lordy don’t leave me
all by myself
- Moby
So he was okay. When he realised that, he exhaled and hadn’t even noticed, until then, the weight of worry on his shoulders. He was just fine. And that was good. A good, good, fantastic thing. Because he was perfectly all right. Wonderful, wonderful, totally fine. JC didn’t think he’d ever felt better.
But he was lonely, too. He’d admit that much. Out there on the ocean, with only him and his boat, a lovely white thing with the words ‘my solitude’ painted on the side, well, out there in the big, bad world it was lonelier than he remembered. Of course he knew it was, but he’d forgotten, somehow, between then and now. Then being pre-Nsync.
“I’m good,” JC said to the stars, and they twinkled back, white specks against a black canvas. He picked out the constellations he recognised and renamed those he didn’t, lying on the bow and looking up. Underneath, the world rolled in calming waves, and JC realised how small he really was. He was nothing, in the grand scheme of things, just a man. When he realised this, he turned around and headed home.
But when he pulled up to the port, Chris was standing on the dock. JC looked at him calmly and waved a little bit, just wiggled his fingers, and Chris wiggled his back. “Hi, Chris,” JC said as he pulled up, and Chris helped him tie the boat up so it wouldn’t float away. “Everything all right, man?”
Chris shrugged. “I don’t know. Kinda.”
“You wanna go boating?” JC asked lamely. He’d just spent three weeks at sea, but at least Chris was part of the puzzle, part of the reason JC came back at all. It wasn’t like anyone else was around. Lance in Russia, Joey in Toronto, Justin in LA. And Chris, standing on the dock, looking confused and abandoned. “It’s nice. Calming. It’ll be fun.”
“We have to go to Europe,” Chris said.
“We always do,” JC replied.
~~~
Chris, it turned out, was already packed. For Europe, not for boating. He helped JC throw some things together, and they picked out a nice flight that left at four in the morning and returned at three. Young girls, thankfully, still had bedtimes, and they were allowed to idle in peace in the airport, waiting for the plane to board. JC snacked on a muffin while Chris sipped at a can of coke, rolling two white pills between his thumb and fingers.
“Maybe we can go boating, like, after,” Chris said slowly, and JC nodded, picking the gross jelly-bits out of the muffin, dropping them onto the napkin. “When we get back. We can go on that boat of yours and just. be seamen. Yeah, okay. That’s cool.”
Chris sounded shell-shocked. JC realised, if only in retrospect, that it was cruel to leave him behind, in Orlando, with a failing business and a dog-less house. Kariya had moved in with Dani, and Chris didn’t feel right taking her back. The last JC had heard, Chris had purchased a piranha named William. Chris wasn’t very good with fish.
Chris wasn’t very good with Chris, either.
~~~
“I feel utterly abandoned,” Chris admitted on the plane, still rolling the pills. JC tried to watch his face and not the narcotics, but it was difficult. “I was thinking about this, man, and you know how bitter I was when Dani left me? That’s how I feel now. I’m really very mad at you.”
“Chris, we have to lead our own lives,” JC said and patted his arm.
Chris shook his head. “No way, C. Not me. You four can, but you have to bring me along. It’s not fair, to leave me alone like that. Like, J. I phone him up and he’s in fucking Virgina Beach, or something. And Joe’s all, Mr. Hollywood North. And Lance has allied with communists!”
JC smiled. “I don’t think they’re communists any more, Chris.”
“Whatever. Shit like that falls hard, man. It doesn’t change the fact that you,” Chris poked JC in the arm, and JC flinched, lifting a finger to rub at the sore patch, “left me behind. I don’t know. I’m pretty ticked, C. Like, I want to beat you up.”
“If it’ll make you feel better,” JC said.
Chris sighed. “It won’t.”
~~~
“We kicked the rest of them out,” Chris said at the first radio interview. “It’s just me and JC now. He’s the talent, and I’m the sexy one. Obviously,” he added, and smiled as the girls on the other end of the line giggled. JC sipped at his earl grey tea.
“No, seriously, though,” Chris continued, “we let Lance stay because he runs the business aspect, but Timberlake and Fatone? They’re out. Joining Backstreet, last I heard. Big fat traitors, both of them. I remember the time –”
“You shut up and let someone else talk? Funny, I don’t,” JC said, adding another splash of cream to his tea, and he grinned at Chris when Chris pointed a finger at him, shaking his head and smirking. “Chris likes to think he’s in control of everything. Really, he’s just here because we don’t want girls in the group.”
“You wound me to the quick, Chasez.”
JC smiled and stirred his tea.
~~~
They took a quick side trip to Russia when they had the time to have lunch with Lance in his small apartment. Lance gave them the quick tour of the bedroom-slash-living room, bathroom and kitchenette then made Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, since his mom had just sent over another case. Chris latched himself onto Lance, and JC nodded sympathetically.
“Is the promotion going all right?” Lance asked as he cooked.
“Chris has the entire world convinced Justin is no longer in the group, and worse, that he’s been holding us back for years, but other than that, yeah, it’s fine,” JC said. His task as the helper involved slicing the bread, which he did carefully and slowly so it all looked even and perfect. “He’s feeling abandoned.”
“Aw, don’t tell him that,” Chris said. “Besides, I’m fine now. C fixed me.”
“Uh huh,” Lance said. Chris was standing behind him, arms around Lance’s waist, and over Chris’s head, Lance lifted his eyebrows. JC shrugged. So Chris was acting weird, but when wasn’t he? JC wasn’t sure he could remember the last time he acted normal. Some time back in ‘95, probably, in some interview with Lou when Chris was trying to sell himself as an upstanding young gentleman with four clean-cut, good American boys at his side.
When Chris went to the bathroom, Lance hurried over for some quick gossip. JC just shrugged helplessly and couldn’t explain it. “I don’t know,” he said, “I came back to shore, and he was there, and he just hasn’t let me leave his sight.”
“Is he, like, um.” Lance pointed to his head and crossed his eyes.
“Psychotic?” JC supplied helpfully as he arranged the slices of bread in a pattern that thinly resembled a daisy, with a small dish of pale butter sitting in the centre. Lance hummed his approval. “I don’t think so. Well, no more than normal, anyway.”
“My ears are burning, lads,” Chris said as he came into the kitchen, making a beeline for Lance. Lance sighed but let him shadow, and JC smiled as he set down the plates and utensils. Chris was just so weird. JC couldn’t understand it.
~~~
“I miss the States,” Chris said when they were in Germany, driving around in a Mercedes Benz. JC was at the wheel for old time’s sake, though it was different since they weren’t in a rundown van with silver tape holding the door panels on. “Have we pimped ourselves enough? I’m beginning to feel like a well-used whore.”
“You haven’t had sex for months,” JC replied and made a left-hand turn.
Chris slipped down in the seat. “Don’t remind me. That was actually very mean of you, man, to even bring that up. You’re an asshole, C. Don’t try to make me change my mind. I’ve seen through your sweetness and light disguise. You’re a jerk.”
“I’m just saying,” JC said, “that you can’t be a whore. Since you haven’t slept with anyone in a very, very long time.”
“Is metaphor dead? Jesus. You suck,” Chris decided and rolled down the window, sticking his head out. It was drizzling rain, so some of it splashed inside, and it was cold on JC’s skin. Annoyed, JC overrode Chris’s controls and put the window back up. Chris sighed.
“Are you saying, then, that you don’t want to go boating? Because I go to the Carribean, and that’s not the States,” JC asked later, when they were in the hotel and Chris was refusing to go back to his own room. Somehow, for the past month, JC had gotten the better everything at every hotel they stayed at, even the time he got a single bed instead of a king, with urine-rings around the mattress. Chris slept with him in the narrow bed and said it was the best night’s sleep he’d ever had.
“I still want to go,” Chris said, but he sounded strange.
~~~
They arrived back in the States at four minutes past three in the morning, and Joey was there, reading US Weekly and snacking on a Snickers. Chris climbed on his back and didn’t get off, so JC was left dragging the luggage as Joey dragged Chris, bending under his weight. Chris, seemingly, didn’t even notice.
“I’m off to Vancouver tomorrow,” Joey explained. “Brianna and I are living there for a few months. Kelly’s supposed to show up at some point, so, you know. Should be fun.” Chris was sitting on his lap and refusing to move. “How was Europe?”
“Good, good. We saw Lance,” JC said as he looked through his mail. Nothing much except his truckload of music magazines and the free sample of Oil of Olay he ordered online months ago. “I think Chris missed you.”
“I was beginning to figure that much,” Joey said. “Dude, you’re fat.”
“So are you, lard-o,” Chris replied and still didn’t move. They weren’t, really, but they pretended they were just so they could insult each other. Compared to him, they looked huge, but JC was just really tiny, and he knew it. It was his fast metabolism. “C and I are going boating.”
“Really?” Joey asked, and looked to JC for confirmation. JC nodded. “Huh. Well, have fun. Hey, have either of you talked to Justin recently? Kid’s hard to find, but he e-mailed me some mp3s of his new stuff. Wow. Really nice. That stuff he did with Lance is pretty hot.”
“Justin hasn’t talked to me in eight days,” Chris announced.
“Two days ago, I think, we had a long talk on the cell phone. Chris was in a snit, so he just simmered in his chair, but I got to hear that song of mine he used. It should be good,” JC said. It would probably be great, knowing Justin, since Justin was just great generally.
“Justin,” Chris said, “has forgotten I even exist.”
“Hardly,” JC said but was relieved when Joey clapped a hand over Chris’s mouth and shut him up.
~~~
They were supposed to leave port at ten, but from what Ernie, the guard at the gate, said, Chris had been sitting on the dock, reading a book, since six that morning. When JC walked up, carrying two bags, Chris jumped onto the deck and walked back to sit down. His stuff was already packed away. JC thought this trip had the potential to be very, very long.
JC expected Chris to go stir crazy and attempt to drown himself by mid-afternoon, but he just sat around and read his book, thumbing carefully through the pages, squinting through his glasses as they sat on the end of his nose. Every two hours, he applied sunscreen and drank plenty of water. JC tried not to look at him. Chris was acting so normal that it was almost grotesque.
The day passed, and JC prepared dinner, a nice row of ham sandwiches with American cheese and squiggles of mayo on his. Chris had his with mustard instead. Chris ate politely without any burping or talking with his mouth full or anything, and JC was completely weirded out by the time he washed the plates.
“Are you dying?” JC demanded to know when Chris sat down to play Solitaire with an actual deck of cards, complete with big-breasted women on the back. Chris looked up at him and shook his head. JC deflated into the nearest chair. “Good then. I was worried there.”
Chris nodded but didn’t say anything else.
“Mid-life crisis?” JC asked, when Chris was reshuffling for a second game.
“Something like that,” Chris said and set down the cards again. JC was curiously fascinated by it and watched, the dim light from the two lamps providing just enough illumination. Any second, JC expected Chris to flick the deck at him and make him play fifty-two pick up.
Chris just sat where he was, played solitaire, and never even tried to throw JC into the ocean.
~~~
JC was the type of guy who dreamed about normal things, like picking up dry-cleaning or doing his taxes, which was wistful thinking since his accountant did that. JC wasn’t sure he could still add in his head. He carried a little calculator in his wallet, so he wouldn’t have to. But he knew he dreamed about boring everyday stuff, which put him to sleep, even when he was already.
This time, though, was a bit better. More exciting, at any rate, because Chris was looking at him in a strange sort of longing way, a glint to his eyes that made JC squirm under it because it betrayed what he was thinking. JC thought, if he looked hard enough, he could see the universe swimming in Chris’s eyes, or maybe it was just the light.
“Hello,” JC said and smiled, and Chris covered his mouth with his fingers.
“Shh,” Chris breathed, and JC blinked at him but nodded.
There was a moment when JC honestly thought Chris was going to kiss him or something, but he didn’t. Just threaded his fingers through JC’s hair and touched a thumb to JC’s forehead. When he faded into the dark, JC exhaled. Of course Chris wouldn’t kiss him. That was way too exciting for a dream. Though JC had the oddest suspicion that he wasn’t dreaming at all.
~~~
“Do you want to write some songs?” JC asked later, while he was sunning on the deck. He’d stripped down to his swim-trunks, tight little black shorts that left the smallest tan line possible, while Chris sat next to him, dressed to the nines in everything but a parka. Chris looked at him like he was nuts.
“With me?” Chris asked.
“You’re good. Sure. I brought my guitar. It’s probably safer if you play it,” JC said and was up before Chris could protest, put himself down, or all of the above. He ducked into the bunk then came up with it, handing it to Chris. Strumming at the strings, Chris tuned it by ear then played the beginning of Stairway. JC grinned.
They got the melody pretty quickly, and JC spent a lot of time coaxing Chris into doing two things. One, to give a few lines that he thought worked and not be embarrassed of them, because they really were very good. And two, to take off his shirt because he was obviously sweating to death. Begrudgingly, Chris conceded to both and didn’t protest when JC wrote down his lyrics.
“So, this deedle-do part. That’s Joey, right? Fits his voice,” JC said and scribbled the note down in the margin as Chris nodded, leaning over the body of the guitar. Chris played back the melody, and they sang the words, changing the end of the fourth line then tweaking the chorus. JC even let Chris have the pen when his lyric was tangled up in his head, holding up the notebook for Chris to scribble in. It said something like, “the ocean spans a thousand lifetimes and none of them compare to the breath I spend with you,” and JC’s heart fluttered.
~~~
JC should have known Chris was working up to something major by the strange way he was acting. It was all so obvious, yet he still didn't really expect it when Chris said, “I’m gay,” then added, "I think,” like it made a big difference. He kept his eyes lowered.
JC dropped his beer and watched it roll over the side, into the ocean and swallowed by the dark. “Oh,” he said. "Okay."
“I’m not sure, but I think so.” Chris scratched his knee then drank more of his beer, and JC got up on wobbly knees to get another one. “I was going to tell you, like, four weeks ago, but I chickened out. I’m still thinking about throwing myself overboard.”
“Please, don’t,” JC said, “then I’ll have to publish our songs alone and take all the royalties for myself, which is. Um. Not bad. Okay, go ahead. I’ll tell your mom you never meant to hurt her, and that you didn’t die hating Justin, because he thinks that.”
Chris looked over the edge then shook his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. It looks deep.”
“Does the height thing extend to oceans?”
“I guess so. Probably. Plus, sharks,” Chris said and gestured at the dark water.
JC nodded. “It’s probably best you stay here, then.”
“Probably,” Chris agreed.
~~~
In retrospect, pretending Chris never said anything was a bad idea, but when they started babbling about oceans and drowning and other things, Chris never let the topic get back to it. JC tried to approach it, but Chris kept talking about sports and how he was still mad Detroit didn’t win the cup. Instead, JC just nodded and said he was mad, too. And that he didn’t like baseball much, anyway, and Chris laughed.
So JC went to bed and thought, tomorrow I’ll make him talk about it, because there wasn’t much else to do beside look at the water, write songs and play card games. Besides, Chris obviously wanted to talk about it. The good thing, JC supposed, was that he wasn’t really that surprised, since it kind of figured. Chris was always too militant about being straight without the proof to back it up. JC always thought it was weird Dani was his first long-term relationship at age twenty-six, too. It wasn’t really that surprising, except JC dropped his beer, so it probably looked like he thought so.
So, okay, that wasn’t good, but JC could say he was just surprised to be hearing Chris say it out loud. That would work. JC relaxed in bed, feeling the ocean underneath him, and snuffled into his pillow. Yeah, that was totally what he would say. And he wouldn’t ask, not even once, why it was they spent most of Europe in the same bed, because that was kind of more than JC thought he could handle.
~~~
By the time JC woke up, he was totally fine with Chris’s homosexuality. Totally fine. So fine, in fact, that he treated Chris just like he had the morning before, and made him eggs in a basket, with a glass of extra pulp orange juice.
“So when did you know?” JC asked.
“Know what?” Chris pulled the crust off his toast and dipped one end into the gooey yolk of the egg, munching on it. JC stared at him until Chris sighed. “I don’t know. Probably young, maybe. I’m not totally repressed, you know. It’s a choice to be this, um, closeted. Fuck. I don’t know. Maybe I’m straight. Maybe I’m nothing. I feel like nothing.” He stabbed at the yolk.
“Oh, hey. Okay. Don’t get mad,” JC said.
Chris shrugged.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Chris shook his head and shovelled egg into his mouth, chewing. JC watched the twitch of his jaw, and touched his thumb to a spot on Chris’s skin, just below his ear, which was bloody from shaving, most likely. Knowing he wasn’t going to get anything else out of Chris, JC wiped his thumb on his napkin and ate his own breakfast.
~~~
“Oh my god, Chris is gay,” JC hissed into the phone the first minute he could get some privacy, since Chris was down in the bunks, napping. Lance dropped something, and JC winced when it shattered. “He came out to me last night. Can you believe it?”
“Wow,” Lance said, and JC nodded. “I’m not surprised, but wow.”
“I know.” JC looked down the stairs, where Chris was still sprawled, a leg hanging off the bed. He’d been listening to Def Leppard, which always knocked him out. “He seems really sad, though. Even sadder than Russia. We wrote a song together, you know.”
“Really?”
JC nodded. He always nodded when on the phone but didn’t remember until after that it was pretty futile, because, duh, no one could see him. But he never seemed to realise that until afterwards, since it was so easy to forget he was even on the phone to begin with. “It’s about loving someone you can’t have. He says, at the end, the guy kills himself, but I don’t believe it.”
“Well, if he wrote it,” Lance said then paused. “Sing me a bit.”
JC sang a couple lyrics, like, “you walk away and with each step, I die a little more,” and, “I loved you before I knew what love was, and now that I know, I can never go back to that place of nothing,” and checked, again, to make sure Chris was still out. He was. “It’s a really sad song, man,” JC said, “but it’s beautiful.”
“Sounds like it,” Lance said slowly. “Jayce, just be careful with him, okay? Call if you need help.”
“Sure will,” JC promised. When he hung up, Chris was awake and looking at him.
~~~
They played strip poker after dinner, because it was hot and they didn’t know too many card games between them. Joey and Lance were the card sharks, and Chris spent too many years playing go fish and crazy eights with his sisters. JC thought he could remember the rules to bridge, but it turned out he couldn’t.
“You’ve slept with guys?” JC asked as he looked at his hand. It was, as usual, terrible.
“Some,” Chris said and squinted.
“But not recently?” JC hated that he always picked up cards that didn’t match each other. In his whole life, his best hand had been two kings, but mostly, he got stuck with a high card queen. There was a reason JC rarely gambled, at least when it came to poker. He was unnaturally lucky when it came to blackjack.
“As you well know, I haven’t had sex in months,” Chris said and put down one card. JC eyed it and knew he’d already lost; he was down to his shorts, having been allowed to count his watch, toe ring and three hemp bracelets separately, and hoped Chris would be willing to include all of JC’s other accessories, too. “But last time was with a guy. Eleven months ago.”
“Jesus,” JC said, horrified. “That’s terrible, Chris. Eleven months!”
“It was a handjob,” Chris added, and JC shook his head. It was awful.
“You have to do something about that,” JC said.
~~~
Chris let JC count his belt, and his leo pendent, which seemed to growl back at him when he put it down, his anklet, each flip flop separately, but eventually, his shorts were gone, too. JC sat in his white boxer-briefs and stared at his high card six. He sucked.
“We can stop playing, if you’re freaked out,” Chris said quietly. He was still mostly dressed, except for his watch, which he’d taken off just so he could tell the time.
“I hate to lose,” JC admitted. He put down his cards. “I’m really terrible at this game. I mean, look at this.” He spread his cards out even further, poking a finger at them. “Who is seriously this bad? The card gods hate me.”
“We can stop,” Chris said again, but JC was already up and wriggling out of his briefs. It was getting a bit windy, so his cock flapped around when it was free. Chris stared at his own hand then put it down. Just as JC figured, it was four of a kind, aces. Lucky duck.
“I guess I lost,” JC said as he sat back down.
“I guess so,” Chris replied.
~~~
Chris cheered up a bit after JC started making martinis, not bothering to get dressed since being naked in the middle of the ocean was kind of illicit and thrilling, all at once. Chris even took off his shirt, his pudgy belly glowing in the moonlight, and JC smiled at him. Chris rolled his eyes.
“I haven’t had sex in three months,” JC confessed, later, as they lay on the deck and gazed at the stars. JC just found it so calming, and Chris was unusually still, so he seemed to like it, too. “And she wasn’t very good. Or maybe I wasn’t. I don’t know.”
“I didn’t sleep with Michelle,” Chris said, sucking on an olive. “I told her I was finding Jesus or something, and she believed me.” JC nodded; he’d told that to Bobbie, once, near the end. She called him a melodramatic lying loser. “Um, C?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for putting up with me,” Chris said and leaned over, pressing a kiss to JC’s mouth. JC froze but didn’t push him away, just waited until Chris was done and licked a bit at his tongue when it snaked in between JC’s lips. Chris looked at him oddly then sat back. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” JC said.
~~~
Inwardly, JC was freaking out, but he didn’t let on. Didn’t put on his clothes, either, since he was so cool with Chris being gay that he didn’t want Chris to think for a second that JC was uncomfortable, and he really wasn’t, at least not about his own penis on display. The kiss though, JC was all. whoa. It was nice, though. He wanted to do it again.
“Do you want to write another song?” JC asked suddenly. Chris looked over at him and nodded slowly, like he’d expected JC to throw himself overboard and was surprised that he was still around. Instead, JC got up and grabbed the notebook and his little keyboard. It was Chris’s turn to write the words down. “Okay. I woke up with this melody in my head fifteen days ago,” JC played it as Chris listened, nodding, “so maybe some words?”
Chris was full of words, it turned out, but JC wasn’t surprised. Chris just needed to be tapped; JC had always believed that. Chris was really brilliant, in a raw and powerful way. He merely needed direction, or encouragement, or more education. It was JC’s secret hope that Chris went back to school and got his degree in something he loved, like English or Music.
“I’m sorry I kissed you,” Chris said later, “so stop staring. It was a friendly kiss.”
“Kiss me again,” JC blurted out.
“Okay.”
~~~
They made out forever. Forever and a day, and JC didn’t even remember he didn’t have pants on until Chris’s hand circled his cock. His hips jumped at the touch, but he concentrated on kissing Chris’s mouth until it was swollen and wet. JC touched his fingers to it, poking at Chris’s lips, and Chris sucked on his fingers. It was the hottest thing ever. JC came all over Chris’s hand and jeans, and smiled at him shyly. Chris smiled back but didn’t ask for anything in return.
~~~
JC woke up in his bunk and felt a bit unsteady from all the martinis last night. And Chris. JC touched his mouth and sighed girlishly, rubbing his feet together like a cricket. He looked across the aisle, where Chris was sleeping with his mouth open. Woozily, JC made his way above deck and picked up the book Chris had been reading. It was James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” JC said and held it up when Chris stumbled onto the deck.
“I don’t think it’s supposed to.” Chris had two cups of coffee in his hand, and he offered one to JC. It was black and lukewarm, which was how JC liked it. He sipped at it as he turned the page. “I have, like, stuff you’d actually like in my bag, if you’d rather read one of those.”
“Are you implying I haven’t been edumacated?” JC asked and grinned.
Chris laughed, and they smiled at each other until JC thought all the happiness in him was going to explode out of his eyeballs and splatter Chris’s ragged tee-shirt. It wasn’t weird at all, JC was happy to note. It was like nothing out of the ordinary had even happened.
~~~
Chris didn’t ask if he was gay or not, which made JC happy. Because he wasn’t, not even bisexual, as far as he could tell, and he didn’t have the heart to tell Chris, since Chris seemed so much more cheerful. Less likely to drown himself or something equally awful. It was just a one time thing, anyway, a night of illicit bliss.
They spent the next few days reading or watching movies on the small tv down with the bunks, and they came to shore twice to get more gas and to let their sea legs remember that earth legs were the natural state. Chris tumbled to the ground when he first stepped on it, and JC laughed so hard that tears squirted from his eyes. Chris laughed, too.
JC phoned Joey to update him on the situation at hand but let Chris steal the receiver to say, “hey, Joe. Guess what? I’m gay. Talk to you soon.” JC smiled as Joey spluttered incoherently then asked if Chris was serious. “Apparently so,” JC replied.
They split up for a few hours in Grand Cayman, and when they met back up, Chris had braids in his hair, dark extensions like the ones he’d had right before he cut them off. JC stared at them until Chris shoved at him, laughing. “You look really good,” JC said and tugged on the nearest one.
Chris’s eyes crinkled. “Thanks.”
~~~
They wrote seventeen songs in two weeks, some of them dance tunes but most of them slower ballad-like ditties in the spirit of Girlfriend. A couple made JC’s chest ache with sadness; a few caused his belly to tighten with pleasure. Wherever this songwriter in Chris had been hiding, JC didn’t know, but he was glad he’d come out. In more ways than one.
Chris stole JC’s handmade strawberry daiquiri at dinner, and JC climbed all over him, trying to get it back until, breathless and red-faced, JC kissed Chris and forgot about his drink. Instead, he stayed on Chris’s lap and let Chris kiss him back. Chris’s tongue was hot and wet and sweet from all the liquor. JC wiggled helplessly as Chris kissed his mouth, arms twined low around JC’s waist and rubbing at the small of his back. JC thought he was going to explode.
“Oh, Chris,” JC said and licked at Chris’s neck until he shuddered. Chris’s cock was hard and poking him from underneath, and JC squirmed on the bulge carefully. He’d never quite approached a cock from this angle before, but girls had ground on him before, so JC figured it was okay. Chris seemed to like it.
Chris came in his shorts with a low groan, and JC rubbed against Chris’s stomach until he came too, panting in Chris’s ear and accidentally calling him, “baby.”
~~~
Justin left a message on his cell phone but when JC tried calling him back, he just got his voice mail. He left another message but didn’t mention anything about Chris or boats or his suddenly fluid sexuality. He tried Joey, but his phone was off, too. Lance picked up, and JC skirted around the issue until blurting out,
“I think I had sex with Chris. Twice,” JC added.
Lance sighed deeply. “Either you did or you didn’t, Jayce.”
JC looked over at Chris, who was passed out. They’d kissed more afterwards then talked in hushed tones about James Joyce and higher education and promised each other they’d at least attempt to get degrees before Chris drifted off, his last daiquiri unfinished and lonely, so JC drank it instead. It was, perhaps, what pushed him over into paranoia.
“I definitely had sex with him twice,” JC amended. His stomach was twirling.
“Jayce, I’m going to say something that you might not want to hear.”
“Hit me,” JC said and braced himself.
“I think, perhaps, you might be queer. I mean, I don’t want to stereotype you, but I find it very, very hard to believe you’re straight. Impossible, really, and I’m only saying this because you’re one of my best friends, and I think you need to hear it,” Lance said.
“But wouldn’t I have known?” JC asked, scratching a finger through his hair. “I mean, we’re talking major life discovery here.”
“You’re just oblivious, Jayce. I mean, it’s endearing, but I really think you missed some vital piece of information about yourself early on,” Lance said. JC wanted him to shut up, since he was always so right about everything, and if he was saying this, it meant JC was on the cusp of a personal sexual revolution. JC was comfortable with being straight. It was easy.
~~~
There were worse things that being stuck on a boat with Chris in the middle of a very large ocean. Or so JC assumed. He just couldn’t think of any. Chris gave him space, though, and moved onto Ulysses as JC continued to struggle through Finnegan’s Wake. It still didn’t make any sense, but JC didn’t want to admit defeat and ask for something easier.
JC spent more time looking at Chris than he did trying to read. JC decided a few important things about Chris. He was handsome, and looked really good with braids, and wow, did JC ever want to kiss him again. When he thought about it, he swooned inside his head and blushed fiercely. Chris caught him a few times and raised his eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
“Try this one,” Chris said after lunch and gave JC another book, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. “Still scholarly, but more enjoyable.” JC protested mildly, but Chris took Finnegan’s Wake and threw it into the water. It floated off, hopefully to be eaten by sharks.
~~~
The one thing about the braids that JC discovered was that they felt fantastic when they were hanging lose over his belly. Also, they were easy to grab and hold and twist around his fingers as he thumped his head helplessly against the deck. Chris’s mouth was divine.
They’d been talking about Jewel, and how he was pretty sexy, which was JC’s way of coming out as something other than straight and actually putting it into record. And JC said something about something that sounded pretty intelligent, and Chris said that was exactly the way it was. Then they started kissing almost desperately, and JC forgot all about what they’d just been discussing because this was so much more important.
JC arched when he came and didn’t waste any time at all pushing Chris down and mouthing his way along Chris’s body. Lasciviously, JC sucked on each of Chris’s nipples until they were hard then tongued down his stomach and across to his hipbones, determined to taste all of him.
It was funny, but Chris wasn’t very talkative in bed, and JC wouldn’t have expected that. But he supposed, now he knew better, and even though he chickened out when Chris was about to come and jerked him off instead, JC was glad he was just a little bit wiser.
~~~
And so it went. They wrote songs, they had sex, they read books. Chris was a much faster reader and could actually remember names of characters, but they had long conversations about As I Lay Dying anyway. If learning had been this sexy when JC was seventeen, he probably would have considered post secondary education.
The next book JC read after he finished that one was Chris’s worn copy of Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs, which resulted in JC squirting half his margarita out of his nose six pages into it. That night, they ate flat bread and cheese slices for dinner in honour of Douglas Coupland’s genius, then made out for so long that JC’s lips were raw and sore the next morning.
The best part of that night, though, was when Chris pulled JC down to the bunks and held his wrists above his head as they kissed. JC arched and writhed, and he was so sweaty that the bed was soaked with it. Chris touched his hands all over JC’s body, over his stomach and his cock and his balls and under his back and everywhere, and just when JC thought it couldn’t possibly get better or sexier, Chris climbed over him, slicked a condom over his impossibly hard dick, and with the help of lube, sunk down onto him until JC was deep inside.
JC would never look at Chris the same again. Would forever look at him and see his head dipped forward, braids loose and hanging in front of his face, balanced on JC’s narrow hips and riding him slowly, carefully, pulling every last tendril of pleasure out of JC’s body and into his own. JC came so hard that he blacked out until morning, and spent the rest of the next day touching his lips and touching Chris.
~~~
JC found the pills quite accidentally. He’d been looking for a new book, since he’d gobbled up Microserfs in less time than expected, and Chris was asleep on the deck, napping like a big cat in the sun. JC looked at the two unlabelled bottles and didn’t know what the pills were, but there were a lot of them. Too many of them.
He sat down hard on the bunk and put his head in his hands. They knew Chris had some problems, some mental issues that fucked with his head sometimes and made things rough, but it’d been a long time since they’d thought they had to worry about it. About him. It was so hard to tell when he was serious about things, though.
“Chris,” JC said and shook him awake. When Chris was blinking, JC rattled the bottles in his face, and Chris looked away. “Are you addicted to something?” JC asked sternly, though his insides were twisting in circles, and he thought he was going to puke all over both of them. “Or were you going to kill yourself?”
“Jesus, C,” Chris said.
JC shook the bottles again, the pills rattling around noisily. Most of him wanted to throw them at Chris’s head then watch them fall into the ocean, to be swallowed up and forgotten. But the smaller part knew he needed to talk and deal with this. “Tell me.”
“You all left me behind,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”
“We said,” JC started then stopped. Helplessly, he battled at the burning in his eyes, but he started crying anyway, couldn’t help himself. The tears rolled down his cheeks and wiped his free hand at them, but more came until his stomached was clenched so tightly he could barely breathe. Eventually, Chris got up and went into the bunk.
JC couldn’t see him leave.
~~~
JC spent the rest of the afternoon and evening driving the boat towards shore. By tomorrow, they would be home. When it was late and he started feeling tired, JC went underdeck and found Chris lying in bed, rolled on his side. His glasses were crooked, since he’d fallen asleep with his face in a book, and JC took them off and folded them.
“I wasn’t really going to do it,” Chris mumbled when JC fitted himself against Chris’s back. Nodding, JC kissed behind Chris’s ear and held him around the waist. “I just. There was a moment there, where I thought. I woke up, and I was alone.”
JC brushed Chris’s hair away from his face, tucking the braids behind his ears then nuzzling his nose in the nest of them. They smelled sweet, like strawberry shampoo. Inside, JC was still crying, but outside, he felt stronger now. JC couldn’t imagine his life without Chris in it, and Chris needed to know that.
Chris tipped his head forward, his words coming wet and low. “I’ve been in love with you a very long time, C. So long that I can’t remember not feeling like this.” JC mouthed the damp skin of Chris’s neck before pressing his forehead against it, nodding. “I don’t want to be in this world with just me, and I don’t know how to tell you that.”
“You just did,” JC said. JC closed his eyes and held him closer, trying to pour his feelings into Chris through osmosis, the desperation he felt when he thought about Chris not being there. He folded a hand over Chris’s heart and pressed. “Promise me you’ll get help.”
“I’ll get help,” Chris said. JC believed him.
~~~
The next time they were all together was for Challenge For The Children in late July. It took Joey five minutes to realise they were together and knuckle them both on the head for good luck; it took Justin all three days and then dinner when he finally slapped his hand to his forehead and said, “god, guys. Tell me these things! Jeez.” Chris called him a fuckwit.
JC never told anybody about the pills. They’d gone the way of the beer JC lost when Chris came out and Finnegan’s Wake, in the ocean somewhere, either killing sharks or doping them up. It wasn’t anybody’s business but theirs, anyway, and Chris lived up to his promise. His therapist was flamboyantly gay and thought JC was the most adorable thing ever. JC wasn’t sure where Chris found him, but Chris seemed more stable these days, though he still had his moments of panic.
And Chris kept the braids, which was fun. They spent most of their time on the boat, anyway, so it fit with the whole theme of being on the edge of the world. They wrote; they read. JC finally got through the second-hand copy of Finnegan’s Wake he bought and still didn’t understand it. All in all, JC decided, a very good life. He even renamed his boat, ‘my happiness’.
“You should just call it Chris, then,” Chris said and smiled, snaking a tongue into JC’s ear and causing JC to curl up on himself, giggling helplessly.
So JC just called it Chris, if only in his head.
Fin.
[Back]