JC was standing in the hallway, drumming against the fountain and considering the possibility of lead-filled water when he felt fingers, ghost-light, spidering up his spine. And then a cool breath at the nape of his neck and JC shut his eyes and thought, “Finally.”
Somehow they made it to his place, safe from the ever-present cameras, the backs of their knees bruised by offending coffee tables and hips slammed on doorframes that just got in the way. Clothes were somewhere on the floor, JC knew, because he could feel the light breeze of the air conditioning across his abdomen, wet from Justin’s mouth. Everything else was a bit muddled in that post-orgasmic way and JC languished in the feeling for a moment before bringing himself back to focus enough to feel Justin hard against his leg and his tongue against the jutting bone of his hip. Justin had just said something, but JC hadn’t been paying attention.
“What?”
“Wanna fuck you.” Justin’s words were half-spoken into his skin, but they were clear enough.
All the relaxation snapped from JC’s body and Justin stilled, feeling JC go rigid beneath him. “Shh, it’s okay, JC. You ever, before?” Justin raised his head, his thumbs rubbing soft circles over JC’s hips, his eyes searching JC’s down turned, drawn face.
“Uh.” This would be the time to lie, JC knew. Say ‘of course, sure,’ just get Justin inside him and worry about the rest later. But his moment’s pause gave him away.
Justin slid himself up JC’s body and kissed him, gently but with intent. “It’s fine. It hurts, I mean, but it’s worth it. I’ll go real slow, okay? Okay?”
JC bit the inside of his lip, exhaled, looked into Justin’s eyes and thought, “Oh god.” And then said it out loud, along with “Yes” and “please” and “want it.” He reached up and curled his arms around Justin’s broad shoulders, spread his legs and put the soles of his feet flat against the mattress.
*
“Lube?”
“Er, left-hand drawer.”
Justin twisted away and rummaged for a moment. His face returned to JC’s field of vision and a half-empty tube landed bouncing beside JC’s side. “You’re out of condoms, man.”
“Oh, I – you don’t have to –“
“Shit, man! You gotta wear a condom, please tell me you always wear one. I mean, I’m clean, still. Promise me you always wear one.”
“I. I do.”
“Okay, good.” Justin disappeared again, twisted off the bed and returning with his discarded jeans. He pulled his wallet and wiggled his fingers into a small pocket, retrieving a foil packet. “I’m a good Boy Scout.”
JC laughed nervously. “They give badges for this?”
Justin smiled in the way that made girls fork over hundreds for his likeness and record execs willing to take a chance on five boys out of Orlando. “You know it.”
*
With Justin inside him, hot and tight and there, JC put a steadying hand on his shoulder and squeezed, mumbled, “Wait, wait.”
Justin did, opening his eyes that he’d squinted shut and looking at JC. “JC? Just relax, relax …”
JC moved his hand from Justin’s shoulder, trailed it up his neck and over the line of his jaw, the dip of his cheeks, the soft spot right under his eye.
“Jayce?” Justin couldn’t hold still that long, his hips shifting ever so slightly, making JC’s back arch, his palm slide around the back of Justin’s head and his fingers to tangle in the short hair there.
“Come on, keep going, come on.”
Justin didn’t need to be told twice.
*
After, Justin rolled over with a heavy sigh, pulling JC to rest on his shoulder. “You okay?
JC knew this was that moment, the prefect time to admit it really was his first time. His first first time, ever. If his life were a movie they would have a heartfelt talk now, and Justin would be flattered and they would cuddle and fall asleep in each other’s arms. But JC wasn’t that brave, and his life wasn’t like that. His faint nod was enough for Justin, who kissed him on the forehead and closed his eyes.
The next morning JC woke up to an empty bed save for a little note scribbled on the back of a receipt. Needed clean clothes. See you at breakfast. –J JC’s stomach still felt sticky and he needed a shower badly, but the night’s activity had made walking uncomfortable. He needed to find a way to hide his limp or everyone was going to know what he’d been up to. He’d never had to worry about that before, and he stopped in the doorway to the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. He didn’t look any different, not really. He pulled at the skin on his cheeks, stretching it over the bones of his face and then released and let it snap back. Still exactly the same JC, except for a few faint purple circles on his hips where Justin had clung to him, angled and rocked into him, pressed tight when he came.
Well, exactly the same except that and the faint blush crawling up his neck that JC hoped wouldn’t become a permanent presence every time he thought about Justin.
It was a silly, girly thing, to expect himself to look different, only he remembered sneaking out of bed late at night to listen at the doorway to Heather’s room when she had sleepovers, the girls talking about “losing it” and how special it was going to be.
JC had always believed them, like he’d believed them about the virtues of eyeliner and as judges of what hairstyles looked good on particular boys. So when hundreds of young girls were throwing themselves at him across Europe and America, he never actually slept with any of them. How could it be special and meaningful if it was with someone who was just thinking of how she was going to get people to believe her story, someone who looked into his eyes and saw BOP pinup stats? Blow jobs were fine, of course, he was a red-blooded male. Mouths were mouths, nothing special about that. But sex, what happened last night, that naked openness, that invasion; that was different.
JC let go of the doorframe and shuffled over to the sink. Maybe he could blame the way he was walking on dance rehearsals? Joey would believe him, at least, and maybe he could avoid Lance until after breakfast.
*
JC refused to make eye contact with Lance, the only one of them in the breakfast room when he arrived at the rehearsal space. This was one of the few places on the compound that they had total freedom from the MTV cameras. JC was pretty sure they had even installed cameras in the bathrooms, to get that real, behind-the-scenes feeling. But Lance had held out on the breakfast room, and now JC was grateful. He needed somewhere to be “off” before the day really started. Lance politely waited all of a minute and a half of JC’s avoidance before turning back the corner of his newspaper and leaning over.
“Someone got laid last night.”
“What? No!” JC was a shitty actor and he knew it. Better than not trying, though.
“JC, honey. If anyone knows what it looks like after a night with Timberlake…”
JC flushed bright red and started methodically destroying his muffin. Lance rolled his eyes and hurried on.
“Not recently, of course. Chris would have my balls and not in a good way.” Lance tried to feign nonchalance, but he was a gossipy little queen at heart. “So? How was your first time?”
JC turned an even brighter shade of red, if that was possible, and mumbled something about having to change his shirt before bolting from the room, stumbling past Chris on his way in.
“What the fuck is wrong with him?”
“Timberlake,” Lance rolled his eyes.
“Oh.” Chris went over and inspected an apple, twirling it by the stem. After a second he looked up at Lance. ”Oh.”
“What was that second ‘oh’?”
Chris glanced back toward the door and then straddled the chair JC had recently vacated. “That was his first time.”
“Obviously, the boy was walking like he’d been riding horseback all night.” Lance shrugged and turned back to his newspaper.
“No, I mean ever.” Chris bit his lower lip and Lance let the newspaper flap down so he could stare at Chris. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this. I don’t even think JC knows he told me.”
“Well go the fuck on. You’re telling me now.” Lance let his newspaper drop to the table, completely disregarding it, an almost impossible feat this early in the morning.
“Right. So back before Germany I used to buy him and Joey liquor, like any good older friend would.”
“You never bought me liquor!”
“You were a baby. Stop interrupting.” Chris reached across the table and stroked the inside of Lance’s wrist. “Anyway. The night I introduced JC to tequila we were sitting out on the side of the house cause Lynn was asleep inside and I was telling him about this personal trainer who was this amazing lay.” Lance glared and Chris pinched him. “At the time. Before I became intimately acquainted with the Bass Ass.” Lance kept glaring and Chris sighed. “And he’s probably some cokehead while I am here with the most irrationally jealous boyfriend ever. Christ, I don’t go crazy every time you talk about Timberlake!”
“Different situation.” Lance dropped his scowl and rolled his eyes.
“Whatever. Do you want to finish storytime or not?”
“Go on.”
“So. JC gets all wide eyed -- you know how he is when he’s drunk – and asked if I was going to bring the guy around to meet everyone. And I told him quite frankly no, he was just some guy I slept with and I probably wouldn’t get the chance to again, what with the group.
“Well, JC got all scandalized and started going on and on about how he could never do that, how sex was something special and he could never sleep with someone he didn’t love and he didn’t care how long it took and if he was a virgin until he was thirty, and then he puked in the grass and I had to sneak him inside past Lynn, which wasn’t pleasant at all, I don’t know how you snuck around her all that time in Germany, and anyway –“
“JC’s a virgin!?”
Chris and Lance’s heads both snapped around to the door, where Justin was standing. “Oh fuck,” Chris mumbled, and Lance just put his face in his hands and held back a laugh.
“JC’s a fucking virgin?” Justin repeated, sounding even more panicked.
“J, I don’t know. That was a long time ago and he was really drunk.”
Justin was pacing, which was always a bad sign. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Probably because he wanted to sleep with you and didn’t want to scare you off,” Lance said, running his fingers through his hair. “Besides, maybe he figured you had a good track record with virgins.”
“Lance, You were different, we were kids, it was – “ Justin stopped pacing and looked at Chris and Lance. “Look, this is enough of a head-trip for me with the JC thing. I don’t need to deal with The Young and the Restless, Boyband Edition right now, too. Focus here, what the fuck do I do now?”
“Whatever you were going to do in the first place, kid.”
“I don’t know, I was going to maybe take him home tonight and see if he wanted another go, but.”
“But what?” Chris folded his arms across his chest.
“But he’s a virgin!” Justin’s voice reached that squeaky, unflattering place.
Chris shook his head and stood up. “Not anymore, that’s for sure. Look, you shouldn’t have heard that, I should have said anything, we don’t even know if it’s true. So now I’m going to go down to the rehearsal room and practice humping the air.” With that, Chris ruffled Lance’s hair and brushed past Justin to the door.
“Lance?”
“I’m going to agree with Chris on this one, J.” Lance picked up his discarded newspaper.
“Chris said JC wanted to love someone before he --. Dude, he didn’t say anything like that last night.”
Lance sighed and let the newspaper fall. Obviously he wasn’t going to get any reading done this morning. “Maybe he wasn’t ready to tell you, maybe he isn’t in love with you he just wanted to get laid, I don’t know. Chill, all right?”
“But –“
“Look, we have a long day. Chill, Deal with it after rehearsal. Just talk to him, kid.”
“I’m not a kid, yo!” Justin collapsed in a chair and grabbed the box of Captin’Crunch. Lance shook his head and turned back to his newspaper.
*
“You were a virgin?”
JC rolled his eyes, trying to play it cool. Justin just walked into his kitchen unannounced, no big deal. He’d just finish making these eggs and then he’d sit down and eat and maybe Justin would still be here and maybe he wouldn’t. No big deal. “I told you that last night, J.”
“No, I mean a virgin-virgin.”
JC suddenly found the skillet full of eggs totally engrossing, a litany of denydenydeny running through his head. He moved it off the stove with a clatter and threw his hands up in the air. Must provide a distraction. “Of course not!”
“JC, you’re doing that thing with your hands, I know you’re lying.”
JC promptly dropped his hands to his sides. “Am not.”
Justin imitated JC’s fluttery hand motions and made a face.
“Fuck, why don’t you just leave.” JC folded one arm across his chest and brought the other hand up to his mouth to gnaw at his fingernails. “Was it that obvious?”
“No, Chris told me.”
JC’s arms when absolutely spastic, knocking the spatula over and across the counter. “He what – shit!?”
“He didn’t mean to, I overheard. Look, JC, why didn’t you tell me?”
JC retrieved the spatula and held it as if it provided some defense, close up against his chest. “I didn’t exactly not tell you, you just assumed.”
“No, I mean why didn’t you tell me you love me?”
JC took a sharp breath in before looking away. Justin pressed on.
“Chris said you said you wouldn’t sleep with someone you didn’t love, and if you waited all this time you must have really meant that and, I just don’t get it. Why me?”
The muscles in JC’s neck tensed and he had his eyes shut. The pause stretched on, but JC knew how stubborn Justin was. This was his own damn fault, anyway.
“Who else do I have time to love, J?”
“Oh.”
JC still couldn’t open his eyes, afraid of what he might see. “Look, could you please just go?”
Justin blinked and his face scrunched up in confusion, but JC couldn’t see that. “Why?”
“Because I made a huge mistake and –“ JC turned back to Justin, putting on his most brave, camera-ready face.
“No, no you didn’t, JC.” Justin tried to hurry around the kitchen island, but it was big and bulky. “Fucking island, I can’t. Don’t move, okay, I wanted this to be dramatic.” He considered jumping over the edge but just settled for walking briskly around and reaching out to touch JC’s arm. “Hey.”
JC had cracked a nervous smile. “Hey. Promise this won’t fuck up the group, okay? We can just be friends, like before.”
“Whatever, I love you too, you big dork.” Justin closed the distance between them and kissed JC softly, the forgotten spatula pressed between them. “I mean, I’m not ‘in love’ with you just yet, that takes time, yeah? But of course I love you. You’re JC.”
JC shook his head, but reached out to touch Justin’s waist. “You make absolutely no sense.”
“Do too. Look, I love you. I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve known you forever and I look at you and feel warm and sexy and, that’s love, right? But, like, we can’t be ‘in love’ yet. You have to, like, sleep in the same bed with me when I have a cold and feed me chicken soup, or still want to have sex with me after a bad day in the studio. Or get butterflies when I walk into a room in the ugliest costume imaginable, though I already get that sometimes with you now, so maybe we’re already on the way there, huh?” Justin looked down quickly. “You got egg on my new shirt and I still want to kiss you, see?”
“Justin, shut up.” Just for good measure, JC kissed him, pulling him into his arms and trying to just enjoy the possibility of it all. But when he pulled back Justin just smiled and started talking again.
“Yeah, so what do you say? Want to fall in love?”
“You’re going to annoy me until I say yes, aren’t you?”
“Basically.”
“In that case.” JC smiled and nodded, his eyes going all crinkly, and then Justin was right there, cheek pressed against his more intimate than a kiss, somehow. This was totally worth the wait.