I think they were talking in code, and I think Sera was trying to push an issue. Yes, being that close in the shower, I had wanted something more. I hadn’t seen Michael naked since Roman times. Even then, we hadn’t been that close. It had been across a field.
But I didn’t want Sera pushing the issue. Michael had a temper. He tended to snap at people when pushed to do something he didn’t like. I didn’t want her forcing him and him snapping on either of us. She just didn’t know him enough to know what she might be doing.
I glanced at Michael and tried to convey to him that I didn’t expect that because I didn’t. I knew where he and I stood. Sera getting involved didn’t change that, and I knew that on the surface she wouldn’t push, but right then, I felt like she was trying to mash us together and make us kiss.
I finished drying and reached for my shirt as Michael pulled Sera out of the bathroom. When I saw the blood, I stopped. I stared at it, then looked around the bathroom. I had nothing else I could wear as a top, but I couldn’t bring myself to put the shirt on. I dropped it to the floor in disgust. Even the pants weren’t great. I couldn’t see the blood because they were made of a dark fabric, but I could feel it in the threads. With a grimace, I pulled them on because I only had one other option, and I wasn’t comfortable strutting about naked in front of Michael.
Somewhat dressed, I moved to the bedroom area. Michael had his pants on and had his shirt in his hands. He brought it to me and held it out.
His shirt.
I took it and looked away as I slid it on. When I glanced up, Michael was looking somewhere about chest level. He met my eyes, then pointedly turned to Sera, as if trying to convey something to me with a look alone.
Right, the healing.
“Sera,” I said.
“Yes?” she asked as she towelled her hair dry.
She was still stark naked. She had the towel, yes, but otherwise, she was naked and making no effort to get her clothing.
“You and your body, and your soul have gone through a lot today,” I said. “As a healer, I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that you need sleep. Don’t try to get up in the morning, just sleep until you feel like getting up. Though, we might wake you for food or something.”
“You said I was just staying the night,” Sera said.
“When you wake, we’ll take you home, absolutely,” Michael said. “But, as a healer made in Heaven, I’d take his advice, if I were you.”
“Right, sleep,” she said. “I suppose neither of you is going to join me?”
“We need to do some things,” I said. “Well, I need to at least. Uh, Michael, he can sleep beside you. But I need to go, so… yeah.”
I moved forward and kissed her on the cheek. It was an awkward sort of thing like I jerked forward and smacked her cheek with my lips instead of giving her a proper goodnight kiss.
Then I took my leave, closing the door quietly behind me. I moved away, feeling my stomach trying to heave. Feeling terrible, I ducked into the next closest guest room and went immediately to the bathroom, vomiting into the toilet.
Thank goodness I made it that far.
I dry heaved into the toilet, unable to stop the motions that my body was trying to go through.
A hot hand settled on my back. A body knelt beside me. I struggled against every instinct there was in my fleshy form to continue dry heaving. There was prickling at the back of my eyes that I couldn’t seem to stop, not while also fighting the urge to heave again.
Tears were falling as Michael pulled me into his arms.
“Don’t,” I sobbed, pushing at him.
I felt terrible, and I didn’t want his pity. When I pushed him, he held me tighter. His hot flesh seemed to burn me, and I whined, slipping down instead, to the cold tile of the floor. Michael at least gave me that, allowed me to sink to the floor.
Because of the cold tile, it seemed like the most comfortable place to sleep. I let my body relax and felt the little motions in my gut stop.
“You looked better when you were recovering from your heroin addiction,” he said.
“Shut up,” I groaned, dragging my legs up and curling on my side, into the recovery position.
It didn’t make me feel better, but at least if I ended up throwing up, I wouldn’t end up breathing my own vomit and wake up drowning in bile. I’d survive such an action, but it’d suck to be me for a few days.
I groaned, then ended up crying from the agony that lit up my nerves.
Michael stood and went to the sink. I heard the water running and prayed he wasn’t filling a bucket to dump it on me. The water shut off and he was quiet a moment before he returned to my side.
He had wetted a cloth, setting the cold cloth on the side of my head and over my forehead. He sat there as I wept in agony. When the tears would come no more, I forced myself to breathe, opened my eyes and glared at him accusingly.
“I don’t want your pity,” I mumbled.
“It’s not about pity,” Michael said. “You pushed yourself too far to save her. I knew it’d catch up to you. I’m just grateful it didn’t happen in the shower, and you didn’t end up doing something you might consider embarrassing in front of her.”
“Thank you for helping,” I groaned.
“You’re welcome,” he said, moving around me and laying down along my back.
His heat began oozing in just as my temperature seemed to crash. Suddenly I was cold and shivering, and he wrapped an arm around me, tugging me close.
“Stop,” I said.
“No,” he growled in response. “No matter how much we fight, we don’t leave one another when we’re hurting. If you're cranky, then I will leave once it stops.”
His hand stroked my side, avoiding the area around my liver, which hurt the most. Like my physical body was filtering out toxins after using so much grace.
Sam had said using grace was like using a muscle. I had had my grace all along but hadn’t used it in quite some time. Like an atrophied muscle, the grace wouldn’t react like it used to. I had to work it over and keep working at it to strengthen it again. That was why I was suffering.
I hadn’t even used those powers since…
Damn, I don’t know when.
“I didn’t realize you paid attention,” I said.
Everything was coming back to me. But I knew that I couldn’t do certain things, and we had, for the most part, avoided those things. If I had lifted Sera in the field, or in the shower, I would have been out for days on end.
“I do,” he said. “Has the world stopped spinning yet?”
“Sort of,” I groaned. “I think you’re right. Heroine might have been longer, but it was easier.”
“Good,” he said, sitting up. “Come out to the bedroom after you puke again.”
He left, and I grumbled, turning my face toward the floor. His heat disappearing left a cold that turned to a sudden feverish heat. I pressed my hand against the tile, trying to keep perfectly still, to soak in as much of the chill as possible.
I stubbornly told myself that I was the master of my flesh.
“Not going to—oh shit.”
I barely made it to the toilet the second time. I was always surprised how my stomach had something to throw up despite the fact that I hadn’t eaten all day. Like it just refilled itself in case I forgot to eat again.
When I stopped, I closed the lid of the toilet and flushed it. I stumbled to the sink and grabbed the spare toothbrush and paste. We provided them to every bathroom in case of unexpected overnight guests. Right then, I was elated that we had those items in every bathroom.
I cleaned my mouth and tongue thoroughly, then rinsed it and tried not to heave as I spat the water out.
Hand over my mouth, my stomach heaving again, I left the bathroom. I may have done it out of stubbornness more than anything else. I did not want to be sick again, and I also didn’t want to spend any more time in the bathroom.
Michael was sitting on the bed. He looked up at me, then patted the bed beside him. I moved at the motion, dropping heavily onto the bed as he seemed to stare at the bathroom door. We both just sat there for too long.
“Look, Michael,” I said.
We turned to one another, and I hesitated. I wanted to say that I didn’t care, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have brushed my teeth. Whether my mouth tasted like mint or vomit, I’d feel like trash and want to puke. I had brushed my teeth for Michael, not for me.
“I don’t expect anything from you,” I added finally.
“I know that,” he said.
“Whatever Sera says, or suggests, I know where we stand. I know we aren’t going to become something or do something. I’m fine with that.”
He reached out and grabbed the back of my head. I stiffened but was caught. Not by him, just inside my head, wondering what he was doing.
If he was finally going to beat the fag out of me, like so many men had threatened to do before.
I had left them dying in ditches, but they had been human. I couldn’t exactly do that to Michael, especially right then when I felt more mortal than I did angelic.
He was a warrior. I could survive an encounter with him, but I couldn’t end him as I had others before.
He dragged me close.
And he kissed me.
I broke off the kiss and pulled away.
“Stop, stop that,” I said. “I told you I don’t expect it. I don’t want to cause a homophobic rage.”
“For starters, you’re not homosexual,” he said. “And I’m not homophobic. I will march in a pride parade if it makes you feel better. Hell, I will coat myself in glitter and march in a pride parade in a speedo. As long as no children are watching.”
“What?”
“Children, Raphael. I don’t give a hot damn what a man’s sexuality is, a speedo is like exposing oneself. A child should not have to see tiny man dick barely contained by fabric and asses everywhere. Or dildos attached to foreheads as if they were unicorn horns.”
“I never did that.”
“No, but I’ve seen you in the parades alongside those people, and children were watching. I’m not homophobic. I don’t hate gay men. I hate the men who expose themselves to children. People have a problem with women breastfeeding in public because it’s boobs, but the dick in speedo covered in glitter—which is a child’s craft product—is somehow okay? I don’t care if they only like males, that just makes it worse because the boys have been taught that if they’re sexually assaulted they have to keep it quiet because boys can’t be sexually assaulted.”
“What?” I demanded. “That’s why you threw a fit at a pride parade?”
“You want to march, fine. You want to cover yourself in glitter and march, fine. But you’ve seen me do the same for billboards of women not wearing clothing.”
I thought about it for a moment, then shrugged a little. He had a point, yes, but he had ended up hitting a bystander at the parade who tried to come to the defence of one of those glitter covered ‘unicorns’ that he had been shouting at.
“You know, Grace said Sam was an asshole sometimes, I think I’m starting to see it,” I said.
“I don’t care, it’s true,” Michael said. “I’m all right with the boobs for feeding. But vagina and penis should remain out of sight unless you’re going to educate them properly. Don’t just yank it out and tell them it’s a fun time.”
“Right, but you’re getting off topic,” I said.
“I’m not homophobic. I have no problem with the gays. I was fine when you were banging Da Vinci, wasn’t I?”
“I didn’t bang him, we just talked a lot,” I said.
“You didn’t… why the hell not?” Michael asked. “He was a bisexual.”
“Just because he’s bisexual doesn’t mean I’m going to fall into bed with him,” I said.
“Oh, right,” Michael said. “Right, that’s a bad thing to assume, for me to assume. It’s a bad thing. I’m sorry. But you seemed awfully into him, and you spent so much time together, so I made an assumption.”
“That’s a stupid assumption.”
“It’s not. You love all genders.”
“I do,” I said. “I miss being… that. Gender just confuses things, and now everyone wants me to label myself. What do I want to be? And not only that, whatever I become, you become. That’s a stupid thing.”
“Then tell Sam that,” Michael said. “If that’s why you won’t make the decision, tell him that’s why. He can still turn me into a woman, even if you end up as an intersex.”
“A what—how do you even know that word?”
“Raphael, what do you want?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” I said.
“It does, and I’m asking you, what do you want?”
“I want to be all that,” I said, motioning away from us. “I want us to go home. I want this to be over. I’m tired of this human existence and this penis.”
“Do you like Sera?”
“Of course I like Sera. But what’s in my pants doesn’t. I mean, I don’t think it changes what she thinks of me. I suppose I should ask.”
“I don’t think it matters either,” Michael said. “Though, two women, one man does sound fun.”
“For the man, if Sam changes you into a woman, then I’d supposedly be the one enjoying it all, and I don’t really. I mean, I don’t. I’m not… I’m not expecting you to do anything to me or around me. Don’t do it for her, if she doesn’t get that it’s a line, then so be it. Just because Sam found love doesn’t mean that we’re meant to.”
“I didn’t kiss you because she told me to.”
“You did, I saw you two doing your code thing,” I said.
“That wasn’t code for that,” Michael said. “She wasn’t telling me to… to cross my boundaries.”
“Then what was she saying?” I asked.
“She was saying that I was overthinking what I wanted and that I should stop and just do it.”
“Do what?” I asked.
Michael bent and kissed me again. His fingers trailed up the side of my face, slipping into my hair as the kiss deepened. He pushed me back, climbing on top of me. When the kiss broke off, he moved immediately to my neck, kissing as his hand reached between us.
I let out a little sound as his hand slipped into my pants.
“Stop,” I said.
“Why should I?” he asked.
“Because I don’t want you like this.”
Michael stiffened. His head lifted slowly, and he stared at me, a frown creasing his brow.
“What do you mean, like this?” he asked. “Like this as in human, or like this as in sex, or like this as in male and male, or like this in the guest bedroom of an estate we all own together?”
I struggled for a moment. My mind just seemed to go blank. The only thing I understood was that he did have to ask it like that, separating all the possibilities because it probably was just the one of them that was bothering me.
I didn’t think it was the male and male. Father knew I had fantasized about that often enough. I had dreamt of him coming back from a hard-won battle and throwing me down like I was some prize to claim.
I’m a dirty, dirty, man.
But I couldn’t figure out why I was saying no right then.
“I don’t know which one of those it is,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, removing his hand. “It’s been a very long time since I was with a man, so I’d probably suck at it anyhow.”
“I don’t, I mean, I just don’t know,” I said.
Michael shifted to the side, pressing against me. He wrapped his arm around my stomach and settled his head somewhere near my shoulder.
“As long as we’re not fighting anymore, I’m okay with that,” Michael said. “We can figure it out together, what you want to do to me and with me. Just for a moment, though, if you were a woman…?”
I shuddered, shifting as his hand around me tightened. Michael made a little, happy sound. He lifted himself up and looked me over.
I swear it’s not because of my gender.
Unless I was just so uncomfortable as a male that everything was turning in on itself. The only way I knew of to describe it was to say that it was like wearing someone else’s clothing. Except it was my flesh. Even while naked, I felt like I was wearing someone else. It was chafing, my flesh, it was chafing at my being and making me hate every moment that I had to live with it.
“And if we were in Heaven?” Michael asked.
“I don’t know how that goes,” I said.
“Right,” he said.
He reached and entwined his fingers with my hand. He lifted the hand and kissed the back of my hand.
“Sex in Heaven is a bit like our hands,” he said. “Entwined and wrapped together and so hot. But it’s harder to tell where one ends and the other begins. It’s like all the little bits blend and we just exist as a ball of bliss. No one has a penis. No one has a vagina, no one has anything that dominates or fucks the other. It’s just all an intertwining mess.”
“Sounds fun,” I said.
“So,” he said as he sat up. “We need to get you back to Heaven so we can do that and see if you like it.”
“There’s never been an asexual angel, so I must like it,” I said.
“You’ve watched others do it,” Michael said.
“I know, and I felt their joy, but I didn’t understand it all,” I said.
“You sat at Father’s feet. You looked up into His eyes and listened to Him talk about the humans. You and a handful of angels were permitted to be there. I’m pretty certain you know the bliss of sexual joy.”
“That’s not the same,” I said. “I was also there, for example, when Da Vinci made a new toy, it was like sitting there with Father. That’s why I spent so much time with him. But I’ve heard creators say things like that since the beginning of time.”
“Why can’t the act of creating something be like unto sexual congress in Heaven?” Michael asked.
“You never created anything?” I asked.
“No, some angels asked me for help with the guidance of badgers once, I turned them down,” he said. “I’ve never created anything. But then, about ninety percent of the Heavenly Host would say the same. You’re the first and only that I know of who didn’t have sex.”
“Yup, the weirdo of the bunch.”
“No, you didn’t exactly have the time,” he countered. “None of us judged you for it. Everyone else has had thousands of years. Meanwhile, you’re down here stuck with just us, and we can’t do anything for fear of what might happen. The astral plane is not like Heaven.”
“Yeah, Samael offered once, just to get it done with,” I said. “Then I told Heaven, and they told me no. We’d explode or something.”
“I know,” he said, looking up and down my form. “Look, you and I are going to get close, what with the sexing up of Sera, we’re going to get close. There’s no changing that. When I brushed by you in the shower, you got weird.”
“Your dick touched me!”
“Yeah, and you had Toby’s inside of you,” he countered.
“Toby’s just a low-level nobody,” I said. “He’s practically human. I know and respect you. We see each other on a daily basis, and your dick touched me.”
“I think it’s the sex,” he said.
“I think it’s the two men, and the expectation you have if you’re with a man,” I countered. “Just because I did gay pornography, doesn’t mean that I’ll just bend over and grab my ankles for you.”
“That’s a very good point,” he said.
He was quiet for a while. I watched him seem to struggle with himself. Michael sighed and looked around the room.
“What if I bent over and grabbed my ankles?”
“Doesn’t change my reaction,” I said. “Which is weird. I thought that’s what I wanted, but now it’s all about saying no.”
“Maybe you’re over thinking things,” he said. “Or, alternatively. It’s the human factor. Or. Maybe. You want to crawl into my lap and be rocked to sleep like a baby human.”
“Baby humans do not sleep well,” I said. “The movement of their bones resettling and the headaches that ensue as their skulls begin to take proper shape keep them up something terrible.”
“You know what I meant,” he said.
“That we don’t know what I want of you, but that you seem to be willing to go so far as to have sex with me,” I said slowly.
“And I’m all right with waiting until you figure out what exactly it is that you want to do to me or around me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“We’re fighting because of… all kinds,” he said. “But I think it boils down to, back in Heaven, yes, I wanted to jump your bones. We’re also fighting because once here, once male, once in among the humans. We couldn’t touch or do anything. They did away with male friends touching so long ago.”
“No, they didn’t,” I said. “Plenty of countries allow male friends to touch. It’s weirdly just the western world that claims that touch is equal to sex and has resulted in a sex-starved people that probably leads to most of their frustrations.”
“What?” Michael asked.
“I think I’m starved for touch.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s touch you a bunch and then see how it goes.”
“What, why?” I asked.
“In the meantime, you probably change gender, and then I get to sleep with Sera more than you do while you adjust to the female form and maybe by the time you adjust, I get to sleep with two beautiful women instead of one.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said with a little nod. “Fair enough.”
“Sleep, Raphael. She’ll be out for at least a day, right? We can deal with the aftermath of all this tomorrow.”