Finding Your Own Way Back

Chapter 11

Later that evening, the buzzer sounded. He unwound his arms from around Justin as they lay on the sofa. Gus was snuggled up against his father. Justin anticipated Gus's reaction to his father's sudden absence and folded the boy into his own arms. Soon the smell of pizza filled the loft and all three dug in, taking a break from the Powerpuff Girls cartoon that Justin had talked Brian into watching.

Sitting on the floor so as to not get pizza sauce on the pristine white sofa, Justin said, "So Mr. Kinney, other than Eye-Conic Optics, what other major accounts do you have?"

Brian smiled, remembering how nervous Justin had been. Nervous enough that the storyboards had fallen down. Christ, I was pissed, he thought. Pissed that the client actually liked Justin's inadvertent suggestion more than my own. He raised a brow. Justin had never really taken an interest in his work before. Now maybe it was because they were working together. This was nice, he admitted. A hallmark of a real relationship but Brian didn't think that. It would simply have never occurred to him that it was a step forward.

"Well, Taylor," he began, smirking as he saw Justin's reaction. For some reason that was alien to them both it turned them on to call each other by their last name.

Maybe, Justin thought, we should do more of the role playing games. There was no harm in indulging every once in a while, he rationalized. Besides, it might be fun. And spice wasn't necessarily bad.

Justin suddenly realized Brian's face was quite animated. He guessed that Brian had been talking to him. Then Brian said a name which had Justin's blood running cold. "And Stockwell."

Justin could barely breathe. How the hell can he represent that homophobic prick? "You're in charge of Police Chief Stockwell's campaign?" he asked, incredulously. "That homophobic ass---jerk. Does he know that the senior ad exec on his team is gay? That you love sucking cock and having yours sucked and fucking men up the ass?" He could barely breathe he was so pissed.

Brian's back stiffened. On one hand, he understood completely Justin's reaction. He was representing a man who purported to hate the entire gay community which pissed some people off including the young man looking at him with blood in his eye. But it was just business. His ticket out of Pittsburgh and to the life in New York City that he'd always wanted.

"It's just business," he said. "He doesn't need to know that I prefer cock to pussy, Sunshine. It doesn't affect how I do my job." It had mattered though, he thought, remembering Kip Thomas and Marvin Telson. Despite his personal philosophy, sometimes it did matter where he put his dick. Sometimes despite his best intentions the one Brian ended up fucking was himself and without lube.

Not wishing to have an argument about business with Brian because he remembered the last time they'd discussed business, Justin simply picked up another slice of pizza. It bothered him though. His art was always tied to emotion somehow and he found it interesting that Brian was seemingly able to separate the two with such ease.

Brian set his teeth. Did no one understand how he couldn't let his representation of Stockwell become personal? How every time the man launched into yet another criticism of Liberty Avenue as a den of iniquity and immoral behavior, Brian had to fight back the urge to say something? How when the man criticized the backroom of the clubs and the baths it hit him just where everyone thought his focus was? His dick. Yet he had to fight the urge to rip the man a new one. Teach him just how fucking with the fags was a bad idea. How he wondered if Vance secretly hoped he'd give up or slip up? If that was the case, then Gardner Vance was a fool and did not know Brian Aidan Kinney at all. In the end, it was all about the client no matter how loathsome.

"I didn't say I liked the man or agreed with his politics. But he's a consummate politician and he's paying a fortune in retaining my services." Show me the motherfucking money.

Justin stayed silent. "Sunshine," Brian said. It mattered to him that this so bothered Justin.

"The man would be happy if we all disappeared into a cesspool, Brian. You're hiding who you are. Something you always told me not to do. You're subjugating that part of you that lives for fucking a nice ass and burying your cock deep inside. It's like you've lost your balls."

Ouch, Brian thought, rather resenting the comment. "Oh, I've still got balls. And a dick that makes you weep," he reminded the teen.

Justin didn't meet his eyes. For once, he wasn't proud of Brian. He hated the fact that Brian didn't see that what he was doing was a betrayal of everything they stood for. Hell, everything Justin had nearly died for. "I didn't say that you weren't a masterful lover. That you didn't have the most talented tongue that I've ever experienced. And the finest cock in Pittsburgh. I just find it hard to believe that you would take on his account."

No sense telling Justin that he'd all but courted it. Remembered cornering Stockwell in the men's bathroom and telling the man his current advertising campaign was for shit. "What about the Pool Boy account?" Brian reminded him.

"That was different."

"How was that different?" Brian pressed him. "They're both homophobic assholes."

"But you took that account and made it a point to remind Pool just how much disposable income the homosexual community has. That we make a significant impact on the marketplace. And you marketed that in such a way that you appealed to sexually repressed women and gays. Representing Stockwell is different."

"How?"

"Because. Fuck, Brian, I don't know. It just is."

"How erudite of you."

"Fuck you, Brian."

"Justin, I don't always like the clients I represent. I have done things to get accounts that I'm not proud of. I've used my body and my dick to seduce clients into doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do. I sell sex appeal and the promise of sex. This isn't any different. And I can't bring my personal feelings into it. Can you understand that?"

Justin sighed. He didn't wish to argue with Brian about this. It was an argument he wasn't going to win. But damned if he was going to stand by and do nothing while their world was torn asunder by some malevolent homophobic prick. He happened to love cock and he would never be ashamed of the fact that he loved Brian. But knowing that Brian often did things for business that he wasn't proud of didn't make him feel any better. "Yeah," Justin said.

Shit, Brian thought. I really fucked this up. And I wonder what he'll say if he knows that I still think about going to New York and the fact that Stockwell has all but promised to deliver his backers to me. Now's not the time to tell him, Brian rationalized.

He looked at his young partner and suppressed a sigh. Never thought this was gonna be easy. But damn if I didn't think that we wouldn't have this kind of ideological fight for a while. Justin wouldn't meet his eyes and Brian thought regretfully of the fact that he knew he'd disappointed the teen on a deep level. Well, fuck me, he thought. When did his opinion begin to matter to me so much? And why do I feel like I've let him down?

Never easy. Never a fucking magic carpet ride, he thought.

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