Chapter 51:  Please… Not Like This!

                  “What do you want?”  Justin snapped at Ethan as he was about to get on the elevator inside his building complex while Ethan was just getting off and he was carrying a gifted wrapped box in his clutch.

“Damn!  Another minute and I would have just missed you.”  Ethan announced as he quickly stepped out of the elevator and it closed and left before Justin could get on it.

“Fuck Ethan, you caused me the miss the elevator,” Justin grunted.

“Don’t look so upset, Justin.  I was just dropping by to deliver a belated wedding gift to Brian and you.”

“Belated, Ethan?  Why so late?  I sent you your wedding invitation in ample enough time for you to get Brian and me a decent gift as well as a timely one.”

“Hey!  It’s take time to get the perfect gift for the couple that  has everything already.  And, I wanted to be sure I got you something unique… something no one else got for you.”

“Really?  Brian and I were registered at a specific store… one of Brian’s department stores.  So, had you purchased your gift there, like everyone else did, you definitely wouldn’t have duplicated anyone else’s.”

“Good grief, Justin!  Where’s all this animosity coming from?  You and I were tight once.  More than that even.”

“Don’t remind me,” Justin sarcastically snapped.

“Can I at least go inside your place and pee?”

“What?”  Justin rolled his eyes at him.

“Please?  I don’t want to piss out here in your hallway, Justin.”

“Oh crap, fine.  But be quick about it.  Obviously, I was on my way out.”  Justin got the door opened and allowed Ethan to follow him inside his apartment.  

“Umm,” Ethan feigned bashfulness once they were inside.  “Well, actually, Jus, I have to take a crap.”

“What!  Fuck!  Go shit!  Ethan.”  Justin said frustratingly.  Aware of how often Ethan’s constipated, Justin knew that was going to be one helluva long wait.

“Ethan!”  Justin called out to him once he was in the bathroom.  “I’m going to check my mailbox and grabbed a morning paper.  I’ll be right back.  And, DON’T steal anything!”  Justin thought he should threatened Ethan in wake of what recently went down with his husband and that sleazy ex of his.

“Okay, Justin,” Ethan called out from the bathroom as he sat the wrapped gift down on the vanity table in there.  “See you when you get back.  And I WON’T steal anything!”

Justin didn’t comment any; instead he just rushed out of the apartment to do those chores.

And, the moment Justin was gone, Ethan came out of the bathroom, and he hurriedly went inside Brian and Justin’s bedroom.

“No, Mr. Justin Taylor-Kinney.  I definitely won’t STEAL anything,” Ethan said out loud to himself.  “I’ll do just the opposite instead.”

He then did a couple of things inside the newlyweds’ bedroom; one of which included removing Brian’s cellular phone from his pocket, turned it to the ‘ON’ position and put it inside the nightstand drawer; he also put something down on the nightstand itself.  He then returned to the bathroom and stayed there until Justin returned. 

When Justin re-entered the apartment, he went directly to the kitchen and put the mail and newspaper down on the table and then yelled out to his unsavory guest.  “Ethan!  Are you finished in there yet?” 

“Yeah, but I think I should spray some disinfected.”

“You better!  It’s under the sink in there!”  Justin then mumbled really low - too quietly for Ethan to hear him even, “And, I’m sure you stink.”  And then he started laughing heartily to himself.

“Thanks.”  Ethan called out.  He then got the Lysol ™ and generously sprayed, although he never did use the toilet.  Next, he exited the bathroom and joined Justin inside the kitchen and they headed back out of the apartment together.

“Ethan,” Justin said as Ethan and he were back in the hallway again. 

Justin locked the door and then they stood at the elevator waiting for it to return to that floor.  “I got the message you left on my phone while Brian and I were honeymooning.  What was that you were talking about – some big extravaganza production the school is going to put on for a fundraiser or something and you want me to be part of it?  You do know I’m on a full year’s leave of absence?”

“Yeah, Justin.”  Ethan told him, although at one time he had changed his mind about involving Justin but Michael made him reconsider it.  “Yeah, it’s going to be fantastic, Justin – really something.  And, we need your help.  Everyone’s counting on you to reconsider your leave of absence.  We plan on putting on unique and elaborate productions of West Side Story, Cabaret and Grease.  We are going to do something really fantastic and promote it so well that we are actually considering charging $50 to $100 a seat.”

“Fifty and one hundred dollars tickets, Ethan!  That’s extremely steep for a college plays.  People usually won’t pay much more than $10… 15 tops.  What make you think we can peddle tickets for as much as a hundred?”

“That’s why we have to really promote this thing.  I thought you could even ask for some tips and suggestions from your husband.  Brian’s core talent is advertising… isn’t it?  He’ll know how to pull it off?”

“How… by getting big name stars to participate or something?  I mean a $100 a ticket, Ethan!”

“I think we can pull it off.  And, when we do, I know, Justin, that you would want to be a part of it.  This could mean good publicity for the school; and maybe even fame for all the staff involved who help put this thing together.”

Ethan could see the stars twinkling inside Justin’s eyes already.

“As for now, Ethan, I’ll think about it; but I’m not committing myself to anything right this instance.”

“Fine… fair enough.  We’ll talk again?”

The elevator came then and the men got on it and when they got out to the sidewalk, Justin went his way and Ethan went his.

*

                  “Justin sweetie, I don’t mean to be so selfish trying to monopolize all your time,” his grandmother said to him.  “But I hate to see you go but I know you have a life.  Your grandfather and I still long for those days when you first moved to the Pitts and moved in with us while you attended that art college.”

“I think fondly back on those days too, grandma.  But, I’m all grown up now and out on my own.  And, I would love to stick around a little longer.  But I want to hurry home and cook dinner for my spouse.”

“Okay, sweetheart, you go now.  Don’t keep Brian waiting.”

“Okay, bye, grandmother,” Justin kissed her hearty on the cheek.  “Grandpa!”  He then yelled out to him.  He was inside the bedroom watching TV.  Justin just had cable installed for his grandparents and his grandfather was mesmerized with the western channel.

“Bye, Justin!”  He yelled to his grandson.

Justin then hurried home and the moment he was back inside his apartment he hurried inside the kitchen and got dinner started.

*

                  “Justin!”  Brian called out to him when he arrived inside the house 5:30 p.m. on the dot.

“Yes,” Justin roared quietly to himself.  He rushed home to me, again tonight!  Justin was so thrilled.

“In here, Brian… in the kitchen,” Justin yelled out to him.  “Dinner will be ready in a second.”

“Fabulous!”  Brian yelled back at him as he undid his tie and disposed of it and his suit jacket on the couch in the living room (for Justin to pick up after him later).   “Justin, I got to take a pee.  I’ll be that way in a second.”

“Take your time, Bri,” Justin yelled at him.

 Brian then went inside the bathroom and noticed the wrapped gift on the vanity table.  But he didn’t think much about it because there was so many gifts that Justin and he received from wedding guests that they haven’t gotten around to opening yet, and every once and a while he’ll see one lying around that Justin was just getting around to.  So, he walked out of the bathroom and went inside the bedroom to get barefoot and slip into so more comfortable attire (t-shirt and gray sweat pants).

“What the fuck?”  Brian mumbled to himself when no sooner had he walked into the bedroom he heard the ring tone of his cell.  It sounded like it was coming from the nightstand drawer.   “I’ll be damned,” he curtly stated when he opened the drawer and discovered it there.   He then picked it up and examined it.   And, he was rather alarmed at what he found.  So, alarmed that he ignore the current incoming call from his father.

All of the calls except those received in the most recent hours or so was wiped clean.  Someone deleted a helluva lot of his messages and texts.   He hadn’t even gotten around to reviewing a third of the calls he received while on his honeymoon.  And, since he’s been almost two full days without his cell, he should be a lot more calls than there were displayed on the screen.   Almost ninety percent of the calls he received in the office over the last two days the callers told him that they called his cell phone first.  So, all those calls should have been there but they weren’t.

“Justin,” Brian carried the phone to the kitchen with him.  And he held the phone out for Justin to see it when he came into the kitchen and he thought just seeing it would automatically cause Justin to go into explanation mode, but it didn’t.  “Well?”

“Well, what, Brian?”  Justin was totally clueless as to what Brian meant.

“You want to explain about my cell phone?”

“Explain what about your cell phone?”

Justin grew increasingly nervous though because he knew he had reviewed about a half dozen of Brian’s calls while they were still honeymooning inside the Caribbean; but it surprised him though that after all that time Brian would just be getting on him about it.  “Umm,” Justin stuttered.  “Sorry.”

“Sorry’s bullshit!”  Brian spat angrily at him.  “You are as worse as Michael – invading my damn privacy like that, Justin!”  Brian just huffed and puffed angrily at his husband who stood their tongue-tied and literally shaking in his boots, and then Brian stormed out of the kitchen and return back to the bedroom to get changed.  

And, Justin felt really like a heel after Brian had compared him to the likes of Michael.  That’s something Brian rarely does… almost never do. 

Justin wasn’t sure how he was going to make it up to Brian.  And, the last thing that needs to happen is his husband having additional trust issues with him.  Especially when lately it was starting to look like Brian might be moving beyond the old ones.  Justin certainly didn’t want to see any new ones develop.  

Brian returned to the bedroom and still highly pissed he started undressing.  He sat down on the edge of the bed and undid his cufflinks and got those off and was about to place them down on the nightstand but he looked quite puzzled when he noticed another pair already sitting there.  But they weren’t a pair he owned.  And, Justin hadn’t been formerly dressed since their wedding.  So, Brian put his cufflinks down and instinctively picked the other ones up and examined them. And he noticed the monogram on them but it wasn’t the letters BK or JT.

Brian then picked them up and went marching back into the kitchen with them to confront Justin.

“What are these!”  Brian presented them to Justin pretty much in the same fashion he had done with the cell phone.

“What?”  Justin slightly laughed.  “They’re cufflinks of course.”  He naturally assumed they were Brian's or his.

“Whose cufflinks, damn it, Justin!”

“What do you mean whose?  They are either mine or yours.”

“Really?  You want to take a closer look, Mr. Taylor!”  Justin noticed Brian dropped his last name off the end of Justin’s.  He’s come to learn that that means his husband is extra angry with him.   

“Umm,” Justin nervously fished the cufflinks from his husband’s palm and he examined them closely.  He didn’t recognize them as any he ever seen before but he could damn well guess whose initials were EG.  “Umm, Brian.  I think I know who these belong to.  But I tell you right now it’s not what you might think… or what he might wants you to think.”

“What?  He… who?  Who do they belong to, Justin!  And, why were those left inside our bedroom!”

“I believe the initial EG stands for Ethan Gold!”

Brian looked highly agitate then as he placed his hand on top of his hair and frustratingly ran his hand threw his hair from back to front and then he hands went to his hips as he stared at Justin tight-lipped.

“Brian, I can explain.  I think Ethan just planted them in our bedroom to upset you.”

Brian didn’t say a word; he just shook his head angrily at Justin then he hurried back out there to the bedroom. 

Justin then turned off anything on the stove or oven that was still generating fire and he then hurried into the bedroom to go see if he could salvage things with his husband.

“Brian,” Justin found him in there stretched out sitting in the center of the bed with his back lean up against the backboard and one leg bent at the knee while the other was stretched out straight and he was pouting something mean.  “Please let me explain.”

“Explain?  How can you explain fucking Ethan inside our bed?”

“But I didn’t!  Brian, I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”

“Really?  Why not, Justin?  That man isn’t just any man.  He’s someone you used to fuck on the regular.  Your first fuck, in fact.  I’d be an idiot if I thought otherwise?”

“I didn’t fuck, Ethan, Brian.  I swear.  You can even sniff my cock if you like.”

“Really, Justin?  Like I would even smell Ethan scent on your dick!  I’m sure you used a condom.  So, the only scent I would smell on your dick would be your own.”

“But you can smell the rest of me too; and you won’t get a whiff of sex on me anywhere.  Brian, nothing ever happened.  Ethan was here but we didn’t do anything.  In fact, I thought he was in the bathroom the entire time.  I never knew he even came inside our bedroom.  He snuck in here, no doubt.  He’s just as sneaky and conniving as Michael I’m starting to discover.”

“You know, Justin, it doesn’t really matter.  Not when it come right down to it.”

“What?  What do you mean?”

“It’s not like this is REAL marriage.”

“Brian, but it is REAL.  We have a real marriage license, we had a real judge perform the…”

“Bullshit, Justin.  It’s a farce and you know it.  Wait, sorry,” Brian appeared to be amazingly calm just then.   “I’m breaking our bargain aren’t I?  Sorry – didn’t mean to do that.  Besides, the agreement stipulates I better not cheat.  It said nothing about what you can and can’t do.  So, I guess you’re free to do whatever you want!  So, if you want to fuck Ian and me too.  Well, I guess you can very well do that.  More power to you, Justin.  Maybe you can even invite Ian over for a threesome?  But no!  I can’t participate because I can’t fuck anyone else!  So, maybe I can get my kicks by sitting back and watching my husband fuck the shit out of his ex lover right in front of me.  That should be some amazing thrill!  You don’t have to sneak and fuck Ethan.”

“Brian!  Stopped it!  Damn it!”  Justin burst into tears.  And, then he collapsed on the bed sitting at the edge of the foot of it with his back to Brian.  “I didn’t do anything, Brian!  Ethan only made it look that way.  You can trust me, damned it!  When are you going to finally realized that!”

Brian then got on his knees and crawled up to Justin and he pressed up to his back and wrapped his arms around him and started nibbling on Justin’s ear and whispering to him.  “Shhh,” he pampered Justin.  “Hush!  Don’t you worry about it!  I’m bound to you by agreement.  I have to do everything you say regardless.  I’m as good as your sex slave and or puppet?  Your wish is my command.  Do you like it when I touch you like this, Justin?”  Brian moved his hand between Justin’s legs and groped his cock.  “Feels good?  You like it like that?”

“No, Brian!  Not like this,” Justin wept.

“Not like that!  Then how do you want it?  You want me to put my mouth on your cock… or do you want to be the one to go down on me?  You give excellent head, Justin.”

“Goddamn you, Brian!”  Justin pulled out of husband’s embrace and then leapt from the bed and ran into the living room and stretched out sobbing loudly across the couch.

Brian remained on their bed and returned to his earlier sitting position and he grabbed a pillow and pressed it closely to his chest as he sat there hugging the pillow while pouting again.

*

                  “Hey, Michael Novotny!”  Someone accosted Michael while he was inside Babylon that same evening Justin and Brian had their spat over Ethan.

“Hey!  Kip!  Kip Thomas!”  Michael saw about the only person inside the entire company he actually got along with or at least didn’t have any specific gripes with at Kinnetic Enterprises.  However, they didn’t work inside the same subsidiary.  Kip Thomas works in Kinnetic Advertising; and Michael and he used to run into each other at the elevators and occasionally struck up friendly conversation.

“Did you hear?”  Michael asked.

“Yeah, about you being fired like that, yesterday.  That’s a damn pity they did you like that.”

“Yeah, no warning… second chances or probation even.  It was that damned CFO’s entire fault.  He told Brian a bunch of lies about me.”

“You should sue.”

“Yeah, I should sue Ted’s damn ass at least.”

“That’s something though.”

“What’s something though?”

“You get fired and I get a promotion.”

“Promotion?  What kind of promotion?”

“I was just promoted to senior advertising executive, Michael.”

“What you are senior management now?  That means you will be moving to the executive’s floor.  Can I count on you to keep me abreast of what goes on up there?”  Michael asked.

“Fuck no!  And risk my damn job like that!  No fucking way!”  Kip then scurried away from Michael.

*

                  Wee hours into the night, Brian was still awake and stewing in that exact same spot while yet clutching his pillow.  He got up to take a piss; and after he was done in the bathroom, he was curious as to where his husband had run to, so he went looking for him.  He found Justin lightly snoring and soundly sleeping on the couch.

Brian then got his briefcase and took it inside the study and attempted to do some office work but his emotions were fucking with him too much to allow him to properly concentrate.  So, he started surfing the Net instead. 

“What the fuck!”  Brian bitched out loud when he saw on his Yahoo home page a News article that jumped out at him and slapped him smack between the eyes.

It read:  LATEST CELEBRITY SEX VIDEO SHOWS BILLIONAIRE BUSINESS MOGUL BRIAN KINNEY AND HIS SAME-SEX SPOUSE JUSTIN TAYLOR-KINNEY HAVING SEX OUT IN THE OPEN PUBLIC!

“Fuck!  Shit!  Babylon!”  It dawned on Brian that quickly what that bulletin flash was all about.