Dan Smithers sat in Brian's office and looked from one poster board to another. There were nearly a dozen of them, each one capturing a different genre in his publishing businesses. Some represented the book publishing divisions, some the magazine publishing divisions. Dan had a widely diverse organization and Kinney had captured every one of them in rich exciting detail. Why, the guy had even made the how-to books look exciting. His assistant had been right. Brian Kinney was one talented ad man.

It had taken Brian a week to decide on how to promote each of Dan's separate entities and another week to get the demo boards ready. It pleased him no end that Dan obviously approved. The grin on his face as he perused the boards was proof of that. Brian reminded himself to give his assistants, who did most of the actual physical labor based on his ideas, a big fat raise. Dan's little publishing empire was going to be a multi-million dollar account. When Dan finished checking out the last of the boards, he and Brian left the conference room and went into Brian's private office. Dan would never have guessed that Brian's ultra modern glass bricked office once was the shower room of an old abandoned gay bath house. Brian always delighted in that irony. He got off on his business in this building as much as he once got off sexually in this very same building in his younger days. Dan settled into the rich leather lounger in Brian's office and opened the discussion.

"You exceeded my expectations Brian. Great work. It's not often that a first draft is nearly perfect. You won't need much of a tweaking before getting the campaign started. That's for certain." He paused and looked into a notepad he'd drawn from his coat pocket. "According to my schedule you still have till the end of this month to start rolling on the campaign. We want to reach the audience in time for Christmas buying. So where are you planning to start?"

Brian filled his client in on his strategy to saturate the public with advertising in the right magazines and papers to match the individual campaigns and continue with television spots and billboards. He then suggested that Dan pick out some of his best and most often read writers to go on the occasional talk show in both radio and television. Each genre would have its personal touch and be unknown to the audience of another. This would avoid the readers of family magazines from connecting to the readers of the soft and hard core porn magazines or other such undesirable connections. Heaven forbid if the readers of the faith based books that the company published should discover that the same company also published books aimed at a gay audience. Hypocrisy was just one aspect of the publishing world and ad men knew it.

The men continued discussing which writers should be asked for promotional help well into the day. It was getting late when Brian brought up the division that was responsible for publishing gay porn and adult novels and magazines. Before Brian could bring up any names, Dan spoke up and suggested young Justin Taylor. Brian pretended he didn't recognize the name, although he couldn't say why he did. He had freely discussed the other writers whose work he had sampled over the last couple of weeks. He had read Taylor's stuff more than once. There was something about the way the young man expressed himself that captured Brian's attention. It wasn't the sex, although that was certainly graphic and well written. No, there was some kind of haunting longing in the way the kid wrote, as if he was searching for something in each sexual encounter but not quite finding it. For some reason it spoke to Brian. He hadn't told a soul, but he really wanted to meet this young author.

Dan mentioned the trio of samples of Justin's work that he'd given Brian earlier and the ad man snapped his fingers as if he had just placed the name. Dan quickly described how he'd met Taylor...only mentioning his job at the hotel, not what the kid had done for him there...and let Brian in on how much the young man had grown in the last few years as a writer. He was even thinking of giving Taylor a shot at a more mainstream novel if the kid ever turned something in. Dan knew he had been working on something, but Justin always held back when he was questioned about it. Brian jumped on all the info Dan fed him and declared that young Taylor would make an excellent choice for promotional value. By the time they decided to pack it in, Brian had a list of writers that he needed to contact in order to see if they would be usable for his promotional campaigns. Justin Taylor was near the top of that list. As Brian shook hands good bye with his new best client, he made a mental note to personally interview young Taylor rather than handing him off to an assistant.

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Justin was more than a little uncomfortable. Dan had called him the night before and asked to see him in his New York office downtown. This was very much out of the norm. His boss probably didn't enjoy seeing him that much because of the way they first met....or at least that was what Justin was guessing...but Dan always seemed to back anything Justin wanted to do and approved of almost everything he turned in, which he always did via the computer. But this time he made it clear that he wanted to see Justin face to face. He didn't give any reason. Justin racked his brains trying to decide what it could be. He knew his last pocket book story had done very well in sales so that couldn't be the problem. Dan had asked him about the romantic mainstream novel he was working on a couple of weeks earlier, but didn't seem bothered when Justin changed the subject. That probably wasn't the problem either.

Justin shook his head as he rode the elevator to the top floor of the glass and chrome high rise office building that housed Smithers Publishing Houses. He tried his best to calm his nerves. His entire lifestyle...his independence were all tied up in this job. The idea of having to start all over didn't appeal to the young man one bit. More importantly, he still couldn't throw his success in his father's face yet. He couldn't even tell him what he was doing for a living. The man wouldn't appreciate it at all and would consider his only son still a failure. Justin needed a mainstream best seller under his belt or he would never be able to prove himself to his dad. He wanted that more than anything else. This job might not be the main goal in his life but it was necessary to have in order to reach that goal. All these torturous thoughts tumbled through Justin's brain as Dan's shapely secretary buzzed him into Dan's inner sanctum.

Justin stepped into Dan's tastefully decorated office. It wasn't as large as his main office in Pittsburgh, but he had made it quite comfortable. There was a large mahogany desk near the big picture window that overlooked the city. Two leather backed chairs had their place facing the desk with the high backs to the door. Dan sat at his desk and smiled as he looked up at the attractive young blond. Dan's tastes leaned towards dark haired boys for his extracurricular activities but this young man was certainly good to look at. He pointed towards one of the chairs.

"Have a seat Justin. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

Justin came around the chair and took a seat. It was only then that he realized someone else was in the room. He sensed movement next to him and turned toward the other chair. His eyes locked onto the most gorgeous face he'd ever seen. The man was tanned and trim. Even seated, Justin could tell he was tall by the long legs that jutted out from the seat cushion to the floor. He was impeccably dressed in a suit that screamed money. His thick wavy brown hair framed a face that drew your eyes to it. He had thick but perfectly shaped eyebrows and a long aquiline nose that seemed almost patrician as it perched over full red lips. The man smiled at Justin and something weird happened. Justin's earlier mild jitters swung into full force. He felt a fluttering in his stomach that was different somehow from his earlier nervousness. His mouth went dry. He forced himself to look away from the smiling man and face Dan.

"Justin," Dan began, "this is Brian Kinney. He is the head of our advertising company. He's come here all the way from Pittsburgh to talk to a few of our New York writers, including you. Brian, this is Justin Taylor of our adult fiction division. This is the young man that we talked about."

"Yes, I can see that by the photo from his dossier," Brian responded drolly. "You look just like your photo, Taylor."

Justin felt himself blushing. There was something very intimate about the way this Brian character addressed him when mentioning the photo. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it made him a wee bit embarrassed.

"Thank you Mr. Kinney, I think. So Dan, what were you needing me for exactly?"

Brian spoke up before Dan could answer. "Dan tells me that you would be the perfect choice as a representative of your division of his publishing business in the future ad campaigns. I will have to interview you of course, and see how well you work under pressure. The work would involve some radio and television promotions, print ads, etc."

Justin threw up his hand. "Whoa, wait a minute. Dan never said anything about my having to advertise what I do for the whole world to see. I didn't sign up for that. Look, Mr. Kinney, my own family doesn't know what I do for a living and I intend to keep it that way." He looked over desperately at Dan. "Dan, why didn't you warn me that you were wanting me to do something like this? Do you have any idea how my Dad would react if he saw my face on television advertising gay porn magazines and books?"

Brian was surprised at how vehemently the young man reacted to the news of what they wanted from him. It made what Justin did for a living seem even more implausible. This certainly wasn't the self-assured sexual animal he wrote about in his articles and stories. This was a kid who was clearly afraid of disappointing daddy. Brian had been instantly attracted to the young man the minute he sat down beside him. He was even more beautiful to look at in person than his photo indicated. He had the wide open clear blue eyes of innocence that made Brian feel oddly protective, a truly foreign feeling to him. His skin was baby smooth and alabaster white without being too pale. Brian couldn't help but notice his perfectly rounded butt that fit snugly in his jeans as he took his seat. The kids face and body screamed blond boy twink and Brian hadn't had one of those in forever. But now Brian was having second thoughts.

Brian had fought hard to escape the shadow of his own father. He had no desire to work with anyone who still had daddy issues, much less fuck with them. He began rethinking whether Justin was the one for this campaign. Brian had already decided the kid wasn't worth pursuing for a lay or two. He was probably even more virginal than Brian suspected. His thoughts were interrupted by Dan's voice.

"Brian, what about using Justin just for radio spots and print ads where he won't be seen. His father won't know the difference. He uses a pseudonym for his stories so that won't identify him. We can always use someone else for the tv spots. Justin is really one of our most popular writers and for good reason. Why don't you spend some time with him and maybe the two of you can work something out?"

Brian turned back to Justin who was looking at him as if the man was going to bite him. There was that odd feeling again...the feeling that he should protect this kid. It was disconcerting, but it explained his next words.

"I'm game if you are Justin. We can work it out so that your fans will get the chance to interact with you and yet never know who you really are. We can also promote your work and have a shot at building your fan base even higher. I'm going to be in town for a couple of weeks. What do you say?"

Justin's first instinct was to say...no way...but the bigger he got in Dan's eyes, the better his chances of having the man's backing when the real novel was completed. He didn't know if he could trust this Kinney character, but he trusted Dan. He really didn't think Dan would let him do something that would hurt himself. Justin reached out his hand.

"I'm willing to give it a try, Mr. Kinney. Just as long as you understand what I won't do."

Brian grasped Justin's hand and pumped it. The kid was small but had a really firm handshake. Brian liked that.

"I'll tell you what, Justin...and by the way, call me Brian since we're going to work with each other...I have a few other folks to interview today but why don't we meet for dinner and we can start mapping out some ideas. Dinner on Dan, of course."

"Oh of course," Dan chimed in. "I'll have my secretary call you both with a time and place. How does that sound?"

Brian and Justin both agreed at the same time. The ball had started rolling. The two men would meet for dinner and begin their collaboration. Who knew...maybe this would work out in the best interests of both men.

To be continued..............................