Justin

"Mercedes Arthag called yesterday," Xaviera says to Justin as he enters her office. "And?" Justin shrugs coldly, never giving an inch, waiting for Xaviera to reveal what she knows. "Justin, pet, you're letting your personal life interfere with the business. You're losing your edge," Xaviera purrs as she reaches out to scratch him behind the ear. He usually tolerates that, but not today: Justin pushes her hand away from his head. At least Mercedes didn't tell her how he threatened to kill her & actually got his hands around her neck: technically, it was felony assault, and Justin is usually very careful to stay within the legal limits of his violent expression. Losing control like that just isn't acceptable. "I told you from the beginning, I don't put out for the clients, period. She was getting far too personal with it," Justin replies coldly, "As for my 'edge': are you getting any complaints?" She's right, Justin knows, the empty place inside him that used to fuel his rage & give his performance the ferocity he's known for has gotten all full of Eleanor, and as much as he tries to keep her out of his mind when he's working, she's always there. He's been doing this for so long, he can do it by rote, dispassionately, and few would notice the difference...Xaviera makes a mewing sound..."No, no complaints...yet...but I've noticed Justin, your heart isn't in it like it was, you've got this dreamy look in your eyes most of the time, and you used to be so angry, bristling around here like a feral tom....Well, Mercedes is quite put out, but it's her own fault. I've told her a million times I don't run an escort service, this is all legal & above board," she concludes with a pout & a roll of her eyes. "You've been with me a long time now," she adds, trailing off as she stoops to pick up one of her cats, and stops paying attention to Justin altogether as she fondles & pets the tabby.

How long has it been? Justin wonders while he's driving back to Echo Park. He's been in L.A. for longer than anywhere else he's stayed, since he left where he came from....But he's never been good at keeping track of days, months, years...they all just roll into each other. He certainly wasn't keeping track of his age, his date of birth a series of numbers like his social security number, his driver's license: how old was he when he left Boston, when he left New York? What year did he live in Portland? Now he can't even remember if that was before or after Seattle...He never stayed anywhere long, but he's been in L.A. several years, he can't quite remember how many...but he knows how old he is now, he thinks with a smile..remembering his last birthday. She woke him by climbing on top of him, tickling him with her breasts, her hair, "How does it feel?" she asked him. He told her how it felt, and they made love. "Happy Birthday," she sighed in his ear: he never told her his birth date, but he knows she's gone through all his things, though she does her best to put everything back exactly as she found it, he knows when his things have been disturbed, so he expected she knew it. "How does it feel to be 30?" she asked then. That took him by surprise, he stopped counting after he became a legal adult. He's been so many places, lived so long it seems, but when presented with an actual number of years, it seems too old. He even asked her if she was sure, and she laughed & said she got the date from his own ID. How does it feel? It isn't a question he can really answer, it isn't the number of years he's lived that make him feel the way he's been feeling lately, it's the time he spends with her.

When he arrives back at the house, there's a pack of strange teenagers hanging around: they're after Gavin, even though the movie he's working on hasn't been released yet, he's already got crazy fans. Justin shoos them off with a menacing growl: Eleanor may have tamed him a bit, but he can still scare people easily. He find his house empty & quiet, and so heads back to Eleanor's house, to find her sitting at her computer. She look up him, smiling & triumphant. "I told Mercedes what a bitch she is," she says, standing to greet him "I wish I knew how to get that tape from her, but I at least got to tell her off. And then I took a chance & called Corrine, and she actually agreed to meet with me. I really had to work it, but I got a job...the job, actually," she continues, running her fingers down his back & grasping his buttocks hard, "Now we can finally move out of here, on our own." Justin kisses her in passionate celebration, until she pulls back & looks up at him with her princess pout, "Justin, I need you to do something for me," she starts...he's heard it a million times since she agreed to be his, and it can be followed any kind of request, from the most trivial favor, to asking him to pretend he didn't love her in front of her parents, this time, it's: "I want you all to myself." Justin was sure that was understood, "I don't know how I could possibly be more 'all yours' than I already am, Princess," he says, biting her neck. She moans, sighs & then lifts his face to look at him, her brown eyes dark & serious, "I want you to quit...working...for anyone except me. I can afford that now, for a few years it might be tight, two of us on one income, but I've worked out a budget & I'm sure I can swing it," she says. "You want to keep me?" Justin asks flatly, not showing how very amused he is at the thought: it seems in such opposition to everything he is, and yet, what a job! Eleanor flushes red, "I love you, Justin," she says, and he reflexively kisses her, every time she says it is cause for celebration, "I wouldn't be keeping you," she continues, "I just don't like that you're doing what we do with people like Mercedes. Since I can afford to provide for us both, I'd like you to give it up...I want you for a lot more than 'services', you must know that, I want to get married, and take care of you," she says, reaching up to caress his brow, petting him behind the ear. Justin laughs inside at the image he's getting of his future with this bossy, possessive little woman, and what a contrast that is to what he's been..."You want me in crinoline & pearls?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at her, frowning sternly, enjoying her pout, "Oh, Justin, I didn't mean to threaten your masculinity," she says, her voice soft & serious, worried she's wounded him. It's too delicious, she's as easy as pie, Justin reaches quickly behind her head & grabs a handful of hair with his right hand, his left hand wraps around both of hers and pins them behind her back, while he pulls her close to him, to just where they are not quite touching, "Threaten my masculinity?" he asks with a growl, "I don't think so, Princess, not even if you had a knife," and he fixes his stare on her watching as she trembles, just to the point where she actually starts to fear him, for real. Then he relaxes his grip, caressing instead, so she moans softly with the pleasure of releasing the fear, the trembling excite of the come down, "You know I don't get hung up on that gender crap," he says softly in her ear, kissing her neck with light bites, feeling her quiver at his words, "I know exactly what I am, I'm your man, Elle. I'm your bitch, too. It's all good with me. I'll quit the business, I'll keep your house, if that will make you happy." Eleanor moans & sighs & presses herself against him. "Will you be happy, Justin?" she asks, pouting up at him, daring him to be unhappy with her plan, "Will I be enough for you?" Justin lifts her up onto her desk "Elle, 'happy' is a whole new concept for me, 'happy' is something I learned from you, it wasn't something I went to work for," he says with quiet gravity, "Asking if you're 'enough' is ridiculous. You're everything." Losing his edge? he thinks. He doesn't want his edge anymore, he's traded it for something far, far better.

"So you'll marry me?" she asks, her smile saying she thinks it's in the bag. "Elle, I'm honored you would even consider linking yourself to me like that, but have you really thought about what it would mean?" She stares up at him, outraged & unbelieving, not used to being turned down, especially by him. "Eleanor, you're all kinds of things that I'm not, someday you might want to be president or something, and being married to me could cause you some serious embarrassment. I'm as good as married to you, you know that. I'd live in your closet to protect you, I'd still be all yours," he explains, nuzzling against her neck. "I have thought about that," she answers quietly, "Well, not the being president part...if I wanted political power I'd wield it the way my mother does, I wouldn't run for office...but I know my position, I know what I can get away with. The important thing is that you're protected, in case anything happens to me, my mother would cut you off. Unless we're legally married, you'd have no claim to my fortune, you'd have no access..." Justin stops her there, pressing a firm hand to her lips, "Eleanor, I don't have a life without you, I don't need your 'fortune', I don't even want to hear talk about anything 'happening' to you. You couldn't possible protect me from anything with your money, the only thing that can hurt me is losing you, in any form, understand? If that's your reason for marriage, we don't need it. There's no state or church on this world that could 'sanctify' what we have, Elle....," he says. Of all the things she could ask of him, how odd that this would be the first thing he would reject. Or at least try to talk her out of. "Don't throw yourself away like that, Princess, it won't do anything for us & it could cause you so much trouble, anytime anyone wanted to get you, they could use me as a weapon. I couldn't handle that..." Eleanor's pout is troubled, thinking. "Do you have some kind of criminal record, Justin? I don't understand what you think people could use against me...," It isn't going to be easy to explain, without going into the kinds of detail that Justin doesn't really remember anymore. "No criminal record, not since I was a juvenile," he clears up the first question, he's made a real point of that. There's no way he's living in an institution. "It's no one specific thing, Elle, it's my whole life, a drifter, always outside society. And the work I've done, the things I've been involved in, well, you know how that is, I've performed in clubs, done things people find offensive & frightening, I could be recognized...It just doesn't look good, all around," he says vaguely. Maybe she's right, he thinks, people like her mother might despise him, but if Eleanor is part of that society, she could force them to accept him, if she has the balls to face up to them. And Eleanor, he's quite sure, does have the balls, she's one of the ballsiest girls he's ever met.

NEXT