Domesticity 6 by Myrna and featuring the talents of Josselin
Another Domesticity fic. This one was a bit unwieldy so Josselin was kind enough to read it through and offer suggestions. And words. All much appreciated!
Domesticity 6
by Myrna
and featuring the talents of Josselin as The Writer Responsible for All the Good Parts
Brian tried to school the smug look from his face as the first class passengers were invited to board the plane, but the way Justin rolled his eyes and shook his head, he was obviously failing. So what? He'd earned a bit of self-satisfaction.
Six months ago, the idea of their enjoying some spare-no-expense, first-class-all-the-way trip to New York seemed as likely as Ted Schmidt getting laid at a...well fuck, getting laid.
Even now, when the start of his own ad agency could safely be labeled a success, Brian couldn't have paid cash for the weekend he was planning if it weren't for several bonuses that had just come through. It was customary to build into a contract a bonus structure based on a percentage of the increase in sales after a campaign was launched. Brian had kept the bonuses separate from the rest of their finances and was using them to cover the plane tickets, hotel and other expenses they would incur over the weekend.
Fuck the mountain of debt--they were going to party for a few fucking days and forget the shit they'd been mucking through for the last year.
Brian had thought Justin would jump at the chance to get out of the gray and gloomy Pitts for a few days, but he'd been reluctant to request any days off from work. Brian sweetly pointed out that the lost wages would amount to a candy bar, a box of paper clips and a Happy Meal, but Justin remained unconvinced.
It took Justin's boss offering two days of paid vacation (to compensate for his working through several weekends) before the uptight little shit finally agreed to go, which pleased Brian.
About a half hour into the flight, Brian was wondering why he'd ever been pleased. Apparently airports or planes or the fucking altitude made Justin horny as hell, and he'd spent the entire flight time pawing all over Brian. Granted Brian normally encouraged this kind of behavior, but he was trying to finish up some last minute shit on his laptop.
"Jesus Christ, for the last time, get the fuck off me!" Brian growled, throwing Justin's hand back into his own lap.
Justin laughed. "Hundred bucks says you won't be saying that a couple of hours from now."
"I'll probably be thinking it."
Justin laughed even harder at that. "More like Fucking get me off!"
They took a taxi into Manhattan where Brian had booked a suite at the St. Regis. Justin had remained unphased during the drive in, though Brian remembered being somewhat shocked his first time in the city when a taxi ride proved wilder-and more death-defying-than a roller coaster ride. Of course, this wasn't Justin's first time in the city.
Justin was suitably impressed when the concierge showed them to their decadent rooms. The bathroom was done in Italian marble; the living room in lavish Louis XIV. Justin started laughing when the concierge opened the door to the bedroom. The gigantic king-sized bed, draped in shimmering gold fabric, looked like it came straight from the set of an Arabian Nights film "Oh, man, I wish I'd known about this place the last time I vacationed in New York," Justin said.
"You'd still be paying off my credit card," Brian pointed out.
Justin took a running start and launched himself onto the bed, saying, "What's a few thousand more on the pile at this point?"
Brian snorted as he handed the concierge a twenty and requested a hand-culled list of gay night clubs they would enjoy. Brian assumed Justin followed them out of the bedroom, but when he turned away from the door, the living room was empty. Brian stuck his head in the bedroom, but Justin wasn't there either.
Smirking at the sound of running water, Brian headed for the bathroom where Justin was firing up the hot tub. Brian leaned casually against the doorway. "Not even here five minutes, and already your cock's flappin' in the breeze. I knew there was a reason I threw in with you."
"How fuckin' awesome is this?" Justin said, fiddling with the switches on the wall until he found the one that controlled the hot tub jets. "Why the fuck aren't you naked?"
Brian headed for the honor bar. "Someone's gotta get the booze."
Justin laughed when Brian returned with a small bottle of champagne, four beers and ten mini bottles of hard liquor. Justin reached for a beer Brian set on the marble ledge of the tub. "We should pace ourselves."
"Amateur," Brian scoffed as he opened the champagne. He found two flutes on a shelf and emptied the bottle into them. He carried them back to the hot tub and set them on the ledge as well. Then he undressed and settled into the tub with a sigh.
Justin took a long slug of his beer and fit himself into the crook of Brian's arm. "When you're rich again, I'm going to quit my job and be a kept boy," he announced grandly.
"What do you mean when?" Brian asked, making a show of taking in their opulent surroundings.
"You're so not rich right now."
"How do you figure that?"
"I'm still working, aren't I?"
"Well you're not riding my cock, that's for sure."
Justin swung a leg over Brian and teasingly settled down on his lap. "Wanna make a bet?"
"Always after the easy money, you kept boys," Brian said, then downed the rest of his champagne in a single gulp.
Justin brought his face close to Brian's, whispering against Brian's mouth, "There's nothing easy about me."
"Ain't that the truth," Brian muttered, but strangely enough, he didn't sound the least bit unhappy about it.
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They talked about going out to eat, but Justin liked the suite--or more likely the hot tub--so much that he voted they order room service before heading out to the clubs.
Brian was as amenable as he was ever going to be after several energetic fucks so he agreed.
Naked and dripping on what Brian believed to be a Persian rug, Justin scanned the menu. "Oh, sweet! Crab cakes! Let's get those. Ew. There's a cream sauce. Those are totally unreliable. I'll order a bowl of melted butter just in case."
"Your cholesterol has got to be off the charts," Brian called from the hot tub. "Just because you don't have a gut doesn't mean your arteries aren't fucking clogged full of shit."
"Did you know," Justin said conversationally, "That a lot of the time when you're talking to me, what I actually hear is the wah wah wah from a Charlie Brown cartoon?"
"Is it wrong to care so much about your health?" Brian asked with touching insincerity. Justin flipped him off without looking up from the menu. "If you expire in flagrante delicto, I'll be so scarred it'll be three or four days before I have a sex again. I can't let that happen."
Justin cast him an irritated look and rolled his eyes as he waited for room service to answer. "Um hi, I wanted to place an order. Yeah. Okay, an order of the crab cakes and the wings too. Hot. Yeah. And the loaded fries. Yeah, that sounds good. Oh, and my grandpa wanted to know if you had a crudites platter or anything? Great, we'll take that. Oh no, no dip. Gramps is watching his cholesterol. Okay, thanks."
Brian tackled him onto the bed before the phone was back on the hook. Justin screeched with laughter, shouting and squirming against Brian's tormenting fingers. "Stop it! Stop! Don't!" He grabbed Brian's hand and gave him as stern a look as he could muster. "Don't! I hate that!"
Oh yeah, that was going to work on him. Brian rolled over and resumed his torture until Justin swore he was either going to throw up or pee on the bed.
While they ate, they read over the club guide the concierge had provided. "Fifteen dollar cover charge?" Justin said when they found the club Emmett insisted they had to visit. "That's fucked! Forget that place."
"You suck at being kept," Brian said.
"I'm not kept yet," Justin said. "When I'm kept I won't give a shit how much anything costs."
"Let me know when that is--I doubt I'll notice the change on my own."
They cabbed it over to Beige, and it wasn't that the scene was all that different from what they had in the Pitts, it was just kicked up several notches. Whatever your kink, apparently you had to exaggerate it to an outlandish degree or you'd be lost in the sea of human beings. Whether your deal was TOP or BOTTOM, LEATHER, GYM RAT or some other shit, moderation was obviously not the word of the day.
Sheer volume alone dictated that even if it was the same percentage of fuck-worthy guys as back home, the probability of reaching out and landing a hot one was far greater. A foot inside the door, Brian spotted his first of the night. He grabbed the guy by the wrist and kept walking.
"Try not to pick up any ax murderers," Brian said as he prepared to split from a slightly more discerning Justin. "And for fuck's sake don't take a drink from anyone and if someone tries to..."
"Bye, Grampa!" Justin shouted as he picked up his pace to escape from Brian. "I'll miss you! Eat healthy!"
"Fucker," Brian laughed, grabbing his trick again and pushing him toward the back of the club.
"Who's that?" the trick asked.
"My sister's kid," Brian said easily. "He goes to special school so I like to take him out in the world every once in awhile."
"Really?" the guy said, looking back over his shoulder and craning his neck to get another look. "He's hot."
"Yeah, but retarded, so..."
"Man," the guy said, slowly shaking his head in consternation. "You think he's okay there by himself?"
Brian shrugged. "Eh, he lives he lives, he dies he dies."
"I don't know, I think maybe...
Brian pushed the good Samaritan down to his knees. "Suck my cock. If you feel the need to think after that, go right ahead."
Brian and Justin met back by the bar halfway through the evening and debated the merits of sharing a trick. It seemed wasteful to Brian when there was a throng of men ripe for the plucking whom neither one of them had yet to enjoy. Justin agreed in theory, but the investment broker he'd picked up had done things with his mouth and Justin's cock that simply had to be experienced first hand. Brian was of a mind that Justin had an uncanny ability to pick up new sexual techniques, and he would undoubtedly be able to recreate the magic with Brian later. Justin granted that, yes, he was astonishingly talented in that regard and conceded that perhaps Brian was right in suggesting they continue to sample the available goods.
They tabled the discussion when three beautiful men, one of whom, Justin would later swear, had recently played a young mobster in several Sopranos episodes, approached with invitation in their eyes. Brian started to head off with two of them, calling to Justin, "Take good notes, Sonny Boy. Remember to pace yourself."
Justin swung around Brian and picked off the pretend mobster. "You too, Gramps."
Brian shook his head in disgust. "People have no sense of decency these days," he said to his remaining trick.
"That's nothing," said Tall, Dark and Juicy. "Apparently some fucker brought his retarded nephew here tonight and fuckin' left him to fend for himself!"
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It was a little after four when they walked into the suite, still drunk and buzzing from the night's free-for-all.
"Talk about cleaning up! We'd do all right in the big city!" Justin said happily.
"You're quite the metropolitan queer about town, aren't you Sonny Boy?"
"I probably shouldn't've called you over to look at that guy's cock, but I've never seen a piercing like that."
Brian snickered at the memory and said, "Yeah, you were the picture of cool and laid back."
"Shut up. I scored us a free lunch at Andre Chason's. He's got that cooking show on the Food Network! He said to give the Maitre'd our names, and he'd personally prepare our meal."
"Maybe that kept boy thing is going to work out for you after all."
"I thought we could meet there for lunch and then go to MOMA to see the Tattinger exhibit."
"Meet there?" repeated Brian, amused. "You have some appointments in the morning I'm unaware of?"
Justin laughed. He was reclining on top of the bed with his eyes closed. "I was gonna go to the Richard Saunderson gallery and then meet you...later..." He smiled to himself. "That wasn't so hard," he said, then giggled. "Wonder why I couldn't tell you weeks ago?"
Brian stopped his lazy undressing. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Nothing," mumbled Justin. "Just...talking about tomorrow's schedule and stuff."
Brian stared hard at Justin, irritation tightening his chest and accelerating his heart beat. "Which obviously includes something Brian won't like," Brian said, speaking very slowly, as if Justin really was his slow nephew. "Because all of a sudden, Justin's acting like a fucking twat."
Justin was losing the fight to stay awake. "Just a gallery I want to visit. You'll freak... 't's easier not to say anything to you."
Justin fell asleep while Brian was still standing there gaping at him like he'd never seen him before.
What the God damned fuck was this? What the God damned fuck?
It took some time before the buzzing in his ears stopped, and for awhile, Brian moved on autopilot. He brewed a cup of coffee. Did a shot of Beam waiting for it to brew. Added a shot to his first cup. That tasted so good he added a shot to the second as well.
He toyed with all sorts of ideas for Justin's little deception, but all of them were for shit when he could just wake up the fucking sorry-assed loser and make him talk.
Brian kicked the bed a couple of times, but when Justin didn't wake up, he reached over and shook him the fuck awake. "Where the fuck do you get off fuckin' lyin' to me? Tell me where the fuck you get off!"
Justin sat up in alarm, unsure where he was and obviously clueless as to what the hell Brian was talking about. "What the fuck?" he said, squinting at the clock by the bed. "What are you doing?"
Brian laughed cruelly. "Right! Christ, of course you have no idea! You fuckin' lie about everything, how the fuck would you know what I'm talking about without specifics, right Sunshine?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Justin said, still looking around the room as though the clues to Brian's mood could be found somewhere.
Brian spoke in demeaning baby talk. "Does little Justin not remember what we were talking about before he went night night?"
Justin fell back against the pillows and whined, "Brian..."
Brian kicked the bed again. "Let's talk about the gallery you want to visit today, and why the fuck you've been lying about it, how does that sound?"
Justin still looked sleepy and half out of it, so Brian was shocked when he sprang up to a sitting position and shouted, "It's not lying if they make you lie, and you make me lie all the time! We never talk about the bashing! We never talk about it!"
Brian took a couple of steps back. What the fuck? What the hell did the bashing have to do with anything?
"Tell me about the gallery you're visiting today," he said again.
Justin was silent, sitting there on the bed rubbing his eyes with his fists like a fucking three year old. He gnawed on his bottom lip and finally spoke. "In 1993, Richard Saunderson was attacked by three men after leaving a gay bar. They raped him with a beer bottle and stabbed him four times. A couple jogging by broke it up. They happened to be doctors or he would have bled to death in the alley."
It was a good minute or two before Brian could fully fathom the colossal insanity of what Justin had been thinking. He stood there putting the pieces together in his head. Justin had been planning on traipsing off to a gallery devoted to some bash victim. Alone. Fucking brilliant, Sunshine. Fucking brilliant.
"You're fuckin' nuts," Brian muttered when he finally found his voice. "We never talk about the bashing because you still hyperventilate when you happen to catch a baseball game on TV! Parking garages give you nightmares and you flip out watching someone put ketchup on their French fries! You're fucking lucky that Rage is done by computer because if it was by hand the pages would be ruined with all your fuckin' tears, and don't you fucking lie to me and tell me otherwise! How the fuck are you going to look at some fucker's bloody paintings by yourself?"
Justin got up out of bed and went into the bathroom. "So what? So what if I freak out! Maybe I want to know I'm not the only fucking person in the world who thinks the way I do or feels the way I do! God! Sometimes I want to fucking think about what happened to me!"
"Oh Jesus, give me a fucking break!" Brian said, standing in the doorway while Justin took a leak. "I thought we were done with the violin music, but we need some musical background to that maudlin little sentiment."
"You're fucking impossible!" Justin said. He headed into the living room and threw himself down on the couch. "Why can't you just..."
Brian kept pace with him and stood over him in front of the couch. "No! Why can't you fucking just! What is it? Huh? I really want to know what it is. Does it make you feel special? Is that what it is? You get some kind of thrill knowing someone hates you so fucking much they tried to splinter your fucking head? Does that give you some fucking inflated sense of self the great unbashed can't fucking understand?!"
"You can't stand it, can you?" Justin jumped up and yelled. "One fucking thing where you aren't the God damned fucking star of Liberty Avenue, and it fucking eats at you! That's why you want to pretend it never happened because God forbid Queer Pittsburgh stop thinking about Brian Fucking Kinney for one fucking second!" Justin ran back to the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.
"What I can't stand is that you're a fucking liar who's full of shit!" Brian yelled back, stalking after Justin. Brian's face was screwed up into an ugly sneer as he whined outside the bathroom door, "Oh, my boyfriend's so mean! I can't tell him I want to wallow in my fucking victimhood! I'll just lie my fucking ass off until it's too late for him to say anything!"
Justin threw open the bathroom door. "That's not what I'm doing! I didn't lie about anything! Jesus! Don't fucking come to the gallery with me! I don't give a shit what you do!"
"Fuck, you're such a huge, fucking liar you can't even tell the difference between a lie and the truth anymore!"
Justin was heading back to the bedroom, but he stopped and turned around, fists clenched at his side. "I didn't lie about anything!" he shrieked. "Fuck you! You're so fucking crazy! I'm not supposed to remember that I was fuckin' bashed and now I'm not supposed to fuckin' know about other people who were bashed? That's fucked!"
"Oh Christ, that's right! It's been a good, what, 15 seconds since we rehashed The Famous Justin Taylor Bashing! By all means, let's get back to it!"
"Fuck you. FUCK. YOU! You wanna erase what happened to me but you can't! Not ever! Do you hear me? Not ever!"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" Brian screamed.
"It happened!" Justin yelled back, tears streaming down his face. "Fuck you! It happened! It happened! It happened!"
The hinges on the hotel room door made it impossible to get a satisfying slam on the door. Brian marched over to the elevator, headed down to the lobby, then walked straight out the front door.
"Sir, are you sure you want to leave..."
Ignoring the call of the doorman, Brian took off down the street.
God fucking damn shit fuck cunt fuck God damn fuck shit! What the fucking shit? Justin knew the only two things in the fucking God damned universe he couldn't stand were fucking lies and dredging up all that fucking ass shit about the bashing.
It was like he God damned fucking sought out ways drive Brian fucking ass crazy.
Why the fuck couldn't he just fucking forget about it?
They couldn't change anything! There weren't any fucking useless bullshit fuck ass words that would make it any less horrific. There wasn't any fucking thing any of them could do to take away the God damn fucking stink of ruin that fucking bashing caused.
So what was the God damned point of thinking about it?
Would it kill Justin for once in his God damned catered-to life to do something for him? Couldn't he just fucking forget the fucking bashing and tell the God damned fucking truth about shit? They were two fucking measly little things. Would it kill Justin to fucking try?
And Brian knew, he knew he was the last mother fucker on earth with the right to think such fucking utter bullshit. There were a million fucking things he could do-and not do-because they'd make life easier for Justin, but it's not like he was gonna fucking do any of them.
Jesus Christ, they were gonna end up killing each other.
Miles later, Brian let himself back in the room. Justin had pulled the easy chair over by the sliding glass door so he could look down at the city. He was sitting there, leaning forward, his forearms on his knees.
They stared somberly at each other until Justin chuffed a breathy laugh and shook his head. Brian shrugged and rolled his eyes.
Justin stood up and squared his shoulders. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," he said quietly. Brian stepped close to him and tried to cut him off with a finger to his lips, but Justin kept talking as always. "I should have told you three weeks ago when I decided, and we could have fought *then* instead of wasting our time here, and that would have been way more efficient, but..." He trailed off, smiling faintly in response to the growing smile on Brian's face. Brian placed his hands on Justin's cheeks and then moved them back to card through his hair.
"But you're a fuckin' liar," Brian gently finished for him, leaning in to press his cheek to Justin.
"But you're a fuckin' asshole," Justin corrected, equally gently. And Brian thought once again how stupid other people were, because words *were* bullshit. It didn't matter what syllables tripped off your tongue, "Sorry" and "I love you" were always in the tone.
Afterward, while they were still naked and on the floor, Brian decided that if the rug was truly Persian neither one of them would have such nasty rug burns.
"I tell myself all the fucking time that when something comes up, I'll just fuckin' put it out there," Justin said. "I hate fuckin' up the same way over and over again."
Brian said nothing as he stroked Justin's flank. Justin played absentmindedly with Brian's hair, combing his fingers through it and massaging Brian's scalp. Brian grinned to himself thinking he was going to fall asleep any second with his face planted in Justin's groin. Housekeeping would get an eyeful in the morning.
"I know it drives you crazy that you can't undo it. Whenever it comes up it's like...you look... You want to undo it. Make it not have happened. But you can't."
"Yes I can," said Brian, his voice muffled.
Justin gave a gentle laugh as he pet Brian's hair.
Brian nuzzled the soft hairs right below Justin's navel then looked up at his lover, his brown eyes wide. "You said it always goes away when I fuck you." There was a challenge in his tone, a suggestion that Justin hadn't been truthful when he said it.
"It does."
Brian's grin turned feral. "Then all I have to do if fuck you 24/7. I'll fuckin' banish it for good."
Justin laughed affectionately and shook his head, but didn't say anything. Brian lifted an inquisitive eyebrow at him, inviting a response. They stared at each other until Justin shook his head again. "What, like I'm gonna fight that?"
"Which one of us is the practical one again?" Brian asked.
"One of us is practical?"
Brian snorted, but could hardly refute the point.
"Besides, if I wanted practical I'd be with Ted," Justin said, his laughter jostling Brian's head. "Pre-Meth Head, of course."
"Shit. I can fuck away the horrors of a bashing, but the image of Ted Schmidt in bed? I'm not Superman."
"Yes you are," Justin said, and when Brian didn't say anything, Justin mimicked his earlier expression by lifting his own questioning brow.
"What?" Brian said with a shrug. "Like I'm going to fight that?"
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The next morning, Justin ordered breakfast while Brian was in the shower. He looked a little sheepish when he joined Brian in the stall, and well he should have, Brian thought, when the waiter wheeled in a shamefully overloaded cart of food.
"I like breakfast!" Justin said with a shrug. There were waffles and scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, a basket of assorted breads, a fruit plate and cereal as well.
"Oatmeal?" Brian said, lifting one of the stainless steel lids.
"It's so good at a hotel!" Justin raved around a mouthful of Belgian waffle. Brian shook his head as Justin poured cream-mother fucking cream--over a bowl of oatmeal topped with a pile of brown sugar.
"You might as well be eating fucking oatmeal ice cream," Brian said.
Justin shrugged. "It's no worse for you than a croissant," he said, nodding at the roll on Brian's plate. "There's eight hundred pounds of butter in one of those things."
"I bet you a hundred dollars you need CPR before I do," Brian said.
"You're on," Justin said, wiping a sticky hand on his bathrobe before offering it to Brian to seal the deal.
"Alcohol poisoning and drug overdoses don't count," Brian added.
Justin jerked his hand back. "Then no way!"
"Chicken," Brian taunted.
"Mmm, let's have that for lunch!"
Brian pouted his lips. "But I already had some in the shower."
The Saunderson Gallery was in Greenwich Village, so they cabbed it over there. Brian guessed they'd have to take the owners' word for it that this was an up-and-coming art district. Brian's label would have been more along the lines of "long-established drug refuge," but what the hell did he know? Maybe the discarded syringes were performance art.
Justin looked like a man who'd stepped in a pile of dog shit with more on the way. "When I'm a kept man, you're going to buy me a much better gallery than this," he said.
Brian laughed at the assumption. "You'll be lucky if I fix up the shed in Deb's back yard."
"As much as I suck at being kept, you suck much worse at keeping."
Brian cast a sly, sideways glance at Justin. "You're not going anywhere," he said.
Brian ignored his accelerated heart rate, and ten minutes into their visit, he was ready to concede that perhaps he had overreacted slightly. There was nothing in the artwork that hinted at being bashed. As far as Brian could tell there was little in the artwork that hinted at anything. Apparently talent wasn't necessarily a prerequisite to securing a Greenwich Village art gallery.
The last room was called Afterward and contained the artwork that had obviously been inspired by the man's bashing.
The most striking piece was a mural that took up an entire wall. There were nearly a hundred ugly, angry faces, mouths captured in mid-scream as they obviously hurled epithets at an unseen object of their hate.
Brian wanted to vomit.
What could Justin possibly glean from that? How the fuck would that help him make sense of some fucking monster swinging a baseball bat at his head? How would that make it any easier to walk in a world that didn't give a fuck that it ever even happened?
Justin stood at the doorway, giving the collection one final look. Finally he turned to Brian, and lifted his chin in his haughty way that always amused Brian. "I'll say it better," he vowed, and they left and headed over to the Museum of Modern Art.
"I thought he was...ordinary," Brian said when Justin asked him what he thought of the artist. "They throw around words like avante guard, but the words have lost all meaning. I didn't see anything there that was challenging conventional ideas about anything."
Justin nodded along with Brian's words. "Yeah, I'd agree. And the thing is even if you're presenting the opposite of whatever society dictates, they're still dictating to you because you're waiting to see what society dictates, and then you're doing the opposite of it. What's avante guard about that?"
"So tell me, in what fucking universe was that mural empowering? All those people cursing him, condemning him because he's queer? What the fuck is that all about?"
Justin stopped in his tracks and said, "Whoa, that's wild. I thought they were yelling at all the fuckers trying to oppress them." He bumped Brian's shoulder with his own. "You have a persecution complex."
"It's not a complex if they really are out to get you," Brian said dryly.
They were stopped on a corner waiting for the signal to cross when Justin said, "Thanks for coming with me."
The last few blocks they'd pretended like Justin wasn't cringing at the hordes of people rushing toward them on the crowded sidewalks. Brian cast a sidewise look at Justin, but he was staring resolutely at the crossing signal. Brian carelessly shrugged away the thank-you. "I couldn't leave my retarded nephew to fend for himself again, could I?"
Justin nodded slowly in agreement. "You're too good to me."
MOMA was relatively uncrowded for a Saturday, and the room housing the Tattinger sculpture exhibit was pretty empty.
Tattinger was renowned for his oil painting, but it was actually his sculpture that captivated both Brian and Justin. It had been a brief foray for the artist-there were probably less than 25 marble, wood or bronze offerings-but they were astonishing. Each piece was caught in mid-motion, mid-thought, mid-feeling, the work more intimate than a photograph or painting could ever be.
Brian and Justin slowly toured the room, sometimes viewing a piece together, sometimes wandering around solo. Brian had an idea that Justin could've spent three weeks immersing himself in each and every work of art.
At one point, Brian left to take a piss, and when he walked back into the gallery, he stopped short, taken aback by the transcendent look on Justin's face. Jesus Christ, he looked beautiful. Brian bowed his head, momentarily embarrassed by the raw emotion he saw. Sometimes he was ashamed at how numbly he moved through life, especially in the face of Justin's openness. Justin's way seemed... braver somehow.
Brian ambled up behind Justin and slipped his arms around him. He whispered low, his lips brushing against Justin's ear as he spoke, "When you're a kept boy, I'll line your studio with Tattinger sculptures."
They didn't discuss it, but they skipped the clubs that night and got back to the hotel around ten. True to form, Justin was stripped and firing up the hot tub before Brian had hung up his suit jacket. For some reason, it struck Brian as ridiculously funny that he should have hooked up with such an oversexed little shithead.
"What?" Justin asked, standing in the middle of the bubbling jets.
Brian shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "You."
"What!" Justin said, laughing along with Brian in spite of himself.
Brian discarded his shirt on the floor and stalked over to the hot tub. He jumped over the ledge, prompting a surprised shout from Justin. "Your pants are dry clean only!" he said.
"Fuck 'em," Brian growled. He grabbed the back of Justin's head with one large hand and shoved their faces together, devouring Justin's mouth as though he hadn't tasted it in months.
"Oh Jesus," Justin whispered when they came up for air.
Brian kissed him again, the fire and hunger and surrender reminiscent of another kiss in another hotel room. But the throaty chuckle and easy tease were proof that not everything was the same. Brian lifted that familiar, mocking brow at Justin then whispered into his ear, "I like it better when you call me God."
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They left the next morning after another one of Justin's break-the-bank-breakfasts. Brian had to admit there was something about oatmeal made at a restaurant. He was sure they boiled it in heavy cream or something equally toxic, but it was fucking good.
Justin had his head buried in a book before the plane was even in the air. He held the book with his right hand while his left sat absentmindedly on his thigh. Brian cast his eyes sideways, waiting for Justin to realize something was amiss, but he was oblivious to everything but his book. Twice Brian "accidentally" dislodged Justin's arm from their shared armrest, but all Justin did was shift in his seat and verify that his seatbelt was securely fastened.
Jesus Christ, subtlety was wasted on that little fucker.
Finally, with a huff, Brian reached for Justin's left hand and deposited it on his own thigh.
There was little reaction from Justin, save the slightest quirk upward at the corner of his mouth. That could have been amusement. Or maybe he was just getting ready to sneeze. Brian wouldn't bet on it, one way or the other.
Domesticity 6
by Myrna
and featuring the talents of Josselin as The Writer Responsible for All the Good Parts
Brian tried to school the smug look from his face as the first class passengers were invited to board the plane, but the way Justin rolled his eyes and shook his head, he was obviously failing. So what? He'd earned a bit of self-satisfaction.
Six months ago, the idea of their enjoying some spare-no-expense, first-class-all-the-way trip to New York seemed as likely as Ted Schmidt getting laid at a...well fuck, getting laid.
Even now, when the start of his own ad agency could safely be labeled a success, Brian couldn't have paid cash for the weekend he was planning if it weren't for several bonuses that had just come through. It was customary to build into a contract a bonus structure based on a percentage of the increase in sales after a campaign was launched. Brian had kept the bonuses separate from the rest of their finances and was using them to cover the plane tickets, hotel and other expenses they would incur over the weekend.
Fuck the mountain of debt--they were going to party for a few fucking days and forget the shit they'd been mucking through for the last year.
Brian had thought Justin would jump at the chance to get out of the gray and gloomy Pitts for a few days, but he'd been reluctant to request any days off from work. Brian sweetly pointed out that the lost wages would amount to a candy bar, a box of paper clips and a Happy Meal, but Justin remained unconvinced.
It took Justin's boss offering two days of paid vacation (to compensate for his working through several weekends) before the uptight little shit finally agreed to go, which pleased Brian.
About a half hour into the flight, Brian was wondering why he'd ever been pleased. Apparently airports or planes or the fucking altitude made Justin horny as hell, and he'd spent the entire flight time pawing all over Brian. Granted Brian normally encouraged this kind of behavior, but he was trying to finish up some last minute shit on his laptop.
"Jesus Christ, for the last time, get the fuck off me!" Brian growled, throwing Justin's hand back into his own lap.
Justin laughed. "Hundred bucks says you won't be saying that a couple of hours from now."
"I'll probably be thinking it."
Justin laughed even harder at that. "More like Fucking get me off!"
They took a taxi into Manhattan where Brian had booked a suite at the St. Regis. Justin had remained unphased during the drive in, though Brian remembered being somewhat shocked his first time in the city when a taxi ride proved wilder-and more death-defying-than a roller coaster ride. Of course, this wasn't Justin's first time in the city.
Justin was suitably impressed when the concierge showed them to their decadent rooms. The bathroom was done in Italian marble; the living room in lavish Louis XIV. Justin started laughing when the concierge opened the door to the bedroom. The gigantic king-sized bed, draped in shimmering gold fabric, looked like it came straight from the set of an Arabian Nights film "Oh, man, I wish I'd known about this place the last time I vacationed in New York," Justin said.
"You'd still be paying off my credit card," Brian pointed out.
Justin took a running start and launched himself onto the bed, saying, "What's a few thousand more on the pile at this point?"
Brian snorted as he handed the concierge a twenty and requested a hand-culled list of gay night clubs they would enjoy. Brian assumed Justin followed them out of the bedroom, but when he turned away from the door, the living room was empty. Brian stuck his head in the bedroom, but Justin wasn't there either.
Smirking at the sound of running water, Brian headed for the bathroom where Justin was firing up the hot tub. Brian leaned casually against the doorway. "Not even here five minutes, and already your cock's flappin' in the breeze. I knew there was a reason I threw in with you."
"How fuckin' awesome is this?" Justin said, fiddling with the switches on the wall until he found the one that controlled the hot tub jets. "Why the fuck aren't you naked?"
Brian headed for the honor bar. "Someone's gotta get the booze."
Justin laughed when Brian returned with a small bottle of champagne, four beers and ten mini bottles of hard liquor. Justin reached for a beer Brian set on the marble ledge of the tub. "We should pace ourselves."
"Amateur," Brian scoffed as he opened the champagne. He found two flutes on a shelf and emptied the bottle into them. He carried them back to the hot tub and set them on the ledge as well. Then he undressed and settled into the tub with a sigh.
Justin took a long slug of his beer and fit himself into the crook of Brian's arm. "When you're rich again, I'm going to quit my job and be a kept boy," he announced grandly.
"What do you mean when?" Brian asked, making a show of taking in their opulent surroundings.
"You're so not rich right now."
"How do you figure that?"
"I'm still working, aren't I?"
"Well you're not riding my cock, that's for sure."
Justin swung a leg over Brian and teasingly settled down on his lap. "Wanna make a bet?"
"Always after the easy money, you kept boys," Brian said, then downed the rest of his champagne in a single gulp.
Justin brought his face close to Brian's, whispering against Brian's mouth, "There's nothing easy about me."
"Ain't that the truth," Brian muttered, but strangely enough, he didn't sound the least bit unhappy about it.
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They talked about going out to eat, but Justin liked the suite--or more likely the hot tub--so much that he voted they order room service before heading out to the clubs.
Brian was as amenable as he was ever going to be after several energetic fucks so he agreed.
Naked and dripping on what Brian believed to be a Persian rug, Justin scanned the menu. "Oh, sweet! Crab cakes! Let's get those. Ew. There's a cream sauce. Those are totally unreliable. I'll order a bowl of melted butter just in case."
"Your cholesterol has got to be off the charts," Brian called from the hot tub. "Just because you don't have a gut doesn't mean your arteries aren't fucking clogged full of shit."
"Did you know," Justin said conversationally, "That a lot of the time when you're talking to me, what I actually hear is the wah wah wah from a Charlie Brown cartoon?"
"Is it wrong to care so much about your health?" Brian asked with touching insincerity. Justin flipped him off without looking up from the menu. "If you expire in flagrante delicto, I'll be so scarred it'll be three or four days before I have a sex again. I can't let that happen."
Justin cast him an irritated look and rolled his eyes as he waited for room service to answer. "Um hi, I wanted to place an order. Yeah. Okay, an order of the crab cakes and the wings too. Hot. Yeah. And the loaded fries. Yeah, that sounds good. Oh, and my grandpa wanted to know if you had a crudites platter or anything? Great, we'll take that. Oh no, no dip. Gramps is watching his cholesterol. Okay, thanks."
Brian tackled him onto the bed before the phone was back on the hook. Justin screeched with laughter, shouting and squirming against Brian's tormenting fingers. "Stop it! Stop! Don't!" He grabbed Brian's hand and gave him as stern a look as he could muster. "Don't! I hate that!"
Oh yeah, that was going to work on him. Brian rolled over and resumed his torture until Justin swore he was either going to throw up or pee on the bed.
While they ate, they read over the club guide the concierge had provided. "Fifteen dollar cover charge?" Justin said when they found the club Emmett insisted they had to visit. "That's fucked! Forget that place."
"You suck at being kept," Brian said.
"I'm not kept yet," Justin said. "When I'm kept I won't give a shit how much anything costs."
"Let me know when that is--I doubt I'll notice the change on my own."
They cabbed it over to Beige, and it wasn't that the scene was all that different from what they had in the Pitts, it was just kicked up several notches. Whatever your kink, apparently you had to exaggerate it to an outlandish degree or you'd be lost in the sea of human beings. Whether your deal was TOP or BOTTOM, LEATHER, GYM RAT or some other shit, moderation was obviously not the word of the day.
Sheer volume alone dictated that even if it was the same percentage of fuck-worthy guys as back home, the probability of reaching out and landing a hot one was far greater. A foot inside the door, Brian spotted his first of the night. He grabbed the guy by the wrist and kept walking.
"Try not to pick up any ax murderers," Brian said as he prepared to split from a slightly more discerning Justin. "And for fuck's sake don't take a drink from anyone and if someone tries to..."
"Bye, Grampa!" Justin shouted as he picked up his pace to escape from Brian. "I'll miss you! Eat healthy!"
"Fucker," Brian laughed, grabbing his trick again and pushing him toward the back of the club.
"Who's that?" the trick asked.
"My sister's kid," Brian said easily. "He goes to special school so I like to take him out in the world every once in awhile."
"Really?" the guy said, looking back over his shoulder and craning his neck to get another look. "He's hot."
"Yeah, but retarded, so..."
"Man," the guy said, slowly shaking his head in consternation. "You think he's okay there by himself?"
Brian shrugged. "Eh, he lives he lives, he dies he dies."
"I don't know, I think maybe...
Brian pushed the good Samaritan down to his knees. "Suck my cock. If you feel the need to think after that, go right ahead."
Brian and Justin met back by the bar halfway through the evening and debated the merits of sharing a trick. It seemed wasteful to Brian when there was a throng of men ripe for the plucking whom neither one of them had yet to enjoy. Justin agreed in theory, but the investment broker he'd picked up had done things with his mouth and Justin's cock that simply had to be experienced first hand. Brian was of a mind that Justin had an uncanny ability to pick up new sexual techniques, and he would undoubtedly be able to recreate the magic with Brian later. Justin granted that, yes, he was astonishingly talented in that regard and conceded that perhaps Brian was right in suggesting they continue to sample the available goods.
They tabled the discussion when three beautiful men, one of whom, Justin would later swear, had recently played a young mobster in several Sopranos episodes, approached with invitation in their eyes. Brian started to head off with two of them, calling to Justin, "Take good notes, Sonny Boy. Remember to pace yourself."
Justin swung around Brian and picked off the pretend mobster. "You too, Gramps."
Brian shook his head in disgust. "People have no sense of decency these days," he said to his remaining trick.
"That's nothing," said Tall, Dark and Juicy. "Apparently some fucker brought his retarded nephew here tonight and fuckin' left him to fend for himself!"
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It was a little after four when they walked into the suite, still drunk and buzzing from the night's free-for-all.
"Talk about cleaning up! We'd do all right in the big city!" Justin said happily.
"You're quite the metropolitan queer about town, aren't you Sonny Boy?"
"I probably shouldn't've called you over to look at that guy's cock, but I've never seen a piercing like that."
Brian snickered at the memory and said, "Yeah, you were the picture of cool and laid back."
"Shut up. I scored us a free lunch at Andre Chason's. He's got that cooking show on the Food Network! He said to give the Maitre'd our names, and he'd personally prepare our meal."
"Maybe that kept boy thing is going to work out for you after all."
"I thought we could meet there for lunch and then go to MOMA to see the Tattinger exhibit."
"Meet there?" repeated Brian, amused. "You have some appointments in the morning I'm unaware of?"
Justin laughed. He was reclining on top of the bed with his eyes closed. "I was gonna go to the Richard Saunderson gallery and then meet you...later..." He smiled to himself. "That wasn't so hard," he said, then giggled. "Wonder why I couldn't tell you weeks ago?"
Brian stopped his lazy undressing. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Nothing," mumbled Justin. "Just...talking about tomorrow's schedule and stuff."
Brian stared hard at Justin, irritation tightening his chest and accelerating his heart beat. "Which obviously includes something Brian won't like," Brian said, speaking very slowly, as if Justin really was his slow nephew. "Because all of a sudden, Justin's acting like a fucking twat."
Justin was losing the fight to stay awake. "Just a gallery I want to visit. You'll freak... 't's easier not to say anything to you."
Justin fell asleep while Brian was still standing there gaping at him like he'd never seen him before.
What the God damned fuck was this? What the God damned fuck?
It took some time before the buzzing in his ears stopped, and for awhile, Brian moved on autopilot. He brewed a cup of coffee. Did a shot of Beam waiting for it to brew. Added a shot to his first cup. That tasted so good he added a shot to the second as well.
He toyed with all sorts of ideas for Justin's little deception, but all of them were for shit when he could just wake up the fucking sorry-assed loser and make him talk.
Brian kicked the bed a couple of times, but when Justin didn't wake up, he reached over and shook him the fuck awake. "Where the fuck do you get off fuckin' lyin' to me? Tell me where the fuck you get off!"
Justin sat up in alarm, unsure where he was and obviously clueless as to what the hell Brian was talking about. "What the fuck?" he said, squinting at the clock by the bed. "What are you doing?"
Brian laughed cruelly. "Right! Christ, of course you have no idea! You fuckin' lie about everything, how the fuck would you know what I'm talking about without specifics, right Sunshine?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Justin said, still looking around the room as though the clues to Brian's mood could be found somewhere.
Brian spoke in demeaning baby talk. "Does little Justin not remember what we were talking about before he went night night?"
Justin fell back against the pillows and whined, "Brian..."
Brian kicked the bed again. "Let's talk about the gallery you want to visit today, and why the fuck you've been lying about it, how does that sound?"
Justin still looked sleepy and half out of it, so Brian was shocked when he sprang up to a sitting position and shouted, "It's not lying if they make you lie, and you make me lie all the time! We never talk about the bashing! We never talk about it!"
Brian took a couple of steps back. What the fuck? What the hell did the bashing have to do with anything?
"Tell me about the gallery you're visiting today," he said again.
Justin was silent, sitting there on the bed rubbing his eyes with his fists like a fucking three year old. He gnawed on his bottom lip and finally spoke. "In 1993, Richard Saunderson was attacked by three men after leaving a gay bar. They raped him with a beer bottle and stabbed him four times. A couple jogging by broke it up. They happened to be doctors or he would have bled to death in the alley."
It was a good minute or two before Brian could fully fathom the colossal insanity of what Justin had been thinking. He stood there putting the pieces together in his head. Justin had been planning on traipsing off to a gallery devoted to some bash victim. Alone. Fucking brilliant, Sunshine. Fucking brilliant.
"You're fuckin' nuts," Brian muttered when he finally found his voice. "We never talk about the bashing because you still hyperventilate when you happen to catch a baseball game on TV! Parking garages give you nightmares and you flip out watching someone put ketchup on their French fries! You're fucking lucky that Rage is done by computer because if it was by hand the pages would be ruined with all your fuckin' tears, and don't you fucking lie to me and tell me otherwise! How the fuck are you going to look at some fucker's bloody paintings by yourself?"
Justin got up out of bed and went into the bathroom. "So what? So what if I freak out! Maybe I want to know I'm not the only fucking person in the world who thinks the way I do or feels the way I do! God! Sometimes I want to fucking think about what happened to me!"
"Oh Jesus, give me a fucking break!" Brian said, standing in the doorway while Justin took a leak. "I thought we were done with the violin music, but we need some musical background to that maudlin little sentiment."
"You're fucking impossible!" Justin said. He headed into the living room and threw himself down on the couch. "Why can't you just..."
Brian kept pace with him and stood over him in front of the couch. "No! Why can't you fucking just! What is it? Huh? I really want to know what it is. Does it make you feel special? Is that what it is? You get some kind of thrill knowing someone hates you so fucking much they tried to splinter your fucking head? Does that give you some fucking inflated sense of self the great unbashed can't fucking understand?!"
"You can't stand it, can you?" Justin jumped up and yelled. "One fucking thing where you aren't the God damned fucking star of Liberty Avenue, and it fucking eats at you! That's why you want to pretend it never happened because God forbid Queer Pittsburgh stop thinking about Brian Fucking Kinney for one fucking second!" Justin ran back to the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.
"What I can't stand is that you're a fucking liar who's full of shit!" Brian yelled back, stalking after Justin. Brian's face was screwed up into an ugly sneer as he whined outside the bathroom door, "Oh, my boyfriend's so mean! I can't tell him I want to wallow in my fucking victimhood! I'll just lie my fucking ass off until it's too late for him to say anything!"
Justin threw open the bathroom door. "That's not what I'm doing! I didn't lie about anything! Jesus! Don't fucking come to the gallery with me! I don't give a shit what you do!"
"Fuck, you're such a huge, fucking liar you can't even tell the difference between a lie and the truth anymore!"
Justin was heading back to the bedroom, but he stopped and turned around, fists clenched at his side. "I didn't lie about anything!" he shrieked. "Fuck you! You're so fucking crazy! I'm not supposed to remember that I was fuckin' bashed and now I'm not supposed to fuckin' know about other people who were bashed? That's fucked!"
"Oh Christ, that's right! It's been a good, what, 15 seconds since we rehashed The Famous Justin Taylor Bashing! By all means, let's get back to it!"
"Fuck you. FUCK. YOU! You wanna erase what happened to me but you can't! Not ever! Do you hear me? Not ever!"
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" Brian screamed.
"It happened!" Justin yelled back, tears streaming down his face. "Fuck you! It happened! It happened! It happened!"
The hinges on the hotel room door made it impossible to get a satisfying slam on the door. Brian marched over to the elevator, headed down to the lobby, then walked straight out the front door.
"Sir, are you sure you want to leave..."
Ignoring the call of the doorman, Brian took off down the street.
God fucking damn shit fuck cunt fuck God damn fuck shit! What the fucking shit? Justin knew the only two things in the fucking God damned universe he couldn't stand were fucking lies and dredging up all that fucking ass shit about the bashing.
It was like he God damned fucking sought out ways drive Brian fucking ass crazy.
Why the fuck couldn't he just fucking forget about it?
They couldn't change anything! There weren't any fucking useless bullshit fuck ass words that would make it any less horrific. There wasn't any fucking thing any of them could do to take away the God damn fucking stink of ruin that fucking bashing caused.
So what was the God damned point of thinking about it?
Would it kill Justin for once in his God damned catered-to life to do something for him? Couldn't he just fucking forget the fucking bashing and tell the God damned fucking truth about shit? They were two fucking measly little things. Would it kill Justin to fucking try?
And Brian knew, he knew he was the last mother fucker on earth with the right to think such fucking utter bullshit. There were a million fucking things he could do-and not do-because they'd make life easier for Justin, but it's not like he was gonna fucking do any of them.
Jesus Christ, they were gonna end up killing each other.
Miles later, Brian let himself back in the room. Justin had pulled the easy chair over by the sliding glass door so he could look down at the city. He was sitting there, leaning forward, his forearms on his knees.
They stared somberly at each other until Justin chuffed a breathy laugh and shook his head. Brian shrugged and rolled his eyes.
Justin stood up and squared his shoulders. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," he said quietly. Brian stepped close to him and tried to cut him off with a finger to his lips, but Justin kept talking as always. "I should have told you three weeks ago when I decided, and we could have fought *then* instead of wasting our time here, and that would have been way more efficient, but..." He trailed off, smiling faintly in response to the growing smile on Brian's face. Brian placed his hands on Justin's cheeks and then moved them back to card through his hair.
"But you're a fuckin' liar," Brian gently finished for him, leaning in to press his cheek to Justin.
"But you're a fuckin' asshole," Justin corrected, equally gently. And Brian thought once again how stupid other people were, because words *were* bullshit. It didn't matter what syllables tripped off your tongue, "Sorry" and "I love you" were always in the tone.
Afterward, while they were still naked and on the floor, Brian decided that if the rug was truly Persian neither one of them would have such nasty rug burns.
"I tell myself all the fucking time that when something comes up, I'll just fuckin' put it out there," Justin said. "I hate fuckin' up the same way over and over again."
Brian said nothing as he stroked Justin's flank. Justin played absentmindedly with Brian's hair, combing his fingers through it and massaging Brian's scalp. Brian grinned to himself thinking he was going to fall asleep any second with his face planted in Justin's groin. Housekeeping would get an eyeful in the morning.
"I know it drives you crazy that you can't undo it. Whenever it comes up it's like...you look... You want to undo it. Make it not have happened. But you can't."
"Yes I can," said Brian, his voice muffled.
Justin gave a gentle laugh as he pet Brian's hair.
Brian nuzzled the soft hairs right below Justin's navel then looked up at his lover, his brown eyes wide. "You said it always goes away when I fuck you." There was a challenge in his tone, a suggestion that Justin hadn't been truthful when he said it.
"It does."
Brian's grin turned feral. "Then all I have to do if fuck you 24/7. I'll fuckin' banish it for good."
Justin laughed affectionately and shook his head, but didn't say anything. Brian lifted an inquisitive eyebrow at him, inviting a response. They stared at each other until Justin shook his head again. "What, like I'm gonna fight that?"
"Which one of us is the practical one again?" Brian asked.
"One of us is practical?"
Brian snorted, but could hardly refute the point.
"Besides, if I wanted practical I'd be with Ted," Justin said, his laughter jostling Brian's head. "Pre-Meth Head, of course."
"Shit. I can fuck away the horrors of a bashing, but the image of Ted Schmidt in bed? I'm not Superman."
"Yes you are," Justin said, and when Brian didn't say anything, Justin mimicked his earlier expression by lifting his own questioning brow.
"What?" Brian said with a shrug. "Like I'm going to fight that?"
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The next morning, Justin ordered breakfast while Brian was in the shower. He looked a little sheepish when he joined Brian in the stall, and well he should have, Brian thought, when the waiter wheeled in a shamefully overloaded cart of food.
"I like breakfast!" Justin said with a shrug. There were waffles and scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, a basket of assorted breads, a fruit plate and cereal as well.
"Oatmeal?" Brian said, lifting one of the stainless steel lids.
"It's so good at a hotel!" Justin raved around a mouthful of Belgian waffle. Brian shook his head as Justin poured cream-mother fucking cream--over a bowl of oatmeal topped with a pile of brown sugar.
"You might as well be eating fucking oatmeal ice cream," Brian said.
Justin shrugged. "It's no worse for you than a croissant," he said, nodding at the roll on Brian's plate. "There's eight hundred pounds of butter in one of those things."
"I bet you a hundred dollars you need CPR before I do," Brian said.
"You're on," Justin said, wiping a sticky hand on his bathrobe before offering it to Brian to seal the deal.
"Alcohol poisoning and drug overdoses don't count," Brian added.
Justin jerked his hand back. "Then no way!"
"Chicken," Brian taunted.
"Mmm, let's have that for lunch!"
Brian pouted his lips. "But I already had some in the shower."
The Saunderson Gallery was in Greenwich Village, so they cabbed it over there. Brian guessed they'd have to take the owners' word for it that this was an up-and-coming art district. Brian's label would have been more along the lines of "long-established drug refuge," but what the hell did he know? Maybe the discarded syringes were performance art.
Justin looked like a man who'd stepped in a pile of dog shit with more on the way. "When I'm a kept man, you're going to buy me a much better gallery than this," he said.
Brian laughed at the assumption. "You'll be lucky if I fix up the shed in Deb's back yard."
"As much as I suck at being kept, you suck much worse at keeping."
Brian cast a sly, sideways glance at Justin. "You're not going anywhere," he said.
Brian ignored his accelerated heart rate, and ten minutes into their visit, he was ready to concede that perhaps he had overreacted slightly. There was nothing in the artwork that hinted at being bashed. As far as Brian could tell there was little in the artwork that hinted at anything. Apparently talent wasn't necessarily a prerequisite to securing a Greenwich Village art gallery.
The last room was called Afterward and contained the artwork that had obviously been inspired by the man's bashing.
The most striking piece was a mural that took up an entire wall. There were nearly a hundred ugly, angry faces, mouths captured in mid-scream as they obviously hurled epithets at an unseen object of their hate.
Brian wanted to vomit.
What could Justin possibly glean from that? How the fuck would that help him make sense of some fucking monster swinging a baseball bat at his head? How would that make it any easier to walk in a world that didn't give a fuck that it ever even happened?
Justin stood at the doorway, giving the collection one final look. Finally he turned to Brian, and lifted his chin in his haughty way that always amused Brian. "I'll say it better," he vowed, and they left and headed over to the Museum of Modern Art.
"I thought he was...ordinary," Brian said when Justin asked him what he thought of the artist. "They throw around words like avante guard, but the words have lost all meaning. I didn't see anything there that was challenging conventional ideas about anything."
Justin nodded along with Brian's words. "Yeah, I'd agree. And the thing is even if you're presenting the opposite of whatever society dictates, they're still dictating to you because you're waiting to see what society dictates, and then you're doing the opposite of it. What's avante guard about that?"
"So tell me, in what fucking universe was that mural empowering? All those people cursing him, condemning him because he's queer? What the fuck is that all about?"
Justin stopped in his tracks and said, "Whoa, that's wild. I thought they were yelling at all the fuckers trying to oppress them." He bumped Brian's shoulder with his own. "You have a persecution complex."
"It's not a complex if they really are out to get you," Brian said dryly.
They were stopped on a corner waiting for the signal to cross when Justin said, "Thanks for coming with me."
The last few blocks they'd pretended like Justin wasn't cringing at the hordes of people rushing toward them on the crowded sidewalks. Brian cast a sidewise look at Justin, but he was staring resolutely at the crossing signal. Brian carelessly shrugged away the thank-you. "I couldn't leave my retarded nephew to fend for himself again, could I?"
Justin nodded slowly in agreement. "You're too good to me."
MOMA was relatively uncrowded for a Saturday, and the room housing the Tattinger sculpture exhibit was pretty empty.
Tattinger was renowned for his oil painting, but it was actually his sculpture that captivated both Brian and Justin. It had been a brief foray for the artist-there were probably less than 25 marble, wood or bronze offerings-but they were astonishing. Each piece was caught in mid-motion, mid-thought, mid-feeling, the work more intimate than a photograph or painting could ever be.
Brian and Justin slowly toured the room, sometimes viewing a piece together, sometimes wandering around solo. Brian had an idea that Justin could've spent three weeks immersing himself in each and every work of art.
At one point, Brian left to take a piss, and when he walked back into the gallery, he stopped short, taken aback by the transcendent look on Justin's face. Jesus Christ, he looked beautiful. Brian bowed his head, momentarily embarrassed by the raw emotion he saw. Sometimes he was ashamed at how numbly he moved through life, especially in the face of Justin's openness. Justin's way seemed... braver somehow.
Brian ambled up behind Justin and slipped his arms around him. He whispered low, his lips brushing against Justin's ear as he spoke, "When you're a kept boy, I'll line your studio with Tattinger sculptures."
They didn't discuss it, but they skipped the clubs that night and got back to the hotel around ten. True to form, Justin was stripped and firing up the hot tub before Brian had hung up his suit jacket. For some reason, it struck Brian as ridiculously funny that he should have hooked up with such an oversexed little shithead.
"What?" Justin asked, standing in the middle of the bubbling jets.
Brian shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "You."
"What!" Justin said, laughing along with Brian in spite of himself.
Brian discarded his shirt on the floor and stalked over to the hot tub. He jumped over the ledge, prompting a surprised shout from Justin. "Your pants are dry clean only!" he said.
"Fuck 'em," Brian growled. He grabbed the back of Justin's head with one large hand and shoved their faces together, devouring Justin's mouth as though he hadn't tasted it in months.
"Oh Jesus," Justin whispered when they came up for air.
Brian kissed him again, the fire and hunger and surrender reminiscent of another kiss in another hotel room. But the throaty chuckle and easy tease were proof that not everything was the same. Brian lifted that familiar, mocking brow at Justin then whispered into his ear, "I like it better when you call me God."
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They left the next morning after another one of Justin's break-the-bank-breakfasts. Brian had to admit there was something about oatmeal made at a restaurant. He was sure they boiled it in heavy cream or something equally toxic, but it was fucking good.
Justin had his head buried in a book before the plane was even in the air. He held the book with his right hand while his left sat absentmindedly on his thigh. Brian cast his eyes sideways, waiting for Justin to realize something was amiss, but he was oblivious to everything but his book. Twice Brian "accidentally" dislodged Justin's arm from their shared armrest, but all Justin did was shift in his seat and verify that his seatbelt was securely fastened.
Jesus Christ, subtlety was wasted on that little fucker.
Finally, with a huff, Brian reached for Justin's left hand and deposited it on his own thigh.
There was little reaction from Justin, save the slightest quirk upward at the corner of his mouth. That could have been amusement. Or maybe he was just getting ready to sneeze. Brian wouldn't bet on it, one way or the other.