A Christmas Oratorio: For Tenor / Countertenor, Bass, and Male Chorus

By Ian McDuff

A belated but deserved gift for Alexandria, Lincoln, Megan, BG, and the Ive. (And to Megan and the Ive, let me say, y’all’s post-beta SeSa stories were as wonderful as I anticipated, and I am honored to have been allowed to copy-edit the early versions.)

‘Spill,’ Nick said, eagerly, his face avid.

Howie just shook his head. How could Nick –

But there was always that near telepathy between them, and Nick cut in before Howie could finish his thought.

‘Yeah, yeah. So maybe I date girls publicly, and don’t mind too much ’cause I can get off on them sometimes even though they’re not my first choice, and so, yeah, you’re thinking, does the New Improved Nicky still understand, but, damn, D, okay? Yeah, I play it super-straight on stage and especially with the solo gigs and I’m all grown up and I look like a college linebacker, okay, but I’m still me. Still the scrawny, effeminate little kid with the swan’s neck who giggled like a girl when he smeared your face with shaving cream and then moaned all night in his dreams about it, still the all-arms-and-legs little fairy who grew up in love with you and the idea of you and still wants what’s best for you now that we know that I can’t be that for you. So. Spill, okay? Dish, girlfriend, I want details.’

Howie couldn’t not laugh. ‘Nicky? I do love you; never change.’

Nick grinned, and sprawled face-down on the bed with his chin on a pillow and his legs waving in the air, locked at the ankles, the very picture of a gossipy teenie. ‘Ssssssoooooooo?’

‘Camp really doesn’t become you, Mister Linebacker.’

JC closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, wearily (a habit of his when he was distressed or impatient, which was rare enough, but still sufficiently common that Chris had made jokes about it. Especially about the nose-pinch, and the suggestion that perhaps a nose that size should merit using both hands. There were times JC could kill Chris, except it would have taken too much energy). Outside, the German snow fell unrelentingly.

‘Honey,’ he said, with weary patience. ‘Lance. Listen, babes, you have got to start trusting us. I know you’re tough. We all know you’re tough. But, honestly, no one is that tough, to bear everything by himself and never ever open up and, y’know, like lean on a brother.’

‘If you start singing oldies, I’m leaving.’

‘Smartass,’ JC said, fondly. ‘But seriously, dude. You beat yourself up over everything.’

Lance paled.

‘Lance?’

Lance set his lips and just shook his head.

‘Lance. Talk to me. No, I mean it. What is wrong? What did I say that hit you just now?’

‘Bad choice of words, JC.’ Lance’s teeth were gritted, his jaw muscles rigid. He was seventeen-going-on-fifty.

Lance had never intended to grow up to be a smooth and accomplished liar. Or any other sort of liar. He had been brought up on the usual concepts of honor and gentlemanly conduct. But that same code demanded reticence in some instances, and reticence sometimes demanded outright denial, and courtesy to others sometimes required polite dishonesty and evasion, and protecting the others, let alone himself, took positive untruths, sometimes, especially when it came to things an honorable man, a gentleman, Simply Did Not Do, or, if he did, Did Not Broadcast.

For example, it was more important not to contradict his elders and his bandmates, who were there first, after all, over the transparent lie regarding his non-existent nickname and the ‘Second “N” in ’N Sync.’

Oh, who was he kidding. It had been more important still to have and keep secrets before they ever left Laurel (which was not for the reasons cited, or not for those reasons alone), much less before he ever left Clinton. Secrets that simply ought never be spoken.

Secrets that would have validated the all-purpose playground insults he received anyway.

Secrets that hadn’t been his alone.

Secrets that weren’t in and of themselves all that disreputable, such as what occurred in his ninth year, when his great, his bestest friend had been ten. They were so close that each called the other’s mother ‘aunt,’ though Diane and Dee were not connected by any bonds save friendship and sorority sisterhood. ‘Courtesy aunts’ are no novelty in the South. And little Lance had been a natural follower, and his bestest friend a born leader, jock to his bookworm, extrovert to his mama’s boy, and the curious explorations behind the toolshed were not unprecedented in human history, either. But Diane and Dee and Jim and Cash had had a fit, not unnaturally, and things had never quite been the same afterwards, even though Lance’s bestest friend went on to be just exactly who he was always going to be anyway, which included – as it had always included for thousands of products of farms, small towns, East Coast prep schools, and the English public schools – growing up straight as a die regardless of pre-adolescent experimentation.

It was on Lance, instead, that this early imprint weighed heavily, and was a secret to be guarded.

Secrets. Not all of them as innocent. Such as the very first lie he told his bandmates, in their very first week. The old, familiar, familial lie about how he’d gotten the scar that quirked one eyebrow. The well-worn lie, smooth by now to the touch, about childhood horseplay with a cousin.

Not a word about the reality. Never a word about the one time in his young life he had thought, had been told, had been led to believe, that the impossible had come true. Never a whisper about that brief time when he truly believed that someone at last loved him back. Never a word, not about the buoyant joy of having finally found his dreams coming true, not about the ecstasy of promises, words, and then deeds, deeds, that made him believe in the unbelievable after having given up on believing. Never a single word, not a syllable, not an allusion, not a hint, not if he could help himself a grimace, about finding out it had all been a lie. And never a sound, not a whimper, not to anyone, ever, about the end, about the abuse, about the shouting and the pain and the blood and the scars, physical and otherwise, that would never leave him. Never that.

After all. He had deserved it. He had to have deserved it, somehow. Because it was wrong, and a sin. Or because it was against the code. Or because he had disobeyed his parents. Or. Not just ‘or,’ but and. And, because. And because, most of all, he just hadn’t been good enough. Smart enough, strong enough, good-looking enough. Because he had given his all and that hadn’t been enough. Clearly, it hadn’t. And that meant that everything he was and had and had to give wasn’t enough, wasn’t worth enough. That’s why it had happened. And why it would never, ever happen again.

So. Secrets. And lies.

‘No,’ Howie frowned. ‘No. Actually, he’s not.’

‘Dude! I watched the Disney thang on Christmas morning, with Aaron.’

‘It’s not like that, though. With them. Lance … Lance has some hangups. The very fact that Jess is there means that Jess is, well, disposable.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Like that.’

‘Um-hum.’

‘Didn’t know he had that “Iceman” thing going.’

‘Oh, come on, Nicky. When was the last time you saw Lance without a mask on and all armored up?’

Nick thought, quietly. ‘Germany?’

‘If that.’

‘But. I mean. I thought. Y’know. JC.’

‘I don’t think so, Nick.’

The German winter was cold as iron, but there was a greater chill inside the dingy hotel room, and JC felt the iron enter his soul.

‘Oh, Lance,’ he murmured, brokenly. ‘God, Lance, why didn’t you tell us? Why couldn’t you? Don’t you know we love you, we’ll all love you anyway, no matter what? Shush, now. Shush. It’s okay. I got you. I got you.’

JC had done his best. He always had, even before that night in Germany all those years ago. He had redoubled his efforts afterwards, and Lance was grateful. The comfort, the affection, had finally warmed the chill that he had long carried in his heart, had slowly taken the numbness away. He could relax now, he could accept physical closeness, physical affection, even casual sex. JC, by his hugs and caresses, his sweetness and kindness, his chaste kisses and gentle touches, had given Lance back the use of his own body, and Lance would always be grateful for that, and awed. Awed that JC had done this, for him, asking nothing in return, giving affection unstintingly and never expecting anything more from Lance, anything Lance could not give. Had done this for him when JC himself was nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three: young and single and thrumming with his own hormones and eminently eligible. Had done this, too, without ever making Lance feel obligated, or giving any indication that this was a sacrifice, and – what was more – without ever indicating that he would not be open to more if Lance were ever able to give it, if Lance so chose. Letting Lance know he was in control, but also that he was worthy, that he would not be rejected. That wasn’t just saintly, under the circumstances. It was miraculous.

And Joey, too, had been an uncovenanted grace. JC swore he hadn’t said a word to Big Joe, and, just because it was JC, Lance had to believe him. But somehow, Joe also had seemed to know, had been there to wrap him in hugs that anchored him without panicking him, that were tight enough to stay him but loose enough that he never felt fear. Warm, comforting Joey, who was fundamentally straight but had had his own, brief walk on the wild side, and thus understood better than he might have otherwise. (Sometimes, Lance still had trouble imagining it. The young Joey, clean cut and slim, too slim really for his features: Joe looked so much better with some bulk to him: young, trim Joey in the awful clothes they’d all worn back then, and his strange fling with the other straightest boy on the planet. But, as Brian had once told him, quietly, once he realized that Lance knew, it had probably been a necessary step for Joey and Kevin both, their way of being certain that they were who they were not by default, not by lack of sampling the alternatives, but by nature; and it had never done either of them any harm that Lance could ever see.)

Joey, who had shown Lance how much he meant and how much he was trusted by making him Briahna’s godfather.

Lance still marveled at that. It was as if there had been washed away his own dishonesties and lies in the very baptismal water in the font at Briahna’s christening.

But it hadn’t been like that, of course. He was still himself, still a truly phenomenal liar about the most fundamental things, still a man who clasped his lies and secrets to himself.

Perhaps it would have been different had he been able to love JC. To love him the way JC deserved, merited. But there had been insuperable impediments to that. He loved, and could easily have been in love with (had things been different, had he not come there with baggage), all his bandmates. But Chris was matter-of-factly straight, full stop. And Justin was even more out of Lance’s league than the others, as well as being too young. And Joe was committed, as well as essentially straight. And JC.

The thing was. The thing was, JC and Joey were a little too big. Too strong. And always would be, even as Lance grew, even as he filled out, even as he forced himself into recreating himself. Lance could, and eventually Lance did, create for himself a set of armor, impermeable, impenetrable, a body that was a carapace, a fortress in which he could hide. But JC and Joey were too strong for the real Lance, the Lance who had been bloodied and abused and beaten to a pulp by the first boy he had ever truly loved and whom he had believed loved him in return. They were still, somehow, at some deep level, threatening to the real Lance, the weak and tiny Lance who cowered inside the body he had built up around him and hid behind the mask of smoothness and charm and snark.

And JC, too, had his faults. His failings. Not even JC knew quite why Lance was the way he was about, well, drugs. Even pot. Joey almost always declined to participate: for Joey, who had been raised in a family in which wine was food and sacrament and part of a balanced meal, the usual American hangups about drinking didn’t apply, though liquor, as opposed to wine, did a number on Joe. For Joey, Dionysus came in a straw-wrapped bottle. Lance, though. Lance could always try out, on those less familiar with the real Lance, the standard Southern boy’s line about how he’d as soon have hisse’f a damn bourbon, on account of gentlemen didn’t do that-all. The usual line, that ‘drugs are for folks as cain’t handle good whiskey.’ Those who knew him better got used, early on, to the comforting half-truth, propounded by Chris, that Lance was afraid he’d out himself if he got fucked up, and maybe it was smarter that he not do so. It was a tribute to denial and its powers that the others kept thinking that even after Lance showed no such self-censoring reluctance to drink like a member of the Hellfire Club. Even after Lance became the boyband Paris Hilton, without whose drunken presence no B-list party was complete.

What Lance never told them was that it had been the drugs – drugs the existence of which, the presence of which, Lance had been too innocent to imagine – that had turned He Who Should Not Be Named into the savage, ravening creature who had beaten and scarred him. What Lance never mentioned was that he was afraid of them, any and all of them, atavistically and beyond the reach of reason, when they were using. And what Lance had also never told anyone was that the most fundamental reason he could never let himself love JC was precisely that JC could have been, in looks, the twin of the Nameless One.

By the time Lance was a fixture of B-list parties, during the hiatus, and more of a punch-line for his Twink of the Month Club than for his failed cosmonautical aspirations, his bandmates believed that he had overcome his nameless fears and inhibitions.

He was rich, young, carved now, as JC had breathlessly noted, out of marble, connected, and armed with a well-filed tongue few people wanted to suffer. Surely this all meant that he had made his peace with himself and moved on.

AJ knew better, and winced every time he saw a news clip or a magazine sidebar. He could see a crash coming.

What he did not foresee was that he would have a hand in averting it. Payback was supposed to be a bitch; paying it forward, though, was even more unexpected, an ambush.

At the LA chapter, he shared a sponsor with one of the many, many people in LA whose livelihood depended on attending B-list parties. AJ thought that must be hellish, the nightly temptation being part of one’s job. But whatever Jorge said to their mutual sponsor, it was enough to cause the latter to take AJ aside for a heads-up, and to ask for some insight into the popstar life as lived by boybanders on hiatus.

It was not, of course, up to AJ, or anyone but the Basses or the Syncers, to step in and do an intervention: the Bassman wasn’t AJ’s friend to that extent. But it sounded like the kid could fuckin’ use a friend, and that the other Stinkers weren’t available for the task. So AJ did what he had long since learned was always the smart thing to do. He called Howie.

Howie had long since learned, in his turn, that subtlety was wasted on some people; and that one of the advantages of being The Sweet One was that subtlety could be dispensed with, as it was more often manner than matter that determined whether what one had to say raised the other fellow’s defenses.

Within a week, Howie had managed to insinuate himself into Lance’s social calendar, and on their third lunch together, he led the subject gently to Lance’s behavior.

In default of JC, or Joey, or Justin, or for that matter Nicky, who no longer used but was threateningly large however well-meaning, or AJ, who no longer used but still scared Lance half to death, stylistically, well, there weren’t so very many people Lance knew. Really knew, knew so well that he could trust them with himself. Knew well enough that he dared make even the most subtle and plausibly deniable of approaches.

And besides.

JC and Joey had helped. They’d helped a lot. But if they had managed to free him from his guilt and self-loathing to the point where he could manage actually to have discreet sex once in a while, they had been unable, as anyone would have been unable, to persuade him to love again. Lance was not prepared for that risk. Lance was not armored against the surely-inevitable hurt that would, inexorably, be dealt him when his love was not enough, and it and he were rejected, cruelly.

By the time the hiatus started, Lance had proven this to himself. He had known what Freddie was, going in. And he had been right. And he had known going in what the interim, brief boys of the night had been, and he’d been right. There was sex, and there was love, and never the twain should meet. You paid for sex, with your own body in exchange or with a contact or a boost or a reference. And that was all it was, an exchange on terms negotiated in advance. It didn’t bring with it those other elements, the dangerous elements, such as trust and reliance and openness. Sex was for the boys you never even thought about bringing home to Momma. You brought your friends-and-brothers, your bandmates, home to Momma, because you loved them. Loved them too much to sully them with yourself. Loved them too much to offer them debased coin, sex, the commercial exchange. There was sex, and there was love, and they had nothing to do with one another.

You could be fond. You could feel a remote, friendly affection. You could be indulgent. But that wasn’t love, which had to be kept in its compartment, away from the sex. Jess was for sex, and its comforts. But not for love. And he knew, had known going in, where that was going. And that was fine. All he asked was that he not be threatened, not be deceived, not be asked to open up, not be hurt. And you can’t be hurt if you grant no access. Jess had no access, except to his body, and that wasn’t really Lance, that wasn’t himself: it was just something he’d created as a device, a citadel and sometimes a playground, certainly, but nothing more.

And Jess was a barrier, too. A defense. If there were offers he wasn’t interested in, and there were always offers now, he could play the Jess Card. And if ever there were an offer he wanted to take up, well, Jess was on notice that he was on notice, always. Jess knew the rules. He would smile, a little sadly, but he would go, because that was what boys such as Jess did. Sometimes, if he didn’t stop himself in time, Lance suspected that perhaps Jess wanted more, wanted an intimacy that was not bargained for, wanted love instead of or in perilous addition to sex. And that would be sad, because Lance didn’t like to think of himself as using people, the way he had been used. That is why he was almost always successful in stopping himself before he thought about what Jess might really want, that hadn’t been in the terms of the bargain.

Not that Jess had said anything: he knew better. But Lance had found ways to make sure he didn’t think about it anyway. A third way. There was sex, and there was love, and increasingly, there were the fantasies that he would never even attempt to act out, with Jess or anyone. Things he would never dream of bargaining for, with any of the boys who waited for him to choose them: because to do so would give them access, and still more because to do so would be to leave himself unable to pretend he wasn’t using that night’s or week’s or month’s boy.

Instead, he reserved those fantasies for his online hours, his solitary online hours, working his way through his own psyche, trying to come to grips with a kink for authoritarian fic and hypno / mind-control fic. He was never sure whether he saw himself as the controller or the controllee. But he knew perfectly well that his increasing addiction to porn that involved light bondage play or hypnosis and mind control grew out of his darkest secret and darkest hours, the beating and the bloodied brow, the punches and the venomous words. Perhaps it was a strange form of self-therapy, and he had his limits: he was and would always be squicked by non-con, scat, watersports, bloodplay, and the like.

And if all else failed, there was always the next drink and the next party and the next exultation at one’s own smoothness and business ability.

It was because Howie fit in the nice box, the virtuous box, the box for friends, for boys whom one loved enough to take home to Momma and who were therefore untouchable and sexually off-limits, that Howie was able to eel his way into Lance’s life. It was because Howie didn’t fit in the other boxes, and was a friend, and because Howie was straight-arrow when it came to intoxicants even though he owned a nightclub, and – though tough: this idiotic fans’s idea that Howie was some Dresden china figurine was, well, totally on crack – but it was because Howie wasn’t threatening.

Right up until Howie turned Lance’s world upside down over lunch.

‘You? You?’

Howie nodded.

‘Oh. Howard. I. Good Lord, Howie. I never knew. I. Are you okay?’

‘Every day.’

‘I would never have imagined.’

‘It took me forever to accept it. But, a day at a time, you know? And every day, it recedes. I function.’

‘Pretty well, I’d say.’

‘Well, now, sure. Because unlike addictions, it does recede. You can be whole again. Eventually.’

‘Is. I’m sorry. Look, tell me if I’m a-fixin’ to cross a line, here, but. Are you. Um. I mean. Are you and Nick, uh –’

‘Oh, no. Not Nicky. Not anyone, these days. Um. Nicky and I, we tried. And we do love each other. So much. But. Nicky has overcome so much in his own life, just like Alex has. And that’s good. But sometimes, I guess, Nick is a little too secure, and I can’t always handle that. I don’t respond normally, always. Like I say, it recedes, and eventually you can become whole, but. Not yet done with that, y’know? And I’m not going to ask the kid to wait. Besides. I don’t care –’

He broke off as the waiters changed their plates and served the next course.

‘– I don’t care how big a bed is, Nick, um, thrashes. And I’m, y’know, pretty defenseless when I’m asleep. And if he accidentally flops one of those tree-trunks he has for arms against me, well, back when we were trying, I freaked. Wasn’t pretty at all. Not fair to him. So. We’re better as friends.’

Lance’s mouth was slightly agape, as he tried to process. ‘Um. I know this is probably askin’ too much –’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Um, okay. Well. The. The guy who … hurt you. What became of him?’

‘Not as much as should have, I guess. If it were just me…. It’s not the closet thing, not the blackmail, that saved him, as far as my being outed goes. But. The situation, um.’

‘Basically, it would have held all five of you hostage. I kn- I can see that.’

‘Yeah. And I didn’t want us to be a trio, y’know, so I finally managed to convince Aidge and Kev not to hunt him down and kill him, and I mean that literally. But. There are always ways. He’s where he’ll never bother anyone like that ever again.’

And because Lance knew that Howie was just as efficient at this sort of thing as he was himself, he understood all that Howie had not said. ‘Wow. Um. Okay. I wish I could do more –’

‘Lance. I didn’t bring this up because I needed someone else to confide in. I have the other four, and my family, and a few other people.’

‘Then –’

‘Lance. Get real. I’m your friend. Even when Backstreet as a whole wasn’t, I was there, because of how far back CK and I go. Don’t you think Aidge, for example, can walk through a party and pretty much know who’s a user, who’s in recovery, and who’s straight-edge? Well. I can see the signs. I always could.

‘But. I thought, I used to think – because face it, Lance, you are good: too good for your own good – I used to think you were dealing with it, were getting help. I mean, with C and Joe, especially, you seemed to have gotten over any tell-tale physical-space issues. And you use Jesse as a shield, man. But with the hiatus. I still see the signs, and I see other signs, too, signs I learned to pick up on through Alex, okay? Not good signs.

‘Now you can be pissed at me.’

Lance was silent, thoughtful. ‘Yeah. I could. I really, really could. Except. You didn’t have to do this. You sure as shit didn’t have to open up and put your own life, your privacy, on the line like this. I’m pretty chickenshit about a right smart of things, Howie, but I just can’t quite manage to be that chickenshit.’

‘So. Not pissed?’

‘Not pissed, no. Scared? That’d be a huge fat fuckin’ “yes.” So would tense, confused, and feeling might’-near nekkid. But not pissed.’

‘Okay.’

‘So. Well. I.’

‘You need the help, Lance. We both know that. And it’s there.’

‘Where? I mean, what, therapy, rehab, what?’

‘Not so much the therapy. Rehab? I don’t know. Depends on whether your drinking and whatever other displacement addictions, sex maybe, clears up when you get to the bottom of this. But, look. We had a therapist on tour all through our Around the World in Eighty Hours gig, and that didn’t hack it for Aidge. I know, different situation, but hear me out.

‘I have become more and more convinced that the best model for, I guess, almost any of these sorts of things is the Twelve Step program. I mean, y’know, tailored to the problem. But the same model as AA and NA and all. Including the discretion and the anonymity. And they exist. Even for survivors like us, male survivors of domestic abuse. And it’s not just gay and bi guys, it’s all sorts. People see the cartoons and the comedy sketches about the wife with the rolling pin or the skillet and they laugh, but it’s not funny. It’s not funny at all.’

‘No. You know, you’re right. It isn’t.’

‘Well. There are resources, okay? All I’m saying. Think about it.’

‘Um. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I will.’

‘And know that all your friends care, okay? I was just in a position to see the signs, is all, but all of us care.’ Howie stood, fluidly, a little shy now. ‘Um. You’ve got things to do, I know, and I guess, I hope, you have some thinking to do, too. I’ll. I’ll be, y’know, going. Take care, okay? And I am always, always, just a phone call away.’

Lance stopped him with a light touch on the wrist. ‘Howie? Thanks.’

‘Friends, right? Stay in touch.’

Lance sat and stared at his plate as Howie left. He didn’t see Howie stop outside and talk to the manager, who was checking on the patrons at the sidewalk café portion of the restaurant. He didn’t see Howie dash off a note, either.

His reverie was broken only when a dessert he hadn’t ordered appeared before him.

‘Would you like coffee as well, sir?’

‘I didn’t –’ Lance paused as he saw the folded slip of paper.

If you do finish your thinking, and if you choose, there’s a resource here in town. Tonight at 8:00, it read, and gave a WeHo address. Just so you know.

Lance looked at the dessert plate and turned his eyes back to the note.

‘Coffee would be good,’ Lance said, his voice distant.

At seven minutes after eight that night, Lance summoned his courage and pushed on the non-descript door that bore a small label, Male Survivors of Domestic Abuse. It was possibly the hardest thing he’d ever done, and he could feel the sweat pearling on his brow.

He walked in and saw that the meeting had evidently just started. A facilitator was at the front, leaning against a folding table, and the plastic chairs that faced the table in a semicircle– a larger number of them than he’d expected – were almost all filled. He saw the coffee pot and the sweet rolls on the table against the right wall, and towards the left wall were smaller circles of empty chairs for, he guessed, group time. The facilitator looked up and smiled.

‘Hey. Welcome. First time, I think? My name is Blaine, and I’m a survivor.’

The other attendees were standing, turning around, all with encouraging smiles. It was all he could do not to mutter something about the wrong room, turn, and flee.

A voice that seemed not his own, and seemed to come from far away, responded. ‘Um. Hi. My name’s … Lance, and … I guess, um, I’m a … survivor, too.’

‘Hi,’ the others chorused, and, ‘Hey,’ and ‘Welcome,’ and, ‘I’m Chuck,’ ‘George,’ ‘Buck,’ ‘Bill,’ ‘Jason, ‘Chris,’ ‘Adam’ –

And from behind two taller men a figure he couldn’t have seen before leaned around, with the sweetest of smiles and eyes that beamed with pride, with friendship, with relief, and, Lance first began to hope, perhaps with something more, unsought and unimaginable and now desperately wanted. ‘Hey, Lance. I’m Howie, and I’m a survivor. Come on in.’

END