Free Contemporary Gay Romances by Felice Picano Page B

so he wouldn’t be ever caught that way again.
    “You’ll have to leave, now they know where you are,” I told him.
    He was crying by then, the fit having passed. “I know,” he said.
    “You should go to Mexico,” I said. “Unless you don’t like dark-haired kids.”
    He looked up at me and smiled. “That was just what I was thinking.”
    This is what I know about drowning: some persons can hold their breath longer than others. No one can hold it longer than five minutes seventeen seconds underwater without a special apparatus. With all my conditions, I certainly can’t. So when Underwear Man pushes my wheelchair into the pond. I’ll just gulp as much water down as I can all at once and hope my body doesn’t try to struggle. That’ll happen in six minutes. He’s cleared the pathway of all debris down to there and is walking back up to come get me. Sheriff Longish will blame himself for a while. But he’ll get over it.
    They say that drowning is the easiest death. And after all, my work here is done.

Imago Blue
     
    When he opened his eyes upon a seamless, all-enveloping, pale lilac light, he immediately realized that he knew for certain these four things:
    He was alive.
    His name was Blue Andresson.
    His official vocation was Investigator: privately established, financed, and (as a rule) client-paid; specializing in Difficult Interpersonal Relations and Potentially Criminal Conflicts.
    And lastly, if he reached his hand out he would encounter—while his elbow was still slightly flexed—the surface of a soft, protective Heal-All within which he had been enclosed, and which had served to return him back to full physiological health over an unknown period of time, while he was seriously injured or chronically ill, and which a thrust-out fingernail would easily rip open.
    There was one other thing he wished he knew but did not: What was he doing inside a Heal-All in the first place?
    There would be time enough for that. His sense of his body odor was growing stronger by the second from long enclosure and he must get away from it. He reached out his right hand, struck the smooth surface, tore at it, and it collapsed all about him with a soft hiss.
    Instantly a soft chiming began somewhere below the plinth upon which he lay.
    He tried to sit up and found it difficult: His muscles wouldn’t work, not even supported by his hands. He tried again and felt slightly nauseated.
    The room around him was an even softer lilac color, nearly pearl; its surfaces were smooth, indistinguishably similar, at least from this level and position.
    He tried to sit up again and this time achieved an inch or two of head height. His body was unclothed and the Heal-All’s therapeutic dews were quickly drying in the ambient warming air. His chest hair was sparse, golden; his abdomen flat, muscled, his legs were long and also golden haired, his feet were large and personable.
    A fourth attempt to sit up got him onto his elbows facing his large perfect toes, and what he now saw, since it slid open with a whoosh, was a door, through which three completely clothed and hooded figures stepped and immediately came to his side.
    “You’re awake, Mr. Andresson? How do you feel? Not too disoriented, we hope?” said One.
    “You must be thirsty. And hungry too, I’m guessing,” said Two.
    He was. And nodded so.
    “Your personal secretary has been notified,” said Three. “You’re unexpectedly early and she is out of town on her own business and can be here in a few hours. Should we contact her? Or a friend or relative? Your mother is listed as next of kin. There is as well as a relationship that might have been as close as fiancée before your injury.”
    A slight transparent tube arrived from out of nowhere right at his lips and he received a delicious cold drip of water that he then sucked at greedily. After which he said, “No. Thank you, don’t bother anyone,” somehow surprised by the deepness of his voice (was it because of this