"What's your fantasy?" he asks, no shame about it and you gotta respect him for that even if he is wearing this necklace with Lance's face on it. Okay, maybe you gotta respect him a little more for that.

"Oooh," Carson says, mocking but I'm never sure who his target is. That kid's life has gotta be hard enough without Carson giving him shit to boot.

So I say, "You are, Carson, you're our deepest darkest fantasy dreamboat," and he says something like, "You bet your sweet ass," and goes to the next video. And that's it, it's over, another life saved, another PR crisis thwarted by the deft moves of Chris Kirkpatrick.

We come back after they clear out the kids, tape some footage for a couple different specials, and it's dark outside the corner studio so all you can see is your reflection and beyond it neon and billboard spotlights. Shoes, clothes, soda, sex. Everybody's selling something. Everybody's selling us, some piece of us, some idea of who we are and what we like, and I think we all realize that if they really knew, we might not sell quite as well.

I get now that it's not as easy as saying you could always go back to doing something else. Maybe it's like how you could always stop being a hooker, sure, you could work graveyard at an all-night diner making two bucks an hour plus tips and get your ass slapped by truckers and, sure, sure, it would be an honest living or whatever. But you'd be pulling down twelve grand a year and never see the kids, and if you just fuck that guy you met last week again it's a hundred bucks a pop and you're there when the youngest boy gets off school.

We all said we'd be willing to walk away before it came down to that, got plenty in the bank and no obligations, nobody holding us down. We'd each need a special soundproof shack in the middle of fucking nowhere so we didn't hear all the where are they now bullshit, but, sure, we could always stop. I could always stop, I could take my bitter old man act one step further and self-destruct or just tell MTV to kiss my shiny white ass. I could.

But I know what my time is worth now, or at least what little girls are willing to pay for it. Even split five ways and ten percent here and recoupables there and top bracket taxes, even so. And I still don't take it for granted. Not the big things we all know are special, but things like knowing if one of the girls wants to go to Harvard and not Penn State we can make sure she gets to. So I swallow and smile for the camera when they let me and it's another day, another fuckload of dollars. Sometimes I'm so full of pop saccharine I could just fucking choke on it.

If I'm gonna choke, I'd rather have it taste good. I think, sometimes, that Justin might be enough, might make it all easier to swallow. It's maybe not out of the realm of possibility. We've all kissed, drunk and partied out, sober and bored to death. It's never a big deal even when sometimes it's more serious than we'd ever cop to under the most extreme water torture. Keeping it real means keeping it low-fi, no-pressure, all fun and games or we never would've made it this far. And we all know that. I know that. Justin knows that, and last time he put his hand on my chin and kissed back like there were rules he wanted to break. I've never been a big fan of the rules and god knows he's known me long enough to know that I've never needed much excuse to say fuck 'em all.

If I'm gonna break the rules I want to do it right. I'd fuck Justin bent over the edge of a pool table and, like, photograph it. I'd buy billboard space in Times Square so that every time anyone flips by MTV they can look out and see it hanging over Carson's shoulder. And you'd be on Broadway with Aunt Judith on your way to see The Music Man and that look Justin was making the time I caught him whacking off would be ten stories tall in your face. Call Herb Ritts back, tell him we got a real exclusive for him and all his "just a little more lip gloss, honey" makeup assistants.

I'd like to do a PrimeTime special about the sound Justin probably makes when he's close, when he's holding back so I can catch up cause he might be Justin fuckin' Timberlake but that doesn't mean he's a total asshole. I'd like to have PR flaks giving me talking points and synonyms for orgasm. There should be DVD extras where you can choose your own Chris and Justin adventure, all 360 degrees of it. I'd look Diane fucking Sawyer in the eye and say, "You think he was the first fourteen-year-old in the history of the world to want it up the ass?"

Yeah, like that. Like that, in my fantasy, Justin always wanted me like that and I said no, no, of course I'm not interested in him, they're all like my brothers. I know the difference between fantasy and real life, you ass. If I was actually gonna do it, I'd call it a plan.

The thing, the fucked-up thing about plans. Is when they don't work. Cause Justin was never supposed to be the piece of meat that brought home the bacon. Fuck the billboards, what I'd do is nail the picture to Lou's door, one last fuck you to the fat chickenhawk so it's clear he didn't get the better of that kid's ability to know a good touch when he feels one.

That part kind of obscures whatever shiny, sexy yarn me and my priceless fucking wit might spin. Not even in my fantasies do I see the Justin we've got left thinking it's fun to throw all that in someone's face. Not even Lou's. And none of that's really the kind of fantasy guy-on-guy action that keeps you hard. Doesn't keep me hard, for sure.

In my head, I'm always hard. Always. It's my fantasy, it shouldn't be a tough request. All the groupies have a sense of humor and can quote Bob Dylan and JC looks at me like I'm Lance. Like I'm a mystery, not scenery. I wouldn't talk about JC on national television, no way, no fucking how. If I got that, it'd be all for me. All mine, my mark on him like a dog collar and it's so juvenile, it's so damn needy but I don't think I could share a single piece of that. JC would be my take-home, the percentage that makes selling out worth it and then some.

Home and upstairs and quiet and no one can get to us there and I let him do what he wants, whatever kinky shit he's got up his sleeve that day is fine by me as long as I play a starring role. You name it and some lonely night JC's done it to me or I've done it to him, A to Z on the joy of gay sex and really I'd take a fraction of the goddamned Dewey decimal system if it meant I knew for sure what he tasted like the morning after.

It'd be easier, I guess, if I could quit thinking about things so fucking much. Just be another dumb blonde like the kind Joey's got in every corner, content to close my eyes and rub my hands up and down his arms and let him fuck me in some bathroom like it's gonna be the best night of my life, like when I'm fifty I'll still have a story to tell. Joey loses himself in moments like that, he always has, and I gotta think sex to death, always. He'd have me up against some stall door and I'd be cracking jokes, laying odds on the chances we get caught, taking it back cause if anyone's an expert in the art of the sly fuck it's a player like Joe. He could have my dick in his mouth and my ass in his hands and I'd be talking about how if I were paying for the pleasure I'd be docking a few bucks for the way he did that thing right there, that, with the finger, cause no one agreed to that up front.

Lance knows what kind of whores we are. Lance and me, we decided a while ago if you gotta sell yourself you might as well get a piece of the cut, get in on the supply-side of the economics equation that makes our life the freakshow it is. You gotta spend money to make money, he always says that and he's right, even if I think maybe it's a little easier for him to front the sweat. By the time I get to Lance I'm less pissed, less desperate to prove I'm no tool of the management. I'm less desperate. By the time I get to Lance I get hard watching him balance his checkbook and if he actually came anywhere near my accounts I'd probably sink to my knees and blow him right there, cameras or not, safe and sound at home or not.

When I'm not overthinking the sixty-four thousand dollar question, when I cop to actually liking the new car I bought with my own pound of Justin's flesh, I know the only thing he deserves from me is open arms, not some whacked revenge scenario. Yeah, when I get my head that far out of my ass for longer than about five minutes in a row, I'll let you know.

Meantime, there are reasons not to quit, reasons to punch in every day and admit that I make a hell of a lot more than some poor mom bumping and grinding to put food on the table. We make a fuckload of money, and we make it being together, and when we're not sure of the rest there's still that. Legally bound for a while longer, anyway, and maybe on the other side of that there's something worth waiting for.