Thinking - Jane!fic
Thinking - Jane!fic
So I’m sitting here on a stool at Woody’s watching Justin shoot pool against Ted, who has, surprise, surprise, joined the clubbing crowd once again. Well, not regularly, but there he is. He wandered in tonight, saying he thinks he’s “secure enough” and feels up to it, and then he glances at Emmett, yuck. Apparently they’ve made up, but *emotionally,* not by fucking each other until they couldn’t walk straight. Actually, I would never have had such a lesbionic thought that Emmett would actually be appeased through a gesture, that forgiveness could be accomplished without Ted rimming him for basically a century, as much as the thought makes me want to lose my whole-wheat-and-turkey, to say nothing of its actually happening via a letter. After that look between them, I turned to Justin and said, “Fucked and forgiven.” Not that I was asking what happened, not that I care. I don’t.
But soleil-boy corrects me. “No, Ted made his amends, he wrote Em a letter. They’re just talking, you know, how most people work things out.”
“Fucking’s more efficient.”
Justin rolls his eyes, and yells across the bar, “Hey, Ted, wanna play? It’s my table.” And Ted seems somewhat grateful to be able to put down his ginger ale and do something instead of having to talk to Emmett. See. Talking beyond information exchange is bullshit. I should know, I bullshit people for a living. And just because.
I think Daphne gets that last truth about me a little too well. She leans into my space from where she was sitting on the stool next to me. “You could just have asked him what happened you know. It’s much more *efficient*.”
I turn a blank look on her. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Then I order a shot from the bartender. The beer sitting in front of me is not enough.
“Yeah, get me a sloe gin fizz, too, please!” Daphne calls after my order, then turns back. “You’re paying, right?” Good God, the girl is just like HIM, that fearless presumption. Did they start giving classes in attitude after I’d gotten out of school? Or do those two just collaborate on perfecting a technique? They are roommates, after all. She goes on, “It’s obvious you want to know what happened between Ted and Em, otherwise you wouldn’t have said anything, o ye of few words. Why don’t you just ask? They really are your friends, whether you want to admit it or not.”
My shot arrives and I slam it back, that pleasurable pain hitting the back of my throat. I need the cushion of a good buzz right now, I’m thinking too much. I turn back to Daphne and say, “Why don’t you just drink?” I push her drink, this horrible reddish thing, toward her, and pick up my bottle of beer.
In response, she semi-screams from deep in her chest, and grabs my arm, shaking it, spilling some of my beer. I raise an eyebrow. “Now, Daphne, as much as I know you love feeling me up, I don’t think sacrificing my beer will be helpful to your wallet, since you’ll be paying for the next round.”
Her eyes go round, her mouth pursed into a big “o,” and then she frowns and turns away. She’s blushing. Got her there. She does so love to feel me up. I just have never commented on this before, oh me of few words.
Anyway, I was saying. I turn back to the pool table and there is my… okay, boyfriend, with his back to me, watching Ted line up a shot. Justin’s got on a pair of white pants and a short t-shirt that completely exposes his beautiful rump, his legs are set apart, and his inner wrists are carelessly holding the cue firmly in a horizontal position against his lower back. To be able to pull off that, he’s pushed his butt out like a shelf for the cue to rest in the arc of his back. He’s swaying slowly back and forth, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, not really with the music, but with his own rhythm. That ass, waving at me.
I have an instant, raging hard on.
“Ted, are you ever going to take the shot?” he says.
Ted just replies, “Yeah, eventually. But I think someone might be upset if I give up the table and interrupt his viewing pleasure.”
The blond head swivels around, and Justin grins when he sees where my eyes are. He starts laughing. “Oh, well, then…” and he wiggles at me, the fucker!
“Well,” Ted says, “if you don’t want to finish the game…” He’s smiling too, apparently reading my face. Or other parts. He takes a shot and misses.
“He’ll wait,” Justin replies, carelessly, and there it is again, that arrogant presumption. He releases the cue from behind his back.
“Oh no, he will not,” I growl, and I’m off my stool, I’ve grabbed him by one arm and I’m propelling him into the bathroom, shoving him into a stall so he’s up against the side wall, yanking those white pants down and grinding my still-covered dick against that soft white skin, my hands up underneath his shirt before he can finally get out a “Jesus, Brian…” and just the way he breathes my name floods blood straight to my cock, and I’m knocking his legs apart, frantically unzipping my jeans. He’s reaching behind to grab my hips and pull me closer, but I knock his arms away, pushing them to his side as I bite the back of his neck and then reach into my pocket for the ever-ready supplies, slip on a condom and lube, and then slam into him, hard, fast, over and over, as he screams a little and then moans as the pain gives way to pleasure. I’m not in a gentle mood here, gasping, panting against the small hairs at his nape. Ripping through me is this raw need and I don’t know if it was that comment at the pool table, or the way he must have known as he draped the cue across his back how I’d react, but right now I need to feed this beast that’s raging away, hungry only for him, and he’s gonna have to take care of himself, the little fucker, for that last little comment, or maybe because I can’t control this, I can only slam into him over and over, indulging this crazy… desire, need, god, words do the feeling of being in him, of wanting to be in him even when I am in him, mere words do this no justice at all, it’s like a fucking hurricane… but we’ve done this before and he’s with me, he’s always with me, jerking himself off as I slam into him, as I reach for that huge thing that’s tingling out of every pore, and those whimpering noises in his throat that he makes when it’s hard and fast and I’m on him out of nowhere, and I’ve got my arms around his chest and hugging him to me tight tight tight so my whole body is pressed up against him, just being in him isn’t even enough, and I wish we were naked, but no time, must be in him and I can only press him against the wall and me against his back mounting and rutting into him like an animal… and the orgasm is like a strike of a lightning bolt, blinding and sudden from out of the raging storm, grabbing me at the base of the scrotum as if I were shot and there’s that tightening, that being propelled upward, and my heart pauses and my breath stops as that gathering heart-stopping tightness explodes, and every organ slams back into action and my breath explodes out of me with an almost anguished groan and my heart races, and Justin’s yell as he throbs around my dick, prolonging the last of my climax as it fades into him. And one final thrust, one last deep seeking further into him… And then we’re still, and I’m holding his body tightly against mine, but my arms are looser and I can feel his left palm on top of my hands which are clasped over his chest, his fingers curling against the soft skin at my right wrist.
I pull out, and let him go, separating our bodies. I toss the condom in the toilet bowl. I step back, adjusting myself, watching as he pulls up his pants and turns around. I’m suddenly nervous… Jesus, what is that, it’s not like we haven’t done this before. But I don’t want him to say something… to tease me about this. I don’t know why. He only moves into my arms, though, and kisses me on the neck. “Wow,” he says. And we stand there for a moment, just holding each other.
“Uh… you probably should get back to the game,” I say, just because. I can’t take that weird…tension. Sex usually releases that sort of thing, what the fuck is this? Justin smiles at me, says nothing, he just moves, and I’m grateful for that. I open the door to let him out, and applause greets us from the four other guys in the bathroom. Justin blushes scarlet and I just roll my eyes and shove a cheering twink out of the way so I can wash my hands at the sink.
So now I’m sitting here, watching Justin finish the game with Ted. And damn it, I’m thinking. See, that’s why I like fucking, you don’t have to think while you’re doing it. Just feel. But for some reason, with Justin, I do think while I’m with him. I think way too much.
And here’s what I’m thinking right now as I watch him lean over the table to take a shot - and watch Ted and Emmett and Daphne smirk in my direction, damn it, they’ll be bringing this up for the next month, they really need to get sex lives of their own - here’s what I’m thinking right now, it’s a repeat of the thought that hit me as we emerged to the audience in the bathroom. We really have done that before. Maybe not exactly with that exact intensity - maybe I bit the left side of his neck instead of the right … But we’ve done that before. Every possible variation of sex. Woody’s, Babylon, bathrooms, backrooms, alone, with others, lots of others, naked, clothed, bound, gagged… I don’t need to continue, you get the point. We’ve done pretty much everything. So now what?
“Damn, Brian, that was soooo hot,” Daphne says. She’s drunk. I’m getting there. “And so what if I like to feel you up? Can you blame me, Mr. sooooo hot?”
She beams at me, her sudden smile like a laser, like the sun, really. Deb calls Justin sunshine, but Justin’s smile different, it’s slower, like the moon, on those nights in the fall when the moon is passing through banks of clouds lit up from behind and edged by the hidden moonlight in silver frames, Justin’s smile comes out the same way the moon emerges to full brightness from behind those bank of clouds in dark September skies, so achingly beautiful… and holy shit, am I really thinking this? What the fuck is wrong with me?
Thinking. Fucking is so much more efficient.
“Yeah, hot.” So maybe I’m already drunk, because my voice sounds maudlin, I can hear it. Not whining, but close. And damn it, I do not whine.
“Something wrong?” She pulls the last of her drink up through her straw, that awful sucking sound.
“Christ, don’t do that, let me get you another one.” I gesture at the bartender.
“That’s not going to erase my question. Something wrong with your hotness?”
Okay, I am drunk, because I’m taking her seriously. Sort of.
“It’s not like we haven’t done that before.”
“Well, no shit.”
“No,” I reply. The bartender’s brought me another beer along with Daphne’s drink, and he glances at the empty shot glass. He’s got his tip for thinking to keep me in beers without my even asking, but I shake my head at the shot. “I mean, we’ve done pretty much everything there is to do.”
“Everything.” She doesn’t doubt it, she’s just urging me to continue.
“Yeah, what’s next?”
“The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have then fly to others we know not of…”
“What, you’re saying I should off myself?” Hamlet, fucking great, thanks Daph.
Daphne laughs. “No, that would be too great a loss to my visual pleasure. I’m just saying…” But then she stops and narrows her eyes at me. “Do you know, you just totally framed that question in terms of yourself? I’m talking about you and him.” She gestures off to Justin, who suddenly finds himself the object of our scrutiny. He cocks his head. I knew he would have come over, but he was about to attempt to bank the eight ball into the far corner. He’d never get it, he sucked at that shot.
I turned back to Daphne after he missed. “I would never consider Justin in the terms you just used.”
“Oh.” Her voice is suddenly small, and she realizes that she’s treading on really, really dangerous ground, to use the idea of him and anything to do with death in a conversation with me. So she rushes forward, “Well, that’s not what I meant, anyway, I was just thinking, you know, Hamlet’s consideration for not killing himself was that he was a coward, basically, he doesn’t want to commit when he has no idea what’s gonna happen, that made him back down. But I was thinking the other day when I was writing a paper about that speech, you know, I think sometimes you just have to take those leaps into the unknown. Not with death, but with other stuff. Like, I’m thinking of applying to American University in Paris after graduating college, and I’m thinking all this scary shit, like, what if I hate France? What if no one there likes me? I don’t know anyone there, what if I don’t pick up the language? And how hard it’s going to be to totally go to another culture. But if it works out… I’ll have this whole expansion to who I am that’ll be really cool, I’ll have all this new experience that’ll let me do all kinds of things I’d never considered…”
“Like…?”
Daphne shrugged. “Teach in Paris, work in the American embassy any number of places, become the ambassador for a wine grove in Marseilles… I don’t know! That’s the point! It’s just a whole new world to explore. Not just Europe, but who I can be.”
I was missing the point completely. “What’s your point?”
She sighed. “Maybe it’s time you take a leap. Maybe not with sex…” She burst out laughing at the expression I could feel cross my face. And what the hell was I doing, talking to a fucking 20-nothing about this anyway? I gestured the bartender over, and growled at him to give me another shot. Fuck it.
“No, Brian!” she whined. Good God, they had to practice that together, I swear. “Seriously,” she continued, as if I could shut her up at that point. “Maybe it’s time to try something completely new and different, and since you’ve run out of the sex stuff…”
“That's not what I meant. We never run out of the sex stuff. ”
She is not distracted, and continues as if I had said nothing, “Maybe you should ask him to move back in with you.”
Okay… That was different. But. “That’s not new, Daphne. I was waiting for you to tell me we should get married.” I laughed.
“Oh you wish! That way you could just reject my idea out of hand. But with him moving in… the other times it’s because he was kicked out of his parents’ house, or his mom couldn’t handle him and she asked you to take him.” Fucking Christ, he really does tell her everything. She was relentless. “It would be different this time, because you’d want him there. And MAYBE for once, for something new, you might want to ask him in a way that’s special, so he knows he’s special to you, that it means something.”
I stared at her, and opened my mouth to say… well, pretty much nothing came to mind, so thank God there was a “Hey,” and I pulled my boy in next to me, deliverance from the sudden ambush of this conversation, and I glared at Daphne as she giggled. “What’s up?” Justin asked, bending in to kiss my neck. Oh, God, there it was again, like a surge down to my dick, but on its way through all of my blood vessels, tingling at the skin where his lips had touched.
“Did you win?” I asked.
“Of course,” Ted replied, setting his drink on the bar, asking if anyone wanted to go with him and Emmett to the diner. We knew it was a formality, and declined. Daphne stood. “I gotta get going too.” Both she and Justin looked at me. “You going to Babylon?” Justin asked.
I shook my head. “You want to come back with me?” I asked.
Daphne rolled her eyes at me behind Justin’s back. I shook my head. “No, not that,” I said to her. Justin looked confused, but before he could ask, I handed Daphne a twenty for cab fare home. She thanked me, told Justin she’d see him… whenever. Then she was gone, and it was just us.
Much later, and here I am, listening to the light snoring next to me, Thinking again. Only, now I wasn’t thinking of how we’d done pretty much everything together that you could get your sexual imagination around, now I was thinking about what Daphne had said. Great, here I am, thinking. Again. This kid makes me think about him.
Sex is so much better, action. Just do it. Whoever came up with that one was a fucking genius. Three words, nothing else in the entire fucking ad except the logo. Just do it.
So when we got back from Woody’s, I did my best to go into non-thinking mode. I didn’t want a repeat of the hot assault on my darlin’ twink’s body, nope, once an evening was enough. Slow, slow - excruciatingly slow, for him, if those yummy lips dripping pleas for me to fuck him was any indication. But I didn’t want that, and I loved handing him the condom and watching the dawning awe on his face as his eyes lit up. He loves to top me, and doesn’t get to do it often, let me tell you. The mood was right; I’d already set the slow pace, and I know when he tops he loves to drag it out as long as possible, his body touching every inch of mine, his hands moving through my hair, over my neck, down my back, sides, thighs. He loves it when I rise up on my knees and elbows, lifting him with me without much effort at all, controlling our motions as much from my position as he does from his. Truthfully, I love it. There’s this whole mood that comes with Justin topping.
And oh, fuck, now that I’m lying here listening to his snoring which should be annoying and isn’t, I find myself actually considering what I should do with that bit of knowledge, that I love him inside me, coming inside me, not just that but the feeling of everything about him doing it, having to consider what it means instead of just enjoying the activity and doing it every so often. I can hear myself, Well, Brian, what does this mean to you? The fact that you like being vulnerable with this kid, being vulnerable here not in a fucked-up violent way, but in a real honest-to-God emotional way. Isn’t that really what makes that particular sex act so hot for you, that’s got you creaming your jeans just thinking about it, about him? Could you stop thinking... feeling this if you wanted to? You don't want to stop, do you?
AARRRGHHHH!!!!!!
So now I’m smoking a cigarette, standing in front of the windows, not looking out at Pittsburgh, but looking back toward the bedroom where he’s sleeping. And thinking, damn it, thinking. Specifically, about what Daphne said. And that feeling that hit me at Woody’s, like a hurricane blowing in from without, picking me up and having its way. There’s some point coming up, I can feel it, looming on the horizon, bigger than me. And I think it's a point where we're living together. So now I gotta figure out how to ask him to move back in, to ask him right, and not fuck it up.
****
“Cynthia! Get in here now!”
Cynthia pushed her chair back and went into Brian’s office, wondering why he couldn’t just use the intercom like a normal person. She knew he liked to yell, but really. “You barked?” she asked.
He took no notice of the barb that heretofore never failed to annoy him, as he frowned intently at the series of photos arranged on the desk in front of him. Cynthia peered over at them curiously. Each had a post-it with a number written on it, and Brian was pulling a CD out of his drive to hand to her. “This project takes priority right now… well, unless there’s a fire, but I don’t see any coming up.” He began to outline what he wanted her to do, waving her away when she started to smile, then laugh, and finally cried, “Oh, Brian, this is so cute!”
He grimaced, and waved her away. “Oh, and get me Hamlisch on the phone!”
“Hi, I’m here, I’m here,” Justin called, coming into Brian’s office.
“You’re late,” Brian growled, getting up from behind his desk, and walking toward the conference table. Behind Justin’s back, Cynthia discreetly pulled the doors closed, but not before smiling broadly over at Brian.
Justin walked behind Brian, glancing around curiously. “Where is everybody? Am I early? You know, you could have forwarded me the art work before asking me to sit in on a client meeting…”
“It’s fine, we’re fine, take a seat.” Brian said, sitting down. He gestured for Justin to sit in the chair to his right. In the center of the table was a catered brunch mix for the 10:00 a.m. meeting: donuts, cheese-filled croissants, sesame and poppyseed bagels with both veggie and plain cream cheese, bananas, grapes and strawberries, and both blueberry and orange cranberry muffins. This distracted Justin from his previous question as he longingly eyed the fare.
“Help yourself,” Brian instructed. Justin didn’t need to be urged twice. Brian moved to the sideboard, poured him a glass mug of coffee and came back to the table. He watched Justin dip his donut into the black liquid with one hand, even as he reached for a muffin with the other. “Good thing I prepared expense graphs,” Brian muttered.
“Huh?”
“Nothing. You ready?”
Justin swallowed the rest of the donut, broke the muffin in half, and eyed the bagels. Apparently, he was starving to death. “I shouldn’t ruin the spread before the client gets here.”
Brian stood up, moved over to the side of the room, where several easels were set up, holding the boards he’d prepared, turned backwards. He picked them up, looked down at the first one, tilting it towards himself so that Justin couldn’t see it. Brian repeated, “You ready? Go ahead, eat, you only have to listen anyway.”
The donut had appeased the mighty stomach, however, and Justin managed to hold off from continuing. Okay, this was weird. “I don’t get it. Who’s the client?”
“You are,” Brian answered, turning back and placing the boards on the props.
“Me.”
“Yup.”
Justin just stared at him.
“Seriously, eat, all you have to do is listen.” Brian stood next to the blown up photo of the two of them, this one taken, obviously, at one of Lindsay and Mel’s parties. Not kissing, just smiling at each other, Brian’s arms on Justin’s shoulders, Justin’s hands on his wrists. It was a candid shot, one of Justin’s favorites. Three other photos, similar pictures, Justin didn’t even remember when they were taken. Dancing at Babylon, who took that one? Brian had wanted these images in place to start the meeting, and for atmosphere, a continual background reminder of the object of the rest of his proposal. Truthfully, he was unsure how Justin would take his pitch. He knew that starting with the photos of them hanging out on each other, though, would put Justin’s head in a receptive place. Besides, they both looked hot in the pictures, and the shots were excellent, nothing wrong with good art. Brian cleared his throat, and said, “Yup, you’re the client. And this the best ad man on the east coast selling you on the reasons you should you should move in with me, Brian Kinney, or should I say more specifically, it is absolutely in your best interest to move back into the loft. With me.” Did he just repeat himself? Fuck, he never did that. Dammit.
Justin opened his mouth, then closed it. His lips twisted as he forced himself not to laugh, not to shake his head to clear it. And Brian stood there, in the professional, stern face, in his dark grey Armani suit with the red shirt and tie that had Justin itching to take him out of it. Oh, definitely, Justin thought, this I gotta see. “Okay, Mr. Kinney, you have my attention.” He leaned back in his chair, and crammed a piece of muffin in his mouth. Brian closed his eyes against the crumbs that dropped all over. Someone remind him of the benefits of this? Then Justin licked one of the crumbs off of his lips. Long pink tongue over full red lips. Uh, oh yeah, right.
“First.” Brian moved over to the computer that was hooked into to the room’s video equipment. The lights in the conference room dimmed; the screen on the far wall came down, and the overhead video projector hummed into life. The screen filled with a picture of Justin’s room at Daphne’s. It wasn’t a mess so much as an explosion of clothing and art supplies crammed in a lack of space. The twin bed barely fit in behind the tiny desk. Very dark. “Your current living space is obviously not adequate to meet your needs. Here we see…” Brian pointed at the video screen with his laser, circling one smashed art project, “…art that is clearly deserving of much better treatment.”
“It was just a class assignment,” Justin answered, shrugging. “I’d already gotten it back. When’d you photo my room? Brian, is that me under there? Is that my ass?!!”
“It could be your ass, but how would we know? you’re buried alive under all that shit in too little space, that’s the point. Your work should be stored properly, but clearly, your need for closets is not met here.” The red laser moved over the closet-less walls, before lingering to trace the lines of what might be Justin’s butt, and then snapped to the clothes strewn about, pausing on a dress shirt that was far too nice to be Justin’s. “And that is criminal. Is that mine?”
“No, that’s the one you bought for me when we went to that banquet.”
“Better, but not good. Beautiful things deserve proper care.” Brian paused, glanced at the other man, and rushed forward before Justin could react to the double entendre in that statement. “First, you know the history of our other attempts to live together, so we can just skip over those…”
“Umf…” Justin grunted around more muffin, “Wvey…”
Brian waited patiently while Justin swallowed. “Actually, Mr. Kinney, I would like to hear your perspective on the issues involved, and how they have been resolved.”
Shit. He was hoping… ah well. Not like he didn’t expect this. He brought up a variety of pictures, clicking through each, lingering on furniture, appliances, clothing, electronics, and finally a big bare space. “These are the pictures I took before the robbery and submitted to the insurance company…”
Justin grabbed a glass and filled it with orange juice from the pitcher next to the platter, his throat suddenly dry. Maybe it hadn’t been the best request.
But the second set of photos wasn’t of Ethan, as Justin had been afraid they would be; they were of Brian. Brian at work, accepting ad awards, a write up in the Pittsburgh paper of one of Brian's succeses while at Vanguard. “Okay, the first attempt was obviously aborted by the robbery, and the second was aborted by… other problems. But, underneath the surface event, first time, the robbery, second, the… uh…”
“Cheating?” Justin said. Well, get it out on the table, what the hell.
“Dissatisfaction,” Brian ameliorated. “Beneath both we can trace the underlying issue to the same problem, my shit.”
“You.”
“Yup. First time, it was my loft, my furniture, my space. And I resented your intrusion. This time, I don’t feel that way at all. The second… well, I work hard, I play hard.”
“To the point it’s natural for slogans to just slide off your tongue.” Justin finished his coffee, and set aside the mug. “It wasn’t just you, Brian.”
There was a pause, a shrug. “Maybe not, but I can’t change how you do things.”
With that statement, the seriousness of this little meeting was fully penetrating into Justin’s understanding; Brian could dress this up in his professionalism to mask his nervousness, but Justin could feel the tension in him, hear the slight tightening in his throat around that word. Change.
Brian plowed ahead. “In any case, from my side, the problem was that it’s always been about me, my stuff, my work. Me. So, here’s how I propose this can be addressed. First, regarding the first issue, the loft could use a… shift in tone. Decoration-wise.”
Justin lifted his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Well, maybe the walls in the bedroom are a little bare. And, maybe, the color scheme is a little dark. And the bathroom might be different.”
“Ooh, a four poster bed with sheer white curtains!” Justin enthused, managing not to laugh at the pained grimace, the “no fucking way” look that came across his partner’s face. “I’m kidding, Brian. I like your furniture. The bedroom walls are a little bare, maybe a splash more color, and any art outside the bedroom would have to coordinate with the naked guy…” Brian’s face cleared.
“Is that it?” Justin asked. “Because I have a couple of issues I’d like to discuss.”
“Actually, if you don’t mind? One or two last points.” Brian brought up another program, and the screen blinked off one of Brian’s awards, to switch to a video projecting the side of the loft to the right of the bedroom. “Now, watch,” Brian instructed. Clearly, the video was on time collapse, following the daylight as it moved from morning to night through the empty room, and Justin could physically fill the cells in his skin respond to the way the light swelled to fill the space as the day was collapsed to minutes and faded into night. “You’ll note the excellence of the light, especially in that corner of the loft. We’ll spare a comparison to the dark cave of your current situation, but the advantage is clear. And…” While the video showed moonlight now spilling into the loft, Brian picked up a drapery-covered object from the sideboard, brought it to the table, set it down on the conference table to Justin’s left. Dramatically, he whipped the cloth off of the sizable lump, to reveal a miniature model of the loft. The details were perfect. Justin almost squealed as he took in the tiny furniture, and “Oh, look it’s a miniature naked guy!” He loved stuff like this.
Brian was pointing with the laser again, but away from the naked guy. In the spot across the loft, was set up a tiny drafting table, and an easel. “See, you can have this entire corner for your work space, and the benefits of all the light.” The space corresponded to the corner of the loft the time-collapse video had just followed.
But Justin was preoccupied, turning the tiny light over the little bed off and on. “Wow, this is so cool. Does the shower actually work? We’re keeping this, right?” He looked up, and Brian felt a smile tug his lips.
“I don’t know, are we?”
Justin sat back in his chair, reluctantly turning his attention away from the cool little toy. He’d try the shower later; he’d bet Brian had a pump to power the thing.
“Okay, I guess you’ve given me reason to negotiate,” Justin said as Brian sat in the chair next to him, the casual draping of his body belying the tension Justin could feel vibrating off of him. “But you forgot something…”
Brian frowned, looked up at the video, down at the model, over at the bagels and muffins sans the donut and two muffins that Justin had managed to put away through the presentation. He looked questioningly back at the other man. “It’s not just about a space to live in, Brian, we’d be moving in together. I mean, consciously.”
“I know that.”
Yeah, he did, Justin thought, that’s the reason for all this, to shift the focus from an emotional intensity that Brian could never be easy with. This was his way of managing those feelings he was so reluctant to actually put in words. Thus, all this.
But Brian continued. “Actually, that’s why I’m pushing the loft, the space you’d get out of this. When it comes to that, other, part, I’m definitely getting the deal, and you’re definitely getting the liability.”
“That’s not true,” Justin answered softly.
“Seriously, what do you see in me? You… well, you’re brilliant. And, well, nice. And tough. And hot. Mostly, giving, generous with yourself, you’re interested in other people. People know that, they respond. Shit, even I do… But I’m not nice at all. So what is it you see in me?”
Justin hesitated before answering. He knew what it took for Brian to say all that. “It’s not that you need me, Brian, you so do, and I love to be needed. But who doesn’t? Besides, I need you as much, in different ways. But it’s not that. It’s…” He hesitated, not sure if he should say this. It sounded New-Agey. They both hated that crap - Brian for intellectual reasons, Justin for aesthetic ones.
“What?” Brian’s urging decided him. He was leaning forward in the chair.
“I recognize you.”
“Well, I hope so!” Brian laughed slightly, sat back.
Yup, this was a little too intense for him, Justin thought, but he continued, watching Brian’s face to make sure his words didn’t go too far. “No. The first time we met. It was like… it was like I had been waiting for you to show up, and when you did, a part of me just, relaxed. Like, okay, here he is. But I wasn’t waiting exactly, because that would imply… that you were somewhere apart from me." He studied Brian’s face, but Brian was listening intently, not fidgeting, not glancing away. “I knew you the second I met you, I recognize you, like from somewhere outside time. I can’t explain it. Does all this sound stupid?” Now Justin was nervous.
“No,” Brian said softly. He reached out to Justin, pulled him closer with his hand behind the younger man’s neck, and kissed him.
Justin gasped as he pulled away after a minute, when things seemed to be on the way toward coming unglued. “No, wait! We’re negotiating, are you trying to influence my position?”
Brian smiled. “But of course. So. What’s your position?” He waited.
“Well, your points are excellent. Especially that last one.” The two smiled at each other. “Soon…” Justin promised, licking his lips.
“Now, now, stick to business. Perks later.”
“That is business. The loft is the perk,” Justin shot back. “But since we’re negotiating perks… In regards to the second issue we discussed, the way our earlier attempts led to less than spectacular results, how your work takes over sometimes… vacation.”
“Ah. Vacation.”
“Yup. We take vacation. I don’t think we ever have, have we? Even if it’s just in the loft. No work. Just us.”
“I think we can do better than that. You need to see Italy.”
“Florence.”
“And Rome.”
“Three weeks of time for just us.”
Brian scoffed. “One week.”
“Two.”
“Hmph. Two weeks of vacation a year. We can do that. Is that it?”
“No.” Justin took a deep breath. “You know, Rage is taking off. You know I have an potential income that’s fairly sizable. It’s made me think, maybe that’s not a fluke.”
“It isn’t,” Brian assured him.
“I mean, I think it’s possible I’ll have real money at some point. I want to know if you would consider…” the deep breath again, “…if and when I have a real income of my own…”
“Stop beating around the bush, Justin, tell me what you want.”
“I want to know if you’d consider getting a place that’s ours. Buying a place together.”
Brian stared at him, then grinned with tongue firmly in cheek. “That is possible. But may require something a little more firm than a verbal consent.” He stood up and moved to the phone on the far end of the table, pressed the intercom button, and said, “Cynthia? Could you send in Martin?”
Justin stared across the room as Brian’s personal attorney walked in, smiling at both men. Justin had met him previously, they greeted each other.
“Well!” Martin Hamlisch said, taking the seat across from the two. He opened his briefcase as Brian moved the food and model out of the way. “This is, of course, the bare bones, covering basic contingencies. Plenty of room to work in the particulars, think of it as a starter kit.” He took out a stack of papers, and handed a copy of a document to Brian, and then to Justin.
“What is this?” Justin asked.
Hamlisch looked at Brian. “I didn’t explain this to him, I figured you’d be better at the legalities.”
“Legalities?” Justin frowned at Brian’s words.
“Just hear him out before you tell me what you think,” Brian urged, knowing how Justin tended to emote before carefully judging situations. Justin nodded, and pursed his lips.
“Your reaction is fairly common,” Hamlisch continued at Brian’s nod, “But the truth is, ironing out the particulars in legal terms takes care of potential problems, nips them in the bud before they have the chance to develop into real problems. Keeps issues from interfering, especially financial issues. More importantly, this document sets up necessary rights in case of other issues, outside the relationship itself. Again, this is fairly standard, you’ll want to look it over more closely, maybe with your own attorney…”
“Could you summarize it, basically?” Justin was still reluctant to touch the thing. He was very aware that Brian had started turning the little light over the miniature model bed on and off.
“Fairly simple. First, it sets clear financial terms in place, what’s yours, mine, ours, and with the latter, the distribution of property in the event of dissolution.” Dissolution, Justin thought, what an awful euphemism. “Debt distribution, support issues, health insurance coverage, rights as conservators for the other, and the establishment of right to make medical decisions.” Brian had instructed the man not to use the word “death” or “incapacitation” in his descriptions, although it was in, had to be in, the document. Brian hated this part of the document too, but he was damned if he would ever sit outside a hospital room again, silenced by bullshit legalities. He watched Justin take the lawyer’s words in, wondering how the young man would handle this. Hardly the romantic gesture Daphne had urged Brian take at Woody’s a couple of weeks back, but damn it, that just wasn’t *him*.
Justin sat with his head bowed, seeming not to listen to Hamlisch explain other potential sections to be negotiated. But when Hamlisch began explaining how the document could be expanded to include decisions regarding children, Justin’s head snapped up, and he stared over at Brian, his eyes widening to a huge size. That blonde hair suddenly transformed into a light bulb going off, exploding on.
“I’m waiting for the day Daphne asks you to father her child.” Brian passed this one off. The subject needed to come up, and Brian had even practiced in the car on his way to work that morning the very line that had just come out of his mouth, for the perfect tone of casualness and sarcasm. The eye roll he threw in, an inspired addition.
But Justin wasn’t focused on the details being spelled out for him at all. He stared at Brian, his mouth dropping open. He shut it with a snap, and whipped his head back to the attorney.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. No, it couldn’t....
Hamlisch had picked up his spiel, had moved onto another issue. “Just, a second,” Justin said, interrupting the lawyer. “Just… this uh, contract…” He glanced over at Brian again, this time with a look on his face of dawning awe. Or horror. Or… what?
Brian couldn’t tell which emotion was passing over that transparent face. A lot, in any case. Oh, shit, this couldn’t be good. He rushed in to explain, knowing Hamlisch would never see the dangerous ground they were on, “This contract is there to protect both of us. In case anything happens. On top of asset division, it also makes it a lot more difficult for me to just toss you out on your butt. Thought you’d like that.” Again, a smirk, deal with that one, sonny boy!
But Justin heard an altogether different tone, or rather, he heard the tension underlying the seemingly careless tone. It was screaming for him to back off. Yeah, as if. “Thanks, Brian, but I wanted to ask Mr. Hamlisch. In your capacity as an attorney, how would you characterize this agreement? In general, I mean. What kind of document is this?”
Brian jumped in again. “It’s perfectly fair, you can bring your own attorney in, even Mel, if you really have to…”
“Brian. Shut up. Mr. Hamlisch?”
Brian more or less froze, and the attorney finally found a moment in which to answer. “Quite simply, the terms detailed in contracts such as these provide couples who live together with basically the same legal protections conferred upon married couples as a matter of course.” He glanced over at Brian, and concealed a grin as he watched Brian’s head drop a fraction of an inch and he turned abruptly away, as if looking for something. Apparently, whatever it was, was lost somewhere around the computer hook-up. Hamlisch turned back to Justin, for any more questions.
Holy shit, Justin thought. He stared at the attorney, letting that sink in. Then he looked over at Brian, who lifted his head from his search and glared. “Don’t get your panties all in a knot, Sunshine, don’t!” he warned, when he saw that Justin had started to tear up, good God, anything but that. “It’s just a standard cohabitation contract, it protects both of us, especially now that you have money of your own, just in case something happens, and it makes it harder for me to be a prick to you. It also makes it a lot harder for you to just run off.” Oof, ouch. Well, that’s what he got for backing Brian into a corner. “It’s just a contract, people get in and out of them all the time, don’t…” but he trailed off, just shaking his head.
Justin turned to the attorney. “Can you excuse us for a minute?”
Hamlisch gathered up his briefcase, leaving the documents on the table. “Sure, let me know when you need me back. I’ll be just outside.”
Brian was fiddling with the video monitor control panel as the door shut behind the attorney. “Brian.”
Brian grunted, ejected a CD from the computer, looked around for the case, didn’t see it anywhere, glanced under the table, holding the disc. He frowned. “You see the case for this?” He turned around and looked into an empty corner of the room, as if it might be lying on the floor somewhere, at random.
Oh, Jesus Christ, he’s doing that obsessive thing. Justin stood up, came around the table, stood right in front of him. Brian frowned down at the disc, then stared at his briefcase, closed and under the table. “Brian.”
“Yeah.” He fed the disc back into its slot, and watched the program prompt boot up.
Justin didn’t say anything, just waited.
Finally, Brian looked over at the younger man, who stood before him with a completely inscrutable expression. Brian sighed. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s a legal agreement, that’s all. We’re not getting married. We’re not getting done up in matching tuxes and declaring undying devotion for all eternity. It’s just so you don’t have to worry that I’m going to just toss you out on your rump when you piss me off. Which you do. A lot. Or, if I do kick you out, you’ll have options, like suing my ass off if I get pissy and keep all our crap.”
“I know you wouldn’t do that. I don’t need any kind of protection, I trust you.”
“So much to learn…” Brian muttered to himself, hitting the eject button. The CD ejected. He started looking around again for the non-existent case.
“Brian. Put down the disc. Back away from the equipment.”
“Okay, I’ll approach this equipment...” Brian tossed the CD onto the table, and stepped closer to the younger man, moving his hand down Justin’s stomach, brushing lightly against his crotch.
While his dick certainly liked the attention, Justin was aware that Brian was only trying to distract them both from realizing how nervous he was. Of course, the first thing to reach for when self-confidence fails, is the nearest dick. Not that Justin minded that so much, but… “Uh, Brian.”
“Hm…” Brian had moved his hands to cup Justin’s ass and was busy rubbing up against him.
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
And that took care of the physical attention. Brian let go, backed away as if slapped. “What?! No no no no no no no no. It’s just a contract of protection. Protection for me. That’s all.”
Justin wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. “So it’s a sort of non-marriage marriage agreement?”
That drew an icy glare. “One more time. This is protection. For me. With this contract, *I* get out clean and simple, with minimal bullshit, efficiently. For when *we* go to hell.”
Wow, out come the big guns - not if, when. Justin burst out laughing. “Just so long as we go to hell together…” Justin moved across the distance Brian had put between them. “Because…” he drew out the pause, watching Brian tense, “…I’ll live with you in hell or anywhere else, I’ll let you declare your independence by binding yourself contractually to me, if that’s how you want, how you need to put it, you impossible man.” He stepped closer to Brian, reaching for him, dropping to his knees, shoving Brian back against the conference table.
“I take it, then, that you accept my proposal?” Brian sighed, possibly paying more attention to the mouth on his dick than the words he was choosing. Possibly.
“I do,” Justin replied.
So I’m sitting here on a stool at Woody’s watching Justin shoot pool against Ted, who has, surprise, surprise, joined the clubbing crowd once again. Well, not regularly, but there he is. He wandered in tonight, saying he thinks he’s “secure enough” and feels up to it, and then he glances at Emmett, yuck. Apparently they’ve made up, but *emotionally,* not by fucking each other until they couldn’t walk straight. Actually, I would never have had such a lesbionic thought that Emmett would actually be appeased through a gesture, that forgiveness could be accomplished without Ted rimming him for basically a century, as much as the thought makes me want to lose my whole-wheat-and-turkey, to say nothing of its actually happening via a letter. After that look between them, I turned to Justin and said, “Fucked and forgiven.” Not that I was asking what happened, not that I care. I don’t.
But soleil-boy corrects me. “No, Ted made his amends, he wrote Em a letter. They’re just talking, you know, how most people work things out.”
“Fucking’s more efficient.”
Justin rolls his eyes, and yells across the bar, “Hey, Ted, wanna play? It’s my table.” And Ted seems somewhat grateful to be able to put down his ginger ale and do something instead of having to talk to Emmett. See. Talking beyond information exchange is bullshit. I should know, I bullshit people for a living. And just because.
I think Daphne gets that last truth about me a little too well. She leans into my space from where she was sitting on the stool next to me. “You could just have asked him what happened you know. It’s much more *efficient*.”
I turn a blank look on her. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Then I order a shot from the bartender. The beer sitting in front of me is not enough.
“Yeah, get me a sloe gin fizz, too, please!” Daphne calls after my order, then turns back. “You’re paying, right?” Good God, the girl is just like HIM, that fearless presumption. Did they start giving classes in attitude after I’d gotten out of school? Or do those two just collaborate on perfecting a technique? They are roommates, after all. She goes on, “It’s obvious you want to know what happened between Ted and Em, otherwise you wouldn’t have said anything, o ye of few words. Why don’t you just ask? They really are your friends, whether you want to admit it or not.”
My shot arrives and I slam it back, that pleasurable pain hitting the back of my throat. I need the cushion of a good buzz right now, I’m thinking too much. I turn back to Daphne and say, “Why don’t you just drink?” I push her drink, this horrible reddish thing, toward her, and pick up my bottle of beer.
In response, she semi-screams from deep in her chest, and grabs my arm, shaking it, spilling some of my beer. I raise an eyebrow. “Now, Daphne, as much as I know you love feeling me up, I don’t think sacrificing my beer will be helpful to your wallet, since you’ll be paying for the next round.”
Her eyes go round, her mouth pursed into a big “o,” and then she frowns and turns away. She’s blushing. Got her there. She does so love to feel me up. I just have never commented on this before, oh me of few words.
Anyway, I was saying. I turn back to the pool table and there is my… okay, boyfriend, with his back to me, watching Ted line up a shot. Justin’s got on a pair of white pants and a short t-shirt that completely exposes his beautiful rump, his legs are set apart, and his inner wrists are carelessly holding the cue firmly in a horizontal position against his lower back. To be able to pull off that, he’s pushed his butt out like a shelf for the cue to rest in the arc of his back. He’s swaying slowly back and forth, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, not really with the music, but with his own rhythm. That ass, waving at me.
I have an instant, raging hard on.
“Ted, are you ever going to take the shot?” he says.
Ted just replies, “Yeah, eventually. But I think someone might be upset if I give up the table and interrupt his viewing pleasure.”
The blond head swivels around, and Justin grins when he sees where my eyes are. He starts laughing. “Oh, well, then…” and he wiggles at me, the fucker!
“Well,” Ted says, “if you don’t want to finish the game…” He’s smiling too, apparently reading my face. Or other parts. He takes a shot and misses.
“He’ll wait,” Justin replies, carelessly, and there it is again, that arrogant presumption. He releases the cue from behind his back.
“Oh no, he will not,” I growl, and I’m off my stool, I’ve grabbed him by one arm and I’m propelling him into the bathroom, shoving him into a stall so he’s up against the side wall, yanking those white pants down and grinding my still-covered dick against that soft white skin, my hands up underneath his shirt before he can finally get out a “Jesus, Brian…” and just the way he breathes my name floods blood straight to my cock, and I’m knocking his legs apart, frantically unzipping my jeans. He’s reaching behind to grab my hips and pull me closer, but I knock his arms away, pushing them to his side as I bite the back of his neck and then reach into my pocket for the ever-ready supplies, slip on a condom and lube, and then slam into him, hard, fast, over and over, as he screams a little and then moans as the pain gives way to pleasure. I’m not in a gentle mood here, gasping, panting against the small hairs at his nape. Ripping through me is this raw need and I don’t know if it was that comment at the pool table, or the way he must have known as he draped the cue across his back how I’d react, but right now I need to feed this beast that’s raging away, hungry only for him, and he’s gonna have to take care of himself, the little fucker, for that last little comment, or maybe because I can’t control this, I can only slam into him over and over, indulging this crazy… desire, need, god, words do the feeling of being in him, of wanting to be in him even when I am in him, mere words do this no justice at all, it’s like a fucking hurricane… but we’ve done this before and he’s with me, he’s always with me, jerking himself off as I slam into him, as I reach for that huge thing that’s tingling out of every pore, and those whimpering noises in his throat that he makes when it’s hard and fast and I’m on him out of nowhere, and I’ve got my arms around his chest and hugging him to me tight tight tight so my whole body is pressed up against him, just being in him isn’t even enough, and I wish we were naked, but no time, must be in him and I can only press him against the wall and me against his back mounting and rutting into him like an animal… and the orgasm is like a strike of a lightning bolt, blinding and sudden from out of the raging storm, grabbing me at the base of the scrotum as if I were shot and there’s that tightening, that being propelled upward, and my heart pauses and my breath stops as that gathering heart-stopping tightness explodes, and every organ slams back into action and my breath explodes out of me with an almost anguished groan and my heart races, and Justin’s yell as he throbs around my dick, prolonging the last of my climax as it fades into him. And one final thrust, one last deep seeking further into him… And then we’re still, and I’m holding his body tightly against mine, but my arms are looser and I can feel his left palm on top of my hands which are clasped over his chest, his fingers curling against the soft skin at my right wrist.
I pull out, and let him go, separating our bodies. I toss the condom in the toilet bowl. I step back, adjusting myself, watching as he pulls up his pants and turns around. I’m suddenly nervous… Jesus, what is that, it’s not like we haven’t done this before. But I don’t want him to say something… to tease me about this. I don’t know why. He only moves into my arms, though, and kisses me on the neck. “Wow,” he says. And we stand there for a moment, just holding each other.
“Uh… you probably should get back to the game,” I say, just because. I can’t take that weird…tension. Sex usually releases that sort of thing, what the fuck is this? Justin smiles at me, says nothing, he just moves, and I’m grateful for that. I open the door to let him out, and applause greets us from the four other guys in the bathroom. Justin blushes scarlet and I just roll my eyes and shove a cheering twink out of the way so I can wash my hands at the sink.
So now I’m sitting here, watching Justin finish the game with Ted. And damn it, I’m thinking. See, that’s why I like fucking, you don’t have to think while you’re doing it. Just feel. But for some reason, with Justin, I do think while I’m with him. I think way too much.
And here’s what I’m thinking right now as I watch him lean over the table to take a shot - and watch Ted and Emmett and Daphne smirk in my direction, damn it, they’ll be bringing this up for the next month, they really need to get sex lives of their own - here’s what I’m thinking right now, it’s a repeat of the thought that hit me as we emerged to the audience in the bathroom. We really have done that before. Maybe not exactly with that exact intensity - maybe I bit the left side of his neck instead of the right … But we’ve done that before. Every possible variation of sex. Woody’s, Babylon, bathrooms, backrooms, alone, with others, lots of others, naked, clothed, bound, gagged… I don’t need to continue, you get the point. We’ve done pretty much everything. So now what?
“Damn, Brian, that was soooo hot,” Daphne says. She’s drunk. I’m getting there. “And so what if I like to feel you up? Can you blame me, Mr. sooooo hot?”
She beams at me, her sudden smile like a laser, like the sun, really. Deb calls Justin sunshine, but Justin’s smile different, it’s slower, like the moon, on those nights in the fall when the moon is passing through banks of clouds lit up from behind and edged by the hidden moonlight in silver frames, Justin’s smile comes out the same way the moon emerges to full brightness from behind those bank of clouds in dark September skies, so achingly beautiful… and holy shit, am I really thinking this? What the fuck is wrong with me?
Thinking. Fucking is so much more efficient.
“Yeah, hot.” So maybe I’m already drunk, because my voice sounds maudlin, I can hear it. Not whining, but close. And damn it, I do not whine.
“Something wrong?” She pulls the last of her drink up through her straw, that awful sucking sound.
“Christ, don’t do that, let me get you another one.” I gesture at the bartender.
“That’s not going to erase my question. Something wrong with your hotness?”
Okay, I am drunk, because I’m taking her seriously. Sort of.
“It’s not like we haven’t done that before.”
“Well, no shit.”
“No,” I reply. The bartender’s brought me another beer along with Daphne’s drink, and he glances at the empty shot glass. He’s got his tip for thinking to keep me in beers without my even asking, but I shake my head at the shot. “I mean, we’ve done pretty much everything there is to do.”
“Everything.” She doesn’t doubt it, she’s just urging me to continue.
“Yeah, what’s next?”
“The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have then fly to others we know not of…”
“What, you’re saying I should off myself?” Hamlet, fucking great, thanks Daph.
Daphne laughs. “No, that would be too great a loss to my visual pleasure. I’m just saying…” But then she stops and narrows her eyes at me. “Do you know, you just totally framed that question in terms of yourself? I’m talking about you and him.” She gestures off to Justin, who suddenly finds himself the object of our scrutiny. He cocks his head. I knew he would have come over, but he was about to attempt to bank the eight ball into the far corner. He’d never get it, he sucked at that shot.
I turned back to Daphne after he missed. “I would never consider Justin in the terms you just used.”
“Oh.” Her voice is suddenly small, and she realizes that she’s treading on really, really dangerous ground, to use the idea of him and anything to do with death in a conversation with me. So she rushes forward, “Well, that’s not what I meant, anyway, I was just thinking, you know, Hamlet’s consideration for not killing himself was that he was a coward, basically, he doesn’t want to commit when he has no idea what’s gonna happen, that made him back down. But I was thinking the other day when I was writing a paper about that speech, you know, I think sometimes you just have to take those leaps into the unknown. Not with death, but with other stuff. Like, I’m thinking of applying to American University in Paris after graduating college, and I’m thinking all this scary shit, like, what if I hate France? What if no one there likes me? I don’t know anyone there, what if I don’t pick up the language? And how hard it’s going to be to totally go to another culture. But if it works out… I’ll have this whole expansion to who I am that’ll be really cool, I’ll have all this new experience that’ll let me do all kinds of things I’d never considered…”
“Like…?”
Daphne shrugged. “Teach in Paris, work in the American embassy any number of places, become the ambassador for a wine grove in Marseilles… I don’t know! That’s the point! It’s just a whole new world to explore. Not just Europe, but who I can be.”
I was missing the point completely. “What’s your point?”
She sighed. “Maybe it’s time you take a leap. Maybe not with sex…” She burst out laughing at the expression I could feel cross my face. And what the hell was I doing, talking to a fucking 20-nothing about this anyway? I gestured the bartender over, and growled at him to give me another shot. Fuck it.
“No, Brian!” she whined. Good God, they had to practice that together, I swear. “Seriously,” she continued, as if I could shut her up at that point. “Maybe it’s time to try something completely new and different, and since you’ve run out of the sex stuff…”
“That's not what I meant. We never run out of the sex stuff. ”
She is not distracted, and continues as if I had said nothing, “Maybe you should ask him to move back in with you.”
Okay… That was different. But. “That’s not new, Daphne. I was waiting for you to tell me we should get married.” I laughed.
“Oh you wish! That way you could just reject my idea out of hand. But with him moving in… the other times it’s because he was kicked out of his parents’ house, or his mom couldn’t handle him and she asked you to take him.” Fucking Christ, he really does tell her everything. She was relentless. “It would be different this time, because you’d want him there. And MAYBE for once, for something new, you might want to ask him in a way that’s special, so he knows he’s special to you, that it means something.”
I stared at her, and opened my mouth to say… well, pretty much nothing came to mind, so thank God there was a “Hey,” and I pulled my boy in next to me, deliverance from the sudden ambush of this conversation, and I glared at Daphne as she giggled. “What’s up?” Justin asked, bending in to kiss my neck. Oh, God, there it was again, like a surge down to my dick, but on its way through all of my blood vessels, tingling at the skin where his lips had touched.
“Did you win?” I asked.
“Of course,” Ted replied, setting his drink on the bar, asking if anyone wanted to go with him and Emmett to the diner. We knew it was a formality, and declined. Daphne stood. “I gotta get going too.” Both she and Justin looked at me. “You going to Babylon?” Justin asked.
I shook my head. “You want to come back with me?” I asked.
Daphne rolled her eyes at me behind Justin’s back. I shook my head. “No, not that,” I said to her. Justin looked confused, but before he could ask, I handed Daphne a twenty for cab fare home. She thanked me, told Justin she’d see him… whenever. Then she was gone, and it was just us.
Much later, and here I am, listening to the light snoring next to me, Thinking again. Only, now I wasn’t thinking of how we’d done pretty much everything together that you could get your sexual imagination around, now I was thinking about what Daphne had said. Great, here I am, thinking. Again. This kid makes me think about him.
Sex is so much better, action. Just do it. Whoever came up with that one was a fucking genius. Three words, nothing else in the entire fucking ad except the logo. Just do it.
So when we got back from Woody’s, I did my best to go into non-thinking mode. I didn’t want a repeat of the hot assault on my darlin’ twink’s body, nope, once an evening was enough. Slow, slow - excruciatingly slow, for him, if those yummy lips dripping pleas for me to fuck him was any indication. But I didn’t want that, and I loved handing him the condom and watching the dawning awe on his face as his eyes lit up. He loves to top me, and doesn’t get to do it often, let me tell you. The mood was right; I’d already set the slow pace, and I know when he tops he loves to drag it out as long as possible, his body touching every inch of mine, his hands moving through my hair, over my neck, down my back, sides, thighs. He loves it when I rise up on my knees and elbows, lifting him with me without much effort at all, controlling our motions as much from my position as he does from his. Truthfully, I love it. There’s this whole mood that comes with Justin topping.
And oh, fuck, now that I’m lying here listening to his snoring which should be annoying and isn’t, I find myself actually considering what I should do with that bit of knowledge, that I love him inside me, coming inside me, not just that but the feeling of everything about him doing it, having to consider what it means instead of just enjoying the activity and doing it every so often. I can hear myself, Well, Brian, what does this mean to you? The fact that you like being vulnerable with this kid, being vulnerable here not in a fucked-up violent way, but in a real honest-to-God emotional way. Isn’t that really what makes that particular sex act so hot for you, that’s got you creaming your jeans just thinking about it, about him? Could you stop thinking... feeling this if you wanted to? You don't want to stop, do you?
AARRRGHHHH!!!!!!
So now I’m smoking a cigarette, standing in front of the windows, not looking out at Pittsburgh, but looking back toward the bedroom where he’s sleeping. And thinking, damn it, thinking. Specifically, about what Daphne said. And that feeling that hit me at Woody’s, like a hurricane blowing in from without, picking me up and having its way. There’s some point coming up, I can feel it, looming on the horizon, bigger than me. And I think it's a point where we're living together. So now I gotta figure out how to ask him to move back in, to ask him right, and not fuck it up.
****
“Cynthia! Get in here now!”
Cynthia pushed her chair back and went into Brian’s office, wondering why he couldn’t just use the intercom like a normal person. She knew he liked to yell, but really. “You barked?” she asked.
He took no notice of the barb that heretofore never failed to annoy him, as he frowned intently at the series of photos arranged on the desk in front of him. Cynthia peered over at them curiously. Each had a post-it with a number written on it, and Brian was pulling a CD out of his drive to hand to her. “This project takes priority right now… well, unless there’s a fire, but I don’t see any coming up.” He began to outline what he wanted her to do, waving her away when she started to smile, then laugh, and finally cried, “Oh, Brian, this is so cute!”
He grimaced, and waved her away. “Oh, and get me Hamlisch on the phone!”
“Hi, I’m here, I’m here,” Justin called, coming into Brian’s office.
“You’re late,” Brian growled, getting up from behind his desk, and walking toward the conference table. Behind Justin’s back, Cynthia discreetly pulled the doors closed, but not before smiling broadly over at Brian.
Justin walked behind Brian, glancing around curiously. “Where is everybody? Am I early? You know, you could have forwarded me the art work before asking me to sit in on a client meeting…”
“It’s fine, we’re fine, take a seat.” Brian said, sitting down. He gestured for Justin to sit in the chair to his right. In the center of the table was a catered brunch mix for the 10:00 a.m. meeting: donuts, cheese-filled croissants, sesame and poppyseed bagels with both veggie and plain cream cheese, bananas, grapes and strawberries, and both blueberry and orange cranberry muffins. This distracted Justin from his previous question as he longingly eyed the fare.
“Help yourself,” Brian instructed. Justin didn’t need to be urged twice. Brian moved to the sideboard, poured him a glass mug of coffee and came back to the table. He watched Justin dip his donut into the black liquid with one hand, even as he reached for a muffin with the other. “Good thing I prepared expense graphs,” Brian muttered.
“Huh?”
“Nothing. You ready?”
Justin swallowed the rest of the donut, broke the muffin in half, and eyed the bagels. Apparently, he was starving to death. “I shouldn’t ruin the spread before the client gets here.”
Brian stood up, moved over to the side of the room, where several easels were set up, holding the boards he’d prepared, turned backwards. He picked them up, looked down at the first one, tilting it towards himself so that Justin couldn’t see it. Brian repeated, “You ready? Go ahead, eat, you only have to listen anyway.”
The donut had appeased the mighty stomach, however, and Justin managed to hold off from continuing. Okay, this was weird. “I don’t get it. Who’s the client?”
“You are,” Brian answered, turning back and placing the boards on the props.
“Me.”
“Yup.”
Justin just stared at him.
“Seriously, eat, all you have to do is listen.” Brian stood next to the blown up photo of the two of them, this one taken, obviously, at one of Lindsay and Mel’s parties. Not kissing, just smiling at each other, Brian’s arms on Justin’s shoulders, Justin’s hands on his wrists. It was a candid shot, one of Justin’s favorites. Three other photos, similar pictures, Justin didn’t even remember when they were taken. Dancing at Babylon, who took that one? Brian had wanted these images in place to start the meeting, and for atmosphere, a continual background reminder of the object of the rest of his proposal. Truthfully, he was unsure how Justin would take his pitch. He knew that starting with the photos of them hanging out on each other, though, would put Justin’s head in a receptive place. Besides, they both looked hot in the pictures, and the shots were excellent, nothing wrong with good art. Brian cleared his throat, and said, “Yup, you’re the client. And this the best ad man on the east coast selling you on the reasons you should you should move in with me, Brian Kinney, or should I say more specifically, it is absolutely in your best interest to move back into the loft. With me.” Did he just repeat himself? Fuck, he never did that. Dammit.
Justin opened his mouth, then closed it. His lips twisted as he forced himself not to laugh, not to shake his head to clear it. And Brian stood there, in the professional, stern face, in his dark grey Armani suit with the red shirt and tie that had Justin itching to take him out of it. Oh, definitely, Justin thought, this I gotta see. “Okay, Mr. Kinney, you have my attention.” He leaned back in his chair, and crammed a piece of muffin in his mouth. Brian closed his eyes against the crumbs that dropped all over. Someone remind him of the benefits of this? Then Justin licked one of the crumbs off of his lips. Long pink tongue over full red lips. Uh, oh yeah, right.
“First.” Brian moved over to the computer that was hooked into to the room’s video equipment. The lights in the conference room dimmed; the screen on the far wall came down, and the overhead video projector hummed into life. The screen filled with a picture of Justin’s room at Daphne’s. It wasn’t a mess so much as an explosion of clothing and art supplies crammed in a lack of space. The twin bed barely fit in behind the tiny desk. Very dark. “Your current living space is obviously not adequate to meet your needs. Here we see…” Brian pointed at the video screen with his laser, circling one smashed art project, “…art that is clearly deserving of much better treatment.”
“It was just a class assignment,” Justin answered, shrugging. “I’d already gotten it back. When’d you photo my room? Brian, is that me under there? Is that my ass?!!”
“It could be your ass, but how would we know? you’re buried alive under all that shit in too little space, that’s the point. Your work should be stored properly, but clearly, your need for closets is not met here.” The red laser moved over the closet-less walls, before lingering to trace the lines of what might be Justin’s butt, and then snapped to the clothes strewn about, pausing on a dress shirt that was far too nice to be Justin’s. “And that is criminal. Is that mine?”
“No, that’s the one you bought for me when we went to that banquet.”
“Better, but not good. Beautiful things deserve proper care.” Brian paused, glanced at the other man, and rushed forward before Justin could react to the double entendre in that statement. “First, you know the history of our other attempts to live together, so we can just skip over those…”
“Umf…” Justin grunted around more muffin, “Wvey…”
Brian waited patiently while Justin swallowed. “Actually, Mr. Kinney, I would like to hear your perspective on the issues involved, and how they have been resolved.”
Shit. He was hoping… ah well. Not like he didn’t expect this. He brought up a variety of pictures, clicking through each, lingering on furniture, appliances, clothing, electronics, and finally a big bare space. “These are the pictures I took before the robbery and submitted to the insurance company…”
Justin grabbed a glass and filled it with orange juice from the pitcher next to the platter, his throat suddenly dry. Maybe it hadn’t been the best request.
But the second set of photos wasn’t of Ethan, as Justin had been afraid they would be; they were of Brian. Brian at work, accepting ad awards, a write up in the Pittsburgh paper of one of Brian's succeses while at Vanguard. “Okay, the first attempt was obviously aborted by the robbery, and the second was aborted by… other problems. But, underneath the surface event, first time, the robbery, second, the… uh…”
“Cheating?” Justin said. Well, get it out on the table, what the hell.
“Dissatisfaction,” Brian ameliorated. “Beneath both we can trace the underlying issue to the same problem, my shit.”
“You.”
“Yup. First time, it was my loft, my furniture, my space. And I resented your intrusion. This time, I don’t feel that way at all. The second… well, I work hard, I play hard.”
“To the point it’s natural for slogans to just slide off your tongue.” Justin finished his coffee, and set aside the mug. “It wasn’t just you, Brian.”
There was a pause, a shrug. “Maybe not, but I can’t change how you do things.”
With that statement, the seriousness of this little meeting was fully penetrating into Justin’s understanding; Brian could dress this up in his professionalism to mask his nervousness, but Justin could feel the tension in him, hear the slight tightening in his throat around that word. Change.
Brian plowed ahead. “In any case, from my side, the problem was that it’s always been about me, my stuff, my work. Me. So, here’s how I propose this can be addressed. First, regarding the first issue, the loft could use a… shift in tone. Decoration-wise.”
Justin lifted his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Well, maybe the walls in the bedroom are a little bare. And, maybe, the color scheme is a little dark. And the bathroom might be different.”
“Ooh, a four poster bed with sheer white curtains!” Justin enthused, managing not to laugh at the pained grimace, the “no fucking way” look that came across his partner’s face. “I’m kidding, Brian. I like your furniture. The bedroom walls are a little bare, maybe a splash more color, and any art outside the bedroom would have to coordinate with the naked guy…” Brian’s face cleared.
“Is that it?” Justin asked. “Because I have a couple of issues I’d like to discuss.”
“Actually, if you don’t mind? One or two last points.” Brian brought up another program, and the screen blinked off one of Brian’s awards, to switch to a video projecting the side of the loft to the right of the bedroom. “Now, watch,” Brian instructed. Clearly, the video was on time collapse, following the daylight as it moved from morning to night through the empty room, and Justin could physically fill the cells in his skin respond to the way the light swelled to fill the space as the day was collapsed to minutes and faded into night. “You’ll note the excellence of the light, especially in that corner of the loft. We’ll spare a comparison to the dark cave of your current situation, but the advantage is clear. And…” While the video showed moonlight now spilling into the loft, Brian picked up a drapery-covered object from the sideboard, brought it to the table, set it down on the conference table to Justin’s left. Dramatically, he whipped the cloth off of the sizable lump, to reveal a miniature model of the loft. The details were perfect. Justin almost squealed as he took in the tiny furniture, and “Oh, look it’s a miniature naked guy!” He loved stuff like this.
Brian was pointing with the laser again, but away from the naked guy. In the spot across the loft, was set up a tiny drafting table, and an easel. “See, you can have this entire corner for your work space, and the benefits of all the light.” The space corresponded to the corner of the loft the time-collapse video had just followed.
But Justin was preoccupied, turning the tiny light over the little bed off and on. “Wow, this is so cool. Does the shower actually work? We’re keeping this, right?” He looked up, and Brian felt a smile tug his lips.
“I don’t know, are we?”
Justin sat back in his chair, reluctantly turning his attention away from the cool little toy. He’d try the shower later; he’d bet Brian had a pump to power the thing.
“Okay, I guess you’ve given me reason to negotiate,” Justin said as Brian sat in the chair next to him, the casual draping of his body belying the tension Justin could feel vibrating off of him. “But you forgot something…”
Brian frowned, looked up at the video, down at the model, over at the bagels and muffins sans the donut and two muffins that Justin had managed to put away through the presentation. He looked questioningly back at the other man. “It’s not just about a space to live in, Brian, we’d be moving in together. I mean, consciously.”
“I know that.”
Yeah, he did, Justin thought, that’s the reason for all this, to shift the focus from an emotional intensity that Brian could never be easy with. This was his way of managing those feelings he was so reluctant to actually put in words. Thus, all this.
But Brian continued. “Actually, that’s why I’m pushing the loft, the space you’d get out of this. When it comes to that, other, part, I’m definitely getting the deal, and you’re definitely getting the liability.”
“That’s not true,” Justin answered softly.
“Seriously, what do you see in me? You… well, you’re brilliant. And, well, nice. And tough. And hot. Mostly, giving, generous with yourself, you’re interested in other people. People know that, they respond. Shit, even I do… But I’m not nice at all. So what is it you see in me?”
Justin hesitated before answering. He knew what it took for Brian to say all that. “It’s not that you need me, Brian, you so do, and I love to be needed. But who doesn’t? Besides, I need you as much, in different ways. But it’s not that. It’s…” He hesitated, not sure if he should say this. It sounded New-Agey. They both hated that crap - Brian for intellectual reasons, Justin for aesthetic ones.
“What?” Brian’s urging decided him. He was leaning forward in the chair.
“I recognize you.”
“Well, I hope so!” Brian laughed slightly, sat back.
Yup, this was a little too intense for him, Justin thought, but he continued, watching Brian’s face to make sure his words didn’t go too far. “No. The first time we met. It was like… it was like I had been waiting for you to show up, and when you did, a part of me just, relaxed. Like, okay, here he is. But I wasn’t waiting exactly, because that would imply… that you were somewhere apart from me." He studied Brian’s face, but Brian was listening intently, not fidgeting, not glancing away. “I knew you the second I met you, I recognize you, like from somewhere outside time. I can’t explain it. Does all this sound stupid?” Now Justin was nervous.
“No,” Brian said softly. He reached out to Justin, pulled him closer with his hand behind the younger man’s neck, and kissed him.
Justin gasped as he pulled away after a minute, when things seemed to be on the way toward coming unglued. “No, wait! We’re negotiating, are you trying to influence my position?”
Brian smiled. “But of course. So. What’s your position?” He waited.
“Well, your points are excellent. Especially that last one.” The two smiled at each other. “Soon…” Justin promised, licking his lips.
“Now, now, stick to business. Perks later.”
“That is business. The loft is the perk,” Justin shot back. “But since we’re negotiating perks… In regards to the second issue we discussed, the way our earlier attempts led to less than spectacular results, how your work takes over sometimes… vacation.”
“Ah. Vacation.”
“Yup. We take vacation. I don’t think we ever have, have we? Even if it’s just in the loft. No work. Just us.”
“I think we can do better than that. You need to see Italy.”
“Florence.”
“And Rome.”
“Three weeks of time for just us.”
Brian scoffed. “One week.”
“Two.”
“Hmph. Two weeks of vacation a year. We can do that. Is that it?”
“No.” Justin took a deep breath. “You know, Rage is taking off. You know I have an potential income that’s fairly sizable. It’s made me think, maybe that’s not a fluke.”
“It isn’t,” Brian assured him.
“I mean, I think it’s possible I’ll have real money at some point. I want to know if you would consider…” the deep breath again, “…if and when I have a real income of my own…”
“Stop beating around the bush, Justin, tell me what you want.”
“I want to know if you’d consider getting a place that’s ours. Buying a place together.”
Brian stared at him, then grinned with tongue firmly in cheek. “That is possible. But may require something a little more firm than a verbal consent.” He stood up and moved to the phone on the far end of the table, pressed the intercom button, and said, “Cynthia? Could you send in Martin?”
Justin stared across the room as Brian’s personal attorney walked in, smiling at both men. Justin had met him previously, they greeted each other.
“Well!” Martin Hamlisch said, taking the seat across from the two. He opened his briefcase as Brian moved the food and model out of the way. “This is, of course, the bare bones, covering basic contingencies. Plenty of room to work in the particulars, think of it as a starter kit.” He took out a stack of papers, and handed a copy of a document to Brian, and then to Justin.
“What is this?” Justin asked.
Hamlisch looked at Brian. “I didn’t explain this to him, I figured you’d be better at the legalities.”
“Legalities?” Justin frowned at Brian’s words.
“Just hear him out before you tell me what you think,” Brian urged, knowing how Justin tended to emote before carefully judging situations. Justin nodded, and pursed his lips.
“Your reaction is fairly common,” Hamlisch continued at Brian’s nod, “But the truth is, ironing out the particulars in legal terms takes care of potential problems, nips them in the bud before they have the chance to develop into real problems. Keeps issues from interfering, especially financial issues. More importantly, this document sets up necessary rights in case of other issues, outside the relationship itself. Again, this is fairly standard, you’ll want to look it over more closely, maybe with your own attorney…”
“Could you summarize it, basically?” Justin was still reluctant to touch the thing. He was very aware that Brian had started turning the little light over the miniature model bed on and off.
“Fairly simple. First, it sets clear financial terms in place, what’s yours, mine, ours, and with the latter, the distribution of property in the event of dissolution.” Dissolution, Justin thought, what an awful euphemism. “Debt distribution, support issues, health insurance coverage, rights as conservators for the other, and the establishment of right to make medical decisions.” Brian had instructed the man not to use the word “death” or “incapacitation” in his descriptions, although it was in, had to be in, the document. Brian hated this part of the document too, but he was damned if he would ever sit outside a hospital room again, silenced by bullshit legalities. He watched Justin take the lawyer’s words in, wondering how the young man would handle this. Hardly the romantic gesture Daphne had urged Brian take at Woody’s a couple of weeks back, but damn it, that just wasn’t *him*.
Justin sat with his head bowed, seeming not to listen to Hamlisch explain other potential sections to be negotiated. But when Hamlisch began explaining how the document could be expanded to include decisions regarding children, Justin’s head snapped up, and he stared over at Brian, his eyes widening to a huge size. That blonde hair suddenly transformed into a light bulb going off, exploding on.
“I’m waiting for the day Daphne asks you to father her child.” Brian passed this one off. The subject needed to come up, and Brian had even practiced in the car on his way to work that morning the very line that had just come out of his mouth, for the perfect tone of casualness and sarcasm. The eye roll he threw in, an inspired addition.
But Justin wasn’t focused on the details being spelled out for him at all. He stared at Brian, his mouth dropping open. He shut it with a snap, and whipped his head back to the attorney.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. No, it couldn’t....
Hamlisch had picked up his spiel, had moved onto another issue. “Just, a second,” Justin said, interrupting the lawyer. “Just… this uh, contract…” He glanced over at Brian again, this time with a look on his face of dawning awe. Or horror. Or… what?
Brian couldn’t tell which emotion was passing over that transparent face. A lot, in any case. Oh, shit, this couldn’t be good. He rushed in to explain, knowing Hamlisch would never see the dangerous ground they were on, “This contract is there to protect both of us. In case anything happens. On top of asset division, it also makes it a lot more difficult for me to just toss you out on your butt. Thought you’d like that.” Again, a smirk, deal with that one, sonny boy!
But Justin heard an altogether different tone, or rather, he heard the tension underlying the seemingly careless tone. It was screaming for him to back off. Yeah, as if. “Thanks, Brian, but I wanted to ask Mr. Hamlisch. In your capacity as an attorney, how would you characterize this agreement? In general, I mean. What kind of document is this?”
Brian jumped in again. “It’s perfectly fair, you can bring your own attorney in, even Mel, if you really have to…”
“Brian. Shut up. Mr. Hamlisch?”
Brian more or less froze, and the attorney finally found a moment in which to answer. “Quite simply, the terms detailed in contracts such as these provide couples who live together with basically the same legal protections conferred upon married couples as a matter of course.” He glanced over at Brian, and concealed a grin as he watched Brian’s head drop a fraction of an inch and he turned abruptly away, as if looking for something. Apparently, whatever it was, was lost somewhere around the computer hook-up. Hamlisch turned back to Justin, for any more questions.
Holy shit, Justin thought. He stared at the attorney, letting that sink in. Then he looked over at Brian, who lifted his head from his search and glared. “Don’t get your panties all in a knot, Sunshine, don’t!” he warned, when he saw that Justin had started to tear up, good God, anything but that. “It’s just a standard cohabitation contract, it protects both of us, especially now that you have money of your own, just in case something happens, and it makes it harder for me to be a prick to you. It also makes it a lot harder for you to just run off.” Oof, ouch. Well, that’s what he got for backing Brian into a corner. “It’s just a contract, people get in and out of them all the time, don’t…” but he trailed off, just shaking his head.
Justin turned to the attorney. “Can you excuse us for a minute?”
Hamlisch gathered up his briefcase, leaving the documents on the table. “Sure, let me know when you need me back. I’ll be just outside.”
Brian was fiddling with the video monitor control panel as the door shut behind the attorney. “Brian.”
Brian grunted, ejected a CD from the computer, looked around for the case, didn’t see it anywhere, glanced under the table, holding the disc. He frowned. “You see the case for this?” He turned around and looked into an empty corner of the room, as if it might be lying on the floor somewhere, at random.
Oh, Jesus Christ, he’s doing that obsessive thing. Justin stood up, came around the table, stood right in front of him. Brian frowned down at the disc, then stared at his briefcase, closed and under the table. “Brian.”
“Yeah.” He fed the disc back into its slot, and watched the program prompt boot up.
Justin didn’t say anything, just waited.
Finally, Brian looked over at the younger man, who stood before him with a completely inscrutable expression. Brian sighed. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, it’s a legal agreement, that’s all. We’re not getting married. We’re not getting done up in matching tuxes and declaring undying devotion for all eternity. It’s just so you don’t have to worry that I’m going to just toss you out on your rump when you piss me off. Which you do. A lot. Or, if I do kick you out, you’ll have options, like suing my ass off if I get pissy and keep all our crap.”
“I know you wouldn’t do that. I don’t need any kind of protection, I trust you.”
“So much to learn…” Brian muttered to himself, hitting the eject button. The CD ejected. He started looking around again for the non-existent case.
“Brian. Put down the disc. Back away from the equipment.”
“Okay, I’ll approach this equipment...” Brian tossed the CD onto the table, and stepped closer to the younger man, moving his hand down Justin’s stomach, brushing lightly against his crotch.
While his dick certainly liked the attention, Justin was aware that Brian was only trying to distract them both from realizing how nervous he was. Of course, the first thing to reach for when self-confidence fails, is the nearest dick. Not that Justin minded that so much, but… “Uh, Brian.”
“Hm…” Brian had moved his hands to cup Justin’s ass and was busy rubbing up against him.
“Are you asking me to marry you?”
And that took care of the physical attention. Brian let go, backed away as if slapped. “What?! No no no no no no no no. It’s just a contract of protection. Protection for me. That’s all.”
Justin wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. “So it’s a sort of non-marriage marriage agreement?”
That drew an icy glare. “One more time. This is protection. For me. With this contract, *I* get out clean and simple, with minimal bullshit, efficiently. For when *we* go to hell.”
Wow, out come the big guns - not if, when. Justin burst out laughing. “Just so long as we go to hell together…” Justin moved across the distance Brian had put between them. “Because…” he drew out the pause, watching Brian tense, “…I’ll live with you in hell or anywhere else, I’ll let you declare your independence by binding yourself contractually to me, if that’s how you want, how you need to put it, you impossible man.” He stepped closer to Brian, reaching for him, dropping to his knees, shoving Brian back against the conference table.
“I take it, then, that you accept my proposal?” Brian sighed, possibly paying more attention to the mouth on his dick than the words he was choosing. Possibly.
“I do,” Justin replied.