Absolution

LaVieEnRose

Brian texted me around five asking me if I could come to his office after work, so once I'd finished setting up for the show we were having that weekend I took the train out to Queens. I texted Brian asking I should pick up food, and he didn't answer, but I was starving and if I was gonna go all the way to Astoria I was gonna get some damn Greek food, so I picked up some spanakopita and a couple iced teas from my favorite cafe between the subway and Kinnetik.

Emily was in the lobby when I walked in, and her eyes widened. No, get out of here, she said. Save yourself. She looked so cute in her work clothes! Like she was playing a young professional in a musical.

Brian told me to come.

God, yelling at us isn't enough, he needs to bring in a ringer? You poor precious soul.

Great. What happened?

She shook her head. I can't tell you. Business stuff. He's pissed. Marcus just went in ten minutes ago to ask him something and came out practically crying.

Eh, Brian hasn't made me cry in days, I'll be fine.

She scrunched up her face. Good luck.

Thank you. I walked down the hall to Brian's office, trying to convince myself not to be nervous, and went in without knocking when I didn't see him at his desk. He was over by his water cooler, and he looked up when I came in.

I held up the take-out bag. “Spanakopita. And don't tell me I said it wrong. I don't think I said it right when I was hearing.”

He shook his head a little. Come here.

I set the bag on the desk and went over to him, and he hugged me immediately, nose in my hair. “Aw, hey, what's wrong?” I said. “Emily said you were upset.”

He let go of me. Somehow I doubt 'upset' was the sign she used.

Maybe not.

He sat down on the couch and sighed. We lost the Yardwick account. I lost it.

Those fuckers.

He shrugged a little.

Where are they moving to?

Ignite.

With that art department? They'll regret it. I could do better work than them in my sleep.

You do. He blew out a mouthful of air, ruffling his lips. This is bad. It's a lot of money.

“Are we destitute?”

Afraid so.

Well, you can't take Emily's bonus back. She'll cut your balls off if you tell her she has to move back home.

All right. We'll have to just rob her while she's sleeping, then.

Sounds good.

He put his hands on my waist and pulled me into him. Will you still love me if I'm poor?

No, I can't imagine so.

He sighed dramatically. That's what I thought.

I straddled his lap and kissed him, slow and deep. “I can make you feel better,” I whispered.

His lips twitched. That was so fucking quiet.

“Ha. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said against my lips, and we kissed a while longer, his fingers skimming underneath my shirt, brushing the skin above my waistband.

Will you support us with your gallery earnings? he said.

“Sure. You want to live in a box in the Bronx, right?”

He bit his lip, trying not to smile. Box in the Bronx? Was that what that was?

“Yeah.”

God, that was cute. Your Rs are a fucking nightmare.

I shoved him and giggled as he kept crawling his hands up me. “You want me to fuck you on your couch?” I asked.

No. He slid his hands underneath my thighs and lifted me off of him, then went to the closet and took out two of the t-shirts he keeps for emergencies such as these and tossed one to me. I want to get so fucking drunk I don't remember my name, and then I want to take you home and do that thing that makes you scream so loud the neighbors complain. What the fuck are you smiling about, huh?

Emily thought you were going to yell at me.

Want me to? Out loud? I could put on a show. Wouldn't bother you, you wouldn't even know.

Neither would Emily.

Hmm. True.

I took my shirt off and pulled on the t-shirt he threw me. “It's too big.”

He rolled the sleeves up past my shoulders and messed my hair up. There.

I sat on the arm of the couch, watching him change. “You had a bad day and you wanted me,” I said.

He rolled his eyes.

“You love me so much.”

He gave me a look. Don't push your luck.

“Brian Kinney loves me.”

Justin Taylor is easy.

You calling me a slut?

Yeah.

I grinned. Okay.

Weren't you going to eat?

Oh, yeah, I forgot.

Fucking brain damaged boyfriends, Brian grouched, throwing the bag at me, and I laughed.

Did you seriously sign an S at the end of that? You have more than one brain damaged boyfriend?

Hundreds. Come on, get up. Eat on the train. Stop lying around like that trying to tempt me. We're going out.

Or we could just—

Out, Brian said, and on the way out of the office he grabbed me from behind and spun me around.

**

Most of my casual sex nowadays was from from apps or friends of friends, and because I was limiting myself to queer Deaf guys in the twenty-five to thirty-five range, it meant there wasn't all that much of it. Which was okay by me, most of the time, but sometimes it's Friday night and you're high on the lights and the thumpa thumpa and the hearing guy you're dancing with is really cute and you're thinking...eh, rules were made to be broken.

Brian was over by the bar, cruising some guy—lately he'd been trying out this slllllow slide up next to them that was such a Justin Taylor original, this fucker—and he caught my eye and gave me his little you good? head tilt, and I nodded, and he was off for the back room.

I kept dancing, considering this smiley hearing guy in front of me and wondering if he'd be willing to learn the alphabet before I fucked his brains out, just so I could feel a little self-righteous about the whole thing, and then Brian came back and grabbed me by the wrist, hard. He couldn't have been gone for more than three minutes.

“Ow. That was fast.” I looked down at my wrist. His knuckles were bleeding. “Brian, what the fuck?”

He dragged me towards the front door without looking at me.

“Stop. Brian, stop. What the fuck happened to you? Did you hit someone?”

He pulled me out of the club and started towards the subway, but I dug my heels in. We're going, now, he told me. Now.

What the fuck did you do? Tell me what's going on.

Nothing.

You fucked up your signing hand—

It's fine.

Yeah, you're fucking lucky it's fine, you could have broken your fucking hand, you don't get to tell me nothing.

He looked back towards the club, shifting his weight nervously. We have to go. We have to go now. I'll tell you at home.

Nobody's coming to kick you out. Tell me now.

He pulled on me again, almost desperately.

“Brian, stop.”

Goddamn it, Justin, would you just fucking listen to me for once in your goddamn—

“Just tell me, and I'll go!”

I ran into someone! he said. Okay?

Who! Who the fuck could you run into that you'd goddamn punch?

“Justin,” he said, and he pulled on me again. “Please.”

Stop speaking to me, you're scaring me.

Please.

Who the fuck...who, the Sap?

He tightened his jaw. No.

That Kip guy?

Who?

I don't know, Ethan?

Ethan? Why the fuck would I punch him? I have nothing against Ethan.

Who the fuck else is there?

Brian put both of his hands around my wrist this time and pulled, hard, and his eyes were so big and green in the streetlight. And because he didn't have any free hands, he said, “Justin, please,” out loud again.

And I knew.

I pulled myself free.

He's in there? I said.

Brian ran his hand over his mouth. Yeah.

The ground felt like it was moving underneath me. What the fuck is he doing here?

We can talk about it at home, please, I need to get you out of here.

I shook my head and started to go back into the club, but Brian grabbed me before I could get a step away.

“Let me go,” I said.

He pulled me away—I like our size difference most of the time but not in that fucking moment, not then—and held me against the wall on the other side of the club with one arm across my chest and signed with his fucked up bloody hand. You are not going back in there, he said.

If get to confront him, I fucking get to—

You did, Brian said. You put a fucking gun in his mouth, remember?

I'd been holding on to a little bit of hope that I was wrong, that I was being some PTSD mess who makes everything about the bashing, and Brian had actually run into that post officer who kept losing our mail or that guy who never tipped at the diner or the account he lost today or fucking anybody who wasn't Chris fucking Hobbs, and there it went.

He said, I am fucking constantly kicking myself for not putting my foot down then and I am putting my fucking foot down now, and—

Putting your foot down?

That's not what I mean, I just— He was scrambling. You don't see Brian Kinney scramble very often. So I tried to take advantage of it and get away, but he gripped me somewhere between my neck and my shoulder and said, Listen to me. Listen to me. I am begging you. I am fucking...I am actually begging, okay? He pushed his forehead against mine.

“Please,” I whispered.

He pulled away, and his eyes were shining. If he hurts you, if we go in there and he lays a hand on you, I will fucking lose my mind. I mean it. I will...I will fucking be a different person if that happens, I can't...please, please, I am begging you, please, holy shit, Justin.

You're begging?

I will get on my knees if you want me to. He was panting, and his hands were shaking when he signed. When he touched me.

“I have to fight my own battles,” I said.

No you don't.

You can't just win an argument by saying the opposite of what I say.

Yes I can, Brian said, predictably, and I started laughing a little, probably with some kind of hysterical edge but how the hell would I know?

Either way, it relieved enough of the tension that I could feel that ground moving thing again, and how fast my heart was, and how cold my skin was getting. Not good. If I went in there and tried to confront him I was going to end up some shaking, puking, panicky mess, and then I realized that I really really really didn't want him to know that I was Deaf.

God, why the fuck was he in New York? Why the fuck was he here?

Let me take you home, Brian said, cupping my face.

“Okay,” I whispered, and he closed his eyes and folded up, his forehead on my shoulder.

**

I still think you should take something, Brian said, at home.

I shook my head, sitting cross-legged on the bed while he paced in front of me. “I'm not panicking.”

I know you're not, but...

I'm okay, Brian. I didn't even see him.

You had a two-day long panic attack from a parking garage. I don't think it matters that you didn't see him.

I'm fine.

Yeah. Okay.

I sighed. That's got to be hurting your hand.

I'll bandage it up before we go to bed. He stopped pacing. Can you please just...I don't fucking know where your head is right now. You're freaking me out.

I don't know what I'm supposed to say, I said. We don't talk about this stuff.

He massaged the bridge of his nose. Seriously, this shit again? I let you talk about it. I answer your questions—

Yeah, you sit there and let me talk about it, but you don't say anything. We don't talk about it. I might as well be talking to my therapist.

He sat down across from me. That's not much of an insult.

It's not supposed to be. But it's...Brian, you're sitting here fucking bleeding, you don't think maybe you have some shit you should say?

I don't have anything you need to hear.

“Brian...”

Don't.

I sighed.

He was quiet for a long time, but he eventually said, staring down at the bed, You act like I'm keeping something from you, like this is something...strategic. I don't...I don't have anything helpful to say to you. It was horrible. It was fucking horrific. They haven't invented some new sign for what it was, so you know this. It was awful. He stood up again. When I think about it, I feel like my fucking organs are being pulled out through my nose. I want to go back in time and have never met you so it won't happen to you. I want to never fucking look at you again because I don't know how to feel all these things. It's the worst goddamn thing that's ever happened to me and I can't fucking imagine anything's ever going to beat it. I don't...I'm asking you, he said, and he was. Is any of this new information?

No. It wasn't.

Does it help you, to hear this?

No. I shook my head. No. I don't want you to be upset, it fucking feels like...

He nodded. Like your organs are being pulled out through your nose.

Yeah. I shivered. I don't know what I want, I said. I just want to not be the only fucking person in the world who's not okay with it.

Christ, I'm not—

I know, and I also can't fucking stand you being fucked up over this so...there's nothing, there's fucking nothing you can do. I'm sorry. I'm impossible. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Stop.

I nodded, trying to slow my breathing down.

Brian gave me a minute, undressing, bandaging his hand, coming to bed. He handed me my meds and a glass of water, and I took them, and Brian just lay sprawled out next to me for a while, watching me, tracing small circles on my bicep with his thumb.

I'm sorry, I said again. I'm trying to make sense. I really am.

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

Why was he there? I said. Did he tell you?

Brian sighed, pushing my hair back. He's not going to come back.

I know that.

He closed his eyes, briefly. He lives here. He was there with his boyfriend.

“His...”

Yeah.

I flopped back on the bed. “Fuck!” I yelled, and Brian curled up with his head on my chest.

**

We didn't talk about it the next day, until he found me on Facebook.

He found me on Facebook, I told Brian.

Brian got up from the couch and came over to me and my laptop at our table. What the fuck does he want?

I don't know.

I thought last time you saw him he was pissing himself trying to get away from your scary ass.

“He was.”

Brian leaned over me, clicking through Facebook. I've seen less-gay profiles on Grindr.

His Facebook wall was gay news article after gay news article. His profile picture was him and his boyfriend. I was surprised his banner wasn't just a fucking rainbow.

This is like a bad joke, I said.

I mean, he did have you jerk him off.

Well, yeah, I figured he was closeted as fuck, but I figured he was going to die in that closet where he belongs.

Brian rubbed my shoulders. Do you want to make your profile gayer?

Kind of.

We can take pictures of you blowing me.

Okay.

I'm going to order Chinese.

Yeah. I tapped my fingers over my mouth as he dialed. He sent me a message.

Are you going to read it?

Haven't decided.

Delete it, Brian signed, talking on the phone. You want that noodle thing from last time? I do think it's really cool that he can speak in English and sign something completely different at the same time. I can't even do that.

No, it had too much garlic. Whatever that chicken is I like. I studied my screen. If I delete it I'm always going to wonder.

Well, wait until I'm off the phone, at least.

I didn't. I don't know, I wanted a minute to look at it and feel however I felt before Brian came in with his ad-man spin and managed me. I had already read it through twice by the time Brian hung up.

He studied me. Well?

He wants to have lunch.

Brian went to the fridge. And what, apologize? He handed me a bottle of water. Brian's always making me drink water instead of telling me he's worried about me. It's his thing.

Yeah.

That's nice. A lifetime of disability, but at least you get a lunch out of it. I assume he's paying. He was pissed.

I pushed my chair back from the table. He's writing a book, I said. He wants to apologize, and he wants to talk to me for the book.

He's writing a book?

He's writing a book. About overcoming internalized homophobia and how he's reformed from the worst thing he's ever done.

He's reformed. So you're better now, then?

I guess.

This is so fucked up.

I read through the message again.

Sunshine, he said. You okay?

He's writing a fucking book?

**

I went out to the balcony for a cigarette, started an angry painting, paced around the bedroom, and finally came back out to the living room.

He's writing a book? I said.

Brian turned off the TV and watched me. I know.

What I want to know is, who the fuck wants to read this? Why do people always want to read that goddamn perspective? It's the same as...you know I'm always fucking complaining about how people want to hear from fucking caregivers and not from actual sick people? It's just that but worse!

I know.

Why do people always want to hear from the fucking assholes! Why is a reformed bad guy more interesting than those of us who have just fucking stuck around living our fucking lives while we're getting run over by goddamn assholes?

Brian said, I realize this is very not the point, but I do feel obligated to say that if you felt like writing a book about being bashed, people would absolutely read it. You'd be a gay tragedy poster boy. They'd fucking put you on Ellen.

Only if I spun it as some kind of inspiration porn about how I've overcome it. Hype myself up like some famous fucking artist. Nobody wants to hear hi, It's ten years later and I'm still having seizures and panic attacks, working a regular job and living in an apartment my boyfriend pays the mortgage on. People don't want to hear about people who are disabled and just fucking...being disabled.

Everything is spin, Brian said. Every fucking story.

I sat on the arm of the couch. You're right. This isn't the point.

I know.

Do you think he's really sorry? I said.

Brian shrugged. Who cares?

It matters, right?

Why?

Whether or not I'm going to have lunch with him.

He sighed. Justin...

I have to at least consider it.

Why?

Because otherwise I'm the one stopping him from getting his fucking...and because otherwise he's sitting at home knowing that I'm still fucked up over him. He wins.

Need I remind you, again, what happened last time you saw him? As reckless and fucked-up as that was...it happened. You've already won this. It's over. Let it be over.

It's not over.

He sighed. That's not what I meant.

I have to at least consider it.

Fine. He turned the TV back on. Consider it.

**

I was lying on the bed an hour later when he appeared in the bedroom doorway, all tall and dark and menacing.

You're not meeting him without me, he said. That's not even on the table.

I know.

And you have to get an interpreter for it.

What? I don't want a fucking additional person in this shit.

Brian shook his head.

Why can't you—

I am not interpreting for him, Brian said. I will not be signing his fucking words to you.

I held my feet to keep myself from reaching out to him. “Okay.”

He started to leave, them stopped and pointed at me.

This counts as me talking about it, he said.

I smiled a little. “Noted.”

**

Are you going out? I asked Brian that night. I was sitting in bed drawing, stopping every so often to shake out my hand, and Brian was prowling around the bedroom moving shit around restlessly and generally driving me crazy..

I don't know. You're all weird.

Am I supposed to be normal right now?

Not really, but I don't want to come back to you, like, standing on the balcony with a glass of wine and Celine Dion singing about how your heart will go on.

So dramatic.

He sat down in front of me on the bed and pulled my feet into his lap, cupping his hands around them to warm them up. My circulation always gets shitty when I'm anxious. I sighed and put my sketchbook to the side.

What if he really has changed? I said.

What if he has?

Then it's got to just eat him up, right? I mean...I hate myself for shit I did in the past all the time, and I've never bashed anyone in the head.

Brian didn't say anything.

And I'm not saying he doesn't deserve to feel bad about it, I said quickly.

Okay good.

But, you know, if he's really changed...doesn't he deserve a second chance?

Say he does. Say he deserves a second chance. What does that have to do with you? Why is that your problem?

“Brian.”

No. He's out there, he has a boyfriend, he's going to clubs, he's writing a book. He clearly doesn't need your absolution. He fingerspelled it. He's a beautiful fingerspeller.

But it doesn't count if I haven't forgiven him, I said.

What do you mean, doesn't count? He can't go to gay clubs if you haven't forgiven him? Because clearly—

Like in a large, cosmic way, I said. He can't really say he's moved past it if I'm still mad at him.

Okay, so he can't really move past it. So?

So if he's really changed, then he deserves to. Right? He deserves to know that...that it's okay. That I'm okay.

Brian sighed and stood up. Are you?

Am I what?

Are you okay?

Yeah, I'm okay.

Brian leaned against the dresser, watching me.

I know I'm not...you know, I've got challenges. But I have a job, I have a family. I'm able to do most of what I want to do. I'm okay.

Brian shook his head a little.

No, come on, what? I'm telling you I'm okay.

You have been holding everybody together about this for goddamn long, haven't you? he signed, gently.

No.

Yeah. He came over and pulled me up. Just stop, okay?

I don't know how.

He kissed my forehead. Remember when you told me it's not my job to fix everything?

Yeah.

Okay, well it's not your job to reassure everyone that you're not broken just because no one can fix you. We have to just live with that. We can deal.

I sniffled and wiped my nose on my wrist, and Brian gave me this small smile, his head tilted to the side.

You are not gay Jesus, he said. You have no duty to forgive him. You don't have to tell people that you're fine.

I rested my head against his chest and he put his arms around me, one hand rubbing slowly up and down my back.

“I lied before,” I said into his shirt. “You have to fix me, actually.”

He laughed.

**

“Okay,” I said, as we got out of the shower.

Okay?

I'm going to delete the message.

He gave a sigh of relief as he plugged in his razor. I love when you come to the right decision on your own.

Yeah, don't kid yourself, you weren't really a neutral party this time, I said.

Maybe not.

I pumped out some lotion and rubbed it on my arms. “I do want to do something, though. About it.”

Okay?

“I think it's time I told Derek and Emily.”

Brian nodded slowly. You're sure?

“I want to try telling someone and not comforting them about it.”

You can't.

We'll see. Will you be there?

He tugged me over by my towel. “Yeah, I'll be there.”