BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
CHAPTER 39-CRUCIBLE
JUSTIN’S POV
some things are better left unsaid,
but they still turn me inside out
*********************
BRIAN’S POV
sunshine set on this cold lonely sea
Never.
Never in your entire life had you walked into a room, seen Justin lying on a bed, been so physically close to him and felt so far away. The bedroom was your domain no longer; you were standing on foreign soil. He wasn’t asleep; the pace of his breathing gave him away, but you could feel his ambivalence in every breath; he didn’t care that you were standing there. He couldn’t, actually, but you wouldn’t understand that for a while. No longer could you anesthetize yourself by watching him from behind a narrow pane of glass, reassuring yourself that he was okay because all of the machines said everything was working right, you were on your own and so was he, and the latter was what you couldn’t stomach anymore. You were going to say his name to get his attention but then realized you didn’t know what would come after that, so instead you lay down on the bed behind him, slowly as if too much movement might break him into a million pieces, and then very carefully propped yourself on your right side so you could put your arm around his waist—
“Not now.”
Or not.
……
And so you remained…
Parallel.
……
Unconnected.
……
Silent.
……
You tried to collect your thoughts, to put yourself in his shoes, to empathize with him the way you can empathize with a client who’s in dire need of your help. Justin was in dire need of something, but you were drawing a complete blank. And there was something familiar about that feeling, something you hadn’t felt in a long, long, long time…
“What for? To make you happy? So that you can tell yourself you fixed little Justin’s problems and made everything all better?
“Well, you can’t fix this, all right? No one can.
……
“So why don’t you come fuck me before I pass out?”
*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
it’s a long way down when all the knots we’ve tied have come undone
*********************
BRIAN'S POV
like anything I had felt before
As that Thursday afternoon in April folded into Thursday night, the rain tucking it in nice and neat and Justin right next to you but so distant, the effects of the day’s events began to crystallize inside you, to become a part of you; you could feel something different trying to find a place to hide. It was as if Jonathon had packed you up in a box, driven you all around the city at ninety miles an hour, and then dropped you off right where you started from, yet when you popped out of the box, you had no fucking clue where you were. The scenery, the people, looked the same, but you were convinced that that was just a trick your mind was employing in a cheap attempt to comfort you.
And cheap had never really been your thing.
Nevertheless, you were standing in a desert, confused and determined at the same time, realizing that the alter-egos that had always accompanied you on these junkets—the stud who reigned over the backroom, the misguided superhero, the high-powered executive who held people’s jobs and brand names and balls hostage with the stroke of a pen, the click of a mouse, or a raised eyebrow across a long conference room table—were useless to you in your new environment. And not because they didn’t want to help, but because they were a mirage. As you lay beside him in this new barren place, you had no use for anyone but Brian Kinney—the man—and you thirsted only for your own humanity and found yourself praying for rain.
……
"Stop being a fucking princess and come give it a try.”
Was he only to express himself on your terms?
……
“I want you to take him. I want you to take my son.”
Was it really ever Justin’s call where he wanted to be?
……
“Now I get to stay with you.”
“Just until you get better.”
Get better and be cast out?
……
“Well, you did it.”
“Did what?”
“Became the best homosexual you could possibly be.”
According to whom?
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
preach a little gospel,
sell a couple bottles of Doctor Good
Earlier that afternoon, once you and Daniel returned to the church, you found Richard sitting in the very back pew listening to Nate play, the choir going to town, and Sarah singing lead on, of all things, a Dionne Warwick classic.
“What in the name of Peter, Paul, and Mary is going on in here?” you asked him.
“I say a little prayer for you…”
“I’m enjoying my own personal concert,” he whispered when you sat down beside him. “She’s good.”
“Forever, forever, you’ll stay in my heart…”
When you smiled, he nudged you, “So how’d it go?”
“It’s a good thing Brian has a lot of money,” you said.
“Oh boy,” he said, “You look tired.” He reached for your hand, but you moved yours away, furrowing your brow at him; sometimes he’d forget that you were still in a public place.
“Together, together, that’s how it must be…”
“You need to watch that,” you told him, “You’re starting to do that more and more.”
“Sorry; I know. It’s the moment, I guess.”
“I know.”
“To live without you could only mean heartbreak for me…”
So he sat with his eyes straight ahead, watching the performance in front of him, and said very, very quietly, “So, I can sit here and tell you that I really want to go back to your place and fuck your brains out, but I just can’t touch you, right?”
“It’s your ass on the line, Dick,” you whispered back.
“And all I want is your dick in my ass,” he mused.
“Well,” you told him, “No one ever accused you of having bad taste.”
……
Daniel was approaching the two of you then with a yellow piece of paper folded in his hand, and when he got to you, he handed it to you, “Here. This is what I was telling you about. This is what Justin wrote.” And with that, you took the papers he was handing you and opened them, your eyes skimming the pages reading Justin’s speech…
Alan was an artist as am I. He went to great lengths to hide parts of himself that he didn’t want others to see, as have I --
“Whoa,” you said; Daniel agreed and urged you to keep reading.
…orchestrating elaborate routines just to protect the ones he loved…
That was the Alan I knew…
And the Justin you knew.
…the man who internalized everyone else’s fears and then tried to steal away with them…
I guess I don’t understand why we let him do that…a fair exchange for what he was doing for us…
……
“How was he after he wrote this?” you asked him.
But Richard interrupted, “He wasn’t right; he wouldn’t stay here.”
“Did you try talk to him?” you asked Daniel.
“I talked at him; he wasn’t really listening; he couldn’t. He told me he needed to leave.”
“And after this, he went to the studio to talk to Harper?” you asked.
“Yeah.”
You folded the papers up and put them in the pocket of your pants, “Well, now I understand why he never once interrupted us at the restaurant. Not a phone call or anything.”
“Why?” Richard asked.
“Why would he?” you asked. “He’s lost his faith in everyone.”
*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
I hear the ticking of the clock
*********************
BRIAN’S POV
I can’t tell what you’re feeling inside,
I can’t sell what you don’t want to buy
More than anything, you needed that feeling of utter helplessness to go away, but even that felt wrong and selfish by then, and all you could feel, all you could hold on to, was the detachment Justin was nursing right next to you. Finally, when you could stand it no longer, you rolled toward him again keeping your hands to yourself and asked the back of his head, “Did you get what you needed? The tie, I mean?”
“No.”
“You didn’t get it?” you asked again.
“I don’t need it,” he said.
……
……
……
“What do you need?” you tried again, the space between you beginning to echo all around you.
His body shifted then, burying his hands under his pillow in the shadowed room, “Nothing. There’s nothing you can do.”
……
……
“There has to be something, Justin,” you said, “Something I can do to help you feel better.”
……
“There is,” he finally said, “You can leave me alone.”
……
……
Jon’s words were echoing in your head like they’d been spoke in the Grand Canyon, “There’s a pattern or a reflex in your relationship—things get difficult or tense and someone has to leave or the scenery has to change. You see that, right?”
……
You reached out for him again and put your arm around his waist, and he didn’t push you away, but, rather and even worse, became stiff and unyielding as you tried to hold him. “I can’t. I can’t leave you alone, not like this,” you said.
“You can’t or you won’t?” he asked the wall.
“Okay, I won’t. I won’t leave you alone like this,” you admitted.
……
“It’s always what you want, isn’t it?”
……
You let him go.
*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
I really don’t think you’re strong enough
*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
I’ve got so much more to think about
When darkness fell that rainy Thursday evening, you and Jon were in a cab on the way to the closest grocery store because Dan was short a few ingredients he needed to complete that evening’s culinary masterpiece, and you made Jon come with you because you hadn’t really had five minutes alone with him all day. Jon wanted you to go to the store by yourself or drag Sam along, but you put your foot down for the first time because, well, you just felt like it. (You read in some magazine that gay men are prone to such emotional outbursts, so you thought you’d give it a try.)
So you did…in Daniel’s guest bathroom…while Jon was taking a piss. (Perhaps your timing wasn’t exactly stellar…)
“Why can’t you go to the store with me?” you asked.
“Because, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little busy today,” he said as he zipped up his pants.
“I don’t want to take Sam,” you sort of whispered, “He’s really stressed out, and the more stressed out he gets, the more idiotic he acts. He’s been doing his Woody Allen impression for an hour.”
“So tell him to stop,” Jon said.
“Right, then he’ll just start something even worse, like Bella Lugosi or something. Just come with me.”
“If I come with you, who’s going to make sure that Daniel stays in the kitchen with his apron on, Richard? Because if he doesn’t, he’s thirty seconds from a nervous breakdown. Either he keeps cooking or he loses it. Who’s going to keep Harper and Sam focused on minuscule funeral preparations so that the reality of this bullshit doesn’t hit them until after the funeral, and so that you and I don’t end up with a barely-potty trained toddler in our bed tonight? Who’s going to—"
You put your hand on his shoulder and squeezed, “Jon, even God took a day off.”
“Yeah, and look what he’s got to show for it.”
(Well, that did it.)
“You’re coming with me,” you said, “You’re going to have a little faith, and you’re coming with me.” And then you yanked him outside into the rain and into a cab. When the door shut, Jon turned in his seat and smiled at you, “You’re kinda hot when you’re bossy.”
“Shut up.”
……
Traffic was a mess, and Jon was obviously tired, his blond head leaning back against the seat, his eyes closing for awhile, and then opening again, staring out of his window pretending to listen to you and just to prove to yourself that you were right about that, you said, “I want to get a puppy the second Tuesday of next week and name him Elton John, only I want to spell it J-O-N so I can say I named him after you.”
“Okay,” he said, still staring out the window. “Sounds good.”
“I wanna teach it how to suck your dick so I don’t have to do it anymore,” you added.
“’Kay.”
“I’m sure it’ll eat your ass; I mean dogs eat their own asses, right?”
The cabbie started blaring the radio. “Jesus Christ,” Jon barked, “Can you turn that down a little? We’re trying to have a conversation back here.”
He turned it back down and then looked at Jon in his rear-view mirror, “Sounded more like a recipe for some sicko’s X-rated Scooby Snack to me.”
“What the fuck is he talking about?” Jon asked you.
You shrugged your shoulders, “I have absolutely no idea.”
……
“This rain is ridiculous,” Jon began to complain. “It should be illegal to rain in New York or in any city where people walk everywhere. Why do we need rain here? We don’t have trees.”
“You’re extremely cranky,” you told him, and you were about to offer him a little ‘something’ that might make him feel a little better a little later, but his cell phone rang before you could even get the words out. “Who is it?” you asked.
Jon shook his head in exasperation, “Who do you think? Get the list out; I’m sure he’s about to add twelve more bottles of extra, extra virgin olive oil or something.” You handed him the piece of paper you’d folded up in your pocket.
“I’m ready, Dan,” he said by way of a bypassed greeting, “What do you need?”
*********************
DANIEL CARTWRIGHT’S POV
who’s coming to dinner?
ten minutes earlier…
Amelia heard the knock on the door before you did; in fact, well, you didn’t hear it at all. You just turned around and realized that she was no longer in the kitchen with you, so you turned off the water, dried your hands, and pushed through the swinging door closest to the stairs calling her name, “Amelia?”
“I’m waiting for you, Dr. Car-ride,” she said, and indeed, she was, standing on the exact spot in the foyer she’d been instructed to stand on when someone knocks on the door, a rule put in place a few months prior after too many instances of her flinging the front door open with no regard for who was on the other side—friend or foe.
“Good job,” you said, “Someone’s at the door?”
“Yeah,” she said, “’Cause I hearded the knock knock.”
“Okay.” You peeked through the curtain on the right side of the door, “Oh god; Amelia, can you go to the linen closet and get a towel for me? One of the ones you like?”
“I’m ‘upposed to open the door,” she protested.
“I need to open the door this time; I need you to be my helper and get a towel for me.”
“Okay,” she said, running down the hall to the linen closet, and when she flung it open, essentially blocking her view from of the front door, you opened it and were greeted with a tall, dark, and dripping flash of déjà vu. “Brian, god, are you all right?” you asked, stepping out of the way so he could come inside. “What’s going on?”
He wiped the rain off his face, “I guess you could say I’m under the weather.”
*********************
here comes the rain again
“I gotted a towel for you, Brime Kinney,” Amelia said, proudly offering her terrycloth gift to Brian as the three of you stood in the kitchen.
“Thank you, Amelia.”
Amelia climbed up on chair she’d been standing on while she helped you cook so she could be closer to Brian’s height, “’Cause you got rain-ded on, Brime Kinney.”
“I know.”
“’Cause you don’t have a ‘brella.”
“I forgot to bring it,” he said.
“Yeah, I already knowed that.”
“Yeah,” Brian said, “So do I.”
“Brime Kinney, sometimes if you borget your ‘brella, you can just betend.”
“That doesn’t work too well when it’s raining cats and dogs,” Brian said.
Amelia climbed down off the chair and went into the living room to stare out the window.
……
“So where is he?” Brian asked you as Amelia left the room.
“I thought Justin was with you,” you said.
“Not Justin; he is with me.”
“No he’s not,” you said, wondering if perhaps this really was déjà vu, but he wasn’t intoxicated, just tired and wet.
Amelia wandered back in, climbing back up on the chair, “Brime Kinney, the cats and dogs are just betend.”
“Justin’s at the hotel; I mean Jon,” Brian said.
“'Cause I sawed the rain, Brime Kinney.”
“Where’s Jon?” Brian asked.
“Dr. Jon went to the store,” Amelia said, “With Faber Domelly ‘cause my mommy needed a twelf pack…’cause I knowed that.” And then Amelia proceeded to count to twelve leaving out six, seven and nine.
“And I thought I exposed my son to a less than ideal environment,” Brian quipped.
“Counting is important,” you said, laughing at the futility of all of it at that point.
Amelia began to hang on Brian’s left arm as if it was part of a jungle gym, her legs climbing up his body, “Brime Kinney, I hafta tell you somethin’ ‘portant right now.”
Brian wasn’t the least bit phased that he was being used as a piece of playground equipment; perhaps he was used to people crawling all over him, “I need Jon,” he told you.
“Why didn’t you call him?” you asked.
“Brime Kinney, I hafta tell you somethin’ ‘portant—"
“Amelia, please wait a second,” you said, “I thought he gave you his number—"
“Brime Kinney, I hafta—"
“Amelia, please don’t interrupt when we’re talking,” you said.
“I had it, but—" Brian began.
“Brime Kinney—"
“You couldn’t get it from Justin?” you asked. Not that you cared; it just seemed rather strange.
“The only thing I could get out of Justin was a request for sushi.”
“Sushi?” you asked. “Justin hates sushi.”
“No fu—" and then he caught himself after glancing at the eyelash-batting barnacle attached to him, “I know that; I need Jon.”
You pulled out your cell and dialed, and Amelia (well-trained and all) started whispering because you were on the phone, “Brime Kinney, I hafta tell you somethin’ ‘portant right now.”
“What?” he asked, pulling her up into his arms.
She put her hands on his face, “It’s bery ‘portant ‘cause you borgotted your med-sin.”
“She’s right,” Brian said to you, “And Jon’s card is with it.”
……
Amelia, predictably, didn’t want Brian to go, but you told her that you’d help her draw a picture (in the studio, of course) of Brian before she went to bed that night and she could give it to him when she saw him the next day, and that helped pacify her, so she told Brian good-bye. It had truly been the highlight of Amelia’s day to be hoisted on Brian’s shoulders so she could hand you all of the samples you’d given Brian that Sam had hidden on the top of the china cabinet earlier that day. She handed them down—one by three by five by eight—and then found Jon’s business card up there as well. Brian commented on the nomenclature of your furnishings, “Don’t you think you should just quit calling this a china cabinet and call a duck a duck?” as he pointed to the bottles of liquor arranged behind the glass doors.
“We all have a right to own our denial,” you told him.
He smiled, “You’re not nearly as uptight as you put on, you know that?”
“Nor you as impenetrable.”
“I’ll bet you have a debate team trophy around here somewhere,” he said, pretending to look behind the liquor.
“It’s on my desk at work,” you replied, and then he laughed because he thought you were kidding.
……
……
“Thank you for finding my medicine,” Brian told Amelia as he was ready to leave.
“Yeah, ‘cause you didn’t know you borgotted it ‘cause I already knowed that you borgotted it.”
“That’s right. I’ll see you tomorrow at the church.”
“Jon will meet you in the lobby of the hotel, Brian. They hadn’t even made to the store yet,” you told him as you handed him Jon’s card, “He wants you to call him from the cab.”
“Thanks; sorry we keep meeting like this,” he said. “I’m sure you’re sick and tired of seeing me when you open your door.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” you said, “I’m not even allowed to open my own door.” Brian laughed. “Good luck,” you told him. “Call if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
And he left…with your umbrella.
*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
I’m lying here… the room’s pitch dark
*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
when the rain set in
“Tell him to double back,” Jon told you, pointing to the driver, “Fuck the store; we’re going to The Regency.” You did as you were so ordered, watching Jon as he flipped open his ringing cell phone and collapsed back against the seat again, “Brian, why the fuck did you leave him alone at the hotel?” The cabbie made a left turn that almost got the three of you killed. You said three Hail Maries under your breath. “Sushi? Why in the world?” Jon continued as you listened to the one sided conversation, “He doesn’t even like sushi….
“Yeah, well, I reserve my bedside manner for those I’m actually in bed with.”
Promises, promises.
“What happened?
……
“I’m almost there; we weren’t that far away.
…..
“Okay, okay. Wait for me in the lobby if you get there before we do…. You’re welcome.” And he flipped his phone shut and tossed it on the seat beside him.
“What’s wrong?” you asked him. “What’s going on?”
Jon looked at you like those were the two stupidest questions on the planet, his eyebrows raised, so you answered them yourself, “The Lord’s work is never done?”
“Congratulations, my good man, you just won eternal salvation,” he said.
“Well, I don’t want it,” you said, “Unless you’re coming with me.”
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
life is bigger,
it’s bigger than you,
and you are not me
When you arrived at The Regency and before you could stop him, Richard had jumped out of the cab right behind you and followed you into the lobby; there was no immediate sign of Brian, so the two of you approached the front desk and when you inquired, you were told by a rain-dappled concierge-to-be that, “Mr. Kinney has stepped out, but his take out order is still behind the desk, so he hasn’t returned.”
“You got the sushi?” you asked the overly-polite young man.
“Yes, sir… but I probably shouldn’t have told you that; our guests, their affairs our confidential. I apologize.” He was so ashamed of himself; The Regency would’ve been so proud.
“It’s not a problem. We’re on sushi-terms with Mr. Kinney,” you reassured him.
“Yeah,” Richard added, “God will forgive you.” You looked at him and rolled at your eyes.
……
“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” you told Richard once you sat on a rather posh loveseat. “I’ll call you when I’m done.”
“Okay,” he said, and then he did it again—reached out, his hand aiming for your thigh. You stopped it, and put it back in his lap.
“You’ve got to stop doing that, Richard.”
“Right, give me the lowdown on being on the down lo again,” he said, but he wasn’t taking you seriously; he was trying to make you laugh.
You turned and looked at him, “I’m serious. You’re doing it in the church, in the cab, in this place; you’re fucking outing yourself.”
“Well, that’s better than out fucking myself, right?”
“Why won’t you listen to me about this shit? I’ve been gay my whole life; you’ve been gay for three months. You’re a goddamn priest, Richard. Jesus.”
“You’re being a dick because you’re massively stressed out, so I’m going to ignore you right now.”
“Richard,” you protested.
“I care about you, Jon. I can’t just turn it on and off like I’m some fucking television. Maybe that’s some part of being gay that I’m no good at. Maybe I’ll never be. Maybe you’ll just have to deal with it.” And then he stood up, “Anyway, Brian’s here.”
“He’s going to the desk first,” you said as you got up, your eyes following him as he crossed the lobby. “If you don’t mind, can you just go back to Daniel’s, keep him company for me?”
“Okay,” he agreed because he knew that’s what you wanted him to do, keep an eye on what you couldn’t see, “I’ll be glad to.” You were barely aware of the pattern emerging in your relationship with Richard at that time, how the emotional toll of in vs. out would almost always result in both of you finding solace in your vocations.
As he was preparing to leave, Richard leaned forward and hugged you, and you almost pushed him back, but stopped, ignoring the warning bells going off in your head and let him because Richard’s cologne--Polo by Ralph Lauren applied far too liberally—well, it always made you feel twenty years younger, “Call me later, and good luck, Trapper John.”
“I will, and don’t call me that in public. It makes me hard.”
“I know. That’s why I said it.”
As Brian approached, you watched Richard walk out of the hotel lobby —staring at the off-brand, denim-clad ass of your adorable, homo-clueless, catholic priest boyfriend wondering how in hell you were ever going to convince him that the only thing you’re supposed to buy out of a five hundred page catalog is office supplies.
……
……
“What the hell was that about?” Brian asked you.
“Never mind.”
“Oh…okay,” Brian said, joining you as you watched Richard disappear through The Regency’s lobby doors, reabsorbed into the rain. “You’re right,” he added, “His ass does look hot in those unbelievably awful jeans.”
“And he got those on clearance,” you confessed, “That’s what makes it even more heinous.” And then you came to your senses, “But do you mind not ogling my piece of ass? You’ve already got more than you can handle.”
“From your lips to God’s dick.”
And then you looked at the bag in Brian’s hand. “Jesus Christ, how much sushi did you order?”
Brian looked at you like you were an idiot, “A fucking shit load. How am I supposed to know what he wants to hate?”
The two of you stood outside the penthouse elevator, an unspoken understanding between you that once you got inside, you were going straight to the top—no ifs, ands, buts or seconds to spare, and it was then that you began to wonder… if Brian could figure that much out about Justin, why the hell did he need you in the first place?
*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
this is the fear,
this is the dread,
these are the contents of my head
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
there’s a little black spot on the sun today
So a bit of background work had to be done, “Justin won’t talk to me; that’s why I called you,” Brian told you.
“Well, he’s obviously saying something because you went and got him sushi for dinner.”
“That’s not what I mean,” he said, “The rest of him is completely shut down. I tried to talk to him, to ask him what was wrong; he’s not the least bit interested in what I have to say or me for that matter. And then I left the Xanax you gave me at Daniel’s and your card was with it, and he’s got his fucking cell phone in the pocket of his jeans and he’s laying on it just staring out the fucking window. He won’t move.”
“You think he’s going to talk to me?” you asked.
“You got a better idea?” Brian asked. “Because I can’t take this, and I know he can’t even if he’s not saying anything. I know him.” He was becoming visibly agitated, “Let’s just go up okay?”
He opened the penthouse elevator and you stepped inside with him, the rise to the top being the opportune time to lay some ground rules for the situation, “Okay,” you said, “Listen to me. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it my way, got it?”
“What’s that mean?” Brian asked.
“That means I go in there and talk to him alone, and you don’t come in until I tell you to.”
“No,” he said, “Absolutely not.”
You hit the pause button on the elevator and it jerked and then stopped.
“What the fuck did you do that for?” Brian demanded.
“I’m serious about this, Brian. If he could talk to you about this, he would’ve already started. He can’t. You’re not coming in there.”
……
“He’s never going to forgive me for this,” Brian said to the wall of the elevator, his words echoing around you, the small space feeling even smaller.
“You need to trust me on this.”
But he was talking to himself, “Never…ever…ever.”
“Brian, why do you think that?” You could feel the weight of this issue inside him; this was going to be the deal breaker.
“Because I’m fucking him over—double-crossing him--plain and simple.” He shook his head, disgusted with himself.
“You think this is fucking him over, Brian? This and not everything else he’s been dealing with on your behalf? Getting him help is fucking him over?”
“Jon…”
“Brian, listen to me,” you said, grabbing the bag of take-out of his hand and holding it up his face, “Do you know what this is?”
“It’s sushi,” Brian said.
“No, it’s not. It was a test. Justin sent you on a pointless errand--in the pouring rain no less--to get him something he doesn’t even want just to see if you’d do it. Do you see that?”
Brian was slow to respond, but then he came around, “Yeah.”
“Why did he do that?”
“To screw with me?”
“Try again.”
……
Brian stared at you like he was on Jeopardy…and losing…
“Remember I told you at lunch that I don’t do couple’s counseling?”
“So, what? Now you’re backing out?”
“No, listen to me,” you said, handing him back the bag of sushi, “This is not about your marriage, Brian; this is about the basic foundation of your relationship.”
“Our relationship is founded on sushi?”
“Sort of. It’s a meal, Brian. It’s symbolic. Justin’s in a really, really low place right now; he wants to know that someone’s still there taking care of him.”
“So I bring dinner—"
“And you leave me alone while I set the table.”
He agreed and the elevator began to move.
*********************
BRIAN’S POV
I can’t light no more of your darkness
Upon entering the suite and per Jon’s request, you opened the door to your still darkened bedroom to see if Justin was where you left him, and he was, still lying on his side, only he was under the covers at that point, still staring out the window. “I’m back,” you said from the doorway.
He answered but didn’t turn to look at you, “’Kay, I was getting worried.”
“It’s raining really hard,” you said.
“I know.” You stepped inside the room and stripped off your wet shirt, digging for a dry one in your suitcase, fighting the urge to go over and just get in bed with him. “What’re you doing?” he asked.
“Changing my shirt; got rained on.”
“Oh.”
You looked back over your shoulder at Jon standing in the outer room; he nodded at you, so you turned back to Justin, making a last ditch effort, “Wanna come eat?”
“Not hungry,” he said. “Maybe later.”
“Okay…if you change your mind—"
……
“Can you shut the door?” he asked. “I kind of have a headache.”
“Yeah, sure,” you said, exiting the room and pulling it shut behind you.
*********************
and it all comes down to you
“I can’t stand this,” you whispered to Jon, stopping him as he walked toward the closed door, “I feel so fucking helpless; I want to pick up something and smash it.”
“He knows that, Brian. That’s why he won’t talk to you. He’s trying to protect you from yourself.”
You sat down in the edge of a wingback chair perched outside the door, “I can’t just let you walk in there; I just physically can’t. I have to let him know that you’re here…and why you’re here.”
Jon sat down on the sofa, his elbows on his knees as he re-grouped, “Is this the quirky super-hero side of you peeking out?” he asked.
“I guess so,” you sighed. “It doesn’t make sense, I know. He can come here for six years or forever, and I can deal with that, but I can’t deal with this. I just can’t.”
“Kryptonite?” he mused.
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
……
It just felt like something you had to do, take one more stab at it, and just like the second night after Justin's return two months earlier, it was once again dark and raining, and he was lying down—only his restraints were no longer soft, black leather; they were something much stronger and much more sinister—invisible and sunken beneath his skin--although you truly believed that both sets were equally your doing. There would be no need for him to turn on a light, shed the comforter, or remove his clothing for you to see the damage you’d done.
So again you opened the door to your top floor bedroom, closing it behind you, and walked over to your bed, sitting down on the edge as he bent his knees to make room for you; your hand resting on his thigh. His eyes flitted briefly in your direction and then back at the window and then to the floor to the narrow strip of carpet between the bed and the wall.
You had no idea what to say or where to start, and then you heard Jon’s question again echoing in your head: ‘Kryptonite?’
*********************
I’m only a man in a funny red sheet
Perhaps because you were touching him, maybe there was some sort of transference at that moment, something that allowed you to see yourself in Justin as he lay there suffering in silence, and though you’d chastised yourself earlier for everything else you’d exposed him to over the years, this part of him was emerging as the most toxic of all, reeking of your cancerous example, beautiful and sick and right in front of your face, splattered on canvases and proudly sold with emotional collateral.
Indeed, everything does have a price.
……
For all the wealth you’d amassed over the years, you’d been woefully ignorant of some of life’s most basic transactions.
……
“What’s the matter?” he asked you, shifting on the mattress, his body curling into a more fetal position.
You figured you’d start with the obvious, “I’m worried about you.”
He immediately looked away, “I don’t feel good; I’m just tired.”
……
Another echo from earlier that evening…’Nor you as impenetrable.’
……
You smiled at him, and he smiled back—sort of—kind of one of those conciliatory will you leave me alone now? smiles, the kind you give Ted when you want him to leave your office because you really don’t care about first quarter filing deadlines at four thirty on a Friday afternoon, but mentally—emotionally—you were in your office again, only this time it was years ago facing someone much more tenacious that Theodore…
“He’s not my responsibility.”
“Oh yes, he is…. You seduced him… you…fucked him…”
……
And you love him.
So, you decided, for Justin’s sake and for once in your life and with the blessing of a little hindsight, you’d be the first to show him that the plank was safe to walk, “Sit up for a second.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Just for a second.”
So he did, making a production out of re-arranging the sheets, crossing his legs, getting comfortable again, “What?”
You took his right hand, slowly, and put it on the back of your head, “Feel that? That bump?”
His eyes narrowed as he pulled you forward a little and then let you go, “What the hell?”
You took his hand back, holding it on purpose, so you could feel his reaction as you told him, “I passed out today in front of Dan’s place…from seeing the…you know…on the sidewalk.”
“What? When? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” he demanded, pulling his hand away, getting up on his knees, “Jesus Christ, Brian.”
“It’s okay. Jon was with me, luckily, because of him, I didn’t smack the pavement.”
“Oh my god,” and he was leaning across the bed, turning on the lamp on the nightstand, and when he made his way back to you, he was on his knees yet again trying to get a better look, but you put your hands on his waist, effectively sitting him back down.
“And he’s here now; he’s in the other room.”
Justin’s eyes were searching your face for an explanation, “He is?”
“Didn’t you hear us talking out there?” you asked him.
“I thought you were talking back to the TV.”
(That was the moment you realized that the true definition of marriage is the conjoining of a tall person to a short person so that over time, the short person can develop a fairly disparaging view of the tall person, keeping it completely to himself until it comes out at a really fucked up moment. Marriage is nothing if not an education.)
“Um, no…I wasn’t talking to the television. Jon, he wants to talk to you.”
“He does?”
“Yeah, but I’m gonna wait out there because I get kind of light-headed when I talk about it for too long. Is that okay?”
……
Justin studied your face, his hands on your chest, “No, it’s not okay. If you feel light-headed, you lie down in here; I’ll go out there and talk to him.” You smiled at him, and he leaned in and kissed you, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, Brian. You need to lie down. Does it hurt? Do you need to put ice on it?”
“No, Florence Nightingale. It doesn’t hurt. It’s okay.”
“Honest to god, I cannot believe this. I have to piss; tell him I’ll be there in a second.”
And when he disappeared into the bathroom, you moved quickly, opening the door to the outer room. Jon stood up immediately, “Well?”
“He’s going to come out here to talk to you; I’ll be in here…’resting.’”
Jon looked a little puzzled, and you heard Justin flush, so you explained in as few words as possible, “I did you a favor…let’s just call it The Cure of the Magi.”
……
Jon smiled at you. He understood.
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
so if you’re mad,
get mad
The distinction between ad exec and psychiatrist is one of compression and intensity. Both are able to extract your hopes, dreams, fears, desires, and secrets from you for an obscene amount of money, but what a psychiatrist does over ten years, an ad exec does in less than a minute. And thus Brian, your new partner in time, had successfully launched round two.
You hadn’t worked this hard in one day since your residency when you’d be on for four days straight on the psych ward, sporting a spotty beard as you discharged a patient on day four whom you’d just met pressed and clean-shaven on day one. Nothing like a suicide watch measured by whiskers, Diet Coke, Cheese Nips and an occasional intern or med student in the abandoned ECT room. That was never Daniel’s style, though.
He had a thing for Orville Redenbacher.
Justin’s body emerged from the bedroom before the rest of him because he was still talking to Brian…, “If you need me, just call me…”, so you waited on the sofa for the rest of him to come into the room, quietly fusing your internal armor together with a very quiet blow torch. You heard the television click on in the bedroom as Justin closed the door, and then he surprised you with his hospitality, “Do you want something to drink?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine,” you said, your head turning to follow him to the bar where he opened a mini-bottle of Jim Beam, poured it into a glass, and you thought—for a second—was going to take it to Brian, but he didn’t. He sat down on the opposite end of the sofa, drank about half of it, and set it down on the glass coffee table with a very commanding thunk.
(Okay, maybe you should’ve taken him up on his offer.)
His arms folded across his chest like they were following orders, one leg tucked under the other as he leaned back against the arm rest and began, “You wanted to talk to me? Talk.”
Nothing like having an audience with the Queen.
Your mind began to run backwards very, very fast looking for an open door…and then you ran past one that was wide open and something inside it reached out, grabbed you, and sucked you inside…
…"I did you a favor, let’s just call it The Cure of the Magi…"
You took a deep breath, suddenly feeling like they were going to be in short supply for a while, “I need to talk to you about Brian—"
“I think you mean apologize.”
The thing that grabbed you, that had you by the hair, it looked at you and began to feed you answers telepathically, Yes, that’s exactly what you mean, so you doubled back, “Right, apologize. That’s what I meant.”
“Because this is your fault--yours and Daniel’s. If you hadn’t pulled that bullshit with the chair this morning, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Well, he wasn’t completely off base, “You’re probably right.”
“When did it happen?” Justin demanded. “When did he get hurt?”
“After we moved the chairs. We were outside smoking—"
“You don’t smoke.”
“You’re right; I don’t. He offered, so I agreed, then he saw the stain on the sidewalk…and then what happened last night, happened again.”
“What do you mean, ‘What happened last night?’”
You stole another quick breath, suddenly feeling like the air in that room no longer belonged to you, “He had another break. He saw the stain again; he bent down to look at it; I thought he was trying to stub out his cigarette, and then his eyes fixated on the butt, rolled back in his head, and he tipped backwards.”
“So he fainted basically?”
“Yes.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you call me, Jonathon?”
“Brian was conscious and aware of his surroundings; he knew what had happened. That was his call.” The anger on Justin’s face was unlike anything you’d ever seen on him, “I stayed with him until you saw him at Daniel’s. I took care of him.”
“You took care of him,” Justin repeated back to you, supplying the verbal audacity he clearly thought you should have employed.
“Yeah, I stayed with him until I was sure he was out of the woods.”
……
There was a rather blank expression forming on Justin’s face, a thick distance stretching between you, the silence filling with what Brian had told you earlier…”The rest of him is completely shut down. I tried to talk to him, he’s not the least bit interested in what I have to say…”
……
……
When Justin finally spoke again, he was different, no longer actively angry, but something else, something you couldn’t define right away, “Brian told me that he can’t talk about what happened because it makes him feel like he’s going to faint again.”
“It does,” you said, “We talked for several hours afterwards. He didn’t faint again, but he did vomit. He has real physical symptoms surfacing now.”
……
And again he stared at you, like there was a several second delay in your communication, like he was waiting for a translator to finish feeding him the information. His eyes began to squint, “So if he hadn’t come to New York with me…I mean, he shouldn’t be here, right?”
“I don’t think being here is really the issue, actually.” Justin’s eyes opened again, like perhaps they were giving you one more chance so you elaborated, “I think it’s much more complicated than that…or much more simple than that, depending on your point of view.”
He was wringing his hands in his lap, unconnected from his body, “Huh?”
You couldn’t tell where he was with all of this information; he was impossible to read; you felt like you were chasing him through an invisible forest, one that he knew like the back of his hand, one that was going to land you flat on the ground with a branch through your skull; he had an escape route; you didn’t…
But what’s a deadly game of tag between friends?
You kept chasing him, catching up to him for only a few seconds at any given time, using those precious moments to try to make a point, “You remember when I met Richard, right? The circumstances, I mean?” Justin nodded, seeming tired of hearing your voice. “I was counseling someone who’d supposedly had an exorcism performed on them, remember?”
“Yeah, that was fucked up.”
“Brian’s one of the few people I’ve met who needs one, Justin, figuratively speaking. This thing inside him, it wants out.” Justin’s blue-eyed gaze almost burned your face, “I think he feels like someone is there for him, that you’re there for him now; you’ve come back; he’s ready—although he didn’t understand it until now--to let it go.”
You were instantly corrected, “That’s very easy for you to sit there and say, but you don’t know Brian. He can’t handle that; you saw him last night; you saw what happens when it comes out.”
……
“That’s not what I saw last night, Justin. I saw what happens when he tries to keep it in.”
*********************
JUSTIN'S POV
at night I could hear the blood in my veins
just as black and whispering as the rain
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
so alone I keep the wolves at bay
You knew you were going to have your work cut out for you…anyone in a relationship with a man like Brian Kinney would have to have strands of steel knit throughout his personality, but figuring out the pattern, predicting it even, was going to be interesting because its existence was as obvious as its characteristics were confidential. It was quite clearly part of the deal. And so as a priest is an earthly man’s link to god, you had to very carefully, very painstakingly become a bridge for Justin, a way for him to safely step out a little and view some of the most treasured and buried artifacts of his relationship without falling victim to the years of decay. It wouldn’t be the majestic Golden Gate Bridge as you might have preferred, more like an abandoned rope bridge whose underside was occupied by a cantankerous troll...
“So it’s because I came back,” he whispered as if the words didn’t deserve to be voiced.
“Justin,” you said; your voice having completely changed; you could feel the burden of his agony breathing inside you.
“That’s what you said. I’m home now—"
“No,” you clarified, “That’s not what I meant.”
……
The amorphous images you’d always had of Justin’s psyche, the ones that generously decorated Daniel’s walls, they began to reform in your mind because he’d finally stopped running, you’d caught up to him, but now adrenaline was pumping through you for an entirely different reason. He was no longer running because he was no longer breathing. He’d stopped in this dark, terrifying place—dead in his tracks--and your only choice was to pick him up and carry him. This was what Brian meant, you thought, when he described his words bouncing off Justin as if he was made of rubber. There was a vacancy filling him as he sat across from you, he seemed unhappy about it, but not altogether uncomfortable. The yellow papers Daniel had given you earlier were still folded in your pocket…
it’s like there’s a giant hole that’s always two feet surrounding me in every direction wherever I go now…
spewing out these clumps of dirt caked with the stench of this neglected anger…
that’s been rotting beneath me for fucking forever…
It was as if he was standing in his own grave; he’d refused to stop running until he found it.
And the ceremony had already started.
And just as you suspected from talking to Daniel and Brian and reading Justin’s notes earlier that day, Alan was the only one in attendance. Justin no longer identified with the living.
This thing inside Brian that Justin had eaten, he’d swallowed it whole and was determined to kill and bury it in an unmarked grave with no regard for either of its hosts.
*********************
a light hits the gloom on the grey
Justin was a much different animal than Brian once you got beneath the surface, beneath the territorial male trying to protect his turf, his life force even, and began to find the motive, you found something very interesting down there. At his core, you felt like Brian was acting from a single-minded vantage point, doing what he thought all along was best for Justin, but Justin, on the other hand, was doing what he thought was best for both of them. It was a very subtle, very odd distinction to see, especially in two people who’d spent the majority of their relationship apart—truly apart. And now that you’d finally caught up to Justin amid the woods that had enveloped both of you, you had a real decision to make: get in that grave with him and battle the quicksand or stand aboveground on the edge and hope that the sound of your voice, that something you were saying would keep him from sinking, would pull him outside of himself so he could truly see something besides his own reflection…
And so you began, “Justin, how do you feel about attending Alan’s funeral tomorrow?”
“I feel like I can’t,” he said, a sadness in his voice that was born in that grave.
“Can’t?”
“I can’t see myself there,” he said as the anger, the mask he was wearing began to fracture, slowly, like spider cracks in the foundation of a house, starting at the bottom of his face but moving slyly upward, chipping away at the porcelain veneer…
“Where do you see yourself?”
His face was slowly becoming red and swollen revealing the pain below…
“I see Brian and I on a plane tonight going back home…”
“Hmm…”
“I made him go out… I mean, I didn’t know he’d gotten hurt;” his eyes began to reveal the vulnerabilities in his emotional dam; “I would never have asked him if…”
“Of course not,” you reassured him.
“I made him go out because I needed to think, to decide if I wanted to go home.”
“What would happen if you stayed here tonight but didn’t go to the funeral in the morning?” you asked trying to gauge his frame of mind.
“Then tomorrow never gets here,” he said.
You leaned forward and wrapped your hand around his folded arms, every muscle in his body was strung tight trying to hold it together.
……
……
“So whether you stay here or go home tonight, everything fades to black before morning? You feel like there’s no resolution?”
……
There was no need for him to answer your question.
……
He couldn’t; you reached out…he was, first and foremost, your friend in all of this.
……
You prayed that Brian wouldn’t hear him and come out and stop the flow.
*********************
BRIAN’S POV
they say time is a healer,
and now my wounds are not the same
There was nothing on television that could hold your attention for more than five minutes. The pay-per-view porn wasn’t worth the pay or the view.
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
and there he was this young boy,
a stranger to my eyes
Justin apologized repeatedly because he couldn’t stop crying, that he didn’t know why, and when he pulled away from you and tried to regain control of himself, he wouldn’t look up, staring instead at the wad of tissues in his hand that you’d been feeding him over the last several minutes. His composure would only last for so long; his body would twitch, fighting him until it overcame him and broke through, a pattern that would repeat itself over and over as you talked. Perhaps Justin’s exterior resembled Brian’s initially, but this wounded underbelly was something altogether different. You knew you were only seeing it because the conditions were exactly right. Justin was exactly like Brian in that regard—inextricably complicated—so much so that, like Brian, he often appeared simple to the naked eye. The rain was softening outside, the eye of the storm had finally entered the room.
You spoke—very softly--because every sound he made was being strangled on its way out, “This is really painful for you.” He nodded. “The weight of this; this feels like old pain to me.” He nodded again; his eyes filling up again. “Okay.” You placed the box the Kleenex on the sofa between the two of you and stopped talking for a minute.
……
“Can I ask you something?” you asked him after he started to calm down.
“Yeah.”
“This pain that you’re feeling right now; is it all yours?”
*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
frozen here on the ladder of my life
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
listen to the man talkin’ ‘bout the meaning
He didn’t answer you right away, so you just waited patiently until finally…“Yes.”
“How do you know?” you asked.
“Because I can feel it.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Don’t know how to describe it.”
……
……
“Okay,” you said, “What you’re feeling…are you sure it’s pain?”
Justin looked at you like your head had become temporarily disconnected from your body, “Uh, yeah.”
“How do you know that?”
“Jon.”
“Just humor me, okay?”
“Fine,” he sighed, “I know it’s pain because it hurts.”
“And that’s not a good thing right? To hurt? It’s not something you want?”
And again, he scolded you and again you asked for and were given a little leeway, “No, it’s not a good thing.”
“And you don’t want it?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Give it to me. I’ll take it… Just for tonight. You can have it back tomorrow after the funeral.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, “That’s completely idiotic.”
“I’m serious; I want to help. If it’s your pain, if it belongs to you, if it’s in your possession, give it to me. I’ll carry that burden for you so that you can get through tomorrow. I’ll lighten your load.”
He laughed at you, “That’s a nice idea, but that’s impossible.”
“Why? You don’t think I can handle it? I’m a doctor; that’s what doctors do—relieve pain.”
“No, I’m sure you can—in theory--but it’s not that easy.”
“Why not? What makes it so hard?”
……
He looked at his fingernails; they’d suddenly become extremely fascinating, and then looked up at you again, slamming the proverbial door in your face, “This is dumb. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
……
……
You ran around and went in through the window, “Okay, okay…that was a little out there, let’s work it backwards. Let’s imagine that I left here with your pain ten minutes ago, and you don’t have it anymore, how would you feel?”
……
He rolled his eyes at you but answered you anyway, “Anxious and kind of pissed.”
……
“Okay.” His arms crossed and a crease formed on his forehead as you questioned him, “Why pissed?”
……
……
……
You nudged him with your foot, “It’s okay, say whatever you want.”
……
“I feel really scared.”
“Okay.”
“But that feels really stupid… to feel that way.”
“What’s the fear about?”
“That feels even dumber.”
“That’s okay, sometimes dumb is just something that’s never seen the light of day.”
……
The expression on his face when he spoke, it was as if he couldn’t quite accept that some part of him was letting the words he was saying escape his lips, “I feel like you won’t take care of it; you’ll ruin it. That when I get it back, it won’t feel like it did.”
“Okay. And that’s important to you, that it feel the same?”
“Yes, I guess. I don’t know why.”
“That’s okay, keep going.”
“The whole time it’s gone, I can’t relax like I’m supposed to, I feel frantic, panicky—"
“Like it’s your little baby?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, shaking his head, “I don’t want a babysitter?”
You were proud of him for staying in the moment when he was clearly uncomfortable, “How do you feel physically while I have it?”
“Lighter but ungrounded, like I can’t hold on to a thought for more a few seconds,” he said. “It’s fucked up; I don’t feel like myself.”
……
And so you asked, “Have I walked away with your pain or your identity?”
*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
you used to think that it was so easy
you used to say that it was so easy
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
and then he looked right through me as if I wasn’t there
“I don’t know what you want me to say to that.”
“It’s just a question. Can you answer it?” He shook his head. “Okay.” You were both quiet for about thirty seconds until you asked him, “If you could do anything you wanted right now to feel better, what would you do?”
He didn’t hesitate even a quarter of a second, “I want to be with him.”
“With Brian?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, breaking eye contact with you.
“Because it would make you feel better or because you’re worried about him?”
“I’m worried about him, and if I know he’s okay, then—"
“You’ll feel better?”
“Yeah.”
“Go get him.”
He looked surprised and then like he might take you up on it but backed down, “No, no, he’s resting. I don’t want to bother him.”
“You’d rather suffer?” you asked.
“I’d rather talk to him in private,” he shot back like a rubber band.
“Fair enough…although…”
“What?”
“I find it interesting how guarded you are about your relationship with him. You’ve been with him for over a decade; you’re married, and yet it feels like a matter of national security. I mean, I’m dating a closeted priest, and I think that’s more widely known…”
“So?”
“So, why?” you asked, getting comfortable on the sofa. If he didn’t want to bring Brian out, didn’t want to lessen the heat on himself, that was fine with you…and interesting…
“Why are you dating a closeted priest?” he asked.
Classic redirection; you were poking a sore spot, “No, why do you hide behind this mystical entity of your relationship with Brian? What are you afraid of?”
……
……
……
……
……
……
“Losing him.”
*********************
BRIAN’S POV
if I could escape
I would, but first of all let me say
I must apologize for acting,
stinking,
treating you this way,
Desperate times call for desperate measures which meant the inevitable Parade of Vices, all of them far too happy to be marching past you in a continuous loop with absurd smiles on their faces. You pretended that you were tied to the bed, and therefore unable to indulge yourself.
But then that just made you horny.
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
here’s a riddle for you,
find the answer
Justin believed he was telling the truth, but the whole truth and nothing but?
Not exactly.
Some people drag their heels when they don’t want to admit something, other’s hesitate when don’t know exactly how to cover something up, but Justin’s answer wasn’t in either of those categories. His answer was somehow vague.
You weren’t sure that he understood why he was so afraid, and that was where you wanted to spend some time because you were becoming convinced that somewhere in the atmosphere of the planet of their relationship, you’d actually find Justin, floating by aimlessly all by himself, wondering how the hell he got stuck in that orbit.
“Justin, how did you feel after Harper got married, after Amelia was born?”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“Kind of pissed.”
You laughed, “Why?”
“Because I was kind of jealous and because I wanted her to be there in the studio with me; I missed her and everything… I mean, Alan would even come by; he missed her. We’d both eat lunch together and talk about how we missed her, you know?” He stopped for a minute, lost in the moment, the memory of Alan, “It was stupid, my jealousy.”
“That’s not stupid.” He shrugged his shoulders at your opinion. “I mean, I can understand that reaction considering that you’re perfectly capable of carrying on a long term, long distance relationship and being in the studio full-time, and hell, you can even date other people on the side and go to the occasional orgy.”
He busted out laughing, “Shut up; it’s not the same thing.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not.”
“I can assure you that Sam’s love for Harper is just as insane as Brian’s love for you,” you told him. “And that the reverse is also true.”
And again he laughed; it was nice to see him smile, “It’s still not the same; our relationship is completely different.”
“How is it so different besides the obvious homo/hetero thing?”
He became more serious, more soft-spoken, “We have a different history.”
*********************
so who does your past belong to today?
History....
Sometimes history is a record that skips, sometimes it’s Abbey Road, but sometimes it's now, right now, sometimes you know you're a part of it and other times, well, it's a part of you..or all of you…renting more and more space inside you...a predatory tenant scrawling on your rent-controlled walls.
Sometimes you think it's not about you; you think you're in someone else's house--keeping it clean, mowing the grass, getting the mail, making sure it looks lived in, and that’s where you saw Justin that night...his burdened silhouette through the sparkling clean windows...one light on to warn trespassers to stay away. And that was what was so enigmatic about all of it because Justin knew he was coming back all along; you were convinced of that. Brian didn’t, but Justin did because he believed he was acting on both of their behalves. And yet even though he’d ingested Brian’s pain, his fears ran parallel to Brian’s, never intersecting. Justin was unbelievably determined to keep them that way:
“Because it’s important to you that it feel the same?”
According to Aristotle, art is one of the four wisdoms, and since it's generally the conduit for fear, joy, pain, and love, a way to express it, to feel it, to see it, to let it go, you found it odd and a bit worrisome that Justin was purposely painting as far away from Brian as he could, and often with as little effort as he could, and unable to lift a paintbrush once they were finally reunited. He was determined that that particular part of their pasts never came face to face.
This was where you had to start, with the past he was living in today and then begin to pull him out of the forest to get him back to where it all started. You weren’t overly optimistic about his voluntarily participation.
“Speaking of your history, can I ask why you came to New York six years ago?”
“To become an artist," he replied, staring at you like the question was utterly banal and that you were a lower life form for asking it.
“So you left when you felt you’d achieved that?”
“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “I make a decent living at it.”
“So that was the dream? To come here, get discovered or something, make a decent living and return home?”
“I guess so.”
“I don’t buy it. Sounds way too pedestrian to me. That’s the dream of someone who’s forty-three, who’s been around the block, knows the true market value and limitations of their talent. That’s not the dream of a twenty-one year old artist leaving everything behind to come to the Big Apple.”
“That’s your opinion.”
“Especially not someone who was almost dead at eighteen, who’s lucky to be alive, who’s educated, attractive, who’s worked in Hollywood and knows what he’s capable of.”
“Who told you that?” he challenged you.
“Told me what?”
“That I was in California?”
“Brian did, at lunch today.”
“What’d he tell you?”
“You illustrated a comic book; it got optioned for a movie, went out there; it tanked, and you came back home. That the story was autobiographical—"
“Right, it was about Brian.”
“No, autobiographical, as in he said it was about you.”
Justin shook off the suggestion as if Brian made those sort of mistakes all the time, “It was about him. He was the superhero, Rage.”
“You weren’t in the story?” you asked feigning confusion.
“No, I was. I was his…love interest…J.T.”
“What made Rage so heroic?” you asked.
“He saved Gayopolis. You know dumb superhero stuff.”
“Okay, so he was this really angry gay guy who went around saving gay people?”
“No. Well, okay…yeah…sort of…it was really pretty stupid, actually. It was just…a long time ago.”
“Did he save J.T. in the comic book?”
Justin rolled his eyes at you; you were quite clearly the most annoying person on the planet at that moment and employed a sarcastic tone that accompanies every teenager you ever counsel, “Yes, he saved J.T. J.T. was the first person he ever saved in the story, and then he took him back to his lair and fucked his virgin brains out. Would you like me to autograph an autobiographical copy and send it to you? I have a box of them somewhere.”
“I’d love a copy.”
“Signed copy might go for a dollar ninety-nine on eBay,” he quipped.
“Must be worth more than that to you.”
“Not really,” he lied.
“What happens to J.T’s attackers in the story? What does Rage do to them?”
Justin sighed like you were a puppy that just wouldn’t stop peeing on the floor, “Rage has mind control powers; he fucks with his head, his and the other attackers; he tricks them into thinking they’re all fags, and they kill each other.”
That was probably one of the most telling things Justin had ever revealed to you in his entire life.
……
……
……
“Why didn’t you let Rage zoom J.T. back to safety and then come back and beat the ever-loving shit out of his bashers?”
……
“You know, I thought you wanted to talk to me about Brian.”
“We are talking about Brian. Why didn’t you let him?”
……
“I worked on that comic as the illustrator.”
“Okay, why wouldn’t you draw him zooming J.T. to safety and then beating up his bashers?”
……
He looked at his watch, “It’s late. I should check on him—"
“If you’re really concerned about him, you’ll answer my question.”
“Fine. Because it’s uncivilized.”
“His name is ‘Rage,’ Justin. His actions cause another gay bashing. Two gay bashings are better than one? What’s civilized about that?”
“You asked me; I answered you.”
“Was it art imitating life? He didn’t save you; he didn’t beat Chris to a pulp, so you couldn’t extend him that privilege in the story?”
……
The anger that had been front and center at the beginning of your conversation with Justin reappeared, “What happened to me is not Brian’s fault. He didn’t see Chris in time to stop him. He tried to save me; there wasn’t enough time.”
“Couldn't it be partly Brian's fault?” you asked, being intentionally confrontational. (After all, you were finally meeting Rage for the first time; it was the least you could do.) “I mean, come on, a thirty-year-old man with a well-known reputation as a playboy shows up unannounced at a boy’s prom, spins him around the floor, makes a spectacle out of his attraction to the young man. I mean, we’ve come pretty far as a nation, but I don’t know if we’ve come that far—"
“That has nothing to do with it. What Chris did to me was Chris’s idea, his decision, period. It had nothing to do with Brian. Chris and I; we had history; we had issues with one another; it was a culmination of a lot of shit.”
“Okay, then if it wasn’t Brian’s fault, why is it so taboo for him to be ‘uncivilized’ about it in some fantastical version of it?”
“It isn’t." (Another lie.)
“You just told me it was. His hands don’t get bloody because it’s uncivilized. When does Rage get to be pissed off?”
……
……
“This is idiotic. You’re asking me a hypothetical question about a fucking comic book character.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s make it real. When is it going to be okay for Brian to be angry about what happened to you?”
*********************
in and out of hiding places
Justin stared at you like he didn’t know what to do with you—throw you out, smack you upside the head, or just admit that you were speaking in a language he didn’t want to understand. You let him think about it for a minute…because this was a rather big knot in Justin’s proverbial ball of yarn. Brian, right or wrong, good or bad, spent his life making decisions about everything; he was doing it every hour of every day—in the board room, the bedroom…
“Who officiated?”
“My dick.”
…and everywhere in between. Brian was a college graduate, a father, an entrepreneur, a self-made man, a partner, a CEO, a millionaire, and yet Justin, although intelligent, talented, and determined, wasn’t a decision maker. You didn’t expect him to agree with you about that because in addition to being intelligent and determined, Justin was also somewhat proud. You had to tread lightly because there was a very good reason why he wasn’t making decisions. Decisions bring change.
So you extended a temporary olive branch and let him off the hook, “You know, you’re right, Justin. It’s not Brian’s fault, what happened to you. Not at all.”
“I know that,” he said, hesitant to enjoy a bit of suspicious relief.
“So if it’s not his fault, what’s the harm in him getting a little pissed off about it?”
And he did not appreciate the fake out, “Because Brian doesn’t know how to get just a little pissed off, Jonathon,” regretting the words as they fell out of his mouth.
You leaned forward then, mimicking his posture with your elbows propped on your knees, and he immediately hung his head, unwilling to look you in the eye, “Do you remember the night Amelia was born, when Harper was in labor screaming her head off?”
“Yes,” he told the carpet.
“You remember Sam? How he was a fucking mess? How Harper finally asked for an Epidural and when it got there, she told them to give it to him?”
“It was too late for her,” he said. “She was too far gone.”
“So is Brian. He’s too far gone, Justin. You can’t have this baby for him. It’s his.”
“Jon.”
“I’m serious, Justin. I’m not trying to be funny; you’re a creative person, maybe you can understand it this way.” He looked up at you then. “I think you came here because you thought you were pregnant.”
“Would you please not be retarded?”
“I’m not. Work with me here. You’re pregnant with this pain Justin. You went to Hollywood and tried to have this baby, and they said no; they didn’t want it. You came back and tried to find a way to have it with Brian, but he wasn’t ready to have it, so you left again. You came here to have it, and once you thought you’d done it and found a good home for it, you went back to Brian.”
“I think you’re crazy.”
“And I know why you’re so angry, Justin—because Brian adopted your baby that’s really his anyway, and you didn’t know it until you got back.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“You don’t want this baby.”
“Oh my god.”
“And I don’t blame you, Justin. Because it’s really ugly and it’s not yours.”
“Now I really need a shrink.” (Granted, he was being a wise ass, but he was listening to you. Everybody takes their medicine in their own way.)
“You wanna know why it’s so ugly?”
“Sure. Why the hell not?”
You reached out and held his hands because this was the part that was going to feel the most like childbirth. You knew that Justin knew what you were about to tell him, he just wasn’t letting himself integrate into his conscious thought, “I’m not joking around anymore.”
“Okay.”
“This baby is hideously ugly because what Brian’s going through didn’t start ten years ago Justin. It didn’t start with Chris Hobbs. This baby was conceived the first time Brian's father laid a hand on him--which was before you were even born."
……
……
He pulled his hands away and wiped his tears, “I know that, okay? I know. This is why I don’t…”
“Want him to feel it?”
“Yeah.”
“I know. But not letting him feel it, trying to cut his emotions off at the pass for him by replacing things before he can see the damage he’s done, for instance, that’s hurting him, too, because all that does is effectively shove it back inside him. Does that make sense?”
He held his face in his hands, “Yeah.”
“And because of what happened to you, Justin, it’s trapped him and you, quite frankly, in a scary dynamic because he will always blame himself for what happened to you until he deals with it, and when you stop him or shut him down when he's trying to deal with it--"
“I don’t shut him down.”
“Didn’t you throw something at him when he tried to talk to you about it?”
“Oh god, he told you that?”
“And when you shut him down, he will always stop because he’s thinks he’s protecting you when in reality he’s hurting himself.”
“I’m not trying to hurt him,” Justin insisted.
“I know that. You’re trying to protect him; he’s trying to protect you, but somewhere along the way, your communication has completely broken down, Justin, and the goal of all of this protecting has gotten lost.”
“It didn’t break down; we never had any.”
“Okay, okay. That’s not uncommon in these situations. What happened to you-- It’s not surprising, Justin. These kind of tragedies, especially when they involve someone as young as you were; they destroy people; they tear families apart—"
And then you stopped because of the look on Justin’s face.
……
Your words rewound and began to play back in your head: …tragedies…they destroy people…they…tear…families…apart…
……
“Justin, I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“We agree that what happened to you is not Brian’s fault, right?”
“Right.”
“And the guy who attacked you, I realize he’s dead and gone now, but at the time he basically got a slap on the wrist, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so who got punished for this crime?”
“Nobody, I guess.”
You asked the question a little differently, “Who suffered the greatest loss because of this crime?”
“I don’t really know.”
So you tried one more time, same question, completely different format, “Why were you willing to recommit the crime in your comic book, to actually draw another gay bashing, one that was even more graphic and violent and let fags kill fags and call it justice?”
“Jon, can we just please drop this? I need to know how to help Brian.”
“Why do you think you deserve what happened to you, Justin?”
“I don’t.”
“Because it’s a lot easier to lose yourself in Brian’s all-encompassing guilt over this than deal with your own?”
"No—"
“Because if you deserved what happened to you then what happened to Brian is your fault, too?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“Just no. You’re wrong.”
“About what? What am I wrong about?”
“You’re just wrong about everything,” he declared.
“Somebody got punished for this crime, Justin. It’s karma. It’s the law of the universe. Who paid for this crime?”
……
……
……
*********************
BRIAN’S POV
want some whiskey in your water?
Whoever said, ‘Time stands still for no man,’ had never met you.
*********************
JONATHON MASSEY’S POV
I've been cheated
been mistreated
In many ways, all you had to do was get Justin in the kitchen—albeit no easy task--and he could set his own table.
During your conversation with Justin that night, you were almost hyper-conscious of the degree and frequency with which he slid up and down the chronological age-continuum. At the beginning of the conversation, he seemed older than his years; halfway through he’d lost twenty years easy, and in between he was all over the place, and this was dicey because his emotional reactions and awareness would often fluctuate at the same time, and what he could handle on one end of the continuum, he wouldn’t be able to handle ten minutes later on the other. The irony was that the reason for this sat squarely on the young end of the continuum, but his ability to hear you and process it resided on the other. So many times that evening you felt like he was regressing before your eyes, like he was a teenager again, but not anymore. He was trying to sit up straight as he spoke to you, the ten years that had passed since the night he was attacked forming scaffolding inside him; he was morphing into a man right in front of you--a man telling you about the boy he used to be. You listened carefully because you suspected he’d never told anyone this before.
He repeated your question, asking himself for the answer, speaking as if you weren’t even in the room, “Who paid for this crime?” And then he was quiet for about twenty seconds, conflict spreading all over his face. “I suppose if you asked me, 'Who didn’t?' I could give you a more precise answer." You remained silent. He shifted on the sofa, his body as uncomfortable with the subject matter as he was. He looked out the window, toward the closed door separating he and Brian, toward the doorway that led to the elevator—the escape route, to the seam on his jeans, a loose thread refusing to be set free.
And still, you said nothing.
……
When he finally opened his mouth, his eyes were fixed on the back of the sofa, a compromise of sorts between looking out the window and looking at you, “That bat, when Chris swung it, it smashed a lot more than my head.” You propped your elbow on the back of the sofa, resting your head on your hand, getting at his eye level, mirroring him so he’d understand he wasn’t alone without having to interrupt him. “Everybody thinks that the injuries I suffered were the worst part of what happened to me; they have no fucking clue. Sometimes I think Brian has no fucking clue. He thinks…I mean, every time he sees my hand shake or if I make some comment about it; he thinks that’s what it’s all about.”
You felt like your picture of their relationship was part of a coloring book, and Justin was starting to shade it for you. Shade it and not color it because the dimensions were that subtle. Justin was shutting Brian down partly because Brian’s perspective didn’t sit right with him—at all.
“That bat fractured my entire life. It literally destroyed every relationship I had. I was able to salvage a few of them, but most of them were never the same again.” He looked toward the coffee table, and you followed his gaze, reached over, and handed him the box of Kleenex. He pulled one out and wiped his eyes. “Never.”
And then he finally looked at you. Finally, you'd found the shame you'd been looking for; you didn't shine a bright light on it. It was beginning to age as it should've after ten years; there was no need to reverse the process.
“Collateral damage,” you said.
“I’m not ashamed of being gay; it’s who I am, but I didn’t want my grandparents to have to go through what they went through when this happened to me. I didn’t want to skip every family reunion for the last ten years because all anyone wanted to say to me was how sorry they were or they have a friend who’s gay or just watch them stare at me and whisper to each other. I didn’t want my little sister to be the girl whose brother got bashed because he was a fag. She came home from school one day after I was finally back home, came into my room, and asked me if Brian was my sugar daddy, and if that’s why our dad was gone.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, ‘No, he’s not,’ and that Brian and Dad have nothing to do with each other. My dad left us before I was even attacked.”
“How did your dad respond when you were attacked?”
Justin looked like he was going to laugh, but he couldn’t, “He basically didn’t.”
“But you were almost killed.”
“He came to see me once after I came out of my coma; I told him that I probably wouldn’t be able to draw again.”
“What’d he say?”
“He said, ‘You got into Dartmouth, son. Hopefully, they’ll still take you.’ I had already sent them a letter declining my acceptance. I was going to go to art school.”
“What did you do?”
“I lay there and thought that I should try to get back in, and not because I wanted to go, just because I still wanted him to be proud of me.”
“But you didn’t try to get back in?”
“No. I got out of the hospital, went to see Brian, and that’s where all my energy went. He was an absolute fucking mess, completely convinced that it was all his fault. I could tell within twenty minutes that he didn’t think I was going to live; he didn’t say it, but I knew. I’d never seen him so utterly destroyed.”
“That’s when you decided you needed to fix him, to get him back to the way he was?”
“Yeah, I guess, which was kind of naive because the way he was wasn’t exactly that great either.”
“What do you think would’ve happened if you hadn’t done that?”
“Honestly? We wouldn’t be together today.”
……
He needed to get Brian back to the way he was because it was important that it feel the same. Didn't matter if it was good or bad as long as it was the same. You felt like you were finally at a place to talk to him, and that he was at a place where he could listen.
“Justin, this is what I picture in my head when you talk about what happened to you and about your relationship with Brian, and granted, I don’t know every detail, so this is just my take on it."
“Okay.”
“Not to disparage your age, but I see a boy who fell in love with a man who was already burdened with very complex issues that I think you can probably understand now because you’re dealing with many of the same kind. Brian is older than you, and the abuse he suffered began when he was very young, but I think you can probably appreciate how a seventeen-year-old couldn’t possibly fix someone dealing with what Brian’s dealing with.”
“Right.”
“And then you add the attack on top of all of that, something that compromised both of you, and what you were trying to do was essentially a Herculean task. Do you see that?”
You thought you saw a bit of relief on his face and then you felt it inside of you, “Yes.”
“Okay, let’s talk about why this happened because I think if you understand the reason behind it, you’ll be able to change it.”
“Okay.”
“I talked to Brian for several hours after he fainted today; we had a very long lunch, and in talking to him about the attack and your recovery, he made a comment that he was your ‘aftermath,’ meaning that he was the one who took care of you. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, I lived with him. I was having a lot of anger issues. I was either going to be with him or go fucking ballistic, basically.”
“Hence Rage was born?”
He smiled, “I guess so.”
“Well, at least you let him out.” Justin laughed; you continued, “So you lived with Brian who we agree was a fucking mess—those were your words; your father is gone, and you’re struggling with your physical recovery, with your emotions about being attacked, about losing all of your primary relationships, but that’s taking a backseat to caring for Brian, trying to manage his pain and keep your relationship on solid ground?”
“Yeah, but—"
“But what?”
“When you put it that way, I don’t know I lived through it.”
“You were a teenager; teenagers are invincible. Remember?”
“Oh yeah. I must be getting old.”
“Just wait ‘til you hit forty.”
“You mean until I help Brian hit forty.”
“Right, of course, my mistake.”
Justin’s posture had finally relaxed; you finally felt like you were truly making progress with him. It’s always that moment in a session when you hate psychiatry because it’s such a lonely occupation; every high note you hit is confidential. It didn’t exactly mesh with your overwhelming desire to run out into the street, stop traffic, and scream, “HE WANTS THE TRUTH! HE CAN HANDLE THE TRUTH! THANK YOU, NEW YORK CITY AND GOODNIGHT!”
“OH, AND BY THE WAY, I’M FUCKING A PRIEST. THAT’S RIGHT. YOU HEARD ME. A PRIEST. AND JESUS STILL LOVES ME BECAUSE MY HOT PRIESTLY BOYFRIEND TOLD ME SO!”
So, anyway, back to reality, back to Justin…
“Justin, I think the aftermath and the sushi are the two keys to this.”
“Huh?”
“Leeway, please. I told Brian at lunch that I don’t do couples counseling, but I agreed to come talk to you tonight because this isn’t about your marriage.”
“I’m still on ‘huh?’”
“I know. Just listen. Before Brian was truly your partner, he was your primary caregiver. I know your relationship was sexual from day one, but I believe your bond was more familial.”
“Okay, that equals incest.”
“No, it doesn’t. Listen. Brian, despite all of his flaws and baggage, recognizes even today that because he’s significantly older you, he has another degree of responsibility for you over and above what I think he would feel if you were his age. He took care of you, and when someone is your primary caregiver, and in this case, really the only person you feel you can rely on, it’s completely normal for you to move heaven and earth to protect them in any way you can. And you were young Justin, and then young and severely traumatized. Had Brian fallen apart or been unable to function or care for you, your world would’ve collapsed, so you worked your ass off helping him shove all of this crap back inside because it meant your survival and, in your mind, his.”
“Oh god.”
“Everybody does it, Justin. Parents do it when they lose a child, children do it when they’re being abused and can’t fathom living without the abuser; Harper did it with Alan, covering for him, shielding him from their father, isolating him even more than he was, mothering him in Ruth's absence. It’s a completely natural response to that situation.”
“It makes me feel sick.”
“I know, but it’s really okay. And in your case, most of your relationship with Brian did progress, he’s your best friend in the entire world, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“And he’s your partner; you love him…you can’t even describe it, can you?”
He shook his head, “No.”
“Okay, the point I’m making is that your relationship functions on all three levels; it’s like a slide rule and the two of you move back and forth, back and forth constantly. The problem comes when you don’t move in sync. Tonight when you sent him out for sushi—"
“I can’t believe I did that to him.”
“That’s because you’ve already moved since you did it. You were way down on the familial end when you did it and he wasn’t. You sent him to get it because you were trying to move him, to force him to move, and it worked.”
“But I don’t even eat sushi.”
“Right, you were really upset, and you weren’t fucking around. You were trying to kill about eighteen birds with one stone. He was way on the other end of the continuum, so you went for broke. And it worked because he told the front desk to get the sushi, and he went and got me. He realized that you needed something he didn’t have; he was determined to take care of you.”
“He’s so…”
“Much like you? He was exactly the way you were last night when we came to get you and take you to Daniel’s. He was frantic. You really freaked him out.”
“I don’t know why I can’t just talk to him.”
“I think you’re afraid that talking about these things is dangerous for him, and it might not always be pleasant, but not talking about it is much worse. I think he’s ready to get some help for his issues, Justin; that should help take some of the pressure off of you. That and understanding that you don’t have to physically take care of him.”
“But I want to,” he said, and he meant it. He really did.
“Why?”
“Because I love him.”
“If you love him, you’ll want him to take care of himself.”
……
……
……
He stood up and walked away from you, clearly upset.
……
You let him pace, and he finally circled back around, standing beside a chair, his right hand resting on the back as he spoke, “I should be the one taking care of him."
“Why?”
“Because I'm his partner; I love him.”
“Here we are again,” you said.
……
……
You prompted him; he was shutting down again, “What’s the downside to Brian taking care of himself?”
……
……
“Why would he need me?” Justin asked you.
……
“He loves you.”
“So?”
“You don’t think he needs to be loved?”
……
……
……
“I don’t think he knows he needs to be loved,” he confessed.
……
“Okay, come here for a minute,” you told him. He walked over and sat back on the sofa; he looked weak, exposed and tired and very young again, and you truly felt bad for him; your feelings for him as your friend were beginning to affect you, beginning to show, “This is precisely why Brian needs to get help and precisely why he needs to learn to take care of himself because you’re probably right.”
“I am?”
You weren’t a doctor anymore; you didn’t care about that crap anymore; you just didn’t want to see him suffer; he’d suffered enough—that day, that week, that decade, “I know that this terrifies you. I know that you’re afraid that he’s going to learn something about himself, come home one day, and say it’s over or something, but that’s not going to happen. You couldn’t get rid of Brian if you tried; he loves you so much it’s hard to watch sometimes. He’s like gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe.” You stopped a tear running down his face. “In this case, you’re going to have to lead by example—his example. You’re going to have to love him enough and trust him enough to let him get better, just like he loved you and trusted you when you came here. You won’t regret it, Justin; I promise you, you won’t. But if anything bad happens, I’ll give you your money back.”
“You’re charging me for this?”
You smiled, “No, I just wanted to make you laugh.”
“I know you’re right intellectually; I just felt something really, really different.”
“I know; that’s okay. But you've got to realize who Brian is, though. He didn't grow up like you did. He knew from day one that he wasn't loved. He needs to reverse that; that's a horrible way for anyone to feel. He needs to heal."
"You're right, I know. It's weird to think of him being able to do something or feel something he couldn't do before; I adapted my whole personality to fit his."
"I know. You loved him, and you were way too young to understand."
"Yeah. You're probably right."
……
“How do you feel about attending the funeral tomorrow?” you asked as you closed your time with him.
“I think I can go. I don’t know if I can get up and speak or anything. I don’t know.”
“That’s fine. Whatever you decide to do is okay. I think Sam’s going to have a friend of his filming it, so either way is fine. If you decide not to go, can you give me a call in the afternoon and just let me know how you’re doing?”
“I will,” he said.
"But if you're not there, we're going to miss you. You're a part of us, you know? We need you." you said, standing up.
“Thanks for coming over and talking to me,” Justin said and then he hugged you for a long time, and when he let go, he said, “Wait, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do for Brian, for his head.”
“Nothing, really; his head is fine. He needs to figure out what exactly his trigger is; I’m not sure. That’s why he needs to see somebody. My concern and Daniel’s, too, which is why we got between you two this morning, is that Brian’s triggers are too close to the surface; he doesn’t know what they are, and the situation is very dangerous. We didn’t want you two to go back home and Brian to be driving down the road one day, witness a bloody accident or something, have a break, and run his car off the road. I told him to lay off the liquor, but the break he had today, he was completely sober. So, I’m not sure.”
“So if I talk to him about it—"
“You can talk to him, that’s fine. Just do it where it’s safe so that if he does faint or whatever, he’s safe. You guys might be able to narrow it down. Just don’t talk to him about it while he’s driving or something like that.”
“Thanks…for helping both of us.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Please tell Richard I’m sorry I kept you all night.”
“I will, but he’ll forgive you,” you told him, “He has to or Jesus won’t be his friend.”
……
Justin walked you to the elevator, and as the doors closed, you leaned against the back wall and closed your eyes for the long ride down to the lobby. When you got there, when the doors opened, the same concierge in training who’d been guarding Brian’s sushi was standing there waiting for you, “Dr. Massey?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Taylor asked me to call a car service for you. It’s raining so hard; there are no cabs. It’s right out front. It’ll take you wherever you need to go.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“My pleasure, sir.”
*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
is it raining with you?
The rain wasn’t letting up, even from the penthouse you could see it bouncing off the ledges, sidewalks, and streets; it was too much at one time, determined to prove to you that there was a point to all of this endless repetition. You let go of the curtain and turned off the lights in the rest of the suite.
……
When you opened the door to your bedroom, Brian immediately turned off the television bathing the room in darkness. "Brian,” you protested, “Now, I can’t see where I’m going.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said, and then the small light on the nightstand came on as you came into the room. He was lying on the bed holding three mini-bottles of various brands of whiskey in his hands; he sat up as you walked in asking, “Was it good for you, too?”
”What are you doing with those?” you asked him.
“Just holding them.”
“You’re losing your mind.” It wasn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact.
He answered you as you took the unopened bottles from him and sat them next to the telephone, “So on a scale of one to ten, how pissed are you at me right now?”
“Zero.”
He raised his eyebrow at you, “Ten being the most pissed, right?”
“Yes.”
“C’mere.” He put his hand on your waist and pulled you toward him until you were sitting on his lap facing him. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I know.”
“I’m gonna figure my shit out, okay? You don’t have to do it. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do it.”
“I know.”
……
His hands were under your shirt, and they felt so strong all of a sudden, “I love you.”
“I know,” you said, but you didn’t sound very convincing because,
“Look at me,” he commanded you, and you did, “Which one of those words wasn’t registering with you?”
“I’m not sure…and I don’t want to fight tonight, okay?”
……
……
Brian pulled you down against him, laying your head on his shoulder, “You’re not angry, and I’m not angry, so why would we fight?”
“I can’t explain it. I just don’t want to.”
“Okay.”
……
……
He reached over and turned off the light.
*********************
nothing you confess could make me love you less
Brian was quiet having turned the conversation to something more tactile…
There was a part of you that was beginning to feel the six year separation from him for the first time, almost like it was hitting you all at once, like giant bowling pins being knocked down in slow motion, one for each year and each one knowing that it’s next. Maybe you couldn’t feel it before, maybe you didn’t understand it or didn’t want to or were just afraid to…but there was something about it that was suddenly overwhelming…
You tried to think about something else or frame it in a different way, but you couldn’t do it in time…
He kissed the side of your face…
It was wet…
……
“What’s wrong?” he asked you.
“I miss you.”
“I’m right here.”
“I don’t mean now…I mean before. I miss you from before.”
……
“From before what?” he said quietly.
“From before I came back.”
You knew you weren’t making any sense, nothing made any sense anymore except that everything suddenly did, and you were about to say that, that leaving him six years ago was the hardest thing you ever did, but you didn’t know that until right then, but then he said,
“I know. I miss you, too.”
“You do?”
“Every single day.”
And you knew what he meant, you knew that he meant every day up until that moment because a part of you had never come back, a part of you was still homeless in New York City, terrified of returning home. You felt you owed him some sort of explanation after everything he’d done for you,
“Brian—"
But it wasn’t your turn to talk, only to listen; the rain muting any moonlight that tried to force its way into the room.
“Listen to me,” he said, the edge of his fingers tracing your jaw line. “I made this impossible for you, okay? You were practically a kid; it wasn’t your job to handle my shit for me. You had a fucking brain injury for Christ’s sake. I had no right to put that kind of pressure on you—"
“You didn’t—"
“Yes, I did, and I did a bang up job convincing you that I wasn’t doing it while I was doing it, too. I’m ashamed of myself, hurting you like that.”
“Brian—"
“And you better believe me when I say that because that’s the most honest statement I’ve ever made in my entire life.”
……
……
……
“I believe you,” you finally said when you could speak again.
……
You sat up a little to wipe his face with your hand, and when you did, he held it, and you could feel him staring at you in the darkness, feel his other arm tightening around your waist, and when he kissed you, it was like you’d just met him.
There was nothing unoriginal about the next few minutes, nothing about them that felt anything but brand new. You were experiencing the intimate, nascent moments of your relationship a decade after they should’ve happened, and they weren’t the least bit stale or even rehearsed. It baffled your mind, but your body politely asked it to shut the hell up.
*********************
blame it on the rain
He must’ve removed your clothing because you don’t remember doing it. You remember him undressing because you watched him; he was standing at the foot of the bed; you were lying on the sheets. He’d pulled the bedspread down…
He had something in his hand; he tossed it on the bed. It bounced once and then landed with a thud.
He put one knee on the mattress and then the other, and then he was on top of you, and you moaned just from that because you felt like you’d been waiting twenty-four hours for just that instead of an actual eternity of thirty seconds. His touch was intimate and generous yet never presumptuous; his voice a sweet restorative, "…how much I love you…," a gift that surely would’ve taken offense had it been returned.
“Get it”, he hot-whispered in your ear, and your palm passed over the sheet scanning for the lube he’d thrown your way. You stopped when you found it and flipped it open, coating his outstretched hand. You closed your eyes and held your breath as his hand disappeared and then resurfaced between your legs, savoring that unbelievably incredible feeling of knowing he’s about to be inside you. “Uh…Justin,” and he was, and he was still for almost a minute, listening to you…
…beg.
“I want you…
"I want you to fuck me…until I scream…until I'm begging you to stop-"
He started to move, his face buried in your neck, the sound of his voice reverberating in your ear, "Oh god…fuck."
"And then don't stop, Brian. Don't. Stop."
Perhaps that was the sentiment; that the fuck should somehow mirror the agony of the day in order to balance everything out, that where the heart had been, the body must follow. And it did, and no prior fuck in any hotel room in any city anywhere in the world could hold a handle to it; the sheer energy of it hijacked by your souls to stitch up an open wound.
There was a path to be followed and that night you pointed it out and he led. You held on tight and let him because you were tired and grieving, because you loved him and trusted him, and because you wanted him to know that despite every dark day the two of you had ever shared together, you believed in the light he was carrying.
“I love you, Brian….. God, I…love…you. Fuck me…
“Fuck me…
“until…
“it…
“stops…
“raining…”
Lyrics taken from Annie Lennox’s Why, Michelle Branch’s The Game of Love, the Gin Blossom’s Follow You Down , Heart’s Nothing at All, Cher’s Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves, Heart’s Alone, Heart’s What About Love?, Cher’s Believe, Bob Seger’s Against the Wind, The Eurythmics Here Comes the Rain Again, Heart’s Alone again, Elton John’s Candle in the Wind, REM’s Losing My Religion, Annie Lennox’s Why again, The Police’s King of Pain, Elton John’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me, Stevie Nick’s Gypsy, Five for Fighting’s Superman, The Pretenders’s I’ll Stand By You, Bruce Springsteen's Streets of Philadelphia, Annie Lennox’s Train in Vain, Seal’s Kiss From a Rose, Genesis' No Son of Mine, Robert Flack’s Killing Me Softly, Elton John’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me again, Groove Terminator’s Here Comes Another One, Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, Robert Flack’s Killing Me Softly again, Gwen Stefani featuring Akon's The Sweet Escape, Five for Fighting’s The Riddle, Roseanne Cash’s Seven Year Ache, Genesis’s No Son of Mine again and twice, Three Dog Night's Mama Told Me Not to Come, Linda Ronstadt's When Will I Be Loved?, The Eurythmics Here Comes the Rain Again again, The Pretender’s I’ll Stand By You again, and Milli Vanilli's Blame It On the Rain and yes, I know they faked it.
Icon bases used throughout this story came from 
basicbases, basebeat, khushi_icons, obsessiveicons, graphical_love, 
anithradia, simplybases, randomicons, bases_by_maggie, blackwhiteicons, dramadiva_icons, driveon_icons, foryourhead, icon_goddess, amillionicons, 
joelzbutterly, icon_duration, timepunching, andos_pics, some icon communities at Greatest Journal, and the website Absolute Trouble.
Original picture of NYC Sewer grate and first frame of NYC sewer animation (blurry, out of focus shot of grate) were both taken by silent_seas in NYC. Original graveside picture from the tunnel was done by briannahai and was originally featured in Chapter 31-Souls. You’ll be seeing more of her work shortly. All other animations were done by me, and yes, I’m fully aware of the limitations of my talent in that respect. I like it; it’s fun.