The Mating of Michael (7 page)

Felicia looked at him warmly. “You’ll meet someone else. You’re an amazing person, James.”

James didn’t know what to say to that. There was no point trying to explain to Felicia why he would never have a romantic life. She was the most ardently “can do” person on the planet. She and the reality of limitations had never gotten along.

“Well, I should let you get back to your minions,” James said at last. “I’ll talk to you in a couple of weeks.”

“James, wait.” Felicia looked like she didn’t want to tell him the thing that she obviously had to tell him. He steeled himself. Was the home in trouble? Had someone died?

“What is it?”

“I got a call two days ago from someone looking for you. James, it was your mother.”

The pain that lanced his chest at those words took his breath away. He swallowed a gasp.

Felicia frowned in sympathy. “I’m sorry. But she really wants to speak to you. I told her I’d ask you if it was okay to give her your contact info.”

“
No
,” James said firmly, finding his voice.

Felicia hesitated, searching his face over the camera. “Are you sure? It might be good for you to talk to her, get some closure. And she sounded very… sincere.”

“Felicia, I
do
not give you fu—” James remembered there were little ears listening. “I do not, in any way, shape, or form, give you permission to relay my contact info. I will not see her.” His voice sounded barely controlled. “Please,” he added out of desperation.

Felicia gave in without another word. “All right, James. I won’t. A big hug and kiss. I need to go. I can hear screaming in the hall. Never a good thing.” She smiled. “Bye, James.”

“Bye, Felicia.”

J
AMES
HAD
a deep sense of unease after hanging up.
His mother had called the home
. Why now? What the hell did she want?

He told himself it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to see her, and he didn’t give a shit why she’d tried to get in contact with him. But it was still upsetting, and he couldn’t get back to work. He tried to find something else to think about, anything to get the idea of her out of his head.

He thought about Michael Lamont.

James hadn’t been back to the pool since the day he’d fled from Michael. He knew he was being a coward, but he decided to give himself a few weeks off. Hopefully, by the time he returned, Michael would have given up.

He wasn’t sure what bothered him the most. There was, of course, the fact that a hot-looking guy like Michael could not possibly want anything from him that wasn’t either delusional or mercenary. There was his fear of stupidly getting his hopes up and revealing himself as pathetic. There was the fact that he felt like a total douchebag for the way he’d overreacted last time.
You’re a nurse? Damn your eyes!
It was so embarrassing. And then there was the fact that he didn’t want to go back there hoping Michael would show up and then be disappointed when he didn’t. For all those reasons, he didn’t go back to the pool, even though his muscles were beginning to ache from want of exercise.

He tried to get back to work on his latest novel, but he just couldn’t get himself into the headspace to write it. He didn’t want to be working on it in the first place. It was book number three of a trilogy, so he had to finish it. It was promised to his publisher. But the reviews and sales had been disappointing on the first two books. Even his most ardent fans had been less than enthusiastic in online reviews. Which made writing book number three almost torture, like giving birth to a baby you knew was already dead.

He had a few other book ideas he was more anxious to work on, stories he thought would do better, but what if they didn’t? Amanda had made it clear that if his sales didn’t pick up, his publisher would drop him. If only he had a real shot at winning the Millennial Award. That would so goose his career.

He gave up on the day’s work, tired and more than a little depressed. He swung himself into bed with his idea notebook and sketched out some story ideas until he feel asleep. He dreamt of warm brown eyes, soft olive skin, a tight body, and the prettiest lips he’d ever seen.

Varanas, India, 1991

F
OR
THE
first few weeks in the hospital in India, James was so weak that he had little strength and he couldn’t move his legs at all. The pain continued, burning his legs until he shivered and cried. Worse than the pain was the sense of frustration and a child’s rage at being moved around like a doll. The nurses rolled him in the bed, coldly and quickly, and paid no attention to his protests,
I’m sleeping
, or his desires,
I don’t like lying on this side
. They washed him, slapped his back over and over to clear his lungs, stuck him with needles and put a tube up his wee, and he couldn’t do anything about it. When they did something he didn’t like, shoved him around or propped him up in a position that hurt, he could only cry and try to think about other things. He had to wait for them to come back and move him again or for his mother to show up to visit. There were no books, no games, and no TV. He started making up stories in his head to escape when he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Every morning, they would wake him from sleep by pulling down his pajamas, lifting his hips, and shoving a cold, hard metal pan under his bum. It hurt his back so much to lay on it. They’d leave it there for a long time, usually with nothing to show for it in the end. He knew they wanted him to go number two, but his stomach hurt and he couldn’t go.

Finally, after many days, he started feeling better. He could sit up by himself and hold a cup. As soon as he was able, he would pull himself off the hated bedpan the minute the nurse left. Many of his ward mates weren’t as fortunate. The little boy next to him would cry on the bedpan every morning—silently, ashamed of the tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Can’t you move your arms?” James had asked the little boy.

The boy just stared at him with big, dark eyes, not understanding James’s English. So James held up his arms and wiggled his fingers. The boy tried to mimic him. He was able to move the fingers on one hand a little, but he couldn’t raise his arms. James understood then—the little boy’s arms were like his own legs. He thought about all the things he wouldn’t be able to do if his arms didn’t work. He felt sorry for the little boy, but he was also very glad it wasn’t him.

Even though James was more fortunate than many in his ward, even though he was soon allowed the privilege of having the bedpan on the table next to his bed for him to use when he wanted to, he was deeply ashamed of having to poop in his bed in front of the other children. Worse was being left with the stink of it—no hiding that—until someone wandered by to take the bedpan away.

He hated it all. He hated going to the bathroom in the bed like a baby. He hated not being able to get out of bed, go to the window to look out for his mother, or follow a boy he saw limping down the hall. He couldn’t get out of bed until someone came to put him in a wheelchair. And when he was in the chair, he hated not being able to crawl back into his bed on his own when he was tired. James’s mind was bright and quick. His legs had always taken him wherever his interest landed. Now he was trapped with two legs that couldn’t take him anywhere.

As James got stronger, his mom would take him on trips around the hospital in the wheelchair. Through the doorway of the room next to his, he could see two big machines with the heads of children stuck out of the ends like lollipops. Other beds in the room had smaller machines next to the bed that made pumping sounds,
shhht, shhht, shhht
. One bed went up and down like a seesaw. It looked like fun, but the little dark girl on the bed was as thin as a skeleton and she was always sleeping.

“What’s wrong with those kids?” James asked his mother loudly.

She hushed him and talked about taking him out to the courtyard. But later, when he was back in his bed, she said, “You know those children in the next room?”

James nodded.

She put her hand on his chest and pressed a little. “They have polio just like you, only instead of it just hurting the muscles in their legs, like it did to you, it hurt their muscles
here
, the muscles you use to breathe. The machines help them get air because they can’t breathe by themselves anymore.”

It was the first time James had heard the word
polio
. He tried to imagine what it would be like if he couldn’t breathe. He could feel his mom’s hand, as his chest rose and fell with his breath, and it made him aware of the movement his body made when air went in and out. He tried holding his breath, puffing out his cheeks, but it hurt and he couldn’t do it for very long. He let it out.

“That’s scary. I feel bad for those kids.”

His mom gave him a shaky smile. “Me too. But you don’t have to worry about that, Sweetpea. We’re very lucky.”

Very lucky.

Those words would haunt him forever, along with the look on his pretty mother’s face, a frozen sorrow that made him understand they weren’t lucky at all, that something very, very bad had happened and things would never be the same again.

M
ICHAEL
WALKED
into the Expanded Horizons clinic, put on a smile, and tried to pull himself into a more positive mood. They had their Wednesday staff meeting today, and he was hoping for a new client. He was still upset about what’d happened with J.C. Guise, even two weeks later. He needed a distraction, and he needed to feel good about himself. Making progress with a patient always made him feel so much better.

As soon as he walked into the waiting room, Loretta, the buxom, red-haired receptionist, flew around from her cubbyhole of an office and body slammed him. Michael hugged her back, alarmed.

“What’s the matter? What happened?” Michael asked, sure some calamity had fallen. Had something happened to Trudy or Jack?

But Loretta only pressed him tighter for a moment, her breasts like conical pillows—not quite memory foam, more like down-filled—before pulling back and looking him in the face. “Nothing. I just wanted to hug you.” She tweaked his cheek with one hand and made the sort of face one would make at a baby. “You are sooooo cute, Michael Lamont.”

Michael blinked at her in surprise. “Uh… thank you?”

His arms were still loosely around her, and she snuggled closer as if she meant to stay there. Thankfully, there were no patients in the waiting room to observe this little scene, but it was still… weird.

“Want to get some coffee later?” Loretta sighed against his neck.

As gently as he could, Michael put his hands on her arms and pulled away. “Loretta,” he said in the nicest possible voice, “you do remember that I’m the clinic’s gay surrogate?”

She smoothed down her sweater and arched an eyebrow. “I
know
. Sexuality is not as rigid as people think. I have learned a thing or two working here. Remember that cute Mr. Derenzo? He thought he was straight for years.”

“That can be true,” Michael said slowly. “But personally? I’m really, seriously gay.”

Loretta rolled her eyes and went back to her chair.

In the staff meeting, the clinic’s two doctors, Dr. Trudy Kaplan and Dr. Jack Halloran, went over their cases. Andrea and Philip, the clinic’s two other surrogates, sat in at the weekly meetings, as did Michael. Andrea worked with straight men. She was in her midthirties, slim and attractive but not glamorous. She had an earthy, no-nonsense sensuality that Michael admired. He also envied the fact that she worked for the clinic full-time—straight men were the bulk of their clientele.

If Michael could do surrogacy full-time, he would. He probably could manage it if he took freelance too, but he liked working with a reputable sex clinic. That way he could be sure his clients had been screened through a sex therapist like Dr. Halloran, and that they legitimately needed him. He didn’t want to run the risk of getting curiosity seekers or those looking for, essentially, a prostitute. Besides, he’d worked hard to become a nurse and he’d become very attached to Marnie. She’d insisted Happy At Home assign him to her second shift Monday through Friday, which gave him steady work for the foreseeable future.

Phillip, the other surrogate, was also part-time. He worked with straight women. He was not a fan of Michael’s and vice versa. Michael found him a little too good-looking and a lot too cocky. He had a slight air of being god’s gift to women instead of being a healer. But Michael supposed he was biased. He had a lot of baggage about big, buff, straight guys like Phillip giving him a hard time in school. And Phillip always ignored Michael, as if he didn’t exist, and that was just annoying.

Dr. Jack Halloran, on the other hand, was a lovely, lovely man. He’d been a combat surgeon and he was tough, with a core of steel under a boy-next-door exterior. Jack looked Michael right in the eye when they talked, gave him respect. He treated Michael as though they were a team. Of course, Jack Halloran was also gay. That might have something to do with it.

Michael had had a mild crush on Jack way back when. When Jack had first come to the clinic, he’d been depressed and suffering from PTSD. There’d been a depth of sorrow in him that drew Michael like a moth to a flame. He’d just wanted to wrap up the good doctor and love on him and make him feel better. But Jack had made it clear that was not going to happen. And really, Jack had been right. It was smart not to do the dirty with anyone at work. Now Jack was in a relationship and was way,
way
off the market.

Trudy turned to look at him. “Michael? How are things going with Tommy Chelsey?”

Michael sat up straighter. “Good. I saw him Monday for touch therapy, as usual. His mother’s worried that he’s been depressed lately, but I didn’t see that when I was with him.”

Jack looked concerned. “Did she give you any indication of why she thinks he’s depressed? How he’d been acting?”