So good on his thirsty skin, the water. It’s not-cool-not-warm, smooth and yet a little sharp. The resistance tells him he has strength, that he can push and pulse through it. There is no battle here, no boundary to be fought over. He is quiet and sleek, gliding in the silence, and sometimes he hates that he has to lift his head take air. Sometimes he thinks he won’t ever leave here. He can submerge himself and not come up, staring at an artificial, oceanic world through the distortion of his goggles.

In this underside-world, bodies flailed and thrashed, yet remained oddly balletic. But out where people breathed and walked and stumbled, the pool had to keep its schedule, and as much as Casey wished it wasn’t so, he couldn’t stay here. He would meet with Yves as usual, with his fingers still slightly pruned, the smell of chlorine on his skin, and she would not even think to say anything about it other than to congratulate him on keeping to an exercise program.

He started another length, reveling in the feel of the water against his face with every face-down plunge, and the taut burn in his shoulders and arms.

Occasionally, Yves seemed to get an inkling that there were things in his mind that were foreign to her, would always be foreign. Just as promised, she wouldn’t ask about those things. She concerned herself with the things that he needed to understand if he was to function. So did he now, treating those things with the same intent dedication that he used to treat high school. It was entirely possible that he was her best patient. When he’d suggested as much to her, she’d laughed. Eventually, he persuaded her to say that he was doing good work although he shouldn’t count himself as a graduate of psychotherapy just yet.

It wasn’t something he needed to be told. So maybe he’d gotten through an entire course at the university, but it was fortunate for him that they didn’t take attendance in college, or he would have been sunk. He’d missed at least half of the classes. There were mornings when he would wake up and just knew he couldn’t get there on time. Other days, he’d gotten all the way to the door of the classroom and then turned back. Once or twice, he’d even gone in and sat down — he always was the first person in the room — and when the other students started to arrive, he started to panic. Sometimes he could overcome the panic. Sometimes his nerve broke, and he ran.

Another length. He was past his usual fifty now.

The worst had been the time he’d run out in the middle of the class. Huddled in the hall, the last thing he’d expected was to see one of his fellow students appear there, inquiring after him. They weren’t even his fellow students, really, since he knew none of them and never spoke to them. But this girl whom he only knew as the one who sat two rows in front of him and raised her hand frequently, this girl, she just showed up in the hallway. “You okay?” she’d wanted to know.

A person couldn’t exactly tell something he didn’t know himself. He’d managed to answer her with something, and she had suggested that he could come back in when he was ready, but he was too embarrassed. He had just managed to say thank you and run off to the coffee shop where he met Zeke. Zeke, who was always available for Casey, Zeke who had chosen his courses so that he would be able to meet Casey but still with an hour gap between them... and even after doing this routine so many times he found himself feverishly running the numbers... Casey’s class ran from 9:00 to 10:00, three times a week, while Zeke had back-to-back hours until eleven. With that hour to fill, Casey had taken to hiding, sometimes in the library, sometimes in the coffee shop.

That time it had been the coffee shop, albeit much of the wait was accomplished by recourse to the bathroom, sitting on the toilet seat, pacing the small space between urinals and stalls, ducking again into a stall if someone came in. The staff knew him, some of them, and knew he was strange but harmless. They had left him alone to wait...until eleven. Eleven, the magic number. Eleven, when Zeke walked in and suddenly everything became secure and familiar. But it wasn’t the normal and bearable sixty minutes but almost two hours that day, and by the time Zeke had found him he’d been a mess, barely able to stop himself from crawling into Zeke’s lap.

Nothing much was embarrassing anymore, not that he’d had a whole lot of dignity to begin with. Crying in public, running down hallways like a spooked cat, making ten trips to the coffee shop bathroom in a half-hour…yup. None of it could make him so much as squirm. Of course, it helped when Zeke was there, ready to employ his brilliant verbal viciousness against anyone who so much as looked at Casey sideways.

Soon after one of these episodes, much earlier in the term, Casey had gotten an email from the professor expressing concern for him, and he saw no reason not to be completely honest. He had replied, explaining his situation as straightforwardly as possible. He’d learned that blunt honesty was the shortest distance between a potential new anxiety and heading it off before it got started. Yeah, the truth could be a real stress reliever. So he had no trouble informing Professor Schwartz that he had an anxiety disorder and that he often had difficulty being in public but he had no intention of being late with any of his assignments. He left out the part about having chosen this course on avant-garde aesthetics because there were no written exams, no times when he absolutely had to be present — only essays.

With relief, he received the reply that the professor understood and hoped he would continue to do his best to make it to class. He had gone to Yves lamenting yet again of how pathetic he was, how much a failure as a student and a human being, and of course Yves repeated what should have been his mantra by then:

“Do a mood log, Casey.”

He’d done a million mood logs. Okay, maybe not a million, but a whole fuck of a lot. They always demonstrated that he was actually making sterling progress and if he was really honest with himself and not being a drama queen, he knew it. He hated doing the mood logs but he had learned that they worked.

The water was still so good, so relaxing. He would do one more length — well, maybe two, to get back to the end of the pool with the ladder. It was either that or flop out ungracefully onto the tiles like a...well, a fish out of water.

Breathe. In, and then he was under again, breathing out, listening to the strange and wonderful liquid silence shot through with the motion of other creatures. Lifting his head, breathing again. Breathing out. There was no fucking logical reason why he shouldn’t be able to inhale this stuff...just the entire order of nature, and that pissed him off a bit. If nature was going to make a person strange, why not make them really strange...? Give them lungs that could process oxygen from water as well as air.

Basically, nature could really suck.

Oh, what he could have done with the ability to shape-change, if he could have just become whatever he wanted to be — with just a thought. One thought, and – bang – he could be someone new, not this thing crawling, scrabbling for transformation. Sometimes he thought that every cell in his body had learned anxiety, was just — soaked — with fear, and until he had, through cellular reinvention, mitosis, shedding, whatever... Until he had a completely new body with all new cells, he would keep on being Casey Connor, Scared of Everything.

Of course there had been no reason to be scared when a guy who seemed perfectly nice asked him out. He knew that in his head, and still he had reacted...like, in the very last week of classes when one of his male class-mates had approached him. It had been one of his better days, and the hour lecture had been done and Casey was zipping up the folder where he kept his notes, thinking about the paper he had to finish, when it happened.

“Hi,” said a stranger.

He was so far from accustomed to having people speak to him in this room, he had whipped around, just barely restraining himself from throwing his body into the nearest corner since the door was far out of reach. He tried to echo the greeting but it came out more like “Huh…?”

“My name’s Andrew,” the boy had said, and smiled. He had Bollywood good looks — incredible dark eyes and glossy hair, gorgeous skin, fine features. He was just slightly geeky, with retro-style horn-rimmed glasses, but it worked. While he was the kind who didn’t say much in class, but Casey had noticed that when he did it was always incredibly intelligent.

When Casey failed to reply, Andrew had prompted, “How about you?”

“Wh-what?”

“Your name?”

“C-Casey.”

“Cool.” Andrew nodded, and they both let their eyes dart this way and that, avoiding looking at each other, while Casey wondered what this smart, handsome guy wanted with him. Then Andrew blurted, “So…I was kinda wondering if you wanted to get some coffee.”

Casey blinked at him.

“Okay,” Andrew said. “Never mind.”

He started to turn away but Casey said quickly, “W-wait.”

Andrew stopped, looking —- hopeful, maybe, but Casey couldn’t be sure. It seemed like hopeful but he didn’t know if he should trust himself. After all, he had been a lump in the back of the room for the past three months while Andrew had been up there somewhere near the front and as near as Casey could tell he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head which meant he could only know Casey as That Freak Who Kept Bolting For No Good Reason.

“You want to have coffee…with me?”

Andrew looked pained. “You don’t know ‘til you ask.”

“’m…I’m sorry. I don’t think…”

“Okay. See you around.”

Before Casey could reconsider or make any further utterances, Andrew was out the door. Casey stumbled out just moments after and regretfully watched him go down the hall. The movement of shoulder muscles beneath his shirt was a poignant reminder of what he’d just done himself out of with his stupid, frightened ways.

He had been such an idiot, a ridiculous cowardly thing. He had told himself so, privately, out loud, in his journal, and to Yves.

Her answer, as always: “Do a mood log, Casey.”

So he did a mood log, which revealed that however disappointed he was in himself, he knew he had accomplished a great deal by finishing that course. He had a baseline of data on the subject of What Casey Connor Could Handle, and now he was determined to resume school full-time in the fall. Even if he missed a pile of classes, he could still be in school. He would be doing something —something else with his brain. His parents would be thrilled, Sasha would be ecstatic, even Zeke would be happy about it. And the next time someone asked him on a date, maybe he wouldn’t —

Fuck that. He didn’t want to date. He didn’t especially want to spend time with anyone but Zeke or Sasha or Stokely. If only he could get what he needed without social interaction, but it seemed to him that even the male of the species tended to need a pretext to say hello before they got off.

He’d been in the water too long now; he was going to be late.

Casey pulled himself reluctantly out of the pool and padded on the cement towards the men’s locker room, shivering a little. He had to work hard not to let his shoulders hunch as he got nearer to that room. It was always a battle not to hug the walls as men of every conceivable size and just one size — larger-than-him — went about their own physical activities. He didn’t think it was his imagination how often they looked at him — with interest, with speculation, even with no particular expression, just noticing the passing of a ninety-pound weakling. Fair was fair, though, because he looked at them. He looked at them a lot, always careful about it. Locker rooms were perilous, overflowing with sights for the eye to feast upon and an equal degree of threat. He watched men checking each other out, pretending they weren’t, comparing, assessing and admiring, holding themselves taut. It was so ridiculous and so ready, and he almost loved it even if sometimes it was all he could do to remain at his locker with his back to the rest of the room, his skin crawling, and not flee.

Oh, shit. Shit, fuck...

The Nordic God was between him and the entrance to the locker room; over six feet tall of shaggy blond hair and sculpted muscles, he would normally appear at the poolside in a tiny Speedo. His hairless torso boasted a golden, perfect tan, adorned only by a white bone necklace. He probably climbed mountains or jumped out of airplanes when the pool wasn’t open. His teeth would flash a splendid white every time he and Casey ran into each other, which seemed to be often.

“Whoa!” exclaimed the God.

Casey put his head down and tried to scurry around him. After several unsuccessful tries to get around him, Casey looked up and realized that he was being actively blocked. On the spot, he was trembling, from fear and something other than fear. “Wh-what?” he stammered. “What?”

“Sorry. Just being a goof.”

“Stop it,” Casey snapped, his nerves driving his mouth. Helpless to stop himself, he let his eyes train on God’s crotch, which was nearly at fucking eye-level for him anyway.

The Nordic God had started to chuckle. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you laughing?”

“Habit, I guess.” Another man pushed past them, giving them a look, and they both pressed to the wall on Casey’s left. He was about to dart into the space that had opened up to the God’s other side, when the man said, “Hold on a sec.”

“I have to go.”

The God moved forward, inexorably pushing Casey back into the pool area. Casey folded his arms over his chest, the better to cover it up if his heart happened to open a hole in his ribcage. He watched as the God struck a casual pose, no doubt ready to move quickly should Casey make a break for the locker room.

“I’ve seen you around here quite a bit.”

“Yeah?” Casey returned, shifting his weight.

“My name’s Chris.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s your name?”

“Casey.”

“That’s your name?”

“Yeah,” Casey said, trying to break down that question into usable parts. He couldn’t.

Chris laughed again.

“What?”

“Just the look on your face. Like, why would anyone ask such a stupid question.” Very subtly — they were in public, after all — Chris shifted his stance in Casey’s direction, conveying a kind of interest that Casey recognized at once. “You’re quite a swimmer.”

“I don’t know…”

“Did you ever take lessons?”

“A bit, in school.” Casey caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall. 9:30. He was going to be late for Yves, but he couldn’t seem to move his feet, they had grown into the cement floor. “I…I’m sure I’m not doing it the way I should.”

“You do it your way. You’re not planning on going to the Olympics, right?”

Casey shook his head, and then, unable to think of any other way to continue this encounter, he blurted, “What — what do you want?”

Chris chuckled again, and this time it went straight to Casey’s groin. “Just — wondered if you wanted to grab some coffee later…or maybe a beer?”

There it was, the open acknowledgement of what they had been doing with the smiles and the glances, and suddenly, Casey wasn’t all that nervous anymore. At least now he could be relatively sure that Chris hadn’t pulled him aside so he could pound on him for checking him out all those times. But he wasn’t not-nervous either. After all, he would have to see Zeke later — this afternoon, probably, or...or...well, if not tonight, tomorrow. He would have to look right at Zeke and talk to him with the memory of this conversation, this question and its answer. And what was he to do about the fact that Zeke would expect —?

You can’t hold all your time open for Zeke.

Yves’ voice. He wasn’t sure if it was a memory or just a what-would-Yves-think moment. He heard her voice a lot, regardless. He had a little copy of Yves inside him, constantly talking to him. She would want him to say yes, especially after his freak out when Andrew asked him out that time. She would say that he needed to explore his options and take advantage of opportunities and that always worrying that Zeke would be upset if pre-empted was a way of not taking responsibility for things. He was entitled to go out on a date. He was entitled to do things without Zeke, entitled to kiss other men, to —

“Okay,” he blurted.

The smile that Chris brought forth was blinding, unparalleled by anything Casey had seen in all his trips to the pool so far. “Excellent,” he said. “When?”

“Um…I don’t know.”

“I know. Some friends and I were planning on going out tonight for a few drinks. Why don’t you join us?”

The words seemed to vibrate in his head. He wondered if he might not actually be spinning. Drinks. Tonight. A few friends.... And beer meant a bar. A bar that could be any size, from a hole in the wall that held maybe fifty people to a club that held a thousand. Drinks. Tonight. A few friends... Tonight meant not much time to adapt to the idea, and a few friends…a few friends meant other people.

Casey didn’t realize how long he’d been quiet until Chris said, “Okay, maybe not.”

Fury burst in Casey’s chest — fury at himself. He wheezed, “Yes, yes…I’ll come…”

“You don’t have to…”

“I want to.”

Chris’ brows drew together. “Okay,” he said with a shrug. “Why don’t you come to my apartment first, that’s where we’re all meeting. 2245 Secord, Apartment 560. Say at 8:00 o’clock tonight? My friends aren’t coming until nine so you and I’ll have time to get to know each other.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll remember the address?”

“Yes...er...is there a bus stop...?”

“Sure. Just take the Fifth Street bus to Secord, get off at the corner. You just have to walk a few blocks.”

“Got it.”

Chris smiled again, turning Casey’s gut to liquid. “Good.”

And he moved so that Casey could pass.

There was no time for a shower. He was already going to be late, and he didn’t want to face that particular form of stress today so it was as basic as towel the hair, throw on t-shirt and jeans and hurry out of the locker room.

There had been a time when he would run to Yves’ office, out of fear of being stopped, or worse, touched. For some time now, he had been walking, not running.

Today though, he was running, unable to prevent himself from colliding with people and being okay with it as long as they didn’t try to fucking grab him or anything. His heart pounded, but in a good way. He liked being healthy. He liked being able to move and even run without collapsing. It was good to know that if he needed to, he could flee an entire team of football players. Today he didn’t need to but he didn’t want to miss his entire session, that was all. He wasn’t panicky, wasn’t…and he was fine with being on the street. They could all be aliens, yeah, but he was alien too, he was them and they were him, and in fact, they were his. They wouldn’t want to hurt him.

Back in February, he had walked around muttering a lot. “I am her…I am the alien queen…alien queen, alien queen.” No one knew but him and the millions of strangers who thought he was a nut. Not even Yves. He had told her he was scared, he had told her he couldn’t bear to be touched but he didn’t tell her the stuff that Thomas had taught him. He didn’t tell her how he had muttered those words until he didn’t need to, until they were inside him. Sometimes when he looked at people these days, he would indulge in the belief that they were all his subjects, that they all knew him exactly for what he was just like he knew them, and because of that they would part before him, making way for him.

Not today, though. Despite his “sorry…sorry…excuse me” and his dodging — once right across the path of a woman about to get into a cab, shouting, “Sorry!” — there came a moment when he was grabbed suddenly by an older man.

He did not like to be touched, not by strangers anyway — oh, hell, pretty much not by anyone, and he most especially didn’t like being grabbed, didn’t the world at large get that? He had thought this was understood. He pulled himself up and said indignantly, “Hey — “

“Dude, you ran into me.”

“Okay, but — ”

“And you almost fell...”

“No,” he argued, yanking his arms out of the man’s grip. Yeah, sure, he almost fell. Okay, he had been off balance but that was because this guy had not been getting out of his way, probably did it on purpose even. See a skinny little geek running down the street, of course it was your fucking duty to the fucking world, to the male species and society at large and fucking nature itself to whale on him a little

The stranger lifted both hands in apology. “Just...try walking, kid.”

“I’m late,” Casey growled.

“Just take it easy, there’re other people on the street here.”

He arrived at Yves’ panting and sweating, ten minutes after nine. Yves took in his hot, sweaty face and heaving chest, and fetched a glass of water for him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he gulped.

“Count to ten.”

“No…”

“No?”

“Not panicking…just...ran here.”

“Oh,” she said with a faint smile. Going around her desk, she sat and folded her hands. “Why did you run?”

“’m late.”

“That’s true.”

“I got…there was this…guy…”

“Casey. Just take a minute and catch your breath. Why don’t you drink your water?”

He nodded, closing his eyes and forcing himself to slow down his lungs and downed the entire glass, gulping it just as he gulped for air. He thought he might know just how dry Mary Beth had felt all the time on this planet. They must have been so desperately thirsty, odd that they hadn’t chosen a place like Seattle where it rained so often instead of Ohio. But they were in Seattle now, weren’t they? Yeah, they were in Seattle because he was in Seattle —

He tucked away those thoughts and raised his head, signaling that he was ready to begin.

“So why are you late, Casey?”

“Um...okay, there’s this guy at the pool. I don’t think I told you about him.”

“No.”

“He’s…” Casey gulped his first, full helping of air as his body settled. He took a few more long breaths and continued, “I called him the Nordic God in my head because he’s kind of like…”

“A Nordic god?”

“Yeah, he’s tall and blond and beautiful. Every time we saw each other we would nod or smile or something but I thought he was just…I dunno, being polite.”

“Un-huh.”

“He asked me to go out with him.”

“When? Today?”

“Yeah. Just when I was leaving.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said yes.” Casey bounced forward in his chair, sitting right on the edge. “Dr. Yves…I think he wants to fuck me.”

She didn’t react, but then she never did. “Why do you think that?”

“He invited me to come out with him and some friends tonight but he said I should meet him at his apartment first.”

“Ah. And you think that means he wants to have sex before you go?”

“I don’t know!” Casey groaned. “I don’t know these things.”

“Do you think you can trust him?”

Casey shrugged. “Trust him, how?” The fact was, he didn’t know one way or another and he didn’t care. Okay, yes, he did care, he was terrified in fact... but he wasn’t going to not go. Lately, everywhere he looked he saw glistening muscles and cocks straining, and he couldn’t seem to beat off enough times in a given day. Just yesterday Sasha had complained that he seemed to spend more time in the shower than ever and there was never any hot water...

“What do you want from this man, Casey?”

He started to speak, to say exactly what he wanted and nothing more than that. But when he let his mouth fall open, it was just a preamble to falling silent.

“I’m not judging you, Casey. Remember?”

He nodded.

“All I care about is that you do this in a way that’s safe for you, and won’t end up with you being hurt.”

“I know.”

“So how do we make sure that you’re safe?”

“I…I can tell Sasha.”

“Okay.”

“He’s not going to like it. We were supposed to go out to the clubs on Saturday, he got the night off and everything.”

“Well, you can still do that, right?”

“Yeah, but...see, I asked him to help me with this and he didn’t want to but then he agreed. He’s going to be upset at me doing this on my own now.”

“I don’t think it’s an all or nothing situation, Casey. He’s willing to go with you to a bar, to help you get comfortable, and he should still be willing to do that, right?”

Casey couldn’t help but give Yves a look that suggested the many things they both knew about the world of Casey-and-Sasha. Like, just because Sasha should be okay with a thing didn’t mean he would be, and that was not even to enter into the permutations of Zeke.

“All right,” Yves allowed. “Tell me.”

“Sasha doesn’t like the idea of me having sex at all,” Casey grumbled. “He’s worse than my dad.”

“But you told me he was going to try to be accepting and help you be safe.”

“Yeah. But this…”

“Maybe I can see how he’d be concerned. This is potentially dangerous, Casey.”

“I dunno...”

“It is. Do you know anything about this man?”

“No.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Yeah, it’s Chris.”

“His last name?”

“No…but I know his address. I could tell Sasha the address.”

“All right. And what else could you do?”

“Um…I’ll tell Sasha I’m going to phone him at a certain time. I’ll have my phone with me and make sure it’s charged.”

“All right.”

“I’ll bring condoms.”

“Good,” Yves replied firmly, nodding. “And what if he says ‘oh, we don’t need those’?”

“Then I’ll say we don’t need to fuck.”

“Are you sure that’s what you’ll say?”

Casey rolled his eyes. “Yes. I may be horny but I don’t want to make anymore trips to the doctor than necessary, and I definitely don’t want to die of AIDS.”

“I’m very glad to hear that. Now I have to ask this, Casey. Do you think you can trust him to respect what you want?”

“I’m not going to want him to stop.”

“I’m not so sure, Casey. As far as I know, you still don’t like to be surprised by a pat on the back, and you haven’t been on a date or any other kind of…er, rendezvous…in a number of months.”

Casey bit his lip. “Well…”

Here was that honesty thing again. As much as he liked the anti-stress properties of the truth, there were simply things that were too difficult to tell, things that he preferred to keep in his head. He’d noticed that things like that might sometimes feel more like a bad dream than a memory, and talking about stuff could make it more real, and thus totally ruin it. Like being a part of her...her actual remains here on planet earth. No one would ever know about that, for if they did he would have to suddenly put that under the category of nonsense or delusion. Things that weren’t spoken about didn’t have to be right or wrong. They were just themselves.

“Casey?” Dr. Yves pressed.

“Um...”

“Yes...?”

“Okay,” he sighed. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“Un-huh.”

“But I know I’m ready to do this, Dr. Yves...Can’t we just leave it at that?”

“That’s your call, Casey. It was always your call. But what’s this thing you haven’t told me?”

“ It’s just…I think I’m ready because...well, I know I won’t be too scared.”

“Why is that?”

“I already had a bit of a thing with a guy.”

Yves brows went up, the only appreciable reaction from her. “This is a surprise.”

He shrugged.

“When did this happen?”

“About…um, a couple of weeks ago, when I went with Sasha to Wisconsin.”

“Will you tell me about it?”

Putting his head back a month ago, to that particular episode, made for a slight twinge of guilt. Well, maybe more than a twinge.

God, he hated telling the truth sometimes.

It was possible to be right in the middle of something and still find it a mystery. Casey didn’t know how a person went from being terrified by the prospect of a short trip to Los Angeles, in Zeke’s company no less, to easily agreeing to go to Wisconsin. Wisconsin involved not only travel, and not only being away from Zeke, but travel without Zeke to a funeral, and not just any funeral. It was Sasha’s father, and from the moment Sasha told him, Casey had began worrying about how to figure out what Sasha needed. And how to give it to him.

See, Sasha was a tricky one, in that he gave the impression of not being tricky. You would think that he would just fall on your shoulder grieving…but he didn’t, not at first. It took him a while to admit just how much his father’s death affected him, and that was because even while urging everyone else to go all out with their emotions, he was very careful with those emotions that pertained to his own life.

It was scary enough that Sasha would need Casey’s support though this because Casey didn’t know if he could ever be any good at supporting other people rather than being supported himself — but then Sasha asked Casey to come with him. Casey just knew that he could do it; that wasn’t the issue. Specific situations could unnerve him, but the general situation…no problem.

He just couldn’t figure how or when that had happened.

There was, of course, the problem of Zeke. Casey saw Zeke every day, Zeke made sure of it. Sometimes Casey would wish, silently and desperately, for Zeke to skip a night, just so he could see what it would be like to spend an entire evening alone. But no…Zeke would come over any time during the daylight hours and not leave until some time after sunset. And Casey was content with that…mostly. He just…kinda wanted to try being on his own for a bit.

And then, Wisconsin happened. He didn’t let on, he didn’t even dare hint to Sasha, how much he wanted to go. It made him feel guilty because it was a terrible thing for Sasha to have to go through and he really was trying to figure out what Sasha needed. It didn’t take Casey long to figure out that Sasha just wanted to pretend that everything was status quo, and that meant letting Sasha worry about him, which Casey was really quite good at.

Of course, like always, the reality wasn’t nearly what he had hoped; it wasn’t so nice when they actually arrived. Pete oozed homophobia — which didn’t bother Casey much, he had long since learned to ignore that kind of stupidity and concentrate on trying to avoid the beatings that came with it, but he knew how it would get to Sasha. Meanwhile, Anne annoyed Casey for no rational reason, and the mother frightened him with her distance. Whatever Casey might have said about his own mom, she was always pretty open about the fact that she loved him.

But Jason...Jason, he liked immediately. There was something entirely recognizable about the guy, and as the only person there who was Casey’s age, he was a natural compatriot. And of course, from the start, Casey sensed that Jason was curious about him.

It was nothing obvious, just an intuition that began to form when they were introduced and the intuition solidified the very first night into more than that. When Casey stepped outside the Johanssen family home, heading to his and Sasha’s rental car and the phone and his conversation with Zeke, he was not expecting to run into anyone. He was startled by the dark silhouette leaning up against the house, wreathed by curls of smoke. For an instant, he imagined that it was Zeke even though that was quite impossible.

He and Jason exchanged a long look, longer than was probably polite. Casey was finding that he had trouble judging things like politeness — or maybe he had just stopped caring. Zeke accused him of staring sometimes but he was pretty sure that Zeke liked it and Casey figured that he always needed data if he had any hope of making sense of people.

At length, Jason nodded at him, and he nodded back.

“Hey, um... Casey?”

“Yeah.”

“My brother, Peter...he’s really okay.”

“I know,” Casey answered.

“He’s just really uptight, but he’s a good guy.”

Casey decided he could safely take a step closer. “Um...where do you go to school?”

“In Madison. How about you?”

“Me?”

“You go to school?”

“In Seattle, yeah — you didn’t know?” The moment he said that, Casey knew it was stupid. Of course it hadn’t come up, since Sasha was completely alienated from his family, and why should Jason know a thing about Casey Connor, room-mate and best-friend to the former Alex Johanssen?

But Jason replied graciously, “It didn’t come up, what with all the arguing.” He grinned, and suddenly it was like a spotlight switched on, blaring on a charming, slightly crooked smile, smart and sad. Casey found himself getting nearer, making a close assessment of Jason’s face. There was just the tiniest hint of Sasha there, just around his mouth and maybe around his eyes. He must look more like his father, because Peter, Anna and Sasha all seemed to closely resemble the mother. “No one ever talks about...Sasha. I didn’t know where he lives. For all I knew, he could have been the bearded lady in a circus.”

Casey giggled; the image was funny enough but he realized with a start that he wanted to laugh at Jason’s jokes, and what the fuck was he doing?

Jason smiled again. “You aren’t my brother’s boyfriend, are you?”

Casey opened his mouth to deny it, and changed his mind. “What makes you think that?”

“Because some of the ways he acts with you...he used to act like that with me. You know, like you’re his younger brother?”

Casey gave it a moment more, then discarded the pretense, hoping that Sasha would forgive him. “Okay, no...I’m not his boyfriend. But we do live together.”

“Why did he lie?”

Casey shrugged. “I guess he assumed that since everyone already thinks the worst...”

“...he should just be as bad as he could be?”

“He was pissed off.”

Jason nodded. “I guess I can see that. You wanna join me for a smoke?”

Casey knew Zeke would be considering his phone call overdue by now — but on the other hand, Zeke could wait. Zeke had to learn that things couldn’t always happen according to his schedule, and he had been, he just tended to forget every once in a while and go assuming a bit too much. Besides, Jason was kind of cute, and Casey was pretty sure he was giving him the curious-straight-boy omigoddoesthismeanI’mgaydoesit glance?

“Nevermind — “ Jason started to say when Casey had been quiet too long.

“I don’t smoke,” Casey blurted. “But — but — we can stand here and talk. I can talk while you smoke, I mean -- except —” I don’t talk and I suck at being social and would you mind carrying the lion’s share of the responsibility for this encounter, oh, and by the way, I’d like to apologize in advance because even if we do manage to strike up a conversation I’ll probably trash any established comfort levels. Okay?

Jason winced slightly. “Okay.”

Casey stepped nearer, shifting his weight around on the uneven, gravel-covered drive, squinting sideways at Jason.

“So,” Jason said. “Um...are you gay, then?”

“Yeah.” Casey could see how Jason was turning pink, even in the faint light. “You?”

“No!” Jason blurted. “No...god.” His expression of embarrassed outrage dropped away quickly, and he fumbled, “Not...not that it bothers me...people being gay. I’m not like my dad was.”

Casey nodded; he figured he’d known that. He figured most guys, tolerant or not, would have that sort of knee-jerk reaction.

“Hey, I’m in college,” Jason added. “It would be terribly unhip not to be open-minded.”

At that, Casey thought he had better let the poor boy off the hook. He laughed, watched as Jason relaxed a bit. This might be okay. He might be able to do this — as in, interact with people, as in simply be there without it turning into a huge drama or an ordinary, run-of-the-mill disaster. “What was your dad like?” Casey asked. Surely that was an appropriate question for conversation.

“That’s a tough one,” Jason said.

Casey wilted and hoped Jason didn’t see it. Fortunately, the light here was oblique at best.

“Sort of...ordinary, I guess. He just did his thing, getting up, going to work, hanging out with the boys — but he just loved machines. He loved taking them apart and figuring them out. He could have been an engineer if he wanted.”

“But then he wouldn’t get to play with the machines himself,” Casey said.

Jason eyed him as though he had just changed shape. “That’s right. You really used to do science?”

“Really. And I shared a room with an engineer. Was your dad nice to — to you?”

“Yeah, he was nice to me.”

“What about Sasha?”

“He never hit him or anything...but I guess...” Jason hesitated. “He wasn’t very nice to him, no.”

Casey just took that in. He tried to envision a teenaged Sasha living miserably in this town, ignored by his father maybe, or maybe the man had called him terrible things…right before he kicked him out of the house. Casey couldn’t begin to imagine how a parent could do that. Frank had never done that to him. He had said things that hurt and Casey had felt despised and permanently cut off, but if he had been in a different state of mind he might not have run away, and then he might not have made that disastrous appearance at Roy’s family home. And for all of Roy’s faults, Casey could well imagine the horror Roy must have felt when he saw Casey there at the absolute worst possible time. You just didn’t do things like that to people.

“God, I can’t get used to that!”

“What?” Casey said, trying to recapture the thread of the conversation. As usual, he’d been entranced by himself, his own problems. It was really a wonder that he had such good friends…especially Sasha. He didn’t deserve a friend like that.

“Calling him Sasha.”

“He’s always been Sasha to me.”

“He’s Alex to me.”

“Alex...” Casey echoed, tasting it. It wouldn’t go down. “Nope, can’t see it.”

The quiet that followed was not entirely easy. Casey felt his heart begin to pound with a non-specific fear, something unattached to any particular idea, and he took a few steps towards the rental car. “Anyway...I need to phone my...phone Zeke.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, reflexively searching for his phone even though he was quite aware that it was in the car.

“Who’s Zeke?”

“My friend.”

“Just your friend, or your ‘friend’?”

There was panic and there was panic. Like there were friends and friends...as if that made any sense and anyway, Casey was entering into the panic of the second kind. He blurted, “Just my friend, why — you interested?”

“Take it easy,” Jason said softly.

At that moment, Casey understood that there was a thing between them. Maybe it was just comfort, because Jason had that thing like Sasha — an instinct for knowing when a person needed solicitude. But he was also not-Sasha, and therefore available for kinds of affection other than hugging and petting. It was instantly fascinating, and therefore scary all over again.

“Go ahead and make your call,” Jason suggested.

Casey went, hating that he felt like he needed to do this, because at this moment there was something not quite right and fucked up about it and he knew that. He wanted to hear Zeke’s voice and wished that he didn’t want to — or need to.

They’d talked about it, he and Yves. She would say — no, she would gently and relentlessly get him to admit that he was over generalizing in making himself feel like a loser for wanting to talk to Zeke for a few minutes. She would get him to say there was no real harm in it seeing as he had the means and the time, and considering that back in December he’d nearly killed himself when Zeke left him for a few days, he was really making remarkable progress. And he shouldn’t punish himself or Zeke right now by refusing to call.

So he called and they spoke for a few minutes. The content wasn’t important; it never was. Zeke was bored now that school was out, Zeke wanted to know how Sasha was and what it was like but when Casey mentioned the time Zeke suddenly noted the time difference and suggested that Casey was tired — which he was. He asked Zeke to call Jerry, just in case Sasha forgot, and they said goodnight, and it was enough and everything, it was just the sound and the cadence of Zeke.

Casey walked back to the house feeling much more steady. He thought he might like to talk to Jason some more, but Jason had gone in.

He didn’t really get another chance to talk to Jason alone until the next night. They talked, they made chitchat, they played with Sasha’s two nieces at the reception. There was a bad time of the day with Casey swamped by the awareness of how badly he had fucked up at the funeral — but Jason nagged him to talk until he surrendered. Plenty of time to feel guilty and depressed later, he reasoned.

Do a mood log, Casey.

Plenty of time to do a mood log later, too.

But he had fucked up. He’d fucked up badly. He hadn’t touched Sasha’s father as some goodbye gesture. He’d truly wanted to know what dead skin felt like, if it was soft or hard, hot or cold. He’d known even as he did it that his curiosity didn’t belong here, but all the same he hadn’t expected that sudden, hateful grip and that momentum, flinging him away. It was the last thing he’d been expecting at that moment, and so he’d freaked, really freaked and said crazy, scary things, the kind of stuff that always got Sasha looking at Casey like he was some stranger.

Really, he hadn’t freaked like that in at least a month, and it was amazing how something so familiar could still take him by surprise... barely able to see, barely able to think of anything except the presence, the male presence hating him and wanting to hurt him and he knew the man would get him, all he could think of was to spout something that would leave its mark on him, there was nothing else. There was no reason to it. There were things to remember and understand after the fact, though…his father’s face when he announced he was gay, Gabe’s grin of satisfaction as he rammed his fist into Casey, the random expressions on strangers’ faces when they perceived his difference…Roy’s rich, decrepit father gazing at him like he was vermin.

Oh, yes, he remembered a lot better than he used to. It wasn’t that he had forgotten things. He just…didn’t remember, before.

Sometimes he was truly astonished by how easy things could be. He would find himself doing something, wondering at the fact that it was possible, and offer a prayer of sorts to the gods who had created drugs. Yves said he was selling himself short, but he didn’t see what could make so much so possible if not the drugs.

But then, there would be a thing like this, and he was knocked all the way back to February, when he had been certain he would explode if anyone laid a finger on him. Or December, when his skills were limited to breathing and sleeping. And suddenly there would be lurking a depression more terrible than anything he’d ever felt because he had thought he was past all this and free of it, except he was not and never would be.

That was the sticking point, wasn’t it? He never would be…whatever. Whatever the standard was, he wouldn’t be it. Straight, normal, sane, fully functional. Not him. Yves would tell him at this point to get a grip, and to do a mood log, but since she wasn’t in Wisconsin and his inner Yves was momentarily silent, it had fallen to Jason and his Johanssen talent for taking care of people.

Right in the middle of their game with the girls when the black funk got the better of Casey, Jason noticed. He must have, for he suddenly stepped in close and said, so quietly, “You’re okay, you know.”

It was right then that Casey decided. He wanted to give Jason something — anything, whatever he wanted. If Jason wanted to use him to find out if he had any gay-ness in his blood, that was fine. If Jason wanted to fuck him and then never, ever say a word about it…that would be okay too. Whatever…and he knew at some point an opportunity would arise, and it did later that night when Jason took him for The Walk.

The path around Butler Lake was easy to follow, mostly flat, and if in thirty minutes Casey had tripped at least five times over rocks and tree roots, it was only because he kept trying to look up and catch a glimpse of the sky. While the trees were fairly close, almost entirely bathing the trail in shadow at certain points, they were standing back enough that the night canopy was visible, and it was a revelation. Casey had never known there were so many stars. Well, he had known, but he had never seen. The dark was clotted with them. Even in Herrington there weren’t so many visible, and Herrington wasn’t so very big. But here in Butler Lake it was like human beings scarcely existed, the sky was so dark.

If only he had his camera — oh, but it would be useless without a tripod in this darkness — but so many, many stars and how many hosted worlds with extra-terrestrial life, millions no doubt. It was simple logic; you’d have to be crazy to think there weren’t aliens out there, even if you didn’t believe that aliens had visited Herrington, Ohio.

He stumbled, and this time nearly fell.

“Jesus!” Jason exclaimed, stopping and turning to address Casey. “And I’m the one who’s wasted here!”

“Are you?” Casey asked, getting his feet under him while a shiver moved over and through him. He let it go and discarded it, making himself forget.

“A little. You okay?”

“Yeah. Just wasn’t watching my feet.”

Jason chuckled, shaking his head. He resumed his forward movement on the trail.

Picking his way a little more carefully, Casey said to Jason’s back, “What?”

“Moony.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a word my father used. Anyone who didn’t keep their eyes on the ground.”

“Oh...” Casey made a point of stepping over a largish dark spot on the path, probably a rock jutting up. “Not to diss your dad...but I’d rather be moony.”

“Yeah. I kinda could see that.”

“Well, which way do you...” Casey saw that Jason had slowed and veered to the left, peering at the darkness there.

“Here we go...”

“Here we go what?” Of course it was silly to suspect Jason was an alien and even if he was — well, Casey was the alien queen after all. Jason couldn’t hurt him. Jason wouldn’t even want to hurt him. “Sasha won’t approve if you get me killed, you know — “

”Oh, shut it. I just want to show you something.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jason seemed to disappear into the black mass of forest. “Jason — ?”

“It’s okay, there’s a path here,” Jason’s voice informed him. “Follow me.”

“Path where?”

“It’s about ten feet, it just goes to the lake, come on...”

Sucking a breath, Casey followed. An opening in the brush materialized, and he could see Jason’s back. He let it lead him for several seconds, until suddenly they were on a tiny, pebble beach. The lake was flat and calmly lapping at the edges of it, and the entire sky, including a half-moon, were on vivid display.

“Oh...” Casey said. “Wow.” Again, his hands and eyes twitched, wishing to capture this on film. He really must practice taking some night shots when he got back to Seattle, not that there would be anything like this in the city with its light pollution. But maybe Zeke would consent to take him on a drive out in the country — or maybe Zeke would let him drive the Mustang out into the country himself? It was possible.

Jason moved, taking a seat on a large boulder with a flat area large enough for two — maybe three. “I used to come here a lot when I was a teenager. Actually, lots of people come here when they’re teenagers.”

Casey couldn’t stop looking up at the sky. “It’s amazing.”

“Um...you can sit here if you...er... I mean...if you want...”

Something in Jason’s tone told Casey it was time to stop looking at the sky. He gazed over at Jason, who was looking to him now with something rather anxious and vulnerable in his face despite the way that he was trying to hide it. In that light from the sky, Jason was startlingly young...a young Sasha, maybe. One of the things that had struck Casey immediately last night in the kitchen was how Jason resembled Sasha, and yet at the same time, didn’t.

Casey came to the rock, the pebbles crunching and shifting underfoot. He sat next to Jason, who cleared his throat and just looked out at the lake. Suddenly, Jason seemed to have nothing to say and Casey was willing to let him go with that until he was ready. Casey just breathed the clean air and watched nature while waiting for nature to take its course.

After a little silence, Jason started to whistle. He stretched down, grabbing a handful of pebbles and began pitching them one by one into the lake, waiting each time for the ripples to dissipate. The bonfire on the main beach was visible, less than a mile across. Sasha was over there somewhere. Casey could have made conversation, talking to Jason about Sasha like they had been doing all day, but he didn’t feel the need. They had covered everything — how Jason had missed Sasha, how he wondered about Sasha’s life and wished they could talk. How he didn’t want Casey to think he was homophobic in any way. And there were the things they didn’t talk about, but Casey knew nevertheless. He knew that Jason was very, very curious, and with some alcohol in his blood he was feeling brave but not yet brave enough.

“So,” Casey said, at length.

“So.”

“Is this, like, a favourite spot?”

“Un-huh.” Jason pitched his last pebble. With nowhere else to go, he just sat. “I...” He paused. “I had my first kiss on this rock.”

“Guy or girl?”

“Gimme a fucking break!” Jason hooted.

Casey shrugged. “Okay, so her name was...”

“Jennifer. What about your first kiss. Guy or girl?”

“Girl...actually.”

Jason looked at him for the first time in a while. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Did you...um...not know...?”

“I knew I was attracted to guys, but I had this obsession with her.” Casey had a moment of inspiration, and added, “I guess you could kind of call it an experiment. We were together for a little while...and it told me what I needed to know.”

“Oh.” Jason was becoming very fidgety. Suddenly, he blurted, “Why did Sasha say that...you know, about me not…er, touching you? Why do you think he would say that?”

“Oh, that’s just Sasha being protective.”

“But...this afternoon when Uncle Ernie...you...you got pretty upset.”

“He caught me by surprise,” Casey said, a little bit sharper than he would have liked. “That’s all.”

Jason said nothing.

“He didn’t need to say that,” Casey found himself adding. “Sasha, I mean.”

“Yeah, of course. I mean...I’m not like Sasha... not that there’s anything wrong with that. I always did wonder what he could have done that was...so bad.”

“Sasha’s a good person,” Casey declared.

“I know.”

“He’s the best person I know, actually.” Casey didn’t look anywhere but at the moon. He said, “If Sasha kisses guys, then kissing guys must be okay.” As if he really thought he needed to say it, as if he didn’t know that Jason was staring at his profile. There was nothing to do now but wait for Jason to make up his mind.

It was a bit of a longish wait, and Casey was just starting to feel a little chilled and a little uncomfortable on that rock when at last Jason muttered something.

“Huh?”

“Do you think, maybe... being gay runs in families?”

“I don’t know,” Casey said. “Maybe sometimes. It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Guess not.”

“Why...do you think you take after Sasha?”

“No...at least...I don’t think so...” Jason mumbled. He gazed at Casey, looked hard at him, then away quickly and made a sound that was part-growl and part-groan. “Fuck it!”

The almost-violence of the statement was something of a surprise, and Casey suddenly had certain parts of his body that heretofore had been silent — his heart, his stomach — quietly speaking up and wondering if this was really such a good idea. “Wh-what?” Casey whispered, and hoped it sounded entirely innocent.

Jason’s face twisted and stared for several seconds. Then he said, “You’re confusing me.”

“I...I am?”

“I feel like I want...and I thought you knew...”

Casey swallowed. No, Jason wasn’t scary, just a bit...ambivalent, and Casey certainly didn’t blame him for that but at the same time he couldn’t help him. He couldn’t make the first move for him, not when he was going to be doing his utmost just to keep still.

With eyes narrowed, Jason muttered, “You have to make me say it, eh?”

“Would you?” Casey asked. “Please.”

Jason shook his head. He stated, “I want to kiss you.”

There it was, out in the moon-and-starlight, resounding in the quiet and now Casey simply kept his head turned towards Jason and put on what he hoped was a welcoming expression.

However, a whole lot of nothing much happened.

“Um,” Casey said. He had resolved that he wasn’t going to do this but he couldn’t endure this quiet and silence and it was just too fucking still. He was going to do something mad if it didn’t stop. “I’m cold.”

“Huh?”

“You could maybe start by putting your arm around me?”

Jason said, “Oh...yeah, sure.”

He lifted his hand and a frisson of panic shot through Casey. “Slowly!” he gulped.

Jason froze.

“Put it...around me slowly. Please.”

With a nod, Jason laced his arm about Casey’s upper body and let it carefully come to rest on top of them, then curled his hand over Casey’s shoulder. He did it as though in slow motion, and Casey found himself holding his breath, concentrating on not bolting, and at last the heavy warmth was surrounding him and he could imagine that it was not an arm, not attached to a person but rather something inanimate and harmless. A blanket, maybe.

Now, though...now he had to breathe. He let out a heavy sigh, exactly at the same moment as Jason. He twisted his head to get a look at Jason’s face, saw him looking back, and they both laughed.

It could have been all right...couldhavecouldhavemaybe...maybe-yes-maybe-nothing oh, god, oh, fuck, that was his breath...on his skin...man’s breath on his skin, it was a man touching him. A stranger, even if he happened to know him.

He is just doing what he’s doing at this moment, insisted his Yves-voice. It is what it is, it doesn’t imply anything else. It can stop any time. You can stop it.

“Better?” Jason whispered.

Casey nodded. The warmth was good, he decided. He liked being warm, so he could get used this arm-tentacle-thing.

“You okay?”

I can say no. I CAN say no.

“Your heart is going a mile a minute.”

I can say no.

“Casey?”

“Yeah…” he managed.

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

Casey managed to tilt his head slightly; it was all he could do to help at this point. He closed his eyes, because seeing the face of this person, the third man, the fourth person ever who was now looming and descending, he would freak even though he knew he wanted this, he wantedneeded it, he didn’t know why, he just knew that he did and he didn’t want to have to explain it to anyone, it was just something he had to do.

A soft pressure on his lips, and it felt as alien as something he’d never in fact done. He didn’t know what to do, it was like that first time with Roy again and he was terrified because Casey Connor did not kiss men, Casey Connor just did not kiss or touch and he was only touched if they wanted to hurt him, if he was kissing he was not Casey Connor, he didn’t know who he was in this moment.

The mouth on his sighed back and sucked on his upper lip before pressing down again, the tip of a tongue running gently along the space between his lips and now it was in it was in him and he wrenched himself away with a gasp. The arm about him tightened, another snaking round to join itself in the trap.

Panicking, he pulled his body in one direction but the arms only got closer.

“Hey!” Jason’s voice said. “Easy, you’re going to fall off!”

Instantly, Casey ceased his fight but remained panting just where he had been — next to a boy on the rock in the forest, and there were a moon and stars, he remembered that now.

Jason removed his arms. “Okay?”

Casey nodded. He trembled, and he shivered, and he was, he realized, as hard as the granite he was sitting on. “Kiss me some more,” he quavered.

“I’m not sure you want me to.”

In answer, Casey strained and licked up the right side of Jason’s neck and sank his teeth into his earlobe, heard Jason hiss. “Are you sure now?” he whispered. Another kiss, just a soft lingering about Jason’s mouth, and oh, this was fine, this was so good whoever it was didn’t matter and he didn’t care if he was really very naughty.

“Oh, sh-shit!” Jason strangled.

Time to make him stop the talking, the makingthinking but he couldn’t be too honest or it would all stop. “Shh,” Casey breathed, and planted a tiny caress alongside Jason’s lips, a bare nuzzle while he moved back slightly despite the aching fire in him. The boy didn’t want to be reminded he was kissing a boy. Casey would be just a soft pair of lips and big soft eyes if that was what the boy wanted.

The boy, Jason made a soft, needy sound in his throat; his hand knotted itself in Casey’s hair. Casey was enveloped in the taste of beer and boy, while around him was the waft of tree and water and male scents, a caress of the air and the boy kissing him, hard and soft at alternate moments, a little clumsy with his tongue deep inside, his hand pressed against Casey’s nape, not quite gripping, half-stroking. There was a slight pressure there that made something in his stomach tremble, either fear or eagerness or both it was, and Casey decided that he was going to just ignore it. The need to stay put overrode the need to back away.

He was not the one to stop it; suddenly he just knew there were two mouths where there had been some sucking, gasping thing. And he didn’t want that thing to stop. He tried pressing forward, but a hand in between their two bodies cupped his shoulder and suggested strongly otherwise.

“Whoa,” Jason whispered then. He wiped saliva from his lip, his hand shaking. “Geez.”

It sounded so northern United States, so very Fargo-esque that hard after his recent disappointment Casey had to giggle. He couldn’t be upset with Jason, who was pretty experimental for a straight guy. “Yeah,” Casey said. Jason shifted, looking aside, and Casey realized that he wanted him to move from his lap but he figured he’d give him a chance to overcome his discomfort. “You want to try something else?” he murmured, deep in his throat. “I’ll blow you if you want.”

“No!” Jason nearly yelped. “I mean…thanks, but no thanks.” He gave Casey a little push, clearly wanting him to get up.

Casey blinked, almost wondering if he had said what he thought he just said. Maybe it wasn’t a now-memory but an old one, maybe he hadn’t said it all. Without a word, he slid back off the end of Jason’s knees and stood.

“I don’t mean to…” Jason looked shy, barely able to meet Casey’s eyes. “I don’t mean to jerk you around.”

“It’s okay.” Casey shrugged. There was a terrifying pulse of need deep in his gut and his throat and...other places, too. It was a jolt of familiarity and disappointment and horror at the same instant. It said, you did this, why not do that, why not do it all because there were no lines between any of it. He closed his eyes, swallowing it down. “I was trying something out too.”

“Are you in love with Sasha?”

Suddenly, everything else was forced into the distance. “What?” Casey demanded, gaping at Jason.

“Are you — “

“Fuck, no. No. I love him, yeah, but not like that.”

“Then why did you come onto me?”

“Maybe I like you.”

Jason made a face.

“And maybe,” Casey went on, “Maybe I just wanted to see what it would feel like to kiss Sasha’s brother.”

“Oh.” Jason stared at him, his eyes glinting white in the half-light.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“You’re scary.”

“It was just... We were both experimenting, right?”

It had come out a little bitter despite the fact that Casey had been more than willing to be experimented on, and suddenly it was very awkward there on the little beach. Jason looked this way and that, and seemed to have nothing to say.

“We should go back,” Casey sighed. “Sasha will be freaking out right about now.”

“Right.”

But they didn’t move. They went some time in the awkward not-speaking, Jason sitting on the rock while Casey stood shifting his weight, and building a good, solid panic. He was beyond pathetic, he was actually evil because he was going to fuck up Sasha’s relationship with his family and it was already fucked up. He couldn’t believe the things he did, he just did them and then he couldn’t believe it and he didn’t even think he could tell Yves this one. She knew he wanted to start dating and that was all she knew, not that he was planning on something else, not that it was wrong, he was quite certain he knew what was right for him to do but this thing with Jason, it had been wrongwrongwrong —

“Fuck,” he gasped out.

Jason turned a miserable face up and towards him.

“I didn’t mean to fuck it up.”

For a second time that day, no less.

“Um…”

“I don’t want to ruin Sasha’s chance to have a family, please can we just forget this ever happened? Just pretend like it didn’t happen at all and be friendly like before, please? I can’t hurt Sasha, I can’t, he’s — “ Casey ran out of breath.

Jason lifted a hand and didn’t quite touch Casey’s arm; he lowered the hand and said, “Take it easy. It’s not like I want anyone to know about this…least of all Sasha.”

“Okay… “ Casey was able to get some oxygen. “Good.”

“We haven’t done anything really awful…have we?”

Casey knew what Jason wanted to hear. “No,” he replied, and considered the possibility that it was true, as long as he didn’t hurt Sasha by it. They were both adults here after all, but Sasha…Sasha was already hurting enough and he had a chance at reconnecting with his brothers and sister and didn’t even want to think about Casey having sex let alone with his brother. Knowing Sasha, he would probably blame Jason.

“Can I ask you something?” Jason said.

“Yeah.”

“How…how did I rate?”

Casey felt a smile spread his face. “That was the best kiss ever,” he said sincerely.

Even in the scant light, he could see Jason turning pink. “You must not have kissed very many people then.”

"Actually...I haven't. And not for several months."

"That explains it."

"And?"

"And what?"

"What about you? Did it — well, did it do what it was supposed to do?"

Jason was now a deeper colour. "Um...it was...okay."

"Just okay?"

"I'm not ready to switch teams, Casey."

"I know that!" Casey exclaimed, with a laugh. "I didn't expect you to."

"No?"

"No." Casey figured Jason had known that, had guessed that he was a person willing to be experimented upon. But he didn't say it.

"But if it was enjoyable...doesn't that mean...?"

"I don't think so," Casey said, shrugging.

"Really?"

"I don't think anyone's one hundred per cent straight. Everyone could make an exception once in a while.”

“I suppose.”

“Maybe…would you like to make some more exceptions?"

Jason turned an incredulous expression on him. "You were just all upset because of the kiss."

"Oh. Yeah.” Casey tried a nudge with his shoulder, bumping Jason gently. “It just turns me on…turning you to the dark side.”

“Wh…um…I…”

“Forget it.” Casey couldn’t quite repress a giggle. “Anyway, we should be going back.”

“Right,” Jason agreed, all too quickly.

They set out again, picking their way carefully on the moonlit-strewn path, and as they grew nearer to the beach, and Sasha, Casey became increasingly afraid that Sasha would be able to see in their faces that something was going on.

But Sasha didn’t give them so much as a curious look. He was wrapped up in his own thoughts. It never could have occurred to him that his brother and Casey might have done more than walk the path — because, Casey realized, Sasha trusted him and even trusted his brother despite barely knowing him. Sasha was a good person, too good for to detect the treachery of people like Casey Connor.

Later, when Casey gave his email address to Jason, he contrived to let his thumb brush a place on Jason’s hand, telling him that if he ever did come to Seattle, Casey would be willing to reopen his personal lab of sexual experimentation. The minute after he did it he wanted to kick himself in the head, but only after.

Jason gave him an odd, quick look, and Casey knew what he was thinking — that his brother’s friend and roommate was not a very good person at all, that he was a slut and crazy to boot.

He had long since learned not to look for judgment in Yves’ face when he told her things. When he finished, she merely concluded making a note of whatever salient details she had selected and glanced up, raising her brows.

“It was a shitty thing to do,” he said, before she could comment.

Now the brows drew together. “Why do you say that?”

“Sasha wouldn’t have…”

He looked at her, waiting for her condemnation.

“Wouldn’t have what?” she said.

“That wasn’t a nice thing to do to Sasha.”

“How so?”

“Um…” Casey was incredulous that she even needed it spelled out. “As in Jason was straight and I could have freaked him out so bad he never would have spoken to Sasha again? I could have messed up everything for him!”

Yves’ tone didn’t change. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Casey, but did you not just tell me that Jason showed an interest in you from the start?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t have to respond.”

“No, you didn’t. But was it such a bad thing that you did?”

“For one thing, it’s stupid to mess around with straight guys. I could have messed up Jason bad.”

“Jason is responsible for his own actions, right?”

“Yes,” Casey sighed. “But still…it was a stupid thing to do…on my side.”

“Why did you do it if you thought it was stupid?”

“I didn’t at the time. I didn’t think at all.”

“I doubt that you didn’t think something, Casey.”

He blinked at her. “I wanted to,” he admitted in a small voice. “I just wanted to.”

“And is that so terrible?”

“Dr. Yves...”

“Well?”

“Okay, I know I’ve been over generalizing and all that…but we can’t just do what we want all the time.”

“No, we can’t. But you know…that’s a fairly romantic scene you just described, and people do get carried away sometimes.”

“Not!” he protested.

“Why not? You have the moon, a lake, a beach…”

“But it was just a kiss. It wasn’t even a date.”

“Is that necessary for it to be romantic?”

Stubbornly, he insisted, “I don’t want romance.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He was brought up short, and stared.

“Humour me,” she said. “What do you mean by romance?”

“I mean…all that extra, made-up stuff that is supposed to be what love is about…but it’s not.”

“I agree. Romance and love are not the same thing. But wasn’t it possible that you were overcome by the moment?”

He didn’t answer.

“Is that not a thoroughly normal thing to happen?”

“It wasn’t that,” he muttered.

“What was it?”

“I wanted to! I wanted to know what it would be like to kiss Sasha’s brother, okay? I wanted to see if I could — “ He broke off.

“See if you could?” she prompted.

He shrugged. “See if I could handle it.”

“And you did, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I almost freaked for a second but then…then it was okay.” Thinking of Jason’s lips, Casey sighed to himself. “It was way okay.”

Yves said nothing, sensing that he had more self-recrimination, no doubt, and she was not wrong.

“I used him,” Casey lamented.

“People do that, sometimes.”

“But he had just lost his father. He probably would never have done it, otherwise.”

“Maybe not. But on the other hand, some people would say he was using you. Leading you on.”

“He wasn’t. We both knew that.”

A moment later he heard what he had said. He looked up and saw her eyebrows in their characteristic position.

“What is it that really bothers you about this, Casey?” she asked, gently.

He wanted to put his hand over his eyes, to hide. “I’m afraid…I can’t control myself,” he muttered. “I want every guy I see, just about.”

“Are you going to have every guy you see?”

“No, but I think…Zeke thinks that at some point he’s going to be wining and dining me and sending me flowers and chocolate, like I need that, like I’m some girl.” Belatedly, Casey remembered that, technically, he was talking to a girl and winced. “Sorry.”

Yves mouth curled up slightly. “It’s fine.”

“I don’t need that, I don’t want it…I don’t have to be seduced. I mean, if I were a real asshole I could go fuck Zeke right now.”

“But you don’t. Why is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do, Casey.”

“Okay, I don’t want to do that to him. It’s not fair to him.”

“Is that all, though?”

“Um…”

“Is that all you want from Zeke?”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

“I always want him to be my friend, I know that.”

“That’s good, Casey.”

He groaned, “I just don’t know what’s friendship and what’s love and what’s romance…I don’t know how to tell them all apart! I used to love Roy and I thought I would die every time he left me alone…”

“That’s not love, Casey. It’s not even romance.”

“What is it?”

“Dependency.”

“But isn’t that what the books and movies say that love is?”

“Some of them,” Yves replied, with a nod.

Fidgeting, Casey ground out, “I don’t know what this conversation is about now.”

“I’m just trying to help you organize your expectations, Casey. Your expectations of Zeke, and the Norse God, and then your expectations of the rest of the men in Seattle.”

“I don’t know what I expect,” he groaned. “Except some sex. Does that make me a slut?”

“Hmm,” Yves said. “That depends. Last time I checked, there was no particular criteria. What I want to know is, does it matter?”

“You’re asking does it matter if I’m a slut?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way exactly. When you say slut, do you mean a person who likes to have a lot of sex, or are you passing a moral judgment?”

Casey whispered hopefully, “A person who likes to have a lot of sex?”

“Then I don’t see the problem. I’d be concerned if you were doing that thing that you do where you judge yourself for your desires. “

The moment was ripe for him to mention some of those desires, to mention that he had a longing to be pounded and tenderized until he had no brain left, to completely give up any responsibility for the moment. Maybe she would say it was okay, she was generally so very tolerant and permissive about what he wanted as long as he wasn’t hurting himself with it. She seemed to accept — way better than Sasha or Zeke who should have understood but for some reason couldn’t get it through their big brains — that sometimes a guy just wanted to get laid.

Realizing that the moment of opportunity had passed, Yves continued, “That is, it’s okay as long as you’re — “

“Yes, yes, as long as I’m safe and I don’t hurt myself or anyone else.” Casey folded his arms, hunkering into the chair. “But the thing is…” Oh, shit, oh, fuck, he was going to say it after all. “… What if I start and I can’t stop?” Okay, so not really IT, but…what if I don’t want to stop? What if I just spend the rest of my life having sex with random men, leaving Zeke to be miserable and broken hearted and what if I don’t care enough to stop for his sake? What does that make me?

Human, his inner Yves responded promptly.

Yeah, but what if I don’t just want sex? What if I want this guy to nail me to the floor, what if I’m looking for a little rough trade but I haven’t told you about that? What do you think then?

“I think that question is premature, Casey. Why don’t you spend some time with this one man and then we talk about it and see what happens next?”

“You don’t think I’m going to go through with it.”

“I have no idea what’s going to happen, and that’s the truth. It’s great that you were able to overcome your anxiety with — “ Yves checked her notes. “— with Jason, but you know as well as anyone that that isn’t necessarily a predictor of what will happen.”

“Like, way to encourage me.”

Yves shrugged. “I’m just saying take this one thing at a time. If you start feeling really nervous later, you can do a mood log to help you calm down —“

“I’m calm.”

Yves raised a brow.

“As calm as I get,” Casey amended.

“Tell me something, Casey. Is physical enjoyment all that you expect out of this encounter?”

Sometimes, it really did seem like she could read his mind.

“Um…well… it’s like I said before…I need to know that I can be with other people.”

“I have the feeling there’s a little more to it.”

He closed his eyes and began to carefully parcel out the bits that he could afford to give away. “Okay. It’s like…when I was with Roy and Zeke, I was all twisted up in my head. I need to know how much of it was Roy, how much was Zeke…how much was me…”

How much was HER…how much I can keep.

“So this isn’t just about sex.”

“It’s all about sex, Dr. Yves.”

“I mean, it isn’t just about physical pleasure. It also serves an emotional purpose for you.”

“Okay…”

“I just wanted to have it acknowledged, Casey, and I want you to know that there’s nothing wrong with it. When a person’s been through a trauma they may find themselves needing to explore certain things for themselves and it may not make a lot of sense to other people. It’s okay.”

“Okay,” he breathed, as his heart pounded with the fear that she would want to discuss the trauma and what it meant now.

“You don’t have to explain it to me, Casey. I understand.”

But she didn’t, not entirely, because Casey had no intention of telling her about the things he felt sometimes, how he used the memory of Mary Beth to get around….how he thought he really was all that was left of her on Planet Earth and how it made him stronger. It made him into that person who sometimes thought everyone around him was merely human while he was something else. Sometimes, when he was in the shower, he would just stop and become a thing, akin to the water he so loved to be in, with no beginning no end no outside. It was mad, maybe, or maybe just flaky, but it was how he survived in this world. He would never be like other people but he had realized something — he didn’t want to be.

The alien invasion had been a terrible gift, one that he no longer knew how to be without. He couldn’t be without it because he would be a different person now. This person was not some ordinary kid from the mid-West who got good grades and went to college and went through life doing all the things he was expected to. Well, except for the part where he was gay, but maybe he wouldn’t have met Roy and he wouldn’t have learned to be fearless in the act of sex. Maybe he wouldn’t have come out to his parents and he’d have spent his life in the closet. Without the aliens there would have been no Roy and everything that he had learned with Roy, and then maybe there would have been no Zeke. There would have been no Sasha, no Seattle, no Yves and Casey out here in the universe as this person he was becoming. He wanted to become. He didn’t want to go back.

“There’s one more thing, Casey.”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to tell Zeke about this?” He made no effort to guard his reaction; his face must have told the story of it, but she laughed gently a moment later. “I take it that’s a no.”

“He’s so jealous all the time…you have no idea.”

“I think I do have an idea.”

“You probably think he’s some scary, abusive-boyfriend type.”

“Not at all. I see someone who has a lot of love to give and a lot of reasons to be afraid that he’ll be rejected.”

“He’s trying really hard, Dr. Yves.”

“I believe you.”

“But he doesn’t seem to be able to control…being jealous. I think it kills him that he can’t control it because he’s so brilliant and he knows so much. It humiliates him…and that just makes it worse.”

“I think you’re probably right, Casey. And given that, don’t you think it would be better for him to know the truth instead of having to be in a position where he’s making it up?”

Casey couldn’t help wincing again. “He’ll flip out. I’m not kidding.”

Yves didn’t bother to comment.

“He might try and stop me.”

“Stop you, how?”

“I don’t know…he’ll forbid me, that’s for sure. And he might try something physical.”

“Like what?”

“Like… lock me up in the apartment or something.”

“Really?”

Casey nodded, unable to prevent himself from thinking about their disastrous “date” back in January when Zeke was refusing to accept that Casey wanted to move out. He thought about it every day, about what he had brought Zeke to. It wasn’t because of him being so special, it was because of him being so fucked up. It was a heady and constant reminder to achieve his best approximation of sanity, for Zeke’s sake.

“When he was last here,” Yves reflected, “Zeke alluded to having done something he regretted.”

“Yeah.”

“Something…physical?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s so ashamed of it…and you’ll think he’s something he’s not.”

“It’s always up to you what you want to tell me, Casey.”

Casey chewed his lip, trying to work out what he should say.

“Just tell me this, Casey. If you tell Zeke that you’re going to see this man tonight…do you think he’ll hurt you?”

“No!”

“Yet… you seem nervous about the idea of telling him.”

“Wouldn’t anyone be? You know what he can do with words, Dr. Yves.”

“Indeed,” Yves replied, with her typical, mild smile.

“I think that’s what scares me the most.”

“I don’t blame you. Words can hurt too. But we don’t practice honesty and assertiveness because we want to control other people’s reactions. We do it for our own emotional health.”

“Yeah.”

“You know all too well what happens when you aren’t honest with people, Casey.”

“Yeah,” he groaned.

“Do you want a replay of those situations?”

I guess fucking is what sluts call therapy.

“No,” he whispered. He didn’t want to hear that again, or anything like it. Even if it happened to be true this time.

“So are you going to tell him?”

“I’ll try,” he said.

“All right. Good.”

“Is it time to go?”

“Yup.” Yves stood up to see him to the door as always. This time, she put a hand on his shoulder. “Remember, Casey, no matter how far a situation has progressed, you always have the right to stop it.”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’m looking forward to hearing about it tomorrow.”

He shivered suddenly — with excitement, he thought. It was difficult to tell the difference between excitement and other things. He summoned up an image of the Nordic God — Chris, in his Speedo — and smiled to himself all the way back to the apartment.

He had never appreciated Zeke’s presence as an organizing factor. Now it was towels and clothing on the floor, books scattered around. His room was, in maternal vernacular, a disaster area. Sasha had told him so.

But there were some kinds of disorder that were perfectly artful, in his view. Such as, most of the wall behind his computer had become a collage, covered with printer-generated photos he had taken with his digital camera. He wasn’t sure exactly when the desire to pick it up and use it had started; he remembered looking at it — maybe in February — and feeling slightly terrified, but then by the end of the school term he had been using it every day, taking shot after shot after shot, deleting most of them, of course, and feeling that almost-forgotten sensation of pleasure with his own work. Looking through the viewfinder, putting his very own frame around things — and now he could experiment with colour and tone and focus more easily than he ever could have with the traditional camera. He had been going through batteries at a rate that probably made him an eco-criminal, until Zeke realized and bought him a rechargeable set.

Lately, he was all about images using the micro-focus setting — close-ups of blades of grass and leaves and flowers. His proudest accomplishment was the capture of a moth’s wings, which had required a lot of patience and stillness and, he suspected, was still a matter of random good fortune.

He stared at the moth, and conceived a sudden, pressing need to talk to Zeke. Looking around for his cell phone, he recalled leaving it on his computer desk; he found it there and his speed dial one. Zeke answered immediately.

“Hey.”

“Hey. It’s me.”

“What’s up?”

“Um...not much. I was going to go out and take some shots.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Zeke had been accompanying him on his photography sessions lately. At first, Casey had been unsure how he felt about it, but soon he realized that he rather liked it. One of his photographic ambitions was to capture Zeke in a candid, informal moment without having to wait for him to fall asleep. So far, it hadn’t happened. He’d snapped a ton of shots, but Zeke always managed to catch him at it, turning or smirking or winking at the last second.

“You want to come with?” Casey asked, thinking that maybe today...but no, he had some serious shit to deliver. Maybe Zeke would decline today. Maybe today would be the one day out of the entire summer when Zeke had some major errand to complete and Casey could dodge —

“Okay. I’ll be there twenty minutes.”

“Kay.”

Casey hung up, and sighed long and hard. He lay down on the bed and, on a whim, held the camera up over his face, depressing the shutter release, capturing himself, he hoped, with his eyes closed. He checked in the viewfinder and saw that he was partially out of frame. He chose another angle, trying to keep his face as smooth as possible. Then another.

Roy had always been taking pictures of him, often when he was lying in bed or some other unguarded position. When Casey asked him, once, what sort of picture he was after, Roy had just given him a strange look and said, “I want a picture of you.

He wasn’t sure entirely what Roy had meant, and yet he did kind of understand. Images lied. They held themselves out as real and that was the terrible paradox of them, the thing that shackled the photographer to the camera, always trying to capture something that really didn’t tell you a fucking thing about it. To be a photographer you had to buy into the lie a good part of the time. It wasn’t that you didn’t know, you just thought that you could be the one who got the first real image in the history of the world.

Like for instance, Casey knew that Zeke was so much more than he might ever appear to be on film, but he was still going to keep trying, because Zeke was... so Zeke, so obviously Zeke that it had to be possible to get it on film. Always there for Casey, always giving Casey things and watching out for him. Hovering around Casey on campus in way that both frustrated him and made him feel safe. Hanging out with Casey all the time, as if he truly enjoyed his company and somehow found his conversation adequate to stimulate his monster-sized brain.

Going with Casey to visit Thomas in the hospital not once but twice, which had been way beyond anything expected of an ex-boyfriend. Casey would never forget that.

The first visit hadn’t been too bad. Casey had met Thomas’ father, who seemed like a kind and sad old man. Reverend Kirton. Just like Thomas had told him so there were probably a lot more things Thomas had told him that were true. Thomas was the usual, frighteningly energetic version of himself, talking non-stop and barely hearing anyone. If he hadn’t been lying in a hospital bed in secure ward, it would have felt like any other Thomas-encounter that Casey had had.

In the visitors’ lounge, later, Reverend Kirton had told Casey that Thomas was bipolar and he was rapid cycling. The hospital people considered him a suicide risk but Casey could hardly believe it. At risk of getting into a lot of trouble, yes — but suicide? Reverend Kirton assured him that it was quite possible, and then asked Casey how he and Thomas had met.

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

Thomas’ father had seemed not entirely surprised.

“What’s...” Casey had begun and broke off, very aware that they were in a lounge full of people — two of whom were Sasha and Zeke. They had decided not to go into Thomas’ room, to wait here, and he could feel their eyes boring into his skin, wondering what new shit he was going to pull. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“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 had lowered his voice as far as he could and still be heard by the man in front of him. “I’m afraid…sir, I’m afraid this was my fault.”

The elderly man had 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 — “ Casey had gulped, thinking about how Thomas was when he first met him, and his decline. But he must have already been off his meds at that point, because it had all been a sham, the suit and the claims that he was running a business. The man had been living in his car, and later he lost that and then he had been living on the street — and this, from a person who had begun as a successful psychologist — no, psychoanalyst, Thomas had said. He wondered how, if Thomas had been doing so well for so long, he had accomplished such a complete disintegration. “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.”

Now Reverend Kirton began to look distressed, and he hid his face from Casey which made Casey feel like crying.

“I am sure that I have done something, committed some sin that caused God to visit this affliction upon him. If only He had seen fit to punish me only...”

Don’t do that, Casey had wanted to plead. Don’t, not in front of me… and he had to tell him, make him understand that he, Casey, was probably to blame somehow. “Sir…listen, I want to tell you something.”

Reverend Kirton had raised his head, probably more out of politeness than a willingness to give up his private grief.

“Sir, if he wasn’t sick I wouldn’t have met him...and I’m glad I met him.”

The next time Casey went to see Thomas, Reverend Kirton wasn’t there. Only Zeke had gone with him this time, no Sasha, and initially, Casey had suggested that Zeke could wait for him in the lounge. For some reason Zeke had wanted to come with him into the room, and Casey had realized that he was deeply grateful for it the moment they had stepped through the door.

Thomas was lying on his side, staring at the window. He didn’t so much as twitch a the sound of the door opening and when Casey said, “Thomas? It’s me…” there was no response whatsoever.

Casey immediately looked to Zeke, and Zeke’s expression seemed neutral. Casey shuffled forward, all the way to the side of the bed.

“Thomas?”

He didn’t think he was going to get any kind of results, but then Thomas moved — slowly and painfully, as though it were a monumental effort even to do this much. He turned onto his back and gazed up at Casey, showing no pleasure or even interest in Casey’s presence.

“Hello,” Casey whispered.

But Thomas just blinked and put on an expression of something close to disgust.

“Thomas…just wanted to see you... how….how are you?”

His friend closed his eyes. Casey’s throat began to ache fiercely. Almost at the same moment, Zeke moved into place beside him, and Casey surrendered to the overwhelming urge to grab his hand. It was a warm, solid comfort.

“I guess I can see how you are. Um…” Casey looked about, spotted a single chair, and gave up on sitting. He wasn’t letting go of Zeke’s hand any time this century. “Um…I met your father.” A second later, he recalled that Thomas had been here at the time. “Okay, that’s stupid. I guess you knew that.”

He cleared his throat and rocked from side to side, staring at the window. He hadn’t realized how much he had relied on Thomas to fill their encounters with conversation.

“I hate this,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Mr. Casey.”

The sound of Thomas’ voice jolted him. He looked down, blinking away moisture and pulling on Zeke’s hand hard enough that he heard him grunt and bump into Casey.

“You must go... now... Mr. Casey,” he said. He seemed to be speaking in slow motion.

“But I…”

“I do not want you here.”

“Thomas…”

Thomas’ brown eyes were dull yet still somehow understanding Casey, knowing him. The man was trembling like a person who had just spent their last measure of strength. “You do not belong. Do you understand? You do not belong... here.”

Leave me, his eyes implored. Leave me alone now before I run out of the will to give you what you need to hear.

And Casey left, and he would always wonder if that had been the right thing to do — although, not right then. At the time, he just needed to get away. He ran out, all the way to the car, ignoring Zeke’s calls not far behind him. He had to wait for Zeke at the car, for his door to be unlocked and then he huddled morosely on his side of the front seat.

“He’s going to be all right.”

Casey thought that was laughable. He dashed angrily at tear that was just about ready to fall.

“Did you hear me?” Zeke said.

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“You don’t like him...what do you care?”

“You know what? He’s probably a fine fellow. I mean it. I don’t really know him, or what he’s like when he’s not sick, okay...but I think he’s right about one thing. I don’t like seeing you in that place even if you are just visiting. I’m glad he said that.”

Casey sighed. His throat ached terribly. “I just...he’s so...by himself, though.”

“I think he’ll be all right, Casey.”

“I’m afraid he got sick so he could show me.”

“That’s ridiculous. You heard his father. It’s a typical pattern for manic-depressives. The cure’s almost as bad as the disease.”

The tone of Zeke’s voice cued a memory: Zeke in August, in September, even later. The sound of the Zeke who had seemed to have an endless supply of patience, when just that voice could calm Casey’s gut. It seemed to be having that effect right now, too.

Casey twisted around. He tilted his head, laying it sideways on the headrest so he could watch Zeke drive. He’d always loved this. He adored Zeke’s calm profile and the way his hands moved on the steering wheel. He never did anything without that air of competence, and if he couldn’t be competent, he didn’t do it. It didn’t much matter, though, because Zeke was good at nearly everything, or if he wasn’t good, he had the ability to be good. He just had to care about it.

Zeke took his gaze from the road and met Casey’s. “What?”

“You’ve been reading about bipolar disorder?” Casey asked.

“Naw. It just came up. Part of my general psychiatric education.”

“Do you actually know everything?” Casey asked, hearing his own voice lower and thrum with admiration.

Zeke shook his head, making a face that was attractively self-deprecating. “The more I know...the more I realize how much I don’t know.”

“Ooh...” Casey yawned, feeling quite comfortable in this position with his head resting this way. He loved the Mustang. “Philosophy.”

“Tired?” Zeke asked him.

“Yeah...guess it’s nap time.”

“I’ll have you home in just a few minutes.”

“Zeke?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for taking me there. I know you didn’t have to.”

Zeke shrugged. “You’re welcome. Anytime you want to go anywhere...just let me know, I’ll be your chauffeur.”

“Home, Tyler,” Casey said, with another yawn. He couldn’t help smiling.

Naturally, since Zeke was an honest-to-fuck, Ohio born-and-bred hero, Casey had to make it his business to tear him down, tear him apart. That had to have been his project all along, on some level. It had to be, how else he could have stood over Zeke while he wheezed and begged, and told him he was being pathetic?

But it had hurt to see Zeke that way, so desperate. Casey had expected the anger and the jealousy when he told Zeke about Chris, and, sure enough, there it was and Casey was authorized to feel the clean fire of anger in return. Except then suddenly it went sour and Zeke was all but begging... begging him? Begging Casey Connor, didn’t Zeke know Casey wasn’t worth it? It made Casey angry to see Zeke like this.

When Casey returned home, still early in the afternoon, Sasha was already showered and dressed for work; he was sitting in his chair with a magazine, the picture of casualness. Casey flopped flat on the couch and put his hand over his eyes, blocking some of the afternoon light from the front window. The living room was more comfortable than it had ever been, just now. The perfect place to stay, to relax, to not go out on dates with strange men, to strange places — why do that when you could stay at home with Zeke and do the routine, not hurt Zeke.

Except he was hurting Zeke. Everything staying the same was hurting Zeke, and everything changing was hurting Zeke. There was no way not to hurt Zeke. Whatever Casey did, he realized, it would hurt anyone stupid enough to care about him.

“Kitten, you’re way too young to make sounds like that.”

“Sounds…?”

The pages of Sasha’s magazine rustled. “You just made this dreadful sigh like the world is on your shoulders.”

Casey forced himself to open his eyes, to face the reality of the day’s events. He sat up. “Sasha. You know how we’re supposed to go out clubbing this Friday?”

“Yeah…” Sasha made a bright face suddenly, closing the magazine. “You want to cancel?”

“You said you were looking forward to it.”

“Yeah, I like to dance, but you know how I feel about you going on the flesh market.”

“Um…well, here’s the thing…I kinda have a date tonight.”

Sasha blinked. “Oh, yeah?”

“Remember me telling you about the Nordic God?”

“Yeah — you mean him?”

“He stopped me in between the pool and the lockers. He asked me to join him and some friends out tonight…and he wants me to meet him at his house.”

“Ah,” was Sasha’s comment. Then he sat forward and clasped his hands together. He remained in that pose for some time, until Casey couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Sasha?” he begged.

“What time?” Sasha inquired, not looking at Casey but at his hands.

“What time am I going there?”

“Yeah.”

“Eight o’clock.”

“And the address.”

“2245 Secord.

“You write that down for me. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You will have your cell phone with you and it will be charged. You will have condoms and lube. You will promise to phone me precisely at 9:00 p.m. tonight. If I don’t hear from you on time I will call the police.”

“Sasha — “

“What?” Sasha said mildly. “If you can’t make a simple phone call I shouldn’t be worried?”

“What if circumstances…”

“Circumstances?”

“You never know. Maybe I’ll try and not get through. Maybe…maybe my cell phone will die.”

“Seeing as this is the twenty-first century, this guy probably has a phone, and if he doesn’t…well, that’s why you bring your cell.”

“Other things can happen. What if I couldn’t get a signal?”

“You’re not going anywhere you won’t be able to get a signal,” snarled Sasha. “Okay, I’ll give you a fifteen minute grace period. Plenty of time to find a pay phone if you need to.”

“Okay,” Casey sighed.

Sasha sat back in his chair. Folding his arms, he said, “I take it you’re planning on some sex happening.”

Casey echoed him, folded his own arms tight across his chest. “I think so.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Fine,” Casey gritted.

“You think you’re ready?”

Casey shot to his feet. “I don’t want to talk about how I feel about it anymore, Sasha, I want to fucking do it! Okay?!”

Sasha held up his hands. “I’m not fighting with you, kitten.”

“For the last time, I’m ready. I’m more than ready, I’m bursting!”

“Okay...okay... ”

Casey saw and heard someone shouting at his best friend, and he sagged back onto the couch hating the ass-wipe who could do that to Sasha. Really, Casey hated himself for several minutes out of every day, altogether. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Sasha sighed, shaking his head. “You’ve always been too tolerant of me, kitten.”

“I haven’t.”

“You haven’t…what? Tolerated me?”

“No, I’m…” With eyes closed, Casey said, “I’m the one who needs to be tolerated. Sometimes I think…I think I’m as bad as Roy.” He opened his eyes to see the response.

Sasha’s double take was so obvious, it was like watching an animated character, every gesture and feeling illustrated in the most literal way. “Say again?”

“You know, I’m…”

“No. Just fucking…no.” Suddenly, Sasha had leaned forward and grabbed Casey’s arm. His pupils were small and dark, his body shaking. “You feel bad about how you treat me? Then do me a favor — don’t ever, ever compare yourself to Roy. That’s self-indulgent crap and I don’t deserve it.”

Casey hung his head, feeling the slow, heavy feelings inside. It was like this, now and then. Sometimes they pounced, the Bad Feelings, and that was okay because it was normal, but other times, like now, they just ground on him so he couldn’t breathe. “But I’m hurting Zeke,” he whispered.

“You mean…” Sasha let go of Casey’s arm, his eyes returning to something nearer to normal. “Zeke knows?”

“He knows I’m going out.”

“To the guy’s house?”

“Not…really.”

“I see.”

“But it hurt him anyway.”

“Casey, I don’t see a solution to that.”

“Exactly. Just like…”

“Casey,” Sasha growled.

“I’m — I’m not being self-indulgent,” Casey begged. “I’m not, let me explain.”

Sasha pressed his lips together, lifting his shoulders.

“He was always doing stuff because...because he thought it was his right or something he needed…just like I’m doing.”

“No. Kitten…”

“It’s the same.”

“It isn’t. I’m sorry I got intense on you, but these situations are never easy and someone always tends to get hurt but it’s how you handle it that makes the difference. And you are way different from Roy.”

“I’m still lying to Zeke.”

And I’m lying to you, and Yves.

And even worse, he didn’t regret it. Telling his friends, his loved ones, of those other reasons for why he was doing what he was doing…not an option. He reviewed his memories of Chris’ smoothly defined muscles and the barely disguised equipment he had crammed in his Speedo and no, there was no other option but lying.

Because he didn’t jerk off to fantasies of Zeke. He dreamed about Zeke sometimes, but those dreams weren’t fun. He jerked off to thoughts of the Nordic God. Once he’d fantasized that Jason had decided to be really experimental and fuck him on that rock. That had been a fucking good one, with his cock in his fist and two fingers up his ass. It was a good thing he’d had the apartment to himself that night because he’d screamed so loud when he came, he was sure they could have heard it at Wellth, if Wellth had been open.

“You told him you were going out,” Sasha said. “I think that’ll do. He’ll infer the rest himself. He’ll more than infer.” And he sighed.

“Yeah. I know.”

“And?”

“And it bothers him.”

“Yeah.”

“It really hurts him, Sasha.”

Sasha shrugged. “I don’t want to sound callous, but... that’s life, kitten. Zeke loves you and you don’t know if you love him. That’s a recipe for pain, and all you can do is be honest. It isn’t like you want to hurt him.”

“That’s what Roy would say too.”

Shaking his head, Sasha retorted, “Casey, there is such a huge difference between what Roy would do and this. He was using you and punishing you for his life. Is that what you’re doing to Zeke?”

Casey wasn’t so sure that he wasn’t doing that.

“Kitten,” growled Sasha.

“Okay, no,” he allowed. “I mean…I guess not.”

“You’re trying to discover things for yourself, and you’ve barely been at it for a year, kitten. If you’re still doing this five years from now, my opinion might change, but for now… I don’t think you’re doing anything particularly evil.”

“What about the part where I hang out with Zeke every day and talk to him on the phone and…flirt with him?”

“You flirt with him?”

“I can’t help it, see. I get scared and then I remember how he could make me feel...”

“And it isn’t at all because you’re attracted to him.”

“I don’t know…I feel like I am but…”

Sasha groaned. “Casey, you are way over thinking everything. Let’s just grant that you’re an ordinary, everyday sort of schmuck, okay?”

“Okay,” Casey said, forcing a smile.

“Good…and now that that’s settled…” Sasha shrugged. He picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV. “Dr. Chakri’s office called. You’re due for your six month follow up.”

Casey could have sworn he’d just been to see Dr. Chakri but Sasha was extremely diligent about keeping track of his appointments and if Sasha said it was six months, it was six months. But it ought to be a short one. Just a prescription renewal, a quick review of things. She might ask if she could do that rectal exam again and he would have to refuse again. It was enough for him that his final blood test had come back clean.

“I’ll call them.”

“Will I have to nag?”

“No.”

“Good.” Sasha had settled on Oprah.

“I’m going to…um, gotta do some homework.”

“Yup.”

The back of Casey’s neck crawled. Sasha should be jumping up and down on the couch, or at least refusing to let him go out, but he was not. He seemed entirely fixated on Oprah’s guest for today, holding the remote loosely in his hand.

The dread didn’t dissipate as he headed to his room, and his journal. He probably should do a mood log, but he’d done so many and he just didn’t have the will for it right now. He draped himself across his bed and got down to writing. The journal itself was new and thick, with an outer space theme on the cover. Zeke’s idea of a joke, perhaps.

July 5th, he scratched, and then he was stuck.

His brain filled up with images of Chris and Zeke and Roy and Thomas and he wanted to just curl into a ball and never leave this room. He didn’t want to put it down on paper, he didn’t want to move.

Sometimes, it happened this way. Sometimes he felt so ill inside, he couldn’t bear himself. All he could do was brace himself through it, and the scariest thing was being afraid that it wouldn’t ever go away.

But so far, it always had. So far.

Eventually, the sickness dissipated enough for him to roll over and flip to the next blank page. He stared at it for a while, and finally, he found the gumption to put pen to paper.

I can’t believe I’m doing this to Zeke. Well, actually, I guess I can believe it, because I’m doing it. I also can’t believe that I’m going to do it, just because. Because I’m a coward and I’m going to go to this strange man’s apartment? Yes, I am. I have to. I want to.

I really do want to. No one knows about this need I feel. Dramatic but true. It’s like hunger, but it’s more than that. It’s not like before, but it is. It’s like, if I really am safe, if I really can have them all, I have to know it. I have to see, so then the world that they live in can be my world too. I have to see it as my world or I’ll be too scared to leave home. I need to be ALL of them.

This sounds pretty fucking crazy. I don’t even know what I mean with this. I only need to be all of the men, what?! That’s how I know that I’m nuts, when I think that fucking every man I see will cure me.

I wish I knew how to tell if I loved someone. Is it enough that I love him as a friend, that I miss him all the time and there’s no question he’s incredibly hot and if I were a total prick I would go over to Stokely’s and fuck him right now? Is that being in love? And so what? What if I loved him? I would still be this slut, wouldn’t I? I would still hurt him.

Maybe I can just get this out of my system and then I can give him what he wants.

He was going around in circles. He pushed the journal away with a disgusted noise and just lay there with his eyes closed, but he was tired of his own thoughts too. He grabbed for the book he had been reading, one that Zeke bought him recently... The Celluloid Closet, about homosexuality in Hollywood. Zeke, the hero, always buying him things because he couldn’t afford to buy them himself. Zeke whom he was screwing upside-down, backwards and sideways.

Not thinking about it. That was the answer.

He was only moderately successful at not thinking about it just until Sasha had to leave for work. Poking his head in Casey’s room, Sasha made him recite again his promise to call promptly at nine o’clock. He delivered a last minute instruction — “Don’t you dare take a drink from him or anyone else!” — and then he just left as though it were merely another night in the life of a chef, and Casey wondered if he’d slipped into some sort of partial delusion where the entire business of his date with Chris was partitioned off and unreal.

Now he had a number of hours until that time, and usually Zeke would be here now to help him pass it. They would watch movies or just watch the tube. Sometimes, during the spring semester, they had both read their textbooks together.

Once in a while, they would play trivia. They were fairly well-matched, because although Zeke knew a lot about just about everything, his waterloo was the realm of popular culture — while Casey could be held at bay indefinitely with the sports and leisure category, unless he happened to get lucky with a question about chess or cards.

They’d gone to museums and bookstores, on the pretext of helping Casey expand his range of safe spaces, but also because they both really just liked them.

They’d gone on photographic walks, Zeke promising to keep Casey from being bumped or bumping into anyone as he concentrated solely on what he could see through his lens.

Of course, at least once a week, they went to the movies.

And they’d gone out to practice driving, spending hours touring around in the secondary roads near Seattle.

Not to mention the part where Zeke had let himself become a live punching bag for Casey to work out his rage. If that wasn’t using Zeke, nothing else was.

And now here he was, with five hours to kill before he could leave for his date with another guy, and he was lamenting that Zeke he couldn’t ask Zeke to help him with that. Headline: Casey Connor is a fucking jerk. Not an everyday, ordinary schmuck, but an actual jerk.

He could phone Zeke and say he was sorry, say he’d cancel or just not show up and, by the way, they could just pick up their old relationship because there was no reason not to. He could do that.

Or he could just say he was sorry — except he’d said that already, hadn’t he? He couldn’t remember. He’d told Zeke what he was doing and this was where Yves would tell him he wasn’t obligated to do more than that, and yet he felt obligated, and he hated that he felt that. He was just twenty and he was not fucking married for fuck sake, he should be able to go out and have fun if he wanted — and he wanted, he really wanted. He didn’t want just Zeke. That had been the whole point to begin with, he seemed to recall. He wanted so much right now that if he tried to be with Zeke it would be a disaster — wouldn’t it, yes, yes, no, he didn’t know — fuck!

Yes. Because Zeke didn’t share. Zeke wanted all of him and he wanted to be in a position to give Zeke all of him if he could. And so, he was going to go out tonight with Chris the Norse God and he was going to have a Fucking Good Time.

Unbearable.

He grabbed his camera and went out onto the street... wandering around snapping the odd shot, fascinated by the faces he saw. He often thought he’d like to do some candid portraits but he didn’t know how to approach people to ask them to take their picture, and he wasn’t sure he felt entirely comfortable about doing it without their knowledge. He was going to have to get over that, but in the meantime, he couldn’t seem to take any pictures that weren’t lousy and in less than an hour he was back home, feeling a complete failure as a photographer.

Do a mood log, Casey.

Okay, so was overreacting. He was a good photographer, probably even a talented one. Not every shot had to be brilliant.

He ate some cereal for supper, and checked that his phone was charged. Just to be safe, he plugged it in for a while. Eventually he found himself sitting on the couch watching something but he could barely focus on it. The minutes crawled by, and he had to force himself not to look at the clock too often.

At six, he started to get ready. He took a very thorough shower and dressed in his snug black jeans and black acetate shirt, the one that clung to his skin and made him feel very gothic. He would have to carry his cell phone in his hand, because it couldn’t possibly fit in his pocket; he would be lucky to get condoms and lube in there. Hesitating, he decided to put on his more androgynous accessories; he put on the necklace and one of the earrings that Sasha had given him. In the mirror, he looked ghostly pale. He decided to embrace it, accentuating the look with black eyeliner, mascara and some pale pinkish lip gloss that Stokely had recommended for him.

All of this took only twenty minutes, so then it was back to the television for a while. He decided to leave at seven, just in case the bus ride took a bit longer than expected. He arrived at Secord Street half an hour early according to his cell phone. Walking the final two blocks, he saw that Chris lived in an older, somewhat shoddy apartment building, neither grand nor an entire slum but somewhere in between.

He started walking a three block route, up and down Secord. This was one of those situations where thinking could only be counterproductive, and so he didn’t think. He just walked. He did several tours of the neighbourhood, and finally, it was time to go in. He walked up and opened the door to the entranceway, where there was a panel of buttons. Scanning, he found Apartment 560.

There was nothing to do but press the buzzer. He waited, shifting his weight, thinking he could still run away —

Until, with a crackle, a voice came on. “Hello?” It was a bit indistinct but it seemed to Casey like he had never heard it before. His heart started to pound.

“It’s… Casey.”

The only response was the buzz of the door being unlocked, and Casey grabbed it and went through. There were elevators to take him to the fifth floor, but he took the stairs. He didn’t let himself think as he climbed. By the time he reached the fifth floor the physical exertion had helped to settle his vital signs, but he still felt slightly sick to his stomach.

This all felt wrong. He was doing something wrong, that he shouldn’t be doing. It couldn’t possibly be okay for him.

You have to be prepared for everything to feel wrong.

Right. Yves had said that to him before he started his course in January. She had wanted him to know that he had to expect that for a while every instinct would insist that he wasn’t ready, that he was pushing himself for no good reason and he should just go home, and that would be because as far as his emotional self was concerned, this was wrong because it was new and scary and yeah, if he didn’t want new and scary then he shouldn’t do this. But if he wanted to go to school, he should.

He’d demanded of her, “But how do I know the difference between feeling wrong that isn’t really wrong and feeling wrong that is really wrong.”

“There isn’t one,” she had said. “Emotions are what they are. It’s your more reasonable self that you have to count on. You know you need to go back to school, and you know it’s going to be hard whenever you do it. Would it be better to ease in with one course or give up and wait until next fall hoping you’ll be more relaxed and then just dive in? You have to decide.”

“What would you do?”

“It doesn’t matter what I would do, Casey. This is up to you, and whatever you decide is okay. You decide who you are.”

“And people pay you big bucks for this,” he had grumbled, and gone to register, ignoring Sasha’s suggestions that he wait until summer, ignoring Zeke’s protests that he would have gone with him, ignoring the sick feeling in his gut. And it was only the fear that if he bailed he would never be able to go back that kept him coming back, kept him trying even when he just couldn’t face the classroom and the people in it.

So it was time to ignore his gut again. He could not, would not be a guy who settled down with his high school sweetheart because he was afraid of everything else. He needed to know what the world was like, in full, and he needed to know what would happen when a man touched him, really touched him.

Swallowing the taste of bile, Casey strode down the hall, searching for the number he wanted. 522…530…542…560.

He knocked.

The man who opened the door was the man he was expecting. He was wearing distressed jeans, no socks, and a t-shirt that had something to do with some world hiking tour. He smiled. “Hey, I was starting to wonder if you’d gotten lost.”

“No.” Casey sucked a breath, blurted, “You didn’t sound like you.”

“Huh?”

“On the…the intercom.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s pretty much crap. Come on in.”

Chris gestured, and Casey had no choice but to enter. The place was small, a collection of very conventional box-shaped rooms painted off-white, and it looked like any typical bachelor pad, except that one corner was filled with sports equipment. Skis, hiking gear, and other things that Casey wasn’t even sure about. There were posters of mountains taped to the walls, the kitchen was filled with dirty dishes…everything just the way it should be.

“Do you want a drink?” Chris asked.

“Um…no, thanks.”

“Okay,” Chris said, sounding both nervous and annoyed.

Casey turned from his perusal from the living room and looked at his host. He was still gorgeous, which was a definite help.

“Hey,” Chris said. “I know it’s not Shangri-La, but it’s home.”

“Oh…no, no I wasn’t thinking…”

“I’m going to have a beer.”

“Okay.”

“Have a seat.”

“Okay.”

Casey almost chose the cheap, Wal-mart armchair, and reconsidered. He wanted to seem available, after all; he sat on the couch. It seemed old; probably a hand-me-down.

“So I take it you’re a student?” Chris said, entering the living room and sitting at the other end of the couch.

“Yeah. Film studies…you?”

Chris began to fiddle with the label on his beer bottle, peeling it at one corner. “Grad student. Kinesiology.”

Knowing that Chris was in grad school eased Casey’s mind a little, for no rational reason. Maybe it was the partisan logic of a lifetime geek, but he assumed that anyone who was this committed to school must be a decent human being. “Oh.”

Chris gave him a long stare, then tipped back his bottle and drank half of it. Lowering it, he said, “Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”

“I’m twenty.”

“Ah,” Chris said and seemed to relax a bit. “You look younger.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink?”

“I don’t really drink.”

Chris laughed. “You’re making me feel very old.”

“No, it’s not…I mean, it’s just me...I’m not used to it.”

“No problem.” Suddenly, Chris was moving closer to him. “I’m all for healthy living, you know.” The gap closed, and they were close enough for…anything, really. “So, Casey.”

“Yeah.” Casey’s mouth was very dry.

“Have you been checking me out at the pool?”

Casey looked up, and up, seeing the easy angle of Chris’ hand gripping his bottle, the powerful flex of his neck and his strong, golden chin, and he was entirely overwhelmed. “Yes,” he whispered.

“I thought so. I’ve been checking you out too.”

“You have?” Casey was appalled to hear the question come out in the form of a squeak.

Chris laughed again — his laugh was addicting, a rich, golden sound — and at the same moment put his beer on the table and reached for Casey.

Casey cringed. He couldn’t help it and the instant it happened he was so furious at himself he wanted to run home and start smashing things. And then maybe cry for a few hours because it was all ruined, he had just totally fucked it up and there was no fixing —

Two hands held his head in a grip that was firm yet implied nothing but wanting to steady him. It was novel, the way that the hands were aligned, like some sort of kinesiology experiment on maximizing the holding while remaining loose and open, easy to switch between gentle and fierce.

“Relax,” Chris said softly.

“You just surprised me is all.”

“Sorry.”

Chris dipped his head and began to kiss him then — and could have pretty much finished kissing him at the same moment, because Chris was not a tentative kisser, he was a take-no-prisoners, zero to one thousand type of guy, using his hands to press Casey’s face in towards his. He tasted of beer and mint, and he seemed to be chuckling deep in his throat.

The sick feeling in Casey’s gut became a burn, then moved lower and flowered into a conflagration. He got hold of Chris’ shirt and he pushed; Chris willingly fell back and let Casey roll with him; he put his hand behind Casey’s neck and kept their lips in constant contact, pressing down even as he pressed up.

His dick was suddenly all that Casey could feel, even through two layers of denim. He was burning all over, twitching with a hunger that had been left unsated for far too long now. He wanted it, it was all he could think about and he didn’t care if it ripped him apart as long as he got...it inside him. But how to get it was the problem, for Chris wouldn’t necessarily believe him what with his too-young face and —

Casey tore his mouth away with some difficulty, giving the man a nip on the chin to keep from following. “Take off your shirt,” he demanded.

“You’ll have to help, you’ve got me…” But then, contradicting himself and with a magnificent display of abdominal strength, Chris raised his torso and yanked at his t-shirt, getting it most of the way in one movement. Casey finished the job for him, exposing a washboard of perfectly defined muscles. “Now you,” Chris urged.

Feeling a twinge of self-consciousness, Casey bared himself. He looked to Chris to see if he was going to laugh. The other man was now laying flat on his back with his hands beneath his head, gazing openly at Casey’s body.

“I’m kinda…not much to look at,” Casey confessed.

Chris gave him an incredulous look. “Are you kidding? All that swimming…you’re small but you look perfect…like Ganymede, maybe.”

Casey made a face. “No poetry.”

“Um…sorry.”

At Chris’ slightly crestfallen look Casey bit his lip, and by doing so managed to hold back his demand for an additional two seconds. “I want you to fuck me.”

Chris just chuckled. “Definitely no poetry.”

“No.”

“Are you on a schedule or something?”

The word jolted Casey’s memory. “Actually, I do need to phone someone at 9:00.”

“Oh...” Chris said softly, his eyes wandering away from Casey’s face. He put his hands on Casey’s chest, moving lightly, delicately even, and it annoyed him.

He snapped, “Stop that.” The

hands froze but remained where they were, lightly brushing Casey’s nipples. “Stop…?” “

Touching me like that.” “

Like what?” “

Like I’m made of glass.”

Chris looked puzzled at this. “Believe me, that’s not what I was doing. And if you don’t want to be touched, you shouldn’t parade around with this skin of yours.”

Casey felt with one foot for the floor, moving awkwardly off of Chris who continued to look up at him. “You do want to fuck me, though.”

“Well...” Chris bit his lip.

“I have condoms and stuff.”

Casey wrestled three foil-packages and a small tube out of his pocket while staring down at the perfection on the couch, at the low-slung denim. It seemed that the most natural next step was to kneel down and unzip Chris’ jeans — which he did, revealing white underwear and an enormous, damp bulge. Chris had gotten very still, just twitching as Casey peeled down the briefs, leaving them bunched just below his genitals.

It was still only the third set Casey had ever seen, not including his own. Chris’ cock was somehow perfect like the rest of him, smooth and golden, and of course circumcised. It would hardly have been aero-dynamic, otherwise. There was hair, but not nearly as much as Roy had had. Zeke was similar to Chris but uncircumcised, and his was longer and slimmer.

Would they taste the same, mostly the same, or just entirely different, Casey wondered? He could almost wish it was possible to take his camera with him, record each cock he ever came into contact with, keep them in a scrapbook with his notes...nice bouquet, good flavour... excellent body...

“What’s funny?” Chris said.

“Huh?”

“You’re smiling.”

“Oh...nothing.”

Still kneeling beside the couch, Casey leaned over and licked the tip of Chris’ cock, circling his tongue over the slit. The taste was mostly familiar, although there was a soapy tinge as though Chris had just taken a shower. “Jesus Christ,” Chris groaned, and his dick leaped, bumping against Casey’s face.

A funny thing happened suddenly. It was like a click or snap in his head and then he wasn’t just doing what he was doing, he was also standing apart from it, putting it all in frame. He could see himself kneeling there next to a strange couch in a strange apartment, tasting a strange man. He wanted to keep tasting, not have go make conversation or even acknowledge each other. Just do this without all those awkward necessities of his age and his choice of major. Would it be so wrong to keep a scrapbook of disembodied cocks? He didn’t want to make friends, he just wanted to fuck, to collect information about Chris’ body and how his own reacted to it.

Standing up, he shucked his own jeans, saw Chris’ eyes widen at the realization that he wasn’t wearing underwear.

“C’mere,” Chris said, reaching for him, but Casey shook his head. He quickly opened one of the condom packets and rolled it onto Chris’ cock, watching with some detachment the way that Chris bucked and groaned. Trembling slightly, he took the lube and prepared himself, bracing one foot on the footstool that seemed to be functioning as a coffee table. With his earlier work in the shower, he didn’t think he’d have much problem. Chris just watched him the entire time, with an odd expression. At some point, he sat up, remaining on the couch, never taking his eyes off Casey.

“Okay,” Casey said when he was ready.

“Okay…?”

“Could you…I’d like you to fuck me now.”

Chris stared a bit more, then broke abruptly into a laugh. “You know, for some reason I had the impression you were going to be inexperienced.”

Again, there was that change of perspective, almost a physical experience where Casey was thrown outside the scene, watching it. He was standing over a man, he was naked, ready to fuck but the other man was just sitting there staring at him. Staring At The Freak, that was the title of the picture. “

I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” Chris rolled onto his feet, towering over him once again and suddenly, Casey remembered himself to be at this man’s mercy. He wanted to bolt for a second, but he held his ground.

“Dunno,” he breathed. He stared at Chris’ chest, at the endless ropes of muscle. He leaned and breathed in, inhaling the scent. Male musk, a thing that he had encountered before, and yet this was utterly foreign.

“You’re a bit strange.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I dig it. It’s fucking hot.”

Casey looked up into Chris’ face. “So you’ll fuck me then?”

Chris’ eyes bulged in a way that was probably not meant to be scary but Casey couldn’t help but wonder and he knew he couldn’t wait for much longer; if he had to wait, he would probably run. Casting his eyes around, he recalled the presence of the footstool. “

We could use that,” he said, and he shimmied down, all the way to Chris’ feet, and moved the stool, kneeling and placing his chest flat over it.

“That’s…” Chris started.

Casey spread his legs slightly, bracing himself on his knees. “Do me...I’m ready.”

“Holy fucking shit,” he heard Chris mutter.

It was not what he was expecting, the hand on his arm. He jerked, looking up at Chris’ tanned face.

“I didn’t say I was going to,” Chris said.

“But...but I thought...”

Chris flushed a little. “Just feeling a little bit objectified right now.”

“You’re...what?”

“C’mere,” Chris said, and tugged, but Casey didn’t want to go, didn’t know how to at this moment. He couldn’t understand what Chris wanted.... okay, now this, maybe...Chris was kneeling down next to him, okay, this was...

Chris turning him, kissing him. He didn’t respond to the kiss, allowing Chris to plumb his mouth for long seconds, trying to understand what was happening until Chris pulled away, and smiled at Casey in a way that made him want to scream and run from the room. It made no sense at all when Chris’ iron-hard dick was burning a hole in Casey’s stomach.

“Hey,” Chris said. He wiped Casey’s lip with his thumb. “That’s quite a look on your face.”

“I don’t...”

“What? You don’t what?”

“...don’t know what to do.”

Chris smiled and kissed Casey once more, just a peck on the mouth. He took Casey’s hand and guided it to his cock. “How about this?”

“Kay,” Casey said, but he didn’t like it because Chris’ face was right there, looking at him and he was seeing him, seeing him...god, he couldn’t do this, he had to...he thrust and rubbed so that Chris closed his eyes and groaned, and came in very little time at all — and then there was an obscenely intimate, aching pleasure enveloping Casey’s cock, like his entire body was trying to implode and stuff itself into Chris’ liquid hand. Casey buried his face against Chris, just below his nipple, struggling to remember what he was supposed to be doing, blindly mouthing the nipple. And then he forgot that he was supposed to do anything at all. The next he knew, he had made a wet spot on Chris’ stomach, his breast.

“Whoa,” Chris whispered. “You’re intense.”

Casey had no reply. He leaned his head against Chris’s chest, exhausted.

“We need to get cleaned up, my friends will be here in a while.”

Casey lifted his head just enough to catch Chris’ eyes.

“Really,” Chris said with a smile. “I didn’t make that up. We are going out…and I hope you’ll come with.”

“I don’t…”

“You don’t have to...but I’d like it if you did.”

“Um…okay.”

“That’s more like it.”

“Need a shower.”

“We could take one together — “

“No,” Casey blurted. “Please?”

“Okay.” Chris put one foot on the floor and helped Casey to his feet. “Just make it quick okay? I don’t want to be stinking when the guys get here.”

Casey nodded and meandered in the direction where the bathroom had to be found.

“Right at the end of the hall,” Chris called. “There are towels in the closet.”

Chris’ shower had a lot more water pressure than home. Casey lost his purpose for a second and just closed his eyes, letting the liquid stream over him and pound down on him — until suddenly he was wavering, snapping to attention as he nearly lost his balance. Zoning here in a stranger’s apartment would be bad. Very bad. He washed himself quickly and got out, his heart throbbing slightly at the near disaster.

It was while he was putting his clothes back on that he heard noises — new voices, laughter, a door. It must be Chris’ friends.

Just like that, panic slammed Casey, the same kind that sometimes had him running from a classroom, even occasionally forcing him to swallow a Xanax. It felt just like that and the fact that it was the most disastrous thing that could possibly have happened right now made it worse, instantly worse. He felt himself about to curl into a ball in the middle of the bathroom and forced himself to stay upright, pacing the small room and repeating the words, the mantra: “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay…okayokayokay…” His heart knocked and rattled in his chest, belying the words. “You’re okay!” he hissed. He caught his own image in the mirror and glared at himself. “Not now, you can’t. You will not!”

His internal organs stubbornly refused to cooperate. He whirled and rested his head against the door. “One,” he gulped.

Zeke’s face suddenly came to him, along with a tsunami of longing for what he could have had tonight. A quiet time on the couch, watching a movie, bantering back and forth, knowing that Zeke would never demand anything he couldn’t give. Not really, anyway.

“…tuh-two…”

His voice seemed to have degenerated to a bit of a sob.

“Thruh — “ A knock startled him so severely that he nearly screamed. “Wh-what?”

“Can I get in there?”

He didn’t know the voice. He didn’t know who was out there.

Severe measures were called for, he did know that. He put the side of his hand in his mouth and bit down until he felt genuine pain, and, with relief, felt the world around him slow down, righting itself enough that he could get some purchase on it.

“Yo, Casey...!”

“Okay,” he gulped. “Okay.”

Opening the door, he found a face that was familiar. It had been — Chris, yes, his name was Chris.

“Are you okay?” the man asked, frowning a little.

Casey nodded, not sure he could speak.

“I still need to use the shower.”

But he couldn’t make himself leave that space.

“Casey,” Chris said, a trifle impatiently. Then, at a particularly boisterous bout of laughter from the other end of the apartment, he glanced over his shoulder, back at Casey, and his tone gentled. “Let me introduce you to the guys,” he offered. He waved Casey along to the living area, where the three newcomers — three new men — were sitting.

“Hey, everyone, this is Casey.”

The strangers replied in chorus.

“Hey, man.”

“Hi.”

“Hi, Casey!”

Casey stared at them, trying to make his heart beat normally, trying to see them as they were. They were amorphous blobs that his eyes wanted to refuse, and yet at the same time his mind could catalogue things. Chris was introducing them — Casey managed to match the name Steve to that man, who was huge. He had to have been almost seven feet, and he was built like a wall; his thighs looked wider than Casey’s entire body, and his arms could have easily snapped him in two. The second man, his name was Joe or Joel, something with J anyway, and he was very obviously gay. The third…well, fuck if a pulse of white noise didn’t fill Casey’s ears just when Chris said his name, and then it was too late and in any case the stranger was staring back at Casey, hating him for some reason.

“Well, look at you!” said Joe or Joel. He had red hair and freckles, and was pretty in his own way. “Aren’t you a wee cute thing!”

“Girls,” Chris teased. “Be nice to him. I’m going to take a quickie shower.”

“Yes,” Joel drawled. “Please do.”

“Shut it! I’ll be just a sec…”

And Chris was gone, leaving Casey alone with them.

“Come and sit over here!” Joel urged, patting the couch beside himself.

Casey took a few steps towards them, but he didn’t sit. He saw the threesome exchanging glances, no doubt silently agreeing that he was a freak.

“We don’t bite,” Steve said. His voice matched the rest of him; it was one of the lowest speaking voices Casey had ever heard and fuck if this guy wasn’t a mountain. Casey had a flash of an image of himself sitting on Steve’s lap, speared by the biggest cock on the planet, and he shivered. It must be amazing — downright spiritual — to be with this guy.

“You can bite me if you want,” he heard himself say, and he smiled at Steve.

Just on the edges of his focal range, there were looks of surprise being traded around, and Steve cleared his throat noisily.

“You look like someone’s already been nibbling on you,” Joel remarked at length.

Casey shrugged; he managed a small, slightly embarrassed smile.

“So,” said the third man who hated him. “You go to the pool?”

“Yeah.”

“You going to come to the bar with us?”

Casey nodded, because he couldn’t make his throat utter the alternative, that he really would have preferred to run home but he wasn’t going to because if he did he would be a failure and he was absolutely fucking determined not to be. He owed this to Zeke, to Sasha, to Yves, to everyone who wanted him to get his head on half-way straight.

Chris must have literally taken a thirty second shower, for he reappeared an instant later. “Who wants a beer?”

“I do!” Steve said.

“Me, too,” put in the unnamed man.

“Oh,” Casey blurted.

“What’s that?” Chris said.

“We aren’t going…to the…bar now?”

"Yeah, but it’s a bit early.” Chris put a hand on Casey’s shoulder. “Why don’t you sit?”

His options were to sit next to Joel on the couch, or on the floor. He chose the floor, folding cross-legged onto the industrial carpet on one side of the coffee table.

“Are you going to have anything, Casey?” Chris asked, delivering four beers to the table.

“Milk,” said Joel as he grabbed his beer, and laughed.

Casey gave him a glare.

“Sorry. How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty,” Casey sighed.

“You get asked that a lot, I suppose,” the third man said. Casey wondered if he should just admit he had forgotten his name — or never heard it in the first place, if he was entirely honest — and get reintroduced. But then again, if he was entirely honest, he didn’t much want to be reintroduced either.

The silence that followed was not terribly comfortable. Casey wrung his brain for something to say and the only thing that squeezed out was that he was supposed to call Sasha.

“H-hey...Is it nine?”

“You have a curfew?” smirked the unnamed man.

“It’s just about nine,” Chris supplied.

“Can I use your phone?” Casey said to Chris, getting up.

“Sure,” Chris said, frowning up at him. “It’s in the kitchen.” He glared, none too subtly, at his friend.

Chris had an older model of phone affixed to the wall next to the microwave. Casey took it and stood with his back facing the living room area. He dialed the restaurant.

“Good evening, it’s Sojourn, how may I help you?”

Casey knew many of the voices by now; more often than not the phone was answered by Shari, the hostess. “Hi, Shari.”

“Hello, Casey! Would you like to speak to Sasha?”

“Yes, please.”

“Hang on, I’ll get him.”

There was a bit of a wait; then Sasha came on the line.

“Hey, kitten.”

“Sasha.”

Suddenly, and for no good reason, Casey felt a burning in the back of his throat, and in his eyes.

“Are you at that guy’s house?”

“Yeah.”

“Is everything okay?”

Casey had to take the time to swallow.

“Kitten?”

“Yeah…everything’s okay. We’re going out to a…a bar.”

“Which bar?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, ask.”

Closing his eyes, Casey put down the receiver and called, “Chris?”

“Yeah!” Chris shouted.

“What bar are we going to?”

“Elysium!”

When Casey put the receiver back to his ear, Sasha said furiously, “I heard that. It’s not a bar, it’s a club and it’ll be packed. We were thinking of going there on Saturday night.”

“Well…it’s only Tuesday…”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s always packed. Kitten, why won’t you just wait?”

The fear turned sour, and past sour it twisted and became anger. Sasha had promised not to give him any fucking grief. “Sasha — “

“I’m just saying.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Casey hissed into the phone.

“Because I’ll take you there myself, in a few days. You just have to wait — “

“This’ll be a warm-up.”

“Casey,” Sasha groaned.

“I’m going.”

“Yeah, I guess you are.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Be careful, Casey. Please be careful.”

“Bye.” He hung up, slamming the phone a bit harder than he had intended.

“Everything okay?” Chris asked when he got back to the living room.

“Yeah,” Casey said. “It’s fine.”

But it wasn’t, even if he was in Elysium. He couldn’t enjoy it, couldn’t even move.

The beat and the words were a blur, shaking Casey deep in his gut as a man’s voice intoned over the speakers: I can’t sleep…I gotta…get some sleep… Everything was broken and divided, a steady, pounding pulsating thing that had taken over so he was counting ten… eleven… twelve in sync with the drum beat.

“You wanna dance?!”

With that, Casey was jolted from his numbers. He looked up at the enormous Steve who was standing in front of their booth, directing his baritone shout at Casey.

Some time ago, Chris had said he was going up to the bar to get some drinks; he’d asked Casey if he wanted one and Casey, thinking with longing of the ten minutes back in that bar in Butler Lake when he’d felt liberated and giddy, had surrendered and said yes. That was twenty minutes ago, and Casey had been sitting here alone in the booth for most of it. Joel was up dancing and the other man, the one who hated him, was nowhere to be found. Casey couldn’t blame them for deserting him; he’d been plastered to the vinyl seat since the moment they’d walked in, overwhelmed and blank with terror for whole minutes at a time as the noise in the club deafened and drowned consciousness of now and here. When he did come back, his eyes couldn’t quite comprehend what appeared to be walls and piles and mountains of male flesh.

“You wanna dance?” Steve bellowed again, even louder.

Casey examined the moving morass on the dance floor, and swallowed down the fresh wave of terror. This was like the ultimate test and he couldn’t fail at this. He could not fail…and at least, it was mostly dark. The flashing lights and the disco ball and the smoke only served to obscure knowledge of other human forms. That was a good thing, at least.

“Okay!” he said. It came out late and wrong and probably not audible, so Casey just moved, sliding out of the booth and walking directly to the floor, not waiting to see if Steve was there behind him.

But he was there, when Casey decided his nerve could take him no further and he stopped. He started to move to the beat, the motion highly unfamiliar to him. He’d never really done this before…but the next bit of good news was that the bodies all around disguised him, and Steve wasn’t much of a dancer himself.

It was nothing but rhythm and flesh here. Bodies on all sides, touching…they couldn’t help touching each other, all of them, there was no way not to. Casey closed his eyes and concentrated with every neuron on not freaking out. His mouth was so dry he could barely swallow. No danger from them, he rattled off in his head, rattled to himself, no danger because he was them, he ruled them I am the alien queen he was safe from them, I am the alien queen I can say no I can say no I can I can I am and They couldn’t hurt themselves he was Them and They were him.

Someone shouted something. He opened his eyes, saw Steve looking expectantly down and he shook his head, pointing to his ear. Steve nodded, and then moved closer to Casey. He put his hand around Casey’s waist, pulling him in closer. Bodies disappeared and dissolved, coalesced into one body, one body that dwarfed him utterly. He smelled musk and an old-fashioned kind of cologne. He closed his eyes and imagined Steve as though from some commercial, hewing logs bare-chested in the forest, riding a horse across a plain, and he could feel muscles like stone under his hands.

It occurred to him that dancing could be like swimming. The music and the bodies moving to music were only the water he was in right now, and safe in the way that the water was safe. The music changed but didn’t change, the pulse of it continuous like liquid itself, and he could, after all, just let it have him. He could be a creature that belonged to it, just barely attached to the ocean floor and waving to and fro, floating in a sea of randomness.

There was pressure against the small of his back and a powerful current moving him back and forth. Time abandoned him.

Now he was nudged and he opened his eyes, surprised to find that he was standing up on a dance floor, coloured lights flashing past and the blond Nordic god was smiling and holding out a glass of something. Casey took it and nodded thank you, then drank it down as quickly as possible. It was slightly bitter but also sweet. The Nordic god took the glass away from him. “My turn!” he seemed to shout, and took Casey’s hand.

Within a few minutes Casey could feel the alcohol all the way through his body, and it was good to discover that some of the things he had been so worried about weren’t really all that important. Even the aliens didn’t matter, and it wasn’t even like they weren’t around but he just didn’t seem to care, and he was content to move against hard flesh to the hard beat. He thought that the joints in his hips were loosening and he was actually moving with rather than against and he liked it. He didn’t want this one to stop, to just keep going until his legs crumbled or he disappeared entirely.

He was jolted, unexpectedly. Detached from the molten flow that he’d been pressed into.

“Let’s go sit down for a bit!” the god shouted in his ear, trying to tug him away.

“No!” he whined and pulled back.

The pull disappeared and the next thing he knew, he was dancing alone. He didn’t want to stop this, just like he sometimes didn’t want to leave the water. It was a refuge, and sacred place amidst a many that were yet no one and nothing. He closed his eyes and just existed there.

There was something in the small of his back again, a different hand, new hand, an opportunity for more and again and oh, fucking god, he looked up to see Steve’s smile and plastered himself against Steve, and there was Steve’s cock distinct against his stomach and fuckingjesusfuckinggod, it was enormous. Casey began to tremble and Steve was tugging him closer and closer, nearly rubbing on him. Soon, there was an unmistakable patch of damp on his shirt.

The size and the fucking unbelievably hard was a thrust of an idea that wouldn’t go away; it seemed that this thing was proportional to the man himself and what it would feel like to have something thing big inside him? Not that there was anything wrong with any of the cocks he’d experienced thus far, but this was something truly extraordinary, and would it feel as good or would it just fucking hurt, and did he have the ability to do this with a man he’d barely spoken to? He and Chris were best friends by comparison to Steve.

Casey slid his hand down in between their two bodies and massaged the granite bulge. There was a lurch and a thrust, and then Steve had him by the shoulder and was guiding him somewhere, steering him in between bodies. A door loomed up — Exit, it said, in red — and then they were standing in an alleyway.

Nor were they the only ones. Everyone was busy with their own pleasures, ignoring each other.

Steve pushed him up against the wall of the adjacent building. His face touched cool, slick concrete while big hands yanked down his pants. “You want it?” Steve panted in his ear.

The big body was covering Casey’s…literally covering him. It made him shake with need, that image. Cool, moist Seattle air brushed his thighs while inside his shirt he sweated. “Yes,” he gasped. “No, no...wait!”

“Whah...?”

“Condom.”

“I’ve got it under control.”

The hands were rough, neither harsh nor gentle. Business-like, calloused but competent. There was activity behind him, and the sound of zipper and other matter-of-factness. Those hands opened him and massaged his hole with greasy lubricant, just long enough to get him juiced up before a stone monster was pressing its advantage. He couldn’t believe the size of it; he mewled and squirmed a bit and his body tried to flinch.

“Stop?” Steve whispered.

“No.”

Brute force yanked on his thighs, pulling his legs wider. He bent and rested his head against the wall and breathed into the impalement, putting all his concentration into Being. Relaxed. There were moments when he feared losing his own arousal, but then the mere thought of having that thing inside him would have him rigid all over again, and more so. The fact that he barely knew the man was nothing to him. This, it was knowing him now in the only way he wanted.

When at last Steve was crammed entirely within him he was full to bursting, struggling for breath.

“Okay,” Steve grunted. “Okay.”

“Please,” Casey gasped.

“Ready?”

“Ready…please, fuck me. Fuck me hard.”

One of Steve’s arms moved across his torso, holding him like an iron band just at his lower ribs, and then Steve’s hips moved smoothly, and Casey was scalded by sensation. There was something beyond pain or pleasure or the mixture of them and he had found it.

“Harder!” he snarled.

“I don’t want to…”

“Harder…do me harder!”

He didn’t know if he made any sound. He might have been silent, or screaming for all he could tell. He could feel his own pulse hammering away in his head and hoped that he wouldn’t have a stroke before he could cum. He hoped he would live through it…but of course he would. His vision merely went entirely white for a time, while his body jerked like some helpless creature caught on a live wire.

He knew he had spattered on the ground, he had lived through it except it wasn’t over because he was still pierced and split apart. He was conscious of a hand on his neck and his turned, twisted, pressing his hot face against the brick, grunting with each power-fuck-thrust. His eyes opened to see a face, a complete stranger standing there staring at him. The man had his cock out and was stroking himself, his eyes bright as he watched the live sex show in front of him. Casey wanted to tell him to fuck off but he couldn’t get a word out. His mouth was open but he couldn’t control the shape of it.

“Guhd!” Steve said, right behind Casey. “Oh, guh-god! God! Fuck!” He began pistoning in and out as though everything up to that point had been a warm-up, and Casey wondered if his eyes were rolling up into his head and if he was going to wake up shortly on the ground, curled up in a puddle of cum.

Everything vanished except the rod that was holding him up, even the name of the person pressing against him. There was no person, there was just…it blinding him, it taking him, it grunting in his ear and squeezing his shoulder so hard there would have to be a bruise at some point. He was aware of a pressure on his chest and a burning in his knees and hands and he was being shoved forward with every jolt but he didn’t want it to stop.

The thing within him spasmed and seemed to give way just the tiniest bit. It stopped moving, just stood there heaving for a while with his cock stuck exactly where it had been. Even flaccid, it was impossibly huge.

When Steve finally removed it, Casey couldn’t help a moan. He felt like he was gaping wide open, hollow and light enough to blow away — but the man caught him, turning him to face him and brushing the tears away from his eyes with a peculiar gentleness.

“You all right?” Steve panted.

Casey nodded, dazed to realized that it was true.

Steve pawed himself and removed a condom that Casey hadn’t even known, just trusted that he had been wearing. There was a twinge of anxiety suddenly, of the just-got-lucky, just-could-have-been-fucked variety. He pulled up his pants, his hands shaking so badly he could barely do them up.

“You,” Steve said, “are fucking amazing.”

Casey continued to struggle with the snap on his jeans.

“I’m serious. Can we get together again?”

“Yes,” Casey whispered. He cleared his throat. “I mean…fuck, yes.”

Steve made a deep, throaty sound. A laugh. Casey looked up and met Steve’s eyes for a second, and saw a friendly acknowledgment of his lack of composure at that moment. Steve chuckled again, and grasped Casey’s arm gently, leading him back inside.

They returned to their booth, where both Chris and another drink were waiting for Casey. Chris gave them both an odd face; Steve looked straight back at Chris and shrugged with bare apology. He sat down and gave Chris a friendly punch in the arm.

Casey didn’t particularly want to sit. He didn’t want this feeling to stop, this strange sensation like he was aware of every nerve in his body. He reached across the table for his drink, giddily wondering if his asshole would snap back into shape someday.

“You two have fun?” Chris said suddenly, loudly. It sang over the trance beat.

Casey stared at Chris over the rim of his glass, and was annoyed, not in the least because his high was dissolving much too soon. He had been shimmering somehow, he was sure of it, and now he was dull like before. He was alone and empty.

“Sorry, man,” Steve said. But he didn’t sound very sorry.

“Well hey, no problem.” Chris stared over at Casey, deliberately making eye contact. “It’s not like we’re a couple.”

Just to let him know how soundly he agreed with that statement, Casey slammed down his empty glass and went back out to the dance floor.

He could get it back, if he tried. He was sure he could get it back, and in any case, it was too good not to try.

Somewhere and sometime out there, he found Joel at the centre of a small circle of watchers. The man had bared himself from the waist up and was writhing like a red-haired succubus, no doubt aware of the eyes on him and reveling in them. His was a sinuous, epicene beauty; his build was a bit on the slender side, yet wiry, reminiscent of Johnny Depp. Casey watched him dance and felt the renewal of arousal despite the fact that this wasn’t really his type.

Joel caught his eye. A smirk creased his face, and he gestured to Casey, inviting him to join him.

Casey had two or three ounces of whatever Chris had been feeding him to help him along, and he was fearless. There came a moment when you couldn’t stop trying to stop being afraid, you just had to be afraid and yet do what you did. And so he moved out into the centre and glued his eyes to Joel’s, letting them guide him and erase the fact that they were both being watched now. Joel grabbed him and pulled him in so close that their hips were mashed together, and put both hands on Casey’s shoulders. His mouth dipped in, kissing lightly…then backing up, he reached for the bottom of Casey’s shirt. He tugged it up and Casey raised his arms, letting him remove it.

Soon they were skin to skin, groin to groin, and Joel was showing him just how much could be done with merely the mouth, lips and tongue. His skills were arcane and magical, overcoming Casey’s every attempt to stay with him, removing his will and replacing it with his own. Casey would have done anything to continue being kissed that way, like it was part of their dance and like a dance was a spell that Joel liked to weave around helpless little boys like Casey for the pleasure of the audience.

They weren’t dancing suddenly because there was a gap in the music but Joel had taken complete possession of his mouth, plundering him with a hand pressed at his neck, and he was riding Joel’s leg. Cheers surrounded them, mingled with whistles and encouraging shouts.

Joel tore his mouth away from Casey, leaving him seeking for it blindly. There was a high drone in his ears and he couldn’t find his bearings…couldn’t find that wonderful mouth or get enough friction between their cocks. His vision cleared slightly and he saw Joel grinning at him. Rage pulsed through him suddenly. He pushed Joel in the chest, pushed him back and grabbed at his shirt from the hands of one of the nearby watchers. He bolted in the direction of the bathroom.

It was filled with men, again, engaged in all sorts of transactions, not all of them legal, he supposed. He yanked on his black shirt and pushed through to the sink; he bent down, splashing cool water on his face. The whine in his ears remained from exposure to the speakers, and he was dizzy from the mixture of alcohol and medication.

“Exhibitionist,” drawled a voice.

He straightened quickly, and saw Joel in the mirror behind him, topping him by a half a foot or so. “What?” he gulped.

“You’re an exhibitionist at heart.”

“Not.”

“Oh, yeah. You are. You loved having those guys watching you.”

Casey shook his head.

“You know what I thought when I saw you tonight at Chris’ place?”

“Am I supposed to care?” Casey sneered, his heart racing.

Joel sidled closer, pushing him close to the sink. He whispered in Casey’s ear, his breath hot and almost wet, “I thought…here’s a little twink trying to play with the big boys.”

“Fuck you.”

“Nah…not really.”

Joel had him pressed all the way against the sink now, and Casey had nowhere to go. Joel was painted all along his back.

“’m no twink.”

Taking his earlobe in his teeth, Joel growled, “Show me.”

“H-huh?”

“C’mere.”

He was spun around and walked towards the stalls. They were all taken, but Joel pounded on one and shouted, “Hey! Go get fucked up somewhere else!”

Casey didn’t expect anything to happen, but to his amazement, the door opened and three guys came out, glaring at Joel. Joel stepped in backwards, tugging Casey with him and shutting the door. The idea of making it in the bathroom had kept Casey from resisting — until this moment when he suddenly conceived a brand new panic. He tried to pull on the door but Joel yanked him back and slammed him against the wall, not especially hard but forcefully enough to communicate who was in charge.

Casey started to struggle. “Let me go — “

Joel shook his head and pushed Casey’s arms up above his head, holding his wrists. “Shh, shh, shh…take it easy, little boy.”

“I’m not — “

“It’s okay,” Joel whispered. He licked Casey’s lips. “Shh, there we go…relax…” His mouth opened Casey’s, parting his lips; his tongue plunged and drew back with serpentine speed. “You’re very pretty, you know. Pretty, pretty…prettier than me.” He kissed Casey again, this time yanking on his hair and forcing his jaw wide and bending his head at an angle that made his neck hurt. His hips jabbed and thrust around Casey’s groin, pushing him hard against the metal wall. Casey could feel the stall shake slightly with each thrust and he just surrendered to it, waiting to see how it would play out.

It was, in the end, brusque and dissatisfying: Joel letting him go long enough to unbutton his jeans, not Casey’s, but his own, rutting up against Casey with no finesse, just using him as a source of friction for as long as it took to come.

When he was finished, he reached for Casey, saying, “Here, let me do you — “

Casey shoved him, catching him by surprise. Joel hit the opposite wall and stared briefly at Casey, the stare quickly turning into a knowing smirk.

“Suit yourself,” he said. Deftly, he cleaned himself up with a bit of toilet paper and pulled up his pants. He pushed open the door. “See you round.”

Casey waited a second, then slammed the door shut and locked it. Closing his eyes, he wished himself at home right then. His head hurt and he felt slightly nauseous, and he had to admit that it was just possible the whole experiment was ill-conceived.

On the other hand, data was data. The feeling-sick-to-his-stomach, the cum splashes on him, the pain in his head, all of this was information so there was nothing right or wrong about any of this. It was what it was...and really, he wasn’t going to regret being speared by the biggest cock in the world. And he didn’t regret Chris, and he didn’t even really regret Joel.

There was a soft knock on the door. He thought he must have imagined it at first, and so he ignored it. But then it happened again, so he pulled the door open. Just outside was Chris’ friend without a name, the man who hated him. “Hey there,” the man said.

Casey stared.

“What ‘cha doing?”

Okay, so data was data and maybe he was tired and he really wanted a shower but data was data, data was data was data and he hadn’t felt anything lately like that wondrous out in the alley with that cock so far up inside him, his mind full of white. It couldn’t just be Steve who could do that, there was no magic about that cock unless it was the size — or was it the motionoftheocean, hahaha, god, fuck, he was losing it here but it couldn’t just be Steve, it couldn't, it had to be something about the fucking —

“Joel tells me you’re going round robin tonight. You wanna go for four?”

Casey sucked a breath. “Where?”

“Right here, right now.”

There was no need to consider; he was right in the middle of this and riding it to its conclusion. He nodded.

The stranger stepped inside and Casey was going to stretch up and kiss him, but he slipped past Casey. Straddling the toilet, he exerted pressure on Casey’s shoulders to push him down, down onto his knees on the floor. He stared down at Casey, who found himself yet again stepping out of his mind, viewing the scene from above — the man standing above him with legs splayed, himself kneeling there, and it was so fucking hot, the idea of being helpless and controlled by this complete and hateful stranger just because he was another man with another cock. Casey reached up without a word and unbuckled, unzipped.

Yet another cock sprang out, brushing his lips. His mouth opened and he took it in, just holding it in his mouth while he catalogued the taste. This one was salty where Chris’ had been dry and slightly bitter. Same yet different. Same yet different, same...yet...

He was losing his grip on things. By now, he could tell. There was white all around the edges of his vision, nothing but that which was right in front of his eyes.

“Well?” the cock said.

Casey sucked it down, all the way to the root, embracing the slick heat with his throat, impassively recognizing the thrust that followed as a kind of uncontrolled appreciation for his skill. He waited for the gag reflex to subside, then began to rock and bob on the dick in his mouth, breathing carefully through his nose. The cock undulated and groaned, putting both hands on the metal walls to brace itself.

“Fuck…fucking fuck…you’re good.”

But he wasn’t — he was a bit out of practice, or maybe it was just that he had been mixing booze and Paxil because he was getting dizzy...dizzier. He backed up, letting the cock slip from his mouth.

“What? Why’d you stop?” the thing complained.

So he licked the underside of his rod, moving up to the tip and swirling his tongue around the slit. His mind was full of cock, smooth, scalding, velvet-covered iron and he wasn’t quite as concerned about oxygen now, was going to plunge down on it again when suddenly two hands grabbed Casey’s head and the cock told him, “I want to fuck your mouth.”

This was something he had never done, not really. Roy had loved to lie still while Casey did all the work, and so did Zeke, and while sometimes they would lose control and thrust too hard, neither had ever done him like this, just using his mouth, taking all control away from him.

The cock battered the back of his throat, grunting with each thrust until there were droplets spattering Casey’s face and his clothes, and there was a whisper, “Yeah…oh, yeah…that’s good...so...unhh....!”

And Casey stared down at his shirt, brushing futilely at the stains.

He flinched when the man cupped his chin, looked up into a smug, hateful pair of eyes. The man wiped a smear of semen from Casey’s cheek, and putting the smeared finger against Casey’s lower lip he said, “We should all do this again sometime.”

Casey thought about that, and the answer moved in his head: Yes.

The guy he had just sucked off stood there staring at him for a bit, then said boredly, “Oh, god, what?”

It made no sense, until Casey touched his face and felt wetness there. And there was no answering, nothing to say to a guy whose cock you’d just sucked with complete willingness, right before you started crying.

“What the fuck? I didn’t fucking do anything.”

Casey looked up and they were staring at each other, each watching the other. He watched the progress of the man’s face from horror to anger, blurring behind a sheen of salt water and panic.

“Stop that, would you? Stop fucking crying.”

This was really a moment that should be captured on film — him on his knees on the floor, cum all over him and he couldn’t, he couldn’t stop... just couldn’t he was fucked and he was fucked up and that was nothing new except he hadn’t been hadn’t been he was doing so well and not fucked up-over-out, not so much in such a long time now, and he should have known better than to think all that was over, he should have known better than to try what he had tried, but he really had felt like he needed to…no, he did need to…

He was up and out of the stall, out of the bathroom and then out of the club, running home.

Coming out of his skin had happened to him before. He knew what it was to come apart and yeah, this was him, was him coming apart. He needed rescue, he remembered how a long time ago if he waited and waited, rescue would come but only on his terms — Roy’s terms, but he didn’t like to think about Roy at all because there was no point, Roy was gone and good riddance — except no one could rescue him like Roy, no one but it was his own damn fault. He knew that, he just fucking knew. He was doing this to himself, always, no one else, it would start and then he only needed to be himself to get to this place of coming apart. It started, every time he thought he was almost past it.

No camera this time but he could see himself, like before, but now it was the shutter gone wild, out of control images whirling past his eyes until he was opening and slamming his door, searching for the one thing, the one thing that could make it all stop although he didn’t quite know how.

He found the phone and he dialed, his eyes rushing this way and that, staring at the walls. “Hold me in,” he whimpered. “Hold me in, hold me in…” It was home, this was an image of home he was seeing but still a lie, another fucking lie because he wasn’t safe, not safe since he’d come open like this. Falling wide open, he was, and it was his own fault, always his fault.

“Zeke,” he whispered. He vibrated and he shook, clinging to the phone with every nerve in his body. “Zeke...Zeke...”

“Casey?”

“Zeke?”

“It’s...not Zeke, Casey, it’s Stokes...”

The rest of what she said was drowned out by the noise of himself falling, still falling, and he almost screamed, almost shouted a bunch of things at her because she was not Zeke and she should have known better than to try it.

“You want to talk to Zeke?”

“Yeah...need to...”

There was noise, conversation somewhere out there, words he couldn’t make out and oh, god, oh, fuck, one thing entered his mind with certainty -- that he didn’t deserve Zeke, he didn’t deserve to be talked to. Zeke was a hero his hero, the hero who is always giving him things like all he wanted was one fucking kiss one touch one fuck but Casey couldn’t even give him that much, why should Zeke ever get on that phone and talk to him?

“Talk to him!” he heard Stokely say, and he bit his lip, distantly noticing the sting of it and thinking he should hang up rather than let that emptiness at the other end continue except suddenly the emptiness there was full of Zeke.

“Casey?”

Hold me in., he said, except he didn’t actually say it. He choked a name and then again.

“Yeah?” Zeke said impatiently, and then: “What is it, Case?”

Hold me in.

He could speak — really, he could. He could beg. He could do all those things, he had no shame. “Can you c-come over?”

A flurry of questions came, things that defied any kind of sensible answer: “Why? Sasha’s at work? Can you call him?”

Zeke was not going to come. He was not going to help and it served Casey right. He tried not to whine or whimper although he was whimpering, really. He was sniveling and cowardly, always was, all he ever wanted was for someone to hold him, hold him in, tell him it was okay and he’d screwed it all up by wantingexpectingneeding too much.

Then. He thought he heard: “I’ll be right there.”

“Kay,” he whispered.

A body all but covered his, again. Again, he felt the broad, capable hands opening him, and then the tip of his cock, so familiar so very...especially now, tonight. Again, he closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, sighing the tension out. A rigid heat was filling him, filling up...filling out, filling out until he was absolutely crammed full for a second time that night.

Except not again, after all, not a second time. A first. Because this time he was Casey here, and this was Zeke. Zeke who always helped, who always saved him when he asked. No one else did that.

He gasped, struggling to not move and thus tear himself open. His heart seemed to be beating right against the surface beneath him, opening a crater in his chest.

“Shh!” Zeke commanded, and Casey felt a slap...oh, fuck how he felt, he just felt....he felt. There was some burning but it was good. It was so...good. He could feel Zeke’s pulse, overriding his, forcing him to beat to another’s rhythm.

Zeke, he whispered to himself, chanted it Zeke... Zeke... Zeke... and said it out loud “Zeke...Zeke...” He was gulping it, gasping, clinging to the fabric under his hands and his face. “Z-Zeke...”

“Shh...”

“Zeke.”

“Unh...ungh...unh...”

And he saw it in his mind, another shot, an image of something that wasn’t just a thing trapped and constructed and made up for the moment. It was true enough for his eye, in his head, calendar-perfect, a real thing.

In his mind, Zeke was with Casey, fucking Casey, and it was perfectly obvious that Zeke loved Casey.

The water was warm-hot this time. Still smooth, though, permeable liquid over permeable skin. Casey closed his eyes and felt it run, waiting for the soft, white haze to build up around him. His body sang and sparked, aching in all the right places, and he sighed.

But it wasn’t happening, not so much. He felt good, yeah, but instead of wanting to stand there in the shower for half an hour, he was intensely conscious of the fact that Sasha was making breakfast and Zeke would want to take his shower before he ate.

Casey opened his eyes, blinking away water, and looked for the soap. There would be time to zone. He would go to the pool, as usual, and then to see Yves. God, he had a million things he wanted to tell her, plus a few more that he didn’t.

He was dry, and dressed within fifteen minutes, padding out to the kitchen with his hair curled damp against his neck while Zeke took his turn. Halfway down the hall he saw Sasha standing at the stove cooking eggs, and he reversed direction to get his camera from his bedroom. He had a sudden, desperate need to take a picture that was non-abstract – like, a picture of a guy in his pajamas, hair askew, cooking eggs.

“Whoa, hold it,” Sasha complained, seeing Casey approach with the camera raised in front of him.

“Come on.”

Sasha held up a hand, making like Garbo warding off the paparazzi. “No. No way.”

With a pout, Casey relented. Placing the camera on the nearest bit of open counter, he shuffled up to Sasha and stood alongside him, peering down at two, perfectly shaped exhibits of sunny-side-up. “Pretty,” he said.

“One for you?”

“Yeah.”

“Butter the toast, would ‘ya, kitten?”

As Casey bent over to fetch the butter-alternative from the fridge, a spur of pain struck somewhere intimate, traveling halfway up his back. He couldn’t quite keep from grunting out loud, and as he straightened, he knew Sasha had heard it, because Sasha would have been watching and listening for signs a hundred times more subtle and concealed than an actual groan of pain. That small but audible sound was like a shout just now.

Casey pulled a knife out of the drawer and began the lather not-butter on the first couple of pieces of toast.

“Are you going to tell me about last night?” Sasha asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Casey replied. “But not right now, okay?”

Sasha uttered the deepest, most laden of sighs. Down the hall, there was a sound of a door quietly opening — Zeke emerging from the steamy climate of the bathroom.

Casey popped more bread in the toaster, while Sasha carefully removed the two finished eggs to a plate.

Minutes later, Zeke was coming down the hall. He walked right up to the entrance to the kitchen, and Casey was seized with a sudden dread. He knew — just knew – that Zeke was going to try to kiss his neck or hug him or otherwise cuddle him and he didn’t think he could take that right now. It was too significant, too much.

But it didn’t happen. Zeke poured himself some coffee and took a plate of eggs and toast to the dining table while Casey felt weak-kneed with relief. He actually had to put both hands flat on the counter for a second, prompting Sasha to look at him with concern.

“Hey, Case,” Zeke called. “Would you bring me the salt?”

Casey drew a long, long breath. “Yeah,” he said.

The wave was passing.

He grabbed the salt from its home on the stove ledge, and then, acting on inspiration, grabbed his camera too. Coming around the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining area, he saw Zeke staring pensively at nothing, using every last one of his I.Q. points from the look of it. Knowing he had only seconds, Casey lifted the camera and snapped a shot, surrendering everything to the gods of serendipity and auto-focus.

When the flash went off, Zeke half-jumped, spinning in his chair. “Casey! Would you just give it a rest?”

“No,” Casey said, and placed the salt shaker near Zeke’s hand.

“You must have at least a hundred pictures of me by now.”

“Not the right one.”

Zeke scowled in that way that only Zeke could; it a look that said Just like I thought. I am the only sane person left in the world. “I really don’t like having my picture taken.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got me asleep, awake, in the Mustang, on the couch, drinking coffee...”

“But I want a picture of you.”

Zeke stopped. He blinked up at Casey, apparently stricken.

Then he shrugged, reached for the salt. He salted his eggs, took up his fork and ate half of one egg in a single bite. Washing it down with a slurp of coffee, he grunted, “Okay.”

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