four fun things of the day
I. conversation with Awesome Husband:
him: *appears out of bedroom* Will you still love me if I turn into Patrick Stewart?
me: Yes. Even more. Why, again?
him: I think I have less hair than I used to....wait, did you just say even more?
me: I'll love you with or without hair, dear.
him: I think I'm going to go make tea now. Earl Grey. Hot.
me: Make it so.
II. conference highlights!
--my paper went quite well, I think; one really interesting question, afterwards, plus two very easy ones;
--heard China Mieville read a new short story that he's working on, plus his discussion of the taxonomy of literature and how lists can be constricting, plus, in conversation, his discussion of the monstrous and what that means, and his interest in debris and rubbish and broken bits of the world, and how those things are beautiful (I also got to ask him a very specific question about one of his short stories, which I am writing about for something else, and he very graciously answered) (basically China Mieville is one of the most generous and brilliant people I've ever met, with his wonderful fictional world-building and his PhD in economics and the way he can casually reference theorists and texts mid-conversation, and then turn around and make jokes about octopi and RPGs)
--guest scholar was the incomparable Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, who I've probably mentioned before because he's one of my academic heroes; he gave a fantastic talk on zombies and the undead that prowled over Icelandic sagas, The Walking Dead, internet memes, concepts of monstrosity, and stone and rock and the natural landscape as a bridge between human and inhuman. Also got to have lunch with him the next day, during which living stones (think: statues, gravestones, etc), Buffy, object-oriented theory, and the reanimation of J.R.R. Tolkien were all discussed;
--apparently two copies of my book were in the book room at one point? I never actually saw them, but was told they were there;
--writing workshop with the lovely Farah Mendlesohn (whose Short History of Fantasy I am assigning next quarter) who solved, in two sentences, the problem I'd been having with my current book project. I love you forever, Farah. Seriously. I also asked her to sign my copy of Rhetorics of Fantasy, which I adore for thinking about the genre and how readers relate to it (one of the few academic studies that moves beyond 'what IS fantasy' and starts asking what it DOES).
III. book rec!
On the plane, on the way back, I read, for the first time, Avram Davidson's Adventures in Unhistory, and adore it. It's an uncategorizable kind of book--joyfully spilling over from nonfiction (exploring the origin of mermaid legends) into fiction (what if those legends were true?) and with a glorious sense of sheer inventive fun (and the footnotes are often hysterical). Well, here, let him speak for himself, with the first paragraph of "An Abundance of Dragons":
"America, that great antiquity, observed Sir Thomas Browne, lay buried in the Urn for centuries. At least, I think he did. Something less bulky lay buried in my subliminal mind (for a somewhat shorter period), to wit, did dragons have kidney-stones? Suddenly, and I don't know why, it occurred to me that what I had really been wondering was, did dragons have gizzard-stones? And with that the entire matter of dragons seemed to leave the realm of the imaginary and enter that of the possible. The rest followed."
IV. fic excerpts! I have been, as you possibly know, working on that James/Michael thing tentatively entitled the Continuation of Doom, which is the next big story arc that follows the Universe of Porn, and I blame you all for encouraging me to do this. It's going to be epic. Um, you've probably seen random bits of these as comment replies, maybe? Still not in final draft form, obviously, but have two pieces of the aftermath.
“We just need to ask you a few questions about what happened, if that’s all right.”
“James, you don’t have to-”
“It’s all right.” He still winced, at the sound of his own voice, scraping rawly across bruised flesh. “Can I…not talk, though? Write things down?”
“Of course.” The officer tore off some sheets of paper, found a pen, handed them over; James wrote Thank you, and the man looked at him, surprised by the courtesy, and then smiled.
“You’re welcome. The first thing we’d like to know is, what happened at the party? That is, how did you end up in the car?”
James sighed. Easier if I show you. Pushed down the sheet, and tugged the flimsy hospital gown around until the bruising, the needle mark, became visible. Heard Michael, who hadn’t seen that one before, swear, viciously.
“Right, we did check the medical records. We understand you were incapacitated, but before that, how did he get close enough to you for this, do you remember?”
He had to think about that one, for a second. Trying to reconstruct the night, before all the drugs and the fear took over. I went outside-still in the hotel, just out in the hall-to make a phone call. Got lost.
“He always walks around, when he’s on the phone,” Michael said, quietly, maybe trying to help, or to explain, and then looked at James. “You don’t like standing still.” James squeezed his hand. Smiled. Yes.
Then went on, because the man seemed to be waiting for more. So I was trying to find the way back. Walked around a corner. He was…right there.
“Okay, and you let him get close to you?”
“What the hell are you asking?”
James tried to squeeze Michael’s hand again, a warning; punching the police officer in the face wasn’t going to help anything, but Michael was looking angry enough not to care.
It’s fine, I can answer…he said he’d been following me. And I did try to run. Couldn’t. He had to pause there; that awful fear, the black knowledge that he couldn’t get away, couldn’t do anything to save himself, was creeping up again, cold insinuating itself into his bones, under his skin.
“All right. You did have a prior relationship, though, correct?”
“It was fucking abuse, not a relationship!”
“We did read your statement, Mr Fassbender, and-”
We were…having sex. Not a relationship. Maybe ten years ago. No, more like twelve years. For a few months.
“And that ended badly?”
James almost laughed, at the understatement. But even the idea made his throat hurt. And it wasn’t really funny. Yes. I…we were…he took out a knife. When we were in bed. I mean during sex. Told me that he wanted to see me bleed. Because that would make me beautiful.
He could hear Michael cursing, softly; James couldn’t blame him for the profanities. The hand tightened around his. “You never told me that part.”
I didn’t want to remember. Or to make you…I didn’t want you to have to know that. Not when it was over. It hadn’t been over, of course. The bitter taste of panic burned, in his throat. It still wasn’t over; he hurt everywhere, inside and out, new scars pulling him into a different shape, not himself anymore. Not the person he’d thought he’d become, since then.
The ever-helpful blackness hovered at the corners of his vision, offering a retreat into silence. He ignored it, for the moment.
He thought I’d let him do it. I kicked him in the balls. Ran. Never saw him again, until now.
“I see.” The man was looking a little friendlier, now. Believing him, maybe. “We just needed to know. In these cases, sometimes, you know, especially with this kind of history, some people might wonder whether it was consensual and just got out of hand…”
Consensual? At first the word sounded alien, in his head: confusingly irrelevant, not a part of the situation at all…and then he understood. No. No. They weren’t thinking that, were they? Unrequested, he heard that terrifying voice, one more time, swooping in out of nowhere: you love being fucked, James, I remember that…Did they all think that? Did Michael think that?
He couldn’t hear himself breathing, anymore. Couldn’t feel the pen, or paper, or Michael’s hand, in his.
The darkness suggested, kindly, that he come back into it. Nonjudgmental. Undemanding. No accusations, no implications that he didn’t have the strength to argue against. The velvety quiet asked nothing of him.
He could accept that invitation. Easily.
Michael was shouting, somewhere in the distance, loudly enough for him to hear, even if he couldn’t make sense of the words. Outrage, he thought. Of course Michael would be angry on his behalf. Would try to protect him.
He appreciated the effort, even if it wasn’t going to work. All his walls had come down anyway. Nothing left to defend in the castle. Nothing worth fighting for.
There was a lot of noise, a very emphatic scuffle, and then Michael’s voice, a little too close to his face. “James? James, please! He’s gone, he left, you’re all right, please say something…”
What did Michael want him to say? He couldn’t think of anything.
“Oh, fuck, no, James, no, please, oh god, I’m so sorry, I should have stopped him earlier, you know that’s not right, what he said, no one believes that, I was there, I saw you, and I love you, please, please, oh, no, James, no, I’m sorry…” And then more swearing, colorful and desperate and self-directed, Michael hating himself for, in his own mind, letting James get hurt. Again.
James stood there, inside his head, and contemplated the peace of nothingness. Right there at his feet. So simple. No more pain.
If he faced the other way, and let himself listen, Michael’s fear came back into focus, excruciatingly real. Needing strength from him. Needing him to feel.
He wasn’t sure he could do that. Too much damage waiting under the surface, if he let himself start feeling things.
But Michael shouldn’t blame himself. That wasn’t true. It wasn’t right. And James couldn’t make himself take that tiny step into darkness and leave Michael alone in pain.
Idiot, he thought, you know how much this is going to hurt, and then he thought, yes, but, and then he opened his eyes.
Michael stopped talking, face absolutely white. Gasped, “James?”
He shook his head-he couldn’t talk, couldn’t think-and then, abruptly, found himself crying. He wasn’t even sure why. He knew the reasons, of course-everything screamed, inside him, everywhere-but not why now. He’d managed not to cry, at all, since waking up, until now.
“Oh, god,” Michael whispered, and started to reach for him, and then hesitated. “Can I-?”
James nodded, and Michael put both arms around him, carefully, as if he thought James might shatter into tiny fragile pieces, broken glass or amber or eggshells, lying splintered among the snow-white hospital sheets. And then held him, while James wept.
“You’re all right,” Michael breathed, holding on, the words warm against his ear. “You’re here, you’re fine, you were so fucking brave, James, I can’t even-and you’re all right, you are, and I love you,” and he could hear, in between the words, Michael battling the tears, and losing, too.
He really didn’t want Michael to cry-actually, he wanted to talk, wanted to say something, I’m all right or did you just punch a policeman in the face for me? or you’re all right, too, and I still like the way your arms feel warm against my back-but he didn’t know how to say anything, at the moment. And his throat burned, with the tears.
After a minute he did manage to make something that was almost a sound, and Michael let him go, instantly, obviously afraid to push the embrace a second longer than might be safe, eyes searching his face, frantically. “Are you-did I-what do you need? Just tell me-no, wait, don’t talk-”
James sighed, noiselessly. Looked around for the paper, in the snowdrifts of the sheets. Paused to run a hand across his face, rubbing away water; he felt absolutely exhausted, and empty, and hollow, but also oddly lightened by that fact, as if the tears, or maybe the choice-the ability to make a choice, again-had emptied out all the weight from his bones.
Michael found the scraps of paper, first, and the pen, which had ended up wedged between the cushion and the side of the bed; held them out, and his hand shook, small but noticeable tremors, when James smiled, taking them.
Thank you.
“For-”
For everything. For still being here. For letting me cry all over you. Sorry about that; buy you a new shirt? He tried to make an apologetic expression, when Michael gazed at him, looking wounded.
“You think I mind? James, I-”
No, joke. Sorry. Did you actually hit him?
“Um…maybe a little bit?”
James nearly laughed. Raised an eyebrow, instead, and didn’t bother to write this one down: you can’t have hit someone a LITTLE BIT, love…
“Just once. Not that hard. And it was more of a shove. Really.”
Both eyebrows, this time; Michael sighed. “I wanted to. I didn’t. He left. And-he did apologize. After he saw-after he looked at you. Which is the only reason I didn’t hit him more. All right?”
I appreciate the restraint. Wouldn’t want you to end up in jail. He thought about it for a second, decided that might’ve been too flippant, and added, I love you.
“I love you, too. You know, I never knew you could yell at me with your eyebrows…”
I have very talented eyebrows.
Michael tried to say something, got lost in a tangle of laughter and tears, shook his head. “James…”
You didn’t really think me not being able to talk would make your life easier, did you?
“Well…quieter, maybe…for a while…when you say-oh, sorry-um, does your throat hurt? With the-you were crying-I mean, do you need the morphine, or something?”
No. He was unquestionably sure he wouldn’t want drugs, ever again, if he had an option, especially anything that made his head fuzzy and shrouded the world in softening wool. At least pain gave everything sharp and easily recognizable edges. Real. No, just you.
###
The world changed, and then changed again, with two phone calls, on the same day.
The morning had begun like all the rest, lately: James waking up, after what little sleep he’d managed to get in the small hours of the early morning, with the ever-present headache from exhaustion, emotional and physical. Michael looking at him with concern, also ever-present, these days.
He’d woken up to find Michael gazing at him, eyes already open, like every morning; Michael’d always been the morning person that James wasn’t, but lately he’d been staying in bed and watching while James attempted to sleep. And he’d asked, also like every morning, “How’re you?”
James hadn’t been giving the exact same answer each time, because that would’ve gotten boring, but he’d started running out of synonyms for “nothing’s changed” fairly quickly. So he just shrugged, this time. “I think I got some sleep, at the end.”
Michael sighed. “Can I touch you? Please?” That question happened every single morning, too.
“Yes, you can.” Ritual inquiry; ritual answer. Something comforting about the repetition. Routine. Ordinary.
Michael put an arm around him. Neither of them, for a minute, moved. The sheets tangled themselves around James’s legs, dense and warm; he kicked them off.
“Feel like getting up?”
“Um, sure…coffee?”
“Of course.”
Out in the kitchen, he made toast, while Michael started coffee. The first time he’d offered to help, the week after he’d come home, starting to feel guilty about his lack of contribution to the relationship, Michael’d stared at him and said “No,” and under the objection had been hurt, that James didn’t want to let himself be taken care of, when Michael was offering.
He’d said, carefully because every word still scraped and stung on the way out of his throat, “I love you, and you’re doing everything for me, so please let me do something too.” He’d meant: please let me thank you, please let me be able to do something for you, please let there still be some simple thing I can remember how to do.
Michael had looked at him for a second, in silence. Smiled, or nearly. Said, slowly, “I know you know I’ve always made coffee for you, in the mornings, but, um, if you want to you can make us toast…?” and James had smiled back and started looking for their bread.
So now they always had two things, in the mornings. Coffee, and toast. Other things too, of course. But always those.
This particular morning Michael was also making eggs, which he set in front of James without asking. James studied the uninvited presence on his plate, dubiously. “Really?”
“I saw how not-much spaghetti you ate last night. You’re lucky I’m not making you eat more.”
“It already looks unconquerable. The Mount Everest of breakfast foods.”
“People climb Mount Everest. All the time. So you should be able to eat this.”
“I don’t think that’s a perfect analogy.”
“You started it. Seriously, though, still not hungry? Or is it that your throat hurts?”
“Um…mostly the first one. It’s not a comment on your culinary skills, at all. I just-”
“Mostly?”
“Yes…but you know that, about your second question, I’ve told you. It just takes a minute, in the mornings. Always scratchy, when I wake up. But I can talk to you now. Obviously.”
“Hmm.”
“The coffee helps.” It did. Soothing heat, each time he swallowed. “Did you put gingerbread syrup in this?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.” He made it about halfway through the miniature edible mountain, then gave up. “Either help me with this or use it to feed the starving children of the world.”
“Are you done already? Eat that bite. And also that one.”
“One out of two. Happy?”
“Not entirely, but good enough for now.”
“Thank you.” Michael’s answer had been half-flippant; James tried to answer the same way, because he did know that, honestly, but some stupid internal reflex made him flinch at the words, anyway. He hadn’t made Michael happy. Hadn’t done something right, or right enough. And things happened, when he couldn’t do something right enough.
Ridiculous and he knew it, and because he knew it he kept the reaction all inside, where Michael wouldn’t have to be wounded by it, or disappointed. Any more so.
“…I’ll make you eat the rest of them later,” Michael was promising, which James knew from experience was not an idle threat. “What do you feel up to, today? I was thinking about going to the store; we’re out of milk, and also cereal, but if you don’t want to-”
“I can come.” They’d managed that much a few times before, successfully. He didn’t mind the walk, or the expedition, if they timed it right; not too many people, no physical proximity, and he’d be fine. Michael could do all the talking, and all the bodily protection if that became necessary, and James could get outside the confines of their shared flat for a while, and let himself be distracted by the world.
“Okay.” Michael smiled at him, again, for that. “Not yet, though. I want to shower. You could try to go back to sleep.”
“We just were asleep, you know.”
“No, I was asleep. You were trying to keep yourself awake all night, and then napping for an hour and pretending that was enough. Go lie down on the couch, at least.”
Michael probably hadn’t meant that to be an order, but it was. Or maybe that was only James’s own brain, hearing it as such.
He didn’t move, immediately. Just tried to figure out, and process, his own reaction. All the memories didn’t help; they added to the confusion, instead.
Before…well, before, he would’ve obeyed instantly. Would have looked up, and probably licked his lips because he knew Michael couldn’t help staring when he did, and moved on command, and shivered with the intimate little thrill of submission, when Michael looked at him with those expectantly authoritative eyes.
And he still wanted that, or some part of him did. The part that had always wanted that, the buried quivering that only ever quieted at those moments, Michael’s touch, Michael’s voice, accepting everything from him, taking all the tension and turning it around into release, into the sweet electric shocks of heat and pleasure and compliance. He wanted that even now.
But he had other memories, too. More recent. More brutal, a viciously opaque overlay of agony and frighteningly real helplessness. Another voice issuing orders, and laughing when he couldn’t succeed. He couldn’t do that again. Couldn’t want that.
He wasn’t even certain what he was allowed to want, now. If he was allowed to want things at all.
“James?” Michael’s voice, saying his name, echoed with concern; he blinked, and realized he’d been sitting there inside his own head for several long minutes. No wonder, about the concern. Michael probably thought he’d been tempted to disappear into silence again.
“Still here. Sorry. You were going to shower, you said?”
“I-don’t do that. Please. You scare me when you do that. And I love you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t-I don’t think I have a good sense of time, anymore. But that was just thinking, not anything else. I meant to answer you. I can go try to nap on the couch if you want. And I love you, too.”
“James…” Michael ran a hand across his face, as if scrubbing something away; apprehension, perhaps, or tears, or weary anxiety. James thought about getting up and putting a hand on his shoulder-maybe that would help make the weariness go away-but couldn’t quite make himself move. Not when the purpose of that movement would be the initiation of touch.
He did get up, though, after a minute full of no additional words. Walked around the table, carefully, and stood there next to Michael, who looked up at him, uncertain; James tried to smile, even though the expression felt unfamiliar, underused.
Michael had been nudging his mug of coffee with one hand, fiddling with it, pushing it back and forth across the table; James reached out, and curled a finger through the handle, arresting the motion. The warmth spread out through the ceramic lines and connected their fingertips, shared heat like hope, or a promise.
After a second, Michael smiled again. James smiled back, and this time the movement felt more natural. Like something true.
He did end up on the couch, curled beneath the giant fluffy indigo blanket his sister had failed to knit into any attractive shape as a housewarming present for the two of them. Little loops and odd stray ends poked out in various directions, and the edges defied rational geometry, and James had adored it at first sight, because it needed so very badly to be loved.
Michael touched the corner of the blanket, briefly, after bringing it over, and then handed him the television remote. “I still think you should try to sleep, but in case you get bored.”
“Without your sparkling presence? I think I’ll manage for the twenty minutes it’ll take you to get back out here, thanks.”
“Ten minutes. I don’t have all the hair in the world to wash.”
“You love my hair. And it loves you.”
“Yes, I know, I keep finding it all over my shirts, you could tell it to be less demonstrative,” Michael retorted, and then headed off down the hall, narrowly escaping the throw pillow James flung after him.
He didn’t fall asleep, not quite, though he did doze a little, in and out, to the reassuring splashes of the shower water, and the faint sound of Michael humming, which meant that Michael’d been in a good mood when getting into the shower.
Which meant that he’d done something right, maybe. With the coffee mug, or possibly something else, but he’d made Michael feel better somehow. He couldn’t help being happy, about that. The ungainly knitted blanket nestled around him happily, too. It approved.
him: *appears out of bedroom* Will you still love me if I turn into Patrick Stewart?
me: Yes. Even more. Why, again?
him: I think I have less hair than I used to....wait, did you just say even more?
me: I'll love you with or without hair, dear.
him: I think I'm going to go make tea now. Earl Grey. Hot.
me: Make it so.
II. conference highlights!
--my paper went quite well, I think; one really interesting question, afterwards, plus two very easy ones;
--heard China Mieville read a new short story that he's working on, plus his discussion of the taxonomy of literature and how lists can be constricting, plus, in conversation, his discussion of the monstrous and what that means, and his interest in debris and rubbish and broken bits of the world, and how those things are beautiful (I also got to ask him a very specific question about one of his short stories, which I am writing about for something else, and he very graciously answered) (basically China Mieville is one of the most generous and brilliant people I've ever met, with his wonderful fictional world-building and his PhD in economics and the way he can casually reference theorists and texts mid-conversation, and then turn around and make jokes about octopi and RPGs)
--guest scholar was the incomparable Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, who I've probably mentioned before because he's one of my academic heroes; he gave a fantastic talk on zombies and the undead that prowled over Icelandic sagas, The Walking Dead, internet memes, concepts of monstrosity, and stone and rock and the natural landscape as a bridge between human and inhuman. Also got to have lunch with him the next day, during which living stones (think: statues, gravestones, etc), Buffy, object-oriented theory, and the reanimation of J.R.R. Tolkien were all discussed;
--apparently two copies of my book were in the book room at one point? I never actually saw them, but was told they were there;
--writing workshop with the lovely Farah Mendlesohn (whose Short History of Fantasy I am assigning next quarter) who solved, in two sentences, the problem I'd been having with my current book project. I love you forever, Farah. Seriously. I also asked her to sign my copy of Rhetorics of Fantasy, which I adore for thinking about the genre and how readers relate to it (one of the few academic studies that moves beyond 'what IS fantasy' and starts asking what it DOES).
III. book rec!
On the plane, on the way back, I read, for the first time, Avram Davidson's Adventures in Unhistory, and adore it. It's an uncategorizable kind of book--joyfully spilling over from nonfiction (exploring the origin of mermaid legends) into fiction (what if those legends were true?) and with a glorious sense of sheer inventive fun (and the footnotes are often hysterical). Well, here, let him speak for himself, with the first paragraph of "An Abundance of Dragons":
"America, that great antiquity, observed Sir Thomas Browne, lay buried in the Urn for centuries. At least, I think he did. Something less bulky lay buried in my subliminal mind (for a somewhat shorter period), to wit, did dragons have kidney-stones? Suddenly, and I don't know why, it occurred to me that what I had really been wondering was, did dragons have gizzard-stones? And with that the entire matter of dragons seemed to leave the realm of the imaginary and enter that of the possible. The rest followed."
IV. fic excerpts! I have been, as you possibly know, working on that James/Michael thing tentatively entitled the Continuation of Doom, which is the next big story arc that follows the Universe of Porn, and I blame you all for encouraging me to do this. It's going to be epic. Um, you've probably seen random bits of these as comment replies, maybe? Still not in final draft form, obviously, but have two pieces of the aftermath.
“We just need to ask you a few questions about what happened, if that’s all right.”
“James, you don’t have to-”
“It’s all right.” He still winced, at the sound of his own voice, scraping rawly across bruised flesh. “Can I…not talk, though? Write things down?”
“Of course.” The officer tore off some sheets of paper, found a pen, handed them over; James wrote Thank you, and the man looked at him, surprised by the courtesy, and then smiled.
“You’re welcome. The first thing we’d like to know is, what happened at the party? That is, how did you end up in the car?”
James sighed. Easier if I show you. Pushed down the sheet, and tugged the flimsy hospital gown around until the bruising, the needle mark, became visible. Heard Michael, who hadn’t seen that one before, swear, viciously.
“Right, we did check the medical records. We understand you were incapacitated, but before that, how did he get close enough to you for this, do you remember?”
He had to think about that one, for a second. Trying to reconstruct the night, before all the drugs and the fear took over. I went outside-still in the hotel, just out in the hall-to make a phone call. Got lost.
“He always walks around, when he’s on the phone,” Michael said, quietly, maybe trying to help, or to explain, and then looked at James. “You don’t like standing still.” James squeezed his hand. Smiled. Yes.
Then went on, because the man seemed to be waiting for more. So I was trying to find the way back. Walked around a corner. He was…right there.
“Okay, and you let him get close to you?”
“What the hell are you asking?”
James tried to squeeze Michael’s hand again, a warning; punching the police officer in the face wasn’t going to help anything, but Michael was looking angry enough not to care.
It’s fine, I can answer…he said he’d been following me. And I did try to run. Couldn’t. He had to pause there; that awful fear, the black knowledge that he couldn’t get away, couldn’t do anything to save himself, was creeping up again, cold insinuating itself into his bones, under his skin.
“All right. You did have a prior relationship, though, correct?”
“It was fucking abuse, not a relationship!”
“We did read your statement, Mr Fassbender, and-”
We were…having sex. Not a relationship. Maybe ten years ago. No, more like twelve years. For a few months.
“And that ended badly?”
James almost laughed, at the understatement. But even the idea made his throat hurt. And it wasn’t really funny. Yes. I…we were…he took out a knife. When we were in bed. I mean during sex. Told me that he wanted to see me bleed. Because that would make me beautiful.
He could hear Michael cursing, softly; James couldn’t blame him for the profanities. The hand tightened around his. “You never told me that part.”
I didn’t want to remember. Or to make you…I didn’t want you to have to know that. Not when it was over. It hadn’t been over, of course. The bitter taste of panic burned, in his throat. It still wasn’t over; he hurt everywhere, inside and out, new scars pulling him into a different shape, not himself anymore. Not the person he’d thought he’d become, since then.
The ever-helpful blackness hovered at the corners of his vision, offering a retreat into silence. He ignored it, for the moment.
He thought I’d let him do it. I kicked him in the balls. Ran. Never saw him again, until now.
“I see.” The man was looking a little friendlier, now. Believing him, maybe. “We just needed to know. In these cases, sometimes, you know, especially with this kind of history, some people might wonder whether it was consensual and just got out of hand…”
Consensual? At first the word sounded alien, in his head: confusingly irrelevant, not a part of the situation at all…and then he understood. No. No. They weren’t thinking that, were they? Unrequested, he heard that terrifying voice, one more time, swooping in out of nowhere: you love being fucked, James, I remember that…Did they all think that? Did Michael think that?
He couldn’t hear himself breathing, anymore. Couldn’t feel the pen, or paper, or Michael’s hand, in his.
The darkness suggested, kindly, that he come back into it. Nonjudgmental. Undemanding. No accusations, no implications that he didn’t have the strength to argue against. The velvety quiet asked nothing of him.
He could accept that invitation. Easily.
Michael was shouting, somewhere in the distance, loudly enough for him to hear, even if he couldn’t make sense of the words. Outrage, he thought. Of course Michael would be angry on his behalf. Would try to protect him.
He appreciated the effort, even if it wasn’t going to work. All his walls had come down anyway. Nothing left to defend in the castle. Nothing worth fighting for.
There was a lot of noise, a very emphatic scuffle, and then Michael’s voice, a little too close to his face. “James? James, please! He’s gone, he left, you’re all right, please say something…”
What did Michael want him to say? He couldn’t think of anything.
“Oh, fuck, no, James, no, please, oh god, I’m so sorry, I should have stopped him earlier, you know that’s not right, what he said, no one believes that, I was there, I saw you, and I love you, please, please, oh, no, James, no, I’m sorry…” And then more swearing, colorful and desperate and self-directed, Michael hating himself for, in his own mind, letting James get hurt. Again.
James stood there, inside his head, and contemplated the peace of nothingness. Right there at his feet. So simple. No more pain.
If he faced the other way, and let himself listen, Michael’s fear came back into focus, excruciatingly real. Needing strength from him. Needing him to feel.
He wasn’t sure he could do that. Too much damage waiting under the surface, if he let himself start feeling things.
But Michael shouldn’t blame himself. That wasn’t true. It wasn’t right. And James couldn’t make himself take that tiny step into darkness and leave Michael alone in pain.
Idiot, he thought, you know how much this is going to hurt, and then he thought, yes, but, and then he opened his eyes.
Michael stopped talking, face absolutely white. Gasped, “James?”
He shook his head-he couldn’t talk, couldn’t think-and then, abruptly, found himself crying. He wasn’t even sure why. He knew the reasons, of course-everything screamed, inside him, everywhere-but not why now. He’d managed not to cry, at all, since waking up, until now.
“Oh, god,” Michael whispered, and started to reach for him, and then hesitated. “Can I-?”
James nodded, and Michael put both arms around him, carefully, as if he thought James might shatter into tiny fragile pieces, broken glass or amber or eggshells, lying splintered among the snow-white hospital sheets. And then held him, while James wept.
“You’re all right,” Michael breathed, holding on, the words warm against his ear. “You’re here, you’re fine, you were so fucking brave, James, I can’t even-and you’re all right, you are, and I love you,” and he could hear, in between the words, Michael battling the tears, and losing, too.
He really didn’t want Michael to cry-actually, he wanted to talk, wanted to say something, I’m all right or did you just punch a policeman in the face for me? or you’re all right, too, and I still like the way your arms feel warm against my back-but he didn’t know how to say anything, at the moment. And his throat burned, with the tears.
After a minute he did manage to make something that was almost a sound, and Michael let him go, instantly, obviously afraid to push the embrace a second longer than might be safe, eyes searching his face, frantically. “Are you-did I-what do you need? Just tell me-no, wait, don’t talk-”
James sighed, noiselessly. Looked around for the paper, in the snowdrifts of the sheets. Paused to run a hand across his face, rubbing away water; he felt absolutely exhausted, and empty, and hollow, but also oddly lightened by that fact, as if the tears, or maybe the choice-the ability to make a choice, again-had emptied out all the weight from his bones.
Michael found the scraps of paper, first, and the pen, which had ended up wedged between the cushion and the side of the bed; held them out, and his hand shook, small but noticeable tremors, when James smiled, taking them.
Thank you.
“For-”
For everything. For still being here. For letting me cry all over you. Sorry about that; buy you a new shirt? He tried to make an apologetic expression, when Michael gazed at him, looking wounded.
“You think I mind? James, I-”
No, joke. Sorry. Did you actually hit him?
“Um…maybe a little bit?”
James nearly laughed. Raised an eyebrow, instead, and didn’t bother to write this one down: you can’t have hit someone a LITTLE BIT, love…
“Just once. Not that hard. And it was more of a shove. Really.”
Both eyebrows, this time; Michael sighed. “I wanted to. I didn’t. He left. And-he did apologize. After he saw-after he looked at you. Which is the only reason I didn’t hit him more. All right?”
I appreciate the restraint. Wouldn’t want you to end up in jail. He thought about it for a second, decided that might’ve been too flippant, and added, I love you.
“I love you, too. You know, I never knew you could yell at me with your eyebrows…”
I have very talented eyebrows.
Michael tried to say something, got lost in a tangle of laughter and tears, shook his head. “James…”
You didn’t really think me not being able to talk would make your life easier, did you?
“Well…quieter, maybe…for a while…when you say-oh, sorry-um, does your throat hurt? With the-you were crying-I mean, do you need the morphine, or something?”
No. He was unquestionably sure he wouldn’t want drugs, ever again, if he had an option, especially anything that made his head fuzzy and shrouded the world in softening wool. At least pain gave everything sharp and easily recognizable edges. Real. No, just you.
###
The world changed, and then changed again, with two phone calls, on the same day.
The morning had begun like all the rest, lately: James waking up, after what little sleep he’d managed to get in the small hours of the early morning, with the ever-present headache from exhaustion, emotional and physical. Michael looking at him with concern, also ever-present, these days.
He’d woken up to find Michael gazing at him, eyes already open, like every morning; Michael’d always been the morning person that James wasn’t, but lately he’d been staying in bed and watching while James attempted to sleep. And he’d asked, also like every morning, “How’re you?”
James hadn’t been giving the exact same answer each time, because that would’ve gotten boring, but he’d started running out of synonyms for “nothing’s changed” fairly quickly. So he just shrugged, this time. “I think I got some sleep, at the end.”
Michael sighed. “Can I touch you? Please?” That question happened every single morning, too.
“Yes, you can.” Ritual inquiry; ritual answer. Something comforting about the repetition. Routine. Ordinary.
Michael put an arm around him. Neither of them, for a minute, moved. The sheets tangled themselves around James’s legs, dense and warm; he kicked them off.
“Feel like getting up?”
“Um, sure…coffee?”
“Of course.”
Out in the kitchen, he made toast, while Michael started coffee. The first time he’d offered to help, the week after he’d come home, starting to feel guilty about his lack of contribution to the relationship, Michael’d stared at him and said “No,” and under the objection had been hurt, that James didn’t want to let himself be taken care of, when Michael was offering.
He’d said, carefully because every word still scraped and stung on the way out of his throat, “I love you, and you’re doing everything for me, so please let me do something too.” He’d meant: please let me thank you, please let me be able to do something for you, please let there still be some simple thing I can remember how to do.
Michael had looked at him for a second, in silence. Smiled, or nearly. Said, slowly, “I know you know I’ve always made coffee for you, in the mornings, but, um, if you want to you can make us toast…?” and James had smiled back and started looking for their bread.
So now they always had two things, in the mornings. Coffee, and toast. Other things too, of course. But always those.
This particular morning Michael was also making eggs, which he set in front of James without asking. James studied the uninvited presence on his plate, dubiously. “Really?”
“I saw how not-much spaghetti you ate last night. You’re lucky I’m not making you eat more.”
“It already looks unconquerable. The Mount Everest of breakfast foods.”
“People climb Mount Everest. All the time. So you should be able to eat this.”
“I don’t think that’s a perfect analogy.”
“You started it. Seriously, though, still not hungry? Or is it that your throat hurts?”
“Um…mostly the first one. It’s not a comment on your culinary skills, at all. I just-”
“Mostly?”
“Yes…but you know that, about your second question, I’ve told you. It just takes a minute, in the mornings. Always scratchy, when I wake up. But I can talk to you now. Obviously.”
“Hmm.”
“The coffee helps.” It did. Soothing heat, each time he swallowed. “Did you put gingerbread syrup in this?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.” He made it about halfway through the miniature edible mountain, then gave up. “Either help me with this or use it to feed the starving children of the world.”
“Are you done already? Eat that bite. And also that one.”
“One out of two. Happy?”
“Not entirely, but good enough for now.”
“Thank you.” Michael’s answer had been half-flippant; James tried to answer the same way, because he did know that, honestly, but some stupid internal reflex made him flinch at the words, anyway. He hadn’t made Michael happy. Hadn’t done something right, or right enough. And things happened, when he couldn’t do something right enough.
Ridiculous and he knew it, and because he knew it he kept the reaction all inside, where Michael wouldn’t have to be wounded by it, or disappointed. Any more so.
“…I’ll make you eat the rest of them later,” Michael was promising, which James knew from experience was not an idle threat. “What do you feel up to, today? I was thinking about going to the store; we’re out of milk, and also cereal, but if you don’t want to-”
“I can come.” They’d managed that much a few times before, successfully. He didn’t mind the walk, or the expedition, if they timed it right; not too many people, no physical proximity, and he’d be fine. Michael could do all the talking, and all the bodily protection if that became necessary, and James could get outside the confines of their shared flat for a while, and let himself be distracted by the world.
“Okay.” Michael smiled at him, again, for that. “Not yet, though. I want to shower. You could try to go back to sleep.”
“We just were asleep, you know.”
“No, I was asleep. You were trying to keep yourself awake all night, and then napping for an hour and pretending that was enough. Go lie down on the couch, at least.”
Michael probably hadn’t meant that to be an order, but it was. Or maybe that was only James’s own brain, hearing it as such.
He didn’t move, immediately. Just tried to figure out, and process, his own reaction. All the memories didn’t help; they added to the confusion, instead.
Before…well, before, he would’ve obeyed instantly. Would have looked up, and probably licked his lips because he knew Michael couldn’t help staring when he did, and moved on command, and shivered with the intimate little thrill of submission, when Michael looked at him with those expectantly authoritative eyes.
And he still wanted that, or some part of him did. The part that had always wanted that, the buried quivering that only ever quieted at those moments, Michael’s touch, Michael’s voice, accepting everything from him, taking all the tension and turning it around into release, into the sweet electric shocks of heat and pleasure and compliance. He wanted that even now.
But he had other memories, too. More recent. More brutal, a viciously opaque overlay of agony and frighteningly real helplessness. Another voice issuing orders, and laughing when he couldn’t succeed. He couldn’t do that again. Couldn’t want that.
He wasn’t even certain what he was allowed to want, now. If he was allowed to want things at all.
“James?” Michael’s voice, saying his name, echoed with concern; he blinked, and realized he’d been sitting there inside his own head for several long minutes. No wonder, about the concern. Michael probably thought he’d been tempted to disappear into silence again.
“Still here. Sorry. You were going to shower, you said?”
“I-don’t do that. Please. You scare me when you do that. And I love you.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t-I don’t think I have a good sense of time, anymore. But that was just thinking, not anything else. I meant to answer you. I can go try to nap on the couch if you want. And I love you, too.”
“James…” Michael ran a hand across his face, as if scrubbing something away; apprehension, perhaps, or tears, or weary anxiety. James thought about getting up and putting a hand on his shoulder-maybe that would help make the weariness go away-but couldn’t quite make himself move. Not when the purpose of that movement would be the initiation of touch.
He did get up, though, after a minute full of no additional words. Walked around the table, carefully, and stood there next to Michael, who looked up at him, uncertain; James tried to smile, even though the expression felt unfamiliar, underused.
Michael had been nudging his mug of coffee with one hand, fiddling with it, pushing it back and forth across the table; James reached out, and curled a finger through the handle, arresting the motion. The warmth spread out through the ceramic lines and connected their fingertips, shared heat like hope, or a promise.
After a second, Michael smiled again. James smiled back, and this time the movement felt more natural. Like something true.
He did end up on the couch, curled beneath the giant fluffy indigo blanket his sister had failed to knit into any attractive shape as a housewarming present for the two of them. Little loops and odd stray ends poked out in various directions, and the edges defied rational geometry, and James had adored it at first sight, because it needed so very badly to be loved.
Michael touched the corner of the blanket, briefly, after bringing it over, and then handed him the television remote. “I still think you should try to sleep, but in case you get bored.”
“Without your sparkling presence? I think I’ll manage for the twenty minutes it’ll take you to get back out here, thanks.”
“Ten minutes. I don’t have all the hair in the world to wash.”
“You love my hair. And it loves you.”
“Yes, I know, I keep finding it all over my shirts, you could tell it to be less demonstrative,” Michael retorted, and then headed off down the hall, narrowly escaping the throw pillow James flung after him.
He didn’t fall asleep, not quite, though he did doze a little, in and out, to the reassuring splashes of the shower water, and the faint sound of Michael humming, which meant that Michael’d been in a good mood when getting into the shower.
Which meant that he’d done something right, maybe. With the coffee mug, or possibly something else, but he’d made Michael feel better somehow. He couldn’t help being happy, about that. The ungainly knitted blanket nestled around him happily, too. It approved.