“I need an exorcist.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to kill someone.”

Chris, dressed in earth tones he knew Scott admired, opened the door and walked right into Scott’s office without knocking – a habit from their past relationship.

Scott looked up, stopped his hands on his computer keyboard.

“Chris. There a problem?”

“You said we could talk,” Chris smiled, pulled up a chair and sat like Scott’s desk was a table at Chez Paul’s. “I just wanted to thank you for getting me out of Babylon last Friday.”

Scott shut down the computer. “No big deal. You’re my best engineer.” Then he stood up, crossed the office to a small closet, opened it and removed his jacket. “ I hate to make this short, but I’ve got a site to check.”

Chris sprang up. “I could’ve at least bought you…and Brian…a drink.”

“Shit,” Scott winced as he shrugged on his jacket. “I’m glad you reminded me.”

Scott returned to his desk, lifted his phone receiver and tapped a speed-dial number.

Chris watched him reach into his jacket pocket, take out a key, rotate and stare at it as he spoke.

“Brian. Scott. I have something of yours. Call me when you get in.”

Scott hung up the phone, dropped the key back into his jacket pocket and started for the door only to have Chris step in front of him, throw his arms around Scott’s neck and pull him into a kiss. Welcomed one second, it was rejected the next, with Scott leaning back and pushing Chris away.

“How many ways can I say this?” Scott’s face hardened. “Move on, already. I have.”

Scott was quickly out the door and gone. Chris stared after him, blinking slowly. Words. They meant nothing. Only their feelings mattered. Chris opened his hand, glanced at Brian’s key and closed it into a tight fist.

They were standing in the Comic Shop, Michael cross-armed and grinning on one side of the counter, Brian impeccably dressed for work on the other.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay,” Michael turned aside to straighten a stack of comics. “I just wondered if the rumor was true that Scott’s the reason you disappeared for a week after the Rage party.”

“I came to talk about my investment in Rage, not Scott.”

“Sure. Come on back and I’ll show you the books.”

“I’m more concerned about the workforce. You tell ME what’s going on.”

“We’re working it out,” Michael’s eyes wandered uncomfortably.

Brian turned up his own eye-volume.

“What do you want me to say, Brian? Hey Justin, even though you lied and screwed my best friend,I trust you and think we can be great pals?”

Brian leaned on the counter, close to Michael’s face and was quietly serious. “Do you think I’m some kind of idiot?”

“No! Why would you say-”

“I lived with him for almost two years because there’s a lot to him that was worth it. Still is. You find it. Don’t worry about who screwed whom. And quit making me out to be Patrick Swayze. We’re not fourteen anymore.” Brian turned and walked away.

Michael was used to feeling Brian’s pain. But not like this.

“You know…the second issue never does as good as the first. You wanna talk about another advertising run?”

Brian stopped and turned. “You couldn’t afford me.”

“Oh? So Rage isn’t good enough for you now?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“What you usually do when you’re going after a client. Setting up a meeting at some nice impressive place…”

Brian half-laughed a breath. “Okay. I have business in Cleveland today, but we’ll get together when I get back.”

That said, Brian was out the door. Michael stared for a minute, already planning the meeting in his head.

Ethan ran a hand through his dark curls and added another of Justin’s pullovers to the growing pile on the bed. He lifted Justin’s Rage-Pride sketchbook, paged slowly through comic renditions of his rival.

Justin paused outside the door, inhaled a couple deep breaths, turned his key in the lock and stepped into the unknown.

Ethan whirled toward him, blue drawing in hand and eyes sullen despite his smile. “Welcome back.”

“Ethan – “ Justin stood still, sighted his things on the bed.

Ethan noticed his gaze.

“I’m no rocket scientist, but when I asked you if you loved me…and you flew out of here without an answer and didn’t come home last night…”

“I’m sorry,” Justin slowly moved inside, sat on the couch. “I owe you more than that.”

“So who is it now? Another art student?”

“What?” Justin squinted in confusion.

“When did you pose for THIS?” Ethan thundered to the couch and dropped the drawing in Justin’s lap. “How many guys know what you look like in bed?”

Justin’s eyes widened. His mouth dropped open.

“And don’t tell me it’s old. There’s a date up in the corner. Just last week.”

“Where did you get this?” Justin was sincere. The likeness was obviously crafted with intense feeling. The writing looked vaguely familiar, but beyond that he was lost.

“Just get your stuff and – get-OUT,” Ethan shouted, grabbed a bunch of Justin’s clothes and flung them at him. “No wonder your boyfriend let you go.”

Justin deflected the mass, jumped to his feet and moved closer. He’d had enough character and morality assaults from Ethan, Brian, everybody.

“Seems to me YOU had the best part of the deal,” Justin dumped the laundry basket in the middle of the floor and used it to gather his stuff, verbally punctuating each addition. “So you better put an add in the campus paper right away because your cook…janitor…cat-sitter…litterbox cleaner…and dishwasher are leaving.”

Ethan turned his back, grabbed his violin and broke into a loud riff.

Justin moved as close as possible to avoid being hit with the swaying violin. “I wasn’t sleeping with anyone but you!”

Having heard the screaming, Ethan stopped and turned in time to see Justin take the blue drawing off the couch and carefully sandwich it between his sketchbooks.

“Just you,” Justin added. “And you don’t even know what the word love means.”

Justin slung his backpack over one shoulder, kicked the laundry basket out the door, pitched his apartment key onto the couch and closed a chapter of his life.

Brian glanced at the You Are Now Leaving Pennsylvania and Welcome To Ohio overhead signs. He checked his dash-mounted Global Positioning System, satisfied that Ohio details were uploaded and working.

Being alone on the road made him think of Michael’s question about his lost seven days. Then Hell Week returned unwanted in all its original fury.

The Night he left the Rage Party…

He was so drunk and stoned, he’d taken some kid home and fucked him, held him, god knows what else. At one point, he remembered hearing “This is getting too fucking weird, man. I gotta go.” And he woke up cold, alone and feeling ripped inside-out. It was then that he noticed the emptiness in so many places. Justin must have cleared out before Brian had even gotten home.

Night Two…

He was still in bed from Night One, having ventured short paths between his bathroom, living room or kitchen to shut off the phone, turn up the radio, grab a drink, relieve himself or pop a pill. Anything to dull his mind as if clearing the slate would give him a fresh place to start again.

Until he began noticing little pieces left from Justin’s hasty exodus. His Too Busy To Fouk tee shirt in the hamper…a dress shoe jammed behind the closet door…underwear from a past erotic ritual wedged between the couch cushions. Brian held it to his face, desperate for the fading scent of an intimate history. Torturing himself with it until his mind hardened enough to let it be the first in a meaningless pile of the arrogant little cheat’s leftovers.

Night Three…

The Official Brian Kinney Time Limit for Lamenting. He always allowed himself three days to fall back and regroup after a disappointment. Yet, there he was – blowing his own fucking doctrine by walking around still dazed, red-eyed and wearing sunglasses after sundown. So he fired up the Jeep and went to visit an old friend.

Cramped in the dark space, the only light being a mottled pattern on him like moonlight through leaves, Brian leaned back singing, “You know Babylon and not the Biblical one.”

“Do I…know you?” Father Tom nervously responded from the other side of a lightweight confessional curtain.

Brian leaned his face against the curtain and breathed heavily. “Intimately.”

“You’ve been drinking.”

“I’d be smoking, too, but I can’t find a fucking ashtray,” Brian twisted around, shrugged, dug out a smoke and lit it anyway.

“Brian, why are you here?”

Brian leaned back against a crooked arm, blew a smoke ring and watched it fragment in the light coming through the carved design along the confessional roof. He could say something cute, off-color or surly. In this place, with a man of God and of his own orientation, tonight was for the truth.

“Because I remember you saying once that you didn’t judge, only gave comfort.”

“Is it because of…your mother?”

“The original Ice Queen? No…I can’t lay this on her. Even SHE had enough whatever to stick by Dear Old Fucking Dad. I forced somebody away…because I wouldn’t tell him…” Brian’s voice cracked. He flicked an ash to the floor and said no more.

“Tell him what?”

“I don’t believe in love,” Brian stated more forcefully.

“I see. And why’s that?” Father Tom knew Joan Kinney, could only imagine how she affected Brian. But he knew he needed to let Brian talk.

“It means too many different things to different people.”

“So you’ve had other experiences.”

“Hundreds,” Brian lightly bragged, went serious, his voice taking on nostalgic softness. “One.” He could see the simple, roughened face of his gym teacher“I was a high school jock. He was an older guy with a wife and a couple little kids.”

“Was it you who brought him out?”

“Fuck if I know. I came onto him…he came back…and things just happened.”

“It was wrong of him to take advantage of that,” Father Tom groped for the right response, thinking he had to stop Brian from hauling all the guilt.

“What was more wrong? Living as you were meant to live? Or living a lie? He said I was all he wanted. That he needed to explain it to his wife. But before he did, he had to be sure of one thing.”

“What thing?”

“He asked me if I loved him.”

“Did you?”

Brian shrugged. “What the fuck do I know about love. All I knew was that I wanted to be with him, and if that’s what he needed to hear…I said yeah. Yeah, I loved him.” Brian shifted uncomfortably, lit another cigarette off the first. “He told me it’d be a tough decision, but if he was still at his office after dinner, he’d left her.”

“And was he there?”

A long silence passed with just the sound of exhaling smoke.

“He was gone,” Brian barely whispered. “Just left his shirt” . He could still see that fine body twisted on the bathroom floor, . 22 handgun freed by the kick-back reaction and lying away from its hosting hand. Bone fragments and bits of bloodied brain matter – some sprayed on the wall, the rest static in a large, blackening pool.

“How did that make you feel?”

“There was nothing I could do.”

In the shock and disbelief, Brian had reached down to touch a white arm. But instead of his heat finding the same, a cold chilled the blood running through his fingertips, sped up his arm and into his heart where it stopped and never left.

“Like the word love carries with it a fuckload of responsibilities, so if you say it, you’d better damn well be worth it. I said it…and I wasn’t worth it.”

“Maybe you were more than worth it, and his decision had more to do with himself.”

Brian sat upright, stretched long. “That was my last smoke, so I guess it’s been fun chatting.” He hunched forward in thought. “Tom, if you ever think about taking yourself out, do pills…hang yourself…don’t ever use a gun…because it’s usually not your fucking enemies who find you first.”

Father Tom swallowed hard. “You’re not thinking of…”

“Me? Fuck no.” Brian straightened and stood tall.

“Then…who is the someone you want to kill?”

“The man inside who doesn’t believe in love.”

“No. That’s the little boy. But you’re a man, now, and you can’t let him run you. Maybe it’s time you brought him up to speed.”

“Maybe it was meant to be the other way around.”

“You came in here hurting and angry. Whatever you do, just remember that a man’s strength shows not in how he can hurt back, but how much he can take with dignity…and how positive he can be in moving past it.”

Brian wanted to ask which Mr. Rogers Neighborhood Tom had been watching for that, not to mention the dignity of how much you can take on all fours in a slime pit. But he quickly caught himself and said, “Thanks. I’ll try to remember that.”

“One more thing-”

“Sorry, I’m unavailable for the evening.”

“I was going to say, if you ever smoke in my confessional again, you won’t have enough years in your life to finish the penance I’ll assign.”

Brian left his confessional unit, opened the center unit door and startled the priest. “Just to show you my appreciation, I’ll go along with God existing. Just don’t tell Mom,” Brian whispered sweetly, closed the door.

Nights Four through Seven…

Brian worked like a perpetual motion machine. He had Cynthia call Justin to pick up his shit; drove her nuts re-doing all the files and redecorating his office; amazed Vance with his ability to wine-and-dine clients every night. He spent the wee hours analyzingstatistics, potentials and personal finances while armed with only a portable office set up in downtown’s Five Star Hotel. Self-servicing might have even saved a rubber tree.

When he determined that the ghosts were diffused enough to face, he took the day off work and went home. Had he found a closer parking space, or waited one more day, or packed Justin’s things and dumped them at Ethan’s apartment, Justin would never have run into him at the loft.

That encounter reopened the wounds that made him re-evaluate his situation, drawing on what he remembered from Father Tom’s advice about a man’s strength. Thoughts that led him to the Sixth Street Bridge where, resisting the urge to cross over to the Northside apartments, the man chose not to act, and the boy took over again.

Then seeing Scott, who was so much like him, made him question where it was all leading, whether his image was spawned by a master of individuality or a slave to others’ expectations.

The fire scare at Babylon. With the million things he could’ve thought or done, his sole drive was to find Justin. And when he did…

A little electronic voice tinned, “In. Two. Point. O. Miles. Exit. Right.”

Fucking GPS had a point. Brian took a deep breath, checked the GPS map. On the seat beside him was an open folder for Turner Construction’s ad campaign. He glanced at it, buried his feelings and resurrected Brian Kinney, Ad Exec.

Michael slouched in an easy chair, held his phone to his ear, glanced at his Captain Astro clock – 4:15 pm – back to a Pittsburgh Magazine in his lap, an ad for La Bonita Café. “We have reservations for six pm.”

Speeding along a boring stretch of expressway, Brian grumbled into his cell phone, “I’m just passing Youngstown now. That doesn’t even give me time to stop and freshen up,”

“You can get yourself sucked off later. It’s La Bonita.”

“My, my. Leftover class from the good doctor.”

“Fuck you, Brian. Just be there. I’m leaving now.”

Michael hung up, leaned back and crossed his ankles on the coffee table. Brows knit, he rolled his lips into his mouth and shut the magazine, eyed his front door and the Astro clock then asked himself again why he was doing this.

For casual affairs, Brian preferred being late. Made for a grander entrance. But since Mikey had picked out one of the best new restaurants and was playing this client game to the hilt, Brian thought he’d spring a surprise and actually get there first.

The surprise was his when the maitre d’ escorted Justin, Sunday-suited and holding a briefcase, to the Novotny table. Brian did better than Justin at masking his surprise.

“Brian. What’re you doing here? I thought I was supposed to meet some ad guy from the Post Gazette.” Justin scanned the room.

“Well sit down before someone flags you for service,” Brian motioned, watched Justin comply. “Where’s Mikey?”

“He couldn’t make it. Asked me to come instead.”

Brian grinned in thought. “I HAD asked him to find something.”

“I can’t believe he actually trusted me with the Holy Graille,” Justin opened his case and set out a ledger book, rested his hands on it and narrowed his gaze at Brian. “He knew you’d be here. Why am I here?”

“To discuss terms,” Brian dryly responded, reached down, unsnapped his own briefcase and dug for some office supplies. He’d corner Mikey about this later.

Their waiter arrived with a carafe of red wine and filled their glasses. “Are you ready to order yet?”

“I’m not real hungry,” Justin closed his menu and handed it to the waiter.

Brian studied Justin, followed suit. “Just the wine.” When the perturbed waiter flashed an icy smile as he lifted Brian’s menu, Brian pulled a Grant bill from his briefcase and held it up. “Just the wine,” he repeated.

“Thank you, Sir,” the waiter happily collected the bill, nodded to both men and took off.

Justin cleared his throat, sipped his wine. “What do you need to know?”

Brian laid his blue legal pad on the table, poised his pen over it. “When does the next issue go out for sale?”

Justin glanced at the pad, gulped the rest of his wine. “Aren’t most legal pads yellow?”

“I like blue,” Brian’s face twisted. “You’re not allergic to merlot, are you? I chose the wine before I knew you were coming.”

“I’m fine,” Justin shot, refilled his glass. “Couple months.” He watched Brian scribble today’s date in the upper corner before continuing his notes. So much of Brian’s writing had always been computer-driven, this was the first time Justin really watched his hand in action. Questions racing through his mind made him down a second glass of wine.

“The marketing majors I know draw a little. Did you ever-”

“Not really. This IS a business meeting, isn’t it?” Brian sniffed his wine like he suspected it was drugged, tasted it and watched Justin stay tense. “Maybe we should hold it some other time.”

“Yeah. I, uh, really have to get home.”

Brian finished off his wine, dropped his pad into his briefcase as Justin slipped the ledger into his own case. A sneak peak at each other at the same moment caught them meeting eyes just above the table. The guilty break-away told each the look was more than casual, setting old reactions in motion.

“Sorry we didn’t get much done,” Justin stood up. “Thanks for the wine.”

“Any chance I’m going your way?” Brian asked before diverting his eyes to his briefcase. What a lame-ass line. Then, Justin was young and probably hadn’t heard that many lame-ass lines yet. Technically saved.

Justin wanted to say no, but being asked instead of being ordered appealed to him. “Yeah. I could use a ride.”

When Brian’s dick jumped at that thought, he knew he’d denied himself too long, and he would have to hold tighter reign. “I’m just down the block.”

Brian took the lead. Justin followed, eyes tracking the movement of every body part he’d learned to love.

Inside the Jeep, Justin cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, sort of at Emmett’s.”

Brian corner-eyed Justin. When no explanation came, he lightly answered, “Yeah, I remember how to get there.”

Justin gazed back at the man who could sometimes be so intuitively sensitive, yet also act like such a wacked-out prick.

They focused on work, school and the Liberty gang’s lives on the short drive.

Instead of idling at the back door of Emmett’s building, Brian stopped the Jeep in a back lot space facing the fence. It had all the feel of planning to ravage someone at a drive-in movie, but Justin hadn’t protested.

Justin suspected that Brian didn’t want to be seen with him, maybe because it would bruise his image. Or get back to Scott.

“Thanks for the ride,” Justin smiled. He avoided Brian’s eyes, but caught the scent of Brian’s cologne with a musky hint of arousal. It made his heart pump and breathing race.

“I’ll, uh…set up another meeting later,” Brian added. But his mind was nowhere near business. He’d picked up Justin’s exhaled breath, the scent of his hair, the invisible charge arcing from his pulse. His own tempo rose and he edged his head slowly toward Justin’s in an urgent need to complete the circuit.

Justin looked into Brian’s face, soft angles in shadows and blue moonlight. He’d missed this for so long. Defying his rational senses, he closed his eyes and leaned forward, knowing Brian’s lips would find his.

Each gripped his own suit material, knees or thighs or anything to keep his hands in check, lest one over-eager grab jinx the moment and scare the other off.

Their lips touched softly, platonic, simple. Pressed harder. In seconds, their heads twisted and tongues invaded, attacked and explored.

Justin was first to bolt, unable to keep his hands at bay longer. Even the mini wine-buzz couldn’t override a warning that green-lighting Brian was volunteering for his fire and pain all over again.

“Later,” Justin blurted as he dashed from the car and slammed the door. A few steps away, he blinked astounded by what he’d said, hand fumbling in a pocket for his key as he quickened his pace.

Brian stretched his arm across the seatback and drooped his head against it, mouth open, eyes staring. What the fuck happened? He shifted to relieve pressure on his pinched cock, spun his head back and saw Justin nearly to the building. More on gut than reason, Brian grabbed his handle, kicked his door open and swung out to give chase.

But Justin was into the building before Brian even cleared the Jeep. So Brian sagged against a fender, did a little piano run with his fingers on the roof, turned and climbed into the car. There he collapsed back and struggled to find the logic behind never chasing after someone.

Justin edged the dining room curtain a sliver and saw the Jeep still sitting in the lot. He ran his tongue over his bottom lip for any remaining taste of Brian.

“Does he know?” Emmett startled him, standing cross-armed in his bedroom doorway.

“Something’s still there, Em. I just don’t know if it’s enough.” Justin turned back to the window, saw the Jeep STILL sitting. Do you need me like I need you tonight? Come on. Come on. Come on. He pressed his forehead to the glass, slowly shut his eyes, opened them again.

That parking space summed up life with Brian. Full one moment, empty the next.

If there was one thing Justin had learned about Brian from their separation, it was that you don’t break through the walls. You find the key and walk through the door.

In Brian’s loft, Chris passed a flashlight beam over the many photos of Scott spread across Brian’s desk until he found and lifted one of Scott staring with his sexiest smile, right out at him. He replaced the photo, set a camera case on the desk. From it he removed and set out a small drill, wire-stripping pliers and a can of engine starter fluid.

Brian drives away; Justin stands at the apartment window; Chris steals Scott’s photo.

Song: “What Do I Have To Do” by Stabbing Westward.

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