Chapter 2 - The Offer

 

EZ's mother's voice floated up to his bedroom. "Almost bedtime, Z! Does Li need a ride?"

 

EZ and Li broke their kiss, and EZ shouted down, "No, his dad's coming to pick him up." He then returned to the kiss. He and Li both thought that actual sex was usually—not always, mind you — more trouble than it was worth. They agreed that orgasms were excellent, but that inducing them could be a lot simpler than exchanging fluids. However, when they were alone in one of their houses, without parents or sibs, and EZ looked at Li's body, the desire to devour him wasn't subject to argument, and more indirect paths to orgasm weren't optional. Times like these, though, with parents and younger brothers downstairs, were perfect for making out.

 

Li reached up to grasp EZ's hair, canting his head backward and fastening his mouth to EZ's neck. The mixture of pain and pleasure rattled EZ, and he moaned before asking, "You trying to mark me?"

 

Li pulled back and answered, "Maybe you need marking."

 

EZ frowned. "You think I flirt too much."

 

"Gotta take the bad with the very good." Looking at the obvious lump in his pants, he added, "Now, I have to relax so I don't gross my dad out."

"Your dad's cool with us; he wouldn't be surprised."

 

"He's still has this kind of—instinctive—reaction. I know he's resigned to me, but he's not like your father. Gay is still a big thing to him—culturally."

 

"I love you, Li."

 

Li smiled as he always did when EZ said that and replied, wistfully, "Who wouldn't?"

 

The boys walked downstairs, and as they appeared in the living room, Dr. Thorne again reflexively thanked evolution for giving him a son who didn't thump downstairs the way some teenagers did. He smiled at the boys as his wife went to Li and hugged him.

 

"You are such a cute couple."

 

Both boys rolled their eyes, and EZ's younger brother giggled. "Well, you are!"

 

Li's phone buzzed. "Dad's here. He quickly kissed EZ and, as he opened the front door, said, "Tomorrow."

 

Dr. Thorne asked, "Did you two get any homework done?"

 

EZ tried to feign shock, "Of course, we did. What did you think we were doing up there?" His father just shrugged and smiled as his brother made kissing sounds. "I'm going up to bed. You want me to read to you, Jed?"

 

His brother's face brightened. "Thanks, Z."

 

"Come on then, get changed, and I'll be in to read."

 

Dr. Thorne was proud of his older son, not just because he had navigated his sexual identity but also because he was kind and treated his parents and brother with love and respect. EZ was seven years older than Jed, who was, for lack of a better word, an accident—a happy accident as life turned out. The fact that EZ cared as much as he did for his brother was remarkable considering their age difference; Jed worshipped EZ. The younger boy had been in only one fight in school, after one of his classmates in first grade had called EZ a fag. The fight didn't occur immediately.

That night, Jed had asked his brother, "What's a fag, and are you one?"

 

EZ had tried to explain a little about how people feel attracted to other people and how some people were threatened when boys were attracted to other boys—all of which went over Jed's head. What didn't go over Jed's head was the fact that the word was hateful. Jed had his fight the next day.

 

* * * * *

 

After reading from the second book of the Gyres Chronicles series until Jed was asleep, EZ tucked his brother in, kissed his forehead as his parents had always kissed his, and went to his own room. His leg ached, and he almost went downstairs to make an icepack. Instead, he took some ibuprofen and used a pillow to elevate the leg slightly. In boxer briefs, he reclined on his back and waited for sleep.

 

He was in the enviable position of having no anxiety about school, grades, soccer, or relationships. He had friends who both valued him and didn't hesitate to cut him down when he got full of himself. Life was good. He had no reason for trouble falling asleep—except for the little kid in the gym.

"I am here for you," the kid had said. What the hell did that mean? He had been fantasizing about Li. Maybe the kid was just another waking dream, but he was vaguely unsettled that he had dreamed up a kid younger than Jed. He yawned and would have turned over but for his leg. He counted his breaths as Li had taught him when they practiced taiji together—yin and yang. His last thought was that this was fucking silly.

 

He was jerked from sleep—or thought he was—by a rumbling sound and a tiny voice. The voice was the child's, but the way he spoke was very adult. "Greetings, Ezekiel. I am Verchiel. You are the one, and I am here for you. Clouds gather; the battle is nigh. Gird your loins and hold tight your sword and buckler so that your people will be fortified. You will vanquish their fear."

 

When EZ's heart rate had decreased a little, he turned his head to see the familiar apparition, this time dressed in little-boy shorts with an elastic waistband and a blue T-shirt with a cartoonish dinosaur hugging a giraffe. "What?"

 

"I am Verchiel and …," the boy began again until EZ interrupted.

 

"I heard what you said. I'm just not used to kids in my dreams talking like that. Shouldn't you be a tall thing with wings? You are an angel, right?"

The boy seemed to think for a moment and then plopped himself down on the foot of EZ's bed. The thing was that EZ felt the bed move when the boy sat on it. "I have no idea how you see me. I am here for you; you control how I appear."

 

"Maybe I did hit my head this afternoon. I'd like to go back to sleep now."

 

"Look, I haven't done this in a long time. I'll get the language right in a little while. You need to understand."

 

Suddenly, EZ remembered a story from Japan his father had told him about how to get rid of evil ghosts. He reached into the bowl of M&Ms on his nightstand and held out his hand curled around the candy in a fist. "How many do I have?"

 

"Sixteen."

 

EZ opened his hand and quickly counted the candy pieces—fifteen. "Ha! Wrong."

 

"Count them again."

 

He carefully recounted the candy—sixteen. Shit, he thought.

 

The child said, "Nothing I say or do is shit."

 

EZ decided to try another approach. "You definitely have the wrong guy. I'm queer, you know?"

 

"I grant that you're a bit unusual, but …"

 

EZ interrupted, "No, I lie with men as men lie with women—Queer with a capital Q. Your boss apparently doesn't like that very much."

 

"My boss?"

 

"God, the Heavenly Father, you know?"

 

"You have a perverse understanding of the metaphysical realm. You think God, as you call it, has a dick and is worried about how you reproduce—or don't. This whole, man-is-the-center-of-creation thing is naïve and species-centric. I assure you, you aren't dreaming any more than any reality is a dream. Here…"

 

Suddenly, beside the child in the bed were two interlocking wheels studded on their rims with glistening eyes. The eyes were quite alive, and all of them gazed at EZ, who jumped. "Fuck!"

 

"Calm down." The wheels disappeared. "You must believe before we can do our work. I am Verchiel, and I am here for you."

 

Before his alarm sounded, EZ felt a child's presence on his bed. The light on his closed lids told him that morning had come. What a fucking dream. He opened his lids ever so slightly, hoping that the dream child wasn't back. He was relieved to see Jed, in his underwear, sitting at the foot of the bed where Verchiel had sat in the dream. Whew.

 

"Hey, Jed. You're up early. You have a bad dream?"

 

"You woke me up in the night."

 

"I woke you up?"

 

"Yeah. Who is the boy you were talking to?"

 

<<<<>>>>

 

Chapter 3