Deep Thoughts

It’s midnight, or at least I think it is. I know that the city is extremely dark and very quiet and it usually gets like that around midnight. Usually about now I would look at the clock on my microwave, but it’s missing. I can’t seem to get to sleep no matter how hard I try. When I’m suffering from a bout of insomnia like this, I usually sit on my couch, but it’s missing too. I try to watch some TV to see if that will tire me out, but that is also missing. So here I am sitting in the middle of my loft, on the floor, in the dark looking around at everything I have, which at the moment is nothing.

It’s all gone, every last bit of it. Even my computer. Hell, even the fucking computer desk. And it’s all Justin’s fault. But this time it’s not because I was robbed when he forgot to set the alarm. This time it’s because he made me realize that all of my shit wouldn’t matter if my freedom was taken away. That my right to do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want and wherever the fuck I want with whomever the fuck I want is far more important than my Italia Moda sofa or my Mies Van Der Rohe table. So I’m sitting here in the dark looking at absolutely nothing. I even came very close to selling my bed, but luckily I didn’t have to.

Then a movement in the bedroom reminds me that I haven’t lost everything. Even though the loft looks like it did when I first moved in and could barely afford to make the payments each month let alone furnish the place, my bed is not empty and that’s what matters. I still have Justin. He’s made me realize that all the material shit in the world doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have someone to share it with. I honestly never thought I would feel this way.

When I first started selling everything off I was in a state of shock. It didn’t really hit me what was going on until I started telling him about it. Then I started to wonder what in the fuck I was doing. I was getting rid of everything I’d worked so hard for, just to undermine the success of a campaign that was completely my doing. I was spending the money I earned on the campaign to elect Stockwell on a campaign to elect Deekins. When I told him I needed to lie down, I meant it. I thought I was going to faint.

The thing that amazes me the most is the fact that we didn’t fuck. Usually in a situation like that I would go out and find a trick and fuck away my problems. Sex and drugs and alcohol would take me away from it all, even if just for a few moments. This time it was different. We kissed a lot, and he held me, but that’s as far as it went. We stayed fully clothed and I just took comfort in the fact that he was there. Even though all my stuff was gone I was happy that he wasn’t going with it.

I’ll be honest. Every time someone referred to me as Justin’s sugar daddy, I thought they were right. I thought he was there because I was rich and successful. I didn’t think he loved me as much as he loved my lifestyle. I started to get a vague idea that I might have been wrong about that when the whole Kip Thomas fiasco happened, but when I didn’t lose everything then, my doubts just came back full force. I guess I’ve always doubted whether or not he really loved me simply because I don’t really know what it’s like to be loved. Not that way, anyway.

But Justin has shown me that all that matters is me. My brain still functions and my heart is still beating and I’m still breathing and that’s all that matters. To be completely honest I’m starting to get the feeling that even if I could never get it up again, he’d stick around. He’s helped me realize that I am good for something other than sex. That I matter beyond a good fuck. Too bad it took me almost thirty-two years to figure that out.

Justin and Debbie have both helped me realize that it’s high time I drop the selfish asshole routine and start being myself. Because that's all it is. An elaborate act to keep people as far away from my heart as possible. I’ve had a heart my entire life. I just kept it hidden in a secret place where it couldn’t get hurt. I didn’t let anyone near me and I didn’t try to get close to anyone, but somehow it happened. I felt horrible when Ted was in a coma a while back. And I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to pull the plug. I may have said that I didn’t even like Ted, but I do. And it was killing me to watch him kill himself slowly but surely with drugs that I would never touch.

What hurt just as much was watching Emmett get dragged down with him. Emmett is the only person I know, besides Justin, that will actually stand up to me and tell me what I need to hear not what I want to hear. Emmett’s got balls of steel when it comes to some things. But his heart is very big and he gives it away easily. I’ll admit that it hurts whenever I see him with a broken heart, but I only ever seem to help when I put on the asshole act. The blatant truth is what he gives me, so it’s the least I could give him. And I knew that if he went back to Ted, he’d slowly end up dying right along with him. And I think that Emmett has finally figured out that I really do care about him. That I actually give a shit. And dancing with him was fun. I don’t know why we’d never danced together before.

“Brian?” Justin’s voice comes from the bedroom and he sounds worried. I know what he’s thinking. It’s around midnight on a Friday night. Well, technically Saturday morning. He’s very possibly thinking that I’ve gotten up and gotten dressed and gone to Babylon.

“In here,” I call to him from my spot in the middle of the living room floor and my voice echoes throughout the empty loft. It hasn’t echoed like that in years. He comes over and sits next to me, putting an arm around my shoulders. If there was a way I could do it I would rest my head on his shoulder but the way we’re sitting now it would be way too uncomfortable. There are times when I really wish he were taller.

“You okay?”

“Just can’t sleep,” I tell him before kissing his cheek and trying to smile. As usual he sees right through my bullshit.

“You miss everything, don’t you?”

I can only nod because it’s true. I miss my stuff. Especially my naked guy painting. It was the first major purchase I made with my very first bonus check from winning my very first account. It had severe sentimental value, but I won’t tell anyone that because they’ll give me some spiel that I already know.

“I feel like I’ve gone back in time to 1996,” I comment, and I’m not surprised when he gives me a confused look. “That’s when I moved in here.”

“Really?” he asks me completely amazed and I, of course, nod. “I didn’t realize you’d been here that long.”

“I moved in here about a year after Ryder first hired me.” He seems suitably impressed. He’s rubbing small circles on my back with his hand and I just close my eyes and sigh. I love it when he touches me. Doesn’t matter how or where, just as long as he is in contact with my skin. It makes me feel alive, wanted, loved, appreciated…everything that my parents never made me feel.

“At least you still have the loft,” he comments. “And the bed.” Now he smirks.

“Is that all you can think about?” I ask him with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m a twenty year old gay man, Brian. What do you think?”

“You’re not twenty yet, Sunshine.” I smile.

“Close enough,” he says and we both laugh.

That’s when he kisses me. And it’s not just any kiss. It’s one of those kisses that says everything you’ve ever wanted to say in all the time you’ve been with the person that you’re kissing but for some reason you just couldn't find the words. It’s a soul shattering, earth-moving kiss that shakes me to my core and I have never, in my entire life, felt anything like it. He’s the only one that can do that to me. Justin Taylor is the only man on the planet that can really get to me like that. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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