Darkness could be restful, yes, but right now it was mostly just dark.

Okay, perhaps not so much dark as dim. It was meant to soothe him and help him fantasize about vegging out in some empty, windy field — cue the recording of chirping, squeaking crickets and beetles and snakes and bunnies — but there was still this essential problem of eleven strangers being in the dim room along with him. Six to the wall including himself, and six to the window. Presumably, eleven pairs of eyes were closed in semi-meditation, while his own kept opening despite the fact that what he could view was limited to a blank wall. Unless he sat up, and he would rather not call attention to himself so he just reposed there with a soft pillow under his head and a blanket pulled up to his chest, while a slightly nasal male voice broadcast its best approximation of a soothing drone: "You are now completely relaxed..."

Headline: Casey Connor is not relaxed. His hands were balled and constricted, his arms pressed down along the sides of his body like bone sticks while his breathing straggled in and out of him in truncated measures. His jaw was so tight that it hurt, and he could feel the blood pulsing in his temples at a steady throb.

The voice continued, "I want you to visualize yourself lying in the midst of endless golden fields. There are no cars around, no buildings or offices or machines beeping... no deadlines or demands of any kind. The sun is soft on your face and the only sound you hear is the wind. It is a warm, gentle wind that stirs the grasses around you and massages your skin. Every muscle in your body is relaxed now, from the tips of your toes to the crown of your head. You are entering deeper and deeper into a state of relaxation... ."

Casey Connor is not fucking relaxed!

He understood lesson number one of the Powell Relaxation Clinic, oh yes, he understood it very well: If he was jittery, high-strung, severely un-relaxed, hypervigilant and constantly tired, it was because he was doing it to himself. His hands were often shut into fists when he was lying at rest. His legs were always ready for running and being chased, and all the muscles of his head and neck had become a collection of thinned cords and dried-out string stretched to their absolute limit. His muscles were trained through the usage of nineteen years into a state of perpetual tension that no amount of practise seemed able to alleviate.

Breathe, Casey... It was the theme of this whole month. It was always about the breathing — but for something that was supposed to come naturally, breathing was damned hard work. He'd never appreciated the discipline that was needed, discipline that he just didn't have. Three days a week times four weeks he had come here, and he was making little progress. So far this afternoon his tummy hadn't inflated, his ribs hadn't expanded, he didn't feel the air rushing through his nostrils, and he sure as fuck didn't contemplate any gentle breezes or waving grasses. None of it. He sucked the hind tit at this.

So, then. He was stuck in this place for thirty minutes... minus fifteen that he had already been laying here... well, he hoped it was fifteen, it was so difficult to tell when you were trapped in a dark place and supposed to keep your eyes closed the whole time, your attention focussed internally, why not just go have a nap in the middle of Western Avenue no thank you very much he wouldn't be doing that either but he could attempt to get some air into his lungs. His poor, starved cells would thank him.

In. Pop goes the diaphragm, up goes the belly. Out. In goes the abdominal muscles... tighten those, blow that air all the way out.

In.

"You are...

Out.

"... completely relaxed..."

I am not... relaxed... I am not... relaxed.

It wasn't the fault of the clinic people. Each and every one of them was a true believer because each and every one of them had seen hundreds of people benefit from their program. They couldn't be blamed. As far as they knew, the recipe produced a healthy state of relaxation: Put twelve people on mats in a darkened room, play soothing music, and provide guidance from trained professionals. Mix and bake. It had turned out beautifully many times over and it should have worked for Casey too.

In.

"And as you the oxygen fills your lungs..."

Out.

"... you feel the last little bits of tension leaving your body..."

Typically, Casey would be dropped off at the clinic early so he could get the bed nearest the door, but today the Mustang had gotten stuck behind a slow bus in unusually heavy traffic and those lost minutes were never recovered. Sasha was edgy today too because he had an especially hectic night coming up at Sojourn with a large table of high- powered executive types; he had been muttering curses under his breath the whole time he drove, talking bitterly to the other drivers..."Oh, yeah, nice... nice driving there... good... how considerate of you not to insult my intelligence by signalling... thank you so much, darling..." They didn't get to the clinic until five minutes before the relaxation started, so Casey didn't get his pick of beds and now he was buried inside that room, the exit was at least fifteen feet away and he was flat on his back here.

Yeah, he did know some of the faces by now, of those who generally came to the same sessions as he did. There was Bitter-Faced Lady and Extra-Loud Guy, and a whole bunch of others who never approached him and he didn't approach. All he knew about his group leader was he was named Rick or Ron, and he was a man with a voice that always came off slightly forced, slightly unlike itself... like he was trying hard to be hypnotic but wasn't quite getting there.

Rick-Ron was also big fan of the waving grasses, which didn't exactly help. There were other types of visualization he could have used; Casey knew that because once, early on, there had been a woman who asked them to put themselves on a raft floating on a tropical sea. In his mind he had slipped off the raft right into the water, no breathing required and he sank down into a warm, liquid deep of blue-green being forgotten and forgetting... relaxation was actually achievable that day. He was looking forward to encountering that woman at his next session, but she disappeared after that.

Rick-Ron was walking up and down the aisle between the beds while he recited, "All the dregs of tension in every part of you are gone..."

Fuck.

"... the residual tension even in your toes and in the space between your eyes..."

You.

"... in your ankles..."

Fuck.

"... your kneecaps..."

You.

The real problem with Rick-Ron was that he always made a point of walking around as he talked and touching everyone at least once per session. He did it, apparently, because he was a trained physiotherapist and he judged it helpful to adjust the position of a person's head and neck, to make sure it was properly lengthened and stretched. Casey could appreciate that there was a rationale but his neurosis was immune to such considerations. The first — and only — time that Rick-Ron tried it with him, Casey had screamed and thrown himself off the bed, irrevocably ending the possibility of relaxation for everyone in the clinic on that particular day. Now all the leaders including Rick-Ron were aware that they were not to touch Casey but he was still constantly bracing himself for the possibility that they might forget or disregard it. If you were an alien entity bent on infecting and infiltrating as many people as you could, you might very well disregard the No- Touching-Casey-Connor Rule.

Anyway, there was nothing relaxing about wheat fields. Far better to be drifting in heavy fluid, floating slowly deeper, gradually losing the distinction between self and everything... that was relaxation, that and being at home with Zeke... especially when Zeke was inside Casey, hammering his body, dissolving all those sticky, messy I's and me's. It was yet another form of genius that Zeke possessed, it was a gift that Zeke had been bestowing quite willingly of late. In fact, over the past month he had been lavish with it, and thank fucking god because it was the only thing that constrained a great, glacial terror that would send chills of dread through Casey at any given moment. Once Zeke fell back upon being two selves as opposed to one, Casey would have to resume wondering when or how Zeke would change on him. Today, this week, this month Zeke was forceful, sometimes frantic, sometimes exquisitely gentle... yet he could withdraw, he could backtrack and decide that what was happening between them was not a good thing after all. He could give up. He could lose interest. He could leave...

"Thank you, everyone," came Rick-Ron's voice, a welcome intrusion this time. "Go and have a relaxing day."

Casey opened his eyes and saw that the lights had come up halfway. He quickly threw off his blanket and got to his feet, moving to exit the relaxation room far in advance of the others, who were stirring slowly, taking their time getting moving. Between the relaxation room and the lobby were heavy, opaque double doors with push levers, just like the doors in a school gymnasium. He threw his weight against them, blinking at the sudden light when he entered the reception and waiting area. It was an eye-tearing shock, confronting sunshine gleaming on the creamy walls, bouncing off the pastel furniture and carpets. There were a number of people sitting there awaiting the next session, and every single head lifted at Casey's abrupt exit.

He put his own head down and walked through them. The receptionist smiled at him and nodded. The gesture was a bit too knowing for his comfort, but then it was likely that she recognized everyone who came in here after a few weeks.

The first time that he came to the clinic, Sasha had been with him; Sasha had sat in the waiting area and read the testimonials while Casey got his orientation. There were binders full of them, with photos and lavish expressions of gratitude. It seemed that this relaxation stuff had cured everything from headaches to cancer, including some severe cases of anxiety. Sasha had found those binders pretty uplifting, and he made a point of escorting Casey to and from the building those initial weeks, patiently overcoming Casey's reluctance each time. After that they had developed a routine where Sasha drove him to the clinic in Zeke's car on relaxation days, dropping him off before heading to work. That way, Sasha didn't have to fret about the possibility of Casey not going if left to make his own choices.

And Casey would walk home after each session. It got him a solid forty-five- minute walk on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, and that, when combined with forty minutes of getting to and from his therapist's office on Monday and Thursday, was quite ample exercise for him. He was exhausted a lot of the time, but at least it was not August's or even September's brand of exhaustion. This was mostly a bone-deep, just-put-in-a- really-hard-day's-work kind of tiredness. Zeke was always having to stop him nodding off too early in the evening. Otherwise, he would wake up in the middle of the night, be unable to fall back to sleep, and then spend the next day roaming around like a burnt-out zombie. Apparently, he could no longer sleep sixteen hours at a stretch, which had to be some sort of improvement.

Dr. Yves would probably say that he walked harder and faster than he needed to, and that contributed to his fatigue. He would admit to it, but he didn't feel that he could afford to reduce his pace either. He couldn't get home fast enough, actually. Even after so many to's and fro's, the moment he hit the sidewalk his limbs would be quivering, his stomach would tangle with apprehension, and he would be almost running by the time he had traversed a single block. If Coach Willis could have seen how he wove between the obstacles, changing direction on a dime, dodging and ducking — all in a dire effort to avoid touching a single person — he might have begged Casey to be on his team. Casey could even tackle now, after a fashion; he had become used to running into people because there were just too many of them and their plays were too unpredictable to evade entirely. When that happened he would have to face a scowl or an exclamation, even the occasional angry complaint. Mostly people muttered "sorry" and kept on their own path, but frequently with a perplexed expression at the sight of this person who collided with them at full speed, barely stopping, and visibly hysterical. Sometimes, just to put the finishing touches on the portrait, he would be muttering to himself too, it would be okayokayokay... I'm okay... okayokayokay... but not to be believed completely, just enough to get home.

When Casey did finally get through his front door he would usually run straight to his bedroom and curl up on the bed, covering himself with his quilt and staying there until his panting and shaking subsided. Sometimes it didn't subside and he had to take a Xanax. Weirdly, those were his best nights; he would sleep a few hours, waking up long enough to eat and hang out with Zeke for a while and then he'd be asleep again and know nothing until morning when he would wake up with the temporary suspicion that everything was wonderful.

A lot of days, the temptation to take a Xanax was difficult to resist. He carried a little tin with him at all times with an emergency supply of the pills. It was reassuring just to know they were there if he needed them. It helped him get through those walks, not that he ever stopped believing that there was danger for him out there. With Xanax in his system, he didn't have to be frightened — temporarily, he didn't care enough. For a little while, he didn't have to be vigilant.

He did understand why he was doing all of this. Over time, he was expected to learn that there was nothing much to be afraid of, a valid theory if there wasn't actually anything to be afraid of, but there was — both outside and inside, there was the kicker. If he wasn't actually safe anywhere, then he really shouldn't make a fuss about going out of the apartment or not going out of the apartment. Isolating himself at home with only Zeke and Sasha for company wouldn't save him. Dr. Yves had made this point to him several times already, as if somehow he didn't already know that he was completely irrational, as if the moment she confronted him with his crazy convolutions he would be able to untwist himself just like that.

Thinking about the ordeal on foot that was to come, Casey found a reasonably secure corner near the reception area and pulled out his cellphone. Zeke had bought it for him so he could check in after his appointments, sometimes before Zeke's classes, sometimes after, depending on the day. It was all tightly scheduled so that he would know where Zeke was at all times.

He punched one on the speed dial.

"Hi," said Zeke's voice. "You're done?"

"Yeah."

"Gonna start walking?"

"Yeah," Casey sighed.

As always, Zeke fortified him, chanting: "You'll be fine. You'll survive it."

It was the same words, the same ritual reassurances. Casey's established refrain was: "I'll be okay."

"See you in a bit, then."

It was not entirely blatant, but Casey could detect an impatience, a coldness in the voice at the other end. "What's wrong?" he asked, his heart accelerating despite knowing that there were many possible explanations that didn't have to agitate him.

"Nothing."

"You sure?"

"I got my paper back."

"Oh... and?"

"I got a 'C,'" Zeke said, and he was pissed.

Casey didn't know what to say. He was quite familiar with the document in question because three weeks ago he had ended up typing it for Zeke. Despite the convenience of the brand new, lightning fast Dell computer that was installed in their bedroom, Zeke had managed to leave the assignment until the day before it was due. At that point Casey had volunteered to help Zeke, who had never learned to keyboard properly; it would have taken him all night to type those five pages, while Casey had gotten it done in little more than an hour. Zeke had vowed repeatedly that it would only be the one time but Casey didn't mind, really. He liked feeling that he was in possession of practical skills that made him useful, even necessary. On the advice of an eighth-grade teacher, he had taken a keyboarding course in high school, and never regretted it.

He had typed exactly what was written, making no comment to Zeke on the content or structure of it, not confident that his perceptions as a science student gave him the authority to revise a philosophy paper. Besides, it had always been very evident in high school that Zeke was naturally and effortlessly brilliant, and entirely self-sufficient in his learning. When Zeke decided that he wanted to pass courses, he did, and then some. He was not hospitable to anyone's suggestions, especially those of a computer geek who always came to class on time with his homework done.

Zeke added, "He said I show a lot of philosophical energy but I lack organization and clarity, the unimaginative old fart."

Casey still couldn't think of a reply that would make Zeke happy while being truthful. He said at last, "It's — it's not w-worth much, right? Y-you can make it up."

"You don't understand, Case. I don't get 'C's. I get 'F's or 'A's."

"Um..."

"You read it, did you think it was disorganized?"

"Um," Casey gulped.

"Tell me, what?"

"It... could... have... could have been more..."

Zeke exploded, "Why didn't you say anything!"

After a silence in which Casey struggled to remember that he was expected to answer out loud, he whispered, "You didn't ask."

"I — " Zeke started to retort. "Okay. I didn't ask. That's true. I'm sorry, Case, I'm just really annoyed at myself. I should have asked you, you're the poster child for academia, for fuck's sake."

That had to be a slightly nicer way of saying that he was the mother of all nerds.

Zeke sighed, "I mean that as a compliment, Case. You're good at this school thing, you always have been and it was stupid of me not to ask for your help. I'm not mad at you, all right? I'm going to take this as a sign that I need to study extra hard for the mid- term."

"Wh-when's that?"

"Friday. Er, listen... I need to ask you something. If you don't feel right about it, then say so, okay?"

"What?"

"I asked Winona if she wants to come over for a bit of a study session — but it would depend on what you said, of course."

"When d-do you want to... ?"

"Right now, actually."

Real life flickered like an image cast by a cheap projector. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the feel of the leather cell-phone cover in his hand as the request seeped and infected him. Right now, yes right now I want to bring over that Winona person for you to meet because you know and I know that I can't keep you in a box and only take you out to play with when no one else is around I want to take you out of your box and show you around to everyone... .See how pretty he is? See?

No one who believed in extra-terrestrial life should ever track down Casey Connor. The moment that they met him, they would lose all their faith. They might be prepared to accept that the kid who claimed to kill aliens was something other than a crackpot, but they would go away disillusioned when they discovered that it was possible to use up a lifetime supply of courage in doing just one thing. The alien invasion would officially become a hoax, because who would believe that a guy who poked out an alien queen's eye was now this derelict of a person who flipped out because his boyfriend wanted to bring a fellow student home?

"Casey? Casey, are you there?"

He heard Zeke breathing a bit too hard, and some voices in behind that. A large number of people laughing, arguing, talking. There was the sound of a television or just some music playing, maybe. He had a sudden, displeasing image of a woman sitting across from Zeke. Maybe she was having a smoke while filling in the half of the conversation that she couldn't hear. She kept rolling her eyes at Zeke.

"Is she listening?" Casey blurted.

"What are you talking about?"

"Is she — is Winona listening on the other end, can she hear what you're saying?"

"No..." Zeke replied, evidently not wanting to encourage his nutcase boyfriend by commenting further. "So... what do you say, Case?"

Right about then Casey saw Rick-Ron emerge from the relaxation room. The man's eyes were moving around, seeking... and they found Casey. Casey shifted his weight uneasily and tried to watch without looking like he was watching as he said, "Okay."

"Really? Are you sure? You're not just saying that because I want it?"

Yes.

"No. I'm... I'm supposed to do something to challenge myself... something that scares me... for homework."

The guy was coming in his direction, maybe not at him, though, maybe just to talk to the receptionist.

"Ah... well, it'll be fine, Case, you'll see."

"Hmm..."

"I owe you one."

"You owe me more than one," Casey teased, choking on it a little, not taking his eyes off Rick-Ron who was now only a few feet away, definitely approaching him and no one else.

"I know. I'm gonna go, but I'll see you at home shortly, okay?"

"Yeah."

Casey stabbed the end button with his thumb and faced his group leader, who had taken up a position in front of him, leaving a tolerable amount of space between them. His hands trembled, clutching the phone like a talisman. His other hand wormed into his pocket, stroking the little tin of pills.

"Excuse me," the man said.

Casey had just done his challenging deed for the week by promising to let Zeke bring his new pal into their apartment. "What?" he said, at this point not caring how anti- social he was.

"I just wondered if the sessions were helping — it's Casey, isn't it?"

He dared a glance at the man's eyes. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw some sort of unwarranted interest flickering. "Oh, yeah, sure..." he murmured.

"You know there are plenty of sessions at different times, and each of us does something a little different. If one isn't working for you, there are others."

Rick-Ron sounded like he wanted to help. The thing in his eyes could be professional curiosity; maybe he was wondering why Casey went to the trouble of dragging himself in to the clinic when he always laid there like a board for half an hour, and Casey wasn't going to explain that this session was the only one that enabled Sasha to drop him off and head straight to work and the alternatives were Casey walking both ways which was too much walking, or Sasha driving him both there and back which was too much to ask even though Sasha said he wouldn't mind... or Casey could take the bus both ways by himself which he'd be ready to do in, oh, maybe ten years.

"I know," Casey said. He fingered the metal tin. It felt warm and slightly greasy.

"You could also think about buying one of our tapes, maybe, and practising at home. It does take a lot of practise and it can be frustrating until you get the hang of it."

Now he knew what this was; it was a sales pitch and he could accept that. It had a feasible purpose, a logical beginning and end. "Thank you," Casey said, expecting the man would go away.

"Okay, then. My name's Rick, by the way. If you ever have any questions, or you'd like to talk..."

Casey nodded. Move... move... fucking move out of my way...

Rick stepped back, finally. "Take care, Casey. Remember to breathe."

With a cursory nod, Casey bolted; he almost forgot his windbreaker, hanging in the closet near the entrance to the clinic. He retrieved it quickly and scurried to the stairwell. The clinic occupied the top floor of a three-storey building — the Body-Mind Centre, it was called — so neither ascent nor descent were terribly onerous. Even so, most people seemed to prefer the elevator to the stairs — except Casey. In four weeks he had seen exactly three people in the stairwell.

At the bottom of the stairwell he stopped. As often happened, he found himself standing there, peering through the small rectangular window at the little clots of people moving haphazardly about the building's lobby. He tried examining each individual face on the other side of the glass for signs of danger but they were moving too quickly, and it wasn't like he had a definitive list of worrisome facial tics to compare against.

Some days it only took him a minute to shore up his will and go out there. Some days, like today, his limbs absolutely refused to move. Eventually they would have to move, though, because he needed to get home. Zeke got upset when he wasn't where he was supposed to be at the appointed time, and he didn't want to upset Zeke.

"Okay," he muttered. "You can do this for him at least. You might need to talk to yourself for an hour like a fucking maniac but you're going out that door." He laughed, the sound waves bouncing crazily all the way up the stairwell. "So brave... so fucking brave!"

It occurred to him that this was just the sort of thing that a person might want to discuss with their therapist. Except that he couldn't, not entirely. He had told Dr. Yves plenty of things: Where he lived, who he lived with, who his doctor was, which medication he was taking, how he spent his days... What were his major issues as far as he understood them. She knew that he had zone-outs and panic attacks and that he didn't trust people. She knew that he was constantly afraid and couldn't go a lot of places, that he couldn't take the bus or even go to school, that every time his boyfriend went out to lead a life, he was afraid he would never come back. So they had plenty to talk about without bringing his specific fears about aliens into it — which was good because even if he had wanted to talk about that, he couldn't.

The night before Casey's first appointment with Dr. Helen Yves, Zeke had felt the need to sit him down for a Serious Talk so that he would understand what he could say and what he could not say. At the time he certainly didn't need it, as his energies were more occupied with persuading himself that he was actually going to go willingly to the appointment. Of course, Zeke believed he was going, and Zeke was generally right about such matters.

They had the conversation sitting on the bed facing each other, with Zeke shaking and just about as distressed as Casey ever saw him get. "I need to ask you something," Zeke started. "About your appointment tomorrow... What are you going to tell her, Case?"

Casey was barely been able to think around the terror that had been building in him for the past several days. He was to be delivered to his fate tomorrow and there wasn't any way to stop it because you could be damned sure that Sasha and Zeke would see to it that he showed up.

"I need to know," Zeke pressed, his eyes getting that sharp, hard colour that they did when he was at his most intense.

And Casey was helpless again, so helpless that it was difficult to find the will to breathe. Go ye to therapy, said his friends, and he went. He had control of nothing, not even when and how much he ate. That night it had been Moroccan lamb tagine with dried fruit served on whole-wheat couscous — preceded by an iron pill appetizer — and a mixed berry tart for dessert. It was delicious, and it was all prepared by Sasha on one of his days off so Casey didn't dare not finish anything on his plate. He certainly didn't dare succumb to any nausea he might feel.

"You can't tell her about the aliens," Zeke said.

Casey muttered, "I know that."

"Remember she's a doctor like Spadoni. She may decide you're delusional and then she might remember some stuff from the news a few years ago and... we just don't want to go there, Casey."

How funny that it was Zeke who was now in a frenzy since it was Zeke who had made that appointment without consulting him. It was Zeke who was afraid of him tangling with the mental health profession, but it was always Zeke who was getting him into trouble with those people in the first place. Of course it was all because Zeke cared and Zeke worried about him but all the same... He didn't see how any shrink could help him. It was supposed to be his choice to do such things and if he didn't want to do it no shrink in the world could do him any good.

Meeting Zeke's eyes for the first time, Casey blurted out, "Or I could just not go."

He waited for the wrath of Zeke to fall upon him, but Zeke just raised his eyebrows and didn't look in the least bit disconcerted. "Case, you can't skip this."

"I'm doing all the other stuff... I'm trying, aren't I?"

Zeke put his hand on the nape of Casey's neck and massaged gently. "You aretrying, yes, I do see that. Sasha sees it, too, and it's awesome."

"If we just let things be, they'll fade and they won't... they won't be a problem, Zeke. I promise they won't."

Zeke rubbed his shoulder now. "Casey..."

Casey shrugged him away, wrapping both arms around his chest, holding himself. "Zeke... I don't want to talk about... some things."

"I hadn't noticed that," Zeke said, with a wistful smile.

"How can it help to make a person talk when they don't want to, some people do just fine putting their shit aside and letting it go — "

"Casey."

"— I don't see why I should have to do this when I'm working on everything, I'm trying as hard as I can, Dr. Chakri is helping me so why do I have to go talk to another doctor — "

Zeke again put a hand on one of Casey's shoulders. Casey was silenced, but his mind screamed I can't, I just can't... icanticanticant.

"It's important," Zeke said. "Just like going to see Dr. Chakri and following her instructions. It's the piece that's missing." One of his hands slid around to Casey's jaw, cupping it, stroking it slowly. He drew Casey closer to him. "Just think," he said as he gently urged Casey to lean against him. "You'll have a place to go and vent. You can tell her all the stuff that pisses you off about me."

"Nothing to tell," Casey mumbled, accepting the warmth of Zeke's body despite a pesky suspicion that he should be standing his ground.

"Oh, don't tell me you aren't annoyed with my controlling ways and my cigarette breath. Plus I'm impatient and I argue too much."

"Like you that way."

"Glad to hear it." Zeke had one arm secure around him; with his other, he stroked Casey's hand. "I'm sure it will feel good to talk about all the things that scare you, too."

"Except not the aliens."

"Do you want to talk about the aliens?"

Casey barely paused. "No."

"So it shouldn't be a problem. You know, this shrink is supposed to be very good, and I don't think good shrinks force people to talk about things they don't want to talk about."

"Zeke... When I think about going there... to see her..."

"What, Case?"

"I feel like I'll die."

Zeke's hand closed around Casey's, communicating strength and support, not to mention a will that would not be swayed. It might be challenged, but never quite overthrown. "You can't die from being afraid," Zeke told him.

Casey didn't quite believe that, but didn't feel like contradicting Zeke either. "Spadoni said that to me once... He said something like 'fear can't kill you'."

"As much as I hate to admit it, Spadoni might have been right on that one occasion."

The following day, he and Zeke took the first walk to Dr. Yves' office, a convenient twenty minutes from their apartment. The building was a converted townhouse with three other psychiatrists' offices in it. Zeke turned him over to the doctor at the door to her office with a promise that he would be just outside — no doubt so Casey would know that if he tried to leave, Zeke would be there to march him right back inside.

After Spadoni, who had so obviously needed to be perceived as hip and youthful, Dr. Yves was a surprise. She was a small, spare woman with grey hair who always dressed like a little old lady at a church tea. That day she was wearing a navy blue suit with a white blouse and pearls. With a minimal smile she welcomed Casey into her office and gave him his pick of couches and chairs. The style of the decor in the room could be described, graciously, as contemporary. The only part of it that showed any real personality were the framed wildlife prints on the walls and pottery sculptures of various animals on the shelves and her desk. There was one large piece on the floor, an owl perched in a tree.

Casey went to the nearest piece of furniture, an overstuffed armchair. It appeared to be comfy, but he had no way to verify that as he touched down on the edge; a second later, he was on his feet again. The doctor looked at him without much of an expression, and he sat back down. He couldn't believe he was here, couldn't accept it... He was here he was and it was happening he was right on the brink of disaster and destruction but that was somehow not sufficient to stop it.

"So... Casey," began the doctor.

"Y-yeah," he wheezed. Not possible to die of fear, yeah, sure... as if Zeke and Spadoni had a clue. His heart was thudding so hard it was rattling his body around and he couldn't breathe at all. It had to be possible to die from fear. Fear equalled gasping for air equalled no oxygen equalled asphyxiation equalled death.

The doctor was speaking in a calm voice. "It's good to meet you, Casey. My name is Dr. Helen Yves. I'd like to start with an interview, just so I can get to know you. It may take us several sessions to do that, actually. If you ever feel that I'm not the right doctor for you, you should tell me. It's perfectly okay."

He could only nod. Sounds were beyond him.

"Casey, I can see that you're very anxious. I want you to know that I'm here to help you. I'm just going to ask some basic questions to get us started and maybe that will help you to calm down." She waited, and when he didn't respond in any way other than to stare at her while breathing noisily, she began. "So how old are you, Casey?"

"N-nine-nine-teen."

"And where are you from?"

"H-H-Herring-Herrington, Oh... Oh..." He couldn't get out the rest.

"Herrington, Ohio?"

He nodded.

"I haven't heard of it. Is it a very large place?"

There had been a time, only minutes ago actually, that he had known the population of his home town along with a lot of other pertinent information, but now his mind was wasted of even the simplest abilities. He clenched his hands together, feeling tears gather in his eyes. To think that Zeke was right outside that door but not accessible to him — just like the door was not accessible to him he was so trapped here so trapped trapped trapped —

"The anxiety isn't getting any better, is it?"

That didn't seem to require any response.

"Is it about being here or something else?"

"Lots... things..."

"Let's take a few minutes to deal with that, we don't want you to have a full-out panic attack. Take your time and count ten breaths, very slowly. Count them out loud, okay, Casey?"

It was hopeless. He was going to die here in her office.

"One," she said, prompting him.

He tried. He was breathing so shallowly that the first one was over almost before it started and he rushed into the second one only to find that she was still enumerating that first one. It was no good, counting was stupid and he knew he was supposed to breathe so why did he have to count out loud he felt ridiculous like a child but then why should he feel ridiculous —

"Two..."

— when he was here in a psychiatrist's office and he was used to humiliation so why did he even care and what was the point of caring when she was going to ask him questions and find out everything or even worse she didn't need to find out because she already knew, she was one of them with her buttoned-up-to-the-neck shirt and her plastic jewellery she was just the kind to be one of them so perfectly normal it was bizarre —

"Are you counting, Casey... ? Three..."

"Th - three," he wheezed.

— bizarre to be so normal-looking but she probably dealt with people like him all day, it was her specialty after all and probably some people liked it that way it was important to look professional he supposed, but why not like Judd Hirsch in Ordinary People instead with his big, grey sweater and his brusque comfort —

"Four..."

— four four four was about the time when Zeke usually got back from school on Monday, a bit later if he needed to go to the library, of course Zeke was skipping class right now to be here, to make sure Casey was here but he would make it to the other one this afternoon and then he would come home and be with Casey and they would fuck so good so hot Zeke would pound him out flat and then he could sleep —

"Five..."

Of course this doctor would want to know about his relationship with Zeke and the minute she said he needed to keep his distance from Zeke or that homosexuality was a disease he would be out of here he was not going to put up with that he knew what he needed what he needed —

"Six..."

— what he needed because Zeke was what kept him going, Zeke was the only really restful place available to him and just thinking about Zeke's hands and skin, his arms and legs, his mouth, his cock, was calming.

"Seven..."

After they were done fucking Casey could lie there for a little while with everything erased in his head except Zeke's name... Zeke's name... which he knew was probably not good according to how other people thought and he wouldn't dare say it aloud because Zeke would be very upset. No, he could not tell Zeke about how he made Casey forget who and where he was and how that was so magnificent, so perfect and relaxing and sublime but there were those moments, just moments here and there, when he forgot who and where he was and terror overcame him instead but he never never let that interfere with him and Zeke —

"Eight."

— never, he pushed and thrust through whatever that was and felt nothing but that glorious unmindfulness, he would feel like every nerve convulsed with pure energy that burned him empty.

"Nine."

So when it was over there would still be Zeke in him like there would be later today if he just got through this.

"Ten," he said, and exhaled his last breath.

"Do you feel better?" Dr. Yves asked him.

"Yeah," he said, with a bit of a smile. Now he could sit in that chair and carry on a conversation, with the before and soon-to-be memories of silence holding him securely in place.

For the rest of that session, and a few sessions after that she gradually extracted from him a reasonably detailed account of his life. She heard about his childhood, how completely alone he had been for most of his teen years save for the regular abuse from Gabe and others. She heard about his leaving for college and how Roy had appeared and seemed for a while to have ended the solitude, until Casey soon found himself alone in an apartment, waiting always waiting, while Roy was out pretending Casey didn't exist. She heard about his devastation when Roy dumped him and his depression over the summer — and then, how Zeke had appeared almost magically in his room one day. She heard about the terrible thing that he had done to Zeke and how everything finally and utterly crashed when Zeke found out. How he kept doing terrible things to Zeke but still Zeke was with him. How he needed Zeke.

He could have filled years worth of therapy talking about Zeke.

After they had finished his history — minus aliens, of course — Dr. Yves asked Casey to complete the multiple choice questionnaire that she normally used to establish a diagnosis. She explained to him that it was just a guide, something to help her understand where they needed to go with the therapy and that she didn't entirely put stock in the labels. He spent one entire session on her couch pencilling in little oval shapes, while she did some other work on her computer.

At his next session, they went over the results. She showed him a line chart with his various scores. Essentially, he was a walking psychiatric buffet, serving up depression, generalized anxiety, panic attacks, dissociation, agoraphobia, social anxiety and last but not least, borderline traits. A definitive diagnosis was not recommended.

"The good thing," Dr. Yves reassured him, "is that we know what we need to work on." That was a joke, apparently; she actually cracked a bit of a smile when she said it.

"What about this... this 'borderline' thing?" he asked, pointing to that little dot on her chart. He was sure he'd heard that term somewhere, probably in a movie. He had an impression that it meant dangerous and unstable; it called forth images of the dead family pet stewing in a pot on the stove. "What does it mean exactly?"

"Yes, that's an interesting one." As she spoke, Dr. Yves was rifling through her DSM-IV, a tome that dwarfed bibles and dictionaries. "Ah. Here we are, I'll read you exactly what it says here... 'Borderline personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five of the following'... are you with me, Casey?"

"Yeah."

"Good... going on, then — 'as indicated by five of these behaviours or tendencies... Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment... A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation... Markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self... Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging, such as spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating... Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour... Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood... Chronic feelings of emptiness... Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger'... And the last one is transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms."

Dr. Yves gave him a long, steady look. He had the impression that she was waiting for a response, but he couldn't fathom what it should be.

She asked, "Do you understand what all that means?"

"More or less."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? There are a lot of technical terms."

"I think I know what most of them mean... I don't know 'affect'... not sure about 'ideation,' but I can guess."

"'Ideation' refers to recurring thoughts and ideas that are paranoid but fall short of delusion... things like 'Zeke is going to leave.'"

Casey's stomach plummeted; his pulse broke tempo and accelerated momentarily. He shifted in his chair, fighting down the mad compulsion to run home.

Dr. Yves continued, "'Affect' simply refers to the emotional or mood component of your personality. It's the crying, the laughing, the yelling... as opposed to the cognitive, which refers to what you think about. It's an important distinction for you and me, because at some point I want to start integrating a more cognitive approach to your therapy."

He nodded to indicate that he understood, taking a longish breath to convince his heart that there was no reason for flight just yet.

"So what do you think?"

"About... ?"

"About the definition I just read to you."

"It... sounds like me," he admitted, figuring he didn't have a choice, not when he was confronted with those crisp, clinical terms. At another time in his life he would have debated the meaning and application of each one of them. He would have argued that abandonment was very real, and so was emptiness. And losing yourself could be the best thing that ever happened to you. At the moment, though, he just felt defeated. He knew that science was a slippery thing, and psychiatry one of the slipperiest of them all, but couldn't ignore the truth in what he was hearing either.

Dr. Yves made a gesture that was rather noncommittal, neither a nod nor a shake. "It does seem to reflect a lot of what you've told me about yourself, Casey, but in my opinion you don't entirely meet the criteria... although I would say that you are well on your way. Many of these points sound very much like you, but we have to remember that for a diagnosis of BPS, the symptoms have to be pervasive, repetitive and long-term. You see, Casey, people don't always fit neatly into these diagnoses and the process of diagnosing can be quite fluid. Diagnoses change over time, too, just as a personality can change. I do believe that if you continue in your current patterns of behaviour, you could meet each and every one of the borderline criteria at some point in the future. The good thing is you're here and we can work on changing those patterns. Can I ask you... when you were in hospital over the summer, were you diagnosed with any particular condition?"

"Just depression, I think."

"From what you've told me, I suspect that at the time that was probably the most obvious aspect of your condition at the time. Of course, depression is in many cases not a 'standalone' if you will, but a symptom or secondary feature of a primary diagnosis. It is quite difficult to do a full assessment of a person when they're extremely withdrawn, and if they are withdrawn, depression would be a logical diagnosis."

Dr. Yves beckoned for him to look at the zigzag line on the chart in front of them again.

"So if we were to interpret this piece of paper," she went on, "and this middle line is a threshold or an indicator of where we consider a symptom to become a symptom rather than a personality trait... you follow me?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Now you see, you have quite a number of features well above that line, but not all of them are consistent with a diagnosis of borderline syndrome. The dissociation, the general anxiety, the depression, yes. The social anxiety and agoraphobia are extreme and pretty much stand alone. That's easy for me to say, of course. As you experience these symptoms I'm sure they all feel like one great big puzzle with a million pieces. It is a bit artificial to parcel up a person's reality into these little dots and lines... but that is what we try to do, just as a guideline. On the other hand, having a strict diagnosis isn't the important thing, it's understanding the reasons why you feel and act the way you do. I would rather think about it like this... not that you have a disorder, but that you score into what we would call the pathological range with borderline symptoms. Do you know what 'pathological' means?"

"Yes," he said, not meeting her eyes. "It means 'sick.'"

"That isn't the term I'd use."

"You're saying that my relationship with Zeke is wrong."

"Not wrong — "

"Unstable, then."

"I'm talking about all your relationships, but yes, primarily your relationship with Zeke, and with Roy of course."

"I'm not giving him up." Casey heard his voice slip into a slightly hysterical register.

Dr. Yves seemed startled. "I'm not saying that you should 'give up' Zeke. My role here is not to judge your relationships or advise you on what you should or shouldn't do. But I will ask you this. Are you happy with Zeke?"

"Yes," he said flatly.

"Let me put it this way. Do you think it's healthy for you that your entire happiness hinges on being able to keep him, and that you spend so much of your energy worrying about keeping him?"

Casey muttered, "I wouldn't put it like that..."

"How would you put it?"

A long silence followed. That was one thing about therapy with Dr. Yves. Sometimes there would be these silences and she would just let them go until Casey was ready to speak. Sometimes the longer the silence, the harder it got to muster up something, and he would even get to the point where he refused to speak out of sheer, obdurate resentment. You think I can't sit here for forty-five minutes without talking? See if I can't. This time, though, he knew what he wanted to say but he couldn't say it because he couldn't have it torn apart: I love him, that's how I would put it.

She finally broke the deadlock, after they had sat there wasting the insurance company's money for half an hour or so.

"Okay, Casey. I think we're done for today, so I'll let you go. But I'd like you to think about what we talked about. Also, I want you to keep a journal from now on. You don't have to record every detail of your life. There are three things I'd like you to focus on: The first one is your relationship with Zeke. What goes on between you, what concerns you, your feelings in general. Second, your fears about being with people, when and where specifically the fear affects you, and how it affects you. If you have a panic attack or an episode of dissociation, I want you to write down where and when it occurred, as close to the event itself as possible. I would also like you to keep notes for me on your mood from day to day. Mood is such a subjective thing that it is difficult to keep track of from day to day sometimes. I might ask a person 'how is your week' and they might say 'fine' because that particular day they are feeling fine, when really they were feeling depressed most of the time. Will you do that for me?"

He nodded.

"Good. With all this information we'll be able to identify our topics for discussion very easily."

So from then on he was to keep two journals; one for Dr. Chakri and one for Dr. Yves. He had been finding it challenging to write things down as they actually happened. He was always having to sit down and catch up, which meant that he rarely had information that was perfectly accurate.

Not that they had gotten to use the journal much. Each time, he went in resolved to not just hemorrhage emotions all over her, but she would start by asking him how he was, he would try to tell her, and that would consume the entire session. After a few sessions in this vein, he became convinced that she didn't like him much. They would discuss such intimate subjects that he couldn't help feeling a strange sort of closeness to her, and yet she never anything but reserved with him. She rarely smiled. Maybe she even hated him, maybe she went home to her family — if she had a family — and talked about this borderline homosexual who came in twice a week ranting about how he was terrified of losing his boyfriend.

At his most recent session, after he had finished telling her how it tormented him to think of Zeke being with Winona on campus every day, Dr. Yves had just looked at him and said calmly, "Have you talked to Zeke about your concerns about Winona?"

"No... I don't say anything because he already spends so much time reassuring me and... and I don't want to be that way. Roy always said that, don't be that person, Casey, and he was right I don't want to be that person..."

"What person is that?"

"A jealous bitch."

"Hmm." Dr. Yves wrote something on her notepad, probably along the lines of refers to himself in derogatory terms... "Do you think that Zeke is actually interested in this woman?" she asked, returning her gaze to him.

"No... I don't know."

"When you say you don't know is it because he's done something that suggests he has an interest in her, or is it just a feeling?"

"Just a feeling, I guess — but he's just always with her. He's with her all day and... and they've done things together. Without me."

"Did he ask you if you wanted to come with them?"

"Yeah. He always asks, even though he knows I won't go."

"What sort of things do they do together?"

"They go to lectures or they just explore the city."

"Do you think he's trying to exclude you when he spends time with her?"

"No... He wants me to do more things with him, he gets sad when I say I can't. Or won't, I guess."

There was a pause, while Dr. Yves wrote a bit more. "Have you met her?" she said when she was done.

"No..."

"So she's just this name that you hear all the time. She isn't quite real to you so it's easy to see her as a threat rather than a person. Maybe he only mentions her because he's trying to tell you about his day, and since she's there, her name is going to come up."

"Maybe."

"I think it would help if you met her, if you saw how she and Zeke actually interact. Right now you're going on one hundred percent imagination. What if you started to include yourself a bit more? Just start with one thing, something that feels manageable."

"I guess... but... I'm always tired..."

Dr. Yves showed no sign of having heard that. "How about you give it a try," she urged, "and then we can discuss how it goes."

"Okay," he assented, with absolutely no idea if he would be able to follow through on it.

Zeke closed his phone with a satisfied snap and wandered the few feet back to the small, round table he was sharing with Winona in their usual hang-out, known affectionately on campus as "The Study." It was a student-operated coffee shop, located in the basement of the student union. On Wednesday and Friday he came here to fill that block of time between three, when his last class ended, and the three-thirty bus, which got him home shortly after Casey got home from his relaxation therapy. On other days the schedule was slightly different, but the premise was generally the same: Zeke would be at school while Casey went about his various routines, and they would arrive at home roughly at the same time.

"We're on," he said.

Winona had been reading one of her books but broke off at his return and closed it, shrugging. "As long as it's okay."

"It's okay."

Not only that, it was a good fucking idea. They hadn't had anyone new over to the apartment in over a month — not since Jerry, who was now a regular visitor and that appeared to cause Casey no particular discomfort. It was time to expand on Casey's circle of acquaintances, and more to the point, it was time for Casey to meet Winona.

They hadn't talked about it, but every time Zeke mentioned Winona, or even implied her, Casey would quietly freak out. His body would shift into panic mode just like that. Muscles would clench, his heart rate would shoot up... and that was the least troubling aspect of the Winona Effect. Over the past month, Casey had become almost talkative and Zeke was ecstatic about that. He didn't remark upon it or let Casey know how it thrilled him for fear that he would somehow damage the foundation that Casey had managed to chip out of his bedrock of silence — except that Zeke occasionally made the mistake of speaking a certain name, and when he did that it would be like summer all over again. Casey would suddenly get quiet again, even docile. Whatever Zeke suggested, he would agree to. Zeke had a pretty good idea of what it was all about, and it was a bit maddening that Casey seemed to think Zeke might suddenly revert to a person that he wasn't anymore, but then, to be fair, he had still been that person only three months ago. And yeah, if Casey hadn't come along, he would probably still be seeking companionship exclusively on the female side of the fence.

What Casey didn't see, what he couldn't seem to comprehend, was that he more than fulfilled Zeke's desire. He was a surfeit, a spilling over, and a paradox that was fascinating and frustrating. He kept coming onto Zeke with all the appearance of complete confidence and yet he still existed in constant terror that he would be left — as though Zeke could possibly give up the most stimulating, addictive, unexpected but wondrous part of his life. There was that play by Shakespeare, Zeke couldn't remember which one but Bill had gotten it so right: Being with Casey, touching Casey, making love to Casey... Well, that only fed the thing it was supposed to satisfy. Giving in had given him less control, not more, and it was getting to the point that he had trouble remembering why control had anything to say on the subject.

Zeke didn't particularly want to spend tonight studying, nor studying in the company of other people, but if he went home and spent the evening in Casey's company, there would be no studying. Stokely might come over after she got off work but eventually she would leave and he and Casey would end up doing what they almost always did... on a bed, a couch, in the shower, against a wall... and Sasha need never know what they had done with his favourite chair. There should have been time for studying, but somehow it just never happened when the two of them were alone.

"Is this a good night for it?" Winona asked him when he had been silent for a bit too long.

"Huh? Oh, yes... I need to crack down now."

Winona hesitated before commenting. "Not happy with your mark on your paper, I guess."

"No."

"It seemed fine to me."

"Well..." He refrained from comment. Winona had read the paper, and hadn't said anything in the least bit constructive. "I'm going to be extra diligent about the next one. And I'm going to get Casey to critique me."

"Casey?"

"Yeah... He was on the Dean's list the last two years in college and he was a straight 'A' student all through high school."

"Hmm."

"What?" he asked, pinning her with a look.

"I don't want to be nosy but... why isn't he in school now?"

That was a bit of a surprising question, since she was already acquainted with the idea that Casey was ill. There was no way she could not be, observing what she did of Zeke's life. She didn't know the intimate details because she didn't ask and Zeke didn't tell, but she did see the phone calls, she knew about the need to keep everything according to schedule. And now she was going to meet the boyfriend in the flesh, so it was fair that she be warned in advance if there was something to be warned about.

"Okay," Zeke said. "You've probably figured out that... there are some issues."

"Yeah, and I didn't think I should say anything..."

"I appreciate that." Zeke checked his watch. They had ten minutes to get to the bus stop. "Let's start walking, okay, I'll explain on the way."

She nodded, standing up and collecting her things. She kept all of her books and notebooks in a battered, brown leather briefcase that she carried with her everywhere; it was full to bursting most of the time and had to have weighed at least twenty pounds.

"Casey's dealing with some things right now. He doesn't really like to go out."

"Out... like out?"

"Yes."

"You mean he's like... oh, what's that called — agraphobic?"

"Agoraphobic," he corrected. "In a way, yes. It's hard for him to be out of the apartment, although he does do it when he has to." Zeke searched his brain for the things he could say that felt appropriate. "This is hard... Basically, not long ago he was very sick, and he is recovering but... I need to be available for him."

"That's why he always calls, then? He needs to know where you are?"

"No."

Winona snapped a look at him, still walking.

"I need to know where he is," Zeke told her. "I bought him the phone, I asked him to call at certain times. It's for me."

"Oh," was all she said.

They were at the bus stop, and just in time as it was in sight, only a block away. They didn't speak further until they had climbed on board, finding a seat together towards the front. The bus was almost but not quite full. Quite contrary to his own expectations, Zeke had come to enjoy this part of his day. He liked having those minutes to just reflect, or read something, or to just watch people. Lately, Sasha was getting a lot more use out of the Mustang than he was.

"So," Winona wondered when they were settled, "are there things I shouldn't say... or do?"

"Oh, no. Casey likes for everyone to act as normal as possible around him. I just wanted to explain."

Winona smiled. She had a very winning smile, full of white teeth. "No, you just wanted to warn me to be nice."

Zeke shrugged. "Maybe."

"I think I'm pretty nice in general," Winona said archly.

"Sure," Zeke agreed. "You're plenty nice."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She was nice, he was nice, and Casey was going to be trying his best. Still, now that they were only minutes from home, Zeke had to admit that there was something crawling uneasily in his stomach.

Of course this was a good idea, because he needed to find ways to pry Casey further out of his cocoon. He was always trying things, always making suggestions about going for coffee, going to movies, museums, bookstores, restaurants... His proposals were almost never accepted, probably because the times that he chose to suggest something usually coincided with the times that Casey's reserves were at their lowest. Zeke felt instinctively that it was important to keep asking anyway.

It helped that today his proposal was doctor-endorsed — but there was a secret and somewhat shameful part of all this. The truth, born of all the overwrought, obsessive places in him, was that he wanted to see Casey unfurl himself before different eyes than his. He wanted to watch them watch Casey. Providing, of course, that it was clearly understood that they were to watch only. They would look but not touch, not unless they had some mad, burning desire to find out what it felt like to be skinned alive.

He was not at all proud of himself for wanting what he wanted. He'd never do it if practicality didn't suggest it, he'd never put Casey on display for no other reason than to suit his own insane, voyeuristic pride. Really, he wouldn't. He was just getting lucky this time.

After an eternity of waiting, the street light changed to green. Casey stepped out, not quite managing to avoid a small puddle as he put a wide margin between himself and a girl illegally riding her bicycle on the sidewalk, and scrambled to the adjacent corner. Now, finally, he was on his own block. He loved everything on his block, every store, every bit of signage, every crack in the concrete. Being on his block meant that he had almost made it, that he was probably going to survive one more time.

The professionals liked to think that there was a therapeutic purpose to this torture; they jargonized it with nice, technical-sounding words like "clinical desensitization" so they could feel scientific. They could have just called it the "just get used to it" approach — but whatever name you gave it, it was majorly flawed. These professionals evidently had great faith in the myth of cause and effect. As far as Casey was concerned, every time he stepped outside, he was increasing his chances of destruction and just because nothing had happened every single time thus far didn't mean he could assume that nothing would happen the next time. They were scientists, for fuck sake, they should have known better.

Passing in front of Wellth, he involuntarily glanced in. Stokely was at the cash and she saw him, signalling that she wanted him to come in.

He didn't want to go in there, he wanted to be at home... but home was going to mean home invasion today. That impending reality enabled him to slow himself down, veering into the store — and so there, Dr. Yves, he didn't always have to do everything exactly according to routine.

The welcoming bells jangled loudly. He stood in the doorway for a few seconds, gasping like he had just run all the way here — which, come to think of it, he had — and surveying the store while he shifted his weight uneasily, not letting his feet get too attached to that one spot on the floor. One, two, three... four... four apart from Stokely and Tara — that he could see. There could still be more people in the aisles.

Stokely waved him over, so he went. He put his back against the wall of cosmetics adjacent to the cash registers.

"Hey, Case," Stokes said, giving him a warm smile.

He nodded a bit, too breathless to speak right then, and his eye happened to catch Tara's. Her eyes flickered before settling on his, just while she said, "Hi, Casey," and then they were off and away.

He made Tara nervous. She had been uneasy around him to start with, but it really didn't help that two weeks ago she had come by to fix their kitchen faucet and innocently triggered an incident.

Unusually, Casey had been the only one at home even though it wasn't yet midday; Sasha had left early to do some personal errands and was going to go straight on to work for three. Casey had found himself with some time before he had to leave for his therapy appointment, and it was a gap that wasn't big enough to be filled with a movie; the dishes were washed, the apartment pristine, and even his journal had been attended to, so it had occurred to him that he might borrow one of Zeke's books. Zeke read extensively, both fiction and non-fiction. He usually had two or three on the go at the same time, plus a stack of magazines he would be working his way through. Most of his books were still in boxes, but there was one small shelf in the bedroom occupied by some Tolstoys and Dostoyevskis and Hugos alongside a few Grishams and Kings.

For most of his life, Casey too had been a voracious consumer of books. Yet for the past few months he hadn't read anything except fucked-up, diabolical letters from ex- boyfriends, and they didn't count. He hadn't been able to focus on very much else, though. There was the book on anxiety and panic that Dr. Yves had asked him to read, but it was pretty easy-going, filled with pictures, anecdotes and checklists. A novel was something else, something he missed and worried that he wouldn't be able to handle. He was afraid to even contemplate reading an actual textbook, afraid that there really was something wrong with his brain that never would get any better.

So to start, he had chosen something trashy and accessible and gone up to the roof to enjoy what was becoming increasingly rare — a sunny day. Sitting in one of the wicker chairs he opened the book, nearly too anxious to read past the cover. A few pages in, he had to stop reading and fight back tears because he was having no trouble concentrating whatsoever.

He had been quite engrossed in the book when Tara let herself in downstairs, mistakenly believing that no one was home. He supposed she had called out and he didn't hear. What he did hear, minutes later, was the crash of metal on metal, and a meaty curse. He had crept down the stairs and haunted the stairwell, peering through the door to the kitchen that was open a crack. From the back of her, he hadn't been able to make any kind of reasonable assessment of who she might be. He had finally blurted out, "What are you doing?" rather loudly and she dropped her wrench and yelled, "Jesusfuckingchrist!" She had seemed very large and very angry when she whirled on him.

From there it had just degenerated, as he streaked past her to the bathroom, slamming and locking the door. She didn't stay long after that, although she did make some attempts to talk to him and quickly discerned that she wasn't going to get a response. The second she gave up and left the apartment, he had stolen down the hall and locked the door to the outside, putting the security chain on. Then he returned to the bedroom, where he had choked down a Xanax and balled himself up on the bed. He had slept through that day's appointment with Dr. Yves, failed to phone Zeke as scheduled, and had still been unconscious when Zeke got home. He was finally torn unwillingly from the void by Zeke shouting through a few-inches-wide crack between door and frame while violently rattling the chain. Apparently, Zeke had tried to force his way in and found the door a lot more resistant than he had expected.

Once the earlier debacle was presented to him, Zeke had been furious. It had taken some creative persuasion to prevent Zeke from coming down on Tara like a natural disaster. Tara would never know of her narrow escape; she had phoned to apologize and Zeke had calmly asked her to please phone in advance from now on before performing any superintendent duties.

Even now, to Casey the shape of Tara seemed to suggest a vague menace. "H- hi, Tara," he said, as brightly as he could considering he was still trying to catch his breath.

"Um... how's that faucet working out?"

"It's, um..." he said, having no idea. There was no reason why he shouldn't have an idea, though. He had gotten into the habit of doing the dishes a lot, in trade for all of the cooking that Sasha did for him. "Good... thanks."

Stokely broke it to him: "I've got a new tea for you to try out."

That meant she wanted to come upstairs and visit with him. His collection of tea was getting quite large, thanks to Stokely; it was a running experiment between them. There were several teas in the cupboard that he quite liked — and others he did not and wouldn't come into contact with again if he could help it. There was that one — Valerian — that was supposed to be good for helping a person to get mellow except that the smell of it was strongly reminiscent of dirty socks. At some point, when it was safe to do so, he was going to throw that one out. For the time being, it was mouldering in the back of the cupboard.

"Okay," he said, nodding quickly. It got him what he really wanted; Stokely would be accompanying him upstairs to face Zeke and Winona, if they were already there.

They weren't.

He took advantage of the reprieve to duck into the bedroom. He wouldn't have the luxury of a full hibernation as he usually did, not with Stokely here, but at least he could linger in privacy and wait for the shakes to subside a bit before he went back out there. After a few minutes just sitting on the edge of the bed, he made himself get up and go back to the kitchen.

Stokes had put the kettle on to boil and pulled out Casey's favourite tea mug.

"What is... what is this one?" Casey asked, taking his position on the other side of the kitchen island.

"Burdock root," she replied, visibly appreciating his nervous state but not remarking on it. "It cleanses the liver and kidneys and purifies the blood."

"Not going to purify the blood too m-much, I hope," he said. "I'd hate to be taking all these pills for n-nothing."

She looked quickly at him and eventually decided that a crooked grin was the right comeback. "Of course not."

"Aren't you going to have some?" he asked. His hands were ice-cold. He buried them inside his long sleeves, looking forward to having a warm mug to wrap them around.

"I'll have some tea, sure." Stokely opened the tea cupboard, as it was coming to be known. "Ah, yes... peach passion-fruit." She took a bag out and found herself a mug in the dish rack. While she fiddled with her tea bag, she said, "So... what're you guys up to tonight?"

If it were anyone else he would have seen innuendo first, but it was Stokely, who ate dinner and watched movies with them a lot of nights. If she didn't get an invitation she would hint around for one until it came.

Stokes was lonely. She had yet to receive a satisfactory response on her roommate notice, so she was living by herself and obviously didn't like it. She worked hard at not being sad, and she didn't ask about Stan too much although she knew that Casey and Zeke saw him. Once, by accident the four of them had all ended up together at the same time, and everyone was friendly. Casey was impressed by her strength. She broke up with her boyfriend and after a decent mourning period got back to living her life. He had broken up with his boyfriend and laid down to die. See, Dr. Yves, he was not entirely without insight. It was just that insight didn't necessarily make a sliver of a difference.

"Actually... Zeke is bringing his — his university friend — home for a study session," Casey said, with a shudder.

Stokes' brows went up. "That's something different," she said.

"Yeah."

"Who is this friend?"

"Winona." He was pleased with how lightly he said that name that reverberated through his entire body like some sort of painful spasm. He added, perhaps a bit too quickly and too obviously, "He just hangs out with her on campus."

"Have you met her?"

"Not yet."

Stokes gave him a keen look. "I guess that makes you... um... a bit nervous?"

"The water's boiling."

She blinked at his little sidestep. Turning off the heat, she removed the kettle from the burner and poured hot water. She slid Casey's mug across the island towards him. He leaned against the island, resting his elbows on top of it, and sniffed at the tea. Like many of the teas Stokely had him try, it had a slightly medicinal, tree-infused fragrance.

"Tell me if I shouldn't say things, Case."

He shrugged. "It's okay. You're right... the only people we've been having in the apartment are you and S-Stan and Jerry."

"Except for Tara that time," Stokes added.

He felt his face heat up. "She told you about that."

"Oh, she was just mortified, Case!"

"What did she say?"

"That she scared the hell out of you and she felt terrible."

"But I scared her."

"I think she forgot about that part. You just startled her, anyway. She knows she isn't supposed to go into a tenant's apartment without permission."

"We asked her to."

"Of course it was just a mix-up — but she felt bad, and — she didn't really know what to do, you know?"

Yeah, he knew. What was a person to do when someone crept up on you from behind, yelled boo!, then dashed down the hall and locked themselves in the bathroom? Tara could have chosen to just show herself out, but she had done the conscientious thing and went to knock on the bedroom door and ask if he needed any help. He had been in no state to hear it and yelled at her to goawaygoawaygoaway...

"Stokes," he said, feeling the trembling that had almost subsided start up again.

"Yeah, Case?"

"Can you stay here?"

"When? Now? Oh, I can't, Case, really. I'm sorry. But I can come right back up later, after work... if you want me to."

"I want you to."

"Okay. You know I don't really like being alone much, anyway. Are you going to try your tea?"

He cradled his mug, took a sip. It didn't taste bad, but he wasn't sure he could distinguish it from a lot of other herbal teas. He was getting to be familiar with a few of them. Chamomile, green, mint, rooibos — all of those, he knew that he liked.

"How is it?" Stokes asked him.

"Good."

"Really?"

"It's fine, Stokes... When do you get off work?"

"At six. I'll be right up." She seemed to be wanting to say something else. He waited; she hesitated; finally, she plunged. "You know, I had an idea the other day."

"What?"

"We're looking for someone to work part-time in the store and I thought that maybe you could — "

"No."

"Hear me out, Case. I'm talking about ten hours a week max. That's like two hours or less a day, and it would be just stocking shelves so you wouldn't really need to talk to the public. It would mostly be just me and Tara."

He put his tea down on the counter and folded his arms across his chest. Well, his dad would be rejoicing if he did this. In his e-mails, his dad never actually came out and said, son, I'd like you to have an occupation besides sleeping and meditating or whatever it is you do at that clinic and having gay sex. His dad would mention school as often as he could, as though he feared that Zeke and Sasha really wanted to reduce Casey to the status of houseboy.

"I don't know," he said. Anxiety was standing down, and tiredness was arriving, with all its luggage in tow.

"Just think about it, okay, Case? It can wait a bit." Stokely sighed and stretched her arms over her head. "I've gotta get back. See you."

She left her still mostly full cup of tea behind. Casey forgot his on the counter, going into the bedroom and pulling his afghan over his head as he curled in a ball. The afghan was new, a gift from Zeke after seeing him shiver one too many times. It was some sort of wool knit in a deep ochre, from one of the hippie shops in the neighbourhood. He liked the way the light became diffused beneath the yellow fabric. It was soothing on his eyes, and he liked to imagine sometimes that he was never coming out of there.

Their door was unlocked. That did not make Zeke happy, although it could have been worse. The door could have been locked and chained like it had been that day about two weeks ago. He had stood out there calling to Casey and pounding on the door for about ten minutes before Casey finally appeared, alive but not quite well. Ten minutes that Zeke hoped he would never have to relive.

Perhaps people didn't readily see it, but Zeke had his own version of anxiety. Internally, he supposed, it felt just like anxiety that anyone else would have. Externally, it took the form of him threatening to tear someone's eyes from their skull or otherwise cripple them slowly and painfully. The Tara Situation had been one such case. That had taken him several hours to recover from, and only after some very focussed attention from Casey. Later, after Casey was asleep, Zeke had dug up a screwdriver and removed the security chain and latch from the door. He assumed that Casey had noticed, although he hadn't said anything about it.

"Case?" he called out.

The place was silent. Zeke wondered if Casey might have freaked after getting off the phone earlier and taken a Xanax when he got home, in which case he would be unconscious and successfully avoiding this entire exercise.

"Casey?" he called again. Winona was crowding in behind him. "Come on in," he said, dropping his backpack, kicking off his shoes.

When he looked up, Casey was standing a few feet away in the hallway, draped in his personal brand of complete silence.

Just like that, and just like always, Zeke's heart started to pound. It didn't make any difference that the world at large might not have the same perception of Casey as he did. Winona would be looking, and seeing... what? Maybe someone too beautiful and too fey to be someone's boyfriend. Maybe a weird little guy with a glow-in-the-dark complexion, a perpetual case of bedhead, and big bug eyes. All Zeke knew was that whenever he looked, he got punched in the gut. There was the possibility that he was just like every other guy who could be led around by his penis — yet it couldn't just be him seeing it, not when there was so much of Casey that was clearly way beyond the ordinary.

"Hi," Winona said to Casey, very casually.

Casey kept his silence woven tight around him. He barely glanced at Winona, his pupils opening up, widening and swallowing Zeke. Zeke took several steps forward, ostensibly to get out of Winona's way; their porch was always a challenge for more than one person. Casey didn't move, waiting to receive him. He finished the distance and hugged Casey, found him shivering with nerves and need. He bore a faint scent of the laundry soap that they used, over a sharp tinge of fear sweat. The goop that he used in his hair smelled like oranges; it seemed entirely possible that Zeke's cock would have a Pavlovian response to citrus until the day he died. It was twitching, awakening right now, and it didn't give a shit about studying and getting good grades. Zeke was reminded, quite vividly, of one very pragmatic reason that he had brought Winona home with him.

Stepping back, Zeke cleared the excitement from his throat so he could speak. "Case... this is Winona, my friend that you keep hearing about."

Standing close to Zeke,with an arm around his back, Casey finally looked at Winona. He said, "Hi."

Winona said, "I hope you don't mind me getting in your space. We'll be quiet, I promise."

Casey's only response was to unwind himself from Zeke and drift into the kitchen. He passed by Winona without seeing her. It seemed he had a mug of something on the go; he tasted it, making a face. Reaching for the kettle, he said, "I'm making a pot oftea... would you like some?"

"I... uh... don't like tea," Winona replied. "Sorry... but I'd love some coffee."

Casey nodded curtly and grabbed the pot from the coffee maker to fill it. "Pulling an all-nighter?"

"Oh, I don't know. I just drink about a pot of coffee a day. I'm constantly caffeinated." So saying, Winona moved from the hallway into the open space they used as their dining area. "Can we spread out our books here?"

Zeke dragged his backpack over and sat down. From where he was, he could observe Casey going through the motions of making coffee, pouring the water into the machine, measuring the grounds — except he didn't measure, he just poured freely, perhaps hoping to murder Winona by way of caffeine poisoning. His eyes flickered, meeting Zeke's with an expression both purposeful and lazy, and the air between them thickened.

"Stokely coming over later?" Zeke asked Casey.

"Yeah." It might have been a trick of the light, but Casey's eyes were nearly black right then.

Zeke got up and went into the kitchen. On the pretext of reaching into the cupboard for mugs, he stood right behind Casey, his arms on either side of his body while his hips gently nudged Casey into the counter. "What are you going to do?" he said quietly.

"I'll read for a bit," Casey murmured. Pause, then: "I wouldn't want to distract you."

"You don't distract me."

"Oh... I guess I'd need to try harder." Casey acknowledged the tumescence that was now pressed up against his backside with a slight roll of his hips, then slipped out of the space between Zeke and the counter.

Zeke had nothing left to do but flick the "on" switch on the coffee maker and take several deep, self-sedating breaths. As he did so, he refocussed on the environment external to himself and Casey, and noted that Winona was no longer at the dining room table.

He found both her and Casey in the living room, the two of them standing side- by-side in a tableau that was immediately and self-evidently aberrant to Zeke's struggling eyes. He had wanted to get two sectors of his life into one continuum; now he had it, and he was finding it a challenge to wrap his brain around it.

"Two things," Winona said. "This apartment is really clean. And that is one honkin' big television."

The apartment was indeed spotless. Between Sasha the obsessive and Casey the depressive, the place never got more than slightly untidy. For Sasha, it was about having a home that was as close to the Martha Steward ideal as possible, and that meant constant attention to where things were collecting on surfaces and the removal of any visible dust or dirt. For Casey, it was about wanting to be helpful to Sasha. Sometimes he actually got upset if anyone washed the dishes before he could get to them.

Of the TV, Zeke said, "It's even bigger when it's actually on."

Winona made a scolding face. "No procrastinating," she teased.

"Okay, okay," Zeke placated quickly.

"Hey, Casey... what's your preferred technique?"

"My... technique... ?" Casey stammered.

"For studying in college. I hear you're a real whiz."

The expression that Casey turned on Zeke was sheer betrayal, and Zeke made himself look back without cringing. He hadn't told Winona much, and why should he not brag about his boyfriend's smarts? It wasn't like Winona had said anything provocative.

"Well, I..." Casey said, and let his voice fade before he could even get started.

"Yes?" Winona urged. "I'm totally serious, Casey. Um... I never finished high school and even then I wasn't all that good at it. I just wrote the GED and then I applied for college as a non-traditional student, so, um... I'm not really sure how to do this studying thing. Zeke'll tell you."

Actually, Zeke sometimes wondered if she was really as insecure about her academic ability as she acted. He didn't know what mark she had gotten on her paper; he never did read through it, although they had talked about it several times.

He knew quite a bit about her, probably a lot more than she knew about him because of her tendency to just spill information unsolicited. He knew that had she dropped out of high school at sixteen because she had gotten pregnant. He knew that her mother was Aboriginal, from a reserve community near Victoria called Esquimalt, but had raised Winona in Vancouver. Winona's son was twelve and living there right now with his grandmother while Winona went to school. She hadn't said why she had chosen to go to school in Seattle and drive to Vancouver every weekend to see her kid, but he expected that she would blurt that out to him sooner or later.

She was an interesting person, and he found that he enjoyed hanging out with her. It probably didn't hurt that she was looking to him as her academic guru. He wasn't above enjoying that kind of ego-stroking — except she really should be firing him right about now. He couldn't figure out why he hadn't consulted Casey for academic mentoring in the first place. He remembered seeing a few odd expressions cross Casey's face while typing Zeke's paper, and instead of following up on those, Zeke had chosen to fall back on the techniques that had served him adequately in high school. He hadn't asked anyone their opinion about anything back then.

Casey answered Winona while looking at a spot on the floor. "Did the teacher give you any information about the mid-term?" he asked.

"Just that it's on everything up to last Friday."

"Okay, well, I'd... what I'd do is get all my notes together and make a study sheet with all the important factoids and formulas — um, all the terms. Try and get it all on one page, both sides."

"I'll never be able to do that, there's too much."

"You can write really small... and by the time you get it down to that, you would have soaked up a lot of stuff. The study sheet is just like the... the highlights. If you remember what's on that page, the rest of the stuff in your head comes with it." He peered at Zeke and said playfully, "Of course it depends on having thorough notes."

"I don't know what you're implying," Zeke said, putting his nose in the air.

"That you don't take notes," Winona said, with a grin. "He's right... you hardly ever write anything down."

"I know I'll remember it."

She retorted, "Then you don't need to study, do you?"

"I do need to study," Zeke sighed. "Okay... can I borrow your notes, just for this time, Winona?"

"Of course." Winona marched purposefully to the kitchen table and sat. "I'm going to try what you said, Casey. Thanks."

Winona and Zeke sat down together and started putting together their notes, while Casey escaped to the bedroom. Zeke tried to focus on the studying rather than the tantalizing correlation of Casey and bed. He had to be honest with himself and admit that he had always been scornful of practitioners of school like Casey, people who made the effort to be thorough in their attendance and note-taking and homework. For him it had been enough to show up on occasion and hand things in on time — but again, that was high school. He needed to adjust to this new environment, do things a little bit different. Be like Casey would be his new mantra.

After forty-five minutes of shuffling papers and comparing notes, he decided it was time for a break. While Winona poured herself another cup of coffee, he took his "C" paper — titled, very cleverly in his opinion, "What Species Are You, Aristotle?" — and snuck down the hall to the bedroom. The door was half-closed; a bit tentatively, he pushed it all the way open, hoping that Casey was not asleep. He wasn't; he was propped against the pillows with an open book in front of him, but his eyes were fixed on a spot on the wall.

"Hey," Zeke said softly. "Hey, Case."

There was no sound, no movement from the figure on the bed.

"Case."

Casey turned slowly at him, blinking, licking his lips once like he was thirsty.

"What should we eat?" Zeke asked, for something to say.

Casey shrugged. Over the past few weeks Sasha had made some progress in transferring some of his less arcane cooking know-how to his two roommates. So far, Casey had mastered soup and sandwiches, including grilled cheese, plus Kraft dinner and frozen entrees. Zeke was good with canned tomatoes and pasta, and he could roast a chicken, but he didn't feel like doing any cooking now.

"Why don't we go across the street?" he suggested.

Across the street meant the Bayview Diner, where Zeke had rapidly become a fixture. He no longer mourned the loss of the Jam, in fact. The menu at the Bayview was bigger, and the food was better. And of course, the Bayview totally had the not-being-in- Herrington vibe going for it.

"We?" Casey said.

"You, me, Winona... Stokes, when she gets here."

Casey put the book facedown on his lap and clasped his hands over it. Zeke waited for the protest, the I'm tired — which, to be fair, he undoubtedly was. Casey was out on the edge of what he could handle every day, walking to his appointments, enduring whatever went on in those sessions, and when he wasn't doing that he was often doing his own homework, writing in his journal, doing his assigned readings, or engaging in some activity that Sasha might have scheduled for him, such as the cooking lessons. It was hardly surprising that by evening he wouldn't be up to doing anything except lounging at home with Zeke.

"Okay," Casey agreed, taking Zeke completely by surprise yet again. "When Stokes is ready."

"You hungry?"

"Getting there."

"Case..." Zeke stepped fully into the room. "I need to ask you something."

"Yeah?"

Zeke raised the paper in his hand and gestured in Casey's direction with it. "Will you read my essay and critique it?"

Casey's hands opened and closed, grasping his book tightly. "Didn't the professor... ?"

"No. Just his comment at the end. I want you to be brutal, Case."

"Um..."

"I can take it."

"I wouldn't know if the... the philosophy part was right or not."

"That's okay, I'm more concerned with the structure."

"And, um... science papers are pretty much straight facts. There isn't room for a lot of creativity."

"It's okay. I need to work on my structure more than my creativity."

Casey offered up a wan smile. "You want to be boring like me?"

Zeke put the paper down on the bed and placed one knee in close proximity to it. He leaned over and down. "You," he said, his lips just barely brushing Casey's, "Are the opposite of boring. You're the essential form of Not Boring."

He let his mouth deepen into Casey's, feeling the smile building there. The temptation to pounce was severe, but he made himself pull back. From where he was hovering, just above Casey's face, he discovered eyes glistening with some emotion that eluded definition.

"What's this?" Zeke murmured, stroking a cheekbone with his thumb. "What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing, huh?" Keeping his hand as it was, Zeke stole another taste of Casey's mouth. "Nothing to worry about right now?" he suggested.

"Nothing... to worry about right now."

"I think you're worn out. We could go to the Bayview and bring something back — "

"No!" Casey broke in, trembling. "No."

"Okay." Zeke chose not to notice the extremity of that reaction. He stepped back, removing himself from the bed. "I'm going to go bury my head in my books for a little while longer. And, um... about the paper... Don't hold back, okay?"

Right in front of his eyes, Casey was struggling to bring the intensity down. "Right... Do — do we have a red pen?"

Zeke looked quickly at him, saw a faint curve on his lips amidst the strained voice and slightly wild expression. He went with the smile. "Very funny, Professor."

"The red will give you more of a scare."

"I don't think that'll be a problem."

Casey dropped his voice to a husky pout. "But I need something big, fat and red in my hand."

That should have been a joke but Zeke knew it wasn't. He said, "I'll get you a marker for next time." Casey blinked at him with slightly disoriented, bloodshot eyes, and Zeke just had to lower his head for one more, one very soft kiss that wasn't nearly adequate to administer what Casey needed from him right then.

Backing away, Zeke said, "Gotta get back to work. Don't fall asleep, Case."

Casey waved Zeke's paper. "I have this to keep me going."

"And I say again... Don't fall asleep."

At the table, Winona had collected all of her notes and was already scribbling on some notepaper. Zeke sat down and tried to follow suit, but it seemed that she had neglected to write down certain important points. He had to turn continually to his textbook to fill in the blanks, and then of course he would share the information with her. For an hour or so, the mood in the apartment was very studious, until it was broken by the ringing of the doorbell. Zeke was desperate for a longer break by then; he bounced up to answer it, expecting Stokely, but what he found was Stokely and Charly.

His first instinct was to slam the door, which he successfully resisted.

"Hi, Zeke," Charly said. From her professional garb, she must have come straight from the newspaper. "I hope you don't mind me just dropping in. I stopped by to see Stokely after work and she mentioned she was expected here... so I thought I would just come along and say hi."

Stokely was staring pleadingly at him, wanting him to be gracious. He reminded himself that Charly hadn't really done anything to harm them, apart from that initial, disastrous introduction. She had helped him when he asked, and if she had some kind of ulterior motive, she wasn't pressing it. In fact, he hadn't seen her since the day he met her for lunch to ask about a doctor for Casey. He had spoken on the phone to her a few times, when he called her house for Stan, but that was it. And since it appeared that she and Stokely were still close despite the breakup with Stan... Zeke could be a grown-up about this.

"Charly," he acknowledged. "How are you?"

"Pretty well. Never did get to have you guys over. I thought I might try again, actually."

"That might be doable," Zeke said, folding his arms. He figured that was a shade more polite than "It depends."

Charly's eyes moved to a space behind Zeke. "Hello, Casey," she said.

Zeke turned at the same time as everyone else. He noted Casey was holding Zeke's paper in his hand and he was blinking fast, like he was trying to take in what his eyes were communicating and having trouble. He didn't respond to Charly's greeting.

"I enjoyed meeting your parents last month," she went on, unfazed.

Casey was a slight presence at Zeke's shoulder now, a faint warmth. To Zeke's shock, the presence began to talk. "They... they said they had a good time," Casey said.

"I'm glad to hear that." Charly shifted her weight. "It's too bad you couldn't be there."

"Sorry — "

"No, I understand. Things happen. I just wanted to stop in and ask if maybe we could reschedule. I'll make it a Sunday or Monday this time so your friend can come. How about it?"

Zeke waited for Casey to let him know which way they were leaning on that.

"Sure," Casey said.

Both Stokely and Charly looked surprised. Charly recovered quickly and said, "Good, good. Do you like Indian food?"

"I think so."

"Thai?"

"I..."

"How about Japanese?"

"Um... dunno."

From that response, Zeke knew that Casey was getting ready to abdicate on the conversation. He rescued him with, "Sasha has probably fed him just about anything exotic that you can think of."

"Zeke?" Charly said. "How about you?"

"I'm not picky. Whatever is fine with me."

"Okay, then." Charly smiled. "I'll call when I get a date sorted out."

"Sure."

There was a small, slightly awkward silence.

"Well," Charly said, "I'll be on my way. Nice to see you guys."

She let herself out. It was neat, tidy, there had been no outbursts or comments that set off any alarms. Zeke felt Casey's hand sliding quietly under his elbow; he unfolded his arms and grasped that hand. He indicated the paper in Casey's other hand. "Are you done with that?"

Casey nodded, putting it gently on the table, just within arm's reach. Zeke decided he didn't want to look at it just yet. Winona, he noted, was still sitting in her chair at the table, looking very interested in everything.

Stokely was visibly apologetic. "She just showed up, Zeke."

"It's fine," he said, meaning it.

"You were reasonably friendly, too. Thank you."

Winona had popped up beside him. "Hi," she said. "I'm Winona." She offered a hand to shake, which struck Zeke as odd for some reason. "Love your shirt," she told Stokely.

The shirt was hippyish, long-sleeved, predominantly red with some colourful, abstract embroidery in shades of orange and gold. It was a tad heavier than the gauzy things she had been wearing in early September, and already so familiar to Zeke that he had stopped noticing it, much like the denim skirt she was wearing. Stokes did not have an extensive wardrobe; once the major bills were paid, there probably wasn't very much left for extras like clothing.

"Thanks," she replied. "So what are we doing?"

"Going to the Bayview."

"Oh, Zeke!" Stokes protested. "I'm really broke."

"Don't worry about it." Zeke waved off Stokes' frown. "Let's go, I'm hungry."

"Jah, mein Fuehrer."

"Hey, I'm offering to take you for supper here. Would you rather stay here and eat what Casey and I can cook?"

"You have a point." Stokes' expression was pure horror. "Come on, Case. Let's go ahead of them so we don't all trip over each other here."

Casey nodded and let go of Zeke's hand so he could get ready to go out. Zeke stayed where he was and watched. He watched as Casey put on his running shoes, worming his feet in without bending over or untying them. He watched Casey put on his favourite fleece over the mock turtleneck and heavy knit shirt he was already wearing, then wound a striped scarf around his neck for good measure.

"Warm enough?" Stokes asked Casey.

"No," he replied sombrely.

"You'd think it was cold outside."

"It is cold."

"I think that your thermostat is a little off, Case."

Maybe it wasn't cold, but it was damp. It seemed to Zeke that somewhere around the first of October, a permanent, grey canopy had fallen over Seattle, squeezing out some mist and drizzle on a daily basis. The "rainy season," he had been told. Even when it wasn't raining, it was grey. Zeke thought the sun had been out a day here or there, but it was difficult to remember. He expected that he was going to be missing a clean fall of snow before long.

The front door flapped; Casey followed Stokely out. Zeke heard Stokely's voice receding as she descended the stairs. Winona was casually putting on her long overcoat. She looked both amused and pained.

"What?" Zeke asked.

"I have a feeling somebody doesn't like me."

"Oh, he just doesn't know you."

Winona was shaking her head. "It's not just that. If it helps... no offence, but as hot as you are, you don't really do it for me."

He smiled. "None taken."

"Plus I'm dating a guy already — tell Casey that, okay?"

"If it comes up," Zeke assured her

"So this... person... comes in and right away I can tell he hasn't had a shower in about a year. He was about six feet tall and three hundred pounds and he wants to know if we're going to have separate refrigerators!"

Winona groaned loudly. Stokely looked to Casey for some response and he forced a bit of a smile. The epic saga of Stokely's quest for the perfect roommate was certainly entertaining, but he was very much distracted by Zeke's leg that was temptingly pressed against his. And then there was the matter of a large quantity of liver still on his plate. It was drenched with ketchup and onions and bacon but it still smelled and tasted like a chemical processing plant.

Zeke had been making him eat this crap at least once a week. It should have been enough that he frequently ate oatmeal for breakfast and that Sasha was constantly serving him meals with broccoli or spinach as a side dish. They had been eating a fair amount of beef, too. Casey didn't object to any of that, and much to his relief, he wasn't having the adverse reaction to the iron pills that Dr. Chakri had warned him about. His last blood test had shown an improvement — but it wasn't enough for Zeke. Until they got the word that Casey's iron absorption was in the normal range, Zeke would keep "suggesting" that he order liver. Casey had known what was coming when Zeke proposed the diner for supper; he didn't bother to wait for the "suggestion".

"And that was the best of the lot," Stokely grumbled. "Now I have obscene phone calls and no roommate."

"You're lucky," Winona said. "I have a roommate. We've lived together for less than two months and I already hate her. I hate the way she breathes and the way she hides all the dirty dishes in the sink like she thinks we can pretend they're not there and... like... like... what's with the damned soy milk and the way she walks all over the floor with her boots on?"

And the roommate probably hated Winona right back with her gotta-use-the- curling-iron-every-day-bring-on-the-hairspray and her painted claws and her over-loud laugh and her crisp white cotton blouses and high cut jeans. Someone should tell Winona that the eighties had come and gone and why the fuck should she feel the need to pay tribute to them? She would have barely reached her teenage years when that decade ended.

Casey sawed off a piece of liver and chewed it without conviction, trying not to taste it. He stared longingly at Zeke's hamburger and fries.

"Um, Case?" Stokes said. "Are you in love with Zeke's food?"

"I might be," he answered.

"Well, why'd you order that, then?" Stokely shuddered. "That's an internal organ you're eating."

"You're not helping, Stokes," Zeke said.

"I'm sorry, but it's disgusting."

"It's good for him."

"Fine, but you're not the one who has to choke it down."

"I would. I don't mind liver."

"Why don't you two trade, then?" Winona suggested, eliciting a glare from Zeke.

Maybe she had thought she could earn a few points with Casey, which wasn't fucking going to happen. Every time she asked Zeke a question she did this thing with her eyes, making them widen just slightly in a subtle suggestion that she was overcome with awe. And all her comments seemed designed to let Zeke showcase his brains or his muscles. Zeke didn't seem to notice that, or maybe he just liked it too much to care.

"I can't eat that now," Zeke said. "It's covered in ketchup."

"So's the burger," Winona said.

"That's different. Ketchup belongs on hamburgers and hotdogs."

"Not fries?"

"Nope, I just like my fries with salt."

"You know what we do in Canada? Vinegar. And sometimes mayonnaise."

"Yuck. I hate soggy fries."

"You know that chip wagon that always sits outside the HUB? Awesome fries. And the sliders... nothing but a fatty wiener and smashed-up old bun but it's just so good..."

"Do you mind?" Stokely interrupted. "Some of us are trying to eat our organ meat."

"Oh." Winona did a fine job of looking regretful. "Sorry. I feel for you, Casey. I hate liver too."

"Okay, I'll switch — " Zeke abruptly grabbed at Casey's plate, while lifting his own in the air.

Casey held onto his platter of liver with both hands. "No, I'll eat it."

"You don't have to," Zeke grunted.

He sounded like he was getting mad, so Casey let go of his plate. As a direct consequence, Zeke suddenly lost control of his momentum; his elbow ran into his glass of water, spilling it all over Winona. She jumped off her chair like she was stuck with a hot poker, brushing at her lap with both hands.

"I'm sorry!" Casey said at the same time as Zeke.

"Did it get you?" Zeke added.

"No, mostly just my sandwich," she said, still brushing her thighs. There were a couple of large splotches.

Getting a waiter over to wipe the table and have Winona's sodden dinner replaced was something of a production. Meanwhile, Winona made a trip to the bathroom, in an attempt to dry herself off a bit.

She returned a few minutes later, smiling ruefully, and sat down with a bit of a shrug. She didn't seem upset, but when Casey chanced a look at her, she seemed to be watching him. Wimp, her look said. Sickly little wimp, everything has to be about you, doesn't it? Well, I'm going to take him away from that. You won't know what hit you because I'm going to get you... I'm going to get you... Going to get you, my pretty... and your little dog too. Okay, he didn't have a dog and she lacked the pointy nose and the pointy hat. And... all that water and she hadn't melted. Completely intact. Not melting at all. Oh, how he would have liked to see that... Winona slowly deflating, becoming a puddle of squish on the floor while moaning I'm melting... melting... ohhhh... arghhh... my beautiful wickedness...

Casey slumped into his corner of the booth and wondered what they would think if he started giggling to himself... Shit, he was giggling.

"Casey," Zeke said worriedly.

"Sorry," he said, swallowing the next wave. "I'm just tired... I get loopy... f-fruit loopy."

Zeke switched their plates this time without any fuss. "Here, eat this."

"Yes-s-s, mas-s-ter," he slurred, doing his best impersonation of Renfield, Dracula's hunched up sidekick. He broke into another long giggle and soon Stokely had joined in. Zeke put a hand on his knee but he noticed that even in profile Zeke was visibly struggling not to smile.

Winona was smiling too, but just a bit and not very mirthfully.

Casey clapped a hand over his mouth to restrain himself while Stokely, warned by Zeke's attempts to keep a straight face, mashed her lips together and stared up at the ceiling. "Sorry," she said, laughter straining behind her words. "Sorry... I can't help it. My brother always used to get me going at the dinner table. I didn't even know what I was laughing at, we would just look at each other and that was it." She lowered her head, having forced her face to smooth out and said, "So, Winona. I understand that you're helping Zeke to be scholarly."

"More like he's helping me," Winona said.

"Really?" Stokely raised a brow and whispered at Zeke, "Keener."

"Not much," Zeke corrected. He took his hand off of Casey's knee. "I just got my first mark back and it was no screaming hell."

"I think it's just that you have a lot going on and you were in a rush," Winona told him, doing that thing with her eyes. "You just totally get this stuff, though."

Zeke shrugged. "Apparently that's not enough."

"I'll bet you ace the mid-term."

Casey didn't feel quite so tempted by that hamburger anymore, and of course Zeke noticed. "Case," he said. "I sacrificed my burger for you."

"Not hungry."

"Come on... Cold fries suck."

"You eat them, then," Casey snapped. "They're yours anyway." It happened now, him saying these things that he couldn't stop and the more he resolved to be silent, the more it happened. Loathing himself for what he said even as he said it, he still couldn't stop himself — and then once it was out there, he would at last be silenced by his own wretchedness.

Thank fucking god that Zeke was good at ignoring him; without a word, Zeke just reached over and selected a fry. Casey heard him chew, felt that potent hand back on his leg. "They're really pretty good," Zeke mused, then shifted to wave to the waiter with his other hand. "Can you pack this up to go?"

"Sure," said the waiter, Sasha's Italian dish whose actual name was Sonny. Casey wondered if his parents had consciously named him after the character in The Godfather, or was the character in the godfather named Sonny because lots of Italian males had that name? He wondered if Zeke had ever seen that movie, and maybe this weekend they could spend an entire day on the couch, cuddling and watching Coppola and Scorcese. Zeke would like that. Real men always liked Coppola and Scorcese.

"Case? Come on, we're outa here."

Zeke held his hand on the way home, caressing it with his thumb as he often did when he wanted to convey that extra little bit of strength. The touch went right to Casey's crotch and he began to speculate on what time everyone would be leaving.

"You up for another hour or so?" Winona said to Zeke when the four of them came in the front door and confronted the books laid out on the table. The apartment smelled of burned coffee.

"I suppose," Zeke hedged, and stroked Casey's palm one more time before he let go and trudged back to his books.

"Do you mind if I pour myself another coffee?" Winona asked.

Zeke shrugged. "You don't actually want to drink that."

"Sure I do."

"Ugh... help yourself."

Stokely and Casey were still just inside the door, not sure where they should go. "I guess watching TV is out," Stokely said.

On her way to the coffee pot, Winona suggested mildly, "Zeke and I could go study in the bedroom."

Casey caught her eye as she was passing. Her look was steady, daring him to hear something inflammatory in an innocent suggestion. He said, "Stokes and me... we'll go in the bedroom."

"I have an idea," said Stokes brightly. "Let's go to a movie."

Casey couldn't quite hold back his sigh of regret. "No."

"Well, it was worth a shot. How about a walk?"

"No."

"Just a little one?"

"No."

She wasn't fazed. "Then let's go up on the roof."

"It's freezing," he protested.

"Actually, technically it's not."

"It's cold, then."

"You should be warm enough with all those clothes on."

He surrendered. "Okay, okay!"

Zeke frowned, appearing slightly alarmed. "It's pretty wet up there," he said.

"So we'll bring paper towels," Stokely retorted. "Give it a rest, Zeke."

Zeke didn't say anything. Casey could feel Winona's eyes on him, considering his layers of clothes, his anemic face, thin body, spindly limbs. Wondering what Zeke could possibly want with any of it.

He and Stokely tramped up the stairs and, after patting the chairs dry, sat down. They both automatically slouched down in the chairs and gazed up at the heavens, but the only thing that Casey could envision was the tableau down the stairs: Winona and Zeke at their studies sitting close together, close enough for any kind of flirting disguised as a casual touch, for accidental bumping of knees and foot manoeuvres.

Stokes kept her voice low, saying, "I don't think you have anything to worry about, Case."

He stiffened up in the chair. Was Stokely actually blind? Did she not notice the eye-batting and the ego-pandering that was going on? At the very least she had to see that Winona disliked him and that wasn't low self-esteem talking, it wasn't his imagination. He could tell when people disliked him; he'd had plenty of practice at it.

Stokely added, "She's not bad... even if she did diss soy milk."

"She kept looking at me..."

Stokely snickered. He sat up straight and focussed on her, trying to comprehend her reaction. "It's not funny," he said.

"Case, I'm not... really, it's just that, um... you've gotta realize that people are going to look at you sometimes."

"That's what Sasha says too... but it wasn't just looking."

"Well, what was it?"

"I dunno, she was... looking..." looking, carving him up with those razor- sharp, blue-grey eyes... watching him, wanting him to disappear forever, getting ready to make him disappear.

His hands gripped cold, hard plastic tight enough that the edges of it cut into his palms. The temporal order was clicking up to high gear while the sphere above him started to spin like some astronomer's bad dream.

Stokely's voice startled him and held him anchored to the roof with a simple, "I see." He jerked his head in her direction, swallowing convulsively. She was oblivious, calmly tucking her hands inside her sleeves. "I'll bet she was just curious to meet this person who's got Zeke wrapped around his finger. And anyway, it doesn't matter what she thinks, or if she's got the hots for Zeke, because he's completely fixated on you. You get that, right?"

"I guess, I..."

"Believe it, Case. It's totally obvious to everyone else." She saw him shivering. "You warm enough?"

"Yeah."

"You look cold."

"Little bit." His teeth chattered and his voice was a heavy, unwieldy thing. "D - don't like having her here."

Stokes made a shushing gesture.

"D-don't like anyone... here... except Zeke and Sasha... and you... and S-Stan, sometimes."

"You got used to Jerry, didn't you?"

Sure, but she didn't realize that Jerry was still a risk. Casey could play along, he would act the part because Sasha liked Jerry — a factor strongly in his favour. Sasha could be wrong about Jerry, of course, there was nothing Casey could do about that... but that woman with the watching eyes, you couldn't trust her. She wanted what she wanted and she would take what she wanted. She wasn't what she seemed at all.

"Casey."

He blinked rapidly, trying to make the objects around him stay put. "Stokes..."

She had sat up, right on the edge of her chair. "Are you okay?"

He nodded, hanging on the sight of her to keep from falling over the edge of things into nothing. "I'm... good... I'm okay."

Stokely said nothing, waiting for him to prove it.

He let out a shuddery breath. "I don't mean to — to do that."

"Of course not!"

"You probably think I save it for when — just when you're around."

Stokely laughed, a bit too bright, too high. "Trying to keep me on my toes."

"It's not like this all the time." For some reason, it felt important that she knew that.

"No, I know that... actually, you amaze me, Case. You've been working so hard. I don't think I could do it."

The crazed feeling was sliding back, leaving just screeching nerves. He said, "I wish she didn't have to be here. She doesn't belong here."

Stokely cleared her throat. "Let's change the subject, okay? Do you guys have any plans for Halloween?"

"When's that?"

"October thirty-first?"

"I mean... I don't even know what date it is today."

"Today's the twenty-seventh. Sunday is Halloween."

"Oh. Okay."

"The last couple of years Stan and I would get dressed up to give out candy. Last year we were Sonny and Cher." Stokely fell into a contemplative silence for a bit, then asked, "Have you guys seen Stan lately?"

"Um... he and Zeke went for beer, and... they've been playing squash."

"What about you and Stan?"

"I make Stan uncomfortable."

Something sharp hacked through Stokely's friendly tones. "He's supposed to be getting over that."

Casey shrugged. "We just don't have much to talk about. We never did."

"Hey, you and Stan should play squash."

"Oh, right."

"I'm serious. I'll bet you'd like it."

"Dunno... most days I don't have enough energy as it is."

They fell into a companionable silence; Casey tilted his head and really looked at the sky this time. Happily, there was something up there to see. While the days were mostly overcast, at night the clouds might break up a bit and reveal chunks of night sky, and with tonight's full moon half-peering from behind the banks of cloud, the effect was dramatic. There were no visible stars, of course, but the air held a fresh, just-rained scent and Casey was suddenly glad that Stokely had suggested this, stars or no stars. He said, "This was a good idea."

"I know," she replied.

It took a while, maybe an hour, but the damp did soak into him. It had started to drizzle again, just a little, and when he started to actively tremble, Stokely decreed that they should go back down.

Winona had already left. Zeke was sitting at the table alone, reading his paper with Casey's scribbled comments. The chills disturbing Casey's body deepened into something worse. He had used a pencil, but liberally and he shouldn't have done that, he shouldn't have written those things... stupid, stupid, he wasn't a professor, he wasn't even a student anymore, he had just let himself get carried away because he missed that old academic feeling. Be brutal, Zeke said, but he probably didn't really mean be brutal he probably meant something more like be judiciously constructive.

Zeke got up at their return and without a word began to remove Casey's scarf from around his neck, unhurried. "You're shaking," he said. "You were up there too long."

Casey was searching Zeke's face for signs of anger and didn't remember to answer.

"It's nice up there," Stokes supplied. "Damp but nice."

Zeke dropped Casey's scarf onto the floor and reached for the zipper on his fleece, pulling it down halfway, then tugging it back up, a faint grin playing at the corners of his mouth. No, he didn't look angry, not this time, but Casey needed to have him alone to be sure. Casey kicked himself for not venturing down the stairs earlier... if he had, he could have been alone with Zeke for whole minutes already.

Someone said, "Hello? Stokely is in the room."

Zeke cleared his throat, letting go of the zipper for now. He half-turned and said, as though surprised, "Oh, hi! Didn't see you standing there."

"Yeah... I'm going to head home."

"No rush," Zeke said. He slid an arm around Casey's shoulders while he adjusted his stance to give his full attention to Stokely.

"I think there is," she snorted. She opened their door. "Thanks for supper, Zeke."

"Don't mention it."

"Well, still... thanks. And Case? Don't forget about that thing I asked you."

"Which — ?" She was talking about the part-time job that made him shiver harder just to contemplate as the vaguest possibility. "Oh. Right."

"Good night, guys."

Zeke watched Stokely's exit and the moment the door shut behind her, he asked, "What thing?"

Casey tried for a shrug. "Nothing."

Zeke didn't react in any way that most people would notice. He pivoted again so that he and Casey were face to face, and began to fiddle once more with Casey's collar. "Nothing," he echoed. "Is it some kind of secret?"

"No." He didn't know why he felt reluctant to speak of it; it wasn't something that Casey even wanted to do. There was just the feeling that it was something he should do — to make his dad happy, to have some money of his own. Well, Zeke would find out at some point anyway, so he might as well confess. "Stokely asked me if I wanted a job downstairs."

"Doing what? For how long?"

"Stocking shelves for an hour or two a day."

"Hmm."

That seemed to be all Zeke was going to say on the subject — for now. Meanwhile, his hands were still on the move. His thumb traced Casey's lower lip. His fingers were burning against Casey's cold skin. Casey angled his head, resting his cheek in Zeke's hand with its scalding heat.

"You know what I was thinking?" Zeke murmured.

"What?"

Zeke's hands slipped back to Casey's zipper, and this time lowered it completely. A finger began to trace a single line from the edge of Casey's jaw, down Casey's throat to his collarbone as Zeke said, "I love your brain."

Casey registered conflicting demands on his attention. "I..." he faltered, trying to switch gears.

"Why didn't you tell me what you thought before? About the paper?"

"Didn't want you to get angry."

Zeke smiled, reassuring with his face as much as his voice. "I'm not angry now. Well, I am angry — at myself. I thought writing a paper would be a breeze. But apparently, I can't write."

"That's not — I never said — "

"Hey." Zeke's hands settled on Casey's shoulders. "Calm down. I was exaggerating, no one said I can't write. Certainly not you. All of your comments were very helpful."

"I-In your paper, all the... things... are there, it's just... well, like the professor said."

"You can do better than that, Case." Zeke squeezed his shoulder and said, "Tell you what. Let's go in the bedroom and I'll warm you up while we talk about it."

Casey nodded. By the time they had walked the short distance down the hallway to their room, he could think more clearly. Zeke positioned himself on the side of the bed. Casey stripped off two layers, leaving just his t-shirt, dropping the other clothes on the floor. He could feel Zeke's eyes, as real and as hot as his hands.

"Go on," Zeke said.

"Um... what?"

"Tell me about how I write."

It might be best to keep some distance between them for the moment. Standing in the middle of the room, Casey said, "Um... I don't know this stuff... a lot of what you wrote is okay, I mean — you can spell and write complete sentences and you seem to understand what you're writing about... except you don't explain things."

"Uh-huh."

"You... you need to pretend your reader is completely ignorant of the topic, even though it is actually a professor reading it. You should explain every term and make sure every sentence connects... but you assumed a lot."

"Hmm."

"Don't be mad."

"I'm not, Case, I'm not... I'm grateful." Zeke beckoned to him. "Come here?"

Casey went willingly, coming to stand between Zeke's knees, letting himself be drawn in against a broad, warm chest. "Shit, you're cold, " Zeke said. "Why'd you have to go outside?"

"Just... didn't want to be in the way."

Zeke stroked his back in wide, soothing sweeps of his hands. "You weren't in the way."

"Yeah... I was."

"Wrong. You're never in the way, Case. I want to give you all of my attention when we're together, it was just that I needed to get some studying done tonight. Winona helped me get caught up, which I needed. It wasn't so terrible, having her here, was it?"

"No..."

"And, you know... Winona's absolutely no threat to you."

Casey's heart stuttered. He had never said a word about his fears, but of course Zeke had known all along and now he was talking about it right in the open, putting it out there like it was just a minor glitch to be smoothed over. "I... I..." he stumbled.

"We're just friends... and she says she's dating someone."

He couldn't speak for feeling. He had been caught at something and now he wasn't supposed to do it anymore, he wasn't supposed to give Winona another thought even though the danger was greater than ever and he had to try to hide it from Zeke, who was very adept at seeing through him. "Oh," was his very feeble response.

"She made a point of telling me she has no interest in me and I've made it clear that I have no interest in her, that way." Zeke said it gently and firmly, like he expected this to be the end of the matter. "Do you believe me?"

If he thought he had a chance of pulling off a lie right now, he would have tried it. He couldn't say the truth either, so he said nothing.

"Casey," Zeke said. "Don't you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Then how... how can some woman even be an issue when I have zero interest in anyone except you?"

Just call me Borderline Boy, Casey cackled to himself. How convenient to have a label for that particular way that he was fucked over. It was all in the shrink's Big Book of Diagnoses how he couldn't really understand trust, that he couldn't have faith that Zeke's very evident feelings for him would still exist tomorrow. It could be from his wiring, or it was a legacy of trauma like the shrink said... or it was two years of waiting... waiting for a person while that person was out having wine and canapes and dutiful sex with the enemy even though that person was supposedly obsessed with him.

It could be that maybe, just maybe, the enemy was back and the book didn't have the whole story.

He slid onto Zeke's knee, winding his arms around him, nuzzling his neck. "Show me," he whispered. "Please show me."

Zeke sighed quietly. "I'm always showing you." But the words were less a complaint than a reminder and he was doing as Casey asked, turning them both and laying them back on the bed. Now he was holding Casey down lightly, rubbing open palms over his. Very little of Zeke's weight was on him and so it was as though Zeke could float and hover, with a gaze that was capable of expanding to encompass and hold all of him.

"She does want you," Casey said. He heard his voice ready to shatter. "I could tell."

In answer, Zeke bent down and kissed him, easing and smoothing a strangle of withheld tears in his throat. His fingers crawled inside Casey's palm, tickling. "How do you know that?" he asked, still so quiet. There was a hard bulge in Zeke's pants pressing heavy into Casey's own arousal.

Casey shivered, a full bodily shiver. He arched up against Zeke slowly and whispered, "She looks hungry."

"I hadn't noticed."

"You..." Casey started, and gave up when Zeke rubbed against him. "You... oh..."

Zeke's fingers laced into his, gripping hard enough to stop his blood but he was gripping back just as hard as Zeke's mouth descended and his tongue probed, tasting deep, and then Zeke pulled away, sucking a gasp out of him, falling aside so they were both lying there wrongways on the bed. For a while they were just there like that, almost nose to nose. Zeke's hand moved to trace his features; Casey put his own on top of it, shadowing it as it caressed his skin, played with his hair, then began to slip lower. All the while Zeke's eyes were in Casey's, seeking something that Casey was pretty sure he didn't have in him. Wherever he tried to go, Zeke's eyes followed.

He needed a diversion: Moving his hand to the button on Zeke's jeans, unfastening it, and the zipper; slipping his hand inside and grasping the hard, hot shaft there, freeing it from the confines of cotton and denim. Two smooth strokes, and Zeke's eyes shuddered, finally breaking away while Zeke yearned into his hand. A few more, and Casey let go of Zeke, leaving him gasping.

Casey sat up and began to yank off his t-shirt but Zeke reached to stop him. Okay, fine, sometimes Zeke wanted to undress him, and that didn't have to slow them down. Clothes could fly off haphazardly and quickly, no art to it at all but only haste to get skin against skin.

"Well?" Casey said, his voice hoarse with need. He couldn't do long and slow now, he was too wound up for any kind of finesse and Zeke had to hear it, he had to know.

Zeke smiled and didn't look happy. "What's the rush?"

"I..." Didn't Zeke know that he was all about what was going to happen in the next few minutes? He would beg for it, he was without pride, desperate. Sometimes he could barely think with wanting, he would stomp and push aside anything that got in the way including his own occasional tremors of terror that came from somehow and nowhere and nowhen, that didn't exist actually. "I just... need you."

"Okay," Zeke said. "Sorry... it's... I like looking at you."

Casey let Zeke remove his shirt for him and he did the same for Zeke; then they stood up to strip the remainder of their clothes on their own. As he got out of his pants, Casey saw Zeke's eyes checking him out, assessing his level of physical arousal. It was important to Zeke that his passion be subject to certain ethical standards, and that was okay. Casey wasn't going to complain if it made Zeke happy to stare at his crotch to make sure that he was acceptably erect when they started. He wasn't going to mention that it hardly mattered one way or another to him; maybe sometimes he would be a late starter but it wouldn't make it any less pleasurable in the end.

Nothing to worry about this time, though. He was rock hard, his body aching for some escape from its tension. He stepped closer to Zeke, trailing his hand lazily from nipple to cock while he whispered, "Fuck me now?" Those words, or some variation on the same theme, always had a gratifying effect on Zeke. Zeke would be emptied of nearly everything but want, almost out of control, almost ready to toss ethics in the garbage.

Zeke started to rummage through the bedside table. Lube, condom... Casey had tested negative but they still had to be careful until they were in the clear. Casey tore open the condom package and rolled it onto Zeke's erection. He massaged lubricant on to it, watching Zeke's face as he did... cataloguing the expressions that went from helplessness to a kind of violence that Zeke managed to contain and mete out just enough to satisfy.

Casey scrambled up onto the bed on his knees and bent over, resting on his elbows. It was not Zeke's preference, this position, but it was Casey's. This way, they could achieve a depth of penetration that was challenging any other way, and with the difference in their height Zeke could fold himself along Casey's back and have him almost entirely encompassed while he plunged into his body.

"Do me," he urged Zeke, panting. "Do it to me, now... do it, please!"

"Shh..." Zeke ran a hand up his spine and then down and settled on his hips, both hands gripping him now, parting his cheeks and he thought with a teacher's pride that Zeke was so much more confident about this than when he started. There had been worries about pain, and tearing and bleeding, and didn't there always have to be stretching... Casey had, over the weeks, gotten him to understand what was required and what was not required, and when.

Like right now a bit of lubricant and the will to enter was all that was needed. A smooth, powerful thrust filled Casey and he clutched two handfuls of unmade quilt and sheets, crying a noise into the fabric while Zeke folded his powerful torso over Casey, painting himself sweet-hot on Casey's back.

"Move," Casey whispered, because right then Zeke's cock felt like a stick of heated granite shoved inside him but if Zeke would just move it would all get better, it would be okay.

"Wait," Zeke breathed, somewhere near the nape of Casey's neck.

One hand groped around to Casey's chest, stroking it, playing with a nipple while the other found his flagging erection and renewed it. That was good, oh yes, that worked... electrified, he thrust back, slamming into Zeke's groin, squeezing his muscles around Zeke. The hand over his breast fell away, going flat onto the bed to brace them.

"Oh, fuck... fuck!"

Yes, Casey mused to himself. Fuck. Any time now would be good.

Then Zeke was moving, both hands gripping Casey's hips now to keep him upright as the rest of his body collapsed flat. And soon it was white, white, white, nothing in his head except hammering pleasure... the funny looks and the tense, unhappy conversations and skin-crawling from home to where he had to go and back and the clenched muscles all gone in a great white wave that overtook him and he was sinking... sinking, bathed in the warm wet comfort... opening to it taking it in taking her in and her erasing him.

Unwillingly, he was aware again; he was facedown, his entire body surging with orgasm, and Zeke was plastered to him, making choked sounds into his shoulder as he came. Zeke's hand groped for Casey's erection to finish him and discovered that Casey had already finished.

Zeke withdrew and collapsed onto his side, pulling Casey over next to him with an arm around his waist. "Fuck," Zeke sighed. "Just — fucking hell." He was still shaking — but then he was fidgeting, muttering. "Ugh... I've got to... just a sec."

Suddenly he was up and out. He was back in a minute, but Casey had already started shuddering from the cold and black emptiness that always yawned as Zeke's warmth began to leave him. He had burrowed under the covers and just when his clenched teeth were about to break apart and let loose a wail of terror, Zeke crawled in and wrapped arms and legs around him from behind, hugging him, saving him. "It's okay, it's okay... It's all good..."

Casey twisted around and buried his face near Zeke's neck. He let a few tears escape, just a few that could be confused with sweat.

"Okay, Case? Okay?"

"Y-y-yes."

"Yes, what? Talk to me, tell me."

"Yes... yes, good... all... so good."

"And calm," Zeke murmured, tightening his arms around Casey. "We're calm, aren't we... we're relaxed."

Casey let out a choked laugh. He kissed Zeke sloppily on the chin, making a wet trail. "I can still feel you," he mouthed.

"Case..."

"Mmm."

"Just now.. did you... how did you come?"

Casey wished that Zeke didn't feel the need to disturb the rising swell of comfort, of blind warmth and security, with a question like that. "It doesn't always happen but... yeah, it was you, inside me. I guess... guess I was pretty wound up."

Zeke was looking into his face like he didn't quite believe him, like he was some creature from another dimension. "Okay," Zeke said, sounding precisely like it was not okay.

"I'll make you work harder for it next time," Casey said, feeling the next wave of chill break over him. It didn't always happen that way but it did happen, so he was a guy who could get off without having his cock touched. That had to be definite proof that he was in fact a slut. Or something else, something altogether worse.

"I'm not complaining," Zeke said. "I'm kind of stunned is all. And it feels a little selfish... but as long as it was good for you."

"Of course," Casey said, and kissed Zeke's neck. "The best."

"Really?"

"Really really. You don't know what you do to me," he said, with complete sincerity.

Zeke sounded happier when he said, "So what shall we do with the rest of this night?"

"Could stay right here," Casey said.

"Ah, but you hardly ate supper and the leftovers are waiting."

Casey muttered, "Sometimes I feel like I'm being fattened for Thanksgiving dinner."

Zeke snorted. "You're a long way from making that the least bit plausible. Wait right here, and I'll bring you..."

He had started to shift, to let go of Casey. Casey grabbed onto him, scrabbling for purchase on sweaty, slippery skin. "Not yet," he pleaded. "Not yet."

After an instant's resistance, Zeke relaxed and held him some more. "I'm not going anywhere."

Casey closed his eyes and held on with everything in him, twining his legs around Zeke's. "You can't go."

"But eventually, I will have to have a shower, put on clothes, go to school..."

"Shower can wait. School's not until tomorrow."

"You have to eat, though. Tonight. So one of us is going to have to get up."

"Thirty minutes."

"Huh?"

"You have to stay here for at least thirty minutes. Then you can get up."

Zeke's chest shook with quiet laughter. "Okay... I accept your offer. Thirty minutes, on condition that you eat everything, including the soggy french fries."

"Deal."

"That's a high price to pay for thirty minutes of my time."

"I won't have to eat cold, soggy fries, will I?"

"No, of course not... I'll nuke them for you."

"It's worth it, then."

Zeke chuckled again, subsiding to a contented quiet that wrapped itself around both of them. Everything was peaceful and silent for a while, then:

"Case..."

"Mmm."

"Were you seriously thinking about taking that job?" Zeke's voice was a low, hypnotizing rumble.

"I dunno."

"Because I really don't think it's a good idea right now. Do you think it's a good idea?"

"No," Casey agreed, and put the job question out of his mind.

Thursday began with Zeke leaving the bed and the apartment before eight o'clock. Casey hated that about Thursdays. Tuesdays pretty much sucked too, for the same reason. On other weekdays they could sleep in a bit since Zeke didn't have to be on campus until noon. Zeke seemed to believe that Casey could sleep in every day if he wanted; he didn't want Casey to be waking up just because he had to be up and had made it his mission to move himself out of bed and get ready without causing any disturbance. He had yet to succeed at that, because Casey had to be awake if he wanted those few extra minutes of contact before he was abandoned. It was enough to open his eyes and follow Zeke around the room with them for a bit, maybe exchange a few words and a kiss. Just in case Zeke never came back.

Once Zeke was gone, however, Casey would be able to crash until driven out of bed either by thoughts about the day's tasks or by Sasha's voice, raised loud to fill the apartment and demand Casey's company — whichever came first.

This morning it was the siren call of the shower that urged him to get up. After drowsing for an hour or so, he vacated the bed with a bit of a wince as sore muscles protested. He was completely grungy, his hair crushed and slightly matted with product, dried semen flaking on his belly and the lingering sense of mingled sweat that had dried on his skin. A shower was definitely required. And a change of sheets. He stumbled to the bathroom and stepped under the steaming spray with a sigh of unfettered bliss.

When he opened the door to the hallway, with just a towel wrapped around his waist, Sasha was standing there wearing a hopeful grimace.

"You left me some hot water, yes?"

"Um..." Since Sasha got home from work somewhere between midnight and two, he often slept late and wouldn't shower until noon. The hot water heater would have a chance to replenish itself after Casey was done with it — usually.

"Say yes, kitten."

"Yes... yes, definitely yes."

"This makes me happy." Sasha began to shoulder past him, but jolted into a lower gear as his eyes ran into Casey's bare upper body. Okay, he was probably a little upset about a handful of marks scattered about Casey's neck, shoulders and chest. Sasha had to realize that they were no big deal, you couldn't have sex without getting a few sore spots. Zeke had some too.

"Sasha... why are you up so early?"

Deterred from his visual examination, Sasha had to look at Casey's face instead. "Because," he said. "You know, you can't go on an extra special date without getting up, fixing the coiffure and so on."

"Extra special date?"

"Jerry is taking me out for brunch." Sasha was gently closing the door. "No time to talk, gotta groom."

Dismissed, Casey got dressed in his usual two or three layers, then changed the bed sheets so they would be nice and fresh for messing up later. He went to the kitchen. He made coffee and boiled water for tea. From their potpourri of hot and cold cereals, he selected some type of healthy flakes — Sasha had forbidden him any cereal that didn't proclaim itself an iron-rich nutritional champion — and fixed himself a bowl. He ate while leaning against the counter, staring at the coffee dripping in the coffee maker, and wondering how much impact one cup would really have on him. There were people, after all, who were not sensitive to the effects of caffeine.

"Casey?" Sasha called.

"Yeah?"

"Is there any coffee yet?"

It wasn't fucking fair — but Casey poured Sasha a cup and marched down the hall and into the bathroom. Sasha was still wearing only a towel, and halfway through the shaving process. Casey placed his coffee on the sink next to the faucet like an offering.

"Ah... thank you, kitten." In the mirror, Sasha smiled at him, then refocused his attention on what he was doing with his razor.

Casey leaned back against the wall, close to Sasha. "When do you have to go?"

"Jerry's going to be here any minute," Sasha muttered, trying not to move his jaw. "Don't have to be at the restaurant until eleven though."

"Do you want me to... um... stay out of the way? 'Cause I could — "

Sasha lowered his hand altogether, leaving a patch of white foam low on his cheek and jaw. "Absolutely not, kitten. In fact, you're welcome to come with us."

Casey lowered his gaze, smiling a bit. "I don't think so."

"It's going to be a feast, kitten!"

"No, thanks."

Sasha shrugged. "You can always change your mind."

"Isn't it supposed to be kinda... a romantic thing for two?"

"We can go over to his place and do romantic any time. Right now, I would much rather enjoy seeing you stuff your face with food."

Sasha finished up his shave. Now came the skin care regime, and after that the eyebrow tweezing, the styling products and the hair dryer. Casey moved himself to sit on the toilet seat, and watched. Sasha seemed perfectly comfortable, going through his ablutions without any visible concern at Casey's oddity.

"Your hair needs a trim," Sasha said.

Casey scowled. It hadn't been all that long since his initial visit with Adam.

"It does," Sasha confirmed. "Your cut is losing its shape, and... I think it's time we considered moving on stage two."

"What is stage two?"

"Just a little colour experimentation."

To Casey's mind, Sasha was entirely too invested in his hair. "I dunno..."

"Oh, you'll look fabulous when I'm done with you, kitten. Not that you aren't already fabulous." Sasha took his eyes from the mirror long enough to smile at Casey. "Just trust me."

"Um..."

"Have I ever steered you wrong? No, don't answer that. How was relaxation yesterday? Is it getting any better?"

"Not really."

"Aw... my poor kitten — but you know you have to stick with it."

Casey sighed, "Yeah."

"Tell me what else you did yesterday."

"Zeke brought his friend over," Casey blurted.

"Oh? Which friend? That Winona?"

"That Winona," he confirmed, then, "Did he plan to do it before? Did he tell you about it?"

Sasha spared a moment from rubbing lotion onto his skin to ponder Casey. "Zeke mentioned that he would like to have Winona by one of these days but I don't think he had the day picked out or anything." Sasha was studying his little lunatic friend, whose knees were now jittering and bouncing around. "I have the impression that something about this bothers you."

Casey couldn't hold back for more than a few seconds. "It felt... it didn't feel right."

"You just met her, Casey."

"But... I..."

"Give her a chance. You didn't like Jerry at first... you didn't like me at first. Do you see a pattern emerging here?"

He ducked his head. "I guess."

"Speaking of which... could you get the door, kitten?"

"Door?"

"You didn't hear the bell just now?"

There was someone at their door and Casey hadn't noticed, which was probably a sign that he was already way over the top this morning. He hurried down the hallway, holding the door open just a crack at first to make sure it was in fact Jerry before fully admitting him to the apartment.

"Hey, Casey," Jerry said. "How are you?"

"Okay."

"I'm almost ready, babe!" Sasha shouted down the hall.

"Huh," Jerry said, for Casey's benefit only. "Then I only have an hour or so to wait." He grinned, inviting Casey to grin back.

Casey granted him a smile. Sasha was not exactly correct to assume that he now liked Jerry. He wanted to like Jerry, he had determined that all other factors being equal as far as potential alien infection, Jerry was someone whom he'd like to like. Certainly, most of their encounters since that first, disastrous episode were not unpleasant. On the second date, Jerry had come over with a gift, a new DVD of Casablanca — a peace offering for Casey he said, but obviously intended to woo Sasha, which it certainly did. Even Zeke had been impressed by the man's shrewdness. On the third date, Jerry cooked dinner for Sasha at his own apartment and Sasha didn't come home until next morning.

"We're going to the Queen Anne for brunch, Casey," Jerry said. "Would you like to come with us?"

"No, thanks."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I have an appointment at one anyway."

"Okay, well, some other time."

It occurred to Casey that he needed to do some catching up in his journal before his therapy this afternoon. He said to Jerry, "Go ahead and crash on the couch. I have something I need to do... sorry..."

"Hey, that's okay. I'll just spend some time alone with Sam."

Sam was Jerry's name for the big TV. He was in love with Sam, and he had already made arrangements with Zeke to come over and watch hockey at their apartment whenever possible. Of course, like Sasha he was working almost every night, so that could only happen on a Sunday or a Monday.

Casey nodded and smiled and went to his room. He got his Dr. Yves journal from his dresser drawer and opened it to the last page he had written on.

I hate that name, he had scribbled last weekend. I wish I never had to hear that name again. I wish Zeke didn't have to go to school or that I could go with him and be his school buddy... anything but her. I'll bet she's gorgeous. I'll bet she has perfect skin and perfect eyes and teeth and hair and big tits.

He sighed miserably.

He put his pen to the page and wrote,Why doesn't Zeke see what she is?

"So Casey... What do you want to talk about today?"

Helen Yves was wearing a white ruffled blouse and a pink suit. He was in the big chair adjacent to her. He had settled on that piece of furniture early on in their relationship and it was now the pattern, just like he had his particular chair in the waiting room and she would always appear in the hallway and say, "Casey?" and he would follow her into her office. He occasionally would think about deliberately choosing another chair, but it always seemed like that would be too obvious and he was just too self-conscious about it, so it never happened. He would unzip his windbreaker, but he had yet to take it off in her office. He would sit down and take off his shoes and place them neatly beside the chair because he knew at some point he would want to put his feet on the cushion. It was risky, it would slow him down if he had to leave in a hurry — but in the meantime, he didn't want to get dirt on her furniture.

"I met someone," he informed Dr. Yves.

"Yes?" she said, pen poised to make a note of the details.

"Last night... I met Winona. She came over."

"And how did that go?"

"Okay."

"Just okay?"

"It was... tense, I guess. I don't think she liked me."

"Why do you think that?"

It was time; he pulled his legs up and tucked his feet in beside him. "We went to have something to eat and... Zeke spilled his water on her and I started thinking about the witch in The Wizard of Oz, how she melted when they threw water on her... ?" Casey looked to Dr. Yves for a smile or some other form of recognition of a shared cultural experience. Nothing; he never got anything from her when he mentioned a movie. For all he knew, she had never heard of talking pictures. "Anyway, I started to crack up, I knew it was bad, but..."

"But that just made it harder to stop."

"Yeah. And then everyone joined in... I think she thought we were laughing at her."

Dr. Yves tapped her pen on her pad of paper. "That's the kind of stuff that happens to everyone, Casey. Interactions between people are always messy. I'm sure that it wasn't as serious as it seems."

He shrugged. "Maybe."

"Apart from that, how did it go?"

He shrugged again.

"Did you talk to her at all?"

"A bit. She asked me for help with studying."

Dr. Yves looked encouraged. "That doesn't sound like she was not liking you."

"She probably only asked me to put on a good show for Zeke."

"Oh?"

He hesitated. "You're going to think I'm being all borderline now — but I'm not wrong about this, I know it."

"Go ahead and tell me, Casey."

"Um... She obviously wants him but he doesn't see it. He even tried to tell me after that I shouldn't worry because she's got a boyfriend and all that."

His shrink reacted even less to this than she had to the movie reference. He was getting nothing from her now, neither disapproval nor reassurance. "Hmm... so Zeke did know that you've been feeling nervous about Winona."

"He's really good at..." reading minds but he'd have his work cut out with you "... reading me."

"It would seem that he can read you completely but he can't read her at all."

That made it sound like he thought Zeke was an idiot who was blind and ignorant about people, but it wasn't that, it wasn't at all. "Um... okay, I don't know that she wants Zeke but... I think... she gives him these looks."

"Do you think that maybe these 'looks' could mean something other than what you think?"

"I suppose."

"Casey. Are you just saying that?"

He evaded her gaze, checking out the print of the eagle in flight for the hundred- and-forty-second time.

"Casey?"

He blurted, "People aren't what they seem."

Right away he realized that he had made a mistake, even before Dr. Yves set aside her pen and notepad and folded her hands on her lap like she was settling in for a long debate. "I'd like to talk about what you just said."

His brain started jabbering, getting him absolutely nowhere. He couldn't decide if he should refuse to discuss this altogether, or try to play along and make it believable. "Um... okay," he said, involuntarily agreeing to the second option because that was what he always did, he went along, he was always respectful to his elders and accommodating with his loved ones.

"When people make you nervous... is it because they aren't what they seem?"

"I guess." He chewed on an abused fingernail while his heart revved up for a frantic stumble to the end of the session. He would never know if it was near or far to one- forty-five p.m., she always kept the clock facing herself, away from him because he was not to know the time, that would give him an iota of control over the situation.

"So when you come in here and you're feeling anxious from having walked here... you're thinking that everyone on the street, everyone you encounter..."

He wanted her to realize how indisposed he was to this discussion; this he wanted to say: "They may be okay, but I have no way of knowing."

"And that includes me?"

He nodded, lobbing a resentful glare at her from beneath his eyelashes.

"Is there anyone you don't feel that about?"

That was easy. "Sasha," he answered, without pause.

"Sasha. Anyone else?"

He hesitated before adding, "Zeke," because sometimes, just once in a while, he discovered that he really didn't know what to expect and had to be wary about Zeke's reaction to a thing but that didn't mean that he didn't trust Zeke, he did, he knew he was safe with Zeke, it was just that sometimes... sometimes Zeke could blindside him.

"You sound like you're not sure about that."

"N-no — I mean yes, I am sure."

Dr. Yves paused to assess him, to categorize all the signs and symptoms that he couldn't ever stop from happening over and over and maybe she would write something next about how obvious he was, how pathetic and vulnerable and helpless to prevent himself from being completely exposed. "Are you feeling anxious right now, Casey?"

"Yes," he gritted.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Is it Zeke who makes you anxious?"

"No."

"What then?"

"I don't know."

"Casey, I want you to think about the last time a person — not including right now — made you feel nervous. Can you picture that person?"

"Yes."

"Where and when was that?"

"In –- in your waiting room, there was a lady sitting next to me and I felt like she... she was watching..."

"Tell me exactly what you were thinking."

"Thinking?"

"What thoughts went through your head?"

"I felt scared, like she wanted to do something to me."

"Okay, Casey, but that's a feeling and I asked what you were thinking."

"Um... there weren't any thoughts."

"Casey, you've been reading that book, haven't you, about anxiety? I think it's time that we start using the techniques from that book. Different books call it slightly different things, but basically, it's called the cognitive-behavioural approach. Have you gotten to the part of the book that explains that yet?"

Well, it was in the first chapter..."Yes."

"What is the basic premise of the cognitive-behavioural method?"

Always the obedient student, he mumbled, "The premise is that the way you think establishes the way you feel rather than the other way around."

"Right. That means that every time you get anxious or upset there is a thought or group of thoughts that are distorted in various ways and that those distortions trigger emotional responses. If you can identify those distortions and untwist your thoughts... you can help yourself to feel better. That means that in this method, there are thoughts behind every feeling." She waited, and when he had nothing to say, she said, "So what were you thinking?"

"R-really... when it... happens... I can't think."

"I don't believe that, Casey."

"It's true!"

"Even if you feel like your head is all blank, and I understand that, it is very normal with anxiety, there is still a thought somewhere behind it. The first step in doing this method is learning to identify what that thought is."

"All right — I was thinking that I can't fucking think."

"Is there some reason that you're getting angry?"

No reason, except that he had been set up, trapped and caught out. Weeks of her just listening to him ramble, the innocent suggestion that he buy and read this book and absolutely no warning that they were going to suddenly start using it. He said, "I'm not angry, I just don't like being told there was a thought when I don't remember thinking anything. I'm telling you and you're not believing me."

"Okay, Casey. I'll accept that. However, there are exercises in the book that I'd like you to do for next time. They'll help you to practise identifying the thoughts that upset you. But for now... you said that the lady in the waiting room made you nervous and you blanked out, but how about just before? Just before your mind went blank?"

He was so trapped here, so fucking trapped. He should be running from here and never coming back, except that Zeke and Sasha would never allow that. He could flee and they would catch him and bring him back, citing his own good. His only escape was to sit there and refuse to answer. He had done it before — or he could try to appease her with some part of the truth. If she understood what it was like to be him, maybe she would ease up a bit, diagnose him finally as a hopeless cause and leave him alone.

He remembered the waiting room, remembered sitting there looking at that woman's face and how she seemed to be looking at him every time he was looking at her, and he said, "I was thinking I'm not safe with her here."

"Why? What is she going to do to you?"

"Hurt me."

"How would she hurt you? Physically? Emotionally?"

"All of the above."

"Exactly how would she do that?"

"I don't know."

"I have a feeling you do know, Casey."

"I don't."

"Is it something that happened to you before, something bad or frightening? Something that hurt you?"

He noticed that he was rocking slightly. He made himself stop.

"Casey, do you remember the first time that you were afraid to leave where you were living? Can you remember when it was?"

"Not really."

"I want you to think about the first time that you felt so scared that you chose to stay in rather than go out. Now, when I say chose to stay in, I don't mean feeling shy of people in general or just wanting to stay at home because it was cold outside. I'm talking about a time when you had somewhere to go — either you had to go out, or you really wanted to go out — and the fear of what was out there actually prevented you from opening the door. Do you remember the first time that happened?"

Apparently she thought if she asked the same question a different way, it would get her a different response. "No."

"Perhaps if you thought about it..."

"I said I don't —! " he choked.

Her eyes flew up because he was on his feet. His fists were clenched at his sides, and he was trembling.

"Please sit down, Casey," she said calmly.

He sat, right on the edge of the chair, keeping both feet on the floor.

"If you're saying that this is something you can't talk about, Casey, I will accept that."

He needed to get out, away, never needed anything like he needed right then. He stared at a single point on the carpet, willing himself to blank out zone out fade away but there was still the voice of authority, thrusting in and murdering the warm, soft haze that barely got hold of him before it was crushed.

"I do hope that you will be able to tell me at some point, or it will be very difficult for us to continue to work together. I am quite willing to be paid to sit here and listen to your feelings and your worries about Zeke session after session, but frankly, I don't think that would be very effective. Now that I've been seeing you for almost a month, I think it's time to start identifying and pursuing some goals for your progress. Do you agree?"

The silence grew and lengthened, and he sat there, shaking.

"Casey," Dr. Yves said, refusing to let him be. "Do you want to say anything?"

"No."

"What are you thinking now?"

"Nothing."

He was now reduced to being a sullen teenager, and he hated that. No, even worse, he was a child, sniffling because there was no way out, nothing he could do, nothing he could tell her so nothing to say and of course he could only fall back on being pitiful which only made the tears come faster.

"What are you feeling right now, Casey?"

"Trapped."

"Trapped by me?"

"Yes."

"Can you explain that to me?"

He wiped his nose with his sleeve. "You won't — stop."

"I won't stop — ? Asking you questions."

"Yeah."

"But you always have the choice whether or not to answer, Casey. There will be no retaliation if you don't answer. I won't hold it against you, I won't take anything personally. My job is to encourage you in helping yourself, not to trap you."

He didn't have anything to say to anything now. He was exhausted, drained of his will.

"You know what I think, Casey? I think that you want to tell me whatever it is."

"No, I don't... I don't, I..."

"I won't force you, there's no need to panic. I would just like you to think about how it might feel to get something off your chest, something that's been weighing you down. You could even do a list in your journal. You can write down the pros and cons of telling me whatever it is. You don't have to show it to me, but for some reason it makes a huge difference when you write things down. Do you want to do that?"

"Maybe."

"Think about it over the weekend, okay?"

"Is our time up?"

"Pretty much."

He moved quickly, bending over to put on his shoes. He crammed his feet into them without untying the laces. He would happily endure broken toes to get out of there faster.

"Take care — " she started to say. He didn't hear the rest of it because he was out the door, down the hall, and then on the steps in front of the building, fumbling for his cell phone, quite sure that he was never coming back.

"Hey," Winona said, letting her book bag fall with a thud on the chair next to her as she sat. "Are you studied out yet?"

"Almost," Zeke answered. He had his notes in front of him and a neglected cigarette on the go, trying to get in a bit of studying before he went to play squash with Stan. He really would have preferred to be alone at this particular time, but he set that aside without any ill will towards her.

"Me too. You wanna go shoot some stick?"

"Some what?"

"Pool, Zeke." Winona batted her eyelashes. "There's a cue ball with my name on it."

"Is that so?" Zeke said, caricaturing one of the favourite expressions of their philosophy professor.

She laughed. "Yeah, that's so. I'll bet I beat your ass, too."

"Hmm. I'd love to show you otherwise, but I'm already scheduled to kick someone else's ass at squash in a little while."

"Oh — hey, maybe we can get together after the squash — you, me and Casey."

"I don't think..."

"Why don't you ask him? He's going to call soon, isn't he?"

He eyed her, wondering if he should read something into that. "Yeah. Don't take this the wrong way, but what about the guy you're dating? Do you not want to spend some time with him?"

Winona shrugged. "I only see him once a week, tops."

"That's all?"

"We like each other and all that. I just don't feel the need to be with him constantly. I don't think I have that in me. But then maybe I just haven't found the right guy yet."

Right then Zeke's phone chimed. He didn't think it was necessary to comment, simply pulling it out and answering, "University of Washington."

There was a silence.

"Zeke?"

"Yeah, Case."

"Are you — coming home now?"

"I have squash with Stan, remember?"

"Oh."

"Is everything okay?"

A pause.

"Yeah, it's... fine," Casey mumbled. "J-just leaving Dr. Yves' office."

"It doesn't sound fine," Zeke said.

There was a long silence in which Zeke began to be alarmed, then:

"I wish I was home right now. I wish I was home and you were home."

There was nothing sexual in that, nothing that had anything to do with trying to entice or seduce. It was a statement of fact. "Something is wrong," Zeke inferred. Winona jerked a look in his direction.

"Just a d-difficult... a hard... time... Want to get home..."

Casey hung up without waiting for Zeke to even reply.

"Things okay?" Winona asked, sounding concerned.

Zeke was on his feet, putting away his things. He shoved his study notes in his backpack and tossed his phone in after it. His squash racket was protruding out the top and he spared a regretful thought for Stan, to whom he was going to be apologizing very soon. He would have called Stan if the guy had a cell phone, but he didn't, and he was probably already on his way to the gym.

"Zeke?"

"He hung up on me," Zeke said, tossing his backpack over his shoulder and nearly taking out his own eye with the handle of the squash racket in the process. He was already five steps away when he added, probably unnecessarily, "I've gotta go."

Winona called after him, "I hope everything's okay."

Hurrying didn't help him get home any faster. Stupid buses came at scheduled times. He could curse everyone who got in his way — which he did — and hate the bus and all the stupid people that had to get on at each stop — which he did — but it still took him forty-five minutes to get from The Study to home. He ran from his stop to the apartment, nearly tripped going up the stairs, and came through their door yelling, "Casey! Case!"

There was no answer. He was ready to get down to the real panic now.

"Casey — " he called again and stopped because Casey had emerged from the bedroom, looking exactly as he always did, an image of beauty that was tattered around the edges. Zeke seized him and kissed him with such vehemence that their teeth collided.

Casey uttered a muffled protest and Zeke detached his mouth. He loosened his grip slightly but did not let go; Casey's flesh was still there under his hands, reassuringly solid.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It was just that... on the phone you sounded so..."

"I just needed to get away from there," Casey murmured, staring past Zeke.

"Where? From the doctor's office?"

"Zeke?" Casey looked up suddenly, anxiously. "I don't want to see her anymore."

"What?"

"I — I can't — see her."

It was obvious whom he meant, but Zeke was having difficulty tracking. "Dr. Yves?"

Casey was almost quivering. If Zeke hadn't been holding onto his arms, he probably would have been doing the hand-wringing thing that he did in times of extreme distress. "Yeah..."

"I don't understand."

"I just can't, okay?"

"But Case..." Zeke forced his head to clear. "Let's sit down and talk about this."

Casey started to shake his head, but Zeke ignored it, leading him to the living room couch. Zeke sat sidewise with one leg tucked up, while Casey just sat, looking straight out with his arms tightly folded across his chest.

"All right," Zeke said. "What happened?"

Two plaintive eyes glanced his way, but that was all he got. It occurred to Zeke then that this was about him, about his reaction to whatever this was. A very specific concern boiled to the surface of Zeke's mind.

"She didn't tell you that I was bad for you, did she, because — "

"No," Casey said.

"But she knows about me, right?"

"Yeah, she knows about you."

"And?"

"That's not... she hasn't really said anything because... um, because I won't talk about not being with you."

Zeke's fretful thoughts cooled to a possessive simmer. He said, "What's the problem, then?" And then it came to him even as Casey told him:

"Aliens."

"How do you mean? Does she know something? Did you tell her?"

"No. But she — but she — " Casey gulped, unable to get out more than that. He seemed moments away from a panic attack.

"Whoa." Zeke reached out with his hand; Casey took it as an offer, grabbing it and holding it against his chest. "It's okay." Zeke waited for Casey's breathing to steady. "Okay?"

Casey nodded. He let their hands drop to his lap, keeping Zeke's tight in his.

Zeke said, "Okay, let's reason through this. She's always made it clear that you set the agenda, right? Like you just told me... Some things just have to be off limits. There are other things you can talk about."

"I'm not — I can't go back."

"Case, you have to." He saw a reaction to that, a twitch of something bitter and unhappy, but he plunged on nevertheless. "I suppose if it really isn't working we could try someone else."

"It wouldn't make any difference."

The words were barely audible. Casey let go of his hands and refused to look at him.

"Why not?"

"Because — because they'd all have to ask — what I'm scared of."

"Did you tell her about the things that went on in school... with Gabe and the others?"

"Yeah."

"And some stuff about Roy? About how he treated you?"

"Yes."

"So isn't all that enough reason to be scared? Why should she think there's any more to know?"

Casey lifted his head. He looked Zeke right in the eyes and said almost coldly, "Because she's not stupid, Zeke. Or maybe I'm not quite as good at lying to shrinks as you are."

Zeke would have been less surprised had Casey rounded off and punched him in the jaw. "You're still angry at me about that?"

He had reared back slightly in reaction, no more than a few inches, but Casey's demeanour changed instantly. He clutched at Zeke's arm and babbled, "No, no, I'm not, really. I'm not, Zeke."

"Then why do you even bring it up?"

"I was... I..." Casey's voice failed.

Zeke gently removed his arm and held Casey's hand once more. "I'm not going anywhere, Case, but I think there's something you want to tell me. Something you need to vent."

"No — "

"Case." Zeke reached with his other hand and coaxed Casey's face in his direction. "Go on, be mad at me. I can take it."

Slowly, Casey managed to look at him. Zeke nodded, encouraging him.

"I'm..." Casey swallowed. "I'm trapped."

"Trapped, how?"

"You — you want me to go there to get better — so I have to do that but — but I can't work with the shrink and manipulate her at the same time — I can't do both!"

"Why not?" Zeke said, sincerely not understanding. It was really just a matter of parcelling off certain bits of information and working around them, and Casey was quite smart enough to do that if he wanted to.

Casey emitted a sound that had to be an aborted scream. "Why can't I stop going? Why can't we just say therapy isn't for me?"

Zeke took the time to make sure that when he answered, his voice was even- toned, more concerned than frustrated. "What do you want me to say, Case? That you're just hunky-dory the way you are, and so okay, you don't have to go to therapy if you don't want to? What are we supposed to do about everything then? Don't you want to have a life, Casey?"

Casey stared at him, stricken. "You mean you want to have a life," he whispered.

"That is not what I meant — "

The phone rang, cutting him off and making Casey jump. Neither one of them answered it, just waiting for it to stop. After four rings the answering machine kicked in, and Stan's voice carried clearly from the kitchen.

"Great match, Zeke," he said, probably on the pay phone at the gym from the background noise. "If you're screening right now so you can avoid talking to me... I'm sure you didn't show because you just forgot and you're probably really sorry. I'll get over it... but if you're not really interested in doing this, just tell me. I had to take a late lunch to meet you and I'd rather not do it if you're not going to show up. Talk to you later."

During that speech, Casey's head had gradually sunk down until it was hanging below his shoulders. The moment Stan hung up, he said dully, "You're right."

"Case — "

"No, you're right." Casey was still talking to his lap. "I'm sorry."

"Look at me, please." Casey refused to; Zeke declared, "Case, there's nothing to be sorry about."

"Made you miss your match with Stan."

"No, Casey. I made me miss it, that was me. My choice."

There was a heavy-lidded blink. Raising his eyes only, Casey appealed to Zeke for some kind of permission and must have felt he had it, for he leaned over, resting his head against Zeke's chest. Zeke scooted a little closer. He waited; it wasn't long before Casey's arms were wrapped around him, holding onto Zeke, and Zeke was holding back with all the force that he dared.

"I already have a life," Zeke said quietly. "And I like it just fine. The only thing that would make it better is if yours was better. Do you see where I'm coming from?"

A nod.

"And you — you'll still go to see Dr. Yves?"

Casey answered promptly, "I'll go."

"We can just see how it goes, right?"

"Yeah."

"But you'll tell me if it's still a problem."

"Yes, Zeke."

Zeke loosed his arms; Casey moved back slightly, so they were once again able to look at each other. "Thank you," Zeke said.

"For what?"

"Oh, you know. Putting up with my bullshit."

Right in front of Zeke's eyes, Casey put all of the last ten minutes away in some tight little dark place inside him and smiled, an expression of unblemished sweetness that didn't fool Zeke in the least. Sure, he had encouraged Casey to express his feelings, and Casey had done that. Sure, Zeke had made nothing but rational points — which he was certainly entitled to do in any discussion with a person who was his equal — but he felt like a bully all the same. It was just that there was just no other choice when Casey was irrationally refusing to do something that he had to do.

"How would you feel about crashing in front of the TV for a while?" he asked. "I'm not really hungry yet."

"Okay," Casey agreed.

They rearranged themselves on the couch, both on their sides facing the TV, Casey in front of Zeke, his head on Zeke's arm. Casey put on the Sci-Fi Network, presently showing Star Trek: The Next Generation. Well, Zeke watched — despite the fact that he had never really cared for most of the shows on the Sci-Fi Network and definitely not Star Trek — while Casey attempted to doze off.

"Hey, Case? Don't fall asleep."

"'m not."

"Okay, good."

To distract him, Zeke started a game where he made a fist of his hand and let it fall repeatedly into Casey's open palm, to be bounced back up, that soon turned into them just rubbing palms, clasping fingers. Then Zeke started to spell words on Casey's arm. After a time, Zeke fell to just combing Casey's sleeve with his hand. He heard Casey's breathing slow and deepen; from above and behind him, he saw his lashes flutter.

Then Casey did fall asleep, and this time Zeke didn't have it in him to stop him.

It was almost two in the morning when Sasha got home. He appeared surprised to find Zeke in the darkened living room, watching an old black and white movie. Usually both Zeke and Casey were asleep when Sasha got in; Zeke had become so used to it that he no longer even heard him.

"What are you doing up?" Sasha said, his voice hushed.

"Couldn't sleep." He had managed to get Casey awake long enough to eat something and then change for bed before he crashed. Zeke had lain awake beside Casey for a few hours reading The New Yorker; he'd had his fill of philosophy for today. He figured he could get in a couple more hours of studying tomorrow morning. Occasionally he'd gotten up for a snack or a bathroom break or just to stretch his legs. Around twelve- thirty he'd stopped pretending that he was getting sleepy and went back to the TV.

"I think you just missed me," Sasha suggested.

"That too." Well, he hadn't seen Sasha for two whole days.

Sasha fell into his chair with a groan. "God, I'm beat. It's been crazy in that place this week."

"You had some sort of special event, right?"

"That was last night and it was just a very large party of very rich people. Their bill came to about ten thousand."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Nope. They got into the special section of the wine cellar. And get this... They tipped the wait staff twenty-five hundred."

"Fuck me. Did the kitchen get any of that?"

"You bet." Sasha put his feet on the coffee table. "Did you notice that we have messages?"

"Yeah, that's Stan."

"There's two of them."

"Oh." Zeke often neglected to look at the answering machine, which sat on top of the microwave. Today he had been far too agitated upon getting home to consider it anywhere near a priority.

Sasha turned his head in the direction of the TV. "What 'cha watching?"

"I'm not sure, actually."

It was dark, but Zeke was fairly sure he could hear Sasha's eyes rolling. "You'll have to do better than that with Casey around."

Zeke pressed the info button. "From Here to Eternity. Happy?"

"All I know is that's the one where the couple make love on a beach and get washed by the surf."

"Oh, right, I think I saw that part already."

Sasha turned away to look at him. "Where'd you grow up, anyway? In a plastic bubble?"

"I think you forget that you are of an older generation."

"Five years is a generation now? Anyway, I'll bet Casey knows it."

"Casey is different."

"So how are things?" Sasha asked unexpectedly.

"Fine."

"You always say fine."

Zeke shrugged. "What do you want me to tell you?"

"I'm just making conversation. You could tell me about something you did, or something funny that somebody said — "

"I brought Winona over to meet Casey yesterday."

"Yeah, Casey told me you brought your girlfriend home."

"She's not my — "

"Hey, just kidding, sweetie."

"It's not funny. Casey's already acting bizarro about her so I don't need you making cracks like that."

Sasha looked like he wanted to say something; instead, he folded his hands together and rested them against his mouth for a moment before he let them fall.

"No comment?" Zeke prompted.

"I was evicted from your personal life, remember? I happen to think I've been very good and I don't want to ruin my track record now."

Zeke launched himself from the couch in frustration. He should have explained in the first place that the demand for Sasha to butt out logically excluded any time that Zeke actually requested advice. For lack of anything better to do, he went to the kitchen for a soda. This time the answering machine did catch his eye, and he thought he might as well find out who else had called. It was probably just Stokely, wondering if she could come over, and of course they had completely neglected her tonight.

The voice that came out of it when he pressed play was just about the last one that he was expecting.

"Hello, this is Jacob Tyler... I hope I have the right number." Sasha had recorded their welcoming message, and he had been deliberately obtuse. Something about "Hi, we're not home, leave a message." Nothing identifying.

"This is a message for Zeke Tyler. Zeke, if you get this... I'm going to be in Seattle on the sixth and seventh of November and I thought we might get together for dinner. I'll be staying at the Fairmont. My cell phone number is 555-0015, please call me. Even if you don't want to have dinner. I'd like to talk." A pause. "Take care, Zeke."

Zeke had almost pressed the erase button and reconsidered it for the third time when he realized that Sasha was standing next to him.

"Say, you have a father," Sasha remarked.

Zeke snapped, "I wasn't born in a lab."

"You going to call him?"

"I don't know."

Sasha tilted his head, considering. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really, no."

"Okay. I'm going to bed then. Can I say one thing, though?"

"Fire away."

"If you don't want to see Casey get a lot more bizarro, you'll be sure to include him in whatever this turns out to be." Sasha gave him a cordial slap on the arm and retreated down the dark hall before Zeke could tell him how much he resented that comment.

As if he would have lied... okay, the temptation to erase the message and pretend it never arrived had been pretty powerful, but that had nothing to do with Casey. Zeke hadn't seen his father in three years, not since the day that his parents arrived at their high school turned FBI crime scene just after the alien showdown. Since then, Zeke and Jacob Tyler had spoken a few times, and corresponded after a fashion, in the form of cheques and legal papers exchanged. After Zeke received full control of the trust fund at twenty-one, there had been no communication at all. He had to wonder how his father had even gotten hold of this number since he had yet to share it with his mother. Not that it was classified information. It was in Zeke's name because they all agreed that it was best to make both Casey and Sasha as untraceable as possible, just in case Roy started investigating.

Okay, now he was tired. He returned to bed and set the alarm, then fell asleep with Casey rolled up tight in his arms.

A minute later, his alarm went off. He silenced it within a few seconds as usual, then decided he would allow himself another thirty minutes to doze. When he next opened his eyes, he'd slept for two hours. Groaning silently, he untangled himself, moving Casey's limbs gently away from his own but knowing that regardless of his best efforts, Casey would wake up. And there... before he could get halfway between the bed and the dresser, he heard the sounds of a person stirring and trying to force themself to achieve a conscious state.

"Mmmph," Casey mumbled. "So tired."

"Go back to sleep."

"Why... up so early..."

"It's not so early, it's nine-thirty... but I'm gonna head to the library and do a bit of cramming before the exam." Casey half sat up, then flopped back and lay there with his eyes closed. Zeke reached over and pulled the covers up to Casey's neck. "Go back to sleep."

"'Kay." Casey rolled over, and hugged Zeke's pillow to himself.

Zeke got dressed quickly, sparing a second for one more quick stare at his sleeping lover before he was off to kick some philosophy ass.

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