Brian Slade. His reputation preceded him. The enthusiastic crowd parted to let him stroll through its midst, and he bounced along, confident that he looked good.

Then it started. The whispering.

"That's Brian Slade."

"Wonder if he's killed any good rock stars lately."

"Think he was actually invited?"

"Isn't this a private bash? Who let in the riff-raff?"

It was in fact a private party. The seemingly ubiquitous Jack Fairy had decided to hold a Halloween party for grown-ups, glam rockers notwithstanding, at the tres elegant Carlo's. Everyone who was anyone was there. Including several people whose stars were ascendant. And a few whose stars had risen, burnt out, and gone down in a blaze of fiery glory.

Like Brian.

"Someone ought to tell him that this is a costume party," snickered one guest. "Not a come-as-you-are."

Brian gave the woman a sidelong glance as he passed her. She was over forty, overly made up, and all over the young man standing next to her. Who the hell was she to talk about him? She had all the grace and elegance of an unmade bed.

This is a costume, he wanted to protest. This isn't me. It's Maxwell Demon. Brian Slade&helllip;well, he doesn't really exist anymore.

The music was too loud, and like everything else there, overdone. There were the requisite number of pretty girls, and pretty boys, too, though it was a bit difficult to tell the players without a scorecard. He longed for a cigarette, swearing silently when he realized that he had left his only pack in the limo.

Oh, well, he had a couple of hits of coke in one of his pockets. Maybe that's what he needed to do to enjoy this scene. Anesthetize himself. He didn't really like getting high anymore. The lows that followed the highs were too deep, and they were starting to last longer and longer. Sometimes he wondered if he wasn't making his problems worse by using. Was he supposed to feel this depressed in the middle of such vibrant color and rampant hilarity?

He decided to get drunk instead and headed for the bar. Two snifters full of Courvoisier later, he was feeling a trifle more optimistic about his chances of meeting someone and getting laid. Boy or girl. It didn't matter. He wasn't picky. He couldn't afford to be.

Brian hadn't slept with anyone since Curt. Just the sound of Curt's name in his head triggered off alarms throughout his body. It wasn't just sex. It never had been.

He had found himself in love for the first time in his life.

But he'd blown it. So badly that he'd never really recovered from the break-up.

Now, as Curt would have said, there was nothing left but dark glassy eyes and ugly memories.

It was too bright in the main room. He was getting a headache that even expensive cognac could not assuage. He wandered into a dark corridor and could barely make out some indistinct shapes merging in the shadows. Ah, so this was where the elegantly attired cognoscenti preferred to take their trysts. There was something about that that he found almost amusing.

Maybe if no one could see what he looked like, he could lay down the burden of his loneliness and become someone worthy of a few minutes of happiness. Or if not outright happiness, at least a respite from the constant hammering of his guilty heart against what was left of his soul.

I sold my soul. Long ago. I gave it to the Demon. But it didn't bring me what I wanted most. I already had that. Only I was too stupid to realize it.

Then it was too late to give it away. Even if Curt&helllip;God, it always came back to Curt. Even if Curt had been willing to accept it. And him.

He was so lost in thought that he almost stumbled into one of the shapes that blended with the wall. "Heyyy&helllip;"

"Sorry," Brian mumbled, not even bothering to look at whoever he had run into.

"Great costume," the shape declared, its accent identifying its owner as Scottish.

"It's not-never mind&helllip;"

"What made you decide to come as Brian Slade, though? He's a right wanker, from what I hear."

Brian decided to take a closer look at the shape. It was a rough-looking boy with a brutally short haircut. Not his type at all. But there was something, either in the shape of his face or the dimpled chin, that made him take another look.

Oh, my God. Brian shivered and slid a hand down his chest. His heart was pounding so hard, he actually feared that he might pass out. He wasn't that drunk. But then&helllip;it wasn't the drink that was getting to him.

"What made you decide to come as Curt Wild?" Brian asked, his voice barely audible.

"Some people say I look like him." The boy grinned cheekily. Wait, he wasn't a boy at all. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dim light in the hallway, Brian could see that he was older than he was.

"You do," Brian agreed. "What's your name?"

"Mark. Mark Renton. But most people call me Rents."

Brian nodded. Mark gave him an interested once-over and said, "So&helllip;you look like a man with a serious headache. You want to get out of here and go somewhere&helllip;quieter?"

Brian shook his head. "Here is fine." Now that he'd noticed it, Mark's resemblance to Curt was so strong that it was making Brian feel woozy enough as it was without moving the action someplace else.

Mark dropped to his knees in front of Brian and spread Brian's legs apart. He looked up at Brian, his hand gently massaging Brian's crotch through his velvet pants, and Brian felt a throb of recognition in that look. It was almost like being with Curt. Almost.

Jesus, he had it bad. He was about to get the blowjob of his life, and all he could think about was Curt.

He clamped his jaw shut, partly to prevent himself from making any embarrassing, out of control type noises, partly to keep himself from speaking Curt's name. The boy, no, Rents, was good. His mouth was warm and wet and wrapped itself around his cock like it was born to the task. He sucked like a pro, running his tongue up and down the length of Brian's erection with more finesse than Brian would have given him credit for.

Brian was so starved for human touch that he couldn't hold back. Mark pulled on Brian's hips with both hands, working his cock deeper and deeper into his throat. Brian wanted to make it last, but the tip of Mark's tongue tickled the slit at the end of his dick relentlessly. Suddenly oblivious to whether or not he was hurting Mark, Brian fucked his mouth until he came with a muffled sound.

It wasn't Curt's name. He wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. He didn't say Curt's name.

"Turn around," the young Scot demanded.

Brian complied with considerable alacrity, his cock sated but still way too interested in what Mark was going to do to him. He leaned on his hands against the wall, his pants now down around his knees, exposing the pale firm skin of his ass. Suddenly Brian felt nervous. He hadn't been fucked by anyone but Curt. He was always the one in control of these encounters.

It was a matter of trust. He had trusted Curt that much.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the wall, which now felt cool to the touch. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was betraying Curt all over again. It didn't make sense, but there it was. He was hopelessly stuck on someone he would probably never see again. He heard rustling behind him and he assumed that Mark was preparing himself. That filled him with more than a little trepidation, and he was about to say, I've changed my mind, when a slick finger probed at his opening.

God, Mark was good. He had found Brian's prostate on his first foray inside him. As if his fingers already knew him, as if they had already mapped out his hidden depths and committed them to memory. But of course, that wasn't possible. He was just&helllip;good at what he did.

Brian thought about Curt and how he had instinctively, intuitively known how to satisfy him. His erection flagged, but suddenly a hand grabbed his cock and pumped furiously. "Ah, ah, ah, can't have that," Mark whispered huskily in his ear.

Mark's all too talented fingers were soon replaced by something considerably larger and wider. Brian held his breath, waiting for the burning sensation to fade and the tightness to ease up. God, this was wrong, so wrong, on so many levels wrong.

Mark's hot breath was on the back of his neck, making the little hairs on his nape stand up. All at once he was in all the way, his enormous hard-on thrusting into Brian again and again. Brian braced his head on his arms and prayed that it would be over. Guilt was consuming him to the point where any pleasure he might have taken was lost.

He slammed into him with such force that Brian was sure that he would be black and blue by the next day. Suddenly he came, spilling himself inside Brian's narrow channel. Wet, hot fluid the consistency of salt water flowed and churned deep inside him, and Brian could have wept for all that he had given up.

"Curt&helllip;" he whispered, so low that he was certain that no one, not even him, could hear.

"What?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean for you to-"

"You miss him?"

"Yes," came the hushed voice.

"Enough to call his name when someone else is fucking you?"

"Yes," Brian said, choking back a sob. His throat felt so tight, so incredibly tight.

"Enough that you couldn't even come?"

Brian squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn't come, and he hadn't even noticed. He was doomed to live the rest of his life without the one person who completed him, with nothing but regret to keep him company. "Umm&helllip;it wasn't your fault."

"I know it wasn't my fault. It was yours."

"Yes," Brian admitted, striving valiantly to keep the unshed tears in his eyes from falling.

"So if you miss me that much, how come you didn't come to me?"

Brian whipped his head around, his vision blurred by tears he refused to shed. "C-Curt?"

"Jesus, you forgot the way I fuck, you forgot the way my voice sounds-" Curt sounded cross, but his face lit up the way it always had when he looked at Brian. "Did you forget where I live, too?"

Brian shook his head dumbly as Curt calmly cleaned him up with his handkerchief and zipped up his pants.

"Did you forget that you love me?" Curt asked, finally showing signs that he wasn't nearly as unaffected as he seemed.

"Never," Brian whispered.

"Did you forget that&helllip;I love you?"

Brian wished he could say no, but he felt the truth bubbling up in his throat. That was what had been choking him. Words. Always the words that he couldn't say&helllip;stuck there.

"Maybe. A little."

"You want me to remind you?"

"Yeah." Brian was losing the fight to maintain his composure, but for once he didn't care. This was the only real emotion he had felt in months.

Curt stepped closer and ran his hands over Brian's face, like a blind man memorizing his beloved's features. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"You want to come home with me and see where I live?"

"Where do you live anyway?"

"Come with me. I'll show you."

End