by K. L. Noone
We both contemplate this determined beautiful optimism for a moment in silence. Kris Starr is blinking rapidly. Damp eyelashes.
Justin shrugs, laughs at himself, dives for leftover scones. “Anyway. If any of that’s useful.”
It is, I manage. It will be. Thank you.
Kris holds Justin’s non-scone-occupied hand like it’s the rarest wonder in any dimension. Justin squeezes back. “Also we made French toast and sang a lot of ridiculous made-up lyrics to classic Starrlight songs. That first night. And morning.”
Really? Can you share?
“Oh gods,” Kris sighs, but it’s an act: a tap dance of relief over exhaling canyons. “Not the puns about gingerbread.”
“Sugar,” Justin says, “hot, and sticky, and getting messy,” and then promptly jumps into the first verse of Starrlight’s “Sugar In Your Tea,” though he actually sings it properly. Kris observes, “That’s not at all the version you wrote, about putting sweet icing on hot buns,” and then joins in.
Their voices fall together and entwine. Justin’s not bad—voice lighter and younger, but naturally on key and good at harmonizing—and they fit into melody with the ease of practice. This impromptu miniature concert spills out across the Witch’s Brew space. Brightens up espresso drips and blenders. Puts an extra shine on the pastry case, and merriment in the regulars’ smiles.
They flip it into Bobby Oake’s “All of the Days” after the first chorus. Sixty-year-old teenage dance-craze early rock and roll. All of the days, all of the ways, we’re getting closer. Let me count the days, let me count the ways, I get to know you.
They even throw in silly on-the-spot romantic gestures. Pointing at each other on the “you.” Matching finger-counting of pretend days, one-two-three. It’d be unbearably sentimental if it weren’t so gloriously spontaneously obviously real.
Everybody applauds when they finish. And then, unremarked, it’s business as usual. Coffee, laptops, crossword puzzles, grading papers, and so on. No drawing of too much attention.
So, I say, unaccountably flushed and cheerful—or maybe very accountably; Kris Starr’s laughing and joyful, and the whole universe pays attention to that empathy—you two do that a lot?
“Some.” Justin’s breathless and sparkling. Hair standing out like electric elation, darker embers twirling into smoky carnelian near the tips. “Of course Kris is better than I am. I don’t have his range. But we both like the same odd random songs. Oldies. Classics. Not always the big hits, either.”
“He’s the only other person I’ve ever met who knows all of Bobby Oake’s ‘Not Your First Kiss’,” Kris informs me.
“Hey,” Justin says. “I always liked that one. The way it swings from knowing he’s not her first kiss, she’s got a reputation, but then he doesn’t care, he just loves that she’s picked him to end up with, he loves her. I used to like that idea. Being, y’know, half a succubus-type demon.”
I can see why, I agree. That acceptance. Is that important for you?
Justin considers this, head on one side. “Yes? I mean, I guess. Are you asking about the demon part in general, or specifically the sex demon part?”
Either, or both?
“I’d say yes to both, then?” He finishes off his coffee. Kris, while he’s not looking, slides his own over there. “In different ways, though. Or related ways but different. The sex part was…I don’t know if I can say some of this! My little brothers’ll read it!”
“Your brothers,” Kris notes, “already know. They tried to give me advice about uses for scarves and what you like in the bedroom.”
“True—”
“As if I don’t know.”
I choke on a sip of coffee, because Kris has timed this precisely right, on purpose from the glint in his eye. Kris Starr might’ve settled down and fallen in love, but hasn’t lost those mischievous impulses entirely.
“Anyway,” Justin goes on, “to answer the question, sex is fun. In any configuration. Combinations. Sensations. I knew I liked sex a lot, um, starting pretty young, I won’t say exactly how old, but…I’m not human, exactly, either. And so, yeah, accepting that part of me, not being ashamed of those desires—and I think that’s true for anyone, demon, human, anything—was important. I think I did a better job with that than with the whole…” He sketches demon-horns in the air. They sizzle red and gold; I’ve never seen demon-magic up close before. I’m fascinated.
“This,” Justin finishes, and notices my interest. “Oh, that’s an easy one. It’s just heat. Here—” He draws a miniature fiery kitten, a hasty outline in thin incandescent crimson and canary flame. It leaps up into the air and vanishes in scarlet dust. “I used to do this all the time for my brothers and my sister. Super-easy if I’m not trying to make it stay put.” He draws a guitar, a music-note or two, a tiny person who takes a bow. They ripple and coruscate for a few fleeting seconds and then evaporate.
Justin Moore’s been concealing secret artistic talents from us. Or at least he’s not bad at fingertip-drawing in mid-air. Those shapes’ve been recognizably good.
What else can you do? I ask, latte temporarily forgotten; I’m eight years old again and enthralled by the impossible. Time’s scampering away, they have that photo shoot scheduled, but we’re all ignoring that for right now. You’ve obviously got teleportation abilities, given how you got here…
“Anything you want summoned?” Justin asks. “Nothing big. Nothing I can’t picture. Limitations, half human, sorry.”
I glance at my notebook. It’s a brand I love, durable and charmed into weather-resistance, and this one’s nearly filled up; I’ve got another one at home, exactly the same but blue instead of red. Can he manage that?
“I think so. Can I hold this one?” When I say sure, he picks it up without looking at my notes. “I just needed to check the way it felt. Okay, hang on.”
About ten seconds later, a blue notebook lands on the table. Exactly matching. I know it’s mine because this shade of blue’s discontinued; the newer ones are lighter. It lies there triumphantly, knowing it’s done as asked.
I applaud. Justin laughs and hands back the red one, still without peeking. “That’s not hard. I’m not inexhaustible, but anything that size barely registers.”
“He’s amazing,” Kris says. “I tell him so every day. If you needed another headline.”
“I think maybe that helps answer the other half of that question.” Justin absentmindedly picks up the coffee now in front of him and takes a sip and then regards praline nuttiness with bewilderment. “This is yours, isn’t it? Did I finish mine?” Kris gives him a small eyebrow-shrug: mine, yours, ours. The coffee-mug coos happily over this evidence of devotion.
“Love you,” Justin says. “Anyway, so what I mean by that is…I’m getting used to not hiding. To people being interested, the way you were, just now. I don’t bother disguising the hair or the eyes anymore. I used to think—Dad and I thought—we needed to keep the secret. And maybe we did need to, at least when I was younger; there’re other people like…like my ex…out there. But there are more of the good people. People like Kris. People like you, who see what I am and cheer me on.”
His eyes are sincere. His tone is as well. All that serious wild inhuman beauty’s gathered up and focused on me. I end up dizzy and entranced, believing that Justin Moore believes I’m a good person, wanting to buy him all the coffee in the universe and also maybe shiver and fall at his feet.
Kris glances at Justin, and then taps fingers over the shining vermilion mark on his own arm. This does something I can’t see; Justin blinks, laughs in a faintly embarrassed way, and reaches over. They end up holding hands.
“Sorry,” Justin apologizes. “That happens. Once in a while. If I’m feeling strongly about something. Sex demon heritage. People tend to…ah…”
“People want you.” Kris lifts his hand, drops a kiss on the back of it: old-fashioned and courtly, a knight to his beloved. “Nothing to be ashamed of.” To me, he adds, “Mostly he’s got
great control. I never knew how much, until—”
“Until I moved in.” They finish each other’s sentences, too. “Kris gets to see me get excited a lot. And he doesn’t mind having all the sex—”
“Definitely true.”
“—so I let those aspects out more. But I really do try not to, in public. And yeah, I did sleep with a lot of people—before Kris, before this—but it was always consensual. I can’t make anyone act on anything if they normally wouldn’t, and I can’t make people feel desire out of thin air. There has to be something there to begin with.”
I’m learning things about myself during this interview. Then again, it’s no surprise. Justin Moore is precious and precocious and gorgeous and generous. Fair enough, I decide. But the phrasing’s intriguing. Aspects? Plural?
“Um…want to see?”
I’m not entirely sure what we’re discussing, but at this point I trust Justin enough to say yes, so I do.
His smile comes tinged with relief, as if he’d been hoping I’d not be afraid. Otherworldly crimson slides across his skin: redder, sharper cheekbones, ever so slightly pointed teeth in that smile. Diaphanous small horns poke up out of fuzzy fire-hair. His eyes flicker more sharply too.
I gulp. Demons. Instinct. Children’s tales. Men with red eyes who’ll eat your soul.
But I don’t flinch, because that’s still Justin, recognizable and worried behind the horns. Still the person who’s just told me he believes in my good heart.
What I say is: where do the horns go, when you’re being human?
Justin laughs. The vision dissolves. The eerie too-pointed edges and scarlet hue all slip away, until he’s back to mostly human, still luscious but in an easier way to process. “You know, I’ve never thought about it. Hiding in the other dimension, maybe? My aunts might know.”
Kris catches me looking at the mark on his arm. “Yeah, that’s part of it. Protection. From other magic. Also a sort of demon symbol of commitment. I’m his. And it’s a psychic link, in some ways. Not exactly specific, but he’ll feel it if I touch it.”
“And if,” Justin says cheerfully, “he wants to remind me to behave. I’m his as much as he’s mine. And I like that, too.”
Being reminded to behave?
Justin’s smile gets positively wicked. “Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes over his knee.”
Kris sighs and does the finger-tap again, a bit harder, though he looks more satisfied than otherwise.
Justin bats eyelashes at him. “We can do what you’re thinking once we’re back home. And that’s the rest of the answer. To the question. It’s about acceptance, yes. Being who I am—being who we are. Together. I have Kris to lean on. He has me.”
The whole morning gets more close-knit and secure around us, awash with luxurious coffee and glittery fog and low-lying golden empathy.
“I do want a tattoo,” Justin confesses, admission evidently prompted by the explanation of demon-marks. “I’ve wanted one for years. It’s like the hair dye, though, they never stay put once I switch aspects. I’ve tried.”
Nothing you can do about it?
“Kathi Z—you know Kathi, right? She owns InkWitch, out in LA, she did Reggie’s last two—suggested iron infusions in the ink. Which might work, I know piercings do if they’re iron, and I’m human enough to not be allergic. But other people aren’t, and I’d hate to bump into someone on the street and accidentally hurt them.”
Those odds’re pretty low…
“Yeah, Kris says so too. But even one’d be too many.” He’s serious about this. “Kathi says she’s not giving up yet. She likes a challenge.”
What would you want to get, if she figures it out?
That smile, the one that’s for Kris, swings back into view. “I don’t know exactly. I’d trust her design skills. But something with stars.”
Of all the subjects we’ve covered, this is the one that makes Kris Starr, ever so slightly, blush.
I check how we’re doing on time; I can’t keep them much longer. I ask whether they’re excited about the photoshoot. Kris says he’s done enough of them over the years; he doesn’t mind, but it feels like part of the job. Justin says yes. “I like dressing up. I have no clue what they’ll want us to wear, and of course I’ll have to look more human for pictures, but it’s still fun. I like bright colors.”
“He does. The first day we ever met, his hair was purple.”
“Violet,” Justin specifies amiably. “And why not? I still dye it sometimes for fun. Not for other reasons.”
I can see it. Justin Moore isn’t shy, not by any traditional definition; he may have once been in hiding, and he might have healing wounds from the not-too-distant past, but he’s the sort of person who brings fireworks into a room. In this case, a local coffee-shop.
Kris is gazing at him as if thinking very hard indeed about those promises of later, and possibly wondering whether they’ve got enough time to run home and into a bedroom first. It’s that sort of look.
I ask about Justin’s new position, how it’s going nearly two years in, about any upcoming titles or projects. His hair turns into a giddy sunburst of exuberance, shedding stray sparks before calming down. He says he’s got his schedule mostly sorted out and he’s figuring out how to run a publishing division; Willie Randolph doesn’t care what hours he keeps as long as he makes it to required editorial meetings—
“Which is good,” Kris contributes, “because if being a morning person is a thing, he’s the exact opposite.”
“I can’t even argue with that. So I won’t try. Mornings are things that happen to other people. But I work with writers, so half of them’re up at midnight having ideas anyway. Like demons and cats.” He mentions a few projects in progress: a history of West Coast punk, a study of classic guitars and their makers, a memoir by the drummer of Mirage, for whom Kris Starr and Starrlight had once been an opening act. “Kris is writing a foreword for that one. Oh, and the magazine launches are going well, both print and digital. I’ve had to hire more editors. More writers. More staff in general. It’s a little bit terrifying, but in a good way.”
“You want me to write a foreword for Dan’s book,” Kris points out. “I’m not sure writing’s the word for what I’m doing.” He’s doing it, though. Of course he is. Justin wants him to. “Mostly so far it’s a lot of swearing at the computer. And at the book. For reminding me how much of a fu—idiot I was. Kind of embarrassing, finding out what your idols remember about you being seventeen years old and getting completely off your head on cheap ecstasy-charmed vodka before the first show.”
Justin pats his hand again.
“He’s nice about it in the book. Says we were great, he was blown away, and he wouldn’t’ve known if he hadn’t been there.”
“Well, then,” Justin says. “That’s not a bad thing, right?”
“No, but, listen, love, as his editor, can you suggest he fact-check his own damn stories? Because he’s wrong about that after party in Dublin, the person having the very loud intimate encounter on the floor next to his bed wasn’t me, and I don’t know who it was. I’ll admit responsibility for the incident on their tour bus if he wants, but I’ve never looked up in the middle of a good time to find Dan Ashley’s naked bits in my face. Not the kind of thing I’d forget.”
Justin flawlessly steps into the role of straight-man audience for this story, saucer-eyed and innocent. “What were you doing, then?”
“Me? I was in the toilet with a very nice couple, a boyfriend and girlfriend, who’d followed us all the way from Glasgow. They were on some sort of quest to shag everyone on that tour. I remember because Reggie kept yelling at me to finish up because of all the whiskey and him needing to get in. One of them was wearing white boots and a pink feather boa. Or I was. Someone was. Is this going in your article?”
I ask whether he minds. Justin’s unsuccessfully smothering laughter. Kris lifts a hand, wobbles it back and forth: yes, no, why not. “It’s all stories. The past. Yeah, go on. Besides, th
is way I’m on record first, saying it wasn’t me, Dan.”
I’m making a note of this, I say, just so someone gives him a copy. Kris laughs. “Maybe I should apologize to him in advance. Or to your readers. Those stories…”
“No,” Justin interjects, laughter giving way to reaffirmation. “Not for being you. If you hadn’t been you, with your life and your career, we wouldn’t’ve met. We wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t—I don’t know where I’d be. But I wouldn’t be this happy. So no apologizing for that.” He’s practically tucked himself into Kris’s lap, which doesn’t quite work with those long legs and an oversized coffee-cup, but nobody involved seems to mind. Justin’s eyes are fierce and clear and loving; Kris’s heart’s there in his answering gaze.
Kris Starr says, voice a bit rough, “Same for you. If you hadn’t been you, if you hadn’t found me…if you hadn’t trusted me, with you…”
“I did.” Justin leans back into him. “I do.”
They end up kissing again, not overly dramatic but simple and true as a love theme, a fairytale. That happy ending.
Any last thoughts, I ask, that you want to leave readers with? On the album, on your projects, on pro-demon activism, anything you want to say? I also thank them for agreeing to this interview; I know they don’t get personal, much.
“Oh, well,” Justin says, “I have good memories. I’ve been where you are. It’s a good place to work. So I wanted to. And we were in the mood, I think. Introspective. I got to see where Kris grew up, in London. And to talk to his mother…well, sort of. You know what I mean.” To the memory, I assume. To that quiet grassy resting place. Shared between them, now.
“You also met my dad,” Kris puts in. “So much fun for everyone involved. Especially however many people he’s now sold that story to.”