Chapter 35 - Brian Kinney, Romantic Fool!

"Christie! Get me a double non-fat latte and the McPherson Industries file," Brian Kinney roared at the timid brown mouse of a woman who'd been assigned as his assistant before the elevator doors were even all the way opened as he strode into work the next morning.

"It's . . . Uh, it's 'Christine', Sir," the woman mumbled as she jumped up out of her chair to follow her irate boss.

"Christine, Christie, whatever . . ." Brian didn't have the time or the desire to learn the useless woman's name. He pushed open the door to his office, threw his briefcase and jacket on the nearest chair and shuffled through the pile of papers in his 'In' box, then looked up at the still-hesitant secretary with utter disdain. "Where's my coffee?"

"Coming right up, Sir," Crystal-or-whatever-her-name-was stuttered as she tripped over her feet in a rush to get out the door.

More than fifteen minutes later, Chrissie finally came back into Brian's office holding out a Starbuck's ToGo cup as if it was a shield. Brian grabbed the cup with a disdainful shake of his head and sniffled, equally annoyed by the cold he seemed to have caught after his foray the night before into the sleet-covered streets of New York and the too-timid secretary. When the girl continued to just stand there, uselessly, after she surrendered the coffee, Brian completely lost it.

"What exactly are you fucking looking at," Brian snarled. "Where's the McPherson file? Where's my calendar? Why are you just standing there? You do speak English, don't you? Well . . . .?"

The girl stood as if frozen to the spot, too scared to answer. The look of terror on the woman's face didn't do anything to quell Brian's anger, either. This was not how he wanted to start his day. Brian had too much to do today. Mollycoddling his personal assistant wasn't on the agenda - he had to finalize the McPherson presentation, find Daphne and win back his boyfriend. He knew he needed help and this timorous little mouse wasn't going to cut it.

Brian turned to his desk, picked up the phone and dialed the number of the one person he knew he could rely on to get everything he needed accomplished.

"Cynthia? I need you to find me the address for a Daphne Chanders. She's a pre-med student here in NYC - I don't know what school though. I've got a cell phone number for her but I need a street address too. Oh, and an email address too while you're at it. I also need the school email address for Justin Taylor - he goes to SVA. Got it? . . .Exactly. When you've got all that, I need you to get your ass up here to New York and get started on research for McPherson Industries. We've got a presentation scheduled with them next Tuesday and nobody here knows what the fuck they're doing. Oh yeah, don't forget to call Rick, or Dick, or whatever-the-hell his name is down in HR and tell him he's hiring you to take over for my old PA, Chrissy Something . . . I don't give a shit what he does with her, she's useless . . . Got it? Good. Now, get your ass moving, Cynthia, we've got shit to do!"

Brian had his usual wicked business-shark smile on his lips as soon as he hung up the phone. He knew he could start to relax. Cynthia would get it all straightened out. She always did.

"Uh . . . M-M-M-Mr. Kinney . . ." Christie asked from the doorway where she was still standing looking more shell-shocked than ever.

"What the hell are you doing here still?" Brian asked, genuinely confused about why the incompetent cunt was still taking up space in his office.

Little Chris' face crumpled up faster than a Junior High School love note intercepted by the teacher during math class. With a convulsive whining sob, Brian's former PA turned and ran from the big bad Kinney ogre. Brian paused all of ten seconds, sighing at the pathetic girl, before shaking his head and dismissing the whole fiasco from his consciousness. With a mischievous little grin now adorning his face, Brian moved towards his computer and started into the research for the most important campaign of his life - the campaign to win back his boyfriend!

'Froggie went a courtin' and he did ride, uh huh. Froggie went a courtin' and he did ride, uh huh . . .'

Brian probably didn't even know he was humming that particular old folk tune as he mapped out his ridiculously romantic strategy.

Bob Dylan's, "Froggie Went a Courtin'  

<><><><><><><><><>

Wednesday.

Justin cringed when he felt the phone in his pocket vibrate again. Brian had been calling him incessantly ever since he'd left the apartment last weekend and, since Justin hadn't yet answered a single call, you'd think the guy would get the message and quit calling already. He'd turned the ringer off, but even just on vibrate the constant calls and texts were a distraction. Now Brian was interrupting his Art History class. This simply had to stop.

Using the edge of the table to hide his actions from the lecturing professor's gaze, Justin surreptitiously pulled his phone out of his pocket, intending to block Brian's number once and for all. He really didn't plan on even reading the text that Brian had sent this time - he'd already read the three dozen other messages purporting to apologize and virtually begging him to call so Brian could explain - he really didn't need to see it again. This time, though, there seemed to be a picture accompanying the text message, and Justin was intrigued enough to open the message so he could see the pic.

When Justin tapped on the thumbnail of the pic to open the message, he couldn't help huffing out one startled chuckle, despite being stared at by the entire class for his outburst.

The picture that Brian had sent him showed a gloriously nude Brian Kinney stretched out across his desk at the office, wearing only Justin's grungy old 'traveling sneakers' and a big smile. Lying on the desktop in front of the lounging Adonis was a mammoth-sized, bright neon blue dildo with a big red ribbon tied around the shaft in a neat bow. The accompanying text read:

'Roses are red,

This dildo is blue,

So are my balls,

Since I've been without you!'

'Kinney gets points for both audacity and tenacity', Justin conceded to himself and shifted in his seat in order to relieve the discomfort caused by his trousers suddenly seeming far too tight through the crotch area. There was no getting around the fact that his former roommate was simply sexy as hell. It didn't mean that Justin was ready to forgive him, though. So, as soon as he willed his erection down, Justin steeled his will and reminded himself to stay angry at the asshole.

Justin had finally managed to work himself back up to a fully self-righteous snit by the time he arrived at Impressions for his regular shift in the framing department at the art supply store.

Unfortunately, the post-Christmas retail lull had set in already, so there wasn't much to keep his attention at work. He had to fight one co-worker simply to win the tedious task of inventorying the framing supplies, just so he wouldn't die of boredom. The rest of the staff desultorily wandered around straightening the stock on the shelves and gossiping. Which meant that virtually everyone in the store was idle and watching when a handsome, dark-haired young man dressed in a delivery company uniform breezed through the main door and announced he had a package for Justin Taylor.

"Justin Taylor to the Customer Service Desk . . .  Justin, please come to Customer Service - you have a delivery," the bored assistant manager announced over the PA system, alerting the two employees and one customer who hadn't already seen the delivery in progress so they too could come join in the ogling.

Justin emerged from the dusty framing supplies closet, wiping his hands off on an old rag, and warily made his way through the crowd gathered around the delivery guy standing at the front desk. "You Justin Taylor?" the uniformed hunk asked in a low, almost sultry voice. Justin merely nodded. "Sign here," Delivery Man ordered, offering up his electronic clipboard. Justin scrawled something that vaguely resembled a signature on the screen and Delivery Man handed him a rather large, plain, craft-paper shopping bag.

Justin spread the handles of the bag apart and peeked cautiously inside. Meanwhile several of his co-workers leaned over his shoulders so they could see as well. Inside the bag was a large, elegantly wrapped package - silver metallic wrapping paper set off perfectly by a deep purple and green silk ribbon.

'What is it?' 'Open it already, Taylor!' 'Got a secret admirer, Justin?' The rest of the nosy staff clamored, trying to hurry Justin into opening the intriguing and mysterious gift.

With his bossy audience egging him on, Justin pulled the package out of the bag and started to carefully unwrap it. Freddy, the store wiseass, apparently couldn't bear how slowly Justin was proceeding and decided to help out by grabbing a stray edge of the wrapping paper and simply tearing it away in one huge swoop. Justin only barely managed not to drop the huge, hard-bound, coffee-table sized book that fell out of the wrappings. Justin turned the tome over in his hands and everyone could finally see it was an exquisite book full of impressionist works of art depicting flowers of every description. The assorted art geeks who worked with Justin all Ohhhh'd and Ahhhh'd over the coveted and obviously expensive gift.

Delivery Man, who'd lingered long enough to see what was in the package along with everyone else, was just preparing to leave when he remembered one last thing. "Almost forgot - here's the card," he said, holding a small envelope out towards Justin.

The young artist was still far too busy admiring his beautiful new book to react immediately to this new announcement. Wiseass Freddy, however, was much quicker - he snagged the little envelope away from Delivery Man, ripped it open and was already starting to read the hand-written note aloud to the assembly, before Justin or anyone else could stop him.

'Even the most colorful bud opening it's dusky petals to greet the morning light, could never compare to the beauty of the tight pink folds of your hot little ass opening . . .'

"GIVE ME THAT!" Justin screamed and tore the crumpled gift card out of Freddy's hands - luckily, before the greeting card thief could finish reading the embarrassing sentiment inside. The portion that WAS read was bad enough to cause Justin to blush a deep purple-red. Grabbing the book away from another co-worker, the flustered red-faced young artist retreated, cursing Brian Kinney - the only man he knew that was insane enough to try a stunt like this.

<><><><><><><><>

Thursday.  

The text message that woke Justin up the next morning was just as colorful as the one he’d received the prior day:

‘There once was a man from Nantucket

Whose dick was so long he could suck it.

He said with a grin,

While he rubbed on his chin,

If you’d get your ass home I could fuck it!’

The picture that accompanied this amazing work of poetical genius was of the pillow on Brian’s bed - a small dent in it where Justin’s head should be - with the tip of the big blue dildo from the prior photo just peeking out from under the edge of the duvet.

A few hours later, Justin’s Life Studies class was interrupted by another violent eruption of vibrations from his pocketed cell phone. Unsure whether or not he was going to get another naked photo, but too curious NOT to look, Justin slipped his phone out of his jean’s pocket and snuck a quick peep. This time the photo wasn’t X-rated, though - it was the sweetest picture of a bashful little Gus posing next to the Traveling Sneakers with a caption that said, “My Daddy Misses you, Jus’n!”

“Using your kid against me is really low, Kinney,” Justin mumbled to himself, shoving his phone back into his pocket as he desperately tried to get his mind back on the painting of the older naked lady model he needed to complete before the end of class.

<><><><><><><><>

“I did it!” Cynthia announced proudly as she let herself into Brian’s office without knocking, waving a little slip of paper in the air as evidence. “I found Ms. Chander’s address for you, Brian . . .” Cynthia’s voice died off as she finally registered the scene she’d walked in on. Brian, literally butt naked, was sitting on his clear, glass-topped office desk, with his bare backside to the door.  “Brian? Do you . . . uh . . . do you need some help with . . . whatever it is you’re trying to do,” Cynthia asked with a great deal of stoic self-control as she watched her boss wiggling around on the desktop and using a remote to take pictures of himself in various different ‘poses’.

“Actually . . . yes, I could use your help,” Brian announced placidly, apparently not in the least concerned about his PA walking in on him in the buff. “Do you know how difficult it is to take a good ‘selfie’ of your own ass? I must have fifty shots here and they’re all for shit,” Brian explained, getting up and handing the camera to his assistant with his most mischievous grin before he bent over the edge of his desk again, ready for the next shot.

<><><><><><><>

At 7:20 pm, there was a knock on the door of Daphne’s apartment. Hector, who happened to be the closest to the door at the time, lumbered off the couch, brushed the potato chip crumbs off his sweat-stained tee shirt and obligingly opened the door. He was greeted by the biggest-assed gift basket he’d ever seen - it was so large that Hector couldn’t even see the head of the delivery guy carrying the thing.

“Delivery for Justin Taylor,” gasped the unseen delivery person behind the cellophane wrapped monstrosity as he struggled to keep the weighty thing from falling out of his grasp.

“Uh, yeah . . . JUSTIN! IT’S FOR YOU!” Hector shouted over his shoulder before slumping back into his favorite spot on the couch.

By the time Justin had made it to the door, the delivery guy had given up and set the gargantuan basket down on the floor in the doorway. “Are you Taylor? I need a signature for this shit,” the uniformed delivery guy demanded and Justin was momentarily distracted to see that it was the same Delivery Man that had brought his earlier package to the art store.

“Yeah, I’m Justin Taylor,” the young man answered, looking at the mammoth basket warily, but moving to sign the electronic pad nonetheless.

“Enjoy!” quipped Delivery Man as Justin struggled to drag the thing far enough inside so he could close the apartment door.

“What the hell . . .” Daphne snorted as she came into the room and saw her best friend struggling with the ridiculously large basket.

“Brian . . .” Justin explained to his incredulous friend with just one word. “Fucking obnoxious asshole, thinks he can placate me with stupid presents and fucking obscene poetry . . .” Justin was muttering angrily to himself even as he pulled at the end of the big red bow that tied the whole conglomeration closed.

Daphne ignored her friend’s subtextual monologue and started tearing away at the wrapping so she could see what was in the basket. The first thing she came across was an envelope attached to the bow at the top of the basket. On the outside it read, ‘Good Clean Wholesome Fun for the Whole Family’. Daphne laughed out loud at the mere idea of what Brian Kinney would find fun and tore open the slightly lumpy envelope. There was no card inside this time, just four really fat joints that dropped to the carpet at Daphne’s feet.

“Excellent!” Daphne cheered as soon as she saw the bounty. “Brian always has the best pot!”

“Don’t tell me you’re taking HIS side,” Justin pouted as he watched his most confidential friend gleefully scoop up the drugs that his evil ex had sent to placate them all.

“I’m not taking anyone’s side, Jus. But, my granny always did say that you should never look gift drugs in the mouth . . .” Daph chuckled as she set the joints carefully aside and continued to paw over the rest of the basket’s contents. “And, Brian of course included an excellent selection of junk food for when the munchies set in,” Daph remarked as she pulled a variety of chips, chocolates and various other sweets out of the basket. There was even a can of gourmet cat food for Winston along with a catnip filled mouse toy so that the feline contingent would get to join in the fun as well.

By this point, Hector’s interest had been ignited and the large bear managed to pull himself off the couch to assist in unloading the basket of goodies. After unloading all the edible treats, Hector and Daphne started to get to the really, really good stuff that had been hidden underneath - the porn! Brian had, of course, included a really eclectic selection of classics: ‘Romancing the Bone’, ‘Robocock’, and a big crowd-pleasing favorite, 'Cumalot'. Hector, especially, was enthusiastically voicing his approval of the gift basket by this point and was already moving towards the DVD player with ‘Robocock’ in one hand and a bag of corn chips in the other.

“Fuck, Justin! If you don’t want to go back to this guy, will you give him my number?” Hector teased as he popped in the video and enthusiastically tore open the bag of chips.

Daphne joined Hector on the couch, handing him one of the joints as she lit up her very own and took a deep drag. “Brian really does know how to live it up,” Daphne agreed, squeaking a bit as she tried to talk while holding in the smoke at the same time.

“Fuck you both!” Justin shot back. “I’m not falling for this shit. Brian can’t just buy my forgiveness. He’s a complete and total ass and I don’t need him.”

“What DO we have here?" Cassandra, the last of the apartment's residents, queried as she followed the aroma of high quality marijuana into the room where everyone else was now gathered. "Yay! Pot, pretzels and porn! All we need now is some peppermint schnapps and we'll have us a 'P' party!" Grabbing herself a joint, Cassie curled up on the couch next to Daphne and contentedly turned her attention to the writhing, moaning mass of naked men playing an intricate game of 'hide the humongous salami' now showing on their television.

"Traitors! All of you are traitors!" Justin spat with disgust as he escaped back into Daph's room, fed up with the lot of them.

Justin was prepared to hide out in Daphne’s room and sulk for the rest of the evening, even though it was tough trying to stay all sullen and angry while he listened to the voices of the others having what seemed to be the time of their lives. Justin wouldn’t give in, though. He wasn’t about to give up on his righteous ‘mad’ at the first appearance of pot and porn.

However, while Justin was sitting there on Daph’s lumpy, unmade bed and trying to maintain an adequate level of disdain for all things Brian Kinney, his phone started vibrating again. By this time the boy had worked himself up to the point that he was ready, willing and looking forward to responding to Kinney’s ongoing outrageous attempts to mollify him. He pulled out his phone and tapped on the text message icon, fully intending to send back some scathing response.

Unfortunately, once he’d viewed the text and the accompanying pic of Brian Kinney’s luscious ass, Justin was too busy laughing his own ass off to bother with his scorching reply:

‘There was a full moon in New York,

It was ready and waiting for your pork,

But since you weren’t there,

Rather than despair,

Instead I just stuck in a cork.’

<><><><><><><>

Friday.

Justin had only, finally, gotten to sleep around three-thirty am. He’d had to jerk off four times the night before, laughing all the while at the image of Brian’s needy, cork-filled ass. When he was awakened just after 7:00 am by more vibrations from his phone, he thought for the first thirty seconds he would just ignore it. Then, as soon as his brain was a little more engaged, he recalled exactly what the incoming text would likely be about, and he threw back the covers and dove for the phone which was resting on the nearby nightstand. As he read the new sext message, Justin was too busy giggling to bother being upset at getting woke up too early:

'Roses make you sneeze,

Violets are for shit,

Why not sit on my face,

And wiggle around a bit!'

<><><><><><><><><>

“I’m NOT taking any more pictures of your naked ass, Brian,” Cynthia complained as soon as she was summoned into Brian’s office that morning.

“Shut the fuck up,” Brian smirked at his assistant. “You KNOW you fucking loved it, so get over yourself. Besides, that’s not what I need this time. What I NEED is reinforcements. I want you to get Mikey’s ass here to New York. And, don’t even think about listening to any of his lame-ass excuses. I don’t care if he’s still angry with me. I’ll even fucking apologize if he absolutely requires it. Just get him here . . .”

“Are you sure you want a Personal Assistant and not a Miracle Worker, Boss?” Cynthia snarked back, shaking her head even as she started back to the door.

“If you keep up those comments, dear, it’ll take a miracle to keep your ass from getting fired,” Brian replied with a saccharine sweet smile directed at Cyn’s retreating back. “Oh, and Cynthia,” Brian added before the woman could escape, “I also need you to find out when Justin has lunch and where. Today’s menu will have a special surprise on it for our little artist . . ."