"Ok Brian," Michael said.
"No, without you Mikey, I have to go alone."
"I understand."
Brian walked Michael back to the door and closed it gently, the looks lost in each other's eyes. Once closed, Brian leaned back on the door and took a deep inspirational breath before moving towards the living-room.
In spite of Brian seeming so willing, he still balked at going. Glancing around, he realized he was hiding a certain malaise, an unconscious fear. Fear of standing in the way, of hurting himself, of hurting him. Suddenly Brian was fed up with all these thoughts. He drew from within himself the strength to go on.
Brian looked up, walking to his bedroom, he got naked, walked into the bathroom and stepped into the shower. Once in, the warm water poured down on his perfect skin, on his great figure, like licking sensually his body. Brian shook his head, ruffling his hair and as he shook his head it was like he had shaken away all his weaknesses. He turned off the water and walked out of the shower. Brian grabbed a towel and dried himself so as to reinforce his calm. As he was walking almost nonchalantly toward his bed, the phone rang out. It was Cynthia.
"Hello Brian? Brown Athletics called. They wanted to know when their advertising campaign will be done."
"Tell them I can't do it now. I have to do something important"
"But Brian!"
"Cynthia, do what you're told. That's all."
Brian putting the phone down firmly, decided not to let anything or anybody stop him in his reunion with Justin. He headed to the dresser and took out his boxers, and a sleeveless tee-shirt and then walked to the closet and got out a pair of jeans and his leather jacket.
"I'm going to play it soft in this respect…" He said calmly to himself. Once dressed, Brian grabs his keys and a map leading to Sunshine, a map Justin had left before he went to NY. So the latter knew that Brian would end up coming to him…Brian continued: "So the keys, the map…I'm ready." Brian didn't even take the time to pack a change of clothes, thinking that all this will be over soon.
Brian moved toward the steel door, opening and closing it abruptly. This door, a barrier it appeared to him now being a protection behind which came and went many of their memories lived together, between happiness and pain, between smiles and tears.
In the elevator, he started reliving his very first moments spent with his angel, a mere poke who came into his life and who clung to it. Brian felt again Justin trembling against him. Justin had no idea what this stranger could have done to him. Fucking him or killing him, perhaps both, Justin didn't give a damn. All he knew was that he wanted to be with him and nothing else. A clang took Brian out from his daydream: The elevator had stopped. It has stopped at the first floor of an unknown way, road of an unlikely return. Only God knows what the outcome would be…
Brian once again went from the heat into the cold and he shivered, but not only because of the cold air. His face reflected again in the glass. However, this time, the reflection was that of a man stuck between uncertainty and sadness. Brian belted along to his fuckmobile, his steps ringing out in the empty street. He took his keys out of his pocket and opened the car door which he then slammed shut. Brian was lost between a feeling of determination and a fear which irritated the hell out of him.
Before pulling away, he noticed an object on the floor. A paint brush which must have been dropped by Sunshine when Brian would take him back and forth from the Fine Arts Institute Of Pittsburgh. He picked it up and stuck it into the glove compartment, facing the passenger's seat in which Justin used to sit. Brian's look dwelled on the seat briefly before he got his thoughts together and started the car, making the motor roar. We could be blinded by the headlights which ran through a road with light somewhat obscure for him. With one hand on the hand break and the other one on the steering wheel, his look in the distance, Brian at last left.
In the rear-view mirror, he saw his district moving away until disappearing. In front of him, another landscape was born. New panorama, unknown land: Brian had left Pittsburgh. While the wheels was fiercely licking the asphalt, a fine rain, some drizzle, started to fall. The raindrops were born in Heaven and died on Earth, inevitably. The ones which beat down on the car crawled along against the windows, a glass barrier, forming liquid beads and lines which ended by dying too. The rain cried for Brian, and he knew it. He was even delighted by it because he no longer wanted to be tormented with his grief and his joy to, to what? To meet his lover again, to savour once again his soul? He was going to know the answer… Brian was determined to get to Justin.
Then little by little, the rain stopped and that was when a wonderful rainbow appeared. It was so light that Brian had to screw up his' eyes to distinguish it among the cloud which tickled it. From the clarity came an impenetrability, however sweet, lost between the caress and the brilliance of what he was seeing. Brian surprised himself thinking it was a sign, as if his angel were flapping its wings, up there in the sky. "I'm freaking out!" He exclaimed, as he speeded up with renewed vigour.
Lost in his daydreaming, Brian hadn't seen time going by and now saw the night falling gradually on the road and upon him self. It was the winter and a cold came breezing through him. Brian shivered and clutched the steering wheel a bit more, as if he wanted to fight against this feeling.
As the night was becoming darker and darker and as liquid fangs strewed the landscape here and there, a luminous line appeared. As a piece of lace, it tore finely this dark sky. "Civilization at last!" Brian sighed not displeased to have almost reached his' destination. After passing through Jersey City, the fuckmobile got into the Lincoln Tunnel. Brian read again the map and repeated out loud, "13 Queens Boulevard in the Sunnyside area, 13 Queens Boulevard in the Sunnyside area…"
Another bridge, another bond was to lead him to Sunshine. Brian was in Long Island City and his lover not very far from here now. In front of him crossed the taxi cabs and stood majestic, the sky-scrapers. There were so many monuments that the World admired from afar and that Brian only had a rare occasion to see and to admire. "It's odd to think that I've always longed to live here…Such energy!" he murmured. Brian didn't know if his wish was going to be fully granted or if he was going to come back, alone or accompanied? Only Time will tell him. Kinney had arrived at last.
Unlike the towers which seemed to taunt him from the top of their greatness, it was in front of a little building typically from the 70's that Brian parked. This latter noticed that only the windows of the last floor were lit up. He lingered watching a few seconds before seeing the silhouette of a young man standing out. This shape was familiar to him…even very familiar as he had many times the pleasure to ride him.
Brian took a deep breath, took his' courage in both hands and stepped inside, no lights, no mailboxes, not even bells, as if his muse of his desires of creation hadn't any ties and could go through the walls, coming and going just as he please. Only a weak light bulb betrayed that half-light. The stairwell smelled of the sandalwood and the sap…Weirdly, that olfactory sense took Brian away as he walked upstairs, again and again. That's when some music followed the silence of his intoxication, some alternative sound which must be helping Sunshine out in creating.
Brian breathed in and out deeply before knocking on the thin wooden door heavily reinforced with some iron. After a few seconds in waiting, he heard steps getting closer to the door which opened abruptly. A face idealized by the shadow from many candles behind appeared. It was Justin's. He seemed to be kind of surprised but Brian read in his eyes a certain joy. After a blank almost oppressive silence, the young man said: "Hello Brian."