Things were progressing at quite a nice clip after the boy’s first exposure exercise. He did more and more of them and became accustomed to the panic that accompanied each one. He didn’t get used to it because I don’t really think you can get used to that but he got less freaked out about feeling freaked out and I guess his therapist told him that was pretty much the point. Something about not being distressed about being distressed or something equally Professor Bruckner-y. Justin had had his medications adjusted - he switched from Celexa to Zoloft and then they kept adjusting that upward. Apparently, this whole delay in getting a correct diagnosis meant that Justin was getting ineffective therapy and medication and once we were on the right track, it seemed like everything was slotting into place. He harbored some resentment, well-placed I might add, toward his treatment providers back east as well as, and this was less well-placed, Tori for getting to know him so well and still missing the OCD diagnosis. Sure she was a psychiatric nurse and when he was in the hospital, worked with him briefly, but she had never been responsible for his diagnosis or treatment. And I felt annoyed with myself about the misdiagnosis, so who am I really to blame Justin for a bit of misplaced resentment, besides the fact that I had to field Ana and Tori’s calls for a few weeks while he got over his disappointment and then his misplaced guilt at us having moved to LA when it seemed like the problem wasn’t actually Pittsburgh. All these misplaced emotions between the two of us and we were going to have to put up some missing posters. Anyway I was frustrated with myself for...I don’t know, not figuring it out? Like there was a piece of me that thought it was totally reasonable that I should have known something people with doctorates didn’t figure out? It was like when Justin went into hospital and I felt like I should have known far earlier how bad things were for him. And I tried really damn hard to not take that frustration out on our little Sunshine. As it turned out, I would get plenty of practice with that this next little episode and hooray for personal growth and all that but at this point, I would really rather not. Because it always meant that shit had to go down with Justin and could the kid be given a fucking break and I’ll generously give up all this becoming a better person journey I’ve gotten to go on.

We had been living in LA for about six months, which meant Justin had been at Cal Arts for a two or three months. I had finally acquiesced to LA casual business culture and stopped wearing suits everyday and purchased an entirely new business wardrobe. It was quite the hardship, let me tell you. Business with Kinnetik was good. I had gotten several new local contracts which Ted was thrilled about and almost made up for his annoyance when I asked him to write off aforementioned new wardrobe as a business expense. The concept that I’m selling myself as much as I’m selling my ideas is one that is obviously lost on poor Theodore.

It was a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Luckily even Debbie Novotny agreed that a long weekend was too short to fly all the way to the East Coast “this year, asshole” so we were planning to drive up the PCH and spend the holiday in the Castro and maybe have a quick visit with Daphne who was in her first year of medical school at UCSF but apparently up to her nose in work. I was emailing back edits on copy for a shaving cream, trying to finish before 4 PM, when my cell rang. I didn’t recognize the 661 area code but I picked it up, rather than let it rollover to voicemail.

“Kinney here.”

“Uh hello, is this Brian?”

“This is he. Who’s calling?”

“Hello Brian, my name is Ian. Your name was listed as In Case of Emergency in the cell phone of a young man, Justin Taylor, who was brought into the emergency department of St. Joseph’s in Valencia.”

No.

Fuck.

No. No. No.

Fuck.

Several things happened simultaneously. I suddenly felt like I was underwater, like the voice over the phone was garbled and not making any sense and everything was moving slowly and nothing was actually real. My heart was both pounding and had stopped. I squeezed my eyes shut as though that would block out the images that came to mind. I tried to remember how to speak and form coherent words.

“Is he - is he - is everything okay? What happened?”

“Mr. Taylor was brought in by ambulance after having a seizure. He’s somewhat responsive now but also quite disoriented.”

“A seizure? Where was he? What was he doing?”
“Uh, sir? I’m not sure what he was doing but I believe he was transported from the Cal Arts campus.” That made sense, Justin was supposed to be getting out of class when the phone call came in.

“He has a history of brain injury - do they know that? They need to know that. And allergies...fuck...he has a million drug allergies.” I ripped open the file cabinet at my desk and started shuffling through files as I spoke. Someone in his wisdom put Justin’s medical records in a red file folder and I found it easily.

“Sir, Mr. Kinney, this is very helpful...do you have a list of the drug allergies?”

“I have his medical record. Can I fax it to you?”

“Uh, yes, yes that would be helpful.” I jotted down the number for their fax and the number to call to confirm the fax went through.

“I’m going to have my assistant fax the records over. I’m on my way there. I’m coming from downtown LA so it’s going to be...fuck...an hour and a half, two hours? How will I find him when I get to the hospital?”

“You can ask at reception at the emergency department, sir. I can let them know to expect you. What did you say your relation to the patient is?”

“Partner, he’s my partner.” I said it without stuttering or stumbling over my words not only because it was true, despite my well-documented aversion to labels, but also because I had to give these fuckers not a single reason to doubt my right to Justin. If you’re queer and you somehow have to interact with St. Anything, you’re immediately on the defensive trying to protect yourself and your rights, or, rather, the rights you should have. California was certainly more liberal than other states, more liberal than Pennsylvania. But still, there was nothing that required the hospital to let me see Justin until he was admitted (if he was going to be admitted, which he was) and it was visiting hours. Sure, I held his medical power of attorney, which was going to be faxed along with his medical records, but that just gave me the right to get updates on his status and make medical decisions for him if he was incapacitated. And being listed in his cell phone as “ICE Brian” gave me no rights. A few years before we moved, and for only a few months, the mayor of San Francisco had allowed same-sex couples to marry but if we’re being honest, and what’s the point of all this if we’re not being honest, Justin and I wouldn’t have been one of those 18,000 couples. I know this because after they made clear that same-sex couples couldn’t legally marry, California instituted domestic partnerships, which yes would have given me rights to see Justin, even at St. Fags Can Burn In Hell Hospital & Medical Center, but guess what Justin and I didn’t rush to do immediately upon moving to California? Yeah, we really didn’t see the need at the time and now I was kicking past Justin for this oversight. And before you rush to the kid’s defense, he’s the fucker who thought to put his medical records in a red file folder and who thought to put the POA papers in with them, so yeah I blamed him for not thinking that if I’m in a situation where I need his POA and medical records that I also need some sort of fucking legal protection here. And if you think this minor blip is the end of unfair anger directed toward the poor lad in this tale, you’re going to be disappointed.

“Oh he’s your domestic partner?”

“I’m also his power of attorney and those documents will be faxed over with his medical records.” Neither confirmed nor denied anything.

“Okay, yes that will be helpful. We’ll see you when you get here and I’ll make a note in his chart to expect you.” I hung up and ran to our photocopier and copied the entire file. I then threw the originals in my briefcase and the copy of the file at my assistant, the third I had had since setting up Kinnetik West...who’s name I can only recall as Not-Cynthia, which is unfair to Cynthia more than anyone since she hadn’t been my assistant for years, not since being promoted to COO, but who still served in that capacity unofficially until we left Pittsburgh, and ordered him to fax it and call, and keep calling, until he confirmed that it was received. One of these days we’re going to have to improve faxing technology, is this really the best we can do?

In a movie this would be the point when your hero with dark smoldering good looks (that’s me, for those keeping score at home) would dash out and break every traffic law getting to that hospital. But this is real life and so I sat in nearly two hours of traffic between DTLA and the Santa Clarita Valley. During the first part of that drive I was fucking pissed off. Now I know many of you will want me to say I wasn’t angry at Justin, I was angry at the situation or the traffic or angry at having feelings, or anything-but-our-beloved-Sunshine, but that’s just untrue and I literally just told you I’m going to be honest here.

I was fucking livid with Justin. I was fine, fine, before he fucking waltzed down Liberty Avenue looking all angelic and how could I not have him? And I was fucking fine before he wormed his way into my life. And even then I was fine with having that ass available pretty much anytime outside of school hours and having that ass attached to a kid whose company I didn’t entirely mind and who actually made me laugh and think every now and then. And who made me want to do something nice for him like showing up at his goddamn prom. Prom. The before and after everything changed. And then he made me feel all these feelings for him. Or, let’s be specific, he got clubbed in the head and I realized that he had made me feeling all these feelings for him. These feelings had taken root and started multiplying like fucking bacteria and, just like an infection, I didn’t realize it was there and I didn’t protect myself, until it was too fucking late. And since then I’ve not been fine. Not for a single moment. And most of the time, if you asked me, I would say the good stuff, the better than fine that I got to feel, outweighed the shit that naturally comes along with it. That being thrown off a delicate and carefully constructed equilibrium was worth it. Most of the time. But what I’m saying is, if the kid is going to come into my life and make me feel all this shit, he has a certain...responsibility. He needs to see it through. He can’t keep threatening to check out on me.

If he checks out on me? You can’t go home again. I’m stuck with a shitton of feelings that have nowhere to go, no release. And, sure, maybe it goes both ways to an extent, but only to an extent. If something happens to me, yeah okay, Justin isn’t going to find this again in this lifetime in this universe. But we’ve got some historical data to prove that Justin can have a relationship with someone else. And it’s not ever going to be like us...I mean, have you seen us? I’m not even being my usual egotistical self here, these are just the facts. But Justin has this capacity to have another relationship, other relationships, relationships that are perfectly happy, perfectly functional, and perfect enough that any of the rest of you sad ordinaries would thrilled to have it. Justin has the ability to have that kind of normal relationship. But he’s it for me. It’s this larger than life, stuff of epics, not-to-be-believed thing, or nothing. I wasn’t going to abandon my perfectly fine equilibrium for what passes for a relationship with you normals, it had to be this or nothing. But Justin made this. I recognized that. He cried for it, he hurt for it, he goddamn bled for it, dragging my unwilling ass the whole way. But now that I’m here. Now that I’ve signed up for it, he is absolutely not allowed to quit on me. By the time I was halfway through the drive, I was formulating a plan to go down into the depths of hell (if St Fags Burn In Hell is to be believed) and drag him out just to kill him again myself.

A few facts here. Seizures generally are not fatal. Justin was in no danger of dying at any point that day. I had been told his condition was stable. However, facts and I had parted company back in my office along with my assistant patiently faxing Justin’s records.

I was imagining storming into his hospital room and unleashing this fury on him when I was struck with the image of him lying in that little hospital bed and something inside me cracked and just as quickly as it came on, the anger turned into sorrow. Not sorrow at Justin being sick - he didn’t need or want that. But I knew what it was to wake up alone in a hospital bed and feel disoriented. And my experience was by design and it still sucked tits. Justin is so fucking curious and he just likes to know...everything and to imagine him waking up someplace strange and not knowing and maybe not understanding what was happening and how frustrating and scary that would be. I’ll admit I’ve not always been a saint where Justin is concerned, but if someone else, some other force pulls my kid out of my arms and causes him any kind of pain, that’s intolerable. By the time I arrived at the hospital and parked, I had passed anger and sorrow and was just feeling kind of nothing and emotionless and that felt familiar and okay.

I parked and made my way quickly to the emergency department and provided Justin’s name and Ian’s name and thought briefly about how on earth I was able to remember his name and my mind flitted briefly to the proof we have that Justin is capable of having other, boring, normal relationships and then I was being directed to his room. I stood outside the door and focused very hard on moving my feet which suddenly felt like they were in cement blocks. I breathed in deeply and pushed open the door and strolled in like I owned the fucking joint. Justin looked up and looked confused for about a half second and then that smile and he breathed, “Brian.” That’s right kid, I am the air you breathe, don’t you dare forget it.

“The 405 is lovely this time of day, and how are you, dear?” I smirked at him and brushed my fingers through his hair. I took him in - an abrasion on his cheek, a bruise on his wrist and I was sure there was more that was covered by the hospital gown and blanket.

Justin laughed faintly, “I’ve been better, I guess. You didn’t have to - “

“Enough,” I cut him off and he lowered his eyes and nodded slightly. I sat next to him on that narrow bed and pulled him into me, carefully. At that moment, the doctor walked in.

“Justin, we’ve had a chance to review your test results.” She noticed me. “Oh and you are - “

“Brian, the boyfriend.”

“Ah yes, thank you for faxing Justin’s records, very helpful.”

She looked at Justin a little sternly, “So Justin, we think we know what may have caused the seizure.”

If I firmed up my grip on Justin’s hand or held my breath, well you’ll never know.

“Justin, who prescribed you Wellbutrin?”

“Uh, my psychiatrist?” Justin sounded as confused as I felt. He had been seeing this psychiatrist, in fifteen minute intervals, he had found through our insurance, refusing to pay out-of-pocket for yet another provider. “Did the Wellbutrin cause the seizure?”

“Wellbutrin is known to lower the threshold for seizures. It is contraindicated for someone with a history of seizures.”

I felt frozen in place as Justin said, “But I’ve never had a seizure.” A beat passed and he turned and looked at me and I shifted my gaze away. “Brian?” My jaw tightened and I nodded. “When?”

“In the ambulance.” My voice was flat.

“It’s in your records.” The doctor’s voice was a bit more gentle, less businesslike than it had been.

“I - I didn’t know.” Justin’s cheeks flushed pink.

“Justin, even if you didn’t know. You have a history of significant head trauma. Any doctor would avoid prescribing Wellbutrin to someone with a history like yours.”

Justin stared at the stark white hospital blanket. “He doesn’t know about the bashing.”

“How.” My voice was still flat because it was that or throw something and all the machinery in that room looked expensive.

“We really only ever talk about OCD. I didn’t, I didn’t think the bashing was important.”

…

“I didn’t want it to be important. I just fucking wish for once it didn’t impact every goddamn thing in my life.” You and me both, kid.

“Justin, we’re going to need to have you stop the Wellbutrin immediately, we’ll monitor you overnight and prescribe some anti-seizure medication until the Wellbutrin is cleared from your system entirely. Why were you prescribed the Wellbutrin? One of our psychiatrists can consult to determine if we should replace it with another medication.”

“For OCD.”

“Justin, I see you’re taking 200 mg of Zoloft. That’s quite common for OCD. We typically do not see Wellbutrin as adjunctive treatment because it can be quite activating.”

Justin’s cheeks went from pink to red. “I - I asked my psychiatrist to prescribe it. I looked it up on the internet. For, uh, the side effects.”

Understanding washed over the doctor’s face but I was still fucking confused. “What side effects?”

Justin looked out the window and fuck that. Just for a second, fuck that. Not making eye contact, avoiding shit, that’s me. I’m the coward in this thing we have. Justin has never been someone who has shied away from this stuff. He’s the brave one. He has to the brave one. “Uhhh, sexual side effects,” he whispered.

“What?” I was pissed and I knew Justin could tell from my voice and for once I didn’t fucking care if that scared him because fuck him right fucking now.

“Zoloft commonly has side effects of lowered libido or delayed orgasm due to its positive impact on levels of available serotonin in the brain.” She probably thought she was helping right then but I just wanted her out of that room so I could get to the bottom of what the fuck was going through Justin’s damaged brain.

Luckily, I sell shit for a living and I said, “Thank you doctor, is there anything else we should know about Justin’s condition right now?” She let us know she would consult with the on-call psychiatrist and then offered to give us our privacy like it was her idea.

She left the room and Justin and I sat side by side in that tiny hospital bed for a minute before he quietly said, “You can’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

Well there’s not much about Justin I don’t notice. From the start, there was the physical stuff. I mean, have you seen him? I’m in the business of selling sex and beauty so it never occurred to me that something was going on when I noticed even little details like the tiny birthmark on his left shoulder blade. But then it was a matter of getting him to the next day so I had to notice a change in his breathing or shifting in his sleep. And there is absolutely nothing about sex with Justin I don’t notice. There’s a lot about that first night that might be blurry to me, but from that first night everything about sex with him was burned forever in my mind because sex with Justin is… you know what, you can’t even imagine it, so don’t try. So yeah I had fucking noticed that Justin had been less interested in sex recently. He wasn’t tricking at all and was only having sex when I initiated. And you can’t not notice that. But, he had just started at school and he was going through some shit. And I may cope with physical stuff - your basic sex, drugs, and more sex - Justin, he feels stuff. He feels his way through stuff. Like I said, he’s the courageous fucker between the two of us. And I guess I assumed that it was all having kind of an impact on his sex drive. And when I was having some, um, difficulties in that department the very last fucking thing I wanted was to talk about it, to make it a thing. And also I don’t really spontaneously talk about shit, c’mon you know that. And then, well fucking then it seemed to go away, resolve itself. And like the idiot I am, I assumed it meant Justin was doing better with all the shit he was going through. And goddamnit I never put it together with him telling me there was another prescription to pick up at the pharmacy.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Justin turned and looked at me with an expression on his face like “well?”

“What?”

“So you understand why I asked for the prescription?”

“No I frankly don’t. You did this research online and...you’re the one who made sure I had a copy of your medical records at the office. You never read them?” And who could blame the kid? I had never read them either, but again, I was there, I remember.

“I didn’t read them.”

“Still, you didn’t think with your history…”

“I guess I didn’t think, Brian. Or I was thinking...I was thinking about what would be best for us.”

“Oh don’t give me that bullshit. Best for us.” I huffed a sarcastic laugh. “What exactly about you having a seizure is best for us? Do you realize that if this had happened just a bit later, you would have been driving? I can’t even think about what would have happened… I can’t even think about that.” My worry was leaking into anger and also I was angry. What gave him the right?

“Brian...I’m sorry. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t think...or I thought that there was such a small possibility, the benefits outweighed...Brian, it’s sex.” His eyes were bright and his voice was pleading.

“It’s sex? That’s your excuse?” The anger was quickly outweighing the worry. “Justin, I expect all of Liberty Avenue and, hell, half our friends and family to believe this goddamn caricature of me but is that really… is that what you think of me?”

“Brian,” he whispered.

“You do.” I was pacing now. And towering over the kid lying in the hospital bed, I just got this bird’s eye view of what I, we, must look like and quickly sat down in the chair next to the bed. 

Justin turned toward me. “It’s not Brian, it’s not.”

“We’ve been through times when sex was...not on the table. When it was not happening.” Him after prom, me after cancer. We had gotten through it, or so I had thought.

“But both those times, we knew it was temporary. I knew it was temporary. I just thought...if Zoloft is so helpful. What if I have to be on it for the rest of my life?” He paused. “What if this is the rest of my life?” He said quietly. And maybe you saw this coming from a million miles away, but I didn’t, so sue me. “I couldn’t...imagine my life without sex. It’s as much a part of who I am as it who you are. Fuck!” His eyes welled with tears and he looked away. I leaned over and brushed the hair off his forehead and watched as it flopped back into place.

“Sunshine, I get it. Okay?” He nodded. “Maybe you can talk to your doctors… well first get a new doctor, maybe someone who doesn’t take insurance so you can get a long enough appointment to take a full history… about other options?” He nodded again and we sat in silence for a bit. Justin shuddered a little and then looked at me and smiled. “Enough talking about feelings?”

He groaned, “Yeah. Feelings are gross. They’re the absolute worst.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

I called not-Cynthia to plan for the next day since I wouldn’t be in the office and Justin called the campus parking services to ensure his car wouldn’t be towed if he left it overnight. Visiting hours ended and we had to say good night.

When I got home, I popped open a beer and sat at the computer with every intention of checking work email but found myself looking up how quickly we could become domestic partners and then from there every medication Justin is on, has ever been on, and might ever be on. To know every possible side effect no matter how rare. Recriminating myself for not having done this before and possibly preventing this whole thing. I also found a local psychiatrist who did genetic testing* to determine which medications are most likely to be efficacious, which are likely to simply not work, and which are likely to have adverse side effects. I was a moment away from picking up the phone to leave a message on his voicemail to schedule an appointment when I realized that it’s perfectly fine to call a pediatrician to make an appointment for Gus, but it was not appropriate for a grown man. And, despite how he looks (ahem, that face), and all the evidence to the contrary, Justin was - is - in fact a grown man, capable of making his own appointments. I have always, at some level, taken care of the kid since the day Jennifer dropped his duffle on my desk and commanded me to make sure he took his allergy medications and showed up to school. And after the bashing taking care of Justin involved getting him to doctor’s appointments and picking up medications and holding him after nightmares and sitting home some evenings rather than face the crowds at the bars and clubs and coming home at lunch and pushing him even when it was scary, even when regaining his belief in himself took him away from me. And then, even after the responsibility was no longer officially mine, I still took care of him, paying his tuition and generally keeping an eye on him, answering his calls when he was having a panic attack, and leaving him hefty tips at the diner. Somewhere along the way taking care of Justin had evolved from ensuring the kid had enough food (no small feat), a roof over his head, and tuition paid for, to something more complex. And at some point there’s a difference between taking care of and caring for and I would have to figure out what that was. I would have to find some balance, an equilibrium if we’re going to go with some theme through this, between allowing him some autonomy and, well, being me. I tend to...micromanage, a surprise to everyone here I’m sure. In that respect being separated by some three thousand miles was good for Kinnetik staff morale or some such shit that Cynthia and Ted were always telling me was important. And with Justin the urge to do everything in my power, short of wrapping him in bubble wrap, to protect him had always been made weird by my desire to also do utterly depraved things to him. But his fierce independence was something I liked about him, and I didn’t want that to change, so if I didn’t get these urges under control, there would be a whole lot of clashing between us and contrary to what everyone might think, I don’t actually enjoy arguing with the boy. I powered down the computer and headed out.

When I got back home from the bar, I focused very hard on pouring the Bulleit into a glass rather than bringing the whole damn bottle into the shower with me. I’m not sure how well I did because I was a bit maudlin both that night and in my hangover the next morning. It was like Justin had been the most careful burglar and snuck into my life and suddenly I was reliant on him for all these small details of my day like setting up coffee every night with a timer to start brewing when my alarm went off or knowing exactly how to make the bed just so, arranging all the different pillows he insisted we purchase. And all this didn’t freak me out maybe as much as it should so much as it just made me miss him, which also didn’t freak me out. What I’m saying is, I didn’t mind. But like I said, I would gladly trade all this personal fucking growth for Justin to just get a break.

I took a taxi to the campus to get Justin’s car. When I started the car, “Where Does the Good Go” started blasting in the CD player. Gotta give the kid credit, not all his musical tastes are hideous. By the time I got to the hospital, Justin had already spoken to the office of disability services to obtain the paperwork for the doctor to complete so that he could finish the few remaining weeks of the semester with minimal time on campus since he couldn’t drive. He wouldn’t be able to drive for another six months. I did not know what Justin would do the next semester but why borrow worry from tomorrow? He always figured something out and, if he would let me just throw money at the problem, we could always hire a driver. We sat together in his hospital room, we had lowered the bed so I could put up my legs while I sat in the chair beside him, his head bent over the Sudoku book I had brought for him, along with his sketchbook although his hand was giving him problems that day, and my head bent over work. We would each look up occasionally to ask the other’s opinion on something. It felt comfortable. If it hadn’t been for the noise around us and the antiseptic smell and Justin looking just so tiny even though he had changed out of the hospital gown and the bed itself was small, I could have forgotten where we were. As it tends to, the process to discharge Justin took hours longer than necessary as we waited for the attending to sign the paperwork and then suddenly we were hurried out of there so they could free up the bed, as though we had been dragging our feet enjoying the lovely ambience! Per hospital policy, they wheeled him out the door, where the valet had pulled the car around. Justin began to stand and I offered him my arm, which even in the moment struck me as odd. That oddness lasted during the drive home and when we finally walked in the door. Justin’s always been smaller than me but he’s sturdy. There’s this sense that you can lean on him - both literally and figuratively. And he’s always been strong, he’s had to be. I don’t think I need to give you examples of that. But that day he felt fragile in a way he hadn’t since I held his hand as blood soaked through the gauze wrapped around his head, since I sat for three days hardly moving, not sleeping, not eating, not drinking, since I peered at him through a tiny square plexiglass window. What I’m saying is, Justin isn’t fragile and I don’t exactly have a stellar history where he’s concerned when he does seem fragile. So I was being very careful with him for both those reasons - I was sure one misstep and I would fuck him up, I would fuck this up.

He walked into the house and dropped all his shit right there in the foyer. Normally, I would grumble and bitch and moan and he would grin and roll his eyes and it was a familiar and comfortable dance. But I just quietly followed him up the stairs and into the bedroom. He flopped on the bed and toed off his shoes. He laid on his back and scooted up so his head was on a pillow and then kind of patted the bed next to him, raised an eyebrow, and shrugged a shoulder. I kicked off my shoes and socks and flopped on the bed next to him. I laid on my side and faced him, mirror images, and ran my hand through his hair, purposefully avoiding the scar. He closed his eyes with a small, soft smile on his lips, and leaned into my hand. I leaned forward and kissed him, tentatively, hesitantly, on the lips, so gently that on his upper lip I could feel the little peach fuzz that passes for stubble on this boy. Justin put his hand behind my head and pulled me in closer. I ran my hands lightly up and down his back, just wanting feel him, solid beside me, to reassure myself that he was there. I rolled on top of him and pushed myself against him, one of his legs between mine and my hands snaking their way past his waistband, pulling him closer. As my movements turned almost frantic, there was suddenly another type of reassurance I was seeking. My body was hyper alert to the scrape of his fingernails against my back, to him seemingly swallowing me whole with his kiss, to his moans growing louder and deeper, to his hands fumbling in their haste to unbutton my jeans. I kept one arm around him, holding him close to my body, and, with the other, reached up to the shelf built into our headboard and grabbed a condom and the lube and pushed them into Justin’s hand. Because there’s no reassurance that Justin is alive and kicking and going to remain that way like him throwing me down and fucking the everloving shit out of me. In a positive, life-affirming way.