But Justin had been young and reckless, and when his body had finally wanted more, he had betrayed that secret. The memory of it was still crystal clear.


Joey had said that he had new porn. He always had porn of some kind, boxes and boxes of movies made by fans desperate to be seen, even in their most vulnerable state. Watching the tapes had gotten old a long time ago, but every once in a while there was something new worth seeing. It had been one of those nights.

By the time JC arrived, they were all a little high and a little too happy. Justin had pulled JC onto the couch, to lay between his legs, leaning back, one on top of the other. Things were different between them now and had been for months. Justin knew it. And JC knew it. It was just a matter of time until one of them crossed the line. And on this night, it had finally happened. Justin's hand had been riding on JC's hip, just under his shirt. Then it had moved inside the waistband of his pants, just resting there, one finger sliding back and forth hypnotically.

Justin had been perfectly relaxed. And a little too buzzed to think clearly about anything. He'd adjusted his position again, pulling JC in closer, and then he'd simply slipped his hand farther down until he felt the swell of JC's cock, the skin warm and silky. His hand had cuffed easily around it and he'd lazily stroked the shaft with his thumb. He remembered JC looking back over his shoulder and meeting his eyes.

He'd looked angry. And Justin had felt his body go still.

There had been no scene. JC didn't make scenes. He'd simply pushed himself up off the couch and stretched like he'd been lying in one position for too long and felt stiff, uncomfortable. Only Chris was still awake. JC had waved to him silently and crossed the room to the door without looking at Justin again.

Justin had waited a week, then approached him again, this time in full view of everyone backstage. It was a simple hug after the show, nothing more, but JC's reaction had been anything but simple. He'd shoved Justin away, knocking him down before he could regain his balance and then stood over him, his face flushed with rage. Neither of them had said a word and for a long minute, JC stood deadly still, his eyes pinning Justin to the floor. It took a minute for Joey to realize that something was wrong. He finally pulled JC away and when Justin tried to follow, Chris and Lance held him back until JC was out of sight.

The entire episode had lasted less than a minute, but months went by before the awkwardness faded, before Justin could watch JC talk without thinking about what it had been like to kiss him.

And then, last summer, out of nowhere, it had started again, like a fire that had smoldered under the ashes. And, like before, it had become more frequent, until now it was just part of their routine. When they were both in town, they would meet at Dublin's on Sunset for beer and a game of darts. Then one of them would interrupt the game, pulling out a cell phone to order pizza. They'd stop at Blockbuster letting the tension build, then spend the rest of the night at Justin's gate-guarded castle making out like teenagers parked on some country road.


It had become Justin's guilty pleasure, something he did for himself, that no one else knew about, something that took the edge off and made everything else in his crazy life seem possible. It was the perfect piece of passion.

Now suddenly he was on the brink of losing it all again.

A few careless words that could cost him everything.

-::-

It had started innocently enough, but things had gotten out of hand fast and Justin had done nothing to stop it.

Joey had been holding up three fingers in a boy scout salute.

“I’m not lying! I swear to God.” He'd crossed his heart for punctuation.

Across the room Lance had a finger stuck in one ear trying desperately to hear the last of his voice mail over Chris’s boisterous laughter. He gave up in frustration as Justin came through the front door and flopped down across from him.

He jerked a thumb at Chris.

“What so funny?”

Lance shook his head slowly as he closed up his phone. By this time Joey was crawling over the back of the couch making loud noises in Chris's direction.

“Something about a kissing booth.”

Justin snorted.

“A what?”

Lance shrugged. “I don’t know. Ask Fatone. His sister took some kids to the Dade County Fair. She’s the one who told him.”

Joey had rolled Chris onto his back and was licking his face like a big, friendly dog. Watching Joey Fatone be Joey Fatone was an event in itself, but Justin’s curiosity was aroused.

“Joey! Joey! Stop for a minute. Tell the story again. From the beginning.”

Joey looked up and Chris took advantage of the momentary distraction to push him away. They both ended up leaning back against the couch, sweat beading on their faces. Joey took a long swig from a can of coke, then looked at Justin and shrugged.

“I don't know the whole thing, but supposedly there were a bunch of people there, and yeah, on Saturday there’s some kind of kissing booth. I mean not like you line up and pay or anything. There’s an auction and the highest bidders get to kiss two of the guys from Backstreet.”

Chris added several graphic images of Lou Pearlman bidding furiously ‘for the blonde one’. Joey let the laughter subside then shrugged again.

“Think about it. What’s the down side?”

He looked at each of the guys who in turn shrugged until he got to Justin. Justin was shaking his head.

“On the mouth? I wouldn’t do it. Let somebody you don’t even know kiss you? No way. It's gross.”

Chris spent the next thirty seconds describing his Great-Aunt Florence's powdery red lips and then the questions had begun.

“So J, you really wouldn’t?”

Justin shook his head again. “On the mouth? No way. “

Chris held up one finger on his left hand and one on his right as if keeping score.

“Joe, we know your answer. Me? What the hell. I guess I would." He arched one eyebrow lasciviously, then smirked at Lance. "What about you, Bass?”

Lance had moved to the table and now sat with his back to the group, flipping the pages of a newspaper. He didn't bother to turn around. “Me? I don’t know. Maybe. If it was for a good cause.”

Chris groaned, then added another finger to the count on his right hand, dragging southern hospitality and pity sex through the same mud puddle until Justin spoke again, correcting him.

“No you don't. That’s two ‘yes’, one ‘no’, and one ‘maybe’. Since JC’s in the head, I’ll answer for him. 'No fuckin’ way. Who knows where that's been.'”

Laughter erupted at Justin’s imitation of JC's phobic response. Lance picked up his empty glass and walked into the kitchen calling over his shoulder.

“I’ve never actually seen JC kiss anybody.”

The comment caught Justin by surprise and he felt his face redden involuntarily. Chris started to protest, but Joey stopped him, checking over his shoulder covertly that the coast was still clear before adding his own two cents.

“Lance is right. I’ve known JC longer than any of you guys and I’ve never seen it. Not on the mouth. You?”

He turned toward Chris who thought for a long moment, trying hard to attach faces and names from the past, but he too shook his head.

“On the cheek, yeah, or those air-kiss-type-of-things, you know, like with relatives. But a real kiss? On the mouth? Uh-uh.”

The room got suddenly quiet as JC bounded down the stairs and slid onto the couch next to Justin. Feeling suddenly guilty, Joey blurted out the first thing that came into his head.

“You know what, JC? On tv, none of the whores ever let the johns kiss them on the mouth either. It’s not part of the deal. Unless you pay extra. Up front. Othewrwise, no kissing.”

Lance leaned back through the doorway, looking at Joey with a mixture of amusement and disbelief, but said nothing. Justin tried vainly to change the subject, however Chris would not be denied.

“Think of it this way, Chasez. You’ll make a great mother-in-law someday.”

Joey picked up a pillow from the couch and pretended to smother Chris with it. Lance filled a glass with ice and then perched on a stool near the service bar. When JC caught his eye, Lance shook his head.

“Not worth the effort. Trust me.”

“No, no, no. We have him here so it'll be all legal and shit. Corpus delecti.” Chris jumped up and with a wicked smile turned back again to JC. Before he could start, Lance raised his hand. When Chris ignored him, he whispered loud enough to be heard three states away.

"Habeus Corpus."

Chris looked back at him and Lance shrugged. "Joey watches 'Kojak' reruns. I watch 'Law & Order'. It's habeus corpus."

Chris cleared his throat theatrically, then turned back to JC again.

“Habeus corpus. As I was saying, between the four of us, Mr. Chasez, we have a combined 41 years of experience with you, of both a business and a personal nature. Is that correct?”

He waited dramatically for a response, but JC was no longer looking at Chris. He was staring at Justin now, waiting for him to slip a few words his way to help him get caught up, to get the drift of the conversation. It happened a lot in the early days. JC would get up from a nap and stagger into the lounge. Someone was always up talking, day or night. Usually Justin was part of it. He'd had trouble sleeping on the bus at first and would get up and watch TV instead, talking to whomever wandered in. It was hard to jump in on any conversation, not knowing where it started, but the ones at night were the toughest. People tended to ramble when they were tired, lose track of what they were saying. Justin had always saved him, leaning over and whispering something to put JC back in the game, some hint as to where the whole thing was headed.

JC needed that courtesy call now, but Justin’s racing pulse had paralyzed him. He looked back at Chris blankly and Chris snorted, still in character, a model of juris prudence.

“No response? Your honor, let the record show that the witness refused to answer the question.“

Chris looked suddenly at Lance who waved him off wanting no part of it, especially being a pretend judge in Chris's pretend Inquisition. Chris mumbled something under breath, then turned away and started pacing again.

“As I was saying, in all of those 41 years Mr. Chasez, no single person here today can ever remember seeing you kiss anyone, on the mouth.”

He emphasized the last three words as if they were part of the Florida Penal Code. JC looked stunned. It was Joey, suddenly role-playing himself, who jumped to JC's defense.

“Objection, your honor. There was no question. How can the witness be expected to answer when there was no question?”

Chris again looked at Lance who shook his head violently this time. He’d been with this group long enough to know how quickly the tide could turn. The last thing he wanted was to end up the punch line to this joke, especially with Chris who loved being the center of attention a little too much and would sacrifice anyone who got in his way. Lance lifted his glass to his mouth and turned his back. Chris took a giant step in his direction anyway, gesturing grandly toward JC.

“I’ll rephrase the question, your honor. Has the defendant ever willingly, knowingly, kissed anyone on the mouth?”

Joey objected again and Chris had already stumbled through yet another version of the same question when Justin decided that he’d heard enough.

“You could’ve just asked JC for a kiss, Chris. I'm sure he didn’t know you were so hard up.”

Joey broke into spasms of laughter and Lance spit what was left of the lemonade in his mouth all over himself. Chris screwed up his face, whining as if he’d just been pantsed in public.

“Dude?!”

Justin dove at him, dragging Chris to the floor and Joey dog-piled on top. Within seconds, it was hard to tell who was who. Lance rolled his eyes at JC and reached for the remote.

The moment of truth passed without consequence, lost in the grunts and groans of the World Wrestling Federation.

-::-

Justin rang the bell again and then banged loudly on the door. As he turned away, it opened. JC stared at him briefly, then turned and walked back inside, leaving the door ajar. Justin had done the same thing himself a hundred times. It meant that the person at the door could stay or go, not that he was welcome. He swallowed the lump in his throat and stepped inside, then followed JC across shiny hardwood floors and down the stairs into the room where he kept the piano.

Justin stood on one foot and then the other waiting him out. When JC finally spoke,he didn't look up and his voice had a hollow ring to it. It was the one he used with strangers.

“I don’t need you to fight my battles, if that’s why you’re here.”

“What makes you think I’m doing that? I don’t care if you ever spit on Chris again.”

Justin did not feel like laughing or making a joke of any kind, but his response came out wrong, too light and playful for what was really going on. Chris could be a real jerk, especially when he was bored and trying to entertain himself. They all knew that. Justin knew it. JC knew it too. But that didn't change what had happened. Now two days had gone by and things were still bad.

JC stopped shuffling the papers in front of him and looked up at him. Justin felt the lump work it's way back up into his throat. He forced himself to talk.

“Okay. So, that’s not true. But it’s not my problem. It’s Chris's problem. Am I right about that much?”

JC started digging through the pile of loose papers again, but Justin knew he was listening. It was one of his little control mechanisms, something that should have driven Justin crazy over the years, but hadn’t. None of it did. As he stood there watching JC move sheets of music from one pile to another then back again, he realized that those were the things he treasured.

JC was complicated. Totally accessible one minute. Hostile territory the next. But a puzzle? No way. Puzzle pieces you could move around and finally have the whole picture. There were no puzzle pieces here. With JC there were scales, like on a fish. Tightly layered, one on top of the other, anchored somewhere deep under the skin. All of them shiny. Visible only as separate pieces if you got close enough to really see. Few people got that close. Justin was one of them.

That made it harder for him to lie.

“Okay. Then I guess I want to know if I have a problem.“

It was as close as Justin could get to what he really wanted to say, and he stepped in, pressing himself against the curve of JC’s back, hungry for the warmth they shared. With one arm, he turned them face to face and brushed JC’s lips with his own, pulling their bodies together. He let his mouth roam, undirected, afraid to find that JC would not accept his kiss, not draw his tongue into his mouth and make magic with it. Just days before JC had caught him staring, not at him really, but at his mouth. Justin had tried to act cocky, saying that it wasn’t the mouth he was interested in. It was the tongue. The tongue was all he cared about, that if JC didn’t kiss like that, he wouldn’t have given him a second look. It was a lie, of course. A beautiful lie. And JC had merely smiled. It was one of those moments that made Justin ache with the simple joy that passed between them. Now he knew that he had waited too long, that he should have been there days ago, instead of making a joke, and leaving JC to deal with the rest of it on his own.

Suddenly words were tumbling out of his mouth. They were elementary, hopelessly plain. Worst of all, they sounded empty, and shallow, like he hadn't thought about them at all.

“I like things the way they are.“

JC answered just as plainly. “I know that, Justin.”

JC was one of those people who could use the fewest words possible and still leave a person completely confused. He'd had gotten very still and now stared at Justin who had begun pacing back and forth. When Justin stopped suddenly, searching the space before him as if looking at something unfathomable, his voice grew loud with disbelief.

“Wait a minute. You think I told him? That Chris wasn’t just jerking himself off the other night, that he was trying to get at you with this?”

JC suddenly looked past Justin to the stairs.

“Hey Joe.”

“Hey." Joey bounded down the stairs, smiling openly. "Hey Justin. I don’t know what you guys were talking about, but the answer to the last part is yes. Chris was jerking off. I mean, what else is he going to do?" Joey laughed and shrugged.

He continued across the room and disappeared into the kitchen, then poked his head back through the door.

“Hey C? Did you know you left the front door standing wide open? Anyway, I closed it.”

He turned back again and JC looked at Justin, obviously uncomfortable that Joey might have overheard more of the conversation than he was letting on. Justin tried to apologize, but JC waved him off.

“It doesn’t matter. It just doesn't.”

With that, Joey breezed back into the room, finishing the last of a coke and belching loudly. He smiled sheepishly at JC and then sat on the arm of the chair.

“What doesn't matter?" When neither Justin or JC made any effort to bring him up to speed, Joey took the hint and moved on. "You still wanna catch that flick?”

JC looked briefly at Justin, then nodded, answering in a voice that was barely audible. He grabbed his keys and disappeared up the stairs. Joey looked back at Justin and pointed at the door. When Justin shook his head, Joey followed JC up the stairs, leaving Justin alone.

-::-

The transformation was nothing short of miraculous. When Justin got to the airport on Thursday, Chris and JC were laughing at Joey's pathetic parody of a dance move that Wade had just taught them. The courtroom stunt at Joey’s just days before had gone completely unpunished, for Chris anyway. Chris and JC were fine.

JC and Justin were nowhere.

It doesn’t matter.

Justin had turned the words over in his head a thousand times.That's what JC had said, that it didn't matter. But none of that made sense, that is, unless Justin didn't matter either, that what they had been doing didn't matter. He'd lain awake all night thinking about it, how different it was this time, how easily JC had taken to it. It was the only possible answer, that didn't matter, it wasn’t so much a guilty pleasure as a cheap thrill. Justin had friends who'd done things just because they were dangerous or forbidden, like shoplifting or joyriding. Even when they had money, they still did it, just for kicks. That was obviously how JC felt about it. A cheap thrill.

Put into context with the rest of his perfectly moral existence, kissing Justin was like watching Jerry Springer. It was perfectly okay if no one knew about it, but if the door bell rang while you were watching, it was time to turn off the set or at least turn the channel. On Saturday Chris had rung the bell. There was no way for JC to turn things off, so he had turned the channel instead. He and Justin were no more.

As the plane rolled back from the jetway, Justin leaned his head against the window and pulled at a red eyelid. He looked like he needed sleep. He did. He looked like he’d been crying. He had. That had been the biggest surprise of all, that at twenty-one years of age, he still didn’t have control of his emotions. Or his life.

The sun glasses would make him look like an arrogant jerk, but he didn’t care. By the time they got to New York, Justin Timberlake of the boyband, NSYNC had to be ready to face the press and the cameras at MTV. As he closed his eyes, he thought about darts and beer and pizza that never got eaten, one last time, then let it all go. It was time to move on.

-::-

The day had been exhausting. But after that, expectation and reality parted company forever.

At first he'd thought he was imagining it, that JC was looking at him. Justin had felt his eyes on him more than once, but had been afraid to turn around in case he was wrong. At the press briefing they had been split up, maximizing the amount of time the media had with each of them. When they had crossed paths at Rockefellar Center, JC had held out his hand for Justin to slap as he walked by, like the old days when they were too tired to talk but too close not to do something in passing. The limo ride to the studio had been almost painful. Justin had felt every atom, every electron, every quark. All of them were screaming for him to look.

When he finally did, JC was looking back. He did not look away.

Justin could have made it to the sixteenth floor without an elevator car to take him there. The kiss in the dressing room was deep, the kind it had sometimes taken them hours to get to before, with JC letting him in, the kind that made Justin’s knees weak. He’d never even tried kissing JC like that, standing up.

Until now.

Now anything seemed possible.

“I thought we weren’t doing this anymore,” he breathed between kisses.

JC smiled into his neck, nipping the skin once before finally pulling away.

“We aren’t doing that. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Justin pulled him back, wanting to see his face. JC met his gaze head on and smiled again. There was a knock at the dressing room door before he could speak.

Five minutes.

Justin watched in wonder as JC started to walk away.

“Hey.”

JC had opened the door slightly and now leaned back against the jamb.

“Yeah?”

“Which part of that did you mean?”

Justin watched the lips he’d just been kissing, move to form words.

“The guilt. It's history.”

He winked and Justin felt his knees start to buckle again, but as the cool air from the hallway washed over him, his head felt suddenly clear. He felt brazen. And daring.

“Wait! So what about the rest of it?”

JC kept walking, checking his watch nonchalantly as Justin moved to his side, taking him by the wrist, making him stop.

“You know what I mean. Are we going for it?”

JC feigned shock and pushed Justin away, but the word Justin had never dreamed he'd hear, escaped before JC could get out of his grasp.

Maybe.

Justin let his own hand drop in stunned surprise and JC slipped away, quickening his pace down the hallway. Justin was still too overwhelmed to do anythhing but call after him.

“Wait! Come back. How much?”

JC stopped just before reaching the corner that would have taken him out of sight. When he turned back, he was smiling that smile, the one that had always grabbed Justin as surely as a fist knotted in the front of his shirt.

“I guess that depends,” he said.

Justin felt his heart stop.

“On what?”

Before JC could respond, a sound engineer appeared at his side and began working a mic cord through the loop of his pants. The two of them began moving down the hallway as one. Justin watched their awkward dance until he could see them no more, then patted his own shirt, checking his mic again. As he pulled the dressing room door closed behind him, he made a mental note, to thank Chris for making it all possible. He pictured the stunned look on Chris's face. For the first time in his life, he would be completely speechless.The thought of a tongue-tied Chris Kirkpatrick put a smile on Justin's face.

As he reached the end of the hall, he heard JC's voice fill the air and he smiled again.

This time for what they had finally left behind. Doubt. And fear.

And for what lay ahead.

Not just pleasure, but love.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________