The high school counsellor had showered him with calendars and program brochures but failed to provide him with a certain piece of information: College would be exactly like high school, only worse because there was not a soul who knew so much as his name. Their eyes moved through and past him, dismissing him as one of a thousand practitioners of intellectual success and social failure.

In his first month as a college student in Cincinnati, Casey learned that it was better to be known, even if the price was physical injury and constant fear.

His roommate, Steve, was an engineering student, a whole other species of nerd that somehow translated into the ultimate in campus cool. Almost every night Steve hosted dormitory festivities that, initially, were crammed into their room, and eventually were barely contained by the entire floor. Casey took to spending his evenings at the library. At one a.m. he would be forced to return to the residence and attempt to occupy the only space in the world where he had colour of right: his small, twin-sized bed. He would huddle under the covers with his headphones on and the volume turned up, trying to find some sleep before five in the morning when the last of the rabble finally returned to their own beds or collapsed in someone else's.

There was the night, not a month after he arrived when he wakened to the sensation of fingers prodding him.

"What's with the lump?" came a stranger's voice.

He had reacted before he was even fully conscious, tangling himself in his sheets and nearly falling off the bed in his haste to get away. He found himself in the small space between the bed and the wall, staring at Steve, two blond girls, and Steve's friend whose name, Casey recalled, was Eddie — short for Edgar of all things. All four were wasted of course.

"So who is this?" demanded one of the blonds — she who had just poked his arm — with that sort of belligerence that people seemed to think was funny when they were hammered.

"My roomie, Casey," Steve answered. "He doesn't like to have fun — isn't that right, Casey?"

Yes, I do. Just let me know when it starts.

"Aw, look at him," said the other girl. "Looks like he wants his mama."

"Casey, why don't you have a drink with us?" the first blond purred. "We'll be your friends..."

One of the great advantages of being the perpetual outsider was that peer pressure had no effect on him whatsoever. "I'd really just like to sleep."

"Aw, come on!"

"Really. And I could use a little quiet." A glance at his clock showed the time to be bloodygodawful in the morning.

"Fuck 'im," Steve said. "Let him be a loser if that what makes him happy."

They gave him his silence — relative silence — then. He curled up with his face to the wall and the covers over his head and succumbed to his own misery. He couldn't figure why their words hurt so much; they were nothing more than the typical juvenile insults he'd heard a thousand times before. He choked down his sobs knowing that if he was discovered in tears his life would descend to a heretofore undiscovered plateau of hell.

He had always figured that something was broken in him; some cog or gear that must turn smoothly if he was ever to feel things quasi-normally was smashed in pieces. But it was that night, that very moment, when he realized that the wrongness was gapingly visible to the world at large. He didn't have to do anything or say anything. People could just tell.

So it struck him as a bit of overkill when, on his way to class five hours later, his eye caught the poster stapled to the nearest lamp post.

It was the Time magazine cover, the one with him on it. It had been blown up to twice its original size and text had been added. In large, bold letters it stated: "Where are you, Casey Connor?" Casey moved closer to read the smaller text in the lower right corner. Headline: "The saviour of the world is here at our little campus. Contact us to report a sighting."

Casey cast around in a panic and saw that the posters were everywhere. They must have just appeared, he couldn't have missed seeing them on a previous day...could he? And as he looked around he realized that people were seeing him standing next to the poster.

Thus in his second month of college he learned that sometimes it was better not to be known at all. He had wanted to be known and now that he was he longed for the absolute anonymity he'd had only twenty-four hours ago. He hurried to his 8:00 class, dodging eye contact, and took his usual place, hunching in his seat and praying that it would not be like before. Before it had started with an initial, quiet respect but very quickly degenerated to snide comments, glances, whispers and an isolation that was — rather artificially — ameliorated by his bond with Zeke, Stokes, Stan and Delilah.

"Psst. Casey Connor?" The speaker was a girl of stark, gothic appearance who always sat three seats to his left and had never looked at him before. "That's you, right?"

"Yeah," he answered.

"What was it like?"

"What was what like?" he asked, teeth gritted.

"You know."

He'd received the impression somewhere along the line that college was full of people at least as smart as him if not smarter. He'd been worried about that but he was learning that he needn't have worried, really.

He wanted to run back to the dorm and hide but he had his elective that afternoon. Intro to Photography. He loved that course above all the others and not only because of the subject. The instructor was a young grad student of thirtyish looks, gorgeous like a product of Hollywood's golden era. During the second week of classes they'd had a Moment — at least, what seemed to Casey with his limited experience, a Moment. Right in the midst of the man's lecture their eyes had caught and held for what seemed at least twenty seconds to Casey but was probably more like two. This had led to a frantic masturbation session or two in the dorm showers — silly and harmless, and the guy probably hadn't even been looking at Casey. Still, he enjoyed the class as much for the rich fantasy material as for the blessed immersion in something other than physics.

Of course everyone in the room, about twenty-five people, was staring at him now. When the instructor breezed in he quickly realized that something about the class was wrong.

"What's with everyone today? Is there a world shortage of beer or something?"

Then his eyes found on Casey — just as before except this time Casey looked immediately at the floor.

As a teaching assistant the man must have lived and breathed campus culture and surely he wouldn't have missed the posters. But after that initial pause he simply went on with the class. It felt to Casey like a most gracious act of generosity, something of which he had given up all hope of ever being a beneficiary. It didn't help with the sense of unreality that was spreading through him, much like a limb falling asleep. At the end of the class he noted that he hadn't heard any of it, had no memory of being in the room for it. It was scary, but not scary enough. It was better than feeling things.

Casey tried to scuttle out, but a hand, warm and as big as Casey's father's, grasped his arm. "Wait."

The other students were brushing past, eyes big with curiosity.

Casey steeled himself, facing the instructor, not knowing what to suppose this was about — maybe to kick him out of the class for being too disruptive? He searched his brain for the name. Ellison. Doug? Dave?

"I..." the man began. "What's your name?" Casey couldn't believe he didn't know. His teacher shrugged. "I saw the posters, I didn't read them."

"Um...Casey Connor."

"Casey." The man smiled, and something stabbed through Casey with that smile. It was warm like his hand, and just for him. Plus the guy was just plain gorgeous, with longish, curly hair, sensuous brown eyes and lush lips. Casey had overheard more than one girl-chat about the man before and during class. "You seem to be having a difficult day."

At this lone gesture of something resembling empathy Casey felt tears grinding in his throat. He recognized it at once as something against which there could be no defense, the kind of emotional outburst he'd managed to hold back already too many times and this time would not be denied. He mashed his lips together to keep it from escaping, and felt them trembling absurdly.

"Casey, would you like to join me for a coffee? I'm free right now."

"I..." Casey choked. "Have...a class..."

The hand was reaching for his arm again but he twitched away, knowing that if those fingers made contact it would be his undoing. Headline: "Casey Connor breaks down in front of teacher, peers. Teacher unavailable for comment. 'Yeah', states room-mate Steve, 'He cries a lot. A regular waterworks.'"

The man, whatever his name, smiled again and let him have his miserable little bit of space. "Skip it."

They went off-campus, to an artsy little café-bookstore. It was the first time that Casey had experienced anything of Cinncinati outside his restricted environment of dorm and classroom. The fact was, he was afraid of the city, although with this older, plainly more experienced man guiding him it seemed not so very threatening...just new. The walls of the café were painted in warm shades of brown and the entire place smelled quite pleasingly of dust. There were people who looked like students around, but no one who gave them a second glance. His notoriety, it seemed, extended only to the borders of the campus.

"So, Casey. You seem very young to be in college."

"I'm almost eighteen," Casey replied.

"Like I said, very young. You must be special."

His companion had a way of looking at Casey that made him feel like he was genuinely fascinating. Casey kept stealing glances, noting all the little details that were mundane enough but somehow managed to add up to one major hottie. The thick head of hair was reminiscent of Hugh Grant, matched with golden brown eyes and a straight, perfect nose over that mesmerizing mouth. Even with his inexperience Casey could tell that the man had money. It was in his manicured hands, his designer sweater and shoes that most definitely did not come from Pay Less.

Casey blurted, "I don't remember your name."

This elicited a laugh that Casey instantly wanted to hear again. "Donald Windle. My friends call me Roy, though — short for "royal". You know, most people would have just struggled through the whole conversation and let me remain a stranger."

Casey didn't know what to say.

"You're quiet, aren't you? Listen, Casey. I know things probably seem pretty rough right now. First time away from home and you're just different enough from everyone else that it makes them uncomfortable. But I promise you — someday soon you'll be grateful for that difference." At Casey's expression, Roy gave him the laugh — oh, but it was a lovely sound. "You're probably thinking this is the speech I give to all the unhappy freshmen I take out for coffee. It isn't though." Roy lifted his café au lait bowl to his lips, took a sip, lowered it and said with a hint of coffee-coloured foam on his upper lip, his eyes never leaving Casey's, "I just feel inspired."

Oh, oh and oh. There was a tingling ache in Casey's gut. He clenched his hands together in his lap.

"You should probably say something now," Roy added.

He was obviously teasing, but Casey got even more flustered. Thoughts were tumbling over each other in his head, faster and faster and Roy was looking at him with that direct, searching gaze that seemed to know him completely and suddenly there were no words at all, just a great silence roaring in his mind that he could sort of watch and observe but had no power over.

"Okay," said Roy. "I'm sorry, that was me. I can get intense sometimes."

Perhaps it was safe to look up now. Casey ventured a quick little bit of eye-contact then returned to contemplating his coffee cup.

"So, Casey...it seems like you thwarted an alien invasion."

Casey glanced around furtively but the words had been quiet and no one heard. "Yeah," he said.

Roy's eyebrows were raised. "Really?"

"Really." Casey took a deep breath. The great silence collapsed into a corner of its cage...waiting. "I know everyone here thinks I'm nuts, they mostly do at home too, but it did happen. I wasn't the only person involved. Delilah, Stokes, Zeke—"

Absolutely inexplicably, his voice caught.

"You miss your friends," Roy intuited.

"They're hardly my friends, just...people I know."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because I don't have friends."

"Casey. Everyone thinks that, especially when they're young."

Casey scowled. He hated that premise...you only feel this because you're young, when you grow up you'll realize you were wrong... "Except in my case it's true."

Roy laughed yet again. He seemed to laugh quite a lot, but it never felt malicious or mocking; he was just delighting in what he heard. "I know you probably don't want to talk about it, but I'm really dying to hear about your experience — the alien thing, I mean. If you don't want to tell me, I'll understand, but I'll still be curious."

Casey's heart sank a little. He had been thinking — hoping — that Roy was interested in something other than his claim to fame.

"That isn't why we're here, Casey. Really," Roy added at Casey's doubtful face. "It's just that now that it comes up..."

Casey took a deep breath. "You aren't working undercover for the campus paper, are you?"

This time Roy's laugh was positively joyful.

Surprising himself, he told Roy the whole story. Roy listened with fixed attention, forgetting his café au lait. At the conclusion he was thoughtful. He said nothing for what seemed to be a half an hour, while Casey trembled with the thought that he had just turned Roy off so completely that the man couldn't even bring himself to speak to him. Roy was probably thinking about how to get the nutbar the treatment he so blatantly needed.

"Wow," Roy said finally.

Casey couldn't say anything, still shaking. In earlier days, right after the event itself, he had told the story eagerly, needing to share it, make it a part of the Herrington narrative. Now he dreaded even thinking about it, for it loosed feelings that would drown him, and no one had wanted to hear when he tried to verbalize them.

"Can I ask you something, Casey? Were you ever tempted by it?"

This was the last thing Casey expected to hear. "Tempted...by what?"

"The oneness. That merger...losing yourself, your boundaries. We all fear it, and yet we're attracted by it, I think."

Casey shook his head. He thought he said "no"...but he didn't hear it.

"Not even a little?" Roy wondered. His shimmery eyes were on Casey in a way that Casey could not mistake. Knowing. Possessive, maybe. Casey remembered Zeke looking at him like that once, but it had passed and then he thought he had dreamed it. "You always feel on the outside, you say you have no friends...and you didn't want to join in that big communal entity, just a little? You don't want to lose yourself?"

The words shot by his normal filters and pummelled the part of his brain that controlled intelligent thought. He knew his mouth was open but no sound was coming out. He shivered all over, both fearing and longing for some proof that he was understanding what he thought he understood, that this beautiful male thing with the big, comforting hands and broad shoulders was really looking at him that way, offering to free him from himself.

"I'm upsetting you again," Roy said at last, in a more normal tone. "Well, I'm sure that this whole business will pass. People will lose interest. I wonder, though..."

"What?"

"You could probably milk this for a lot of free beer, not to mention the girls."

"I don't want to!" Casey heard himself say, far too loudly, and then he felt himself go crimson.

"Hmmm," was Roy's comment.

"I...I...I mean they have parties every night in my dorm and I can't get any sleep and — I'm kinda tired...." Casey's voice trailed away. He looked down at his hands and muttered, "I just wish I could get one night of real sleep." Then he might not say so many stupid things.

"You should consider moving out of the student residence," Roy said. "I could help you with that."

"Really? You would?"

"Don't sound so surprised! Of course, I would."

It was a nice idea, but... "My dad would never go for it. He doesn't have a lot of money."

"Oh." Roy shrugged. "That's too bad. I think the residences are a bad scene for anyone really interested in learning anything. Hey, you know what? Why don't we just take a look around tomorrow anyway? Maybe you'll find something your dad would be okay with."

There was no resisting this.

Resisting Roy because he was a man? Hardly. He had been feeling things around men his whole life, and was pretty used to the idea. There had been a time when he imagined it was a secret that many boys harboured, so he had proceeded to act as though he were attracted to women too. He had the magazines, the posters, the shallow obsession with Delilah. By the time Delilah dumped him it was fairly conclusive that women were not where he wanted to focus his energies. But until he met stunning, charismatic Roy, he had not been forced to acknowledge the gnawing of want that was under his skin. In the space of one day he abandoned the pretense of interest in women, and beyond that...well, being gay did not distress him unduly. It was knowing that he longed to give up what little autonomy he had, to just drift in someone else's care and let them navigate. That it was even possible to want something that much...it gave him pause. But there was no question of not giving in to it. It was too enormous; it flattened him the moment he turned to face it.

The next day Roy took him to the campus housing service. They got a list of possible digs and wandered around the student ghetto, checking prospects. Casey looked and sounded like he was searching for a place to live, but in truth he was just basking in Roy's presence, watching him move, speak, embracing every word that fell from his lips and turning it over in his mind like a precious artifact. He had dreamed about Roy the night before, dreamed of those hands on him, doing vague, undefined things to him. He had wakened to wet, sticky sheets and almost cried with the brusque shock of being suddenly alone.

Near the end of the day they had found a room in a building that housed three others like himself, students who were actually interested in studying. Roy was insistent that he should try to do this, even though he knew quite well that it would never happen. But he couldn't withstand Roy's enthusiasm and so he agreed to try.

The quest ended up on the sidewalk outside the student residence, where Roy had advocated passionately on his behalf with the residence manager for the return of his deposit. Because it was actually his father's deposit, however, there was nothing to be done. Casey would have to call his father and convince him that the move was in everyone's best interest.

"You can phone from my place," Roy offered. He had already figured out that Casey had little pocket money. Casey had an allowance of fifty dollars a month and that didn't go far.

"It's long distance."

"That's fine." Roy grinned, shrugged. "How about you come over and have supper with me?"

"I...um..."

Roy stepped in, put his hands gently on Casey's shoulders. "Casey Connor...please join me for a plate of spaghetti." He was so very charming about it that Casey had to laugh.

Roy lived alone in an apartment which was, while not opulent, certainly better than what most students could afford. It was in a restored brownstone dating back to the turn of the century, with original oak floors and trim. There was real furniture, a fully stocked kitchen, and an extra bedroom that served as an office. And like his clothes, the contents of the apartment were nothing but the best of everything.

Casey's eye was immediately drawn to the framed black and white prints on the walls, most of them portraits. "Is this your work?"

"Un-huh. What do you think?"

"It's awesome! Especially this one." Casey pointed to a candid shot of an elderly man. The subject had been captured at a moment of rapturous joy, a somewhat incongruous image in a world where elderly people were often stereotyped as sad or complacent or grouchy old cranks.

"That's one of my favourites too." Roy said, standing right behind him. Casey jumped and shivered as Roy's breath brushed his ear. "That man has worked for my father for about forty-five years. I remember him as a child, always so happy. I couldn't understand it."

"Understand what?" Casey asked, hyper-conscious of Roy's closeness.

"How a person could always be that happy."

Casey couldn't bear the tension anymore and moved away, focussing on the next picture. "You seem happy."

"Oh, I talk a good show, but I'm just like every other discontented schmuck."

You're not like everyone else. He wanted to say it, but for some reason he just couldn't. Why was it that giving compliments was such an exposure?

"Casey?"

He turned to face Roy. "I want to say something nice to you but I can't say it," he confessed. "I'm such a coward."

"You're not a coward," Roy protested, very soft. His face was less than a hand span away from Casey's. "You're afraid of a lot of things, but you're not a coward."

Roy continued to look down at him, with a steady, kind expression. He was waiting for Casey to make a move...or was he? A thousand such scenes, written by people who must have experienced them at some time or another, suggested ways to cross the distance of six inches, how to get two faces into contact. But in the wonderful world of make-believe there were always reliable signs leading up to the moment, if the writer was doing his job. In Casey's world nothing was ever as easy to interpret, and — God, he was so tired of trying.

"I'm sorry, Casey," Roy said softly. "I'm doing it again."

"What?" Casey's eyes burned. Sometimes he just wanted to smash in his own skull with a sledge hammer, just to make it all stop.

"I'm making you uncomfortable. Here...let me make it easier for you."

Just like that Roy tilted his head, and his lips brushed Casey's and Casey flinched back before he could help himself, like he had been stung by static electricity. Roy quickly put both hands on Casey's face, keeping him in place but very gently, leaving no more than two inches between their mouths.

"I..." Casey whispered, feeling quite prepared to run from the room in tears. Yes, that would be easier than staying.

"Shh..." Roy breathed, still cupping his face. "Poor baby...you're nothing but nerves, aren't you?"

Something that the un-nervous couldn't understand about the nervous was that a point always came when nerves demanded action, when something had to happen if the situation was to become bearable. That moment had arrived for Casey. He fastened his mouth onto Roy's, and there he was in the moment reveling in the taste of Roy, the very fact of Roy.

You could dam the anxiety, divert it, slow it to a trickle but it would still keep coming. A second after he kissed Roy he stopped being in the moment and started observing himself from outside his body and he didn't know how to be Casey at this moment. He pulled away just long enough to burrow into Roy, clinging with desperate fingers, hoping to hide from Roy in Roy's arms as tears got the better of him.

"Hey..." Roy carefully unwrapped him and held Casey's face in his hands again. "Shh..." he soothed, his thumb extending up and brushing away a droplet. "I think that this is all we can handle today, and it's fine, Casey, it's more than okay. It's wonderful. But for the rest of this evening I think we will just talk and eat and not worry about what might happen. Okay?"

Casey nodded.

"C'mere."

Roy drew him over to the sofa and pulled him down close to his body, whispering, "It's okay..." Casey wound his hands into Roy's sweater and hung on, tucking his head in under Roy's chin at the join of neck and shoulder.

"Hey," Roy wondered aloud. "Before...what did you want to say to me?"

"I..." Casey shuddered. "You're not average...you're special."

"Thank you, Casey. I appreciate that." Roy tightened his embrace a bit. "I happen to think you're above average yourself." He grabbed at a bright but beaten-looking afghan that was draped over the back of the couch. "I also think you're very tired right now. I want you to curl up here and take a nap and I'm going to go..."

Casey made a sound of protest.

"I'm just going to cook supper, Casey. I'll be right over there, not ten feet away."

Casey unclenched himself rather suddenly, leaving Roy looking at him with a bit of surprise. "I'm ridiculous," Casey muttered.

"It's not ridiculous to feel things deeply." Roy touched his cheek with a fond smile and stood up.

Casey did fall asleep then, exhausted from many nights of poor sleep and being in emotional overdrive all day. He dropped into a bottomless well of black, emerging after what could have been days just as easily as hours. It was a voice that penetrated the blackness, dragging him up to the surface.

"Who's this?"

"Ssh!" came Roy's voice from a distance.

The new voice, a male, receded a bit. "What are you doing with a freshman on your couch, Roy?"

"You don't know that he's a freshman."

"Oh, please. He's not only a freshman, he's a baby freshman straight out of some accelerated high school program. He looks about fourteen years old."

"Seventeen, for your information. I'm helping him out. He's been having a hard time in residence."

"Mmm hmm."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Casey decided he couldn't bear to hear anymore of what they might say and sat up, yawning as conspicuously as he could.

"Nice work, Sasha!" Roy's voice hissed. He came into view, with a welcoming smile. "Did you have a good nap, Casey?"

"Yeah," Casey answered, drawing the afghan around his shoulders. He felt crappy the way he always did after a nap, chilled and slightly sick.

The interloper had left the kitchen area and took a seat on the coffee table directly in front of him. He was of a somewhat thin build and, Casey had noted before he sat down, seemed to be well over six feet tall. His features were narrow, aquiline even; he reminded Casey of one of those European actors who were famous in Europe and barely known in North America. "Hi, I'm Sasha." He stuck out a hand, did what could only be called a double take, and exclaimed, "Casey Connor!"

Casey clutched his afghan tighter.

"Wow, I can't believe it! I'm in the presence of a celebrity here. The Squealer is looking for him to do an interview and you've got him stashed here on your couch — Roy, you dog!"

Roy pushed at Sasha, sliding him along the table until he was forced to take his feet or fall off. "Sasha...cut it out."

"What? I wasn't doing anything!"

"I'm sure you would love to wake up to some ugly mug pressed in your face too."

"Well, it depends on whose mug it is."

As quickly as it started the argument ended. Both men looked at Casey, who was yawning and rubbing his eyes. Then Sasha looked over at Roy and said absolutely nothing and Roy, for the first time since Casey met him, looked uncomfortable in his own skin.

"Well, it's good to meet you, Casey." Sasha sniffed. "Is that dinner I smell?"

"Yes-s-s," Roy mock-growled.

"Whatcha cookin'?"

Roy smiled down at Casey. "Just spaghetti sauce. I'll put the pasta on now. You hungry, Casey?"

Discovering suddenly that he was, Casey nodded.

"I suppose you can stay too, Sasha," Roy sighed. "Although the fare might be a bit ordinary for your tastes."

"Hey, I respect a hearty bolognese," Sasha protested.

"Well, this is more like Mom's tomato sauce."

"I love comfort food," Casey said, a little too quickly and he cringed inwardly at how he sounded.

Sasha looked at him with a knowing expression.

Over their meal, which was eaten around the kitchen island sitting on high stools, Casey decided that he did not like Sasha. He was blunt, he was over the top in every word and gesture, and he made unacceptable demands upon Roy's attention. Roy seemed to like him though, and that made Casey wonder if he himself were every bit as irritating as Sasha, and Roy only put up with him out of that wondrous generosity he seemed to possess in abundance. A person as beautiful as Roy probably had to deal with an endless parade of wannabes, flunkies and hangers-on, to which Casey now was forced to add himself.

In the middle of the meal the phone rang and Roy went to answer. Upon identifying who it was, Roy took the cordless phone with him to the bathroom and shut the door.

"That'll be dear old Dad," Sasha drawled. "King of Rubber."

Casey just looked at him, not wanting to encourage him by replying out loud; he had managed thus far during the meal by answering any direct questions with a nod or a head shake.

"Oh, claws in, kitten. I'll be gone soon enough and then you can have him all to yourself. That is, once Dad gets through with him."

Casey couldn't help himself. He asked, "Who is Dad?"

"You don't know? His father is Trent Windle. The family is old Ohio royalty. They have interests in various industrial type manufacturing things that I don't really understand. I know they're big in rubber though. Anyway, Daddy likes to keep a close eye on our boy. Seems to think since he's paying the whole shot he has a vested interest in what courses Roy takes and where he parks his car..."

"Are you old Ohio royalty?" Casey challenged.

"Nope. More like poor white trash."

"Poor white trash named like Russian aristocracy."

"Ooh, you're not just a pretty face, are you? Well, 'Alexander' is ordinary enough for my mother to like it. I always went by Alex until I came across 'Sasha' in a novel. I think it sounds so much more exotic, don't you?"

Casey shrugged.

"Anyway, Roy and I go way back — and in case you're wondering, we've never been involved. We're just pals with certain things in common."

"Like what?"

"Pretty eighteen year-old freshmen."

Casey wanted to punch him. "It's not...he's not..."

"Not what?" Sasha retorted, smug but not really mean. "Don't think I blame you, kitten. You can't help being adorable, any red-blooded queer can see that..."

Casey frowned, realizing how silly and unnecessarily adversverdana it would be to say, "I don't want to be adorable to you" even as he thought it.

"You don't like that? Sorry. How 'bout alluring and absolutely fabulous?" Sasha winked, and Casey couldn't not grin just a bit. He suddenly didn't dislike Sasha so much. "That's better, kitten."

"Don't call me that."

"Sure, I'll try, honey. But you have to realize that we queens set great stock in cutesy names. I may not be able to help myself...."

"Sasha." Roy had returned to the table, and his tone was a warning. "I hate that crap, you know that." He was changed; to Casey's eyes a black spell had been cast.

"All the more reason for me to do it," Sasha sang brightly.

"Yeah, well...suppose you go home now."

Sasha looked down at his plate, still half full of food. "Okay...sure." He got up, tossing his napkin angrily on the counter. "See you, Casey."

The door shut behind Sasha with a noise that resounded through the apartment — not quite a slam, but close.

Casey's initial discomfort was quickly settling into an indigestible knot. He sat staring at his lap, listening to Roy's fork scrape at his plate. From under his lids he watched as Roy's water glass ascended and descended, all with just a touch of violence towards innocent tableware. The fork settled with a decided tone.

"I'm sorry."

It sounded like Roy again, but Casey was wary. "M-maybe I should — I should leave."

"No, I want you here, Casey." Roy tilted his chin up with a finger. "I'll call Sasha and apologize. I shouldn't let my father get to me like that."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not." Straightening, Roy took Casey's mostly empty plate and Sasha's mostly full one. Stacking them, he asked, "Does your father get to you, Casey?"

"K-kind of." Casey noted the familiar pang that he always associated with Frank Connor. "Mostly, he ignores me." Roy's eyes met his sympathetically from the other side of the island. "I know he's disappointed but...he's never come out and said it."

Roy was rinsing the dirty dishes, organizing the mess to be dealt with later. "I think...in a lot of ways it's better not to know." Roy's back was to Casey. He was gripping the counter with two hands, bracing himself.

"Do — do you want to tell me about it?"

Roy let go of the counter. He turned, leaning his back against the sink, and offered a bitter laugh. "What's to tell? He thinks I'm sick and is determined to cure me. He thinks I fill my days cavorting with street hustlers — or worse, that I seduce innocent little boys..." Now Roy was staring at Casey, hard-eyed. He swiftly turned off the water tap and glided forward and around the island. "Well, he's not far wrong there..." he breathed, moving towards Casey who was still on his stool, feeling very much like a hypnotised rabbit.

But Roy simply took his hand and led him to the couch. For a while they just sat, side by side. Roy kept holding his hand, playing with it, massaging, drawing little figures on it — and Casey wondered, how could a hand be wired directly to his cock?

"I want to ask you something," Roy said softly. His other hand moved to Casey's opposite arm...his shoulder...fingers played lightly at his neck.

"What?" Casey asked breathlessly.

"I know I said we would just have the one kiss..."

"Oh."

That must have been his consent, for Roy's hand at his neck abruptly pushed at his chin, encouraging him to turn his head. Then Roy was kissing him insistently. A molten tongue teased his lips apart and began exploring the inside of his mouth, stealing his breath. Roy's hands were moving under his shirt, assuming permission. It seemed that Casey was engulfed and surrounded all at once, helpless under the onslaught of sensation. He didn't know where his own hands were or if he was capable of offering any initiative in their kiss — he could only respond as Roy and his own body directed. Casey focussed on keeping up, cataloguing how it felt to have that weight just pressing there, and a hand here...

"Casey," whispered Roy.

"What?"

"Stop thinking."

Roy then moved to stake a claim at his throat, lavishing the sensitive spots with a vampiric quantity of attention, at the same time turning and adjusting their bodies so they were lying down, Roy's weight on top of him. Roy had kneed Casey's legs apart and put one of his own in between so that their hips could fit together and Casey was put on notice of Roy's erection, burning hot even with their clothes between them.

It all felt wonderful but even still he was worrying, analyzing. Roy was in compete control of everything, and Casey would have been very happy to just let things unfold, to observe the responses of his body as a detached outsider, but what if Roy was actually waiting for him to do something? What if he was impatiently wondering why Casey didn't ask him to take his shirt off? Casey thought he would like to touch Roy, to just get the feel of him, the lines, the angles, the textures, to experiment for a few hours with stimulae and response...but it felt like anything he might do would be lame next to Roy's urgency and he wouldn't impersonate Roy. It would feel contrived, which would make him even more self-conscious and that wouldn't work—

Oh, no. Roy had stopped his frenzied activities; he sat up suddenly and turned away from Casey, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "Casey, I told you to stop thinking."

Casey had his legs trapped under Roy or he would have bolted. "I'm sorry," he croaked. "I'm sorry..."

Roy let out a long sigh and presented a face of wistful tolerance. "Oh, baby. Don't you know this is supposed to be fun? It's not supposed to give you an anxiety attack."

"But I..." Casey struggled to get the words past the tightness in his throat. "I — I want—"

"I know," Roy said. He extricated his legs and held out his arms, offering Casey arefuge. "You want to be perfect for me, but you already are, baby." He stroked Casey's hair away from his face and set about tracing his features — his jaw, his lips, his cheekbone — with his sensitive fingers. "You have no idea how beautiful you are. These glorious eyes, god, they just knock me over every time I look at you. And this little bud of a mouth...your skin..." Roy kissed his eyelids, the left then the right...and then the left again, making Casey giggle. The kiss meandered down along his jaw. "I love this hair that sticks up in every direction...and this slinky little body..." Roy put warm hands under Casey's shirt. "You don't have to do anything to be sexy, Casey."

"I..." Casey's breath caught as Roy made contact with his nipples. "I don't know...anything."

"I like that just fine too," Roy crooned. His hands, still moving, now grasped the bottom of Casey's shirt and firmly pulled it over his head, letting it fall on the floor. "So innocent...you're like a creature from another planet. Just let me...." Gently he pushed Casey down onto his back again, following him down to tease Casey's nipple with his mouth. He laved and sucked and nibbled, while slowly massaging their lower bodies together. The tension, the need to get more of their bare skin to meet began to erase all of Casey's fretting and wondering. He writhed and arched his back, suddenly amazed that it could become this easy, so easy.

"You want more," Roy stated, bucking against him hard and slow.

"Ye-es-s," he mewled.

"Just let go, Casey. Let it all go. You're doing wonderfully well.." So saying, Roy unbuttoned Casey's jeans.

"...Roy..."

"Lift your hips, baby."

Roy tugged, pulling down his jeans and underwear at once. Roy gazed at him, unembarrassed. "Beautiful," he murmured, leaning down and encompassing Casey's straining erection with his mouth.

Casey clawed the couch with one hand and Roy's hair with the other, emitting a noise that was half moan and half scream. His dick was enveloped in white hot heat and pressure that kicked the ass of every previous experience of masturbatory pleasure. It turned out that to fall to pieces was just fine. He was not thinking...not thinking..."Roy!" he cried.

When he could see again, he was staring up at Roy. Both their chests were heaving. Roy had taken off his own shirt and was licking his lips delicately.

"I'm sorry," Casey said before he could stop it but Roy only laughed, looking more beautiful than ever.

"Nothing to be sorry about, baby, I'm sorry...fuck, what you do to me." Roy was looking down with an expression of...was it, could it be? Casey was overcome by a need to babble. His whole brain had turned into some god-awful bit of poetry written by a foolish teenage girl.

"What?" asked Roy. "What is this look you're giving me?"

After an almost reverent pause, Casey whispered, "I think I love you."

Roy only smiled and lightly touched Casey's lips. Casey let his mouth drift open slightly, let two fingers play along them and then inside.

Casey reached up and put his hands on Roy's chest, lightly touching and fingering his skin, savouring the perfect lines of ridged muscle and trailing down to the hard belly. He felt fearless now, emptied, anxious only to give pleasure. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.

"I'm all right, baby."

"But I want to...give you something."

Roy gazed steadily down at him, eyes dark with passion. "There is something that I want from you...but not yet."

"To fuck me."

Roy hissed and moved suddenly like it was too uncomfortable not to. "Shit..."

"I want you to do it."

"No, I don't think that's a good idea, Casey."

"Please," begged Casey. He figured he knew what he was asking for. He certainly knew the mechanics of it as well as any teenaged boy with a stash of gay porn. His parents hadn't known about that stash.

"Oh, Jesus..." muttered Roy.

Tentative at first, Casey put his hand on Roy's crotch and found the outline of the erection that was struggling for release from its confinement. He explored rhythm and pressure, paying attention to Roy's face, completely fascinated by what he saw. There, that was the place...Roy crushed Casey to him muttering unintelligibly. Casey unzipped Roy's jeans, which was awkward just then with their bodies mashed together, and reached for Roy's penis.

Roy took his hand and moved it away. "Wait."

He collapsed on top of Casey, resting his face in the hollow of Casey's shoulder for a moment. They twisted and squirmed until they had found a slightly more comfortable arrangement, Roy lying on his side with Casey spooned in front of him. Roy's erection was poking his back. Casey sensed that Roy was struggling with some misconceived but noble concern that it was too soon or too much. But nothing was too soon or too much, not any more.

Casey sighed. He tugged at Roy's arm, wrapping it around himself, and began to play with his fingers like a child would. "Roy."

"Yeah?"

"Am I doing all right?"

Roy laughed, somewhat tightly. "More than all right."

"'Cuz I've been worried that I wouldn't be any good at it."

"Was there never anyone else? In high school?"

"Well, Delilah, but—"

"Hmm?"

"She said I 'sucked a lame-o lollipop'. And then she dumped me."

"Sounds like a lovely girl."

"She was right, though. I was so nervous all the time. She never would've even looked at me twice if all that stuff hadn't happened."

"That 'stuff' about aliens? Maybe what she saw was the wonderful, brave person you are." Roy kissed the base of Casey's neck very gently. "Although to tell the truth, she sounds pretty shallow."

"Delilah's...she doesn't like to seem vulnerable. She doesn't like to see it in others either — especially if they're her boyfriend."

"How sad for her." Roy stroked Casey's hair. "Do you want to tell me what happened when you and Delilah did the nasty?"

"Not really," Casey mumbled. "I...she...just...I thought I would feel more. I expected to be sort of..."

"Swept away?"

"Yeah. But it didn't happen. I...had to think about one of my male friends to do it."

"Have you ever been attracted to a woman?"

"I thought I was, to Delilah. I watched her, I wanted to touch her...I had photos of her. But in my fantasies it — it was always someone else."

"Who?"

"Zeke."

"He was one of your friends. I think you mentioned him earlier."

"I had such a crush on him. He was..." Casey hesitated a bit. "...he was the star of the Casey Connor Show."

Roy tightened his arms around Casey. "Not this time, I hope."

"Oh, no!" Casey struggled to rotate himself, to look up at Roy. "No, all I was thinking about was you — really!"

"Hmmm," Roy mused, his eyes glinting possessively.

Perhaps Roy was teasing, but Casey couldn't chance it. He whispered, "Please believe me...he's been burned away. There's only you now."

Roy's lips came down on his; his tongue demanded entry. One hand was wrapped around Casey's neck; the other was behind, pushing up so that Roy could get in farther than ever, halfway down his throat. Casey saw that everything up until now had been play. Roy's teeth were sharp, biting where before all had been gentle pressure and teasing. His erection was forced between Casey's bare thighs,and Roy started to hump against him, pulling him hard against him with hip bones grinding and knocking, his entire weight resting on the one knee that pressed down on Casey's leg. Casey opened his mouth to cry out, either in pain or pained pleasure, and found the noise stopped by Roy's hand. Casey was surrounded and ambushed and he never wanted it to stop. Now he felt an emptiness yawning, knew Roy was taking up residence there, pushing out to fill the dark corners.

Roy's hand slipped, three fingers finding their way into Casey's mouth, thumb under his chin. Casey sucked on them, letting his saliva coat them and when they were taken away Casey groaned, "Put them in me."

Roy muttered, "We need a condom — lube — in the bedroom." He managed to get to his feet gracefully, which wasn't easy. He offered a hand to Casey; Casey took it and allowed himself to be drawn down the hall.

With Casey in his bed Roy became considerate again, holding and stroking and tasting, but filled with a dark-eyed peremptory need. Casey was conscious of little save the sensation of want and pleasure, the way a finger drawn along the underside of his jaw made his stomach tremble, or a thigh brushing against his cock was becoming an instrument of torture. "Love this," Roy breathed, tracing the spaces around Casey's eyes. "And this. And..." He smiled, seeing that Casey was speechless. "You should say something."

Casey shook his head. Sometimes a silence got hold of him that was too vast to cross.

Roy sighed, "My Casey...I'm the first one inside you."

The first human, anyway. The thought popped into Casey's head, but it didn't stay where he had any access to it.

It hurt at first, even with the lube and Roy's careful efforts. Really hurt but he didn't make a sound or flinch. Pain always came first, that was what he knew about the world. Pain was the cost of feeling. The pay-off was when Roy touched that place inside him that made him leap up on a sob, a kind of gasp.

"That's good, isn't it?"

He nodded eagerly. "Do it again!"

The sensations that invaded him should have made him scream, but it wasn't screaming, it was something else, like crying. He was a creature that only wanted the satisfaction of its ache. He heard himself make sounds and observed himself holding his body open and marvelled amidst it all that there could be no embarrassment, no fear. Then Roy was inside him and the pain stopped his breath for a while, until they found that miracle again, that one little spot that switched on all the lights in the house and he got a really good look at everything for the first time and the idea fluttered through him that this must have been what Mary Beth meant? No fear, no pain, she said...but yes pain, pain that he never wanted to stop.

Sleeping together was not comfortable, physically-speaking. It was too much about trying not to get in the other person's way and adjusting the covers so they weren't too hot or too cold. So Casey wound himself around Roy and laid his head on Roy's shoulder and never really slept much. He nodded off for a while just before dawn and woke shortly to full morning, very conscious of his need for a shower. His wakeful movements stirred Roy, who made a pleased noise and cuddled him close, blowing morning breath on his face at an angle that tickled.

"Casey."

"Hi." Casey knew he was wearing a huge smile.

Roy returned it. "Did you sleep?"

"A bit."

"Just a bit?" Roy bumped their foreheads together. "You have way too many thoughts running around in your head, you know that?"

"But you stopped them," Casey said softly.

"I'll take that as a high compliment." Roy kissed his nose. "Casey...we have to keep this—" Roy waved a lazy hand in a circle, between himself and Casey "—a secret. All right? Sasha knows but he's the only one."

Pretty near everything in his life that was real was a secret, so it didn't come as a surprise that this had to be too.

"Casey, listen to me. This is serious. You realize what people would think if they knew — what they would think of me, especially? I'm ten years older than you."

"I understand," Casey said, determined to let Roy know that he was not making a mistake in being with someone so much younger, that Casey was mature beyond his years. Roy suddenly tore away from Casey to look at the digital clock at his bedside. "Nine thirty-four...oh, shit...fuck me..."

"What?" Casey wanted to know, alarmed. He sat up and, acting instinctively, put his hand on Roy's shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Roy was out of the bed, talking and not looking at him. "You have to go...please. My father will be here at 10:00 and I need to clean up..."

Casey managed to squelch his initial hurt. He had promised after all, and he already understood that secrecy from Roy's father was a priority. "Can't I take a shower, and we'll just pretend you're tutoring me?"

Roy turned, and Casey was entranced by his naked splendour. "A five minute shower, but then you must go, Casey. If he sees you he'll never believe for a second that you're here to be tutored. For Christ's sake..." Roy ran his hands up through his hair. "You look as though you've been mauled — now quickly, please."

Infected by Roy's panic, Casey acquiesced, showering quickly. His first few moments of activity as he got up were edged with pain that was hard to ignore, but the hot water took a lot of the stiffness and discomfort away. He was still sore after, but it was not unbearable. The moment he was dressed, Roy had him by the sleeve and was pulling him to the door.

"I'll make this up to you, Casey, I swear it." They exchanged a hasty kiss and Roy, as had become his signature expression of affection, cupped Casey's face in his hands, sketching his jaw and cheekbone. "Now, don't fret...I have no intention of letting you get away from me."

"When will I see you?" Casey asked.

"Um...tonight? I'm going to see that show on Depression Era photography...but after I'll call you, alright?"

"I could go with you," said Casey, trying to hug him.

"No." Roy pushed him back. "That isn't possible. I'll understand if you'd rather find something else to do later—"

"No!" Casey answered quickly. "I'll wait. I'll study until you call."

Casey walked to his residence, and he actually waved to one or two of his peers, those people who generally didn't give him the time of day. He knew he had a silly smile on his face but he didn't care. Roy was running all over his body like the most exhilarating drug.

Back in his room, he lay on his bed and let his brain spin a future where he and Roy were getting an apartment together. They would go to parties and dinners together ...everyone admires the couple and envies Casey especially. Roy takes Casey to his family home and presents him to his parents, who are standing at the top of a grand staircase looking down disdainfully. "This is Casey, whom I love," Roy says. "You can choose to hate us or share our life with us, but I won't give him up." "Well, son," his father replies, stern and silvery-haired like James Coburn or Jimmy Stewart, "I can't saythis hasn't caught me by surprise, and it isn't what I would have chosen for my son. But he seems a decent sort." And Roy's father holds out his hand to Casey. "Are you sure this scoundrel is worth keeping?" he says with a smile and Casey answers, "Yes, sir."

Casey had to leave the fantasy for Newtonian laws and quantum mechanics, but the smile never left his soul, and he barely noticed the continuing fallout from the posters. It could hardly be that the whole poster business had started only two days ago. Everything felt different; he knew that there was commentary going on behind his back but none of it affected him.

That evening Casey studied in the residence common room instead of going to the library. He thought occasionally of Roy languishing in the company of snobby friends and dreading every second until he could get home and call Casey. Casey went back to his room at nine to be ready for it. When 11:00 p.m. came and went, and Roy had not called, Casey imagined that it had been more difficult than Roy anticipated to get away. At midnight Casey started to imagine car and bus accidents. He picked up the phone to call Roy's cell phone about ten times before he actually dialled, after 1:00 a.m..

"Roy here." Casey immediately heard the sound of a lot people talking and laughing in the background. A party in full swing.

"Roy?"

"Yes?"

"It's --- Casey."

"I know."

"I...was wondering when you were going to call."

"Just a moment."

Casey heard the noise recede somewhat.

"Casey," whispered Roy. "I can't talk right now."

"But I thought you'd be done by now."

"I'm sorry, but I can't exactly tell them about you..."

Someone in the background shouted, "Roy! Get over here, you shit!" and there was an explosion of laughter.

"I have to go," Roy said, and Casey could hear his impatience clearly. "You know, it's so late now. How about I call you in the morning? We'll go for breakfast."

"Okay," Casey said.

Putting the phone down, he felt a slightly nauseous heat in his gut and crammed the feeling down in a tiny little space somewhere between his stomach and his spleen. Roy couldn't say he had to meet someone without explaining who and why, and it wasn't helpful of Casey to phone him and make those friends suspicious. The sounds of laughter and group enjoyment didn't necessarily lead to the inference that Roy was enjoying himself.

Casey snuggled down to sleep, hoping the morning would come soon.

The semester, which had been crawling by on snails legs, was now flying by as Casey spent every second he could with Roy. Unfortunately, although he himself had a lot of seconds to spare, Roy was always having to go to this or that gathering, or a party at some downtown condominium or club. On nights when Roy went out, Casey generally would wait for Roy at his apartment; the talk of Casey getting his own apartment had been abandoned quickly. Casey would nod off in Roy's bed and waken to the sweet taste of Roy's lips, spiced with cigarette smoke and whiskey.

Casey wasn't so naive that he didn't realize how some would view their relationship. He knew it wasn't like that, though. That first semester they spent hours together wandering the city, taking photos and talking. Roy took Casey to some of his favourite places, places Casey never would have found on his own. One day in November they went to a second-hand shop and Roy had a grand time re-clothing Casey, making him over into a typical college student. By then Casey's hair had become quite long as well, and with Roy's encouragement he kept it longer but styled into something more up-to-date. He couldn't quite believe he was looking at himself when he peered at a mirror. Roy told him he was beautiful, but he only saw a cardboard cut-out, desperately trying to look like someone real.

"Casey."

"Mmm," Casey replied. It was three weeks before Christmas break and they were cuddled on Roy's couch half-watching "A Christmas Story". Earlier they had discovered that they both liked to watch it every year and sat down to practice the tradition together, but Casey's head wound up on Roy's lap and he was soon drowsing, his body more interested in catching up on sleep that had been lost to studying for final exams.

"What would you say to coming home with me for Christmas?"

Casey sat upright, feeling a silly grin spread over his face. "Really?"

Roy smiled back and took his hand. He was always doing that, touching Casey with such tenderness that Casey's insides would start to quiver. "I've been thinking it might be possible."

"And I would meet your family?"

This brought about a frown. "That's not possible, Casey. If you come, my mother and father can't know you're there."

Casey experienced that spinning, that slight nausea that he got from time to time, whenever Roy said something that brought home to him the fact that he didn't really exist outside this apartment. "I don't understand..."

"We have a guest cottage. I often stay there when I'm home. It's two miles from the main house, I generally have privacy there." Roy wore the self-effacing expression that Casey could never resist; he was the only person Casey had ever known who seemed to have a charm dial they could turn up and down, just like that. Zeke had something of the gift, but he had never developed the kind of fine control over it that Roy had. "Just think...we could have our own tree, our own Christmas together."

"Wouldn't you have to be with your family?" Casey asked doubtfully, thinking of his own parents.

"Traditionally we have a huge Christmas party a couple of days before the twenty-fifth and then my parents take off on a trip...usually to separate locations. I can't remember the last time I had anything to look forward to on Christmas Day. Of course the staff do a big turkey thing but I could easily say I'm going to be elsewhere."

"What about your brother and sister..." Casey was in possession of only cursory details about Roy's family, limited more or less to names and relevant numeric values.

"They're usually somewhere else too."

Somewhat to his own surprise, Casey was reluctant. As much as he wanted to be with Roy, he had never spent a Christmas away from his family. This semester had been the first time in his life he had been separated from his parents for more than a week, and he actually had been looking forward to going home for the break.

"C'mon, baby..." Roy coaxed.

Casey didn't say anything.

"Well, at least give me a shot at changing your mind." Roy wore a mischievous expression.

"Oh, no..."

Roy tackled him, getting his hands into all sorts of controversial places. "Oh, yes!"

"But I really want to...ah!"

"You were saying?"

"Unhh...Roy..."

"Stop?"

"Mmm..."

"Okay, I'll stop. But what if I want to..."

Casey gasped.

"Do you want me to stop this?"

"N-n-no."

"How about this? Do you want me to stop this then?"

"No, please—"

"All right, but I don't see how I can keep on doing this if you're two hundred miles away."

Casey saw his point.

His parents were less than thrilled. His mother actually cried when he told her over the phone that he was going to go to a friend's instead of coming home for Christmas. For about an hour after he hung up he was certain he had made a mistake. He rehearsed several different speeches where he told Roy that he wasn't coming after all, and got himself worked up into a state close to panic — until Roy was in the room with him and the speech, the anxiety, and the intention to cancel the visit all vanished.

When he saw the cottage he was content with his decision all over again. The place was beautiful; a one-room cottage built in the late 1800's, it boasted all the original stone walls and hearth but was completely furnished with modern amenities. Roy had already arranged to have a ten-foot spruce tree brought in, which they decorated together on their first night there. They exchanged gifts, most of them from Roy to Casey but Casey was very proud of his gift to Roy, to which he had dedicated the entirety of his last two monthly allowances from his father. It was a print of an Annie Leibniz portrait of Robert De Niro, a particular favourite of Roy's, framed to match those in his apartment, and Casey could barely stand the anticipation of seeing him open it.

Roy cried when he had the wrapping off it. "No one else sees who I am," he said and clutched Casey to him fiercely.

On their second night Roy had to be in attendance for his family's Christmas gathering up at the main house. Casey was pleased to be truly alone for the first time in quite a while, although he was expecting Roy to return by midnight. Wrapped in his coat and hat and scarf, he sat out on the porch for hours, going inside only when he could no longer feel his toes. He made cocoa, stoked the fire and lit candles, and finally stretched out in front of the hearth, imagining how they would make love there when Roy got back.

He was startled awake by a crash and Roy's voice cursing. The fire was reduced to red sparks on black; most of the candles had burned themselves out too, leaving a rather dark room.

"....ouch! What...why are all the lights out! Casey!"

The electric lights came on. Casey had to shield his eyes, dopey with sleep.

"What's with the candles!"

Roy was coming into focus but Casey didn't need to see him to know that he was drunk and angry.

"I couldn't see the damned keyhole...why'd you lock it?"

"It wasn't locked."

"It sure the fuck was locked!"

"I didn't lock it, Roy." Casey's gut was burning now, his cheeks hot as nerves re-established dominance over bone and muscle, setting his body trembling. He had never argued with Roy before; Roy had never even raised his voice in Casey's presence. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Roy peeled off his coat, got his arms a bit tangled and ended up kicking and stomping an innocent article of clothing as it lay trampled on the floor.

"Roy...what — what's the matter?"

Roy's entire face was closed, hard. The personality change was as complete as that of the faculty, and the student body, even eventually Stan and Delilah who had taunted Casey and Stokely with their combined lifetime achievement as misfits. Trust was a redundancy; one could only try to be prepared except you never really were prepared if you let yourself believe that you could know anyone, and you did let yourself believe that, you had to or be alone. "My father...my splendid, wonderful, omniscient father..."

"What? What did he do?"

"He's trying to arrange a marriage for me, if you can believe it." Roy yanked off a boot, overbalancing himself in the process. He threw the boot on the floor. "Fuck."

"M-marriage..."

"This girl I've known since we were kids. Medieval as it sounds, my parents have always wanted to join our two houses."

Casey sat down on one of the couches. He was shivery and cold, his heart still thudding away, acid burning holes in his stomach. "What are you going to do?"

"Well, Casey," Roy replied nastily. "I always do what papa wants." He tried for a laugh, a short, humourless bark of a sound. "And I have to be at the house tomorrow night."

"But..." Casey found he didn't have the breath to speak. His voice was a breathless squeak. "That's Christmas Eve."

"Yes, it is," spat Roy, slamming down his other boot. Then he appeared to notice how agitated Casey was getting. "Oh, baby. I'm sorry." He rushed to sit next to Casey and hugged him. "Don't ever be scared of me, please."

"I'm not scared." But he was. Not of Roy's violence towards inanimate objects, but that word "engagement". He spoke over Roy's shoulder, stammering, "You — you're going to — to be engaged...tomorrow?"

Roy gripped Casey's shoulders, holding them firmly and pulling back to look him in the eye. "It's more like a promise to kinda sorta promise. I'm not going to spend my life with her."

"Roy..." Casey began, forcing the words out of a tight throat. "What would happen if...if..."

"If what?"

"If you...told your family...about..."

"The fact that I like to fuck boys?"

Casey couldn't meet his gaze. "Yeah, I guess."

"Well, my father kind of already knows, although he believes I'm not...active."

"I mean..."

"Come out? That's out of the question."

Casey ventured a little criticism. "You always say that. Why is it out of the question?"

"It just is."

"But—"

"Casey!" Roy shook him, three hard shakes. "Grow up! Everything doesn't always work out because two people love each other. In fact you can pretty much count on it being fucked."

Casey removed himself from Roy's grasp. His heart was pounding so hard he could taste it, yet to his own amazement he was still talking. "What's the worst thing that could happen?"

"I can't believe you—! You have no idea about the kind of rules I live with. I would be an outcast...and maybe you think I'm a shallow fucking bastard for caring about such things, but I can't have my own father hate me. I can't."

Casey blurted, "Why don't you try being hated? You do survive it."

"Oh, and how do I survive it? Like you, Casey? You don't seem to be surviving very well at all. Why don't you try coming out on top of everything else?"

"I will," Casey declared.

"I don't doubt you will. It's not like you have anything to lose."

At this, Casey turned about and headed for the door. His coat and boots were there, a small mercy. He had the coat on by the time Roy had taken in that he was preparing to leave.

"Where are you going?"

"I want to go home."

"And do what?"

"Be with my — my family." Casey squared his shoulders, trying to ignore the betrayal of his entire central nervous system — couldn't instinct opt just once for fight instead of flight? And dammit, could he not do this without getting moist around the eyes?

It was that word "family". Right now his Aunt Sally and Uncle Joshua were arriving from Sandusky with his two little cousins and the new baby that he hadn't seen yet even though she was almost a year old. His Aunt Clarissa, who was an artist and yoga instructor and lived in Santa Fe would have arrived a few days early to stay with them. She was "the cool sister", always taking an interest in Casey, encouraging his photography and inviting him to join her yoga practice when she visited. Dad always hated that, a factor that only made it more worth the doing. They would all be together on Christmas Day, and for dinner his mother always made those ridiculous sweet potatoes with marshmallows because she knew how Casey loved them...

Oh, God. Where was he? He didn't know where he was. His surroundings had become threatening. What was he doing here?

"You're not leaving," said the bewildering stranger who only hours ago had been the person with whom he felt most safe. "You need me to give you a ride into town and I'm not volunteering."

More tears squeezed out under Casey's lids as he pictured scenes of comfort at home. "I'll walk, then."

He bent down to put on his boots. Roy kicked one of them across the room, startling Casey back against the door. He stared helplessly at Roy.

There was just a tiny bit of a smile on Roy's lips. "It's too cold," he said, folding his arms. "You'll freeze."

Stuff like this had happened before. Familiar faces abruptly changed and they became enemies and he had coped, right? He had options...he could kill the monster... but it wasn't a monster, it was Roy...or was he a monster? Was he one of them?

"I want to go home," was what he was reduced to saying. His lip was probably even sticking out. "Please."

Roy was shaking his head and smiling at him like he was a very pleasing pet, being really cute for biscuits. "Oh, Casey...don't get upset now."

But he was upset. Really. Fucking. Upset. His breath was coming faster and faster yet it didn't seem he could get any air and he was clearly clearly clearly not safe here with this stranger. It wore a face he knew but it was not someone who would not hurt him and he couldn't breathe...he squeezed his eyes shut and focussed on getting oxygen.

Hands. He flings them off with a cry and scuttles backward but something stops him hard and flat a wall and the hands are what and when he can't get away from and then — then—

It just all goes away.

Casey blinked.

He was lying on the couch in a place he knew, with a person he knew. Roy was kissing him, the flavour was liquor and prime rib and mushrooms and Roy himself. It seemed that the thing to do was to fling himself into the kiss. It tasted so good...so real...

He opened his eyes to Roy's visage hovering over him. "There you are," Roy whispered. "That's my baby." He pushed Casey's coat aside and opened his shirt, undoing the buttons like it was his prerogative.

"I want...to go home," Casey murmured, although if he was honest he couldn't really remember where that was or why he wanted to go there.

Roy didn't answer that. He stood, towering over Casey who remained lying on the couch, and he just took off all his clothes. Casey gazed up at him, unable to tear his eyes away from Roy, especially the erect penis that was so obviously meant for him. "Let's go to bed," Roy said. He walked away, leaving Casey enough autonomy to follow or not.

Casey followed, stripping his own clothing as he went. He climbed on the bed and settled in beside Roy, running a hand lightly up and down Roy's smooth chest, taking Roy's cock and just holding it. "What do you want?"

"Suck me off...put that hot little mouth on me." Roy kissed him savagely, biting his lips hard enough to draw blood. "And then after you bring me back," he mused, lapping briefly at Casey's mouth, "I'm going to fuck you until you can't remember your name." Casey moaned and writhed against him. "I want to debauch this sweet body on Christmas Day too," Roy went on in a hiss. "I'd like to go shake hands with my father tomorrow and wish him a good year and think about you waiting here for me naked in this bed, drunk with wanting me." He pushed at Casey's shoulders, gently but firmly, urging Casey's mouth down towards his crotch. "Will you do that for me?"

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