A Memory Away (10 page)
Authors: Taylor Lewis
Tags: #Gay & Lesbian, #Literature & Fiction, #Fiction, #Gay, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Gay Romance, #Genre Fiction, #Romantic Comedy
“
Jonah,” Kyle’s hands closed over one of his fists and he said urgently, “Jonah, you need to calm down, okay? I understand now and I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Blinking,
Jonah raised his head from the back of the couch and realised that his voice had been rising steadily as he rambled and tried to explain the confusion and helplessness he felt at the mercy of his dreams. Kyle was now sitting beside him looking worried and sympathetic and clutching at him so hard that he was in danger of bruising the skin. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl. “I don’t need fucking pity.”
Kyle
drew back a little at the defensive growl and then scowled and snapped, “Well that’s just as well because you don’t have mine.” He stared intently into Jonah’s sweating and angry face and said, “I’m sorry that happened to you and that you had to go through that, but, like you said, you seem to have made a full recovery and I have nothing to pity you for.” He tightened his hold on Jonah’s fist for a moment before letting go and slipping back a little on the couch to cross his legs and refold his hands neatly on his knee. “I just wish I’d have known from the start why you didn’t....” He frowned at the vial on the table with the proof of Shea’s parentage in it and said slowly, “I can’t say that I would have done anything differently but I like to think I would have done. I’m afraid I never even considered the possibility of, er, amnesia.”
Jonah
laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, it is a little soap opera, huh?” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and said reluctantly, “Look, I know it isn’t an excuse and I find it hard to own up to, but this whole not remembering shit and feeling helpless deal - I’m not so great at it. The other night....I was freaked and I was mad as all hell and I took it out on you. I’m not saying it was right and I’m not saying that I don’t get a little mad sometimes, but I don’t usually lose it like that
ever
and you don’t have to worry about it happening again. I’d never hurt Shea like that...or you.” He took his hand away from his eyes and turned his head to look at Kyle with miserable sincerity on every line of his face. “You at least get that, right? You believe that I’m not some kind of psycho who only knows how to talk with his fists?”
Kyle
stared back at him for a long time and then his face softened, eyes warming as he reached slowly out to touch Jonah’s arm again. “Yes, I believe you.” He bit his lip and continued warily, “I realise it’s a lot to ask but I’d like you to believe me when I tell you that I never set out to hurt you in any way. I know I could have handled things better, but....” His lips twisted ruefully. “I wasn’t thinking logically. Megan has suspicions that I was blinded by hormones.”
Jonah
smiled tiredly. “Yeah, I suppose that’s one of the drawbacks of the intersex thing, right? Man, puberty must have been rough for you. Double whammy.” He frowned when Kyle’s hand dropped away and the other man looked guilty suddenly. “What? I say something wrong?”
Frowning down at the floor,
Kyle took a deep breath and then said softly, “In the interests of full disclosure I should tell you that I’m not actually, by the strictest definition, intersex.” He flinched when Jonah jerked upright and stared at him in surprise, but stayed where he was and held his ground. “I’m wired a little differently inside, granted, but I was born only with male genitalia. Inside I have both female and male reproductive capabilities.”
“But...”
Jonah frowned in confusion. “On Shea’s birth certificate it says that you’re intersex.”
“Yes,” Looking a little more confident when
Jonah looked like he was holding good on his promise to not lash out or lose his temper, Kyle nodded. “That’s standard for someone like me. There’s only so many boxes to check to explain away certain things so for male pregnancies they still use the intersex option on official documents to make life easier. Internally, I have everything necessary to conceive and carry a baby, but Shea was born by C-section as when he came to term I had no way of naturally delivering him. Roughly two percent of the male identifying worldwide intersex population is like me.” He shrugged. “We’ve been trying to get it changed for years now and have all sexes and possible carriers of children recognised correctly, but it’s a slow change to come.” He looked warily at Jonah, evidently still searching for any signs of a negative reaction. “That’s why I questioned if you had accessed my medical records because obviously you would have known immediately then, but then when you said that you had just seen Shea’s birth certificate it became obvious you’d made an assumption so I didn’t correct you.” He looked downwards again, ashamed. “It was just another lie. One more wouldn’t matter, right?”
“Oh thank God,” said
Jonah and fell back against the couch again, ignoring Kyle’s startled look at him. “That’s been bugging me since I found out that we...knew each other.” He grinned sheepishly at Kyle’s puzzled frown and said, “These dreams of mine are pretty explicit, you know? X rated all the way.” He felt something warm near the region of his heart when Kyle blushed bright scarlet and dropped his eyes again, continuing mischievously, "And I figured if I got the mark on your back right then I must be remembering everything else right too, only no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t remember you having anything down there that you shouldn’t and in my dreams I was pretty handsy with you.”
Kyle
cleared his throat when Jonah paused expectantly and said in a slightly higher pitch than normal, “Yes. We were very...enthusiastic.”
“I figured.”
Jonah shot him a lopsided smile and then said slowly, “The only thing I can’t figure out is why we didn’t use protection. I’m, uh, usually pretty careful about that.”
Kyle
thought again of Jonah guiding his hand back to touch his cock, sheathed in a condom, and reassuring him silently that they were being safe and replied, “We did. We went to the bathroom before we...well, before, and got what we needed from the machines. It must have spilt or been faulty already.” He looked up with an utterly mortified expression and said, “I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair on you, but I’m finding it very strange to be the only one who remembers what really happened and it’s making me very uncomfortable talking about it. I understand you want to have the DNA test run to prove what I’m saying but do we really need to dissect what happened down to every last sordid detail? I don’t generally behave like that and talking about it with you is...I don’t like it.”
Jonah
, rather guiltily cheered that Kyle wasn’t in the habit of picking up strangers for sex considering it had been one of his own favourite pastimes, nodded. “Sure.” An awkward silence fell before Jonah leaned forward and braced his arms on his spread thighs, intently studying his hands dangling down. “So, uh, what happens now? With the kid.”
Kyle
scowled. “Well for starters you can stop calling him ‘the kid’.” He deflated slightly when Jonah grimaced apologetically and said softly, “Whatever you want, I suppose. In the eyes of the law you have equal rights to him and, given that I deliberately hid him from you, the courts will look favourably on any request you make.” His face working like he was fighting back tears, Kyle whispered, “We’re completely at your mercy. I’ll do whatever you want if you just promise not to take him away from me.”
For a moment
Jonah was struck dumb with the irony of the situation. Back when he had first started dreaming of Kyle and imagining ways to get him into his arms and bed he had idly created a big, bad ex that was harassing and bullying the other man. Jonah could have swooped in to save him from the dastardly ex and then enjoyed some very heartfelt – and down and dirty – rewards. Who knew that the big, bad ex would turn out to be him and that, as far as Kyle was concerned, Jonah was the one he needed saving from?
Awkward
.
“I don’t want to take him off you.”
Jonah reached out and wrapped a hand around Kyle’s wrist, ignoring the flinch at the contact. “I was serious when I said that. That’s something you never have to worry about, okay?” He waited until Kyle gave a jerky nod and continued, “But I gotta ask – were you ever gonna tell me about him? Were you going to keep him hidden forever?”
Kyle
opened his mouth to give an automatic denial and then paused before saying honestly, “At the beginning, when I first saw you again, yes. I never had any intention of telling you. I was out of my mind with panic and just wanted you to go away.” He looked up and met Jonah’s eyes then. “But then you came back and you
kept
coming back and you were....you were so nice. I can’t expect you to believe me, but I’d made the decision to tell you and ask you to be a part of Shea’s life. I really wanted that for him.”
It wasn’t until he heard the words from
Kyle’s own mouth that Jonah realised how much he’d needed to hear them. Sure, he’d heard them from Lopez when she told him of her conversation with Megan but he hadn’t actually believed until Kyle spoke them himself. He swallowed to try and clear his suddenly constricted throat. “Thanks.” He gave a twisted smile when Kyle blinked and said gruffly, “That means a lot.” His eye caught on the vial with the cotton bud still on the coffee table and he let go of Kyle to stand and pick it up. He weighed it in his hand for a moment and then walked into the kitchen and tossed it into the trash. “We don’t need that.”
Looking confused,
Kyle said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You want to be sure, don’t you? I don’t want you to regret not having the tests down further down the line and, besides, the court will probably want proof for their records when we attend to settle access arrangements.” He stopped short and asked hesitantly, “Unless you’re saying that you don’t want access or to be involved?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
Jonah crossed back over to the couch and dropped down. “I figure I don’t need proof because, well, unless you were damn sure of yourself then you wouldn’t have gotten so freaked out about me these past weeks, right?” Kyle, looking dazed, nodded faintly. “So, yeah, I believe you that the...
Shea
... is mine. Plus, Lopez seems to think that all he needs is a gun and a nipple ring and he could pass for my double.”
Kyle
’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes darted to Jonah’s t-shirted chest. “You have a nipple ring?”
Jonah grinned. “You don’t remember?” He held up his hands with a laugh when Kyle scowled and blushed furiously and said, “Sorry, couldn’t resist.” He placed his hand back on Kyle’s wrist and squeezed again, gently. “Look, unless you really want to go the legal route, then I’m happy if you just let me get to know him, okay? I’d like to be involved and do shit with him like go to the park and take him out for ice cream and for him to know who I am.” He smiled as reassuringly as he knew how at Kyle’s disbelieving expression and continued, “When he goes to school I want to come meet his teachers and do, like, the conference day stuff. Just be there. That’s all I want.”
“Oh.”
Kyle blinked at him and then sagged like all the air had been punched out of him. “Oh. That’s....” He gave Jonah a watery smile and said thickly, “That’s so much more than I hoped for. Thank you. Thank you so much.” He tugged his arm free and wrapped both his hands around one of Jonah’s. “I promise, you can see him whenever you want. I’ll tell you everything that’s going on with him and you can see him whenever you want.”
“Okay.”
Jonah reached with his free hand and patted awkwardly at Kyle’s shoulder, uncomfortable with the emotion the other man was barely holding in check. “So we’re good? We can work this out?”
“Yes.”
Kyle nodded, still shaky and teary eyed with relief. “Yes, whatever you want.” He smiled tremulously and said, “I should get back. Louise and Megan will be wondering where I am.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Jonah felt a pang of something like disappointment when Kyle released his hand and stood to gather his bag. “So, uh, your girl’s not going to want to cut off my balls the next time she sees me now, is she? I’m thinking that could be a little weird for Shea if he has to watch that.”
Kyle
laughed and swung his bag over his shoulder. “No, she’ll be fine. She means well, she was trying to look out for us.” He started to walk to the door. “I’m more worried about poor Louise. She was afflicted with the most awful stutter when she was growing up and the shock of seeing you the other day and realising what was going on made it kick back in with a vengeance.” He pulled a face. “She’s an excellent nanny but good under pressure she is not.” He stood by the door when Jonah pulled it open for him and asked hesitantly, “Are you busy on Saturday? Would you like to come over in the afternoon and meet Shea properly? It might be better for him if we introduced you in an environment where he felt secure and happy.”
A bolt of sheer terror shot down
Jonah’s spine – holy fuck, this was really happening. He was going to be someone’s daddy. “Yeah, sure.” He tried to smile. “That’d be good.”
“Okay,”
Kyle nodded, oblivious to the sudden attack of cold feet his new co-parent was suffering. “About two? He’ll have had lunch by then and hopefully had a nap so he should be at his best. Oh!” He flipped open his bag and began to rummage in the contents before pulling out a padded envelope and thrusting it at Jonah. “I nearly forgot – I brought you these.”
Jonah
took the envelope with a puzzled frown and looked inside to see a collection of USB sticks. “Thanks?”
Jonah,” Kyle’s hands closed over one of his fists and he said urgently, “Jonah, you need to calm down, okay? I understand now and I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Blinking,
Jonah raised his head from the back of the couch and realised that his voice had been rising steadily as he rambled and tried to explain the confusion and helplessness he felt at the mercy of his dreams. Kyle was now sitting beside him looking worried and sympathetic and clutching at him so hard that he was in danger of bruising the skin. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl. “I don’t need fucking pity.”
Kyle
drew back a little at the defensive growl and then scowled and snapped, “Well that’s just as well because you don’t have mine.” He stared intently into Jonah’s sweating and angry face and said, “I’m sorry that happened to you and that you had to go through that, but, like you said, you seem to have made a full recovery and I have nothing to pity you for.” He tightened his hold on Jonah’s fist for a moment before letting go and slipping back a little on the couch to cross his legs and refold his hands neatly on his knee. “I just wish I’d have known from the start why you didn’t....” He frowned at the vial on the table with the proof of Shea’s parentage in it and said slowly, “I can’t say that I would have done anything differently but I like to think I would have done. I’m afraid I never even considered the possibility of, er, amnesia.”
Jonah
laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, it is a little soap opera, huh?” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and said reluctantly, “Look, I know it isn’t an excuse and I find it hard to own up to, but this whole not remembering shit and feeling helpless deal - I’m not so great at it. The other night....I was freaked and I was mad as all hell and I took it out on you. I’m not saying it was right and I’m not saying that I don’t get a little mad sometimes, but I don’t usually lose it like that
ever
and you don’t have to worry about it happening again. I’d never hurt Shea like that...or you.” He took his hand away from his eyes and turned his head to look at Kyle with miserable sincerity on every line of his face. “You at least get that, right? You believe that I’m not some kind of psycho who only knows how to talk with his fists?”
Kyle
stared back at him for a long time and then his face softened, eyes warming as he reached slowly out to touch Jonah’s arm again. “Yes, I believe you.” He bit his lip and continued warily, “I realise it’s a lot to ask but I’d like you to believe me when I tell you that I never set out to hurt you in any way. I know I could have handled things better, but....” His lips twisted ruefully. “I wasn’t thinking logically. Megan has suspicions that I was blinded by hormones.”
Jonah
smiled tiredly. “Yeah, I suppose that’s one of the drawbacks of the intersex thing, right? Man, puberty must have been rough for you. Double whammy.” He frowned when Kyle’s hand dropped away and the other man looked guilty suddenly. “What? I say something wrong?”
Frowning down at the floor,
Kyle took a deep breath and then said softly, “In the interests of full disclosure I should tell you that I’m not actually, by the strictest definition, intersex.” He flinched when Jonah jerked upright and stared at him in surprise, but stayed where he was and held his ground. “I’m wired a little differently inside, granted, but I was born only with male genitalia. Inside I have both female and male reproductive capabilities.”
“But...”
Jonah frowned in confusion. “On Shea’s birth certificate it says that you’re intersex.”
“Yes,” Looking a little more confident when
Jonah looked like he was holding good on his promise to not lash out or lose his temper, Kyle nodded. “That’s standard for someone like me. There’s only so many boxes to check to explain away certain things so for male pregnancies they still use the intersex option on official documents to make life easier. Internally, I have everything necessary to conceive and carry a baby, but Shea was born by C-section as when he came to term I had no way of naturally delivering him. Roughly two percent of the male identifying worldwide intersex population is like me.” He shrugged. “We’ve been trying to get it changed for years now and have all sexes and possible carriers of children recognised correctly, but it’s a slow change to come.” He looked warily at Jonah, evidently still searching for any signs of a negative reaction. “That’s why I questioned if you had accessed my medical records because obviously you would have known immediately then, but then when you said that you had just seen Shea’s birth certificate it became obvious you’d made an assumption so I didn’t correct you.” He looked downwards again, ashamed. “It was just another lie. One more wouldn’t matter, right?”
“Oh thank God,” said
Jonah and fell back against the couch again, ignoring Kyle’s startled look at him. “That’s been bugging me since I found out that we...knew each other.” He grinned sheepishly at Kyle’s puzzled frown and said, “These dreams of mine are pretty explicit, you know? X rated all the way.” He felt something warm near the region of his heart when Kyle blushed bright scarlet and dropped his eyes again, continuing mischievously, "And I figured if I got the mark on your back right then I must be remembering everything else right too, only no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t remember you having anything down there that you shouldn’t and in my dreams I was pretty handsy with you.”
Kyle
cleared his throat when Jonah paused expectantly and said in a slightly higher pitch than normal, “Yes. We were very...enthusiastic.”
“I figured.”
Jonah shot him a lopsided smile and then said slowly, “The only thing I can’t figure out is why we didn’t use protection. I’m, uh, usually pretty careful about that.”
Kyle
thought again of Jonah guiding his hand back to touch his cock, sheathed in a condom, and reassuring him silently that they were being safe and replied, “We did. We went to the bathroom before we...well, before, and got what we needed from the machines. It must have spilt or been faulty already.” He looked up with an utterly mortified expression and said, “I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair on you, but I’m finding it very strange to be the only one who remembers what really happened and it’s making me very uncomfortable talking about it. I understand you want to have the DNA test run to prove what I’m saying but do we really need to dissect what happened down to every last sordid detail? I don’t generally behave like that and talking about it with you is...I don’t like it.”
Jonah
, rather guiltily cheered that Kyle wasn’t in the habit of picking up strangers for sex considering it had been one of his own favourite pastimes, nodded. “Sure.” An awkward silence fell before Jonah leaned forward and braced his arms on his spread thighs, intently studying his hands dangling down. “So, uh, what happens now? With the kid.”
Kyle
scowled. “Well for starters you can stop calling him ‘the kid’.” He deflated slightly when Jonah grimaced apologetically and said softly, “Whatever you want, I suppose. In the eyes of the law you have equal rights to him and, given that I deliberately hid him from you, the courts will look favourably on any request you make.” His face working like he was fighting back tears, Kyle whispered, “We’re completely at your mercy. I’ll do whatever you want if you just promise not to take him away from me.”
For a moment
Jonah was struck dumb with the irony of the situation. Back when he had first started dreaming of Kyle and imagining ways to get him into his arms and bed he had idly created a big, bad ex that was harassing and bullying the other man. Jonah could have swooped in to save him from the dastardly ex and then enjoyed some very heartfelt – and down and dirty – rewards. Who knew that the big, bad ex would turn out to be him and that, as far as Kyle was concerned, Jonah was the one he needed saving from?
Awkward
.
“I don’t want to take him off you.”
Jonah reached out and wrapped a hand around Kyle’s wrist, ignoring the flinch at the contact. “I was serious when I said that. That’s something you never have to worry about, okay?” He waited until Kyle gave a jerky nod and continued, “But I gotta ask – were you ever gonna tell me about him? Were you going to keep him hidden forever?”
Kyle
opened his mouth to give an automatic denial and then paused before saying honestly, “At the beginning, when I first saw you again, yes. I never had any intention of telling you. I was out of my mind with panic and just wanted you to go away.” He looked up and met Jonah’s eyes then. “But then you came back and you
kept
coming back and you were....you were so nice. I can’t expect you to believe me, but I’d made the decision to tell you and ask you to be a part of Shea’s life. I really wanted that for him.”
It wasn’t until he heard the words from
Kyle’s own mouth that Jonah realised how much he’d needed to hear them. Sure, he’d heard them from Lopez when she told him of her conversation with Megan but he hadn’t actually believed until Kyle spoke them himself. He swallowed to try and clear his suddenly constricted throat. “Thanks.” He gave a twisted smile when Kyle blinked and said gruffly, “That means a lot.” His eye caught on the vial with the cotton bud still on the coffee table and he let go of Kyle to stand and pick it up. He weighed it in his hand for a moment and then walked into the kitchen and tossed it into the trash. “We don’t need that.”
Looking confused,
Kyle said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You want to be sure, don’t you? I don’t want you to regret not having the tests down further down the line and, besides, the court will probably want proof for their records when we attend to settle access arrangements.” He stopped short and asked hesitantly, “Unless you’re saying that you don’t want access or to be involved?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
Jonah crossed back over to the couch and dropped down. “I figure I don’t need proof because, well, unless you were damn sure of yourself then you wouldn’t have gotten so freaked out about me these past weeks, right?” Kyle, looking dazed, nodded faintly. “So, yeah, I believe you that the...
Shea
... is mine. Plus, Lopez seems to think that all he needs is a gun and a nipple ring and he could pass for my double.”
Kyle
’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes darted to Jonah’s t-shirted chest. “You have a nipple ring?”
Jonah grinned. “You don’t remember?” He held up his hands with a laugh when Kyle scowled and blushed furiously and said, “Sorry, couldn’t resist.” He placed his hand back on Kyle’s wrist and squeezed again, gently. “Look, unless you really want to go the legal route, then I’m happy if you just let me get to know him, okay? I’d like to be involved and do shit with him like go to the park and take him out for ice cream and for him to know who I am.” He smiled as reassuringly as he knew how at Kyle’s disbelieving expression and continued, “When he goes to school I want to come meet his teachers and do, like, the conference day stuff. Just be there. That’s all I want.”
“Oh.”
Kyle blinked at him and then sagged like all the air had been punched out of him. “Oh. That’s....” He gave Jonah a watery smile and said thickly, “That’s so much more than I hoped for. Thank you. Thank you so much.” He tugged his arm free and wrapped both his hands around one of Jonah’s. “I promise, you can see him whenever you want. I’ll tell you everything that’s going on with him and you can see him whenever you want.”
“Okay.”
Jonah reached with his free hand and patted awkwardly at Kyle’s shoulder, uncomfortable with the emotion the other man was barely holding in check. “So we’re good? We can work this out?”
“Yes.”
Kyle nodded, still shaky and teary eyed with relief. “Yes, whatever you want.” He smiled tremulously and said, “I should get back. Louise and Megan will be wondering where I am.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Jonah felt a pang of something like disappointment when Kyle released his hand and stood to gather his bag. “So, uh, your girl’s not going to want to cut off my balls the next time she sees me now, is she? I’m thinking that could be a little weird for Shea if he has to watch that.”
Kyle
laughed and swung his bag over his shoulder. “No, she’ll be fine. She means well, she was trying to look out for us.” He started to walk to the door. “I’m more worried about poor Louise. She was afflicted with the most awful stutter when she was growing up and the shock of seeing you the other day and realising what was going on made it kick back in with a vengeance.” He pulled a face. “She’s an excellent nanny but good under pressure she is not.” He stood by the door when Jonah pulled it open for him and asked hesitantly, “Are you busy on Saturday? Would you like to come over in the afternoon and meet Shea properly? It might be better for him if we introduced you in an environment where he felt secure and happy.”
A bolt of sheer terror shot down
Jonah’s spine – holy fuck, this was really happening. He was going to be someone’s daddy. “Yeah, sure.” He tried to smile. “That’d be good.”
“Okay,”
Kyle nodded, oblivious to the sudden attack of cold feet his new co-parent was suffering. “About two? He’ll have had lunch by then and hopefully had a nap so he should be at his best. Oh!” He flipped open his bag and began to rummage in the contents before pulling out a padded envelope and thrusting it at Jonah. “I nearly forgot – I brought you these.”
Jonah
took the envelope with a puzzled frown and looked inside to see a collection of USB sticks. “Thanks?”
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