Well, this is Chapter 5, which means that I'm nearly halfway through – I think. I hope that people are reading it, and liking it. I've gotten a few emails, but not too many. ? Anyway, thanks so much to those who've written so far; I really appreciate it. The email address is denis141@hotmail.com if you're inspired to say "hey".
DISCLAIMER: I don't know any member NSYNC. (I wish!) What follows is a work of fiction, and solely a product of my imagination. As a result, it is not intended to imply anything about the person or sexual orientation of any member of NSYNC. The story also involves sex, sex between boys, and if that is not your thing, or if you are not old enough to read such things, you should stop reading now.
TOGETHER/ALONE
CHAPTER 5: Forgetting the Light.
HEART, we will forget him! You and I, to-night! You may forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light.
-- Emily Dickinson.
Part I:
It was five past eight on Friday evening, August 18, and Francis had been waiting for over an hour for Lance to get back to the room. He'd stopped by earlier to see if Lance wanted to get something to eat, but Lance was already on his way out the door for a meeting with the director to go over that day's notes and to watch the dailies.
"It shouldn't take too long," Lance had said, "so you can hang out here, if you want, and we can get something to eat when I get back."
Francis had shrugged and said "Okay." He had the night off from tending bar at the Westside, and didn't really have anything better to do anyway. Besides, Francis was more than willing to be accommodating given the serious cash he'd been making for keeping Lance company and throwing him the occasional hard fuck.
As he waited for Lance to return, Francis lay on the couch and cycled through the TV channels several times with the remote control, not finding anything he really wanted to watch. I could watch a porno on the pay-per-view, Francis thought, but decided against it because he didn't feel like getting all horny and probably wanting to jerk off.
Standing up, Francis turned off the TV and looked around the room. For a rich dude, Lance sure doesn't have much stuff, Francis thought. He walked over to the armoire in the bedroom, swung open its double-doors, and looked in each of its inside drawers. Nothing.
No longer entertained by searching through Lance's drawers, Francis flopped backwards on to the bed. This is so boring, Francis thought and stared at the ceiling until a knock at the door caused him jump up from the bed.
It can't be Lance, Francis thought. Maybe it will be Julia Dalreema. That'd be cool. Too bad I'm not fucking her.
Francis opened the door and was disappointed to see that it was the concierge.
"Bonjour. Est-ce que je puis vous aider?" Francis said, knowing the concierge would speak French. [Hello. Can I help you?]
"Oui, monsieur," the concierge replied. "J'ai une lettre pour Lance Bass. Pouvez- vous la lui donner? [Yes, sir. I have a letter for Lance Bass. Can you give it to him?]
"Naturellement. Je serais heureux à." [Naturally. I'd be happy to.]
"Merci beaucoup." [Thank you very much.]
"De rien." [You're welcome. It's nothing.]
Francis closed the door and immediately inspected the envelope. He could tell from the return address that the letter must be from Lance's ex-lover, because he knew that their house had been in San Diego.
"Fuck," Francis grumbled, ripping open the envelope and pulling out a one-page letter. He read the letter slowly, trying to make sure he understood it all. After reading the letter a second time, Francis stuffed it back into the envelope, and then put the envelope in his back pocket. Grabbing a notepad from beside a telephone, Francis wrote a quick note:
LANCE,
I GOT BORED SO I LEFT.
SEE YOU TOMORROW MAYBE.
FRANCIS
XOXOXO Francis left the note in the middle of the bed and then headed to the Westside so he could tell everyone there what he had done, and maybe read them the letter too.
Part II
Justin was at the Backroom Studios in Glendale, just north of Los Angeles. He was perched on a stool off to the left side of the main recording studio and watching and older woman – whose name he could not remember – tune her cello for the third time. JC was supposed to have been here an hour ago so that he could lay down the vocal track for the Ghost Road theme song. Justin had not known until yesterday that JC was even doing the song, and was a little surprised that JC had agreed to do it. Still, Justin had told JC that he'd be happy to meet him at the studio and do what he could to help.
"Maybe he got stuck in traffic," Justin said to the woman. "He's driving up from San Diego, so it could've gotten bad – the traffic."
The woman nodded and smiled, but said nothing. Justin looked around the room, and then stood up.
"I'm going to check outside," he said.
"Okay," the woman said, nodding her head again.
Justin opened the door to the engineer's booth and then turned left and headed down the hall to the back door that lead to the studio's parking lot. As he approached the door, Justin reached up and tapped his sunglasses off his forehead and into position in front of his eyes. Justin pushed the door open with his foot and stepped outside into a blast of hot and muggy air.
After his eyes adjusted to the light, Justin scanned the parking lot looking for JC's blue Volvo – his "soccer mom car" as Joey had always called it. Not seeing it, Justin wondered whether JC had maybe changed his mind at the last moment, and wasn't going to show up after all. But that's not like JC, Justin thought, unable to remember a single time where JC had not kept a promise.
Just as he was about to turn around and go back inside Justin noticed a Toyota 4- Runner that looked familiar, and then he realized – It's Lance's. JC must have driven Lance's 4-Runner up from San Diego.
Justin walked over to where the 4-Runner was parked and found JC sitting inside it, staring straight ahead, and not moving. He tapped on the window and watched as JC slowly turned his head and looked up at with eyes that seemed scarily intense, like the eyes of someone concentrating on a complex problem and on the verge of solving it.
"JC – open the door," Justin said, tapping on the window again.
JC continued to stare at Justin but did not move.
"Come on, Jayce," Justin said, trying the door handle, but finding it locked. "You gotta get out of there or you're gonna fry. It's over ninety fucking degrees today."
JC nodded, and looked away. He knew how hot it was, and could feel his back wet with sweat and sticking to his shirt. Justin tapped lightly on the window, trying to get JC's attention. "Come on, Jayce. Open the door."
JC flicked the power door-lock switch and watched as Justin quickly opened the door and touched JC's arm.
"Come on," Justin said. Get out of there."
"Yeah," JC said, getting out of the 4-Runner and shutting the door behind him.
"Are you okay?" Justin asked, his hand still on JC's arm.
"Yeah," JC said. "I'm fine. I was just getting ready – you know, to sing."
"Okay," said Justin, softly. "So you're ready?"
"Ready enough."
"Well, that's good then."
"So, JC ... uh, you want me to do anything here, you know help out."
"No," JC said, looking across the parking lot toward the studio's back door, his eyes scrunched and nearly closed against the glare of the noon sun. "I mean, yeah . . . I need you to go inside and tell them that I'll be there in five minutes and that everyone should be ready to go, because I'm only going to do this once."
"Okay," Justin said, nodding.
"And tell Danny that I'm just going to walk in, and he should start the playback right away, because I don't want to hang around and wait. I'll put on the headphones and just sing it ... you know, just lay it down."
"Okay," Justin said, nodding again.
"And be sure to tell Danny that I want the vocals recorded on the same track as the cello, because it's going to be like I'm singing to the cello. You got that?"
"Yeah, I got it," Justin said, staring at JC and nearly overwhelmed by the courage he saw in him. It was like JC was going into battle, and maybe he was.
"I can only do this once," JC said.
"Yeah," Justin said, and turned to walk away, but then stopping, and turned back around, wanting to say something more. "JC . . ."
"Yeah, Just."
"I'm really proud of you man," Justin said, his voice. "I really am.
"Thanks."
Justin nodded his head and turned again to walk away, hoping that JC had not seen the tears that now stung his eyes.
The last cello note still echoed in the room and JC was already gone. Justin stared at the cello – not knowing what else to look at. His mouth was agape, and his face was wet with tears. Finally, slowly, Justin raised his eyes and looked across the studio and into the engineer's booth; it was like he was seeing his own reflection, because Danny's mouth was agape too, and his face was also wet with tears.
Justin looked back at the cello, and the woman who had played it, and watched as the bow slipped from her hands and fell with a mad-clatter onto the dark tile floor. She started to weep, and it made Justin want to weep too. The studio was suffused with palpable despair, and Justin feared he might collapse from the weight of it.
Searching for some reason to move, and so prove that he was capable of it, Justin walked over to the cellist and picked up the bow she'd let fall to the floor.
"Here," he said, handing it to her and at the same time wiping the tears from his face with the back of his shirt-sleeve.
The old woman looked up at Justin and offered him a wan smile. "You know," she said. "What happened here, what that man just did . . . it was . . . it was . . ."
She let the words trail off as she accepted the return of her bow with a shrugged and silent nod of thanks.
"Yeah," Justin said, not knowing what else to say, but thinking – You did it JC. You did it.
JC was nearly home, and anxious to be back there. On the drive back, he'd tried hard not to think about the song, and singing it. Just like he'd tried not to think about how he hadn't heard from Lance, and how he feared that he'd never hear from Lance, and that it was over, and beyond all efforts at repair.
JC was at least glad that the song was over and done. He realized now that it was something that he'd needed to do – to at least say good bye. And now it was done it, he'd said good bye, and said it in a song that was about burying the dead, and letting go.
Now as JC got closer to home, he knew that the only thing left to do, the only thing that remained undone, was for him to try forget the past, and for him to try find the future again – even though he knew, knew with his all his heart, that the only future left for him was a future without music. This had been his last song.
Part III
Over the last three weeks Lance had made an effort to avoid Francis, preferring to immerse himself in the making of his film, and losing himself in the character he played. Francis called and stopped by from time to time, and Lance had twice agreed to go out to dinner with him, but did not let him come back to the hotel room. Francis had done little to hide his anger, but Lance brushed it off, knowing that Francis was more than capable of taking care of himself, and Lance didn't really care anyway.
When he first arrived in Montreal, Lance had welcomed the escape that Francis represented, an escape from thoughts and feelings that inevitably became thoughts and feelings about JC. Just as he had welcomed the near-degradation that paid-for-sex had each night inflicted on him and that Lance accepted as his due. Sitting now on a Friday night flight to Los Angeles to attend the premiere of The Ghost Road two days later, Lance felt tired and alone – a feeling he had come to both expect and accept.
Lance felt no excitement about the premiere – not like he had always felt before when JC was beside him, beaming with pride that shined so bright that Lance could practically feel its heat. Lance knew that it would never be the same again, and that every future success would have neither meaning nor significance. Indeed, it hardly seemed to matter anymore, because in so many ways it was only JC's opinion that had ever mattered to him, and it was always through JC's eyes that he'd always seen himself and felt secure.
Lance remembered the thousands of time he'd seen that look in JC's eyes, that looking of beaming bright approval, that look of adoration, that look that said – you are so good. It was a look that had been there from the beginning, maybe from the first time they had met, even though it had taken Lance a long time to recognize it, because Lance had never been in love before. But when Lance finally recognized it – that look – it was like he'd been born, and that was why he'd always told JC that March 11 was not just their anniversary; it was also his birthday, because he'd not really been alive until that day he and JC had kissed for the first time and fell in love and found the future in that first embrace.
It was a day Lance could not forget – March 11, 1998,
and Lance lay quietly on the couch, reading an article in the National Geographic about the Mars Rover, and trying to blot out the memory of how bad he'd danced at rehearsal. The album would be out in thirteen days and he knew that everything was going to change after that – everything except for his feeling that he didn't really belong in the group, and that it'd been a mistake to think he could pull this off without someone seeing right through him and know that he was just faking it, except for JC, who always seemed to have a kind word or a small soft touch on the back when Lance's would gasp in frustration at the immense challenge of it all.
Lance always looked forward to being on the road. He liked how it felt to be on his way somewhere, but not be there yet, because everything was still possible, everything was future again, and nothing was past. That was how it had been in Europe. No matter how horrible he'd been on stage, he always managed to leave the memory of it behind as soon as the bus was back on the read and heading somewhere entirely new, someplace he'd never been before.
Lance looked up from his magazine and saw JC standing about eight feet away, his head tilted ever so slightly to the left, his eyes open wide – as if in fright, no not fright, surprise – and his lips were apart, as if about to speak, but not speaking, like the words caught in his throat. Unable to look away, and not wanting to anyway, Lance returned the gaze he found himself engulfed within, a gaze that was like a light shining directly into his eyes, and his eyes becoming like mirrors reflecting the light back, but catching it too, and being lit by it, so that Lance felt like he was glowing, and he felt like something deep within was loosed and set free.
JC walked toward Lance and slowly kneeled in front of the couch, the whole time holding Lance's gaze with his own, so that their gazes were twinned and intertwined and it was like a rope that each held tightly, refusing to let it go, and instead pulling the other closer, closer, in and toward, so that soon Lance and JC faced each other, inches apart, and Lance thought, how could I not love this man, and JC thought, how cold I not love this man, and they kissed, and Lance's mouth opened and he felt it fill with JC's warm breath, and it was like JC was breathing for him now.
Lance felt JC's arms slip around and under him, pulling him tightly forward, engulfing Lance and lifting him up, up, up, until soon they were standing, legs interlocked, arms tangled, not knowing anymore where one body stopped and another started, and not caring, as Lance kept pushing his lips insistently into this kiss and JC pushed back, insisting too, each discovering in insistence a need they'd not suspected but now did not doubt because here was the proof: this kiss.
JC's hands slipped under Lance's shirt, searching for flesh and finding it and its heat on his hands. Lance did the same, his fingers dancing across JC's back like it was a piano and JC loved the music that he played, and Lance thought, I didn't know how badly I wanted you, and JC thought, I didn't know how badly I wanted you.
Lance and JC folded slowly to the floor, their lips still insisting, their lungs filled with the other's breath, and their arms not letting go, and Lance knowing he was in a place he'd never been before, a place beyond words, and even thoughts, a place filled with light and made only of the future, a place where he was not alone, and not afraid.
JC pulled his lips from Lance's mouth, but not so far away that he'd lose the feel of its heat, and only then for a moment so that he could look once more into Lance's eyes, eyes so green and clear and bright and true and full of light that it made him wonder if it was possible that these eyes could be real, and Lance thought, looking back at JC, there are no words to describe how I feel, and JC thought this too, and then pressed his lips once more against Lance's lips, insisting again, insisting that even without words, that this was real.
Lance leaned his head against the cold plastic of the airplane window and tears filled his eyes. He couldn't remember anymore; not because the memory was not there, but because it was like an ember flung from a coal-furnace on to bare skin. No, it was the weight of remembering that he could not bear anymore, and he nearly begged god to let him please forget, to take from him the awful burden of remembering what happiness was, and to free him of the torture of knowing that he had once been loved, and no longer was, and of knowing that now he was alone, and now he was afraid, and now the future was all past, like a journey completed, and a river already run to the sea.