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Chapter 5 - Meet the PC.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!* “Brian! Brian, open up!” *Bang! Bang! Bang!*

“What the fuck?” Brian awoke with a start as the banging that had been only in his aching, hungover head, morphed into an even louder banging that echoed throughout the entire loft.

As he rolled over in the bed he felt the mattress dip and then a blond blur dashed past his still-not-completely-open eyes.

“Wha? . . .” Brian muttered, not sure in his post-drunken state why there was a blond blur in his home this early in the morning.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!* “Brian! Brian!” *Bang! Bang! Bang!*

Brian finally realized that the banging noises were coming from his front door and, based on the yelling that was accompanying the banging, it was probably his best friend, Michael Novotny, that was causing all the unwelcome morning noise. It also meant that neither the banging nor the yelling would stop until he got up and opened the door. That was the thing about Novotny noises, they were persistent and stubbornly difficult to get rid of.

With an audible groan, Brian levered his groggy body out of bed and tramped unsteadily across the breadth of the loft towards the banging and yelling door.

“If you don’t shut the fuck up, Mikey, my head’s going to explode and you’ll end up with brains and blood all over your lovely Q-Mart ensemble,” Brian yelled back at the door as he pulled it open to find the usual suspects behind the Sunday morning door banging caper. “Ah! I see you brought accomplices. Morning Theodore. Honeycutt!”

“Don’t call me Honeycutt!” Emmett replied, right on cue.

“Brian, what the fuck is this shit that Ted’s telling us? It’s not true is it?” Michael demanded.

“You were fucking telling the truth? I thought you were just gassing me! But you WERE telling the truth. I read about it in the paper this morning,” Ted insisted, waving the paper in question in the air around his head as evidence. “You bought a fucking Personal Companion? How could you, Brian? First of all, I can’t believe you would just waste all that money, but on a PC? Really? I didn’t think you of all people would ever stoop to something like that. I mean, really, Brian . . .”

“Hold that thought, Theodore,” Brian requested, raising his hand in a stop gesture to emphasize his words. “I need to go puke right now. You can continue lecturing me when I’m done with that.” Brian turned and began to plod up the stairs but halted mid-step and looked over his shoulder. “While I’m gone, somebody make some coffee . . . lots and lots of fucking coffee.”

“Same old Brian Kinney,” Ted announced dismissively. “At least moving up into the realms of the elite who own PCs hasn’t changed him much.”

“Well, since I, for one, really want to hear this story, we definitely need to get that coffee ready. You know he can’t function at all until at least the second cup,” Michael reasoned as he moved towards the kitchen.

“Ooooo! Let me. You know how much I love to play with Brian’s big old Bunn! I mean, you gotta respect a man who has an industrial-sized coffee maker in his home, right?” Emmett skipped over to the elaborate coffee maker and espresso machine with the built-in coffee grinder and began to fiddle with all the parts.

“Don’t fuck up his Bunn, Em. Brian will go fucking ballistic if you mess up his coffee maker. I think he loves that thing more than his jeep. More than his collection of Prada even,” Michael warned his friend, walking over to supervise the coffee making process and leaving Ted sitting at the bar so he could finish reading through the morning’s business news. “I’ll see if Brian’s got any guava juice in the fridge. That should help wake him up along with the coffee.”

Michael made it to the refrigerator, but before he could open it to look for the juice, his eye caught on an unexpected shape huddled in the shadows of the darkened corner just beyond the fridge. He thought at first he must be imagining things, There shouldn’t be anything over in that corner, let alone something that was moving. He craned his neck around the edge of the big, stainless-steel refrigeration unit and found . . . a naked blond boy wearing only a leather collar cowering in the darkness of the corner, his face pressed into the crack between the appliance and the wall and his whole body quivering with fear.

“Emmett,” Michael stage whispered to his friend. When Em didn’t immediately respond, he tried again. “Emmett. Come here!”

“Hold your horses, honey. I just need to get this filter in place and then . . . flip this switch . . . and . . . voila! We have coffee brewing,” Em announced with a flourish. “Now, what’s the problem? No guava juice?”

“I think I found Brian’s new Personal Companion,” Michael waved his friend over and pointed to the quailing form in the corner.

“Oh . . . hmmm. That’s . . . unexpected.” Em’s comments weren’t all that helpful, and Michael rolled his eyes. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know. Hey . . .” Michael reached out with one hand, intending to pat the younger man’s shoulder reassuringly, but as soon as he touched the boy, the kid cringed even further away from them, his breathing becoming labored, as if he was about to hyperventilate at any moment. “Sorry! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you . . .” Michael noted that even his words seemed to frighten the boy further. “I’m not going to hurt you . . . My name’s Michael. I’m a friend of Brian’s. Are you . . . are you okay? Are you injured? Can you tell us what’s wrong?”

“What are you guys doing over here? How long does it take to get the coffee started anyway?” Ted asked, finally getting up and leaving his paper behind as he walked around the end of the bar to come investigate what his friends were looking at in the far corner.

“Michael found Brian’s new Companion,” Emmett explained. “Only, I think he’s broken or something. He’s hiding in the corner.”

All three men stood together, forming a phalanx of confusion, as they stared at the quaking, panting mess that appeared to be the new addition to their friend’s life.

The staring was only interrupted a few minutes later by the sound of a toilet flushing, the bathroom door sliding open and heavy footsteps tromping down the stairs in the direction of the kitchen. “I hope the fucking coffee is ready. If not, I’m going to be puking again in five minutes or so. Shit! My head feels like a nuclear test zone,” Brian gave a running commentary as he grabbed a coffee mug, held it under the still dripping nozzle of the coffee maker and then took his first ambrosial sip. As soon as he had his first sip of coffee, he turned to his far too quiet friends, wondering why, exactly, they were being far too quiet. “What the fuck are you all doing staring at the damn wall?”

“We think your PC is broken, Bri. He’s acting funny.” Emmett pointed to where the boy was huddled against the wall, still panting and shaking and being completely unresponsive.

“Oh. That’s where he got to . . .” Brian shrugged, tilting his head to the side dismissively, as if finding naked and shivering boys in the corners of his home was somehow commonplace.

“Is he okay, Brian?” Michael asked with genuine concern.

“I have no idea, Mikey,” Brian sighed, reluctantly put his coffee cup down and shouldered his way through the throng of lookie-loos surrounding his new PC. “Morning, J327! Time to come out of the corner and meet the gang . . .” Predictably, this teasing greeting did nothing to roust the panicky boy. “Oh, yeah. Direct orders only. Right . . . J327, come here!” As soon as Brian amended his tone and spoke more authoritatively, the boy seemed to perk up a bit, actually looking over at his master even though he wasn’t any less frightened. “Go and sit on one of the stools at the bar,” Brian added, moving the guys away from the corner so the boy could comply, which he did with relative alacrity. “That’s good. Now . . . do you want some coffee?” Brian asked, forgetting the whole direct order thing for an instant. When he got no response, however, he realized his error, gave up trying to find out what the boy actually wanted and just took the initiative to pour out another mug which he sat in front of the kid.

“So, THIS is your PC?” Ted moved closer, peering over the bar at the interesting specimen with open curiosity. “I still can’t believe you did this, Brian, even though I’m staring at the proof right in front of me.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t really have a choice,” Brian explained as he seated himself next to the boy, pushing the kid’s coffee closer to him and pointing from the cup to the boy, hoping that the kid would get the picture and actually start drinking the beverage without further ado. When it seemed to work and J327 lifted his mug, Brian turned back to his hovering friends. “To make a long story, short . . . my boss forced me to go to this auction so he could rope in the owner as a client. I got there and was doing an okay job schmoozing the guy when this total creepazoid blowhard showed up. Some know-it-all by the name of Bellweather . . .”

“You mean, Howard Bellweather? The author? He’s great. I’ve read everything he’s ever written. His latest book, ‘The Gay Gauntlet’, is all about how we as gay people need to force the straight world to give us the respect our community deserves. It was really inspirational,” Ted gushed.

“Be that as it may,” Brian continued between gulps of coffee, “the guy’s a total cretin and probably the biggest pervert I’ve ever met . . . which is really saying a lot, you know.” There was a round of awed nods from the peanut gallery who were all well acquainted with Brian’s knowledge of the area’s various perverts. “Anyway, this Bellweather guy and his buddy Stockwell - also a ‘Class A’ douchebag - kept going on and on about the shit they had planned for the kid here and I . . . Well, they pissed me off to the point that I just had to do something. I couldn’t let them do . . . what they had planned. So I outbid Bellweather and bought the boy myself.”

“Very altruistic, Brian, but now what are you going to do with him?” Em asked the question they were all thinking.

“No fucking clue, Emmy Lou. None at all,” Brian smirked up at them before returning his attention to the remaining coffee in his cup.

“You might not have to worry about what to do with him, if you can’t come up with the money to pay off that insane bid price,” Ted offered, unhelpfully. “Even though I thought at the time that you were pulling my leg, I still went over the numbers for you last night like you asked and I have no idea how you’re going to do this. Are you sure you don’t want to just cut your losses now and tell them you don’t have the money?”

“I can’t do that. If I don’t come up with the money, then the kid goes right back to Bellweather, since he was the guy with the next highest bid. And, trust me on this guys, you wouldn’t send your worst enemy into that guy’s greasy hands.” Brian held his now empty coffee cup out in front of him, prompting Emmett to bring over the carafe and administer a refill. “Which reminds me, I’ve got to get going and get to the office.”

“But it’s Sunday morning, Brian. Even you don’t work on Sundays,” Michael protested.

“Well, I do this Sunday,” Brian corrected him. “I need to get over there and make sure Cynthia has the bloodsuckers in Legal under control so we can get the contract over to PC Clearinghouse and get the guy to sign on the dotted line. The signing bonus I negotiated with Vance for this account will go quite a ways towards helping me pay off the debt for the kid. So, Sunday or not, I need to get to the office as soon as possible.”

Brian plunked down his coffee cup and started to get to his feet. He was still dressed in the rumpled suit pants and tux shirt from the night before, and between the sweaty clothing and his alcohol-clogged pores, he could tell he totally reeked. The aspirin and coffee had at least quelled his headache a bit, but the condition of his stomach was still uncertain and his thought processes were a tiny bit foggy as well.

“What are you going to do with HIM while you’re at the office, Brian?” Michael’s question caused Brian to stop in his tracks.

“I figured he’d just stay here . . . ?”

“Brian, Brian, Brian. You can’t just keep the poor thing holed up here - buck naked and bored out of his mind - for the rest of his life. Even if he IS a PC. It’s just not right,” Emmett insisted pointedly.

“Good point, Honeycutt,” Brian admitted and then glanced over at the boy who remained so still and silent that you tended to forget he was there. “Although, based on what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think he’d mind hiding out here all that much. He’s not really what you’d call a ‘people person’.”

While Brian was pondering how and when to start exposing his new acquisition to the outside world, and wondering how he was going to explain the kid to everyone he knew - most notably Debbie, who would likely rip him a new asshole when she found out he’d done the unthinkable and bought himself a PC - the image of Debbie glaring at him across the expanse of the Liberty Diner suddenly popped into his head. And that mental picture of the Diner was immediately followed by the memory of Cynthia’s dig about him not being able to keep a houseplant alive, let alone another human being. “Shit! I almost forgot. You’re probably hungry, aren’t you?” he asked the kid who, not unexpectedly, said nothing in response. His stomach, though, responded loudly, grumbling at the first mention of food. “I’ll take that as a yes. So, I guess we better find something for you to eat . . . and, I guess, something for you to wear other than that fucking collar.” Brian immediately reached over and started to unbuckle the hated thing.

“If I might make a suggestion, Bri?” Emmett stepped forward, all smiles and plans. “He’s never going to fit in any of your clothes - they’d be huge on his more delicate frame. However, using my training and experience as a member of the men’s fashion industry, I guestimate that your new friend is just about the same size as Michael here. A tad skinnier, of course, but we can deal with that,” Brian almost laughed at the apprising way Emmett was looking over the bashful boy as if measuring him for a whole new wardrobe. “So, what I propose is that you give Michael and me the keys to your Jeep and we’ll pop home while you two are getting a shower. We’ll sort through Michael’s overflowing closet and then bring back a few things for your PC - enough to tide him over for a few days until you guys have time to go shopping for more. And then, once we get the both of you dressed, we can all head back to the Diner for brunch - which is where we were all headed in the first place before Teddy gave us the shocking news that had everyone running over here to see if it was true. That way you can feed your twink, and yourself, before you head to the office for the day.”

Brian thought it through quickly and decided that was the best plan he was going to come up with on short notice. Even if it did mean he’d be facing his pseudo-mother a little sooner than he would prefer. Besides, he did need to feed the kid, so he might as well get the trip to the Diner over with and kill two birds with one stone.

“Fine. But make it fast. I really do need to get to the office as soon as I can,” Brian ordered.

“No problem, Bri. We’ll be back here faster than green grass goes through a goose. Just hand over your keys, oh Studly Leader,” Em teased with a little extra southern flair added in just for fun.

“Whatever, Emmy Lou. Just hurry. But don’t wreck the fucking Jeep. I don’t have the money to fix it right now if you smash it up.” Brian said while looking around. He didn’t see his key ring anywhere it would normally be found, but then, considering his state of inebriation the night before, the fucking keys could be anywhere. “Fuck! Where are my damn keys?” he cursed angrily.

To everyone’s surprise, the previously stationary blond boy jumped up off his barstool and sprinted over to the far side of the dining area where he proceeded to rifle through a pile of forgotten clothing left there from the night before. After only a few seconds, he located the missing keys and then zoomed back over to Brian, dropping gracefully to his knees in front of his master and offering up the keys with both hands. At first, Brian was too startled by these abrupt actions to realize what had evoked such a visceral reaction in the boy. But, glancing down at the young man’s abjectly submissive stance - head tilted forward, eyes downcast, arms raised over his head with the lost keys held up like an offering to an angry god of old, Brian started to get the picture.

“Look at me, J327,” Brian instructed, keeping his voice calm and even while he gently lifted the teen’s chin up with his forefinger until he could see the worried blue eyes. “I’m not mad at you. I didn’t mean to yell. It’s not your fault I was so soused last night that I misplaced my keys. And your name is NOT ‘Fuck’. That was just me being a drunken idiot last night. I would never do that to you. So, please, get up. Okay?” The boy silently rose to his feet, his head still bowed but the terrified trembling in his shoulders abating a little bit. “Thank you. Now, go wait for me in the shower. I’ll be right there after I send these guys off.”

Brian waited until the kid had disappeared into the bathroom before he turned to give the keys to his waiting friend.

“Wow. That was . . . weird,” Michael commented, echoing nearly everyone’s thoughts.

“Yeah. He’s a bit jumpy,” Brian returned, intentionally understating the situation. “From what his Handler told everyone before the sale, it sounds like the kid’s had it rough. He was attacked and almost killed by a classmate back when he was only sixteen. That’s actually why his father contracted him out - he couldn’t afford the doctor bills. He had to sell the boy in order to save his life. Unfortunately, the Handler that bought his contract probably made everything worse, the sadistic fucking brute.” Brian heard the way his own voice was rising and fought to control the anger. “This guy - name of Sapperstein - is something else. He had this thing . . . Cynthia said it was called an ‘Enforcer’ or something . . . that he was using to torture the kid, calling it ‘training’. So, between the trauma of getting his head bashed in and the abuse from the fucking Handler, it’s not really much of a surprise the kid is a total mess.” Brian welcomed the sympathy emanating from the eyes of each of his friends. “Anyway, I think that’s why he doesn’t talk and won’t look at anyone. Even I can’t imagine the amount of abuse he’s suffered. And, since the bashing apparently caused some memory loss, he probably doesn’t remember anything else. Any other life. As far as he knows, everyone in the world is out to hurt him in some way. Which is why . . .”

“You did the right thing, Brian,” Michael reassured his friend with a supportive squeeze to his bicep when Brian couldn't continue. “We all understand. And we’ll do what we can to help, won’t we guys.” They all nodded.

“Thank you,” Brian replied, truly touched that his friends were being as understanding as they were, seeing as they were all pretty strongly against the PC trade. “Ok. Here’s the keys. We should be showered and ready by the time you get back.” Michael and Em walked towards the door without saying anything further. “You staying, Theodore?”

“Yeah. I figure I better get started moving some funds around for you and working on the numbers a bit. I’m sure I can come up with something more than what I saw at first glance last night. If you’ll set me up on your computer, I’ll get cracking,” Ted offered, determination lining his usually laconic countenance.

Brian quickly set the accountant up on his home computer and then made his way to the shower. He was grateful for Ted’s help. Actually, he was feeling pretty appreciative towards all his friends. He’d never thought that they would support him like this. And after everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, he knew he was going to need all the help he could get.