Blake couldn’t believe what he was reading. He wondered if the show had aired a little too much of Brian and Justin in the shower but…holy shit. Of course, there was the conservatives yelling about indecency and all that but what was the shock…Justin and Brian were like the IT couple. He had been reading the forums since after the first night and people had already started backing Joe and Hannah to get together. He couldn’t really stand the woman because of her voice, it made him want to stab himself in the ears.
But now since Saturday and everyone saw Justin and Brian’s porn show, they were all anyone was talking about. When Brian and Brody hooked up there was a little talk but nothing like this. Someone even brought up making shirts with Justin and Brian on them. Brian is going to hate that; a little part of Blake got a kick out of how much he would hate it.
Saturday with the episode aired, he asked Ted if this was going to hurt Brian’s business. He told him no because most people didn’t even know Brian’s face because he had employees to meet everyone. For the ones that knew Brian, they don’t give a fuck because Brian is careful with who he has as clients. Ted also said it was pretty damn hard to break the contracts that Brian had them sign.
He logged off the forum and headed off to work. Drew was back so they were watching at their place. Which was good because Ted bitched for hours about the bottle ring on the table. Sometimes Ted was too untight, you never would have thought he had been a Crystal queen, but the same could be said about him.
She didn’t know why but it seemed that people were staring at her. Mrs. Culter from next door even asked her how her children was, not that Joan answered her. Mrs. Cutler was a busybody up in everyone’s business. She commented too much about the brandy bottles in her recycling.
Church on Sunday was just as strange. The Turner boy asked her about Brian. It had been ages since someone asked her about him. She personally hadn’t seen her good-for-nothing son in a few years, not since she heard he was sick. All she was doing was trying to save his soul, not that he cared. Apparently being a pervert was more important than his immortal soul.
Tonight, she just wanted to unwind, so she was going to do something that was a little guilty pleasure. Last year she loved the stupid reality show Eye in the Sky, not that she’d tell anyone. This year she had been volunteering at the church every night it had come on since it started. That meant she hadn’t gotten to see any of it. She didn’t even know any of the contestants names.
She poured her a glass of sherry and sat down at the television. Something like this would have Jack ranting and raving. She didn’t know why she liked it, maybe it was watching people at home, even if it wasn’t their home.
The show opened showing a sour-faced man. He wasn’t the host from last year, she wondered why they changed hosts? She like the old one, she was a bit ditzy but was always personable.
They started showing clips of what happened between the last episode that aired and now. There was a blond boy who looked a little familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Maybe he was a low-level celebrity. Just as she took a drink, a very familiar face filled her screen.
“Brian, please go to Interview Room One,” EITS said.
She watched as her only son got up from the couch where he was reading and went into the room. He had always been such a beautiful boy, even his awkward stage in high school he was beautiful. Other mothers at the church would tell her to watch out, he was going to be a lady killer one day. When he never brought a girl home, she thought it was just because of Jack. Then when he went to college and moved away, every time he would visit, she would ask about a girlfriend. In the beginning he would tell her some girl’s name and they had just broken up. All the signs where there but she never saw them.
Brian sat down and grinned that devil may care grin of his. He reminded her so much of Sam, his eyes, and that grin. She just wished he would have been able to see his son, but it had been big a risk. When Jack had told her to get rid of the baby, she thought for sure he knew he wasn’t his. But then he just said that one kid was enough. She wasn’t going to let go of the reminder of the only good thing in her life. Every year on his birthday or Christmas Sam would send Brian a birthday present, the gift was always labeled from Aunt Sarah. He even sent gifts to Claire so Jack wouldn’t question it, not that he cared enough to see what his kids were getting.
Her little boy would get so excited when “Aunt Sarah” would send presents. He would ask her all the time when he was going to get to meet her. Telling her that “Aunt Sarah” sent the best presents. His favorite had been a teddy bear when he was four that he named Iggy. Iggy got lost when they moved to Pittsburgh, Brian was too old for him anyway. Sam stopped sending presents after Brian turned eighteen, he told her that he was going to visit his Aunt Sarah before he started college. Because she couldn’t risk him or Jack finding out the truth, she lied and said that Sarah had died months before and she just didn’t know how to break the news. Her selfish, egotistical son wiped a stray tear from his eye, nodded and left, throwing away a wrapped gift he had gotten the fictional Aunt Sarah.
She had sent Sam the news of his demise, he wanted to tell Brian then, but she wouldn’t allow it. If Jack had found out he would have killed her, with both kids gone, no one would be there to try and stop him.
When she got pregnant with Brian, she was only twenty-five, but Sam was barely twenty. She had met him when she was taking Claire to the park, getting away from Jack in one of his rages. Sam had been there with his daughter; she was a newborn, but he thought she needed sunshine. She still remembered the little girl’s name. Melanie. What a pretty name. After much thought and prayer, she realized why Brian was the way he was, it was her punishment for her infidelity. She was the reason he was a deviant. Seeing him on the show, she turned it off. There was another program she wouldn’t watch again.
Brian waited for whatever the idiots behind the show wanted this time. They were supposed to be having a luxury shed competition in a little bit. His competitive nature wouldn’t allow him not to try and win, no matter the task. Just the thought of having a space NO ONE else was allowed in if he didn’t want them, was great initiative.
“Brian a complaint has been made from another member of the house. We would like to get to the bottom of it to make sure everyone is safe and comfortable,” EITS told him in that robotic voice it has.
“Let me guess, I’m too homosexual for someone’s comfort?”
“This isn’t about your sexuality Brian. This is about what had happened in your bed last night.”
“What? I have to share a bed with the fiddler and trust me there was nothing going on there.”
“It’s not about your sexuality as we said. Ethan has stated that Justin was in the bed with you.”
“You said that I had to share a bed with Ian, you said nothing about him being the only person in the bed. I remember the only other rule about the beds is that everyone HAS to be in a bed. We were.”
“From now on you aren’t allowed to have Justin in the bed with you.”
“Oh, does that mean the same rule has been made for Hannah and Joe?”
“Hannah and Joe have switched beds, so they are able to sleep in the same bed. Ethan hasn’t got a choice.”
“Because you are FORCING us to share a bed. I find it makes me uncomfortable that you are making me share a bed with my fiancé’s ex.” He wouldn’t give anyone the pleasure to hear him say that Justin had left him for Ethan, even if that’s what Justin had told people.
“We have a one time offer to you. If you win the reward challenge today, you will no longer have to share a bed with Ethan. But if you lose, you have to take a hidden task that won’t be explained until after the competition.”
That was a set up if he ever heard of one. He didn’t know what his task would be, but he had a feeling it would be something like betraying Justin or something like that. Good thing he had no plans to lose because he would NOT be sharing a bed with Ethan again.
“DEAL!”
“What did he just do?” Daphne asked.
“Either the smartest thing or the stupidest,” Carl said.
“Knowing Brian, the stupidest but he’ll do something, and it’ll work out in his favor,” Melanie said. How she hated Brian Kinney with a passion.
After the first time she met him, right after she started dating Lindsay, his attitude reminded her too much of her father.
She loved her dad, even though they weren’t close anymore. When she told her parents she was gay, they cut her off. It didn’t last long, and she made some regretful decisions. Her dad had always wanted a son, or so she assumed. They had lived in Harrisburg just after her birth but then moved away. When she moved to Pittsburgh, he made a joke once that he was glad she was gay. He was a strange man sometimes.
It had taken years for him to come to a certain level of acceptance. It was strange, her cousin Derrick was gay, and her dad never had a problem with him. She wondered if it was her that he didn’t like. Maybe that’s why she hated Brian so much, he reminded her of a man who had never really accepted her. After her parents divorced, she barely spoke to him. He never even met Gus or JR. He never wanted to know anything about them.
“Are you watching?”
“Huh?” She was brought out of her spiraling thoughts by Lindsay. “Sorry, spaced out for a moment. What’s going on?”
“The competition is starting.”
Across the country from Pittsburgh in a small town in Wyoming, Sam watched his son smirk at the camera. He had done as Joan had asked and stayed out of his son’s life. She talked about how excited Jack was to have another baby and how much he loved Brian.
It killed a little part of him leaving but he couldn’t tell his wife he had gotten another woman pregnant during a summer fling. As Melanie grew up, he wondered if they would get along. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t fully accept Melanie, it had nothing to do with her being gay. She just decided to tell him on Brian’s eighteenth birthday. Joan had contacted him earlier that day and told him that she told Brian that “Aunt Sarah” was dead. That meant the little connection to his son he had was gone.
Three weeks later he was able to get over his own grief for one child to realize he had cut off his other simply because she was gay. Something he knew when she was eight and told him she was going to marry Cheryl Ladd. His daughter had an early obsession with Charlie’s Angels.
A few years after Brian was an adult, he decided he wanted to meet him. That meant he had to tell his wife. When he told her, she told him he was never allowed to tell Melanie about him or meet him. He didn’t think that was fair, so they divorced. He knew that if he told Melanie then about Brian, she would hate him. That wasn’t something he could handle so he just sort of cut himself off from her and gave up on ever meeting his son.
He had started watching the stupid show because he liked to know what the young kids were talking about at work. His favorite had been the blond boy who was a bit dramatic. After his story and finding out they had brought in his attacker, he couldn’t believe it. The thought of someone hurting his Melanie just because she loved women hurt his soul. The kid was tough though, putting up with all that’s been thrown at him.
Then a week ago, he was shocked stupid with his son entering the house. Brian had changed a lot from the college graduation picture that he begged Joan to get. He told her if she didn’t promise to get one, he would show up at the graduation himself. A few weeks later a picture of an uncomfortable looking Brian and a short dark haired young man that she had referred to as Michael in the short letter.
The competition started for the luxury shed. He had seen the deal Brian made with whoever in charge. Brian was very in your face with his sexuality and that was something he was very much like his sister. He learned a long time ago you can’t choose who your child is or who they love. The kid was a bit young for Brian, but they seemed to have a strong relationship. He had seen pictures of Melanie’s wife, seems both his kids’ liked blonds. Knowing that Joan raised him Catholic was a little hard for him to get over, he had gone into a depression around the time his son should have been studying for his Bar Mitzvah.
On the screen all the contestants stood in a line, Brian was at the end, standing next to the tall blonde woman named Hannah.
“Contestants, this is a trivia competition. In previous years it’s been trivia about your other contestants but this year it will be general knowledge trivia. The person who answers all their questions right wins. Good luck. Ethan you are first to go. Zen is a form of what religion?”
“Buddhism.”
They continued on until after four rounds only Alice, Martin, Justin, and Brian were left.
“Alice. What is the doll, Barbie’s full name?”
“I don’t know, I never had one.”
“I’m sorry Alice, you are out. Martin, can you answer the question?”
“Barbara Millicent Roberts.”
“How the fuck did you know that?” Brian asked the other man.
“Wife’s a collector. I know way too much about Barbie.”
“Justin you’re next. In what classic 1963 film did Charles Bronson appear?”
Justin looked perplexed for a moment then his face fell. “I don’t know. Cool Hand Luke?”
“I’m sorry that is incorrect, you may sit down now. Brian, can you answer the question? If you can’t Martin is our winner.”
“The Great Escape,” Brian said confidently.
“Correct. Martin, what artist painted ‘Self Portrait with Two Circles’ in the seventh century?”
“I have no clue. Michelangelo?”
“Incorrect. Brian, if you answer this question correct you win.”
Brian broke into laughter. “Rembrandt.”
“That is correct. Brian you are the winner. You win the luxury shed for the week with the added reward of choosing your own bed partner.”
Sam knew that meant Brian would have the little blond, Justin in his bed now. He hoped they didn’t show as much as they did Saturday because that’s too much for any parent to see.
“How did you know the answer?” Martin asked him.
“Want to answer that one Sunshine?” Brian asked.
“Just after I moved to New York I was feeling pretty down. Brian surprised me with a trip to London. He put up with going to so many museums with me. The day before we left, he wanted to go to a spa. I wanted to go to the Kenwood House to see the artwork there. Self-Portrait with two circles was Brian’s last straw. He’s not an artist,” Justin shrugged.
“What do you mean last straw?” Miles asked.
“I mean he saw the painting and started ranting about not being at the spa and instead looking at a fat, old, dead man’s painting of himself. We were asked to leave.”
Most of the contestants started to laugh and Sam found himself doing the same. He really was so much like him it was scary. Guilt ate at him for leaving Brian and not being a better father to Melanie.