The Mating of Michael (16 page)

“What kind of children’s home was it?” she asked with interest.

“My mother’s nosy,” Michael huffed. “You don’t have to answer.”

Kathy gave Michael a look, and he looked hard back.

“It was a home for disabled children,” James said, picking up his knife to cut his lasagna. “They do good work there.”

“What about your parents?” Kathy asked in a neutral voice, as if it were no big deal.

“Mom!” Michael said. “Let the guy eat his dinner.”

“I’m just making conversation,” she said to Michael, sounding a little put out. “Honestly, James, I’m sorry if I’m being a busybody. You don’t have to answer.”

“It’s all right.” James realized he’d cut his lasagna up into a dozen bite-sized pieces like a child. He made himself stop. “I never knew my father. Is there any more bread?”

Kathy passed him the basket, and James took a piece, even though he didn’t want it. He felt nauseous.

“How’s your work, Michael?” She asked, redirecting her attention and letting James off the hook.

“Good. I think I e-mailed you—I’m getting a lot more hours at Happy At Home now. Almost too many.”

“Do you have time to keep up with your other clients?”

James was buttering his piece of bread, but he caught the silence and tail end of a headshake Michael was directing at his mother when he looked up. James wasn’t sure what that was about, but he felt as if he was putting a damper on the entire dinner with his reticence and tension. Fuck it. He could do this. He wrote dialogue for a living, after all. And the wine they were drinking helped. He took a deep breath.

“One nice thing about the home was that I grew up with a lot of other kids,” he said in an upbeat tone. “There was a boy named Danny who was one of my roommates for years. He had Downs, and he loved to laugh. His favorite thing in the world was blind man’s bluff. We’d tie a towel around someone’s eyes, spin them a few times in the middle of the common room, and then they had to find the rest of the kids by feel. It was hilarious, because Danny would laugh so hard, you always knew exactly where he was, but the more you pretended you couldn’t find him, the harder he laughed….”

He told them about Danny, about his insistence on never wearing matching socks, because then you couldn’t have a “favorite,” his collection of baseball cards, and his love of Big Bird. He told them about Harvard, a boy with an arm missing due to a birth defect, who’d been abandoned at the home as an infant. Harvard was two years younger than James and had followed him around out of sheer adoration. He told them how he’d gotten Harvard to do his chores until Felicia had cottoned on, and then he’d had to tutor Harvard in reading for an hour every night for a week as punishment. It had been oddly satisfying. James had ended up tutoring Harvard until he started third grade.

It was easy to talk about the other kids in the home, anyone except himself, and his audience seemed to find his stories amusing. Before James knew it, Kathy was clearing the dessert plates, still chuckling. Michael gave him a brilliant smile as she went into the kitchen.

“God, she loves you,” Michael whispered. “I may be in danger of losing my status as only child.”

James swallowed down a wave of pain and finished off his wine.

J
AMES
PUT
on his pajamas in the bathroom and brushed his teeth again before bed—just because he’d eaten, not because he was hoping anything would happen. He was able to get his wheelchair through the door to Michael’s room, and he got into the bed near the window while Michael was taking his turn in the bathroom. James pulled his legs up into the bed quickly, getting under the blankets.

By the time Michael came in, James was settled. Michael stopped inside the doorway and looked at him,
God
, with a soft hunger in his eyes before he seemed to force himself to look away. He was still dressed as he had been all day, and James now realized that Michael had probably skipped a shower because the bathroom was not outfitted so James could have one too. The thought made him feel both guilty and grateful not to be the only one with a day’s layer of stink. Michael stripped off his clothes all the way down to well-fitted blue boxer briefs. He didn’t look at James as he did so, didn’t hurry or linger, just took each article off and laid it on his desk as if it was no big deal. James tried not to look, but he couldn’t resist. Michael had been equally uncovered at the pool, but James hadn’t known him then.

God, the soft glow of that perfect skin, that tight slim body, and beautifully curved ass! The online porn James drifted toward featured twinks—slender, hairless young men. His favorite was when they were paired with a larger, macho, furrier top.

Michael was prettier, sweeter than any of them. Damn it.

He turned, and James pretended he hadn’t been watching. He looked at the ceiling and prayed his semi wasn’t visible. He was relieved when Michael got into the other bed and turned off the lamp, plunging the room into almost-darkness. There was still a bit of light coming through the gauzy curtains from some streetlamp outside. James turned his head and saw a dark shape in Michael’s bed.

“Good night,” Michael said.

“Night,” James grunted, not trusting himself to make a quip or otherwise try to be clever.

His heart was back to thumping like a jackhammer. The visual image of Michael standing there in his underwear,
God, that sweet ass
, lingered on the back of his eyelids like an atomic flash. He wanted to touch it. Hell, he wanted to bite it. His cock slowly filled up until he was throbbing against his stomach.
Damn it
! It was going to take him forever to relax and fall asleep.

For a long moment, there was just the faint sound of traffic as James took deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

“James?” came Michael’s voice in the dark.

“Still here,” James said. “I was going to sneak out when you turned off the light, but I decided against it.”

“Good.”

He could hear Michael shift around. James turned his head. His eyes had adjusted to the dark somewhat, and he could see the outline of Michael, lying on his side and facing James, though he couldn’t really see his expression.

“I’m really glad that we’re friends,” Michael said.

James’s heart stuttered in his chest. “Friends? I thought you were my sycophant, Dieter.”

Michael chuckled. “I wish.”

James swallowed—it was audible in the quiet room.

“Seriously, though. I mean… I’m glad I’m getting to know you as a friend right now.”

“Good to know.”

“But….” Michael’s voice was a bit rough. “I hope one day we can be more.”

Shit
. A slow, hot burn of nervousness and intense longing fired in James’s stomach. He gasped and covered it quickly with a cough.

“You okay?” Michael said worriedly. His dark form half sat up.

“Yeah.” James’s voice sounded deep. He cleared his throat. “I don’t think—”

“Would it be okay if I kissed you good night?” Michael broke in.

Damn, the little shit could be pushy. Damn, James wanted him so goddamn bad. He wanted it even though it terrified him.

Where had his immutable defenses gone? His shields had been damaged, it seemed, and he hadn’t even been aware that it was happening.

He made himself think about it, hoping the act of using his little gray cells would distract him from the purely physical need raging down below. And he realized that at some point, Michael had stopped being a frighteningly beautiful boy who couldn’t possibly want anything to do with James. He’d become a real person. Today, James had seen glimpses of a lonely boy who’d been unpopular growing up and had spent most of his childhood with senior citizens. He saw a guy who grew up in a very modest house in the cow town of Ellensburg in a room with boy band and sci-fi movie posters on the wall. He saw someone who was compassionate, who didn’t flinch at hugging a ninety-year-old and kissing them on the cheek, someone who had made a career out of helping people who weren’t perfect. A guy like that would know what he was getting into, surely—what James’s legs would look like, what it would be like. A guy like that wouldn’t gag in disgust. Or laugh. Or leave.

And… it was dark.

“Okay.” It was the weirdest thing. The word came out of James’s mouth while he was still debating it in his mind, as if his tongue and voice box had staged a coup. He froze, even as Michael, without a moment’s hesitation, slipped out of his bed and came over to sit next to James.

James was on his back, and he quickly propped himself up on his elbows, not wanting Michael to kiss him while he was lying flat. It was too loaded and too… passive. Jesus, he was nervous. He broke out in a hot sweat.

Why did I agree? No, don’t freak. It’s just a good night kiss. It’s not a big deal. You’ve been kissed before.

He started to say something, try to joke the moment off, but Michael didn’t give him a chance. He put a soft hand on his jaw as if locating him in the dark and leaned in.

Michael’s mouth touched his, closed and pressing sweetly. His lips were warm and so plump and full. It didn’t feel anything like the quick, chaste kisses James had gotten at the group home or like the rather sloppy and obligatory kisses from Chris. Those kisses didn’t make his body run hot and cold in alternating chemical surges or make the entire universe feel as if it had narrowed down to a singularity at the point where their mouths met.

Michael pressed their mouths together once, for a long, achingly intense moment, withdrew slightly and pressed again. James could sense the tension in Michael’s body, feel Michael’s soft, ragged breath on his cheek. Michael was aroused.
Michael was aroused too
. And James knew that on the next pass, Michael would open his mouth, try to deepen the kiss. James was so damn hard. If he felt Michael’s tongue, that would be it, he wouldn’t be able to resist. The last shred of his control was almost out the window, and fuck his embarrassment, fuck everything.

He reached up to grasp Michael’s upper arm and pull him down. There was a knock on the door.

Michael snorted a conspiratorial laugh and quickly ran back to his bed. “Come in!” he hollered.

The door cracked open, and Michael’s mother was silhouetted against the hall light.

“Hope I didn’t wake you. I just wanted to say good night.”

“Good night, Mom.”

“Good night, Kathy,” James said. God, his voice sounded wrecked.

“Good night, James. I’m so glad you came.”

She hesitated at the door for a moment, then took a step toward Michael’s bed. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t get nearly enough chances to do this.” She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek with a loud smack.

“Mom!” Michael complained, but he laughed too.

“Love you,” Kathy said quietly. She straightened up and glanced over at James. He knew what she was going to do a moment before she did it, but there was no graceful way out, or even time to think one up. In a moment, she was bending over James. She kissed his cheek.

“Good night, James,” she said, in a singsongy teasing voice, as if pretending he and Michael were twelve years old.

Michael protested half-heartedly—something like “Stop
assaulting my guest!”—but James’s brain had frozen at the gesture, and suddenly, the woman standing over him wasn’t Kathy Lamont at all.

Varanas, India, 1992

I
T
FELT
as if James was in the hospital forever. He turned six, and his mother brought him a little cake with a candle on it. The nurses stood around and clapped, and he got some candy and a card signed by all of them.

A week later, he was woken in the middle of the night by his mother, which was strange because she only visited him in the afternoons.

“Shhh. You have to be very quiet, Sweetpea. Promise?”

James nodded. It felt like an adventure was starting, the way it used to be with him and his mother. They had left a few places in the middle of the night. He was excited.

It was mostly dark in the ward, but she got James dressed and carried him out in a blanket. They went down halls he’d never seen before, through an old door, and then they were out in the night air. It felt hot and sticky but so good on James’s upturned face.

“Where are we going?” he asked, too happy to be quiet anymore.

“You’ve been wanting to leave the hospital, so I’m springing you out, Sweetpea.” She said it in a funny voice, like a gangster. It made James laugh.

“Yay!” He hugged his mother hard around her neck. He knew he must be heavy, even though he’d gotten very skinny, but his mom carried him for blocks, his legs dangling down and his feet hitting her knees on every bounce. They found a taxi and took it to the airport.

“Where are we going?” James asked. He thought they’d go back to their little room in the hostel.

“We’re going to take an airplane to the United States to see Grandma and Grandpa. It’s a long trip, so I need you to be very, very good. Can you do that for me?”

James was a little afraid. It had been so long since he’d been out of the hospital, and now his legs didn’t work. The nurses wouldn’t be there to take his bedpan away and bring him a clean one, or give him food, or rub his arms and legs when they hurt. And he would miss the other children on the ward. But none of that could compare to the idea of being with his mother again, of it being her and him, a team out adventuring.

“Yay! I like going on planes, and I can be good. Tell me more about Grandma and Grandpa. Are we going to live with them?”

His mother had never talked much about Grandma and Grandpa. When James had asked before, seeing all the large families in the countries where they traveled, she told him they lived far away and that maybe he’d see them one day. He was very anxious now and so excited. Would they all be in a house together like other families? Would he have his own room, or would he sleep with his mother? He hoped for his own room, but he was willing to take anything. Grandma and Grandpa would help take care of him, which made James happy, because he knew his mother wasn’t always very good at it.