Communication, Kinney Style
TITLE: Communication, Kinney-Style
Background: I (fansee) wrote this as my 2013 qaf_giftxchnge gift to delvalmom, but I was never completely satisfied with the version I posted. (Is any writer ever completely satisfied? Probably not.) Anyway, this version has been revised, rewritten in part, and renamed. I hope you like the result.
You may compare the two versions if you want by going to qaf-giftxchnge.livejournal.com and looking for “Mad Communication Skills - Or Not.” While you are there, look around. You’ll find lots of excellent fics, vids, and graphics that were gifted last year.
NOTES: 1.) Almost 5,000 words. Get your cup of tea before you start reading.
2.) No animals were harmed in the writing of this fic.
“So there I was,” Justin said, “giving Daphne the Grand Tour of Brian’s loft. I say, ‘I want to show you the picture of the naked man.’ Right then, like we planned it, Brian slides back one of the screens to the bedroom, and Daphne gets a full frontal of a living naked man, and he’s sporting a little morning wood.”
Eric hooted with laughter. “Omigod! What the fuck did she do?”
“She was pretty cool for a 17-year-old getting by her first look at a mature guy with a hard on. She looked away pretty quickly, but I caught her sneaking little glimpses.”
“Jesus, Justin, giving tours? I don’t know how the hell Brian put up with you. He was how old? And you were what? 17?”
“Brian turned 30 that same year and, yes, I was 17. I dunno…if you asked him, he’d have said I was a hot fuck, but…you know…he was pretty patient. I definitely interfered with his life style.”
“I’m sure you did.” Eric grinned at his roommate. “For damn sure you did. But you know what I wonder about…?”
“You’re going to tell me, right?”
“We’ve been roomies for 18 months now…”
“You, me, your sister Lisa and her girl friend, Nicole….”
“And you must have told me a hundred stories about Brian, but you never told me why you guys broke up.”
“It’s complicated.” Justin paused. “We didn’t exactly break up….”
“But you aren’t together.”
“What happened was, I got here and I moved in with Daphne’s friend, LaToyah. Right away I started looking around for work space. Of course, while I’m doing this I’m e-mailing Brian with my address and I’m telling him about my hunt for work space and the galleries I’ve gone to: all that sort of shit. He writes back, wanting to know what clubs I’ve been to and whether the guys are hot and if I’ve fucked anybody. I haven’t because I don’t want to spend a penny I don’t have until I find work space and figure out what I’m doing….”
“And you hadn’t started waitering at Vincenzo’s yet.”
“No Vincenzo’s, no money coming in, but meanwhile I’m paying rent to LaToyah and eating a lot of pizza. I’ve been here maybe six weeks and I get this e-mail from Brian. He says he’s paid for a semester for me at the School of Visual Arts. My first reaction is NO! but he goes on to say that he doesn’t care whether I get a degree or not…although he thinks that’s a good idea…but that the Continuing Education program looks good to him. To be truthful, it looked good to me, too, and after I started classes there, I got some good leads on studio space. That’s how I ended up in the Mackie Building along with all the other starving artists. Everything came together all at once…my work space, a stint as a barista at O’Doyles, then meeting your sister and Nicole at The Bike Stop…."
“Only you, Justin, could go out to a gay bar and come home with two lesbians.”
“I know, right? And end up sharing this place with Lisa, Nicole, and Lisa’s straight brother.”
“Your chance to see how the straight half lives.”
“Not to mention more than I ever wanted to know about the life of lesbians.”
“Tell me about it.” Eric gave a snort. “Meanwhile, you and Brian…?”
“Me and Brian: nothing. I kept on e-mailing and IMing him, but his answers got shorter and farther apart. Then I got a call from Brian’s BFF, Michael, real upset, saying that Brian was moving to Chicago....”
“Michael and Brian were also…uh…like…?”
Straight guys! Couldn’t just ask if two guys were fucking. “No. Never. Just friends, but they went back to high school.”
Eric nodded his understanding. Justin continued, “So I already knew Brian had sold his ad agency to a guy in Chicago for a shitload of money, but now Michael is telling me the Chicago guy had hired Brian to come out there and head up Creative for his whole organization. Michael was almost in tears, but I was pissed off. Five years together, and he can’t take the time to send me an email saying he’d joined Clark-Price?”
“Clark Price is the guy who bought Brian’s ad agency?”
“No. That’s the name of his agency…or rather it’s the names of the first two agencies the guy bought when he was just getting started building his empire. His name is Hank Henry. Anyway, I sent Brian a pissed-off email, and I get back one of those automatic response e-mails. This one says something like, ‘Use of this email address has been discontinued. Please contact Brian A. Kinney via his Clark-Price address. Do not reply to this e-mail - it is not configured to receive responses.’
“Bummer.” There was a thoughtful silence. “Maybe he just was trying to keep junk email out of his new mailbox.”
“Yeah. And maybe that was his way of letting me know we were history. I haven’t seen him since I moved in with you guys, and that fucking e-mail was the last time I heard from him. We had some good times, but they’re over. Finished. Done. The fucking end.”
Well, that wasn’t the whole story. I had seen Brian one more time before Michael dropped the Chicago bomb .
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Of course he had gone back to Pittsburgh for Babylon’s reopening, almost exactly a year after the bombing. Brian hadn’t let him know, but his mother had and so had Michael…and Debbie…and Emmett…and practically every other soul he knew in Pittsburgh. So he’d flown home, put on his tightest T-shirt and the pair of jeans that fitted best, and gone to Babylon. He stood in line with the other no-name schmucks until Ted came along, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him past the doorkeeper.
They stood together for a couple of minutes at the edge of the dance floor, the music breaking over them like rough surf, the glitter swirling in the air and sticking to sweaty bodies, and Brian up on the platform, swaying to the music. He looked, Justin thought, like he was in his proper place, the place where he belonged.
Ted watched Justin sympathetically, then he moved so that his mouth was close to Justin’s ear. He said, “I learned something this year. I learned that I’m not a half waiting for someone to make me a whole. I’m a complete person all on my own, and so are you, Justin.”
Justin pulled him into a hug and said, “Love you, Ted.”
“Love you, too,” and as he started threading his way through the mob, he turned and raised his hand to Justin.
Justin grinned back at Ted, then looked at the platform again. Michael had joined Brian there, and they were moving together, just like old times. Justin watched for five, maybe ten minutes, while they danced, then Michael kissed Brian and jumped down. Brian danced on alone, solitary but not incomplete: content.
As he stood on the edge of the dance floor, the music sang through Justin and he felt, rather than heard, the words, “What have you done today to feel proud?” He knew, suddenly, what that action was, and he raised his hand and waved. He didn’t wave to Ted or Brian or anyone specific, he waved to Babylon and all that it represented. Then he turned and walked out into the cold Pittsburgh air and started looking for a taxi to take him back to the airport.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Meanwhile, a year later, in Pittsburgh Debbie’s dinner shift was half done, but something was very, very wrong. She’d been having female problems for at least the last year, but she had it under control, hadn’t had to see a doctor or anything. First she’d started to wear a ‘night protection’ pad all the time, because she never knew when she start spotting - although it wasn’t really ‘spotting’ - she called it that so Carl wouldn’t worry - then she started using a tampon and a pad. Now even that wasn’t enough to be safe, so she wore Depends over the pad and sometimes…well, more like all the time…more than one tampon.
This evening, as she rushed out of the house, she realized she was all out of Depends. Oh, well, she thought, I’ve been doing pretty well the last couple of days, and I’m late already.
That was a mistake, she thought now. A huge mistake. “Trixie, I’m not feeling well. I may have to go home.”
As Trixie turned toward her, the heaviness in Debbie’s gut moved, and there was a gush of blood and clots. Trixie looked at her in horror, while Debbie felt blood running down her leg.
“You better call Carl,” Debbie said.
Trixie picked up the phone. “Fuck Carl,” she said. “I’m calling 911. You look like you’re going to pass out.”
Debbie sat down gingerly. Trixie said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get some rags from the kitchen.”
Debbie put her head down on the table. She did feel a little dizzy and as if she might really faint. She shut her eyes, not wanting to see the horrified faces of the patrons. The diner, she realized, was silent. No one was talking; there wasn’t even the normal clatter of cutlery and the clinking of china and glassware. She started to drift, as though she was falling asleep, until finally she heard sirens in the distance.
From then on, other people took charge, and Debbie let them, with only the feeblest of arguments. The EMTs brought a gurney right into Liberty Diner - that resulted in some hasty rearrangements of tables and chairs - then she was being slid, still on the gurney, into to the ambulance. Next she was being trundled into Magee-Woman’s Hospital Emergency Room. “What the fuck, I’m not having a baby.”
A good-looking orderly/nurse/doctor - How the hell can you tell them apart now that nurses no longer wear those funny little hats? - said, “We’ll take good care of you. You’re in the right place,” and then she was being transferred, with another gush of blood, from the gurney to a bed.
Someone asked her what her blood type was, and she said, “Oh, fuck, I forget. Maybe Carl knows.”
Someone said, “Carl?”
Another someone said, “Horvath. He’s her husband. He’s on his way.”
Debbie said, “Partner. He’s not my husband, he’s my partner. Can’t get married yet.” But it was good to know he’d be here to take care of everything. She could depend on Carl.
Somebody said, “Get an IV started anyway.”
Seconds later, she heard Carl’s voice saying, “I’m her husband, let me in,” and then his rough hand was squeezing hers.
She said, “What the fuck, Carl?” meaning, Why did you say ‘husband’?
He said, “What the fuck indeed. I’ve been after you for months to see a doctor. I’ve been so worried about you.”
“I know, I know.” She squeezed his hand, shut her eyes and let go. She could relax now that Carl was here.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Justin looked out the window, down on what he was pretty sure was the western suburbs of Pittsburgh. The landscape was sere and bleak, grey trimmed with patches of snow.
He had talked to his mom from the airport right before he boarded the plane. Jennifer was at the hospital, in the surgical waiting room with Carl, Emmett, and Michael, she said, and Debbie was in the operating room. They hadn’t heard anything from the surgeon yet, not how she was doing or what Dr. Chen had found. Justin looked at his watch again. This flight is the fucking longest four hour trip I’ve ever taken.
He hadn’t wanted to ask his mother about Brian and whether he was coming in to see Debbie - how could he not? - but Jennifer had volunteered the information. She had called Brian as soon as they were sure Debbie would be operated on today, and he had flown in from Chicago late last night. “He should be here at the hospital any minute now,” she said. “I just spoke to him, and he was about to leave the Marriott. Do you want to hold on, and you can speak to him when he gets here?”
“I can’t ,” he said, “My plane is boarding now.” As in, he had to get down the ramp right this fucking minute or they’d close the doors on him.
For what must have been the thousandth time, Justin thought about how he should handle this meeting with Brian. This now-inevitable meeting. Brian’s already in Pittsburgh, so I’ll see him today at the hospital. What am I going to say to him after all these months of non-communication? “Long time, no see?” “Howdy, stranger?” Or “Fuck you, Brian!” Yeah, that last one sounds like a good start. If I get the chance, I'll have plenty more to say after that.
Justin shut his eyes, envisioning the scene at the hospital. Will I get the chance? Everybody will take turns covering the hospital today and probably tonight: Michael, Ben, Carl, and…yes…Brian, so we won’t have much chance for a private conversation. In public I’ll be polite, but not friendly. Cool. I’ll keep my hands in my pockets, say ‘Hi, good to see you, have a good trip?’ then not pay any more attention to him.
Somehow, Justin felt that touching Brian, even just to shake hands, would be a bad idea. Why it would be a bad idea…that wasn’t something he was going to think about right now.
He looked out the window again, and the ground was much closer. He couldn’t see the airport yet, but they must be coming in for a landing. His tray table was up, his seat was in the upright position, and his seat belt was on: all actions he’d taken 45 minutes ago in the hopes that being ready for landing would speed up the plane’s arrival. Magical behavior, he knew, but there was always the outside chance that this time the magic would work.
He felt the thump of the landing gear being lowered, then…shortly…the much bigger thump and bounce of a good landing. He had his cell phone in his hand and his mother on speed dial. “Dialing”…”Dialing”…”Connecting.”
“Hi, honey. Dr. Chen just came out. She was very cheerful…said Debbie did well and should have a good recovery. They’ll know more after they get the results of the biopsies, but it looks like they got it all. That’s a really good thing with uterine cancer…she may not need radiation or chemo.”
“Omigod. Thank heavens.”
“I wish you’d been here to see the doctor. She’s a little thing and so cute. On her way back to the O.R. after she talked to us, she gave a little skip and said, ‘I love my job.’”
Which was all very well and good, but Justin wasn’t really interested in Dr. Chen’s enthusiasm for her job. “Brian?”
“He’s here, of course. Well, he’s not here, in the hospital. As soon as we got the first word that Debbie was O.K. - before Dr. Chen came out - he left. I think he went out for a cigarette.”
“Okay. The plane is down and I have my carry-on with me, so I should be there very soon.”
“There’s no hurry, honey. Debbie has to go down to the ICU, and even then, she’ll be completely out of it for hours. You know she’s all right, so don’t rush.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too, honey.”
As he wrestled his wheelie-bag out of the overhead compartment, navigated the plane’s narrow aisle, hustled up the ramp and located a Men’s Room, Justin concentrated on not thinking about what would happen when he got to the hospital and saw Brian. You’ve been over every possible scenario, he thought, every possible combination of people who could be in the waiting room, the chance that Brian will be there alone…. He shuddered. That won't happen. Emmett, Ted, and Michael, they'll all want to see Brian, do some catching up. They’ll want to hang around after they’d seen Debbie. Carl had told him he could bunk at their house, so he could slip away any time, avoid potentially awkward situations if he wanted to. Which I do, right?
He hurried along the People Mover, zipping past more passive travelers on his right. He could see the Information Desk ahead and beside it…a tall, slender figure in boots, jeans, and an expensive leather jacket. I knew this might happen. When Mom told me he wasn’t at the hospital, I guessed. I just didn’t want to think about it.
He slowed down. Brian was already moving toward him with the long, fluid stride Justin remembered so well. He stopped, and then Brian was pulling him close, their bodies touching all down Justin’s body. Justin froze. He breathed in Brian’s scent: cigarettes, leather, expensive cologne, and the unique scent that was Brian’s body. He turned his head to one side and tried to step back.
Brian’s hand was on his chin, gently turning his face up toward Brian’s. Justin shut his eyes. He didn’t want to look at that generous, sensual mouth or the dark eyes smiling at him. I should pull away. I should just start walking for the cab stand. He didn’t.
The kiss was gentle, a feathering along his cheek to his lips, then just a touch of tongue slipped between his lips. He jerked, but Brian was already straightening up, giving him room to catch his breath. Brian said, “C’mon. I’m at the Marriott.”
“Fuck you, Brian.” It didn’t come out as forcefully as it had in his rehearsals. “I’m going to the hospital now.”
“No point. I talked to Michael while I was waiting for you, and he said Debbie hadn’t gone down to the ICU yet.”
Of course that was exactly what his mother had said, but he had to try. “Doesn’t matter. I told my mom I was going straight to the hospital.”
“Aside from the fact that you could pull out your cell right now and call her with your change of plans, I told Michael we were stopping by my hotel first.”
“I suppose you think that when we get to the Marriott we’re going to…fuck?” The last word was snarled.
Brian curled his lips inward. “Your first words to me were, ‘Fuck you.’ I thought that was your agenda.”
Justin yanked open the door to the front seat of Brian’s convertible as Brian put his carry on in the trunk. “It wasn’t. I’m not like you, Brian. I don’t fuck strangers.“
Brian looked down as put the key into the ignition. “You used to,” he said softly.
“I was seventeen and stupid. I’m older and smarter now.”
Justin was quiet until Brian pulled through the toll booth and paid. Then he said, “What the fuck was that business about not answering my e-mails and messages, never once getting on a plane and coming to see me. You couldn’t even find the time to tell me about your two huge life-changing decisions.”
“I kept up with you until you found a work room and had a part-time job as a barista and were taking a couple of classes….”
“Which made a huge difference. Thanks again for that.”
Brian shrugged. “At that point, I knew it was time to cut the ties that bind. You were ready to move on, make your own life. So….”
“Right. So you sold Kinnetik, moved to Chicago, all without telling me, then let me know we were really over with that fucking cold brush-off e-mail you sent me. Now you act like we’re going to pick up as if nothing ever happened? I don’t fucking think so, asshole.”
Brian shot him a sharp look. “Wait a second! What fucking brush-off e-mail? I haven’t e-mailed you since I moved.”
“And you’re proud of it? I’ve saved the damn e-mail; I’ll read it to you.” Justin fussed with his cell for a moment, then read, ’ ‘Use of this email address has been discontinued. Please contact Brian A. Kinney via his Clark-Price address.’ That’s bad enough, but this is the best part: 'Do not reply to this e-mail - it is not configured to receive responses.’
“Justin, you know as well as I do that that’s just an auto-response e-mail. It wasn’t directed at you. Hell, I had no idea you got it.”
“That’s the point! You move, you get a new e-mail address, you program a message to go out to everybody who e-mails your old address: I understand that part. Then you go through your old address book and send another message to everybody you still want to keep in touch with. Is it too much for me to think my name would have come to mind even without looking at your contact list? Fucker!”
“If you’d wanted to, you could have gotten my new address. Michael had it. Hell, your mother had it - she handled the sale of the loft. Half of Pittsburgh could have given it to you.”
Justin wanted to reply, “I shouldn’t have to ask anybody for the new e-mail address of the man I almost married,” but even in his present state, that sounded a little too juvenile. He leaned back against the seat and sighed. We're not done, Brian, he thought, but he said, “So about this move…tell me…why Chicago? Why not New York? Or if not New York, somewhere warm. Los Angeles? Boca?”
“Well, first of all, Clark-Price approached me with the offer, rather than the other way around….”
Justin could hear the relief in Brian’s voice. He's happy I’m letting him off the hook. “I figured,” he said.
“And it was for a lot of money. You know, for years I’ve wanted to get out of the Pitts, but the time was never right, for one reason or another. This felt like the time. When Hank Henry made me the offer for Kinnetik, I took it to Mel’s former partner. He read it through for me and marked it up. When we got together, he said to me, ‘You realize, don’t you, Brian?...that this is more like an employment contract than a purchase. In effect, the couple of million bucks they’re paying you is a very large signing bonus. The asset Henry is buying is you.’ I knew that, of course.”
“So you let them.”
“Yeah.”
Justin was quiet, thinking.
“What?” Brian asked.
“You know, you are always playing puppet-master with other people’s lives….”
“I…what?”
“You do. You paid my tuition two different times, you bought me that high-end computer after I was bashed…yes, I know these were good deeds, but…but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. My point is that when it comes to your own life, you let it drift. You don’t take charge. When you didn’t get that job in New York City, you didn’t look at other agencies even though you were dying to make the move. When I was in L.A., did you ever fly out for even a weekend to see what the possibilities were out there? You never thought seriously about starting your own agency until Gardner Vance fired you. It’s a pattern, and allowing yourself to be bought fits that pattern perfectly.”
It was Brian’s turn to be silent. It wasn’t until they had parked in the Marriott’s garage that Brian turned to Justin and said, “This move was about more than drifting, twat.”
“Omigod,” Justin said, involuntarily, “nobody calls me that anymore.”
Brian curled his lips around his teeth, then smiled slightly. “It wasn’t just drifting. When I got the offer, I realized how much I wanted to leave Pittsburgh. Too many memories: good memories, bad memories, all sorts of memories. This town had always been comfortable for me, but now it wasn’t. I wanted to leave, and I did. I was well compensated for it, too, which is always nice…twat.”
Justin gave him a grim look and opened the car door. How fucking easy does he think I am? He followed Brian through the garage, into the lobby. Damn, I'd forgotten how fucking sexy he is. He's not even trying right now and still....
Brian’s room was on the eighth floor. He slid the door card down and opened the door. Nice room. King bed. Hotel rooms are all about the bed, Justin thought. Brian wrapped his arms around him from behind, caught his hands and pulled them up chest-high, then nipped his neck.
“Take it easy,” Justin said.
“Why?” Brian pulled him closer and tongued his ear.
Why indeed. Why did I come up here unless….? “Let me go,” Justin gasped.
Brian tightened his grasp on Justin’s hands and pulled them even more tightly against his chest. “Afraid?”
Not as much as I should be. “We should talk.”
“We talked in the fucking car, all the way from the airport.” Brian did something with his tongue and teeth that had Justin moaning and pressing up harder against him. Brian dropped his arms and Justin turned. Their mouths met, and this kiss was just as Justin remembered it: intense, invasive, obliterating. He moaned against Brian’s lips and ground his pelvis against his thigh.
“Want more?” Brian’s voice sounded a little strangled.
“God damn it, Brian, I do.”
Brian’s mouth covered his again, and his hands were pushing up under his jeans jacket and T-shirt and finding skin. Justin squirmed closer, his tongue invading Brian’s mouth, probing and plunging, as his hands fumbled at Brian’s belt buckle.
Brian tugged hard on Justin’s jeans jacket and pulled it open and off. Justin toed off his shoes, jerked his belt open, and pushed his pants down. As soon as he shook his feet clear, he climbed on the bed and turned to Brian. Brian had his jacket off and was struggling with his jeans. Shouldn’t buy them so tight, Justin thought, but then Brian had them off and was pulling something from a pocket. Justin was turning, on his knees, bracing his arms on the head board. He felt the bed shift, and Brian was on top of him, one hand bracing himself, the other getting Justin ready. He moaned, and then Brian was where he needed to be and Justin was pushing back and whining at the good pain.
What followed was hard and fast and unembellished: perfect, Justin thought as he collapsed on the bed.
Brian fell over next to him, removed his condom, then stood up. “I’ll bring you back a towel.”
“We should both get cleaned up and go to the hospital, see how Debbie’s doing.”
“We can shower together.”
“Right,” Justin said and stripped off the rest of his clothes.
In the shower, the hot water beating down on them, Justin said, “I have to go back the day after tomorrow. I’m missing classes and shifts at Vincenzo’s. I had to come, but if everything looks okay tomorrow, I’m going home Thursday morning.”
“You’ll stay here with me tonight and tomorrow night.” It wasn’t a question.
“Sure.” He turned around and Brian scrubbed his back. “And then what? I don’t see or hear from you until there’s another tragedy in Pittsburgh?”
“Well, I was sort of hoping I could take a souvenir of my visit back with me.”
“Are you fucking kidding? Get yourself a T-shirt that says, ‘I rode the Incline,’ instead.”
“No,” he said, “I’m not seriously planning on packing you in my suitcase and checking you through to Chicago. But when the semester is over, and you can get out of your housing arrangement in a fair way, I’d like you to try taking courses and making art in the third largest city in the United States.”
"We'll see. I'm not saying yes now or no." He looked up, unsmiling. "You communicate like a regular human being...call regularly, answer e-mails, IM me spontaneously once in while...then I'll think about it."
"Maybe some phone sex?"
"Phone sex would be good."
"Something like this?" He pushed Justin around gently until Justin’s back was up against the tiles. He slid to his knees and cradled Justin’s balls in his hand.
He looked up at Justin and said, “I still have the rings.”
Justin caught his breath. Omigod, he’s saying The Words, the only way he can say them. “And I still don’t need them. But you damn well better work on your communication skills. In the meantime….”
“In the meantime, I have a job to do down here.”
Background: I (fansee) wrote this as my 2013 qaf_giftxchnge gift to delvalmom, but I was never completely satisfied with the version I posted. (Is any writer ever completely satisfied? Probably not.) Anyway, this version has been revised, rewritten in part, and renamed. I hope you like the result.
You may compare the two versions if you want by going to qaf-giftxchnge.livejournal.com and looking for “Mad Communication Skills - Or Not.” While you are there, look around. You’ll find lots of excellent fics, vids, and graphics that were gifted last year.
NOTES: 1.) Almost 5,000 words. Get your cup of tea before you start reading.
2.) No animals were harmed in the writing of this fic.
“So there I was,” Justin said, “giving Daphne the Grand Tour of Brian’s loft. I say, ‘I want to show you the picture of the naked man.’ Right then, like we planned it, Brian slides back one of the screens to the bedroom, and Daphne gets a full frontal of a living naked man, and he’s sporting a little morning wood.”
Eric hooted with laughter. “Omigod! What the fuck did she do?”
“She was pretty cool for a 17-year-old getting by her first look at a mature guy with a hard on. She looked away pretty quickly, but I caught her sneaking little glimpses.”
“Jesus, Justin, giving tours? I don’t know how the hell Brian put up with you. He was how old? And you were what? 17?”
“Brian turned 30 that same year and, yes, I was 17. I dunno…if you asked him, he’d have said I was a hot fuck, but…you know…he was pretty patient. I definitely interfered with his life style.”
“I’m sure you did.” Eric grinned at his roommate. “For damn sure you did. But you know what I wonder about…?”
“You’re going to tell me, right?”
“We’ve been roomies for 18 months now…”
“You, me, your sister Lisa and her girl friend, Nicole….”
“And you must have told me a hundred stories about Brian, but you never told me why you guys broke up.”
“It’s complicated.” Justin paused. “We didn’t exactly break up….”
“But you aren’t together.”
“What happened was, I got here and I moved in with Daphne’s friend, LaToyah. Right away I started looking around for work space. Of course, while I’m doing this I’m e-mailing Brian with my address and I’m telling him about my hunt for work space and the galleries I’ve gone to: all that sort of shit. He writes back, wanting to know what clubs I’ve been to and whether the guys are hot and if I’ve fucked anybody. I haven’t because I don’t want to spend a penny I don’t have until I find work space and figure out what I’m doing….”
“And you hadn’t started waitering at Vincenzo’s yet.”
“No Vincenzo’s, no money coming in, but meanwhile I’m paying rent to LaToyah and eating a lot of pizza. I’ve been here maybe six weeks and I get this e-mail from Brian. He says he’s paid for a semester for me at the School of Visual Arts. My first reaction is NO! but he goes on to say that he doesn’t care whether I get a degree or not…although he thinks that’s a good idea…but that the Continuing Education program looks good to him. To be truthful, it looked good to me, too, and after I started classes there, I got some good leads on studio space. That’s how I ended up in the Mackie Building along with all the other starving artists. Everything came together all at once…my work space, a stint as a barista at O’Doyles, then meeting your sister and Nicole at The Bike Stop…."
“Only you, Justin, could go out to a gay bar and come home with two lesbians.”
“I know, right? And end up sharing this place with Lisa, Nicole, and Lisa’s straight brother.”
“Your chance to see how the straight half lives.”
“Not to mention more than I ever wanted to know about the life of lesbians.”
“Tell me about it.” Eric gave a snort. “Meanwhile, you and Brian…?”
“Me and Brian: nothing. I kept on e-mailing and IMing him, but his answers got shorter and farther apart. Then I got a call from Brian’s BFF, Michael, real upset, saying that Brian was moving to Chicago....”
“Michael and Brian were also…uh…like…?”
Straight guys! Couldn’t just ask if two guys were fucking. “No. Never. Just friends, but they went back to high school.”
Eric nodded his understanding. Justin continued, “So I already knew Brian had sold his ad agency to a guy in Chicago for a shitload of money, but now Michael is telling me the Chicago guy had hired Brian to come out there and head up Creative for his whole organization. Michael was almost in tears, but I was pissed off. Five years together, and he can’t take the time to send me an email saying he’d joined Clark-Price?”
“Clark Price is the guy who bought Brian’s ad agency?”
“No. That’s the name of his agency…or rather it’s the names of the first two agencies the guy bought when he was just getting started building his empire. His name is Hank Henry. Anyway, I sent Brian a pissed-off email, and I get back one of those automatic response e-mails. This one says something like, ‘Use of this email address has been discontinued. Please contact Brian A. Kinney via his Clark-Price address. Do not reply to this e-mail - it is not configured to receive responses.’
“Bummer.” There was a thoughtful silence. “Maybe he just was trying to keep junk email out of his new mailbox.”
“Yeah. And maybe that was his way of letting me know we were history. I haven’t seen him since I moved in with you guys, and that fucking e-mail was the last time I heard from him. We had some good times, but they’re over. Finished. Done. The fucking end.”
Well, that wasn’t the whole story. I had seen Brian one more time before Michael dropped the Chicago bomb .
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Of course he had gone back to Pittsburgh for Babylon’s reopening, almost exactly a year after the bombing. Brian hadn’t let him know, but his mother had and so had Michael…and Debbie…and Emmett…and practically every other soul he knew in Pittsburgh. So he’d flown home, put on his tightest T-shirt and the pair of jeans that fitted best, and gone to Babylon. He stood in line with the other no-name schmucks until Ted came along, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him past the doorkeeper.
They stood together for a couple of minutes at the edge of the dance floor, the music breaking over them like rough surf, the glitter swirling in the air and sticking to sweaty bodies, and Brian up on the platform, swaying to the music. He looked, Justin thought, like he was in his proper place, the place where he belonged.
Ted watched Justin sympathetically, then he moved so that his mouth was close to Justin’s ear. He said, “I learned something this year. I learned that I’m not a half waiting for someone to make me a whole. I’m a complete person all on my own, and so are you, Justin.”
Justin pulled him into a hug and said, “Love you, Ted.”
“Love you, too,” and as he started threading his way through the mob, he turned and raised his hand to Justin.
Justin grinned back at Ted, then looked at the platform again. Michael had joined Brian there, and they were moving together, just like old times. Justin watched for five, maybe ten minutes, while they danced, then Michael kissed Brian and jumped down. Brian danced on alone, solitary but not incomplete: content.
As he stood on the edge of the dance floor, the music sang through Justin and he felt, rather than heard, the words, “What have you done today to feel proud?” He knew, suddenly, what that action was, and he raised his hand and waved. He didn’t wave to Ted or Brian or anyone specific, he waved to Babylon and all that it represented. Then he turned and walked out into the cold Pittsburgh air and started looking for a taxi to take him back to the airport.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Meanwhile, a year later, in Pittsburgh Debbie’s dinner shift was half done, but something was very, very wrong. She’d been having female problems for at least the last year, but she had it under control, hadn’t had to see a doctor or anything. First she’d started to wear a ‘night protection’ pad all the time, because she never knew when she start spotting - although it wasn’t really ‘spotting’ - she called it that so Carl wouldn’t worry - then she started using a tampon and a pad. Now even that wasn’t enough to be safe, so she wore Depends over the pad and sometimes…well, more like all the time…more than one tampon.
This evening, as she rushed out of the house, she realized she was all out of Depends. Oh, well, she thought, I’ve been doing pretty well the last couple of days, and I’m late already.
That was a mistake, she thought now. A huge mistake. “Trixie, I’m not feeling well. I may have to go home.”
As Trixie turned toward her, the heaviness in Debbie’s gut moved, and there was a gush of blood and clots. Trixie looked at her in horror, while Debbie felt blood running down her leg.
“You better call Carl,” Debbie said.
Trixie picked up the phone. “Fuck Carl,” she said. “I’m calling 911. You look like you’re going to pass out.”
Debbie sat down gingerly. Trixie said, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get some rags from the kitchen.”
Debbie put her head down on the table. She did feel a little dizzy and as if she might really faint. She shut her eyes, not wanting to see the horrified faces of the patrons. The diner, she realized, was silent. No one was talking; there wasn’t even the normal clatter of cutlery and the clinking of china and glassware. She started to drift, as though she was falling asleep, until finally she heard sirens in the distance.
From then on, other people took charge, and Debbie let them, with only the feeblest of arguments. The EMTs brought a gurney right into Liberty Diner - that resulted in some hasty rearrangements of tables and chairs - then she was being slid, still on the gurney, into to the ambulance. Next she was being trundled into Magee-Woman’s Hospital Emergency Room. “What the fuck, I’m not having a baby.”
A good-looking orderly/nurse/doctor - How the hell can you tell them apart now that nurses no longer wear those funny little hats? - said, “We’ll take good care of you. You’re in the right place,” and then she was being transferred, with another gush of blood, from the gurney to a bed.
Someone asked her what her blood type was, and she said, “Oh, fuck, I forget. Maybe Carl knows.”
Someone said, “Carl?”
Another someone said, “Horvath. He’s her husband. He’s on his way.”
Debbie said, “Partner. He’s not my husband, he’s my partner. Can’t get married yet.” But it was good to know he’d be here to take care of everything. She could depend on Carl.
Somebody said, “Get an IV started anyway.”
Seconds later, she heard Carl’s voice saying, “I’m her husband, let me in,” and then his rough hand was squeezing hers.
She said, “What the fuck, Carl?” meaning, Why did you say ‘husband’?
He said, “What the fuck indeed. I’ve been after you for months to see a doctor. I’ve been so worried about you.”
“I know, I know.” She squeezed his hand, shut her eyes and let go. She could relax now that Carl was here.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Justin looked out the window, down on what he was pretty sure was the western suburbs of Pittsburgh. The landscape was sere and bleak, grey trimmed with patches of snow.
He had talked to his mom from the airport right before he boarded the plane. Jennifer was at the hospital, in the surgical waiting room with Carl, Emmett, and Michael, she said, and Debbie was in the operating room. They hadn’t heard anything from the surgeon yet, not how she was doing or what Dr. Chen had found. Justin looked at his watch again. This flight is the fucking longest four hour trip I’ve ever taken.
He hadn’t wanted to ask his mother about Brian and whether he was coming in to see Debbie - how could he not? - but Jennifer had volunteered the information. She had called Brian as soon as they were sure Debbie would be operated on today, and he had flown in from Chicago late last night. “He should be here at the hospital any minute now,” she said. “I just spoke to him, and he was about to leave the Marriott. Do you want to hold on, and you can speak to him when he gets here?”
“I can’t ,” he said, “My plane is boarding now.” As in, he had to get down the ramp right this fucking minute or they’d close the doors on him.
For what must have been the thousandth time, Justin thought about how he should handle this meeting with Brian. This now-inevitable meeting. Brian’s already in Pittsburgh, so I’ll see him today at the hospital. What am I going to say to him after all these months of non-communication? “Long time, no see?” “Howdy, stranger?” Or “Fuck you, Brian!” Yeah, that last one sounds like a good start. If I get the chance, I'll have plenty more to say after that.
Justin shut his eyes, envisioning the scene at the hospital. Will I get the chance? Everybody will take turns covering the hospital today and probably tonight: Michael, Ben, Carl, and…yes…Brian, so we won’t have much chance for a private conversation. In public I’ll be polite, but not friendly. Cool. I’ll keep my hands in my pockets, say ‘Hi, good to see you, have a good trip?’ then not pay any more attention to him.
Somehow, Justin felt that touching Brian, even just to shake hands, would be a bad idea. Why it would be a bad idea…that wasn’t something he was going to think about right now.
He looked out the window again, and the ground was much closer. He couldn’t see the airport yet, but they must be coming in for a landing. His tray table was up, his seat was in the upright position, and his seat belt was on: all actions he’d taken 45 minutes ago in the hopes that being ready for landing would speed up the plane’s arrival. Magical behavior, he knew, but there was always the outside chance that this time the magic would work.
He felt the thump of the landing gear being lowered, then…shortly…the much bigger thump and bounce of a good landing. He had his cell phone in his hand and his mother on speed dial. “Dialing”…”Dialing”…”Connecting.”
“Hi, honey. Dr. Chen just came out. She was very cheerful…said Debbie did well and should have a good recovery. They’ll know more after they get the results of the biopsies, but it looks like they got it all. That’s a really good thing with uterine cancer…she may not need radiation or chemo.”
“Omigod. Thank heavens.”
“I wish you’d been here to see the doctor. She’s a little thing and so cute. On her way back to the O.R. after she talked to us, she gave a little skip and said, ‘I love my job.’”
Which was all very well and good, but Justin wasn’t really interested in Dr. Chen’s enthusiasm for her job. “Brian?”
“He’s here, of course. Well, he’s not here, in the hospital. As soon as we got the first word that Debbie was O.K. - before Dr. Chen came out - he left. I think he went out for a cigarette.”
“Okay. The plane is down and I have my carry-on with me, so I should be there very soon.”
“There’s no hurry, honey. Debbie has to go down to the ICU, and even then, she’ll be completely out of it for hours. You know she’s all right, so don’t rush.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too, honey.”
As he wrestled his wheelie-bag out of the overhead compartment, navigated the plane’s narrow aisle, hustled up the ramp and located a Men’s Room, Justin concentrated on not thinking about what would happen when he got to the hospital and saw Brian. You’ve been over every possible scenario, he thought, every possible combination of people who could be in the waiting room, the chance that Brian will be there alone…. He shuddered. That won't happen. Emmett, Ted, and Michael, they'll all want to see Brian, do some catching up. They’ll want to hang around after they’d seen Debbie. Carl had told him he could bunk at their house, so he could slip away any time, avoid potentially awkward situations if he wanted to. Which I do, right?
He hurried along the People Mover, zipping past more passive travelers on his right. He could see the Information Desk ahead and beside it…a tall, slender figure in boots, jeans, and an expensive leather jacket. I knew this might happen. When Mom told me he wasn’t at the hospital, I guessed. I just didn’t want to think about it.
He slowed down. Brian was already moving toward him with the long, fluid stride Justin remembered so well. He stopped, and then Brian was pulling him close, their bodies touching all down Justin’s body. Justin froze. He breathed in Brian’s scent: cigarettes, leather, expensive cologne, and the unique scent that was Brian’s body. He turned his head to one side and tried to step back.
Brian’s hand was on his chin, gently turning his face up toward Brian’s. Justin shut his eyes. He didn’t want to look at that generous, sensual mouth or the dark eyes smiling at him. I should pull away. I should just start walking for the cab stand. He didn’t.
The kiss was gentle, a feathering along his cheek to his lips, then just a touch of tongue slipped between his lips. He jerked, but Brian was already straightening up, giving him room to catch his breath. Brian said, “C’mon. I’m at the Marriott.”
“Fuck you, Brian.” It didn’t come out as forcefully as it had in his rehearsals. “I’m going to the hospital now.”
“No point. I talked to Michael while I was waiting for you, and he said Debbie hadn’t gone down to the ICU yet.”
Of course that was exactly what his mother had said, but he had to try. “Doesn’t matter. I told my mom I was going straight to the hospital.”
“Aside from the fact that you could pull out your cell right now and call her with your change of plans, I told Michael we were stopping by my hotel first.”
“I suppose you think that when we get to the Marriott we’re going to…fuck?” The last word was snarled.
Brian curled his lips inward. “Your first words to me were, ‘Fuck you.’ I thought that was your agenda.”
Justin yanked open the door to the front seat of Brian’s convertible as Brian put his carry on in the trunk. “It wasn’t. I’m not like you, Brian. I don’t fuck strangers.“
Brian looked down as put the key into the ignition. “You used to,” he said softly.
“I was seventeen and stupid. I’m older and smarter now.”
Justin was quiet until Brian pulled through the toll booth and paid. Then he said, “What the fuck was that business about not answering my e-mails and messages, never once getting on a plane and coming to see me. You couldn’t even find the time to tell me about your two huge life-changing decisions.”
“I kept up with you until you found a work room and had a part-time job as a barista and were taking a couple of classes….”
“Which made a huge difference. Thanks again for that.”
Brian shrugged. “At that point, I knew it was time to cut the ties that bind. You were ready to move on, make your own life. So….”
“Right. So you sold Kinnetik, moved to Chicago, all without telling me, then let me know we were really over with that fucking cold brush-off e-mail you sent me. Now you act like we’re going to pick up as if nothing ever happened? I don’t fucking think so, asshole.”
Brian shot him a sharp look. “Wait a second! What fucking brush-off e-mail? I haven’t e-mailed you since I moved.”
“And you’re proud of it? I’ve saved the damn e-mail; I’ll read it to you.” Justin fussed with his cell for a moment, then read, ’ ‘Use of this email address has been discontinued. Please contact Brian A. Kinney via his Clark-Price address.’ That’s bad enough, but this is the best part: 'Do not reply to this e-mail - it is not configured to receive responses.’
“Justin, you know as well as I do that that’s just an auto-response e-mail. It wasn’t directed at you. Hell, I had no idea you got it.”
“That’s the point! You move, you get a new e-mail address, you program a message to go out to everybody who e-mails your old address: I understand that part. Then you go through your old address book and send another message to everybody you still want to keep in touch with. Is it too much for me to think my name would have come to mind even without looking at your contact list? Fucker!”
“If you’d wanted to, you could have gotten my new address. Michael had it. Hell, your mother had it - she handled the sale of the loft. Half of Pittsburgh could have given it to you.”
Justin wanted to reply, “I shouldn’t have to ask anybody for the new e-mail address of the man I almost married,” but even in his present state, that sounded a little too juvenile. He leaned back against the seat and sighed. We're not done, Brian, he thought, but he said, “So about this move…tell me…why Chicago? Why not New York? Or if not New York, somewhere warm. Los Angeles? Boca?”
“Well, first of all, Clark-Price approached me with the offer, rather than the other way around….”
Justin could hear the relief in Brian’s voice. He's happy I’m letting him off the hook. “I figured,” he said.
“And it was for a lot of money. You know, for years I’ve wanted to get out of the Pitts, but the time was never right, for one reason or another. This felt like the time. When Hank Henry made me the offer for Kinnetik, I took it to Mel’s former partner. He read it through for me and marked it up. When we got together, he said to me, ‘You realize, don’t you, Brian?...that this is more like an employment contract than a purchase. In effect, the couple of million bucks they’re paying you is a very large signing bonus. The asset Henry is buying is you.’ I knew that, of course.”
“So you let them.”
“Yeah.”
Justin was quiet, thinking.
“What?” Brian asked.
“You know, you are always playing puppet-master with other people’s lives….”
“I…what?”
“You do. You paid my tuition two different times, you bought me that high-end computer after I was bashed…yes, I know these were good deeds, but…but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. My point is that when it comes to your own life, you let it drift. You don’t take charge. When you didn’t get that job in New York City, you didn’t look at other agencies even though you were dying to make the move. When I was in L.A., did you ever fly out for even a weekend to see what the possibilities were out there? You never thought seriously about starting your own agency until Gardner Vance fired you. It’s a pattern, and allowing yourself to be bought fits that pattern perfectly.”
It was Brian’s turn to be silent. It wasn’t until they had parked in the Marriott’s garage that Brian turned to Justin and said, “This move was about more than drifting, twat.”
“Omigod,” Justin said, involuntarily, “nobody calls me that anymore.”
Brian curled his lips around his teeth, then smiled slightly. “It wasn’t just drifting. When I got the offer, I realized how much I wanted to leave Pittsburgh. Too many memories: good memories, bad memories, all sorts of memories. This town had always been comfortable for me, but now it wasn’t. I wanted to leave, and I did. I was well compensated for it, too, which is always nice…twat.”
Justin gave him a grim look and opened the car door. How fucking easy does he think I am? He followed Brian through the garage, into the lobby. Damn, I'd forgotten how fucking sexy he is. He's not even trying right now and still....
Brian’s room was on the eighth floor. He slid the door card down and opened the door. Nice room. King bed. Hotel rooms are all about the bed, Justin thought. Brian wrapped his arms around him from behind, caught his hands and pulled them up chest-high, then nipped his neck.
“Take it easy,” Justin said.
“Why?” Brian pulled him closer and tongued his ear.
Why indeed. Why did I come up here unless….? “Let me go,” Justin gasped.
Brian tightened his grasp on Justin’s hands and pulled them even more tightly against his chest. “Afraid?”
Not as much as I should be. “We should talk.”
“We talked in the fucking car, all the way from the airport.” Brian did something with his tongue and teeth that had Justin moaning and pressing up harder against him. Brian dropped his arms and Justin turned. Their mouths met, and this kiss was just as Justin remembered it: intense, invasive, obliterating. He moaned against Brian’s lips and ground his pelvis against his thigh.
“Want more?” Brian’s voice sounded a little strangled.
“God damn it, Brian, I do.”
Brian’s mouth covered his again, and his hands were pushing up under his jeans jacket and T-shirt and finding skin. Justin squirmed closer, his tongue invading Brian’s mouth, probing and plunging, as his hands fumbled at Brian’s belt buckle.
Brian tugged hard on Justin’s jeans jacket and pulled it open and off. Justin toed off his shoes, jerked his belt open, and pushed his pants down. As soon as he shook his feet clear, he climbed on the bed and turned to Brian. Brian had his jacket off and was struggling with his jeans. Shouldn’t buy them so tight, Justin thought, but then Brian had them off and was pulling something from a pocket. Justin was turning, on his knees, bracing his arms on the head board. He felt the bed shift, and Brian was on top of him, one hand bracing himself, the other getting Justin ready. He moaned, and then Brian was where he needed to be and Justin was pushing back and whining at the good pain.
What followed was hard and fast and unembellished: perfect, Justin thought as he collapsed on the bed.
Brian fell over next to him, removed his condom, then stood up. “I’ll bring you back a towel.”
“We should both get cleaned up and go to the hospital, see how Debbie’s doing.”
“We can shower together.”
“Right,” Justin said and stripped off the rest of his clothes.
In the shower, the hot water beating down on them, Justin said, “I have to go back the day after tomorrow. I’m missing classes and shifts at Vincenzo’s. I had to come, but if everything looks okay tomorrow, I’m going home Thursday morning.”
“You’ll stay here with me tonight and tomorrow night.” It wasn’t a question.
“Sure.” He turned around and Brian scrubbed his back. “And then what? I don’t see or hear from you until there’s another tragedy in Pittsburgh?”
“Well, I was sort of hoping I could take a souvenir of my visit back with me.”
“Are you fucking kidding? Get yourself a T-shirt that says, ‘I rode the Incline,’ instead.”
“No,” he said, “I’m not seriously planning on packing you in my suitcase and checking you through to Chicago. But when the semester is over, and you can get out of your housing arrangement in a fair way, I’d like you to try taking courses and making art in the third largest city in the United States.”
"We'll see. I'm not saying yes now or no." He looked up, unsmiling. "You communicate like a regular human being...call regularly, answer e-mails, IM me spontaneously once in while...then I'll think about it."
"Maybe some phone sex?"
"Phone sex would be good."
"Something like this?" He pushed Justin around gently until Justin’s back was up against the tiles. He slid to his knees and cradled Justin’s balls in his hand.
He looked up at Justin and said, “I still have the rings.”
Justin caught his breath. Omigod, he’s saying The Words, the only way he can say them. “And I still don’t need them. But you damn well better work on your communication skills. In the meantime….”
“In the meantime, I have a job to do down here.”