The air in the club is thick with
smoke and body heat and the throb of music. As he moves towards the bar,
through the heaving mass of bodies, Justin finds himself prowling, actually prowling.
The movement just seems natural, fitting to the surroundings and the tangible
fug of sex. His gaze locks with various pretty, sparkly people who all smile
desperately as they catch his blank stare. Justin just rolls his eyes and
carries on moving. If there’s one thing he hates it’s desperation, neediness. Pathetic,
he thinks, and fixes a carefully measured sneer on his lips.
Today has been a bad fucking day: traipsing endlessly around radio shows, being
practically stalked by legions of screaming fans. Justin feels he should
point out to these people that he’s not normally like this.
It’s Justin’s alter-ego who’s out tonight, the me, me ,me! Justin who
only surfaces on the very worst of occasions, when his patience with others has
entirely worn out. When all he wants to think about is himself. And if he sees
another screaming teenie...well, Justin thinks, fuck law suits and
the ‘gentleman’s code’, I will hit a woman.
He reaches the bar and the bartender instantly rushes over to collect his
order. He’s making Justin’s cocktail while pretending that he’s not looking,
that he’s not pulling out all the stops on his bar-tending tricks, all the
intricate flips and spins to impress his famous customer. Justin knows it isn’t
his arrogance thinking this. It’s affirmed when the Justin catches the
bartender’s eye just as he’s putting a lemon slice into the glass and ends up
dropping it on the floor. Justin laughs loudly, not bothering to hide his
casual pity. The guy quickly puts another slice in and says, flustered, “It’s
on the house.” He doesn’t meet Justin’s eyes.
Justin sits at a table near the dance floor. There are people sitting next to
him, talking to him animatedly and gazing at him with eager smiles, but Justin
doesn’t hear or look at them. They don’t seem to notice, blinded by their
fervency, and just carry on talking anyway. One pretty blonde has the impudence
to slide her hand up his thigh, but Justin swats it away and shoots her a look
so full of contempt that she gets up rapidly and runs off, tears smudging her
so carefully applied eyeliner. Justin feels a sharp pang of guilt but it's gone
so quickly he can't be sure. Maybe he's just hungry.
His gaze flickers over to the throbbing crowd on the dance floor. A few people
notice him looking and dance with sudden and ridiculous insinuation. Justin
sighs, stares dully at his hands, wonders what time it is, thinks maybe his
nails need a cut.
He’s back at the bar, and as a 'famous' and 'attractive' person, he expects to
be served immediately. He is not. The bartenders are all occupied down at the
other end. Justin stares at the brightly-coloured bottles of liquid lined along
the mirrored wall and wonders who they’re gushing over so fixedly. He squints down
and through the smoked haze he sees...himself.
But obviously it isn’t because Justin isn’t fucking stupid. He stares
some more and deduces that it’s that British guy, the one from Lord of the
Rings. They serve him over me?, he thinks, incredulous.
He shouts out, unashamedly, “What do I gotta do to get some fucking service
around here?”
A guy next to him—who’s been there far longer than he has—looks at him
disdainfully. Justin shoots him a blindingly acidic fake smile and turns his
attention back to—Orlando is it?
Justin hadn’t noticed but the bartender from earlier is talking to him, “-guy
down the other end of the bar sends you this and says you look hot when you’re
pissed off.”
Justin's grinning for real as he takes the offered drink and presses a few
hundred-dollar bills into the surprised bartender’s hand before turning and
walking away. He can feel the shocked stare burning into his back.
Justin walks into the unisex bathroom to check himself in the mirror, sees
androgynous couples making out in the stark shadows from the industrial
warehouse-style lighting. He stares appreciatively at his reflection, pulls his
baggy jeans a little further down his hips, carefully rumples his t-shirt so
it’s stretched tight over his chest and rides up a little over his stomach,
revealing perfectly-toned, golden skin.
He grins at himself in the mirror and runs a hand over his shaved head. I’d
fuck me, he thinks, reaching his hand down into his pants and enjoying an
indulgent little grope. He looks at Justin in the mirror, feels his own body
flush, sees red dust across the cheekbones, reaches out to trail a finger down
mirror-Justin’s body, meets only cool glass. Smudging a cloudy line across the
surface, he steps closer, breath frosting gently across his reflection’s open
mouth. Unable to resist, Justin flicks his tongue out against the bitten-red
lips. He tastes of silver and snow and nothing at all.
His fingers curl around the heat between his thighs, and in the mirror he
watches eyes pool midnight blue. He bites down on his bottom lip and holds back
a gasp.
Vain
The door to the bathroom snaps closed and Justin jumps away from the mirror,
snatches his hand out of his pants, awakened to the fact that he’s not alone.
He shakes his head a little, takes a deep breath and tries to calm the heat
humming through his body.
Vain, but not stupid.
He walks over to the sink, splashes cool water over his face, watches the
droplets trickle down, little ice gems, licks a few off, once again fascinated
at the correlation between what he feels himself do and what he sees himself
do. He tries to trick his reflection into making a mistake. Smiles,
Justin doesn’t make mistakes, yo
_____________________________________________________________
Lynn once told Chris how, when Justin was little, he used to spend hours in
front of mirrors, mesmerized, how he used to play games with his reflection.
Chris had laughed, “He still does that now.” And Lynn had laughed, too.
Justin—15 at the time—hadn’t laughed.
Back then, mirrors weren’t exactly his friends. He would stare into them and
scowl, tug at unruly, gel-slicked yellow curls, poke impatiently at a body he
hadn’t yet grown into.
Things began to change at about 19. Suddenly the Justin in the mirror was tall
with broad shoulders and lean muscles. Muscles! Suddenly, mirror-Justin
looked good in everything he wore. Suddenly, mirror-Justin moved liquidly and
smiled wickedly and flashed eyes that pooled midnight blue.
And the obsession with mirror-Justin began.
It started slowly. Like sometimes, Justin would snap out of a trance and
realize he’d been staring at himself in a mirror or a window for about ten
minutes. Other times, when they were practicing dance routines in front of
mirrors, he would be watching himself so intently that he’d miss a step and
lose his balance. But it wasn’t all that often.
Then one time he was jerking off lazily in his hotel room, thinking about
nothing in particular, when he looked up and caught a glimpse of himself in the
dresser-mirror. A surge of fire licked down his spine the second his gaze
locked with his own, and it was so powerful and so sudden and so overwhelming
that he shuddered and gasped and felt hot liquid seep into his hands.
And yeah, it went downhill from there.
_____________________________________________________________
Justin clears his throat, wipes the back of his hand across his face, shakes
off the water and walks back out into the club.
A few minutes of searching later, Justin spots him. He meets Orlando's
eye and smiles, watches as his own arrogance is reflected perfectly in the
cocky grin curving Orlando's mouth. Justin's already partly lost in his
self-created lust haze, and it makes him feel reckless and powerful. The
alcohol buzzing pleasantly through his system helps, too. He knows he's
practically radiating sex. He sweeps his gaze slowly down Orlando’s body, rests
it on his crotch for just a beat then rakes back up to meet his eyes with a
well-practiced look of approval. Orlando's lips curl and he downs the shot in
his hand before getting up to meet Justin.
As Orlando walks over, Justin can't stop looking at his prettypretty red mouth,
glossy and stung by the alcohol. "Justin" he says, offering his hand.
Justin shakes it, firmly, "Orlando" he says with a nod, and it sounds
so fucking formal that he bites the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing.
There's a pause before Orlando speaks again. "Call me Orli. I saw your new
video the other day- Cry me a River was it?- And I thought to myself, 'that's
one kinky bugger'. I knew that I had to meet you"
Justin laughs. "Kinky huh, Orli? You don't even know the half of it…"
And Orlando doesn't. Not really. Justin wonders idly if he'd be freaked out if
he discovered that Justin always jerks off in front of mirrors. Or that he once
had a wet dream in which he fucked himself. Then again, Orlando seems like the
kind of guy who might know a few things about narcissism.
_____________________________________________________________
So Justin’s vanity surfaced pretty quickly and settled in comfortably. Chris,
Joey and JC thought it was cute, innocent somehow, and it was. It started off
as pure, simple fascination with the pretty reflection that no longer resembled
a bony, awkward-looking kid.
Lance was always dubious.
Then the mirror jerk-off thing happened.
Justin soon found he craved the intensity he’d experienced that night. Found he
didn’t want to jerk off any other way.
Then he had the dream.
The wet dream.
In which he fucked himself.
At first Justin was freaked out, totally. Not because it was himself but
because it was a guy and Justin could swear blind that he was straight. He was
fucking Britney after all. He decided that it was not a dream to be taken literally
and so pushed it to the back of his mind.
But he broke up with Britney.
And that’s when the arrogance appeared.
He’d always been self-confident; sure of himself, but not overly so. Others
admired it in him, how he never seemed to cross the line into conceitedness.
Until he did.
It couldn’t be pin-pointed down to one particular incident, more to a chain of
events. After the break-up he was heart-broken. Completely. He started going
out on random drinking binges, picking up whoever he could. It was a new
experience. That was when he realized he could pick up whoever he wanted.
Anyone. Anyone and everyone. And yeah, it was a nice ego-boost. He found that
even after he was over Britney, he was still going out and picking up random
one-night stands, always incredibly beautiful women and sometimes beautiful
men. After all, why limit yourself to only one half of the population?
And he never even had to try! Famous people, too. His peers. Janet Jackson,
Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Kylie and Danni Minogue, Ashton Kutcher,
Pharrell to name but a few. Even JC showed a thinly-veiled interest.
And so Justin started to assume, to presume. He fucked his way across
the line into conceit and never looked back.
_____________________________________________________________
Laid out in front of them are two neat rows of shot glasses filled with a light
amber liquid. Justin thinks it looks like nectar. He pours a little salt into
the crook between his thumb and his first finger, feels some of the cool
crystals roll off his hand, watches Orlando do the same. He raises his hand to
his mouth, looks to Orlando and their eyes lock. Tasting the salt beginning to
dissipate slowly on his tongue, Justin picks up one of the glasses and gulps
the contents down quickly, and then stuffs the lemon in his mouth as he's seen
others do. Fuck, but tequila tastes bad, Justin thinks, trying to
control his grimace. He licks his tongue around his mouth and it's cool and
sour and burning and tingling all at once. He can’t quite decide if it’s
entirely unpleasant or not.
They do another shot. Then another.
Justin looks over at Orlando, squints his eyes, says, "You wanna
dance?" Except it's nothing as articulate as that when the words slur past
his lips.
Their bodies are pressed together, and it's not deliberate the way they slide
up against each other, it's just. There's nowhere else to move. Justin thinks
that perhaps it's time to get things moving on a bit, moving a little closer
towards the part where they will inevitably have sex. Justin hopes it's dirty,
pressed up against a wall or something. Maybe in a bathroom stall. And yeah,
tonight Justin’s ‘dark side’ is in charge, however clichéd it sounds, and he
wants raw and rough and hard. And when does Justin ever deny
himself anything? Not goddamn often, that’s for sure.
So, right, plan, Justin thinks, tactics and slides a broad hand
underneath Orlando’s shirt, skates it over his lower back. Fingers splayed,
pressing them together. Up close their thin t-shirts rub and bunch together
exposing hot skin. Merging.
There’s a shallow slice of air between their barely-open mouths and it takes
Justin less than a second to dissolve it into nothing, fusing lips smarting
from alcohol. Orlando tastes cool and bitter and buzzing from the tequila.
Tongues meet and probe and slide as Justin nudges a thigh between Orlando’s
legs. Hard, hot denim rubs and grinds. Once again Justin praises the wonder of
friction.
Orlando sneaks a hand up under Justin’s shirt and spiders cool fingers down his
spine. Their mouths break apart to gulp down air, and the hand trails down and
slips beneath the already extremely low waistband of Justin’s jeans. It traces
a curve down to the puckered entrance to his body and rubs gently. Justin
shudders and nips at Orlando’s collarbone.
Time to take charge, Justin thinks, sees for the first time that a
little space has cleared around them. A few people are gaping openly at the two
flushed celebrities making out in their midst. Justin waves mock-cheerily, puts
on a half-hearted ‘what can I say?’ expression and drags Orlando away to
some place more private. Or at the very least more...dark.
They find a small booth in the back corner, drenched in shadow. The light above
it is broken. Perfect.
Justin falls back onto the soft bench, pulls Orlando down on top of him, laughs
drunkenly, “We’re surrounded by fucking perverts.”
Orlando chuckles softly, “None more so than you.”
Justin ponders this, smiles, tries to focus his vision, “Yeah, OK. Fair enough.”
And that’s it for the conversation as Orlando unzips Justin’s fly and presses
the heel of his hand into hard, hot flesh, “No fucking underwear?” he laughs,
“classy”
“Mm-hmm” Justin mutters and bites back a groan as Orlando’s teeth graze his
roughly-stubbled jaw.
Orlando pulls Justin up into a seated position and straddles his lap, grinds
thick denim down onto his hard cock. Justin hisses “fuck” and shudders
his hips into the delicious contact, hands low on Orlando’s back crushing them
together.
He looks up, into the face that is almost his reflection, thinks, not
enough, not perfect. Yet.
He zips himself back up, grabs Orlando’s hand, answers his look of confusion
with one word, “Hotel”
They stumble into Justin’s warmly-lit suite, and Orlando kicks the door closed
behind him. Justin grabs him, pushes him against the wooden dressing table,
bends him over. Justin has been hard for about an hour and he’s fucking
impatient.
Justin licks his fingers, pushes Orlando’s jeans and boxers down and pushes one
inside. He sees Orlando wince in the mirror, feels a moment of guilt. He takes
a slow breath, moves his finger around a little, watches Orlando’s face relax.
He slides another finger inside and Orlando moans, arches back onto Justin’s
hand and murmurs, “Shit,” then, "ow" as his hip jars into the hard
edge of the table.
Justin leans over, presses his mouth to the base of Orlando’s neck, nips with
iced teeth and hot-slick lips. Orlando’s body shivers, curls back into his.
Justin withdraws his fingers, hastily shucks off his own jeans and positions
himself at the entrance to Orlando’s body. He looks up into the mirror, sees
Orlando’s mouth open and gasping for air, a thin sheen of sweat already forming
on his face. Orlando frowns, “Just fucking do it” he grates.
Justin smiles at him, and at himself, and thrusts in with one smooth slide,
watches them both gasp, feels gooseflesh pin-prick down his spine.
This is it, he thinks, the ultimate indulgence. Fucking my
reflection. And as he continues to pump, his gaze alternates between
Orlando and himself, between cheekbones splashed in shadow and licked-red lips.
It’s perfect. It’s fierce and it’s nasty... but it’s perfect. Orlando curses
every time he snaps into the dresser, pink gashes embossing onto the thin skin
of his hipbones because Justin moves just a little too hard and just a little
too fast and it makes Orlando dig his nails into the polished surface, knuckles
white against wine-dark mahogany.
When Justin lets his eyes blur he sees them both melt into one mass of smooth,
molten skin. A steady stream of profanities slip past his lips, dust Orlando’s
neck as their hips rock together.
Justin comes harder than he thinks he ever has before.
His eyes are wide open.
Justin wakes up to a still-sleeping Orlando curled around him. A soft smiles
plays across his parted lips. In the crisp sunlight Orlando looks almost
painfully young and Justin, suddenly overwhelmed by tenderness, presses a
gentle kiss to his forehead, momentarily lost in thoughts of innocence and
childhood that really have no place in this post-coital situation. He lets his
head sink back onto the pillow and nestles up against the warm body beside him.
When he wakes up again, Orlando is gone.
Huh, Justin thinks and feels inexplicably hollow. He’s not sure he wants
to examine why.
The rest of the day drones on for e v e r. When Justin comes back to his hotel
room, he just flops back on his still un-made bed and flips the TV off, lets
his mind wander back to the previous night. Maybe he went too far...? Then he
remembers, and he didn’t think much of it at the time, but wasn’t it a little
odd that Justin never met Orlando’s eyes in the mirror? Justin was looking at
him for sure. And yeah also himself, but. Orlando’s gaze was locked
unwaveringly on...Orlando. There’s a sharp pang in Justin’s chest and he can
feel a pout coming on.
“I’m pretty,” he says to his reflection, “why didn’t he look at me?” and it
comes out sounding really incredibly petulant.
But he knows why.
And Justin realizes he may have possibly found the only person in this world
more self-obsessed than he is. The true Narcissus.
He stares at his pouting reflection. Really stares at it. And for the first
time since, well, a long time, that’s all he sees: just a reflection. A damn
pretty one, yo, he thinks and then frowns. Suddenly his nose seems just a
tiny bit too big and his jaw just a tiny bit too wide. Pretty, but not
perfect.
Sunlight glances off the mirror.
He yawns, stretches. Calls Chris and arranges to meet all the guys the
following night at his place.
Getting dressed and walking out of the hotel to the airport, Justin doesn’t
look at his reflection.
Not once.
Or, well, maybe just once.
Fin.
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