Any Given Lifetime

by Leta Blake

  Besides, Derek was a decent guy. Neil didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. If fucking Derek kept him from picking up so many random strangers, then maybe it would keep him safe, too. Homosexuality wasn’t the big deal it used to be, but there were still plenty of homophobes in the world, and rapists didn’t disappear just because it was okay for gays to get married just like the straights these days.

  “Don’t worry.” Derek pulled himself up to sit on his ass, wincing a little as he did. “I know where I stand. And this way you won’t be upset when I throw you over for a real boyfriend.” He eyed Neil’s limp cock and grinned. “Though with that thing hammering my ass whenever I want, I’m not sure how eager I’ll be to find one.”

  Neil stared at Derek and decided he was sincere.

  After a shower, a sandwich, and a nap, Neil knocked on Derek’s bedroom door, and sixty seconds later he had a cock in his mouth and a mouth on his cock. It was just as good, if not better, than Neil remembered, and when Neil blew his load, grunting in pleasure and clutching at Derek’s slim hips, he decided it was a fantastic arrangement.

  Chapter Nine

  It was after about three weeks of fucking that he and Derek actually became what Neil would consider to be friends. He hadn’t had many friends in his life, not in this one and not in the one before, but Derek was easy going, helpful, and pretty smart for an English major, in his science-biased opinion.

  Neil knew it was dangerous to let things overlap, but Derek seemed sincere in keeping the sex separate from the rest. They never cuddled after, or talked to each other while still sweaty and covered in come. It was all sex until they were satisfied, and then they went their separate ways.

  The friendship came in and around that. Neil would work in the lab until he couldn’t see straight, and then come back to the apartment, fuck Derek if he had the energy, go to sleep, and wake up to do it all over again. Somehow, though, he found himself lingering over breakfast with Derek and chuckling at Derek’s conversation, but the true tipping point came when Derek asked him about his books, the stacks and stacks of them lining his bedroom.

  “So, what’s up with the fascination on reincarnation?”

  “It’s a hobby.” Neil tried to herd Derek back out of his room, but Derek wasn’t having it.

  He plopped down on the bed and waved a beat-up copy of Old Souls at Neil. “Obviously, but why?”

  Neil shrugged.

  Derek opened the book, flipping through some pages. He tilted his head to read some of the notes Neil had made in the margins. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

  Neil took a slow breath and then said, “Does it matter?”

  “I believe in it,” Derek offered. “My grandmother said she was a weaver at the court of Queen Victoria in her past life.”

  “A weaver, huh? Not Queen Victoria herself?”

  “Nah. Never even met the queen, she said.” Derek shoved hair off his face and shoved the pillow under his head to get comfortable. “I think it makes sense, you know? Energy to energy. Soul to soul.”

  “I don’t,” Neil said. “I don’t think it makes sense at all.”

  “Well, you’re a scientist, so…” Derek shrugged. “If you don’t think it makes sense, why do you read about it then?” He pulled the book from Neil’s bedside table. “Where Did You Go: The Surprising Journey of Life Beyond Life. I mean, you’re really into this!”

  “I do believe in it,” Neil confessed, his palms going sweaty. “I just don’t think it holds up scientifically.”

  “More mysteries on earth than…wait, how does that go?”

  “It’s Shakespeare. I thought you were an English major?”

  “I study poetry.” Derek put the books aside. “So why do you believe in reincarnation?”

  Neil licked his lips, his stomach flip-flopping. What did he have to lose by telling Derek? He already said he believed in past lives, too, and he didn’t seem like the kind of guy to decide Neil couldn’t fuck him anymore because he thought he was born again. “I remember who I was before I died.”

  “Cool!” Derek enthused, smiling. “Were you like, I dunno, someone cool? James Dean or one of the Romanov children? Anastasia maybe?”

  Neil snorted. “I was a nanite researcher.”

  Derek rolled his eyes. “Way to miss an opportunity, dude. You’re saying you were just…you?”

  “Yeah. I was just me. But I had another name and lived in Nashville.” He couldn’t believe he was admitting all of this aloud to someone who wasn’t Alice.

  “How boring.”

  “I guess so.”

  Derek tilted his head. “Do you know how you died?”

  “I was hit by a truck.”

  “Fuck,” Derek winced. “Sorry, man. That’s crappy.”

  “It is.”

  Derek patted the place next to him. “Sit. Tell me more.”

  It wasn’t as though Neil let it all come tumbling out, but still, gradually, Derek came to be the only person aside from Neil’s mother who knew all about his past life and Joshua. Neil even showed him the videos of Joshua that Lee had posted to Facebook over the years, and they discussed at length Neil’s memories from his first life.

  Derek was pretty fascinated by it all, but he never made fun of Neil or suggested that he was crazy. It was a relief to have someone else who accepted his reality as truth. Though Neil himself still sometimes wondered in the wee, sleepless hours of morning if it was true at all, or if he was simply delusional, if not schizophrenic.

  But, as far as Neil was concerned, a fuck buddy and a friend wasn’t a bad trade-off at this point in his life. If he couldn’t have Joshua, he didn’t see why he needed to be a friendless monk. He supposed he deserved a little pleasure outside of his work.

  Neil also knew that if it wasn’t for the sex, the friendship would never have happened. If they hadn’t been fucking, then Derek would never have been in Neil’s bedroom, or, if he had, Neil would’ve accused him of snooping or looking for cash or something worse. But sometimes they screwed on Neil’s bed instead of Derek’s, and Neil would get up, shower, and go back to the labs, leaving Derek blissed out on the mattress.

  Some part of him had to have known it was only a matter of time before Derek would notice the collection of books, all of them on reincarnation, and ask about them. It wasn’t common for young people to have paper-and-ink books anymore, and he had a lot of them. Neil could admit to himself that maybe he’d wanted Derek to ask. Maybe Neil was lonely, and Derek was as good a potential friend for him as any. It wasn’t as though he could share the truth about himself with any of his professors or his fellow scientists without doing harm to his career. As far as Neil was concerned, between the orgasms and the expectation-free company, Derek’s friendship served him well.

  It turned out that Alice liked Derek, too. Neil wasn’t the best son ever, but he submitted to her request for monthly meals together, so long as they were held at his apartment with Derek. That way he could zip out of the lab, eat takeout with her, do his sonly duty, and go right back to the lab afterward. That plan backfired the night he got wrapped up in his work, forgot about their dinner plans, missed her text messages, and returned to the apartment to find her and Derek sacked out on the sofa watching old romantic comedies and drinking hard cider like old pals.

  After that he was always on time to meet his mother for their dinner dates. He hoped that would put an end to the inappropriate fraternizing between his mother and his fuck buddy, but it didn’t. He returned from his lab one evening seeking sex and dinner to find Derek talking over video call with Alice. He stood, dumbfounded, outside Derek’s door listening to them discuss the ‘reincarnation thing.’ Like it was no big deal, and when Derek looked up and saw Neil standing there, he went on talking to Alice like it was normal and like Neil wasn’t there listening.

  “Yeah, I agree. The problem isn’t that Neil’s hot for someone older. Lots of guys have hopeless crushes. It’s more than that, and he’s gonna have to let this one
go,” Derek said, sticking his tongue out at Neil and motioning toward the kitchen where Neil could smell some Chinese takeout waiting. “I mean, as far as this Joshua guy’s concerned, Neil’s dead. And he is dead. Well, not our Neil, but the other Neil. You know what I mean.” He muted the microphone so that Alice couldn’t hear. “It’s your mom. I got the Lo Mein like you like, okay? I’ll be off in a minute. Unless you want to talk to her?”

  Neil just stood and stared at him. Derek rolled his eyes, blew his hair away from his face, and unmuted his mic. “Alice, listen, I’ve gotta go. We can talk about this more later, okay? But don’t worry so much. Neil’s okay. He works a lot, but he’s eating plenty. And he actually smiled twice yesterday, so either it’s a sign of the apocalypse or he’s doing pretty all right.”

  Neil wasn’t smiling now. Hell no, he wasn’t. “Have you told her that we’re fucking, too?” he asked as soon as Derek disconnected.

  “No. Do you want me to?” Derek stomped into the kitchen, got some plates out, and put them on the table. “I could tell her all about how you make me come so hard with that big dick of yours that I see stars. Think she’d like that?”

  Neil knew Derek was messing with him, but it pissed him off all the more.

  Derek sighed. “Listen. She’s lonely, okay? She’s got this big, weird thing in her life—”

  “You mean me.”

  “Yeah, you. And she needs to talk to someone who gets it. When she found out I knew everything and that I believed your story, she was so relieved. Don’t deny her that. Besides, I like her, okay? She’s kind of awesome. And one day, when you’re off…being you…she might need a shoulder, and I might need a mother figure who isn’t actually my mom. So, just chill. And eat your Chinese food.”

  Derek took his plate to his bedroom and shut the door. Neil stood and stared at the boxes of food for a minute and then filled a plate, before knocking on Derek’s door. “So are we going to screw or what?”

  Derek threw something soft against the door. Neil heard whatever it was bounce against the opposite side. “Call your mother and maybe we’ll fuck after.”

  Neil sighed. He didn’t really have time to talk to Alice. But he supposed it had been almost a week. He sat down with his meal and phoned his mom.

  “Hey, Mom,” he said around a mouthful of food. “I can’t talk long, but how are you?”

  Of course, the next time Alice came to dinner, she spent the entire time asking him why Derek couldn’t be his boyfriend.

  “Because it doesn’t work like that,” Neil said, calling on all the patience he could muster, thankful that Derek was out with some of his other friends for a change. He wanted to be a good son to Alice. He did. It was just that sometimes she made it really hard.

  “You can’t tell me he’s not good looking enough. He’s adorable, Neil, and he’s smart. He makes me laugh all the time, and I’ve even seen you chuckle around him. So…why not?”

  Neil stared at her. “Mom,” and he had to refrain from calling her Alice in pure frustration. “Find a boyfriend. Get your own life and stay out of mine. I’ve told you this before. Listen this time, for the love of—”

  “Neil,” she said seriously, “is this because of Joshua?”

  Neil ignored that. “What makes you think Derek would even be interested in dating me? We’re roommates. We’re friends. That’s it.”

  Alice narrowed her eyes and took a bite of her pizza, chewed a moment while glaring daggers at Neil. “You’re having sex with him.”

  Neil practically choked on this soda, and coughed before drinking some more, just to have something to do with his mouth so that he wouldn’t curse at her for being so damn nosy. “Did he tell you that?” he finally asked.

  “He didn’t have to.”

  Neil didn’t believe her, and she clearly knew that, because she went on to say, “I made an educated guess based on how you look at him, and how he behaves around you, and how that’s changed over the last few months. He cares about you, Neil.”

  “We’re friends. Who have sex. We both want it that way.”

  Alice sighed. “You could be happy, if you’d just let yourself.”

  Neil swallowed his soda and stuffed more pizza into his mouth. He couldn’t talk to her about it. She was right, after all. He could pretend that he was like everyone else, pretend that Joshua wasn’t alive out there being Joshua, being the best thing that Neil had ever known, and he could try to fall in love with Derek. But that was the thing. He shouldn’t have to try.

  “What I remember of love—romantic love,” he clarified, “is that it isn’t something you try to make happen, or that you have any control over at all. If I was going to fall in love with Derek, I would have fallen for him by now. I like him. He’s a good guy. We enjoy what we have going. But I’m not going to marry him and make a family with him. I’m not going to become a different son. I’m sorry that I’m always a disappointment to you.”

  Alice’s expression went very serious. “You’re not a disappointment,” she said. “I love you, Neil. I just want you to be loved and to experience happiness. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

  “I don’t think that’s in the cards this time around, Mom,” he said. “But right now, I’m not miserable. I’ve got my research and a decent roommate. Right now…well, it ain’t bad.”

  Alice kissed his forehead and left the discussion behind. For that, Neil was grateful. And later that night, rocking his aching cock into Derek’s tight body, Neil kissed the sweaty skin of Derek’s neck and thought, “Nope. This ain’t bad at all.”

  Chapter Ten

  November 2030—Atlanta, Georgia

  Neil stared at his phone’s touchscreen in shock. The social media announcement was plain and left no room for questions:

  Lee Edward Fargo left this earth suddenly Friday afternoon. Friends and family will be received at the Harwood and Strode Funeral Home on Lois Moore Drive. In lieu of flowers, please donate to World Bicycle Relief, which mobilizes children worldwide in order to help them complete their education.

  Please refrain from texting or calling. Joshua is with his family and needs some space to grieve. He knows that you love and care for him.

  The university cafeteria bustled mindlessly around him, no one knowing or caring that the entire world had just turned upside down. Neil shoved his tray back and scrolled through the comments looking for details. Sure enough, Chris—ah, Chris, how he’d missed him over the years—posted in reply to someone named Kath Henderson’s questions about how and what had happened:

  Yes, an aneurysm due to the early nanite treatment, Kath. Joshua was with him. It happened at breakfast. They were alone together. Poor Joshua.

  Then further down in response to a Gary Lowe:

  The nanites didn’t dissolve properly. A genetic predisposition causes that problem sometimes, especially with the old nanites. I don’t know a lot about it other than Dale doesn’t have the genetic issue Lee did. Is it wrong of me to thank God for that? Most of what I know about the older nanites and those issues comes from the news.

  Gary Lowe then asked if it was a total shock or if they’d known it was a possibility.

  Joshua told me Lee already knew about the lack of dissolution of the prototype nanites, but they’d hoped to find a way to resolve it before something like this happened. Joshua is devastated. He’s with his mom and brother. You know his father passed suddenly just last year? It’s been a rough time. The Mennonites who work for him at the lumberyard have the whole family covered for food, though. Thanks for asking.

  Neil’s blood ran cold. He read over the comments again. Clicked through to Joshua’s page to scroll through post after post of condolences, and stories about Lee, and photos of Lee with whoever was commenting with their sorrow. He clicked open a picture of Lee standing alone beside Cummins Falls in Tennessee. His shaggy, dark brown hair was wet and hung around his still-scarred neck, and his eyes sparkled happily. The caption said, “Fun trip to the Falls with Lee Fargo. Nani
te treatment for his scars begins next week.”

  As he stared at the pictures, a new post came up on Joshua’s page. It was from Joshua himself, and Neil swallowed hard. He could count on two hands the number of posts that Joshua had made himself over the years.

  Losing Lee is like having my heart torn out and my arm cut off. I can’t breathe. I can’t stop crying. I know you all loved him and that does more good for me than anything else. When I lost Neil, my first love, I thought I’d never feel pain that bad again. I was wrong. Thank you for all your words of love and shared grief. We’ll have to make it through this together. Lee would want that for me…for us.

  Neil blinked at his phone, mind whirring. He had no idea what to do, how to proceed. He hadn’t realized how comfortable he’d become over the years with the knowledge that Lee Fargo was taking care of his Joshua. And now…

  Due to his invention and the lack of rigorous testing before implementation in humans, Lee was gone, and Joshua was in pain. He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing in and out slowly, trying to calm his racing mind. He had to fix it.

  But he didn’t know how.

  He walked dully back to his rooms, his thoughts darting every which way into the past, present, and future, tearing apart his old nanite schematics and cursing the greed that had led to his work being pushed out into the world before it should have been.

  Pushing into the apartment, he grunted at Derek who greeted him with an enthusiastic grin. “Hey, you’re home early. Are you horny or something?”

  Neil said nothing, slamming into his bedroom and tossing book after book onto his bed. Journey of Souls, Many Lives, Many Masters, Soul Survivor, and more were flung heedlessly onto the mattress until the pile teetered and books slid off onto the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Derek asked, leaning in the doorway, watching wide-eyed. “Are you okay?”

  “Fuck all this,” Neil said, tossing 20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation over his shoulder. “Fuck this shit, fuck my life, fuck my research. Fuck it all.”