[Lance]

I gave up on fantasies a long time ago. A fantasy is like a plan you don't put enough hard work into, and if it's worth having it's not gonna be easy. There are different kinds of sweat, different kinds of back-breaking effort and maybe only some of them leave you bruised in all the right places but those are the kind worth waiting for. Worth planning for.

Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, sure. Sometimes JC seems worth waiting for. JC's the kind of guy who can have a plan staring him right in the eye, and a hand clenching his shoulder, and, yeah, maybe I'm a little drunk and sick of planning so much, and he'll still never even notice what's come and gone when he says goodnight and goes upstairs cause it's late and he's tired.

I had, at one point, a million plans about how to deal with Justin. The Justin Problem. The Justin Situation, if I was feeling kind to myself. Which, I mean, being easy on yourself never got anyone very far, so I don't waste much time on that. Being around Justin is like being slowly eaten alive by fire ants, and by the time you notice you're covered it's too late. All you can do is lie still.

I don't think Justin includes me in his plans, and that's all right by me. He's not my enemy, he's always at least my friend and I'm happy to keep him close anyway. Used to that by now, for sure. Which doesn't mean that all those years after I got over Justin and my Problem it wasn't nice, it wasn't some kind of coup to stand on the edge of a video set and have him whisper in my ear. "Damn, Bass, you got, like, hot," he said, and for Justin that's all compliment so I let it be. Let him be, though, cause Justin's a hurricane and I got all my houses in a row, finally. No need to blow things down just so what stung at sixteen is anything other than an old scar. Scars are like a roadmap so next time you know to plan a more direct route from what you want to what you get.

Chris makes his own plans, I can tell. Maybe they include Justin, though it's hard to make any kind of sense out of those two most days. Sometimes I think Chris is kind of like a savings bond, in it for the long haul for real, never gonna give up on the guys he loves no matter what that looks like. He's a punked out squealing little fuck of a savings bond and on anyone else that'd look ridiculous but Chris pulls it off. I can see how of any of us, Justin might need a back-up plan like that most. Chris and his self-sufficient, pain in the ass, watch me look like I'm bitter act, and as back-up plans go, Chris might be the best damn rainy day in the world. I don't think he'll be mine, though. I don't think I want him to be.

When things happen like I might have wanted, if I had spent the time plotting things out, it's almost always by accident. Like Joey. Joey is an accident that just keeps happening and if I'd thought twice before believing him when he said it could just be that one time, it was just for fun, it's just cause what else are gonna do out here with all this energy and no one to spend it on -- if I'd thought twice I probably would've jerked myself off and gone to sleep alone.

Cause now there's a thing, an expectation, and, you know, it's not all one-sided. It's not, even if sometimes I think he thinks that, he thinks I don't really love him, that I'm just killing time. Joey with his arms spread open and stage-lights still refracted in his eyes isn't something you don't enjoy, however you got there. Joey with his mouth on the base of your back, fingers twisting inside of you, Joey humming one-hit wonders from 1957 while you ease his legs up and over your shoulders. Joey. No way not to enjoy Joey when he's like that, and that's the easy part.

It's after, bus growling in the dark and his breath too hot on the back of my neck. It's then that things get hard and not in the way I know how to plan for. Not in the way that makes me want to work more. In the way that makes me run, and if he'd stop saying he understands maybe I'd... I don't know. Maybe I wouldn't even then. Maybe he means it and if my other plans don't work, if there's been miscalculation along the way, maybe Joey'll still be around, maybe be more than the warm body in the back of the bus.

If the other plans don't work. I say that like the other plans are real, like I even admit them to myself except on the worst of the worst days. There are times when it seems like nothing I've lined up is gonna come through, like all of this has been for shit and when it's said and done I'm just a two-bit fag from Mississippi gonna have to crawl home to momma and beg forgiveness for my sins of pride and envy and greed. And lust, yeah. And lust.

It's one of those times now. I can taste morning in the air rushing through a window I cracked open in the lounge. Joey's still asleep and if I close my eyes and just let wind play across my face I can almost breathe normally. It's gonna be a sunny day, which is probably worse, cause on the dark, dank afternoons we spend on flat plains highways I don't expect anything good to come of my plans, and it's not even a disappointment. It's not a surprise to take stock and come up short.

On days like this I think about JC. Out of all of them I think JC's the only one who really looks at me without wanting me to be something different. Something more. But then again, I'm never really sure what JC wants, not at all. JC kind of operates without a rudder. Not without focus, cause whatever's new is gonna catch his eye, it always has. But there's no light on the horizon he's headed towards. Certainly not me.

I more than think about JC, sometimes. Today I hold the back of my own neck with one hand and let myself hear his soft, reassuring whisper sharpen into needy gasps. On days like this fantasies are a comfort, not a disappointment. Not a failure. I close my eyes and JC's hands are on my chest, tugging at my collar, slipping under the buttons and stroking my heart. I skip beats and JC's mouth tastes like a sure thing. Tastes like a missing piece of the plan and everything falls into place, just like that.

Just like that. But it's just a fantasy. It's a mirage, and when I open my eyes Joey's standing in the tiny kitchen with one knee braced against the cabinets for balance and all my fantasies blow away in the breeze.

"What's the plan for today?" Joey says, making coffee, and I blink and run a hand through my hair. I close the window.

All I really have to rely on is a good plan and a hard day's work. That's gotta be enough. It's enough. It's enough.