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Crystal City |
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Maps and Legends Index |
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Vegas
sort of sneaks up on you. You'll be driving across the desert for hours,
seeing nothing...nothing...nothing, and then suddenly BIG SHINY
BRIGHT LIGHTS! Out of abso-fucking-lutely nowhere. It's pretty cool.
Especially if you've just spent the night in a goddamn ghost town. I dunno what Brian's obsession is with finding the creepiest places imaginable to sleep and fuck in. I think he just likes to see me scared. Makes him feel all manly or something. Anyway, I was pretty impressed with my first view of Vegas, and I vaguely remember being excited about exploring the town with Brian, but in retrospect, I really should've known better. There are certain places and certain people that just should not mix, and I should've put together the little I knew about Vegas and the lot I knew about Brian, and turned the fucking car around. I guess I was too dazzled by all the pretty colors to really think about it. The hotel room he booked for us was, again, outrageously nice and giant, but I knew from looking through the guidebook that almost all the hotels in Vegas are cheap as hell, so I tried not to worry about it. Brian decided to take a bath when we got there, which seemed like a very good plan after our many nights of sleeping in dirt, so I followed him into the bathroom and marveled at the huge sunken tub. He filled it up and poured in his fancy French bubbles and stripped down, and I fondled the bathroom fixtures. "This is like Cleopatra's toilet or something," I said. "Well, that must make me Antony," Brian said, sinking into the water. "Wanna come and shave me, slave boy?" I pulled off my shirt and gathered up his shaving stuff, and wondered why we'd never done this before. It sounded really sexy. "So where do you wanna go first?" I asked, and sat on the side of the tub to lather up his face. "That Gipsy club sounded pretty cool." "Nah," he said. "We can go to a dancing fagatorium anytime. Let's check out some casinos first." "You wanna gamble?" His face was all white and foamy, but I still recognized the "duh" look underneath it. "Is that a good idea?" I asked him, wondering what he even had to gamble *with* other than our gas money. "Way I figure it, we don't have a fucking thing to lose anymore." That should've been my first big clue, if I wasn't paying attention before, but dammit, he distracted me with the shaving and the being naked and wet thing. I think I did say something like; "There's always something to lose." But he wasn't really paying attention. Then I started running the blade over his skin, and we didn't talk anymore. We watched each other instead. It really was fucking hot. Just the fact that he was letting me stroke his neck with a potentially deadly weapon was a huge turn on. And the way he was staring at me...god, it was amazing. Made my stomach do that crazy flippy thing. I can't believe he can still do that to me sometimes. Isn't it supposed to go away after a few years? When I was finished, I leaned in and kissed him. His lips were warm and wet and slippery. "C'mere," he said. "You're dirty." I wriggled out of my jeans and slid into the water, dunking my head under for a second, then leaned back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me and just held me there for a while, kissing my neck and forehead every so often, and running his hands lazily all over me. It felt so good and relaxing that I think I almost fell asleep. Until I heard him murmuring into my ear, "You know, I was thinking. Maybe we should make this a one way trip." "Hmm...huh? What do you mean?" "I mean...start over in California. Move there." That woke me right the fuck up. I pulled up and looked back at him, sloshing water and bubbles everywhere. "Are you serious?" "Sure. Like I said, nothing to lose, right?" "You'd really wanna move somewhere with me?" "Well, you're already here, aren't you?" For a minute I felt almost giddy. I felt seventeen and hungry, thrilling at the latest morsel of love he slipped to me by accident. We already lived together, of course, but moving across the country with someone- that's a whole new level of commitment. It's a whole thing. It sounded really fantastic. For a minute. Then I started thinking about it. Really thinking about it. And it became fucking terrifying. "It's kinda...far," I said. "No it's not. Eight or nine hours, tops." "Not from here, from home." "Well if we moved there, it would be home." My mom. Daphne. Liberty Avenue, and the street I grew up on, and Deb's baked ziti, and Mikey's shop, and Mikey, and Emmett, and my sister, and the loft, and the Thai place down the street from the loft where we go every Thursday because they have a special on the kind of noodles Brian likes, and even when we could afford to pay regular price he wanted to go every Thursday because even though he'd never say it, he wanted us to have a thing we always did, and now we might never go again and...fuck, it was scary. Nowhere else would be home. Nowhere else would have those things. I couldn't imagine leaving all that forever. I couldn't believe Brian wanted to. But then, I guess he always had. At least this time he wanted to take me with him. But what if I said no? Would he go anyway? There was no way I could say yes right then. I'd never even BEEN to San Francisco. I had no idea what to tell him. "Wouldn't you miss your friends? And...everything?" I asked, hopefully. "That's why they invented the telephone. And the airplane. And the internet." "I guess. I dunno, maybe we should just... see how it goes when we get there." He sighed and rubbed his nose over my hair, and I squeezed his arms tighter around me, hoping he knew I wanted to be with him no matter what. That if he decided to move there on his own, I'd almost surely follow, despite any reservations I had. I don't think he got the message though, cause after that he got out of the tub and started getting dressed in a hurry instead of staying naked and wet and having sex with me, like I expected. He didn't really talk to me as we got ready to go out, and he seemed suddenly grouchy and on edge. That was when I finally started to worry, and it was pretty much all downhill from there. First off, I've gotta say that casinos are the most tedious, fucking depressing places I've ever seen. No one talks to anyone else. Everyone sits at their slot machine, or blackjack table, or roulette wheel, throwing dollar after dollar into the gaping maw of the city, getting nothing in return but more free drinks to feed their addiction and make them forget that anything else exists. There are no clocks in casinos, or windows. The air is stale, like a mall, but worse. It's loud as fuck with all the slot machines blinging and change rattling and random sirens going off to make you think someone's actually winning something somewhere. Most of the people are old, and probably can't afford to be there. I wanted to leave as soon as we walked into the first one, but I figured I'd let Brian play a few games and get it out of his system. As soon as he starts losing, I told myself, he'll want to go. If there's one thing Brian can't stand, it's losing. Well, he started losing pretty much right away, and I swear to god, I think he was in that fucking casino for ten hours straight. And it was in the lobby of our goddamn hotel. He didn't even leave the goddamn hotel. I stood and watched him for as long as I could stand it- which wasn't very long at all- and after his eleventh or twelfth giant loss, I asked him if we could go. "This is it," he said, as the dealer gave him his cards. I don't even know what game he was playing. "It's gonna turn around for me now. Because after all, I am Brian. Fucking. Kinney." He threw back a drink- I'd already lost track of how many he'd had- and I tried again. "Maybe you'd have better luck with the fucking part of that. I'll bet there's lots of hot guys in this city..." "Later," he said, and lost again. "Motherfucker." "C'mon, let's go to that club. It'll be fun." "Later." He tossed more money on the table, and I really wanted to just grab his hand and physically force him to stop. But I was scared to do that, and the fact that I was scared- that I was scared of him, and what he might do if I tried- made me feel a little bit sick. "Go back to the room if you're tired," he said, which was pretty much a complete non-sequitur. "I'm not tired. I wanna go someplace fun. Someplace where you won't be losing mountains of cash." "What, like a gay bar? At least the drinks here are free..." He called over a waitress and ordered another, as if to illustrate the point, and lit a cigarette. And lost. Again. "You may have to pay for the drinks at a gay bar, but I've never seen you spend a thousand fucking dollars in one before." He finally turned away from the game to give me the Kinney Pissy Look, patent pending. "What the fucking fuck, Justin? Why are you so goddamn worried about how I spend my money? Why is that suddenly your big issue?" "Because this is fucking stupid! This isn't spending, this is flushing down the toilet!" He huffed and shook his head and turned back to the table. "You worry too much," he said. I wanted to ask him how he was planning on moving to a completely new city, a completely *expensive* city, with his negative million dollars, and whether he realized that nobody around him was winning and nobody ever would, but I knew he wasn't listening anymore. It was pointless. He'd been sucked into the vortex of Vegas. "I'm gonna go to that club," I told him. He nodded absently, and I kissed his cheek and said the name into his ear, hoping it would register. I walked to the club even though it was kinda far. I needed some fresh air after being in that stink pit, and I wanted to clear my head a little. Unfortunately, the Vegas Strip isn't the best place to walk if you're trying to think clearly. Too much stimulus. Too much noise and light and activity and insanity. It was cool, though- much more interesting than the indoor sights- and I wished Brian were there with me to enjoy it all. I decided I'd have to paint it sometime, and share it with him that way. If he didn't decide to move into the casino, that is. I swear, I think people live there. The club was pretty standard gay bar fare, except everyone was inexplicably wearing feather headbands. I later found out that it was Native America night for some reason, which was fine, if somewhat cheesy. The drinks weren't free, but they were pretty damn cheap so I had a couple and started dancing. Then I let some cute boys buy me a couple more drinks, because I needed to be drinking, and Brian was making me very nervous about spending our money. I didn't really talk to any of them, though, and after a few hours I started to feel a little bit lonely. A little bit bored. Unfortunately, I couldn't really think of anywhere else to go. The empty hotel room seemed equally dull, and possibly depressing, and there was no way in hell I was going back to try and suck Brian out of the casino again. I didn't want to go to another bar, because I'd told Brian I'd be here, and I didn't wanna lose him on the off chance he decided to show up. So, I stayed. And drank. And eventually I started dancing with some random guy out of sheer boredom. He was fairly cute and, I think, one of the few genuine Native Americans in the place. He was probably about a foot taller than me, nicely muscled with thick dark hair and shiny eyes. He was quiet, and didn't crowd or grope me excessively, which was nice. We danced through a few songs, and I was just about to send him to the bar for another drink when I spotted Brian out of the corner of my eye. He was moving towards me, pushing through the crowd and looking very irritated. Drunk, I realized when he'd gotten close enough for me to see his eyes, to smell the fumes. He was very, very drunk. "Fuck off," he said to my new friend, and grabbed my arm to pull me away. "I saw him first," the guy said, and proceeded to just stand there like a tree trunk, with his hands on my hips. I could tell by looking at Brian that this was not a good time to fuck with him in this fashion. Or any fashion. He got this crazy look when the guy said that, and I had a very bad feeling that the situation was about to turn ugly. The last thing we needed was for Brian to start a fight. He was too wasted to even defend himself, and the guy was fucking huge. "Um, actually," I said. "I think it's time for me to go." For some stupid reason, he chose that moment to suddenly become aggressive, and leaned in to try and kiss me. Brian intercepted and started kissing me himself, and the guy was forced to let go. I felt like a ragdoll, getting pulled between them, and didn't particularly enjoy it, but once Brian's mouth was on mine, everything felt a little bit better. A little bit closer to normal. Even though his mouth tasted like a gin-doused ashtray, and he was practically collapsing on top of me. I guess the guy just gave up and wandered off while we were kissing, because that was the last I saw of him. Thank god. "Mmm...you taste good," he said, and licked up the side of my neck. "Did you win?" I asked. "Well yeah. He went away. Now you're mine." He kissed me again, sloppy and careless, and started swaying- holding my waist and sagging against my body. I felt his weight go slack until I was practically the only force holding him upright. His head was bobbing and drooping in a very alarming way, and his sweat smelled like a distillery. "Maybe it's time to go," I suggested. "Nuh...we jus' got here," he said into my ear, and slid his hands under the waistband of my jeans. He started kneading my ass with his fingers, and it felt really good, but I was too worried about him to enjoy it at all. "You just got here. I've been here all night. Brian, it's almost morning, and you're fucking wasted." "I'm beautiful," he insisted, and started erratically thrusting his cock against my stomach. I felt his face rubbing into my hair, like I was a towel he was trying to wipe off with. "Did you come out ahead, Brian? Or at least break even...?" "Mmmmaybe. Dunno really. Mmmlet's fuck." I was starting to wonder if he even knew where we were, and how he'd managed to get here on his own. I was starting to wonder if he'd decided to leave the casino of his own accord, or if they'd thrown him out for being too fucking drunk to live. I think I was finally witnessing stage four, first hand. We were at least well into stage three. He pushed a finger inside me suddenly, but then just sort of stopped moving, and became even more slack and boneless feeling. He started breathing heavy and making weird noises. I pulled back a little and held his face in my hands. It was cool and clammy and his skin was a sickly greenish color. "Brian, are you all right?" "Peach...y," he grunted, and closed his eyes. "You look sick. C'mon, let's get you some water." Leading him to the bar turned out to be an extremely difficult endeavor, and I wondered how the hell I was gonna manage to get us all the way back to the freaking hotel. He draped an arm over my shoulders, but that was about all the help I got from him. Mostly I had to drag all 176 pounds and 3 ounces of him across the entire length of the bar. He felt like he might fall every time someone brushed against him, and he started breathing heavier as we walked- almost dry heaving. "No, officer, I know what I'm doing..." he said loudly into my ear, for completely unknown reasons. "Shh, just concentrate on walking," I told him. Eventually I managed to get him to the bar and onto a stool which I could only hope he wouldn't topple off of while I got his water. "Remember...hey," he said, pulling on the hem of my shirt while I was ordering. "Remember how I taught you the alphabet?" "Here, drink this." I wrapped his hand around the plastic cup, then wrapped my hand around his and led the water up to his mouth. He managed to get a few sips down before spitting and coughing. He wiped his lips with his sleeves, and started clutching at my shirt again. "Well I never...Justin...Jus...I never taught you your nummers. Addition and...subtraction." "That's okay. I learned that in school." I brushed some damp strands of hair out of his face, and kissed his forehead. He was such a fucking mess. A beautiful, sad fucking mess. I didn't really understand why he was like this, but I wanted to make it better. "One thousand take away five thousand is no thousand," he said. "And the house always wins." He laughed this horrible, shrill, drunken laugh, and it made my chest hurt. I think he was trying to tell me he'd lost four thousand dollars, but I couldn't think about that yet. Had to just concentrate on getting him back in one piece. "It's all right," I said. "Don't worry about that now." His eyes darted around distractedly, and his body started leaning towards a video poker machine they had set up at the bar, like a sickly weed growing towards a brick wall. "Hey, les' practice our nummers," he said, and took out his goddamn wallet. "For fuck's sake, Brian!" I grabbed it away from him and put it in my pocket, like I'd been itching to do all night. He didn't yell at me, or even try to get it back. Just sat there staring at his empty hand, like he couldn't quite figure out where the money had gone. "No more nummers tonight. We're done, all right?" "S'like life," he said, and put his hands on my arms. Squeezed me and stared into my eyes with a sudden focused intensity. Like he was about to impart some ancient, drunken wisdom. "Job...plus Justin...plus love...equals no job," he slurred at me, then passed out on my shoulder. My mouth went dry, and my pulse started racing, and I couldn't really move or talk or think for at least five minutes. It was another one of those sudden shifts in the Brian landscape. Another bottom falling out moment. Love. He said love. That's what hit me first, but then the rest started to sink in. The context. I didn't like the sound of it at all. I remembered the night that Stockwell lost- how proud and relieved and just plain happy Brian seemed. Happier than I could ever remember seeing him, honestly. He was at peace with himself, with us, maybe even with the world. It was amazing. But now that the reality was starting to settle in, the real weight of what he'd done, was he sorry? Did he blame me? It never really occurred to me that he would, but it made sense. He had lost his job because of me, essentially. And he'd already told me that he made those fucking Deekins commercials because of something I said to him. It was, I realized, perfectly possible that he was harboring a secret, festering resentment towards me. Maybe it had been growing inside him for months. Maybe that's what all the night pacing was about. Maybe that's what this whole fucking trip was about- to see if he could get over it. And maybe asking me to move to California with him was a last ditch effort to make things right and rid himself of the seething hatred he had for me, and maybe I'd ruined everything by not saying yes. He really had lost literally everything, at least partially because of me. And now I was all he had left. Maybe I wasn't enough. Or maybe he was just really wasted and didn't know what the fuck he was even saying. Maybe it didn't mean anything at all. I couldn't think about it, I decided. It was making my insides burn, making me feel like I wanted to cry, and this wasn't the time. Certainly wasn't the place. The most important thing right now was figuring out how to get Brian back to the hotel. Or, possibly, to the emergency room. I managed to shake him into a state of semi-consciousness, which seemed like a positive sign, and told him to try and walk with me- which he did, though not with any great success. The streets were relatively quiet- not deserted as you might expect streets to be at five o'clock in the morning, but far less bustling than they'd been six or seven hours ago- and somehow we managed to get back to the room just as the sun was rising. I led him to the bed, and he collapsed, face down, and didn't move again of his own accord until sometime the next day. I pulled off his shoes and socks and turned him onto his side so he wouldn't choke on his own vomit in the middle of the night, then curled up behind him and put my hand on his heart so I'd be sure to know if it stopped beating. Or if it was beating too much. I didn't sleep. Yeah, I don't think I'll be going back to Las Vegas anytime soon. The scene was eerily familiar, but cloudy. I was in my apartment. I was naked. Jennifer Taylor was there, talking to me. Saying words that I couldn't hear. She was smoking a cigarette. |
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Maps and Legends Index |
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