Plans: Interlude
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Parts One and Two are here and here.
Plans, Interlude:
The Night Babylon Re-opened
by Xie
There was definitely something to be said for flying to Pittsburgh instead of driving, and for being picked up by a car service at the airport. When I settled into the car, I turned my cell phone back on. And smiled. I’d missed a call from Brian. I checked voice mail but he hadn’t left a message. Just the “missed call” notice with his cell number.
I called him, and he actually answered, although the noise in the background was almost louder than his voice.
“Hey.”
“Hey. I’m here.”
“Everything OK?”
“Yup. Later.”
“Later.”
These stimulating intellectual discussions are the foundation of our relationship.
When I got to the house, the outside lights were on, and a few inside lights. I disabled the alarm, went inside and turned it back on. In New York the only alarm I have is the feeling I get when I turn on the kitchen lights at night and see the cockroaches scurrying into hiding, but here in the virtually crime-free Pennsylvania suburbs, we have security worthy of the vice-presidential bunker. I’m surprised Brian didn’t have a laser detection system installed in his lair, otherwise known as Brian’s media room. He and Gus are basically the same age when it comes to toys.
I walked around the house. This was the first time I’d been there alone. Which was funny, because theoretically it was my house. Although it really wasn’t, because I didn’t pay for it, didn’t give much feedback on the remodeling except in the very beginning, and didn’t ever marry Brian. Aren’t you actually supposed to return wedding gifts when you call off the wedding? Even the ones from the guy you didn’t marry? I’d have to check with Emmett on the etiquette of that.
I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, and there was absolutely nothing in it except beer and water. OK. I’m out in the middle of nowhere with no car and no food. I’m going to guess the house was well-stocked with condoms and lube. Call me psychic.
I took a beer and went up to the bedroom. Brian’s bedroom. It’s not like there was just one; there were eight bedrooms. His was, well, it was Brian’s bedroom. Big bed front and center, custom lighting design, huge windows that I knew looked out on a killer view of the property, and a gigantic designer bathroom with a shower bigger than the one at the loft. And I suddenly thought, I wonder if Brian’s ever brought anyone back here. I really didn’t care what he did anywhere else, but I didn’t like the idea of him fucking someone else at our house. Even if we didn’t get married. Even if it’s not really my house.
I finished my beer and set the bottle down on the bedside table. I dropped my bag in the corner and went into the bathroom. I turned on the water, stripped, and got in and let the hot water beat down on me. It was the first time I’d been in that shower without Brian. It was the first shower I’d taken alone in Pittsburgh since moving to New York.
I dried off and carried my clothes out and shoved them in a heap on top of my bag, and crawled into bed. I was still a little damp and shivering, and I pulled the duvet around me tight, winding it around my frozen feet. I should have blown my hair dry, I thought. My teeth were almost chattering.
After a little while, the duvet caught what body heat I had and warmed up the air around my naked skin, and I fell asleep.
I woke up and it was later. I mean it was much later in the night, and it was the “later” when Brian and I were going to see each other, because he was kneeling next to the bed kissing my face. There wasn’t anything else to kiss, because I was wrapped up so tight in the duvet that it felt like a cocoon. I smiled at him and kissed him back, letting my mouth open up and letting his hot tongue lick it all over inside.
“Hey.”
He started pulling at the duvet where it was wrapped under my chin. “Let me in.”
I wriggled a little bit until there was a gap big enough for him to snake his hand in. Brian was naked, kneeling on the floor next to me.
“Aren’t you freezing?”
“That’s why I want you to let me in.” But his hand was warm as it curled around the back of my neck.
I tried to unwind the duvet a little more, rolling away from him, pulling it out from under my hip, and then rolling back. He moved his arm from my neck down between the duvet and my back, and then slid the other arm down in front of me, opening up even more space. He slid himself into the cocoon with me, and his body felt warm, not cold. Even his feet were warm as they slid all over mine. “Just how I like you. All wrapped up tight.”
“How was the opening?”
“Perfect. Beautiful. Dazzling. Packed.”
“OK, you’re high.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t drive out here like that?”
“Nope, got the car service.”
“Mikey’s been replaced as your designated driver?”
“This house is out of Michael’s travel zone. He’s never even been here.” I didn’t know that.
“Well, who has been?” I shouldn’t have asked that. There were answers to that question I wouldn’t want to hear.
Brian kissed my ear and nuzzled into my neck. “The decorator, the plumbers, the contractor, the electricians, the computer guy, the audio-visual equipment guy, the cleaning service, the painters, the furniture delivery people, the lighting guy, and someone who does something known as drywalling, which sounds vaguely like a sex act but appears to be related to construction.”
“None of our friends has been out here?”
Brian shook his head and went back to kissing me. That had been a pretty long speech for Brian when he was horny and high.
We didn’t have much room inside our duvet cocoon, but he was making use of the space we had to rub against my body and lick every inch of my mouth inside and out. Then he was kissing my neck and shoulders, his hips slowly thrusting against mine. I sighed and just enjoyed it, my question about whether Brian had ever brought anyone here to fuck unasked. I worked my arms up and got them around his neck and he started kissing my face and mouth again. He trailed his tongue along my jaw, then down my neck. His lips were dry and warm and his tongue was hot and wet, and he kept taking little bits of my skin into his teeth and biting down gently, and then sucking the skin into his mouth for just a second, and then moving to a new spot. It was making me fucking insane. Every tiny bite seemed to shoot straight down through my skin to my cock, and when he sucked on my skin and pushed into my crotch at the same time, I thought I’d come all over him like a teenager.
I was pushing at the blanket while trying to keep his mouth on me. “I want to get out of this thing.”
“I kind of like being in here with you. It’s all warm and tight, like your ass.”
“You don’t need something warm and tight like my ass, my ass is right here, but you can’t get to it unless we get this thing off.”
“Good point.” He stretched out his long legs, and kicked at the bottom of the duvet, and I felt cold air on my feet. He pushed his legs out, and the duvet opened up more, and then he moved me over onto my back and got on top of me, his arms pushing the cover out on both sides, his chest pressed to mine. “All free. Now let me in the other warm tight place.”
I laughed a little and wrapped my legs around his waist, loosely crossing my ankles and holding him around his neck with my arms. I breathed in Brian’s smell, and suddenly realized that he hadn’t showered and he didn’t smell like sex. I wriggled my toes and tightened my legs around him, but didn’t say anything.
Brian was going crazy on my neck and had slid his hands down my back and around to my hips, and was holding onto me while I tried to angle myself up for him. I unhooked my arm from his neck and reached out and grabbed a condom off the bedside table, and shoved it down into his hand. “C’mon.” He kind of chuckled and took it from me and pulled away a little while he put it on. I let my legs fall down and lie on either side of him, my knees bent. Something about the way he’d said “warm and tight” made me want him in me now. I felt all warm and relaxed and ready.
He reached over for the lube and I held out my hand for it. He poured some into my palm, and I reached down and spread a little in my ass with my fingers, and a lot onto his dick with my hand. And then I wiped my hand on the sheet and got my legs back up around him and reached my hands down and took hold of his ass and pulled him up on me until I felt his cock lying where I wanted it. I reached down with my left hand and put the head right at my opening and tried to push it in. Brian didn’t normally let me get this bossy.
He pulled my hand away from his cock, and then put his cock back at my hole, and moved it in just the tiniest bit. I really was open and ready, and he knew that, and he pulled back and moved into me in one long thrust that stroked right over my prostate going in and pulling out. I grabbed on with my legs even harder, working them further up his back, pressing down on the mattress with my palms, arching my back and rolling my hips up. He moved a little, getting a better angle, and started slamming into me, all the soft kisses and cuddling forgotten for now, just his cock pounding into me as hard as he could pound it, and me grabbing handfuls of sheet in my hands and pushing up to meet him on every thrust, not knowing if I wanted it to last for hours or wanted to fucking come that instant.
I started rocking my hips faster, wanting more and harder and getting it. He was over me on his arms, but now he pulled back, my legs slipping down onto his arms. He reached out and grabbed my hips and pulled them hard toward him while he shoved into me, and I gasped and threw my head back when I felt him hit deeper in me than I’d expected. He stayed kneeling in front of me, my legs up on his shoulders now, his hands on my hips while he drove into me, him pulling me toward him on every thrust. I couldn’t even thrust up anymore, I felt like I was going to explode or cry or scream, and I heard myself moaning and saying things I hoped were “Fuck me, harder, fuck, Brian” and not something I was going to regret later. But I had no idea. I’m surprised I got any words out at all. His cock was pistoning into me and my arms were crossed over my face and I was just going with it, him totally controlling everything, the depth and the rhythm and the speed, because I was just a mindless moaning pile of want and openness under him right then.
He reached out one hand and pushed at my arms. “Want to see you.” He grunted it, really. I opened up my arms and looked at him. His face and body were covered in sweat, the muscles in his chest and arms and abdomen clenching and releasing with every thrust. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, his eyes looking down at mine with something in them I almost couldn’t look at. I wanted to cover my face again but I made myself look at him because he wanted me to. He opened his mouth and swallowed and bit his lip inward, and kept his eyes open and locked onto mine.
He hit me deep and in a way that made me curl up my body and cry out and feel a burn and an explosion inside me that started to pour out of me, I was coming without him even touching my cock, just shooting all over between us and he kept fucking me and now he was kissing me frantic and wet, scraping me with his teeth and moaning into my mouth, and I knew he was coming into the condom and not moving anymore, just making that deep beautiful sound while my ass clenched down on him and I thought fuck fuck fuck I love you.
He lay down hard on me, and I felt his cock still inside me, and his heart pounding against me, and I thought, nothing is as warm as this.
In the morning I woke up all of a sudden, not my usual slow crawl up to consciousness. Brian was still sleeping, curled up behind me, his arms around me and his half-hard cock poking into my backside. The best way I knew to wake up, with Brian all warm and hard next to me.
I slid away from him enough to turn around and look at him. Something about the long line of his body under the duvet, his left arm outstretched as if I were still under it, his head tipped just a little bit to the side exposing his throat, made me crazy to paint. We’d started a studio here, and I’m sure it was finished, but I didn’t have anything here to paint with or on, so I’d have to wait. I slid over off the bed, making as little sound as I could. I went into the bathroom and pissed, and then quietly took my sketchbook and pencil out of my duffle bag, and sat cross-legged at the bottom of the bed and started to draw him.
I suppose if someone ever does a retrospective on the early work of Justin Taylor, they’ll have to devote an entire wing of the museum to drawings of Brian. I drew him when we were together, when we were apart, when he knew I was drawing him, when he was lost in work or sleep and had no idea, when he looked achingly beautiful and when he looked ravaged and lost. I drew him how I saw him, and if anyone ever wants to know how I feel about Brian, it’s all there.
I drew until my hand started to give out, but he was still sleeping. Over the years I’ve learned to stop fighting my hand, and just accept that no matter how much my desire to draw was screaming at me, when my body was done, it was done. There was always that moment of resistance and resentment, but I took a breath and set it aside. I could paint or use my computer, but that flood that came down out of the sky and poured through my hand and onto the paper had to be turned back for a while. There was nothing I could do about it. I knew, because I’d tried everything.
So I put my sketchpad and pencil away, and thought about how hungry I was, and how there wasn’t any food in the house and as far as I knew, we had no car. So I made a decision and climbed onto the bed and bounced right up to his face and said “Brian! Wake up! I’m going to STARVE!”
He opened his eyes and I wondered if he’d been awake while I drew him. “My cell. Speed dial nine. Tell them to bring the car.”
I had no idea where his cell was, but while he stumbled into the bathroom, I found his clothes on the floor at the side of the bed and got it out of the pocket. I hit nine, and said Mr. Kinney needed the car at our address, and they seemed to know what to do about it, so I went looking for Brian in the shower. I just like to be clean.
We drove into town and picked up the Corvette near Babylon. It felt strange to be there early in the morning, with the sun shining on the streets I usually only saw at night. But it looked all bright and new and shiny, back from the dead. I was glad Brian’d rebuilt it. I was glad everyone kept dancing. Sometimes it does take a bomb to make you see things in a different light.
“Do you want to go in?” Brian was standing near the door of the car, looking just a little nervous while he fiddled with the keys. My stomach grumbled but I ignored it and told him yeah.
He let me in the back door with his key. It was after 11 in the morning, and the cleaning crews had been and gone. There were a few people there, including a couple of guys up in the DJ booth, but Brian ignored everyone. We walked out into the middle of the dance floor. “It’s so weird to see it all lit up.”
“I’ve gotten used to it, but yeah, at first it was weird.”
He’d reconfigured the bar area where the bomb had been, so that it wasn’t really anything anymore, just some space leading to another space. That made me glad for some reason. I don’t think I wanted people leaning on that bar, buying drinks and laughing and flirting. Brian took my hand and pulled me close. And my stomach decided that was a good time to complain loudly about its current state of emptiness. He burst out laughing.
“God, Justin. Was that a hint or what?”
“Hey! I have no control over that. It’s an involuntary physiological reaction to starvation. And you promised to feed me after I blew you in the shower. Pay up.”
We went to a place out by PIFA. Neither of us wanted to see anyone we knew, but we didn’t want to go anywhere we’d feel uncomfortable touching, because we didn’t seem to be able to stop holding hands. Every time I took mine away for some reason, he managed to get it back. And after we ate, while we were waiting for the check, he started massaging my right hand. It felt good.
“Does that feel better?”
I nodded. “Yeah, thanks. I miss this.” Fuck.
He just put his other arm up on my shoulder and pulled me in and kissed me. “Me too.”
After that visit, things changed. One day we were talking on the phone about something stupid, and he emailed me a file while we were talking, some kind of joke photo one of the artists at Kinnetik had done, and I opened it up and sent him something back, without really stopping to think that we were sending something other than blank emails.
After we got off the phone, when I went to shut off my laptop, I checked my email one last time, and there was an email from Brian. There wasn’t any message, but the subject line was “ooops.”
I hit reply and changed the subject line to say, “Well, ooops is bullshit.”
The next day I checked email before going to work, but there wasn’t anything more. When I got to work I checked again, and this time there was a reply, subject line just “Re: Well, ooops is bullshit,” but when I opened the email it actually had words in it. I was almost scared to read them, but it wasn’t really anything, just a link to a news article about the magazine I worked for and him saying he’d seen my mom that morning at Starbuck’s on his way into work, and she said to say hi.
And then I saw the last paragraph. “I have to be in New York on the 18th on business. I can stay the weekend if you want. Let me know.”
Continued here...
Parts One and Two are here and here.
Plans, Interlude:
The Night Babylon Re-opened
by Xie
There was definitely something to be said for flying to Pittsburgh instead of driving, and for being picked up by a car service at the airport. When I settled into the car, I turned my cell phone back on. And smiled. I’d missed a call from Brian. I checked voice mail but he hadn’t left a message. Just the “missed call” notice with his cell number.
I called him, and he actually answered, although the noise in the background was almost louder than his voice.
“Hey.”
“Hey. I’m here.”
“Everything OK?”
“Yup. Later.”
“Later.”
These stimulating intellectual discussions are the foundation of our relationship.
When I got to the house, the outside lights were on, and a few inside lights. I disabled the alarm, went inside and turned it back on. In New York the only alarm I have is the feeling I get when I turn on the kitchen lights at night and see the cockroaches scurrying into hiding, but here in the virtually crime-free Pennsylvania suburbs, we have security worthy of the vice-presidential bunker. I’m surprised Brian didn’t have a laser detection system installed in his lair, otherwise known as Brian’s media room. He and Gus are basically the same age when it comes to toys.
I walked around the house. This was the first time I’d been there alone. Which was funny, because theoretically it was my house. Although it really wasn’t, because I didn’t pay for it, didn’t give much feedback on the remodeling except in the very beginning, and didn’t ever marry Brian. Aren’t you actually supposed to return wedding gifts when you call off the wedding? Even the ones from the guy you didn’t marry? I’d have to check with Emmett on the etiquette of that.
I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, and there was absolutely nothing in it except beer and water. OK. I’m out in the middle of nowhere with no car and no food. I’m going to guess the house was well-stocked with condoms and lube. Call me psychic.
I took a beer and went up to the bedroom. Brian’s bedroom. It’s not like there was just one; there were eight bedrooms. His was, well, it was Brian’s bedroom. Big bed front and center, custom lighting design, huge windows that I knew looked out on a killer view of the property, and a gigantic designer bathroom with a shower bigger than the one at the loft. And I suddenly thought, I wonder if Brian’s ever brought anyone back here. I really didn’t care what he did anywhere else, but I didn’t like the idea of him fucking someone else at our house. Even if we didn’t get married. Even if it’s not really my house.
I finished my beer and set the bottle down on the bedside table. I dropped my bag in the corner and went into the bathroom. I turned on the water, stripped, and got in and let the hot water beat down on me. It was the first time I’d been in that shower without Brian. It was the first shower I’d taken alone in Pittsburgh since moving to New York.
I dried off and carried my clothes out and shoved them in a heap on top of my bag, and crawled into bed. I was still a little damp and shivering, and I pulled the duvet around me tight, winding it around my frozen feet. I should have blown my hair dry, I thought. My teeth were almost chattering.
After a little while, the duvet caught what body heat I had and warmed up the air around my naked skin, and I fell asleep.
I woke up and it was later. I mean it was much later in the night, and it was the “later” when Brian and I were going to see each other, because he was kneeling next to the bed kissing my face. There wasn’t anything else to kiss, because I was wrapped up so tight in the duvet that it felt like a cocoon. I smiled at him and kissed him back, letting my mouth open up and letting his hot tongue lick it all over inside.
“Hey.”
He started pulling at the duvet where it was wrapped under my chin. “Let me in.”
I wriggled a little bit until there was a gap big enough for him to snake his hand in. Brian was naked, kneeling on the floor next to me.
“Aren’t you freezing?”
“That’s why I want you to let me in.” But his hand was warm as it curled around the back of my neck.
I tried to unwind the duvet a little more, rolling away from him, pulling it out from under my hip, and then rolling back. He moved his arm from my neck down between the duvet and my back, and then slid the other arm down in front of me, opening up even more space. He slid himself into the cocoon with me, and his body felt warm, not cold. Even his feet were warm as they slid all over mine. “Just how I like you. All wrapped up tight.”
“How was the opening?”
“Perfect. Beautiful. Dazzling. Packed.”
“OK, you’re high.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t drive out here like that?”
“Nope, got the car service.”
“Mikey’s been replaced as your designated driver?”
“This house is out of Michael’s travel zone. He’s never even been here.” I didn’t know that.
“Well, who has been?” I shouldn’t have asked that. There were answers to that question I wouldn’t want to hear.
Brian kissed my ear and nuzzled into my neck. “The decorator, the plumbers, the contractor, the electricians, the computer guy, the audio-visual equipment guy, the cleaning service, the painters, the furniture delivery people, the lighting guy, and someone who does something known as drywalling, which sounds vaguely like a sex act but appears to be related to construction.”
“None of our friends has been out here?”
Brian shook his head and went back to kissing me. That had been a pretty long speech for Brian when he was horny and high.
We didn’t have much room inside our duvet cocoon, but he was making use of the space we had to rub against my body and lick every inch of my mouth inside and out. Then he was kissing my neck and shoulders, his hips slowly thrusting against mine. I sighed and just enjoyed it, my question about whether Brian had ever brought anyone here to fuck unasked. I worked my arms up and got them around his neck and he started kissing my face and mouth again. He trailed his tongue along my jaw, then down my neck. His lips were dry and warm and his tongue was hot and wet, and he kept taking little bits of my skin into his teeth and biting down gently, and then sucking the skin into his mouth for just a second, and then moving to a new spot. It was making me fucking insane. Every tiny bite seemed to shoot straight down through my skin to my cock, and when he sucked on my skin and pushed into my crotch at the same time, I thought I’d come all over him like a teenager.
I was pushing at the blanket while trying to keep his mouth on me. “I want to get out of this thing.”
“I kind of like being in here with you. It’s all warm and tight, like your ass.”
“You don’t need something warm and tight like my ass, my ass is right here, but you can’t get to it unless we get this thing off.”
“Good point.” He stretched out his long legs, and kicked at the bottom of the duvet, and I felt cold air on my feet. He pushed his legs out, and the duvet opened up more, and then he moved me over onto my back and got on top of me, his arms pushing the cover out on both sides, his chest pressed to mine. “All free. Now let me in the other warm tight place.”
I laughed a little and wrapped my legs around his waist, loosely crossing my ankles and holding him around his neck with my arms. I breathed in Brian’s smell, and suddenly realized that he hadn’t showered and he didn’t smell like sex. I wriggled my toes and tightened my legs around him, but didn’t say anything.
Brian was going crazy on my neck and had slid his hands down my back and around to my hips, and was holding onto me while I tried to angle myself up for him. I unhooked my arm from his neck and reached out and grabbed a condom off the bedside table, and shoved it down into his hand. “C’mon.” He kind of chuckled and took it from me and pulled away a little while he put it on. I let my legs fall down and lie on either side of him, my knees bent. Something about the way he’d said “warm and tight” made me want him in me now. I felt all warm and relaxed and ready.
He reached over for the lube and I held out my hand for it. He poured some into my palm, and I reached down and spread a little in my ass with my fingers, and a lot onto his dick with my hand. And then I wiped my hand on the sheet and got my legs back up around him and reached my hands down and took hold of his ass and pulled him up on me until I felt his cock lying where I wanted it. I reached down with my left hand and put the head right at my opening and tried to push it in. Brian didn’t normally let me get this bossy.
He pulled my hand away from his cock, and then put his cock back at my hole, and moved it in just the tiniest bit. I really was open and ready, and he knew that, and he pulled back and moved into me in one long thrust that stroked right over my prostate going in and pulling out. I grabbed on with my legs even harder, working them further up his back, pressing down on the mattress with my palms, arching my back and rolling my hips up. He moved a little, getting a better angle, and started slamming into me, all the soft kisses and cuddling forgotten for now, just his cock pounding into me as hard as he could pound it, and me grabbing handfuls of sheet in my hands and pushing up to meet him on every thrust, not knowing if I wanted it to last for hours or wanted to fucking come that instant.
I started rocking my hips faster, wanting more and harder and getting it. He was over me on his arms, but now he pulled back, my legs slipping down onto his arms. He reached out and grabbed my hips and pulled them hard toward him while he shoved into me, and I gasped and threw my head back when I felt him hit deeper in me than I’d expected. He stayed kneeling in front of me, my legs up on his shoulders now, his hands on my hips while he drove into me, him pulling me toward him on every thrust. I couldn’t even thrust up anymore, I felt like I was going to explode or cry or scream, and I heard myself moaning and saying things I hoped were “Fuck me, harder, fuck, Brian” and not something I was going to regret later. But I had no idea. I’m surprised I got any words out at all. His cock was pistoning into me and my arms were crossed over my face and I was just going with it, him totally controlling everything, the depth and the rhythm and the speed, because I was just a mindless moaning pile of want and openness under him right then.
He reached out one hand and pushed at my arms. “Want to see you.” He grunted it, really. I opened up my arms and looked at him. His face and body were covered in sweat, the muscles in his chest and arms and abdomen clenching and releasing with every thrust. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, his eyes looking down at mine with something in them I almost couldn’t look at. I wanted to cover my face again but I made myself look at him because he wanted me to. He opened his mouth and swallowed and bit his lip inward, and kept his eyes open and locked onto mine.
He hit me deep and in a way that made me curl up my body and cry out and feel a burn and an explosion inside me that started to pour out of me, I was coming without him even touching my cock, just shooting all over between us and he kept fucking me and now he was kissing me frantic and wet, scraping me with his teeth and moaning into my mouth, and I knew he was coming into the condom and not moving anymore, just making that deep beautiful sound while my ass clenched down on him and I thought fuck fuck fuck I love you.
He lay down hard on me, and I felt his cock still inside me, and his heart pounding against me, and I thought, nothing is as warm as this.
In the morning I woke up all of a sudden, not my usual slow crawl up to consciousness. Brian was still sleeping, curled up behind me, his arms around me and his half-hard cock poking into my backside. The best way I knew to wake up, with Brian all warm and hard next to me.
I slid away from him enough to turn around and look at him. Something about the long line of his body under the duvet, his left arm outstretched as if I were still under it, his head tipped just a little bit to the side exposing his throat, made me crazy to paint. We’d started a studio here, and I’m sure it was finished, but I didn’t have anything here to paint with or on, so I’d have to wait. I slid over off the bed, making as little sound as I could. I went into the bathroom and pissed, and then quietly took my sketchbook and pencil out of my duffle bag, and sat cross-legged at the bottom of the bed and started to draw him.
I suppose if someone ever does a retrospective on the early work of Justin Taylor, they’ll have to devote an entire wing of the museum to drawings of Brian. I drew him when we were together, when we were apart, when he knew I was drawing him, when he was lost in work or sleep and had no idea, when he looked achingly beautiful and when he looked ravaged and lost. I drew him how I saw him, and if anyone ever wants to know how I feel about Brian, it’s all there.
I drew until my hand started to give out, but he was still sleeping. Over the years I’ve learned to stop fighting my hand, and just accept that no matter how much my desire to draw was screaming at me, when my body was done, it was done. There was always that moment of resistance and resentment, but I took a breath and set it aside. I could paint or use my computer, but that flood that came down out of the sky and poured through my hand and onto the paper had to be turned back for a while. There was nothing I could do about it. I knew, because I’d tried everything.
So I put my sketchpad and pencil away, and thought about how hungry I was, and how there wasn’t any food in the house and as far as I knew, we had no car. So I made a decision and climbed onto the bed and bounced right up to his face and said “Brian! Wake up! I’m going to STARVE!”
He opened his eyes and I wondered if he’d been awake while I drew him. “My cell. Speed dial nine. Tell them to bring the car.”
I had no idea where his cell was, but while he stumbled into the bathroom, I found his clothes on the floor at the side of the bed and got it out of the pocket. I hit nine, and said Mr. Kinney needed the car at our address, and they seemed to know what to do about it, so I went looking for Brian in the shower. I just like to be clean.
We drove into town and picked up the Corvette near Babylon. It felt strange to be there early in the morning, with the sun shining on the streets I usually only saw at night. But it looked all bright and new and shiny, back from the dead. I was glad Brian’d rebuilt it. I was glad everyone kept dancing. Sometimes it does take a bomb to make you see things in a different light.
“Do you want to go in?” Brian was standing near the door of the car, looking just a little nervous while he fiddled with the keys. My stomach grumbled but I ignored it and told him yeah.
He let me in the back door with his key. It was after 11 in the morning, and the cleaning crews had been and gone. There were a few people there, including a couple of guys up in the DJ booth, but Brian ignored everyone. We walked out into the middle of the dance floor. “It’s so weird to see it all lit up.”
“I’ve gotten used to it, but yeah, at first it was weird.”
He’d reconfigured the bar area where the bomb had been, so that it wasn’t really anything anymore, just some space leading to another space. That made me glad for some reason. I don’t think I wanted people leaning on that bar, buying drinks and laughing and flirting. Brian took my hand and pulled me close. And my stomach decided that was a good time to complain loudly about its current state of emptiness. He burst out laughing.
“God, Justin. Was that a hint or what?”
“Hey! I have no control over that. It’s an involuntary physiological reaction to starvation. And you promised to feed me after I blew you in the shower. Pay up.”
We went to a place out by PIFA. Neither of us wanted to see anyone we knew, but we didn’t want to go anywhere we’d feel uncomfortable touching, because we didn’t seem to be able to stop holding hands. Every time I took mine away for some reason, he managed to get it back. And after we ate, while we were waiting for the check, he started massaging my right hand. It felt good.
“Does that feel better?”
I nodded. “Yeah, thanks. I miss this.” Fuck.
He just put his other arm up on my shoulder and pulled me in and kissed me. “Me too.”
After that visit, things changed. One day we were talking on the phone about something stupid, and he emailed me a file while we were talking, some kind of joke photo one of the artists at Kinnetik had done, and I opened it up and sent him something back, without really stopping to think that we were sending something other than blank emails.
After we got off the phone, when I went to shut off my laptop, I checked my email one last time, and there was an email from Brian. There wasn’t any message, but the subject line was “ooops.”
I hit reply and changed the subject line to say, “Well, ooops is bullshit.”
The next day I checked email before going to work, but there wasn’t anything more. When I got to work I checked again, and this time there was a reply, subject line just “Re: Well, ooops is bullshit,” but when I opened the email it actually had words in it. I was almost scared to read them, but it wasn’t really anything, just a link to a news article about the magazine I worked for and him saying he’d seen my mom that morning at Starbuck’s on his way into work, and she said to say hi.
And then I saw the last paragraph. “I have to be in New York on the 18th on business. I can stay the weekend if you want. Let me know.”
Continued here...