I guess that I've always had a soft spot for Brian. I know, Michael's my nephew and I love him like he was my own, but there was always something about Brian that crawled inside of me, even when he was pissing the Hell out of me.

I've wondered what it is about him; from the time I first met him. I guessed he was about seventeen, maybe eighteen then. I later found out he'd just turned fifteen a few months before. I'd been living in New York and had decided, mostly because Todd and I had just broken up, that it would be a good year to spend Thanksgiving with Debbie and Michael back in Pittsburgh. I needed some time to get away and think about things and home seemed the best place to do it. The three of us were sitting around the table the night before the holiday, on Wednesday—just chewing the fat and catching up when there was this sort of thumping at the back door.

Sis got this look on her face, sort of "Here we go again", gets up to open the door and this tall, skinny kid half walks, half falls in.

It was apparent that he'd just lost one Hell of a fight with someone, or several some ones, and probably needed a trip to the ER, but so one asked me what I thought and Debbie and Michael went through what seemed to be a rehearsed drill with the kid.

Deb sat the boy down at the table patted his shoulder and went upstairs to get something, Michael went to get the first aid kit and I did what I could by getting out a couple handfuls of ice and wrapping them in a clean hand towel so the boy could hold it to his face. He barely glanced at me, but turned his attention to Michael.

"Vic's my uncle. You know, the one I told you about? My Mom's brother? He's here from New York for a few days." Michael looked over at me. "Uncle Vic? This is my friend, Brian." I almost wondered if I was expected to shake hands, the way everything was so matter of fact.

"Pleased to me you, Brian." He didn't bother to say anything, barely glancing at me and judging by the way he looked, he wasn't feeling at the top of his game. By this time Deb was back with a clean tee shirt and some clean towels.

"Where, sweetie?"

"My ribs again and my face." Those were the first words I ever heard from him, his telling my sister where he hurt—this time. The thing that really got to me was that the other three just took it in such damn stride. Here was this kid, I don't care if he was over six feet tall—he was still a kid, and they're taking the sight of him beaten black and blue as if it was an everyday occurrence.

That's when it hit me that it likely was.

Jesus, just when you think that your life sucks, you see someone else and you realize that you haven't got it so bad.

I took a look at the boy—Brian—as they were working on him. Tall, like I said, and thin, but strong. He was like one of those racehorses—all tightly coiled muscle and sleek strength and beauty. Yes, I noticed that he was a beauty then. Maybe not quite the head turner he grew up to be, but he was a damn good-looking youngster.

I think it was his eyes that caught my attention first, I mean after I got past the shock of seeing that perfect young body battered and bruised. His eyes were piercing, hazel, changeable in the light and they had something about them that was absolutely riveting. He had a look about him, even then, a look like "You can't hurt me, you fucker, so don't even bother trying." What the Hell had caused a kid to look like that, to expect pain and need to ward it off? His parents? Had he gotten in with the wrong crowd? Maybe he'd walked down the wrong street at the wrong time. Maybe he was just a troublemaker. Whatever the reason, the kid was tough, that much was obvious. Even beaten up the way he was, he barely registered pain. He must have been hurting like a Son of a Bitch, but you wouldn't know it by looking at him.

You still can't.

And Jesus, he had the kind of looks that would get him noticed anywhere he went, walking down any sidewalk in the world or in any bar he chose to favor with his presence he would stand out.

Deb did what she could, wiped the blood off his face where his nose had bled and checked to see that no bones seemed to be broken, gave him the ice for his ribs along with a couple of Tylenols and a good shot of scotch to help with the pain and got him up to Michael's room and into bed.

I was still at the table when she came back down. "Michael's with him. He should be asleep soon, poor baby."

"Another one of your stray puppies, Sis?"

She gave me one of her looks. "Oh, don't start with me, you saw him. That poor thing needed help. What was I supposed to do? Throw him out?"

"So who is he?"

"Brian Kinney. Michael brought him home about a year ago, his family had just moved here from some place and he was the new kid in school—the new gay kid and the two of them hit it off."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"No, not like that, though Michael would give his eyeteeth if that was the case. They're best friends, since the first day."

That struck me as odd. I love Michael to death, but this beauty seemed a bit out of his league. I figured I'd find out more about
that some other time. "So what happened?"

"His father. This time wasn't so bad, a couple of times I've had to take him over to the hospital."

"What about the police?"

"He won't swear out a compliant. He's still hoping that one of these days his parents will give two shits about him. They won't, but he keeps hoping."

There was nothing to say to that. Well, maybe there was. "Because he's a fag?"

"His parents don't know. His mother never gets off her damn knees at the church and his father drinks three meals a day. `Couple of assholes, if you ask me."

"That's rough…what's he like?"

She made one of her faces but Sis is a sharp old bird, always has been and if there's something she knows, it's people. "Brian is as smart as they come, real smart and tough. He's been working his tail off to get scholarships so that he can get away from his family and make something out of himself. He's straight `A's' and lettered in a couple of sports. Honor Society and the whole nine yards. He'll make it."

"That all sounds pretty good, apart from the parents. What's the other side of the coin?"

"He's closed down, got walls ten miles high around him. I think Michael is the only one he really talks to. He's lonely and scared. He's a gay kid in a straight school with a religious nut for a mother and a drunk redneck for a father."

"Tough kid to deal with that."

"Yeah, he is. He's good to Michael, though, mostly."

Vic caught something that Debbie wasn't saying. "You don't like him?"

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "He's trouble and Michael's in love with him."

"…He love Michael?"

"Not like that."

Poor Michael, always wanting what he couldn't have. "How does Brian handle that side of things?"

"Strings him along, just gives Michael enough to keep him on the line. But he also says that Michael is his best friend and I think that may be true." The old cuckoo clock in the living peeped out one AM. "I've got the early shift tomorrow, get yourself some sleep, ok?" She kissed my cheek and left me sitting there.  

The next morning I was making pancakes when both boys came down, dressed for school. I guessed that Brian kept a change of clothes upstairs since he had to be a good six inched taller than Michael, maybe more. "Hungry? Sit down, these are almost ready."

"Thanks, but I have to get home. I need my book bag and homework. Deb? Thanks, I'll see you later." He barely spared me a glance again that morning and I remember thinking he had defensive walls around him a tank couldn't get through. I was right.

She nodded as he walked out the front door, whatever masks he needed to get through the day in place. Half an hour later, Michael was gone, too and Sis was on the way for her shift at the diner. I was the one to pick up the phone an hour after that.

"Mrs. Novatny?"

"No, I'm sorry, she's not available right now."

"This is the school nurse over at the high school, do you know Brian Kinney? This number is listed as his emergency contact."

"Mrs. Novatny is my sister and yes, I know him, is there a problem?"

"One of his teachers is in the office with me now and is expressing some concern about him. Would it be possible for you to come in to discuss a few things with us?"

So twenty minutes later I was sitting there while they told me about their suspicions about Brian's probable abuse and their belief that it was caused by his parents. When I asked they said that he denied it and insisted that he simply had fallen. They were going to call in Child Welfare unless I could come up with a reason for them not to—oh, and they mentioned that Brian had become agitated and upset when they had told him they wanted to involve State Agencies in his case.

Well, no shit.

So I went back and forth with the guidance people, the usual idiots, and finally managed to convince them that if I talked to Brian myself I might be able to get him to tell me the real story—the one Sis had told me last night anyway. They agreed and fifteen minutes later I was walking out the front door with an angry and defiant Brian leading the way. I suspected that the only reason he even agreed to go with me was that it would get him out of school.

We ended up sitting in the park overlooking Panther Hollow. He was still pissed at the world and I didn't have a clue about how to get him to talk to me. Finally I just took a shot to try to get him talking.

"How long have you known that you're gay?" He glared at me—and he was good at it, too, but I just looked at him. Hell, he was a kid. "I figured it out when I was about eleven, about the same for you?"

"Yeah, pretty much." He was watching the train going by below us.

"That why your parents beat you up?"

"They don't know about it. They just don't want kids." I looked at him, he explained. "I cost money, take up space, eat food. You know." He was staring out at the other side of the Hollow. Jesus he was a good-looking kid, you'd have to be blind to not see it.

That was when I felt him slide over just a couple of inches closer to me, close enough that I could feel his body heat through our clothes and close enough that there wasn't any question about what he wanted. When his hand `accidentally' brushed against my knee it was as obvious as a neon sign.

"I'm going to get out, though. I have it figured out. I can move out when I turn sixteen, that's in less than a year and I'm going to get a scholarship. I'm going to college." His jaw clenched and I had the distinct feeling that he was reciting a mantra and that he held onto it with everything he had. "I am."

"Where are you going to stay?"

He shrugged. Evidently his plans weren't complete—either that or he hadn't asked Deb yet about getting bunks in Michael's room.

OK, I admit it. I was attracted to the kid. He was damn good looking and with that young, perfect body he practically exuded sex, fifteen or not. I'd met a few like him in New York—young, sure, but somehow you knew that they'd been around the block a few times and maybe not always around the nicest block in the city. I'd done more than meet a few of them, truth be known, and every single one of them had been a Hell of an entertaining evening and I didn't doubt that this one would be the same, given half a chance.

Frankly, I was pretty damn tempted to take him up on the offer. Beauties like this didn't come along every day even if he was my nephew's best friend and I figured that I might even be able to help him get his feet under him with the whole gay thing. You know, been there, done that.

So I put my arm around his shoulder, the big brother lending support to the kid. You know. He turned his face to me, leaned into me and reaching over, kissed me. And I kissed him back.

Look, I'm not new to this, I know the score and I knew exactly what would happen next. The only question was whether or not I had the balls to fuck a kid Sis had pretty much adopted into her own home. And that comment he'd made about being sixteen in a few months almost gave me pause. I got over it.

It was still early in the day, only about ten-thirty and Deb was at the diner til about four. Michael would be in school at least until two-thirty or three.

There was no reason either would ever find out. Brian seemed too smart to risk losing what he had found with my family. I knew he wouldn't say anything.

Standing up, I looked down at him, holding out my hand. "Come on." I tried to speak kindly to him after what he'd been through. Hell, I think I even rationalized it as making the boy feel better, make him feel like someone cared about him and shit like that. Giving comfort—right, that's what I was doing.

Sure I was.

So within twenty minutes or so we're upstairs at home, up in my old room and we both have our shirts off and were standing by the bed. His arms were around me, his tongue was washing along my neck and throat and I hadn't been that turned on in quite a while. It was also broad daylight, not even lunchtime and here I was about to go at with a high school kid up in my parent's old house.

Jesus.

I almost put the brakes on when I took a look at him moving down to my tits. Christ the kid knew what he was doing there. I was practically cumming just from that.

I was going to stop him. I knew that this wasn't right, that one way or another there would be consequences to this and that they wouldn't be good, but with his mouth on me and his hands starting to work on my waistband and just teasing inside the fabric—you think I was about to stop?

The spirit may have been willing to put on the brakes but the flesh wasn't about to go along with any of that sort of bullshit.

It occurred to me; Brian may have been young but he knew what he was doing and he was under no illusions about any of it. He was almost too practiced, too sure of himself and too aware of what was going on. I started to wonder how old he'd been when he'd started and how that had happened, who his first had been, how long ago and what had been the circumstances.

Of course, by then we were both naked and I was on top of him on the bedspread, so my thoughts were derailed for a bit. I do remember turning him over onto his stomach so that I wouldn't have those eyes looking at me. They bothered me—too old for their owner.

I've thought back about that day a lot over the years. More than I care to talk about, if you want to know the truth of it.

Brian was young and I suppose you could say that I took advantage of him, but he took advantage of me, too. He knew what he wanted and he figured that I was a likely candidate to give it to him. He didn't care about the sex all that much that day—I suspect that he doesn't care all that much about the sex nowadays, either beyond the fact that it feels good. Well, maybe with Justin he does, but the rest is just sex and that's really not that big a deal.

He wanted me to make him forget what was going on in his life. He needed me to make him feel wanted by someone, even if it was just as a whore. He had to believe, just for a couple of hours, that someone cared about him and that he could return that, well, I guess that you could call it a gift, the only way he knew how.

He wanted an escape and I was handy to have around.

Afterwards, after the first time we both came, he tightened twisted around onto his back so that his arms were around me, buried his face in my shoulder and just held on with his eyes closed for about fifteen minutes. I held him back, stroked his face and his head. I kissed him and when I started to move off of him, afraid that I was getting too heavy, he made a noise and held on tighter. I settled back down on top of him and he relaxed slightly. I think he was embarrassed, but I held onto him and he held me back.

God, that poor lonely kid, letting a stranger fuck him so he could have someone to hold onto.

That colored my whole perception of Brian, for as long as I knew him.

I'd seen inside of him, you see. He was still young enough, unpracticed enough with his walls to let that happen once in a while.  I doubt if it happens now, but it did then, at least for a few seconds anyway.

We made love a few more times that day, and a few more times over the rest of the two weeks before I went back to New York and each time was the same. We would hook up, usually when he came over to supposedly visit Michael, pretend he was surprised to not find him home then end up in bed with me for a few hours.

Every time it happened he would do anything I wanted, anything I even indicated a desire for then in exchange I would hold him, kiss him, stroke him, cuddle against him and just generally let him know that I actually gave a crap about him.

And you know? It wasn't even a lie.

I had gotten to know him, I actually would talk to him, ask him his thoughts about things, ask him about his hopes and where he would like to be in ten or twenty years and he told me. He knew exactly what he wanted and he was aiming himself for the prize like an arrow headed for a target. He was smart then—he still is, of course—and it was a pleasure to watch his mind work when I would ask him questions about this or that, when I would ask him about books he'd read or movies he'd seen. I think I might have been the first to actually care about his answer when he told me what he wanted out his life.

Oh, Sis cared about him, still does, but she was never all that concerned about his hopes and dreams. She was more worried about his surviving long enough to get out of his parents house.

I asked him, though.

He wanted material success, of course, a good job and nice home, everything that went along with having made it. He had already decided that he would major in some kind of business because he had decided that was where the money could be had that his talents would be best able to tap into. He would have the nice clothes and eat at the best restaurants. He had it all planned.

When I asked him about the hole I saw in his thinking, when I asked him who would be in his fancy home when he came home and who would he eat those perfect meals with his face went still and hard and he cut me off then and there.

He said he didn't need anyone, that he would be fine and he refused to be further drawn out. I went back to New York later the next day and he wouldn't come by to see me off.

I understood and though I was a little hurt, I wasn't angry.

I saw him a few times over the next seven or eight years while he finished high school and then college and finally grad school. I would be at Deb's for a visit and he would let himself in the back door, greet me with as much warmth as he would allow himself and then go somewhere with Michael.

We never slept together again and it was understood by both of us that we never would.

By the time I moved back to Pittsburgh after I learned I was positive, he was a rising young executive with that fancy ad agency and we were able to sit down at the kitchen table and talk without awkwardness. I was glad to see that we could. He's been supportive of me and I consider Brian to be one of my best friends. He pretty much made it, too, fifteen years later. I didn't doubt that he would, it didn't surprise me. I'm proud of him. I told him that one night when he had brought Michael home after one of the fights with David and he smiled and leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

Justin was in the picture by then and I hoped like Hell that Brian wouldn't screw it up. I knew that they were, in Deb's words, `pretty evenly matched', and I also knew that was the sort of thing that could make Brian go running in the other direction, after he'd made sure he'd had the last word in the matter.

I realized why I was rooting for Justin to be the one, though. I did. It came to me during one of the family dinners at the house. I was looking at the two of them and I saw it.

Justin is who I was thirty years ago. He's exactly what Brian needs: smart, creative and not willing to put up with his bullshit forever. And I'm sure he's a pistol in bed.

I knew it wouldn't be me so I'm happy for Brian.

It will last if he lets it.

I don't know if he will, but he might.

And even if he doesn't it's OK. He's won.


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