To:flamboy_aint From:mandysbitch Title: Modernity Gift: S & M Rating:NC-17 Summary: "The lights spin overhead and a voice in his ear asks him to dance. He’s come so far. He has further to go still."
Justin paints sex. Two lovers chained to the bed, curled around each other like rope. He calls it, ‘No slave, No Master’ and he wonders if it’s too obvious.
He paints over it. Canvas is too expensive to waste on poetry.
*
Brian comes to New York for the weekend, saying he has business here. He said the same thing last week and the week before.
“You’re doing a lot of business in New York,” Justin says. “You should move here.”
Brian laughs, but he doesn’t disagree. Justin wants it to mean something but it’s not worth thinking about. If Brian wanted to be understood he would be.
They spend Friday night fucking on a mattress on Justin’s floor. On Saturday, Brian says he’s buying Justin a bed.
“I don’t need your charity,” Justin says. He’s said it before. Rinse. Lather. Repeat. He feels like he’s going in circles.
“Then sleep on your own tonight,” Brian says. “I’m getting a hotel.”
Brian’s love of luxury isn’t a secret. Justin teases him about his delicate constitution. “You’re like rice paper,” Justin says. “I could walk right through you.”
“Just try,” Brian says, grabbing Justin by the wrists. They struggle for a while but it ends as it always does. Brian pinning Justin against the nearest surface – this time the wall – and fucking him while he’s barely able to move. Brian uses his size but it’s also his attitude. He’s in control. He controls. Justin gets fucked hard and rough until his knees give in and it’s only Brian’s arms under his holding him up. It feels like falling apart and he can’t get enough of it.
They make it out of Justin’s East Village studio by the afternoon and Brian buys Justin a bed from The Apartment. It’s a simple yet elegant design. Not the most expensive model in the store but definitely in the top three. The shop attendant fawns over Brian, like he can smell Brian’s refined taste like it’s after shave. Justin has trouble getting attention in art supplies stores.
“Thank you,” Justin says when they’re outside. “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful, it’s just that sometimes I want to do things by myself.”
Brian steps out onto Broadway and flags a cab. “I’ve done it by myself,” he says. “It’s overrated.”
Mikey said Brian roughed it in college. No support from his parents and a hefty student loan meant a night job as a busboy at the Pittsburgh Hilton. Hardly Brian’s dream job but Brian stuck it out for two years and made more money in tips than a busboy should. Mikey never asked about that.
On Sunday Brian takes an early flight. Lindsay and Mel are flying in from Toronto in the afternoon and he promised he’d meet them. The bed feels out of place when he’s gone, like it never really belonged.
*
He paints a street scene. He sees lovers kissing below his window, two boys, no older than him. Kissing in the street is not a love story, it’s a romance. He paints them in blues and greys accordingly.
He keeps this one and calls it “Avenue C.”
He takes classes at CUNY and learns that contemporary art has its roots in the aesthetics of the sublime, the pleasure and pain of presenting the unpresentable. He doesn’t know what it means, but sometimes his paintings are unintelligible forms and ideas, and he doesn’t know what to do with them. They are pleasure and pain, confusion and comprehension. Sublime.
*
Brian wants to go to a club so they drink beers in a bar on Houston until midnight and catch a cab to Chelsea to sample the scene.
There’s line outside every club and Brian is suspicious. He knows what a club owner will do to attract a crowd.
“Saturday night in Manhattan,” Justin says doubtfully. “It’s probably just busy.”
Brian hasn’t stood in line for a club since he was eighteen. He opens his wallet, checks for cash, and nods toward ‘Heaven.’ “Looks like we’ll be paying the cover charge,” he says. He holds up a one hundred dollar bill. “Do you think one hundred will cover it?”
“Why don’t you just buy the place,” Justin says. “Save us the hassle of bribing the doorman every time we want to go out.”
“I haven’t even seen it yet,” Brian says. “How do I know I want it?”
“I haven’t seen it either,” Justin says. Justin doesn’t go to clubs. When he’s not going to classes or painting he attends gallery openings and exhibitions. Being an artist is a lifestyle. Much like being gay. Brian knows how to work his community; Justin knows how to work his too.
“You’re pathetic,” Brian says. “What do you do with yourself?”
“I’m a struggling artist,” Justin says, like it’s obvious.
Brian shakes his head and drags Justin by the elbow toward the club. They never make it inside. Justin recognizes a boy from his CUNY art class and they stop on the sidewalk outside the club to exchange introductions.
“You don’t want to go in there,” Justin’s classmate says, indicating Heaven. “It’s full of tourists. You want to go here.” He gives them a flier for a rooftop party in the West Village.
”How very international,” Brian says, not looking away from Heaven.
Justin looks at the flier. “It’s not far,” he tells Brian.
Brian wants to go to a club. Justin would rather go a party. They stand on the sidewalk eyeing each other, waiting for the other to back down.
Justin’s classmate speaks first. “It’ll be wild,” he says. “Hot guys, great drugs, a really amazing DJ from Tokyo.”
“Tokyo,” Brian says, taking the flier from Justin. He studies it for a moment. “Well if he’s come all the way from Tokyo…”
“We’ll come,” Justin says, not waiting for Brian’s consent. “We can do Heaven next any time,” he says to Brian.
“It it stinks I won’t let you forget it,” Brian says.
“I know you won’t.”
A cab takes them the twelve blocks downtown to the West Village. The party is on the roof of a six storey apartment block; a pizza place and a bar on the street level separated by stairs going up the middle. The rooftop is decorated in long steams of cloth, separating the dance floor from the couches at the back. The dance floor is a sea of bodies, moving as one to a tune Justin doesn’t recognize.
Brian appreciates the crowd. “Domo arigato,” he says to Justin’s classmate. He turns to Justin, and says, “Don’t wait up,” and then he’s gone, submerging himself in the dance floor, letting it swallow him whole.
“He’s incredible,” Justin’s classmate says, watching Brian go.
Just when he thinks he’s holding Brian to him, Brian cuts loose and falls away. Justin isn’t afraid, just untethered. The lights spin overhead and a voice in his ear asks him to dance. He’s come so far. He has further to go still.
*
Justin paints still life. It’s a self portrait: the artist as sculpture. In drawing he learned to indicate motion. He never learned to indicate stillness. He uses white on white; shades of white.
In the end it’s nothing and everything. He can’t describe it.
*
“It’s you?” Brian says when Justin shows him the self portrait. Justin has an exhibition; five pieces in a CUNY show.
Justin called it ‘Justin’ and left it at that. “As much as it can be.”
“You’re smiling,” Brian says, tilting his head to the side.
“No, I’m not.” Justin looks at his painting, tries to see it from Brian’s perspective. The facial features are barely perceptible. He doesn’t understand how Brian can see a smile.
Brian stares at it for a little longer, like he’s reading something in the expanses of white. “How much?” he says eventually.
“For the painting?”
“I get your ass for free,” Brian says.
“I don’t know,” Justin says. He was hoping to speak to his instructor, to get a feel for what the other students were asking. He didn’t want to over value himself. Or under-value as the case may be. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
”I’ll take it,” Brian says. “Whatever it costs.”
”You can’t,” Justin says. “I need it for the exhibition.”
”I’ll take it after the exhibition. Put a ‘sold’ sticker on it.”
“Why do you want it?”
“Does it matter?”
Brian isn’t whimsical. His words and actions are loaded with meaning. Everything he does matters.
“Why do you come here?” Justin says, and it’s out there before he can stop it. He doesn’t know where it came from.
Brian isn’t being obtuse this time. He takes a seat on the single chair at the table and lights a cigarette. “Would you rather I didn’t come?”
“I want you to be here,” Justin says. “I want you to want to be here.”
Brian flicks his cigarette into the solitary ashtray on the table. “You think too much,” he says.
Justin knows Brian thinks about things too. He’s just hides it well. “Why do you really want the painting?”
Brian drags on his cigarette, scratches the back of his neck. “I want to hang it on the wall in my office,” he says. “When people ask me what it is, I’ll tell them ‘Justin’ and watch their faces as they try to figure it out.”
It’s not art appreciation in a conventional sense, and yet Brian’s understanding of art is honest. If art is the obverse, the questioning of form and function, then Brian is an expert.
Justin goes to the table, leans over Brian and kisses him. “It’s yours,” he says. “For better or for worse.”
*
He paints a love story. It’s black and blue and grey; light and dark and shadowed. Beautiful. The way a love story should be. He wants to call it ‘Love’ but it’s another too obvious title and he’s slipping into poetics again, writing teenaged verse to say what he’s thinking.
He’s not growing up. Not the way he wanted.
He paints over it. He can’t stand to look at it. There’s no room in the art world for the didactic. No one should be able to see through him.
*
Justin buys nylon stockings and ties Brian to the bed in his sleep. The bed Brian bought him; it’s probably symbolic. He doesn’t think about it much. It’s morning, sunlight streaming through the window, illuminating the dust particles. He’s just woken up.
Brian doesn’t wake. Justin nudges him with his foot. “Brian?”
Brian doesn’t sleep lightly. He works hard, plays harder. His sleep is deep. Justin pulls the blankets off Brian so he’s lying naked and exposed. He gradually comes awake, opening one eye and then other.
He tries to move his hands, twists his head to see what’s holding him back. “What is this?” he says to Justin.
Justin sits at the foot of the bed, naked too, waiting for Brian to come to terms with his predicament. “I tied you up,” Justin says. The metaphor is a little obvious: tying Brian Kinney up so Justin can tie him down. So much for trying to avoid poetry.
“Kind of risqué for you,” Brian says.
“I wouldn’t want you to get bored with me,” Justin says. He trails his hand up the inside of Brian’s leg, feeling him tense all the way up to his thigh.
“What are you going to do?” Brian says.
Justin is going to make him beg. He touches Brian, the inside of his thigh to the curve of his ass. “Say 'please.'"
“Please,” Brian says, over-dramatically.
Justin laughs. His fingers brush Brian’s ass, round and round the soft edge until it yields and Justin pushes in. Brian flinches slightly, barely perceptible.
“Say it like you mean it,” Justin says.
Brian looks at the ceiling and sighs. “You want begging?” he says. “You’ve tied up the wrong guy. Why don’t you give Ethan a call? I bet he loves a little pain.”
Justin shoves another two fingers in Brian’s ass. Hard this time, no easing them in. Brian grunts, unused to his ass getting a work out. It’s a shame really. Brian has an amazing ass.
Justin removes his fingers suddenly and Brian lets his breath out like he’s been holding it in. Justin goes into the kitchen and comes back carrying matches and candles.
“Candle wax,” Brian says. “Someone’s been busy while I’m not here.”
It’s not true. Candle wax and stockings aren’t really Justin’s thing. He bought the candles because his neighbour told him an electrical fault in 1-E caused the whole building to black-out for six hours last year. He stocked up on granola bars and cans of apple juice for the same reason.
There’s probably rules to wax play. He has no idea what they are.
He lights a candle. “I’m going to teach you manners,” he tells Brian.
“You’re going to get candle wax on your new bed,” Brian says.
Justin straddles Brian’s thighs and lifts the burning candle above Brian’s chest. “No,” he says. “I won’t.” Brian follows the candle’s movement with eyes widened, full of apprehension and awe. Justin can’t tell if he’s impressed or just surprised.
Candle wax lands slightly to the left of Brian’s nipple. Brian tenses, his lips pressed together hard, holding everything in. His eyes meet Justin’s, like a dare.
Justin lets the candle wax fall again and this time it hits its mark. Brian can’t contain himself. “Fuck,” he says, pulling at the bonds around his hands. The bed frame strains and creaks.
Justin draws the candle down Brian’s body, trailing wax from Brian’s chest to his stomach. Brian is hard as a rock, his cock flinching every time the wax falls. Maybe Brian’s getting off on it more than he lets on; maybe this is just Brian’s default position when he’s naked and straddled. He gasps when the wax lands on his skin and his hands clench into fists, but otherwise he’s gives little away.
Justin lowers the candle until it’s hovering over Brian’s abdomen. “Justin…” Brian says. It’s both a warning and a plea. There are beads of sweat on his forehead now. His breath is shallow.
“Do you trust me?” Justin says, holding the candle so the wax doesn’t fall.
Brian doesn’t respond. It might be a ‘yes.’ Justin lets the wax fall anyway and it lands on Brian’s hip bone.
“Oh,” Brian says, and this time his hips lift, arching himself upwards.
Wax falls in a line from Brian’s hip to his thigh. Brian moans and his eyelids flutter closed and open again.
It’s enough. Justin blows out the candle, spits into his palm and wets the stem. He shoves it inside Brian in one stroke, no finesse. Brian’s muscles clench around the candle, his body tensing everywhere. His jaw drops a little and he breathes in and out again evenly. Justin knows what it’s like to breathe through the pain. He’s got it down to an art.
”Say please,” Justin says again.
“Please,” Brian says. He doesn’t beg but he means it.
He pulls the candle out and thrusts it in again. Once, twice, three times, until he’s fucking Brian steadily. “Say, please, Justin, will you fuck me?”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Brian says. His breath is ragged and the words come out puffed.
Without thinking, Justin leans forward and slaps Brian across the cheek. Brian’s eyes go wide. “What the fuck was that for?” he says.
Justin is inches from Brian’s face. “I want you to pay attention,” Justin says. He holds Brian’s chin, makes Brian look at him. “Do you get it?”
They stare at each other, eye to eye, not willing to look away. It’s a face off. First to blink loses. Justin understands then. He knows right there. He doesn’t want control. He wants Brian to lose his.
“I get it,” Brian says eventually, his eyes veering to the left, like he can’t give in and look at Justin at the same time.
“What do you say?” Justin says.
“Please, Justin, will you fuck me,” Brian says. He doesn’t waver. His voice is even. Opaque.
Justin doesn’t move. “Again,” he says.
Brian looks at him, and there’s a moment where Justin sees something. He’s not sure what it is. “Please,” Brian says. “Fuck me.”
Outside, Justin hears a police siren, wailing and then pulsing, changing its tone intermittently. When it fades he’s reminded of his hand on Brian’s chin, Brian’s eyes on him, his own erection pressing against his abdomen.
He lets go of Brian’s face, grabs a condom from the bedside drawer, and puts it on in one fluid stroke. He removes the candle from Brian’s ass and fucks Brian like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. He’s brutal, punishing Brian for making him wait. He lifts Brian’s legs by the knees and pushes his thighs apart wide, too wide for Brian. He’s not used to it and he strains against the ties around his hands, the nylon stretching impossibly tight. Justin would worry about the tenacity of the head board only he’s too intent on what he’s doing to care.
When Brian closes his eyes and leans his head back, Justin grabs him by the base of his cock.
“No coming until I say,” Justin says. He bites Brian’s shoulder. Brian tastes like salt.
”Fuck,” Brian says.
“You come after me,” Justin says.
“Just do it already,” Brian says through gritted teeth.
Justin doesn’t need encouragement. He’s almost there anyway. He comes, and he lets Brian come immediately after. His eyes fill with dots and sparks as the blood rushes from his head and he falls onto Brian’s shoulder like a dead weight. They lie there afterwards, breathing heavy, mixing semen and sweat. It’s sticky and uncomfortable and Justin is conscious of Brian’s hands till tied to the headboard. He gets up, throws the condom in the trashcan and unties Brian.
Brian sits up in bed, rubs his wrists. “What was that about?”
Justin goes into the bathroom, fetches a towel and tosses it to Brian. Justin reminds himself that he’s usually the one cleaning himself off.
“You didn’t like it?”
”It was fine,” Brian says noncommittally.
Justin laughs and sits on the side of the bed, kisses Brian briefly. “You loved it,” he says. “Who knew? Brian Kinney the control freak is a sub.”
”Fuck you,” Brian says, he pushes Justin away and gets out of bed. “I’m taking a shower.”
“Knock yourself out,” Justin says, smiling to himself. He’ll rub Brian’s face in it for weeks, even if it means Brian will be on his guard now, not wanting to get duped into bondage again. They may never repeat the experienced, but it will have been worth it anyway.
And he’ll remember it. He’ll always have that.
*
Justin paints sex. Tries to remember the scene he painted over, the look on the lovers’ faces that he tried so hard to get right. Brian says he’s doesn’t believe in love but he believes in fucking and somewhere in Justin’s mind he knows he connects the two for Brian, makes him understand that to fuck is to love, in one way or another.
He buys a new canvas, paints in black and red. He doesn’t give it a title.