From: Chloe Severna. Received: January 5, 2002. 02:11 p.m.

Re: Hi

Zeke --- It’s great to hear from you, and don’t worry about typos, I’ll figure it out. I was wondering if you would call or email. I’ve been worried. Jacob too, but you probably don’t want me to say that, huh? Okay, I mentioned the parental unit, that part is done. Now tell me what’s up.

January 6, 2002. 09:01 a.m.

Re: Re: Hi

its kind of long anc complicated.

January 6, 2002. 09:15 a.m.

Re: Re:Re: Hi

So? You need someone to vent to, so vent! I don’t mind.

January 6, 2002. 09:45 a.m.

Re:Re:Re:Re: Hi

okay. You remember me tell you about my boyfriend Casey well we kind of split up. i’m moving in with our friend Stokely for a while. it was kind of a mutual decision. i’m still in his life, though. he knows how i feel and he says that he needs some time to figure things out. i don’t know what it is he has to figure but i’m giving him his space. I have to.

it’s been a bit rough since I took off from LA. All sorts of shit happened and I acted like a fucking jerk, nearly did something awful that I can’t even tell you. I can’t put it out there, what I did. Suffice it to say it was a major fucking wake-up call. I’ve gotta get my head straight.

Except righht now i’m pissed off because the guy I told you Casey cheated on me with, who he didn’t actually cheat on me with. fuck. bad sentence. anyway, this guy, Thomas, he kidnapped Casey the other day. now he’ in hte hospital. Casey and i were talking on the phone this morning and he just blurted out that he wants to go see him. he wants to go see HIM. Motherfucker. but I’ve gotta be all supportive because it’s what Casey wants and technically he’s allowed to go visit this guy if he wants. It may be a ridiculous, irratonal call but i’m supposed to have no say in it. you know i really can’t figure out how caring about someone doesn’t give you the right to call the shots. the more you care the more right you have. the way i figure it.

January 6, 2002. 09:55 a.m.

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Hi

What do you mean he KIDNAPPED Casey???!!!

Zeke knocked once and --- hesitating just a moment because technically he no longer lived here and yet it still felt like a place to which he should have full access --- he let himself into the apartment.

The very first thing he heard was Casey’s phone voice, and he was saying a thing, or two things, a million little aspirated sounds that shot through Zeke’s nervous system like lethal injection.

“Is there a Thomas…um, Thomas Kirton there?”

Now Zeke had Casey in his sights; he was standing in the middle of the kitchen, speaking into the phone. He glanced at Zeke and then sort of glanced away. It was a flinch, nearly.

Zeke was quite conscious that in this mad scenario he was expected to not react; he slipped off his shoes and proceeded to sit at the dining room table. Sasha and Jerry were both planted there --- Sasha, reading a newspaper and Jerry eating a piece of toast. Sasha lowered his newspaper just enough to smile at Zeke.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Zeke hissed.

Jerry noshed on an overly vigorous helping of his toast.

With a shrug, Sasha replied, “Casey wants to go visit Thomas.”

“Oh, he does…?”

“I suggested it.”

“You --- what?”

“I suggested it.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?”

With a flurry of head shakes, Sasha signalled him to silence. Zeke half turned and saw Casey standing there, holding the phone against his chest, and the stare that Casey was giving him couldn’t have been more obvious if he had just handed Zeke a letter: Dear Zeke…Even though I don’t have to explain myself, I am going to tell you that I have the right to choose who I visit and who I don’t visit, and by the way, you can go fuck yourself.

“Any luck, kitten?”

“No.” Casey made a noise of exasperation. “No one will tell me anything.”

Jerry said, around a mouthful of bread, “Why don’t you call that cop and ask him?”

He immediately shrank a little, and it probably had a lot to do with the frown that Sasha directed at him, a frown that seemed to call into question all of Jerry’s opportunities for sex in the forthcoming week --- but it was too late. Casey brightened instantly and said, “That’s a good idea! I’ll be he knows…”

Cradling the phone, he went back to the kitchen.

In the ensuing silence, Jerry brushed crumbs off his hands and rose. “Um…I should get going. Things to do before work…”

“Yes,” Sasha agreed. “You should.”

But he must have relented between there and the door, for Zeke heard the wet report of a kiss just before Jerry made his exit.

“Hello? May I speak to Officer Williams, please…? Casey Connor.”

Zeke tensed and hoped that Williams would want nothing to do with Casey, but he knew it was a vain wish. Quite apart from his general talents at manipulation, Casey had highly-developed skills when it came to getting what he wanted from any adult in a quasi-parental role. It probably had a little to do with Casey being an only child, but Zeke had seen Casey’s parents do backwards somersaults to make him happy, hypnotized by that childlike mien and almost-but-not-quite-over-the-top wheedling note. And Sasha…Zeke could have written a book on the things that Casey could do to Sasha, just with his face.

“Hello…um, hi, this is…yes, Casey…pretty good, sir…”

Sasha reseated himself at the kitchen table. Failing to return to his paper, he folded his arms across his chest and listened with a faintly sardonic expression.

“I was…um…I was wondering if you could help me, sir.”

But of course Officer Williams would have fallen victim to Casey too. Zeke didn’t need to have been there; he could imagine the little-boy-lost scene, Williams making a desperate show of gruffness while his parental instincts, latent or otherwise, roared and prowled, looking for an outlet, and so naturally, when Casey called him with a little request, he would be more than willing to help.

Within ten minutes, he had called Casey back with the name of the hospital.

From the sound of it, Officer Williams had other things to say, though --- and Zeke liked to think that this was the payback for engaging Williams’ parental side. This would be the part where Williams let Casey know that he was far too tolerant of the man who had dragged him along on his little crime spree, and he should just get on with his life.

As Zeke sat at the kitchen table, Casey came in gesturing silently for a piece of paper --- Sasha offered him the receipt from his latest grocery run that had somehow found its way to the table. Casey grabbed it and scribbled on it, bending over the table. He was standing near enough to Zeke that there was a distinct whiff of oranges.

“Seattle West General. Thanks…thank you, sir. When do you think he’ll get out?”

Zeke had no difficulty reconstructing Williams’ comments on that subject. He exchanged a glance with Sasha --- the two of them helplessly listening as Casey exercised his autonomy in choosing friends. Not that Sasha had any right to complain, since he had just revealed that he was the one to put this visiting idea in Casey’s head in the first place. Zeke would have liked to give Sasha a really sharp smack upside the head for that one.

“I will,” Casey said. “Goodbye, sir.” Clicking off, he informed the two of them, “Thomas pled guilty to grand theft auto. The shoplifting…his family paid for the gas and stuff, so it was dropped, and then they dropped the kidnapping.”

“So,” Sasha asked. “What about jail?”

Casey shook his head. “He got a ‘suspended sentence’, Officer Williams said…whatever that means, he doesn’t have to go to jail because the car was returned and he’s an involuntary mental patient anyway.” He frowned to himself, and shifted his weight, staring momentarily at the wall.

“And you got the name of the hospital.”

“Yeah.”

“You want to go this afternoon? After Yves?”

Casey’s head came up, his eyes going bright. “Yeah.”

Before Sasha could ask about using the car, Zeke announced, “I’ll go too.”

“Really?” Casey squeaked.

“It’s either that or go home and unpack, and I don’t really feel like it.”

“Oh…kay. Um…I’ll get dressed…”

Casey headed down the hallway to his bedroom at a quick trot.

Sasha got up from his chair and began idly collecting the few bits of detritus on the table, leaving the grocery receipt with its scribbled information lying there just where Zeke could have seized it and crumpled it --- or even better, burned it.

“That’s generous of you,” Sasha remarked

Zeke tended to agree, since it was still less than a week since the botched car-theft slash kidnapping and he had already made more than one sacrifice. But he snorted in return, “Hardly,” and added, only because Casey wasn’t there to hear it: “Since you had the brilliant idea of going to visit the guy…I’ve gotta go and keep an eye on him.”

“What did you want me to do?” Sasha lowered his tone to a bare minimum, huddling down slightly to keep this between them. Sasha in a stoop was slightly ridiculous, with his height. “Casey can pick his own friends.”

“In principle, sure. But this situation is different.”

With a wistful smile, Sasha echoed, “In principle.”

“Fine,” Zeke snarled. “He can pick his own friends but not Thomas.”

“Zeke,” sighed Sasha. “The man’s very sick. I hardly think he’s going to make a move on Casey.”

Ah, but Zeke was much more concerned about Casey making a move on Thomas but he didn’t dare say so, not when everyone was being so cordial to everyone else and their lives were finally approaching something resembling stability.

Three days ago, he had moved out. It had taken little time to gather his clothing and books --- the only things he needed to bring. But there had been the print Roy had sent him, which caused him no small amount of anxiety. He could have left it safely stashed in the storage room, and Casey would never find it --- except what if he did? What if he suddenly had a hankering for Trivial Pursuit, or a burning desire to go through Zeke’s collection of trashy novels? In the end, Zeke decided that the print had to come with him to Stokely’s.

Stokely had everything he really needed: a bed, a kitchen, should he ever decide he felt like cooking. The one thing he’d been missing was a computer; he’d gone out and purchased a new one the other day. It had taken a little less than four hours from the moment he’d decided he needed one, to getting it set up. One trip to the nearest Circuit City and some credit card abuse were all it took. Thankfully, Stokely already had a DSL, so setting up his internet connection had been a simple and speedy business.

Realizing that he no longer lived where he lived had been a lot more…well, a lot more emotionally surprising than he’d anticipated. His first night at Stokely’s — his place, now — he’d barely slept. He’d refused to lie there crying in the dark like some homesick loser, even if he’d come pretty fucking close to it.

They all took the Mustang, and because they were running a bit late they didn’t have time to get a decent coffee. Zeke and Sasha had to resort to some slop from the nearest gas station which they drank sitting on the front steps of Yves’ building. Or rather, Zeke drank his despite the taste while Sasha took one sip, made a face, and then quietly poured the liquid into the cedar shrub to the right of the steps. “There you go,” he sang.

“Hmm.” Zeke was busy lighting his cigarette.

“How many are you up to now?”

“Huh?”

“How many cigarettes a day?”

Zeke inhaled deeply and exhaled on, “I dunno. At least two packs.”

“Zeke. This is getting serious.”

“It’s an addiction, Sasha. That tends to mean you’re addicted so please…lay off.” He could feel Sasha watching him, and he could feel Sasha’s pity too. “I mean it,” he growled. “Lay off!”

“I’m worried about you, sweetheart.”

Zeke shrugged, anticipating a touch that he didn’t want. “I’m fine.”

“Well…that’s what worries me. You always act fine and you say you’ll be fine…I’m afraid you aren’t really fine at all and we’re just letting you pretend.”

“Or here’s a thought,” Zeke returned with sarcasm so sharp that his mouth tasted acid, “I really am fine and you’re going to make me not fine pretty fucking soon if you don’t stop harping about it.”

In visible surrender, Sasha raised his hands. “I stand corrected.”

Shortly, Casey returned from therapy with reddened, puffy eyes, a fact upon which no one commented. Zeke would have liked to explain to Sasha that there with Casey around there was no room for anyone else to not be fine, but he was sure that Sasha would somehow interpret that as Zeke not being very fine at all. Better to remain stoically quiet and stay out of Sasha’s way, at least for a while. If he didn’t, Sasha would have him in some sort of breakdown before long.

The psychiatric hospital where Thomas had been committed against his willl wasn’t as new, or as welcoming, as Whitby had been. The place was clean, but not bright, efficient and cordial but very institutional. Zeke observed Casey’s unhappy, frightened face as they took in the dingy, not-quite-white floors and walls, and he almost felt sympathetic towards Thomas, who was being watched around the clock and was allowed visitors for only half an hour at a time. Casey insisted on going in by himself, and Zeke was rather relieved.

He and Sasha found their way to a visitors’ lounge. There were a few patients sitting there with guests, each identifiable by their clothing — institutional blue for the patients, not for the visitors. Many of the patients gave evidence of emotional toil.

Zeke sat on a worn couch and tried to watch Full House on the tinny TV set. To him, it was spectacularly unfunny. During a commercial break, one of the patients took an ill shine to an advertisement for Volvo and began to be visibly and audibly agitated. Two nurses, one male, one female, both equally large, rushed in and silenced him with a shot in the arm. They then half-led, half-forced him from the lounge.

“God,” Sasha whispered. He was perched next to Zeke, on the sofa’s arm.

“Yeah.”

“If Casey had been in a place like this...”

“I don’t want to think about it.”

A figure entering the lounge caught Zeke’s eye. He was a tall black man in a reverend’s collar and black clothes, and he bore enough of a resemblance to Thomas that they had to be related. And given his age — he was at least seventy, stooped and slightly frail — he was probably Thomas’ father. The elderly man sat in a folding chair, holding himself apart from everyone else, his posture one of easy, worn dignity. When he met Zeke’s gaze, he nodded to him, then looked away.

He seemed so sad, tired and old and Zeke began to remember what it had been like last August. He remembered how it had felt talking to the doctors, to friends and family and — it struck him how he hadn’t shied away from talking about the aliens up until then. In fact, right up until the moment he had decided to invent that Big Lie for Spadoni, he had been all about the truth. He had never really thought about that until this moment even though the memory had been there for the accessing.

But they had been in Herrington, his inner defender protested. Everyone already knew. Coming here was supposed to have been a new start where the aliens didn’t matter any more, where they weren’t those kids who made their teachers disappear —

He was nudged by Sasha; Casey was coming towards them, looking a bit miserable but not quite crying. Zeke was hopeful that he wanted to go now --- but Casey suddenly changed direction, squaring his shoulders and going over to the man who had to be Thomas’ father.

“He doesn’t seem...that bad,” Casey said, his voice mostly audible. They sounded like two people who had already introduced themselves. Of course, they would have encountered each other in Thomas’ room before this.

“He is that bad,” replied Thomas’ father, neither hostile nor friendly. He had a strong, Caribbean-type accent, different from Thomas whose accent was a mixture of islands both north and south — Barbados by way of England. “Tell me again...how do you know my son?”

“Just from talking to him. He...hung around where I live.”

Thomas’ father nodded.

“What’s...” Casey’s voice trailed away into a whisper.

The voice of Thomas’ father was trained to fill a church; it easily carried throughout the room without giving the impression that he had even raised it. “They say he may be released in a few weeks, if he responds to medication. He will have to come home to live with me and his mother.”

“To...”

“To Barbados, yes.”

Casey said something else that Zeke couldn’t manage to overhear.

The elderly man shook his head. “Not at all. What you must understand is my son has had this affliction his entire life. He is well when he takes his medication...and he was well for quite some time. He must have stopped...I don’t know when.”

“Do you — do you know why?”

“No. I truly thought...but, I remember he told me once, when he was just a teenager that...that the only time he felt good was when he was sick.” With that, Thomas’ father massaged his forehead and uttered a small moan. “I am sure that I have done something, committed some sin that caused God to visit this affliction upon him…”

As Zeke and Sasha watched, Casey put out a tentative hand, gently touching the man’s shoulder, and said, “If he wasn’t sick I...I wouldn’t have met him...and I’m glad I met him.”

The other man lifted his head and studied Casey. He got slowly to his feet. More formally he said, “I appreciate that, young man…Casey. Now…I think I will go back in.”

As the reverend walked away, his shoes leaving soft reports on the institutional tiles, Casey negotiated a straight line across the lounge, across the sightlines of all who were struggling to be entertained by Full House, to Zeke and Sasha. Without a word, he was folded into a hug from Sasha, just for a handful of seconds and then he had bounced back a few feet, shifting his weight in that twitchy way that was becoming more and increasingly a fixture of his character.

On further silent agreement, they all made haste to the elevator, that portal to a world where people were allowed and assumed to present a front of mental stability...regardless of what they might actually be suffering or struggling through.

Sasha ventured, “That was a nice thing you did, kitten.”

“I just wanted him to know,” Casey said. His voice was flat and hollow. “I should have told him Thomas helped me.”

“How did he help you?” Zeke wanted to know, not bothering to hide his annoyance at the premise. “Well?” he insisted. “How did Thomas help you?”

“Zeke,” Sasha attempted to intervene.

“No, I want to know…how did this guy help?” Zeke wasn’t in any position to seek Casey’s arm --- or truly, to involve them in any other gratuitous touching, not these days. But he really needed to know what a sick stranger could have done for Casey that Zeke hadn’t been able to, and he was forced to emphasize his question with his voice alone. It came out slightly strident.

“He said things that were true.”

“Like what?”

“Zeke,” Sasha said again, very nearly making his name into two syllables, never an easy accomplishment.

Zeke ignored him, which wasn’t easy either. “Like what, Casey?”

“Like…” In profile, Casey’s chin rose to an angle that said he was ready to give as good as he got. “…the more you wanted me to not talk about the aliens the more important it was that I talk about them.”

“Oh, spare me…” Zeke growled, just before the elevator beeped, announcing its arrival on the fourth floor. He stepped into it, fully expecting the other two to be behind him. They were not going to have a conversation about aliens from outer space in a psychiatric hospital. It was just not going to happen.

No one spoke until they had exited the hospital and walked to the Mustang; Casey and Sasha stood on one side, waiting for Zeke to unlock the door but Zeke had other priorities. He had tipped out a cigarette and had it poised near his mouth, fishing with his other hand for his lighter, when Casey spoke as though there had been no break, no pause at all.

“He was actually willing to talk about them.” Casey stared him down across the hood of the Mustang. “And…he was kind of friendly but scary at the same time. I thought maybe he…maybe he was one of them but he didn’t want to hurt me. He said they would never…hurt me.”

Zeke covered a sudden aching throat and trembling hand by smoking with great intensity. “Hah,” he returned, exhaling. “But he did.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Zeke hated that he was stuck on the other side of the car where he couldn’t get an ideal view of Casey. “How do you figure that?”

“He taught me --- “

“Nearly got you arrested.”

“--- I drove on the highway, I had to deal with the police and --- and stuff --- "

“Oh, so if I were to blindfold you and leave you in a bar full of Hell’s Angels or something, I would be helping you?

Zeke saw Sasha covering a sudden smile. He threw down his half-smoked cig and dug out his keys.

In his view, sick was sick. Thomas was not some guardian angel who had come to Seattle on a mission to help Casey. Fuck...before long Casey would have him as some tragic, travelling alien, moving from place to place helping humankind to understand each other. Zeke had seen a TV show like that once, and if he had managed to catch the drift of that broadcast inanity while flipping between football and baseball coverage, Casey had to have seen it. It certainly seemed that he had adopted it into his weird, half-cheesy and half-cynical philosophy of life on Earth.

Zeke dropped Casey and Sasha off at the apartment and continued on to Stokely’s place --- his and Stokely’s, actually. He wasn’t sure when, or if, he would ever get used to thinking that phrase.

Stokely was at work, which was a bit of a relief because Zeke didn’t feel much like socializing. He sat down at his new computer with a half a pack of smokes and started a new email to Chloe.

Sent: January 6, 2002. 04:32 .p.m.

Re: Ravings.

we just got back from visiting that gy thomas. you knw the one who Casey told me he fucked around with it. it’s too much to ask to be kind and patient and understnding about this, sometimes I really just want to grab Casey and shake him or worse actually. i have all these thoughts about hitting him but I swear I’m not that kind of guy, i’m not. i mean, it isn’t like he’s the only one who pisses me off. i think about punching people all the time and you knw what? i don’t ever want to hurt Casey but i just dont get why he and other people actually, why they dont hear and see themselves, why they dont understand what they are doing.

i’m trying so hard to be the good guy and what does he do? he scares me to death by running away sometimes and then later i find out that not only did he run away, he was messing around with this strange dude he ran into in a coffee shop, and then, oh yeah, he wasn’t just making me jealous, he was actually giving me something to be jealous about!!! he tells me he fucks this guy and then he has the nerve to go and stage a near-suicide when i react like any guy would and get pissed at him. and then it turns out he didn’t fuck hm after all he just said he did to get me going. and it gets better, he disappears one morning on his way to therapy and it turns out he and thomas went on a little bonnie and clyde but he says HE SAYS thomas isn’t bad, thomas isn’t scary, he didnt hurt me and don’t send the poor man to jail.

so then what? i do my hero routine, i act all understanding and even volunteer to go to the hospital to visit this guy and then he hits me with the news that thomas HELPED him. he has to know that saying that to me is like sticking me with a fucking knife but still he says it. he’s such a little shit.

i don’t understand why i’m still here. i never would put up with this from anyone else. i haven’t put up with it with anyone else in fact, my track record is straight out proof. i’ve tried harder with him than i ever have in my entire life. when i was angry or frustratrated or impatient i choked it down and i feel like i have a gut full of it. sasha told me i was patient once and it’s like that guy is just gone. i used to be able to think through things, i used to be able to THINK.

stokely just came in and ragged on me for smoking in the apartment. this is another thing. yeah, sasha didn’t let me smoke in that apartment either but i had a roof to go to. how is it that Casey announces he’s going to move out and i end up volunteering to do it? i don’t like this set up. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKINGMOTHERFUCKERFUCK

Received: January 7, 2002. 10:10 .a.m.

Re: Re: Ravings.

First of all, the only thing more disgusting than smoking is the stuff that gets left behind in the ashtray. I don’t blame Stokely and you had better start figuring out how to make amends, little brother.

I understand why you feel hurt. It has to hurt, hearing Casey say that this man “helped” him when you’ve been there all along and you never took Casey on a crime spree.

I know you wanna be the guy that Casey relies on, that he says his prayers to every night. He probably did too, at some point, am I right? He depended on you completely, I’ll bet. I think I remember you hinting at something like that. That’s heady stuff, alright. The problem is, he’s changed. He’s got friends and acquaintances other than you. Is it not possible that there is something he can learn from all of them? Yeah, I know that’s not exactly what’s bothering you, but the weird thing is, sometimes it’s easier to tell things to strangers. Sometimes strangers can see more too, because they’re not involved, because they don’t care like you do. I’m not just making this up, I’ve had it happen to me.

That probably isn’t what you want to hear, but I figure there are true things and there are nice things and never the twain shall meet. I also figure you’re more interested in the true things. You wouldn’t have pulled that stunt with Casey’s ex if you weren’t. And by the way, I think this is something you and Jacob have in common. I think that’s why he’s a lawyer. He likes to take complex situations and boil them down to an official version.

He didn’t put me up to that, by the way. He has asked about you a few times. For some reason, he thinks I know how you’re doing.

Oh, yeah, here’s the other thing I wanted to say. You’ve gotta stop assuming you can use your head to get you out of this situation. I know you know this already but you keep talking about how you can’t be logical and you can’t seem to think clearly --- this is love, little brother. It’s not a rational thing, I don’t know why you think it is. You want to use logic on it and it’s just laughing in your face. I’m not saying stop trying to be a rational person, because that’s like way cool. Just accept that some things don’t work that way, okay?

Now you may be pissed off and never want to talk to me again. I hope that’s not the case but I’m prepared for it. I have this way of being too blunt and alienating people, in case you didn’t know that.

Sent: January 10, 2002. 01:30 a.m.

Re: Re: Ravings.

im not pissed at you, even if you did compare me to Jacob. It dosn’t bother me, since i know that you’re completely dead wrong about that.

i’m much calmer about the whole thomas situation, mainly because he’s gone now. Casey went to visit him again and i even went, yeah, i couldn’t help myself. this time i went right in the room with him. i wanted to see them interact but the guy was in a really bad way. depressed. it was like Casey used to be but worse maybe. i actually felt a little sorry for him. he can’t help being sick, he lost the genetic lottery there is all. he was totally withdrawn and i think it was a big wake-up call for Casey. the only thing he said to Casey was that he didn’t want him there. he told him to get out, that he didn’t belong there. and Casey left and I got to comfort him. thomas is gone now, back to barbados with his father. i called the hospital yesterday and they said he had been discharged into his father’s care. poor guy.

i hear what you’re saying about love being irrational. believe me, i know. i just think it’s important not to give up on trying to be rational. If i gave up, there would be nothing to keep me in check, and i need to be in check. i have violence in me. i’m not proud of it but i do. i’ve been thinking about talking to someone about it actually.

and since when am i your little brother?

It was in between that happy lull when the hamburgers had disappeared and they were picking in sated fashion at the french fries, when Casey said, “Zeke.”

This was portentous. Not Hey, I’m just getting your attention or even I want to tell you something quasi-important but Something is coming you’re not going to like and I’m scared but I’m still saying it.

And this at the tail end of one of those days that Zeke had used to fantasize about, a day when spent with Casey, just wandering here and there. Of course, Casey had to do therapy first, and then he’d had a brief appointment with Chakri to review how he was doing with his meds and to renew prescriptions. Zeke had been happy to go along and wait outside, both times, and after that they had gone to a bookstore and a music store, just to browse --- practice, Casey had said. He’d asked Zeke to be nearby but not to touch him. Zeke had been able to read in the tight tension of Casey’s body, the way he clenched himself into the smallest space possible, that he was on the defensive every second, but he’d come through it. Not beautifully, but with pure determination, the way Casey did most things.

To reward him --- well, in part to reward him and in part because Zeke had been hungry, he’d taken Casey to the Bayview for a late lunch. Here Casey had been slightly more at ease. At ease about being in public, at least. At ease about being in Zeke’s company? Not exactly, no.

Zeke couldn’t forget that not a week ago he’d done...what he’d done. Fucking hell, he was a prick of gargantuan proportions and he could feel that fact between them know, in the slight twitch that Casey had every time Zeke got a little too near, in Casey’s sudden, blustering anger about things. Just when he managed to convince himself that it wasn’t him Casey was angry at, that it was a massive storm system that he just happened to be in the way of....

Zeke made himself respond. “Yeah?”

“Um,” Casey said, blinking a bit too hard. “Yves and I were talking...”

That was a given, but Zeke just said, “Yes.”

”I want to...to try some things.”

”Like what?”

Casey stared at him as though trying to glean more than what he had put into the words themselves, and getting nowhere because Zeke had been absolutely neutral.

”It’s okay, Case. Like what?”

“Remember how Stokes said I could work downstairs...stocking shelves and stuff?”

As casually as he could, Zeke put his hands under the table. He clenched them hard, unwound them, then put them back where Casey could see them.

”I think I’d like to try that,” Casey blurted. “Just for a few hours a week.”

Zeke shrugged. “You don’t need my permission.”

Blue could be a very hard colour, Zeke was learning.

”Okay then,” Casey said. “And I’m going to take a course too.”

Suddenly, Zeke felt his heart pounding like everything was getting away from him. He couldn’t get his hands on it, or it was all slippery, amorphous, nothing solid for him to grasp. “Have you picked something?”

“Yeah. A course that doesn’t have an attendance policy.”

Zeke managed to smile. “Good idea.”

”I don’t think I need my transcripts if I’m just going to register part-time. I’ll just go tomorrow --- “

“I’ll go with you.”

Zeke was bludgeoned by the instantaneous refusal --- “I don’t want you to” --- a refusal spoken with an almost blustering finality, a defiance that said there would be no right of appeal. He took some time to recover, picking at his plate.

“Yves thinks...” Casey continued. “Will you...maybe come to therapy with me tomorrow?”

Zeke ate a few fries before asking, “What’s it about?”

“You don’t want to.”

“I'd like a little advance warning is all. I’d rather not be blind-sided.”

Casey reached and took one of Zeke’s fries, dipped it in the blob of ketchup remaining on his plate. Holding the bloodied thing, he said, “It’s not about the aliens.”

“Un-huh.”

“Yves thinks it would be helpful if we just kinda...just talked about everything that’s happened.”

“Why?”

Casey had let go of the fry and licked his fingers. Zeke’s balls began to tighten as he stared at a stained red mouth. He shifted on the vinyl seat, looking at the table. “Because,” Casey said, “It has a lot to do with what happens now.”

“I don’t know.”

“Zeke.” Casey sounded weary. “You promised.”

Shit. Fuck. Lately, he’d discovered a few things about Casey that he hadn’t realized. Such as Casey remembered every fucking thing Zeke had ever said. “Yeah, okay,” Zeke admitted. “I promised.” He grabbed at the handwritten check that was lying face-down on the table and said, “Let’s go.”

Casey acceded without a word, trailing after him to the cash, shadowing him out of the diner. Without thinking, Zeke stepped up to the curb, watching for his opportunity to cross the street, thinking he was on his way home.

He remembered.

Turning to look at Casey, he said, “I guess I’ll go home now.”

Casey was giving equal time to Zeke and the sidewalk. “You could…come keep me company,” he suggested.

Zeke was about to say yes when it occurred to him that he didn’t know if Casey really wanted his company, or just some company, and there was a flash fire of anger in him because it had been Casey, after all, who wanted them to spend some time apart, and they’d just been together the entire day and Zeke had a place of his own to go to, to be apart just like Casey wanted and asked for and got, because he always got what he wanted one way or another.

“No,” Zeke blurted. “Thanks. Think I’ll go home.” He was astonished to see that Casey actually had the nerve to look sad. He added, “I’ll meet you at Yves’ tomorrow morning, okay?”

Casey nodded; whispered, “Kay.”

“See you.”

Zeke set for the place, a couple of blocks away, where he had parked. He didn’t watch to see if Casey made it home okay --- it was only across the fucking street, after all.

When he got to Stokely’s --- home, fucking home, he went into his room, declining the offer of veggie stew. Not surprisingly, the ashtray he had left next to his computer monitor was gone.

He typed and sent:

Casey wants me to come with him to therapty. i should tell you, we tried this before and it was a disaster. i don’t disagree that Yves has vhelped Casey but that’s a credit to Casey’s own desire and motivation to be helped. i think the bottom line is you get what you put into it. these doctors or counsellors or whatever important letters they happened to put on their shingle, they’re not magic. i think the magic is all in listening and if a person has nothing to say to them then there isn’t much point.

i will go, though, because i promised, Casey. i just don’t think it’ll serve any purpose.

also. Casey is going to register for a course tomorrow. i really thought he would want meto come with hm but he didn't.

And then he went outside and sat on the front steps of the building, smoking. He smoked half a pack before he went in.

Received: January 11, 2002. 08:54 a.m.

RE: what do you think about therapy?

Zeke -- it’s not my impression that you have nothing to say.

January 11, 2002. 05:14 p.m.

RE:RE: what do you think about therapy?

nothing to say to HER.

January 11, 2002. 05:16 p.m.

RE:RE:RE: what do you think about therapy?

You could explain to her why she can’t help you.

January 11, 2002. 05: 20 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE: what do you think about therapy?

except I promised Casey that I would.

January 11, 2002. 05:30 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: what do you think about therapy?

Stop being a scaredy-boy.

January 11, 2002. 05:33 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: what do you think about therapy?

im not. i just don't see what good this will do when Casey and I are already hanging by a thread.

January 11, 2002. 05:37 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: what do you think about therapy?

Then you had better give Casey what he wants. Beside, you already told me you have complete insight into yourself, right? So nothing she can do will surprise you.

January 11, 2002. 05:39 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE what do you think about therapy?

i love you. marry me?

January 11, 2002. 05:41 p.m.

RE: that’s enough RE’s don’t you think?

Yuck!

January 11, 2002. 05:42 p.m.

RE: Never enough RE’s

you know that brother-sister stuff doesn’t really apply.

January 11, 2002. 05:43 p.m.

RE:RE: Never enough RE’s

It does so. Anyway...hello, GAY?

January 11, 2002. 05:44 p.m.

RE:RE:RE: Never enough RE’s

Bisexual.

January 11, 2002. 05:46 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE: Never enough RE’s

I’ve heard that bisexuals are pussies who can’t commit.

January 11, 2002. 05:48 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: Never enough RE’s

not true. it’s a valid identity.

January 11, 2002. 06:15 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: Never enough RE’s

You aren’t serious are you? About being attracted to me?

January 11, 2002. 06:37 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: Never enough RE’s

not really. but kinda. i like how you put things. i wish Casey was more like that.

January 11, 2002. 06:40 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: Never enough RE’s

That’s a huge compliment. You do realize, don’t you, that you and I are way too much alike? And you’re basically saying you wish Casey was more like you, Professor Higgins.

January 11, 2002. 06:41 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: Never enough RE’s

Who?

Dr. Yves folded her hands on top of her desk. “Thank you for coming, Zeke."

"You don't have to thank me," he retorted. "We did this drill the last time."

"Still...I know this isn’t easy for you.”

“It’s fine,” he grunted. “No problem.”

Sitting in the chair across from Zeke --- planted in it really, as though the chair was his sole defense against Zeke’s physical presence, as though Zeke was something he had to be defended against, Casey emitted a non-communicative noise. Somehow, it morphed belatedly into a statement: “You hate coming here.”

“I don’t hate it. I’m not terribly comfortable, but I did say I’d do whatever it took.”

“Whatever it took?” Yves prompted.

“To help Casey.”

"Does it always have to be about helping Casey?"

"What else would it be about?"

"It could be about helping you, maybe."

Zeke realized that he was perched on the edge of the couch, sitting up very straight with his feet firm and flat under him. He had an image of himself as a man ready to flee, and he didn’t like it. He forced himself to settle back a bit, to be a more relaxed representation --- guy talking to older woman, guy totally unthreatened by the fact that older woman happens to be a doctor. "That's not why I'm here."

"Why are you here?"

“Casey didn’t tell you?” Zeke wondered, delivering it more to Casey than to Yves.

“I said you agreed to come back,” Casey muttered. “That’s all."

"And I'm glad you did," Yves chimed in.

“Huh." Zeke decided to shrug that off. “Well, I made a promise.”

“Promise?”

“That I would do whatever it took,” he repeated patiently.

“When was that, Zeke?”

“It was over Christmas…you know, when I figured out that Casey and I...things weren’t going too well and I suggested that we abstain from sex. He didn’t take it very well.”

“Understatement,” Casey breathed.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about it,” Yves invited.

“I can’t believe he didn’t already.”

“Zeke,” she said gently. “You aren’t here to fill in the blanks in a chronology. I’d like to hear about some of these important occasions from your perspective. I’d like to hear how you felt — or feel.”

He folded his arms over his chest. A defensive gesture and there was nothing he could do now about the fact that she had seen it. “The point is, I said I would come here if it helped Casey, so he and I can be together again.”

“Okay.”

“I want us to be together again…”

“Yes.”

“…but I’m not irrational about it. I can see we need to take a break.” Yves just raised her eyebrows, and busily recorded something. Zeke watched her do it for a moment, then he said, “Maybe you didn’t know that it was my idea that we stop having sex, but it was.”

“I did know that. Both you and Casey have made that very clear.”

“Oh.”

Casey spoke up. His voice was small but clear. “No one’s making you out as the bad guy, Zeke.”

Zeke laughed. “That's good!” Only after he’d said it did he realize how he sounded, and now there would be more for her to write down about him: Boyfriend is obviously feeling guilty and afraid that he is in the wrong.

Yves asked, “Is there some reason why you’d expect me to treat you like a bad guy, Zeke?”

Rather than reply immediately, Zeke looked to Casey, who was rocking in place, just slightly. Zeke saw too many things there, sad and knowing things, angry things. He could see nothing of the trust that he had once relied on.

“Dr. Yves,” he confessed, breaking off his fruitless search of Casey’s eyes and closing his own. “I’ve done terrible things.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Not really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Really sure.”

“Can you give me a hint?”

He shook his head but then, funny thing, he answered, contradicting himself as he said, “You saw how I didn’t want to let Casey move out.”

“Yes.”

“Um...it was like...a lot more of the same.” He opened his eyes, meeting hers full on. He admitted the truth: “I was a monster.”

“We agreed we’re even, though,” Casey said. Zeke snapped a look in his direction, saw him trying for a smile, and doing a poor job of it. “Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember, but...” Zeke finally tore himself away. To Yves he said, “I can’t forget it. I’m afraid Casey can’t either. I can see him wondering if it will happen again...”

“It won’t,” Casey said.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that.” Casey rocked, just once like he couldn’t quite keep still, and shivered. “Zeke...you’re being so good...so kind and...and patient.” And yet his eyes contradicted his words completely. They spoke of discomfort and fear, and he declared suddenly, as though trying to cast a spell of belief upon himself, “This will pass. It will, it...and then it’ll be like before — “

”Casey,” Yves said.

Just like that, Casey stopped, as though her voice had the power to summon him back. Zeke ached to see it, to know that she was now his number one ally.

“I mean,” Casey mumbled. “Maybe...maybe we’ll be together.” He sucked in air, seemingly lost in his own twelve-ring circus, his mind jumping and twirling and falling down for display with Zeke merely the audience. The only thing Zeke could think of doing was returning to his conversation with Yves, letting Casey have a moment with himself to get hold of things.

“Dr. Yves,” Zeke said. “I want to ask you something.”

“Of course, Zeke.”

“If I love someone...why would I hurt them?”

Dr. Yves sat back a little, perhaps settling in for a little fireside philosophy. “I’m sure it’s no secret to you that love and hate are almost the same thing.”

“I’m not talking about hate. I’m talking about love that — that makes me feel sick. Like, totally irrational, maybe violent...Is that the nature of love or is that my nature?”

“Nature is a loaded term, as I’m sure you know.”

“But is it me? Or is this what love is about?”

Dr. Yves sighed, shaking her head. “You’re asking the billion dollar question, Zeke. People write book after book...but no one’s got love pinned down just yet.”

“I think,” Zeke professed, “that love is a misnomer. There’s this thing that gets created between two people and it’s totally different every time. There is no such thing as love...it’s just a convenient label for this...this possibility.”

Dr. Yves considered him for several seconds, then said, “I think there’s a lot of truth in that, Zeke. But how does that help you to understand your relationship with Casey?”

“Well, maybe it means that what some people call normal isn’t normal for us.”

She cocked her head. “Say more about that.”

“I mean...what if for us there’s always some danger?”

“Some people have very satisfying, fulfilling relationships without it being dangerous.”

“But Casey and I aren’t some people. We’re us.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I want to not be afraid of it. Maybe then I wouldn’t be such a jerk.”

Yves moved her head around like she was thinking hard and using the motion to dislodge assumptions. Then she said, “Why do you think your relationship with Casey has to be dangerous?”

“I don’t know that it does. I was just wondering.”

“Ah. So it feels dangerous and you aren’t sure if it should be that way...”

“Yes.”

“What is it about it that scares you?”

“What’s the point of that?”

“Just humour me.”

“Okay, okay...” Zeke cast a glance at Casey, who was much calmer, sitting very poised and still. Engrossed in the conversation, perhaps. Zeke wished he could go over put his hand on Casey’s because he had a feeling that Casey was agreeing with him at this moment. “Let’s see. I’m afraid of him not loving me. Of him touching — or being touched by someone else. Actually, I worry about it constantly even though I know that technically we’re not together and he can date whoever.”

“And so can you,” Yves reminded him.

“Yeah, sure. Anyway, I feel like I’ll go nuts if someone else touches him.”

“That’s not very likely,” Casey put in, breaking his stillness. “I can’t even take Sasha’s hugs right now.”

“That won’t always be the case,” Yves reassured him. “Meanwhile, Zeke is having these feelings, and I think it’s good to talk about them. Zeke?”

“Yeah.”

“So, if someone touches Casey you’d ‘go nuts’. Can you tell me what that means?”

“I’d be angry.”

“At who?”

“Casey and the guy, whoever he is.”

“What would you be thinking?”

“Hmm?”

“You say you’d be angry...about what?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not exactly.”

“Casey belongs to me.”

“Don’t belong to you,” Casey muttered.

“I know that,” Zeke replied. “I’m saying how I would feel though.”

“And that’s good,” affirmed Yves. “It’s all right, Casey. We’re just talking through things.”

Casey gave a shaky nod. He seemed to be shrinking now, growing smaller in his spot like he thought someone was going to sell him to Zeke and he needed to make a getaway. Zeke felt distinctly annoyed by it. He was just trying to be honest about things --- a skill that Casey had not really developed in his almost-twenty years.

“All right. You said you feel like Casey belongs to you. Why does that lead to anger?”

“Huh?”

“What is it about your possessive feelings — “

”Look,” Zeke interrupted. “I know what this is about. You lead me to say that I’m afraid of losing Casey and that the reason I’m afraid is that I’ve been left before. Possession is my answer to that fear of being abandoned again. If I own him then presumably I don’t have to share...if I don’t want to. I’m quite aware that no one can own anyone else and that those possessive feelings are counterproductive. I know that if I try to own him, I’ll lose him.”

Dr. Yves’ mouth quirked. “You know many things, Zeke.”

“Yes. I do.”

“So why can’t you change them?”

Zeke waved his hand, sketching a frustrated design in the air. “Who says I want to?”

Yves frowned. “Just minutes ago you were very concerned about your behaviour to Casey. You said you’d been a jerk and you didn’t want it to happen again.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you not see a contradiction?”

“Actually, I don’t. I want Casey to belong to me and I never want to hurt him again.”

“And…you think that’s possible?”

“I guess that’s my question.”

“It sounds like you think you have the answer.”

“Dr. Yves.” Zeke leaned towards her, compressing all his thinking about this subject into his voice and forward motion. He was highly conscious of Casey next to him, Casey breathing, himself breathing Casey. “You said yourself that no one knows just what love is...so how about we just have to carve it out for ourselves? I think that maybe it’s too late for me to love him any other way than the way I do. All I can do is figure out how to make it work.”

“That’s...an interesting argument, to say the least.”

“I’ve got nothing but time.”

From several feet away he could see Casey trembling, and he was very careful not to look or even hint that he might touch him if he could. He knew if this was ever to work, he had to wait for Casey to come to him, whatever the cost of waiting. He also knew that he was flying in the face of the entire psychiatric perspective.

“Zeke...” Yves said. “The thing is, you have to remember that it isn’t only up to you.”

“I know.” His jaw tightened, barely restraining his howl of protest at the knowledge. “I know.”

“Have you considered the possibility that Casey does not belong to you, that your relationship might even be over? That he might see someone else...have a relationship with somebody else?”

No. His mind screamed it, he would not speak it, even to speak it was betray things that he believed in his heart...and suddenly his rhythm section was rehearsing with unprecedented volume and intensity. “Why?” he asked. “Is that why I’m here? So I can be told, with you here as a buffer?”

“No, Zeke, no.” Dr. Yves lifted her hands, opening them in a gesture of reconciliation. “That’s not why you’re here. I’m merely asking you to consider it.”

“I don’t want to consider it,” Zeke said, and heard the tremor in his voice. She probably did too, as would Casey.

“No one ever does, but it’s important to know that you can’t make someone love you no matter how much you want them to.”

Zeke examined the doctor’s face, then performed a similar investigation upon Casey. He couldn’t catch Casey’s eyes; he was gazing steadfastly at his favourite spot on the carpet and Zeke was not annoyed anymore. He’d passed from annoyance to the fullness of anger.

“I know that you love me, Casey,” he said. He couldn’t not say it.

Casey’s eyes came back from the void. “I don’t know,” he said.

“I do.”

“I don’t know if I can love anyone,” Casey squeaked.

Zeke snorted. “Oh.” He was being dismissive, he supposed, but he knew that was just crap.

Casey gave him a sharp glance, his mouth moving but making no sound. His eyes had gone to black as they often did, filling with an anger as complete, and more wild than Zeke’s could ever be.

“Zeke,” Yves intervened. “Casey is trying to say something to you.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“I’m not being a fucking drama queen, Zeke!” Casey said. His voice wavered, and he launched himself up, going to a corner on the other side of the room. Zeke waited for Yves to say something more but she didn’t. At length, Casey declared from his corner, “I really don’t know what I feel!”

Zeke sighed, “I think you’re pissed and that’s all you can feel right now…and you have every right to be, by the way.”

“You don’t deserve it,” Casey growled. “You — Sasha — everyone — “

“You just have a lot of it — really a lot.” Zeke tried for a smile; it made no impression since Casey’s back was to him. He continued carefully. “Maybe...part of the problem is that Roy isn’t available for you to vent at — “

”I’m not mad at Roy.”

After all this time, they were right where they had started. “I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t even think about him.”

“Okay, maybe that’s the fucking problem!” Zeke exploded.

Both Casey and Yves started at Zeke’s vehemence; Casey, quite visibly from several feet away.

“Excuse me — but why don’t you just for once think about Roy? Think about what he did, all the big things and the little things, make a fucking list, Casey! Maybe then you’ll figure out why you’re so angry!”

“I had it out with him!” Casey argued, taking a couple of agitated steps towards Zeke. His face was dead white decorated with splotches of pink. “Remember? I trashed the phone, I screamed at him!”

“That was just a good start.”

Casey did not come any closer; he stood there and actually stomped his feet, making no sound on the plush carpet. “I told him to get out of my life and he did! I’m done with him, I don’t want to think about him anymore!”

“That’s too bad, Casey, because he’s still all over you.”

Casey started to retort, and stopped. He shook his head and insisted, “I’m not mad at him.”

“Why don’t you give it a try?”

“I can’t.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“I just can’t.”

Zeke pounded his fists on the leather couch, for lack of anything else to pound. “He fucking tore you apart, Ca — “

“He hasn’t done anything that you haven’t done!”

Just then, Zeke knew what it was like to be struck dead with a word — well, a sentence in this case, but he realized that he was on his feet, had been for some time and now he was staring across the room at Casey. Just for a moment everything in him failed and he was utterly helpless, frozen, unable to move or speak — and then, of course, his defenses kicked in.

“Fuck you,” he snarled. “Just — fuck you.” He watched, waiting for Casey to back down like always, to start scrabbling for forgiveness. It didn’t happen, and he turned to Yves. “Is this what you were after?”

“Maybe,” she returned.

“Maybe, nothing. This was a fucking ambush.”

“What I am after — what Casey is after, Zeke, is an honest conversation.”

“There’s nothing about this that’s — this is bull-fucking-shit! It’s not the truth, it’s just crazy shit coming out of both of us.”

“Zeke. This isn’t a court of law. We seek emotional truths here. We’re not interested in who did what to who, we’re interested in getting to the truth of things between you and Casey. Leave Roy to his own emotional quest now. He isn’t your concern, and Casey’s feelings about Roy aren’t your concern. The only things you should be trying to understand are your own feelings because those are the only things you can control.”

He listened to her speech --- sure, he could listen, and he could respond too. He was fucking ready the minute she was finished, shooting back, “If my feelings are the only thing I can control, then I’m in control of nothing. I’ve just been telling you how I can’t — “

”Yes. Exactly.”

And now, suddenly and absolutely weary of this conversation, Zeke subsided into his seat once more. He put his head in his hands. “You’re telling me I have control issues? This is not exactly a surprise.”

“I didn’t think it was. I do wonder if you would like to do something about it, though.”

He lifted his head. “Dr. Yves....I would if I could.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean maybe trying to be in control is a futile undertaking...but I don’t have an alternative.”

Dr. Yves considered him and concluded unexpectedly, “All right…”

“All right?” Casey echoed.

“You want to say something, Casey?”

“Yeah…I don’t think it’s all right that Zeke has control issues. I think he should have to deal with them.”

“Perhaps it would be good for him, Casey, but if he’s not willing to, I don’t see what can be gained by continuing to ---”

“That’s not fair.”

Zeke rubbed his eyes and put in, “What’s not fair?”

“I’ve had lots of things I didn’t want to talk about, but you --- “ Casey stabbed a finger at Zeke, then twisted to address Yves. “ – and you made me talk about them. I wasn’t allowed to just say ‘I don’t want to talk about it’.”

Yves raised her eyebrows. “What do you have to say to that, Zeke?”

“I think Casey does a fine job of not talking about things when he doesn’t want to.”

Casey argued, “You were constantly --- “

“Yes, and you’re welcome to do the same thing to me.”

“Okay.” Casey folded his arms. “Why won’t you give up trying to control me?”

“Because I don’t have an alternative.”

“Do you think it works?”

“It did, for a while.”

“But now?”

Zeke shrugged.

“What does that mean?”

“You probably don’t want to know.”

“I asked you if controlling me is working for you.”

“I can’t control you…not these days.”

“Oh…” Casey sighed. “So you think it’s going to change again and we’ll go back to the good old days.”

“Something like that.”

“What if I told you that hearing you say that makes me really pissed off?”

“No surprise.”

“What if I told you that it makes me want to tell you to fuck off and never talk to me again?”

Zeke fought his way through the ache of terror in his gut, clinging to his reason. “Like I said before…you have a lot of anger to get out of your system.”

“Oh, so this is a stage!”

“Honestly? You want me to tell you honestly? I think you’re like a two-year old right now who’s just figuring out who he is and you can’t stand the idea of anyone helping you. You’re all ‘casey do it, casey do it’ because that’s the way you have to be for now and eventually you’ll grow up.”

“Fuck you,” Casey growled.

“You see what I mean?”

“Fuck you!”

“Okay,” Yves said. “I think this has degenerated a little. Zeke, I’m sure you didn’t mean that to sound quite the way it sounded.”

Zeke shrugged. He had meant it exactly the way it sounded, but saying so wasn’t going to get him anywhere now.

“Perhaps we’ll leave the subject of Zeke’s control issues to one side, for today…all right, Casey?”

“But...”

“Yes, Casey?”

“What do we...do?“

”There’s nothing to do,” Zeke put in. “You made it clear you consider me as bad as Roy. There’s nothing to be done about that, is there?”

“No!” Casey almost wailed. “No, no, no...it isn’t...that way!”

“But you said it.”

“I’m just so mad at everything...I can’t think, I just say things. I’m mad at everyone, at everything and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“So...” Zeke held his breath. “You don’t think I’m as bad as Roy.”

“No.”

Zeke sighed.

“...and, yes...um...there’s...there’s lots of things you and Roy have in common.”

“I see.”

“Things I like,” Casey finished, shaking his head. “You’re right…I did like...I still like…the way you t-take charge...you make me feel good. Safe.”

Zeke knew a glimmer of something hopeful.

“But I’m so angry right now...don’t know what to do about it. I feel like I’ll explode if anyone comes near me...or talks to me or even looks at me.”

“You’re not exploding, Case.”

“I am!” Casey moaned. “You just can’t see it.”

“I think...” Zeke gave up on something insightful, and just shrugged. “It’s probably a good thing.”

“Don’t you dare tell me it’s a stage!”

“Okay, then it’s something you just need to get through.”

“Like a fucking stage?”

Zeke had nothing to offer but a grin. “Well. You can’t stay angry forever, can you?”

“It feels like it.”

“Guys,” Yves said. “I’m sorry, but time’s up. I think you’ve done some really good work, though.”

“Yeah, sure,” Zeke muttered. “Casey’s mad at me forever. Thanks. Glad to know.”

“You’ve had an honest conversation, and I know it’s painful but it’s an excellent start.”

Zeke shook his head. “I don’t know that I’m coming back.”

“Do you think it’s wise, Zeke, to leave all these emotions unresolved?”

“Casey’s angry at me. Either he’ll get over it or he won’t, but like you say, there’s nothing I can do about it. And we’re not even a couple, so I really don’t see the point of coming here.”

Sent: January 19, 2002. 07:11 p.m.

RE: Disaster.

I went to therpy. it was bad and the upshot is, now i know that Case is mad at me. what an accomplishment. never would have thought that.

Received: January 19, 2002. 09:52 p.m.

RE: RE: Disaster.

You should keep going, though. You’ll win brownie points if nothing else.

January 19, 2002. 09:53 p.m.

RE: Disaster.

he’s so fucking angry he doesn’t know wht to with himslf. i don’t get why he won’t be angry at roy when roy fucking deserves it. he doesn’t even want to her about roy it makes me crazy!@!!!

January 19, 2002. 10:15 p.m.

RE: Roy

Maybe Casey just wants to put Roy behind him. Not a bad idea.

January 19, 2002. 10:22 p.m.

RE: Motherfucking Roy, you mean.

sure except he still has all this anger.

January 19, 2002. 10:45 p.m.

RE: Okay, Motherfucking Roy.

Does it really matter if the anger is pointed at all the right people? He’d have to go all the way back to his toilet training and the kid who stole his favourite toy in kindergarten and on and on and on. More important to be able to be able to express the anger, I think. That’s what my mother always told me. She said if I was mad at her or someone else I should tell them because if I didn’t it would just make me angry at me.

January 20, 2002. 01:36 a.m.

RE: Roy

so i went onlline to the professor’s website, the one teaching casey's course, and there was a picture of him there. he has beady eyes. i’m not making this up. he look like just the kind of guy to fool around with his students, mess them up and leave them. i’m going to be keeping an eye on this creep, that’s for sure

by the way, i have an idea.

January 19, 2002. 01:40 a.m.

RE: RE: Roy.

Do tell!

It took him only a day or two to find the things that he wanted, but a week or more to fully explore the idea. He discussed it with Chloe; he even went and purchased some books about dealing with anger, read them, and eventually concluded that his plan was sound. It had to be, because it had felt like an epiphany and he hated to think that something like that could lead him off course.

No, he told himself, standing outside Casey’s door at last, a slick night mist and slick sweat on his face. No doubts now. If he hesitated, it would show and the idea would fail. And it couldn’t fail, not when it was a right thing to do.

He knocked, and waited. There was no sound from within. Sasha would be at work, leaving Casey alone, and it was highly unlikely that on this chill, almost-February night Casey would be anywhere but at home.

Zeke knocked again, shifting his weight. He coughed, thought about smoking.

The door opened — and there was silence.

“Hi,” Zeke said.

He was wearing a full set of armour, the kind that boxers would use in training. He’d thought about using football gear and decided it wasn’t enough protection; this way, everything important was protected by extra-thick, durable padding, from head to shins. He’d had a considerable degree of trouble getting it all strapped on without help, and he did feel a lot like the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man.

Casey laughed a little, helplessly. “What’s this?”

“What does it look like?”

Casey hugged himself. “Like some kind of joke at my expense.”

“It’s no joke…” Zeke glanced down the alleyway, at the sidewalk. “I would like to come in, though.”

Standing back, Casey made room for Zeke to enter. Zeke waddled in and stood there in the entranceway, assessing. Casey was tapping his foot and looking agitated, near crying perhaps, or more likely yelling, and Zeke’s gut ached with sympathy for him. After the January Casey had been having, he deserved a better February, and it didn’t look to be shaping up that way. Everything was different --- but not better.

“So…what is…?” Casey began.

“I want you to hit me,” Zeke said.

Casey stilled, turned around to look at him. “Wh-what?”

“You heard me.”

“You said you want me to hit you.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t understand,” Casey said. His eyes glistened, and he was probably the only guy Zeke knew who, when offered an opportunity to do some violence, fell to tears. But that was Casey…Zeke should have known that he wouldn’t just go with the program.

“Here’s the deal. I’ve been reading about this thing called Primal Scream therapy and some other stuff and the idea is just to get things out of your system. You want to get things out of your system, don’t you?”

Casey shook his head. “I…I don’t think...”

“No, don’t think, Case, okay? We’re going to go up on the roof and I want you to let loose on me. You won’t hurt me, I promise. I’ve taken steps, so you scream and yell and kick and lay into me with those fists you’ve been carrying around for the past month or so. I want you to do this as a favour to me.”

“You want me to hurt you,” Casey whispered. His eyes seemed almost solid black right then, devoid of any human light.

“Not hurt me. Just — with all my heart — hit me until you don’t want to hit me anymore.”

Casey was barely audible. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. I promise you can.”

“But — “ Casey blinked furiously.

“You know me, Case. I’m no one’s punching bag...except today, I’m yours. You can’t let this opportunity pass. Herrington Class of ‘99 is counting on you.”

Casey let loose a giggle, and quickly put his fist over his mouth, belatedly attempting to stifle it.

“Hah!” Zeke pounced. “You’re getting into this concept.” Casey tried a head shake. “Yes, you are. Come on, let’s go up.”

He took a step towards the door to the roof, and was pretty sure he heard the soft shuffle of Casey’s stockinged feet. There were a pair of beat-up sneakers by the door that those feet could slip into. Zeke started up the stairs, not looking back but fairly confident that he was being followed. Sure enough, he heard a tread behind him.

“Why...the roof?” Casey’s voice asked.

“So you can sweat and flail and make lots of noise and hear it echoing from the rooftops.”

“But...someone will hear...”

“So? If anything happens…” Zeke wheezed. “I promise…I’ll deal with it.”

Puffing, Zeke alit on the roof and took several steps to get clear. He turned to find Casey standing right at the top of the stairs, swaying slightly as he stared at Zeke. The night was like any other in Seattle, full of subdued city noise and light pollution --- yet up here it was oddly private. It always had been, in a way.

Zeke spread out his arms, hoping he was managing an adequate impersonation of a bull’s eye. He waited.

Nothing. Casey wasn’t moving.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t really know how to, um...”

“Does it matter how you hit me? You’re just trying to blow off steam here, not become the world featherweight champion.”

“It feels weird. I don’t punch.”

“I’ve had a few bruises that say otherwise.”

“That was different.”

“Why? Because you weren’t thinking about what you were doing? If you don’t feel like punching me right now — just imagine I’m someone else. Imagine I’m Gabe, or — whoever.” Zeke thought he saw a dark gleam in Casey’s eyes at the mention of Gabe’s name, and yet a minute later he found himself waiting still. He tapped his foot and said deliberately, “Come on.”

“It’s not that easy!” Casey protested.

“Stop being such a fucking pussy.”

“Shut up,” Casey growled.

“Oh, the truth hurts, huh?”

Casey stepped in and delivered a jab at Zeke’s sternum, just one, and one that Zeke couldn’t even feel.

“You call that a punch?”

“What, you want to call me a pussy some more?” Casey shot at him.

“Maybe.”

“You think I hit like a girl?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s the difference between you and me…you care about that macho crap… it just annoys me.”

“Why’d you hit me, then?”

“Because you were sneering at me. Calling me a pussy just because I don’t want to punch you. You look down at me. You think I’m weak.”

Zeke most definitely did not think that, but he remained silent. Casey’s eyes bulged, if such a thing could be distinguished from the norm.

“I’m not weak,” he gritted. “I’m not.”

Zeke shrugged.

“I am not!” Casey yelled, and hit him again. And again...and soon he was peppering Zeke’s chest with blows.

It didn’t exactly hurt or not hurt. There was pressure, and the possibility of bruises. But Casey had gone silent, and it didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel like anything was getting accomplished. It was going wrong and he couldn’t let that happen.

“I take it all back,” he taunted. “You don’t hit like a girl. I know girls who scare me way more than you.”

Casey stopped swinging and stood there like a spitting cat, heaving for breath and glaring.

“Aw, you’re so cute when you try to be dangerous.”

“Shut up.”

“I could just grab hold of you at any second and do what I want with you — “

”Shut up!” Casey screamed.

“What, you don’t think you could stop me, do you? Hell, you don’t even want to stop me. You like getting beat up on, don’t you --- “

That was when Casey really let loose on him. He flailed and kicked and drove his little, hard fists against Zeke’s body, howling things that began as recognizable protest and quickly devolved into things lacking shape or reason. Zeke was gradually driven backwards, retreating across the roof. He tripped and fell, and Casey came after, landing on top of him, sobbing and beating his chest and now screaming, “I hate you! Hate you hate hate you — !”

“Casey.”

“Hate you hate you — “

Zeke tried to get his arms up, and just surrendered and laid there while Casey pounded on him, pelting him with blows and swear words, continuing past the point of exhaustion until fatigue finally wouldn’t let him move anymore and he collapsed on Zeke’s chest, heaving.

“Oh, god...oh, fuck...”

“Casey? Hey...it’s okay...”

“Fuck,” Casey sobbed. “Oh, fuck...” He broke down, pushing his hot, damp face against Zeke’s neck while he cried.

Daring greatly, Zeke slowly raised his hand and stroked Casey’s sweaty hair. There was no sort of negative response, so he kept it up, being careful not to overdo it. He left his other hand lying at his side.

When Casey was mostly quiet, Zeke said, “Case?”

“Y-yeah — “ Casey hitched.

“Um — can I sit up?”

“Yeah.”

Belatedly, he realized he’d made a mistake. He should have lain there flat on his back as long as Casey was willing, for when he sat up, Casey immediately switched back into no-touch mode; he backed away like Zeke was some dangerous predator.

“So,” Zeke wheezed. “Same time tomorrow?”

Casey stared blankly out of his puffy eyes. “You’re...kidding.”

“Nope.”

“You...okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re okay with this?”

“Yes.” Zeke shifted with a groan. “I do seem to have a pebble lodged in my ass, though.”

“Oh.”

“Could you help me up?”

Casey gave him his hand.

Zeke came back the next night, as promised. And the next. They stored the padded armour in a garbage bag up on the roof. It was really the only place for it, because it stank of old, rank sweat; Zeke had gotten the stuff used and he regretted it every time he had to pull it on over his crawling skin. But that was his only regret because after that first night, Casey required no coaxing. He would just lay into Zeke as soon as Zeke had donned the padding, silently clenched like a small hurricane. By the end of each session he would be sodden, sobbing, and grateful. One night, he allowed Zeke to hold him for an entire minute. The next time it was ten minutes, and Zeke was even permitted to stroke his hair…but only until he had recovered himself enough to remember that he didn’t want to be touched.

Nothing was ever simple, but it helped Zeke to imagine — to know that he was helping. Casey didn’t have to admit anything about Roy or anything else. He didn’t have to identify the source of his anger. For right or wrong, he’d found a substitute and a target in Zeke, and Zeke had at last figured out that there was something he could give to Casey, something better than a signed confession from Roy.

He could stand there and take it.

Fuck if he didn’t understood the appeal of self-flagellation for monks now, because every blow received equated to a tiny quiver of peace in his gut. It was one less blow that Casey held within his own skin, and soon enough those blows would be depleted, Zeke knew. His Casey wasn’t some moronic, Gabe-esque punk. His Casey used his brains and his wits to score points.

And then there was a night when he arrived and Casey told him that he didn’t need to do “their physical therapy thing” anymore.

“Oh,” Zeke said, and was pummeled with a pathetic realization. He was going to miss their sessions mostly because it was the only time that he and Casey touched each other.

Received: February 10, 2002. 02:30 p.m.

RE: You okay?

I haven’t heard from you in a while. Is everything okay? How did it go with that idea you mentioned?

Received: February 10, 2002. 11:01 p.m.

RE: RE: You okay?

sorry about that. i just got back from Casey’s actually. the idea has been going great. i thought about what you said about anger and i remembered seeing this scene in a movie or something where this doctor would give his patients a nerf bat and just let them go to town. maybe it was a comedy...but it actually does work. he’s smiling once in a while and sasha says he’s hugging him again. he doesn’t let ME hug him but at least he lets me touch him now, once in a while. i think it’s helping

Received: February 11, 2002. 08:09 a.m.

RE: The news

I’m so glad to hear that things are better. Congratulations.

Okay, now don’t shoot the messenger, but Jacob asked if I could just tell you that he’d love to hear from you. Okay? My duty has been discharged.

Received: February 11, 2002. 05:40 p.m.

RE: RE: The news

i will not hold against you the fact that feel the need to be Jacob’s emissary. you don’t know him and i’m sure he seems like a decent fellow to you.

Received: February 11, 2002. 07:51 p.m.

RE: Give me a break

C’mon, Zeke. Don’t you think it’s time to stop with this whole orphan-boy routine and just grow up? I’m convinced that your mother is a scary character but as for Jacob, haven’t you punished the man enough?

Received: February 11, 2002. 11:30 p.m.

RE: Fuck you too

you dont know everything, you knw. he screwed me over and just because the entire world thinks its nice to be on speaking terms with your parets doesn’t mena i need hm.

Received: February 12, 2002. 08:52 a.m.

RE: and the self-pitying horse you rode in on

I’ve got news for you. Everyone’s parents screwed them over in some way. If we had to base our whole life around that little truth, society would grind to a halt. Think about that, little brother, or read something. I think Dr. Phil’s pretty good on the subject.

The restaurant didn’t look like much from the outside. Outside was a darkened, out of the way street little bigger than an alley, but inside those doors it was all ultra-modern combined with retro-chic in the form of open ceilings and unfinished cement walls. There was one entire wall, however, that had been created a waterfall, and upon seeing Zeke had begun hastily to summon up his current balance on his credit card. He and Sasha had agreed to split this meal down the middle but he had to wonder if it wasn’t a little beyond Sasha’s means.

But this was Sasha’s show. He had wanted to do up Casey’s twentieth birthday in style, and so now Zeke was sitting here with Stokely and Stan on either side of him in the gigantic, round booth, and the rest of them had been just late enough to start him getting edgy and then they arrived, apologizing about the traffic and Zeke thought his eyes were going to boil away in his skull because Casey looked like he had been brought into being through some art beyond and apart from the laws of nature. It took Zeke some moments to figure out what was different and why Sasha looked so shit-disturbing smug, and it came to him that Casey was wearing make-up. As in, on his face.

Zeke found himself wanting to stand, which was more or less impossible while he was trapped here in this booth. Stan muttered, “Holy shit,” and Stokely giggled. She had to have been in on it; no way did Casey pull this off without advance consultation and practice.

“Hi,” Sasha said brightly.

“Hey, folks,” Jerry chimed.

“Hah-happy birthday, Casey,” Stan said.

“Thanks,” Casey replied, and chose the side of the booth that would put him next to Stokely. He settled himself, his eyes floating around the surface of the table. He glanced up at Zeke, briefly, like a stab. There was smudgy darkness around the blue, and his lashes melted into it too so that it seemed like he was nothing but eyes. His lips were an unnaturally pale colour, not quite their usual healthy pink, and the effect just helped with the illusion that his eyes had swallowed up his entire face.

Zeke’s stomach ached --- or trembled, he couldn’t be sure which. He heard conversation around him and yet he couldn’t hear. He knew people were watching Casey too. Out of the corners of their eyes, from across the way, as they passed by. Waiters, customers, the guy behind the bar...they all watched.

It was more than just a dab of colour, more than the shock of seeing a guy transgress the rules. Well, maybe it was that for the strangers, but for Zeke it was an entire sense of this being a person who knew their assets and had taken some care in their presentation. Zeke had always thought Casey beautiful, but in an effortless, unconscious way. Even when he made an effort to be well turned out, the effect was, as most males were trained to convey, as though he didn’t really care. This was not that. This was obvious, potent and kind of hard too, and Zeke wasn’t sure he liked it. It was stunning to see but it didn’t feel like the person that Zeke knew.

On the other hand, it was fucking hot.

“Yo, Zeke.”

“Huh?” he said, blinking, struggling to free himself.

“Are you okay with the tasting menu?” Sasha said.

Zeke realized that the waiter was standing there...waiting. They were all waiting for him, the entire birthday gathering while he mooned.

“Yeah, sure...”

The waiter nodded, said, “Excellent,” and went away.

“... What’s a tasting menu?”

Stan snorted. Stokely giggled.

“Did I say something stupid?” Zeke snarled, having the impression that this entire evening was becoming a joke on him.

“No,” Jerry replied and made a face at Stokely. “It’s just that we just had that conversation.”

“Oh. I guess I’m a little distracted.” Zeke gave Casey a pointed stare, but Casey wasn’t even looking at him.

He had bought Casey a birthday present but apparently his real gift was to allow himself to be the bitch of the evening. Anger twisted and filled him, turning everything he ate into shit…and it was shit, too. Everything was incredibly complicated, constructed like art made of pick-up sticks, and just about as substantial. Whatever was special about this food, it was lost on him, and he couldn’t stop monitoring everyone around them, watching for signs that someone was going to poach what was his.

When Casey made his inevitable trip to the bathroom, Zeke had to follow.

It was just like old times. Casey went into a stall and, as far as Zeke could tell, did nothing but sit there with his feet drawn up under his chin. Except this time, there was a moment when his voice rang: “I know you’re out there, Zeke.”

Zeke stepped up to the door, nearly leaning on it. He was long past being concerned about what anyone else who passed through these public spaces had to think about his and Casey’s behaviour. He said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I just need a little break.”

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

Zeke swallowed an enormous helping of rage, forcing it to bide with the fancy mushrooms and the compote and the truffle oil. “Okay,” he said.

“I’ll be out in a sec,” Casey’s voice told him.

And he was, within a minute. He looked fairly composed, any weariness disguised by the artificial colour on his face.

“Why?” Zeke blurted.

“Huh? Why, what?”

“Why the make-up? Is it just to get me going?”

“Do you like it?”

“No.”

Casey actually had to nerve to look saddened by this news.

“People are staring at you,” Zeke told him.

“I know, I...that’s kind of why I like it.”

“Say again?”

“Um...I always thought people were staring at me anyway...thinking I’m a freak and all that. This way...I’m kind of in control of it. Does that make sense?”

Make-up as armour did make sense; Zeke had known enough females who lived by that precept. He shrugged. “Is that a reason to do anything?”

Casey smiled suddenly. “Um… I also like the way I look.”

Zeke couldn’t speak --- in truth, he was literally deprived of anything to say. He had told Casey he didn’t like it and that patently didn’t hold much sway, which implied the notion that Casey might be considering making himself pretty for someone other than Zeke, and given that, there was nothing left but the rage.

Transforming himself on the spot from shy pride to sly seduction, Casey nudged Zeke’s foot and said, “I think you like it too.”

“Uh...” Zeke strangled. He was hard and aching inside his pants. “...no...”

“I think you do.”

Zeke shook his head, shook himself, and just like that, he couldn’t hold back. “I like you, Case. I don’t care if you want to paint yourself in zebra stripes or go back to wearing K-Mart t-shirts. Are we clear on that?”

Casey stared, all of his affectations dissolving. “Yes,” he whispered.

“Good.” Zeke took a step. “I’m going back to the table. My food, such as it is, is waiting.”

Casey stopped him with a word and a hand. “Zeke.”

His arm trembled under Casey’s touch. “What?”

“I know...how...good you are. To me, I mean.”

“Yeah?”

“I do know.”

“Okay.” Zeke couldn’t do more than that, or he feared he would cry, and that would be a disaster in more ways than one. For one thing, Sasha would kill him. This was supposed to be a happy, happy day, happy in every way. Everyone should smile and laugh, the birds should sing and flowers bloom out of sheer good will.

“You’re so good to me,” Casey muttered.

“Hey! Whose birthday is this anyway?” Zeke turned on Casey, grinning. “I’m the one who should be dishing out the compliments, and you have presents to open, okay?”

“Okay. Did you get me something?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

Casey shrugged, allowing himself a tiny smile as he was nudged towards the door.

“Hey, Case.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sure that after this meal I’m going to need to go get something to eat.” Zeke tried to sound upbeat like he had never tried before in his life. Upbeat and friendly, just looking for company. “You want to join me for a burger?”

He knew, he knew the instant he did it that he shouldn’t but it happened anyway, he reached out and the hand that had started towards Casey’s shoulder landed on his face, stroking, cupping his chin.

Casey blinked and stepped back hard, swaying slightly. “Um...sorry...but no...thanks. Not tonight. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Zeke managed to say, lying so hard his entire head hurt. You idiot motherfucking moron! he screamed at himself. Stupid fucking twit, like you didn’t know better!

Back at the dinner table, it took a minute or so to allay Sasha’s anxiety and then they proceeded with the opening of gifts. In addition to having paid the fee for Casey’s driving test --- scheduled for August --- Zeke had gotten him a digital photo printer and a supply of high quality paper. He also presented Casey with a handmade card promising up to fifty hours in the driver’s seat of the Mustang, before August.

The others showered Casey with gift cards for Old Navy, Circuit City and Ross. Casey accepted all this with bright eyes and a happy smile, but Zeke thought he seemed a little uncomfortable with the attention --- a thought that was vindicated when Casey announced a second trip to the bathroom. This time, Zeke forced himself to stay in his seat.

“Um...” Stan said. “You think...?”

“He’s fine,” sang Sasha. “He’ll be back.” And here Sasha gave Zeke a hard look, warning him against getting up not that he needed it.

Jerry cleared his throat. “Hey...you know what I was wondering the other day? When are you and Casey going to make that dinner for us, Zeke?”

Zeke stared at the arched opening to the hallway that Casey had gone into. “I dunno,” he said absently. “I’ll have to talk to him.”

“Cool. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Dinner?” Stokely said.

“At Christmas, Zeke and Casey gave us a certificate promising to cook for us.”

“You know it’s not going to be like this,” Zeke warned, waving his hand over the remains of their last course.

“That’s fine,” Jerry said.

Casey emerged from the hallway, heading towards their table --- but something was wrong. There was a man with him, hovering over him and talking to him. A stranger who had to have been sitting here among them in the dining room all night, watching and waiting for his chance. Zeke’s muscles clenched and he readied himself for launch over the table. Glaring over at Sasha, he saw a person no less prepared for some kind of intervention.

Casey was listening to the stranger; he spoke briefly, and accepted a small white card with a bit of a nod and a smile, then wended his way back to his own table. The stranger followed just a few beats behind and reseated himself with his own group. Zeke stared at the man, taking in the details and not caring if the man knew it. In fact, it was better if the stranger saw him cataloguing him. He was ordinary, with regular features and glasses, average build, nothing odd or striking about him. The very picture of a serial killer. He looked up from his food and saw Zeke staring. He gave a congenial nod.

Zeke decided he was going to go over and kill him --- but Stan nudged him hard. “What?” he snarled. He noticed that Casey was sitting there, looking at him. The white card was nowhere in sight. “What did he want?”

“Keep your voice down,” Stokely muttered.

“I’ll speak at any fucking decibel that I choose to. What did he want, Casey?”

“Just to…um, he introduced himself.”

“And?”

“He give me his phone number,” Casey said.

“You gonna call him?”

Casey rolled his eyes.

“Casey.”

“Do we have to do this now?” Sasha lamented.

Casey lowered his voice and his head and, as though trying to make the conversation private, he said to Zeke, “Of course I’m not going to call him. I’m not interested in dating anyone right now, okay?” The remainder being: But when I am ready, you need to know that I’m not going to be consulting with you, Zeke, and incidentally, you are way out of line.

Zeke sucked oxygen, trying to calm himself. He was going to fucking ruin everyone’s dinner soon and even in his most self-centred, most self-indulgent moments, he didn’t want that. Especially when it was Casey’s birthday. “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay.”

Sasha gave him a glare that said it didn’t much matter what was okay to him, but said nothing.

“Sorry,” Zeke forced out.

“Are we ordering dessert?” Stokely intervened, a bit over-anxious about it. “I hope we’re ordering dessert.”

“Absolutely,” Sasha said, with a sweet smile for her. “They’re famous for it here.”

For the duration of the evening, Zeke made sure that he didn’t misbehave again. He kept up the appearance of a good friend celebrating a good friend’s birthday, and ignored the roiling in his stomach that grew until it felt like a poisonous gas eating through him.

Power was a funny, maddening thing. Casey went around like he had none, and yet he seemed perfectly adept at taking it, wielding it, even using it to toy with people --- well, with Zeke, at least. Casey wouldn’t be happy, it seemed, until he could cause Zeke to make an embarrassing, public mess in his pants. It was like being disempowered could be turned into a twisted kind of control, but as for the power that could be derived from drawing a straight line between Point A and Point B…Casey knew nothing of that, notwithstanding their nightly boxing sessions which had come to an end recently. Maybe that other kind of power, that distorted, backwards self-denying version of it, was an unredeemable contagion. Once you used it, you could never go back. Casey could never go back, even after the therapy was done and the pills swallowed and the voyage of self-discovery and all of it, yeah, even after fucking all of it, he would always be…that.

Received: February 26, 2002. 10:03 a.m.

RE: Losing it.

He’s making me insane and he’s doing it on purpose!!! He’s always getting all flirty slutty with me but if I try to touch him he freaks like some little deer. Sometimes I really think he’s just fucking evil. Like tonight he shows up for his birthday dinner all tarted up with make-up and makes eyes at me the entire time, and then when I have a momentary lapse he stares at me like I’m some insane, violent stalker!!!!! And then some guy comes onto him and he smiles at him. he fucking SMILES.

FUCKING LOSING IT HERE.

Received: February 26, 2002. 11:46 a.m.

RE: RE: Losing it.

Zeke, I mean this in the most loving, sisterly way. Do you want to go through life as a crazy motherfucker? Because that’s the way you’re headed. Get some therapy or at least get the fuck over yourself. Chloe.

Received: March 12, 2002. 09:11 a.m.

RE: Pax?

Okay, it’s been too long. I’ve given you your space to think and ponder and analyze because I know that’s what you’re going to do. But I need to know now. Have you decided I’m worth continuing to speak to?

March 12, 2002. 04:40 p.m.

RE: RE: Pax?

yeah, i was mad but im over it. you were right, of course. if i want to keep Casey i have to sort myself out. and its not that i dont know im kind of insane about him. i know this. i’ll tell you and only you: i love him so bad i feel like its killing me. it kills me watching him struggle and it kills me how he doesn’t seem to want me to help. i have to watch him almost crying in the fucking coffee shop at school because he couldn’t make himself go to class at all today, just out of the blue. he doesn’t know why and i don’t know why and his fucking shrink sure doesn’t know why and all i want to do is tell him he doesn’t have to do this shit, he can stay at home and i’ll look after him, he can take his entire ph.d from home if he wants and i’ll pay for it!! if he’ll just let me look after him. but i can’t say that. i have to let him battle through life and it fucking kills me.

i never thought i’d be in this position but i am and i need to figure out how to make this work or give it up. that’s the bottom line. and i’m sorry for going on and on about him. i really should ask you about your life and your job.

March 12, 2002. 07:13 p.m.

RE:RE:RE Pax?

First of all, I am always right, lol.

Second. Why, thank you for asking and everything is just fine with me. I’ve dated a couple of different guys but no one who’s leapt out as a life partner. Work is great. And to put your mind at ease, you are going through a THING right now, so I’ll put up with the one-track. If you’re still doing this a year from now, it might be a different story. Got it?

March 13, 2002. 12:01 a.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE: Pax?

i got it.

March 13, 2002. 9:32 a.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE: Pax?

I’ll tell you a secret: I’m dying to find out what happens.

Received: April 15, 2002. 09:56 a.m.

RE: Peace is wonderful

So what’s new?

Zeke’s cell phone jolted him from his reading; it startled him far more than it should have, because he had every reason to expect that it was Casey like it normally was, and as far as he knew, Casey couldn't extend some special sense through the telephone wires and see that he was engaged in a --- months-old, now --- conversation about their relationship with a person that Casey had never met. All the same, Zeke’s heart rattled as he fumbled out his phone.

“Hey!" he gasped, sitting down hard on his bed, which was really Stokely's bed, and wasn't really a bed but a futon.

“Well, hey," sang a female voice, one that he didn't really want to hear. "Good morning, darling.”

“Rachel,” he groaned, collapsing backwards.

“Oh, so that enthusiastic greeting wasn’t for me? I’m hurt.”

Lying flat on his back Zeke stared at the ceiling, reminding himself for at least the fiftieth time that he had allowed her to extort this much communication in return for her leaving his father and new bride their happily ever after in the urban wilderness of California. Still, it was all he could do to say rather than growl, "What do you want?”

“For you to be a little less rude, for starters. I haven’t misbehaved lately, have I?”

Zeke closed his eyes and counted; he was apt to try silly, simple things like that these days. He had been doing a little reading on different methods of meditation lately, and he knew that one of the methods commonly used involved counting. Anyway, Casey used counting to distract himself from anxiety, Zeke had heard him doing it and if it was good enough for Casey maybe there was something to it.

“Okay, no,” he admitted. “That was uncalled for...but I’m going to be seeing you in a couple of hours, after all.”

“Yes, I know, but I have a question, cheri.”

“What?”

“What does Casey like?”

Hearing his mother utter Casey’s name never failed to provoke him. “What do you mean?”

“Just — what sorts of things does he like?”

“Why?”

“Because, Ezekiel, I’m shopping for a little gifty for him." His mother sounded as though she was working to be patient too; the difference between them, though, was that he was entitled to his anger and she wasn’t. "And for you, but I’m assuming that I know how to shop for my own son.”

“Huh,” Zeke grunted, half-amused by her presumption. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like it! Now are you going to help me...or shall I go with the assortment of sex toys, my dear?”

“You fucking wouldn’t.”

Rachel Tyler giggled. “No! Of course not.”

"That's not a joke."

"Not even a little funny?"

For the length of time it took for the few uncynical neurons remaining in Zeke to combust and die, he was willing to contemplate that his mother might truly not know the difference between a joke and an appalling invasion of privacy. Just that long. “You had better be nice to him, mother, or I swear I’ll — “

"I said I would be nice and I will! Bringing someone a little gift, that’s nice isn’t it? Although why you're worried I don't know, I've never been anything but pleasant to Casey. Does he drink coffee?”

“No.”

“Tea?

“Yes. Preferably without caffeine. Is that enough?”

“Er — but what else does he like?”

Call waiting summoned Zeke's attention.

“Whatever, Rachel...I’ve gotta go.”

“Okay,” his mother sighed. “See you soon.”

“Bye.” Zeke immediately answered the other call, anticipating a returned greeting from Casey. “Hello?”

Stokely’s voice rang in his ear. "Hi ---"

Disappointment got the better of Zeke and he snapped before he could filter himself, “What?”

“Hmmph. Excuse me for saying hello.”

Zeke pushed himself up on an elbow. “Sorry.”

"It's okay...so, I have a question."

"Yeah."

"Did you like that red miso? I can’t remember.”

“Sure.” Since moving in with his dear friend Stokely, Zeke had explored the world of vegetarian cuisine far more intensively than he would have expected in this life — often against his inclination. The most he could say of miso was that he didn’t have strong feelings about it one way or another.

“Really?”

The elbow wasn't comfortable. Zeke flopped again, full-out out on the futon. “It’s all miso to me, Stokes.”

“Okay, then.” Stokely paused, spoke to someone at her end, probably a customer before asking, “Are you freaked about seeing your mum?”

“‘Mum’ isn’t the word.”

With a snort, Stokely returned, “Are you freaked about seeing your mother, then?”

“Freaked isn’t the word either.”

“Okay, why don't you pick a fucking word?”

“Um...preparing."

"Preparing?"

"To be really fucking pissed.”

“At what?”

“I don’t know, she hasn’t done it yet. But she will.”

The snark in Stokely's voice dissolved. “Maybe it won’t be that bad.”

“Sure. And maybe I'll get my dick tattooed.”

“I’m just saying. You could try not to expect the worst.”

“Un-huh.”

“Kay, then. I’ll go. See you later.”

“Yup.”

Zeke tossed the phone on the bed. For a few minutes he lay back and stretched, feeling the pull of inertia. The imminent lunch with Rachel felt like a really unsavoury job that he'd signed up for in a moment of insanity. She had called a few nights back, intruding on what had been, up until that moment, a rather satisfying day. It being Sunday, Sasha and Jerry had been looking for fun activities and had hatched the idea of a midnight rooftop picnic. It sounded ridiculous to Zeke --- especially in early April even if they were having a spell of gorgeous, summery weather --- but of course they had planned a picnic menu the likes of which few people would conceive for a wedding banquet, and decorated the rooftop area. And so, the four of them had climbed the stairs, and Zeke was surprised to find how very enjoyable a tired old tradition could be.

It hadn't hurt that Casey was having one of the best days of Zeke's memory --- he laughed, he told jokes, and he showed very little evidence of anxiety despite the occasional proximity of other people. Zeke didn't throw around the idea of perfection lightly, but it was pretty fucking close. The only thing that would have made it better would have been --- well, the same thing that would have made everything better. Apart from that, there was little that could have stood improvement about it.

And then his cell phone had rung. He didn't know why it hadn't occurred to him to leave it at home. He was in the habit of having it with him as an immediate line to Casey; he hadn't needed it.

He forced himself into an upright position, going back to his computer, which had become something of a glorified typewriter-cum-telephone. He’d spent a bit of time looking for porn but none of the things he’d downloaded in any way lived up to their publicity. Compared to Casey, there were no “beautiful young boys” on the internet, just tired, dissipated pretenders. So aside from typing his papers and doing the occasional bit of research, he used it for email, and to email just one person at that.

rachel called the other night, he replied. He thought that his typing was getting more and more proficient, but he didn’t want to ask Chloe. It wasn’t so much a matter of skill as it was laziness, in his opinion. i knew it was coming but i guess a part of me hoped it wouldnt happen so now im going to be having lunch with her, and Casey will be there too. she suggested it, and she seems to think we’re together. i didnt correct her. am i in trouble, do you think?

The moment after it was sent , he’d wondered if he shouldn’t have been more explicit, more precise about the kind of trouble he meant...but then, she knew so much about his situation, she probably understood that he was pretty much always in trouble right now. Most of it self-inflicted too.

He clicked on sent items.

To open this folder was to view an index of the various permutations of the Casey function from the Terrible January, as Zeke liked to think of it, to date. Although he was beginning to suspect that there would be a time in the future when he would look back at this entire year as Terrible. The Terrible Time Without Casey. Yeah, he hoped to be in a position to apply that label at some point, that Without Casey would not be a Time Without End. Fuck, no. That was not going to happen.

There were moments, though, when he feared…fuck, he feared everything, and every time his emotional house of cards was ready to topple, an email would take flight through cyberspace and land in San Diego. The first one had been tentative, wondering if she hadn’t rather he just fuck off despite her polite offer of an email address that day she drove him to the Los Angeles airport. But reassurances had arrived, just as anticipated. That done with, they’d settled down to an exchange of correspondence that was probably anything but the norm for not-quite step siblings and almost-strangers. Reading down the list of topics, Zeke knew a twinge of embarassed regret.

Yeah, he was a dork about people. Not that he hadn’t rather gotten this impression in his life to date, but with Chloe’s help, the point had been driven home. He expected too much and yet too little. He had his own rules about the world that he foolishly assumed everyone would follow. He was obsessive, controlling. Needy, with five capital letters. And he didn’t see much hope for changing that. So maybe he was strong and smart, with an unusually high degree of self-understanding. The problem, he knew, was not one of understanding but one of desire. He had taken to haunting the self-help sections of bookstores lately, picking up everything from It's Not Up To You: How to Surrender to Happiness to various tomes by the Dalai Lama. The man was clearly very learned and wise, and Zeke had even gone so far as to find a community meditation group and give it a try. He'd gone once, spent half an hour in agony, trying to find ways of surreptitiously shifting position to aid the flow of blood to his legs. Meditation wasn't for him, as much as he was convinced that it had a legitimate scientific basis. His problem wasn't in grasping his own complications. He understood quite well why he did the things he did --- but he wasn't prepared to change.

To change much anyway. As much as he could, he would do. As much as was necessary.

With a brief, longing glance at his package of cigarettes lying near to hand on the desk, he checked for Chloe's reply. Sure enough, it was there. She liked to email from work during the morning.

That depends, was Chloe’s opinion. Does it matter if she knows the truth? And if you aren’t going to tell her, you should probably warn Casey.

Zeke sighed. that’s what I figured, he typed, and sent. A lot of times she told him what he already knew, but it somehow made a difference. She was always direct, incapable of being otherwise apparently. Thank fuck for that — it was a relief and a slice of sanity in a world of Casey-ness, a world where there were never straight lines between any two single points. The problem was, the Casey-parabola were so much more interesting, and addictive.

Addiction was relentless, in fact. Zeke cast another glance at his smoke and stood, leaving off his perusal of the list of sent emails. They were a litany of insecurity and misery that he didn’t care to examine. He only hoped he’d progressed a little along the way. These days were a study of patience and restraint as Casey grew stronger and ever more fascinating. He was a free-form work in progress with no definite sense of anything, playing constantly with his looks, his style, constantly trying and stumbling, scrabbling and pushing. He had taken up swimming, of all things, and the results were beginning to be noticeable. He was a constant inspiration, proof that it was possible to break the mold and start over. Zeke was in awe of that.

Fuck but he could really use a cigarette now. He supposed it was perfectly fair for Stokely to forbid it in the house. Such would be his lot as a smoker...but he would be running late soon.

His cell rang for a third time, and this time there was no one else it could be except the person he most wanted it to be. “Hi, Case,” he answered.

"Hi, Zeke.”

Unable to resist, Zeke toed open his closet door.

It probably wasn’t entirely healthy, keeping a framed print of your boyfriend in your closet. Zeke knew this. He also knew that, strictly speaking, Casey wasn’t his boyfriend, but he’d never liked much liked the word boyfriend anyway. And Casey was so much more than that.

And the framed print, it wasn't just any old picture. Roy might be the mother of all motherfuckers but that thing he had sent to Zeke was a work of art. Even assholes could have a moment of revelation, and the picture really had needed a place to go. Casey might never venture into the space beneath the stairs but Zeke wasn't willing to risk it, not when he wasn’t living at the apartment himself and couldn't always know what Casey was up to; he might just develop a sudden, fiery curiosity about what was down there.

And so, yeah, Zeke had brought the picture to Stokely’s when he moved in, and stashed it in his closet. It wasn’t like he had a fucking shrine to Casey. So maybe he did like to pull it out and have a look now and then. Not for long, just a minute or two to be amazed at how it never really got old, and then he’d put Casey back in the dark with his shirts and his dirty laundry. He’d much rather have the three dimensional Casey in his bedroom, so that had to mean he wasn’t totally fucked.

"Zeke?”

“You...almost ready?”

“Yeah. Is this place fancy?”

“Not really, I think. Look, um...I have to warn you about something.”

“I’ve met your mother, Zeke.”

“No, not that. It’s — well, my mother probably thinks we’re still together.”

“You told her we’re back together?”

“No, I didn’t tell her anything, that’s the point.”

“Oh.”

“Do you mind if we just...didn’t mention it? You know how she likes to mess with people.”

“Oh...okay.”

“We don’t have to do anything, just...”

“We could hold hands.”

Zeke sucked in a breath, and scrambled for a casual reply. “I didn’t set you up, Case, so you would have to touch me.”

In retrospect, perhaps that hadn’t sounded so casual.

"I know,” Casey said then. “That didn’t occur to me.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s just...if I know in advance it makes it easier...Yves said it’s okay to ask. Is it okay?”

Yves said. Zeke was really trying not to hate what Yves said, but Yves said a fuck of a lot, and it always seemed calculated to suck the spontaneity out of existence.

“Of course it’s okay. So, we’ve got handholding. Anything else?”

“I could eat off your plate.”

“You already do that.”

“I know,” Casey giggled.

“How about a kiss?”

Casey barely paused. “With or without tongue?”

“Without. This is my mother, remember?”

“Okay...anything else?”

Zeke stared hard at Casey’s picture, his heart throbbing. “What else would you be willing to do?”

“You could call me pookie or snookums.”

“Then Rachel would know something was up.”

“Fruit loop?”

Zeke’s stomach trembled. “Not in front of her. How about I call you ‘baby’ once in a while?”

“Kay,” Casey said, very soft.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I’ll pick you up in half an hour...baby.”

“Kay.”

Zeke could barely wait for the click before rushing to the bathroom, where he tore off his clothes and got into the shower stall. Not bothering to turn on the water, he fisted his rigid cock and came in about three seconds, crying “Fuck...baby...baby...fuck you...wanna...” Cum dribbled down his groin. Resting his head against the tiles, Zeke sighed and reached for the faucets with a groan. He was so fucked.

Thank fuck Stokely never inquired about his time in the bathroom. She had to have noticed how the minutes added up but she never asked. Come to think of it, she spent a fair bit of time here herself. Maybe she was miserable and lonely too… maybe just about everyone on the planet was…like some philosopher had said. Leading lives of quiet desperation, Zeke didn’t know who it was but he agreed. Stokely, Stan…Charly, sure…his father. Yeah, Jacob Tyler would be a classic case and it looked like Zeke Tyler was his son, as much as he hated it.

There was nothing to do about all this, unless he wanted to be loud about his desperation like Casey, which he wasn’t prepared to do. He wasn’t that brave. Nothing to do but the obvious, the mundane --- get dry and dressed. It was possible, even easy to act like one was in charge. Organized, rational, sane, and fucked up inside.

Before he left the apartment, he sat down and wrote to Chloe: well, i’m on my way to get Casey and meet my mother. wish me well.

And then, before he could triple and quadruple-guess his actions, he typed: okay. it occurs to me that since im willing to have lunch with her it’s only fair that i contact Jacob. does he have an email?

“Zeke, darling!” Rachel Tyler did her continental thing, kissing him on both cheeks. “And Casey...you look very well, dear.” She did the same to Casey; Zeke saw him clench, but the moment passed without incident.

And there could be no sinister import to her words. The last time she had seen Casey, he had been taking on water and sinking fast. Now he was healthy and gorgeous — at least ten pounds heavier, his skin and eyes glowing, and the most exotic thing in the room. Zeke liked to think that Casey knew what it meant to Zeke to prove his mother wrong, and that was why Casey looked so damned good today. His shirt was a deep blue, his jeans ripped and covered in hippyish embroidery, his hair artfully mussed. There was no make-up today; he was just perfectly, naturally splendid, intuitively understanding what it took to make an impression on Rachel.

Rachel went to the hostess and told her they would be three, while Casey offered Zeke a smile along with his hand; Zeke grasped both and felt, just for a moment, close to tears. “You rock my world,” he whispered to Casey.

Casey blushed and shrugged. “Shut up.”

Rachel’s voice provided for an unwelcome trio. “Shall we sit?” she said.

The hostess led them to the patio out back, seating them near the center topiary display. The restaurant had been a good choice, Zeke reflected. It was café style, nothing elaborate but still refined, and they could enjoy being outside. It was unseasonable spring temperatures today --- and it was even bright, for once.

The hostess gave them their menus and departed. Casey had let go of Zeke’s hand as they were seated but now he reached under the table and clasped it once again as it lay on Zeke’s knee.

Rachel smiled her most brilliant smile. “I brought presents!” she declared, lifting up the two, medium-sized gift bags she had been carrying. “Here you go...please, open them, yes.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to,” Casey said.

“They’re just little things. Nothing excessive, dear, I promise.”

Zeke grabbed the two items; he deposited them in between himself and Casey and waited, dreading to find out what his mother had chosen for her little grab bags...but Casey’s held nothing but an assortment of teas and a small bottle of Calvin Klein aftershave...or perfume, Zeke realized with a jolt of anger.

“It’s uni-sex,” Rachel informed them. “I thought you might like it.”

“Thank you,” Casey replied. He seemed neutral about it, if not actively curious. Zeke decided he could let it go without comment.

His own gift was a postcard book of Mapplethorpe photographs and a Van Morrison CD. “What am I supposed to do with these?” he demanded, waving the postcards at his mother.

“Let me see,” Casey interposed. He received for the little book, which Zeke couldn’t refuse him without seeming like a lunatic, and began flipping through them, lingering over the muscles and cocks sculpted in ebony, making appreciative noises. “Hoo...oh, my...” he murmured. “Oh…! Wow.”

“Amen,” Rachel said with a smile.

She couldn’t have known about Thomas. There was no way — fuck, Zeke supposed it made him a racist that his brain jumped from images of large black men to Thomas. Fuck. He couldn’t help being a privileged white bastard and really his feelings towards Thomas had nothing to do with race. He could be jealous of any man who showed an interest in Casey, or in whom Casey showed an interest. Any man, regardless of shape or colour. Women, too, if it ever applied.

“Baby,” he said, holding back his growl. “No drooling at the table.”

Casey gave a bit of a guilty start and handed the book back to Zeke. “They’re beautiful.”

“I don’t see why you’d give them to me,” Zeke grumbled in Rachel’s direction.

“I was thinking about how to expand your horizons, dear.”

“Whatever.”

“They are rather famous.”

“Casey’s the photographer here.”

“Really?” Rachel blinked, all innocence. “I didn’t know...but you don’t have to be a photographer to appreciate beauty, do you?”

Under the table, Casey put his hand on Zeke’s. “Sorry,” he murmured.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said at the same moment, pursing her lips. “I tried.”

Their waiter arrived — a tall, blond guy with the build of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s little brother. Zeke saw both Casey and his mother openly appreciating the man when he walked away to fetch their waters and sodas, and the acids in his stomach began to rattle.

It had been a while since January. Thomas might be out of his life, but Casey was always finding new ways to torment Zeke. Right now, Zeke was quite sure that Casey was flirting with their waiter. When he ordered the sirloin burger, he commented that he had a craving for meat, and the poor man — who was straight, Zeke was pretty sure — turned pink and looked startled while Casey acted oblivious. Zeke nudged Casey with his foot, which was not on the list of Approved Touches. Casey half-leapt in his chair.

“Oh!” Rachel exclaimed. “Are you all right, dear?”

“Yeah. Something just bit me,” Casey muttered with a dark glare in Zeke’s direction.

“We could move inside — “

”No! I mean...it’s nice out here.”

“Yes.” Rachel smiled, and Casey smiled back, and there was absolutely nothing that Zeke could do about it because she had been, so far, almost like someone’s mother. Reaching for the bread, she asked, “So tell me about school, Zeke? How did your fall turn out?”

“Fine,” Zeke grunted.

“Zeke got straight A’s,” Casey announced, quite unnecessarily in Zeke’s opinion.

“Oh, my brilliant son! I’m so proud.”

Zeke tried to shrug off her presumption. He countered, "Casey’s taking a course about popular aesthetics.”

“I’m sure I don’t know just what that means,” Rachel said with a smile.

“He got an 'A' on his first paper."

"Good for you, dear," Rachel said promptly. "But....just one course?"

"I've been taking a break from full time school," Casey replied, so easily that Zeke knew he had rehearsed this one.

"Ah. And...what do you boys plan to do with yourself this summer?"

"Nothing much," Zeke said with a shrug. He knew Casey's days were quite full of everything except school, but that wasn't for him to share.

"Well, ask me where --- " his mother started, and stopped as their lunch arrived.

"Sirloin burger!" the waiter announced.

Zeke narrowed his gaze zooming in on the key details --- Casey's mouth and eyes. His words were nothing that could lend themselves to double or even single entendre --- just "Thank you" --- but the tone needed to be carefully scrutinized. Something about it suggested that Casey was thanking the man for doing more than just his fucking job, and there was something around his mouth that was a smirk, a hint of some shared secret. The light had caught his eyes just so, there was that way that they looked sometimes and Zeke knew the waiter had seen it just from the way he said, "Do you need ketchup for that?" Apparently, there was no one else at the table and while Zeke could have used some ketchup for his own lunch, Casey's sirloin burger was the only order that mattered.

"Yes, please," Casey said.

Zeke clenched his jaw so hard, he feared he might crush a molar. He refused to look at the musclehead as he handed Zeke his meal.

"Is there anything else I can get for you?"

"No, thank you," Rachel said, and smiled at the lump. As soon as he was gone, she leaned in and whispered, "Are you okay there, dear?"

Zeke looked up at her in horror that she could see his state of distraction...but he was not doing very well at hiding it either. He needed to guard himself more carefully. "I'm fine," he said, attacking his steak sandwich.

"So you haven't asked me what I've been up to."

"What have you been up to," Zeke intoned.

"I went to this little spot on the Riviera, spent the whole winter there, actually, and I met the most lovely man!"

Rachel continued on, but Zeke had soon tuned her out. He was mesmerized by a little dribble of juice at the corner of Casey's mouth. What did it taste like? Just beef, or beef and Casey? Of what did the Casey flavour consist, and what was required for it to imprint itself on something?

"...and wouldn't you know, he was proposing? He had the most vulgar ring...but of course I turned him down."

"What did you say?" Zeke broke in.

"Which part?"

"Some guy proposed to you?"

"You haven't been listening, mon chèr. Yes, Armand proposed."

"But you said no."

"That's right."

"Why?"

Rachel smiled enormously. "Who wants to be tied to one man? Some of us just aren't the marrying kind you know, and it's better to be honest about it. Right, Casey?"

Casey sprouted a stunned expression. "Uh...y-yes..."

"Why are you asking him?" Zeke growled.

"No reason...except, you know, dear...you're both so young. I'm surprised at you setting up house." She shrugged and added, before Zeke could respond, "I don't mean anything by it. I'm impressed, actually."

Casey stood up and without thinking, Zeke joined him on his feet. "Where are you going?" he demanded.

In answer, he got a glare. The bathroom, of course, it hardly needed mentioning by now. It had become a safety valve, a necessary ritual at every outing whether Casey felt panicked or not. Except, this time he might just be intending on a little rendez-vous with a certain waiter. Of course there was no way for Zeke to go along without completely exposing both of them to his mother's shit-disturbing.

Zeke sat.

He and his mother both watched Casey moving around tables negotiating a path to the door that led inside the restaurant. Just as he got there, it opened and the waiter was standing there; the waiter stepped aside, gesturing for Casey to enter. Zeke couldn't see if Casey smiled, but he knew that if the man followed Casey in, he was not going to be planted in this chair one second after.

The waiter came towards their table, with a bottle of ketchup and a professional smile. Zeke hated him.

"All right," Rachel said. "I'm ready."

"Ready...?"

The ketchup was deposited in front of Zeke.

"...for what?"

"Dear...to admit I was wrong."

"I know that without you telling me. But about which thing in particular?"

"Casey. I admit I was wrong last summer when I said he was too much trouble. Look at him now. Such a transformation."

Zeke didn't know quite what to say to a statement like this, since he agreed with it so completely and yet so utterly hated hearing it. Rachel Tyler did not need to have, let alone express, opinions about Casey.

"My poor son.”

"What?"

"You and your father are so alike. You have this wonderful way of seeing people that helps you find...someone like Casey. And then you try with all your strength to hold them and scare them away."

Zeke began sawing at his steak. "I’m not like Jacob,” he said, congratulating himself on how unperturbed he sounded.

Rachel just smiled. "You should pay attention to this, dear, instead of just reacting like you always do.”

“All right…go ahead and enlighten me, mother.”

“Some people aren't designed to be loved by one person. You try and you just end up trying to own them. And that's a disaster for both of you."

Zeke put down his fork and knife. "You know..." he started, marshalling his words.

"I'm telling you something I understand, Zeke."

"You think you and Casey work the same? You don’t.” He cast a nauseated eye over his food. “And I really thought we could get through one meal..."

"All right," Rachel sighed. "I'll stop. But I was trying to help."

"No, you're trying to justify yourself."

Rachel didn't answer. Her eyes moved past Zeke, who turned and saw Casey standing there.

"Hi," he said, his eyes flicking uncertainly between the two of them.

"Hi, dear," Rachel cooed. "Don't mind us, we're just doing what we always do. I try to share my idea of maternal wisdom, Zeke reacts badly, and we don't talk again for six months. Then we get together and the whole thing starts all over again."

"Maternal wisdom," Zeke sneered.

"Have a seat, Casey," Rachel said. "Yes, Zeke, but I did say my idea of so you can let that statement pass without inadvertently agreeing that I might have some insight into something."

Casey had reseated himself, and gave all his attention to his burger, eating as though he hoped not to attract anyone's attention.

"I'm sorry, dear," Rachel said to him. "I'm afraid Zeke and I don't get along."

It never failed; no matter how Zeke resolved that she wasn’t going to get to him, she inevitably said something --- or ten things --- that simply needed correction. “See, there you go again, making it sound like it’s our problem when it’s really just you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Casey’s head come up, sharply, like he had something to say. But that moment passed, and Zeke was fixed on Rachel; she was making a presentation of weary grief and regret, a face that he knew all too well.

“Zeke,” she said. “Believe it or not...I’ve always wanted to be honest with you.”

Casey’s head went down again. Zeke wouldn’t have been surprised if he had ducked under the table, and he wouldn’t have blamed him either.

“I’ve tried to be honest.”

“Yeah,” Zeke answered, infusing his tone with all the contempt that he felt --- nothing too heavy but scathingly light, as though her confession didn’t really even matter. “Right.”

Rachel held his gaze for a slow beat, and then she clawed her napkin out of her lap and tossed it on her plate. "I think I'll go, so the two of you can finish your lunch in peace."

"Oh," Casey whispered, like he might have been thinking about protesting. Zeke put a hand on his arm and dared to presume that it wouldn’t catch Casey off-guard but it did; Casey jerked and nearly spilled his soda and Zeke imagined himself grabbing him again and again, impervious to his fear and his clumsy responses, just doing it, touching and touching until he had shaken that fucking reaction out of him.

Rachel spoke as she rose to her feet. "Remember what I said."

Zeke snarled, "And you remember to leave Jacob alone."

Rather than acknowledge this Rachel stopped, said over her shoulder, "I'll take care of the check."

"Thanks," Casey blurted.

"You're welcome, chèri. Zeke...I'll call in a few months."

"I doubt I'll answer," Zeke shot back.

He watched to make sure she was actually leaving. He followed her figure all the way to the door of the restaurant and as far as he could past that, imagined her moving to the front and giving the host her credit card. He waited a full minute beyond that until his hackles went down.

The food on his plate still held no appeal whatsoever.

"What did she say?" Casey asked. “I mean...when I went to the bathroom?”

Zeke recalled that he needed to check that Casey had not been mussed in any suspicious way. Giving him a careful examination, Zeke did not see anything really out of place. There was a slight breeze that could account for the way that the hair on one side of his head had moved out of its original position. Zeke said, "Nothing worth repeating."

Casey looked in that way that he did a lot; sometimes Zeke wanted to yell at him to stop it because what did he think --- a few months of therapy and he was a psychiatric expert already, imagining that he was probing people with his penetrating gaze?

“Okay,” Casey returned, and poked at his food.

“Are you done?”

“What?”

“With the food?”

“Oh…pretty much.”

“Me too. Let’s go.”

He had parked a few blocks down the street and as they walked, he realized that Casey was being a little less careful than he had been for some time now. They bumped arms once or twice as they walked and it both puzzled and annoyed Zeke; he wasn’t sure when that had changed, when Casey had decided it was okay for them to accidentally touch and why did he still jump whenever Zeke touched him on purpose? He couldn’t actually think that those nudges under the table were Zeke’s idea of a seduction.

“What?” Zeke snapped, daunted by the quiet, and the all-around bizarreness of the person next to him.

"Um..."

“What is it?"

“Don’t be mad at me,” Casey pleaded.

“How can I not be mad about something when I don’t know what it is?”

He didn’t miss the rolling eyes Casey directed towards him. “That’s encouraging.”

“I can’t exactly promise…just spit it out.”

“Maybe…well, I was just thinking maybe your mom’s not so bad.”

“Don’t call her my --- oh, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Huh?”

“Why don’t you explain it to me then.”

Zeke stopped walking. He turned to face Casey, almost not caring if Casey did the same --- but he did, he was there, waiting. Zeke swallowed the first thing he wanted to say, and the second. “Okay. I understand that you’re used to the idea of me being wrong, but I promise you, when it comes to her I am not wrong.”

“I can’t believe you talk to your mother like that. I would never --- “

“Rachel Tyler and Allison Connor are two entirely different people, Casey.”

“She’s still your mother, and you say things to her that are...well...you’re mean to her.”

Zeke turned his back on Casey out of fear that he would do something worse than mean. He closed his eyes and waited for the impact of those words to lose a little of its potency.

From behind, Casey said, his voice small, “I think she’s a sad person.”

“Give me a fucking break.”

“I know she did bad things to you --- “

“You have no idea,” Zeke gritted, turning back on Casey with such ferocity that Casey took a step back. “I can’t have her in my life, do you understand?”

“I do,” Casey said.

“I made a decision and it was the right decision.”

“I’m not saying should change your mind --- “

“Then what are you saying!”

Standing his ground, Casey whispered, “That you could have some compassion.”

Zeke stared at the alien before him for a second, then just continued walking to the car. The alternative was to burst into tears and he wasn’t doing that.

His tormentor had followed him. "Being honest isn’t a bad thing.”

“So?” Zeke strangled.

“Just…she said that…and it’s not bad advice.”

The Mustang reared up in front of them. Zeke went to the passenger’s side and unlocked it for Casey. "So what do you want to tell me?"

“What?”

“There’s something you need to be ‘honest’ about, right?”

Casey wiped his hands nervously. "I didn't say that."

“Un-huh.” Zeke folded his arms, deliberately not moving away from the door.

“I just think maybe she --- she’s not wrong all the time.” Casey said, not meeting Zeke’s eyes.

“Look,” Zeke growled. “My mother has a way of making true things into absolute lies and I don’t want to talk about her or think about her until the next time she decides to have another round of ‘oh, yeah, I have a son’.”

He beat a path around the hood of the car. He was done with Rachel Tyler; he was pretty certain he had just said that too. He was pretty certain he’d said it before. Getting behind the wheel, he expected to find the passenger seat occupied by Casey as usual, but for some reason Casey continued to stand outside the door. Zeke started the car and waited.

Finally, Casey got in. He was angry now, Zeke could see it on his face. Nothing new there, but he wasn’t sure exactly why this time. They seemed to bicker, bitch, debate or even yell at each other on an almost daily basis, and it wasn’t always the fun kind of fighting and --- oh, yeah, he was the one with reasons for anger this time and he was the one who should be wearing that stony look.

“Now what?” he muttered.

Promptly, Casey said, “I hate it when you do that.”

“What?”

“You talk to me like… like I’m this…idiot person and you’re just too tired to continue trying.”

“Casey, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And you say my name like that.”

“Like what?”

“Just like the way you just said it.”

“Maybe if you made some sense!” Zeke shouted.

“Right. I’m crazy and stupid.”

Zeke knew that his inner core was going molten and there was going to be an extinction level event at any moment. He put the car in reverse so he could inch out of the parking spot, knowing that if he spoke it wouldn’t be pretty. For the next several minutes he just concentrated on not running any red lights or getting any speeding tickets.

Several blocks later, he said, “I know I’m an arrogant prick, but I’m like that with everyone, not just you.”

“So I shouldn’t take it personally?”

Zeke huffed but had nothing to say.

Casey muttered something.

"What?”

"Nothing.”

"You said something.”

"Nothing, I said!”

“I want to know what you were just muttering.”

“Fucking okay, then --- I said you’ll say anything to win.”

"It isn’t about winning.”

Casey sighed. He sounded weary to death with the discussion, and Zeke was really feeling him there. “What is it about?”

“It’s about being right.”

Received: April 20, 2002. 04:11 a.m.

RE: The middle of the night

yeah, i’m up. i have a paper to finish and i’m just taking a break before the final haul. might as well tell you, i called Jacob today. just a short call, lots of embarrassing silences and stuff but he’s got the idea. he can call me once in a while to see how i am, visit and stuff.

we didn’t talk about any of that stuff we argued about. i don’t think we ever will because there’s nothing to say. i did what i did and i had a good reason but it will always scare him. i guess i don’t really blame him.

Casey asked me again if i would got to therapy with him and i said no this time. no brownie points for me. i’ve been thinking a lot about the things that we always end up arguing about and one of them has to do with aliens invading herrington. i know you don’t really know about that and you probably dont want to hear about it. im just thinking aloud here. you dont have to comment.

i’ve had an epiphany. remember me telling you about that argument we had, the one after lunch with rachel? he said i would do anything to win and i’ve been thinking a lot about that. it’s true, i will change my tune as needed. i’ll argue against myself, put myself down or build myself up, as required. and then i started thinking about it in connection with the aliens. i was wondering why i got to be so reticent about speaking about them when i used to get in everyone’s face reminding them. it actually used to piss me off how everyone was in denial about it. i thought maybe it was because we’re not in herrington anymore but seattle and maybe that is a part of it. like maybe i always wanted to forget about the aliens but i couldn’t a long as we were in herrington because as much as people wanted to deny it they still knew it and if i were to pretend it never happened i would be WRONG. and i can’t allow myself to be wrong, not consciously.

but things happened, like Casey got himself in the hospital and i was terrified. you don’t know how terrified. i felt like it was up to me to get him through that so i made up this stupid lie about the aliens never happening, which as it turned out, really hurt Casey. i thought we dealt with that but maybe i’ve been trying to be right about it all this time, in a way. maybe not letting him talk to Yves about aliens was just my way of making sure that there would always be one thing that was just OURS

i know this. i’m the one whose been the most scared, all along. as scared as he was of losing me, i was terrified of losing him and i had to do everything in my power to control him, to be right, to never ever lose him. he scares me with how brave he is. it would never have occurred to him not to tell the truth about the aliens while i was a total chicken shit who wouldn’t say a thing when it counted, and then i tried to overcompensate by always being in people’s faces about it. how fucking pathetic is that?

you really don’t have to comment, by the way, and i really need to get back to Leibniz and Spinoza.

April 21,2002. 09:47 a.m.

RE: Epiphanies.

For what it’s worth, Zeke, I think you’re plenty brave. Not a lot of people would have the guts to try to be that honest with themselves. Of course you have blind spots, that’s the nature of blind spots, that you can’t see them.

I really don’t know what to say about a lot of the stuff you wrote. It sounds like it makes sense. Honestly, I think the most important thing is you admitting that Casey was right. Right?

I googled Casey after your last email. Did you know that there are hundreds of websites that mention him? Some say it was a fraud but most think it was real and they call him a hero just for what he witnessed, never mind saving people. There are people out there who see him as a kind of living grail, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of these people come out of the woodwork at some point. Given that, I’m not so sure it isn’t a bad idea to keep quiet about it.

April 21,2002. 11:00 a.m.

RE: RE: Epiphanies.

So what you’re saying is, I was RIGHT.

April 21,2002. 11:47 a.m.

RE:RE:RE Epiphanies.

Not exactly. Of course he’d want to talk about it to his shrink about it. It was WRONG to expect him not to.

April 22,2002. 12:06 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE: Epiphanies.

And yet the basic premise was RIGHT.

April 22,2002. 12:15 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE: Epiphanies.

I suggest that you change the subject.

April 22, 2002. 12:17 p.m.

RE:End of term.

I can’t wait until a week from now whebn everything will be finished up. i was determined not to have this happen to me again, and here i am.

April 22,2002. 12:54 p.m.

RE:RE: End of term.

And what do you plan to do with your freedom?

April 22,2002. 1:13 p.m.

RE:RE:RE: End of term.

Sleep. Watch TV. Lie around. Maybe go to some museums. Read magazines.

April 22,2002. 1:20 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE: End of term.

You don’t think you’ll get bored with that?

April 22,2002. 1:25 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: End of term.

No frigging way

Received: June 1, 2002. 02:22 a.m.

RE: Save me.

i’m bored out of my fucking skull. BORED. Casey and I have been to every museum and art gallery in town. we go out and wander around and he snaps pictures and I watch him. we go driving almost every day and he’s all ready for the test. i think we’ve watched almost every movie at the rental place now. SO BORED.

June 1, 2002. 08:22 a.m.

RE: Told you so.

See above.

June 1, 2002. 09:17 a.m.

RE:RE: Told you so.

i cant believe this. i just got a call from Casey and he’s on his way to fucking wisconsin with Sasha. apparently his father died. sasha’s, that is. he wants Casey to go with him. i should have known better than to complain.

June 1, 2002. 09:51 a.m.

RE:RE:RE:Told you so.

Stay calm, little brother.

June 1, 2002. 10:04 a.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:Told you so.

im totally fucking calm.

June 1, 2002. 09:09 a.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Told you so.

Yeah, I can really tell how calm you are. Why is this a problem?

June 1, 2002. 09:15 a.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Told you so.

are you kidding? this is Casey, the guy who never wanted to leave the apartment, who freaked out because i went to LA without him.

June 1, 2002. 09:25 a.m.

RE:Calm.

But he isn’t that person anymore, is he?

Received: June 17, 2002. 04: 59 p.m.

RE: dying

IT'S FUCKING HAPPENED

The Dalai Lama had written that the fundamental precept of Buddhism was this: Desire was the source of all suffering. Zeke was of the opinion that the Dalai Lama wasn’t just whistling Dixie.

He’d given that a lot of thought and while he agreed with the statement, he wasn’t convinced that desire was illusory either. It worked for some, he supposed. Work at it hard enough and long enough and you could enter some sort of delusional state where the entire physical reality disappeared. No question about that. He’d had reality vanish on him a few times so he could buy it as a philosophical practice. Not for him, but he could respect it.

But there was something that the Dalai Lama had written in one of his books that Zeke really liked. It had to do with service as a means to happiness. In all of his voluminous readings, he had never yet encountered that idea. He had assumed that happiness had to be sought after and constructred, nurtured and harboured as a personal possession, and it had never occurred to him that working for others could lead to happiness. He really fucking dug that bit, although he had no idea how to make it work for him.

And he just couldn’t give up the flesh. It was too real. He was a creature in his body, no doubt about it.

He desired. He fucking desired everything, but especially Casey and not just Casey’s body. He desired his presence and the familiarity of the way he spoke and moved. He desired his smile, his laugh, his tears, all of it, and the more time he spent with Casey, the more he desired.

Above all, he desired to know that Casey desired him, and for more than sex. He knew he turned Casey on; he saw it in Casey’s eyes and the way he flirted with him sometimes. He knew that Casey sometimes thought about just throwing away common sense and jumping in the sack with him. But he also saw Casey looking at other men. Sex just wasn’t going to be enough if that was all that there was between them.

There had been more, hadn’t there? There was still that more. He was sure of it… so he didn’t at first comprehend what Casey was saying to him right now.

“Um...what?” Zeke stammered.

They were in the Mustang, on their way back to Casey’s place after seeing Spiderman, they’d spent a typical morning together --- Casey snapping photos of objects but his eyes constantly wandering to people, Zeke watching should he attempt to take a picture of any male in their vicinity, all of it so normal and fraught and Zeke now realized he would have happily had that situation continue indefinitely because Casey was really saying what he’d thought he said:

“There’s a guy at the swimming pool.”

Minutes seemed to pass without incident. Zeke thought he was doing well at staying calm and not reacting, until he noticed that he seemed to be whipping by the other cars on the road. Glancing down, he saw that he was going over fifty. He made an effort to slow down, gripping the steering wheel fiercely to control his hands.

Casey went on, “He asked me to --- he asked me if I wanted to go with him and some other guys --- tonight.”

“A guy,” Zeke said.

“Yeah.”

“And some other guys.”

“Um…yeah.”

“Go where?”

“Out to a --- a bar --- or club or something.”

“But it’s a date.”

“Kinda...I don’t know. I guess.”

“Who is he?”

“Just a guy. His name’s Chris.”

“And where did you meet him?”

“At the pool this morning.”

“When did you start talking to guys at the pool?”

“Um…today. He talked to me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Whah?”

“Are you sure you just met him today?”

Casey was quiet.

“Are you sure he hasn’t been fucking you all along?”

Casey was especially quiet.

“Maybe you and he have been sneaking into the showers together so he could do your ass, huh?”

“No,” Casey muttered.

Zeke knew he was way out of control now, and he couldn’t stop. “You’re always flirting, coming on to anything with a cock!”

“I am not!”

“I’ve seen you.”

“Like when?”

“Huh?”

“Give me some evidence, Zeke. You like evidence, right?”

“There was that waiter.”

“What waiter?”

Zeke shouted, “The waiter, the fucking waiter at the restaurant!”

“I don’t know what --- “

“When we went out for lunch with my mother.”

“That was months ---“

“You were flirting with him!”

“I don’t even remember this person!”

“’I have a craving for meat’, remember that?”

“Okay, I --- maybe I did check him out but I --- how could I flirt when he didn’t even know I checked him out --- I --- I didn’t flirt!”

“Do you think I’m fucking blind, Casey!” Zeke turned the corner onto the street where they had both used to live, rather too fast. Casey was pulled sideways towards Zeke. Zeke was able to glance down and get a dramatic angle on his face, briefly before he straightened himself. He recalled that Casey owed him a kiss from that day. That flirty, teasing conversation on the phone, the promise of unprecedented touching and kissing that had been aborted, Casey might have thought he had forgotten but he hadn’t. It was two-months overdue now and he was going to collect.

He immediately pulled over onto the curb and put the car in park. He grabbed Casey’s shoulders, wrenching him towards him, not caring about the fact that Casey was still belted in. Casey made a noise between a howl and a scream, a sound of utter panic, and Zeke let him go.

“Case --- “

Casey was up and out of the car, hurrying down the sidewalk. Zeke fumbled with the seatbelt, barely getting out without falling, and ran after him.

“Case.”

“Leave me alone.”

“Case…Casey, I’m sorry.”

“I know. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“It’s only a few blocks.”

“You want to punch me? You have to stop walking.”

Casey stopped and turned to him, his chest heaving, his eyes wet and slightly hysterical. His hands were formed into fists at his side --- but then, instead of speaking or swinging, he whirled and resumed his scramble down the sidewalk. Zeke followed, wheezing with the effort of forcing oxygen in and out of his lungs.

“Casey,” he called. “Ha-have mercy.”

When he saw Casey stop, he did also and bent over, putting his hands on his knees. At length, he looked up and realized that Casey was standing there in front of him.

“That’s pathetic,” Casey said, with little expression.

“I…I know…”

“Being jealous of a waiter from months ago is also pathetic.”

“Right.”

“And I can fuck whoever I want.”

Zeke managed to straighten up. He whispered, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather punch me?”

Casey closed his eyes briefly; opening them, he said, “I’m just going out, Zeke. I need to be able to do that.”

“I know, but…but…” Zeke spat to clear the foul taste from his mouth. “Since it’s not a date…maybe I could come along.”

Casey shook his head, although Zeke thought he seemed tempted. He had to be nervous about this --- he hadn’t changed that much, he had to be scared. He would be treating this as another exercise, another have to just like taking that course and working at Wellth. Zeke wasn’t a fucking idiot.

“No,” Casey said softly.

“Okay,” Zeke replied, because he had no choice.

“Zeke,” Casey said, and his voice trembled. “I…I have to be able to do this.”

“I get it.”

“It’s not about you.”

“I get that too. But it doesn’t make it any easier for me.”

“Should I not tell you these things?”

Zeke got ready to growl, to roar --- but then he saw that Casey was asking a serious question. “You mean, would it be less painful if I didn’t know?”

Casey nodded.

Zeke gave that serious consideration. Was it possible that what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him?

“No,” he said.

“But, Zeke --- “

“I want to kn --- I need to know who touches you. Who looks at you, if possible, and even if it kills me the thing is, I can imagine far worse.”

“I’m just going out,” Casey said stubbornly.

Zeke nodded but he knew --- he knew --- that it was far worse than that.

He had thought that Casey going with Sasha to Wisconsin had been a real challenge. In his mind, it had been a test which he’d passed and then some. He had stayed calm when Casey called to inform him he was at the airport. He had been gently but firmly encouraging. He hadn’t even reacted — much — when Casey called him drunk from some shithole bar in Shithole, Wisconsin. Actually, drunk Casey was pretty cute but Zeke wasn’t going to admit it to anyone.

It had been nice, too, the way Casey greeted him at the airport with a huge hug, wrapping those wiry arms and legs around Zeke like some sort of baby primate in one of those horrible experiments from the 1960s. Attachment theory, the scientists called it. It was the opposite of everything the Dalai Lama stood for, the reason why the Lama was dead fucking wrong.

Zeke could have told the fuckers a thing or two about attachment.

Attachment was having to watch but not touch your beloved while he sat in a coffee shop berating himself over his inability to make nice with strangers. It was listening to him cry because he hadn’t been able to sit through the entire lecture that day and he figured he was doomed to go through life without a university degree...while all the while it was all you could do not to tell him that he didn’t need anything or anyone but you. It was letting him go to an entire other state halfway across the country even though you wanted — felt entitled to forbid him to go. Because it would be good for him to go. Bad for you, good for him.

Attachment was sitting through a birthday dinner with a bad ache in your gut and a worse one in your crotch, subjected to a smirking Sasha and Stokely, just because your loved one had put make-up on his face. Every little change was noteworthy, and this was minor, however it amused his friends to see him squirm. Oh, he loved the smoky-eyed look, he did, but it was a huge deal not because it was something as silly as make-up, but because it was Casey feeling free enough to wear it. It meant that Zeke never really knew what to expect from him and it turned him the fuck on.

Attachment was exposing yourself to ridicule and the charge of obviousness because you had to be with Casey every day, for as many hours of the day as possible. Movie theatres, museums, bookstores, or just the middle of nowhere in a car. All of those places were really the same place --- they were Being With Casey, and yet still always missing him. So attachment definitely meant sitting there knowing that, at worst, you were the butt of a joke or, at best, an object of pity.

And he had been wrong. Wisconsin had just been a practice run for a final exam he didn’t think he’d be able to pass.

Received June 17, 2002. 09:21 p.m.

RE: dying

Zeke, are you okay? What’s going on?

Zeke lit his ninth cigarette and stared up at the building Casey had gone into not half an hour ago. He had no idea which apartment it was, or even which floor, and it was insanity to stand out here, of course. Just like it had been insanity to follow Casey here.

Not that it was that hard. He had assumed Casey would be walking or taking the bus, so he went to the stop just before Casey’s stop and sat in the back. He knew that Casey always got on at the front and sat near the driver, and by ducking his head strategically, Zeke was able to keep Casey from seeing him. When Casey got off the bus, Zeke got off at the next stop and raced back towards Casey’s stop. He caught fortuitous sight of him a few blocks away, and followed at a distance.

Okay, maybe it had been a little hard.

There had been several moments when he’d thought Casey knew he was there, but it seemed that he hadn’t. There was no reason why anyone need ever known that he’d done this, followed Casey to his date. And there was no reason for Zeke to go in that building and find Casey, confront the prick who probably had his prick in Casey right now. Fucking him, using him who was more than willing to be used even though there was a person out here waiting who would have wrapped him in silk and --- and ---

No reason to go in there and make it all stop.

Unless Casey was in trouble. But Sasha had said they had a plan for Casey to call him and reassure him and there was no reason to assume trouble --- except that, of course, if something happened, the phone-call plan would in no way prevent it. Sasha knew that. Casey knew that, yet still he chose to do this. It shouldn’t be a big deal but for Casey, it was. For Casey, this was dangerous and that was why he was doing it.

A group of three guys approached and entered the building, laughing and joshing each other like guys tended to do. Zeke watched them, wondering if he could sneak in behind them when they got buzzed in.

No. He couldn’t be this insane. Stalking his ex-boyfriend, following him around…keeping a photo of him in his closet. He was beyond pathetic.

“Fuck,” Zeke muttered. His mouth tasted like ash.

There was no point to standing here. He started walking back to the bus stop, his head ringing with Casey’s words to him earlier. Just going out…I’m just going out… but they had both known it was more than that, and in some crazy way, Zeke had really wondered whether Casey would go through with it.

Clearly, he was.

Zeke threw his butt on the ground and suddenly he was also emitting a howl, something that sounded like fuck in his head but came out “Rgrgraaaghgh!”

The thing that killed him was that his certainty that Casey loved him had not been shaken one iota. He had to believe it, he had to --- but maybe Casey was just never going to be ready to admit it and settle into it. He was just too much damaged and ---

Fucking is what sluts call therapy.

--- no, not a slut, but something you could call a slut if slut wasn’t a bad word. He had to stop thinking it, though, because eventually he would say it --- say it again --- and that would be a disaster for him and Casey.

There were things he believed, he realized. He never thought he believed anything, he thought it was all just reasoned out and therefore credible but in fact, these were articles of faith: If you loved someone, you had the right to want them to not touch anyone but you. You had the right to ask them, and if they loved you back, you had the right to expect them to make certain concessions. Like not fucking whomever, whenever.

There was nothing for him to do except go home, and so he did. He found the bus stop and rode it until it was as close to his neighbourhood as the route could take him. He walked the rest of the way, not very far.

Two blocks from home, he passed Video Network, the place that he and Stokely always went to and the bitter thought came that fucking Dmitri of Video Now and Then probably understood more about Casey than Zeke. Dmitri had a direct beam-up to Planet Casey, knowing as much as he did about Casey’s likes and dislikes, chit-chatting with him all the time about film. It was like some secret, coded language that they shared.

On impulse, Zeke turned into the store, which fortunately for him was open until midnight. The girl behind the counter was the same girl who was there every night, looking resentful and bored. Zeke stared at her, considered asking her if she could recommend a romantic movie. He knew of a few himself, but there had to be something he was missing. Some movie that would provide the clue.

Maybe if he watched The Philadelphia Story over and over, some epiphany would arrive. Stokely had told him once that Casey just liked the cheese but Zeke had his doubts about that theory. There was nothing cheeseball about a guy who went out looking for sex with complete strangers, unless you wanted to buy the theory that Casey was looking for love in all the wrong places, yadda, yadda, yadda. It was Zeke’s personal opinion that Casey was absolutely not looking for love, that he was in fact avoiding love with all his considerable determination --- and well, maybe there was something kind of invertedly cheeseball about that.

Perhaps a course in the romantic comedy genre? It wasn’t like Zeke had anything better to do, and there was no reason to think that Casey hadn’t watched just as many of these as anything else. The problem was, Zeke had no idea if he’d watched any particular one of them.

Sighing heavily, Zeke began to scan the titles. Memory did nudge as his eye roved past a couple. Steel Magnolias, he remembered having a conversation with Casey about that once, just briefly.

…Steel Magnolias?

…seen it too many times…

… you’re strange…

His eye fell on Moonstruck. Okay. And there was that time in the hospital, an exchange of sorts between Sasha and Casey when Casey was barely willing to participate. Casey’s roommate at the hospital, a large guy whose name Zeke could no longer remember, singing and Sasha…You’ve seen that one, haven’t you, kitten…?

Zeke decided he’d start with a review of The Philadelphia Story, and then those two. Somewhere along the line he might get to Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, An Affair to Remember, Pillow Talk, Bringing Up Baby --- what the fuck, it was about a lion but it had Kate Hepburn in it. Casey had a thing about Kate Hepburn.

“Okay,” he said aloud. “That’s probably enough.”

The girl at the counter did not comment on what had to be a very odd selection of films for a guy. Nor did she comment as she checked in the movies, but he could well imagine what she was thinking. He wanted to explain that he really couldn’t stand this crap, that it was pure research.

At home, Stokely was slouched on the couch, flipping TV channels. “There’s some tempeh cutlet in the fridge --- “ And she broke off as he built his pile of videos on top of the television. What do you have there?”

“Research,” he grunted.

“Research,” she echoed.

“I want to fucking understand what goes through Casey’s brain.”

Stokely was quiet for a second. “What has he done now?”

“Oh, nothing. He’s just at some guy’s apartment getting fucked.”

There was a creak as Stokely sat forward on the couch. “I doubt --- “

“He told me himself, Stokely.”

Zeke turned around and went to the chair --- a chair where he’d once found Casey curled up and zoned. He’d been the hero that night. No one else could have done what he’d done. Those were the days, he mused bitterly.

“He told you he was going to --- “

“He said he was going out, okay? I could see there was more to it, so I followed him.”

“You followed him.”

“Could you stop repeating me?”

“Sorry, but…you followed him?”

“Well, it wasn’t like he was going to tell me the truth.”

“Seems like he kind of did.”

“Yeah, except the part he left out about how he went in the apartment and didn’t come out.”

Stokely pressed her lips together. She said quietly, “It’s called a date, Zeke.”

“I don’t think it was a date.”

“Whatever. The fact is, he wants to start playing the field or whatever you call it. He wants to get out there on the market and I know why he’s doing it. He just wants to prove that he doesn’t have to be with me.”

“Maybe he wants to have a good time, Zeke, have you thought of that?”

“Yes. A good time without me.” Zeke closed his eyes and sighed, and tried to reboot his brain. Reformat his hard drive so he didn’t have the image of Casey with some guy…some guy who didn’t have a face or a name. “Stokely…” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think Casey’s the kind of person who can be with one person?”

Stokely seemed to be seriously considering the question. “Is that a nice way of saying something insulting?”

“I’m trying to not use the word, Stokely. I’m trying to be open to the possibility…and you have no idea how hard it is for me.”

“I think…I think, I don’t know what kind of person Casey is. I don’t think Casey knows what kind of person Casey is, and that’s the whole point.”

“Yeah.”

“I think if you want to be the hero here you have to give him as much room as he needs.”

“I have!”

“For real, Zeke.”

“I have. I didn’t go in that building and drag him out, I went with him to visit fucking Thomas, I’ve totally let him do his own thing for the last six months.”

“Except you’re forgetting it isn’t up to you to ‘let’ him do anything.”

“Figure of speech.”

“Yeah. Un-huh.”

“Hey, I’ve read the fucking self-help books. I read the fucking Dalai Lama, I know the whole bit about giving up control. You give up control, you attain happiness, blah, blah, blah…”

“I can see they made a huge impression.”

“I understand that stuff, Stokely. I know why I do what I do and I know I’m the author of my own misery, I understand all that shit but it doesn’t mean I can choose to stop.”

Stokely threw her hands up. “I don’t know what to say. You’re way smarter than me, Zeke, and if you can’t figure out a way to sort yourself out then I don’t know what I can say.”

Zeke subsided on the couch. “You don’t have to say anything,” he muttered.

“You wanna know what Charly says?”

He scowled. “I don’t know. Do I?”

“She really likes you, Zeke.”

“Whatever.”

“But she says you’re too old for Casey.”

“What the fuck? I’m only three years --- “

“No, she means that you’re twenty-three but you act like you’re way older. And Casey…in some ways, he’s still sixteen.”

Zeke considered that. “I’m not sure I agree.”

“Maybe you want things from him that are reasonable for a forty-year-old but not for a kid.”

Zeke shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I want to watch my movie.”

“Okay,” Stokely sighed.

“Wanna watch?”

“As long as it isn’t The Philadelphia Story, sure.”

He put inMoonstuck, which turned out to be something different than he was expecting. It was determinedly, self-consciously unrealistic and yet strangely true to Zeke’s eyes and ears. They watched for a while, laughing out loud at many of the more bizarre moments. After watching Nicolas Cage sweep Cher off her feet and carry her to the bed to ravish her, Zeke had a thought and said, “Stokes.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you really think Casey likes cheese?”

“Huh?”

“You said one time that Casey can’t get enough cheese. Cheese as in cheesy, as in goofball, as in --- “

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

“You think he’s a sucker for this stuff?”

“I don’t know, Zeke! I guess I assumed it. And…yeah, he used to moon over you.”

“Moon over me?”

“You know what I mean.”

“In high school?”

“Yeah.”

Zeke stared at the image of the moon up on the screen, accompanied by cheeseball opera tunes, and he thought that maybe the Casey who used to moon over him was long gone. Too many things had happened for him to remain that person.

Stokely sighed and, reaching over, patted Zeke’s shoulder. He scowled at her and resumed watching, not certain if he liked the movie or not.

And now a moment came when the character up on the screen, the slow-talking, ordinary-and-not-so-ordinary guy who had fallen in love over a steak and a glass of whiskey, that man opened his mouth and uttered the moral of the whole movie.

“’Loretta, I love you. Not…like they say love is, and I didn’t know this myself but love don’t make things right. It don’t make things perfect. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect.…not us…not us. We were put here to ruin ourselves…and love the wrong people…and…and die! I mean, the stories are bullshit!’”

“Zeke,” Stokely’s voice intruded.

Zeke shook his head. “Shh.” He still didn’t know if he liked it or not. He didn’t know if it was good or bad, just that he had to keep watching.

“’Now…I want you to go upstairs and getin my bed!” commanded the one-handed romantic hero. Most likely, it was the fact that he was Nicholas Cage and she was Cher that allowed him to get away with it. Under some other circumstances Zeke might have guffawed out loud but today, tonight, it was just too apt.

“Zeke.”

In Hollywood, shit like that worked, he knew that with glum certainty. That was the only way that shit like that could ever work. It was fiction.

“Zeke.”

He pulled his eyes away from the screen to respond to Stokely. “What?”

“Your phone is ringing.”

“Oh,” he said, going back to the images and the swell of operatic melody in a made-up world where people could fall in love in an instant and live happily ever after. That only happened in make-believe, the movie seemed to say with a nudge and a wink.

“Are you going to get it?”

He shrugged. He knew who it was. He didn’t want to talk to who it was.

But now that it had been pointed out to him, he couldn’t stop hearing the ringing even if it was in the distance. He tried to block it out and finish with Ronny and Loretta, and it seemed he was going to have some success --- until Stokely came back into the room which he hadn’t even realized she’d left, holding the phone.

“It’s Casey,” she whispered. She was holding out the phone with the mouthpiece covered.

“I’m not here,” he retorted, and he shot a glare at her for daring to force him to do anything.

“He sounds upset.”

Despite himself, he blinked, losing his focus on being angry. “Upset how?”

“Talk to him, Zeke.”

His body seemed to act without direction, taking the phone. “Casey?”

“Z-Zeke?”

“Yeah.”

“Zeke…”

Fuck. It was the good old days now, wasn’t it? Casey’s voice was trembling and needy. Desperate for whatever Zeke could give him…oh, yeah, now he wanted Zeke, now that he’d gone and done whatever he wanted to do.

“What is it, Case?” Zeke said, hating himself for sounding so concerned when he’d sworn to himself he was not-speaking to Casey. Not. Fucking. Speaking.

“Can you c-come over?”

It was the stutter that did him in; Zeke closed his eyes, remembering very well that he’d sworn to himself, sworn that he was not going to be easy the next time Casey wanted to talk to him. He was angry and hurt and depressed, motherfuckinnit, and he was well within his rights.

“Why?”

Casey made an odd, gulping noise, and Zeke’s body shot right past his brain. His brain said not to fall for it but the rest of him was absolutely certain that it was urgent, it was an emergency. “Sasha’s at work?” he said stupidly, struggling to reboot. “Can you call him?”

But there was that sound again.

“Okay,” Zeke capitulated. “I’ll be right there.”

“Kay.”

This only intensified the sense of urgency. Casey reduced to one syllable replies was a nightmare that Zeke didn’t want to revisit. The Casey of a year later who scrapped and spat was a Casey that Zeke could argue back to and be angry at; if they were back to this then Zeke was back to the times of having to keep it all to himself and going nuts --- going nuts in a completely different way than he was going nuts these days, but of the two he thought he preferred this way. At least this way --- the way it had been until this phone call --- he could use his words.

“Hang in there, Case.”

He thumbed off, tossed the phone on the couch then changed his mind and snatched it up. Next, he nearly left his wallet, and he couldn’t find his fucking keys. He was aware of Stokely watching him as he circled around the apartment but he didn’t care how ridiculous he looked. Casey needed him.

“Call me?” she said just before he ran out the door.

“Okay!” he shouted back over his shoulder.

“Promise?”

“Yes!”

It took him thirteen minutes to get to the apartment when it should have taken nine, because every fucking person in Seattle except him was an idiot who couldn’t drive. He snarled and cursed and pounded his steering wheel but it didn’t help. Thirteen minutes, long enough for anything to happen. Pulling into the lane behind the building, he could see the light on in the kitchen but nothing else.

He ran up the steps and pounded on the door, in dread of what he might find, most of all that they were all busted right back to January, or August, or even worse than that, and all because Casey had to do it his way and there was no reasoning or arguing, it was Casey’s choice and he was choosing. And now they could be completely fucked all over again.

Casey was not coming to the door.

It seemed like at least an hour that Zeke had been standing there and he was seriously considering breaking it down. Of course that wasn’t necessary because he did have a key --- but he considered it unjust that Frank Connor got to break down a door once and he, Zeke, hadn’t. He had lived through enough drama and angst, he was entitled to a gesture like that.

He pounded again. “Casey!” he shouted, and began to fumble with his keys, searching for the one he wanted.

Just as he was about to use it, the door opened and Casey stood there. Zeke took stock of him and felt his heart sink into his stomach. He was wearing clothes that had to have been for going out, all black and skin-hugging. His eyes were a tragic hue, surrounded by puffy red skin. And his mouth was swollen, which Zeke didn’t think was just from crying.

“What happened?” Zeke demanded.

Casey just blinked up him and shivered.

“What. Happened.”

He knew he didn’t sound all that sympathetic, but it was only because the way that Casey looked right now, this was going to be all he could do to maintain some self-respect.

“Did someone do something to you?”

Casey closed his eyes.

“Some guy did this to you, right? That guy from the pool…? Okay, I’m going to go and fuck him up.” And Zeke made a move to do just that, turning around to head back to his car. “Fuck him up so bad he’ll be getting all his meals from an IV bag --- “

A hand grasped his arm. Zeke looked down at it with near disgust, at the thought that Casey would dare to call him over here, let him see things and then keep him from retribution.

“Zeke.”

“Casey.”

“Zeke…”

“What? Talk to me --- “

“Hold me in.”

“Huh?”

“H-hold me…” Casey seemed to be breaking up, breaking into something beyond tears yet somehow failing to move towards Zeke despite his demands. “Hold m-me, hold me in…hold me in…”

Zeke surrendered. He stepped forward and grabbed Casey, pulling him against his body. “Okay, okay, okay…okay…” He felt at last Casey seeking his touch for something other than violence. Except this was a bit violent too, Casey was not just clinging but clawing at him, still muttering that bizarre, bewildering mantra.

Oh, fuck, it had to be wrong to love this so much. Zeke held Casey as tight as his arms could do without hurting and it still wasn’t enough. He wanted to pick him up and cradle him, as silly as it would seem --- but then Casey was trying to climb his body so he went with it, letting Casey turn into a human corset around him, arms and legs squeezing his torso his mouth open and wet against Zeke’s neck.

It was then Zeke noticed that Casey smelled of sex.

Zeke could have dropped him and started howling but he did what was most logical at the moment, cradling Casey closer, let him burrow…carrying him clinging like a child down the hall and into the bedroom.

They both rather fell on the bed, and Zeke was afraid that he fell right on top of Casey, squashing him. Casey didn’t seem to mind, and he didn’t seem to mind Zeke’s hands under his shirt, pushing it, fighting with it. In fact he went still, letting Zeke have his way and not really helping. Finally Zeke had wrenched Casey’s shirt up over his head and tossed it across the room, a furious missile of inside-out. Zeke’s starved eyes were roving Casey’s pale flesh, until they stuttered over a mark, and another mark. There were some around his neck, possibly on his back and he couldn’t be satisfied until he had seen them all. There was no thought in his mind of how Casey would react, they were way past that now and Casey let him strip him completely, going still for it. Zeke turned his body over a few times, like a beast with a favourite toy, taking inventory. There were the swollen lips, a few nips around his neck, and funny marks on his knees --- half bruise, half burn. And there were bruises on his hips, and traces of things that Zeke couldn’t bear to put a name to. It was enough to know what it meant.

Zeke heard himself make a sound. A roar, maybe.

Casey’s eyes stared up at him. Not terrified, but terrifying. Zeke was about to get lost and drown there and he couldn’t because this being before him was the one begging for help…help of him, somehow? Help from Zeke Tyler who was flawed and controlling and cold, who was stubborn and set in his ways already at twenty-three, who didn’t have a clue how emotions worked. Zeke Tyler had had a bad mother and inconsistent father, and too much time on his own to develop his own habits for survival.

But still there were those orb-like things right in Zeke’s face, those big, alien eyes and they begged: Hold me in. Hold me in.

It was like something broke open, maybe, in Zeke, something literally moving inside his chest, a thing that had never happened to him before and defied description. He wouldn’t have known how to describe it, except that he knew a sudden, strange kind of quiet that rushed over him, like an honest-to-fuck wave of something chemical or hormonal but more powerful than that. If someone had described it to him he would have grunted and dismissed them as a flake, but it was happening to him now and he couldn’t deny its truth. He wasn’t angry anymore, merely full and warm with gratitude that he was here right now and the thought that he was supposed to be here, no one else. He was supposed to be the one who received that plea because he was the one who was going to do right by Casey.

“Let’s go get you clean,” he said.

His voice sounded odd, not at all like his own. He saw and heard himself from afar gathering up Casey with an arm around his back and another under his knees, carrying his naked form into the bathroom. He closed the door by kicking it with his foot, made sure it was shut all the way --- Sasha could return at any moment after all, and this was not Sasha’s task but his. Sasha could not do or be this to Casey.

He started to put Casey down, on the toilet seat for lack of anywhere else, except that Casey started to struggle a bit. “I can --- “ he started.

“No,” Zeke said.

Casey’s eyes stared at his, far too close, far too intense.

“Just…a second.”

He realized that he had to let Casey get down, though, and so he did. Bending down on one knee, he started the water running and flipped the latch so he could fill the bathtub. He found a bottle of shower gel that was probably Sasha’s --- melon and cucumber, yup, it wasn’t Casey’s because Casey never smelled like that --- and squeezed a generous portion of it under the running water. Bubbles began to pile up in the tub.

Turning and straightening, he saw Casey still staring at him. “I’m going to give you a bath,” Zeke informed him, and he held out his hand.

“Why?” Casey whispered.

That he could ask that while he was standing there reeking of another man’s semen and sweat should have sent Zeke insane, but it didn’t. He merely felt a quiver of compassion and a deepening sense of patience. He was impermeable; nothing could upset him now.

“Just let me.”

This time, Casey accepted Zeke’s hand and let himself be guided, standing there while the water and bubbles climbed up past his ankles, shivering at the contrast in temperatures. Again, Zeke surveyed him, making himself look at everything. He was testing himself, he knew. At some great distance, there was a sense of outrage, but not for here. Not now.

Casey’s reddened eyes were on him. Casey could see him watching, assessing; Casey sat down suddenly, hiding as much of himself as he could, making himself small and continuing to shiver. He was no longer terrifying to Zeke, and while he might have been pitiful with his skinny arms and downcast face, he was not. He was just so…not.

Zeke busied himself by fetching fresh towels. When he returned, Casey was in exactly the same position only now he was dropping fresh tears into the mix. Putting a folded towel under his own knees, Zeke lathered up his hands and began methodically clean Casey’s body. He did not propose to linger or attempt anything more than to cover every bit of his skin, using a system that began at the neck and shoulders. He was extremely conscious that Casey’s unblinking gaze was now focused on him.

“Melon and cucumber,” Zeke said matter of factly. “I’ve never understood why people should want to smell like a salad.” He poured warm water over Casey’s neck, resisting the urge to use his hands to trace Casey’s lips, to erase the traces of someone else. “This one’s okay, I hope. Well, too bad if it’s not.”

He squeezed out more shower gel and moved on to Casey’s left arm, gently massaging the dewy skin with his soapy hands.

“I had sex with Chris,” Casey said. His voice was flat. “I went over to his house and we started making out. He asked me what I wanted and I said ‘fuck me’. I said that…”

Zeke said nothing. He felt slightly light-headed.

“Then his friends came over. We went out to the club and... I had…s-sex with his friends.”

Now the right arm, thought Zeke. There was nothing in the world except for that arm, the skin over it. He lathered and stroked, lathered and stroked, his eyes following after his hands.

“Steve and I did it in the alley. And Joel and me…we danced and I could feel how… h-hard he was --- “

Casey’s voice choked for a second, because of how hard Zeke was gripping his arm.

“Sorry,” Zeke said, releasing him and moving on to scrub his chest and back.

“I gave the other guy --- can’t remember his name --- gave him a blowjob in the men’s bathroom.”

“I see.”

“He said ‘let’s do it again sometime’ and I…”

“I see,” Zeke gritted.

“Ran away. All I could think of was calling…calling you.”

“Lucky me.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“I didn’t think you were. You better have used condoms, though, or you will be sorry.”

Casey just closed his eyes. “Yes.”

At this small bit of good news, Zeke would have liked to have felt relieved; he supposed he was, in some distant place. He splashed water on Casey’s chest, then said, “Get up on your knees, please.”

Casey obeyed. Zeke began at the front, using twice as much gel and washing his cock and balls with sublime gentleness. It was good, a kind of freedom to be so gentle with someone with whom he might have been so angry. This was a new addiction in the making; he could hear the faint siren call of it, growing in strength.

He hadn’t expected Casey to get hard since from the sound of it he had come plenty of times already tonight but suddenly the cock in Zeke’s hands was thickening. He didn’t let any reaction show on his face. He lathered underneath, stroking down in between Casey’s legs, around his buttocks and back up several times. He noticed that Casey had started to breathe a bit hard and was trying to spread his knees as much as he could. After three or four times, he went all the way and inserted a soapy finger in Casey’s opening. He didn’t hear a sound, but he saw the way Casey moved, bucking a little.

Zeke put a hand on Casey’s shoulder. Holding him still, he methodically cleaned him inside and out, watching for indications of discomfort. The faces that Casey was making could have been read either way. The opening was still a bit loose from earlier, Zeke couldn’t help noticing. The thought came into him that Casey could probably take his cock right now.

“Sit down,” he whispered, trying to breathe through the ache that had taken residence in him, making him feel desperately weak in some places and rigidly ready in others.

Casey seemed to be crying again as he sat down. Zeke cupped his hands, lifting the water repeatedly, rinsing off his body.

“Stand up.”

Casey did as he was told. Zeke wrapped him in a towel and half-lifted, half-guided him out, toweling his entire body, kneeling down to get his lower half. At eye level, Casey’s erect cock was hard to miss but Zeke ignored it. He took Casey’s hand and drew him, still naked, back into the bedroom.

There was a moment when they both stood there, waiting. Zeke knew Casey was waiting for him to decide.

It wasn’t a situation that lent itself to analysis. The moment was already fully grasped, known to Zeke in its entirety. What came to him could only be called intuition, and something more. It had nothing to do with ordinary notions of right and wrong, only what was right between them. And maybe it had something to do with a prophetic voice, a voice that sounded uncannily like Nicholas Cage, like an over-the-top actor just standing here in the room with them, shouting in Zeke’s ear: Love don’t make things right... It ruins everything... It breaks your heart... The stories are bullshit!

And he knew the truth of that, and that he could choose to love where he fought to make it all like he expected it to be, or he could choose to love with full acceptance of the fucked-up-edness of it all.

It was a perfectly thorough knowing of something, and the other thing that he absolutely understood was this: If he didn’t take Casey now, stake his claim now, he would lose him. It wasn’t possession, this time. It was understanding who Casey was, ultimately.

He moved towards the bed, still holding Casey’s hand, and it was all the prompting that Casey needed. He lay down on the bed, on his stomach. Zeke moved up behind him and gripped his hips, pulling his lower end up into a kneeling position, making his ass fully accessible, and Casey went willingly, willingly assuming that position, bracing himself with his head lying sidewise against his arm flat on the bed, his other hand splayed flat. His ass was raised at an extreme angle, and Zeke spared half a second to think that maybe this wasn’t going to be the most comfortable for him, but then he didn’t care. He unbuttoned, unzipped and stood up to kick off his jeans.

There was no stopping, though, no holding back. He knelt on the bed and positioned himself. He opened Casey and thought he saw the red, raw evidence of other men having been there, and it was there that he lost his mind.

He took hard hold of himself and Casey, and then he was inside, his cock sinking all the way into Casey’s ass in one thrust. Casey uttered a sound between a grunt and a gurgle, and flattened his back, wriggling slightly like he was thinking about protesting. Zeke gave his ass a little slap. “Shush!” he ordered, and Casey stilled, made a little affirmative sound in his throat.

Zeke started out with a kind of mental clarity he had never known before in his life; it gave him the power and control of a porno god; he was taking his time fucking, withdrawing almost and then plunging in, doing slowly and then even more slowly, watching clinically as Casey was reduced to incoherent little mumbles and grunts.

Now he launched into the abyss, his eyes closing, mind shutting down. Casey’s body gripped Zeke’s impossible tight and hot, soaking him, pulling him. He held Casey’s hips in both his hands, occasionally bending over him to nip the back of his shoulders, to smooth his lips along the nape of his neck but mostly just fucking, holding him steady beneath him. Listening to Casey’s noises, little moans and half-whines. Every stroke was a pulse of vindication, a bolt of everything…love, hate, anger, tenderness. He didn’t have to try to tell Casey or even show him anymore. Casey had been taught, he knew. He knew... he knew... and Zeke was gone blind with the pleasure of Casey’s knowing, thrusting harder and harder until he finally came like an apocalypse.

He fell over to his side and pulled Casey with him, curling his legs around him.

Casey was a sweaty, sodden, sobbing mess, the cleansing of not half an hour ago completely undone. He kept trying to turn in Zeke’s arms but was still pinned by him and couldn’t manage it so Zeke shushed him and removed his cock, finally helping him to turn to face him, and Casey pressed his face in the crook of Zeke’s neck without a word.

That moment passed, though, and many more like it, and still Zeke didn’t speak. He didn’t know what could be said. In the aftermath he wasn’t so sure that he hadn’t done wrong and still he didn’t care. He spotted the afghan he had bought for Casey, crumpled at the foot of the bed. He pulled it up, hating to dislodge his warm, slippery bundle of flesh but he had to. He covered them both.

But he had broken the stillness. He sensed that Casey was ready, and so he asked, “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Casey breathed.

“Do you…can you say what happened?”

Casey was quiet. Zeke felt his eyelashes brushing his neck like tiny wings but they felt like blows of concrete. His throat suddenly started to ache.

“They didn’t hurt you?” Zeke strangled.

“No.”

“Really?”

“I just got upset.”

“About what?”

“After I…I had…well, I sucked off Chris’ friend…I can’t even remember his fucking name and there was this…” Casey’s voice shook. “…this moment when I licked my lips and…and…”

“What?” Zeke whispered, stroking his hair while inwardly he raged at those fuckers who looked at Casey and saw someone they could take advantage of. The fact that Casey would have sought them out, invited them, done everything but throw himself under their feet, made them no less like scum in his eyes.

“I was tasting his cum and I knew I would go b-back tomorrow for more, I can’t stop myself…”

“Shh…”

“But I --- I w-was --- there’s never --- enough --- never enough, Zeke.”

“There is, “ Zeke contradicted quietly.

“I don’t think so. I’m --- like your mom said --- like you said ---“

“Shut up.”

“What?”

“You know better... you don’t say my mother was right.”

Casey stopped talking, and Zeke knew with a cascading self-satisfaction that he had the ability to think through this. He hadn’t been able to think for months but his consciousness was clear and limitless now.

“You’re allowed to go nuts once in a while,” he said. “It isn’t going to always be like this. You aren’t always going to be like this.”

“What if I am?”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I do. And also because I say so.” He knew even as he said it that he could be in trouble with that kind of nonsense, but Casey’s response was simply to sigh and snuggle closer to Zeke’s neck, mumbling something he couldn’t quite hear. “What was that?”

“You held me in…”

Zeke wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, only that it was important to reinforce the truth of it. Intuitively, he understood that he had done what was required. “It’s what I do,” he half-bluffed.

“’m tired, Zeke.”

“Me too.”

“…tired…not being with you.”

It was very important not to interfere with this emotional trend, Zeke thought. He didn’t dare comment, or alter his touch, or tense up.

“But I’m not ready to…” Casey’s lips were still moving softly against Zeke’s skin, barely audible, barely conscious. “…to stop…I still need to know…things.”

Zeke knew that Casey would detect the slight hitch in the movement of Zeke’s hands so he made a point of continuing his soothing motions. He did not react, because reacting was what he had done every other time up until now, Casey would expecting it. Counting on it, in fact.

But a moment came when you could not do exactly the same thing as you had always done, whether it was from exhaustion, surrender, or an instant of unfettered realization.

“Okay,” Zeke said.

“Okay?”

“You’re not ready to stop.”

And Casey made contented noises, shifting and squirming a little like any tired little beast getting comfortable for sleep. Moments later, it seemed that he was out, asleep. Zeke held him as close as it was physically possible to hold a person who was not actually yourself, and he contented himself with the thought: No fucking way is it okay. It was enough to know it in his own head. With that, he was able to sleep.

He woke up with a distinct awareness that something was amiss, even though there was nothing immediately wrong. Casey was still pressed against him, they were both sticky and a little sweaty, it was morning and he had slept the night through. Nothing should have been wrong.

A slight turn of his head later, he knew what it was: They were being watched. The bedroom door was open just enough to fit through a pair of eyes, and Sasha was in the room from the shoulders up, peering at them.

Zeke jumped slightly; casting a swift glance over himself and Casey, he ascertained that there was nothing showing that shouldn’t have been. They were a tangle of arms, legs and sheets, but they were mostly covered.

“What?” Zeke hissed.

“What?” Sasha echoed. He stuck his neck out further and said, “Did you just say ‘what’ to me?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“No?”

“You don’t get to say ‘what’. I’m the one who says it…like ‘what’ the fuck is going on here! I get home last night and the car’s in the back and I know you’re in here but you’re not on the couch so where else could you be? Hmm, I wonder. And I wait all night to look and now here I am and what the hell?”

Casey jerked and mumbled, “Whah…?”

Sasha’s eyes bulged.

“Hey,” Zeke said, and tickled his arm.

Casey scowled, brushing furiously at the spot on his arm. “I’m sleeping, Zeke.”

“I know, but the thing is… I think Sasha’s a little freaked out because last he heard you were going out with some Chris dude and now…here we are.”

Casey breathed heavily, making a sound like a tired sigh, and then untangled himself. He started to sit up, groaned, and lay back. With eyes closed he said, “Sasha…I called Zeke last night. He came over.”

“So I see.”

“He spent the night.”

Sasha sucked in a breath, no doubt to retort something about the obviousness of it all. At the last second he said, “Is this a good thing?”

Zeke waited, because obviously this was not his question to answer.

This time, Casey’s attempt to sit up was successful. Zeke could see that he was in some discomfort but he was being careful not to vocalize it. “Yes,” Casey said softly. “It’s a good thing.”

Sasha blinked and swallowed visibly. And again. Then he said, “Okay. Breakfast is in ten…just eggs and toast, that’s all you get!” He glared at Zeke as though defying him to argue for more.

“Sounds good,” Zeke replied, and it did. It sounded very good.

The door closed.

Zeke twisted to look at Casey, who drawn up his knees and had rested his head on top of folded arms. He was a bit worn around the edges, and Zeke thought he was absolutely exquisite at that moment with his hair sticking up and a pillow crease on one side of his face. His mouth looked bruised still.

“Sore?” Zeke asked.

Casey nodded and winced. “My whole body feels like it’s been twisted into a pretzel. My back hurts, my ass hurts… even my feet hurt for some reason.”

“Serves you right,” Zeke told him.

Casey blinked as though he actually possessed some shame about it, his cheeks colouring slightly.

“We should have a quick shower,” Zeke suggested.

“Um…”

“Yes?”

“Can I take mine alone?”

Zeke stomped on the twinge those words inspired. “Of course.”

Suddenly, Casey smiled. He leaned in and kissed Zeke on the nearest bit of skin he could reach, which turned out to be Zeke’s chin, and slinked off the bed with far too much grace for a person who’d apparently been reamed out the night before. He grabbed a towel off the floor and went towards the door --- and stopped. Turning, he stood there naked and seemingly devoid of self-consciousness. He said, “I figured out something.”

“Oh, yeah?” Zeke said, fighting to be casual.

“Yeah.”

“You gonna tell me?”

Casey nodded. He stared straight at Zeke with eyes that had become a complete mystery, solid and impenetrable. “It’s different with you.”

“Different.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you expand on that, maybe?”

Casey considered that. Then: “No.”

Zeke decided to stare at the wall. “Okay.”

“I’m being honest, Zeke. You want me to be honest, right?”

“Sure.”

He waited for Casey to leave, and thought he had left but then Casey’s voice said, “When I say different, I mean…no one makes me feel the way you do.”

Zeke’s head snapped back in Casey’s direction, only to catch an electrifying glimpse of his backside as he went through the door. He lay back, putting his hands under his head. After a few seconds, he started to hum, thinking about Casey washing himself, hands moving over velvet skin mere feet away from Zeke, and it occurred to him that today, for right now, he was happy.

Sent: June 18, 2002. 11:40 a.m.

RE:RE: dying

sorry to make you worry. i would have written back sooner except sasha made breakfast and i had to call stokely and then once Casey left for his usual morning routine sasha had to grill me so i didn’t get back here until now. so yeah, i spent the night at casey’s. a lot happened, i dont know if i can really explain it but i feel pretty fucking alright.

June 18, 2002. 12:01 p.m.

RE:RE:RE: dying

You spent the night with Casey? Does this mean you’re back together or was it just sex?

June 18, 2002. 12:12 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE dying

that’s just what sasha asked me and the answer is, i don’t know. i don’t know and honestly, i don’t care. can’t we just leave it at that for now?

June 18, 2002. 12:17 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE dying

Oh, honey. Does that seem wise? I’m asking this for your sake, you know, not to be a negative nelly.

June 18, 2002. 12:30 p.m.

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE: RE: dying

Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. No, I don’t know exactly what it means but for right now I don’t care. That’s something new for me, not expecting everything to be perfect. Just let me go with it, okay?

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