By Ian McDuff

This, although an entry in the ‘SweetKaos / Basez Songbook,’ is not, this time, an entry in the Slash Across America challenge. Its setting is not of the essence.

You may regard it as a companion piece to Divisadero, if you like.

This isn’t precisely a songfic, which in fact I pretty much eschew (a protestation that’s beginning to sound a little thin, I know, by this point). But obviously, the soundtrack cut for it is Squeeze, Tempted By the Fruit of Another, Difford / Tilbrook.

There had been a period – a bitter one, for everyone involved – during which Nick had hurt D profoundly. It was partly his insecurities (CK had gone all Freudian on everyone, rambling about Nick’s need to convince at least himself that he wasn’t just a pity-fuck and an eccentric indulgence, a courtesy or a convenience, for Howie: that other men than one who had been forced by circumstance to live in his pockets for years could want him, find him attractive). Partly, it was the well-known slut phase that many newly-out (even if they are ‘out’ only in the sense of having gained a measure of self-acceptance and self-honesty about who and what they are) men go through.

It had been hell on all of them, though, on Justin, especially, and on D as a matter of course, and on Lance and JC – or more precisely, since the public persons who held those names had no public knowledge of it, any more than the public itself did, on the real men behind those stage names: on James and Josh. It had infuriated Brian, enraged Chris, driven Joe almost to physical violence, helped precipitate AJ’s rehab, and – thanks to Nick’s attempt to betray D by making a full-court press after Justin – caused Kevin to overreact to the point that the two bands had for a time been back at each others’s throats, undoing years of good work in making the public feud a private falsehood.

It was at that time that a snarky JC had dowered Nick with the indelible nickname of ‘Hamhock.’

But that was all in the past, although the damage was still not, and might never be, wholly repaired, and although the nickname had stuck to Nick like a burr to a sock. D had forgiven him unreservedly and they were back together, bonded profoundly and apparently indissolubly, stronger than before, so much so that not only had the others had to forgive Nick as well, but they’d convinced themselves that perhaps it had all been for the best in the end.

It was all in the past, and it had mostly been forgotten, and that is why it stunned James so wholly when Nick hit on him one night.

It was a profound truth, one that James had long since learned, that boredom was perhaps the most dangerous of emotions, especially if coupled with loneliness. Even on its own, though, it had been responsible for more disasters, infidelities, suicides, crimes, and quite possibly international wars, than right nigh anything James had ever seen.

And that night, James Lance Bass – most definitely in his character as Lance-of-’N-Sync, mogul-popstar-astro-boy – was bored out of his skull. It was an industry party of the most lethally dull kind, in a room ringing with the falsely bright chatter of far too many (and too vapid) people, in an atmosphere thick with the reek of scent, liquor, cigarette smoke, and quite possibly brimstone. Lance was circulating on auto-pilot, in full ‘professional mingler’ mode, when he quite literally bumped into Nick in the press of bodies.

Nick was evidently just as bored. Or had been, in that he had just as evidently tried to dull the boredom with booze. He wasn’t drunk, or even tipsy, but he’d had enough to bring his least likeable qualities very much to the surface. ‘Lllllannnnstennnn!’ Nick was loud, obnoxious. ‘Where’s Sashay?’ He still had some presence of mind though: enough swiftly to add, ‘And Critter and Fat One and Woodriver?’

‘Other commitments,’ Lance had replied smoothly. ‘Y’all? I don’t see D,’ he drawled, and Nick flushed.

‘Doin’ this same shit at the next four par-tays,’ Nick said, still too loudly: enough so that it managed to insult several Very Important Executives within earshot. Lance exchanged glances with them, knowing that his professional commitments, his very professionalism, dictated he do what he next did: which, as no good deed goes unpunished, was how the whole mess started. Priority one was getting Little Nicky Smartmouth out of hearing range of people who would rather die than admit to – die, or kill the careers of anyone tactless enough to draw attention to – their own actual unimportance.

Lance managed that in his characteristic style. ‘Let’s bail for somewhere away from these dipshits, then,’ he murmured. Nick was all for that, falling readily into line with Lance’s benevolent manipulations. It was a piece of cake to steer Nick into a private VIP alcove away from the crowd, and have him think it was done for his sake. Well, so it was, but not in the way Nick might think. James, years before there was a Lance, had been a genius at that tactic since, as Diane used to say, he was ‘knee-high to a duck.’

‘So,’ James said, flatly. ‘For real this time: where is D?’

Nick slumped his shoulders. ‘DLF shit,’ he said simply.

James nodded. He was a detail man himself: reveling in his ventures not only because they soothed his pride and reaffirmed what he privately admitted he had an unhealthy need for, his senses of importance and of being in control, but also because, as his unsparing self-examination always reminded him to confess, such absorption kept him from thinking thoughts he was safer not thinking. An avoidance tactic. And Nick, though he sublimated and displaced his drive into such fripperies as performing and speed-boating, was the same.

But D, like C, was made differently. Josh was absent because he was on a writing jag, lost, submerged, in his music, breaking the surface only sporadically to throw himself into James’s arms or, less frequently, to eat. And Howie was as capable of the same or greater absorption, not so much in the business of his club or his surreptitious real estate empire-building, but in the work of his Lupus Foundation. To that commitment and passion, Nick was in some ways, despite their love, a distant second, as James was to Josh’s torrid affair with his muse. James had found an equilibrium in dealing with that fact of life, and with the knowledge that he would never have the passion that Josh did, unless it were his passion for Josh himself. Clearly, Nick was still stung by the fact that D’s commitment to the Foundation was stronger even than D’s unbreakable and consuming commitment to Nick.

Nick was, obviously, bored, lonely, and resentful. And that was dangerous. In this mood, he ought never to have been sent out to mix and mingle at an industry party. Very dangerous indeed.

Just how dangerous, James was about to learn.

‘… needs. I know, I know. Howie has a need to do this, and it needs doing, and it’s Caroline’s memory and all that, and the whole thing is, it’s to help people who need dire help.’ Nick’s typically muddled eloquence was in full spate now. ‘But I have needs too. I need him, I need all of him, I need him to see that. And when he gets wrapped up in this, I have needs needs, y’know –’

James blinked. He cannot be telling me this, if he’s referrin’ to what I vow he’s referrin’ to.

‘And I get to thinkin’ he doesn’t need me really, not really, and maybe there’s a reason, maybe I’m just a habit and I’m there, and it’s not like he can’t do better than my fat ass –’

‘Now just you holt on there a minute,’ James rumbled. ‘What the two of y’all have, that’s as real as it gets. And as for this down you have on yourself, there’s more folks than Carter has oats, think you’re the hottest thing since the racetrack at Talladega, and first in line thinkin’ that’s D his own self. The –’

‘I don’t see no line,’ Nick said, with a bitter tone to his voice James couldn’t remember ever hearing from him before.

‘Well, trust me on this’n, then, on account of there sure as hell is.’

‘You standin’ in it?’

James looked at him, startled. Nick’s face was unreadable for once, his eyes past deciphering.

‘Lookit, if Sashay does you like D does me when something else comes first, you’re prolly needy as I am right now, right?’

James was stunned. Nick’s voice had dropped into a sultry register, and he was edging slowly towards James. ‘I got needs, you got needs, and if they cared, cared like we deserve, we wouldn’t have needs, right? If they cared. If we came first the way we’re s’pposed to…. I could … I need that, okay?’ James knew – it was a standing joke among them all – James knew Nick’s reputation for insatiability, his deep-seated and sometimes near-pathological desperation to be loved and possessed physically and made to feel desired. But this was unsettling.

‘– The Sam Hill are you on?’ James snapped.

‘I need this,’ Nick said, crossing many lines, including the limits of James’s personal space.

‘I don’t.’ James’s voice was tight, his temper obviously just barely in control. ‘Nor does D need this in any way, shape, nor form. Nor Josh. And you sure as hell don’t need to be tryin’ to up and pull this shit, either.’

‘D,’ Nick snorted. ‘Whatever he doesn’t need, I’m it. He’s made that obvious. I don’t see him here, do you? And as for what we need, us two … wouldn’t you like to know, just once, what it’s like? A man, not your Pretty Pink Princess, under you, to be drilled hard and deep with that horse-cock of yours, to be plundered: somebody new and struggling and half-willing to be turned out and made your bitch? To –’

‘That, by God, is enough of that. I’m about tired of this, Hamhock.’ James glared at him, too angry even to recognize that briefest of moments in which, for a shaved-down second, Nick’s words had conjured a picture in his mind he could like far too easily and well. ‘I don’t know as I’ve been so complimented and insulted in my life, and damn sure not at the same damn time. I’d thought your slut days were one fall from grace and long past –.’ James stopped. Nick had actually moaned at the word ‘slut,’ and not in pain. Apparently Carter had more issues than they’d ever imagined.

James thought, his mind working furiously. Something here was, as they said Down Home, ‘bad wrong.’ He made a tactical adjustment.

‘You want to try and talk through whatever this is really about?’

That was all it took. Nick started to try and say something – probably lascivious, from the look on his face – and then it all shattered, and he started to sob.

It was – as both bands had long since acknowledged – a godsend that James Lance Bass was an untutored tactical, operational, and strategic genius worthy to rank with Nathan Bedford Forrest. No one who was not would have been able to extract them from the industry gig with no one’s being the wiser, whisk Nick away unnoticed to a super-discreet facility, place all the right and necessary calls to deal with the emergency, and, most impressively of all, track down Josh and D both, convey to them the overriding urgency of his call, and get them there without their panicking.

It was after they arrived that he broke to them the news that Nicky had had a slight breakdown – and that it was already being dealt with.

By the same token, even among their bandmates, long used to James’s manipulations, only Josh and Howie had the necessary sheer sweetness not to resent James’s having taken charge of D’s boyfriend, unasked and consulting no one, especially as D’s boyfriend had demonstrated that breakdown by propositioning Josh’s spouse. Incredibly, they both seemed to understand, and to be grateful for all James had done.

‘And you can both by God stop blaming yourselves, too,’ James concluded. ‘I understand your other commitments, and love you for them,’ he said to Josh. ‘And they’re fixin’ to fix Nick to where he has that same understandin’, it comes to you, D. He ain’t to blame, I’ll grant you that, this was a breakdown flat out, but y’all ain’t neither one to blame, either.’

Josh, still as shaken and as self-accusatory as D was, shook his bowed head. ‘I guess. I mean, I don’t blame Nick, or you, baby, or poor D, but –’

Inevitably, of course, all the others had arrived by then as well, drawn irresistibly to any crisis that might threaten any of the brethren: later than D and Josh, but in time to catch the last part of the discussion.

‘Hell,’ Kevin drawled, wearily. ‘Do what I always do, you need someone to blame. Blame Jane.’

The others actually mustered a smile at that. But C wasn’t quite through punishing himself. ‘Um. Baby? When, uh, I mean, you haven’t said much, and that’s how it ought to be, sure, but I mean, like, dude was hittin’ on you, you said that much, and – well, were you ever tempted, even for a minute, me bein’ neglectful like I’ve been?’

James just looked at him. ‘Hon, that ain’t a question I’d like to answer. I say yes, it ain’t good. I say no, it insults D’s taste in boyfriends.’

‘Oh,’ Josh said, feeling still more foolish.

‘But I think we all ought to go on home, all of us, and let D go stay with his Nick. And when we do get home, Josh?’

‘Y- yes?’

James grinned. ‘We get back to the house, I’ll show you temptation.’

END