June Part 2
June Pt. 2
The next day Brian reluctantly agreed to leave the laptop unbooted, other than for a single hour of e-mail. It was more than Justin had hoped for.
Taking the outboard, they found the old Indian graveyard Justin remembered, hidden in a tangle of overgrown roots and located on a small uninhabited island on one of the lakes backwaters. It appeared undisturbed from the last time he and Molly had been there. Nearby was the mica mine, really just a large boulder, about the size of a small car heavily veined and flaking. Justin showed him the Narrows and the lock to the Little Rideau, they explored another uninhabited island with a good swimming beach, making love under pine trees, lying atop an old blanket.
Justin was ecstatic, the day was relaxed and romantic and he could finally show Brian some of the places he loved so very much.
When they got back to the house, Brian wandered out to the hammock, a report with him. Justin had stayed in the kitchen to fix himself a second lunch.
As he was about halfway through the thing, he heard footsteps, interrupting his reading.
“Unless you’re planning to suck me off, leave me alone to finish this.”
“That wasn’t my intention, but I can ask Justin to come out here to take care of that, if you’d like.”
Startled, Brian looked over to see the elderly man in an ancient tee shirt and a pair of khakis.
“I’m Iver Reese, from down the shore. I take it you’re Brian.” Brian sat up as they shook hands. “Justin inside?” Brian nodded, still slightly chagrined by his opening remark. “I gather you two are having a rough patch, that right?”
What the fuck had Justin said to this old twat? “We’re fine, thank you. What makes you ask?”
“He said that you never stop working and that you take your job more seriously than you do him.”
“He said that?” Bullshit.
“Not in so many words.” Iver sat on a stump placed for just that purpose. “I’ve known that boy a lot longer than you have and I know that he wouldn’t be up here with you if you didn’t mean a whole lot to him, but you don’t pay him more attention than you pay to that shit”—he indicated the marketing report beside Brian—“And you’ll lose him.”
“I think I can handle it.”
“You think like that and you’re thinking wrong.”
Brian was about to answer when they heard the door slam shut. “Iver! I thought I heard you down here.” He handed out the cans of beer he’d brought with him, sitting next to Brian on the hammock and kissing his cheek. “Brian this is Iver. He’s been up here since the forties. Iver this is my husband, Brian Kinney.”
“We introduced ourselves a minute ago—you change your name to Kinney or do one of those stupid hyphenated things?”
Justin laughed, “No. Nothing like that. Is Em with you? I didn’t see her when I was over.”
This led to a long rundown of where his wife was, how the children and grandchildren were and that the family dog had arthritis. They then moved on to a number of Justin’s relatives Brian had never heard of. After about half an hour of this, he got up, took his report and headed up to the house.
“He always like that?”
“He’s got a lot on his mind right now.” Justin swung his legs up on the hammock, lying down. “We did a lot today, went out in the boat, I showed him some things.”
“You keep him headed in that direction. He’s the kind who needs to work, but you show him the other side, too.” Justin almost burst out laughing, Brian knew all about the other side—Woody’s, Babylon, drugs, drinking. You name it; he’d been there. Right now he was focused on work, that was all. It would lighten up in a while.
“He’ll be alright.”
“…Justin, this is none of my business, but he’s your first real love, isn’t he?”
“Iver?”
“I know you and when you get your teeth in something you’re a bulldog. You won’t let go.” Justin had an idea what was coming here. “If the time ever comes when you’re unhappy more than you’re happy. You think about what you’re doing.”
Justin gave him a hard look, the one he’d learned from Brian. It didn’t work as well with his blue eyes, though and Iver knew him too well. “Are you telling me to get a divorce? We’ve only been married six fucking months.”
“Calm down. I’m not telling you anything of the sort. I’m saying to keep your eyes and your options open.”
Justin finished off what was left of his beer. “You don’t like him.”
“I don’t know him, but I worry about you. You take care of yourself.” They could faintly hear a bell clanging from down the way. “That’s dinner. You try to get him to have some fun.”
Seeing that Iver was gone, Brian came back outside, joining Justin back in the hammock.
Justin took his hand, lacing their fingers. “Hey, you want to go into town for dinner?”
“…There’s a place to eat there?”
“There’s a diner. It’s not bad. I mean, unless you’d rather stay here. I think I saw that there’s a movie playing, too.”
“What? Birth of a Nation?”
“Fuck you.” Brian pulled him down, wrapping his arms around him and holding him, his mouth nuzzling the side of his neck.
“I know an old joke.”
“Oh?”
“There’s this guy and he says to his friend that he wants to make love in the worst way. So his friend says…”
“Standing up in a canoe. I think I heard that in about fifth grade.”
“No, asshole. ‘In a hammock’.”
Brian looked up at him as though he was considering the possibility. Just as Justin was expecting Brian to start removing his clothing, or at the very least start groping around beneath the fabric, he stopped.
“Brian?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Even if we don’t fall out and break some fucking bone, there are mosquitoes, asshole.” He started to sit up, obviously intending to leave, go back to the house.
“Since when did you become a Goddamned princess? I thought you liked outdoor sex.”
“I’m from the suburbs. Outdoor sex to me is leaving the window open.” Brian pulled him up, dragging him into the house.
“What the fuck are you going to do when Gus wants to go camping?”
“Are you kidding? The munchers love that shit. They’ll be great at it.” They’d gotten as far as the living room.
“Brian, You ever do it in front of a fireplace?”
“Not with you.” Justin hit him in the ribs. “OK, there was that time last winter up in Vermont. There was this blond and—shit—he was hot, what could I do?”
“Asshole.”
They built up the fire. Even though it was summer, the evenings could still be cool and it felt pretty good—well not as good as having Brian cum inside of him, not as good as wrapping his arms and his legs around that long body and feel it moving on top of him, and not as good as hearing the sounds Brian made only when they were together. There had been enough others for Justin to know even if he had no other reason to think so—he knew that it was different with him for Brian. He knew that, just as it was different for him with Brian than it had been with anyone else.
Ethan—well, Ethan hadn’t ever—he couldn’t really—there was nothing he did that made Justin forget himself. Even when he was cumming with Ethan, he was fully conscious of what was happening. With Brian, he’d lose track. With Ethan he was aware of how he looked, of the image he wanted to project. With Brian he was himself.
God that felt good.
They were lying together afterwards. The fire had died down and they had taken pillows off the couch to rest against. Dinner was simple cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine.
“Do you really want to start your own agency? Can we afford that?”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t give me that crap. It’ll cost a shitload of money in startup costs. You’ll have to rent a space, you’ll have to pay Cynthia, get all the graphics equipment, hire a staff, do all the initial printing—all the letterheads, mailings, all that shit. It’ll cost a fortune.”
“I’ve thought it through. I can do this.” He poured them both more wine.
“What if Vance insists on a no competition clause of you leaving?”
“He has one already in place. It was a condition of his agreeing to my being a partner.”
“Jesus, Brian, that stops you dead.”
He sliced off another piece of cheese, placing it between his own lips and transferring it to Justin’s. “It only stops me from setting up shop within one hundred miles of Pittsburgh.”
Justin turned and looked him full in the face, lit only by the fire. “So where the fuck do you plan to move and are you expecting me to just fucking pick up and follow you like some Goddamned puppy?”
“I’m thinking that I might go to San Francisco to start and then, after I’m established, I’ll either move or open a second office in New York.”
“Jesus, Brian. If I hadn’t asked, when were you going to mention this to me?”
Brian leaned back on both elbows. “I wanted to wait until I saw if it was feasible. I have to know if the clients will move with me, until I now that, I won’t know if I can do this.”
“…Even if you do, your clients are in Pittsburgh. The steel companies? Brown is just in Chicago, that’s a lot closer than to Pittsburgh than the west coast. What are you thinking?”
This was not the way he’d pictured this going. “Justin, it’s not like I was going to just present it to you like David did with Mikey. We’ll talk about it. I know you have your family and school here.”
Goddamn Brian. He always did shit like this. He wanted to open his own place, so he was getting all his fucking ducks in a row. He’d probably already even called a realtor to find someplace appropriate for them to live in San Francisco. There’d be a huge amount of space and there’d be a studio for him and he’d probably even looked at what art schools were there. Shit. Cynthia would have called and gotten catalogues from them by now.
Shit. This was the way it was shaping up. Brian made the decisions, made the money, made the contacts, made him cum whenever he wanted and he was the frigging housewife—like Michael had become for David and later Ben.
Brian was older; Brian was more experienced, Brian was—Brian.
He was just Brian’s twat.
He looked at Brian, lost in though for a few seconds then moved over to him, kissing him roughly, aggressively. Brian responded, merely thinking that the victory was too easy and that there would be more before this was settled. He knew that, this was Justin he was dealing with. It was rarely this easy. They made love three more times that night, once more by the fire and then twice in bed. The next morning, after sleeping late, they made love again.
The rest of the trip Justin was, to all appearances, himself, but something had changed in him that night. To call it an epiphany was pretentious, but that’s what it was. He understood some things now that he hadn’t before and he understood now that he had to set his own limits as to what he would accept rather than merely follow behind Brian.
Brian loved him. That was beyond doubt, just as he loved Brian.
Did Brian consider him his equal? Well, yes, in fact in some areas he did. He was smart and he could hold his own socially better than Brian could. He was almost Brian’s equal in bed. He’d had the best as a teacher.
It was the areas where Brian didn’t even think to consult him that were the problem.
Brian made the money and, although generous and he had certainly never made an issue of it, he made the money. Neither of them really believed, whatever they might say, that Justin would ever come close to his income.
Money was power.
No, Brian didn’t ever use it as such or threaten with it—but Justin knew that the fact was that he was dependent on his husband. Being dependant infantilized him. He would change this as soon as possible. He would concentrate on graphic design instead of fine art. He would be come employable.
Yes, he knew that this was important to Brian, this move for independence and he would support it as far as he could—without hurting himself.
He and Brian would finish the vacation. Brian had promised to minimize the work. When they got home they may not know yet if Brian could make a break from Vanguard, but they would know more than they did now. At the very least, Brian wanted a promotion to Senior Partner and a substantial raise.
They would know about the move or the promotion in a couple of months after Brian finished his maneuvering.
Until then, they still had a week more here at the house. Justin would show him the back meadow where they could make love, they could go into town for fireworks to bring back to Molly, they could have dinner with Iver and Em, and they would relax.
The rest of the trip would be fine. They would relax rest up.
The next couple of months would be fucking interesting, though.