22 October 2002 popslash Feedback is cheaper than booze Drinking and sunshine. For Sheila. Last Year's Love
by Jane St Clair
Chris thinks that everyone with a cracked heart comes to visit him eventually. He was going to play band-house to this group he met in Philly six months ago. They were cool, he remembers, when he talked to them, and if they knew who he was, they didn't make a big deal out of it. Only, when they called to say they were in Orlando, Brit was curled up on his pool deck, crying and fairly drunk and occasionally belting out Patty Loveless tunes. She wasn't, like, naked or anything, but she was Britney Spears, and she was loaded. And maybe six or eight months ago he could have taken her to Justin's, but instead he herded her upstairs and put her to bed. Took the band out for drinks for six hours and when they came back she was gone, leaving just a note on Chris' mirror written in eyeliner saying thanks. Justin visits, too, when he's considering doing things he shouldn't, like singing vengeance-kareoke somewhere very public, like maybe Disneyworld. Every I-hate-you song Justin knows is one more he might get up and howl out in front of strangers if he didn't have Chris to bother. He sleeps on Chris' porch swing so he won't write 'WHORE' on everything of Brit's still in his house and send it all back to her. Chris comes home in the afternoon to find Brit stretched out by the pool and Justin asleep on the swing, and decides that he's become Switzerland. Britney tilts her head at Chris and smiles when he crouches beside her. He rubs her back. She doesn't look at Justin, and Chris wonders if they're pretending to be alone. "Hey." "Sorry. I just like your pool, you know?" "Yeah." She curls up, eventually, in one of the chairs in the shade. It's enough that he doesn't have to worry about sunburn for her. Justin buries his face in Chris' arm when Chris tries to wake him up. "Mmmmm." "You're hiding from Brit in my yard. With her." "Yeah. It's okay, I think." Chris nods. He crawls in behind Justin on the swing and presses his face into Justin's nape for a while. Dozes while the swing rocks. He bought it for this. Southern houses are supposed to have amazing, padded swings for napping on, so he has one. He wakes up, barely, when Brit leaves. She touches his arm and kisses him softly, walks away barefoot. He wakes up again and it's dusk, and Justin's warm against his chest. One of them moved, though, because Justin's face is pressed against Chris' chest, now. Chris isn't sure how Justin's managed to stay this enormous kid while Chris got old. Older. Justin's just bigger, funnier, a bit thicker-skinned but not really any fiercer than he was when he was a prickly kid on the audition circuit. Justin kisses him, just above his collar. "J?" "Thanks for this all, you know?" "Yeah." And. It's not the first time. Chris has spent warm, quiet evenings with Brit, too, mostly dressed and kissing her skin until she stops wanting to drink herself unconscious. She's even tinier than he is, and he doesn't want to drive her to Emergency with alcohol poisoning. So he kisses her, sometimes. Sometimes she kisses him. He wakes up some mornings and she's curled beside him, entirely dressed, right down to her runners. Justin doesn't ask for it quite as often, but he's been doing it longer. He hasn't cried through the whole thing with Britney, but Chris comes home sometimes and finds Justin pacing and howling along with Vertical Horizon on the stereo. He vibrates with the jacked-up bass, and Chris has to turn everything off, take Justin upstairs, kiss him until he's calm. This is the same. It's night. There are crickets and big, soft plants and water, and it's not cold. The swing's big enough for both of them if they're careful. Justin kisses him until Chris kisses him back. Soft and open all over his mouth. Hand on his hip holding them together. On the ground, eventually, with the swing's cushions spread under them. Justin on his back and Chris on top of him, leg across him, touching. The same boy-sweet mouth he's been kissing for an hour and years, his hand up Justin's shirt. Justin arches every time Chris catches his nipple. He gasps with every twist. And it's dirtier than Chris usually plays him for, but Justin loves it. He's relaxed in a way he hasn't been in weeks. Chris pulls back, eventually. Sits on his hip and watches Justin stretch. It's fully dark. He didn't turn any of the house lights on, so they're down to reflective sky and the ambient light of the city. He can hear cars in the distance, Justin's breath up close. Justin's heart. Justin pulls at him and pins him down. Rolls on top and makes the next kiss count. This is as dirty as anything Chris has ever had, and it's never gone anywhere. It's only the most primitive version of cannibalism, or oral sex. He'll wake up tomorrow with Justin curled beside him, both of them dew-soaked. Coffee and scrambled eggs while they try to wake up. Chris listens to the messages Britney left for him last night while he cooks, then erases them. He bumps his shoulders against Justin's in the early morning light and waits for one of them to pull himself together. jane go back |