A Kind of Magic

LaVieEnRose

Justin started crying again in November of 2010.

And look, I'm not saying he didn't have good reason. The pancreatitis ordeal was a bitch and a half. He had to stay in the hospital for almost a week, and he didn't have the benefit of being unconscious for any of it this time, and I had to leave him during the day because I knew I'd need to take time off once he was out of there and didn't have anyone but me to watch him while they'd pulled his meds, so he was alone and alert for a week in his least favorite place in the world. And that was a damn cakewalk compared to the week after, once his old meds were completely out of his system and we were slowly inching up the new ones, because anticonvulsants are mood-altering as shit and he'd just swan-dived off one and onto another, and he had a crappy allergic reaction to the first new one we tried so we had to switch to a different one and do the whole thing all over again, and seizures aren't exactly anyone's prescription for a great run of mental health either, and God knows he was having plenty of those that week.

So it was awful. I tried to make it as tolerable as I could, but I was sleep-deprived and screaming at him if he dared to get out of bed because I was sure he was going to crack his head open on the floor, so I'm going to guess that I wasn't really the soothing presence we both would have liked me to be. Michael turned forty and generally tried my patience sending me a variety of catastrophizing text messages, Daphne was miserable over Derek leaving in for Greece in a few weeks, Kinnetik was preparing for some big changes and we had our enormous holiday party coming up which is about thirty times less fun and more important than it sounds...there was a lot going on, that was my point, and that's for me. I wasn't also twenty-seven, missing one of my senses, managing a pre-existing mental illness, and having the kind of neurological crisis that would give William Williams Keen Jr. (first American brain surgeon, worked on FDR, see, you've learned something here today) nightmares.

So he got to do some crying. And I wasn't worried about it at first, not exactly, but it was fucking sad, and...well, when Justin doesn't do well, I don't do well. And that's not me trying to make this about me, that's not me trying to garner sympathy, it's just a simple, unemotional fact. It's practically science. Symbiosis, or whatever the fuck.

We weren't really doing that well that winter, that's what I'm trying to say. Even though at that point, Justin's meds were leveled. His pancreas was all shiny like new. He hadn't had a major seizure in two weeks. Still.

I woke up in the middle of the night early in December to a cold and empty bed, and I followed the muffled sounds of Justin crying to the bathroom. He was sitting on the side of the tub, biting his hand to stay quiet, and he covered his face when he saw me and sobbed softly while I leaned against the doorjamb and gave him a minute.

I'm sorry, he said eventually, wiping his face off. I'm sorry, I'm fine.

How worried do I need to be?

He shook his head. “It's not like last time.”

You'll tell me. If I need to be worried. You'll tell me.

“I'll tell you.” He took a deep breath. “It's not bad, it's just...it's just not great.”

And that's the best way I can summarize it, really. It wasn't a mental health crisis, and Justin never reached the kind of breaking point he had a year and a half before.

We just had a lot of things to get through that December, and he wasn't great, so I wasn't great.

But we, that whole collective thing, were kind of great, and this is actually a pretty nice story, in the end, so get yourself a drink and we'll talk about Christmas.

**

Despite everything that was going on, clearly I was becoming an optimist in my old age, because I came home from work late on December 21st, 2010, and I thought there was at least the vaguest of chances that Justin might be there. I hadn't seen him since he left at the crack of dawn the day before, and I stood in my empty kitchen weighing the odds that interrupting him would stress him out more with the extreme likelihood that he hadn't slept or eaten in thirty-six hours. Eventually I said fuck it, texted Gabriel that no, I hadn't heard from him, but I was going to check on him now, turned off the alarm I'd set on my phone to remind me to continue getting food sent to his studio every six hours, stopped at the Thai place on 58th and got a shit-ton of drunken noodles, and then, like Vanessa Carlton before me, made my way downtown.

I used my key to let myself into the basement studio space. Justin had his back to the door, slapping blue paint across a canvas. His studio was covered in paintings at various stages of completion, and...fuck if I was going to say it to him, but I was really hoping he'd be closer to finished by now.

It was Thursday night, and the biggest show he'd had in his life, thus far, opened on Sunday, Christmas Eve. It was him and two other artists, a “rising stars to watch,” kind of thing, and the publicity was going to be huge. It was at this big gallery in Brooklyn, way bigger than Marie's, and she'd given him the past few days off work to get his shit together after Justin's agent went and fucking last minute vetoed five of the fourteen pieces he'd been planning to show.

The other two rising stars were two guys in their thirties, both straight, abled. And then my Justin. It was a big deal.

I did a quick inventory of the state of the studio—it looked, of course, like a hurricane had hid it but that wasn't really out of the ordinary, and he had a blanket and a pillow in the corner so maybe he'd gotten a little bit of sleep, and the food I'd been sending over all looked like it had been at least picked at—and waited for him to lift his brush off the canvas before I approached him in case I startled him. I touched the small of his back, and he turned around without jumping and looked at me like he wasn't fully seeing me, the way he always does when he's in some kind of art trance.

Hi. Brian Kinney, I said. I'm looking for the guy who lives with me, have you seen him?

He put his arms up half-heartedly in the world's saddest “ta da.”

I caught his wrist and took his pulse. You're dehydrated. Sit down.

I really can't, I have to—

Half an hour, okay? I'm not saying sleep, I'm not saying come home. Give me half an hour. Routine maintenance.

He sighed and nodded and sat on one of his stools. I stuck a straw in a bottle of water and handed it to him while I doled out some noodles. Don't sign. You could text your boyfriend and tell him you're alive, you know. If you are. Even Emily mentioned how skinny you've gotten.

He massaged his temples. “Yeah.”

I like this, I said, nodding towards what he was working on.

“Thanks. I'm still trying to fill the three last slots. I don't know what I'm doing. I keep starting stuff and hating it.”

I fished out the aspirin I'd slipped in my pocket before I left and gave it to him. You take your meds last night?

He nodded. “I'd be fucked without the timers. I have no idea how long I've been here.”

Slept at all?

“A little.”

Why are you still trying to find three pieces? I thought you were set on the train tracks one.

Annie's set on it, he said. His agent. I don't think it's good.

You're an idiot. It's stunning.

It was, easily one of the top five things he's ever done, even now. He'd showed it to me when he finished it months ago and it had fucking knocked me over. It's about emptiness, and space, and that time of night when familiar places turn kind of haunted and warped, like when you're on an empty beach or alone in a parking lot, you know that feeling? There it was, in a painting. The moment something familiar becomes something completely new, just because of who's there, or who isn't.

He shrugged. “I don't feel it. I don't know. I don't really feel anything right now.”

Well, you're depressed and you haven't slept in three days.

“Even before then.”

I remember how you painted the glass in the background, in the store windows, I said. Edward Hopper is shaking somewhere.

“He's been dead since like 1965.”

Then I suppose we know where he's shaking.

Justin smiled at me, then groaned and sunk his head into his hands. “You're being so fucking great. You've sent me food from like four different countries. I never even thanked you.”

Thanked me? Christ. I haven't put up with you for ten years for us to still have to thank each other for shit. God, this kid was annoying.

“I can't even hold a decent conversation. I'm not even human right now.”

I'm not here for conversation, I said, working the muscles in his right hand. Poor fucking hand.

“Okay, I love you, but I really hope you're not about to say you're here to fuck me.”

No.

“No, I changed my mind, that felt like a really good distraction as soon as I said it.”

I chuckled and kissed his forehead. You're right. You're not a human. You're a little art-producing robot, and I'm here to feed you and water you and keep you going and then we'll worry about the rest when you're a human again.

“Don't water a robot,” he said seriously. “That's how you get electrocuted.” I snorted, and he gave me this sheepish grin and tucked his forehead against my chest. “Have I mentioned I love you?” he said.

Yeah, like literally a minute ago.

He laughed, a little hysterically, and covered his face. “I don't even remember.”

I nudged his hands away from his face and gave him his fork back. Eat. Look at your train tracks painting and come to your senses. Think you should step outside for a minute, breathe some fresh air?

He shook his head.

Remember when you used to go on and on about light? Now you paint in a basement.

So buy me a better studio.

Oh, okay.

He coughed some and rested his head on the table. “I think probably when this is all over I'm going to have a nervous breakdown,” he said. “Like, ripping off my clothes and quacking like a duck in the middle of Washington Square Park.”

That's good, That'll be new for us. Not a lot new left.

“God, I can't paint any more tonight. I'm going to lose my mind.”

What can I do?

He shrugged.

Give me one thing. Mix paint? Spray that fixer stuff?

He smiled at me a little and kissed me. You've done plenty. It's okay. I'll be okay.

This isn't worth making yourself sick over, you know.

He gave me a look.

Okay, you're right, it's absolutely worth making yourself sick over. But don't go dying or anything. There are degrees, you know.

He picked his palette back up. “You can stick around if you want. I don't know if I'm going to be good company.”

I'm used to that. Hey, that reminds me. You don't have to come on Saturday. The Kinnetik party.

He scoffed. “Don't be ridiculous. Of course I'm coming.”

I'm serious. Don't come.

“It'll look shitty if I'm not there,” he said. “And besides, all my stuff has to be done and in Brooklyn by Saturday morning anyway. It's not like I could be here working.”

“Okay.”

He got back to work, and I straightened up the studio a little, throwing away the old food containers, bullying him into taking a sip of water every once in a while. He was lost in his world again in a minute, and there was always something amazing and watching Justin work, just seeing how he made these decisions I couldn't even begin to track. If you put me in front of a canvas—Justin's tried it—I just get paralyzed. The amount of faith Justin has in himself is staggering, and he doesn't even know he has it. His brain has him tricked into thinking he's insecure.

And really, how could you be insecure when you can make what he can?

You can't be. You can't be.

He was right about one thing, though; he was pretty lousy company, so after I'd cleaned up the studio some I told him I'd be back after work the next day and started to head out to Nova, and I did go, eventually, but I ended up just holding him first without really meaning to.

“I think maybe I can't do this,” Justin said, in the smallest voice. “I think maybe I actually can't.”

That's why I keep calling you an idiot.

He breathed in, shaky, and wiped his eyes.

What does it feel like? I asked.

He shrugged a little. “Like nothing, except with crying.”

You're going to feel the thing again, I said.

“Which thing?”

Every thing.

**

He called me at work the next day with bloodshot eyes and paint in his hair. “You're sure about the train tracks painting?”

I am one thousand percent sure about the train tracks painting, I said, minimizing my email and opening up the website for our pharmacy.

He sighed. “Okay. I'm trusting you.”

Good. How are you?

He looked around his studio like he was seeing it for the first time. I think I'm making progress.

I hit the button on my desk that flashes a light on Emily's. You're wheezing, did you know that?

He shook his head.

You should really get some fresh air.

Okay. Um, which of these is better? He showed me two paintings, each of them about three-quarters of the way finished as far as I could tell.

The green.

He sighed. I like the purple more.

I do too, but technically the green is the stronger piece.

He studied them critically.

Do what you want, I said. But if you save the purple we can hang it on the wall by the balcony door.

“What if I save the green?”

No, I don't like the green. He laughed, and I looked up as Emily came in. I've got to go, I said. Are you coming home tonight? You could really use a bed. And a shower.

“I don't think so.”

I'll come by late tonight and help you pack up.

“I'm not going to be ready to pack up.”

Sure you will. I hung up and looked at Emily. Hi.

She held up two dresses. Which one for tomorrow?

I was on a roll here. The red.

She frowned at them. I like the black.

Red's a better dress.

Then maybe I should save it for the art opening.

Whatever. Did you find out what the problem was with Morgan? Are they coming tomorrow?

Oh, yeah. The wife broke her hip a couple weeks ago so they weren't sure about making the trip, so I have a limo coming to pick them up.

You're amazing.

I know.

If you leave me for Cynthia I'll die, I said. I want you to know that. I'll die on the floor.

It's not leaving you for Cynthia, she said. It would be leaving her for you. Cynthia was moving up to executive in the spring, after the fiscal year, which meant I was going to be out an assistant unless Emily jumped ship over to me. Which she was going to do, goddamn it, because I was not losing both her and Cynthia in one fell swoop. Disagree with that course of events.

Dead. On the floor.

Did you need something or were you just checking on Morgan?

Have you talked to Daphne?

Is this Kinnetik business?

No, none of this is Kinnetik business. I counted out tasks on my fingers. I need you to send flowers to Daphne—daisies—but have the card say 'Love Justin.'

They're not breaking up just because he's going to Greece, are they?

No, she's just sad.

Okay.

There's a pharmacy on sixty-first and West End and I need you to get a Taskrabbit to pick up a prescription there, birthday is March eleventh—

I know Justin's birthday.

—beautiful—and have that delivered to his studio, as well as...uh, there's a deli on 16th street, I don't remember the name, but get some matzoh ball soup delivered. And one of those black and white cookies.

To the studio?

To the studio.

She nodded. Okay. She paused. How is he?

He's...keeping it together.

Best we can hope for, I guess.

My thoughts exactly.

How's the show going to be?

I said, The show's going to be phenomenal.

**

I stayed at the club until late, because it was going to be my last time out until at least Tuesday, what with Gus and Lindsay coming in tomorrow for the party and everyone else the next day for the opening and for Christmas, and also because I figured the later I showed up the less likely Justin would panic when I started wrapping up canvases. I got to his studio around two, six hours before everything needed to be packed and ready to go. I brought him cinnamon sugar doughnuts—I'd had something healthy delivered for dinner, so hopefully he wouldn't end up with rickets before this was all over—and a whole box of coffee.

I set everything on the table, where he was sitting with an ice pack on his arm, staring at the green painting.

I ran my fingers up and down his back, pausing with my hand behind his lung. Breathe. He did, and I nodded. Better.

“Yeah, someone sent me an inhaler.”

I guess you've got a secret admirer.

One who sends me drugs?

Yeah, that's the best kind.

He looked at the doughnuts and groaned. “You're being so nice and doing all this shit and meanwhile I don't even think I can do the flirty banter right now.”

Flirty? Jesus. No thank you. Is that why you like me? You think I'm flirting when I'm being genuinely mean to you?

“Seriously, I don't...have a personality right now. I'm just trying to figure out why the fuck this thing isn't working for me. I've fucking given up on figuring out why the train tracks one isn't working but I'm going to figure out what this one needs.”

I handed him a cup of coffee and put two doughnuts on a napkin and slid them over. Where are the ones you're sure about?

He pointed to a corner, and I went over and started wrapping. I heard him stand up behind me and say, “I can help.”

I turned around halfway. You're going to do most of them, I'm just taking care of a few. Sit, eat.

I wrapped four canvases, including this geometric one I was going to be really, really pissed if someone bought from under me, and was working on a fifth when I heard him get up again, and a minute later he was cursing out loud, quietly, pacing back and forth.

I waved for his attention. What's up?

“I don't know what it needs. I can't...fuck fuck fuck.”

I sighed and went back to him. Justin.

“Don't.”

Okay.

“And my fucking hand is a fucking mess anyway, even if I figure it out I don't know if I can—”

All right. Time for me to do what I do best. Or, well. Second-best.

I kissed him. Hard enough that our teeth knocked together, and he had to take several staggering steps backwards until he hit the wall. I held his head in place with one hand, directed his jaw to follow mine. I didn't let up until I felt him gasp in a quick breath.

“Um,” he said.

You need some inspiration? I said.

“Oh God yes,” he said, but I stopped him when he reached for my jeans.

No hands, I said, and he nodded hard, panting, kissing my neck and my ears and my mouth, and I pinned his arms up over his head and reached the other under the hem of his shirt. His skin was warm, his stomach pulsing with his heartbeat.

“Brian,” he whispered.

Again, I signed, getting down on my knees, my hand on his hand.

He took a shuddering breath through his teeth. “Brian.”

Don't think. I said. Stop thinking, and then I yanked down his jeans and hooked my hands in his hip bones, licking along the hollows. I could taste how stressed he was, different from his usual sex sweat, fear and salt and turpentine and the sweetness of his skin.

He covered his face when I took him in my mouth, and I dragged my fingernails up and down his sides and gripped his thighs and generally, God help me, I'm going to say it, used every technique I'd picked up from this boy over the past ten years. Justin squirmed underneath me, his legs shaking, his fist pounding against the wall, and I traced my fingers in the sensitive skin behind his knees, so soft, always so soft.

“No,” Justin whimpered, which does not actually mean 'no'—trust me, there's a safe word, he's fine—it's just him being overwhelmed and exposed and carried away, but I comforted him anyway, my hands on his thigh and his poor sore wrist. His hand gripped my hair, and I decided I'd allow him to bend the no hands rule because goddamn it felt so good, and it was all I could do not to haul him up and sit him on my shoulders, and I settled for holding on to him for dear fucking life, taking him down my throat like I was never letting him out, and shuddered and shivered and gasped “Brian, oh, fuck,” and I swallowed and he groaned and cursed and covered his face, and I licked him, carefully, clean.

He grabbed me by the strap of my tank top and pulled me up and against him, and he kissed me until I was wondering where his fucking inhaler was and then he pushed me off him and said, “Gold. It needs gold.”

I clapped my hands on his shoulders. There you go.

**

I wrapped up a few more paintings and went home and fell into bed around four. I'm usually a pretty light sleeper, and Justin by now had lost whatever small awareness he ever had about how damn loud he is, but somehow I missed the door opening and his footsteps into the apartment, and I didn't wake up until he was sliding into bed next to me a little bit after ten in the morning.

No, I said, pushing him off of me.

He buried his face in his pillow, and I rolled him over and made him look at me.

You're so gross, I said. You've been in that fucking basement for three days. Go take a shower.

“Too tired. I'll drown.”

Christ, I said, and I got out of bed and hauled him to the bathroom by his collar.

He was, obviously, practically falling asleep in the shower. I scrubbed off his sweat and washed the paint out of his hair. “It's done now,” he said. “Everything's in Brooklyn. Too late to make any changes.”

You did it, I said.

He sighed. “We don't know that yet.”

Five new paintings, three days, and no major seizures. You did it.

“Four paintings.” He tilted his head up to the spray. “The train tracks are old.”

Regardless.

He held his head. “God. What if I picked the wrong ones? What if my agent hates these even more than the other ones?”

It's over now, Raincloud. It's done.

“The critics could fucking tear me apart. If they don't think I belong in a rising star show, they are not going to be gentle.”

You don't need them to be gentle. I nipped at his ear. You don't even like gentle.

He was quiet for a while, then shook his head fast, like he was clearing it. “What time's the party tonight?”

I scoffed. You're not going to the party.

“Don't. I told you I'm going.” He ran his lemongrass soap over my chest. “It'll be good for me. I get to not be an artist for a night. I'm just your little wife.”

Yuck. I don't want a wife.

“Too bad.”

Great. We have to be out of here by six. You can sleep until then. I'm meeting Lindsay and Gus for lunch.

“I should come to that.”

You absolutely should not. It's a fucking miracle you've held it together on this little sleep. Let's not push our luck. They'll understand.

They probably won't. No one ever does.

I ghosted my fingers up his arms.

“I don't mean you,” he said.

I lay my finger on his lips. I know.

I worked on uncurling the muscles in his hand, and he cried a little, just from pain and stress and bone-deep exhaustion. I tried to remember if I'd ever seen him that tired. Maybe right after the bashing, when he couldn't sleep at all without screaming. Showers helped back then, and this one would too, even if he didn't know it yet. He wasn't going to be able to relax if he still smelled like his studio, plus given his sensitive goddamn skin he was lucky he hadn't already broken out in hives from having paint on him for this long. I used the lemongrass soap and the mint stuff that would feel cold on his muscles and rinsed him with cool water. I kissed him under his eye and said, Okay, Hugh Jackman.

“...Hugh Jackman?”

I don't know, he cries in a lot of movies.

He yawned. “Not your best.”

Whatever. Bedtime.

He was snoring before I pulled the sheet over him, and I smiled and kissed the back of his neck. He was home.

I lay down and slept better than I had all week, even while he whimpered beside me.

**

I woke up a few hours later and dealt and answered the barrage of scheduling texts that had come in—Molly had blown up the Taylor group chat trying to figure out when Jennifer was getting here and was she supposed to meet her at the airport, Michael couldn't remember the name of his hotel, Deb wanted to know if rhinestones were appropriate for an art opening, which I couldn't imagine knowing how to answer—took care of some last minute minor crises for the party, which largely consisted of bossing Emily around, sent Emily a flower arrangement that put the one she got Daphne's to shame with I WILL PAY YOU DOUBLE WHAT CYNTHIA WILL on the card, left a granola bar and a bottle of water on the nightstand, halfway woke a very groggy Justin and told him I was leaving, wrote a note telling him I'd left when I could see telling him had gone straight through one of the holes in his brain and into the abyss, and headed in to midtown for lunch.

A nice thing about having visitors in New York is they're all so fucking delighted to be in New York that you don't really have to do much to entertain them. Lindsey and Gus were already all a-flutter when I got there just from the cabs and the buildings and shit. We met at this hole-in-the-wall pasta place on seventh. I'd just been in Pittsburgh six weeks before so there wasn't a whole lot of catching up to do, and the party tonight was going to be boring and all of us knew it, so not a lot to discuss there. All that to say, it didn't take long for the conversation to turn to Justin's show, which was a lot more interesting to Lindsay than the night she was about to spend carting Gus around like a show pony and explaining her relationship to me over and over. Could hardly blame her.

I said, “The pieces are beautiful. It's his best work.”

Lindsay watched me over her wine glass. “That sounds like there's a 'but' coming.”

“There's no but.”

“For once,” she said, laughing, and I laughed too.

“Just...do me a favor and don't ask him about it tonight?” I said. “Let him not think about it for a night.”

“He should be proud!” Lindsay said. “He's worked so hard, he deserves this.”

“It's not that,” I said. “He's proud. He's just...” God, how the fuck was I supposed to explain this? I hate the part of my life when I have to remember how to talk to people who aren't Justin. “He's second-guessing everything,” I settled on. “He's stressed. So just...give him a night off. Tomorrow you can ask him all the art questions you want.”

“Do I have to ask him art questions?” Gus said. “Because I don't have art questions.”

“No, talk to him about anything else in the world,” I said. “He'll be so relieved.”

I said goodbye to them outside the restaurant, and Lindsay lingered after she kissed me, studying me with her hand on my cheek. “You look tired,” she said.

I scoffed. “I look beautiful.”

“Are you okay? You and Justin?”

I forced patience into myself and nodded. I have to look at Lindsay and Melanie sometimes to get where she's coming from on shit like this, because Lindsay's already telling me, oh, we're on the rocks right now, you know, marriage has its rough stretches, and that's just...I don't know. Further proof that Justin and I are in some different dimension, because sure, we freak out and scream at each other, but we don't...have rough stretches. What, we're just supposed to not want to be with each other sometimes? Because he's sick, or depressed, or I'm stressed about work, or he's driving me crazy? That's supposed to have something to do with this thing between us? I honestly don't understand it. Other people are wild as shit.

I said, “He's just...he's in the thick of it right now. I can get him through bad patches. He gets us through all the normal shit, I can get us through bad patches.”

She sighed. “I hate to see you just...getting through things.”

Goddamn, was I sick of this. Sick of these people who would rather see me sleepwalking alone than tied to an imperfect person.

“We like a project,” I said. “We're good.”

**

Emily—in the red dress—looked around critically at our decorated lobby. I still think we should have gotten a tree.

Spoken like someone who's never witnessed Justin's sinuses around a Christmas tree. Trust me, it's for the best. Plus my kid's Jewish, I need to be inclusive.

We were stationed by the door, greeting every boring motherfucker who came in like they were the kings of Sheba or wherever the fuck. I shook hands, slapped backs, laughed at things I hoped were meant to be jokes, and tried not to laugh at Emily’s crude ASL nicknames for everyone.

She looked out the door. Penis nose is approaching.

Emily.

Don’t Emily me. Take a good look at this guy’s nose and tell me I’m wrong.

So I did, and then I had to try to not absolutely lose my shit the whole time this guy was talking to us.

Justin came out and handed me a drink and let me, “And this is my partner, Justin Taylor,” him over and over. He hates this shit, I know, hates being arm candy, hates feeling shown around, especially to hearing people who inevitably yell in his face or ask mind-numbingly insensitive questions, but he’ll grin and bear it a few times a year. He looked fucking stunning in his Prada, head to toe shades of steel gray, his eyes lit up like candles. You’d never have guessed how exhausted he was.

When most of the guests had arrived I left Emily to handle the stragglers and joined the party with Justin, my hand on the small of his back. Hanging fun? I asked him, while we shined plastic grins at the clients.

I'm okay, he said.

Not what I asked.

He gave a look—somehow smug and dubious at the same time, how does he do that?—and sipped his club soda. I do think this party could use more strippers.

I'll keep that in mind for next year, I said. Harris came over, from Spike Sneakers, and I shook his hand and, “You remember Justin”ed and Justin shined his fakest, most dazzling smile.

Could have sprung for more food, too, if you ask me, Justin said.

Like I haven't fed you enough this week, I said, without breaking my conversation with Harris.

You'd have died eight years ago if I didn't feed you, don't give me that. You look hot in that suit, fuck.

Trying to talk to this boring motherfucker here...

Maybe we should be the strippers this year.

Justin, I said, raising my drink to cover my grin and making up some bullshit for Harris about how impressed Justin was with Spike's latest shoe release.

Fine, fine. Justin did a quick scan of the room. Holy shit, that guy's nose looks just like a dick.

I choked on my drink.

**

So the party continued: we drank and kissed client ass, Gus upended a tray of crab cakes, I gave a few toasts—in English, but we had an interpreter, obviously—and Justin circled the room and cleaned up Gus and...played wife, basically, and I tried to keep back any guilt or disgust I might feel about that. It was all I could do not to grab every heterosexual fucker here who thought we were such a great example of how the gays are Just Like Us and go on about Justin's boyfriend or the trick I had brought, literally and figuratively, to his damn knees the night before. Fuck, if Gabriel had been in town instead of Mexico City for Christmas I probably would have bribed him into showing up and fucking my sweet husband over by the ice sculpture. As it was I just made unsubtly inappropriate eyes at our cocktail waiter and traded complaints with Emily from across the room.

Cynthia sidled up next to me, martini glass in hand. “What are you and Emily talking about?” she said. She's just as good at talking while smiling as I am. That's why she was getting promoted.

“Aw, you can't follow?”

Cynthia shot me a death glare without losing her smile. “She's not going to pick you just because your signing's better. Mine is improving.”

I clucked my tongue and gave her a sad head shake. “Not fast enough.”

“You are such a dick. She's not going to pick you.”

“We'll find you a great new assistant, don't worry.”

She sipped her drink. “Speaking of brilliant Deaf people...”

“Oh yes?”

“Excited for tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

“Where is he?”

I gestured to the other end of the lobby with my glass, where Justin was having an interpreter-aided conversation with Lindsay.

“I'm surprised he even came with the opening tomorrow,” she said.

“I am too.”

She eyed a caterer walking by. “I need a cream puff,” she said, and clicked off after him.

I was talking to the Starwood guys not long after that when Justin came up to me, close enough so I could smell that his drink wasn't just club soda anymore. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as he rested his cheek, just for a second, against my shoulder. It was enough.

I cut the conversation with Starwood as smoothly as I could and guided Justin a few steps away. What's wrong with you?

Nothing.

I confiscated his drink, the moron. Don't bullshit me.

It's one drink, relax. As if you could put up with these people sober for as long as I have.

That was pretty valid, but it wasn't just the drink. He was starting to crack, and probably you couldn't tell if you weren't me, but, well, for better or for worse, I'm the only fucker I've figured out how to be, so here we were. Do you need to go home?

Stop making a scene.

I'm not making a scene, Christ. We're standing here having a casual conversation.

People are looking at us.

We could be talking about broccoli and these assholes would be looking at us. We're the most exciting thing they've seen this season.

Justin sighed. Everything's fine, he said, but he ducked his head to rub his forehead, and when he did I got a clear shot of Lindsay watching us and looking concerned. And nervous.

It was enough.

I clenched my jaw. What did she say to you?

Nothing.

I gave him his drink back and strode towards Lindsay, ignoring Justin's soft “Brian.” I touched Emily's arm on the way and said, Keep an eye on Justin.

I must have looked like I meant business, because it was possibly the first time ever she didn't give me shit when I asked her for something. Okay.

I crossed to Lindsay and Gus and put my hand on Gus's shoulder. “Go talk to Justin about that video game you're playing.”

“Uh, can I talk to him about my critical reading grade, because—”

“Sure, sure, whatever,” I said, shoving him towards Justin and closing my hand around Lindsay's elbow. I speedwalked her out of the lobby and down the floor to my office, catching her when she stumbled a little her in high heels. I closed the door of my office and pointed at her. “What did you say to him?”

“To Gus?”

“Don't play dumb with me.”

“It was good!” she said. “I told him good things!”

“Lindsay, I'm running out of patience here.”

“I told him how proud we were of him,” she said. “I said I couldn't imagine how excited he must be and he deserved it and we were all so proud of him.”

I pinched my nose. “You told him you can't imagine how excited he must be?”

“How is that—”

“He's not excited!” I yelled. “Can't he go five goddamn minutes without someone telling him what he has to feel? Jesus fucking Christ, what part of 'don't talk to him about it' was so hard for you to understand?”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I am. I thought since it was something positive—”

“You have no idea what's positive for him! You don't fucking know him!”

She put her hand on my arm, and I shook her off and paced a few steps back and forth.

“I have to go,” I said. “I have to end this goddamn party.” I walked out and left her in my office and collided with Justin in the hallway.

She didn't do anything wrong, he said. Did you yell at her?

“No.” I pulled him into me with one arm and dropped a kiss on his ear, willing myself to calm the fuck down.

“She was being nice,” Justin said. “I'm okay. I am.”

I let him go and ran my hand over my mouth. I'm going to start winding this down.

“Brian, I'm okay.”

Well, that's good, because it will probably take me hours to get these boring fuckers out of here.

Justin shot me a weak smile.

Go hang out with Emily. I told her to keep an eye on you so she's probably panicking she's getting fired for you getting out of her sight.

He laughed a little. “Okay.”

I went back to the lobby, dismissed the bartenders, and threatened the caterers on pain of death not to bring out any more food. Those two things combined did the lion's share of convincing people it was time to pack it in, and I had Cynthia plant bugs in a few ears about how late it was getting even though it was barely eleven. It was maybe forty minutes later that Emily came up to me, while I was working on ushering Harris out of here, and rested a hand on my back. I'm going to take him to Starbucks, okay?

I reached for my wallet and she smacked me. Thank you, I said.

Shut up. See you soon.

Half an hour later, the clients were finally gone, Gus and Lindsay were in a cab back to their hotel, and Marcus and Isabel were there to supervise the caterers packing up. Cynthia kissed my cheek and said, Go home. I'll see you tomorrow.

Thank you. I pulled my coat on and jogged to the Starbucks two blocks away—probably the longest distance between a place and a Starbucks in the whole fucking city. They were sitting at a table, and Emily was signing too quickly for me to grab context, animated and bright, and he was smiling at her kind of vaguely, his cup held to the inside of his right wrist to put some heat on the muscles there. I put my hand on his shoulder and he leaned his cheek against it.

I handed Emily forty dollars. For your cab.

Brian.

Just take my fucking money.

She rolled her eyes. Fine. Thank you.

Justin was quiet in our cab, looking out the window and twisting his hands in his lap, still adjusting to the idea that he didn't have to pretend to be fine anymore. I gave him space, pretending I had something on my phone to do. We took the bridge into Manhattan, the light ahead of us like a runway, and when Justin sank down with his head in his hands I lay my hand across his back without looking at him.

I got out of my suit while he stood by the closet, looking kind of haunted and lost. I got his attention and said, casually, Shoes first, then pants, because sometimes when he's overwhelmed something like “get undressed” is too vague for him, and he needs it in steps. Executive dysfunction. Brain damage thing.

He sat on the bed and pulled his shoes off, but he didn't take off his pants. “I want to go out,” he said.

I looked at him sideways while I hung up my suit. We're not going out.

“I want to go out.”

You've had four hours of sleep in the past three days. You're going to bed.

I want to go to Nova. I want to dance and be around people and lights and—

Or you can get in bed, and I'll make you hot chocolate—

He shook his head hard.

You've been around people all night, I said. You're confused and you're freaking out a little—

I'm not confused!

Okay. I held up my hands. “Okay.”

“I want to feel something!” he said. “I want...the music and the lights and...” He paced. “I want to feel something, I want to feel it, I...”

Sunshine. I put my hand on his waist.

“No, you don't understand, I...” He was crying again, and I kept searching his face like it was going to tell me what the fuck was going on. But I didn't know. He didn't know.

So I kissed him, at first just this gentle comforting thing, but...it's us, so pretty quickly I was taking his clothes off and I had him pinned underneath me on the bed while he scratched the fuck out of my back and begged his tongue against mine. He was still crying, which wasn't exactly a turn on, but it's not as if he really has to turn me on at this point. It's us.

“Please,” he kept whispering, and I just said, It's okay, you're okay, probably looking annoyed and exasperated between the kisses and the gropes and the crying, and I licked the dip of his collarbone and he sobbed and clung as I thrust into him.

He cried, his hands scrambling on me like he was trying not to fall, and I held onto his hair and fucked him like it would keep him, I don't know, keep him in place, and I marked his neck and chest with my mouth, mindful of where his shirt collar would fall tomorrow, or as mindful as I can be of anything when Justin is writhing and naked under me, writhing and naked and crying. He came with a throaty sob, and I followed a minute later, whispering his name into his hair, arms around his neck as he arched himself against me.

I'd been rough on him, so there was aftercare: cleaning him up, getting some ice for the bruises around his shoulder. He touched the scratches on my back but I said, Badge of honor and had him leave them.

We lay facing each other in bed. He wasn't crying anymore.

I think I get to be worried now, I said.

I don't know what's wrong with me, he said.

You're going through a bad patch. Your meds got messed up. It happens.

He shook his head a little. “I think this is just me. Like even...even pre-bashing me. I feel like my entire fucking life is me trying to actually feel the right thing at the right time and just...faking it. I'm not here. I'm not in the moment, I'm too...it's like there's this delay between when things happen and when I actually experience them. I mean, fuck, it's how I ended up with Ethan.” He covered his eyes. “It's just like somehow I've managed to fool everyone into thinking I'm present and that I respond to things like some kind of normal person and it's all just...sometimes I want to pay someone to follow me around and fucking like, hit me when something bad happens so I'll actually have the right feeling at the right time as something for once.”

Is it easier to say all that when you can't hear yourself?

“Yeah, you have no idea.”

Sounds nice. Let's not pay someone to follow you around and hit you.

“I make my own money, I can do with it what I want.”

I smiled at him a little.

“I am just so goddamn messed up,” he said. “I think people just don't see that. Even you. I'm just this fucked up goddamn mess who bursts into tears every thirty seconds and can't take the idea that people expect things from him and want him to be happy because he's not happy and he's letting everyone down and freaks out in crowds and can't figure out how to take his fucking clothes off when he's overwhelmed and I just...I am such a goddamn mess, Brian. I'm a fucking disaster.” He paused. “Well? Anything to say on that?”

Um...I love you anyway?

He laughed, covering his face, then said, No, you're supposed to say I'm not a fucking disaster.

Well, I would, but I figured it would be unkind to blatantly lie to you when you're this messed up.

He kicked me and ducked his head into my collarbone. I finger-combed his hair for a while.

“I'm so scared the person you're in love with doesn't even really exist, and I've just tricked you or something,” he said.

I picked his head up. Really? What's that like?

He groaned, rolling back on his pillows. “Goddddd. Look at us.”

See, and we were worried with the Deaf/hearing thing we wouldn't have enough in common.

He laughed and held his stomach. “Stop. You're such a jerk.”

Didn't you say you were going to be nicer to me?

He flipped on top of me, covering me with his mouth. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, and he kissed me under the chin and around my neck.

Yeah, this works, I said, and he chuckled a little and rubbed his cheek against mine.

“Can we do this every time I cry?” he said. “You just fuck me so hard it breaks a few bones?”

So now I'm the person following you around hitting you, huh?

“Maybe,” he said, nuzzling his nose against my cheek.

I can't think when you do that. What did you ask me? Okay to whatever.

“Cool thanks.”

I put my arms all the way around him and rolled us back and forth a few times. You're gonna be okay, I said, depositing him next to me.

He blew air out of his mouth. How the fuck am I going to get through tomorrow?

Drugs?

He shook his head sadly.

Alcohol?

“Negative.”

Me? I climbed carefully on top of him. Fucking all the bad feelings out of you?

“You,” he whispered, and we went again.

**

The morning went okay. Justin gave me his phone as soon as he woke up and told me not to let him have it until he left on pain of death, so I got to keep him from being stressed about everyone arriving in the city and being so so so excited for him, at least for a few hours. He made French toast and read the paper while he ate. This time next week there'd be an article in there about him. Small, but it would be there.

What are you wearing tonight? he asked me.

Pinstripes.

The Versace?

Yeah.

Hot. He sipped his juice. I guess I'll just bring my suit down with me now. Doesn't really make sense to come home once I'm out. He was about to head to Brooklyn to supervise setting up the collection and do a little bit of pre-show press, and I had about eight hundred people from Pittsburgh to organize and entertain and generally keep from bothering Justin at all costs, so we probably weren't going to meet back up until just before the show.

What time is Stephanie getting there? I asked.

Two, they said that's when the interviews are starting. I'll manage fine until then. He took a deep breath and nodded.

I watched him. You want a Klonopin?

He shook his head.

You want to bring one in case you want it later?

No. I'm going to be fine.

I kissed the tip of his nose, then his mouth. I know you are.

**

I met the Pittsburgh crowd in Tribeca for lunch, including Molly, who I had lunch with most Sundays anyway, and rascaly little J.R. and Ivy who really had no business coming up to an art opening, but here they were. “Nobody wanted to stay back and watch 'em!” Deb explained, while Carl shook my hand. “We all wanted to be here.”

We got a massive table at Nobu and ate sushi and got a little day drunk, and honestly it was pretty nice. I had a moment of marveling at how much more easily I could follow a group conversation in my first language—I managed to convince myself, frequently, that my signing was as strong as my English and that just was not the case—and just fell into it, answering questions about Justin's art and lying about his mental state. It was easy, was always so easy to convince these people of whatever I wanted them to believe. No twenty-five-year-old cocky Deaf kids calling me on anything I tried to pull. I told these people Justin was fine, and even Lindsay, who'd seen me lose my shit about him the night before, seemed to believe me.

Honestly it's hard to believe I didn't get bored in Pittsburgh a lot faster than I did. Using the language I was born into to manage people who'd believe that the sky was orange if I told them it was? Thank God for Justin, honestly, skeptical right from the start, or I would have had a stroke long before his ears blew.

But, well. For a break, for a change, it was nice.

“So this is a bigger deal than his other show, right?” Carl said.

I nodded, pinching a piece of salmon with my chopsticks. "Bigger gallery, more pieces, way more press."

“Our Sunshine's moving up in the world!” Debbie said. “Didn't I always tell you? Destined for great things!”

“He must be so excited,” Michael said.

Lindsay was probably trying to catch my eye, but I was too busy showering them with enthusiasm to check. “Oh, absolutely,” I said.

“This might be the biggest day of his life,” Melanie said.

“Yeah, could be.”

“He must be trying to memorize every second of it,” she said. “This is a day he's going to want to remember forever.”

I nodded.

J.R. sneaked her cucumber onto Ben's place. “Gross.”

**

As much as I wanted to abscond away to the office for a couple hours, I had to watch these people like goddamn hawks to keep them from texting Justin, so I took them to Battery Park to see the boats and to Chelsea to see the highline and to Coney Fucking Island to do whatever the fuck, and at five they finally headed back to the hotel to get changed for dinner, and I went back to the apartment, sent quick shitty answers to a few shitty emails, got changed, and met Derek, Emily, and Daph for pre-show diner food and strategizing.

Just stop anyone who looks like they could be from Pittsburgh who tries to speak to him, I said.

Emily said, I can't memorize all your Pittsburgh people.

Anyone with bad fashion sense, I said. Even if they're not from Pittsburgh, no one with bad fashion sense should be talking to Justin. They'll give him ideas.

You think he's going to be better after the opening's over, or is he going to be like this the whole time the show's going? Derek said. I ask this because I love him and also because I'm leaving before the show closes.

Daphne dropped her head on his shoulder. Stop.

I don't think this is because of the show, I said. It's just bad timing.

Making everything worse, Daphne said.

I said, Yeah, that. And also... I shrugged. He's missing it. It's this huge event in his life and he's just...missing it.

Emily frowned and dropped her chin in his hand.

I shook my shoulders off. It's not the end of the world. It's fine, I said. It's fine. I dragged a fry through some ketchup. He's just missing it.

**

Just like the year before, at a much smaller gallery for a much smaller show, people were starting to show up and mill around and sip their champagne and there was no Justin. I did a circle of the room, thanking the press, meeting the other artists, “I'm Justin Taylor's partner”ing myself, and finally Justin answered my text with just the words loading dock.

He was sitting outside in his black wool coat, smoking a cigarette and swinging his legs, looking out at the Manhattan bridge. I sat down beside him. He wasn't crying, but he wasn't okay.

Are we going to do this every show? I asked him, slipping an arm over his shoulders briefly to warm him up.

He took a long pull on the cigarette. “Are you going to fuck all the bad feelings out of me? Because we should probably find somewhere warmer for that.”

We can, but it that doesn't seem to really be working.

He didn't say anything for a while. “The other artists, they've been freaking out all day,” he said. “They're excited and anxious and fucking yelling at everyone for hanging their pictures an inch too far to the left or whatever and I just...I don't feel it. I don't feel anything. The journalists who were here, every single one of them asked about the train tracks painting and I had to think of something to say and I don't feel it.”

This is going to get better, I said. You get that, right?

It doesn't feel real. I don't know.

Well, yeah, of course it doesn't. That's part of it. That feeling like it's going to last forever. We've done this before, you know? This isn't new, it just sucks, but we've done this. It comes back. Christ, of course you don't feel the train tracks painting right now, it's about fucking...magic, it's magic, and you're not supposed to feel magic right now. You're not supposed to be feeling the magic.

It feels like I never did. Like it was just...like it's always been like this.

Yeah, but it wasn't, because you painted it once. You made a fucking painting about magic. You don't do that if you've never felt anything. It'll come back.

“Even if I did feel it once, that doesn't mean it's coming back. How do you even know?”

Am I ever wrong?

“That's your reasoning? Because yeah, you're definitely sometimes wrong.”

Okay, but in my defense you're not supposed to remember those times.

He laughed and slipped his gloved fingers between mine. “I love you.”

So, see, that's nice.

He let go of my hand and ran his hands down his face. “God. You've done so much for me this week, you got everyone up here to see me and you've been so patient and you're fucking...you're open and present and here and in color and I'm just...I'm black and white, I'm sleepwalking.”

Sleepwalking. Hang on, I said. Hang on, is that what this is? I took him by the knees and spun him so he was facing me straight on. You think you...you what, you owe me some kind of...what, some kind of response?

“Not owe, exactly, just...”

I took a deep breath that hurt my lungs and said, All right. For the sake of argument, let's say you're right, okay? That this isn't just some medication reaction, that this isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Just...let's say that. Okay?

“Okay,” he said.

Justin, Christ, look at your fucking life. You've felt more in twenty-seven years, you've given me...God, Justin, come on. Look what you've fucking done. It's okay to check out for a little while.

He looked skeptical.

Come on, I said. You think you're sleepwalking for a week? I sleepwalked for twenty-nine years and I ended up pretty okay. You can afford a few weeks. You need the next twenty-nine years? We can do the next twenty-nine years.

He looked up at me, his eyes big and clear.

Yeah, I said. You take your time, Sunshine.

He kissed me, gentle and slow.

But we do have to go inside now, I added. The take your time was on more of a macro scale.

He smiled.

**

Justin hates being arm candy, hates being shown off. I have given up pretending I also hate these things. I think I was meant to be a kept boy and ended up living an extremely incorrect life.

I got drinks, kissed cheeks, and remembered names and careers and connections for Justin and was his little human teleprompter behind people's heads. Stephanie was there to interpret, so I was half bodyguard and half decoration and I fucking liked it that way. Justin held up nicely, smiling his Hollywood smile and coming up with eloquent descriptions of the techniques behind all his paintings, if not the feelings. The reporters definitely seemed more interested in Justin than the other artists, and I caught a few pissed off whispers about it, but fuck them. So maybe it was initially less about the art and more about Justin's smile, or his ass, or his non-functional ears or the fact that he had a man at his elbow instead of a woman, who could say. But it got to the art eventually, and once you get to Justin's art, no one ever wants to talk about anything else.

I kissed his cheek and excused myself while he was talking to a reporter from the Village Voice and went to really look at the exhibit, because I was curious about these other artists, and I'd been so busy schmoozing with Justin that I really hadn't gotten to look at his pieces hung either. I did a lap, working my way through the other two guys. They were fine. Good, even. But then there was Justin, and just...look, there was no comparison. That's not just me being...me. There was no comparison.

I moved way through his pieces, the green—and gold—and his best thunderstorm, and the geometric one that already had an offer on it, the bastards. And then there it was. Train tracks. There was a small group paused in front of it, so I hung back a little and waited for them to step out of the way and...there it was. The glass and the familiar with the unfamiliar, the empty space and the fucking magic.

I felt Justin's hand on my elbow, but I didn't look away from the painting. I couldn't. And then I heard him say, “Brian,” really softly, and when I shook my head a little, for some reason, I realized I was crying. Not bawling like a baby or anything—that fun little story was still a few months off—but just crying a little like I was suddenly the type of asshole who cried at paintings.

Or maybe I'd been that kind of asshole this whole time, and I'd just never seen a painting good enough until right then.

“Oh,” Justin said beside me.

I pulled myself the fuck together and looked at him, and he was staring at me with this ghost of a smile on his lips.

I shrugged, embarrassed. You know.

“The magic?” he said.

I nodded and swallowed. The magic.

He turned to his painting and I watched a slow, genuine smile light up his whole face.

Magic.