Well, here's chapter 27. I hope you liked chapter 26. I'd still like to hear you thoughts on that chapter. I hope you enjoy this one! This chapter is a little scattered as a bunch of little stuff happens, so bear with me. We'll be hitting the next phase of the story soon!
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27
Some Serious Talk and the Apartment
Shawn didn't mention the dream at breakfast, but we didn't speak much. After we ate, we took the bus to the climbing center. We took the bus because I'd begged Shawn not to make me fold myself into that toy car again unless absolutely necessary. The busses were clean and seemed to run every five minutes. Riding them was almost as convenient as driving.
Shawn and I spent the morning on the wall. By lunch, I'd eaten two ice-cream cones, and I was getting up and down the beginner's section without advice or comment or falling. I'd also built a much larger platform for Shawn to watch from. It was about ten feet by five feet with waist high sides all around. The larger platform was actually a little easier for me to maintain than the small one because I didn't have to think about moving it and Shawn around me to give him different views of my climbing. I kept the platform even with my progress and he used his own judgement as to what side of me he needed to be on.
We ate lunch in a cafe a block from the climbing place. We had good conversation, but it was mostly about climbing, sort of a working lunch. After we ate, we went back to the climbing center for another two hours. Shawn put me on the bottom ten feet of the intermediate section so I could start to get the feel of the smaller, more widely spaced holds. I wasn't ready to level-up yet, but he was proud of my progress.
I felt much better, physically. Whatever adjustments Shawn made the day before worked wonders, and I didn't leave the climbing session in agony. I was tired and a little sore, but I didn't feel used up. We went back to the hotel, Shawn did some more work on the muscles and joints that hurt, and we sat in the sun on the balcony. I fell asleep for an hour and didn't dream.
I woke a little after four and went to wash my face. As I stood up from the sink to dry off, I looked at myself in the mirror. My own face looked different to me. My coloring seemed healthier, my complexion no longer the urgent red of high blood pressure. Also gone were the burst capillaries of the gin blossoms that had once branched over my cheeks and across my nose. The missing gin blossoms made me think of Shawn and what we'd been doing when he erased them.
High color rose in my cheeks as I thought about him topping me, his glistening face inches from mine and his long hair curtained around us like it shielded us both from the greater world. I remembered the heat of his breath on my face, the scent of his body in my nose, and the friction of his skin against mine. The flush in my face deepened as I imagined it and made me look almost like I used to. I could barely believe the memory was real, but I had to believe it, especially as my body remembered the sensations as vividly as my mind did. "Down boy." I said aloud to my cock as it threatened to come all the way to attention in response to my memory.
I shifted my mind away from passion and thought about the dream I'd had and how angry I'd been with Shawn when I woke up from it that morning. I really wanted to blame him for my nightmare, but it wasn't his fault. The nightmare was of my own making and blaming him for it wasn't fair.
"What choice did he have?" I asked myself aloud and couldn't come up with a decent answer. If he hadn't put me to sleep the way he did, the demons would have terrorized me until I had to drink them into submission. The fact that I'd been able to go to bed sober and wake up without a hangover was an immense gift. I'd spent the whole day with extra bounce in my step and far more energy than I thought it was possible for me to have. I owed all that to Shawn.
My skin felt a little tight, like I hadn't gotten all the soap off it, so I splashed some more water on my face and dried it again. I looked at myself in the mirror. I'd taken my shirt off so it wouldn't get wet. I stepped back so I could see all of me in my bloated glory. "Why does he want me?" I asked myself aloud. Again, I had no answer for me. For whatever reason Shawn seemed to want me and I wanted him.
I turned in the mirror to see my back that was still crisscrossed with fading passion scratches from the day before. In the twenty-four hours since Shawn had given them to me, I'd found out they weren't all they were cracked up to be. The abraded skin was itchy and made me want to rub my back against door jambs like a bear scratching against a tree. They'd also been embarrassing in the locker room at the climbing center. I still loved the sight of them because of where they came from, but since I had no one to show them to, they didn't serve the purpose I'd hoped they would. I supposed I could show them to Bem, but his advances already bordered on harassment, so I didn't want to encourage him.
I shrugged and figured I'd ask Shawn to fix them the next time we had sex. That thought, and the fact that I'd had it so naturally, brought me up short. I was freshly amazed at my situation. The life I'd been leading since Shawn brought me to Solum was the most incredible adventure I'd ever had, filled with wonder and joy and...and...and what I hoped was love. It scared me and thrilled me, and I wanted so badly to be what Shawn wanted me to be. I also wanted to be what that world needed me to be. I hoped I was capable of doing both.
I figured if that meant enduring a few nightmares, if feeling good and getting to have Shawn meant enduring that same nightmare every single time I laid down to rest, that was fine with me. I'd spend every night in hell if I got to spend every day in the heaven that was every minute I got to spend with Shawn. I pulled my shirt over my head and tried to moderate my expectations. I berated myself for getting carried away, for being too head-over-heels into the relationship that I still didn't understand.
"Don't let yourself get in too deep." I counseled myself to the mirror. "When this is over, if you don't fuck it up and kill everyone, he won't need you anymore...and maybe that's the way it should be. Just enjoy what he's giving you right now. Live in the moment but don't get carried away." I nodded to myself, fortified against the letdown that I assumed was coming at some unknown point in the future, and walked out of the bathroom.
When I entered the bedroom, I was confronted by Shawn sitting on the edge of my bed. "I think we should talk about this morning." He said.
I leaned against the bureau with my hands in my pants pockets and realized that a part of me had expected that exact statement since breakfast. I hadn't much thought about how I was going to react, but something that made sense came to me without much soul-searching. "You want too much too fast, Shawn." I explained, preempting whatever he'd planned to say. "Parallel world, OK. Doomsday, OK. Quit smoking, OK. Quit drinking, OK with reservations. Learn to shoot, learn to fight, learn to climb; OK. Be a boyfriend, fucking outstanding. Magic, why the hell not? You're the man from the prophesy, sure."
I slipped my watch off and stretched it. Shawn's eyes tracked the motion to the talisman of my guilt, but he didn't interrupt me. "Shawn, it's Thursday. Last Wednesday, that's eight days ago, I was an industrial welder, a heavy smoker, a drunk, completely isolated, and a resident of Earth. Eight days later, not even two weeks, and I'm none of those things. Whatever that old life was or wasn't, it was a known quantity. Ruts are predictable and the predictable becomes comfortable. Now, I'm not upset with anything that's happened. I love being here with you. I..."
I slipped my watch back on and rubbed the back of my neck with the heel of my right hand. "Christ..." I said to myself as the implications of what I was about to say bore down on me.
"I'm...fuck...I'm in love with you. I love you, and I'm thrilled, and I want to jump up and down and shout, and I know you're just trying to make me better, but I can't change my life and fix forty fucking years of hurt in a week. I promise I won't drink, but to keep that promise, I'm gonna lean on you. So, be there for me, hold me when I'm scared, walk me around after dinner, and try to find another way to knock me out. Don't ask me to confront my demons. There are too damn many, and we don't have enough time. Leave it for when we get back."
I finished talking and waited for Shawn's reaction to my speech. He was doing the clenched-fist thing again. I couldn't tell what he was feeling, except that he was overwhelmed. He sniffed like he was about to start crying and I got nervous I'd have to deal with that. "You love me?" He asked. I rubbed my neck again. `So much for not getting carried away.' I thought. "Yes, Shawn, as much as I understand what that means, I love you."
He wiped his eyes. "I'm so happy! I've been afraid to love you, but I can't help it. I love you to."
"I'm glad. Are you OK with the other stuff?"
He sniffed again. "It's fine. I'll let you come to me. When you're ready, we can start. I know it's going to take a long time. We'll have lots of time when we get back. We should move to my apartment. I mean, we love each other, we've been living together...it just makes sense."
"After dinner." I said and explained. "I want to eat in the bar one more time and say `goodbye' to Beni."
Shawn said he was OK with that, then he looked down and got quiet. The index finger of his right hand traced little shapes in the slipcover of my bed. He hit me with that up from under look and asked a question he already knew the answer to. "What do you want to do until dinner time?"
I stepped out of my heels and went to him. He fixed my sex-scratched back...and then we did other things, other wonderful things.
Shawn and I sat at the bar. Beni came over with a tray of drinks and waited at a respectful distance until I acknowledged him. He set two ice waters on the bar, followed by a plain iced tea for Shawn and a ginger-ale highball for me. I handed the highball back to Beni. "Can I have one of these without the whiskey, please." I asked.
Beni accepted the glass and scrutinized me over the top of it. I got the impression he thought I was putting on a show for Shawn. "He took it from me." I explained and put my left arm around Shawn's shoulders. "I took the advice you didn't give me. I've been sober for something like thirty-six hours."
The old bartender dropped the glass behind the bar and gave me a big double-handed handshake. He shook Shawn's hand the same way. "It's a wonderful thing you're doing." He said excitedly to Shawn. "You're a wonderful man and your new friend, here...don't tell him I said so, but he's worth it." Beni beamed at both of us.
"AHEM...to business. I already know I will be bringing a steak for our carnivore. What will I bring for our friend with the striking blue eyes?" Beni glanced at me and went back to looking at Shawn. "And they are quite striking." He moved to stand in front of me and spoke in a stage whisper, like what he was saying was confidential. "This is a very handsome man."
Shawn lowered his eyes and pink rose in his face. "And I have embarrassed him most shamefully. My apologies, sir." Beni said to Shawn. "Anything rare...I was drawn to your friend here by his impressive stature. He engaged me with a brand of misery I myself once suffered. In your case, sir, your rarity is your stunning appearance and the complete absence of arrogance that so often accompanies the `beautiful people.'"
"AHEM...and now that I seem to have abandoned all my professionalism and made a spectacle of myself, allow me to complete the experience by divining your order." Beni touched his tie and eyed Shawn like he could read Shawn's order from the features in his face. "I think, grilled chicken parmesan over angel hair pasta, broccoli, vegetable soup in light broth to start, and for dessert, something interesting...we have a layered parfait with lovely caramel, crumbled chocolate brownie, and vanilla frozen yoghurt topped with fluffy whipped cream and toffee bits."
Shawn was stunned by the bartender's perception of what would be exactly the right meal for him. "Uhm...that sounds perfect. Hot black tea with dessert, please."
"Black tea with dessert as you say, sir. I will put this right in for you both." Beni bowed slightly and went away with purpose in his steps.
Shawn rotated his whole body to face me. "How did he know?"
I shrugged in response. "He told me he's a fourth-class empath with a `C' rating. Maybe he read you when he shook your hand."
Shawn cupped his right cheek in his right palm. "Fourth-class doesn't get more than general impressions, especially with such a low power rating."
"I don't know, then. Maybe he's just that good." I reasoned. "He's hot for you, so we know he has good taste."
Shawn was incredulous at the praise. "I wonder what he saw that made him think I'm so special."
I rubbed my face in amazement at Shawn's reaction. "Shawn, if I looked like you, I would spend at least an hour everyday jerking-off in front of a full-length mirror. When we get back from the mountain, I promise to let you help me work on my shit, if you let me try to make you see how hot you are. Deal?"
"Sure." He nodded but felt pure confusion. I could tell that Shawn knew he was in good shape, and that he was objectively good-looking, but he didn't see himself as drop-dead gorgeous the way I saw him, the way I guessed many people saw him. He was modest to a fault.
We ate a nice meal. Near the end of it, I told Beni I was moving in with my boyfriend and the man gave us another round of enthusiastic congratulations. He was so excited for us, I half expected him to make a father-of-the-bride style speech to the bar patrons. He didn't.
After dinner and more handshakes with Beni, Shawn and I went back to the room to gather just what we needed for that night and the next day. I found myself puzzling over a set of pajamas. `Do I take them? They're comfortable, but I haven't worn them since the first night I got them. I was either too drunk to put them on or I was in bed with Shawn. Do I want anything between him and me? No, no I don't.' I left the PJs with my other clothes. We made arrangements with the hotel to have everything that we left behind sent to Shawn's apartment and got the egg car from the parking lot.
The drive through the city was a pleasant one. The sun was going down, and the weather was pleasant and warm. People paraded up and down the sidewalks and through the parks. Strolling seemed to be a big pastime. "Is it always warm like this?" I asked.
"This is late fall. It will get a little cooler during the winter. We'll have rain for most of January and February and part of March. In April, it will rain less and get warmer. July and August are hot and dry. This planet doesn't tilt on its axis as much as Earth. Our weather between seasons isn't as severe. Even the poles are only partially frozen during the winter."
"No one likes a frozen pole." I commented meaninglessly.
"Right." Shawn agreed.
I peered at him from the passenger seat to see if his agreement with my silly throw-away statement was genuine or teasing. It seemed to be genuine and that prompted a question from me. "You don't really get sarcasm, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
I smirked to myself at his response. `Nope, he takes everything literally. Gonna have to watch myself.' I thought. I tried to dismiss my question because I didn't want to distract him from driving. "Don't worry about it, just a random thought."
We pulled up in front of Shawn's building and collected the stuff from the car. Shawn had his small bag. I carried two outfits on hangers, one of mine and one of his. We were on our way up the walk when the blond couple from the other evening came out to meet us. Shawn introduced them.
"Satis," the man, "and Bellus," the woman, "this is Church Incolumitas, my new boyfriend. He's moving in with me."
"Happy for you," Satis said as he shook hands with Shawn. "I know you were upset after Roeb."
Bellus smacked Satis' shoulder and scolded him. "Sat, dear, you don't bring up the ex-boy in front of the new man."
I liked the way she phrased that and gave her a point. She shook my hand and jerked her head toward Sat, dear.' "I don't know where his tact goes sometimes. Listen, we're having friends in tomorrow night, after work. Kind of a show up and whatever party.' We haven't seen Shawn in AGES and would love to welcome you to the building. You should come, unless you're keeping each other all for yourselves."
"I think that sounds nice." I agreed with her. "Unwind from the week. What can we bring?"
"Oh, anything or nothing." She fanned the air with a dismissive hand. "I'd be happy if you brought Shawn and he brought you."
I looked to Shawn for confirmation. He was talking to Satis and laughing about something. "Shawn, we've been invited to a `show up and whatever party' tomorrow night. What do you think?"
Shawn's manner changed like I'd flipped a switch with my question. He'd been laughing easily with his neighbor, then suddenly he was staring at me with a very `deer in headlights' look of fear. He covered it well and made a clumsy excuse. "We can't. Uh...because...you know."
I figured I'd play along. `Maybe they're assholes or something.' I reasoned. "I remember," I nodded toward Shawn, "that thing with your uncle." Shawn nodded back to me and seemed relieved that I'd lied for both of us. I turned to Bellus to make my apology. "Sorry, looks like we're spoken for." I said to her. "Maybe next time."
She pouted. "I'll forgive you this time, but that means you just HAVE to come next time."
"Come on, Church," Shawn prodded, suddenly in a hurry, "let's get you settled in."
Satis raised his eyebrows suggestively and gave Shawn one of those sideways punches on the shoulder. "We know what that means, don't we Bell? You two enjoy. See you later."
They linked arms and walked away. Shawn unlocked the street door with a golden key. We stepped into a plain white corridor with four gold metal mailboxes on one wall, one black door, navy-blue commercial carpet, and a staircase going up. He shut the door and shook his head at me. "You don't realize it, but they just invited you to an orgy and you tried to accept."
"WHAT?" I barked. I hoped he was kidding, but I knew he wasn't.
Shawn explained the basics of the event. "They'll have finger foods and drinks and maybe six or eight people. The hosts typically keep to their bed and the guests rotate with them and each other. If you want to go, we can go, but I didn't think you were ready for that yet."
I rubbed my face. "I'll never get used to this place, never." I said as much to myself as I said it to him. "No, Shawn, I don't want to go to the `show up and whatever' fuck party." I dropped my hands and braced myself to climb the stairs when a thought struck me and turned my attention back to Shawn. "Wait, she said she hadn't seen you in ages. Have you been to her parties?"
"Once when I first moved in. I've never been super-sexual. I had a couple boyfriends in medical school and went to five or so parties a year. I didn't get into the parties much because I'm not attracted to women. Quite a few of the people I went to school with would be at parties every weekend. In between, they would have sex with anything that would lay still."
I assumed when Shawn said `party,' he meant the same thing Bellus meant by the word. "I think I just got retro-active performance anxiety." I admitted with a qualm as to how I could possibly measure up to what he must have experienced.
"Don't think too much about it." Shawn soothed me. "Sex without love is just masturbation with a partner. Come on, let's go up." He said and led the way.
Shawn making his way up the steps was just the incentive I needed to climb them. I let him get three or four steps ahead of me, so my line of sight was even with his thighs, his ass at the top of my vision and his knees at the bottom, and followed him up. When we got to the top, I noticed I wasn't as winded as I expected to be after four flights. Then I remembered all the work Shawn had done on my body in the last days and was freshly impressed by how amazing that was and how good I felt.
Shawn unlocked his door, key again, and showed me inside. The apartment was a deep rectangular studio type with the entry door at one of the narrow ends and the bed at the other. The furnishings were minimally ornamented and squarish in a plain, European style. Just inside the door was a square of medium-green, hard surface floor, and a coat closet built into the wall. Beyond that, a low pile, sky-blue carpet ran wall to wall for the rest of the real estate. The front wall, to the right of the door, was painted canary yellow while the other three were a coppery, sunset orange with white trim. The ceiling was a light panel, sectioned for the different areas of the apartment.
Directly in front of the entry way, along the back wall, was a long, galley-style kitchen with black glass counter tops and cabinets. Seating was at a polished black island with four, tall, high-backed chairs made of the hard-white ceramic-like material that I'd encountered before. None of the normal appliances were present. No fridge, range, microwave, toaster-oven, nothing. The counter along the wall supported a Culinarian Synthe 2500' which my Shawn-reference-book told me was a very nice home version of the device Gitec the breakfast gawker' tuned for a living. Next to it was a white sink with a white faucet. Under the sink was a dishwasher.
Opposite the kitchen was the living area. The sofa was the main piece of furniture. It was a very long, four-cushion affair, overstuffed and upholstered with a soft, finely woven fabric in lavender purple with pink stitching. This faced the yellow wall and presumably the television screen. Two square end-tables flanked the huge sofa. Further along the front wall and between two sets of extra-wide double-hung white windows, stood a floor to ceiling black glass bookcase fully loaded with learning. The books weren't as uniform as the ones Ars kept, and none were bound in leather, but they looked every bit as impressive.
At the far end, a step-up riser ran the width of the room and supported a white, four-post bedframe with a thick mattress and a pink sateen cover. The bed was fully the size of a dancefloor. I wondered what that mattress size was called. Would you like the queen, king, or the show up and whatever' mattress?' I heard an imaginary salesman say.
Between the bed and the back wall, was a built-out corner of the room. This turned out to be a walk-in closet with built-in drawers, and a bathroom that was an exact copy of the one from the hotel. In the back wall, between the kitchen and the bedroom closet, another door opened onto a balcony that was almost as large as the apartment itself. White outdoor furniture dotted the black glass floor. It was surrounded on three sides with gold metal railing, this one made of square tubing instead of the round like the hotel. The view was the back of the next row of homes. All of them seemed to be roughly the same as Shawn's.
The place was extremely clean and well-organized. Not an unwashed glass or stack of mail anywhere. Shawn busied himself in the closet, hanging our outfits and unpacking his small bag. I gaped around, pulled books off the shelves and looked for personal touches that would tell me more about him.
I didn't find anything. There were no photographs, wall art, knick-knacks, nothing personal. The books were medical journals and encyclopedia-style research resources. No novels, or even non-fiction stories. It was the driest collection of literature I'd ever seen in a private home. If I knew nothing about him, and had to form an opinion based solely on the contents of the apartment, I would have thought Shawn was a robot-like technician with no humor or aesthetic.
I knew that wasn't true, so I shut my eyes to imagine the place in my head through the lens of Shawn's memories. Photos and art appeared in my mind, knick-knacks on shelves, matching coffee mugs that both said `HIS.' Fun little throw pillows appeared on the couch. All the personal effects of two young men that called the place home for eight months. Then I mentally witnessed the events that led from the happy place that the apartment once was, to the stark place that I stood in.
One day, one of Shawn's friends said something off hand about romping with Roeb when Shawn wasn't present. Shawn didn't address it with his friend, but confronted Roeb about it later on. Roeb denied it until he realized he was caught. The denial became boasting and the revelation that it wasn't just one of Shawn's friends who betrayed him, it was all three of the ones closest to him. It was in those memories that I came to understand more about how sex worked on Solum.
When people are in a relationship, they can have all the sex they want, both in and outside of that relationship, as long as both partners agree. It's the agreement that is critical. It's on that agreement, on those discussion that the foundation of trust necessary in any relationship rests. If one partner is having sex without the other's knowledge and consent, it's cheating every bit as much as it would be on Earth. It was that brand of cheating that came between Shawn and Roeb, and that brand of cheating whose fallout I was witnessing in my mind.
Through much shouting and tears, Roeb was told to leave. Once he was gone, Shawn purged every single personal item that reminded him of Roeb and the betrayal. That meant every single thing that wasn't a piece of furniture or a cold reference book, went into the grinder and down the trash chute. In the end, the apartment was sterile, with no reminders, but no distractions either.
"What's wrong?" Shawn asked. I opened my eyes, and he was in front of me with worry on his face. "You're upset about something, angry."
I stretched my watchband. I was embarrassed at having seen something so personal and was reluctant to bring it up, even as part of an answer to his very reasonable question. I didn't see a way around it, so I explained with as little detail as I could manage. "I was looking for personal touches and when I didn't find any, I looked in the past. I saw what happened and where they all went. I'm sorry I looked."
Shawn wrung his hands and scanned the room with his eyes. "It was a bad time. I lost a lot that night. It made me feel like the life I'd built was a lie. It was only after that night that I realized how hollow the relationship with Roeb had been, how...one-sided, I guess. You see, I pursued him, and when I got him, I went out of my way to keep him. Everything I did, was about him. I did the chores around here, I paid the lion's share of the bills, and when we had sex, I made sure his needs were met."
Images flashed in my mind as Shawn spoke. Pictures of Shawn waiting on his supposed boyfriend, serving him his meals, getting his drinks, and always...always being the bottom during sex. My hands became involuntary fists as I thought of it. It made me glad that the short time Shawn and I had spent together had been mutual in most things. The fact that when we had sex, he wound up on top more often than not, didn't bother me in the least. I never felt subservient when I bottomed for Shawn. In fact, the way he treated me at all times, made everything we did feel equal. I loved it. My fists released as quickly as they'd clenched and I realized Shawn was still talking.
"After that night, I begged uncle to send me away...and...well, you know the rest." He said to explain why he'd gone to Earth.
"Yeah, and then you ran into me at the bar." The memory of that night brought another question to my mind that I probably should have asked at the time but didn't. "Hey, what did those four meatheads want with you?"
Shawn's mood changed, happy to tackle any topic that didn't have to do with his failed relationship. "I don't know. I spent the day at Methodist hospital. I hoped that a hospital in the city...I mean healers and compassion seemed to fit together. I was wrong. I discovered overworked doctors and nurses too tired and jaded for compassion, and I left feeling frustrated and hopeless. I was walking around thinking when those guys surrounded me. I ran. One of them got a hold of my coat. I slipped out of it and kept going. They caught me in front of the bar. That's all I know."
I thought there should have been more to his story, but I didn't know what questions to ask. It could have been as simple as the meatheads saw a guy in heels, jumped to a conclusion, and went after him for being different. It has happened.
"Do you want to go for a walk?" Shawn asked when I didn't say anything.
"No, I'm tired. You've been trying to wear me out all day; on the beginner's wall, on the intermediate wall, in the sack...can we just go to bed?"
"That's fine. I'm worried though. I don't have another way to make you sleep. Having one waking dream doesn't mean you'll have them every night, but you could. I don't want to subject you to a repeat of last night, especially after what it did to you this morning."
"OK," I shrugged physically and verbally, "The reality is, I can't drink if I'm asleep. Even if I have a nightmare, it will be a sober nightmare." I shed my clothes and got in bed. He did the same. We snuggled together.
He wrapped his palm on my forehead. "I love you." He said.
"I love you to." I replied, and I was asleep.
I woke up from a dreamless sleep in the middle of the night and felt hollow. I eased out of bed without disturbing Shawn and went to the kitchen. The culinarian made me three peanut butter sandwiches on soft white bread and a cup of black coffee. I sat at the island to eat and monologue in my head. The complete insanity of everything that happened to me since Thanksgiving struck me fresh.
`It's two in the morning. I'm sitting at a kitchen island on a parallel world, in the apartment of a man who I proclaimed my love for and who proclaimed his love for me, and I'm eating a peanut butter sandwich synthesized from plant powder. The only part of any of this that makes sense is peanut butter at two in the morning, except I'm sober, and I didn't just get home after closing down the bar.'
I thought about Shawn. `I really enjoy him, and he enjoys me. I don't know why he does, but he does. I wish I was thinner, or less fat, and better looking. He could do so much better. He said he loved me, and I cried. He must think I'm a mess. Well, he knows I'm a mess; I told him so. I hope he doesn't dig around in my memories. There's so much ugliness buried there.'
`He's so fucking gorgeous. That body...the things he does to me...the things he wants me to do to him.' The memories sent an erotic shiver through me. I drank some coffee to swallow a lump of sandwich that got stuck in my throat.
`But it's so much more than sex. He's kind to me. He worries about me. I don't remember the last time anyone worried about me. I guess Joe does, in his own way. At least he calls me up every once in a while, probably checking to see if I'm alive. I feel bad about leaving him to clean up after me. At least there's plenty of money. It's gonna piss Mary off. Fuck her anyway. She wrote me off, her and that pasty-faced little prick she married.'
Thoughts of my holier than thou' sister made me mad. I finished the third sandwich and forced myself to calm down. None of it matters.' I told myself. `You won't see them again, not in this life, and there fucking better not be one after this. I wonder if I can opt out. If the choice is heaven, hell, or oblivion, I'll take oblivion. I wonder if I'll really live as long as them. What the fuck would I do with another two-hundred-sixty years? That's scarier than being dead in a month.'
"Church," Shawn's sleepy voice called from the bed, "what are you doing?"
"Having a snack."
He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. "Define `snack.'" I told him what I'd eaten. He got out of bed, went into the bathroom, and turned the light on. "Come here please."
He had me stand in the corner of the room, facing the wall. "How much did you weigh when you got here?"
"Two-eighty, give or take."
Shawn touched a spot on the wall. Red numbers lit at what would have been his eye level. They read `258.' The number displeased him. "I was afraid of this." He grumbled. "You lost twenty-two pounds in eight days. That means..." he trailed off and talked to me and himself at the same time, "you've been eating a lot...say four to six thousand calories a day, and before yesterday, you were drinking another thousand at least. That means..." he did some math, "you're burning fifteen thousand calories a day."
He did some more math. "If this keeps up, you could lose sixty more pounds before we even leave for the mission. You don't have sixty pounds of fat to lose. Your body will be converting your muscle to magic. If the mission requires a large amount of power, your body will literally consume itself. You could die."
I rubbed my face, more to try to shut out what he'd said than anything else. "Welcome to opposite-land, Church, where losing weight can kill you." I uncovered my face. "So, what do we do? I already eat like a pig and I'm not drinking anymore."
"We have to load you up with empty calories. No more lean meat. No more eggs for breakfast. Pancakes with butter and lots of syrup. Bread, pasta, sweets, cake, pie, ice cream, butter on everything, peanut butter sandwiches...peanut butter...nuts." He had an idea that took him to the kitchen. I followed.
Shawn scrolled through the touch screen on the culinarian, made a selection, and waited. The machine chimed and the automatic door opened. He took a brown paper bag from it that looked like a pound of coffee and handed it over. "Try one of those."
I tore the bag open. It was full of pale nuts without their shells. They were the color and shape of oversized chickpeas. I tried one, it wasn't bad. "That's one pound of macadamia nuts," he explained, "two-hundred-and-four calories an ounce or three-thousand-two-hundred-sixty-four calories a bag. Between meals, eat as many of them as you can. Use them instead of your Earth coins to practice your telekinesis."
I hefted the bag, floated a nut from it to my mouth, and ate it. I wasn't going to love them, but I didn't hate them. "Fine...anything you say. Let's go back to bed before I start getting shorter."
"Why would you get shorter?" Shawn asked, surprised at what I'd said.
"It's the only thing that hasn't happened yet. I mean, I guess I could grow a horn."
"You're horny enough." He admonished through a grin. "Let's go to bed."