by Anna Martin
His dad gave Caleb the sharp look which had been a reprimand for most of his childhood. “Caleb,” he said and squeezed his mom’s knee again. To calm her, Caleb guessed. “It’s only for a few weeks, until you go for the trial. You need to be in the best physical and mental shape possible in order to get through it. You’re going to go to the therapists.”
Caleb surged to his feet. “This is not fair. Not fair.”
“We have an appointment booked for you,” his dad said. “If you are taking this seriously then I think you’ll go. Your life is going to be very different once you get the CI, and Luc can only get you so far. It’s time to start taking responsibility for your future, Caleb.”
“You can’t make me.”
“No,” he said. “I can’t. But we have been very accommodating so far in this relationship you have with Luc. You’ve had the car to go and see him. He’s been allowed to come and stay here. If you can’t show us that you’re serious about moving forward, then I’m not sure if things can stay that way.”
It felt like a punch to his stomach. For so many years, Caleb had had an extraordinarily close bond with his parents. They were his friends, the only ones who knew exactly what he’d been through. Now it was them or Luc. Their way or his relationship.
“Ultimatum,” Caleb signed, too angry to release the torrent of words he wanted to scream at them.
“I’m sad you see it that way,” his dad said calmly. “We are your parents. It’s our job to guide our son in the right direction.”
“Not guiding. Forcing.”
Caleb closed his eyes, not wanting to see any more. The hearing aids had other ideas, though, and muted, indecipherable sounds were reaching his brain. He tried to shake it off, like an annoying bug that disturbed his field of vision, but it wasn’t going away. He couldn’t shut things out just by closing his eyes anymore.
With his back teeth grinding together, Caleb stalked for the door and turned at the last moment. His parents were still talking—arguing—between themselves, and he glared until they were both looking at him.
“Please, can we talk about this?” his mother said. “I don’t want to argue.”
The word fizzed on his tongue. He knew other kids could do this, and a tiny part of him had always wanted to be normal enough to do it too.
“Whatever,” Caleb spat, turned, slammed the door behind himself, and ran up to his bedroom.
“So, go to the therapists,” Luc said. Caleb had barricaded himself into his room. The door was locked, and he’d video called Luc.
“I don’t want to.”
Luc tried not to smile. Caleb recognized that look—when he pressed his lips together.
“I’ll come with you.”
“Really?” Caleb said.
“Yes, of course. I’m out of school starting Friday, and I can come down to see you whenever.”
Luc’s school got out several weeks before Caleb’s. He’d been planning on loping around the city with his friends, missing his boyfriend until Caleb graduated too, but this plan sounded much better.
“It didn’t work before.”
“I know, baby,” Luc said, reaching out and touching his fingers to the screen, as if they could soothe each other with gentle touches even with all the distance between them. “But when you went before you didn’t have me.” He grinned wickedly.
“Yeah,” Caleb said on a sigh.
“We’ll figure something out. I don’t want your mom and dad to stop us from seeing each other.”
“They won’t. I won’t let them.”
“So don’t give them any ammunition. Sometimes you just have to play the game.”
Caleb nodded and sighed, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes and rubbing them. Luc recognized this gesture. Caleb did it when things were giving him a headache.
“It’ll be all right,” Luc said when Caleb looked up again.
“I know.” Caleb smiled, although it looked forced. “I love you.”
“I love you too, baby. I’ll talk to you soon, yeah?”
Luc still loved that he was the first person Caleb contacted when he was feeling rough or frustrated or sad or… anything, really. Knowing Caleb needed him was all the motivation he needed to pack some things and book a bus to Boston to stay with the Stones for a few weeks. He still hadn’t heard from Jay, and that stung. Ellery said Jay was a dick, and Luc was better off without him. Luc said Jay was supposed to be his friend. Ellery said friends don’t treat friends like that. Luc had reluctantly agreed.
He’d asked Ilse for permission to go on the unplanned trip rather than his mother. Luc’s mom had only found out about it as Luc was getting ready to leave for the bus station, and even then she didn’t seem to care that much. He’d heard from Ilse that their mom was planning on moving into an apartment on the Upper East Side with one of her fellow martini friends—to be closer to her new job, of course. The offer for Luc to go with her had been weak. She barely got it out before he said he’d stay with Ilse, if it was all the same to her.
She didn’t seem to care.
The move would happen while he was at Caleb’s. Then in the fall he’d be moving for college, so Ilse wouldn’t have to worry about people clogging up her beautiful home anymore. Luc thought she might secretly miss him, but he didn’t say that to her face. He just kissed her cheek before he left and promised to call to say he’d arrived safely.
Caleb met him at the bus station. Luc could see the car waiting when they pulled into the parking lot, and a knot formed in his stomach. As soon as the bus pulled to a stop Luc shouldered his bag and ran down the steps, not realizing Caleb was right there waiting for him.
As had become something of a tradition, Luc dropped his bag and launched himself into Caleb’s arms with a laugh. Caleb held him tight, face buried in Luc’s hair. Luc screwed his face up and sighed heavily.
Home, he thought. I’m home.
Caleb drove them out to the coast, and they sat in the car, watching the waves crash over the beach. As soon as Caleb put the car in Park, Luc crawled into Caleb’s lap and demanded long, slow, searching kisses. He felt the smile on Caleb’s lips, drank that in too, and when they needed to pull away for breath, rested his forehead against Caleb’s so they weren’t too far apart.
“God, I need you inside me,” Luc murmured, reaching down to adjust his cock. It had sprung up the moment Caleb had wrapped his hands around Luc’s waist.
Caleb pulled back and gave him an inquisitive look.
“Nothing,” Luc said with a grin. He pushed Caleb’s hair back from his face. “I’ll tell you later.”
It didn’t matter that he was ready to strip down right now and bend over to let Caleb take him hard and fast. They needed to get back so Carrie-Anne could use the car to get to work.
They exchanged hugs, then the keys at the door, and then Caleb and Luc were alone in the house for an hour or so until Mark got back from a late meeting. Luc was determined to make that hour count.
The next evening, after dinner, Caleb dragged Luc through to the family room so he could talk to them all. Since he’d received all the information about the CI, there were things they needed to straighten out, and he wanted to do it when everyone involved was there together.
“Is everything okay?” Mark asked.
Things had been tense, at first, when Caleb had told them Luc was coming to stay for a couple of weeks since he’d graduated already. Caleb thought they were going to refuse, and there was a hissed conversation between his parents that he had no chance of lip reading, and they definitely weren’t going to sign it for his benefit. This new person, the one Caleb was becoming, was not the mild-mannered, quiet, and introverted son they were used to. The new Caleb stood up for himself and asked to be treated like an adult. Maybe unsurprisingly, his mother was having a tougher time dealing with the new Caleb than his dad.
The result of the fiercely whispered conversation was Mark agreeing, saying Luc could stay as long as the pair of them stuck to the ho
use rules. That was fine by Caleb. He didn’t want either of them to have to leave the sanctuary of his room—probably ever.
Caleb nodded. “It’s good,” he signed. “I’ve been reading up on all the information about the operation and stuff. And I can only take one person with me.” He looked from Luc to his parents, then back again. “I want Luc to come.”
His mother was already shaking her head. “No, Caleb, that’s not a good idea.”
“Yes it is,” he insisted. “Luc got me on the trial, I want him there. And it’s in New York, anyway. And I don’t want you to have to take time off work.”
“I’ll take it as vacation time,” she insisted.
“No,” Caleb said calmly. “Mom—I’m eighteen. I want to be allowed to do this my way.”
Caleb watched as his dad laid a hand on his mom’s knee, something they did a lot. He guessed it was a comforting thing. Then Luc’s hand pressed against his lower back, up under his T-shirt. It was the same thing, he realized. One partner helping the other.
“Okay,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I can’t stop you.”
“Thank you,” Caleb said and flopped back against the couch, trapping Luc’s hand. Luc dropped his forehead to Caleb’s shoulder.
In the few weeks before Caleb graduated, Luc met most of the extended Stone family. It was strange, at first, being introduced to cousins and aunts and, most importantly, Caleb’s beloved grandfather. They sat in the living room of the old man’s home, and Luc watched as the two had a long conversation in ASL. Caleb introduced Luc just as his “friend,” and Luc found he didn’t mind at all. As he watched the conversation, understanding most of it, he thought that if there was any way his relationship with Caleb would have put a strain between him and Ilse, he probably would have introduced Caleb as his “friend” too. It was okay.
They held hands in the car on the way home, and Luc kissed Caleb’s cheek when they stopped at a red light.
“I love you,” he murmured. “God, I love you.”
Caleb only had to go into school a few more times, mostly to hand assignments in or to collect things from the photography studio. He was going to miss his graduation ceremony due to the timing for his surgery prep, something Carrie-Anne was distraught about and something Luc thought Caleb seemed secretly pleased about.
It was weird, this almost living together, like they were doing a trial run of what their lives would be like in only a few months’ time. For Luc, living with two parents who were so clearly devoted to their son was a constant reminder of how often his own mother failed in her duties as a parent. Luc didn’t hate her for that, but sometimes it was hard not to resent her. Especially when he found that Caleb still had a curfew, and he wasn’t allowed to drink at all, and Caleb had said if Luc wanted to smoke he needed to do it way away from where his mom and dad might be able to see. Caleb’s parents cared enough to put those restrictions on him, and he respected them enough to follow their rules.
It was reassuring to know that Caleb was this loved.
At night they shared a bed, and Luc got the impression this was a privilege Caleb had fought for. In the evenings, when Caleb excused them to bed, there were pointed looks exchanged between Carrie-Anne and Mark.
They didn’t have sex, mostly to prove a point.
Well, that was almost true.
Luc bit a pillow to muffle the noises coming from his throat as Caleb sucked the head of Luc’s cock into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the most sensitive part, then taking more into his mouth. He fondled Luc’s balls and probed in the sweet spot just behind. He grinned up at Luc, his mouth red and swollen and shiny, and when Luc arched off the bed and came, Caleb swallowed every last drop.
They cuddled before they fell asleep and again in the morning.
Luc realized that this was what had been missing from his life. He was loved. He was so, so loved.
19. Hole in the Head
Since Caleb was a legal adult, he had to sign himself onto the trial without his parents’ involvement. It was the first thing he’d done since turning eighteen which involved taking full responsibility for his decisions. All of the other big life events—picking a college, graduating high school, when he would eventually move into his first apartment on his own, that was all stuff that his parents had had some influence over. This was his decision.
And it scared the crap out of him.
They sat—Caleb, Luc, and Dr. Marshall—in a small room in a private hospital on the Upper East Side. It was simply but tastefully decorated, and Caleb felt like he was in way, way over his head.
“The new implant differs from the CI’s on the market currently not in how it works but in how it’s activated,” Dr. Marshall said. “When the device is installed, it’s set at zero percent, which means you won’t be able to hear anything with it at all. The user has full control over the device and its settings, which allows you to control what messages are sent to your brain.”
Caleb nodded, knowing most of this from the material he’d been given to read already. To his surprise, Luc was nodding too. He wondered when Luc had found the time to read it all.
“The exciting part about this model in particular is the manual override,” Dr. Marshall continued. “If you’re having a bad day or feeling nauseous or dizzy, you have the ability to turn down the amount of information the CI will send to your brain. You can change the setting depending on the situation—for example, you’d want a different setting for having dinner in a restaurant than you would at a rock concert. In theory, you could turn it off altogether, although from a recovery point of view, we discourage this.
“When the CI is in place we’ll install an app on your phone, or your iPad, and once you’re discharged you’ll have total control over the settings.”
They were only fitting the CI to one of Caleb’s ears, the left one, since he had the most residual hearing in his right ear. It would take time for him to adjust to how that affected his senses and depth perception.
Caleb had learned that he was the youngest person in the trial by quite a few years. That had surprised him. Mostly the doctors preferred to give younger deaf children CIs—they could adapt much more easily than adults—so this trial was unusual in taking so many older patients.
Caleb could understand the controversy around the attempts to make deaf kids hear again. Being deaf gave him a different perspective on life and a different way of seeing the world around him. If things were different, if he could express himself and communicate and make friends the way other deaf people could, if he could be part of the culture and community, then maybe he wouldn’t be seeking the cochlear implant in the first place.
He had been playing the what-ifs over in his head for the past year, almost since the idea of a CI had first been presented to him. What he wouldn’t know, not until it was all over, was if his life would actually be any better when he could hear again.
The pre-op tests and preparation took a few hours, and Caleb got bored signing his name on one release form after another. He’d read them all in painstaking detail before they’d come to the hospital, wanting to make sure he had all the information before they started. There had been ample opportunity to back out too. Dr. Marshall had met with him a few times to give him that chance.
When it was time, Caleb shuffled down on the hospital bed, IV lines already connected to the back of his hands, the open-backed gown uncomfortable under his butt. Luc leaned down and kissed him once, twice, then squeezed Caleb’s arm before stepping away.
“I’ll see you later,” Luc said.
Caleb made the “I love you” sign and felt sick.
Luc signed it back and pressed his hand to his stomach as an orderly wheeled Caleb down the hall toward the operating room. He didn’t want Caleb to know how nervous he was, how emotionally fragile. Caleb nodded and lifted a hand in a halfhearted wave.
It wasn’t until Luc was outside the unit, down the hall in the family room that he let himself fall apart, sinking into a chair, bu
rying his face in his hands, and sobbing until his throat was raw.
“He’ll be okay, you know,” a voice said from the door.
Luc looked up in shock and wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“I know,” he said. “Doesn’t stop me worrying, though.”
“No,” the girl said, coming in to sit down on another couch. She slipped her shoes off, revealing bright pink toenail polish, and tucked her feet up underneath herself. At a cursory glance, Luc guessed that she was probably in her late twenties. She wore a wedding ring.
“Are you here with the trial?” Luc asked as he wiped the black smudges away from his cheeks.
“Yeah,” she said. “My husband is on the list for today.”
Luc reached for a box of Kleenex, discreetly placed on a side table, and tried to use one to do a better job of cleaning the makeup running off his face than his hand was currently managing.
“How long has he had to wait for a CI?” Luc asked to make conversation. This person was going through the exact same thing as him; the least he could do was be nice to her.
“About thirty years,” she said with a wry grin. “I’m Katie, by the way.”
“Luc.”
She nodded. “Who are you here with?”
“My boyfriend,” Luc said without hesitation. “It’s weird to think that it’s not just me and him, you know? There are other people who are in the same situation.”
“Yeah. It’s too easy to get caught up in everything. You forget about everyone else on the trial. How long have you been with your boyfriend?”
“A few months. We met online.”
Katie laughed. “Yeah, me and Jeff did too. He always said it was impossible to meet women.”
“Well, you know what they say about gay men. Dating is like getting a job—you either have to do it online or by referral.”
“I’m not sure that straight dating is much different.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Katie hummed noncommittally.
“Jeff said for years that he wasn’t interested in getting a CI. It was too much hassle, and he didn’t want the operation.”
