Justin got the package every Tuesday morning, dropped off by courier. It was almost a ritual by now. He'd get up, putter around a bit, grab something vaguely resembling breakfast, and then read through the week's press details, catching up with all the things that were being said about all five of them. It wasn't as though he didn't talk to the guys, pretty often even, but he liked knowing what the press was saying about all of them. Better to know than to be blindsided by some reporter's question, somewhere.

He was halfway through the packet of pictures from the wire services when he stopped and blinked, then reached for the phone. Joey and Kelly had made a deal. No more fucking around, for either of them. It had been one of the conditions of the engagement, and Justin had honestly thought they both meant it this time. And yet, buried in among the photos of JC at some hip party in LA and Chris at a political fundraiser, there was a shot of Joey in a club with a girl. Looking at Joey, Justin knew that body language.

The girl was tall, and broad across the shoulders, and not really anything that Justin would have pegged as Joey's type. She was wearing a high-necked black dress which clung to her curves in all the right places; her eyes were dark green, and her hair was long and brown and curly. The photographer had caught the two of them just as Joey had leaned in to whisper something in her ear, and even in that one still frame, Justin could see the protective set to Joey's shoulders, the curve of his neck. It was the body language Joey used when he was trying to flirt, trying to pick someone up.

Joey sounded cheerful when he picked up the phone. "You never call, you never write, you never come to visit me --"

In other circumstances, it would have been funny. "Are you and Kel okay?" Justin asked.

Joey's voice turned to puzzled. "Yeah, we're fine. Why, what's up?"

The print of the photo felt smooth and glossy under Justin's fingertips as he stroked it. "Um. I got the press package this morning, and I was flipping through it and I saw this shot of you in a club with some girl, and I was just wondering --"

"Just forget about it, J," Joey interrupted. "We're fine, you don't have to worry about it."

Justin didn't have a whole lot of experience when it came to relationships that didn't fall apart when you so much as breathed on them wrong. Joey and Kelly had always been his touchstone, the one couple that had their shit and dealt with it and always managed to make it work. The thought that they might be having problems reminded him uncomfortably of the way he half-remembered feeling when his mother had sat him down and started off with "your daddy and I care about each other very much, dear."

"I just thought," Justin said. "I mean, I know that you decided."

"Yeah, and you don't need to police us," Joey said, and then relented. "Seriously, J, it's all cool. I can't talk about it much, but it's not a big deal, and nothing's going on for you to worry about. There's nothing going on."

"Kelly knows?" Justin asked, because he really did love Kelly an awful lot, and despite Joey's swearing up and down that he was going to reform, sometimes the wandering eye just kept wandering.

"You wanna talk to her? She's standing right here."

"No, it's cool," Justin said. He was starting to feel a little bit like a dick. "Are we still on for next week?"

The girl really was kind of pretty, in a weird sort of way that almost looked familiar. Justin traced the curve of her jawbone with one finger and tried to think of where he might have seen her before. Joey laughed. "Assuming that you don't bail on me for some unknown reason, yeah. See you then, you fucker. Love you."

"Love you too," Justin said automatically, and hung up the phone.

He went to refill his coffee and the picture was still on top of the pile when he came back, staring back up at him. He set it aside and kept going through the stills, shuffling them neatly into "keep" and "toss" piles. Halfway down, he caught a shot of Lance, Jesse and Wendy at some sort of benefit in Vegas. This photographer had captured the moment just when Lance turned his head to call across the room, his eyes bright, his head tilted just so, and Justin stopped with the coffee mug halfway to his lips and blinked as a few tiny things shifted around behind his eyes.

The jaw, the tilt of the head, the look, the smile -- of course Joey had been standing guard over his date. It wouldn't do for anyone to realize that Lance Bass was appearing in public wearing women's clothing, after all.

*

Justin hated the computer -- it never did what he told it to do -- but after the usual struggle it coughed up a few web pages that kept him occupied for most of the afternoon. He emerged from it a few hours later quietly thanking the internet, because there were some things that you just couldn't risk walking into a store and buying a book on.

The websites were confusing, and sometimes contradictory, but the one thing they all emphasized was the importance of being supportive. Justin could get behind that, really. He was more than a little confused, and he couldn't imagine why Lance hadn't come to all of them, but hell, if it was there, Justin was just going to have to deal with it.

So: address the individual by their chosen set of pronouns, treat them exactly the same way as before, and let them know that you respect their decisions and take them seriously. Justin could do that. Really, the whole question brought up so many other questions that he didn't even know where to start, but supportive -- that, he could handle. They'd deal with the rest of it when it came up.

Lance's voice didn't sound any different when he answered the phone. "Justin, hey, I was gonna call you tomorrow or something. That dinner thing we were talking about for next Friday? I'm going to have to bail, something's come up."

"It's okay," Justin said. "I kind of, um, wanted to talk to you, though."

"Sure." Justin could hear voices behind Lance, one high, one lower. "Hang on a second." Lance covered the phone with a hand, Justin imagined, and his low rumble grew indistinct for a moment, then returned. "Lemme just get on into the other room. Jesse and Wendy say hi, by the way."

"Hi," Justin said automatically, and waited for Lance to tell him to continue.

"Anyway. Okay, I'm in the other bedroom now. What's up?"

Justin had rehearsed the speech for what felt like five or six hundred times in his head it before calling, but it still sounded weak. "I, um, just wanted to say. I know what you're going through. Okay, that's a stupid thing to say, because I really don't know what you're going through, not at all, but I wanted to say, I mean, I love you no matter what, okay? And I wanted you to know that no matter what's going on in your life, you can feel comfortable coming to me to talk about things, if there's something you want to talk about, because, you know, nothing's going to make me love you any less --"

"Justin." Lance was laughing at him, the fucker. "Okay, fine, you found out my secret shame." Lance's voice dropped to a hush. "I'm ... gay, Justin."

"What? No, I don't mean -- I mean, that's not it. I know that, fuckhead." It eased the tension just a little. "I mean, I'm -- I'm comfortable with whatever choices you make about, you know, your identity and stuff. I know that this must be a rough time for you, trying to figure out --"

"Oh, Jesus," Lance said. "You saw the pictures, didn't you."

Lance didn't sound ashamed, more like "amused and mildly exasperated." Justin frowned. "Yeah. It wasn't -- Joey didn't say anything, he didn't break your trust or anything, but I saw the pictures and I recognized --"

Justin wished that Lance would let him get a single sentence out without interrupting. "Chill, man. You really have to get over this habit of jumping to conclusions with both feet; I'm not planning the transition or anything. Though I have to say, that's a pretty good Supportive Friend speech you've got going on there."

"Oh," Justin said, feeling lame. "Then what --" This time he stopped himself, because he couldn't think of any graceful way to phrase it.

He could almost hear Lance shrugging. "Bet with Wendy. I lost. I've got another three weeks to go on it, unless she lets me off the hook early. Joey was keeping me company so I didn't get into trouble I couldn't handle. Well, that and I think he's saving up blackmail material. Anyway, no, you're not going to have to find yourself another bass. Is that what you wanted to talk about?"

"Yeah." Justin was still trying to pull his thoughts together. He was having difficulty figuring out what to think. "Um, what kind of bet?"

"A gentleman never tells a lady's secrets," Lance said. "Anyway, I gotta get back out there before they decide to burn down my kitchen or something, anything else you wanted to ask?"

"What? Oh. Um, no. You said you have to cancel for next Friday?"

"Yeah, I'm not allowed out of the house unless I'm being Libby. Reschedule, or something?"

"Sure." There was a pause. Justin tried to figure out what else he could say.

Lance saved him. "I do appreciate it, though. You know. The support. Even if it isn't necessary."

"Yeah," Justin said. "I, uh, anytime."

When he hung up the phone, the picture was still sitting there. Justin splayed his fingers out over Lance's -- Libby's -- wig, and tried to figure out why it was bugging him so much.

*

He should have been able to let it go. It was just a bet; they'd all done stupid things on bets or dares over the years, most of which would make a comfortable footnote on their Behind the Music special in another ten years or so, or whenever the statute of limitations had expired. It kept nagging at him, though, and two days later he picked up the phone.

"I have no idea what the goat was doing wearing that lace teddy, Your Honor," Joey said when he answered.

It made Justin laugh, and they traded insults for a few minutes before Justin cleared his throat. "So, uh, what do you know about this bet of Lance's?"

"I know you just won me ten bucks by asking about it again," Joey said, smugly.

"Fucker. Do you know -- Is it really just the bet? Or do you think that it's, like, something that he hasn't been telling us for a while?"

"I think I can safely say the thought of dressing up as a girl, video shoots notwithstanding, has never really crossed Lance's mind," Joey said. "Now, JC, on the other hand, he already does dress up like a girl, it's just not different enough from his usual getup that anyone notices."

"Dammit, Joey, I'm trying to be serious here," Justin said. "I'm just, I don't know. He seems to be too good at it for it to be just, you know, a passing thing."

Joey laughed. "Oh, you should see her. She's a fucking knockout. She's got the walk, she's got the hands, she's even got the hips. If I didn't know better, I'd swear she was -- anyway. Just chill out about it, okay? It's really not as much of a big deal as you're making about it."

Justin knew that; he didn't know why he was making a big deal out of it. He only knew that he kept turning back to the picture, looking at Libby's hands, her mouth, her smile. "Do you know what was up with the bet? I mean, like, what they were betting about?"

"Yup," Joey said. Justin waited for a minute, and then sighed.

"Okay, okay, I'll bite. What were they betting about?"

He could hear Joey grinning. "That's something you've gotta ask Lance."

"I did ask him. He said that he wouldn't tell me." Justin scowled.

"Then he doesn't want you to know about it. Come on, J, just let it die."

"I guess," Justin said. "I'll talk to you later."

He wandered around the house for the rest of the day, called Cameron just after dinner -- she was busy this week -- and then noodled around in the studio for a while. He bowed to the inevitable once he surfaced and called Chris. It would be late there, but he knew Chris would be awake.

Caller ID meant none of them ever bothered with the first few lines of a conversation, so he wasn't really much surprised when Chris answered with "If this is going to be about your complete inability to cope with anything that isn't part of your usual worldview, can we reschedule for tomorrow or something? There's a Trading Spaces marathon on, and I haven't seen the next one."

No such thing as a secret. "They have this thing, you know. Called a VCR. It lets you record your shows and watch them any time you want."

"My TiVo refuses to record HGTV for me. It keeps recording John Wayne movies and football games instead. I think it's trying to butch me up. Seriously, is this about Lance's latest little hobby? 'Cause if it isn't, can you at least say that it is so that I can collect the ten bucks?"

Justin flopped back on his couch. "Why is everyone making money off of me?"

"Because we know you, baby boy, and you only profit from the ones you love, or some Hallmark shit like that. What particular neurosis am I catering to this time?"

"You're lucky I love you," Justin said, feeling put-upon.

Chris got serious. It didn't happen often, but when it did, it was usually worth paying attention to. "Seriously, J, Joey said that you're pretty freaked out by stuff. Why's it bugging you so much?"

"I don't know," Justin said.

"Not good enough," Chris said. "You know, you just don't want to say anything. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you're so messed out by this because you're looking at that picture and thinking that you find him hot when he's a girl, and that's fucking with your former straight-boy groove."

Justin hated it when Chris did that. "Dammit, can you at least pretend like you're not reading my mind or something? Anyway, it's not that. It's just -- it doesn't fit into my idea of Lance. I mean, he's always seemed so -- normal."

Chris apparently found something about that statement funny, because it was a good minute and a half before he could stop laughing enough to continue the conversation. "We are talking about the same Lance, right? Queerer than football bats? Gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide?"

"Shut up," Justin said. Maybe it had been a mistake to call Chris. "I don't mean like that, I mean -- just in other stuff. He's not the type to suddenly start cross-dressing or anything like that."

"I do believe," Chris said, loftily, "that we are dealing with a classic case of transference here."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, and let's face the sad but compelling truth here, you're so vanilla that it hurts, and you've somehow talked yourself into thinking Lance is just as vanilla as you are, and now you're figuring out that he's not. I hate to tell you, J, but Lance? Our little pretty baby Lance? Grew up to be one kinky motherfucker. I think JC and I let him listen in one too many times on our late-night dick-waving. Metaphorical dick-waving. You know what I mean."

Justin closed his eyes and tried to remind himself that he loved Chris, really he did, and if he flew down to Florida and strangled Chris, there would be unpleasant conversations with police officers and lots of bad press. Also, prison orange, really not his color. "So you're trying to tell me that this is some kind of kinky sex thing, and nobody's telling me anything because they think I can't handle it."

"Yup," Chris said cheerfully. "Well, except for the kinky sex thing, because I don't think that has anything to do with it, but you know, I just don't ask. It's safer that way, and I don't have to get the mental pictures involved."

It kind of pissed Justin off. "I'm not some kind of little kid that you can't talk about sex in front of, Chris."

"Nope. But you are the kind of guy who thinks that a little bit of light spanking and some furry handcuffs are the height of kinky sex practices, and you've always thought of Lance as a good little boy, and I don't think any of us want to be responsible for warping your fragile worldview. I mean, C and I can talk about riding crops and fisting and rimming all we want --"

"Please," Justin said. "What was that about not needing the mental pictures?"

"-- and that's what I'm talking about, you'll get all uptight about it but you won't actually get weird about it, you expect us to be freaks. But you think Lance is a nice boy, and I don't think he wants to be the one to disillusion you."

"I'm not some kind of sheltered virgin," Justin said. "I'm not -- You're talking like I'm some kind of, I don't know, prude or something."

"If the shoe fits," Chris said, and blew a kiss at the phone before hanging up on him.

The fucker. Justin looked at the phone in his hand, and then threw it across the room on the off chance it would make him feel better. It didn't. He wasn't like that; he wasn't. He was a healthy young man with a healthy and well-adjusted sex life, dammit, and it wasn't like he couldn't cope with finding out one of his best friends was a little less normal than he'd thought. Joey and Chris were talking like there was something more than a little bit of costume work involved, and Justin by God was not going to take "just forget about it" as an answer. Not when they were making this much of a big deal about it.

He got up and picked up the phone from where it had fallen, because he always did feel kind of guilty the minute after he did something that catered to the diva stereotypes, and tossed it lightly in his hand. His first thought was to call JC, because if Chris and Joey knew something, JC probably knew it too, and JC was easier to worm things out of, especially if he was sleepy or stoned; he tended to start talking and just not stop. But Justin had the nagging feeling that if he called JC, JC would laugh at him, and Justin would be damned if he was the butt of anyone else's jokes.

He went to bed. He most emphatically did not think of Libby while he was jerking off.

*

"If you tell me that you just won ten bucks, I'm going to drive over there and fucking smack you silly," Justin started off.

He could hear JC's smile through the phone. "Hey, baby. Promises, promises. You keep saying that, and you never follow through. What's up?"

At least JC was nice enough to pretend that he didn't know what Justin was calling about. Then again, maybe JC just didn't know what Justin was calling about. JC was on a creative kick this week, and it was entirely possible that he hadn't lifted his head out of the studio in days. "You know about this bet thing Lance is paying off now?"

"Oh, yeah, the thing with him and Wendy where they were arguing about which one of them was better in bed? Man, I would have loved to have been Jesse for that."

Trust JC to -- Justin stopped and blinked. "They what?"

"Oh, you didn't know? Man, Lance was sulking about it for, like, days. Said something about him being a guy too and he should damn well have been able to get Jesse off more times than Wendy could. You know how he gets when he goes all competitive. Why'd you want to talk about it?" JC was acting the most casual thing in the world, as though it were every day that he sat around talking about weird bets involving sexual gratification. Actually, it was possible he did. JC lived in an entirely different world, sometimes.

Justin sat down and tried to piece things together. "I, uh. Just a little curious about things. I mean -- Lance is, like, really gay. Really really gay."

"Well, yeah." JC sounded puzzled. "And?"

"But he's sleeping with Wendy?"

"And Jesse, yeah. Really, dude, it's just sex, why are you so --"

"If you ask me," Justin said, neat and precise, "why I am so freaked out, I am going to call you every nasty name I can think of. And I know a lot of nasty names."

JC laughed. "Okay, okay. But seriously. He's sleeping with Jesse, he's sleeping with Wendy, why's it a big deal? I mean, you saw the pictures of them at that benefit thing, I thought you knew."

Justin sighed. "Everyone seems to think that I'm not capable of handling it, or something."

"Dude, it's not that," JC said. "It's just that nobody wants to upset you. And, like, it's really not something you really need to know about. Like, it's not something that changes anything about who Lance is or anything. It's just a bunch of good friends having a good time. I think it's cool, you know? That they can be so chill about it."

"I'm having a little trouble processing this thought," Justin admitted, because he knew that JC wouldn't laugh at him.

"You should talk to Lance about it," JC said. "Really. I mean, if you go in telling him that you don't get it but you want to understand, he'll be totally cool about things. And that way you can get it, and you can stop worrying about it, and then you can go back to being all cool with things again."

When JC said it, it sounded so simple. It wasn't that JC wasn't a complicated person; it was just that JC's complications were in all the places you wouldn't usually think to look for them. "You think it'll be that easy?" Justin asked.

"Totally," JC assured him. "And anyway, it'd win me ten bucks."

"I can bite your face."

JC laughed. "I promise I'll split it with you."

*

Lance was wearing a bathrobe when he opened the door, and he blinked at Justin with eyes that were a much deeper shade of green than they should have been. "They have this thing. It's called a telephone. You can talk to someone without actually coming over to see them, you know."

"Shut up," Justin said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I just thought, you know, I haven't seen you in a while. Thought I'd drop in."

Lance shrugged. "Sure, if you don't mind me getting ready. Wendy knows this place out in West Hollywood that she's been wanting to try for a while; they do Weimar Berlin on Friday nights. C'mon in." He held the door open for Justin, and then started down the hall and back to his bedroom.

Justin trailed along behind him, feeling a little bit like a lost puppy. "Yeah, uh, how are you guys doing? I mean --"

Lance laughed. "Diplomatic. Finally figured it out, huh?"

Justin couldn't stop watching Lance's hips as he walked. There was a little bit more of a sway to them, a little bit more of a slink. It was as though Lance had learned how to walk in one straight line, with his feet neatly arranged for the maximum swing, as though Lance had gotten used to high heels even though he was barefoot. Like Lance knew that Justin was behind him, watching.

Like Lance had learned how to walk like a girl.

"I, uh, yeah," Justin said, after a pause that was a little too long for him to have just been waiting to see if Lance was done talking. "I mean, it's cool. I just didn't know."

"I know," Lance said. "You're dying to ask, though, aren't you."

"A little," Justin said.

"Well, park your butt on the bed and ask away. I've gotta get dressed before Jesse gets here. Takes fucking forever, I don't know how girls do it." Lance dropped the bathrobe as he headed over to his walk-in closet. There wasn't anything on underneath it.

Justin's breath caught in his throat, and he tried very hard not to look at the curve of pale skin just underneath Lance's ass. To keep himself from trying to peek into the closet, he knotted his fingers together and stared down at them. "I just thought you were with Jesse, is all. Didn't know that you were back to girls."

Justin caught a flash of Lance's hair as he bent over in the closet. "I'm not," Lance called back. "In case you don't remember, I am still gay. Current location notwithstanding. It's just Wendy, you know? Still don't remember quite how it started. I think it involved rum."

"Oh," Justin said. "Are you two -- three -- I mean, is it a regular kind of thing?"

Lance stuck his head out of the closet. His hair was rumpled; it looked almost cute. "When we get the chance, yeah. Toss me the gaff tape on the nightstand, will ya?"

Justin picked up the roll of black electrical tape and turned it over in his hands, then pitched it at Lance. "Do I want to know what you're going to do with it?"

"Safest not to ask." Lance disappeared back into the closet. There was a minute of indistinct noise, and then Lance's low vicious cursing. "I am never going to bitch about any stage costume we ever have to wear, ever again, in my entire life."

Justin winced and tried not to think about what was going on. "So, uh," he said. "You lost a bet with Wendy, and now you have to dress up like a girl for a month?"

"Only in public, yeah. We were all a little bit drunk and talking smack about boys versus girls, and I made the mistake of saying that boys were better at getting boys off than girls are, and Jesse agreed with me, and Wendy said that we just hadn't been sleeping with the right girls. It kind of went downhill from there. I still think it was a rigged game; she got to go first and a day isn't anywhere near enough recovery time after what she put poor Jesse through." Lance snorted. "Well, poor Jesse my left foot, but you know what I mean."

"I guess," Justin said. "What were you going to make her do if she lost?"

The roll of tape came flying directly at Justin's head. He grabbed it, automatically, and then let it fall onto the bed when he thought about what Lance might have done with it. Lance laughed. "It involved a French maid costume and our next business meeting. I'll get her with it at some point, don't you worry."

Maybe Chris was right about Lance having spent too much time with him and JC. Justin thought that all he really wanted out of his life sometimes -- and was it too much to ask, really? -- was a little bit of normal. "So, like, you're actually trying to pass?"

"If I'm going to be a woman, I'm going to be the best damn woman I possibly can be," Lance said. "And besides, nobody particularly wants the reporters to catch wind of this, so it's to my own benefit to do a good job. Plus, it's kind of fun to fuck with everyone's heads like that. And man, you would not believe how nice it is to suddenly be anonymous again for the first time in years." He stepped out of the closet, adjusting one corset strap -- corset strap, Lance was wearing a corset and garters and a set of matching panties, fire-engine red and edged with some kind of lace that looked like it must have been scratchy as hell, and dear God he rounded out the corset like he'd been born to be a 36C -- and held out his arms for inspection. "Am I even?"

Justin suddenly couldn't swallow. There was a vaccuum in his mouth sucking up all the moisture, and all he could think was Jesus Christ. "A little, uh. High on the left. I think."

Lance looked down and inspected his tits -- Lance had cleavage; Justin wondered what he'd done to get it, because they were round and perky and seemed to flow perfectly against his skin. "Fuck, I can never get them right." He reached into one cup and tugged a little, then shook his head. "Wendy'll fix it for me later. She says she's got practice."

Justin couldn't tear his eyes off Lance. "Doesn't that, uh, hurt?"

Lance glanced down to where Justin's eyes were fixed. "Not as much as you'd think, all you gotta do is know how to tuck." He crossed the room and headed for the dresser, where he took out (oh God) a bundle that proved to be two lacy black-fishnet stockings, and sat down on the chair to begin rolling them up his legs.

Justin started thinking maybe he was dreaming; maybe this was one of those dreams where the next thing he knew he'd be on stage naked in front of millions of screaming fourteen-year-olds. Lance's legs were smooth, and his chest was bare, and Justin didn't want to think about how he'd explained that to whomever was doing the waxing at the salon. He wet his lips and tried to remember how to breathe. "Don't girls hate that kind of fancy underwear?" He couldn't stop staring.

Lance stood up and tugged the stockings up the last inch, clipping them to the garters of his panties, slow and deliberate and graceful. He picked his head up just a fraction, looking up at Justin from underneath delicate eyelashes, and Justin saw the glint in those artificially-bright-green eyes for just a second before it disappeared again. "This one doesn't," he said, his voice smoky and deep.

Justin wondered what that noise was, and then he realized it was him, a little tiny gasping whimper right in the back of his throat. Lance's lips twitched, and then he was moving across the room again. "Have you seen my dress yet?" Lance said, right back to casual.

The fucker, the absolute fucker, Justin was going to smother him in his sleep. "No," he managed.

It was hanging on the back of the closet door. Lance slid the black fabric off the hanger and unzipped it, then lifted his arms and let it fall around his arms, his shoulders, his waist. It plunged down in a V-neck to just above the cleavage, hinting at what was beneath without revealing any of it, and ended a scant half-inch above the lace and elastic tops of the stockings. Tight around the waist and around the hips. There was something in the cut of the fabric that spoke of the lines of a tuxedo vest, of cummerbund and jacket, such a subtle hint that it didn't even begin to approach parody.

Lance tugged down the long sleeves and ran his hands along his sides to smooth out the wrinkles, then frowned and studied himself in the mirror. "I don't know," he said. "Do you think it's slinky enough?"

Justin closed his eyes and prayed for strength. "I think it looks fine," he said. His voice sounded distant in his own ears.

"Will you zip me up?" Lance crossed the floor and turned around, presenting his back to Justin. "I don't have the missing joint in my shoulders that lets me do it myself."

Lance's tattoo stared Justin in the face as he got off the bed and fumbled for the zipper with fingers that felt like they belonged to someone else. The dress ended just above the ink, and Justin's fingers itched to stroke it, to see if that spot felt as soft as it looked. "I think that's it," he started to say, but Lance stepped away from him and turned before he could find the words.

"I suppose those hands are more used to pulling zippers the other way," Lance said. He tilted his head just a little, tugged down the hemline of the dress, and suddenly Justin wasn't looking at Lance at all.

Justin could feel the first faint stirrings in his dick as Libby glided across the room and into the bathroom. Justin could see him -- her -- him, dammit -- reflected in the mirror, leaning over and frowning at a spot on his skin, then picking up the bottle of foundation to apply it with a practiced hand that, Justin suddenly realized, had half-inch fingernails painted a delicate lavender. No, he told himself, you are not going to sit here and think --

"It took me forever to be able to do this right," Libby said. Her -- his -- voice was slow, almost meditative. Justin closed his eyes and wondered why he was here, why he was watching, why he was doing this to himself, and when he opened his eyes Libby was carefully outlining her eyes in black. "You don't think of it, you know? How much time it really takes. Women make it look so easy, like it's a part of them just like breathing. I never realized how much effort it takes to look beautiful."

Justin should get up off the bed, make his excuses, and walk right out the door. It was the only sane thing to do in a world that suddenly had nothing to do with sanity. Libby set the eyeliner pencil back down on the counter and dusted a faint hint of dark brown eyeshadow over her eyelids, then picked up the lipstick. Of course it was bright carmine. It couldn't have been any other color. Justin thought he could count every one of his heartbeats in his ears.

If Justin closed his eyes, it was Lance talking to him. Just Lance, not this -- whoever he was seeing, whoever he was feeling, straight from the insides of his eyeballs all the way down to the slow twitching just behind his balls. If he closed his eyes, it was any one of a hundred hotel rooms, with a restaurant or a club waiting for them, and Lance was in the bathroom running a hand through his hair and making sure his smile was white and brilliant before facing the cameras.

Justin watched Libby paint a faint blush across her cheekbones, staining them scarlet, shaping her face until she looked like nothing familiar. She left the brush on the counter, carelessly discarded, and picked up a tiny bottle, applying it behind her ears, at her throat, on the insides of her wrists. She stopped to study herself in the mirror, then leaned in and rubbed lightly at the corner of one eye, smudging her eyeliner a touch more. Justin caught a flash of cleavage as the dress fell slightly open at her chest, one long smooth line that descended into a dark valley between her breasts. He dug his fingernails into his thighs, feeling the rasp of denim underneath his fingertips, and it didn't help at all.

"Are you all right, Justin?" Lance's voice, Libby's lips, shaped and rounded and red like the blood pounding just under Justin's skin. "You're looking a little pale."

"Fine," Justin gritted out, breathlessly.

"Are you sure? You might not be getting enough sleep."

Fucker, the fucker, it was deliberate, all of this was fucking deliberate, and Justin really was going to get up and leave any second, really he was. Libby lifted the wig from the stand on the counter with careful hands, and Justin tightened his fingers as she fit it against her scalp and straightened it until the already-styled curls spilled down over her shoulders. Justin knew that it was Lance, under there somewhere, smirking out at him in that way that Lance had without smirking at all, and it didn't fucking matter.

Libby tugged the hem of the dress down in an unconscious motion and crossed the room again. Justin shifted his weight on the bed, thinking of baseball statistics, thinking of snowmen and skiing, of as many unpleasant things as he could bring to mind. His dick didn't listen to him. He was nearly completely hard, feeling the constraint of his jeans, feeling the way that everything seemed to be centered right between his thighs and straining. She -- he, he, dammit, don't let your eyes fool you, you know better -- sat back down on the chair and bent over, and oh, there was that hint of cleavage again, as she slid a pair of black leather knee-high boots with what had to be a three-inch heel out from under the chair and slipped her feet into them.

The perfume teased faintly at Justin's nose. Something dark and full of resin, no hints of flowers or chemicals at all. It made him dizzy. Dizzier.

"All ready," Libby murmurred, and the sheer cognitive dissonance of that voice deep and purring from those ruby lips made Justin's head swim. She stood, balancing effortlessly on the heels, and turned to the box on top of the dresser. "Except for one last touch."

The choker she fished out of the jewelry box was a thick black ribbon, two inches wide or more, designed to fit snugly against her throat. She came to stand next to Justin with the ribbon dangling from her fingertips. "Will you do it up for me?"

Justin closed his eyes for half a second, took a deep breath, and took the choker from her. She turned around and lifted her hair off the back of her neck, presenting that long column for his inspection. The silk of the ribbon caught on the rough spots of Justin's fingers as he slid his arms through the gap between her arms and her neck, fitting the choker in place, desperately trying not to touch her any more than he absolutely had to. Trying not to give any more away than he already had.

She let her hair down once Justin had wrestled the tiny catch into place. Justin sank back down on the bed, watching her curves, watching her ass. She took two steps and then turned around, spreading her arms wide, presenting herself for inspection. "Will I do?"

"You know damn well you will," Justin rasped.

That smile was oh, so familiar, that devilish mischief, but it was carried on lips the color of garnets and reflected in eyes that were shades darker than they should have been. "Do you think I'm sexy?"

"You know fucking well that I do."

"Didn't your momma ever teach you," Libby purred, "to watch your mouth in front of a lady?"

Justin couldn't tear his eyes away from her. "Dammit, Lance, I don't know what kind of fucking kinky game you're playing, but I don't want any part of it."

"Oh, I think you do." Libby lifted one hand to her throat and stroked the collar, settling it a little more snugly into place, then let her fingers trail down her collarbone. "I think you want to touch me. Touch her. I think you want to see what I taste like."

A thousand nights on the road with Lance and not once, never once, had Justin ever wondered. "I'm straight." It rang of desperation even to himself.

"Baby," Libby said, "it doesn't much matter."

She stood in front of him, and one of her hands reached out, as though she were going to cup his cheek in her palm and stroke his face. Justin could feel the heat from her skin as she stopped, not close enough to touch, not far enough away to be anywhere approaching comfortable. "No," Libby said, thoughtfully. "If I touch you, you'll convince yourself that it was my fault." She stepped back again. "Touch yourself, Justin."

It sliced through him like a sword. "Lance --"

"Libby," she said. "Touch yourself, Justin. I want to see you squirm for me. I know I'm making you hard."

She was, he was, and Justin could feel it all the way down to the backs of his knees. He couldn't breathe; it was like everything had trickled down into the center of his stomach, pooled in his dick and left nothing else for him to cling to. He lifted one hand, intending to use it to push himself off the bed, to walk out the door and not look back, and without him telling it to, his palm scrubbed roughly over the line of his cock beneath his jeans.

"Yeah," Libby breathed, her eyes half-slitted shut, watching. "Like that. Just the way you do it when you're at home and nobody's watching. Touch yourself for me. I want to see you come."

That voice, that voice, deep and rough and velvet, like the way Justin's hands had caught on the silk of the ribbon. Justin raked his eyes over her curves and thought, clearly, this is crazy. His hand moved again. He couldn't stop the whimper, high and tight, from escaping.

"Feels good when you touch yourself," Libby said. "You can feel it go right through you. Right down deep. It's tight in there, baby, isn't it? Nowhere near enough room for you. Open up your jeans. I wanna see you. I wanna see how hard I make you."

Justin felt like he was sleepwalking. The jeans were old and well-worn and all it took was a flick of his thumb to set the button free. The rasp of the zipper sounded between them, loud as a fucking fire alarm, and then the breeze kissed his skin and he was almost coming right there just from the feel of it.

"God, baby, so fucking beautiful." There was a quick flash of tongue as Libby wet her lips, and Justin couldn't stop looking at them, wondering what they would feel like. "Your hands. I love the way they look against your cock. Touch yourself like you'd want me to touch you."

Justin couldn't have said anything if he wanted to. It felt like there was someone else inside his skin, someone else making him move and shift and turn. The head of his cock was damp, and he palmed himself, slowly, working his fingers along his head and down his shaft.

Libby's eyes, bright emerald, followed every flicker of his fingers, every twist of his wrist. It was another performance entirely, one he'd never dreamed of making, never thought he'd ever step on stage for. He couldn't take his eyes off her lips, her breasts, her curves. He caught the movement of his biceps, his arms, just out of the corner of his eyes, and it made his own hand feel like someone else's, touching him, stroking him.

If it weren't for the voice, he could have believed the illusion standing in front of him, but the voice was Lance's, and it wouldn't let him go. "Fuck. Fuck, you're so pretty. Touch yourself, just like that. Wrap your hand around your dick and rub. You can feel it, I know you can feel it. All the way up inside of you like it's all on fire. Yeah, that's it. Faster. Harder. If you could only see how amazing you look, baby. Just like that. I wanna see you come for me."

Justin's breath was coming harsh and hot in his ears, and his hips rose against his hand with each stroke. He couldn't have stopped if the world ended, if the house burned down; he could feel it rising in his blood like an earthquake. He set the pace with the rhythms of Libby's -- Lance's -- words, the rise, the fall, the intonations that crept into his ears and went straight down into the tension that was knotting underneath his hand. Libby, watching him, licking her lips, raking her eyes down to where Justin's hand was moving, standing still and calm and demanding with those eyes; demanding more, demanding that Justin give.

"Yeah," Libby said. A flash of pale skin, one thigh, above her stocking. She was breathing hard too, watching, waiting. "Just what you want, just what you need. Give it to me, baby. Don't hold it back, don't pretend. Your body can't lie to me. Come on, baby. More. Come for me, baby, come for me, come for me."

It shouldn't have been that good, it shouldn't feel like that; Justin shouldn't have been listening to that voice and pulling out all of the tricks and twists that he'd learned over the years. All the things he had to do to himself when he was alone and only had a few minutes before someone came to find him and he couldn't let them walk in on him, not like this, not and let anyone else see him, because no matter how healthy and well-adjusted he was there was always that part of him saying secret, it's a secret, can't let anyone know, not the guys, not Lance, not this girl. It shouldn't have left him breathless and aching and hard, shouldn't have left him weak in the knees and the elbows, shouldn't have left him feeling so stripped bare and naked and needy. Justin twisted his hand and rubbed his thumb against the base of the head and yes, that was it, so close, almost there --

And then Libby did something, just one tiny shift of his shoulders or his hips or something, and Justin wasn't looking at Libby at all but at Lance, watching him with hot and heavy eyes, knowing and wanting and waiting. "Come for me," Lance said again.

Justin did. Riding it like a wave, feeling it explode back behind his eyes and through his veins, spilling out over his hand and through his fingers, like a sour rush of white-hot energy being drawn out of him. He might have cried out; he couldn't tell.

It left him weak-kneed, breathless, ragged and aching and empty, damp with sweat and come. There was silence for a minute, and then Lance grinned, grinned, the bastard, and reached inside the bra of his corset to pull out a tissue and hand it to Justin. "Here," he said. "So you don't have to move to get cleaned up."

Justin took the tissue with numb fingers. He breathed, sharply, through a mouth that was dry and dusty. Somewhere along the line he'd fallen down the rabbit-hole. The world had turned perpendicular to itself, and he hadn't noticed.

And then, with the sort of timing that sometimes made Justin think that the universe really did have it out for him personally, he heard the front door slam open. His heart leapt into his throat, but there were no footsteps on the stairs, only Jesse's voice hollering, "Hey, Slipstick, get your ass down here. We're gonna be late."

"Just a minute," Lance called, and now it wasn't Lance's voice at all but Libby's higher tones, throaty and soft and gentle. "I'll be right down."

He turned back to Justin. Justin thought he should say something, he should do something, anything to try and get back some shred of control over the situation. "Hand me your wallet," Lance said.

Justin blinked. "What?" he managed.

Lance chuckled lightly and took a step forward, which brought him right back into Justin's personal space. He slid his hand nimbly into Justin's back pocket and pulled out Justin's wallet. Justin felt as though he were frozen in place, like a deer in the headlights just waiting for the car to crash into him, but all Lance did was say "Ante up," and extract a ten dollar bill and tuck it into his bra. He tossed Justin's wallet back on the bed and bent over to kiss Justin lightly on the cheek. It burned like the sting of tattoo needles underneath his skin.

Down the rabbit-hole, and we're all mad here. Justin found his voice just as Lance was gliding across the floor on those ridiculously high heels. "Lance."

Lance stopped and turned his head. "Libby," he corrected.

Justin closed his eyes. "Libby. What -- what the fuck?"

The very edges of a tiny smile rounded Lance's lips. "Just seeing whether or not Wendy was right," he said, and picked up the tiny black purse hanging on the inside of the doorknob. "Call me tomorrow. We'll figure out when we're going to reschedule dinner."

Lance was humming as he made his way down the stairs. Justin didn't know the song, but oh, he knew the note of satisfaction in the sound.

*

There was another photo of Libby in the next week's press packet, sitting at a restaurant table with JC and laughing that knockout laugh. Justin sighed, mentally kissed another ten bucks goodbye, and picked up the phone.

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