Truth and Consequence

by Lane Carson

Brian closed his eyes and willed this to be the one.

They'd been fucking non-stop since getting back from brunch with the munchers and now his dick was just about as raw as Justin claimed his ass was. Justin shifted a little from where he knelt between Brian's legs and Brian figured that Justin's knees must have been getting sore as well. Justin was pushing the sweatshirt Brian had pulled on up and out of the way and now Brian sat up to pull it off completely. The Viagra had been wreaking havoc with his system. Not only had he been rock hard for the last four hours, but he'd also been swinging between feeling like he was melting and feeling ice cold.

Brian let his head drop back against the seat cushion and closed his eyes. His throat felt tight and dry and he wandered how Justin was holding up. What Justin was doing to him felt good but Brian was getting tired and he swore that between cumming and sweating they'd already lost several liters of moisture already.

Brian closed his fingers in Justin's hair and guided the head that was bobbing at his lap. Justin looked up at him just then and treated Brian to a look of absolute ecstasy. That was one thing that Brian had to hand to him. At eighteen, the kid could fuck well past the point of exhaustion and after tasting cock at least four times in the last hour and a half, he could still make it look like he was as desperate for it as a thirsty man for water.

Brian dropped his head back again and focused on the beam work in the ceiling of the loft. He was getting close again and in another second or two he would warn Justin to get ready. Not that he thought he had much left to surprise the younger man with; Brian felt positively dry, having been sure he'd spilt everything in his balls and more already.

"Yeah, give it to me." Justin pulled back slightly and licked at the tip of Brian's cock. He didn't have to be warned as to what was coming because at this point, he could read every muscle twitch and every halted breath for what it meant.

Liquid heat closed around him again and Brian shut his eyes tight and bit down hard on his back teeth. There was no use screaming out with this one because he was sure he'd already treated the neighbors to more than enough of a demonstration as to how hard he could cum and how loud he could moan.

Justin pulled back to look at him and sensing the attention Brian opened his eyes. If not for the steel rod that seemed to have replaced his cock, what Brian saw would have made him hard again in an instant. Justin hadn't swallowed yet and he was trailing and stretching sticky strings of cum between Brian's dick and his own tongue. Red lips shone with spit and semen and Brian dropped his head back again and took a deep breath.

"You're trying to get rid of my boner, not give me another one." Brian was winded and his voice sounded choked.

"Sorry." Justin smirked and set about cleaning Brian up without his usual flair for the seductive.

Justin's knees cracked as he stood up to walk away. He'd placed one last kiss on Brian lips and taken one last look before gingerly stepping into the bottoms of his sweats. The older man looked spent and every inch of his body was drenched in sweat. Justin had taken in the way that Brian's body sagged into the couch and the way the man's eyelids seemed too heavy to hold open.

"Hopefully that did the trick." Justin called over his shoulder as he bent down to gather up one of the piles of discarded clothing that he and Brian had created in their haste to undress. Brian followed his movements with his eyes and watched as Justin moved from place to place kneeling or bending when he came to his next target...kneeling or bending...kneeling or bending and causing the material of his sweats to tighten or loosen over his ass as he moved.

"Fuck!" Brian looked down at his crotch and sank a little further back into the seat cushions.

"Not again?" Justin turned to face Brian and dumped the clothes in his hands on to the armchair closest to him.

"See for yourself." Brian gestured to the already hardening organ and sighed in defeat. "I'm so fucking sore."

"You're sore. It's a wonder I'll be able to walk this week, let alone sit down." Justin was protesting but he'd already moved to loosen the drawstrings on his sweats and had dropped them in a puddle around his ankles by the time Brian reached for the lube again. "Stay there." Justin uttered his command as he straddled Brian's body. He'd decided on the position for their next event when he noticed Brian's pained attempt at getting up from the sofa.

---

Forty minutes later they were in bed again. This having been the location they'd started out in exactly five hours and fifteen minutes ago.

"Oh God...Ahhhh...Oh God." Justin closed his legs around Brian's back and held on for dear life as Brian pressed into him again.

Brian it seemed had also found religion; he'd been calling on Jesus, Mary and Joseph, not to mention several lesser saints, for the last few minutes.

"How..." Justin forced the word out as Brian slammed into him. "...Many..." Justin swallowed hard and gritted his teeth as Brian hit his prostate for what felt like the hundredth time in the last minute. "...Times...Oh God...Will....This..." Justin broke the skin on Brian's back as he sank his fingernails in as a response to Brian's last blow. "...Make?"

Brian had winced with the scratch to his back but he hadn't broken the rhythm to his movements, having been spurred on by the need to relieve a greater pain. He took a deep breath before attempting to answer Justin's question.

"Six..." Brian groaned and buried his face in the skin of Justin's neck before reaching down to push Justin's thighs up and out once again. "...teen."

"I...can't...believe...you're...fucking...me...again." Justin forced the words out as Brian's unbelievably swelled head continued to move inside him."

"Well...it was...your...idea...to steal...Ted's...Viagra."

Brian had been forcing his words through a tightly clenched jaw and he channeled all his tension into his last thrust into Justin's body before holding his breath. The room went dark around him and all sound, including Justin's labored breathing, dulled into a white noise that hummed in his ears. He didn't concentrate on this orgasm and he didn't take note of any of the obvious sensations that he could have focused on. Instead, he charted this one by Justin's reactions. He took note of the way the younger man closed his eyes and let his mouth hang open and he watched as Justin relaxed against the pillow below him. Justin's orgasm had been fast and hard. Brian had felt it in the tightness of Justin's hold on his body and he could feel it in the sharp spasms that surrounded him.

Brian took a shallow breath and released his death grip on the sheets. He could hear the steady staccato beating of his heart and he could feel Justin's pulse under his lips from where his face rested against the younger man's neck. Brian thought about tasting him there and then decided against it. There was no sense in trying because he was already sure that he wouldn't be able to move again if his life depended on it.

Justin had loosened his grip on Brian's body but he hadn't released the man entirely. He'd uncrossed his legs but he'd pulled Brian into a tight hug as they continued to catch their breath. It was true that fucking was amongst the things they did best together, but both men realized they'd become equally good at just laying together without words and without concern for the significance of how comfortable they were in these moments.

Brian had been relishing the softness that was surrounding him and he settled against Justin's body while willing his bruised manhood to surrender in light of the punishment it had already taken. Justin had dropped his legs and Brian slipped ever so slightly out of him. He could feel Justin softening against his stomach and he could feel the cooling wetness of combined sweat against his chest and the wetness of Justin's cum. Brian hadn't bothered to completely sever their connection, having simply collapsed as soon as his muscles would relax. He figured he would simply lie there and listen to his heartbeat while tracing Justin's with his lips. He'd lie there and hope to fall asleep and hope that if and when he managed to wake up again, he'd be nice and soft and have no interest in fucking for a long time.

Brian could feel Justin's hands trailing across his back and he settled in to refocus on the rhythm of Justin's heartbeat ...

...Beating.

Not a heartbeat...

...Someone pounding on the door.

He was still foggy and he was too lethargic to curse or to yell. He'd opened his eyes slowly when he'd identified the offending sound but now he'd closed them again, having decided that whoever was at the door would simply have to go fuck themselves.

"Are you gonna answer it?" Justin relaxed under the weight of the man and waited for Brian's response. He'd been steeling himself for what would inevitably be the stinging he would feel as Brian pulled fully out of him.

"They'll go away." Brian had surprised himself by being able to find the will to respond, let alone the breath in his lungs.

...But things were never that simple.

Whoever it was who'd decided that Sunday afternoon was just as fine a time as any to take up drumming at their front door, had obviously also decided to settle in for the long haul. Brian raised his head and winced as the banging started up again and he felt and heard Justin wince when he finally pulled out and sat up.

"Fuck." Justin pushed his head back into the pillow and reached for something to hold on to. He'd pressed his eyes shut and Brian watched him catch his breath. In that moment, Brian had shifted his attention from the uninvited visitor to Justin's face. He'd been genuinely concerned for Justin's condition, having long since decided that on so many levels beyond their current sexual predicament, Justin's condition was directly related to the status of his own.

"Let me see." Brian knelt as he pushed back Justin's legs and took a look at the 'damage'. He'd rolled his lips into his mouth and smiled before finding Justin's face again. "Looks like somebody got fucked."

"Asshole." Justin smiled and dropped the soles of his feet back down to the dark sheets. "Just get rid of whoever is at the door." He'd dismissed Brian with another smile before rolling over and taking several careful steps towards the bathroom.

Justin had turned to look over his shoulder and he'd seen when Brian stepped into his sweats and gently arranged his still obvious hard-on in his pants. Justin sighed heavily and crossed the threshold into the bathroom. He'd made a beeline for the mirror and he reached down to turn on the faucet as soon as he steadied himself against the counter.

Brian was right. It had been his idea to steal the Viagra and as Justin splashed his he laughed at the thought of the situation that he'd gotten them into. A very, very sexually active and very sexually potent thirty year old, who could fuck at the drop of a hat let alone the drop of pants, didn't need to supplement his usual drive with this particular drug.

Justin let the hot water drip from his face as he considered his options. He'd straightened up slightly and the new discomfort in the backs of his thighs, not to mention the continued discomfort Brian had just examined, told him that they had very few options left. Considering how he felt, Brian would have to settle for blowjobs for the next little while...

'...or he could let me fuck him.'

Justin smiled and finished his thought out loud. "...not bloody likely."

He'd been looking over the hickey on his neck...correction...hickeys on his neck, and he reached down to turn off the faucet only when the heat of the water had started to fog up the mirror. Brian had been like this with him on a few occasions in the very beginning but Justin hadn't remembered him being this voracious or this thorough. He smiled again when he realized that whereas Brian had probably used a stable of men to relieve those urges, today he'd restricted his practice to staying home and fucking one man in particular.

Justin ran his wet hands through his hair before reaching for a hand towel. He could hear Brian talking to someone and Justin didn't think the other voice sounded familiar. He stumbled out into the bedroom and grabbed for the sweats that Brian had let him keep on for only three or four minute intervals over the last few hours. He'd been stepping into the second pant leg when he thought of the fact that Brian would just demand he take them off as soon as whoever it was left.

Justin slowly pulled his pants up and called out. "Brian, are you coming back?" He didn't hear an answer from Brian but he did hear when the other person commented that they didn't realize there was someone else in the loft. Justin's prime focus hadn't been the other voice. It had been concentrating on keeping his sweats from riding up his already irritated crack. Justin had spotted Brian and he'd been about to call to him again but he stopped short when the older woman turned to look at him.

Justin had seen her before in a picture somewhere and he knew what was coming. From the set of Brian's shoulders, he knew it too.

"Justin, this is my mother. Mom, this is Justin." Brian made the introductions and waited for the proverbial other shoe to drop.

He couldn't say he'd been dreading this moment but he did realize that he'd waited this long in telling his mother because he knew it would be the most scarring of all the 'coming out' discussions he'd have. Others may have thought telling Jack was pretty hard for him to do but he could easily have corrected them. Joanie was and had been the hardest one to tell. She'd stopped wanting to know who he was a long time ago, settling instead for projecting those qualities she respected on to him and demanding that he not show her anything of himself that was inconsistent with those projections. She'd taken to redeeming herself and the less pleasant aspects of her family life through the fact that she'd raised such a handsome and successful son. She took every accomplishment that Brian made as evidence that despite being saddled with Jack Kinney and being saddled with less than the life she'd intended, she'd managed to create one success. Brian was willful, Brian was bitter and there were things about him that she'd chosen to ignore, but he wasn't a nothing, he had money and he wasn't an embarrassment to the thin veil of propriety that she'd managed over the years. She could talk about him to the few friends in her circle and she could ensure that they'd be impressed.

Brian heard Justin's embarrassed greeting and the sarcastic third of his personality stifled a laugh.

Though he'd had his back to the scene, he could imagine it readily enough. In his mind's eye he could see the wheels turning in his mother's head. First she'd take in her son's rumpled appearance again and then she'd compare it to the similar state of the other young man who'd just emerged from the bedroom. She'd take note of the flushed sweaty skin and then she'd notice the pair of Justin's underwear that sat on the kitchen counter just beside where she'd been standing. She'd no doubt turn to look at Justin out of the corner of her eye and she'd put out any dying embers of what she thought Brian's private life actually was. She'd give up on praying for him to find a nice young woman to settle down with and she'd dismiss all thoughts of continuing her weekly discussions of her son's life when she attended her church's ladies club.

Brian turned to watch her move quickly towards the door. She had some difficulty figuring out the lock but he didn't make any attempt to help her. He watched glued to the floor, as his mother seemed to be running for her life.

"Shit. I'm sorry." Justin whispered his apology as soon as the woman escaped through the doorway and he watched as Brian's head dipped slowly into his hands.

"For what?" Brian turned to look at him over his shoulder before continuing. "For having the nerve to walk around in the place where you live or for you and me having the nerve to spend Sunday afternoon fucking when we should have known my mother would decide to drop in for her first visit in a year?" The man's sarcasm was caustic.

Justin rolled his lips into his mouth and contemplated offering Brian the advice that was on the tip of his tongue. Deciding to go for it, Justin spoke. "You should go after her."

"What'd I tell you about going after people?" Brian listened to his mother's footfalls across the hallway as she practically ran to the elevator.

"She's not a fuck you couldn't care less about, she's your mother." Justin didn't drop his eyes when Brian turned to offer him a look that spoke of venom. "Just go talk to her." Justin stood his ground and took a breath when Brian finally softened his expression and moved off from the counter.

Justin had noticed that the man had lost his erection. He'd suggested earlier that Brian take a cold shower but now he realized that there was nothing like the cure of the cold hard light of reality.

---

"Mom." Brian watched as she stabbed at elevator button with her thumb. The woman looked like she was in pain. "What? You're not gonna talk to me?" He'd finished his question quietly and then waited.

He hadn't expected this to go smoothly and his mother had certainly never been the type to yell or scream when she was angry, but he'd expected something. Some sort of guilt trip...some preaching...something...something other than the genuine look of pain that his mother was now sporting.

"Thank God your father didn't know."

Joanie lobbed her first volley and Brian shot back quickly.

"He did." Brian watched her tense ever so slightly more. "I told him before he died." He taken note of the way her shoulders stiffened and we way the temperature in the hallway dropped by several degrees as she turned to look at him.

"What about your sister?"

Brian dropped his eyes and thought about the way to answer that question. Would he tell his mother about the equally choice occasion where a much younger Claire had walked in on a much younger Brian fucking the living daylights out of her college sweetheart? Brian dropped his eyes again before raising them to not quite find his mother's face. He'd decided to spare the details but she could read his body language for that portion of the truth that would confirm that Claire also knew.

"So you told everyone but me." The woman bit the words out. "I hope you know it's a sin." She'd turned on her heels to face the elevator again and Brian shot his words at her back. He'd hoped they would sting.

"What? That I fuck guys or that I didn't tell you?" Brian watched as she froze on the spot and he recognized the stance for what it meant. He'd relished the thought of wounding her only for the split second before remembering which of his parents he took after in this department. Joanie Kinney like most any wounded animal wouldn't go gently into that still night. If she could, she'd take a bite out of him before she went down.

"You make all the jokes you want. The bible makes it clear, you're going to hell." Having silenced her son's quick wit, the woman took her leave.

Brian watched her disappear from his view and he listened to the low whine of the elevator as she descended to the first floor and took one more step out of his life. He reminded himself, just as he'd done after he'd bled himself for Jack, that he hadn't expected anything less than what had just happened.

He stood stock-still and listened, moving only when he heard Justin coming up behind him.

"Close the door Brian." Justin reached around Brian's body to guide the door shut as he pulled the man back into the loft. He'd been listening to both sides of the abbreviated conversation from that same spot where he stood in the living room and he'd gone to Brian when he realized it was over.

Brian turned to look at Justin's face and he smiled bitterly before huffing a little laugh and speaking. "If I'm going to hell, where's that priest going? Better yet, if my mother is following the priest, where's she going?"

Justin stood expressionless and held Brian's stare. He'd known the man long enough to know that there was no humor behind that comment. Brian's mouth was turned up into a grin, but his eyes weren't.

Brian slipped out of Justin's reach and crossed the open space of the loft slowly before taking the steps back into the bedroom. He called over his shoulder as soon as he'd reached the bed. "You coming?"

"Yeah." Justin followed him and stood in the doorframe as he watched Brian undress again. "What do you want me to do?" Justin waited from a safe distance.

"Come to bed. Damnation is a pretty long ways down so we might as well get going." Brian smiled ruefully as he lay back against the pillows.

"Be serious Brian." Justin whispered as he watched the storm clouds passing behind Brian's eyes.

"I am serious Justin." Brian emphasized his pronunciation of Justin's name and offered him a hard look from below heavy lashes. Whereas fucking had always been an escape for him, today it would also be a symbol of his defiance in the face of his mother's pronouncement.

"I can't fuck again." Justin folded his arms across his body. "Not for a little while at least. I'm surprised you want to." He hadn't really been surprised, having been well aware that most of the time Brian Kinney made sure to do exactly what it was that someone told him he couldn't or shouldn't do.

"I won't fuck, I'll just suck." Brian smiled seductively and rolled his lips into his mouth. He'd been trailing one hand over his chest and he watched as Justin's eyes followed his hand. "Come here." Brian continued to watch him. He'd concentrated on keeping the smile on his face as Justin dropped his pants and climbed into bed beside him.

"Brian let's just..." Justin rolled on to his side and watched as Brian shook his head 'no'. He let himself be eased on to his back as Brian decided he didn't want to hear any of what Justin had intended to say.

"Let's just nothing. When since do you turn down getting your dick sucked?"

Justin sat up on his elbows and watched as Brian trailed kisses down his chest and stomach before settling between his legs. Brian was an expert in what he was doing and he could certainly do this in his sleep. Justin felt certain that to Brian's credit that was exactly what he was doing now. By the look of Brian's eyes, the man was a million miles away.

---

He'd left Gus and Lindsay at the Gay and Lesbian Center Garage Sale having unceremoniously christening it as the GLC Garbage Sale. Brian pulled up in front of the loft with a screech of tires announcing his arrival. To say that he was pissed would be somewhere near being the understatement of the century. Saint Lindsay in her usual manner had managed to make it his obligation to rise above his mother's bullshit and had completely stolen the thunder with which he'd planned to flatten mommy dearest and her 'He's been like a son' priest.

Brian got out and narrowly missed being hit by a car that had been passing too closely to the parked cars at curb. He'd spat a few obscenities before slamming his car door and fighting with front door to the building. At this point he felt positively sure that he'd strangle the very next person who spoke to him.

"Justin." Brian barked the word into the intercom as soon as he heard that the line had been picked up.

"Yeah." Justin was dripping wet and leaving puddles on the hardwood, having abandoned his toweling off to get the door.

"Open the door."

"Where's your key?"

"Don't ask me any fucking questions, just open the door."

"Shit. What's the matter with you?" In his head Justin answered his own question as he hit the release button for the lock downstairs. He'd been on his way to a shift at the diner and Brian's increasing sweetness and light mood would ensure that he'd be early, having escaped the loft for safer ground.

Justin unlocked the door and retraced his wet steps towards the bedroom. He'd dropped his towel to wipe at a few spots on the floor as he went.

Brian made his presence known a minute or two later.

"Goddamned motherfuckers still haven't fixed that fucking lock." The lock downstairs had been working intermittently and Justin could hear Brian's voice followed by the sound of something crashing to the ground and breaking. "Justin what the fuck was this canister doing so close to the edge of the counter?" Brian was yelling now and Justin pulled on his underwear before moving to the opened wall panels that overlooked the kitchen area.

The man was kicking lemons out of his way as his boots crunched through the broken glass on the floor. He was already reaching for a similar canister on top of the fridge.

"Justin, where the fuck are you?" Brian was dropping lemons into the jar and now he slammed the jar hard enough on to the counter that Justin was sure he'd break two of them in just as many minutes.

"I'm here." Justin offered the other man a new focal point for his obvious rage.

Brian turned to look at him and read Justin's look of disapproval. Justin had been sporting a similar look since shortly after his mother's impromptu visit and Brian was just about getting sick of it.

"Did you hear what I asked you?" Brian tried to duplicate Justin's cool stare.

"Yes."

"And." Brian smashed a few more bits of glass under his boots as he shifted his weight.

"And...you were the one who refilled the lemon jar this morning." Justin offered him one last look before turning and resuming his dressing.

Justin had been pulling a shirt over his head when he felt Brian brush passed him to go into the bathroom. "You left water all over the floor." Brian's tone was clipped and cool but he wasn't yelling anymore.

"I'm gonna wipe it up as soon as I'm done." Justin tugged at his sleeves and arranged his shirt as he spoke. He'd made eye contact with the man as Brian turned to look at him over his shoulder. Justin watched as Brian pulled off his shirt and tossed it into the hamper before moving back out into the bedroom and towards him. He'd still been wearing the jeans he'd left in this morning but he'd lost his boots and his jacket since Justin had last seen him stomping around in the kitchen. "Did you get to see Gus?" Brian seemed a little calmer and Justin decided to test the waters.

"Yeah." Brian pulled another shirt from the drawer and slipped it over his head.

"How's Lindsay?" Justin tried again and hoped for something more than a one-word answer and maybe some more eye contact.

"Preachy and obnoxious." Brian offered him three words and no eye contact.

"You guys talked about your mom?" Justin's question/statement hung in the air as Brian moved passed him again to grab a broom and dustpan from the small cupboard beside the fridge. He'd been about to warn the man about the broken glass when...

"Fucking shit!" Brian winced and drew his leg up to look at the inevitable result of his walking around in the broken glass sans boots.

Brian had been in the midst of his cursing when Justin stepped into his running shoes and made his way to the kitchen. "Let me see that."

"I can do it myself." Brian had been studying the fragment of glass sticking out of his skin and the blood pooling on the sole of his foot.

"If you take one more step without shoes you'll be nursing at least two cuts." Justin dropped an arm around Brian's waist and maneuvered him out of the field of glass and towards one of the bar stools.

"Thanks Mom." Brian was smiling but once again his eyes weren't.

"I already told you what I thought you should do about your mother. Outing the minister won't make any difference so you should take the same advice you gave me about my dad, just forget about it."

"The sage wisdom of an eighteen year old." The sarcasm bled out of Brian's mouth much like the blood out of his foot.

"I suspect that's the same thing Lindsay told you." Justin pulled out the shard of glass in one smooth stroke and Brian made a mental note not of the pain but of the increased dexterity in Justin's right hand.

"Yeah and the both of you can just go fuck yourselves. Like I said to Lindsay, ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

"Make who free Brian? Your mother or you? I still say it's not worth it. Just leave her alone." Justin reached over the counter for a piece of paper towel and Brian pulled away from him.

"Give me my fucking foot back." He stomped off towards the bathroom and Justin took note of the little trail of blood he was leaving in his wake. "Don't you have a fucking job that you have to get to? You know Deb will have your ass if you're late." Brian finished his sentence with a devilish little smirk before disappearing into the bathroom.

Justin knelt down to wipe at the trail of blood before grabbing his backpack and jacket and crossing the space to the door. "You gonna pick me up? He called to Brian in the bathroom.

"Yeah. We're meeting the guys at Woody's again."

"Don't put a bandage on your foot after you wash it and stay off it for a while." Justin had been zipping up his bag and calling out his treatment recommendations when Brian reappeared in the doorway to the bedroom. The man had fixed him with a bemused smile and Justin finished his instructions. "That's what my mom used to do. The air helps it or something and that way when you go to put on your shoes again later, it won't hurt as much."

Justin tried to read the look that had just passed over Brian's face and blotted out the small smile that had been playing over his lips. He suspected that Brian hadn't picked up any similar tips from his time in his own mother's care.

---

Justin's shift had gone by quickly enough and Justin thought that drinks at Woody's had managed to take Brian out of his funk for short intervals here and there. Even though the man seemed decidedly calmer, Justin took note of the fact that Brian had still managed to insult Ted, mock Emmett several times and committed several more acts of heresy and blasphemy according to the standards of more than a few religions. All this on top of the equally bitter performance he'd treated the gang to during Woody's karaoke/talent night a few days earlier. All in all Brian was in a bad mood, but Justin had decided that as long as Brian continued to vent, his mother and the priest would be spared further attack.

He'd known that Brian was up to something when the man dropped him off at the loft saying he wasn't ready to go home just yet and wanted to get some air. 'Get some air' didn't sound like Brian was going out to fuck and Justin figured that it meant that Brian had decided to 'clear the air'. He'd decided to get the last laugh on Mom and Reverend Tom.

Justin sat up in bed and waited for Brian to finish. He'd undressed and shut off all the lights in the rest of the loft and had been sketching in one-hour intervals. Three sketches and three hours later he heard the door to the loft open and close.

"Why are you still up?" Brian had seen Justin as he climbed the steps into the light of the bedroom.

"Waiting for you."

Brian dropped his jacket at the foot of the bed and pulled his shirt over his head. He'd dropped himself on to the low platform that ran around the edge of the bed before untying his boots and pulling off his pants and his socks. Justin watched him crawl across the bed and he lifted the covers so that Brian could get underneath.

Brian relaxed against the pillows and turned his head to face Justin.

"I left her praying. Probably praying that I'll reform my wicked ways and come to be half the man that Reverend Tom is." He'd spoken in answer to Justin's unspoken question.

"You did the right thing." Justin eased himself up against Brian's body and reached up to stroke at the man's shoulder. "It wouldn't have made her feel any different about you and the priest is none of her business."

Brian turned his head to look at the beam work in the ceiling. On the ride home, he'd been thinking about his catechism class and some nun who'd told him that he'd go to hell if she told the principal or his parents how bad he was being in her class. He'd remembered that lesson clearly.

The children who she'd decided were being good were just as surely going to heaven and Brian and the kid in the back who'd taken to writing curse words on his desk, were going to hell. He'd seen his teacher smoking behind the school and he'd smelled the heavy mouthwash she used to cover up the smell. If Sister Mary Rose got the final say on who was going to heaven or hell then Brian figured the standards had to be pretty low. He remembered thinking that she was full of shit and that he didn't have to answer to her, William Jones or 'Whisky Will' as the students of All Saints School affectionately called their principal, let alone Jack or Joanie Kinney.

Brian relaxed a little further into the pillow and warmed his shoulder under Justin's touch.

He couldn't quite remember when he'd decided that it was all bullshit, but this could easily be explained by the fact that he'd never really reached that conclusion. He'd been twelve and an altar boy when he discovered that if everything he'd ever seen and heard was true then everything he'd started wanting to do to another of the altar boys would mean fire and brimstone, eternal damnation and all the rest of it for his soul. He'd gone to mass with his mother regularly for another year while quietly weighing his options. He'd either go to hell or he'd kiss Bobby Lester. Six months later Brian had kissed him and had stopped going to mass.

He'd stopped going to mass, having later decided that if his fate was sealed then he might as well enjoy as much cool water and hot men as he could while he still had the chance.

"He said he knew who he had to answer to and it wasn't me." Brian rolled his lips into his mouth and smiled. He'd turned to look at Justin before finishing his thought. "My guess is he's right. Just like I don't answer to dear old mom."