The Hickey

Justin has a hickey…

Justin awoke like he did each day, begrudgingly. The love making is never long enough and the time allotted for sleep is too short. Unfortunately lengthening one means cutting into the other. This particular morning was no different. He and Brian had fucked until 4am. It was now 8am and Justin had a shift at the diner. Not wanting to awaken his sleeping lover, Justin quietly rose, grabbed his boxers from the floor and quietly made his way to the bath room. The routine was the same every morning and he had done it so many times that Justin could practically roll through the motions without opening his eyes. That is why he didn't notice it until he finished brushing his teeth.

As he opened the medicine cabinet to put away the toothpaste, his eyes were drawn to it. Right there, smack dab in the middle of his neck, a hickey! This wasn't the first time Justin had ever had a hickey. All the other times, however, they had been in spots that could be covered with clothes. This one was in a very visible spot, and since it was the middle of July, he couldn't exactly get away with wearing a turtle neck. At first he was horrified. He knew that he would never live this down. The gang would be all over him about it. And they'd be all over Brian too. Then a wicked grin spread across his face. Justin left the loft with an evil smile on his face and a very low cut shirt, certain to draw attention to the reddish bluish blackish spot on his neck.

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Michael, Ben, and the hustler-turned-honor-student, were the first of the gang to arrive. Justin, overly chipper for having to work at 9am on a Saturday morning, approached the booth carrying a very welcoming pot of steaming coffee. Michael and Ben were raving about the fact that a publisher had agreed to pick up Ben's latest book, this time non-fiction, entitled Zen and the Art of Being Gay Foster Parents to an ex-Hustler who is HIV Positive. No one ever said it was a prestigious publishing firm. Hunter, the inspiration for Ben's latest success story, looked as bored as ever. He sneered when Justin came over and was just about to make a snide comment about how if Justin leaves Brian all alone in the loft, an unnamed ex-hustler could come over and show him what a real man is like, when he did a double take. He stared at Justin's neck.

"Did you fall on your neck?" Hunter knew damn well what caused the bruise on his neck, having doled out a few hickeys in his time, but he refused to acknowledge that Brian had been the one to dole out this particular hickey.

The question drew the others' attention.

"Well, well, well. A love bite. How quaint! The great Brian Kinney has finally left his mark." Justin couldn't help but detect a strain of jealousy behind Mikey's sarcastic comment.

"Oh he's left his mark plenty of times before. This just happens to be the first one visible to the public. I'm thinking of selling tickets for a viewing." This got a laugh from the boys. Temmett approached next. Having reconciled their issues, and with Blake out of the picture, Ted and Emmett were once again an item, not that anyone really cared.

"What's so funny?" asked one half of Temmett. It was becoming harder to tell which one was which.

"Kinney apparently likes to stake his ground. Justin has a hickey" Zen Ben pointed out. Justin frowned outwardly at this comment, but inwardly he was smiling. He kind of liked the idea of Brian claiming him, though he would never tell him so.

Ted burst out laughing. Emmett merely teared up saying, "Oh honey I'm so proud of you" and proceeded to kiss Justin on the cheek. Justin was unsure what there was to be proud of. It's not like he gave himself the hickey. Still, he supposed that getting a hickey from Brian Kinney was no small feat, so perhaps there was some pride to be had.

Mel and Lindsay were usually the next to arrive but on this particular they were doing whatever it is lesbians do on a Saturday morning in Pittsburgh when they're not sitting at a booth in the Liberty Diner. No one really seemed to notice their absence. In fact, some welcomed it as it gave more time for Brian and Justin interaction.

Due to the inconspicuous absence of the munchers, Brian was the next, and last to arrive. When he was informed of the `situation' by being asked by the gang, through pauses in their laugher, if he and Justin "were going steady" and if he was going to "give Justin his pin", his face decided it wanted to match Deb's wig in color. Brian chalked his sudden redness up to it being "hotter than fuck in the diner" and declared that he needed to go get some air before he "suffocated to death and deprived all of Liberty Avenue of his nine-inch cock." Grabbing Justin, coffee pot still in hand, by the arm he stormed out of the diner. Justin, though slightly taken aback by being roughly dragged out of the diner during his shift, still had the wicked little grin on his face.

Once outside Brian inquired, "What the fuck is that?" pointing to the monstrosity on Justin's neck.

"It's called a hickey, Bri. They're commonly formed through intense suckage to a region of skin, causing discoloration. They usually form on the neck but can also appear on other places. Perhaps you're familiar with them?"

"I know what it is, what I meant was, how did it get there?"

"It's a beautiful story, really. Two men were sitting on a couch in a loft in Pittsburgh, watching a movie. Well, actually only one was watching. The other was intensely sucking on his lover's neck. One guess as to who the sucker was." Justin giggled, impressed with his double entendre. Brian frowned, unimpressed with Justin's double entendre.

"God, if I had known that you bruised as easily as a fucking banana I never would have let my fucking lips anywhere near your body."

"Oh please. There have been mornings when I look like a fucking leopard because you couldn't keep your fucking lips off me. Besides, what's the big deal? It's just a hickey. People get them all the time."

"Yeah, if by people you mean sixteen year old high school girls. God, what will it do to my reputation if people find out we were necking like teenagers." Brian ran his fingers through his auburn locks, looking seriously worried about his status as the "stud of Liberty Avenue". Studs don't give hickeys.

Rolling his eyes Justin pointed out that "first of all, one of us is still a teenager. Second of all, *we* weren't necking. You were necking. I was just sitting on the couch watching An Affair to Remember. "

Brian just stared at Justin as if he were blaspheming.

"Alas," lamented Justin, "as much as I'd like to stay and chat I have coffee to pour, tables to wait, food to serve." With that he turned and reentered the diner. Brian sulked off to his Vette.

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Later that night at Babylon a very perky blond approached a very drunk brunet.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

"Fuck off."

"Someone's in a mood. Still upset about the fact that you're no better than a horny teenager?" Hey, Justin gets his digs when he can.

As he had already done several times that day, Brian just glared at Justin. He swallowed another shot of Beam.

The blond tried reasoning with the brunet. "I speak from experience when I say that there are worse things you could be than a horny teenager."

"Like what? A horny teenager's lover?" As he had already done several times that day, Justin rolled his eyes at Brian.

"Apparently my 'friends' can't keep their big mouths shut. I have gotten several sarcastic offers to go and park on Lover's Lane during lunch break. Gossip travels fast amongst queens, especially when the gossip is about me." With that revelation Brian downed yet another shot of Beam. He pondered how much easier it would be if Jim Beam were the only man in his life with whom he was on a first-name basis.

Justin, amused, yet wanting to placate his already drunk lover, offered to help show the citizens Liberty Avenue that Brian Kinney was still their king and had not regressed to a horny teenager, but Brian was uninterested. He said he needed to prove his point with someone who wasn't Vitamin E deficient. Justin said whatever and stormed off in search of his own conquest. He was, after all, a horny teenager. He couldn't be left unsatisfied just because his lover had self-esteem issues.

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The next morning at the Liberty Diner a very chipper blond approached a very somber brunet.

"Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

"Fuck off."

"Someone's in a mood. You're not still upset about the whole hickey thing are you?"

"Noooo." Amazing how a 31 year old man could sound a lot like a 5 year old child. Then again considering who this particular 31 year old's best friend was maybe it wasn't so amazing.

"Why the fuck didn't you come back to the loft last night?"

Justin stared at the man-child contemplating the most efficient way to murder him. "Uh, you said you didn't want to go near a Vitamin E deficient banana. Remember?"

Brian started to tell Justin that he should be able to interpret his real intentions by now but something caught his attention and he stopped abruptly.

"Wasn't that hickey on the other side of your neck yesterday?"

Justin quickly forgot that he wanted to kill Brian and smiled mysteriously. "No Brian, the hickey *you* gave me was on the other side of my neck yesterday." He then walked away to wait on the other tables. Brian glared, his face once again rivaling Debbie's wig in redness. This time he chalked it up to the intense anger that had just filled him. The rest of the gang burst out in a hysterical fit of laughter.

Brian again grabbed Justin who again still had the coffee pot in his hand and stormed out of the diner again.

Pointing to Justin's hickey Brian asked, "What the fuck is that?"

Justin, rolling his eyes at Brian and then rolling his eyes at the redundancy of rolling his eyes at Brian responded, "I thought we went over this yesterday. It's called a hickey. H-I-C-"

"Yeah, smartass, I know what the fuck it is but what I want to know is how the fuck it got there."

Justin suddenly felt as if he were living in a bizarro deja vue world. "It's a beautiful story, really. After you turned down my oh so generous offer of a tryst in the backroom I, being the unashamed horny teenager that I am, went in search of another unashamed horny teenager. When two unashamed horny teenagers hook-up, hickey's form. It's a law of physics. I think Newton discovered it."

Brian was fuming. "You let someone else give you a hickey on your neck?"

Justin, unaware of how close he was coming to losing his life, replied, "Oh, not just on my neck. He left one on my inner thigh too. Right about in the same spot you always like to mark me."

Brian was seeing stars. He pulled his lover, coffee pot and all toward the Vette.

"Brian, what are you doing? I still have 2 hours left on my shift."

"I'm taking you home and I'm going to suck intensely up and down your body. If anyone's going to give you a fucking hickey it's going to be me."

Justin's enigmatic smile returned as he was being pulled towards the car. Brian didn't need to know that he had been so drunk last night that when he arrived home he tripped over a cord and crashed, neck first, into the coffee table and that a book, which had been precariously laying on top of the table, fell and hit him on his upper thigh. The whole ordeal had fucking hurt like a bitch but somehow he knew that what lay ahead of him would make the pain obsolete.

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