The Human Condition Ch. 07

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I twisted my head to look at Kevin. He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head. I thought he was going to make a very good therapist.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Joe protested, and I could hear the tension in his voice.

"What happened to Elliot?" I decided to take the middle road.

"After they wired his jaw, he was admitted into the forensic unit at Ypsillanti." Kevin offered. "They'll arraign him this afternoon."

I barely took in what he was saying. I was too busy watching Joe as he stood abruptly and went to the window and stared at the view of that parking lot as if it had all the appeal of the Grand Canyon. It was obvious he wanted to be anywhere but in this room, talking about this subject.

"Mike," Kevin squeezed my hand, bringing me back to the conversation, "there's something you should know..."

"Oh, Jesus!" Joe hissed. "Do you think he has to know about this now?" He didn't turn around, but I noticed his hands griping the window sash, the knuckles white from the effort.

I turned and looked at Kevin's face. He'd stopped talking, but his eyes asked me if he should go on and I nodded. However bad the news was, I had to know.

Kevin took a deep breath. "The police did a search of the cabin. They found... well, some things. Apparently you weren't Elliot's first victim. It looks like he had a habit of picking up guys and bringing them back there. Then, he'd beat the shit out of them. A few times it was consensual, but most of the time it looks as if the men had no idea what they were getting into."

Joe made a choking noise at the window. Kevin looked up at him, his eyes narrowing as he thought for a minute. It was as apparent to him as it was to me that Joe was ready to explode. Kevin looked back down at me.

"Get him out of here," he mouthed silently.

He was right, Joe needed to leave, but it took my sluggish brain a little time to process why Kevin didn't tell him to get out. Then it hit me. If Kevin did that, Joe would just get pissed.

"Joe," I croaked. "I'm really dry. Could you go get me a Coke or something?"

That should get him out of the room for a couple of minutes at least. He'd have to find a nurse to get him a can.

"That sounds good," Kevin agreed. "Get me one too, okay?"

That was even better, since the sodas at the nurse's stations were for patients only. He'd have to go to the visitor's center on the second floor for Kevin's pop.

Joe turned and looked at us with raised eyebrows. It was obvious he figured out our little ruse, but he didn't say anything, just shrugged and made his way to the door. There he turned and looked back at us.

"I'm going to make some phone calls while I'm out. I'll be back in about twenty minutes, okay?"

"Great," Kevin said.

He left and Kevin sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief. I didn't realize until that moment how much tension Joe had brought into the room.

"Do you want the scoop, or are you just going to stare at that door until Joe comes back?"

I jerked my eyes back in Kevin's direction. If he saw the red rushing to my cheeks, he ignored it. I quickly realized that I was going to have to be more careful in the future if I didn't want him, or any of my other perceptive friends, to figure out how I really felt about Joe.

"So how are you really feeling?" he asked gently.

I winced. "Like I had a softball bat rammed up my ass."

"Pretty close to what happened," Kevin agreed.

"And then it feels like he took the damn thing and beat me with it."

"Yeah, well..." He smiled sympathetically.

"The doctors told me I was lucky," I tried, but I couldn't keep the irony out of my voice. "My left shoulder is separated, and I have a couple hundred stitches on the left side of my butt and a couple of small anal tears, but other than that I'm okay."

"I know. The doctor came and talked with us."

Kevin leaned forward in his chair and grabbed my hand again. His face was serious and I knew whatever he was going to say next was not going to be pleasant.

"You are lucky, Mike. That's what I wanted to tell you. You're gonna find out anyway. Elliot made some tapes. Some of the other guys, well... The police don't think they were so lucky."

I thought about that for a minute. I had no problem believing him though; I'd seen the look in Elliot's eyes when he'd been holding that knife.

I shook the memory away with a shudder. "He was going to kill me, Kevin. If you guys had gotten there 5 minutes later, I'd be dead."

"He's a sick fuck."

"Yeah, I know that now. I just don't know why I didn't figure it out in the first place," I said, shaking my head.

"Oh, do not go there!" Kevin tightened his grip on my hand, making me wince. "You are not at fault! Elliot is. He's the asshole-remember that. Nobody else."

"But if I hadn't gone with him," I argued, "If I hadn't been pissed off at Cam and acted like a spoiled brat, none of this would've happened! You weren't there. I didn't just lead Elliot on-I told him I'd fuck him!"

Kevin rolled his eyes. "That's irrelevant and you know it."

Most of me knew he was right. I had changed my mind about having sex with Elliot. At worst, that should have earned me a couple of sarcastic remarks and a long, cold night of hitchhiking. Instead, I'd been tied up; beaten and-I forced myself to form the word in my mind-raped. There was no way I'd deserved any of that, and I fought desperately to hold onto that thought.

"Mike, you're going to have to deal with this, but I don't think now is the time. You need to get some rest, bud. We can talk later. I'll stay until Joe gets back, and then he'll be here until you wake up."

I nodded. My body was humming with exhaustion, and now that Kevin and Joe were here, I wasn't as worried about facing my dreams. The resources I'd called on to keep awake were all used up. I closed my eyes and started to drift.

"I never told you thank you," I murmured, already half-asleep.

Kevin grinned. "Hey, you owe me ten bucks, I had to make sure you were going to be around for me to collect."

"I knew you guys would come. I knew Joe would figure out something was wrong," my words sounded distant and slightly slurred. I wasn't even sure if I spoke or just thought the words until Kevin answered me.

"You know, I didn't believe Joe at first. Nobody did," he said. "He was like this madman, insisting you were in trouble. I think that's why we all helped at first, to appease him. I don't know what he'd have done if we hadn't found you. I always wondered, but today was the first day I realized..."

His voice faded as I slipped into sleep.

I was more or less unconscious for the next twenty-four hours. There were times when I heard voices, others when I functioned in a semi-conscious state, just long enough to drink some water or pee, but mainly I slept. It was deep and dark and still, and whatever I dreamed, I'd forgotten it all by the time I woke up.
And when that happened, Joe was there, as Kevin had promised.

He was sitting in a chair next to the bed and he was reading. He didn't notice I was awake and I watched him. A small frown had settled around his mouth. It was a look I was well familiar with, and I knew it meant that he was concentrating. I looked at the title of the book. It was Nabokov's 'Lolita'.

"Pervert," my mouth was so dry the word sounded like rust.

"You're awake," he said, as he put the book down and smiled.

He walked over to the bed and took the cup on the stand and fit the straw to my lips. I sipped and felt the cool water sinking into the dry tissue in my mouth. After a couple small sips he moved it back.

"How're you feeling?"

I thought about that for a minute before answering. There was only one word to describe it. "Sore."

"Yeah. That's pretty much how you're going to feel, too, for the next couple of days."

He put the straw to my mouth again, and this time I sucked on it greedily. His hand had to hold it still, and in doing so it rested on my chin.

"You could use a shave," he said, rubbing his fingers on my stubble.

"No doubt, but I don't think I'm up to it."

Which was true. Even though technically there wasn't much wrong with my right shoulder, it still hurt too much for me to move my arm. The left was completely out of commission, as it was strapped securely to my chest.

I grinned at Joe and waited for a smart-ass comeback. I waited for him to take his hand from my face. But he was silent, and his hand stayed where it was.

I know that most of you will think I'm an idiot when I tell you that it still didn't dawn on me what was happening. I have a good excuse: for three years I'd trained myself to think of Joe as completely off-limits. Hell, I don't think I'd even taken a good look at the guy since we were sophomores.

Oh, I could describe every inch of him-the shape of his hands, his ears, the curve of his collar bone and ass-but I'd learned these in glimpses, my eyes sucking in the details, memorizing them in brief seconds of study. That was all I'd allow myself. I justified it at the time as my way of not making a straight boy feel uncomfortable around me. Later, I knew that was a rationalization, just another way of convincing myself that all I felt for Joe was friendship.

So when Joe continued to brush my chin with his thumb and when his fingers uncurled to stroke my cheek, it never occurred to me to wonder why he was doing that. Besides, I was too concerned about what his touch was doing to me to take the next logical step and wonder why the hell he was doing it in the first place.

The minute I felt the warmth of his hand, I was acutely aware of an answering warmth of my own. Neither drugs nor painful injuries were enough to override the pleasure that shot through my system. I could feel my cock throb and spring to life, and it was all I could do not to look down to see if my arousal showed through the thin blue hospital blanket.

Oh, Jesus, I thought. If this was how it was going to be, how I'd react every time I was with him, then maybe it really was for the best that he and Betsy would be leaving town after their marriage.

I could feel my cheeks flush and I was trying to look anywhere but at Joe. And that isn't easy when you're flat on your back and strapped to a board.

"Mike." Joe's hand stilled, but he didn't remove it and it was all I could do to keep myself from nuzzling it. "There's something..."

Suddenly, the door slammed open and one of the nurses, a black woman with bright yellow hair, came stomping in. Joe jumped back like he'd been hit with a cattle prod, spilling what was left of the water all down my chest.

That was enough for the nurse to order him out of the room. Joe didn't take a lot of convincing, either. He was out of there before I'd had a chance to say goodbye or wonder what it was he'd been about to say.

Whatever it was, I wasn't going to hear it anytime soon either. The next couple of days were spent in non-stop rounds of annoying tests, painful therapy, and exhausted sleep. In between, I was visited by a never-ending stream of friends. It seemed my room was always full, and that meant that Joe and I had no chance to be alone.

Which was just as well with me. I needed time to think about how I was going to deal with him, now that I realized how I really felt. But that meant being alone, and as I've already said, I wasn't getting much of that.

In fact, there were only a few times when I only had one guest. The first time was Kevin, and it was pretty apparent that he was alone by design and not chance. He was in full therapist mode, and I was shown just exactly how good he was at his chosen profession.

He managed to get me to tell him most of what I remembered about my night with Elliot. Then he sat there and held me as I cried after the words dried up and choked me, making it difficult to breathe. When I was quiet again, he pulled a card out of his pocket and gave it to me.

He told me it was the name of therapist; a woman, Alice Wanamaker, who had worked with a number of rape victims, and that some of them were men. When he saw my expression, he agreed that I was probably fine, but he hoped I'd indulge him and call her. Like I said, he was-and still is-a very good therapist.

The second visitor that I managed to have a tête-à-tête with was Betsy, and this happened more than once over the three additional days I spent in the hospital. It wasn't really surprising, since she worked in the ER on a rotating shift schedule. At that time she was on evenings, so she would come up on her break after all the regular visitors had been sent home.

As I said before, I liked Betsy the more I got to know her, and she was always welcome, though I must admit, I had a hard time looking at the ring on her left hand; a new addition since I'd seen her before. The first time she came in, she noticed my staring and she stretched out her arm so I could get a better look.

"It's beautiful," I said sincerely, though the words didn't come easily to me.

She smiled. "Thanks."

"So, have you two set a date?"

I'd tried to ask Joe this a few times already, but he always blew me off, saying we'd talk about him after I was better. He didn't seem to realize I desperately wanted to know how long he was going to be around, and I didn't have the courage to push it. I loved Joe. That knowledge was huge in my mind. I was sure anything I said or did would make it obvious.

So in three years, our friendship had come full circle. I was once again silent because I was afraid to let him know about an integral part of my being. There was a difference though: this time, Joe was just as silent. Stupidly, I was sure he was having trouble dealing with what had happened to me.

"May 20th," Betsy's voice penetrated my thoughts.

"What?" I'd been drifting thinking of the ring and picturing Joe's lean, long fingers slipping it on Betsy's.

"The wedding date. That's what you asked me."

"Oh, right. Sorry, it's the drugs," it was a convenient excuse. I was going to miss it when it was no longer applicable.

"I would've waited," Betsy continued. "But Joe doesn't want to."

"I know, he told me. It makes sense when you consider the move and all. It'll give you time to settle in."

Betsy looked at me with like she didn't know what I was talking about. "Well sure, I guess," her tone told me she was humoring me. "But it's not really that big a deal. I mean it's not like we're making a big change. He still has half his stuff at my place, even though he moved back to the house."

Now it was my turn to look puzzled. "You're keeping your place?" I said incredulously, as what she was saying finally started to sink in.

"Well sure," she nodded, oblivious to what this news meant to me. "We both like it well enough, and it's convenient for both of us."

"But what about California?" I had to make sure I understood her correctly.

She looked at me curiously. "California?"

"I thought Joe said something about moving to California?"

"Yeah, I was thinking about moving back, but of course, that's changed now. There's no way I could convince Joe into leaving Ann Arbor for medical school. Maybe I can talk him into a residency out west. We'll see."

She left a few minutes later, so I don't think she noticed how much her revelation had stunned me.

Joe wasn't leaving.

For some reason he'd decided against it, he hadn't even mentioned the possibility to Betsy. Maybe, I thought, that's what he'd been going to tell me when we'd been interrupted.

Intellectually, I knew this could make no difference to the hopelessness of my feelings about him. But that didn't stop me from grinning like a fool, every time I thought about it.

Betsy did one more late night visit before I went home. I was actually dozing when she came in. She didn't try and wake me; instead, she sat down quietly in the chair by my bed and closed her own eyes.

Gradually I gained consciousness and realized she was sitting there. I looked at the glowing face of my watch. It was after 1 AM. I looked at Betsy surprised she was still at the hospital. Her shift ended at 11. She looked tired. She had those dark blue circles under her eyes that a child gets when they've stayed up too long past their bedtime. Her lovely hair was matted from being jammed into a surgical cap, and she looked like she lost some weight she didn't need to lose.

She had told me several days earlier that the ER was chronically understaffed, and I knew how hard she and the other staff had to work to make up for that. Betsy was an excellent nurse. Not that I was any judge, but I'd heard that from enough people who were to know it was true. Even my own doctor had said something about it when he'd come in once when she was visiting with Joe.

But the really important thing, as far as I was concerned, was that she was even a better person. She'd lost so much this last year, her whole family, in one way or another. Most people would have whined over the injustice or become bitter, but I knew when Betsy opened those big gray eyes she would smile, and unless you knew her very well, you'd miss the pain that was hidden behind their depths.

It suddenly occurred to me how courageous she was. No wonder Joe loved her so much. I couldn't blame him. I was half in love with her myself, and I did feel as close to her as I was to my own sister. Maybe even more so because Sarah was still so young, but Betsy was my equal in every way.

So, no matter what my own feelings were, I couldn't be jealous of Betsy for what she had with Joe. And as lucky as she was to have him, I thought he was even luckier to have found her.

"What are you grinning at?"

I hadn't realized she was awake and looking at me. There was the expected smile, and the sight of it made me blurt out what I was thinking.

"I really love you-you know that, don't you?" I said, laughing.

"Now he tells me, after I'm already taken," she said to the ceiling.

We laughed together. "I was just thinking how great it was that my best friend and my best girl were getting married," I said.

This wasn't lip service, I meant it, but Betsy didn't have the reaction to my words that I expected. She dropped her eyes and looked down at her lap, fascinated suddenly by her hands.

"Yeah, well..."

She jerked her head up and looked back at me. I was surprised at the unhappiness I saw there.

"Mike, has Joe said anything to you? I mean, has he ever said why he wants to get married right away?"

"He's in love and he wants to get married. Makes sense to me," I tried to shrug, but it was a bad idea, and the pain that shot through my shoulders made me wince.

"Look," said Betsy, noticing my discomfort. "This is the wrong time to be bugging you. Forget I asked."

"No sweetie, it's okay-really," I thought for a minute about what I wanted to tell her. "Joe's always had this vision," I began. "He has this whole scenario planned out in his head: the wife, the kids, the house in the suburbs. I think he watched The Brady Bunch way too much when he was little."

Betsy didn't laugh.

"Anyway," I continued. "He talks about it a lot-always has, this year especially. I think graduating has made it seem like he should be getting on with it."

"So, you think him picking me was just a matter of being at the right place at the right time," the bitterness in Betsy's voice was unmistakable.

"No, of course not!" I protested. "Joe loves you. You must know that."

"I'm not so sure..."

"Betsy..."

She raised her hand in protest. "Hear me out, Mike. Okay-I'll give you that he loves me. I'm just not sure that he's in love with me.
It's a big difference."

On impulse I stretched out my hand, and she grabbed it, holding on, looking down at it as if it were a lifeline.

"You want to know the really awful thing?" She whispered. "I'm not sure I'm in love with Joe, either."