The invitations for Lance’s bachelor party came on cream paper with gold leaf inlay addressed to four people in different parts of the world.
They instructed the recipients to arrive in London on the given date and check into a particularly well-known hotel on the West End. The flights were pre-booked, schedules had been surreptitiously cleared through publicists, managers, and agents. Everything was in place for four days of unfettered privacy and solitude for five people who hadn’t seen each other in the same place at the same time for at least three years.
That’s why everyone said yes, without question: Lance was getting married. And they all knew that when Lance decided to get married, it was for good. And for good meant the end of something decades-long.
*
The suite was sumptuous, fitting for the occasion. One big central area with four adjoining rooms, all the conveniences and luxury money could buy. Lance, who had always been very good with his money anyway, had taken his fledgling production company and run with it, making quality kids’ entertainment that was a hit with both parents and their children. It had netted him a quiet fortune, and kept him on the red carpet lists.
Joey arrived first, coming through the door and dropping his bag on the floor with a loud noise reverberating through the foyer. He’d been through most of the wedding preparations with Lance anyway, and this was just one more step in his role as best man. “Lance!” he hollered, eyes flicking over the layout of the suite, “you better have the beer cold!”
Lance came around the corner, barefoot in a green t-shirt, smiling. He held out an already-popped bottle, condensation forming on the side. “I’ve got you covered, you know that.” They embraced for a long time, the beer soaking the fabric of their shirts.
“Can’t believe this is finally happening,” Joey mumbled into Lance’s neck.
“You’re telling me,” Lance laughed back, but it was the happiness radiating from him that really told just how momentous this whole thing was.
JC showed up next, eyes hidden behind sunglasses that got flicked away when he came through the door to two enthusiastic guys embracing him. “Jayce!” Joey said, grinning, “touring’s made you thin! What did I tell you about eating?”
JC rolled his eyes. “It’s way too difficult to find an Italian restaurant in every single town, Joe,” he said, hand lingering on Lance’s bicep. “And pasta plus dancing equals ow.”
Lance tugged him close again. “Thanks for coming.”
“Like I had anywhere else to be,” JC said softly.
Justin came next, quietly, face drawn from hours on the phone negotiating with lawyers and publicists, and a baseball hat proclaiming his support for the Chicago Cubs hiding his face from the paparazzi.
“Hey guys,” he said, a tired note in his voice. The guys got up from the living room where they had been talking to welcome him and hug him, a little extra-long.
“Man, talk about needing to eat,” JC said with a hint of worry.
Justin shrugged it off. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, tossing his hat on the counter. “She just wants to talk everything out, like this is a business arrangement, and it’s tiring. I almost wish we were fighting instead of ‘parting amicably.’ At least I wouldn’t have to hear from her every damn day about every single thing we owned.”
“She just–doesn’t understand,” Joey said, crossing his arms.
Justin looked at him, a ghost of a smile on his face. “You’re telling me.”
Lance said, “Come into the kitchen, there’s takeaway. Chris’ll be here soon.”
JC poked at him. “You’re starting to sound like your fiance!”
Lance couldn’t help but smile. “He rubs off on me.”
“Ha!” Joey said. “In more ways than one.”
“Very funny, Fatone. Now go eat some pad thai.”
When Chris arrived, everyone knew it because he came crashing through the door, something went flying and broke, and somehow the stereo was turned on to the heavy metal radio station.
“Hi Chris!” the four of them bellowed from the kitchen.
Chris went striding towards them, planted his feet, and put his hands on his hips in a move that said he’d seen one too many episodes of Batman and Robin in syndication as a kid. “I have arrived,” he intoned. “We may now commence with the fucking.”
JC snorted. “So Chris wills it, so must it be done.”
“You’re damn right, bitch,” Chris said, swiping a bite of Thai food from Justin’s fork. “It’s not a party unless it’s a Kirkpatrick party.”
“Dude, I think we used that line back in ’97 in Hamburg,” Joey pointed out.
“That just means I was a prescient fucking superstar,” Chris said.
Lance rolled his eyes. “So, hey, bachelor party.”
Justin squinted at him. “You’re not going to pretend you’re the stripper type, are you? Because we all know that’s patently untrue.”
“I tried to get him strippers,” Chris complained. “He cancelled them before I even booked them!”
“Who’s the prescient one now?” Lance said smugly.
They settled around the kitchen table, bickering and re-learning each other, falling into their old patterns like they never went away. They never really did, instead stretching and growing and accommodating distance and time apart; but it was comforting to them that the bonds they had shared were still there. Nothing had changed, not really. Not them.
They toasted to Lance, to Lance’s fiance, to ending marriages and re-starting careers. It was late into the evening when they finally stopped talking, stopped sharing everything they had banked up for weeks and months and years to tell each other, when the lull of companionship fell over them to the strains of Axl Rose bleating from the surround sound.
“So,” Chris’s voice had turned serious. “When are we going to get around to the fucking?”
Lance’s laughter was addictive, his smile half-hidden in the minimal light from the room. “Guys,” he said, “I just want you to know that this means a lot to me, that you’d come out here to see me and be with me one last time.”
Joey’s hand cupped his head, falling to rest on his shoulder. “Like the man said,” he murmured, “where else would he be?” When they kissed, it was filled with familiarity and softness, and the other guys shifted on the couches, watching, and getting comfortable.
JC and Justin had tangled themselves in their once-common pile of limbs, and it was as easy as breathing for them to move against each other and engage in a kiss. Chris pushed himself up from his chair and insinuated himself next to Lance and Joey, who happily accommodated him on the generous chaise.
When Lance pulled himself away from Chris’s mouth, his own face reddened from the scratch of Chris’s latest adventure in facial hair, he cleared his throat and said, “The best thing about this suite is the, uh, bed. Which is why I booked this hotel.”
He grinned, a little bashful, and Joey poked him playfully in the side. “Dude’s getting married, having an orgy, and has been with fucking Robbie Williams, who we all know is the kinkiest bastard of all time, and he still blushes at the mention of a bed,” Chris marvelled. “That’s kind of impressive.”
JC laughed, rolled his eyes, and pulled Justin up with him. “Shut up and move your ass, Kirkpatrick,” he said, pushing them towards the direction of the master suite.
“You know, some enclaves of our fans still refer to this ass as the Fine Kirkpatrick Ass,” Chris mused.
“Yeah, and some of our fans are still wearing braces,” Justin pointed out. “As I believe we have all learned, pop music fans never die. They just come back wearing new sparkles.”
Joey snorted. “He’s trying to get laid, *and* be profound,” he said. “Someone needs to kiss that boy before he breaks his brain thinking too hard.”
“I’m happy to oblige,” Chris said, stepping in and up to meet Justin’s lips.
Lance started shedding his clothes once they stepped through the door and went to lean back on the, as promised, huge bed. “I would really like to get fucked tonight,” he declared.
Joey, who’d been close to Lance all night anyway, sat next to him to pull off his shoes and said, “My pleasure,” with a smile.
“Me next,” said JC, who was helping Chris and Justin remove their clothes, though he was probably hindering them more than helping considering he kept stopping to kiss the exposed skin.
“Ooh, me too,” came Justin’s dreamy voice from somewhere in the vicinity of his sweater.
“Okay, Lance is getting gangbanged tonight!” Chris announced.
When they all looked over to check with him about this, they found that his eyes had glazed somewhat and that his dick, already interested in the proceedings, had definitely made its pleasure known.
“So I guess that’s a yes,” JC said.
Lance nodded fervently.
Joey leaned him back and began to touch him while Chris rifled around the room for supplies. “Top drawer of the dresser,” said Lance, who was distracted by JC licking at his nipples.
“Aye aye, captain,” Chris muttered, leaning back into Justin, who had come up behind him to rub his dick against Chris’s ass.
“Nice,” he said, “but make sure you save that for later. You’re not a half-cocked kid of sixteen any longer, you know.”
Justin snorted. “I can still outlast you, *and* get it up for more.”
Chris’s eyes flashed. “We both know you’ve been unavailable for round two since at least 2007.”
“Verifiable!” came JC’s voice.
It was almost worth it just to see the shadow of Justin’s former pout come out one more time.
Lance had his legs open and waiting for Chris’s hand, and Chris got straight to work, stretching him while the others kept him distracted.
“Just so you know,” Chris said, “I didn’t bother getting you a wedding present because I was pretty sure I was going to fuck you tonight, and really, the only thing you get the man who has everything, or who at least has the power to purchase a small island or two, is a group fuck with four of his closest friends.”
“Very thoughtful,” came Lance’s gasping voice.
“I thought so,” Chris said, eyes intent on the image of his fingers sliding in and out of Lance’s body. “Do you want more, or can you take it?” he said, trying to control the tenor of his voice, but it still caught on the words.
“Go for it,” Lance said from beneath the assault of Joey’s mouth.
Without further preamble, Chris lined himself up and slid in, pushing past that first tightening and right into Lance, tight and hot around him. “God,” he said, “I forgot what a good fuck you are.”
Lance’s legs tightened around him in response. Justin came next to him to lick at his ear while he moved in and out of Lance’s body, and it wasn’t long before he came, rubbing at Lance’s prostate with each short thrust he made, which made Lance clamp around him in return.
“Oh, fuck yes,” Chris gasped, pulling out slowly to let Lance feel it. He saw JC’s fist around Lance’s dick slowly moving up and down and said, “Careful, don’t want him to go off before the party’s over.”
“Please,” Lance ground out. “I’ve always been able to outlast both you and Justin and you both know it and hate me for it. Speaking of Justin,” he said pointedly.
Chris and Justin shared a smile as they traded placed. “Pretty demanding for someone on his back,” Justin observed.
“Well, we always knew he was a prissy bitch deep down inside,” Chris confirmed.
Justin ran his hands up Lance’s legs, pausing to ask, “Did you start waxing your legs? Seriously?”
Joey laughed against the side of Chris’s neck. “It was part of his pre-wedding regimen,” he said, choking on his words.
“Oh my god shut up and fuck me,” Lance said.
Justin rested the tip of his dick against Lance’s ass, pausing before pushing in. “I’m just saying, I have no idea how all your fangirls didn’t know you were gay,” he said, punctuating the last work with a full thrust in. Lance didn’t respond, unless “ungh” was a word.
JC had moved behind Lance to support his head and rub his own dick along Lance’s wet mouth, open in pleasure from Justin’s fucking. “I think that’s because most of his fangirls were already fag hags. They didn’t have to say anything they already knew,” he said, petting and Lance’s hair.
Joey paused from running his tongue around Lance’s bellybutton. “Yeah, I think that’s true,” he said. “The girls that always mobbed him were the ones towing along the gay guy that wanted to date him.”
“Shut. the hell. up.” Lance said, shoving himself back on Justin’s dick, which made him fall into his orgasm and push even deeper inside of Lance, which really only resulted in Lance become more insensate than before.
“Really, though,” Joey continued, “you have to give them credit. The scrawny country boy queers saw themselves in Lance. You can’t blame them for having an idol.”
“At least until Clay Aiken came along,” JC pointed out.
“I hate you all,” Lance said weakly as Justin pulled out.
“Me me me,” JC said happily, letting Chris move to support Lance’s head and trading a long kiss with Justin on his way there.
He didn’t waste any time, just slid in Lance’s already loose ass at his particularly favorite angle and started doing the corkscrewing motion that was kind of his signature.
Everyone else stopped to watch. JC fucking was a beautiful thing.
“F-f-fuck,” Lance said, his legs shaking where JC was holding them up.
“Thanks, honey,” JC said cheerfully with concentration in his voice. He didn’t make it last long; he could tell Lance was getting close. “Mmmm,” he said, “we really ought to have had more orgies.”
“Words to live by,” Chris said fervently.
“Amen,” said Justin.
Joey slid away from his position by Lance’s side, where he had been for most of the evening; JC took his place, pointedly ignoring Lance’s dick, which was hot, hard and thick, jutting out from his body.
“My turn,” Joey said softly, bending over Lance’s body to kiss him once, passionately, before sliding in easily and without resistance.
Joey went slow, making it last, and the others kissed and stroked Lance, keeping their hands off his dick; this late in the game, he would come on his own. They all knew each other’s sticking points, the little ways that would make them come quick and slow and everything in between. It was a shame that they didn’t do this more often. They couldn’t. They weren’t the same people anymore, the same people who had once relied on each other for everything.
They had changed, and it was something they mourned; but this was their way of getting it back, at least for a night, or for a weekend. Before they said goodbye again.
Joey pushed through once, twice, rubbing pointedly against Lance’s prostate, and with a noise deep and rumbly in his throat, Lance came. Justin jacked him through the orgasm, pulling more shakes from him while Joey hung on.
When they had finally subsided, and Lance went limp, Joey pulled back and braced himself against JC and thrust in and out of Lance in short, strong strokes. Lance helpfully tightened around him, and in short order Joey too came, pushing Lance back towards the headboard so he could rest against him. Everyone sorted themselves on the bed comfortably, hands still running over available skin and kisses exchanged leisurely.
“So,” Chris said. “What else are we doing this weekend?”