“There is urine in the bedding?Why would you keep such a thing?Did my family not pay you enough to replace soiled bedding?”Micah asked, seemingly frustrated at the news.
“No, child,” Tim said.“The fairy tale,The Princess and the Pea, they put a pea, like a bean, between a stack of ...never mind.I have some jersey knit sheets, which feel like a tee shirt.I also have some silk sheets if you want me to put those on the bed for you.”
Micah cut his eye at Tim.“Silk sheets?Like the ones you use for your sexy times?”
His eyes raked up and down Tim as if the man were spending his evening with a gerbil and a large linebacker.The imagination of things done on those silk sheets resonated on his face as he stared at Tim.“I would not like to use the silk ones,” Micah said.
“You're funny,” Tim replied.“I saw every thought in your head about the things I could have possibly done on those sheets, and you're probably right.”
Micah didn't want to laugh, but he did.“I don't mean to be rude about the sheets, but it is a sensory thing.My Asperger’s...life can be overwhelming and overstimulating for me at times.”
“You seem to handle it well.”
“Not as well as I should, but we all have good days and bad days,” Micah said.“Being the son of the Fer de Lance and the grandson of Eleon Fernandez, my window for failure extends a little, considering what my grandmother calls an affliction.”
“Not to be rude myself, but can you feel love, or do you understand how to express love?”
“Of course, I feel love,” he said.“My issue is that I feel everything.I see everything.I calculate every odd and possibility over and over until at times, I feel as if I am going mad.”
“And Alita?”
“What about her?”
“Would I be out of pocket to notice how much she cares for you, if not loves you, even more so for doing what you are doing?”Tim said.
Micah paused, pouring milk into a saucepan, drizzling in the honey and stirring slowly.He listened to what Tim was saying.He heard the unasked question.This would be a chance to speak with someone outside of his family to get feedback and clarity.
“I have witnessed and experienced the calming of the friendship and camaraderie between you and my brother.He trusts you,” Micah said.“Will you afford me the same grace?”
“Of course,” Tim said.
“Her teen years were forfeited to serve my family, or rather me, and to make money to send to her lazy father,” Micah explained.“In return, she received a salary and a private education at a prestigious school.Men in the cartel would not hesitate to take advantage of an untouched maiden, but for me, it would dishonor my father and complicate our lives.”
“Understood, but do you want more with her?”
“I want a great number of things, Tim the Johnson,” Micah said softly.“However, what kind of man would I be to bring her to my bed for the next few years, then marry another woman arranged by my father, then treat her as if our nights together meant nothing to me while she watches my wife bear my children?”
“Can you marry her?”
“The question is, do I want to?”Micah said.“In my heart, it would be the ideal situation since she knows me better than my own father.The reverse in the same scenario is that she knows me better than my own father.I have no leeway to grow more as a man since we have grown into young adults together.But it could work, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“My grandmother was 18 when she marriedmi abuelo, and he was 21,” Micah said.“My mother was 17 when she married my father, but she ran away, got addicted to drugs, and ended up killed by militia men in the Amazon jungle.”
“Well, damn,” Tim said.
“I say that to say this, people get married all the time at a young age, and many stay married all their lives,” Micah said.“I do not know if her love for me is strong enough to spend a life caring for a man with my afflictions.To bear children who may be like me, is a gamble.”
“You've given this a great deal of thought.”
“I think of it often,” Micah said.“I think of the cost of being her first and the idea of being her only.To take such a gift from her that can be used to barter a better future for herself weighs heavily me.I also imagine taking the time to teach her the ways of love, how to please me as she learns the things which ignite her passions, has kept me awake at night.”
“How old are you again?”
“I shall be nineteen soon,” he said.“Keep in mind, I had my first lover at the age of 14, and until recently, a steady stream of them that were vetted by my father over the past four years.Some of the ladies were into some freaky shit.I liked a lot of it.”He started to laugh.
“I share too much,” Micah said.
