overly thrilled at that type of news? I think it must be some type of church thing. These people look overwhelmingly celibate.”

“How can you tell?”

“They look like me.” We’re finally at the entrance. “Look, I’m going to go over and tell these valets that Paul is coming and to be looking for him.”

“Don’t bother, Teddy, there he is.” I hide behind a column as Emmett waves to Paul. For some reason, watching him harass the valets in his pink dress and white pumps is just too much for me right now. Oh god, he’s making a spectacle of himself.

“Excuse me boys, excuse me. This gentleman over here, you see him? He has to get in here. He has to unload a few things, and then you boys can move his truck out of the way. I’m going to need that whole busload of church ladies to go praise Jesus somewhere else for just a minute. Okay? Thank you.” I think he just gave each of the valets a dollar. “Here’s a little something for your trouble.” I’m going to make a run for it. “Teddy, get over here and help him. A good escort never leaves his lady’s side.”

Brian is going to kill me and fire me all in the same day.

 

CHAPTER 11.2—DELETED SCENE—DESIRE—BRIAN’S POV-NC-17

Author’s notes: This was the original scene that happened right after Temmett and Paul left the suite after the fashion show. While I like this scene, the tone was completely WRONG for EAO, and I honestly have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote. Okay, that’s a lie. I know exactly what I was thinking. Anyway………….

BRIAN'S POV
3:23 p.m.

“I think that was the fastest and most expensive shopping trip I’ve ever been on.” Our suite is suddenly empty again of everything, but me and him.

“It’s gonna have to last you for a while.” We are maybe three feet inside our door when I push him up against the wall, my kiss forceful, my embrace too tight, my free hand wedged between his legs.

“Uh.” The air escapes from his lungs. My grip on him is so strong that his feet almost come off the floor. The only images I can see in my head are quick flashes of my hand undoing his jeans, sliding inside his briefs, and stroking him over and over again. He hardens under my touch. I half walk him, half carry him over to the long sofa, giving him an affectionate order in his ear before I turn him around and bend him over.

“Get them down, Justin.”

He fumbles with his jeans the best he can, and I end up helping him, yanking them down the rest of the way. The only nice thing about having to stop and sheath myself is that it gives me time to admire his perfect ass. I reach into the front pocket of his jeans and pull him up a little to whisper in his ear:

“You’re so lucky you have lube in your jeans.” He braces himself against the sofa as I line up outside his hole, his feet barely touching the floor as I lift his hips up a little. He realizes the lube wasn’t for him as I tighten my grip . He bites his lip and closes his eyes before I’m even inside. I slide my hands lower and spread him apart.

He cries out in pain when I push my way in. I loosen my grip, letting his feet touch the floor, the weight of his body increasing the friction between us, deepening me, quickening my pace. My body lies on top of his, clutching him with one arm, as I fuck him like this. He continues to jerk underneath me, all of this happening so fast and so deep. He grunts and moans and begs for it to be over.

“Brian, hurry, just hurry. Fuck, you’re hurting me.”

Yeah, right. He fucks me for a living. “Be quiet.” His protests makes me come in a heartbeat, and he knows it.

“I mean it, Brian. Please. I’m going to come.”

“Don’t you dare come on this sofa Justin.”

That was just an evil ploy. I grab his dick hard as I shoot, saving this sofa, putting him out of his misery. He collapses over the sofa as I pull out.

“You’re such a princess.”

I pull him up and his pants, and he sits on the back of the sofa kissing me, his pretty little smiling face focused intently on mine.

“I want to fuck in the bedroom.”

That’s always the problem with him: location, location, location.
 

CHAPTER 11.5—DELETED SCENE—UNDERSTOOD--JUSTIN’S POV—NC-17

Author’s Notes—The following is another deleted scene from Chapter 11-Luxury. There’s nothing particularly wrong with scene; it was deleted because there were other scenes that I wrote that I liked better and because (as I’ll explain more when I’m done with EAO), Justin’s POV is very different for me to write than Brian’s. This scene opens in the bedroom of the suite at the hotel. The fashion show has ended. Keep in mind that Brian has had a conversation with Daphne earlier that same day about Justin that Justin is unaware of. Justin is staring out the window of their bedroom when the scene opens. It’s starting to get dark outside. Brian is the first to speak.

JUSTIN’S POV
I’m standing at the window in the bedroom, closing the curtains, when Brian comes up behind me.

“We really do have to pick a restaurant.”

“Okay.” It’s the least I can do after he’s done all this for me. I flip through the pages of the leather bound menu portfolio not really caring where we go. “How ‘bout this one? They seem to have a little bit of everything.”

“Okay.” He takes the book from me and goes over to the nightstand. I listen to him as he calls them, makes the reservation. “Justin, what time do you want to eat?”

“Oh, seven? Seven is fine with me.”

“Seven o’clock. Kinney. For two. Thank you.” Kinney. For two. That gave me chills. I fold my arms around me as he hangs up the phone and places the restaurant guide back on the dresser. “It’s all set.”

I walk back over to the window to make sure that the curtains are closed all the way or maybe just to collect my thoughts for a minute and give my hands something to do. He’s behind me again, his arms around my waist.

“Are you that worried about the Christian coalition peeking in our window?”

“It’s starting to get dark. Anybody can see in.”

“I can turn the lamp off, if you want.” The only lamp that’s on in our bedroom is the tiny one on the nightstand. The lights are still on in the rest of the suite.

“Turn it off.”

He leans back without letting go of me and turns it off. Our room is partially lit with the light coming in from the other room, but it’s mostly dark now. I like it like this.

“Nobody can see you now but me, okay?” I turn around, and he draws my arms up and around his neck while I kiss him. I push him into the large wing-back chair by the window, straddling his lap. I sit back on his legs and start unbuttoning his shirt, his hands resting on my thighs. He questions me. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

He teases me. “It’s dark in here. I can’t tell.”

“Well then, I’ll guess you’ll just have to feel your way. Lean forward.” His shirt is off, his t-shirt, too, and for once, he doesn’t bitch at me that his clothes are on the floor.

“I love this sweater on you, Sunshine, but it’s a bitch to get off.” I always have to help him; the neck is too tight.

“Ah, thank god. I’ve wanted to be next to your body all day.” I’ve wanted to feel him against me all warm like this for hours. I can feel him underneath me, unbuttoning his jeans, and I want to do that. “Stop it Brian. Let me.”

“Hurry up.”

I climb off of him and kick my jeans off before I unzip his and slide my hand inside his underwear. He’s so hard. He lifts his hips up, encouraging me to move things along. His pants are gone and I’m back between his legs, taking him in my mouth. My hands hold his legs apart.

“Fuck, Justin.” He’s pulling my hair. I’m not going to let him come like this, but I’ll let him think I am. That’s always fun. His moaning gets more desperate. Time to stop. “Ah fuck.”

“Where’s everything?”

“Nightstand. Fuck.”

I hand him the lube while I unwrap the condom and slide it on him. He tucks it beside him in the chair and pulls me to him. He has an odd look on his face.

“What?” I straddle him again. His breathing has calmed down.

“There’s no rush. Slow down.” His fingers intertwine with my hair as he pulls me down to kiss me. I let him take me. “I like having you on top of me like this. You are so fucking hot, Justin.” He leans me back on his legs and wedges the lube out. I watch him coat his fingers. “Come here.” He pulls my face to his again and kisses me, his hand beneath my raised ass now. “I want it slow this time. I want you ready.”

“So do I.” I breathe his cologne as I bury my face in his neck, feeling his hand on the back of my neck as he holds me, his fingers inside me. “I love this, Brian.”

“I know you do. I know what you like.” My dick flops against him as I fuck his hand. I want to throw my head back, but he won’t let me. He’s got my head in a vice grip as he whispers in my ear. “This is only the appetizer. Not the main course.”

“I know, I know.” He’s always telling me that.

“That’s enough.” He pulls out. “There’s always desert, Sunshine.” I swat at his chest as position myself over him, this warm, wonderful feeling coming over me as I know it’s about to start. I tighten my hold on the back of the chair as he guides me down his cock.

“Oh fuck, Brian. Oh fuck.” No matter how much he prepares me, it always hurts a little, especially like this, but in a good way.

In such a fucking good way.

“Suck it up. You’ve got a long way to go.” I grin at him. He’s watching this, watching his cock slowly disappear inside me. I start to stroke myself. “I’ll do that for you. You concentrate on sitting on my lap.” He pushes me down a little, and I feel myself open up. I moan.

That felt good.

“Almost there.” He nudges me a little harder this time, and I flinch right before everything feels beautiful. He sits back a little, just looking at me, stroking me, his hand hanging off my arm. “Take your time.”

And I do, or I guess we do. I wonder what we must look like to other people sitting in this chair making love like this, if all of these people in this hotel today would ever understand what goes on between Brian and me. How the two of us doing this, with no words passing between us now, probably feel more for each other than some people ever feel for anyone in their entire lives. I wonder why I even think about these things when we’re fucking, and why I can’t just think about the fucking.

He’s looking at me, and he knows I’m thinking. He knows my mind is wandering. He’ll fix that. He’ll smile at me or kiss me or touch me in some way that I’m not expecting, some way that’ll bring my focus back to him, to this, and just to this. He always does.

But for some reason, right now, he doesn’t. He just puts his hand on the back of my neck and looks at me as we do this in silence, as it gets darker outside, and a little darker in here, as I try to think of a good reason why I spent four years convincing him that he loved me, so that I could turn around and leave him.

“Brian, I can’t do this.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“I’m serious, Brian. I can’t do this.”

“So am I. You’re doing fine. Take your time.” He won’t let me stop. Everything just keeps going. It ends like it always does, with me exhausted in his arms, and him telling me how wonderful it was. I feel him reach for his t-shirt to clean up the mess between us. I rise up a little so he can pull out and then lie back against him. I don’t feel like getting up yet. My head is nestled in his shoulder.

“Justin?”

“What?”

“I want you to know that I don’t think a new suit is going to fix everything, okay?”

He knows.


Author’s Notes: I didn’t want to say this in the beginning, but this scene was also deleted because the emotions moved to fast, revealed too much too soon. Sometimes when writing first person POV, I have to switch settings or reign in my characters or decree that there will be ‘no more fucking in the chair by the window’ to slow the emotion down because if not, your characters will reveal too much too soon. They’ll tell your whole story in own paragraph. See, that’s the kind of gal I am. I blame it all on my characters, and they’re not even mine….. See how that works?

Justin's POV

When I get you all alone
I’m gonna take off all your clothes
Ain’t nobody gonna interrupt my game

I don’t think I’ve done this since I was eight or nine—walk along the edge of a fountain. It’s a lot more fun when you’re drunk. I mean tipsy. I’m not really drunk. I’m tipsy. And this fountain in the middle of the lobby is gargantuan. And loud. Loud and gargantuan. Gargantuan. G-A-R-G-A-N-T-U-A-N. Gargantuan.

“Don’t fall.” He sneaks up behind me. It’s about time he got over here. Took him forever to pay the check.

“You scared me. You just made me throw my last quarter in there.”

“And a condom.”

“Whoops.” Shit.

“What did you wish for?” You don’t wish on a condom. Idiot.

“I’m not going to tell you.” When I stand on the edge like this, I’m almost as tall as Brian. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a bunch of change and throws all of it into the fountain all at once.

“Okay, I’ll go first. I’ll tell you what my wish was.”

“That was a pretty expensive wish.” That was at least three dollars in change, maybe more.

“I wished for peace.” Bullshit.

“World peace?”

“A piece of ass. And it was very expensive…..it was yours.” Flattery. I have the stupidest grin on my face. It’s making him sooooo happy. “So now, it’s your turn. Tell me what you wished for.”

“I told you ‘no.’”

“Okay. Then I’m going to guess.” His left foot joins my feet on the edge of the fountain as he pulls me tightly against him. He’s hard, and he wants me to know it. I push back a little. I can’t help myself. I have no self-control when he does that. His fingers are on the bridge of his nose. “Okay, I’ve got to think…….what would you wish for?”

I lay my head back against his shoulder, my hands shoved in my pockets. Droplets of water sprinkle all over my face. Feels tingly.

“Hurry up.”

“Why?”

“Because everybody in this lobby is staring at us. You’re embarrassing me.”

“Fuck them.” He clutches me tighter, pushes against me. I don’t even think he thinks about it. He just does it. “Okay, I’ve got it. You wished that I would stop embarrassing you in front of all these god-fearing Christian folk.”

Like it would matter. Like he’d stop. Plus, I can’t lie.

“No.”

“Shit. Okay, okay, let me think.” He taps his foot on the side of the fountain next to my feet. There are water droplets all over our shoes, my brand new shoes. I love my shoes. “Can I have a hint?”

“It’ll cost you.”

“I have spent a fucking fortune on you in the last few hours. I’ve earned a free hint.” True.

“Okay, you’re right. One hint.” His face is right next to mine on my shoulder.

“Go on.”

“It’s something I want from you.” Now I’m hard.

He’s licking his lips. I can hear it in my ear. That’s all I can hear now, rushing water and him, breathing in my ear. “Hmmmmmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmmm.” I wish he would quit that. “Let me see.” He’s drumming his fingers on my stomach. “Is it something I have to buy?”

“I told you--one hint.”

“We’re going to be standing here for a loooooooooooong time.”

“No, it’s not something you buy.” I'm so easy when I’m tipsy.

“Okay. I’m going to figure this out.” He just unbuttoned my shirt and slid his hand inside it. Thank god my jacket’s buttoned.

“You won’t guess it.” He’ll run out of patience first. He has no patience when he’s horny.

“Okay, how ‘bout this? How about we compromise?” He turns me around so that I’m facing him, his arms around me, outside my jacket. We’re almost eye to eye. I fling my arms around his neck.

“How about if I take you upstairs…and get you out of your very… beautiful… clothes… that you look so very… beautiful… in…and I let you tell me… every little thing that you want… while you sit on my very hard la-p?”

Who could turn down an offer like that?

I moan into his kiss, although I doubt he can hear me over the water. I can’t feel my knees when he talks to me like this. If I fall into this fountain, he’s going with me.

He lifts my chin. “I can’t kiss you when you put your head down.”

“You’re embarrassing me again.” I can feel it which means everybody can see it.

“I know. You’re blushing.” His tongue is in my ear. “I must have gotten something right.”

“You weren’t even close.” My head is on his shoulder. This way I don’t have to look at him.

“You don’t want to go upstairs and sit on my lap?” That’s a hard question to answer. It’s a trick question, a typical Kinney move, accompanied by excessive groping.

“Yes…”

“But…” He will stand here all night and fondle me until I answer him.

“That’s not all I want.”

He lifts me off the fountain and onto the floor, resuming his position of power. He knows what I mean, and I know he knows. His voice gets a little more seductive as he stands here with his arms around me, his forehead on mine. I have to look at him now. His eyes are like magnets.

“I know what you want.” I’m glad he’s holding me up. Nothing else is. “You told me this morning right before the pancakes and the sausage.” He can tell that he got it right, that I’m happy. “See I listen. I didn’t forget.”

“I know. You just prefer me in a debilitating state of arousal.” He grins at me, eyebrow and all.

“I’d prefer you in the state of Pennsylvania.”

Me too. “Can we not talk about that right now?” He feels the change in my body. “Can we just go upstairs?” I feel it in his.

His voice softens. “Yeah.”

We leave the roaring water behind.
****************************************************
Is love so fragile and the heart so hollow
shatter with words impossible to follow

“I’ll go upstairs and get them for you if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. Just give me yours.” I don’t mind Brian’s cigarettes once in a while. “I need your lighter too.”

“Do you want me to come with you? I’ll come with you.”

“No. I’m fine. I’m just going out that door.” It’s just the parking lot. Jesus.

“Then I’m going up front to get my car key. I’ll meet you out there in a second.”

“Fine.” Stop hovering.

I need to smoke before we go upstairs. It’s pretty fucking cold out here. Sobers you up. I’m surprised I’m the only one out here; there are a shit load of people in this hotel tonight. It’s not even that late. After a few puffs, I don’t even need this cigarette as badly as I thought I did. I’ll just go find him.

Or not.

I can’t get back in. Door’s locked. Both of them.

Shit.

And there’s no one in this hallway. Great. Now I have to walk all the way around this entire place to the front door.

The front lobby is busy, but no sign of Brian. He’s not at the fountain. He’ll find me. I’ll just go back the way we were going. This place is one big circle. There are at least five weddings receptions going on here tonight, some business function, and I think a bachelorette party. Some door just swung open, and I swear I saw strippers in there. I wonder if the bible people saw that.

It’s really odd to see how different people’s reception’s are. Some are so elegant and others are so tacky—to each their own, I guess. I stop outside the most elegant one to wait for Brian. He should be able to see me here. It’s really nice—formal, black tie, pretty good band. Some little girl just slid across the floor in her black shoes and fell on her ass. She’s screaming. Kind of late for a kid that young to be at reception like this. There’s this really beautiful portrait of the bride just inside the doorway. I can almost read the artist’s name from where I am. I don’t want to make it obvious that I’m lurking outside their party. Some woman is setting up all kinds of stuff on this table by the door. Party favors. I didn’t know they gave out party favors at a wedding. Ha. I can just imagine what kind of favors we’d give out if we got married. “Milk chocolate dicks on a stick. They come in your mouth—not in your han—“

“Don’t disappear on me like that.” I knew he’d find me.

“I got locked out.”

“No shit. So did I. I went out there to meet you and couldn’t get back in. That bitch at the front desk---.”

“What’d you go and do that for? They just work here.” He knows I can’t stand it when he goes off on people in the service industry. I mean, hello, I am one. Was one.

“Because they should put a fucking sign up if those doors are going to automatically lock at a certain time.” He was really worried about me. He just took it out on her.

“Well, you shouldn’t yell at someone who has no control over that. That’s shitty Brian.” We were separated for like what? Seven? Eight minutes?

“Why are you standing here anyway? Let’s go.” He pulls my arm. I pull back.

“I’m just watching this wedding reception. It’s really classy. Plus, there’s this really beautiful portrait right there, and I’m trying to see who painted it. I just don’t want to appear obvious.” He’s standing behind me with his hand on my shoulder now, calming down.

“I’ll go look.”

“No. I’m just waiting a second ‘til that woman finishes putting out all of those party favors. She’s almost done with those little chocolate things.”

“What the fuck are they?”

“How should I know? Don’t talk so loud.” His arms are wrapped around my shoulders now, but not like at the fountain, just in a nice way. Thank god.

“Their names are Casey and Kelly? Which one’s which?”

“Kelly’s the bride, I think. Was that what we looked like when we danced?” My hands are hanging off of his arms. I like it when he holds me like this.

“Casey’s a dog’s name. Like what? What do you mean?”

“Like that. The way those people are dancing—all formal and everything.” Sometimes he’s dense.

“No, we didn’t look like robots with bad hair and no fashion sense.”

“Don’t be a smart ass.”

“I’m being serious. We didn’t look like that. Plus, we had the whole floor to ourselves.”

“What did we look like?”

I guess he’s thinking about it.

“We looked like two people fucking with their clothes on.”

“Brian.”

“We did. We moved like we were……making love…..except for the part where I spun you around and around. You were quite the tiny dancer.”

I tilt my head back, looking up at him. “Yeah, we don’t do that spinning thing when we fuck anymore.”

“Yeah, not since you hit the wall that time. That kind of took the fun out of it.” He laughs, resting his chin back on the top of my head.

“Why did we have the floor to ourselves? No one else wanted to dance with us?” I know why, logically, I guess. There are parts of the story that I feel like I know, but sometimes I just like his version better.

“No, because they were spellbound. They couldn’t take their eyes off of us. They couldn’t have moved if they wanted to.” He kisses the top of my head. “She’s done. Go look.” He lets go of me.

I only have to take about two steps inside to peek at the painting.

It only took one to have the door slammed shut in my face by Party Bitch.

“Excuse me. This is a private affair for invited guests.”

I don’t think anyone has ever looked at us with more disgust—at least, not anyone that I can remember.

“Fucking bitch!” As loud as he said that, she probably heard it.

“Forget it, Brian. Let’s go upstairs.”
**************************
the Cuervo Gold
the fine Colombian
Make tonight a wonderful thing

His arm is tight around me as we walk away. I lean against him as we leave to go upstairs, all that wine making me a little tired. He stops in front of a space adjacent to one of many receptions going on here tonight and opens the door for me. “Go on in.”

“Why?”

“Just go in.”

“Are there people in here? Is someone going to jump out at me and yell ‘SURPRISE!’” Seriously, I’ve had enough surprises.

“No. It’s empty. Go.” He pushes me inside. It’s a huge room, like a ballroom, I guess, with a lot of tables and chairs pushed up against the walls. There’s a piano toward the front, and a little stage in the back. He finds the dimmer switch and brings up the lights just a little so it’s not pitch black.

“Why are we in here?” Everything echoes in here.

“Why are you whispering? Listen.” You can hear the band. He walks over to the far side of the room closest to the wall. The band is playing right on the other side. “Come here.” I walk over to where he’s standing. He takes me in his arms. “I’ve been trying to get you in here for a good thirty minutes.”

“You have?”

“Yeah.” He smiles this very small smile at me. “But you wanted to wish for things, get locked out, look at a painting, drive me up a wall…your usual routine.” He kisses me, softly, sweetly.

“You wanted to fuck in here?” I have this image in my head of him running around scoping out places for us to fuck besides our room. He kind of laughs at me and shakes his head.

“No.” His hand is on the back of my head. I lay my head against his chest.

I don’t recognize this song, and I’m about to ask him what it is when I realize that it doesn’t even matter. We have the floor to ourselves.

Somehow I know we always will.

“I don’t think my feet work like this anymore.”

“Don’t think about your feet Justin.” I close my eyes, his jacket, his heartbeat against my face. Beats and measures. Stops and starts.

Sway.

“Brian?” I don’t think I’m moving much at all. I can’t tell.

“Hmm?” His lips are in my hair.

“It’s not working. If I stop thinking about my feet, I start thinking about everything else.”

“Then just think about mine.” The floor seems to shift underneath our feet, doing the work for us, so that we can stand still. He feels familiar, like what you’ve always wanted, and strong. Smells like the promise of something you knew you had to have.

“Brian, is this what it was like?” He takes his time with my question. The song playing out, his arms beginning to loosen. I feel his warm breath in my face.

He answers me before he kisses me. “Yeah. This is exactly what it was like.”

“Then this is how I’ll always remember it.”
**************************
don’t stand so close to me

“It was Hey Nineteen."

“What was hey nineteen?” There are about fourteen hundred people in this elevator.

“The song we were dancing to. It was Hey Nineteen by Steely Dan. I just figured it out. That would’ve bugged the shit out of me all night.” He should have listened to me and waited for the next one, but instead he bolted for this one, along with everyone else in the entire hotel.

“I didn’t know what it was. Didn’t really matter.” I want to tell him that I didn’t even need any music--at all--but later, not in front of this crowd—grandmothers, a crying baby, a few preachers, and a drunk girl with the hiccups. Most of them empty out by the fourteenth floor anyway, where we make our switch into the “rich people’s elevator.” That’s what I call it now—to myself. Sometimes it’s kind of crazy when you switch because of the timing. If all of the lower elevators arrive at the same time, you end up with this maze of people trying to figure out which way to go—kind of like a subway system—only heated. Everyone ends up in the right place; it’s like a mad game of musical chairs for about fifteen seconds.

That’s exactly what it is right now. I’m still holding his hand as we weave our way to the one we want. His choice again. Our hands disconnect as I step forward to press ‘28’ and look behind me out of courtesy to see if anyone else needs another floor.

Fuck that.

Party Bitch.

Smooth move Brian. Next time, I pick the elevator. But I’m dressed like a gentleman, so I’ll act like one. Plus, she’s outnumbered. It’s only us and her. Too bad Party Bitch.

“What floor?” I give her my strained smile. Brian has just clued in.

“26.” She clutches her purse. Like I want your purse bitch. I press her button and go back and stand beside Brian on the other side of the elevator. She’s facing the front. We’re clear on the other side. Brian’s leaning against the back wall facing forward; I’m leaning against the side wall facing her, but I’m not staring at her. I’m looking at Brian.

He’s staring at her, with his polite contempt, then looking at me. We’ve got a long way to go with Party Bitch, only just reaching sixteen now.

I watch him, watch her, not watching us. Her eyes are super-glued to the numbers lighting up one by one. I’m so busy watching her that I jump just a little when Brian leans over and kisses me. He doesn’t do it in his usual way. It’s surprisingly chaste--kind of like the way I kiss my mother. I think he was going for a sound effect. She puts her purse on her shoulder and smoothes her dress with her hands a couple of times. Eighteen.

Brian leans back against the wall, a very thoughtful look on his face, and then asks me in all seriousness, “You douched, right?”

She’s getting off at twenty now.

Change of plans, I guess. I can’t say anything because I’ll either kill him or bust out laughing. So, instead, I just look straight ahead and hold up two fingers. He nods.

“Well, it’s a good thing because the last guy they sent me didn’t, and I refused to pay him.” She’ll probably report us to hotel management. She doesn’t even wait for the doors to open all the way; she just worms her way out. “Have a nice evening.”

I'm always proud of him for the strangest reasons. “You’re unbelievable Brian.”

“It’s true. I am. Oh.” He reaches into his pocket as the elevator starts moving again. “Here’s the name of that artist.” He hands me a slip of paper.

“When did you get this?”

“When you thought I was taking a leak.” He grins at me. “That bitch hates my fucking guts.” He laughs. “Here, I stole one of these too.” He hands me a chocolate wedding-thing on a stick. “They suck. I already ate mine.” I unwrap my stolen Party Bitch wedding favor.

“Oh my god, they do suck. This is the worst chocolate I’ve ever tasted.” I make a horrible face. We’re definitely not having this crap at our never-wedding. Emmett’s stuff is a million times better than this.

“Don’t make that ugly face. It clashes with your ensemble. I’m still picturing you as my fairy princess.” He taps on his watch. “And it’s not midnight. I get you at least until midnight.”

“Oh, I’d say, you’re paid up for a good twenty-four hours, at least, if not more.”

Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

He fucked me in the elevator.

CHAPTER 12.1—DELETED SCENE—INVITATION—JUSTIN’S POV

Author’s notes—I think my favorite scene in EAO is the dinner scene in the hotel. Every once in a while you write a scene that just flows out of you like melted butter. (That was not meant to be a dinner pun.) The scenes that came after it were almost as fun to write. Brian and Justin were enjoying each other, they’d been drinking a little, they were looking forward to the evening the rest of the evening. As a result, Chapters 11—Luxury and 12-Privilege always make me v.v. happy when I re-read them. The following scenes were deleted from 12-Privilege because they just weren’t needed, but I really liked them. We just don’t get to see enough of this on the show, IMHO. This scene also introduces John, the valet, Brian’s childhood friend, to Justin in a different way. The scene starts right after Party Bitch has slammed the door in Justin’s face when he tried to get a look at the painting at the wedding reception.

JUSTIN’S POV
***********************

He takes my hand as we walk down the long hallway toward the elevators, past several other functions that are going on here tonight. He looks at me to see if I’m upset, I guess.

“Really, I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“If it makes you feel any better, all of those people will be drunk as shit in about forty-five minutes and doing the Macarena. Just picture that in your head.”

“And the Electric Slide. That’s always a huge cluster fuck.” The only place that ever works even halfway well is ‘over thirty night’ at Babylon. The one night when Brian always stays home. I go to exploit my youth, for like five minutes; otherwise I end up as Ted’s arm candy.

“See, you feel better already.” He squeezes my hand. “And The Hustle, which no one remembers how to do.”

“You do.” It’s the only dance he can do.

“I do not.”

“The fuck you don’t. Hey, wait, Brian. That guy just waved to you.” I pull him back a few steps.

“What guy?”

“That guy, right there, playing bass.” He nods back. “Who’s that?” He looks familiar.

“John. He works here. He plays in a pick up band on the weekends. His gig must be here tonight.” He looks around for a sign or something. “Here it is: ‘The Intangibles.’ That’s the name of the band he plays with.”

“He looks familiar.” I keep staring at him.

“He parked the car today. That’s why.” Oh. I didn’t recognize him out of uniform.

“Is he?”

“No. He’s a childhood friend actually. We grew up on the same street. I knew him before I knew Mikey. He’s married—well, they just separated—with two girls, I think.”

“Oh.”

“That’s probably why he’s playing again. Child support.”

“Shit.”

“Yep.” He slides his hand back in mine, tugs on it a little. “Are you ready to go upstairs?”

“Yeah. What song are they playing? I know it, but I can’t think of it.” This place is cool. It’s a restaurant with a nice bar and a small dance floor. We should’ve eaten here. Oh well.

“Hang on. No we can't dance together, we can't talk at all,” he hums, “slide on down. It’s Steely Dan. Hey Nineteen. I had to think for a minute.” I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard him sing.

“We should’ve eaten here. This place is a little more hip you know, more our style.”

“We can go in for a few minutes if you want. Sit at the bar.”

“No. I know you want to go upstairs.” I do too. This has been really fun though. I’ve had so much fun today, except for that Party Bitch.

“Well, you can stand here for a second and listen. I’ve got to piss.” There’s a restroom right around the corner.

“Okay.” John is a really good bass player, and their band is actually very good. There are these three women at the end of the bar that keep looking at me. Every time they do, I look at my shoes. A waiter approaches me, skillfully blocking my view of the women, or, I guess, their view of me.

“The three ladies at the end of the bar would like to buy you a drink—you and your friend. What’ll it be?”

How many times can you be embarrassed in one night?

“Oh no. I’m sorry. I’m not staying. I’m just waiting for someone.” This guy’s good. He knows how to block so nobody sees any rejection.

“Hey, it’s just a free drink. Don’t hurt their feelings. Just accept it.”

I lean in to him a little. He’s about my age. Luke. Hot as hell. “It’s just that I’m not interested, if you know what I mean.” He nods.

“Trust me. They don’t care. They’re drunk.” I laugh. It breaks the tension.

“I can’t. I can’t stay. Please thank them for me. I appreciate it.”

“Whatever you say.” He turns around and heads back in their direction. I can see him talking to them. “Hey, I tried. Tough sell.”

“Ready?” Brian scares the shit out of me again. “What was that about?” His eyes followed the waiter too, naturally.

“Those women at the end of the bar wanted to buy me a drink. Me and you."

“That was sweet.” He waves to them as he puts his arm around me. “Every time I leave you unattended, you get swarmed by pretty girls.”

“Shut up. I said ‘no.’”

“What would you do a rude thing like that for?” I had about fourteen good reasons a minute ago. He scans the bar the spots the women instantly and smiles at them. “You’re going to work in Hollywood, Sunshine. You’ve got to learn how to schmooze. Come on.” Oh shit. I should have kept my mouth shut.

I never thought in a million years that I would be standing in a hotel bar tonight with Brian in a brand new D&G suit flirting with three beautiful women. Okay, well, he’s flirting with them. I’m just standing here with my hands in my pockets. I really like the pockets in these pants.

“Which one of you beautiful ladies was trying to buy my boyfriend a drink?” They collapse into a fit of giggles. They are drunk.

“See, I told you Tricia. No straight man dresses that well.” More giggling. I blush.

“It was me.” The brunette raises her hand. She’s the “Brian” of the group. You can tell. She’s striking. “I knew it. I could tell the minute I saw you two. You’re both fucking gorgeous. Pardon my French.” She slides a fresh cigarette out and waits for Brian to light it. She’s not shy. It’s fascinating to watch him like this—behaving like this when it’s not just an immediate shortcut to physical gratification. It reminds me of watching him at Vanguard, where he wasn’t on his own turf, only this isn’t watered-down for the workplace.

The red-head, the closest to Brian, points to the striking brunette with the freshly-lit cigarette. “Her name’s Molly. My name’s ‘Anything You Want It To Be.’” She’s the drunkest of them all and leaning all over him. “God, you smell good.” It’s pretty funny.

“Well, just to show you lovely young ladies what a good sport I am, I’m going to order you another round of whatever it is you’re having, so I can take my beautiful boyfriend upstairs. It’s way past his bedtime.” He winks at me. I smile and roll my eyes. “Are the three of you staying in this hotel tonight?”

Who gives a shit?

“She is.” The red-head points to Molly. “She’s here on business. But we’re not, unless we get luck-y.” Brian nods at them.

“Well, it was a pleasure to meet you girls. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” They wave good-bye to us as Brian motions to Luke. “Order them another round on 2821, and be sure that the two that are not staying here get home in a cab. Charge it to me if you have to.”

“Absolutely sir.”

“That was awfully decent of you Brian.”

I can hear Luke asking the girls what they want. One of them said, ”A man like that.” I don’t know which one of us they’re talking about.

Yeah, right.

“Those women have very good taste. We need to keep people like that alive, so they can breed.”

Brian will always show you he loves you, you just have to be paying very close attention.

~~*~~

BRIAN'S POV

His body is hot and pink and dripping, and I like the way it smells. I’ve never had the pleasure of toweling him off after a bubble bath before, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. His face looks a little sleepy, a side effect, I think, from all that hot water. I linger between his legs as he lies back on the floor.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I feel great. It felt wonderful just to relax, you know?”

His wet body is leaving an outline on the champagne-colored carpet. This is a really nice, spacious bathroom—and the carpet, a nice touch. Justin has already cranked up the heat in here. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much affection for him as I lean back on my heels and start unbuttoning my shirt sleeves.

Christ, I love him so much.

His damp legs and bent knees move inward a little, hugging my hips, and I smile at him as he stretches his arms over his head and tucks them underneath it. I check the pocket of my pants to be sure I have a condom. I do.

My left sleeve fights me a little since it’s soaked. Justin seems amused by this. I try to make myself remember every detail of his face as I bring mine to his, but it’s hard to concentrate. Everything’s so hard.

His nimble fingers tumble down my chest and begin to unbelt, unbutton, and unzip. I hear the swish of my belt tearing through the belt loops, feel the pinch and burn on my skin—a feeling we normally and mutually reserve for him. His hands slow down once they're inside my pants, once they realize that I’m wearing the exact same underwear I had on the first night we met under my slacks.

Well, not exactly the same pair.

This pair has never been stolen.

I’m where I want to be again, lying on top of him, when he says something really sexy and endearing into my ear. I’ve no clue what it is. It’s a good thing he has his own money now because he just bought a shit load of vowels.

“I don’t know what the fuck you just said to me, but you’re making me crazy.”

He pulls my lips off of his neck for a second, his warm palms cradling my face. “Come here.” He kisses me with a force that is almost over-powering and turns my head to the side so he can whisper it into my ear again.

I hear him this time. I never get tired of hearing that, never get tired of him whispering erotic requests in my ear. I find it almost unbearably sweet, especially when he reads my mind.

“You weren’t kidding this morning then, were you?” I ask him as he shakes his head, grinning at me.

The humidity in here is sealing us together, and there are so many places on his body that my mouth wants to be that I can’t make a choice right now. I put off that decision for a moment, and curse at my tangled pants, shoes, and socks. The nerve of them still standing in my way tonight—but not for long. Soon, I’m free to really feel his heart-pounding body beneath me. Sensory overload. The amount of heat he’s giving off has to be the main reason for global warming. They don’t call him ‘Sunshine’ for nothing.

I begin my descent down his body--my target sighted—well, one of the many. My fingers stay behind to fill his mouth. It makes my dick leak every time I hear him suck on anything of mine like that. I run them down his chest, where they meet up with my lips. We have a short strategy session and break into two groups. Fingers—left nipple. Lips, tongue—right nipple.

My wet fingers reach their destination in a flash, wasting no time in completing their task. I toy with his nipple, erect long before I get there, roll it between my fingers, and pinch. His quick response earns the other a similar gift, only with teeth. I get to hear my name. I’m done here.

My face continues to skim down his chest, my hands rubbing the sides of his body as he moans for me. I start making a tape in my head, committing every moan he makes to memory--something to get me through these next six months. My nose traces his chest, his abs, and makes landfall beside his toasty, eager cock.

“You trimmed.” Without me. It’s already started.

“Surprise.”

I growl at him a little as my mouth begins to lunge around his dick, everywhere but where he wants. I paint his tummy with my tongue. His hands are at odds with each other, one pushing my head down while clutching my hair, and the other reaching over his head, bracing himself against the tub for leverage. I make myself at home in his blond, fuzzy nest, letting him buck and squirm and moan all he wants from my well-deserved attention.

He needs to get it all out, and he knows it. I hand him my watch.

“Five minutes, Sunshine.” He takes it and lays it on his chest, ignoring it for now. I swallow his cock.

“Oh fuck, Brian.” He’s got both of his hands in my hair, pulling on it a little too hard. My watch slides off his chest.

“You’d better get that.”

He ignores my advice. I go back to his cock. God, I love the way this boy tastes. My mouth is sucking him hard, my hands pulling him toward me, causing his back to rub against the carpet. I know he likes that burn. I watch out of the corner of my eye as one set of his fingers digs into the carpet. He arches into my mouth—hard.

“Please let me come, Brian.” He’s getting desperate. He starts to look for my watch and finds it right next to him.

“I’m not stopping you.” Time is such an evil mistress. He bucks and fucks my face, racing against my deadline, but I can see my watch out of the corner of my eye. My hands press down on his inner thighs as his cock slides out of my mouth. “Sorry. Time’s up.”

It’s time for something else now.

I glide up his body, my torso smearing the moisture from his pampered cock up both of our bodies as a sound leaves his throat that makes me smile. My face dives at his, fast at first, but then everything slows down as my tongue slides inside into his mouth, over his teeth, and then nothing but lips and eyes locked. I can’t wait to give him what he wants, especially when he’s asked so politely. I lie on top of him, cradled between his legs, combing his hair with my fingers. I can hardly hear myself, everything’s focused on him.

“Do you know how much I want you, Justin?” He smiles. He knows.

“Yes.”

His voice is quieter now, an aroused whisper, as my right hand skims down the side of his body. I press my palm against his inner thigh, rising off of him a little. He knows what’s coming. My cock is hot against his, hot and wet.

I kiss him slowly, my gaze steady, my thumb tracing his lower lip. My kiss is a promise, an intention. It lets him know that things are progressing. It reminds him of what I expect, of the rules, that he’s always safe with me. His lips are wet, red, and parted as he looks at me.

“Do you want to be a good boy tonight?” He moans in my ear, shielding his face. “Answer me, Justin.”

“Yes.”

“Do good boys ask for what they want?”

“Yes.”

“What do they want?”

“Brian.”

“What do they want?” Christ, he’s breathing so hard.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Yes, you can. You can tell me.” He moans in my arms, shaking his head.

“I can’t.”

“Do you know what’s going to happen if you don’t tell me?”

“Yes.” He never tells me. He never will. It’s part of the game.

I kiss him again before I move down his body, my eyes taking in every inch of him, my fingers lingering over his lips for a minute. He tries to reach them to suck on them, but they’re not there long enough. I hear his frustration. I reach for my necktie, an extra one a few feet away.

“Do you want to be blindfolded?” He shakes his head again.

“No.”

“Not tonight, huh?” He smiles at me.

“Not tonight.”

Understandable. I drape my necktie across his stomach.

I keep my eyes on his face as I move down his body again. His eyes are closed. He won’t look at me. His hand comes down and clutches my necktie. He’ll hold it unless he wants to stop. He never has. I slide my right hand along his outer right thigh and start kissing his bent knee at the kneecap. I take it slow, no one’s timing me. I tongue my way down his inner thigh, feeling him start to writhe underneath me. As I get closer to his dick, he pants and sucks in little breaths of air. I begin stroking his inner thighs until he spreads his legs for me like he should.

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes. Please.”

“I thought so.”

The kissing and sucking, sucking and kissing continues down his inner thigh until I am back at his cock again, only this time I have a different agenda. My lips brush the length of his cock as lightly as I can, no tongue, no spit, just warm, dry lips that are barely there. My hands are there too, but just carelessly stroking his balls; the light touch making him think I love him and hate him at the same time. I know he knows better.

“Hand me my belt, Justin.”

Our hands touch as I take my belt from him, and I fold it in half, breathing in the smell of the leather. My left hand shelters his cock, as my belt slices through the air landing sharply on his inner thigh, his pink skin striping right away. He cries out for me.

“Brian.”

I soothe him immediately with my hands, my lips, and my words, his fingers tangled in my hair.

“You’re okay, Justin.”

I trail my belt over his stomach, his hand, his cock and wind the leather in my hand again. I lean over and kiss its exact path. His fingers stroke my face. He doesn’t want to let me go. He never does.

“Please, stay.” I tell him “no.” He never breaks the routine.

The leather meets his thighs several times right after I pull away. He hisses at me. My belt gets closer and closer to his cock which I’m no longer covering. No need. My aim is perfect, but it doesn’t diminish his angst over the possibility. He has my necktie in a vice-grip. His moaning is almost destructive, the only sound in this sanctuary right now as I stroke him, licking every mark the leather leaves behind.

My finger traces the outline of his newly trimmed pubic hair, of the rule he’s broken—on purpose. “I’m going to count to three Justin, and then I’m going to spank you right here.”

“No Brian, no. Please don’t do that.” He begs with his words and his eyes. I’m such a sucker for his whiny protests.

“Yes. And don’t you dare tell me ‘no,’ Justin.’” His eyes apologize, his words don’t.

“No.” He holds his breath.

He wants this badly tonight, moving his legs inward, making my life difficult, making me so fucking hard.

I spread his legs back open and bring my belt to bear exactly where I said I would with no warning.

Twice.

He grabs it after the second strike, the last bit of leather almost stinging his balls, and uses it to pull me on top of him. He wants me to see the tears in his eyes as he’s kissing me, moaning and whimpering in my ear—a string of apologies, promises, and confessions.

“I love you, Brian. Please, I want you. Please.”

My hips are on fire, squeezed tightly by his sizzling thighs.

“That’s much better, Justin.” I run my fingers through his hair. “Your bottom is next.”

My face glides down his warm legs, closing my eyes and soaking in the sensation. God, I love this. Fucking him tonight is going to be indescribable. My shoulders push him.

“Get your legs up.”

“Oh god, Brian. No.” His hands rush down to cover his ass. I smack them. He knows better.

“Now, Justin. You heard me. Get them up or you can roll over.” He doesn’t want to roll over. He wants to watch.

I’m on my knees beside this beautiful view, my left arm holding his thighs against his chest, his hand still clutching my tie. My hand cups his balls as my belt slaps the back of his legs, the beginnings of his beautiful ass, and then around his hole, all of his moaning and whimpering turning me inside out.

He starts begging me to stop, quietly at first, and then insistently, his fingers clutching my tie harder than ever. He wants to be fucked.

I drop my belt. I’m stopping. I’m so fucking hard I can’t concentrate. Find the condom. Can’t find the lube. Fuck.

“Keep them up Justin.”

I push his thighs against his chest as my tongue dives for his hole. He cries out for me again. God, he’s so vocal tonight. I soak him with my tongue, knowing this will be one of the last times I taste him for awhile. My tongue pushes inside him, laying claim to where my cock will be in a minute. I’ve got to fuck him now before I come from rimming him. He can’t even form a coherent sentence right now.

Our bodies align again.

“You….have….the…sweetest ass, Justin.” My endearing sentence punctuated by a very sloppy kiss. Our frenzy slows for a second as I stare into his blue eyes; a moment of tenderness doing a drive-by as the back of my hand moves down his face, my voice fading into a whisper. “You need me to fuck you?”

He answers me after a very long, very breathless kiss.

“God, yes.” He waits without blinking as I put on the condom.

“I want to fuck you so badly right now, Justin, I’m going to fucking explode.”

“I know. Do it before we both do.”

His burning thighs crush the living daylights out of me as I line up outside his hole. It’s almost funny when I force myself in, whispering in his ear:

“No lube.”

“Go, Brian.”

Jesus Christ. I’m not letting him get on any fucking plane to anyfuckingwhere. I feel like I should resist being so completely destroyed by what he does to me, but I’m powerless, so I just give up and fuck the shit of him. His legs are on my shoulders, but even they don’t come between us as I pound myself into him, holding onto him as he clings to me. He mews into my neck.

“Thank you for the spanking.”

Oh fuck, I want this to last longer. All of this—this weekend, tonight, this room, him underneath me begging for this in that way that he begs, everything. I stroke him fast, so I can watch him unravel in my arms. So I can feel it.

“Your snug little bottom is just the way I like it—hot, full, and all mine.”

This is one delicious, chaotic fuck. His words start to fall all around me.

“Don’t stop, Brian. Don’t fucking stop.” I don’t want to. I don’t think I can. Fuck it, I can’t. I fucking can’t. “I mean it, Brian, don’t.”

“I can’t. I won’t.”

“Don’t.” Fuck, it’s almost over. I can’t talk anymore. “I want you to keep fucking me. Keep fucking me, Brian.”

The only sound in this room is our breathing and the sound of our bodies making contact. The rush in my head is much louder, the volume increasing with every thrust. He’s biting me, begging me, burning his back on the carpet, and suddenly coming in between us, surprising us both. I grab him tighter, fuck him harder and harder, until I break though just like he did and find him again---waiting for me on the other side, a sleepy smile on his face, like he just got out of a nice, warm bubble bath. He holds me tight when I first get there, just like always, like he hasn’t seen me in ages, and then loosens his grip a little. I’m always relieved. I want to see him. I’m always dying to see him, to get a good look at his face, so I can be sure…

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I feel great. It felt wonderful just to relax, you know?”

Christ, I love him so much.
 

Chapter 14

EVERYTHING AT ONCE--CHAPTER 14.1—DELETED SCENE—PURCHASE--Brian’s POV-NC-17

Author’s Notes: This was an alternate ending to Brian and Justin’s conversation in the chair by the bedroom window in the hotel in Chapter 14.1—Sanctuary. I often write scenes to get the emotions on paper before I put them where I want them. The beginning of this was probably an exercise in that. The ending—well, it’s just sex. The scene starts with Brian wrapping up his conversation with Justin about getting help for his PTSD. It assumes that Justin has already sketched the parking deck, but that the transformation of that picture never took place. This was a very early version of that night. Un-beta’d. Comment w/ errors if you like. It’s always appreciated.

“And you should stick to getting help for this post-traumatic stress shit.”

“I’ll give it some serious thought. Don’t push me. I’ll get pissed and throw you out.” His fantasy, no doubt.

“Well, I’d prefer that to you bringing a concealed weapon home in your book bag. Hand me your sketchpad.”

“I’m not drawing you another picture.” He hands it to me.

“I know that.” I flip to the back. “The rest of these numbers are doctors, Justin. Neurologists in L.A. that are taking new patients. They were referred by your attending at Allegheny General. I should’ve gotten you a list of psychiatrists too, but I didn’t find out until yesterday that you were having these other problems.”

“You don’t have to hold my hand, Brian. I can take care of myself. I can dial a fucking phone number. And, by the way, thank you for coming to see me while I was in the hospital and for carrying my entire medical history in your wallet for four years.” Nosy little fucker.

“You’re welcome, Justin.”

“You’re a shit head for not telling me.” He kisses me, pulling the blanket more tightly around him.

“We deserve each other, I guess. Are you that cold?”

“Yes.” I reach under the window sill and turn the heat up, closing the curtain a little. The fan kicks on immediately, the warm blast blowing my hair a little as he kisses me again. We sit by the window kissing for several minutes, warmed by the heat, by each other.

“You really need to get some sleep.” I tell him, knowing that if I don’t stop this, we’ll sit in this chair and make out until daybreak.

“I don’t want to sleep without you.” I need to start wearing a straight jacket to bed or get a psychiatrist.

“Just go to sleep. I’ll stay with you.” He lays his head back on my shoulder, and we watch the traffic lights together. Green, yellow, red, over and over. I run my hand through his hair as his breathing deepens and slows. I’ll put him in bed once I’m sure he’s asleep and lie next to him anyway, sleep important for him, still a stranger to me. “Brian, you’re going to fuck me.”

Okay, he wasn’t asleep.

“I am?”

“In this chair.”

“I think you’re taking advantage of me.” I hope he’s warming up. The blanket is falling off of us.

“I am. I definitely am.”

I reach down for my jeans which are right beside me on the floor. My wallet was in them, the source of all of my names and numbers. The front pocket is probably stocked with the necessities. “You want some gum?” He laughs.

“Later.” Lucky for him, that wasn’t all I had in my front pocket. I lay my head back and close my eyes, laying everything we’ll need on the window sill. His hand is warm between my legs, my cock beginning to stiffen in his hand.

“That feels good, Justin.” My fingertips glaze his hips as he massages me, enjoying the lazy pace, the warmth, the quiet, even just the darkness. He shifts a little a little in my lap, getting comfortable. I rub his thighs. I don’t want his legs to fall asleep. His grip tightens as my body responds to him, stronger, but not urgent, nothing hurried. He takes his time with me, finesse few have mastered, a privilege only he has earned. He leans in to kiss me as an insistent moan is catching in my throat, swallowed for the moment in favor of his mouth on mine. “Ah.” I blink hard. His thumb passes over the moist head of my dick as his mouth pulls away from mine, and I open my eyes, smiling at him for a second.

“Just relax, okay, Brian. Let me do this.”

“Okay.”

I close my eyes again, licking my lips, feeling his hands on my chest, his fingers grazing my nipples over and over, disappearing, and returning wet. His tongue sucking my nipple hard, my hand grabbing his hair as he bites me, harder as I cry out.

“Be quiet, Brian.” I pull my lips into my mouth and try, my eyes closed shut. The other nipple bitten harder even as I stay still, only a gasp escaping. My hand grabbing his back. His body against me again, his lips back on mine, grinning into our kiss, his tongue powerful, invasive. “You like that?”

“Sit on me.”

“Open your eyes.” He hands me the condom, and I make quick work of it as he pops open the lube packet. I go to take it from him. He shakes his head, coating his fingers as he lifts his bottom up. I watch him as he slides one finger into his ass, the pleasure on his face. His ass was meant to be fucked.

“More, Justin.” He pulls out, giving himself more, and I slide my hand underneath him, pushing him in a little farther. The sensation too much, I slide a finger in beside his. The ecstasy spreading across his face threatening to dissolve both of us. “Get them out.” I take his place, letting him fuck my hand for a minute or so, his hands gripping the back of the chair, my other hand guiding his ass as I tap his prostate. I slide my fingers out and spread him apart before we’re both too far gone. He reaches down for my cock. “Sit.” Christ. That is…. the best…. fucking feeling…… in the world.

“Okay, Mr. Bossy. I said let me do this.”

“Sorry. I got carried away with the self-lubrication. You know I can’t take that.”

“Be quiet.”

Okay, we’re back to that again. I have to remember to be quiet. Honestly, I don’t know how he does this. I couldn’t do this. If I was riding him like this, I’d come in seven seconds flat. Way too much stimulation. Which is probably why I never have. Because I’d be fucking embarrassed. Although it would be the most incredible seven seconds of my fucking life. The look on his face right now, when he pushes back on me like that, I know he has to think about dead puppies or something to keep from coming when he does that. I mean, I’m so deep inside him right now, so deep. This is not the kind of sex you’d ever have with some trick. I’d never let some trick do this to me. You fuck a trick. You don’t let a trick ride you like this, so hard, so deep, so measured. I don’t know how he stays so tight. I mean he fucks me for living, and he’s still this tight. This tight and warm and wet, and I’ve got to kiss him. I can’t stand this anymore.

“Mmm, Justin. Come here.”

I can’t be quiet when my dick is up his ass. I can be incoherent though, which is what the fuck I’m getting ready to be, oh my god. Because he’s fucking me harder than I can even watch. I’ll come before he does. He’s whispering to me.

“Open your eyes, Brian. Watch me.” Fuck, Justin. He’s trying to kill me. Okay. They’re open, but they’re not looking at him. “Brian.”

“Concentrate on the fucking.”

“Look at me. You can do it.”

He’s got me by the hair. I have no choice. And then he does that thing that I can’t stand. I mean I love it, but I can’t stand it, when he leans back a little on one hand and rolls his hips and just smiles that happy little smile at me. Makes me want to smack him. He’ll slow down a little with that dreamy-ass look on his face and just ride me like I’m just one of those horsies outside of a grocery store that you can ride for five minutes if you put a quarter in, and he’s just never gonna run out of quarters.

Fuck, I want to give him ten thousand dollars in quarters right now.

I need to figure out how to make my own quarters.

Oh shit, I think I just did.

“Justin, I’m toast.”

He smiles. He knows. He looks down at his cock where his hand is. I need to get with the program. I take his place. He wraps his arms around me as I push him down hard.

“God, Brian, God.”

He trembles as his hot come spills all over my chest, my throat, my chin. I hold onto him as much as my exhausted body will cooperate. He jerks in my lap a few more times before he slumps on top of me, both of us a sticky, panting, over-heated mess.

“Brian?” He mumbles into my neck as he kisses me.

“Hmm?”

“Just buy the goddamn horse, okay?”

I hate him.

EVERYTHING AT ONCE-CHAPTER 14.2—DELETED SCENE—PILLOW TALK-NC-17

Author’s notes—In Chapter 14-Sanctuary—Brian sleeps on the sofa in the outer room of the suite after he wakes up and finds Justin out there. Brian takes his place. The scene opens with Justin unable to sleep back in the suite in the bedroom. This was one scene written that got Brian back into the bedroom. Had it actually been used, it would've been tightened up and edited quite a bit.

Unbeta’d. Feel free to comment if you see an error.

BRIAN’S POV

Brian? Are you asleep?” He’s whispering to me from the bedroom.

“Yes.”

Silence.

“Asshole.”

“Shithead.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Apparently.” Silence. “Do you want me to—“

“Yes.”

“Okay.” I’m back in the bedroom, looking for my cigarettes.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to find my straight jacket, so I won’t hurt you.”

There they are, and my lighter. I climb into bed beside him. It’s funny that we keep the same sides of the bed here, just like at the loft. I stretch out under the covers. At least it’s warm under here. He spreads the blanket I had back out on top of us. I offer him a cigarette.

“No thanks.” He has something on.

“What are you wearing?”

“My sweater. I was cold.”

“Take that off. I didn’t bring you any pajamas for a reason.” Actually, I forgot, but I liked that better. His sweater just flew over top of me. “You almost caught my cigarette. You’re a fucking circus act.”

“Don’t be mean to me. I’ve had a rough night.” He snuggles beside me, his head on my chest. I wrap my arm around him, his fingers drawing aimless designs on my chest. It tickles when he does that.

“You really need to go to sleep. I was serious about that.” I watch my cigarette burn in the darkness.

“Well, fuck me again. I always sleep good right after you fuck me.” He’s not wrong. I’m certainly not adverse to the idea.

“You need to rest your ass, too. You’re going to come down with Bottom Boy Burn Out.” My cigarette has gone out. I reach over and drop it into the trash can next to the bed. When I roll back over, he’s on his side, facing away from me. I slide behind him. “Tired?”

“Worried.”

“About Monday?”

“About you.”

“It’s just a bad dream, Justin. That’s all.”

“About me?”

“About everything.”

“Who are you yelling at in the dream? Is it me? Because you’ve done that before. I just haven’t told you. Sometimes you say my name, too.”

“Yelling shut the fuck up?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not you. It’s somebody’s name.”

“What’s somebody’s name?”

“Shut the fuck up. ShutTheFuckUp is somebody’s name.”

“That’s fucked up, Brian. You’re telling me that you’re yelling somebody’s name, and their name is ShutTheFuckUp?”

“You’re telling me that I’m yelling shut the fuck up. I’m telling you it’s somebody’s name. It’s not you.”

“You’re giving me a headache.”

“Do you want another candy bar?” He slaps me.

“I’d rather you just fuck me, so I can fall asleep. I don’t want to think about this anymore.”

“Me either. Is it in your pillow?”

“Yeah, and don’t make fun of me.”

“I can’t find it.”

“Then it must be in yours. Our pillows got switched. Which, technically means, that I should get to fuc—“

“That defeats the whole purpose of you falling asleep.”

“True. Hurry up, Brian.”

“Here. You do it. It’s more stim-u-la-ting.”

“This is the first one I’ve put on you today, I think.”

“You make me work too hard, Sunshine.”

“I make you too hard to work. That’s really cold, Brian. How much are you using? Jesus.”

“A lot. I need to take out an insurance policy on your asshole. Insure it for like ten million dollars.”

“That’s what you said about my hair right after I cut it. Remember? You can use more than one finger.”

“Your hair I would insure for five million once it’s completely grown out. And don’t micromanage my foreplay.”

“You should insure your foreplay. That’s worth a mint. That feels good.”

“If I do insure it, I’m going to be a clause in there that states that you’re not allowed to talk during it. At little more now. At least not in the middle of the night when you need to be going to sleep. Please start winding down.”

“Okay. No more chatter.”

“Little more.”

“Good.”

“Hurt?”

“No.”

“I’ll just do this if you want.”

“No. I want you.”

“Okay. Nice and slow.”

“See, this is what I mean, Brian. You have…….so much control.”

“We’ve had lots of practice.”

“We have, haven’t we?”

“Yeah. Okay, just relax. Be quiet. Close your eyes.”

“Where’s your other hand? I can’t-- Thanks.”

……..

……..

……..

……..He moans in my arms as I come inside him, as he comes in my hand. His fingers reach back tightly around my bicep and squeeze as my hold on him intensifies, as he hears me in his ear,

“Justin, we’ll never……practice…….this….enough.”

“Shhh, I know, Brian. Go to sleep.”

“Okay. Your ass is fucked and filled. Wanna kiss you good night.” He turns back in my arms.

“Mmm, sorry.”

Cheaper than another damn candy bar. Not to mention better for you.

“Night. Night, Sunshine.”

“Gonna sleep good.”

I know.

Chapter 15