Michael's Secrets (20 page)

“Why are you saying that?” Steve asked. “I’m not going anywhere. We can work through this. I want you in my life.” He was clearly upset that Michael wanted to retreat.

“Then, why won’t you tell me where you live?” Michael asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Steve said. “I just don’t like having people in my space. Tom didn’t know where I lived until we were together six months.”

Michael let it go. He knew he shouldn’t have, but he did. Steve then started talking dirty to him and said they should stay in contact because he wanted Michael in his life and that he was good for Michael. He did manage to put him in a good mood for the next few days, so maybe he was good for him, Michael thought.

They e-mailed back and forth for the next couple of days, but after hearing Steve tell Michael how he met two guys and played with them on his trip to Arizona, he knew he needed to extricate himself from the situation. He was jealous and wondered if Steve had any regard for his feelings or was he trying to get Michael to fall out of love with him by telling him about his trysts? Steve clearly had no regard for anyone but himself. He kept stringing Michael along, and he let him.

That Thursday, when Steve returned from Arizona, Michael sent him the first of a series of emotional e-mails.

The first one read:

“Dear Steve,

“Although you said we could work through this together, I don’t think this will work. I need to go into personal retreat and work through my feelings.

“The good news is that although I fall in love very hard, I can fall out rather quickly as long as I sever all contact.

“Please understand this is not about you. I don’t know if you have ever been in love with someone who is not in love with you, but it is difficult for me now. Very difficult.

“Please understand.

“I will contact you in a few months to see how you’re doing.

“Love,

“Michael.”

Michael knew it was total bullshit. He had never been in love like this before in his life. He was not going to get over Steve in a few months. This would take a long time, and Michael was not sure he would ever fall out of love with him. The only truth was that he needed to have no contact with him.

The next morning, Michael came home from the gym, turned on the computer and saw that Steve had sent an e-mail overnight in response that said, “Michael, you are being so dramatic. Only you can snap out of this. Don’t shut me out.”

“Dramatic? I’m not dramatic. Look who’s being dramatic. OK, I am dramatic, but that’s not the response I want,” Michael said out loud. “I want ‘Michael, don’t do this, I need you, I want you, I love you.’ Now, that’s being dramatic? Believe me, I know drama!”

Within a minute of reading it, his cell phone rang. “Oh no,” Michael said. He looked at the caller ID, and sure enough, it was “on-my-way-to-work-morning-boy.”

“Hey, I was just in the twenty-four-hour grocery store, and I saw Matzah on sale and thought of my Jewish friend Michael. How are you?” Steve said, cheerily.

“Are you outside my door?” Michael asked, praying Steve was not, but looking through the peep hole to be sure.

“Would you like me to be?” he asked with a chuckle.

The emotional part of Michael did, but for once, the intellectual part took over. “No, that’s the last thing I need. Please, Steve, let me be alone for awhile.”

“Are you mad at me?” Steve asked.

“No, I could never be mad at you,” Michael said, knowing full well that he had and could and probably would be mad at Steve again, unless he left him alone.

“OK, mister, you take care of yourself, I’ll talk to you later,” Steve said and hung up.

“Did he not hear a word I said?” Michael said out loud as he put the phone down. “I said leave me alone. I need my space. Why can’t I have my space? Why does this guy have such a hold on me? Why does he insist on staying in touch?” Michael then realized he was talking to himself quite a bit lately when he should be talking to a professional.

He decided to send Steve another emotional e-mail. As a writer, one would think Michael knew better than to keep writing long e-mails. He should have just stopped and not responded to him. But no, Michael had to fix things.

“Dear Steve,

“I am not being dramatic. As I see it, I have three choices:

“1. I go on personal retreat and try to get over you, so we can be friends.

“2. I stalk you until you get a restraining order.

“3. I stay in contact in the vain hope you fall madly in love with me. I never eat or sleep and waste away to nothing.

“I am going for option one, although option three promises a new lean and mean physique! Please, let me do this. I do love you, and I want you in my life for the long run, but if I don’t take some time away, I will start doing some weird things and get angry at you.

“Besides, you promised to tie me to the bed and have your way with me. And, I don’t want love to get in the way of that.

“Love,

“Michael.”

Michael sent it and remembered it was Friday morning, and he had scheduled an appointment with a doctor Sharon recommended, as he wanted to see if he could get a prescription to help him sleep and figured he would get a physical while he was at it.

Michael would not see his e-mails all afternoon, which meant for once, he would not be sitting and waiting for a response from Steve. He had fasted all day, which was easy since he was not eating much of anything by this time anyway. Michael had entered into a state of depression like none other he had ever experienced, and he wondered if he should have told Steve he was in love with him. He came to the conclusion that was the biggest mistake he made. He should have just disappeared, not contacted Steve, and let this weird relationship fade away. As he walked to the doctor’s office, Michael pondered ways he could fix this.
Should I tell Steve I’m really not in love with him? Should I apologize for his weird behavior? Should I buy a Hallmark card? Do they make a Hallmark card for when someone falls in love with a fuck-buddy?

Michael arrived at the doctor’s office ten minutes early, and while he waited, he was still thinking about him. Steve occupied most of his thoughts every day by now, and if it weren’t for his work, he would have become
totally
obsessed with the situation.

The nurse called Michael and proceeded to take his blood pressure, temperature and weight. Michael had lost thirty pounds in four weeks. Until that moment, he had not realized how little he was eating. The doctor came in for the examination and asked Michael to strip. He was cute, in a nerdy-Jewish sort of way, totally Michael’s type with black, curly hair, dark eyes and features, and a large Semitic nose, so Michael stripped rather quickly, thankful for the diversion. After the usual check for hernias and reflexes, the doctor asked Michael to bend over the table for what he referred to as the “Goldfinger exam,” and Michael said, “Do you promise to buy me dinner?” The doctor laughed, and Michael was glad he still had his sense of humor, but the doctor was not as gentle as Michael would have preferred. He had a friend who once told him to worry if the proctologist had both hands on his shoulders during an exam. Of course, with Michael’s luck, this would never happen. And, this cute doctor was all business.

The doctor then asked Michael to stand in front of him while he sat on a stool, and he performed the “turn and cough” routine. However, he spent an inordinate amount of time on Michael’s testicles. Although he was cute, Michael was getting a little nervous, since he was rolling them around and looking concerned. When he was done, the doctor told Michael to get dressed and meet him in his office. He dressed and sat at the chair across from his desk, wondering what bad news he would deliver.

“Mr. Bern, I’m going to give you a referral for an ultrasound. I found a lump on your left testicle. It may be nothing, considering you are over forty, but I want it checked out anyway,” the doctor said as if he were telling Michael the walls were painted blue, while reminding him that he was over forty.

“A lump? What kind of lump?” Michael asked with no emotion. Michael never was a hypochondriac, and since he always took care of himself, on the rare occasion that he was sick, he never panicked either. Anyone else would have been upset, but Michael just thought they would see what it was, remove it and that would be that. Michael was also too depressed at this point to get upset about much of anything.

“It could be a vericocele or a spermatocele. Nothing major, mostly benign and not needing surgery. Have you experienced any pain?” the doctor continued asking calmly.

“Only when they are tugged on too hard,” Michael said with a chuckle, trying to infuse some humor into the situation. The doctor smiled.

“I’m also going to order some extra blood tests as you indicated you have lost a great deal of weight in the past month,” the doctor said, and Michael did not disclose that he was depressed and simply not eating. “Here’s a referral. You can schedule the appointment at your convenience. When you’ve scheduled it, call here and see us about three days after, so we can talk about the results.”

He renewed Michael’s prescription for allergy and asthma medication and gave him one for a mild sleeping aid, and Michael went to the pharmacy on the ground floor of the medical building at 1145 Connecticut Avenue. Michael handed the prescriptions to the pharmacist and went into the lobby to call the radiology center to make an appointment. Michael didn’t know why he filled the prescriptions. He was so afraid of getting addicted to something that he would not take a pill unless he was in a dire condition. Michael had so many bottles of prescriptions that had never been opened, just in case he needed them some day, yet he would continue to go to a doctor for medication he would never take. His Aunt Flossie had a problem with prescription drugs that landed her in rehab, and Michael remembered what she went through. His father and both Bart Shimmer and his mother’s third husband Karl Stein were alcoholics, so he did not want to end up like them either, which was why he rarely drank.
Yes, there are Jewish alcoholics, and Hannah managed to marry three of them.

Michael called the radiology center from the lobby, which had a bad echo. Every time the radiology center transferred him, Michael had to say, “Left testicle.” He must have said, “Left testicle,” at least seven times before he was able to get an appointment for the following Friday. People kept looking at Michael when he said, “Left testicle,” so to spice things up, he said, “Right breast,” once to one of the receptionists, which made a little old lady sitting near him do a double take.

Michael wasn’t scared. He was only upset because his left testicle was the one that hung higher, which meant without it, his right testicle would look like a pendulum, and he made a mental note to ask if they made prosthetic nuts.

He then went around the corner to the lab to have blood drawn and give a urine sample. They had no problem finding a vein as his weight loss was making them pop, and the only advantage to his newfound thinness was that he was becoming more defined. Michael arrived home around four, tired and actually hungry and thirsty, too. He made himself a protein shake and turned on his computer. And, he had an e-mail from Steve, which said, “Michael, please don’t shut me out. Know that someone cares about you – me.”

Against his better judgment, Michael e-mailed him that maybe this wasn’t the right time to step back as they just found a lump on his left testicle, going for the sympathy vote.

Michael then called him, and Steve actually answered the phone.

“Hi, big guy,” Steve answered.

“Hi, Steve. Did you see my e-mail? They found a lump on my left testicle,” Michael said to be sure he knew.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” he said in response.

Michael knew that was not a Jewish response. A Jewish response would have been first to whisper, “Is it cancer?” then to go into mourning and buy a burial plot after consulting with seven other doctors.
Don’t be dramatic? How could he say don’t be dramatic?
But did Michael argue? No.

“What are you up to?” Michael asked not pushing the issue.

“Oh, I’m making dinner for a guy I met online. I haven’t tried anything like this before, and I want to see how it turns out, you know making dinner on a first date,” Steve told him.

Michael’s heart sank even further. He had invited someone he just met online over to his home. Any more news such as this, and Michael would be walking on his heart.

“Oh, and I’ve never seen your place,” Michael said, sarcastically. “So, you want to come over and feel my lump?”

“No, it will make me deal with my own mortality,” Steve said.

How did he manage to make my lump his issue? It is all about him
, Michael thought.

“Listen, there is a knock on my door, so I have to go,” Steve said.

“Go, go. Have a good time,” Michael said, hoping the guy would give him crabs, and whatever Steve cooked would give them diarrhea.

Michael could not describe how low he felt at that point. “Why was I not asked over for dinner? Why did he never want to date me? I should be knocking on that door. Where the hell
is
that door?” Michael said to himself.

Michael sat on the futon, thinking about all that had happened in D.C., when his cell phone rang. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, and he first thought it was Steve calling back. Michael looked at the caller ID and smiled when he saw who it was.

“Hi Sam,” Michael said, sounding down.

“Michael, what’s wrong? You sound depressed.”

“Oh, I don’t want to burden you with my problems,” Michael said, sounding ever so dramatic.

“Oh, come on, Michael, burden me,” Sam said.

He thought about what he should and should not tell Sam. He liked Sam, and he didn’t want him to think he was friends with a real nut job who got involved with other nut jobs over and over again.

“Well, I had my annual physical today,” Michael said, avoiding the subject of Steve.

“Are you OK?” Sam asked with genuine concern in his voice.

“Well, I’ve lost thirty pounds in four weeks,” Michael said.