Joey was good at travel. In the early days of their European tours, when Justin and Lance were terrified of every meal that didn't come from a McDonald's, he had helped them negotiate the intricacies of foreign menus. The time when JC got the stomach flu in Barcelona, Joey found the all-night pharmacy and managed to decipher the Spanish terms for "oral" and "suppository".
In those early tours, Chris was still close enough to a hungry childhood that he seldom questioned the food that was placed in front of him, and he never got sick; however, his ebullience sometimes got him into trouble and Joey was accustomed to occasionally act as Chris' interpreter in social situations. The most exciting of these had been an encounter with some German skinheads, who had evidently taken offense to Chris' dreadlocks. Joey managed to talk them out of beating the shit out of both of them, even though the only English phrase they seemed to know was "fuck you". The few German words Joey knew he had gleaned in the service of picking up girls (picking up boys tended to be a more non-verbal experience, and he didn't think "nice cock" was going to help in this situation, anyway.) Hoping that he wasn't questioning anyone's masculinity, he tried creatively combining his limited vocabulary with frantically eloquent sign language. Evidently, he succeeded in communicating his goodwill so effectively that the skinheads ended up wanting to buy him and Chris a beer. Declining the offer without offending them was another adventure in cross-cultural communication.
"You're my hero, Joe," said Chris, looking up at him and batting his eyelashes, once they were in the clear.
"Will you please be careful, you fucker?" Joey said resignedly, knowing that it wasn't in Chris' nature to be careful. "What were you talking to them for, anyway?"
"I was trying to ask if they knew where that club is that girl at the hotel told us about," Chris said as he peered up and down the street. "Look, I'll bet that's it!" He raced off, with Joey trailing him. The place Chris had spotted ultimately turned out to be a transvestite S & M club, but Joey got them out alive, and on the whole it was a pretty good evening. Because Joey was not only good at travel, he loved it. He loved getting off a plane someplace he had never been. He loved the tightrope walk of talking to someone who spoke no English. He liked reading a foreign subway map and sleeping in strange hotel beds, and he liked walking into a strange restaurant and ordering the speciality of the house. When it came to foreign travel he was the man.
Yeah, I'm the man, alright, Joey thought wearily, as he bumped his head--again--on the roof of the van. The insane rush of downtown Tokyo traffic made him want to close his eyes. He had been unfazed by Berlin, Paris, and mid-town Manhattan, but Tokyo was evidently too much city for a boy from Brooklyn. Maybe it was because he was tired, but hell, they were all tired, and anyway, that was nothing new. That was SOP, that was par for the course on tour. Jet lag had never stopped him before. JC had once said that Joey's autobiography should be titled, The Joey Fatone Story: or, How I Toured Europe on Three Hours of Sleep.
Maybe it was because everything was just a little bit too small. He noticed it first in the bathrooms at the Tokyo airport. He went into a stall, and yelped with surprise when the toilet turned out to be at what felt like ankle level. The sinks barely hit his thighs, and he managed to douse himself with water in an embarrassing spot when he washed his hands. He glanced over at Chris, happily splashing and making faces at himself in the mirror of the sink beside him, and was struck by the fact that Chris looked right at home. The sink was exactly the right height for him. He had a bizarre impulse to march Chris into one of the stalls and see how well the toilet fit him, too.
"You coming?" Chris asked.
The ceiling of the van they were ushered into brushed the top of his head. When they got out of the van and headed into the first radio station for on-air interviews, Joey, who was never clumsy, felt like a bull in a china shop. Threading his way through the narrow, crowded spaces, he was afraid he was going to knock something--or someone--down. He towered over everyone in sight, with the exception of Justin, and felt like a refugee from the Land of the Giants. Every one they met--their Japanese interpreter, the radio station staff, the photographer--was scrupulously and unfailingly polite and welcoming, which made him feel all the more self-conscious about his size and his imagined clumsiness and his weariness and his borderline bad temper. He was momentarily cheered by the sight of Lonnie, who looked even more like Gulliver among the Lilliputians than he did, but then they were ushered into the studio. He took a look at the waiting chair, and imagined his ass hanging over the sides of the narrow seat, and his cheeriness evaporated.
"Dozo," said the tiny, sweet-faced young woman with a graceful gesture. Joey gritted his teeth and sat. Chris bounded energetically over to the windows to wave at the fans clustered outside.
That was the thing; everyone seemed normal except for him. Chris was speeding around. Justin was saying crossly under his breath, "it's time for me to go to bay-ud." Lance was pale and quiet. JC had that glassy bright-eyed weariness that meant he would attempt his usual enthusiasm, but would ramble and repeat himself when asked questions. Usually, Joey would be the one coaxing Justin into better humor, watching over Lance, corralling JC before he veered too far off course, all while making sure Chris didn't break anything. He would be enjoying every minute of it. He would be flirting with the girl who was bringing them tea and soda. But she looked to be about one quarter his weight, and when she handed him a cup the size of a thimble, his hand felt like a clumsy paw, and he was afraid he might break it. His voice sounded too loud in the tiny room.
The day dragged on; more interviews, more sightseeing, more photographs. A visit to a temple where Joey stood by, unsure what to do with himself, and watched Chris as he lit a candle for thirty yen and made a wish. It should have felt like church, but it didn't, and Joey had a knot in his chest, looking at Chris' momentarily quiet, solemn face. Afterwards, Chris wouldn't reveal what he had wished for, which Joey found vaguely annoying.
"It's not like it's a birthday candle, or something," he said defensively, when Chris was adamant in his refusal.
"How would you know?" Chris asked. Then he began lobbying everyone for a visit to another electronics store.
He finally had to admit to himself that part of his bad mood stemmed from watching Chris take to Japan like a duck to water, and seemingly charm everyone they met. Within seconds of meeting him, the Japanese people they encountered lost their polite reserve and smiled, giggled, and entered whole-heartedly into Chris' game of the moment, while Joey stood by feeling superfluous and excessively tall. Joey would never have imagined that a businessman wearing a suit and a trenchcoat would sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" with strangers on an elevator, but the implausibility of that had evidently not occurred to Chris, or to the Japanese man crowing "Galileo!". Even as he sang along half-heartedly, Joey still couldn't quite believe it was happening.
They were in yet another electronics store. They had been the guests of the local distributor of Jive Records at lunch. Joey had felt vaguely queasy and had confined himself to the Western style dishes and the rice. The Japanese food hadn't looked anything like the fare at the Beni-Hana in Orlando, and for once, his culinary sense of adventure deserted him. The correct use of chopsticks seemed as daunting as being asked to perform brain surgery, so he stuck to a knife and fork. Chris had flourished his chopsticks and tucked into everything with relish, including the strange green cubes that were offered for dessert. Joey had ventured to taste one, and found its slightly grainy and gelatinous texture to be incredibly disgusting, so Chris had eaten Joey's as well as his own. Now he was deep in communion with the electronics salesman over Sony Playstation equipment and cellular phones. Joey became aware that Lance was standing next to him, and glanced over.
"Apparently, electronics geeks share a universal language," Lance said, watching Chris. He slid his eyes in Joey's direction, and added, "Are you okay? You seem kind of out of it."
"Just tired," said Joey shortly. Chris leaned in closer to the salesman, and picked up another cellular phone. The salesman was pretty cute, Joey noted. He laughed at something Chris said, and then pointed to some detail of the phone, their hands touching. "Jesus christ, how many of those things is he going to buy? How many phone calls can he make at one time?"
"I think he's buying for relatives now," said Lance mildly. "Or maybe starting a museum."
"Fine. I'm going out to the van." Joey felt guilty for taking his bad temper out on Lance, but he stalked out to the van without another word and squeezed himself inside. The driver nodded to him politely as he held the door.
Just let's get to the hotel, Joey thought. The first concert was tomorrow night. Tonight, he just wanted to go to bed, and try to get up in a better frame of mind--in his usual travel frame of mind--in the morning.
At the hotel, they were told they had four rooms. The fourth one, the room that two of them would have to share, was the largest, because it had a traditional tatami alcove and Japanese-style bathroom. Chris' eyes lit up.
"I call that one," he said quickly. "Joey and I can share, okay, Joe?" Although they were often roommates on the road, Joey was momentarily tempted to plead weariness and ask someone else to share the room, but then he looked at Chris' face and something made him swallow the words.
"Sure," he said. He had no idea what a "tatami alcove" was, but at least Chris could play in the bathroom to his heart's content, while Joey went to sleep.
Drawbacks to this plan became evident once they were in the room, which contained two single beds. Joey looked at them, and a horrible suspicion dawned. He flung himself down on the nearest one, and stretched out full length, which was how he liked to sleep. His feet hung well off the end of the bed.
"Goddammit," Joey snarled. "Kirkpatrick, get your ass over here." Chris had taken off his shoes, and was rustling around on the slightly raised dais at the end of the room, which seemed to have a different kind of floor-covering from the carpeting throughout the rest of the room.
"This is so cool," Chris was muttering, "I am totally going to crash here." He looked up quizzically at Joey's outburst. "'Sup, dude?"
It turned out that the short beds were standard in most of the rooms, as this was a somewhat traditional hotel, their interpreter explained apologetically. Joey tried not to think about who he might be inconveniencing if he demanded a bigger bed (Lonnie! his mind shouted). She suggested that he sleep on the tatami.
"Very comfortable," she assured him, and then she climbed onto the dais with Chris to demonstrate. The two of them bounced lightly on the thick, springy straw mats that covered it, and Joey realized that those were the "tatami", and she was basically suggesting he sleep on the floor. He thanked her and went into the bathroom and gently closed the door. On the other side he could hear Chris whispering--apologizing, thought Joey--and then the two of them began to giggle, as they had been doing all day. Joey investigated the bath. The tub was enormous, deep and square, and clearly intended for more than one person. The shower was spartan. He began picturing Chris in the bathtub and was torn between wanting to imagine washing his back or holding his head under the water. Joey closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. He hated being in a bad mood. It happened so rarely that he always forgot how awful it was. There was a soft knock on the door.
"Joey?" came Chris' voice, placatingly. "You're not hanging from the shower curtain rail in there, are you?"
"Not yet," Joey admitted. "C'mon in."
Chris came into the room and his mouth fell into an "o" when he saw the tub. "Hot damn," he said. Then he seemed to recall something and cleared his throat. "We can always try pushing the beds together," he suggested. "You could sleep diagonally, or something."
Joey thought that was the lamest idea he had ever heard, but he looked at Chris' pleading expression and bit back his retort. "Okay," he said. "Let me just take a quick shower, and then we'll try it."
It turned out that the beds had an alarming tendency to separate, once they were pushed together, leaving Joey with his ass slipping into the crack between. Plus the single sheets and blankets were awkward on a simulated double bed. He said as much, in no uncertain terms.
"Fine," Chris snapped. "Jesus, I should have asked C to share. At least he wouldn't have bitched about every little thing."
On the one hand, this was probably true. On the other, it seemed breathtakingly unfair. JC was a lot smaller than he was. "Fine. Go knock on Mr. I-Need-My-Beauty-Sleep's door, and see what he says."
"Look. Sleep on the bed, sleep on the floor, sleep on the tatami with me. There's plenty of room, and right now, I don't give a shit." Chris jerked his overnight bag up off the floor.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to sit in that amazing tub and try to forget that I am sharing a room with the only baby in Japan who wears a beard." He slammed into the bathroom. Joey was about to shout after him that if Chris wanted evidence that facial hair didn't guarantee maturity, he only had to look in the mirror, but the beds he was sitting on slipped further apart, and he ended up with his chin on his knees.
"GodDAMmit." When he had struggled to safety and pushed the beds back into their regular positions, he heaved a sigh and walked over to the tatami alcove. A pair of bowing maids had come in earlier and laid out the futons and the quilts on the mats. He crawled up onto the closest futon and sprawled on his back. The alcove had a sliding paper screen that diffused the light from the room. A pleasant, faintly grassy smell came up from the tatami. As a bed, it was maybe a little firmer than he was used to, but at least his feet weren't hanging off the end into space, Joey thought dreamily. Later, the sound of splashing jerked him out of his doze, and he guiltily remembered Chris, stewing in the tub.
"Come in," came the faint reply to his light tap on the bathroom door. Chris was sitting, steam-wreathed, almost up to his chin in hot water. Water beaded his eyelashes; his goatee was a wet point, and his hair stood up like fox ears on his head. There had been a painting in a museum in Munich that JC had dragged them to. It was called "Faun in a Forest Pool", or something like that, and that was exactly what Chris looked like. His eyes were sleepy and soft.
"uh," Joey said. "Just wanted to apologize."
"It's okay. Me, too." Chris stretched a little, and laid his head back against the edge of the tub.
Joey swallowed, and looked at the carefully shaven skin on Chris' throat, just behind his goatee, that was revealed as he tipped his head back. It looked soft. "Hey. What did you wish for, today at that temple?"
Chris' eyes were half closed. "Can't tell you. You have to guess." The skin of his eyelids looked soft, too. Joey suddenly realized he was also covertly trying to see beneath the wavering surface of the bathwater, see the slick muscles of Chris' thighs, and the dark thatch of hair between them.
Joey wanted to keep standing there, looking at all of Chris' seen and unseen parts, but eventually he shrugged and said, "I'm going to bed."
"Good night," Chris said softly.
"Night." Joey blundered back into the bedroom, and got under the quilts on the futon he had been lying on. Eventually, Chris came out of the bathroom and turned out the light. Joey listened for his breath and the soft pad of his bare feet as he approached the alcove.
"Joey?" he whispered. He sounded a little surprised to find Joey there, and--pleased? thought Joey, and his heart began to pound a little.
"Right here," Joey whispered back, and then he said "ow", and "watch it" and Chris said "sorry, sorry" as he climbed over Joey to crawl into the other futon. Joey turned to his side to find Chris watching him. He could see the gleam of his eyes in the near darkness.
"So."
"Yeah."
"Want to know what Hanako told me about sleeping on tatami?"
"Okay." Joey actually wanted to touch Chris, but he could settle for hearing his voice.
"Well, first, futons are easy to care for. Just shake 'em up and roll 'em away."
Joey smiled a little. He had never seen Chris even make a bed. "That's convenient."
"Very. Also, they're really good for your back."
"Ah."
"The support, you know. Firm." Chris sounded a little muffled, or something. He was silent for a moment, and then said quickly, "She said they were really great for sex."
Suddenly, Joey felt far too serious to smile, although the last of his bad mood seemed to have totally disappeared. "Really?" He inched closer to Chris, and took a breath. "Too bad we can't test that statement out." He inched closer still.
"Yeah," Chris said. He was definitely hoarse. "Well. you know. I'd, um, be willing."
"Yeah?" Joey murmured. Their noses bumped lightly. Chris' hair was still slightly damp to the touch. Joey kissed his lips softly, kissed the corners of his mouth and his chin and cheeks, and then his lips again, moaning a little when Chris suddenly opened his mouth. His mouth was hot and slick. He squirmed as Joey worked a hand down under the quilt and touched his back.
"Yeah," he gasped.
And maybe it was true that tatami were really great for sex, but Joey suspected it mostly had to do with Chris, the way Chris moaned and growled and said "your mouth", and "jesus, yes, like that", and "let me suck you". Arching up off the futon and rolling his head as he pleaded incoherently, Joey could only imagine that this--the snaky warmth of Chris' tongue, the way his hands shaped and pulled and demanded every last sensation of Joey's flesh, the hard grip of his thighs around Joey's hips--all this would be amazing no matter where it happened, what bed, what country. When they had finished, he cradled Chris' back against his chest. He kept his hand between Chris' thighs to cup his spent cock, his lips touching the nape of Chris' neck while he slipped into sleep, and thought, that was what made foreign travel worthwhile. Trying new things.
He never did find out what the wish was Chris had made that day. "You still have to guess," Chris would breathe, "oh, shit," as Joey pinned him to the wall and ran a tongue around the point of his ear. That was okay. When it came to deciphering Chris, he was the man.