Defining Us: The Calvin & Eric Story (69 Bottles) (49 page)

‘What can I do for you, Doc?”
 

“I’m wondering if you’re free to meet with me at eleven this morning?” I look at the clock, it’s nine-forty.
 

“I…uh sure.” I say skeptically.
 

“Good, I’m going to text you an address. If you’d meet me there, that would be great.”
 

“So not your office?” I ask.
 

“No, not today. I’m working out of a colleague’s office. Mine is well, never mind, I’ll text you the address and I’ll see you there?”
 

I sigh. I don’t want to deal with anything too emotional today, or ever again. “I’ll be there.”
 

“Good. See you then.” He disconnects the call and within ten seconds, my phone chimes with an address downtown. I get out of bed and stumble numbly toward the shower.
 

I haven’t shaved in, well, I don’t remember, and I certainly haven’t colored my hair since before the last show. In fact, I’m a hot fucking mess. My cheeks are little more pronounced, and my eyes darker, more hollow. I look scary almost.
 

I pick up the razor with the intention of shaving. “Fuck it,” I grumble, putting it back down in favor of the sheers, and I trim myself up. I don’t think I look half bad all grown out.
 

When I was done trimming, I cleaned up the edges and climbed into the shower. By the time I’m dressed, it’s nearly ten-thirty and if I’m going to make it downtown in time, I need to leave now. I pull a Mountain Dew bottle from the fridge and grab my car keys and the pack of smokes I bought yesterday. Don’t judge me, yes, I started smoking again. Can you blame me?
 

Yeah, you can, but whatever.
 

I leave my apartment, locking it up and heading down to my car.
 

With ten minutes to spare, I pull into a parking garage below the building I’m to go into. For being a weekday, it’s surprisingly empty in here and I head for the elevator, hitting the “12” button and the doors close. For some reason, I am ridiculously nervous about meeting with Doctor V. Other than that one time, after Cal and I talked…I close my eyes, trying to shake the memory, but it doesn’t leave me. Doctor V and I talked a lot that day about Calvin and his affliction and the issues he had, but I walked out of there feeling confident and reassured that this would be a good thing, that I would be able to handle it, but apparently I was wrong.
 

The elevator chimes and the doors slide open. There are a number of suites listed on the directory across from me and I find the suite and direction I want. There are a few people on the floor, going from here to there. There appears to be mostly doctors’ offices on this floor, but most of them are of the mental health variety.
 

I get to the right door and the placard reads, “Dr. A.P. Morris - Hypnotist”. I raise an eyebrow and shrug, knocking on the door. “Come in.” A voice from the other side says, it sounds familiar but I can’t make it out through the muffle of the door.
 

When I step inside and close the door behind me, I freeze.
 

“Jesus, you look like shit.”
 

“Fuck you very much. You don’t look much better yourself.” It was a lie of course. Calvin looks fucking amazing regardless, and the time apart has only made him look that much hotter. “What am I doing here?”
 

“I asked you here,” he tells me. “I wanted you to be here when I did this.”
 

“Did what? What’s going on, Calvin?” I can’t hide the fear from my voice and Cal has no problem picking it up.
 

“I’m here because I need you back. I can’t take this anymore, this distance, this…it’s bullshit and I can’t take it anymore, Eric.”
 

My heart stops beating and my head starts to swim. “I’m supposed to be groveling, not you,” I breathe.
 

“Well, I’m tired of waiting for you to do it. So, after some extensive conversations with Doctor V, we came up with a solution.”
 

“Which is what exactly?”
 

“Well, my options were limited, give you up or go away for a while until I could right this bullshit in my head.”
 

“Calvin, I…”
 

“Shh, please Eric, let me finish.” I nod and he continues, “I was willing to go away, willing to check myself in, willing to do the work it took, but the thing about that part that scared me the most was not knowing what I would have with you when I came out and option one, giving you up wasn’t even an option in my book.” He takes a step closer to me. “You see, Eric, I fell in love with you years ago. I couldn’t do a damn thing about it because I didn’t think I was strong enough to face the demons inside me in order to make it right between us. When I finally confessed to you what I am and what’s inside me, you promised to stand by my side no matter what.” He takes another step toward me. “Then, I imagine whatever you saw that night scared you more than anything else I’ve done because whatever it was sent you packing. I realized after you’d left that night that I needed to find a way to make it right between us.”
 

“No Calvin, I…I was scared, so scared. But what scared me the most was because I pushed you, I triggered your attack. Then once I managed to get over that aspect of it, I had to practically hold you down because you were…” I shudder, “Then it didn’t matter, it wasn’t until you exploded all over yourself and me that I realized where it was that you were and Jesus Christ, Cal, I, fuck, I didn’t know what to think about it. I can’t wrap my head around the things that happened to you, at least I couldn’t, not until that moment and all I wanted to do was hunt those assholes down and kill them for what they did to you.”
 

He takes another step toward me. “I didn’t know that and I am truly sorry that you had to witness that, Eric. I will never be able to apologize enough for that night, but I can do everything in my power to make it right. I cannot erase your memories, or your fear that it will happen again, but I can try and take away some of that possibility. Which is why we’re here.” He opens his arms, gesturing around the small waiting room I’d entered when I came in. “Dr. Morris is an expert hypnotist. We’ve been working together for the last two weeks. It was a process to get to this point but we are finally here. This is it, this is the last day. This is the day where I am hoping to let it all go.”
 

“What if it doesn’t work?”
 

“Then I keep trying, keep coming back until it does. Dr. Morris is confident that we will break the barrier today, that he will be able to wipe everything that triggers me. Though I will still remember it and there is a chance that we might not be able to wipe out the physical stuff, like vomiting, but, like smoking, my body treats my conditioning as an addiction, so we hypnotize away the addiction and…well, I guess we will need to see. So far, the things he’s done have worked.”
 

“Like what?”
 

“Like this.” He steps closer to me, we’re now face to face, closer than we’ve been in weeks. He wraps his arms around my neck and pulls me down. “Kiss me,” he breathes.
 

My eyes go wide for a moment but I can’t resist his request and he knows that. I slant my lips over his. Tears sting the backs of my eyes. Feeling his lips against mine is like finding heaven and home all at once.
 

“Well done,” someone says, not Doctor V, another man, and I’m the one that stiffens, but Calvin doesn’t. His tongue, catching me off guard, slides in along mine and I shiver, melting back into his kiss.
 

Eventually Calvin pulls back, with a smile playing on his lips. “Kissing you, in front of other people, is pretty hot.” He winks at me.
 

“Where do I sign up?” I murmur and Calvin, Doc V, and I’m assuming Morris is the third, laugh. I smile.
 

After introductions are done, Doctor Morris escorts us into an office. Quite different from Doc V’s but still none the less impressive. There aren’t several couches or chairs strewn across the room, but simply one leather lounge and a rolling stool. There are a couple more chairs that are out of place and likely added for myself and Doc V.
 

“Calvin, go ahead and lay down.”
 

“Alright.”
 

“Eric, why don’t you grab one of those chairs and if Calvin is alright with it, take his hand.”
 

I look at Calvin who nods. I grab the chair and move to the other side, sitting near him. He leans up on his elbow closest to me and his hand cups my cheek. “For the record, I like the beard.” I smile at him and he smiles too before laying back down.
 

“Alright Doc, do your worst,” he says as he lies down, getting comfortable.
 

My heart starts pounding, racing blood flows through my veins. Is this it, could this honestly be the moment that brings Calvin back to me, fully and completely? Is this the moment where we finally get a chance to right the wrongs that have kept us apart for far too long?
 

I’ve never been a firm believer in hypnosis, but I watch as Doctor Morris puts Calvin under, his body goes lax, but his hand in mine holds strong. He’s found a grounding point, me. His talisman. Something he’s often called me and I’m beyond honored that he wanted me here.
 

Doctor Morris and Doctor V switch places. I find it curious, but when Doc V starts to talk to him, I understand the necessity for him to be here. Doctor V knows the most about Calvin and his history. He’s known Cal a long time.
 

“Why are you doing this?” Doctor V asks Calvin.
 

“For Eric and for myself.” His voice is stoic, but hearing my name, even in his subconscious state of mind sends a thrill through me.
 

“Tell me, Calvin, what is it that you want to forget?”
 

“The institute, the training they put me through.” Again his voice is almost mechanical, it’s strange, but I know it’s working. “The rapes, the fears, the worries and social stigmas of being gay.”
 

My heart breaks listening to Calvin as he spells out the details of much of his past. But I get why he’s doing it. Doctor V is trying to take those memories of Calvin away from him. He puts more emphasis on the physical and mental response that he has to things related to being gay and what they mean. Calvin’s responses are sometimes revulsion until Doctor V or Morris step in and help him deal with it, pulling it from him, extracting his need to feel those things.
 

The longer Calvin is under, the calmer, more relaxed and complacent he becomes, the progress is staggering until I hear the words that follow. “Calvin, Doctor Morris is going to count to thirty and when you wake up, you will have no memory of the things you watched while in the institute, no memory of what happens when you think gay thoughts, no memory…” Doc V continues on for a few more minutes before switching places with Doctor Morris.
 

“One, two, three…”
 

“I think he’ll be pretty good when he’s done. I cannot promise to have taken it all away, but I do hope that it’s enough that you two can try again.” Doctor V’s hand comes to my shoulder. “He really does love you.” I look up to him and he smiles. “You’re good for him. Despite what you might think when it comes to his triggers and his episodes, you’re always what brings him out of them. Even in a subconscious state of mind. That, my friend, speaks volumes about what you mean to him.”
 

“Twenty-six, twenty-seven,” Doctor Morris continues counting.
 

“Thank you, Doc,” I whisper.
 

“Bring him in, in about a week. I want to talk to him, see how he’s doing. And by the way, I drove him here today. He wanted to go home with you.”
 

I smile, “Thirty.”
 

All of sudden Calvin’s hand squeezes mine as he wakes up. I look at him to judge how he’s doing. “Hi,” he breathes.
 

I fight back the happiest tears as I smile at him. “Hi,” I breathe back.
 

He comes up quickly, planting his lips over mine, and the kiss is desperate. I don’t have a chance to figure out if it’s desperation for me or something else before he pulls back with a gasp.
 

“What’s wrong?” Doctor Morris asks quickly.
 

Calvin shakes his head. “Nothing.” I watch as he swallows. “Nothing is wrong, nothing.” His eyes dart to mine and the biggest brightest smile you can possibly imagine spreads across his lips. “Well, not nothing.” He winks at me and his eyes dart quickly toward his feet and then back to looking at Doctor Morris.

My eyes trail down his body, and I snort. “Well, okay then,” I murmur. He’s hard and I can see the outline through his jeans. I smirk in approval.