by Maris Black
The nurse had explained what he was going through. How the work of breathing had become too much for him, how he was physically and emotionally exhausted, how he would give up if only his body would let him. But the instinct to survive is strong— much stronger than the will.
My grandfather had given up, but his body would not. Could not.
We’d stood watch over him for hours, me on one side, my mom on the other, and the rest of the family at the foot of the bed. I cried and swiped at my tears with the back of my left hand, because my right hand was wound in his gnarled and discolored fingers. I held on because it was all I could do. In my mind I felt shame, because I prayed for him to get relief. I prayed for him to die.
That night they put my grandfather on a ventilator, and he never came off of it. Not until they put the sheet over his head.
I blinked away the memory and looked at Kage lying there on his bed— fit and fine and in the prime of his life— gasping for air and looking so damn tired.
How could this be happening to him?
“I’m sorry, Jamie,” he whispered. As if he had any reason to apologize to me when he was the one suffering.
I climbed into bed beside him and took his hand in mine, cuddling close, careful not to put any pressure on his chest or impede his breathing in any way. I laid a kiss on his shoulder and waited, mildly concerned that some strange woman was going to find us like that— cuddled in his bed in nothing but our boxers. Would it be obvious that we were lovers? When Kage had told her I was with him, it seemed as though she already knew who I was. They had talked about me before. Maybe she already knew about us.
Kage obviously trusted her. It seemed I had to trust her, too.
When the door clicked open and I heard her approaching the bedroom, I closed my eyes and braced myself for the worst. But she came in and introduced herself in a businesslike manner.
“Hi, Jamie. I’m Dr. Julie Tanner.” Her dark hair was smoothed back into a conservative bun at the nape of her slender neck, revealing a beautiful face that was fresh and free of makeup. There was concern in her brown eyes.
A doctor. Now things were starting to make sense. She reached a hand out to shake mine.
“Uh… nice to meet you,” I said quietly, glancing down at my thin boxer briefs and then at Kage’s boxers, always in danger of gaping open. I suddenly felt very under-dressed, more so than I thought I would now that she was actually here, her keen eyes roving over Kage’s body. A blush crept onto my cheeks. “I need to throw some clothes on. I just didn’t want to leave him until you got here.”
I crawled down the bed and got a t-shirt and shorts out of Kage’s dresser and put them on. They hung loosely from my smaller frame, but I didn’t care. I wanted to wear his clothes, because it made me feel like I belonged to him.
When I returned to the doctor’s side, she was injecting something into Kage’s upper arm.
“What’s that?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Librium.” She capped the syringe and pressed a wadded up gauze square to the injection site, then secured it with a bandage. “It’s to calm him down and help with the anxiety. He’ll be out of it for a while. Why don’t you go on back to your room and let me take care of him?”
“You sure? I don’t mind staying.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t an altogether friendly look. More like a mask for barely-reined-in irritation. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. But I’ve been treating Michael for a long time. We have a system we’ve developed over the years for dealing with these things.”
“He can stay,” Kage said, and his voice was so bland it scared me. For once, he truly did sound like a machine.
“I understand you want to keep your friend close by.” Dr. Tanner rested her hand on his abdomen and spoke softly, her words barely reaching my ears. “But you know it’s not for the best. Do you really want him to see you this way?”
I opened my mouth to protest. She was making it sound horrible, and her hand on his belly was really bothering me. I wanted to climb into bed with him, wrap myself around him, and tell that lady to back off. Who the hell did she think she was?
But I knew the answer to that. She was his doctor. His long-time doctor. I had known him for less than two months and had been intimate with him for three days. So the real question was probably who the hell did I think I was?
I took a deep breath and made up my mind. “She’s right, Kage. I’m going to go for a run and work for a bit. See if I can get you some more appearances. I’ll drop by later when you’re feeling better.”
He didn’t answer, and the doctor acted like I hadn’t spoken. It was as if I’d already gone. So I let myself out of his apartment, sparing a glance backward and cringing at the sight of that woman sitting on his bed.
OVER the next few days, I saw little of Kage. When I’d stopped back by his apartment to see how he was doing the night of the anxiety attack, no one had answered the door. I called and left a text message, but both had gone unanswered.
He was conspicuously absent from his training sessions, but Marco graciously, and surprisingly, offered to work me out. So I worked out, pouring everything I had into wearing myself out so badly that I didn’t have the energy to think about Kage and wonder where he was.
Marco said he didn’t know anything, but I suspected he wasn’t being completely truthful with me.
In his absence, I changed his ringtone to a loop of Mama Said Knock You Out. It was cheesy, but I needed something to recognize him by when he called. On Wednesday afternoon, I heard it for the first time and nearly broke my neck trying to get to the phone.
“Hello?” I tried to sound nonchalant.
“You working hard for me?” That voice. I hadn’t even realized how much I had needed to hear it.
“Yes.”
“Good. I like to get my money’s worth.”
My mouth went dry.
“Trust me. You’re getting a bargain.”
He laughed, and even through the phone it gave me chills. “I know I am.” He paused for a few seconds, and dead air stretched conspicuously between us. “You want to see me fight?”
“Yes!” No hesitation on my part. This is what I’d been waiting for.
“It will be this Friday night. I won’t see you before then, so… Well, I’ll see you then.” He clicked off, leaving me to wonder what he’d been about to say. And where I needed to go to see him fight. There were too many questions, and too much excitement.
I was going to see Kage fight. The thought of it had butterflies already dancing in my stomach. No way I could concentrate for the next two days.
His ringtone blared from my phone again, and I answered it.
“I forgot to ask,” he said. “How do you want me to finish this guy?”
I chuckled, amused by his bravado. “Something fancy. How about a flying knee?”
“When?”
“What do you mean, when?”
“I mean when in the fight? Should I take him out immediately or toy with him a bit?”
I laughed. “Jesus, your ego knows no bounds. Okay, hotshot. I think you should wait until the second round. It’s the first time I’ve seen you fight, so you need to put on a show for me.”
“Done. And Jamie… If I finish him with a flying knee in Round Two, I get your ass as the prize.”
19
AT FOUR o’clock on Friday afternoon, a courier showed up at the desk of the office and handed Catwoman Cathy a gray metallic envelope with Mr. James Atwood printed on the front. There was an invitation inside— one of those expensive-looking ones they sent out for weddings. It said simply:
Alcazar entrance, 6pm sharp.
The white Range Rover was waiting at the curb when I stepped through the front doors of the Alcazar at six o’clock. Aldo begrudgingly opened the door for me, and I climbed inside.
As on the ride in from the airport, I marveled at the supple beauty of the tobacco-colored leather interior and giggled yet again when the seatbelt hugged
me without being prompted. This time, however, I tried to remember all of the features Kage had described to me during one of our random conversations. I found the control to lounge back and bring the leg rest up, opened the center console refrigerator and pulled out a chilled bottle of water, and brought the lap desk up and down. All the while, I wished I had someone with whom to share the amazing experience.
I was in the belly of a great white shark, cruising out to God knows where on the outskirts of Sin City, leaving the lights and bustle behind. It was terrifying in a way to leave the oddly comforting artifice behind— the commercials, the casinos, the bachelor parties, the What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. It was all a big, expensive facade, wasn’t it? A tourist attraction built around darker business.
And sometimes you had to be driven out to the desert.
I shivered at the thought and tried to shove away the montage of gangster movie scenes that assaulted me. Surely that wasn’t what this was. Kage’s uncle couldn’t possibly be that unsavory a character. Look at the boy he had raised.
A boy with issues. That much was becoming clearer.
The drive out was quiet— almost too quiet. Whatever it was that Aldo and Aaron normally talked about, they weren’t talking about it with me in the vehicle. Then again, I’d never actually heard Aaron speak. Maybe he was mute.
“Could we have some music?” I asked.
Aldo touched the dashboard computer screen, and some opera song came blaring out of the undeniably good speakers. I sighed and leaned back in my seat, closed my eyes, and wished like hell I hadn’t asked for music. Because damn. Couldn’t he have turned on some rap or pop? Even country would have been better than this, mainly because now I felt even more like I was in a gangster movie. Didn’t they always play opera when they were slitting someone’s throat?
Fortunately I made it to our destination in one piece, despite the creepy opera music.
Aldo shut off the Land Rover and opened my door for me. The uncomfortable look on his face had me almost feeling sorry for him. He clearly hated my guts, and though I couldn’t fathom why, the fact that he was forced to serve me had to have been humiliating for him.
When I stepped out of the SUV, I was greeted by the sight of a warehouse surrounded by cars. That was all. No lights, no fanfare, no valet parking. Just a warehouse that looked like it had seen better days, and a parking lot full of cars that ranged from broken-down to luxurious. Most of them were of the luxurious type.
Aldo and Aaron approached the warehouse, and I followed. The lack of conversation with these two was always a little disconcerting, making me feel more like a prisoner than a guest.
Aldo pulled the door open, and the loud squeal of metal on metal announced our arrival. About fifty men and women were inside the building, dressed in much better clothing than I was wearing. In my mind, I had imagined an underground fight would be a bunch of guys in torn flannel with dirty fingernails, shaggy hair, and prison tattoos crowded around a makeshift ring surrounded by chicken wire. The scene before me could have easily been intermission at a Broadway show.
I scanned the room for any sign of Kage. The sight of his handsome face and imposing body would have instantly put me at ease, especially since I hadn’t seen it for days, but he wasn’t anywhere in the crowd. He was probably in some back room meditating or sparring with Marco.
Meanwhile, I was sweating bullets.
As I was studying a man whom I could have sworn was famous, I felt the presence of someone very close behind me. My heart immediately jumped, and I spun around expecting to see Kage. Instead, I came face-to-face with a dapper, dark-haired man of about fifty. He was thin and tall in a ridiculously well-cut suit, and he practically sparkled, as if he’d been buffed and polished. I knew who he was instantly. He had the same vague Latin look as Kage, with the perfect perma-tan and five-o’clock shadow, but his eyes were a deep brown rather than green like his nephew’s.
“Jamie,” he said in a smooth, deep voice. “I’m Peter Santori.”
I swallowed and tried to find my own voice. “Mr. Santori? I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you.”
He shrugged, but his eyes were shrewd. “I stay busy. It’s not a simple affair to set up meetings with employees these days.”
Employees. Yikes.
The guy was good at maintaining distance and superiority. I wondered how superior he’d feel if he knew about the intimacy his nephew and I shared. If he knew I’d wrapped my lips around his cock and swallowed his cum. Would he welcome me into his inner circle then, or would he have me taken out into the desert and dismembered to a soundtrack of opera music?
Looking into his calculating eyes, I’d have to say I was leaning toward the latter.
“Interesting place you have here,” I said. When he didn’t reply, I continued. “So this is where Kage fights. I can’t wait to see him in action. So far I’ve only seen him train.”
“Marco tells me you’ve been present at a lot of training sessions, and that you’ve even taken to utilizing his services for yourself.”
Funny, when Mr. Santori said it, it sounded like I was stealing from the company. Like I was swiping staplers and post-it notes from the supply closet.
“Um, well, Kage invited me to participate in the workouts. Of course, I don’t do anything major. None of that advanced stuff they work on.”
He nodded slowly. “Well, I need to speak to some colleagues of mine before the fight begins, so I suppose we’ll say goodbye for now.” He shook my hand, and somehow he made it feel like a great honor was being bestowed upon me. I disliked him for that— for making me feel truly inferior.
I stood by myself in the center of that small sea of glitterati, watching Mr. Santori make his way deliberately through the crowd, occasionally stopping to speak to someone.
This was his place. In this warehouse, he was the man. That much was crystal clear.
There were folding chairs set up all around the octagon, and I found one near the front, plopped down in it and stayed there. Long minutes of boredom stretched into even longer minutes of awkwardness, until finally there was a commotion near the entrance of the cage. A stocky middle-aged man in a red t-shirt stepped into the ring, and people began moving in and claiming all of the seats around me. Soon, it was standing room only.
An announcer stood behind a corner podium and spoke into his microphone, his voice booming over the sound system. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another exciting fight night. As always, if the fighter in the blue corner can best the as-yet-undefeated Michael “The Machine” Kage, he will walk out of here with a hundred-thousand-dollars in cash. Let’s wish both men good luck as they embark on this virtually no-holds-barred evening of fun and games.”
The small crowd cheered for a moment, and then the challenger came trotting through a door at the back of the room. He had a small entourage of his people with him. It was nothing like the dramatic entrance of the fighters on UFC pay-per-view. It was somber and a little scary, with no music to dress it up. No theatrics. This was going to be nothing more than a fight, plain and simple.
After the first fighter, who remained nameless and was referred to only as the challenger, entered the octagon, Kage appeared at the door. My breath caught in my chest when I saw him.
That’s my guy, I thought. My lover.
He stalked intimidatingly into the ring wearing nothing but a pair of red trunks, his hair pulled into that cute little queue atop his head. But that was where the cute ended. This Michael Kage looked alarmingly unlike the guy I was falling for. His green eyes appeared darker and more calculating than I’d ever seen them, even that day in the restaurant. I hated to admit it, but he looked frighteningly like his uncle— whom I had no problem believing would have me assassinated and dumped in the desert.
Kage walked into the ring looking neither hyper nor plodding. He had an air of confidence about him that made posturing unnecessary. I waited for him to notice me, but he seemed oblivious to the fact that
I was even present. Probably a good thing. It meant he was focused, and according to Marco, that was half of winning.
The referee called the two men out to the center of the ring, had them touch gloves, and sent them to their respective corners. Then the announcer rang a bell, and the fighters were on the move.
The contender was aggressive, pressing in on Kage even before the echo of the bell had died. He released a combination of powerful if predictable punches— jab, cross, left hook to the body— presumably to get Kage off balance and on the defensive, but Kage was light on his feet. He easily sidestepped the guy’s attack before catching him with a right cross to the side of his head. It rocked the guy good, but he recovered quickly, and smacked Kage with a leg kick before moving out of reach. Kage didn’t flinch, though I saw an ugly red mark spreading on the outside of his thigh.
He glanced at the mark, then looked up at the guy, raised his eyebrows and smiled. I couldn’t believe it. He looked perfectly delighted that the guy had finally landed something.
There was a flash of panic across the other guy’s face, but he masked it quickly and moved back in for another rapid-fire combo. He was fast, but he was no match for Kage’s unorthodox footwork or his ability to anticipate movements. With smooth efficiency, Kage either dodged or blocked everything his opponent threw at him. Then he spun around and took the guy’s back.
Wrapping his arms around him from behind, Kage lifted the man into the air, thrust his hips forward and bent his knees, and slammed the man backward over his shoulder in the smoothest suplex I’d ever seen. Before the man could get his bearings, Kage was on top of him.
He was able to pull a half guard on Kage before being pounded half senseless by Kage’s brutal hammer fists and elbows. Over and over he struck the fighter, until I was afraid he might kill him. Still the ref didn’t stop the fight. Then when the guy was nearly done, had almost stopped fighting back completely, Kage jumped to his feet and let him up.
It almost looked like mercy, but I knew. It was exactly the opposite.
