Baby, when you left I lost a part of me
It's still so hard to believe
Come back baby please
‘Cause we belong together

--"We Belong Together," Mariah Carey (2005)

Wednesday, July 11

Brian and Justin arrived at the Andy Warhol Museum around 1:30 the following afternoon. Brian hadn't been to the museum for several years and had forgotten just how big the place was. The museum was housed in a seven-story building in downtown Pittsburgh. They could easily spend the entire afternoon looking at the various exhibits.

Justin wanted to first go to a thirty-minute short film that played on a continuous loop about Warhol's life. The blond was practically an expert on Warhol but he always wanted to learn more. During the film, Brian mostly watched Justin watching the film out of his peripheral. The boy was mesmerized by it.

"I was so born in the wrong era," Justin said quietly toward the end of the film. "I wish I could have been a Warhol superstar."

And the boy still claims to be straight... Brian thought to himself. Yeah, and I'm Leonardo Di-fucking-Caprio.

As the two walked around the museum, Brian saw how important Warhol was to the world of advertising in the 60's. Nearly everyone was familiar with the iconic Campbell's Soup can paintings, but Brian either forgot about or hadn't seen some Warhol's other commercial "pop art" pieces, including his black and gray Coca-Cola painting and Brillo Soap Pads Box sculptures.

"Artwork in advertising is just as important as slogans and jingles, maybe even more so," Justin said. "People often remember what they see before they remember what they hear or read."

Brian nodded, having already been thinking the same thing.

"You said you wanted to go into advertising, right?"

"Yeah," Brian confirmed. "At school, I'm concentrating in marketing, minoring in technical writing. I don't want to just sell shit to people, I want to sell them shit that they don't even know they want. I want to create brilliant ads that will do just that and be the best at it."

"You want to be a real-life Don Draper, don't you?" the blond asked.

Brian smiled. "Yeah, it'd be cool to drink whiskey in my office all day and tell defenseless copywriters what to do."

"You already have the sleeping around part down, except with men, not women," Justin casually mentioned before walking on to look at another painting.

Brian groaned and followed after the blond, realizing that Ted's intervention on his behalf didn't do him any good.

"You know, you really should tell me who has been feeding you this ugly information, so that I can confront them."

"Not a chance," Justin answered with a mischievous grin.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear. People often have their own agendas when they decide to gossip about other people."

In the case of Debbie blabbing to Justin about him, Brian knew why she would do it. Debbie and Brian's mother, Joan, had never gotten along, with each woman participating in petty gossip in their country club circle about the other. Joan had found it very scandalous when Debbie, a pretty and outgoing twenty-year-old waitress from a lower-middle class family, married into the wealthy Novotny family shortly after meeting John Michael Novotny when she waited on him in the diner where she worked. Although she was married to a successful businessman and had two young children, Joan was jealous of Debbie for having landed Pittsburgh's most eligible bachelor, as were all of her friends.

It was said that Joan made up a rumor that then-pregnant Debbie cut the brake lines in her husband's car, causing his fatal crash, not even a year into their marriage so she could have John's son, the only heir to the family's fortune, all to herself. There were also rumors that John was gay and that he wasn't even Michael's real father, possibly started by Joan, too.

Debbie called Joan "The Nun" for her drab clothing and church-going. Joan called Debbie "Bozo" for her dyed and permed red hair, heavy makeup, and loud clothing choices.

Two decades later, Debbie, who had become quite the gossip queen herself over the years, made it her business when the Kinney marriage broke apart. She'd run her mouth for years about Jack's rumored infidelities to anyone who was interested and found it hilarious when Jack finally left Joan for a younger, richer, and more attractive woman. The fact that Debbie was good friends with Jack's new wife - Brandon's mother Elaine - only added fuel to the fire.

Now that Joan and Jack Kinney's marriage was ancient history, it appeared that Debbie had moved on to gossiping about Joan's gay bed-hopping son, which was really no surprise.

"So, you haven't been systematically sleeping your way around the greater Pittsburgh area for the past, oh, seven years?" Justin asked.

Brian decided to stop trying to convince the blond otherwise. "And what if I have? What's so bad about that? Even your idol, Andy Warhol, liked casual sex with lots of different men. Do you know why? Sex is great, especially gay sex. Have you ever had sex?"

"No," Justin admitted.

"Who are you to judge something you've never experienced?"

"I just think that sex should be about love, not just getting your rocks off."

Brian stepped in front of him, forcing Justin to look up into his eyes. "What the fuck is love, anyway? Do you think you're in love with your so-called girlfriend?"

"I don't know," Justin said with a shrug. "I'm only eighteen. I don't think teenagers are mature enough to know what love is. I think I ought to get some life experience before I profess my love to someone, you know? Meet new people, learn some things they don't teach you in school. Daphne wants to wait until she's married and I respect her for that."

"What's so special about this Daphne?" Brian asked, continuing on around the exhibit.

"I've known her since elementary school. She's my best friend... my only true friend, really."

"Does she know that you like dick?" Brian boldly asked.

"I don't!" Justin said, realizing he was speaking rather loudly. "I told you, I'm not gay."

"Uh-huh. Do you want to fuck her?"

"Will you watch your language?" Justin asked as he looked around the room, seeing that a couple of people were looking at them.

"That's a ‘no,'" Brian said, smirking. "Do you know how I know you're gay? You're an eighteen-year-old boy and you don't want to fuck a woman."

Justin angrily walked out of the room and found the staircase to take him to the next level of the building. Brian followed after him and they finished their tour through the museum in silence.  

Brandon walked into the clubhouse of the Fox Chapel Golf Club, one of the most exclusive private country clubs in Pittsburgh with one of the highest membership rates. Although he didn't plan to play any golf that day, he was still dressed as if he were in a pair of light-weight khaki pants and a green polo shirt, so he wouldn't look out of place.

He went into one of the lounges where he knew Bridge Club met on Wednesday afternoons. He didn't have to see her face to be able to pick out Debbie sitting at one of the tables, as her outfit that day was very bright and her curly red hair was hard to miss.

"Debbie?" Brandon said as he approached the table.

The woman looked up, surprised to see him there. "Brandon, hello."

"I'm sorry to interrupt your game," he said before looking around the table at the other players. "Good afternoon, ladies."

The other women said their hellos to the attractive young man.

"I'm actually here to chat with Debbie for a moment," he announced, to cut out the chit-chat about his mother's recent wedding and her honeymoon.

Debbie excused herself from the table and walked over to an empty couch with Brandon a few feet away. "Is something wrong, Honey?"

They both took a seat.

"Uh..." Brandon began, pretending like what he was about to say was difficult for him. "I found out something that may be tough for you to hear."

"What's wrong?" Debbie asked. "Is your mother okay?"

"Yeah, she's fine," Brandon assured her. "It's actually about Michael. We were talking yesterday when I was over at your house, and he told me about his budding relationship with a guy named David."

Debbie beamed. "Yes, David is a very fine young man. He's going places."

The only place that Brandon planned for David to go was on his hands and knees, lubed ass up in the air...

"I'm sure he is... only there might be a rival for Michael's affections," Brandon said.

Debbie tilted her head in confusion as she waited for him to continue.

"It seems that there's something going on between Michael and his music teacher."

Debbie's eyes opened wide. "Ben? That's just crazy!"

"Trust me, I know, but they seem very interested in each other. Michael really misses David and Ben's-"

"Poor!" Debbie nearly yelled. "I had no idea that Ben was even gay. Maybe I need to take my gaydar to the shop for repairs. Why are the cutest guys always gay? I mean, look at you, and Matt Bomer, and Neil Patrick Harris, and Anderson Cooper... fuck, who isn't gay?"

Brandon rolled in his lips for a moment, trying not to laugh. "I was going to say that Ben is distracting Michael. Luckily, David will be back from his trip to Africa in a few weeks, but if this guy Ben has his way, Michael will have moved on by the time David comes home."

Debbie stood up. "Over my dead body, he will."

Brandon watched as Debbie left without stopping to tell her friends that she needed to leave. He then looked down at his Bvlgari watch, figuring that Ben and Michael's trumpet lesson was just getting heated. It was only about a five-minute drive from the club to the Novotny home.

He wasn't afraid to admit to himself that he did want Brian to win their bet. He wouldn't have made the bet with his ass as the grand prize if he wasn't willing to pay up. He had fantasized many, many times about what it would be like to get fucked by Brian Kinney, but that didn't necessarily mean he wanted things to be as easy as it seemed to be going so far for the stud.

Michael was very eager to lose his virginity, as evidenced by how quickly Brandon had him in a liplock the previous day and how quickly he had fallen for Ben. Yes, the music teacher was drop dead gorgeous, but Brandon really couldn't understand the attraction when Michael had a guy like David on deck, who was much better husband material.

If Brandon was successful in his plan of destroying the courtship of Michael and Ben, he knew that the only way Brian could win that part of the bet would be if he fucked Michael himself, the last thing that his step-brother wanted to do. It was unlikely at this point, with only four days left in the bet, that Brian could find anyone else to get Michael into bed.

Brandon only wished that he could watch Brian stoop to the lowest of lows by fucking the little twerp.

He chuckled. "Sorry, Bro."