Why was that particular night any different from all the others?
Nothing out of the ordinary happened. He got up, showered, dressed, had breakfast, went to school, came home from school, hung out with Daphne, had dinner, poured himself a glass of Mountain Dew, went up to his room, started his homework, blah blah blah. Same old, same old.
So how did he end up in a man’s bed with a sore ass, kiss-swollen lips, and the sure knowledge that he was in love?
It wasn’t that Justin had never thought about going to Liberty Avenue. In fact, it’d been pretty much all he’d thought about all summer. But there was always something that stopped him. What if he got mugged or raped? What if some Jeffrey Dahmer-type abducted him, drilled holes in his head and turned him into a zombie? Or, far more likely, what if he made a fool of himself? What if people laughed at him? What if he actually did do something with a guy and didn’t like it? What if he discovered that he wasn’t gay after all but some kind of asexual weirdo who would never fall in love or have someone fall in love with him?
Dinner with his parents and sister was over. He’d rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Now he was sitting at his desk, trying with difficulty to concentrate on his calculus homework. His window was open. The breeze was warm and inviting even though it smelled of rain. Suddenly something stirred inside him – something primal in his blood, his muscles, the very marrow of his bones – and he realized that it was finally the night he’d been waiting for.
He took a shower. Got dressed in his coolest clothes. Put on his Rolex (men, not boys, wore Rolexes, or so his dad had told him). Retrieved the packet of cigarettes he’d stashed in an old sneaker at the back of his closet. Brushed his teeth. Combed his hair. And then went downstairs to announce – as casually as he could – that he was going over to Daphne’s for the night.
With his head down and hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, he headed toward the busy road at the end of his street not pausing to let himself reconsider his journey. Even though the walk was relatively short, he felt the breeze turn into a wind that tore the changing leaves from the trees and tossed them into the sky. He’d planned to take a bus, but rain was only a few minutes away. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed 777-7777.
The (seemingly endless) cab ride cost more than he’d thought it would, and he was glad he’d brought fifty dollars instead of the twenty he’d originally planned on. He had no idea where he was going, so he just told the driver to take him to “the party district” on Liberty Avenue and tried to ignore the accusatory gaze in the rearview mirror. The man asked wasn’t he “a little young.” It wouldn’t be the last time that night he’d be asked the same question.
Liberty Avenue was a living, breathing, kaleidoscopic beast. The second Justin stepped out of the cab, he could feel her pulse throbbing beneath the pavement. The rain that had fallen during his cab ride had done nothing to dampen the party-like atmosphere; instead, it made the neon lights shine even brighter, casting their many colors into puddles, and left its drops sparkling like diamonds on the windshields of parked cars.
He walked around aimlessly, feeling like a child wandering through a cacophonous sexualized theme park. The experience was both exciting and kind of embarrassing. He had no idea where he should go or even what he was looking for. There were shop fronts featuring enormous plastic penises, metal-studded harnesses, and steel rings whose purposes were unknown to him; bars from which dance music spilled out into the street through their open doors, and lines of guys waiting to get into the clubs snaking down the sidewalks and around corners into dark, condom-littered alleys. People passed him, most of them men, some of them looking like women – or something in-between. Justin was pretty sure they weren’t women, but they sure looked like they were. A couple of them winked at him saucily and then laughed when he blushed. He clearly looked as out-of-place as he felt.
He wanted to ask someone where a good place to go was, but almost everyone was walking in boisterous groups or dressed in leather with piercing glances that seemed to see into his soul. Finally, he spotted a man who looked old and normal enough to be a teacher or some other type of grown-up. The man was happy to tell Justin about the various bars and clubs and even more happy to take him back to his place. Justin was totally creeped-out and wanted nothing more than to go home. Things were only made worse when he realized he’d run out of cigarettes. Now he really looked like a kid and not just felt like one.
He leaned against a street light to check his bearings and decide what to do. Suddenly, he felt an urge to look up, and that’s when he came along . . .
He was, hands-down, the hottest guy Justin had ever seen and holy shit!! The guy as looking back at him! Justin felt like a deer in headlights as the man approached him. His heart stuttered and hiccupped with something that felt like fear but not quite. He couldn’t believe that this gorgeous man wanted to talk to him – him! – out of all the other guys milling around. Couldn’t he see that Justin was just a kid with nothing to offer? Christ, he wasn’t sure if he could form words, let alone try to sound cool.
The man stepped well within Justin’s personal space, pinning him against the lamp post, and said something that sounded like “Nnfkskflker scnhaljekrm alwelnquknl?” His breath smelled faintly of alcohol and mint gum. He was several inches taller than Justin. Justin needed to look up to see his eyes.
“Checking out the clubs,” Justin responded even though he hadn’t been conscious of forming the words in his brain, let alone speaking them. “You know, Boy Toy . . . Meat Hook . . .”
“So, you’re into leather,” the man said with an amused, but disbelieving, smirk. Justin almost died from embarrassment.
The man licked his lips and without voluntarily doing so, Justin licked his lips too. It was then that he knew he’d let this man do anything he wanted. Including drill holes in his head and turn him into a zombie. When the man turned and glanced behind him, Justin’s gaze followed to see a black Jeep. The next thing he knew, he was sitting in the passenger seat. He was going home with a man. He was going home with this man – this man who was already the love of his life.
It’d hurt at first. A lot. There was no way anything that big should be in there. The pain was excruciating, but he never, for even a moment, thought of asking the man . . . Brian, he’d found out . . . to stop. Slowly, as Brian started moving his hips, the pain turned into a stretch that grew increasingly pleasurable. When Brian leaned down to kiss him, Justin kissed him back with so much determination that the line behind who was fucking whom blurred and kept blurring the more Brian started coming apart. Justin watched his expression change from intense and focused, to vulnerable and then to joyful as he closed his eyes, threw back his head and smiled with a groan of pure, molten release. Justin was mesmerized. When Brian pulled out and went down on him, he came in less than a minute.
From that moment on, Justin was addicted. Addicted to the way Brian’s warm mouth had brought him off. Addicted to the way Brian had felt inside him. Addicted to Brian’s kisses, his moans, the way he’d gripped Justin’s thighs to give his thrusts leverage. He was addicted to Brian’s face, his voice that flowed from mocking to soothing to amused, his body, his scent – hell, he was addicted to Brian – the whole of him. His every word, his every movement, his every glance.
After mere minutes, he was ready to go again, boldly reaching for Brian’s cock and wrapping his fingers around it, his heart pounding as it stiffened against his palm. He couldn’t believe he was actually touching a man’s dick! This time, Brian took him from behind, rough from the beginning and only getting rougher. He wasn’t treating Justin like a virginal kid anymore; he was treating Justin like a man – a man who could take anything he dished out. This time he came with a savage thrust and a grunt of exertion. Justin was sure he felt the throbs accompanying each spurt. Instead of pulling out and sucking him off, Brian stayed inside him, reached down for Justin’s dick and jerked him off. The sensation of coming with something inside him overwhelmed Justin utterly, and he heard himself cry out in ecstasy.
So that settled that question: yeah, he was gay, alright. Any thought of being with a girl fled his thoughts forever. He wanted hard muscle, a rigid cock, the low growl of a man’s voice urging him toward orgasm, the scent of a man’s sweat, his groans of pleasure . . . yeah, he wanted men, but not just any man – he wanted Brian.
The third time, Brian lay on his back and told Justin to straddle his hips and sit down on his dick. The penetration was the deepest yet, but still, Justin wanted more. Each time he impaled himself, he ground his ass against Brian’s pelvis, wriggling and squirming so he could get every last millimeter inside him. Brian grinned up at him, clearly pleased with his hunger, and thrust upward, making Justin’s eyes roll backward. This time when he saw that Brian was getting close, he started jerking himself off and came only seconds before Brian did, feeling in the aftermath a rush of affection – of love. He would kill and die for this man he’d only known for a few hours.
He would’ve gone again, but Brian kissed him, got up, went to the bathroom and returned with a packaged toothbrush that Justin had to catch when he tossed it to him. By the time Justin came back to bed, Brian was soundly asleep. Justin, however, didn’t even close his eyes. He lay for the few hours before the alarm went off gazing at Brian’s beautiful face and listening to Brian’s adorable wheezy snores.
His life had changed forever – literally overnight. It would never be the same again. Nothing would, no part of his existence wouldn’t be touched by the revelation that was sex. By the epiphany that was Brian Kinney.
* * * * * * * * *
He was remembering their first night together as they made love on a snowy night for the first time since Justin had left Pittsburgh for New York the previous year; except this time, it was him taking Brian instead of Brian taking him. They’d been fighting for months, and it’d been Brian’s fault . . . well, more accurately, Brian’s fear. His fear of being left. His terror of being hurt. It’d been “easier” for him to sever their bond rather than watch Justin slowly untie it, strand by strand and knot by knot, as Brian had been absolutely sure he would. He’d been wrong, of course, but it’d taken Justin forever to convince him that he was. Finally, he had, and he was fucking determined never to let Brian get scared again. Not by him. Not by anyone. Brian had protected him; now it was time to return the favor. He would protect Brian even if the thing Brian needed protection from was himself.
It had been a surprise to learn, after the first time they’d switched, that Brian enjoyed being a bottom as much as a top, but Justin had ruined Brian’s willingness to make himself vulnerable in that way after he’d left him for Ethan all those years ago. Now Brian was letting himself be vulnerable again in a wordless, but nonetheless obvious, plea that Justin not hurt him again. If Justin hadn’t been able to make that promise, he wouldn’t have taken what was being offered, but he could make that promise. Fuck all the people who told him he was too young. Fuck all the people who told him that he’d be happier without Brian in his life. Fuck Brian, himself, for not believing in them, for thinking that 370 miles was an impossible journey, for imagining – for even a second – that Justin didn’t love him . . . or, for that matter, ever stopped despite Justin, himself, believing that he had.
He took Brian from behind, but carefully. He knew without asking that Brian hadn’t bottomed since he’d bottomed for Justin all those years ago. Brian’s tense response to being penetrated and the shallowness of his breathing confirmed Justin’s suspicion. It was intensely arousing, but it also made him sad to know that Brian had avoided something that gave him so much pleasure because he’d had his heart broken.
Gradually, Brian’s pain diminished, and his body relaxed. Justin kept his pace measured. Neither of them would come this way, but it didn’t matter. He’d eventually deepen and quicken his thrusts, but for the moment, he wanted their coupling to be more soothing than sexual. He’d never had the opportunity to make love to Brian like Brian had made love to him when he was recovering from the bashing. Now he had that opportunity. He wanted to make Brian’s whole body thrum with warmth, with the knowledge that he was more than merely desired.
His life would never be everything that he’d dreamed of. There definitely weren’t going to be babies and probably not a house in the burbs. There wasn’t even going to be sexual exclusivity. He knew that, and he was okay with it. For the first time, he truly was. It wasn’t the deal breaker he’d always made it into. It was just part of the whole package of what was a life with Brian, along with Brian’s fearsome devotion and his need to cherish that bordered on controlling. Brian was not uncomplicated, but then again neither was Justin. The only question was whether they could be complicated together. Justin believed that they could, and he’d help Brian to believe too.
Brian climaxed quickly when Justin changed his aim from comforting to coming. God, Justin had missed those sounds! They triggered his own release. Laughing breathlessly, they collapsed together in a sweaty heap. Outside it kept snowing. It would snow all night and well into the next day, bringing New York City to a standstill, but Justin didn’t care. He didn’t need to be anywhere and neither did Brian. As soon as Brian recovered, Justin was going to ask for the favor of being topped in return, but in the meantime, it was enough just to look at each other with goofy smiles and slowly, carefully ease into a feeling of forever.
