Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 10:47:08 EST
From: MystryAuthr@aol.com
Subject: Chapter 7 of The Truth of Yesterday

Welcome to the 7th installment of The Truth of Yesterday. I hope you enjoy
it. The real mystery is just getting started. Write me with comments at
Aterovis@aol.com or visit my website for more information. The website
features a weekly column about gay issues, an advice column (kind of like
Dear Abby - only gayer), a message board, and is the home of the other
books in the Killian Kendall Mystery Series.

http://www.steliko.com/bleedinghearts


Chapter 7

	"We need to talk," Micah said softly.

	"You think?" I snapped.

	"Killian, it's not like it seems."

	"Oh, my mistake. Then you weren't lying to me about the fact that
you used to be an escort?"

	"For God's sake!" he hissed between clenched teeth as he looked
around. So far, no one was really paying attention to us, but a few heads
were beginning to turn as my voice climbed in volume. "I never once lied to
you. I told you there was stuff in my past I wasn't ready to talk to you
about; you knew that. Well, here it is. Now you know. Can you see why I
wasn't all that eager to trot that little piece of information out on our
first date?"

	"Our first date maybe, but we've been dating for months now. When
were you going to tell me? Never?"

	"I was going to tell you this weekend."

	"Oh please! You expect me to believe that?"

	"I was! Ask Steve."

	"Steve? What does he have to do with this? He knew?"

	"It's what we were talking about the other night. I told him and he
thought that you would be able to handle it, and that I should tell you
too. I was planning on telling you while we were here."

	"You told Steve before you told me?"

	"Will you stop twisting everything I say? I needed someone to talk
to about this, someone objective. Can we not talk about this here? I'd
rather continue in private."

	"Fine, then let's go." I stormed out the door without bothering to
see if he was following me. An angry guy fighting tears and crashing
through the hallways must not be too unusual for this place since I hardly
garnered any attention during my dramatic (so I thought) exit. I arrived in
the parking lot chest heaving and unable to hold back the tears any
longer. I leaned against a pole and let the sobs come. Micah must have been
right behind me the whole time because he was at my side in a second. He
placed a hand on my arm but I jerked away from his touch.

	"Killian, please," he pleaded, "I'm sorry. I'll explain everything,
I promise."

	"Just get the car," I choked out. He reluctantly backed away for a
few steps before turning and jogging off towards the parking lot.

	"Men," a husky, smoke-filled voice said acidly from behind me. I
turned to find a tall, rail-thin black man leaning against the wall smoking
a long, thin cigarette. While minutiae such as his age and general
description were lost thanks to my bleary eyes, I could tell he was rather
effeminate by his stance and voice. "What did he do, baby? Did you catch
him with another guy?"

	I shook my head in confusion.

	"He'll explain all right. He'll have an answer for everything. I
know his type. They think a handsome face can get them out of
anything. Don't stand for it."

	"I..."

	"Well don't worry your pretty little head about it. A pretty boy
like you could have any guy in this place. You remember that. Oh, and also
remember that all men are dogs."

	"I don't..."

	A car pulled up behind me and I heard Micah call out, "Killian?" I
was saved from trying to think of a suitable reply and turned almost
gratefully to the car.

	"Remember!" the guy called as I sucked into the vehicle, "Dogs!"

	"What was that about?" Micah asked as I slammed the door shut.

	I just turned my head away and stared out the window. I had a lot I
wanted to sort out before we got back to the room. I was in control enough
to know that a hysterical attack wasn't going to get us anywhere. After a
couple more unsuccessful attempts to get me to talk, we lapsed into a
tension-filled, uneasy silence that lasted until we were alone in our hotel
room.

	"Can we please talk now?" Micah asked as soon as the door closed
behind him.

	"Now you want to talk?" I sneered.

	"Killian, you're angry and I can understand that..."

	"You're damn right, I'm angry. I can't believe this."

	"Why are you so angry? Because I didn't tell you before this or
because of the way you found out?"

	As angry as I was I had to admit that was a good question. Would I
have been this angry if he had told me himself? The answer was obviously
no, I was angry because I'd had to find out from some glitter boy at a
club. If what he'd said about telling Steve was true, though, and that
would be easy enough to verify, then he had intended to tell me this
weekend. With rational thought came a sudden deflation. I felt the anger
drain out of me as if someone had pulled a plug. I wasn't ready to stop
being angry though, damn it. The self-righteous anger served as a sort of
shield against the other things I was feeling. Now that the anger was gone,
I was left feeling terribly vulnerable. This man that I had given my body
to just this morning used to sell his body for money. I was extremely
uncomfortable with that knowledge, to say the least.

	My thoughts must have been written clearly on my face. "I think I
need to explain," he said sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. He patted
a spot next to him but I took the one chair in the room instead. I wasn't
ready to be that close to him again.

	"What's to explain?" I said flatly. "You used to be
a...a...hooker."

	Micah rubbed his face wearily. "It's not like that, Kill. You don't
understand."

	"You sold your body for money; how hard is that to understand?"

	"It's not like I was standing on a street corner picking up
tricks."

	I shrugged. "Does it really make a difference?"

	"Yes. Yes, it does. There's a big difference. Just let me explain
what happened."

	"I don't..."

	"Just hear me out, ok? Please?"

	I started to say no again, the guy's voice from the club echoing in
my head about Micah having an answer for everything, but then I decided it
couldn't hurt. The situation couldn't get much worse as far as I was
concerned and it might possibly help me to understand. "Fine. Go ahead."

	He sighed and sat there. It seemed now that I'd given my grudging
consent, he didn't know where to begin. He took a few deep breaths and
began. "I've told you that my parents were pretty supportive of me when I
finally came out to them. I never had problems there, but we didn't have a
lot of money, especially after all the legal stuff with the guy who abused
me and all my counseling bills. They used almost every dime they had to pay
for my first semester of college. I had some scholarships, academic stuff,
but they didn't amount to much. I got a part-time job at some pizza joint
but it wasn't much and the hours I had to work started interfering with my
school work. My grades started to suffer and I was getting really
discouraged. I was too proud to ask for help. I'd pretty much decided to
drop out when one of the guys I knew at school suddenly started flashing
cash around like he'd hit the lottery. He'd been in almost the same boat I
was in; putting himself through college, so I knew something was up. I
thought he'd gotten into drugs or something.

	"I'd managed to be pretty discreet up till then about being
gay. Hardly anyone knew and that's the way I wanted it; but towards the end
of the semester, when I figured I wouldn't be back for the next one, I just
didn't care anymore. Word got around that I was queer and the next thing I
knew, the guy with all the cash shows up at my room one night. He says he
had an offer I couldn't refuse. I told him I wasn't interested and he goes,
'But don't you want to know where all my cash comes from?' By that time, I
figured what the hell.

	"He told me he'd been recruited for a local escort agency. He said
it was a classy set-up. You got paid big bucks to keep lonely gay guys
company and you didn't even have to sleep with them if you didn't want to,
although you made more in tips if you did. He said they'd work around my
school schedule and I'd make more in a single week than I made all month at
the pizza place. He said if I was interested he could get me an interview."

	He paused and looked up to gauge my reaction. On the inside, my
guts were twisted into a knot that I didn't think would ever unravel, but
my expression must have been neutral at the least, because he seemed
satisfied with what he saw and continued.

	"You have to remember that my attitude towards sex then wasn't what
it is now. I'd been abused as a kid and I'd still not worked through all
that even with all the hours of counseling I'd logged in. I told you all
that on our first date. It seemed like the perfect solution to all my
problems. I asked him to set up the interview. It was only a few days later
before I got my first interview. A week later I was hired."

	He stopped and seemed to wait for me to say something. I didn't
know what to say and the silence stretched out until Micah began talking
again, as much to fill the void as anything.

	"It wasn't even that bad. They'd call me with a job. If it fit my
schedule, I'd take it. I was taken to dinners at fancy restaurants, the
theater, museums, art shows-places I would have never gotten into on my
own. And yes, I slept with some of them-most of them. I didn't have to, and
I never did anything I didn't feel completely comfortable doing. And the
money...the money was unreal. There was no way I could have made that kind
of money any other way. It paid for school and left plenty to spend however
I wanted. You get used to that kind of lifestyle pretty quickly. Even after
I met someone..." His words faltered as his eyes blazed with raw pain for a
brief, unguarded second. I knew there was something he wasn't telling
me. It was fresh pain I'd seen, not an old ache. He recovered and went
on. "Even after I met someone, I stayed in the business. I stayed in it
until I graduated."

	He seemed to have run out of words now. Whatever hurt it was he'd
felt appeared to have knocked the spirit out of him.

	"What is it?" I asked, the first words I'd spoken since he'd
started his explanation.

	"What is what?"

	"Something's wrong. I mean besides us. I can see it in your
eyes. Especially when you mentioned the person you met."

	The reaction was there again this time, but not quite as strong. He
looked away.

	"Don't keep more secrets from me," I said softly, allowing the pain
I still felt to be heard in my voice.

	"While I was working for the agency," he began roughly. He cleared
his throat and continued. "While I was working for them I met someone. His
name is...was Paul." I noted the past tense. "He was another escort. We
became friends and then..."

	"Lovers?" I finished for him, phrasing it as a question.

	He nodded. "We moved in together. I'd dated a few other people but
none of them could handle the fact that I was an escort. It was different
with Paul. He understood; he was in the business too. We were happy
together."

	"Did you love him?" I asked even though I wasn't sure I wanted to
know the answer. In truth, I already knew and I could plainly see that he
still loved him.

	He nodded.

	"What happened?" I asked, unable to help myself.

	"Things started falling apart during my last semester. I knew I was
going to have to move on soon, find a job, grow up. I wanted to do that
with Paul, but he wasn't ready. I started seeing a counselor again. She was
good-better than any of the ones I'd had before. She agreed with me that I
needed a change, I needed to get away, and more than anything I needed to
stop using sex as a tool to get what I wanted. I'd used it when I was
younger trying to find love and now I was using it for profit. I already
knew that by this time, I think it was the source of my restlessness, but
hearing it from someone else made it all clearer.

	"When I graduated, I had several job offers. Two in particular were
good offers. One was for a weekly in Washington and one was for the paper
on the Shore. Paul wanted me to take the job in DC and stay with him, but I
wanted out of the city and away from the business. We fought about it,
talked about it, cried about it; but in the end, I took the daily job on
the Shore. I asked Paul to come with me, but he said no, he wasn't ready to
leave the city. Neither of us wanted to pursue a long distance relationship
with all its associated baggage. Besides, too much had been said by that
time. So we just broke up."

	"Do you want to go back to him?"

	"What?" he asked with mouth agape, genuinely surprised.

	"I can see how much it hurts you to talk about him, how much you
obviously still love him. Do you want to go back to him?"

	"Killian, I let go of Paul and moved on a long time ago. I'll
always care about Paul, he was my first love, but I wouldn't have said I
loved you unless I did. I wouldn't have pursued a relationship with you if
I didn't think I could give you one-hundred percent."

	"Then what was that pain I saw in your eyes?"

	His mouth opened and closed a few times silently. I thought he was
going to start crying but he somehow managed to pull himself together and
attempted a halting answer. "The guy at the club? Not the kid who was
talking to you, the other guy, the kid's boyfriend, or whatever he was?"

	"Razi?"

	A look of distaste flickered across his face. "Yeah, Razi. He used
to work at the agency too, but he left to go out on his own. Most guys do
eventually. You get all the profits then. But anyway, for some reason Paul
always had a soft spot when it came to Razi. I never really cared for him,
but Paul insisted there was something more to him than just the slick
exterior, something inside worth sticking around for. The news Razi thought
I'd heard..." He stopped and gulped a few times before he could go
on. "Razi told me that Paul was killed a few days ago."

	"Oh," I said dumbly. I was more than a little ashamed at the rush
of relief I felt at that revelation. "I'm...I'm sorry," I stuttered,
blushing hotly even though there was no way Micah could have read my
thoughts and known how callous they had been.

	"I don't expect you to feel bad," Micah said, making me feel
worse. "It's not like you even knew him."

	"Still, he meant something to you," I said lamely.

	"But not to you. Look, I imagine you have a lot to think about; I'm
going to take a walk and leave you alone."

	I started to protest that it wasn't necessary, but I clamped my
mouth to when I realized how nice it would be to be alone with my thoughts
right now. Instead, I just nodded and he let himself out.

	I threw myself down on the bed and allowed myself a few minutes of
wallowing in self-pity. In one short night, my new fairytale romance had
turned into more of a twisted Brother's Grimm tale, and it seemed grim
indeed. My Prince Charming had turned out to be nothing like the man I
thought he was. But then the dragon of rational thought once again reared
its ugly head and I was forced to admit that nothing had really
changed. Micah was still the same guy I'd been dating for the last few
months and they same guy I'd given my virginity to just that morning. He
hadn't changed. The only thing that had changed was that I knew a little
more about him. Still, hissed that nasty little part of me not ready to
give up my hurt and anger just yet, he did hide his past from you, even if
he didn't outright lie about it.

	In all fairness, the reasonable side of me argued, he did tell you
that there was a part of his past he hadn't told you about yet. And he was
going to tell you this weekend.

	The simple fact of the matter was, though, that no matter how good
a reason Micah felt he had for becoming an escort, I was still very
uncomfortable with it. I knew my attitude was possibly due to the fact that
I'd grown up very sheltered in a small town on the Eastern Shore of
Maryland. While Maryland was a pretty liberal state overall, the Shore was
still rural and conservative for the most part. It had been pretty much
isolated from the rest of the state until halfway through the twentieth
century when the bridge connecting the shore to the mainland had been
built. In many ways, the people were still isolated and sheltered from the
more urban areas on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, Annapolis,
Baltimore, and DC.

	Was my discomfort something that could be overcome? I just didn't
know, at least not yet. I needed more time to figure things out. Did I
still care about Micah? That much at least I was able to answer. Yes, I
did. And with that thought, the pain inside me welled up again.

	By now, I was physically and mentally wiped out. My rational mind
finally gave up and let my emotions take over in a torrent of
self-indulgent tears. By the time I'd cried myself out, I was well on the
way to slipping into a restless sleep.

	I awoke with a start when Micah let himself into the room. I
glanced at the clock and saw that it was two o'clock in the morning.

	"Where've you been?" I asked, my mind still a bit fuzzy from being
woken so suddenly.

	"In an all-night coffee bar down the street. You weren't the only
one who needed to think. Sorry I woke you up."

	"S'ok."

	He started undressing and despite myself, my heart began to beat
just a little faster. "What are you doing?' I asked stupidly.

	"Getting ready for bed," he said in a drained voice that didn't
leave much room for argument.

	I argued anyway. "You're sleeping here?" What can I say? I'm not at
my best when I'm awoken in the middle of the night.

	"No, Killian, I thought I'd sleep in the hallway. Yes, I'm sleeping
here. And don't worry; I won't lay a finger on you." He pulled back the
blankets on his side of the bed and slid under the covers before turning
his back purposefully to me.

	I stared at his back for a while, almost wishing he would lay a
finger on me; wanting him and being disgusted at the same time. Finally, my
exhaustion overcame my warring emotions and I fell back into that fitful
rest.

	I woke up to find a morning suitably dreary to match my mood. It
wasn't raining, but the sky was leaden and promised rain before the day was
out. Micah was gone, but a note left on the desk told me he'd gone for
breakfast and he was bringing me something back. I took a shower and was
just getting out when Micah returned carrying a small paper sack.

	"I got you a bagel with cream cheese," he said. "I hope that's ok."

	"It's fine," I told him, turning away to get dressed.

	I felt him move up behind me and then felt his hands on my waist. I
tensed up under his touch.

	"Micah..." My voice trailed off.

	His hands fell away.

	"So what's going on?" he asked. "Are we breaking up?"

	"No," I said quickly, keeping my back to him as I pulled on my
clothes. "I mean...I don't know right now. I need more time to figure
things out."

	"Figure what out, Killian? Do you love me?"

	"I...yes."

	"And I love you. What's to figure out?"

	"It's not that simple and we both know it." I turned to face
him. "If it was as simple as that I'd still be with Asher and you'd still
be with Paul."

	Hurt flashed in his eyes at the mention of Paul's name. At least
that was what I thought that was the source of the pain until he
spoke. "That's what it always comes back to, isn't it? Asher."

	"What? Wait, that's not what I meant."

	"What did you mean, then?"

	"You said yourself just last night that you would always love Paul,
but that you've moved on. That's just how it is for me when it comes to
Asher."

	He sighed and knuckled his eyes. "Just tell me what to do to make
this right."

	"I don't know," I wailed, "I don't think there's anything anyone
can do. You can't just wave a magic wand and make it right. It's going to
take time and I don't even know if it'll be right then."

	"What's the problem? That I didn't tell you? I'm sorry, Killian,
but at least everything is out in the open now. There're no more
secrets. We can rebuild the trust."

	"That's not even it. Not really, anyway. I'm still a little hurt at
the way I found out, but I know that wasn't really your fault. It was just
really shitty timing."

	"Now you know why I didn't want to come to DC. But if that's not
the problem, what is?"

	"I'm just having a lot of trouble with the whole idea of you being
an escort."

	"But I explained all that to you."

	"I still just..."

	"It's a part of my past. I can't change what happened, and I
wouldn't if I could. I'm not ashamed of what I did, you know. It put me
through college and it's all a part of who I am today. I wouldn't be the
same person if I hadn't gone through all that. I was good enough for you to
fall in love, why aren't I good enough for you to stay in love?"

  	I was fighting tears again and I was damned if I was going to fall
apart in front of him. I pulled myself together and took a deep
breath. "We're not going to get anywhere now. I think we should just go
home. I need a few days to work through all this on my own."

	"Oh great, you're asking for the infamous break. Everybody knows
that's the death knoll for a relationship."

	"Micah, I'm not breaking up with you. I'm not even asking for a
break. I just need a few days to figure out what I do want. This is a lot
for me to take in. I mean I'm just a kid from the boonies. Give me a
break."

	"You sell yourself short, Killian. Just don't sell us short too."

	He picked up his suitcase and yanked open the door. "I'll be
waiting in the car," he said as he disappeared into the hall.

	I sighed and zipped up my bag. I did a cursory look around the room
to make sure we weren't leaving anything and then started to follow. I was
halfway down the hall before I went back for the bagel. It was going to be
a long ride home and I just might need the sustenance.