It was easy to start and easy to stop and stopping wasn't really stopping, the two of you just don't sleep together anymore. It was just for a while, anyway. Brit was off contemplating actually getting some self respect and you were on a self respect kick of your own about the guys you fuck and the things you're willing to over look in them once you've started.
Somehow going home with Justin at the end of the night counts as having standards, because Justin, as least, is a known commodity. It was a tour thing, sort of. Mostly it was just really fucking sexy to watch Justin lick whipped cream off some nameless girl's breast with one eye fixed on you and his hands deep in his back pockets.
So it was a girl, a stripper, and maybe you didn't have standards. But Justin still did, and that counted for a lot more. It was a tour thing and it didn't mean anything.
You rub your forehead. "You want to come home with me," you say.
Justin nods. "Or. You can come home with me."
If we went to my home we'd have to fuck on top of my luggage, you think, but instead you say, "What are we going to go when we go to your home. Or, for that matter, my home? Watch cartoons? Play board games?" It was just a tour thing. The tour's been over for hours, days, maybe and you're leaving in the morning for a different kind of summer vacation. You have packed luggage. It's important for Justin to understand this.
"You, you're the one with all the good board games. So if we're gonna do that, I should go home with you. But I was thinking, you know, that we could have sex. And if we're gonna do that, we can go where ever you want." Justin licks his lips. It's really almost enough to get you right there. Justin's tongue, his lips and it's no surprise, Justin is always the best looking person in the room at the end of the night.
"We're talking sex, not Monopoly." Except that sex with Justin was kind of like a monopoly. Until it wasn't.
"Exactly." Licks the corner of his mouth this time and damn, that was not fair. "Fucking," and a pause right at the 'k', a hard sound. Guttural sound.
"Why?" you ask, because the way you remember things, there had been two months of pretending to ogle pretty girls until Justin was ready take you home. And then, Des Moines, a girl with crimped blond hair and sparkly lip gloss and Justin's hand splayed wide on the small of her back and that was it, fling over. That's what you remember.
"Why sex?"
"No, why now?" Now your bags are packed for the other side of the world and Justin's looking for one more fuck. Those lips, that grin, Justin's kind of a monopoly, sometimes.
Justin bites his lip. "You're leaving soon."
You sigh. "Yes, but, I'm coming back."
"Of course you're coming back," Justin tells you hastily. "But see," and Timberlake grin, full wattage and he seems to really want this, "I want to come with you now. So that I can say I saw you before you left."
"You're seeing me--"
So Justin kisses you to stop the talking and that's probably the most effective argument he can make, because it's been a while for you anyway and sex is sex, you should never really have to ask why.
"Come home with me," Justin says. And everything boils down to that, in the end.
So that right there is different, Justin's house and not a hotel room that looks just like the last one and the one before it and the one you'd fuck in the next night, too. Because you won't fuck anywhere tomorrow night, or maybe Justin will, but it won't be with you because you have packed bags, you have a plan, and this isn't a part of it. Justin's doing a little dance up the stairs so you figure you'll improvise.
About the time that Justin sings "go with the flow," he takes off his pants and you realize he's actually dancing along to the sound of his own voice.
"Justin," and you decide that's maybe enough because going with the flow sounds like a good fucking idea, especially when the flow is being set up by Justin's hips and Justin's legs and Justin's mouth. Still, you say, "I don't sleep with people who sing Madonna."
"You are, like, gay, right? Because, man, I don't mean to mess with your standards, but it's sort of unavoidable." The last guy Lance slept with who wasn't Justin loved classic rock, liked to hum the Eagles after sex. The guy before the last guy who wasn't Justin had said "I don't really listen to music much," the first time they'd met and both of those had been appealing for different reasons, but mostly neither of them were Justin.
"Why don't you vogue your ass over here, hmm?"
Justin keeps humming under his breath as you fuck, but since you can't hear the words you decide to let it slide.
Just like everything else is slipping and sliding and as long as you don't picture Madonna, focus on Justin's lip, bitten, and his eyes all scrunched up, forehead wrinkled in concentration. Justin's throat, deep breaths that suck his chest out and in as you go in and out. It doesn't last, it never lasts as long as you'd like because sometimes you look up and see, just, Justin, and you come like a seventeen year old, or like the seventeen year old who thought that Justin was the sun and the earth and the moon and the stars.
Justin rolls over on top of you and just as you can feel Justin slipping into sleep, you say, "I have to go to the airport."
Justin rubs his nose behind your ear, mutters, "It's not tomorrow yet. They'll hold the plane." You know Justin's talking out of his ass, he doesn't want to move because Justin likes this part, has always liked this part. But it's true. They'll hold the plane. It's a charter flight.
Sleep maybe doesn't come as easy as you'd like but Justin is warm and sure at your side and so then it's the next morning and you roll over into a patch of sunlight. And, like an idiot, the first thing out of your mouth is, "Why now?"
"You were wearing those pants that I like and, man, it's sex and you're all good at that thing, with your hips." Justin runs a hand down your hip for emphasis, a little grab at the end like he can pull you back to the spot where you weren't questioning everything. "I need some reason, now?" he asks.
"You stopped having a reason before. Why now?"
"Do we have to?" And, fair question, because you didn't ask before so you shouldn't really get to ask now. He says anyway, "Okay. Um, like, it felt like we should."
Justin obviously has no idea how insulting that sounds. Justin went to a hypnotist to get over his ex-girlfriend, Justin probably got a fortune cookie for lunch yesterday afternoon that said "you will revisit a mind fuck with an old friend." Justin, Justin, Justin and you've had about enough of that and so you say, "Well, like I said, I've got a plane to catch."
"I'll pack you a lunch," Justin says.
"Okay, whatever." If you don't have anything to say in Russian, don't say anything at all. It's a good plan.
"No, okay wait." Justin is still curled up on his side. "Wait."
You stop, pants pooled at your waist but unbuttoned and you try not to think that these are the pants that made Justin want to fuck you. You look at him and you hope the look doesn't say anything else but "I'm listening."
Justin sits up and he looks better with a sheet pooled around his waist than in any kind of pants, ever. "With Tupperware," he says. "I'll pack you a lunch with Tupperware."
"I still have a plane to catch," but you sit back down.
He grins and you know you're fooling yourself if you try to tell yourself that you're the one giving him a chance. This is Justin gearing up for the sales pitch. "You remember when your mom used to go out and buy you a new lunch box for school? Like, every year you'd have to have a new lunch box for whatever." This is obviously going somewhere, but you have no idea where, as usual. Justin continues, "Like, didn't your momma ever pack you a lunch with her good Tupperware for school?"
You eye him suspiciously. "Did you ever even go to school?"
Justin rolls his eyes. "You know. She always threatened to kick your ass if you didn't bring it back."
This seems wildly off the subject but you indulge him every other time and this is no different, so you ask, "Your mom threatened to kick your ass?"
"You know - I want to pack you a lunch." This is Justin with a sales pitch. You should have known that that bottom line would feel like a punch in the gut, like a hand on your wallet, deep in your back pocket. This is Justin. You should have known.
"With Tupperware?"
Justin nods. "Yeah." This is Justin. He can put a fling away for a week or six and think that the seal of his grin will keep everything fresh until he's ready to pick it back up again. This is Justin. He can't let you leave the country without touching the space between your thumb and index finger one more time with the tip of his tongue. It's one or the other. Maybe it's up to you to chose.
"I'm not Tupperware." Which is to say that no matter what critics say, you are not plastic. This is not plastic. This is Justin, warm at your side and this is real.
He's serious, in his eyes, when he tells you, "Whatever. Just bring yourself back."