Plans, Chapter One
by Xie

Before beginning, plan carefully. -Cicero

Melanie’s POV

Brian’s not the total dick he acts like most of the time. I figured that out a long time ago, and if Lindsay wasn’t always ready to make excuses for him, and he wasn’t always ready to smack down even the smallest sign of sympathy or even just normal fucking human civility between the two of us, I probably wouldn’t be so hard on his ass.

Probably.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Just because he’s not a total dick doesn’t mean he’s not a partial one.

We were at his place, the big house he bought for him and Justin, for Christmas - me and Lindsay and the kids. They were all sleeping, Jenny in her little pink bedroom and Gus in his little blue bedroom (Brian will be punished for sex role stereotyping my children), but me, I was wandering around the halls with total insomnia. I hate sleeping in strange houses.

So I walked into the kitchen to get something to eat, and there’s Brian fucking some guy.

On the kitchen table, where we make our kids’ breakfast. Where we eat. With our kids asleep upstairs. At Christmas.

“That’s just great, Brian…. What the fuck are you doing fucking some guy on the fucking breakfast table with my children sleeping upstairs, are you out of your fucking mind??” is where I started, but I didn’t get too far before Mr. “Oh, he’s so sensitive and wounded” Kinney got this very sadistic smile on his face.

“Why, Melanie, I heard you were particularly partial to fucking the shit out of blondes on kitchen tables,” he said.

Lindsay was so going to die.

And then he added in a very sweet voice, “While your children sleep upstairs.”

Slowly and painfully die.

“Besides, it’s not very nice of you to interrupt my welcome home greeting to Justin. Say hi to Melanie, Justin.”

I looked down for the first time and registered the blond guy with his arms crossed over his face. Brian yanked his wrists down, and I was looking at an extremely red-faced upside down Justin.

“Hey, Mel.”

Justin’s POV

After Mel slammed out of the room, Brian jiggled his dick in my ass. “Well, that was anti-climactic.”

“That was great, Brian, really. Thanks a fucking lot.”

Brian just smiled. “She’d have figured out it was you when you were here in the morning.” I hate him to be reasonable when he’s got his dick in my ass. “So I figured, what the hell.”

I started to turn to the side, to get up, but he had his hands pressing on my hips and wouldn’t let me move. I leaned back, resting on my elbows, and looked at him, irritated. “Let’s go upstairs.”

He smiled at me then, and bent forward and rested his forehead on mine. “I don’t know, Justin, I’m kind of happy right where I am.” And then he started moving in me slowly, and while I’d really like to say I told him no and insisted we go up and do it in the bedroom with the door closed and locked, quietly, I didn’t. I let him fuck me on the kitchen table. And then we went upstairs to the bedroom and closed and locked the door and I let him fuck me again. And I did somewhat try to be quiet.

Melanie’s POV

The next morning when my darling wife woke up, I asked her one simple question. “What the motherfucking fuck made you think it would be OK with me to tell Brian about me fucking you on the kitchen table?”

Lindsay looked at me out from under a whole bunch of ratty blonde bangs and went, “Urgggh huh?” She’s a real morning person.

I told her the story, emphasizing the fact that Justin’s naked ass was right over the spot where she had made Gus and Jenny’s breakfast the day before, and she went, “Justin’s here?” Sharp. Focused. That’s Lindsay.

“Yes, Justin’s here, are you not listening to anything I’m saying?”

“What’s Justin doing here?”

“Getting fucked on the kitchen table. Try to follow the conversation.”

But she was gone, tying on her robe as she ran down the hall toward Brian’s room. Good move, Linds, I thought. Maybe you can catch them fucking. Them being so shy and repressed and all.

Justin’s POV

So, good thing we locked the door, because Lindsay started banging on it first thing in the morning, and Brian and I were kind of sprawled all over each other in a post-fuck haze, totally naked, with all the sheets and blankets on the floor. It’s not that I’m a complete sex addict or anything; it’s just that we’d pretty much gotten into the habit of fucking our brains out whenever I came to visit. We could always talk on the phone when we were apart; why waste time talking when we were together? It was really a very sensible arrangement.

Not that “sensible” is the word that springs to mind when I try to describe where things stood with Brian and me. This was our first Christmas since I’d gone to New York, and nobody actually knew I was coming. Including Brian. It wasn’t the first time I’d turned up on his doorstep, though, and I never gave him any warning. It was all part of my plan.

See, the minute I left for New York, I knew that there was a 98 percent chance that Brian would assume we’d never see each other again, a 1.8 percent chance he’d get on a flight to New York the next morning, and a 0.2 percent chance he’d do something I couldn’t predict. (I only included that in case there was a terrorist attack or something. The bombing of Babylon ended up generating a whole new chapter in the Kinney Operating Manual. The one where Brian goes totally insane and buys me a mansion and decides I should marry him.) So obviously, I had to have a plan. If I’d left it to Brian, I’d have never seen him again, because he gets into this noble self-sacrifice thing sometimes. It’s really kind of cute but seriously wastes a shitload of time.

The first thing I decided to try was anything other than what I tried after I told Brian I'd be staying longer than expected in California. That one was lots of uncomfortable cell phone conversations and long painful silences and me saying “I miss you” and him saying “Gotta go.” For a guy who makes his living convincing people that they want what he’s selling them, Brian Kinney has a hard time figuring out how to get what he wants. No, that’s not right; he knows exactly how to get what he wants. He just figures he’s not supposed to. Or doesn’t deserve it.

So instead, he focuses on how to get you, meaning me, to do what’s he’s decided is best for you, meaning me. No job, nowhere to live, no studio space, no specific goals? Those little details aren’t going to derail the Kinney Express. When Brian’s made up his mind that he knows just how you’re going to become a fully independent, self-actualized human being, there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop him. All you can do is get out of the way.

And I figured I could do that in New York as easily as Pittsburgh, especially because if I was in New York I  could possibly get some stuff done while Brian went through the whole routine. Besides, every starving artist needs to starve in New York for a little while.

Melanie’s POV

Lindsay came back saying that Brian and Justin were just waking up (sure, Linds, believe that if it makes you happy) and they’d see us downstairs in a bit. So we brought the kids downstairs and got them breakfast. I told them they could eat in front of the TV. In Brian’s media room. With the white carpet and white leather sofa. I gave them purple grape juice.

It was that or the kitchen table, and I personally wasn’t ever going to eat there again.

Lindsay sat looking down into her coffee cup. “I can’t believe Brian didn’t tell us Justin was going to be here.”

“Maybe he didn’t know.”

“Did they seem happy when you saw them?”

“Lindsay, what part of ‘Brian had his dick up Justin’s ass on the kitchen table’ do you not understand? Yeah, they seemed pretty damn fucking happy to me.”

“We were.” Justin stood in the doorway smiling that grin of his. Blonds. A blessing, or a curse? Most days I really have no idea which it is. I’m wondering if Brian feels the same way.

Although at the moment Brian looked pretty happy. He had come into the room in time to hear Justin say “We were,” and now he smiled and wrapped his arms around him, resting his chin on Justin’s head. “So, the kids drinking grape juice on the white couch. I’m guessing that was Melanie’s contribution to breakfast?”

“Brian.” Lindsay was using her most mommyish voice. “Why didn’t you tell us Justin would be here?”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know?”

Justin looked smug. “He didn’t know. No idea. Not a clue. I’m a surprise.”

“Well, not totally.” Justin twisted his head back a little and arched his eyebrows at Brian. “I asked Santa to bring you. And here you are.” Brian’s voice got a little bit husky when he said that, and he ducked his head in a sort of Gus-like way. It made me almost like him. And then Justin turned bright red and they both smiled and some kind of biochemical-neurotransmitter-nuclear reaction got going between them, even though neither one of them moved.

That’s when Gus looked up from his video game and saw Brian, and hurtled himself at him shrieking “Daddy!” Brian stepped out from behind Justin in time to intercept the flying mass of energy that was his son – OK, so in addition to the grape juice, I’d given him Cocoa Puffs. Nothing like a six-year-old on a sugar high to remind you that kitchens are for nourishing, healthy family meals, not hot sex. As in, I’ll give Gus the low carb, calm child special tomorrow, if you stay in the bedroom tonight. Is that so hard?

Gus dragged Brian off to help him kill stuff, and Justin went to take his duffel bag, which was still on the kitchen floor, upstairs. Lindsay immediately headed for Brian where he sat on the floor with Gus, while graphic renderings of unspeakable violence were displayed on his high resolution giant screen plasma TV, connected to the latest and most expensive version of PlayStation. Yeah, Brian’s white-carpeted media center had every electronic childhood dream imaginable. See what I mean about the complete dick thing not being the whole Brian? But this touching scene of fatherly love didn’t stop Lindsay. Blonds. Very single-minded.

“Brian?”

He just kept playing with Gus. I admired him for trying, but the Borgness of Blonds will triumph every time: Resistance really is futile. Obviously, or Gus would never have been conceived and Justin wouldn’t be upstairs putting his socks in Brian’s drawers.

“So, Brian, how long is Justin here for? Is everything okay?” Lindsay said that last in a sweet, sympathetic little voice that I knew would make Brian nuts. I’m guessing she did that on purpose. And it worked. There’s something to be said for twenty years of knowing someone, to figure out where all the strings are tied.

“I’m fine. Wonderful. The rest is none of your business. Now, Gus and I have stuff to kill here.”

Gus screamed and yelled “Pow! Pow! Die!” as he dismembered some sort of multi-armed, scaled creature with machine gun belts across its chest.

I decided to take pity on Brian. “Linds, hon, can you take Jenny while I grab a shower? And maybe she needs to change; she has grape juice on her shirt.”

Lindsay didn’t seem to notice I was trying to distract her. I’m pretty sure Brian did, because he never did get on my case about the grape juice stain on his white leather sofa. And I’m guessing he must have turned the cushion back over and seen it at some point.

Justin’s POV

The first step in my plan was an email campaign. Words are always chancey with Brian, so I didn’t use any. When I got my laptop hooked up at Daphne’s friend Paul’s place in New York, I just sent Brian a blank email. No subject line, no message. A half hour later he sent a blank reply. I’d thought the most likely thing was that he’d ignore it, with a very small chance he’d write back something like, “Did you know this email was blank?" So far, things were going better than expected.

The next day I woke up on the lumpy sofa in the hallway between the bedrooms and kitchen that passed for a living room in this place. Everyone who lived there was getting ready for work or school, five people counting me, one bathroom. I waited until everyone was done, trying to sleep in the middle of the chaos, and finally got in there to piss. I shifted finding a place to live much higher on my priority list. And I was so pissed off at Brian I got up, hooked up my laptop, and wrote a long, ranting email to him telling him what a shit he was for letting me do this. Then I deleted it all, backspaced out the subject line, and sent him another blank email.

I didn’t check my email until that night, but his reply was time stamped about four minutes after I’d sent mine.

The next three weeks were for shit. All I did was look for a job, something, anything other than busing or waiting tables, and try to find somewhere to live besides crashing with Paul and his three disgusting roommates. There may have been a lot of things wrong with living with Brian, but plates of blue mold in the fridge and cockroaches weren't among them. Although I later found out even rich people have cockroaches in New York.

After a few depressing days, I called a guy Michael and I knew who helped us distribute Rage. I wasn’t sure, but I thought he lived in New York. He didn’t, but he used to, and he gave me a few numbers to try, for some graphics work. One of them was the art director at an advertising agency, which made me laugh to think about it. I could put Brian down as a reference.

I ended up working for a magazine about all kinds of games, like video games and online games. Very graphics-intensive. They chewed through artists and art students pretty fast, because the working conditions and pay both sucked, but it was a job, it was more or less in my field, and it didn’t involve bringing people congealed gravy on a slab of meatloaf. They also didn’t give a shit if I stayed late and used the computers and the space to do my own work, as long as I didn’t consume company resources other than light, heat, and electricity. And coffee. There was no way to do any painting, but at least I could work on a few things and use their superfast wireless internet connection and hot graphics software.

The next week, I moved into a place about six blocks from where I worked, when one of my co-workers finally had enough and went back home to Iowa or Idaho or wherever the fuck she came from. I took over her old room in a shared apartment. I was still living with four other people, but I actually had my own room. It wasn’t spacious and it wasn’t filled with light, but it also wasn’t two thousand dollars a month.

Every day, no matter what was going on, I sent Brian a blank email, and got one back in reply. Then when I was in the middle of moving I went three days without being able to do email, and when I signed on, along with all the ads for V!aghra and a college degree, was an email with no subject line, from Brian. I sat there in my over-priced, under-ventilated apartment with my friends the cockroaches, and hit “reply” with a big smile on my face. I filled in the subject line, “I miss you too,” and wrote a long account of why I hadn’t been online in three days, and then erased the whole thing, deleted the subject line, and sent a blank reply.

What’s the point of having a plan if you don’t stick with it?

Melanie’s POV

By the time I was done with my shower and Lindsay had gotten Jenny changed out of her purple-splotched romper (god, the names they give baby clothes) and into something fresh and new for her to spill stuff on, Lindsay seemed to have lost interest in torturing Brian. We took the kids outside to burn off some of Gus’ sugary goodness, and Lindsay took him out to the swing set Brian had set up on a remote corner of the property where no one could possibly see it unless they were looking for it. See? Not a total dick. Like I said.

I was sitting on a bench watching Lindsay and Gus playing, Jenny sleeping on my lap.

“Mind if I draw the two of you?” It was Justin, his nose pink from the cold, sketchpad in hand.

“Nope, but I suggest you draw fast, because she’s going to wake up in about four minutes.” He laughed and sat down on a rock placed decoratively under a tree, and started sketching rapidly.

“How’s the hand?”

Justin barely glanced up. “It’s fine, provided I don’t push it. It’s easier to paint than to draw.” He looked at Jenny and me again, eyes unfocused, and then back at his sketchpad. Every now and then he rotated his wrist, seemingly without noticing he was doing it. I looked down at Jenny and wondered what I’d feel, if what happened to Justin were to happen to her. Or to Gus.

“What’s Brian doing? Bleaching the kitchen table?”

Justin laughed. “I’m not sure. He was mumbling something about searching the cupboards for all signs of high carbohydrate, high fructose corn syrup-sweetened snacks, or foods with sugar in them, and flushing it all down the toilet.”

OK, I laughed. “I may have overdone it with the Cocoa Puffs.”

We sat there for a while, him sketching, me just looking at Lindsay and Gus over on the swings. Jenny slept past the four minute mark and showed no signs of waking up. Justin shifted a little, and stopped drawing. But he kept looking at the sketch, and kind of hesitated before he said, “It was really hard for me to figure out how to keep things going with Brian. Long distance is hard for, you know, normal people. Brian’s not normal. I’m guessing you’ve noticed that.”

“I actually find Brian and I get along best, long distance.”

Justin got up. “Never mind, Mel, I thought maybe you would understand, but just forget it.”

Then I thought, oh great, now Justin’s going to do that quivery lip thing. It worked on me when he was 17, I’d have sworn it wouldn’t work now, but maternal hormones fucked me. Pink lip vibrating just a little, then he caught it in his teeth, perfect country club WASP-white teeth, just like Lindsay’s. And then he turned and started to go down the path, back to the house.

“Justin, wait.” He stopped and turned around, his eyes full of tears. Lindsay had obviously taught him how to cry on cue, or maybe it’s something they teach in blond school. Why even try? We’re all doomed.

“Maybe if you dropped the cryptic shit and just said in plain English what’s on your mind, I’d have some fucking clue what you want. I know that living with Brian all these years has probably destroyed your ability to communicate in complete sentences containing complex expressions of human need and emotion, but set your inner lesbian free and see if you can tell me What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.”

He stood on the path for a minute, and I thought he was debating lying to me. I’m not the greatest litigator in the world, but I have a fairly good sense of when I’m being lied to. Then something in his face shifted and cleared, and I knew he was going to tell me the truth.

“Mel, it was your idea to move to Canada, right? I mean, you convinced Lindsay?”

“Yeah, but what does that…”

“OK, so why did you do it? To keep your family safe, right? To raise your kids somewhere they’d be safe and your family would be protected?”

I just nodded. Sometimes it seems crazy that I thought that, other times I still feel like I didn’t run far enough. Damn my Jewish grandparents and childhood nightmares of not getting out soon enough, or going to the wrong place.

“And you were sure it was the right thing to do, for you and for Linds and JR and Gus, right? So nothing was going to stop you. Well, Brian made up his mind that the only way I was going to be happy as a human being and an artist was to go to New York. And I’m going to guess I don’t have to explain to you that getting in the way of Brian and something he’s made up his mind on is not a winning strategy.”

“Are you saying you didn’t want to go?” I couldn’t believe that. He went to New York and he didn’t want to go?

Justin kicked at some icy gravel in the path. “Well, I wouldn’t have gone now. I wouldn’t have gone the way I did.”

I sat there for a few minutes, thinking. Since Justin was seventeen years old, he’d been living his life in an elliptical orbit around Brian. It had been almost six years, though. With some ditzy airhead co-dependent mall chick, I’d figure staying six years with your older narcissistic boyfriend who you fell in love with in high school is a sign that you’re messed up. But Justin was smart and tough under the blond-haired, blue-eyed, pink-lipped thing. That wasn’t Justin’s story. Which meant it wasn’t the story I’d pretty much believed for the last six years. It’s hard sometimes when you meet people when they’re kids, to ever really know them when they’re grown up. Gus is always going to be six years old to me.

Justin had gone back to his rock and was doodling in his sketchpad.

“Can I see what you did of Jenny and me?”

He handed the sketchpad over, opening it to the drawing. It was … unbelievable. It was as far removed from the drawing he’d done of Lindsay and Gus when he was seventeen as a cheap hotel room landscape painting from an art fair was from something in one of Lindsay’s expensive galleries. Six years is a long time.

“Why did you go? I mean, Brian couldn’t actually force you to go.”

“He kind of can. No, obviously I could have stayed. But he’d have just been stubborn and shitty and tried to make me hate him. You know him, Melanie. I know Lindsay and Michael don’t believe he does this crap, but you have to know how he is.”

“Manipulative.”

“Well, yeah, but he really does have good intentions.”

I snorted. “Yeah, Justin, tell yourself that while he drags you down the road to hell. OK, OK, I didn’t mean it.” Snarking about Brian is one of my favorite hobbies. But I like to think it’s not an actual addiction.

“So I figured the easiest thing to do, the only logical thing to do, was to go. And try to figure out some way to keep him from, I don’t know, going all drama queen on me about our relationship. So, I came up with a plan.”

I laughed. A scheming blond. Imagine that. “Which was what, exactly?”

“No phone calls. We tried that in California and it was fucked. No emails telling him I missed him or telling him I love him, no trying to convince him that I needed to come back, no trying to convince him to come to New York. Nothing he could argue against, because I just walked away from the argument. Just a sort of weird thing with daily blank emails, and every now and then, I turn up on his doorstep so we can fuck.”

I had to hand it to the kid. “I don’t think we’ve met. Who the fuck are you?”

Justin laughed. “Author of the Kinney Operating Manual.”

“I thought that was Michael.”

“No, he wrote Brian Kinney for Dummies. The actual technical specs, those are mine.”

“Is it working?”

Justin looked up at me from under his eyelashes, almost flirtatiously, and I suddenly thought: Brian sees this look all the time. Brian is totally fucked. “Yeah, seems to be. I’m kind of proud of it. And I don’t want it fucked up.”

“How many times have you been back, since you left?”

“Ummm, six.”

“Here at the house?”

He shrugged. “Here, the loft, once we went to a hotel. I’m usually only here for the weekend.”

“And you never tell him you’re coming? He’s always there when you show up?”

“So far.”

Yeah, Brian’s so fucked. I mean, really. I’m not even sure Justin knows how totally fucked Brian is. I know Lindsay doesn’t. In fact, out of all the people in the world who could know, I’m thinking I might be the only one who does. There has to be something I can do with that.

Justin’s POV

The first time I came back to visit, I considered letting Brian know I was coming, but I was fairly sure he’d manage to be out of town or be fucking someone else when I walked in the door. The sneak attack had always worked really well on him, so I went with it.

I came up the stairs so the elevator noise wouldn’t alert him. I used my key and walked in. The lights were on but at first I didn’t see him, and then I turned around and he was sitting at the computer, looking at me with absolutely no expression on his face. Well, that was a good sign; that’s the look he gets when he’s delirious with joy. Of course, it’s also the look he gets when he’s about to explode with rage, but I was going to go with the good news until forced not to. Life with Brian doesn’t make you an optimist so much as it forces you to become extremely used to working without a net.

He was sitting in his desk chair, his legs angular and apart, his hands interlaced and resting on his stomach. I dropped my duffel bag, walked up to him, and stood between his legs.

“Hey,” I said. I’m an extremely brilliant conversationalist.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he replied. OK, not the warmest welcome you can imagine but better than “Get the fuck out,” right?

I smiled down at him. “I need to get fucked.”

“You couldn’t get fucked in New York?”

“All the guys in New York are bottoms.” Brian quirked a smile, then bit it off his lips. But I’d already seen it, and he knew it. Justin wins again.

His legs fell a little open around me, and I put my hands on his shoulders and bent down and put my mouth right next to his ear. For a second I just breathed in his smell, and felt a little spark jump between us across the tiny gap between my lips and his skin. “You know what else they don’t have in New York?”

“What’s that?” he asked, eyes closing.

“Showers. They have no showers at all. I haven’t had a shower since I left.”

“Is that what that smell is?”

I stepped back from him and said, with my sunshiniest smile, “Want to help me get really really clean?”

I turned and went into the bathroom, leaving him sitting at his desk. I turned on the water, and when it was hot enough, I stripped and got in, and started counting to five. Brian was there in three. “So, you need some help with this? Kind of forgotten how to wash?” He was behind me, his hands on my shoulders. I leaned back into him, my eyes closed and my arms straight down at my sides. I didn’t say anything.

Brian reached out for the shampoo and squirted some into his hands, and then started to slowly lather up my head. His fingers dug into my scalp and worked the soap around, and I realized I’d been fighting a small headache, maybe for days. He worked his fingers down to the base of my skull, probing and massaging, and then slicked the lather down onto my neck and shoulders. His thumbs were digging in either side of my spine, and I relaxed against his chest. He ran his hands up again onto my shoulders, and then down my arms, and then he held me under the water so the shampoo ran off me, pouring down my body in streams.

He filled his palms with liquid soap and started back on my shoulders again. The soap was less sudsy than the shampoo but slicker. His left hand moved down my chest, spreading the soap everywhere, under my arms and across my abdomen, while his right hand did the same on my back, stopping just above the swell of my ass. Then he got more soap, and moved both his hands down my back, and generously soaped my ass and hips, and the insides of my thighs. I thought I knew where this was going, but he stopped and rinsed me again, holding me under the shower head until the water ran off clear. Brian pressed his mouth to my ear and whispered, “I think you’re going to need me to lick you clean. The shower isn’t enough for your advanced state of urban grime.”

“Good idea.”

“I don’t normally have bad ideas.”

I might have argued, but that might have stopped him from licking me. He was trailing his tongue down the back of my neck, biting and kissing right where my neck curves into my shoulders. I knew he was leaving bite marks. Then he slid his hands up my sides, under my arms, lifting them up, and started to lick my armpits. I laughed a little, and turned my head and caught him smiling. There was a look on his face, a look I almost never saw, like something really good was happening, that he never thought would.

Then he caught me looking at his eyes. And they changed. And got dark and locked onto mine. I felt suddenly like all the air in the shower had been replaced with steam. Neither of us moved. We just stood there in the heavy wet air, waiting for something.

After a minute he dropped his forehead down and touched mine. I turned around and wrapped my arms around him, burying my head in the space between his neck and shoulder, because I didn’t want him to know I was on the edge of crying. And if he’d said he’d thought I was never coming back, I swear, I was going to knee him in the groin.

“Justin.” That was all he said, but the way he said it made me want to crawl inside of him and never come out. I started kissing him frantically, holding his head between my hands and sucking on his tongue, then kissing him on his face and jaw and neck. I bit his throat. Brian doesn't like marks in places someone might see, but for once, he didn’t seem to care. Or notice.

His hands were resting on my waist, and suddenly he lowered them to my hips and tightened his grip, pulling me in close, his cock digging into my stomach. I went up on my toes and pulled his head down onto my shoulder, putting one hand between us and trying to grasp both our cocks and rub them together, but he was holding me too close. Kissing and licking and biting my neck.

“Brian, Brian please. Come on. Now.” I wasn’t even sure what I was begging him for.

He didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to have heard me. I tried to drop to my knees, but he moved his hands and gripped my upper arms, pulling me back up to his face, kissing me frantically. I felt his breath in my mouth, his tongue running along my teeth and then playing with my tongue. I was glad his grip on my arms was so fierce, even if it left bruises, because without him holding me up, I’d have fallen.

He shut off the water with one hand, and pulled me out of the shower and dried me with a towel, then dried himself. I draped my arms over his shoulders and just leaned on him. I felt boneless. He put the towel over my head and rubbed, and a hundred memories of this exact moment poured into my brain all at once. I suddenly hated the bathroom, the loft, even the towels. It seemed like I’d been leaving and coming back to this place all my life, without ever just being able to stay and be home. Fuck. Tears. Brian was so going to hate this.

And then I looked up at him, letting the towel fall to the floor. He said “Justin” again, and then folded both his lips inward, hard. And then he gently kissed my eyes, and touched his tongue to my lashes. And then he kissed me again, his mouth so open it must have hurt him. Like he wanted to eat me. And I thought, fuck crying. And I pulled him into the bedroom and onto the bed, on top of me, my legs going up to wrap around his waist, lifting my hips up, showing him what I had come all this way for. Him inside me.

His cock was lying in the crack of my ass, and he was rubbing it back and forth, kissing my mouth, hands twisted hard in my hair. He pulled away for a minute, and my wet face felt cold as the air brushed over it. He handed me the condom and I put it on him, my hands shaking a little. He reached out again, this time for the lube, and slicked his fingers with it, then slid his hand down between my legs and touched, just very lightly touched, my hole. I felt my pulse beating against his finger, and then felt my asshole open up and his finger slip inside, swirling around in me, making me open up even more. He slipped in a second finger and gently lapped at me, and I felt myself relaxing around him, getting softer, my pulse still beating with that same rhythm.

I looked at his face, bent over me, eyes half-closed, lips parted just a little. I clenched him tighter with my legs, moaning and pushing against his fingers, wanting more, wanting his cock, wanting him. I tried to tell him but I absolutely couldn’t get any words out. Not even his name.

But he breathed mine, “Justin,” as he pulled his fingers back, and pressed the head of his cock against my hole, and waited for that pulse beat to open to him again, and then inside, just a little. Then pause again. Then my pulse again, and I opened up again, and he slid in deeper. And held there, waiting. And I opened all the way up to him and rocked up to get him deeper and he pulled out and thrust back in. He was holding himself off me with his arms, and I reached up for him with my mouth, biting at his jaw and his neck and shoulders, turning my head and kissing his arms and any bit of him I could reach, while his cock drove in and out of me, filling me up and stretching me out in that way that felt like Brian, Brian inside me, like no one else ever felt.

Sometimes we could fuck for what felt like hours, but not that night. I was surprised at how soon Brian’s breathing got rapid and shallow, and his motion faster, hitting my prostate with every thrust, not trying to hold me back or slow me down, but trying to bring me with him, and fast. I had my legs locked around his back and my arms locked around his neck, and he was bent over me and kissing me, my neck and shoulders, biting at me, and then he pulled his right arm back and grabbed my cock and started jerking me off, letting me fuck his fist while he fucked my ass.

I started to come, and my ass spasmed around his cock and he groaned, once, loudly, and then buried his face in my neck and bit me. I wanted him to always fuck me and bite me and moan that way, and say my name, and make me come just like this, my ass locking down on him, my cock wet and slippery in his hand, my come everywhere between us. And then he held still, and let himself fall onto me, and I unlocked my arms and legs and lay under him, feeling my pulse and my heart beating, and his beating heart against my chest.

I was stroking his damp hair softly. He had rolled slightly off to the side, his arm and leg still thrown over me, his head tucked onto my shoulder, but his weight on the mattress. Every few minutes he’d press a kiss into my neck, on the sore spot where his teeth had clamped down on me when he came. I smiled a little bit and he lifted his head and looked at me, and smiled back.

“So, what are you really doing here?” But he was smiling.

“Shhhh. Go to sleep. No talking.”

“Who are you and what have you done with the real Justin?”

I just kissed his forehead. Hoping he’d take a hint. Having this discussion? Not part of my plan.

Part 2