Chapter 13 - Interruptions.

Brian admittedly didn’t have much experience with dating, but he wasn’t sure that he could count this one as a success or not. Yes, following that initial rough start, he and Justin had relaxed and the talking part had gone much better. But Brian was sure that a really good date should end up with the participants in bed together, not sitting up at the dining room table until way too late at night collaborating on an ad campaign. It was, admittedly, a very good campaign, however this was not exactly how Brian thought the night would go.

When Justin yawned for the second time, Brian stood up and pulled the pencil out of the youth’s hand. Justin didn’t resist. He knew that he really shouldn’t be up this late working on Brian’s project. He had his first final on Wednesday and he really needed to study. But it was too late and Justin was too tired to start tonight. It was time to head to bed - he could get a fresh start tomorrow.

Brian, though, had other ideas about what should be started tonight. He wasn’t ready to give up on this particular date yet. He courteously helped Justin move his chair away from the table so the boy could get up. But as soon as Justin was on his feet, Brian grabbed a hold of the boy’s hips and immediately spun him around so that they were face to face, their bodies only centimeters apart. Pressing the small advantage he got from this surprise maneuver, Brian moved to reduce even that meager space between them, leaning his whole length against Justin’s shorter frame. Justin had nowhere to retreat - the edge of the table was already digging into his ass. The closer Brian came, the further Justin was bent backwards over the tabletop.

“Justin,” Brian breathed the name as if it were sacred, reaching up to cup the youth's slightly stubbled cheek with one hand while the other found its way to the small of Justin's back.

Brian's lips brushed tenderly against Justin's and left a fleeting kiss at the corner of the boy's smile. Then, trailing little nibbling kisses, Brian's searching lips quested across the plane of his cheek and down the long alabaster neck until he could nestle into the crook of Justin's shoulder. Brian reveled in the feeling of warmth that radiated off the boy. He admired the flush of pink that rose to the pale surface as his lips brushed by. He tasted the salty skin. He inhaled the musky smell of the man and listened, enthralled, to the lub-dub rhythm of another heart beating in time with his own. His Sunshine was a feast for every one of Brian's senses, seemingly made just to please him in every way. Brian sucked and nibbled and tasted, and didn't have any desire to ever leave this particular embrace.

Justin had finally given up trying to fight this. . . whatever it was. At the first touch of Brian’s lips caressing his own, all of Justin’s arguments against getting involved with this complicated and highly libidinous man disappeared. Even if he still wanted to fight, he wasn't sure his body was going to cooperate with his reasoning self. It was pretty obvious from how tight his pants had become around his groin that his body was quite enjoying the feelings that Brian’s roaming hands and lips were generating.

Brian's assault on Justin's neck and throat continued, with Justin arching back accommodatingly to give his lover's lips better purchase. As Brian moved lower, Justin was pushed back further and further so that, before too long, the lusty young blond was now completely lying across the top of the table with Brian bent over him. Brian's hands were luckily braced against the table when Justin's legs, seemingly of their own volition, cinched up around his lover's waist. Brian inched their joined bodies higher and leaned in further, their lips meeting once again with kisses now hardened with a ravaging passion. Justin's hand had joined in with the roaming, working up under Brian's shirt and exploring the smooth skin he needed contact with so badly.  

Somehow, amidst the frantic groping and kissing and fondling, Justin's shirt was pulled roughly over his head and Brian's soon followed it into a pile on the floor. This thing seemed inevitable. Finally, they would be able to stop resisting whatever it was they'd feared and give in to their overwhelming need for each other. In unconscious agreement, both men reached down to undo the other's pants at exactly the same moment, unable to move fast enough to quell their welling urges.

This was usually the point where Brian's mind just naturally turned to the notion of locating a condom. His hand automatically went to his right rear pants' pocket, but the little foil packet he'd expected to find there was missing. Brian registered with regret that the next closest supply was all the way in his room where an almost full box was sitting on his bedside table. Which wouldn’t do him much good here on the dining table, but oh well. . .  

And then, as if it was a blessing falling from out of the blue, a little silver foil condom packet fell onto the table and landed next to Justin’s ear directly under Brian’s nose - a ripped up and partially chewed-looking condom packet. Brian looked up, startled to see two luminous green eyes staring back at him from less than a foot away. There on the table, staring at Brian curiously, was Winston the cat, poised upright on his haunches with his whiskers twitching and his furry ears swiveling back and forth, apparently trying to piece out what game his two humans were playing and whether or not he could join in.

Winston really loved games. He loved to chase things and toss things high up into the air with his claws and then pounce on whatever it was before it could escape. He liked to wrestle and roll around and rake with his claws against any unsuspecting human hand that thought it would be fun to wrestle back. Sometimes he would even pretend to wrestle with his toys and throw them around or claw at them as if they were real. These people looked like they were wrestling and he thought maybe he could get in on the fun. If not, maybe they would like to come and play with all the little toys he’d found in the New Person’s room.

At first Brian was thrilled to find that the helpful puss had providentially brought him a condom just when he needed it. Maybe he and Justin wouldn’t have to move off to the bedroom after all. Brian was more than happy to stay right where he was and plow into the perfect little blond boy right on the table. But, when he grabbed for the condom packet, he immediately noted that it was torn, had many little holes in it - as if very sharp cat teeth had perforated the package multiple times - and was generally soggy with kitty drool.

“What the fuck?” Brian immediately tried to drop the dripping packet but the wet foil was stuck to his finger. He shook his hand violently to get the thing to dislodge and then looked down apologetically when it flew off his hand and hit Justin in the nose. “Your fuzzball ate one of my condoms, Justin. That’s fucking disgusting! Why the hell would he eat a condom packet?”

“I don’t care why,” Justin demanded, out of breath and conscious only of the need to move this little lustful romp along to its proper conclusion. “Get another condom. Now, Brian!”

“Fine. But don’t fucking move. I’ll be right back and I want you lying there, spread out for me like a feast when I get back.” Brian demanded, then left one last kiss on Justin’s dark, swollen lips before trotting off to find that box of condoms he’d left in his room.

Not even twenty seconds later, Justin heard a heartfelt, ‘NOOOOOOO!’ shouted from the depths of Brian’s room. He rolled off the table, thinking that something was horribly wrong, and ran down the hall to find out what had happened to his soon-to-be-lover. Brian himself, shirtless and with his unfastened pants hanging low on his hips, stood in the doorway of the room, with his shoulders slumped in despair and his hands tearing in evident emotional pain at his hair.

“Brian? What’s wrong. What happened? Are you okay,” Justin was so concerned when he saw Brian’s defeated and exasperated stance he even hesitated to touch the distraught man.

“They’re all . . . they are . . . all ruined. . . gone. . . ALL of them. . . .” Brian moaned and then dropped dramatically to his knees, reaching out with his hands to grab up several of the small silver objects strewn all over the floor.  

Justin knelt next to the grieving man and picked one of the mutilated foil objects out of Brian’s hand. It appeared to have once been a fresh, new foil-wrapped packet assumedly containing one extra large, lubed rubber. However, now it was just a mushy chewed up piece of empty foil. On the carpet next to where Brian was slumped were the packet’s former contents, pulled out, half unrolled and now full of many tiny holes apparently caused by cat claws and/or teeth. Looking up, Justin could see that what had probably once been a paperboard box full of condoms, was now a chewed up mass of mush and that the many condom packages had been tossed everywhere, most of them chewed on, ripped open or clawed into streamers. It looked like Winston had been very busy in here most of the night.

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Brian tried to be gracious after the ‘Fuzzball’ destroyed his entire box of condoms and ruined his plans for the evening, but it was pretty much a disaster any way you looked at it. Justin was torn between wanting to scream in sexual frustration and laugh at the feline antics. Either way, that was the end of their mutual passion for that evening. Brian was definitely no longer in the mood - all he could think about was wanting to kill the cat. So, as soon as Justin had helped clean up the mess, the two men agreed to go to their separate rooms where they each jerked off alone.

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Over the course of the rest of the week, Justin was too busy studying for finals and working on a term project in his Graphics Arts class to worry much about Brian Kinney. When he wasn't working, Justin was almost always at the library or using the high powered expensive computers in the school's computer lab. He’d taken the ad campaign idea that he and Brian had come up with the other night at The Cupping Room and was expanding on it for his term project. He was incredibly happy with the results so far, but it was a far more ambitious artistic endeavor than he’d attempted before so it was taking all his spare time. Accordingly, Justin had barely even seen Brian all week.

Brian was busy in his own right, since the ad campaign he and Justin had come up with had been immediately seized upon by the partner in charge of the ‘Furry Friends’ Flightplans’ account. Brian wasn’t sure a marketing campaign for a travel agency that specialized in arranging vacations for people who wanted to bring their pets along was going to make him a star in the advertising world, but at least it had got him noticed by the higher-ups. The account was taken away from the inept dweeb who’d been muddling it up and Brian was told to run with his ideas. Unfortunately, at this point he only had a little over a week to get the entire presentation ready for the client, so Brian was in a frenzy trying to get everything ready and he wasn’t thrilled with the results he was getting back from the art department.

When he was able to get home, Brian had tried waiting around at the apartment to connect with Justin several nights. But Justin hadn’t shown up before 9:30 any night that week. Brian wasn’t about to sit around the apartment moping for some little twink, so he’d ended up at various bars or clubs by himself every single night. However, even the company of several hundred mostly naked and sexually willing men wasn’t really helping to get his mind off the one frustrating little blond artist that Brian would have prefered to be with. More often than he’d care to admit, Brian found himself thinking about Justin when he was out on the dance floor, scoping out his next conquest or in the backroom.

Brian wasn’t sure exactly why he’d become so hung up on this one guy - it hadn’t ever happened to him before - but he couldn’t get Justin out of his mind. He had plenty of interest from the kinds of guys he usually liked best: tall, dark hair, and old enough to get into the bar legally. So, why was it he kept finding himself scoping out short blond twinks? He would have gladly done something about it, but the one little blond twink he wanted to spend time with had virtually disappeared. Brian tried to shake it off and get on with things. He tried to just ignore the fact that he kept seeing visions of shining azure blue eyes, soft pink lips and blond hair even as he was getting serviced by some random, faceless trick. Somehow, though, the tricks just didn’t seem to be doing a very good job. Brian was not feeling satisfied no matter how many times he was getting off lately. All the trick’s he’d found recently had just been irritating, ineffectual and somehow. . . not right.

Finally, on Friday morning, Brian received the first concrete proof that his roommate was alive and still kicking - Justin's ugly, dirty tennis shoes showed up again - this time there was one waiting for him in his usual coffee mug and its mate was hiding in the empty box of cereal that Justin had put back on the shelf. Brian was certainly glad to see evidence of the boy's continued good humor even though he had to wash out and disinfect his coffee mug. He was only mildly annoyed by the fact that the little slob had put the empty box of cereal back in the cupboard, like he always did. More than anything, Brian found it comforting to know that Justin was thinking about him enough to keep up their little running joke.  

Brian’s day went downhill from there. The fuck-ups in the art department had again failed to follow directions on the Furry Friends’ account. He sent the boards back down to them twice before lunch. When they came back to his office for the third time, and they still weren’t right, Brian lost it. He threw the useless boards into the trashcan, packed up his laptop and gave up for the day. He wasn’t going to be meeting his internal goals of moving up in the company with that dross and sending the fuckwits the same instructions for a fourth time wasn’t going to get him anywhere except more pissed off. Brian decided to go home and try to cool off before he throttled the inept art idiots.

He was in such a lather when he left that Brian didn’t even bother getting a cab home. He figured that a long walk would do him good and for once it wasn’t raining or snowing even though it was now December. About halfway between his office on Madison Avenue and his apartment, Brian came across the ‘Impressions Art Supply' store. He hadn’t ever been there, but Brian was pretty sure that this was the place where Justin worked. Now, if only Justin - the brilliant genius artist who’d helped him come up with this scheme - worked in his art department instead of in this dead end, minimum wage job, maybe Brian could get his campaign finished the right way.

Then, inspiration struck! All of a sudden, Brian’s spirits were soaring with a rush of adrenalin instead of wallowing in the mire. Justin was the answer to everything. Brian ran into the store, practically knocking over an older, grey-haired woman at the door, and dashed up and down the aisles, looking everywhere for the little blond solution to all his problems. The other customers were giving him dirty looks and shouting obscenities as he bumped into them and knocked things out of their hands, but he ignored them and kept up his search.

“Justin! Justin Taylor! Justin, get your ass out here, I need you,” Brian began shouting wildly when he couldn’t find the artist he wanted anywhere in the store.

“Sir! Excuse me, Sir,” a rotund, middle-aged woman wearing a bright red ‘Manager’s Vest’ and an atrocious Santa’s Hat, came waddling up to Brian as he spun around near an aisle containing a plethora of various painting supplies and brushes. “Sir! Please, there’s no need to shout like that. How can I help you?”

“Justin Taylor works here, right? I need to find him. Where the fuck is he?” Brian exclaimed, grabbing the manager woman by the arm and towing her after him as he continued his search, hoping that he would get better customer service with the manager herself in his clutches.

“Justin works in the framing department, Sir. It’s in the rear of the store. But I think he’s working on something in the back today. Is there someone else who could assist you?” asked the Clothing Challenged Manager Lady as she tried to placate him and retrieve her arm from his solid grip at the same time.

“No. Nobody else can ‘assist me’. I need Justin. Just get him out here,” Brian demanded imperiously, releasing Clothing Challenged Manager Lady’s arm with a bit of a shove in order to encourage her to find his artist.

“Of course, Sir,” the now grouchy Clothing Challenged Manager Lady responded. “If you would follow me, I’ll take you back to the framing department.”

Brian trailed after her, grimacing slightly at the waddling vision preceding him, and in the back of his mind expecting her to tell him to ‘walk this way’. Luckily, it was only two aisles over and about ten yards to the framing department, so Brian wasn’t subjected to the sight for too long. The CCML told the impatient man to wait near a large work table strewn with various frames and mattings while she went through a steel door with a prominent sign that read, ‘Employees Only’. Brian paced around the table, glaring and shaking his head in disapproval at the sales clerk who was using the area to try and help a customer decide on some framing options.

“Brian?” the tall man twisted around when he heard his name being called from behind. “What are you doing here? I’m trying to work. I’ve got this huge framing job I’m in the middle of right now. I can’t . . . ”

“How much are you getting paid here, Justin?” Brian demanded shamelessly as he started to drag the youth away from the small crowd that was now curiously gathered around them trying to find out what all the shouting was about.

“I get paid enough,” Justin hedged.

“I need you to help me on that damned ad campaign we came up with last weekend. I stole the account away from that other guy at work but I only have until Tuesday to get everything ready for the client. The fuckwads in the art department are idiots and can’t follow even simple directions. I know you can do better. I’ll cover whatever you’d be paid for the rest of today, but I need you to come back to my office with me right now,” Brian explained rapidly while trying to keep the boy heading in the direction of the front door.

“What? I can’t just leave here in the middle of my shift, Brian. I’ll get fired.”

“You’re too talented to waste your time in a place like this, Justin. Your ideas are brilliant and I can’t draw for shit. I could really use your help on this. Please, Sunshine,” Brian was as close to pleading as he got.

“Brian, I’d love to help you out but I can’t just leave. . .  However, maybe I have something you could use in the meantime,” Justin suddenly thought of the graphic arts project that he’d finished that very afternoon and started to tow Brian back through the steel ‘Employees Only’ door.

Behind the door, there was a long hallway leading to several storage rooms and work rooms. Justin led Brian past all of these to the far back, where there was a row of very beat up old grey lockers against the wall between the back door and a very grungy looking bathroom. On the wall opposite the lockers were several coat hooks and a small aluminum shelving unit where the employees had hung their jackets and stashed their other belongings. Justin pulled his battered old black canvas portfolio case off one hook, setting it down in the only clear area on the shelves and zipped it open.

“I worked these up from the ideas we talked about last weekend,” Justin enthused as he pulled out a stack of prints from his bag. “I hope you don’t mind that I kind of used the ideas we talked over for your ad campaign. I expanded on them and I was going to turn this in for my end of term project for my Graphics Arts class. But, you can use them in the meantime. I just have to have them back to turn in to my professor by next Friday.”

Justin handed the digitally enhanced prints to Brian who flipped through them, a triumphant smile growing larger and larger as he looked at every wonderful image. “I thought you could use the work of each artist to advertise trips to that person’s country of origin or wherever they painted,” Justin explained as he laid out the pictures side by side on top of his portfolio. “So, like, the Van Gogh cat would be for travel to France, Whistler’s Mother’s cat would be for maybe Boston, the Italian lady cat for Milan, Dali cats for Spain, and so on. I only did these few, but you could really use the idea for any destination. I thought they would work perfectly with your copy ideas. What do you think?”

“I think you are ingenious, Sunshine. These are absolutely perfect! You are brilliant!” Brian crowed and swept the younger man into his arms for a huge, exultant hug and an accompanying celebratory kiss.

Justin was captured in the big strong arms and got a little lost in the joyous smooching. It was only the interruption of the CCML clearing her throat beside them that brought Justin back to reality enough that he remembered where he was and broke away from the kiss. CCML was standing there, tapping her foot, looking at them askance and didn’t appear to be going anywhere until these two broke it up.

“Justin, you know that non-employees are NOT allowed back here. And don’t you have a customer coming for that framing project in a half hour,” CCML admonished as soon as she got her employee’s attention.

“Uh, yeah. . .  Brian, I really have to get back to work,” Justin admitted and managed to peel Brian’s arms away from his body. “Why don’t you take those prints with you and I can work up any changes you want later when I get home.”

“What time do you get off, Sunshine?” Brian propositioned before he would let himself be dragged off by the CCML. “I’ll pick you up and take you out to dinner. This kind of achievement demands a celebration. I’m going to rush these back to the office and get the fuckers in the art department on this right away but then I’m taking you out!”

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Because it was getting close to Christmas, Justin had to work later than usual. The framing department had a huge backlog of projects that had to be done before the holidays. He could, conceivably, put in at least another hour of work but Brian showed up at 8:30, hammering on the entrance door, and refused to leave until Justin was clocked out and available for dinner. He’d made reservations for the two of them at the trendiest Tapas restaurant in Soho - Boqueria Soho - and immediately whisked Justin away into the waiting cab as soon as the boy emerged from the store.

Brian was ecstatic. Apparently, he’d immediately run the prints Justin gave him back to his office and had the art department refinish them with the appropriate titles and copy and they turned out fabulous. Brian was incredibly psyched to present them to his boss on Monday and then to the clients on Tuesday. He stood to gain a significant bonus from this account if the clients liked his presentation. It would also mean that he’d made his first significant step up the ladder at Kennedy & Collins. And Brian was sure that he had Justin to thank for it. Brian’s mood was jubilant. It was definitely contagious. Before they were even through their third plate of ridiculously overpriced tapas, Justin was almost as elated as Brian. They laughed and ate and flirted and teased each other for hours.

When the food was finally gone it was rather late. Brian insisted on ordering them both a glass of Jerez sherry to top off the delicious meal. Then, as soon as their rude New York waiter had delivered their drinks, Brian made a big presentation of bestowing on the young artist a nice thick white mailing envelope with the Kennedy & Collins logo on it.

“What the fuck is this?” Justin asked, hesitant to even touch the daunting looking envelope.

“Well, contract artists are generally paid for their work, Justin. Of course, you have to sign off on the contract and waiver forms before I’m officially allowed to give you this check,” Brian replied, crinkling up his nose and biting at his bottom lip in the most adorable manner Justin had ever seen before pulling out a second, smaller, envelope from his suit jacket pocket.

“Really?” Justin was embarrassed that his response made him sound like a twelve year old, but he couldn’t help it.

“I know it’s not that much,” Brian equivocated as Justin tremulously opened the small envelope. “You deserve a lot more, but I’m new at the firm so I don’t have as much pull as I did at my old company.”

Inside the envelope was a check for $1,500. Justin almost passed out when he saw the amount. It was the single biggest commission he’d made to date for his art.

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