2. Walking on a Wire , JC/Chris
Spells
by J-LoLance was there, and then he was gone, and that's how it started. Chris found JC kneeling in the hallway of a hotel in Minneapolis, clawing at the walls. He knew from the hunch of JC's shoulders, knew from the way JC's head tilted to the side. So he helped JC stand, pushed his hands into JC's pockets until he found the keycard, and opened the door.
JC didn't sit on the couch but sprawled. One leg straight, one slightly bent. He was Lance for a moment but seemed to catch himself and disappeared against the cushions. His body was bone and shadow, some long-ago sin. Chris wondered if JC knew it. JC rested his hands on his thighs and traced letters on his knees, a foreign, messy alphabet.
"It's pretty late."
JC crawled over the back of the couch. His sleeves fell back like sand and Chris pretended not to notice the dark patches, stains the shape of fingerprints and the color of plums. "I think he's fucking Justin."
"Why?"
"Because that's what he told me." He placed one hand on Chris' throat and rested his head there, pressing his cheek against the curve between neck and shoulder, sweat and tears mixing with the scent of cologne. "I want to sleep."
"I'd offer to carry you to bed, but I think we both know that would end badly."
"I wish you'd try."
"To carry you?"
"Anything."
Chris was there first but JC was ready. In the end, they carried each other and JC burned like vodka down his throat. JC wiped Chris' chin with a t-shirt, then went to sleep. Chris sat beside him and looked at JC's face, at the way skin climbed over and folded under and gave way to eyelashes, and he knew what he'd always known, that he loved JC without measure.
He slid away. Tiny bottles decorated the mini-bar. Chris poured the contents of two into a plastic cup from the bathroom and sat on the couch nude, next to a book that was open, cover splayed and spine split. He slipped a finger between the pages to hold JC's place and began to read as he sipped his drink. Later, he put the book down so he could shower. When he was finished, he wrapped himself in a towel, and JC was awake.
"How far did you get?"
"Sixty pages, I think. Where did it come from?"
"Lance," he said, and his eyes rippled like water. "What was your first word?"
Chris took JC's hand. "I don't know."
"My first word was apricot."
JC opened easily but it lasted for hours, thighs and palms and shuddering bodies replacing the simple mouth that was used before. Satisfaction washed over Chris bright as a flame. JC walked away naked and returned carrying the book. Beneath the blanket, he sat between Chris' legs and they read together. "It's funny," he said, pressing into Chris' flesh like a brand. "I don't even like apricots."
Chris turned a page. "What do you like?"
JC continued to read and offered no answer.
His book said, "We take our clothes off because we shouldn't take our clothes off. And we behave worse in other countries." They went to Europe and it was true. They fucked each other in alleys, in mismatched pairs. Chris and Joey, Justin and Joey, Lance and Joey. JC didn't sleep with any of them, not until later, and Chris sometimes wondered if that was because JC is the loner, or if that was why.
There were always decisions to be made. Some opinions mattered and some didn't but meetings weren't something that anyone skipped, so Chris went wearing headphones. He pretended they were on so he could pretend to turn them off when Lance began to talk. Joey was already there, saying words into a tiny phone. He told Kelly like "and then Chris fucked him" was the punchline to a great, extended joke. Chris watched Justin and Lance walk in and thought maybe it was.
JC slunk in and Joey mumbled Brianna's name and asked for another minute. Justin laughed with his face close to Lance's but gave JC a nod of recognition. Chris remembered that Justin had once told him something that he had jotted down onto a piece of newsprint and carried with him until his wallet was stolen. He lost three credit cards and almost seven hundred dollars that day, but losing the scrap of paper grieved him more. Joey cleared his throat and snapped the phone shut. They gathered in a wide circle, Lance in the center, and Chris pressed play.
He listened to "Vuelve" and took cues from Justin's reactions. Ten tracks in, JC walked across the room. He sat again in a patch of light and migrated with it. Justin raised his eyebrows. Chris shook his head slightly and Justin looked away. Lance threw his arms out and Joey raised his hand, then grinned when Lance gave him the finger. It continued, nothing unusual except for Chris' choice of music. Justin glared and pressed his fingers against his forehead like he was trying to stop a wound from bleeding, and then it was over. Chris took the elevator alone and realized, ten floors up, that JC had been wearing Lance's sweater.
When Chris was a boy, life was true. His skin was cold but he knew what to expect when he opened his eyes. He listened to everything and knew more than anyone and that, he suspected, is what drew him to Justin. Neither had spent much time in youth, but it was more than just a desire to protect the littlest angel that caused Chris to keep an eye on the boy. When Justin kissed him twice on the back of the neck, Chris curled their fingers together and tried to explain.
"But you could take care of me."
Chris pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth. "I will anyway."
"But." Wet lashes in sharp points against shiny eyelids. "I love you like golf."
Chris laughed in spite of himself. Justin stormed out and when he was gone, Chris reached for the closest thing. He wrote the words at an angle, the last honest thing anyone said to him.
The morning after the meeting, Justin knocked on Chris' door. "Tee time's in fifteen minutes. Put on some fucking pants."
Gas station hotdogs were breakfast, greasy but hot, and they each ate two. At the course, Justin leaned against his driver. "You've loved him forever."
"In lifetimes before."
"But you have."
"You think you know everything." Chris smacked the ball without practicing his swing. It caught the air and soared in a perfect arc.
"You're on the dance floor, baby."
"Some of us are seriously talented."
Justin lined up his driver with the tee but dubbed the shot. He kicked at the divot. "Meant to do that."
"Would you prefer to be addressed as Fuzzy Timberlake or Justin Zoeller?"
"I'd prefer to have you suck my dick."
"Sorry, my name's not Lance."
Justin made contact with the ball. He shielded his eyes. ""What's the big deal? You got what you wanted."
Chris started up the fareway. When he got to the green, he discovered that he'd shot a hole-in-one.
Chris traveled with the soft opalescent sheets that were the first things he bought after he got money, his version of framing the first dollar earned. He kept them in a side compartment in his suitcase. He never told anyone that he had them or that he'd purchased them because they reminded him of something JC would like. His house was full of similar items. A shirt, Venetian blinds, a wall painted the color of grass. His heart beat and he thought of them, gifts paid for but never given. Gifts paid for.
Chris walked in and JC stepped out of the bathtub. He dressed without drying off and brushed past Chris without touching him. Chris pulled the lid down and sat on the toilet, knees locked together, toes pointed inward.
JC lingered at the fruit basket. He picked at a cluster of grapes. "Justin left him."
"Left him?"
"Whatever. I'm going back."
"Grab me something out of there, would you?"
JC pulled out an orange and broke the rind with his fingers. He peeled it first in a few narrow strips, then rolled it between his hands. The rest of the rind slid away from the fruit. He placed the orange on the table. They had been sharing beds but not rooms and JC didn't need to pack a bag. He plucked a few grapes from the stem, then stepped back and out. Chris crossed the room, picked off a slice and bit into a seed. He chewed around it. Another piece followed, then two, and he finished it with juice sticking to his chin. The seed fit nicely between his gum and cheek, so he left it there.
Chris found the book in his bed, cover bent and curled. He drained the water from the bathtub. In his pocket, he found matches. The book looked small against the white porcelain. He lit the matches three at a time, thirty-two in all, and dropped them around the book, a fiery moat around an enemy castle. He watched until it turned to ash and slept on the floor like a drunk.
The room was as loud as a forest. A meeting to discuss compensation to the hotel for the charred ceramic. A meeting, Chris knew, to discuss their fate. Justin walked in with his hand in Wade's back pocket, permanent erection against his jeans. Joey spiked his drinks with clear liquid from a silver flask, like a kid at the prom. Donna Martin graduates, Chris thought. Lance looked no one in the eye. Chris knew the answer, as ever, when he looked at JC.