Chapter 2: Everything Is Fuzzy

“Your memory of recent events seems to be a little fuzzy,” the doctor explained to him while tapping against his desk with a slim golden pen.

Carter leaned against the wooden desk, his eyes wide and trained on the man in white. The guy looked like he was in his late 50s, so he had probably seen plenty of strange things in his medical practice.

“Actually, I have trouble remembering other things, too,” he whispered.

The doctor leaned closer, turning his head to one side like he was trying to catch Carter’s words with his good ear. Maybe the guy was partially deaf. What did he know?

“Why are you whispering?” the doctor asked, but he was whispering, too.

“Why are you whispering?” Carter shot back, but still sotto voce.

“Because you are. We are focused here on a holistic patient experience. We want you to feel good and cared for. And understood,” the doctor explained, still continuing to whisper.

“Oh,” Carter leaned back in his chair.

Yeah, right. If he were to talk about the fact that he was not in his own body, but someone else’s, the nice doctor would just send him to the loony bin in a heartbeat. And that was the first stage of his plan: stay out of the loony bin. What he wanted to say was more related to survival.

“No, the point is that I don’t remember much about my life, in general. It’s like I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin,” he linked his fingers together and slashed gently through the air like he wanted to compartmentalize and understand the whole situation.

The doctor nodded thoughtfully.

“You went through quite a scare. A certain sensation of discomfort is normal.”

He needed to be clear, or else he was going to fend off a lot of unwanted questions. Especially from Aron. He disentangled his fingers and pressed his palms against the doctor’s desk.

“Doctor, I think I’m amnesic,” he said in a heartbeat.

“What makes you say that?” the doctor spoke in a paternal voice like he was chiding a kid saying that he could not understand basic math.

“Well, the fact that I don’t remember stuff,” Carter shrugged.

Wasn’t it obvious enough? Or was the doctor just pulling his leg?

“Do you remember being married to Aron?” the doctor questioned.

The guy just had to go straight to that. Straight, huh? There was nothing straight about being married to his best friend. Ex best friend. Current husband. Life was suddenly terribly complicated.

“Yeah,” he drawled out the word like he was not really convinced.

“Well, you did recognize him when he visited you,” the doctor stared at him, now puzzled.

“I do know he is my husband, but I don’t recall anything else. I mean, I don’t know where I live. Or how I like my coffee.”

The doctor began tapping the golden pen against the desk again.

“We could still keep you here, but you are perfectly physically fine, Alex,” the man spoke gently. “You should see a therapist if you do not begin remembering details about your life within the next month or so. But frankly, I believe that getting back to your life would help you remember everything. Surrounded by the things you are familiar with, you will slowly regain your confidence. I know you love your work, and I know that everyone will be at your beck and call. You will surely find your way back to how things were in no time.”

The man was watching him warily, although his words were kind. He thinks I’m a diva, and he feels the need to placate me, Carter thought. Well, he was not one to torture people, although he felt he was pretty much in deep shit, so he decided to put the poor doctor’s worries to rest. He was not just going to dally. Ready or not, he had to face the music and go home. Aron’s home. Alex’s home. The home the guys got after they had gotten married. So some house he didn’t know at all. Damn, that was terrifying.

For the last two days, he had managed to avoid Aron, by feigning to be asleep when the man had come around. Now that his husband was out of harm’s way, Aron could return back to work and stop losing time with visits to the hospital.

Yet, right now, there was no other possibility but go with the flow. Plus, if he was considered sane and perfectly capable to go back to what the others considered his normal life, he was going to be allowed to see himself, aka the body that lay in a comma, with probably Alex’s bitchy personality trapped inside.

That, if an exchange had taken place. But Carter did not want to consider other possibilities. It was essential for him to stay close to his body, afraid that some cosmic connection was going to tear if he was going to be too far. The medical team was now pushing him out the door, and while he had brought up that he wanted to see Carter Malis, he was kindly informed to return another day.

And for all that, he needed to be Alex Ruskin, and pretend he liked it. He could do that.

He could not do that. The moment he was out in the street, the lights from what seemed like thousands of cameras blinded him on the spot. It was a good thing that Aron somehow managed to beat the crowds to reach him because he was worse than a deer in the proverbial headlights. Aron’s strong hand engulfing his was warm and reassuring. He quickly followed as Aron took him to the car.

“Wow,” he managed as soon as the vehicle began rolling forward slowly.

“Are you okay?” Aron seemed worried a little, but his eyes remained focused on the road ahead, his hands flexing on the wheel.

For some reason, Carter’s eyes remained glued to those hands. There was something about Aron’s hands he had always liked. It was like you knew you could depend on the guy just by looking at his hands, and nothing else.

“Not really. Those hounds out there,” he grimaced and pulled his jacket closer, “were about to tear me apart. And I’m all bones,” he added, touching his ribcage slowly. “I have no idea what they could see in me.”

Aron flinched when the light turned red just before them and brought the car to a halt with a tinny sound. He seemed a bit in a daze while listening to Carter babbling.

“The doctor said you cannot remember everything. That things are a bit fuzzy for you.”

“That guy really likes the word ‘fuzzy’,” he commented wryly.

Fuzzy in a sentence. Fuzzy logic. Fuzzy memory. That didn’t make him feel exactly warm and fuzzy. He shook his head like a fly had just gotten in his ear, when Aron began speaking.

“Well, I should take you slowly, then,” Aron said, as he watched the lights. “Forgive me if I act a bit surprised. You just sound ... different.”

“Different?”

Of course he sounded different. He wasn’t Alex. But that was not exactly a good topic of conversation, while Aron was behind the wheel, and they were navigating one of the most crowded areas of the city. Well, it wasn’t a good topic of conversation, period.

“I thought you would love the attention, after a few days spent away from your usual glamorous life,” Aron said with a small smile and stole a quick glance to Carter.

To Alex. Aron was looking at him like this only because he thought he was looking at his husband. Damn, he needed to get used to his new body. It just felt like a too tight piece of clothing, if he could try to describe it. Or the world was suddenly too big like he was a kid walking in his father’s shoes. He was obviously drawing unnecessary attention and needed to tread more carefully.

“You know what would help me?” he asked. “You telling me about the kind of guy I am.”

That was a good start. What better way to get to know himself – Alex – than by asking the closest person to the guy?

“The kind of guy you are?” Aron turned slightly towards him with a small smile hanging from one corner of his lips. “You are ... gorgeous.”

Carter could feel his jaw dropping like suddenly drawn by the Earth’s gravity multiplied by ten, completely in no relation whatsoever with the rest of his anatomy. Why was Aron smiling like that? And why was he leaning in? And why was he... ?

“The light changed,” he almost screamed and made himself little in his seat.

Wow, that had been close. Damn, now that was something that he hadn’t thought about it. Of course, he was going to fend off Aron’s attempts to ... oh, fuck, he could not even say it. Actually, he had just said it in his mind, the word starting with an f and ending with a k. Yeah, Aron would expect his husband to put out. That was going to be hard. No, not hard. He was not allowed to think of words like that. Hard was no longer in the dictionary. The word ‘fuck’ either. Only there to be used for cuss phrases, nothing else.

Damn, he was so fucked. Not yet. But soon.

“It’s a pretty nice house,” he spoke, as he entered the large hallway and sneaked a peek in the large living room.

The light, filtered through the windows, fell just right, illuminating a piece of the carpet with its modernist pattern, and filling up the room with warmth. He was looking at a living room, like in one of those design magazines. Until this very moment, he had thought that those pictures were just perfect computer renderings. Apparently, some people lived in such homes for real.

“That nurse, Marge, was right,” Aron said as he pulled out his jacket. “You do have a sense of humor. It’s been a while since you made a joke.”

“How come me saying the house is nice has anything to do with me being funny? Because I’m not,” Carter explained.

“You mentally destroyed that interior decorator until he got everything right, and you were still not satisfied. The poor guy might still be in therapy, as we speak,” Aron said ruefully.

“I did? What a douchebag I must be,” he murmured, looking at the room in front of him with different eyes.

Aron burst into laughter.

“Did you really have to go through some kind of horrible accident to release this inner you?” Aron wondered and came closer. “What else are you hiding?”

You have no idea, Carter thought, with a mental eye roll. Aron put his hands on Carter’s lapel and began pushing down his jacket. The man’s proximity was doing nothing for his nerves. He was way too close, all up in his personal space. Carter could feel his breath quickening. So he took a step back, and then another. And Aron just followed.

“Ah, damn, Alex, stop playing,” Aron complained, but the same bright smile he had in the car was tugging at his lips now. “I missed you too much.”

Aron suddenly grabbed him and pulled him into a kiss. His lips were hard and Carter pushed back. That had the strange effect of a bouncy ball smacking against hard mass. Carter tripped and fell on his back, his legs in the air. Good thing he fell on the couch.

“You little...” Aron chuckled and landed on top of him.

Crushing him. Spreading his legs wide. And hooking up his crotch against Carter’s. He could feel everything. Aron’s rough hands cupping his face. The guy’s lips on his. The guy’s tongue inside his mouth. Damn, that was too much. Ah, and his own eyes rolling inside his head, in sudden sensory overload. Had Aron always been so skillful with his tongue? The slow movement of that thing inside his mouth was making him want to suck on it like it was a lollipop. Funny thing, he wasn’t exactly crazy about sugary things. But Aron’s tongue? That was something that could give him a sweet tooth.

His body’s immediate response was something worthy of a case in biology books. He could feel the traitorous cock that, well, didn’t belong to him, growing hard while pressed by Aron’s heavy body. Of course, it was Alex’s body, and the guy was probably used to be sexually assaulted by this mountain of a man. That was how their marriage worked. Probably. Well, not that he knew that exactly since he had never been married, but it was quite clear right now that Aron was claiming his marital rights on the spot.