Reader Beware! This chapter reveals the secret that Mike has kept within himself for so long. It might make many of you uncomfortable, but its one stop on the journey to contorting love. Love is not always comfortable. I urge you to read this chapter without reservations. Please feel free to send me some feedback NoniMouse440@hotmail.com , and let me know what you think of how it's going. This work is MY creative property, so no one had better copy it. Go get your own! If you're not allowed to view this kind of material in your state, I think that you should try to change the legislation. Thanks much-
NM
Chapter 3:
"Damnit! Don't tell me that I passed out again," thickly slurred and groaned a very sore and very dizzy Mike. He was first aware of pressure against his back, and then the feeling as though the bed were continually slipping out from under him. He wanted the ride to stop... stop... stop the ride... someone stop the ride.... In the dark.....
He promptly leaned over, sure he'd fall to the ground, and threw up on what seemed like his descent. He couldn't exactly see what was going on around him- the world was hazy gray at best. But someone's arms... he thought they were arms... pressed against his shoulders, preventing him from falling out of bed. He brought his arms weakly up to pat the hands that pressed back on his collarbones.
"Thanks" Mike slurred out. It was a feeling worse than being totally drunk. His muscles felt rubbery and without central control. There was a horrible sense of disassociation that ran from the hair follicles on his head to the hair on his toes. He groaned as the hands on his collarbones pressed him back against the sheets, and covered him with a blanket. Sighs of contentment purred thru his parched and burning throat as someone ran a blessedly cool washcloth across his hot balmy forehead. His eyes remained closed against the harsh grayness that he assumed to be the overhead lights.
"Mr. Dana... maybe we should have been more... explicit... about giving you instructions for your stay at this hospital. Since it seems that our staff has neglected to let you in on our rules, then I shall do so myself personally." Mike recognized the voice immediately as belonging to Dr. Robbins. If he had the strength to blush, he would have, because truly indeed he did feel foolish. Common sense- plain common sense to not bend over after having lost any amount of blood... the sudden surge of blood to the brain... the standing up alone would have caused serious issues...
"Mr. Dana. We're going to ask that you please refrain from moving about on your own. That includes standing, bending over, going to use the restroom, and trying to handle your own... laundry." Mike did not miss the smile that had slipped into the doctor's voice. He wanted to bury himself deep into the sheets and disappear into a white cotton underworld of blessed silence.
"However, in all seriousness Mr. Dana, do you feel..." and he proceeded to go through a checklist of symptoms, to which Mike either grunted yes or no. In the end, the doctor sat quietly for a moment, seeming to look out the window with great interest at an ordinary brown bird perched on the sill. He gathered his breath, and turned to Mike.
"It had something to do with the young man that was in here, didn't it?" he asked softly. Mike stiffened visibly, and didn't respond vocally; but there was no need. His obvious physical reaction told the good doctor all that he thought he needed to know.
"Uhm... Mr. Dana... Mike... I have no problems with homosexuals, at all. I want you to understand that. My best friend for life is gay, and he and his partner are the greatest people I know in this world... besides my wife and my kids, of course. But, we let them take care of our kids, our home... each other. I trust them with all my heart, so please don't take what I have to say next as coming from a homophobic point of view." Mike stiffened even more, his rigid body one long, lean receptor to what he expected to be the doctor's criticism. He felt tears already welling behind his welded shut eyelids, and he knew that as the doctor spoke on, they'd inevitably spill down his cheeks as rivers of self pity and shame. "I do have to tell you that we here at the hospital would greatly appreciate couples... uhm... refraining from sexual activity while patients are here for observation. We understand the feelings that surround...." And Mike broke in, loudly and startled, both by what the doctor was saying, and by the sound of his own hoarsened, barking voice. "We didn't have sex!" He'd said it loudly enough that the nurse passing by the room stopped in her tracks and swung her head around to stare into the room. Her wide-eyed expression reflected the genuine surprise that she felt, and the curiosity that demanded to know who this patient was talking about. Her mind was already at work forming all kinds of possibilities as her feet began to work a few seconds later, and carried here away from the door. Mike looked up, wide eyed, into the doctor's calm dark blue eyes, hiding behind the sharply reflective glasses he wore. He realized he was trapped in their glare. He would share his secret- even if against his will, because he was trapped in the glasses. It was as if he were in a funhouse of mirrors, and had nowhere to run from himself, because every time he looked in front of himself, there he was. The dark blue drew him suddenly away from his own haggard and pale appearance, into a sense of pulsating tranquility. The sound of his own heartbeat filled his ears, and he felt further away from himself than he'd ever felt before. "I.... I... can't ... have sex with him... the sheets... I'd had an accident... it's been so long... since I've been that close to...anyone... and he.... And he... and I..." Mike stuttered, letting the sentence hang, daring the doctor's eyes to draw him further into the vein that had been opened. The doctor said nothing; he just sat there, looking calmly into Mike's green eyes. A sparkle in those eyes betrayed the lack of life Mike continually felt coming from within himself. The doctor raised one eyebrow, and that was all it took. Mike was beckoned further out of himself, and he supposed he could feel an almost tug as his secret was wrenched away from his defenses, and set in line on his tongue behind other things he was about reveal. "I want him. Oh God, Dr. Robbins, I want him so bad it feels as if my soul is on fire. I want to be close to someone, Dr. Robbins... I don't have anyone at all... I'm so fucking alone" Mike broke down into a sob and a groan at this point, his hoarse voice never failing to accentuate the feelings that were being released from his soul. He suddenly felt crushed by all that he was going thru- being alone, suddenly being attack, suddenly meeting Chris, suddenly wanting Chris beyond all reasoning because he was so close... and now... and he had to tell. He absolutely had to tell. It would crush him if he didn't and he knew it. "I... I can't have anyone... I'm... I'm no good for anyone, Doctor. I've been hurt so bad... so fucking bad... it keeps coming back... I can't get rid of it, Doctor... no matter what I do... no matter how I try to embrace it, how I try to forget it, how I try to live above it... Doctor... it keeps coming back... I hate him... I hate the one who did it to me... I hate him so fucking much I could kill him." The rage in Mike grew, till he was sitting up away from the bed, straining to stay upright and straining to keep speaking. His green eyes were glittering, and his skin had broken out in a sweat. Dr. Robbins was startled, and drew back slightly, scared and worried for his patient. He reach a hand forward to steady Mike, but Mike grabbed it, and before the Doctor could open his mouth to calm him, Mike spoke. "Please Doc... I'm so close... I... if you speak I wont be able to say it... and it will crush me... and I'll die. I'll die Doc..." Mike's pleading voice and hungry eyes stabbed into the doctor with such an intensity, he felt as if he had no choice but to let Mike carry on. He could only watch dazed, unsure of what he'd begun, but knowing that he'd have no choice but to stick with it to the end... and he didn't exactly know what that meant, but he'd have to see it through to that exact spot; the end. "I... can't be with him. I want him oh fucking God why me? What did I do? Why the fuck did this have to happen to me!" Mike barked out between sobs. It was all coming out now- flowing out of him. River of self-pity be damned- the tears that were falling from Mike's eyes were flushing out his system of long hoarded hurt, long hoarded shame... and a stash of guilt. "I... I was hurt bad... when I was a kid, doctor. I was hurt real bad... but not just once... several times... my uncle... he kept at me, doc... he kept at me and kept at me... and I thought it was good... it made him pay attention to me, doc... but Doc... he didn't care about me... he didn't love me... how was I supposed to know, Doc? I was only seven!" Mike shook with rage here. His body vibrated the bed with passion, and his grip on the doctor's hand never faltered. The Doctor sensed that his patient was coming to a crest, and held on, wanting... needing to see where it was headed. "My uncle, doc... he didn't care about me... if he did... he wouldn't have hurt me the way he did, doc... he wouldn't have hurt me so bad... made me feel so alone... even when he was on top of me... inside of me... I knew I was alone. Oh, I tricked myself into thinking that he was loving me... but I knew... I knew in the back of my mind what was happening... I wasn't a stupid kid, doc... but I was too stupid to save myself... from what he left me with... as a reminder of himself... as a reminder of myself... the desperate me, craving for attention... for love... for affection... he left me scarred and hurt, doc..." Mike got to the wall, and they both knew it. Dr. Robbins still wasn't sure what had happened, but he knew that this was the wall they needed to break through, or leap over- either way, it was THE obstacle. And Mike seemed to need to get over it. He gave Mike's hand a squeeze, and Mike looked down, and then back up into the doctor's eyes, gathering from the strength he found there. "He left me with something... a snap shot of me... every time I get the... outbreaks... I'm reminded... I know...... I can't forget... I can't outrun myself, "Mike sniffed at this point, and looked down at the floor, "because I always carry that with me. I've had an STD since the age of 8, doctor. I stay away from people. I don't get close. I can't tell anyone... no one wants a boyfriend with... what I've got doctor... no one... and I stay to myself... alone... and its so fucking crushing sometimes I don't know why I'm still alive at the end of the day." Mike went quiet for a moment, and the Doctor stared down at the top of his head, eyes wide open displaying the shock and horror that he felt in his heart. What must Mike have been going through his entire life... Dear God... "You know, Doc... sometimes an entire month will go by, and I won't realize it. I feel as though I'm so detached from life... I just go through my days numb... numb and like a machine. I... I don't know... what to do anymore... I feel as though I've been kissed... a living death... I'm a walking pestilence... and I don't think I wanna feel like this anymore, doctor," Mike looked up into the doctor's eyes at this point, "even if that means that I have to die." The room was silent. The sounds of the beeping and whooshing of the hospital around them reached their room, but dimmed as though there were a buffer keeping everything out of that hospital room turned confessional, where the doctor turned priest sat with the victim turned confessor, on the bed turned stage for the outcry of a spirit broken, and seeking either redemption, or destruction....