JC is the only one of you who
looks good in makeup, and he’s girl-pretty even without it. Lance is pretty,
too, but in a more transient way, a way that will fade into a more masculine
grace eventually, and you are pretty is a babyfied blond way.
But you will grow up eventually. JC will be pretty forever.
He has curved cheekbones and a sweet mouth that can be
darkened with lipstick without looking absurd. His body is long and lean, all
bones and tight muscle and pale skin that you know is smooth and silky to the
touch. His eyes are always wide and innocent-looking, except when they are
crinkled up in mischievous laughter, and you sometimes have the absurd urge to
kiss the lashes.
He looks beautiful in the dress, too, long and oddly angled
and graceful, before they force the shoes on him. High heels are evil, you think
and smile. Britney calls you to tell you this often, and bitches you out when
you taunt her with the fact that you still get to wear sneakers.
You and Britney talk about other things, as well, but usually
only when you’re buzzed on liquor from the minibars of various hotels. Britney’s
cool like that; she didn’t get offended when you half-drunkenly told her that
you maybe think that JC is prettier than a lot of girls, including her. In fact,
she agreed with you, and then told you that, now that she’s surrounded by
dancers and makeup people, she knows a lot of people who are “like you,” and
she’s okay with it.
At first you didn’t know what she meant, but now, looking at
JC, eyes still lined in black, face serious and coated in foundation and powder,
you think that maybe you do.
But you’re not sure if you’re okay with it, and you’re not
sure if you only like JC because he is pretty, girl-pretty in a way that
even most girls aren’t. Its safe to think he’s pretty because he looks like a
girl right now, but even for all of his prettiness, he is still a boy, and you
are deeply, deeply aware of it. You have watched him change costumes backstage,
and he has a man’s muscular arms and six-pack.
You don’t look, but with the tightness of JC’s dress, you can
easily see a bulge between his slim thighs.
Chris, apparently, is looking, because he teases JC about it
mercilessly. When he asks you if JC was this easily excitable on the set of MMC,
you blush and stammer until Chris narrows his penetrating black eyes, then grabs
you by the shoulders, saying, “Sorry, sorry. Look, I forgot that you were just a
kid for a moment there, okay?” You know that he is probably trying to tell you
something, but you’re too busy trying to remember.
Chris also teases you, because you too are girl-pretty in
your long dark wig and makeup. You thought about that as you sat in the makeup
chair, staring at your own pretty face in the mirror, but you decided not to
give it too much thought. Even with makeup you are still recognizably a boy, you
are lean and masculine. You should be a boy, but you have a man’s hard body and
dark eyes.
You and JC have the same roots, and you at least had a moment
of simple childhood, while he was being fucked over by the industry, right
before joining the group. But his eyes are still clear and guileless, while
yours spark with knowledge of the thoughts that people have about you. You
indulge people’s fantasies consciously, it’s a part of your job; JC isn’t even
aware that people have fantasies about him. He still thinks that it is all about
the music.
You wonder if that will ever change for him. You hope it
won’t.
Because it’s a part of his appeal, a part of his beauty. JC
is all streamlined, all-American beauty, with just a hint of feminine exoticism
thrown in. JC is innocence with eroticism, a boy with a girl’s pretty
face.
You are still thinking about all this when everyone else is
gone, and you are alone in the makeup trailer, just you and JC, fixing up your
eyeliner. When he looks over at you, you smile automatically, and when he comes
closer to you, your hand rises to touch his cheek before you’re even aware of
it. “Hey,” he says, suddenly understanding, trying to pull back, but you still
him and merely run your hand over his face. Curve of eyebrow, nose, lip.
Indentation of cheekbone in smooth flesh. He is like a statute, still but
strumming with tension underneath his skin.
When you touch your lips to his, he doesn’t breathe in. Your
eyes are closed, but when you pull back you see that his are open, and wide, and
confused. He is still pretty.
You want to lean in again, to reassure him that everything is
okay, but the director yells for you before you can, and you run on set before
he sends someone after you, to find you stroking your group-member’s smooth
skin.
* * *
All through the shoot that day, you can’t keep your eyes off
JC. He seems drawn into himself, but he could just be in character. JC always
gets absurdly serious, even about things like this.
You’re dancing right next to him, goofing off, smiling so
hard that you think your face will crack open. He doesn’t even look at you, but
you look at him; his long eyelashes, the way the wig falls above the graceful
arches of his shoulder blades. He looks so pretty, but he smells like cologne;
like a man.
When the girls in their tiny bikinis surround you, you think
that you should be looking at them, the way that Joey and Chris are, but you
don’t. The curve of JC’s legs are right there, and you can just barely see hair
pressed against the opaque black net of his stockings.
He doesn’t look at the girls, either.
* * *
The next morning, you walk into the kitchen to see JC sitting
at the table, eating toast with cinnamon and sugar and drinking coffee. His lips
are shiny and red, and for a moment you think that he’s wearing lip-gloss, but
then you see the way his teeth catch his bottom lip, gnawing when he draws in a
deep breath.
He is pretty without makeup, too.
When you sit next to him, he moves to get up, but you still
him by grabbing his arm, your fingers digging into the muscle there. He is
quivering with tension, like a guitar string, like a nervous cat. Liking that
thought, you stroke the back of his neck, feeling the short soft hairs
there.
He calms, if only slightly, and you draw him back to his
chair, smiling your wide, infectious smile until he just has to smile back, even
if he doesn’t want to. He smiles.
“What’s wrong?” you ask, dropping your fingers from his neck,
down his arm to hold his hand in your own. Your hands are too big, too heavy;
his are long-fingered and perfect, with slight calluses on the pads of his
fingers from typing, playing piano, guitar.
He shakes his head at you, as if in warning. “Justin, we
can’t do this.” His earnest blue eyes are calm, but just barely, and his hand is
still in yours, not touching but being touched, although you can feel his
fingertips quivering in your own, like a trapped bird.
“Do what?” you ask, but you know. You just don’t care, and so
you move closer to him, sliding your chair next to his and letting your hand
tighten around his with intent. Your eyes focus on his mouth as he licks his
lips nervously.
When you lean closer, you expect him to pull away, but he
doesn’t. Your lips touch his again, but this time it’s a real kiss, scorching
through your early-morning drowsiness like a pot of black coffee. You dart your
tongue out to taste him and feel his shuddering breath against your mouth as he
shrinks back, only to dive back in and nearly attack your mouth, abusing it with
tongue and teeth.
You are bigger, but he is faster and much stronger, and he
has you out of your seat and pressed against the table before you can even
process it. You hear his coffee cup roll off the table and shatter, but you
don’t care because his tongue is stroking yours, searching and probing your
mouth for something that you’re not aware of, and you are sitting on the table
with him between your legs, pressed against the hardness between your thighs.
You think of yesterday and almost bite his tongue, and he
growls, nipping at your lower lip. His hand slides up your leg and you moan,
moving against him. This kiss, this experience is hot, lurid, almost
pornographic.
There is nothing pretty about it.
Right as you think that, JC breaks away, breathing hard, and
his lips are still moist and red, but this time it is your saliva coating them,
your teeth that have coaxed blood into plumping the soft flesh of his mouth. He
is still holding you by the shoulder and the thigh, but when you reach for him,
almost whimpering, he lets you go.
You know exactly how you look, sitting there, lips
pink and swollen and parted, wet; hair sleep-mussed; the bulge of your erection
obvious in your loose-fitting sweats. “JC—”
“No,” he says again, and this time his voice is harsh,
his eyes dark, lips twisted almost cruelly. “Look, we can’t, and that’s
just. All.”
A thought strikes your mind, and you realize what he’s
saying. “Look, I’m not some kid, JC,” you shout, and by the way he rolls
his eyes you know that you’ve just disputed your own point. But still, he knows
you, and he knows what you’ve been through. “Come on, Josh. You know I’m
not.”
“You are, okay?” he yells back. You’re both standing now, and
at your frustrated growl he grabs you by the neck and slams you against the
fridge, pressing you into it with his own body until you squirm. Grabbing your
chin in one hand, he forces you to look into his eyes, dark blue and totally
enigmatic this close up. “You are, you little brat. You’re too young and
too fucking pretty for this, and I just can’t.”
He shoves you back against the fridge, and leaves you there,
speechless, as he picks up the shards of his coffee cup, JC is the only person
you know who can stop to clean up after a fight, and then regain his second wind
of anger to storm out of the room.
When he’s gone, you sit at the table and pick at the remains
of his toast, not knowing what to do. You want to call Britney, but it’s too
early where she is. When Chris comes in, he gives your forlorn form a quick
glance, then goes to fill up his coffee cup. He comes over to sit next to you
and sits silently for a while.
Finally you look at him. “What? What brilliant Chris-advice
do you have you give me?”
He looks at you through the lenses of his glasses, and you’re
suddenly reminded that, while you may be mature, you’re still not Chris. “Look,
Justin. Just…go for girls right now, okay? You and Lance, you’re the young
pretty ones, and we’re all going to be getting talk, but you two’ll get it the
worst. Just make it easy on yourself and Jayce.”
“But I just don’t know why—” You stop and look down at the
plate in front of you. You feel like your veins are filled with saltwater,
spilling out into your eyelids and you mouth.
Chris puts a gentle hand on your shoulder. “He’s gonna get
talk, too. And, like…you really are too young.” When you open your mouth to
protest, he says quickly, “And even if you’re not, he wants to think about you
that way. He, like, needs to see you that way. Okay?”
You think about the light in JC’s eyes that you never, ever
want to go out, and you think you understand. “He wants to keep me
pretty.”
“Yes,” Chris says. “Yeah.”
THE END