Fade Away Never
Curt flipped off the kitchen light and started winding through the darkened halls with no trouble, he had this house practically memorized. It used to belong to Giorgi Phelps, a short lived English pop artist who was the British equivilent of Andy Worhal but not nearly as influential. He had enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame during the hieght of the glitter revolution, attending openings all over London then inviting the gilded elite back to his house (this house) for lavish parties that would last for days if not weeks. Brian had thought of him as a genius.
While he was working on the Lipstick Traces album he had found his way here almost everyday, thinking Giorgi was an essential part of it's inspiration. Curt hadn't cared for him much. Another pompus, no talent hack who wouldn't be around much longer. But he had let himself be dragged, had withstood Brian's gazes of adoration, because he knew sooner or later the two of them would find their way to the guest bedroom and fuck within an inch of their lives.
Jack had bought the place a few years back and managed to completely redecorate, leaving not even a trace of Phelps' nausiating attempt at beauty, but Curt still felt it. Underneath the layers of paint and wallpaper Curt could still feel the memories seeping through. Why had he ever agreed to stay here?
"You need a break. A place to disappear and not have to deal with anyone for a few weeks," Jack had said, his huge eyes filled with care and concern. How could anyone refuse? Now Curt wished he had been able to.
The house was almost too much to bear by himself. Jack was away in New York, mixing tracks for Bush or Snatch or some other vulgarity that could be easily passed off as innocent to appease the ultra conservative parents of Generation X. What had happened to the world? These were the same people who, not even 30 years before, had postered their rooms in pictures of him and Brian locked in mock felatio and cried injustice when their parents made them take them down saying they were "indecent." The generation he had grown up with, the suberban revolutionaries with their fights for sexual freedom, had become just like the people they had been fighting against. Was it part of the aging process? Did you automatically become a hypocritical prude as your brain cells started getting old? If that was the case, Curt was glad he had killed his off in his youth.
Curt climbed up the last few steps of the marble staircase, intending to go straight to his room at the end of the hall and drink himself to sleep, but he found himself pausing outside the first door, the old guest bedroom of the Lipstick Traces days. Jack had turned it into his master bedroom saying he "loved the energy of the place." Curt felt that energy too, had probabley helped to create it, but he'd never tell Jack that. Curt leaned against the wall, gently tracing a finger over the door frame, trying to count how many times they had walked into this room together hand in hand. Their cloths never made it past the first two steps. Sometimes they didn't make it either, falling to the floor mere feet from the bed and fucking like dogs in heat, unable to walk the few more steps they were so overcome with lust for one another. There was a time when Curt had thought it was more than lust, for him it had been, but he wasn't so sure about Brian.
His mind was yelling at him to stop torturing himself, and he tried to listen, but he couldn't tear himself away from the memories, and with tears threatening the corners of his eyes he slowly reached his caloused fingers to the doorknob and turned. He stepped inside, found the switch, and flooded the room with light.
He froze, his skin gone cold, as he stared at the sight before him. A young boy, no more than 20, dressed in leather pants and a black shirt holding a handful of Jack's diamond and ruby necklaces in one hand. Curt's heart skipped a beat as he stared at the wide eyed boy in front of him. Surely he had to be dreaming. This creature had to be some alcohol induced phantom of his imagination. The resemblence was too unreal to ignore and Curt felt instantly like he'd been pulled into a time warp, sent back 30 years and was about to be made to suffer that life all over again as punishment for all the wrong he's ever done.
He blinked only once, the bottle in his hand sliding to the floor and spilling all over the emerald green carpet as his trembling lips broke the silence with a hushed, "Brian?!"