Chapter 32 - Logic: Part II

Logic:  The science involving the principles governing correct or reliable inference; a particular method of reasoning or argumentation.

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Justin's POV
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Jesus, Daphne is good! I'm surprised she's headed to med school instead of law school. She was always good at debating though. In fact, I bet she could argue Newton out of believing in gravity.

But what she says does make sense. I shouldn't have to feel like I don't deserve her friendship because of the way I've lived the past few years. I see her point - I already know that my father is a liar so why would I believe anything he ever said. So then it logically follows that I'm not a bad person and I deserve to have Daphne as a friend. I hope so, because she's the best friend anyone could ever have.

Now that she's finished with me, she turns her scary logic onto Brian. He's still sitting on the far end of the couch. He looks a little apprehensive like he's preparing to get eaten alive rather than just be talked at by a 5'4" tall girl.

"Okay, Brian. Let's address your concerns. You're upset that Justin claims he's still just a sex worker by virtue of his living here with you. So is he?" Daphne asks bluntly.

"Fuck, no! I've never demanded sex from him in return for living here or for any of the stuff I've given him. That's not what I want at all," Brian answers fervently.

"But you have offered to let Justin live here free of charge, and you've given him clothing and other expensive gifts, right? So can you see where someone with Justin's background could interpret this arrangement to be just a more elaborate version of what he's been doing for the past few years?" Daphne makes my point clearly.

"I guess, but that's not why I did all this, regardless of what you seem to think, Justin," Brian argues back, addressing me directly.

"Okay. So, then, what are your true motivations, Brian?"

"I just want to help you, Justin. I . . ." Brian hesitates.

"That doesn't make much sense, Brian. Sorry, but it's true. I mean, I can see someone donating money to a charity or giving money to a street beggar out of a sense of moral obligation to help someone less fortunate. But that's not you, Brian. And you certainly don't do all the rest of what you've done merely because you want to help a stranger. You don't ask someone to live with you for purely altruistic reasons. So what's the real reason, Brian? Why did you ask Justin to live with you?"

"Because I . . ." Brian starts to answer immediately but then doesn't seem to be able to say whatever it was he'd started to say. "I don't know why."

"Boy, you are stubborn, arent you?" Daphne says, shaking her head. "You just won't say it, Brian, will you? Fine. We'll approach this from a different angle."

Then Daphne turns to me again. "Justin, you said before that you're happy here and that Brian has been nice to you, right? What has he done that's been nice - apart from buying you things or offering to let you stay here, that is."

"He talks to me, asks me what I think about stuff. He took care of me when I wasn't feeling well. He holds me when I'm having nightmares or panic attacks. Stuff like that," I give Daphne some examples, although I quickly realize there are a lot more.

"Brian, you don't regularly do that kind of thing for other people, do you? You've never brought any other street kids into your home or let someone who was sick stay with you while you took care of them?"

"Fuck, no." Brian says flippantly.

"So why do you think he did these nice things for you, Justin? You would have given him sex without all the other nice stuff, right? You've already said that the offer to give you a place to stay and clothing and stuff was enough. Or he could have just paid you cash if all he wanted was a fuck, right?”

"Yeah, of course I would have. That's how I earn a living."

"So Brian continues doing all these nice things for you, things he's never done for anyone else, stuff he doesn't have to do to get sex, but he does them for YOU. Why?"

"I don't know why he's being so nice. I . . . Well, I had started to think it was more, you know. That, maybe, Brian liked me or something . . . But, obviously, I was wrong," I tell her hesitantly, getting nervous because we're getting into areas that are a bit dangerous now.

"What do you mean, you were wrong?" Daphne unerringly hits on the exact topic that scares me the most, the one I least want to talk about, but she has this way of making me talk anyway.

"I thought he was starting to like me more, you know . . ." I turn to look directly at Him now. "I mean, the date and the hotel and everything you've said to me the past few days, Brian. I thought maybe I meant more to you than . . . But, apparently, I was wrong."

"Why, Justin? What happened to make you think Brian doesn't like you for more than just the sex?"

"He doesn't care about me like that. I'm just another trick he takes to the backroom with him. If he cared about me - if I was enough for him - he wouldn't have fucked that other trick in the backroom at the club last night. That's why I got so angry. But I know my place now and I won't make that mistake again."

There. I said it out loud. I've admitted my silly sentimental fantasies and they are now out there for everyone to ridicule. I hope Daphne's happy. I feel like shit and I can't even look at Brian now, I'm so embarrassed.

"Justin, it wasn't like that . . ." Brian starts to say, but he doesn't get far.

"You did WHAT?" Daphne explodes with anger at Brian. "How dare you? Here I am defending you, thinking that you're this nice caring guy who really loves Justin but is just too scared to say it. That Justin doesn't understand your motives because of his background. And instead I find out you're fucking around on him, right in his fucking face, apparently?"

"You don't understand. It's not like that," Brian defends himself. "We're not fucking lesbians who get married after the fifth date. We're fags. It's different. It doesn't mean anything."

"Bullshit. You're supposed to be human even if you are a fag, Brian. And you're telling me that you essentially rejected Justin by fucking some other guy right in front of him while a whole club full of people looked on, and that you don't understand why that might hurt him? Why he might think, after that, that he means nothing to you except as a convenient sex partner. You don't seriously expect me to buy that load of crap, do you?"

"But that's not . . . I didn't mean . . . Fuck, Justin, I didn't think . . ." 

Brian Kinney, the epitome of suave, glib, charming AdMen everywhere is completely tongue tied and confounded by a 20 year old pre-med student. It's actually kind of funny really, watching him try to keep up with Daphne. I don't think he understands yet how completely outmatched he is. I almost feel sorry for him. I'm almost distracted enough that I don't feel as humiliated by this whole topic as I probably should.

"Exactly, you didn't think at all, did you?" Daphne keeps at him relentlessly. "You know what? Forget about it. I'm not going to even try to explain this to you - you're not ready for this, Brian."

Daphne turns back to me with a determined and slightly mischievous glint in her eye. "Justin, go get your clothes and stuff. You can come stay with me. I was totally wrong about him. Brian doesn't deserve you."

"Daph, that's not necessary. I don't . . ." I start to object to her demand that I leave Brian but she angles her body so that he can't see her face and she winks at me! 

Daphne has some wicked plan up her tiny little sleeve! I remember that wink. We both got into a lot of trouble when we were younger and most of the time it started with that same wink. I have no idea what her plan is this time, but I trust her enough to play along and see where she's going with this.

"No, Justin, I think it is necessary," Daph continues. "If Brian really wanted you to stay, he wouldn't have acted like that towards you. You go get your stuff and come stay with me for now."

"Just wait one fucking minute!" Brian finally snaps. "Justin's not going anywhere. I invited you over here tonight to try and help me to get Justin to talk because I was worried about him. I didn't expect you to start lecturing me on what I should or shouldn't do to show Justin how much I care about him."

"I’m not lecturing you, Brian. Besides you wouldn't listen to me if I did. But you obviously don't care anything about Justin. So I think he should just cut his losses and come stay with me. That way you can get back to fucking your other random tricks. Come on, Justin, hurry up."

"I DON'T want Justin to leave. And I don't want to just fuck a bunch of random tricks. I want more. I want Justin."

"Oh. So you want Justin but you still want to fuck around too? Hmmm? What does Justin think about that? I mean, I know other people are okay with open relationships but I could never do it," Daphne looks at me and continues, "what do you say, Justin? Are you okay with an open relationship - the both of you fucking other people?"

"Sure. I guess. As long as I know what the rules are," I'm playing along now, hoping that Daphne has a better idea where this is going than I do. "That's kinda what we were arguing about last night. I'm okay with fucking other people but I don't think Brian wants other guys fucking me. We need to be clear what the rules are or it'll never work."

"That's true. So, what do you say, Brian? Is it okay if you both fuck other guys? And are you okay with other guys fucking Justin, or not?" Daphne proceeds unemotionally, as if she's brokering some banking deal.

"NO! No, I'm not okay with any of it," Brian's so angry now that his face is ashen colored, the veins in his forehead are popping and I think I can even see veins in his teeth. "I'm NOT okay with other guys fucking you, Justin - I'm just not. And I don't want you fuckng anyone else either. I thought . . . Well, I thought that was . . . It was special. It was just ME and I . . . Fuck it! No, it's not okay for you to fuck other guys. It's not okay at all, damn it!"

Daphne turns then and starts to walk away from where Brian is standing and panting with his anger. She makes it look like she's merely thinking over what Brian's just said - perhaps pacing to help herself think more clearly - her hand brought up as if to maybe stroke her chin. But as soon as her back is to Brian, and only I can see her face, I see that she's laughing. She's got this huge grin on her face from ear to ear and she's not stroking her chin in contemplation, she's holding her mouth, trying to keep the giggles in. I almost smile too but stop myself, not wanting to ruin her plan, whatever it is.

Before she reaches the end of the area where she's 'pacing', Daphne carefully wipes her face clear of all signs of her mirth. Then she turns back around and paces towards Brian - who's still fuming mad - slowly walking back to him.

"See, Brian, this just isn't going to work," Daphne tells him. "You can't have any kind of relationship, open or otherwise, if both people don't have equal rights. You'd basically be right back to the whole kept man thing that you just told me you don't want. So if you plan to keep fucking around but don't want Justin to do the same, it's never going to work. I think you should just give it up, Justin. Come on, I'll help you get your stuff together."

Daphne gives Brian a sad but sympathetic smile and then takes my shoulder to guide me away towards the bedroom. Brian can't see the little squeeze she gives my shoulder or hear the whispered, "wait for it . . ." We only get about five steps away, though, before Brian barrels over and grabs my other shoulder, spinning me around to look at him.

"Wait. Please, stop, Justin. Don't go," Brian pleads. "Can't we please try to work this out? I'm sorry I'm such an ass sometimes. But I don't want you to go."

He's standing so close to me now I can feel the heat of his body radiating towards me. He reaches up his hand to brush my hair back off my cheek and let's his fingers rest against my cheekbone. He's not angry anymore. He looks sad and scared. 

"Justin. Don't go, Sunshine. I'll stop tricking at the clubs, okay? I didn't know how much it would hurt you. I really didn't ever stop to think. I've never done this before - been with someone like this in a . . . a relationship - fuck, I can barely even say the word. But I never meant to hurt you." His voice is so quiet now that I don't think even Daphne, who's standing just a few feet away, can hear him. "I can't bear to think of you leaving now. I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy, Sunshine. Don't leave me."

I don't even have to try to answer. His hands slide up to cradle my face and he tenderly lowers his lips to mine, leaving a long, slow, lingering kiss. And the first kiss is followed rapidly by more; light, barely-there kisses that send little electrical shivers down my spine. Each little kiss making me feel just a little bit less hollow and less empty.

"I'll try, Justin. I really will. Just don't go. Don't leave me. I can't bear the thought of you leaving." Brian whispers these things to me between kisses as his hands move lower, his arms encircling me and pulling me tighter against him.

*Ahhh Hmmm* Daphne clears her throat and eventually gets Brian's attention. "Just thought I'd better remind you I was still here before significant articles of clothing start coming off," Daphne teases. "I take it from how truly HOT that kiss was, that you two have resolved things? Does this mean you're not coming back to stay with me, Justin?"

"Thanks, Daph, but I think I'll stay here," I answer.

"Good, because my roommate, September, would have killed me anyways," Daphne says and breaks out into a joyous peal of laughter. "So, which of these lame ass movies, which I'm assuming Brian picked out because nothing here has any animation at all, are we going to watch first? Hmm?"

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Brian's POV

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I've been manipulated by a master and I couldn't care less. 

Daphne is very, very good. If she wasn't set on med school, I'd hire her in a heartbeat. She would make a great ad exec - she could sell anything. I just hope she only uses her powers for good. Like keeping Justin here with me.

We spend the rest of the evening - after Daphne finishes with her minor psychological miracles - piled together on the couch watching the movies I'd picked up earlier. Daphne spends a significant portion of the time making fun of my movie selection skills, or lack thereof. Justin doesn't say much, but I can tell he's feeling better - he smiles at me and no longer flinches when I touch him. He also apparently has his appetite back, which is apparent from the fact that he and Daphne polish off almost an entire large pizza by themselves. 

About eleven thirty we load into the Jeep and I drive all of us to get the children the ice cream their munchies are demanding. Then we drop Daphne off back at her dorm. She and Justin are standing apart talking quietly for several minutes before she comes over to me.

"Don't fuck up, Brian. I'm not going to waste my time saving your ass a second time," Daphne says as she extends up on her tip toes and wraps her arms around my neck to hug me tightly.

"I'll try not to. Fuck knows I don't want to take you on again," I tell her.

"You really, really don't! 'Night! Bye, Jus." And Daphne is gone through the double doors of her dorm.

"Let's go home, Sunshine. It's been a long fucking day and I need to take you to bed."

On the ride home, Justin's sitting sideways in the passenger seat, his legs tucked up under him and his head tilted to the side, resting against the headrest. He's watching me drive with a contemplative look on his pale handsome face. At one point he reaches over and grasps my hand, holding it in both of his and stroking the backs of my knuckles with his thumbs.

"You're thinking way too loudly, Sunshine. Tell me," I direct.

"Daphne sure does know how to put things into perspective, doesn't she?" Justin comments.

"In a really scary way, yes, she does," I admit. "But that isn't what's causing you to chew at your lip like that. So what is it?"

"It helps a lot that you say you're not going to trick at the clubs anymore, Brian. It really does. I didn't like the way I felt when I saw you with that trick. It made me feel . . . bad," he starts to answer, very tentatively. "Thank you for . . . for being willing to give that up so I won't feel hurt. That means a lot to me." 

"But, even if you don't trick, it still doesnt really explain to me why you want me here. You never did answer Daphne's question, Brian. You never have said 'why'. Why are you doing these things, asking me to live with you, giving me things? You say that you don't want me just for sex. You say its not just out of pity. I want to believe you, but . . . Just telling me what something isn't doesn't explain what it is. Until I understand why you're doing all this, I'm always going to wonder . . . To doubt, I guess. It just doesn't make sense to me, Brian. I'm sorry, but it doesn't."

We pull up to the curb in front of the loft just as he finishes speaking. I twist in my seat so that I'm facing him. Justin has become such a large presence in my life in such a short period of time that most of the time I don't notice that he's physically much smaller than I am. His big personality, not to mention my huge desire for him, make him seem to take up my entire range of vision when I'm looking at him. But tonight, looking at him sitting next to me, he seems so unsure, still frightened and insecure even with what we did resolve, and he looks so much smaller to me than usual. 

He won't be satisfied if I tell him again that I don't know why I'm doing all of this. And it wouldn't be an honest answer either. The truth is that I don't WANT to know why I'm doing this. I'm avoiding that question - I don't want to look into my motives too closely because I think I might discover something I'm not ready to face. 

I know I didn't answer Daphne's question about my motivations. I did see where her questions were leading, though, and I know the logical conclusion she was trying to get me to reach. Why am I fighting this so hard? Justin's waiting patiently for my answer; he needs this, needs to understand so that he can come to his own answers. Why does this seem so hard? But I have to give him something. After all he's been through he deserves more. So I have to try.

"Let's go inside, Justin," I say. "I'll try to explain, but I doubt it'll be a short conversation and we'll freeze to death if we sit out here and talk."

Upstairs, I lead him straight to the bedroom and undress us both then climb into bed, pulling Justin after me. I sit up against the pillows and pull my questioning young blond over so that he's nestled between my legs, his back to my chest and my arms around him, holding his body tightly against mine. It's not a sexual thing though - it's just the need for the physical connection that drives me to this. For some reason I don't think I can say what I need to say without having his touch. 

Where to start? Justin has his background that's affecting how he perceives our world; that's what is driving his need to know this. So maybe I'll start by showing him my background and why that makes this so fucking difficult.

"Jack used to take me with him on some of his drinking sprees. Even when I was pretty young. When I was maybe 13 or 14 he started spending a lot of time during these 'outings' giving me his version of dating advice. 'Don't ever let 'em tie you down, Sonny Boy', he'd say over and over. 'You just get in, give it to 'em good and hard, and get out before you get caught. If you let ‘em get all emotional and mushy on ya, then before you know it they got ya hooked and you'll end up like me - a miserable, used up, old man. I never should have been a family man, Sonny Boy. Don't you get trapped into this life, too'."

"Okay, so he was a stupid abusive drunk and nobody in his right mind would take advice from such a broken down loser, but after awhile, he said that shit to me so often it kind sunk in without my even knowing it. You know, it was easier to ignore the outright nasty crap he said and did, like when he'd yell at me or hit me, than the less overt stuff, even though it was just as toxic. So, some of what he said stuck with me, I guess."

"As soon as I could get away from Jack and Joan, I decided that I was never going to get pulled back into their lifestyle again. Not the abuse or the sanctimonious religious crap or any of it. Definitely not the co-dependent disfunctional farce they called a 'family'. I wasn't going to let anyone drag me down again, you know? So I set up these rules for myself, to make sure I wouldn't let myself get trapped back into their life. Only, somehow, that's precisely when some of that relationship advice Jack had given me crept back in - ironic, huh? Here I was trying to avoid doing anything that would make me even remotely like them and I start off by incorporating Jack's advice into my own life philosophy?"

"But the part about not letting anyone in, not letting anyone get any emotional ties on me, that part seemed to make sense in some fucked up way. It's like you told me once, Sunshine - if you let someone in they're more likely to hurt you, so you're better off not letting them in at all, right? Well, I guess that's basically the same thing Jack had been saying, in his own fucked up way."

"And that's what I thought, too. So one of my first rules was never to let myself get tied down - no repeats means no risk of getting tied down. No repeats also means no emotional entanglements, no relationships, no mess. And it sort of worked. I'm thirty years old and I've never had a serious relationship. Ever. I've never let anyone get close enough, outside of a couple friends that I have no romantic interest in at all, to start a relationship. And, until now, I didn't really feel the need for one."

I have to stop here. If I go on I'll be saying things that I'm not sure I want to say or even think about. Up till now I've just been acting without too much thinking getting in the way. But my actions - asking Justin to live with me, telling him I'd quit tricking, fucking everything I've done, practically - have completely outstripped my comfort level, so I'm going to have to think about it all now, regardless of whether I want to or not.

Justin squirms around in my arms so his body is facing more to the side now. This lets him snake one arm around behind me so that he's hugging my waist while I'm holding him. He settles his head more comfortably into the hollow of my shoulder. His touch, the contact, skin on skin, reassures me. Then he uses my own words directed back at me, "tell me." So I do.

"My rules aren't working anymore. From the moment I saw you in that hospital bed I knew they wouldn't work for you. I can't keep you out. I don't want to. I want to let you in, and I'm not afraid to get tied down anymore, if it's you. I think I want the 'relationship' part, complete with emotional entanglements. I feel things for you that I've never felt for anyone else before."

"I do care about you, Justin. It's not just pity or - what did Daphne call it - moral obligation. I want to take care of you, protect you, I want to keep you in my life. I want the ties. I want more. I want you. That's why I'm doing all this, Sunshine. So I can keep you in my life."

"I want you too, Brian," he says quietly. "I want you, too."