"If employees are receiving permission to work from home, there's no one on staff more deserving than me," Michael said truthfully. "I've never missed a deadline. I've assisted the art department and the layout team voluntarily to make sure an excellent product goes out. I've written more textbooks than anyone here. And I'm your most senior writer, besides Germanotti." Who, Michael added mentally, would suck on the barrel of a handgun before he'd waste his precious workdays at home.
Peter sighed. "I was hoping you'd open up to me. Let me help you. But if you prefer to be unemotional and blunt, fine. I'll give it to you straight." He leaned across the desk at Michael. "You've never struck me as someone devoted to protecting the organization. And in the current economic climate, there's no more important value than protecting this organization. You're not editorial or management material. Even among the writers, you're not a team player. So no, I see no reason to reward your disconnection by permitting further isolation. The global economy is tanking, Michael." Peter gave a sad shake of the head. "Pick up a newspaper sometime. Writers are standing in bread lines. You can be replaced."
Michael digested Peter's words carefully. His rational mind tried to make sense of it all, to decide if the other man's assessment was accurate or fair. Below that, something else was brewing inside him. He didn't quite know what. But there had to be a name for it, this fire and certainty and elation and ferocity...
It hit Michael all at once. Peter didn't necessarily believe everything he'd said. He was fucking with Michael. Fucking with him the way a cat shifted a mouse from paw to paw, first a plaything, then a meal. Not because he would receive any measurable benefit from refusing to let Michael work from home. Just because he enjoyed the sensation.
"I see." Michael stood up.
"I meant what I said," Peter called after him, trying to sound friendly and fatherly again, though he was at least five years Michael's junior. "Talk to me anytime! Come clean!"
Michael went back to his desk. He unpinned the calendar, a Christmas gift from Frannie, and dropped it in the rubbish bin. The mouse pad, one of Vivian's school projects from years ago, went there, too. Going through his desk drawers, he retrieved his spare change, the postage stamps he'd purchased with his own money, his Excellence in Technical Writing plaques (all four of them) and two Cadbury Fruit and Nut bars he'd been saving since Easter...
"Michael?" Germanotti closed his Internet poker game. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Michael?" Peter called from his office door. "What's this, then?"
"Per our discussion," Michael said, not looking over his shoulder as he marched toward the exit. "Replace me."
***
The idea of taking the tube home was unbearable, so Michael called Frannie and made up a story about working late and staying nearby as part of an intensive research session. He'd done it twice before to help Germanotti finish overdue projects, so it wasn't unprecedented. Frannie's displeasure surprised him.
"You know, I don't exist just to keep your house and rear your children," she snapped. "I'm not on your staff like Caitlin worked for Paul."
Michael went cold at the mention of Paul. For a moment he thought his brother-in-law had actually told Frannie about James.
"You want us to spend more time together?"
She sighed. "I don't want to end up like Caitlin. She's starting over at thirty-seven. Probably never find another husband while Paul can go on fucking young girls till he's dead with old age." Silence. Then: "Is that why you cut your hair and shaved your moustache? To be more attractive to young women?"
The backhanded compliment surprised him. He couldn't remember the last time Frannie had so much as implied he was attractive. "No. That's not why I did it, I promise."
"You know I hate ginger hair."
"I know. Germanotti's waving me over. Have to go." He disconnected. Michael had never been one to toss around "I love you" as an end to trivial conversations and Frannie, equally reserved, never expected it. Even during their courtship he'd never said those words, though he'd been wildly infatuated. One night she'd announced, "You love me, I know you do." Finding no reason to disagree, he'd presented her with an engagement ring the next day. And when Edward was born, he'd held the bundle in his arms and whispered, "I love you." He'd done the same with Viv. Those had been the best moments of his marriage, creating two new individuals with Frannie. Maybe he did need to spend more time with his family. His kids, at least.
When James woke up, they shared a nice takeaway dinner—Indian green curry, tandoori scallops and shatkora along with some white rice and mango chutney. They drank iced water. This time James managed to keep everything down, though the antibiotics still troubled his stomach. Michael had furnished the place only sparingly—one IKEA sofa, two torchière lamps, a flat screen TV hung opposite the sofa and a Blu-ray player. James, already aware of Michael's detached house in Brixton, found the new flat impossibly posh.
"So you're a rich bloke," he said as Michael stowed the leftovers in the fridge.
"I'm a comfortable bloke."
"What do you do for a living? Wait, don't tell me. I'll guess." James squinted at Michael as if X-raying him. "You're a university professor."
"A writer."
"Really? Like
Harry Potter
and
Twilight
?"
"Like textbooks.
Introduction to Biology. Fundamentals of Ecology, Second Edition
. And so on."
James visibly deflated. "Never figured you for the sadist type."
Michael chuckled. "I guess for those who didn't enjoy school, that's exactly what I am."
"And people pay lots of money for textbooks?" James tried not to sound skeptical.
"Not really. My money comes from my mum. She died when I was five."
"How?"
"Wrongful death." Michael brought his glass of iced water over to the sofa and sat down beside James. "She had lung cancer. Never smoked a day, it just happened. The hospital was meant to remove her diseased left lung. They removed her right by mistake." Michael couldn't pretend an excess of emotion where none existed. He didn't remember his mother, not really. He still felt the lack of her, the void, but it was amorphous. Probably boys who'd never known their mums felt more or less the same. "Anyway, she lived long enough with one cancerous lung to sue and receive a settlement. The money came to me as a trust fund. It's always been there, a crutch, something I could turn to if everything else went wrong."
"How often have you dipped into it?"
"Three times. To make a down payment on the house in Brixton. To rent this flat. And..." Michael smiled, unsure how to say the rest properly.
"Oh. Yes. To fix up your toothless, diseased whore."
"Please don't start that again." Michael was still unsettled by what happened at his former workplace and eager to forget it. But dealing with it would have been so much easier if he knew what he felt—anger, sadness, rage, contrition or fear. Surely if he could name what he felt, he could process it. In textbooks, defining a basic vocabulary was often the first step.
"Let's watch a movie." Michael switched on the streaming service. "You pick."
James's entertainment tastes were quite different from Frannie's. She tended to enjoy human dramas where people lied, slept around or even murdered for dense psychosocial reasons. Or else she liked highbrow romances where repressed men in puffy shirts made love to dowerless girls and/or governesses. James preferred cars, guns, slow-motion stunts and explosions. He chose something Michael had heard of but Frannie had never let him watch, a violent fable starring Angelina Jolie, and they spent the next ninety minutes immersed in gunplay, assassination and cataclysmic stunts.
"I love this part." James, who'd apparently memorized the movie, insisted Michael watch a particular sequence carefully. "I could do that. Shoot the wings off a fly. If this fucking pussy country let people buy guns and ammo at Marks & Spencer the way they can in America..."
Michael fought back a laugh. Had he ever in his life enjoyed so much free-floating enthusiasm? Even injured and depressed, James put him to shame. "I'm not sure anyone could shoot the wings off a fly. You might find it especially difficult. You'd certainly need your corrective lenses."
"Hey?" James shot Michael an uncomprehending look. "My vision's perfect, mate. 20/20. That fly's wings are toast." He pantomimed shooting an imaginary insect with his hands, then happily resumed immersion in the movie.
Afterward, James was sleepy and Michael was, too. He had no intention of pressuring James for sex. Stripping only to his undershirt and shorts, he doused the lights and got into bed. Not long after, James crept out of the small bathroom still fully dressed and stretched out on the sofa.
Michael fell asleep assuming James would come to bed when he was ready. But when he awakened at half-five, he found James curled up on the sofa asleep. There was something almost feline about James in sleep, chin tucked, knees drawn up against to his chest. Looking down at him, Michael felt a spasm of desire below the waist. He felt something else, too, harder to define. A gentleness quite apart from his physical response. Taken together those two responses—one feather-soft and considerate, the other visceral, hungry, full of personal need—confused Michael even more than his tumult of emotion after walking off the job.
He touched James's cheek, hoping the other man would wake and fancy some type of intimacy. Intercourse was his first choice, but fellatio or mutual masturbation would be almost as welcome...
"No," James whispered, jerking awake. "No!"
"Sorry," Michael breathed, pulling away. "I'm sorry." Seeing James's wide eyes, his obvious fear, Michael didn't wait for an explanation. He headed into the shower. When he emerged, James was pouring coffee.
"It started when I was twelve," he said, pushing a mug toward Michael. "My uncle Kirk. He came into my bedroom and started touching me while I slept. I woke up and he said if I told anyone, he'd say he caught me doing something dirty. Then he ran his hands over me from stem to stern. I still dream about it, hands groping me while I sleep. In the dream there's no safe place. Not even my own bed in my own room. Nowhere to let down my guard."
Michael busied himself with the coffee, grateful for a task. He found the sugar, added it, then found the half-and-half, pouring it in as well. "How far did it go?"
"He fucked me." James took a sip of coffee. "Lots of times. Then one day I went mental on the bastard—still can't remember what I said—and after I hit him and threatened him, he finally beat it. But by then, other men were starting to come on to me. Offering me money for sex. Finally, I realized... well. Personal truth. That's just who I was. What I was good for."
"A whore for randy older men?"
"Yeah. Like you." As soon as he uttered the words, James looked genuinely shocked at himself. "I—I'm sorry. I'm a bit... unhinged. Never thought a client would do this to me," he said, gesturing toward his mouth. "Angry, I guess. Though I have no idea why I'd take it out on you."
"Because I'm a client, too. But James. This—what's happening now—isn't about what we usually do. I'm not buying you. You don't have to keep a running tally."
"If it's not about sex... then what?"
Michael modulated his breathing. This would be taking a chance. But he could withstand the truth, he knew he could. He could ask James to be honest and not fear it would break him.
"It's about friendship. I think of you as a friend. What we did before—I'd like to go back to it, whenever you're ready. But until then, I want you to stay here, James. Get better. Spend time with me. Unless... unless it's too much. Unless you don't think of me the same way."
"I thought of you as a client," James said softly. "Till you rang me up. Till I said I was out of commission and you asked if we were finished. I felt—I don't know. I thought maybe it would hurt you, wondering why I disappeared. So I met you in the restaurant. Not because I expected you to help me. I just didn't want to leave you in pain." James took a deep breath. "I don't deserve you as a friend."
"I don't deserve you, either," Michael said. It was the most he could manage. There was more inside him, he knew there was, but it was like staring at the white digital page when he tried to write a piece of fiction. A disconnect that made communication impossible. So he kept his silence, finished his coffee and decided to purchase a laptop. He'd need a computer to update his resume and search for a new job.
***
James's first official appointment with Dr. Beckman was scheduled for ten o'clock. He'd been given an information packet with forms to fill in and what looked like written directions to the office from multiple points in the city. James planned to do what he always did—get on the tube, charm people into guiding him, and turn up for his appointment with the forms conveniently forgotten. But Michael opened up the packet and spread the papers across the minimalist IKEA coffee table. "Let's get these done."
Michael filled in most of them from memory, getting a few details from James. Then he bundled them together along with James's test results from the clinic. "Now. How are you at studying schematics? Like fire escape routes in buildings?"
"Fine," James mumbled. He was as embarrassed now as he'd been over his missing teeth. Most people assumed he was stupid, including people he considered pals like Deepak and Kevin. But not one of them had ever deduced just how stupid he really was.
"Take the tube back to Belgravia. There's a McDonald's just outside. Cross the street to the McDonald's and follow this route," Michael sketched a path with several turns, "until you end up at Paul's office. There's a uniformed doorman and some truly hideous potted plants outside."
"Thanks." James took the map, suddenly aware he'd be going back to the office in the same clothes. Would they notice? Would they laugh at him? Pity him?
His throat constricted. Next thing he knew he was crying again, and when Michael put an arm around him, he didn't shrug him off.