From Whence I Came

HELLO! Welcome to the one you've been waiting for. (Drumroll please...) Here is Chapter 20, Bem's Story. It's a LONG one, so make sure you have time to read it all.

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Crown Vic to a Parallel World: From Whence I Came The second installment of the ongoing adventures of Church Philips

20

Bem's Story

I woke sometime in the midnight hours. I was comfortable and warm between my husband and my friend and had no idea what had disturbed my sleep. I didn't have to pee, and the room was silent. I searched my emotions and realized I felt bad, anxious and sad, but I didn't know why. Shawn muttered something in his sleep, a word or a phrase that I didn't catch.

The noise called my attention to my husband. I squinted at him in the dark room and saw that his face was not at rest. He had the expression of a negative emotion, but I couldn't tell which one without his eyes open. His breathing also seemed quicker than it should have been when he was asleep. I assumed that Shawn was dreaming and guessed that spillover emotions from his dream had awakened me. I tightened my arm around his body and drew him into me. I did it gently, so I didn't wake him. The contact seemed to sooth whatever negativity that he was dreaming. His face smoothed and he relaxed against me.

My emotions settled as Shawn's breathing grew slow and regular. Contentment replaced the anxiety I felt. I relaxed my grip on Shawn and screwed my head into the pillow to adjust it without the use of my hands. When that didn't work, I fluffed it with my magic to support my neck a little better and closed my eyes to sleep. I wondered if Shawn would remember his dream in the morning. I wondered what had disturbed his slumber. Whatever it was, I hoped it wouldn't bother him again. Sleep returned to me, and I rested.

I woke again very early the next morning, well before the sun was up. I didn't want to disturb my bedmates, but I was trapped between them and wanted to get up. I raised the covers off of us with telekinetic magic, gently floated the still-nude Shawn and Bem off the bed, climbed out, and set them back down spooned to each other instead of to me.

As I set them down, Shawn snuggled into Bem without waking. The site was drool-worthy, and I made certain to imprint it in my memory. The sight of Shawn's broad, muscular body curved around Bem's sinewy leanness tempted me to wake them both for another go. The impulse was even harder to ignore because the room still reeked of our sex. I also could still feel the ghosts of their touch on my skin and tasted their flavors on my tongue.

I reminded myself that Bem needed his sleep and covered him and Shawn with a sheet to eliminate the fuel for my fantasies. I also took the opportunity to reassemble the bed by placing the mattress on its frame and positioning both where they belonged in the room, all without disturbing the bed's occupants.

I threw a t-shirt and shorts on, crept downstairs, and made a pot of coffee. When the drip machine finished dripping, I filled a mug, and took it to the backyard. I could tell from the humidity in the air that it was going to be a hot day, brutally hot and humid despite the storm the night before. I dragged the lawn swing around to face what I hoped was east and sat to have my coffee and watch the sunrise. I found out that I'd picked the right direction when the predawn twilight pushed the full darkness back as the first act of the daily miracle of the new day.

I'd just settled in when the noise the of glass door as it slid on its track stole my attention from the purple sky. Bem came out and joined me on the swing. He was dressed similarly to me and carried his own cup of coffee. I appreciated that he liked it black like I did. I respected Bem and because of that, anything I had in common with him helped me feel more connected to my friend. He sipped from his mug and watched the sky. Not a word passed between us until my inherent fear of silence prompted me to speak. "How's your butt?" I asked after several minutes.

"Good." Bem answered. "Whatever Shawn did last night didn't last and everything is back to normal. I'm not even sore."

"That's good." I commented for lack of anything else to say.

"Kind of." Bem hedged his reply. "I'm a little like you, Big Guy." He stuck a suggestive elbow in my ribs. "I like when I'm sore the next day. It lets me know I had a time. You know what I mean?"

"You know that I do." I agreed with my friend.

We lapsed into silence and sipped our coffee until Bem opened a new topic. "I think I'm ready to tell you who I am." Bem said quietly. He said it so quietly, I had to replay his words in my head to hear them properly.

Even though he'd barely spoken, the strain in Bem's voice was clear and that worried me. I worried that whatever he'd been hiding, it was bad enough for him to be concerned about how I would react to it. I decided that I didn't want to risk our friendship over a secret. Bem mattered more to me than anything he could reveal about his past. I rushed to tell him that it didn't matter. "You don't have to. If you don't want me to know, I don't have to know. It won't change the way I feel about you."

"I don't want to hide from you anymore." Bem said quietly but firmly. He sounded like he'd made up his mind after a long thought process.

"Do you want to wait until Shawn is up, so you only have to tell it once?"

Bem blew out a breath he seemed to have been holding. "Shawn can't know." He insisted. "He's such a pure young man. I don't think he would understand...could understand. He hasn't lived enough to understand. You've been around. Even though you're still very young, you've lived a lot. You know how the world works. What I'm about to tell you...you can't share with anyone. You have to promise to keep this confidence to death...to both our deaths."

The way Bem talked; it scared the hell out of me. I was probably more scared than I'd been in a long time, but I gave Bem my word. "I swear I'll take your secret to my grave."

Bem wrapped his hands around his coffee cup and squeezed like he was trying to crush the mug. He seemed to realize what he was doing, pried the mug out of his grip, and set it on the arm of the swing. Without the cup to hold onto, his hands searched for new purpose. They wound up clutched at his sides as his arms wrapped around his body in a tight self-hug.

Bem's voice was barely audible as he began his confession. "I'm not a special forces soldier. I mean...I am, but there's more to it. I'm a specialist. I specialize in betrayal and death." He stopped speaking and left the statement hang in the air.

I rotated my body on the bench to face my friend. He didn't move or turn his head. "What do you mean?"

Bem blew out another long breath, sucked air in with a rushing sound, and blew it out again. "I...I don't know what to say. I rehearsed this and now it's...everything I was going to say is a muddle." Bem made me wait on the figurative edge of my seat until he found a place to start his story. "You remember when we were in that canyon?" Bem asked without looking at me.

I thought I knew the one he meant but wanted to make sure. "The one before the first mission? Where I moved the tree?"

"Yeah," Bem agreed, "you remember we had that talk where Neb called us problem solvers? You asked what types of problems we solved, and I gave you a hard time for the question. Well, I'm ready to tell you what types of problems I solved and how I solved them."

Bem paused again, and I jumped into the strained silence. "It doesn't matter to me. Bem...you don't have to..."

Bem raised hot, angry eyes to mine. "CHURCH," he scolded me, "this is hard enough, OK? Don't make it harder for me."

I closed my mouth and waited for Bem to tell me whatever he wanted to tell me. He lowered his gaze from mine and looked at the ground at our feet. He kicked at the grass beneath the yard swing and took a gulp from his coffee cup. He set the cup back on the arm of the swing and heaved a breath. "Solum is a very peaceful place. The Protectorate of the Common States is the global peacekeeper. Keeping the peace between the nations is easy. They don't really have anything to fight over. Inside the countries, though...inside the PCS...what I call `the individual peace,'" Bem raised his fingers in air quotes, "that comes with a price."

Bem paused again. He seemed to have lost his place in his narration and needed to find it. His right arm crossed his body so his right hand could knead his left shoulder. That was odd because usually it was his left hand that kneaded his right shoulder while his right hand went into his pocket. I wondered if the use of the opposite hand meant something or if the stress of the situation had deranged Bem's normal mannerisms.

Bem seemed to get a fresh handle on his story and went on with the tale. He reset the premise from world affairs to his own personal history. "I told you that I grew up in a little farming community, right?" He asked.

He'd said something to that effect once or twice. I nodded confirmation that I remembered those mentions. Bem nodded to my nod and went on with his story.

"Levare it was called. It's still called that. The name literally means `farm.' It's in the farm belt of the Protectorate and is a lot like Oppidum, that mining town next to the nameless plains. It's got a main street and some businesses, one store, one restaurant, one hotel that's always empty, a big place to get farm machinery serviced, a solar power station, a school, and that's it. The houses cluster around the main street and all around are the fields...miles and miles of fields."

"In my little town, or village, or whatever you want to call it, and in the miles of fields around the town, we grew eight-and-one-half percent of the grain that became the food-base for the culinarian synthesizers. Our community of twenty-two-hundred people grew eight-and-one-half percent of the food for all of the PCS."

Bem turned bright eyes to mine, bright eyes in a proud face. He seemed to want me to say something. I didn't understand why the percentage he'd mentioned was such a big deal, but Bem had thought it was important enough to repeat it. I commented on the figure and tried to sound suitably impressed. "Eight-and-a-half, huh?"

"Eight-and-one-half percent." Bem said again. "My town was the largest grower in the country...and the most productive per square mile of land."

"Ah," I nodded again that I understood why I was supposed to be impressed, "very impressive, Bem."

"Damn right it was. That eight-and-one-half percent was a number that we were proud of. We wore it like a badge of honor. It was even on our town sign." Bem raised his hands in the air and moved them from left to right in front of us like he was guiding our eyes across the sign. "`Welcome to Levare, where we grow eight-and-one-half,' it said. It probably still does. I haven't been there...not in a very long time. It's probably exactly the same. Places like that don't ever change. You know, Big Guy, it was a great place to grow up."

"My father was the town lawyer...is the town lawyer. He specializes in contracts, usually between growers and the food-base factory purchasing agents. He also handles wills and gives legal advice. My story...it's not like yours. I didn't grow up like you and Shawn did. My childhood was great. I mean...my mom left, like Andy's did, but my father...he was the best father a kid could have. I looked up to him. I looked up to him a lot. I was going to be like him...sort of. I was going to be a lawyer, but not a small-town lawyer. I wanted excitement, big city excitement. I was going to move to the capital and be a big city lawyer. My father...he supported me. He wanted me to get my wish."

Bem picked up his coffee cup again and examined the contents. He swirled what was left in the cup and downed it in a gulp. He wiped his mouth on the back of his wrist and set the cup down. "That was the path I was on until...until everything changed. When I was about Andy's age, a team came to the village just before planting time. They were three men and one woman. They came in a government vehicle and looked like government people. They had all the right identification for a government team who had come to work with the farmers."

I didn't understand the nuances of Solum agriculture, and my mental Shawn reference book came up empty as well. I asked Bem to explain the relationship between the government and the producers.

Bem explained. "The federal government knows that plentiful food is good for peace. They have research offices that work on new fertilizers and soil chemistry and that kind of stuff. Because we were the biggest producer, it wasn't unusual for government agents to come to our village to check the crop yields, or to introduce new chemicals, or to rent a section of someone's field to test new techniques."

"Because that type of thing was normal, no one questioned this team. They had the right papers, and they looked right and acted right. We welcomed them. My father welcomed them. This team, they came with chemicals, new fertilizers that they wanted the farmers to spray on the fields. Instead of just a few test acres, they wanted the farmers to spray all of their fields. That was a little unusual, but these agents promised ten percent higher yields. That's a huge gain, practically a miracle."

"The town was so excited. They didn't talk about anything else. There was even talk of being able to change the sign. Maybe instead of eight-and-one-half, maybe we could claim nine percent, or maybe nine-and-a-half...maybe even ten. It was like a golden dream to be able to say we grew ten percent of the food for the PCS. My father was one of the `ten percenters.' He was as excited as all the others...maybe more so. He did all kinds of math to calculate how much a ten percent yield increase would translate to, you know, against all the food produced in the PCS. He even confided to me that, by his math, we might even reach eleven percent. The farmers clamored to use the new fertilizer."

"We didn't get to eleven." Bem said as his voice grew sad and hollow. "We didn't even get to ten. We almost had to surrender our eight-and-one-half. You see, the team who promised the miracle, they weren't from the government and their chemicals weren't fertilizers. They were a group of terrorists, some group that wanted to depopulate the world, and their chemical was an herbicide. If the farmers would have sprayed the fields, nothing would have grown, not for years. The land would have been sterilized."

"If their plan would have worked, food prices over the whole world would have gone up, the poor would have suffered, and our town would have been destroyed. I don't think people would have starved, but it would have been bad...so bad. It didn't happen though. Someone was there to stop it. I got to see it. Big Guy...I saw it happen and it changed my life."

Bem looked up at me, eyes glistening and wide with wonder and excitement. "It was amazing. The whole community turned out to see the fields sprayed with the miracle chemical. It was a historic day. The farmers filled their equipment, the mixers and sprayers, and prepared to set out across the fields. Just as the terrorist plot was about to play out, a plane flew over. A PA system from the plane shouted a warning that exposed the `government team,'" Bem raised his fingers in the familiar action of air quotes, "as terrorists and announced that the chemical was an herbicide. It commanded them to stop what they were doing, that they would soon be surrounded."

Bem shook his head in wonder at the facts he related. "Like it could be that easy. The terrorists did what terrorists do. They tried to salvage their plan with a show of force. They revealed energy weapons and ordered the farmers to spray. One farmer, a man my father knew very well, he stood up and said he would rather die than poison the land that gave him his livelihood."

"The woman from the terrorist group, she shot him down. She killed him and screamed at the other farmers to get going or she would kill them all. Imagine it, Big Guy, the plane landed, and agents swarmed out of it. They came running with weapons drawn. The four terrorists held the farmers hostage. They tried to force them to destroy their fields and their way of life or die. Just when it looked like there was no way out, no way for the farmers to escape, no way for the good guys to win, that's when it happened." Bem snapped his fingers.

"One member of the terrorist group, a quiet guy with blond hair like mine, he turned his weapons on the rest of the team and shot them down. He killed two of them, the screaming woman and one of the men, but the third he wounded. It happened right in front of my face."

"The military forces came and arrested the wounded man. They pronounced the two terrorists and the one farmer dead and took over the scene. The man that shot the others, he was a special forces soldier, a problem solver who was embedded in the terrorist organization. He was a hero. With three well-placed energy discharges, he saved my whole community. He saved our livelihood. He saved my father's practice. He saved our pride and our dignity and our eight-and-one-half percent. Right in the nick of time, he shot those people and saved us all...all except for that one poor farmer."

"The town mourned that poor, brave farmer. They planned to erect a statue to him and his defiance. They also wanted to thank the hero who'd saved the rest of us. They wanted his image for another statue. They wanted to hold a parade and have him give a speech. They wanted to praise him for saving the very existence of the village that I grew up in. They didn't get the chance because our hero, our savior, wasn't in it for the accolades. He did his job and moved on. We never even knew his real name." Bem trailed off into his memories and left me with a sort-of cliffhanger. He'd told the story but hadn't provided the moral.

I drew what I thought was the logical conclusion from the story. "So, you joined the military instead of becoming a lawyer."

"That's exactly what I did." Bem agreed, still enthusiastic. "I wanted to be like that man. I wanted to save communities like mine. I wanted to be," Bem's enthusiasm stopped on a dime and quieted to a murmur, "I wanted to be my father's hero. My father gushed in his praise for the special forces soldier, that problem solver. He talked about that man's sacrifice and how he must love his country to give his life over to it. I wanted that praise for myself. When I turned sixteen, I joined the military's youth training program, and when I was eighteen, I left my home and became a soldier. When I was twenty, I volunteered for the special forces and became a problem solver."

"My father...he wasn't thrilled at my choice because he knew it would put me in harm's way, but he supported me the way a good father should. He told me that he was proud of me for wanting to protect people. He also said that there was no shame in quitting if I found that life wasn't for me. My father...he had me later in his life. He was already over one-hundred-and-fifty when I was born, so he had a lot of experience. I think he knew how hard that life could be, and he wanted to give me a way out if I ever needed it. He told me...he told me that his home would always be my home. He said that if I ever needed to, if I was ever in trouble and needed a place to take refuge, that I should come to him."

"I never did, though." Bem wagged his head and shrugged. "I became a problem solver. That wasn't my actual title, but that's how we referred to ourselves. My actual title was `counter-insurgency-agent, embedded.' That's what I was from the time I was twenty years old until the day we got our payoff for saving the world. That's my secret." Bem stopped talking like the story was over.

I was confused. Bem had told me a story that seemed fine. I didn't understand why any of that had been a secret. I didn't understand why he'd hesitated to tell me. I didn't understand why Bem insisted that I not meet `the old him.' Again, I felt like he'd told me a story with no moral. I asked a question that came out sounding more abrupt than I'd intended. "So what?" I asked. I heard myself say the words and didn't like how they sounded. I tried to correct myself. "I mean..."

Bem stopped me and talked over the awkward explanation for the words I didn't mean. "I know what you meant. The so what' is what I've done to do the job that I volunteered for. The so what' are the lies I've told and the people I pretended to be, sometimes for years. The so what' are the events that I was a part of that I can't ever take back. The so what' is...the so what' is...Church, the so what' is the people I betrayed and killed. Those people...and the blood that they left on my hands, they're the `so what.'"

I still didn't get it and said as much. "I don't get it. I mean, I assumed you'd killed people. I assumed you would have had to. I knew that Neb had. You killed people like the man in your story. You killed to protect."

Bem blew out a long sigh and shook his head. "It's not that simple. When I joined up, I thought like you do. I thought it would be simple. I thought the whole job would be like the showdown I saw at the edge of the fields that day. That's not how it works. The people I killed...some of them I liked. Even the ones that I didn't like, I'd grown close to. To do the job that I did...I had to get very close to the people in the terrorist cells or the criminal organizations. They had to trust me. I had to be their friend. I had to be one of them. Sometimes...most of the time, that meant I had sex with them."

"It's a very slow process," Bem explained, "earning the trust of people like that. People in those groups, they worry about people like me so they're careful. I had to create myself over and over and over again. I had to become the right kind of person who would be a gang member, or a member of an organized crime syndicate, or a terrorist. I had to turn myself into one of them. That meant living with them, eating with them, plotting with them, and getting to know them intimately. Very often, I slept with them."

Bem turned toward me but made no eye contact. He looked like he had the day before, dead eyes in a blank face. "That was how I lived. I had no personal life. I lived the job. Every time I met new people, I recreated myself into someone I thought they would get along with." Bem paused for a breath and went on by saying, "I did it when I met you. The person you know as me, the clown, the `horny adolescent' as I've heard you say, he was a character I created to fit the situation. He was born in room 604 at The HALL the instant we met."

I didn't understand. I wanted to understand, or at least I thought that I wanted to understand. Maybe I didn't want to understand. I'd assumed that Bem would have to change himself to be a `problem solver' as he put it, but I didn't expect him to say that he'd done it with me. I heard myself say what I'd already said too many times during that conversation. "I don't get it."

"Of course, you don't." Bem said through his dead expression. "How could you hope to get it? I'll tell you how it works. When I get a new assignment, I get a file. The file has all the information available on the people who I need to ingratiate myself with. There's written background and most of the time, recorded video and audio. I read and I listen, and I analyze. I figure out what those people need the most, and that's what I become."

"With you," Bem nodded at me, "I read your file. I read what Shawn knew about you and what he'd reported to his uncle. I read what his uncle knew from talking with you and what he surmised. I read the records the Steward got from his sources on Earth. I also watched the recording of your conversations in the Steward's office, your meeting with Preacanto, and your magic test."

I interrupted Bem with a blurted, "watched WHAT?"

"Do you really need me to repeat that?" Bem asked in response to my demand.

I wanted to be angry and shout about the injustice of Ars filming what I had assumed were private discussions, but I knew better. It was well within Ars' character to keep video of all the conversations that took place in his office. It shouldn't have surprised me at all. I apologized for getting excited. "Never mind. I should have known. You heard me tell Ars he could have my tomorrows. What did that tell you about me?"

Bem went on with his story like I hadn't interrupted him. "When I met you, I knew what to expect. I expected a big, sad, world-weary guy. I expected a guy who was out of his element, a guy who was all alone in the world, a guy who thought he didn't give a damn what happened to him. I thought about how to ingratiate myself with a guy like that. I decided, what a guy like that needs more than anything else, is `fun.' A sad man needs to laugh, and a lonely man needs a friend."

"The guy that cupped your package and asked you if your dick was proportional to the rest of you was a false face I'd used before. It was a personality I'd used to complete missions...to get close to people, sometimes close enough to kill them. You bought it completely, accepted me at face value. It's that person...that's who you've been friends with."

Bem shrugged a shallow little shrug that I wouldn't have noticed unless I'd been looking right at him. I had been looking right at him as he described himself exactly as he was when I met him at The HALL. I found it disturbing to hear my friend tell me that the person I thought I knew was really an elaborate and practiced act.

As I thought about what Bem said, I decided that something about it didn't ring true. I'd been with Bem for a great deal of time. I'd shared moments with him. He'd just said, in essence, that all those moments were lies. I couldn't accept that. "Bem." I said to get his attention. He raised his dead eyes to mine to let me know I had it. "It couldn't be an act. Not all of it. We've been through so much together. I've been friends with you for six years. You were at my wedding. All of that couldn't have been an act."

"It's hard to explain." Bem said as he dropped his eyes again. "I mean, that person is a part of me, but he's only a part. He's `fun Bem.' I use him in social settings, when I need to be the life of the party. It takes a lot to keep him up. To say that person, the person you know as me, to say it's an act...I mean, not all of it is an act, but the fact that I only showed you that version of me, that's the act."

"I see." I accepted Bem's clarification. I felt marginally better that the person he claimed I knew was really him, but only a part of him. I didn't think that was too bad. I rationalized that most of us only know one face of the people we interact with. Most people change themselves depending upon their situation and who they're with. Bem just did it more deliberately than most. I tried to convince myself that was OK.

Bem nodded at his lap and went back to his story. "When I saw your size in person, and then your power, I wanted you. That much at least, that was the real me. When we were going to fight, and that catalyst burst...that was so sexy." Bem grinned, and for a moment, I saw a flash of the Bem I knew. It didn't last, though. His face fell, and when his grin vanished, the depthless, dead eyes returned.

"When I saw your magic, when I saw how easily you could destroy, I saw another opportunity. I saw an opportunity to end the life I'd been living. I never took my father's offer of refuge, but maybe I should have. By the time we met, I was tired...burned out. I didn't believe in the work anymore." Bem shook his head like he was angry at himself. "That's not true. The real problem was that I didn't feel like I was making a difference. Each group I infiltrated, whether they were criminals or terrorists, they were just like all the others and there was always another group right behind them."

"I felt like I'd done all I could, like I'd done enough, and it was someone else's turn, but that's not a job you quit. Once you live like that, once you lead that life, that becomes all there is. I didn't think that I could ever do something else. I didn't think it was possible for me to change. I just wanted it to be over and I didn't care how that happened. When you walked in the room that day, I thought I found my answer. When I saw your size, I wanted you to fuck me and when I saw your power, I wanted you to kill me. If I got one, or the other, or both, that was fine with me."

Even though Bem had been saying that our friendship was built on a lie, I still saw him as my friend. I still heard the hurt in his voice and saw the pain on his face. My heart went out to my friend. I tried to put a hand on his shoulder in a version of my `standard' comforting action. Bem tensed under my touch, and he pushed me away. "No, not now. Maybe not ever again." He shook his head bitterly. "You have to hear all of this."

I put my hands in my lap and let Bem continue.

"That first time we fought, when you were impaled by the ax and Shawn had to put you back together, I saw that he loved you. That didn't matter much to me except as a way to have you both. I figured if I could get to you, Shawn would come along, or if I could get to Shawn, you would come along. Simple. The idea of having you both was almost too hot to think about."

"What a way to finish up.' I thought. Ride out the end of the world between you two.' By that point, I was looking forward to being dead. I didn't really expect to save the world. I was going to try, but I didn't count on being successful. In my own way, I'd been trying to save the world my entire life, and I'd never managed to do it. I didn't see how that time would be any different. I figured I'd just play war games with you and Shawn and Neb until the end."

The mention of our teammate Neb, and the memory of the conversation the team had in the canyon that Bem had mentioned, connected some dots inside my head. I broke into Bem's monologue with the verbalization of that connection. I'd remembered Neb's reaction to my indelicate question about what type of problems she and Bem solved as members of the special forces. In the light of Bem's story so far, the way Neb had hedged her answer took on new meaning. "Neb knew about you." I said as a question.

Bem nodded to his lap again. "She did. She would have had to. I'd never worked with her. I rarely worked with anyone. Neb knew me by reputation and from the files that she had access to as the team leader."

I thought about how Neb had been awkward about Bem when I'd asked my indelicate question. So far, nothing that Bem had explained provided a reason for that awkwardness. I figured that Neb was a professional, just like Bem was, and would therefore be jaded when it came to how each of them served their country. I asked about that.

Bem explained. "There's a stigma about us...people who do my job. People don't trust us."

Bem elaborated by attacking the topic from a different angle. "Neb is a cop. She started as a cop, and even as a military strategist, she still handles things like a cop would. She works out in the open and everything she does follows direct logic. For me, and people like me, we work in the shadows. When one of us...a problem solver, is assigned to a team like I was to Neb's team, usually the other personnel are nervous about us. They suspect that we're there to serve two masters. The one master is the team and the task at hand, while the other is the government and whatever covert reasons they might have for investigating the team members."

I thought about that for a second, and I didn't like what it implied. "Does that mean," I asked and didn't know how to finish my question. I reset my thoughts and tried again. "Does that mean that Neb didn't trust you?"

Bem shook his head and shrugged. "It's a matter of how she would have trusted me. She would have trusted me to do the job required by the team, but she may not have trusted me completely. I think in her case, by the end of the mission she trusted me. I have been part of teams where I never made that final connection with the other members. For those teams, I was just a function, not a true person, not a real team member. Among the upper echelon, among people like Neb who were at the peak of their careers, I built a reputation for being very good at my job. With that reputation came distrust. I didn't like it, but there wasn't anything I could do about it."

I thought about that, chewed it over for a minute while I tried to process the implications. All the talking Bem had done about his reputation reminded me of someone else who'd said they knew Bem `by reputation.' I recalled that mention to Bem and asked him about it. "When you fought with Vulp, in the dojo, Cy told us that he knew you by reputation. Did he...they, the Dux brothers both know who you were?"

"They did," Bem agreed, "and the Steward of course. I never told you or Shawn. How could I?" Bem sat up rigidly straight and turned hot, angry eyes to mine. "How could I tell you?" He demanded. "How could I tell you, especially after...after..."

Bem didn't finish his statement, and his anger left him. He deflated like a three-day-old balloon. "I baited you every chance I got. Either you'd give in and fuck me, or you'd lose control and erase me...like I said, win, win. Except...except something happened along the way. You started getting to me...under my skin, I guess. I've never met anyone like you. You despised yourself, like I did...like I do...but that didn't translate to you hating everyone around you. No matter how many times the training knocked you down, you just picked yourself up and tried again."

Bem shook his head and reviewed some of the events of the past. "Beat up by me, almost killed by an ax, fall off a climbing wall like a million times, find out that your magic makes everything about the mission easier...for everyone that isn't you. Even with all of that, no matter how many times you lost the fight, you got up and fought some more. I was impressed...impressed enough that I thought maybe I didn't deserve you."

"Then you told me your secret. After that time that I tried to peep on you and Shawn in the bath behind the waterfall, you sat with me around the fire and told me your sadness. It broke my heart to hear about how you lived on Earth, how isolated and sad you were. It broke a heart that I thought was dead. When I learned about you like that, it attracted me to you even more. I felt like you and me...we had something in common. I hadn't wanted someone like I wanted you, not in a very long time."

Bem looked up at me with sad, desperate eyes in a long face. He seemed to want to make sure I understood what he was saying. "It wasn't just sex either. I felt like...like I wanted you to like me. I respected you. You were the first regular person I'd respected in so long. You see, I'd learned to categorize people. There were three types of people. There were people like me, then there were the enemies of peace who I taught myself to hate, and finally there were regular people. I didn't have much use for regular people. I thought they were weak...cowards maybe. There was something about you, though. You were different. I found that I wanted your attention, your friendship."

"Eventually you gave me more than that. You and Shawn gave me what I wanted, but I got more than I bargained for. When Shawn invited me for a romp, after that second mock battle, I was so excited. Then the time you guys gave me," Bem's sad face morphed to become his characteristic leer, "I still fantasize about that oily strip tease Shawn did. That was so hot, and the way you manhandled me...wow."

Bem's gaze left my face and returned to his lap. "Even though the sex we had was wild and passionate...you guys, you made love to me. We didn't just fuck. You and Shawn treated me like an equal, like a good person who deserved love and kindness. You both held me, trusted me enough to go to sleep with me. Neither of you knew you were spooning with a predator."

My friend's voice dropped to a barely audible whisper, and he croaked out what sounded like a desperate confession. "Church...Church, I've been playing a role. I've been playing a role like I always play. I've been doing it for so long, I don't even know who I am. You invited me, the pretend me, into your bed, and you loved me, and I could have killed you that night. I could have killed both of you."

"I have killed people...not quite like that, but most of the people I killed, I did it when they trusted me the most." Bem raised his hands in front of his face and stared into his palms. "I'm worse than a predator. I find people, I pretend to be one of them, I make myself act like one of them, and when they drop their guard around me, I betray them to the authorities, or I kill them. You trusted me and I could have betrayed you and killed you. For as long as I've done it, as many times as I've done it, it would have been closer to my character for me to have done exactly that."

Bem's confession about how vulnerable Shawn and I were in bed with him, it reminded me of the brief period when Shawn had been afraid of my magic. Shawn had been afraid that I would kill him with my immense power. I'd told Shawn that I could kill him with my hands. I'd said it to put my power in perspective. I'd tried to show Shawn that killing required intention, something had to be behind the act. Bem had brought up betrayal. To my mind, that was the same thing. I felt that there was a parallel between the conversation that I'd had with Shawn and the one Bem was having with me. "But you wouldn't have." I said in support of my friend.

"But I COULD have." Bem insisted.

I tried the same reasoning on Bem that I'd used on Shawn. "I could kill you. You were just as vulnerable. I could kill you right now. A quick flash of white magic and you'd be gone."

Bem chuckled a bitter, miserable chuckle. "No...no you couldn't. I mean, physically you could, but you don't have it in you, Big Guy. I know you. I know you so well. For you to kill me, or anyone...this person, this person you are, it would kill this person every bit as much as it would kill the person you killed. It would completely change who you are. You wouldn't be you anymore if you killed someone."

I felt a little like Bem was making fun of me. I tried to defend myself. "I killed Pravus." I argued.

Bem shook his head. "You saved the world. You released a man who was already dead. Even though I didn't shoot him to stop his heart, all you really did was get rid of a body." Bem raised his voice like he was upset with me. "Don't you get it, Big Guy? I love that you don't have it in you to kill. I admire that about you. You're...you're everything that I wish I was."

I was stunned to silence by Bem's words. I didn't even like myself very much and Bem had just professed that he wished he was exactly like me. I didn't know what to do with that information.

Bem went on before I had a chance to deal with what he'd said. "That's why...that's why I wanted to be the man you thought I was. It was that night with you and Shawn, that night you gave me what I wanted. It made me want to be that person. I decided that I would never let you see any other side of me than what you'd already seen. I never wanted to expose the act to you, because that would have been a kind of betrayal." Bem's voice rose in something that sounded like defiant pride. "It worked for a while, but it kept getting harder. I thought that moving into your building...I thought it would be great, but it wasn't. It was like being edged but without the payoff."

"That time though, those months right before you were married, that was probably the best time of my life." Bem said with a flash of a real smile. "We spent so much time together. You guys included me with everything; shopping trips, outings, your therapy, the wall climbs that you and Shawn started doing together. All that stuff that you could have kept just for the two of you, you invited me along. You never treated me like an extra...never. Every time you came upstairs to get me...every time you knocked on the door and asked if I wanted to," Bem chuckled at the memory, "you remember what you used to say? `Hey Bem, you wanna come play?' Like we were kids or something. Your face always lit up when I said yes."

"I loved that time, but I was so afraid all the time. You see," Bem explained, "I could never relax for fear the mask would slip."

He sighed. "When you left on your honeymoon, I missed you, but I was relieved because I didn't have to pretend to be anyone for a while. Later on, I started traveling with Divided Light to get away. When they made me the road manager, I was happy to have a purpose again. I figured I could see you guys a few times a year and keep up the act. You would never know."

"I couldn't pull it off." Bem wagged his head miserably. "My life got harder when you weren't around. I was lonely, lonelier than I'd ever been. You and Shawn showed me what it was like to be cared for, really cared for. When you left, there was no one. It was too much like the old days except it was worse because I knew what I was missing."

"When we would get together, when we were all traveling, it was always so great to see you guys, but then you'd leave, and I'd be alone again. The last time we were together, three months ago, was the breaking point. You were both so happy to see me, like you always are. We were together for a whole week. That last day, when there was no concert to worry about and we spent all day just hanging out in the room. We were naked, completely naked and we talked about life and love and friendship and...and we enjoyed each other, our bodies and our thoughts and our feelings. That was such an incredible day. I...I cherish the memory of that day, but that's what did it. That's what destroyed me."

"It's that sensuality you guys are so good at. I know you both love me. I can feel it in the way you touch me, the way you enjoy my body when we're together. Especially you, Big Guy."

I argued because I didn't see myself as anything remarkable in bed. "Shawn is the sensual one."

Bem shook his head at me. "I don't mean what you think I mean. I don't mean teasing and that stuff. I mean the way you get into me. You smell me and taste me. It's like you want to...I don't know...you celebrate me. It's like you celebrate everything about me. I've never been with someone who made love to me the way you do, someone who enjoys me, who really worships my body and my...my mind to, I guess. I've never been with anyone who loves everything about me, who wants to experience all of me, like you do."

"Last night, when you were opening me up, the way you rimmed me and fingered me. You kept licking my hole and tasting me on your fingers and smelling me. Shawn had to hold onto me because the stuff you were doing to me. I felt like if he didn't hold on, that I would disappear into the pleasure. Shawn said things to me. He knows how intense you can be. He stroked my head like he does, and played with my hair, and said things like, `how does it feel to have him love you like that? How does it feel to know that every one of his senses are focused on you? You're all he can see, and touch, and taste, and smell. How does it feel to know he's lost himself in you?'"

"That's what it is, I guess. You lose yourself in me and I fucking love that. When you love me, Big Guy, it's all about the experience. You get so into it...so into me. Most of the people I've had sex with, they don't care how I smell or taste or anything like that. Not only do you care, but you want to...it's like you want to roll around in my scent and eat my flavor like it's your favorite food. When you do that thing where you explore my body, it makes me feel...I get such a rush watching you get off on my body, breathing me in, tasting me. I bet you know what every part of me tastes and smells like, don't you?"

"I do." I admitted as I felt some embarrassed heat rise into my face.

"That's hot." Bem said. "And...and it's really sweet. You're the only one who knows me like that. I've had...I've probably had sex thousands of times with thousands of people and you're the only one in the whole wide world who ever took the time to know me that well. You...and Shawn, but mainly you...you're the only one who's ever been that intimate with me. It means so much. It means everything. It means that it's so much more than sex. It means that you really love me."

"You know, you and Shawn are the only two people who figured out how nuts I go when someone plays with my hands and my fingers. When you and him," Bem looked up at me, "do you remember what you did...when was that, like two years ago? You and him, you knelt at my feet like you were my servants and you each took a hand. Ooooohhhh the two of you, licking and sucking my fingers, blowing on them, passing my hands back and forth...fucking amazing." Bem trailed off into silence, presumably to relive the memory of the pleasure he'd felt. He stayed quiet for a while.

I used the pause in conversation to recall the behind-the-scenes of that particular `Bem special feature.' Shawn and I knew in a vague way that Bem's hands were an erogenous zone and we decided to go all out on them. As part of Shawn and I working to prepare that special feature for Bem, we found out that hand play was fun for us as well.

I'd discovered that Shawn's soft hands are sensitive enough for him to take pleasure in my attention to them. We found that my mangled paws don't have enough sensation left for the physical to be as pleasant, but physical sensation was only part of the fun. The visual sensuality of Shawn's full lips wrapped around one or more of my thick digits was an erotic head-rush that I loved.

When we had our session with Bem, we started with regular foreplay. Once we were all pretty far gone with lust, Shawn and I did exactly as Bem said. We each took a hand and stared directly into Bem's shining, cobalt eyes while we worshiped his fingers. I knew we were doing it right when Bem's eyes glazed over. He stopped watching us, and he let the sensations submerge all thought.

I got a little lost in my memory until Bem shifted in his seat on the yard swing. The motion dragged me from the past and into the present. Bem came back to what he'd been saying. "The day after you guys left, I had a romp with the back-up singers."

I must have scrunched my face while I tried to remember. Bem saw that I couldn't picture them. "You know," he prompted, "the sisters. They're not twins, but they may as well be...the red heads."

Bem's description jogged my memory of the voluptuous ginger women. They'd both individually come on to me at different times, and once as a pair. Each turndown was a fresh surprise for them. I supposed that stacked, red-headed, almost-twins don't often hear the word `no' when it comes to sex...or anything else for that matter.

"Anyway," Bem looked away and continued the story, "we fucked, and it was fun, and when we finished, they got dressed and left. Suddenly I felt very alone, naked and spent in my cold bed. I cried. Me...I actually cried. I wanted to be held. You and Shawn showed me how good it felt to be loved. They...the sisters, they didn't want to give any love, they just wanted to fuck. I was their tool of pleasure, nothing more...a fucking sex toy." Bem spat the word angrily like he wanted some kind of revenge on the back-up singers for using him.

He sighed and went on without bitterness. "I looked at my life and it was empty. I'd never built a permanent life to enjoy. I'd always gone from being one pretend person to the next. I'd done it for so long, I was a stranger to myself. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't call you and Shawn and tell you how I felt. It was my problem and I had to deal with it, but I didn't know how. I couldn't ask anyone to love me; not with what I've done, not after the pattern of make-believe loyalty, then betrayal, then death or arrest. The emptiness hurt. It hurt so badly. I numbed the pain any way that I could until I burned out and wound up on your doorstep."

Bem paused and his short silence gave me a chance to reflect on the sum-total of what he'd said. Bem's story, and the way he told it, echoed my own so loudly I wanted to gather my friend into my arms and weep for him. I couldn't identify with the killing that he'd done, but I understood the isolation he felt, the loneliness. I also knew how it felt to pretend to be something that I wasn't. When I was on Earth, I wasn't `out' as a homosexual to anyone. I barely acknowledged my sexuality to myself. It was soul crushing.

My heart cried out for the pain of my friend, and I had to fight a fresh impulse to embrace him. I kept my distance because I knew that Bem wasn't finished his story. There was more to tell, and he had to have his say. I refolded my hands in my lap and waited for him to finish.

"I didn't have the energy to be the life of the party then, but I hoped you would assume that any slips were just because I didn't feel well. Everything was smooth until that squeaky little prick tried to stab me. The mask shattered and I lost control for just a minute. I didn't give into my impulses, not completely. If I had, your sister's husband would be dead. That's what I meant when I said my actions were unprofessional. For someone like me, someone playing a role, to slip like that, it would usually mean death."

"When I realized what I had done, I was ashamed. I was ashamed on a couple levels. I have cultivated my mental discipline, sharpened it like a weapon. I had to. I've infiltrated groups with telepaths as members. It wasn't enough for me just to act like the people I pretended to be. I had to keep my mind sharp all the time to really live as those people, to keep the telepaths from finding me out. When I snapped and threw Zeke to the floor, with that action I surrendered to my hatred of that man. That action was against my most basic training."

"The other reason that I was ashamed, and the most important reason, was you and your family. The look on your sister's face when she saw what I'd done...it was terrible. She was afraid of me, and I thought, maybe she should be afraid of me. Maybe I am a monster. Maybe when Mary looks at me...maybe fear is the right emotion. I hated seeing that fear though. It hurt my heart. I thought I'd ruined everything with you and with her."

"I thought you'd be angry. I thought you'd threaten to break our friendship. I thought you'd yell at me. Instead of any of those things, you thanked me and didn't insist on answers. You reached out to me with love and support instead of judgement. I wept inside. I wept for not trusting you enough and for you trusting me too much."

"Before you invited me upstairs last night, outwardly I'd been watching a movie with Andy, but inside I was hating myself. Even after what I did to Mary's husband, and the answers I refused to give you, you still invited me into your bed, into your life, like it was the most natural thing in the world. I thought my heart would burst. When I was sandwiched between you two, with both of you inside me, I swear I could feel your love for me like you and Shawn can feel it for each other."

Bem wrapped his arms around his body in another self-hug like he was freezing cold. "It's like when you share your magic with me. It's...it feels so good, filling me with...with your life, because that's what it is. You share your life with me, Church. You gave me a part of your life...gave it to me out of love and friendship, a gift just for me...a gift of life. You've given me so much...Shawn has to, but really, you're the one. I know Shawn loves me, but what you've done...I can't ever pay it back. The trust you showed me, the gift of your time and your love and a spot in your relationship with Shawn and your life...Church, you've given me part of your life."

I didn't know what to say to Bem's incredible gratitude. I didn't think I'd done anything at all for Bem, not really. He was my friend. I gave him my time and my magic, but those things didn't seem that special to me. What Bem said about my magic...I mean, I knew magic was essentially life, but the way Bem described it, it was like I'd given him a kidney or something.

The magic...there would always be more of it. I gave it to Bem when he needed it because...because he was my friend and he needed it. I couldn't understand why he was so grateful for it. Bem started talking again so I had to put my thoughts aside so I could pay attention.

"What you guys did to me...for me last night, putting me between you two, both of you inside...it wasn't just an act of sex, it was an act of mercy. When you did what I asked and crushed me against your chest, I couldn't breathe but I didn't care. For just a second, I felt like I got my wish, my fantasy of becoming a part of you both, and it was the most incredible feeling. You've done so much...so much for me and I don't deserve any of it."

I started to object to Bem saying that he didn't deserve our love, but he wouldn't let me. He made me hold my tongue until he finished what he had to say.

"Anyway, when I thought about everything, I knew I had to tell you. You trusted me so much. I mean, here I am in your family's house, with your brother and sister and their kids, and you don't even know who I am. You guys love me, but you don't know who I am. You...you and Shawn, you helped me when I needed it. When I was so sick and lonely and sad, you kept me safe and warm. Your overflowing magic helped repair the damage I did to myself. You guys have been so kind, so loving. You've never lied to me, Big Guy. You've never been anyone but yourself for me. I...I owed you the truth of who...of what I am."

Bem turned his face to mine, his eyes no longer depthless, but red with worry. "Can you still like me, now that you know I'm a liar and a monster?" He asked in a voice that shook with emotion.

I finally acted on the impulse I'd been fighting for most of the time that Bem had been talking. I grabbed my friend and pulled his lean body into my lap. I held him against me, facing me with his knees next to my hips. "You're not a monster. You're my friend, my dear friend."

Bem didn't return my embrace, but I felt his arms raise to my sides, like he was looking at his hands behind my back. "But there's so much bad stuff, so much betrayal and blood, my hands are soaked in it. When I touch Shawn, sometimes I feel like I'm staining him, wiping my bloody hands on pure white lace. Sometimes...sometimes, Big Guy, I even feel that way with you."

I pulled away so I could look in Bem's eyes. "Stop it." I scolded him. "You can't contaminate someone with your sins, just like you can't change the past. You've killed but you're not a murderer. The fact that it haunts you proves you're not dead inside. You're a good man who has done bad things for the right reasons...maybe the best reasons. Shawn and I knew that you weren't an innocent. He and I talked about it. When Shawn was worried over the mission, about maybe having to hurt someone or kill them, I reminded him that every person on the team, except us, had blood on their hands. I was trying to show him that killing doesn't make you an evil person."

Bem brought the heels of his hands against the sides of his head, like he wanted to crush it. "You don't understand." He groaned. The sound was so pathetic, a keening whine like I'd expect from a wounded animal. "How could you? I'm not talking about one, or a couple, or even ten. I've personally killed thirty-seven people in the fifty-three years I was a problem-solver. Another two-hundred-and-fifty-one were executed by the state on my evidence alone. You assumed I wasn't innocent. You didn't know I was a butcher."

The number hit me in the face like an open-handed slap. Until Bem quoted the number, everything he'd said had felt abstract. Since I first met Bem, I'd pretty much known that he'd taken life. I assumed as a special forces soldier that he must have. I figured it had been in battle though, not the way he described, like he was some kind of special agent assassin. Even when he announced that he was a killer, even that seemed sort-of OK to me. I figured he killed people like an agent in an action movie; hunt down a bad guy and `dispatch' him quickly and remorselessly. That seemed dispassionate enough that it didn't bother me too badly.

When Bem told me about how he'd killed people when they trusted him the most, that was disturbing, but I assumed it was mostly self-loathing dramatics. I guess I didn't believe he was capable of that level of detachment. I figured that killing someone after earning their trust was something that only happened in movies.

The huge number somehow brought Bem's confession into focus and convinced me that he'd done exactly as he'd said. It rattled me. I felt a wave of anxiety just from having a man in my arms that had been involved, either directly or indirectly, in the deaths of nearly three hundred people. I fought to get my emotions under control and reminded myself that Bem was my friend, no matter what he'd done in the past. He'd always been kind to me and that's what should matter. That's what should matter, but like everything else in life, it wasn't quite that easy. I sat back on the swing and tried to ask a reasonable question. "I need you to explain it to me."

Bem sighed and let his head hang down. "I was afraid of this." He muttered between us. "OK, Church, what do you want to know?"

I tried to arrange my questions in my head and ask them dispassionately. I also tried to shove aside anything that was pure voyeurism. The morbid part of me that was curious about the dark side of life wanted Bem to give me all the grisly details. I had to tell myself that I had no right to ask for those. I had to remind myself that the literal execution of the killing was none of my business. The only things I had a right to ask were the things that explained the character of the man who was my friend. "I want to understand the job you did and who these people were that you...who you killed."

Bem nodded into his chest. "I spent my life inside criminal organizations and terrorist cells. You wouldn't think that a place like Solum would have either, but it does. There are groups, well-funded groups that try all kinds of things to disrupt society. There's little difference between the two. The terror cells and the organized crime, the end results of each are the same; one relies on vice and the other on fear."

"I worked to undermine the power of both types of organization. My goal was always to stop these people from carrying out their plans, whatever they happened to be. Usually, I did it by gathering evidence and bringing the perpetrators and their leadership to justice. `Justice,' in many instances, meant execution. The PCS believes in capital punishment. I...I believe in it too."

"I want you to understand, I was not an assassin. The government employs assassins, but I never did that work or worked directly with those people. I only killed when I had to, when I absolutely had to. Twice in my career I was exposed as an agent and had to...it was kill or be killed. Most of my body count came from those two times. The rest of the times were like that story I told of the man who stopped the plot in my village. Because I was always the one on the same side as the terrorists, when the main force came to mop up, in order to prevent big shoot outs, very often...too often, I had to shoot those who didn't plan to surrender. As many evil lives as I've ended, I feel that I saved many more good lives. That's how I look at it anyway. That's how I have to see it."

Part of what Bem told me made me feel better, and part of it horrified me. "How could you do it?" I asked more urgently than I should have. "I mean, how could you go into those situations knowing that...knowing how things were likely to end? I mean, I guess after the first couple, you knew how things were going to end. How could you?"

Bem dragged his chin off his chest and brought his eyes up to meet mine. His expression surprised me. It wasn't the shallow, dead-eyed gaze that I expected. The face that met mine was defiant and proud. Bem answered my question with a question. "Big Guy, what do you believe in?" He demanded of me.

His question took me by surprise. I didn't know how to answer it, so I answered it with yet another question. "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" Bem parroted my question back to himself. "The military opened my eyes." Bem continued. "It showed me that the world wasn't as safe as I thought it was. It showed me that constant vigilance is required so people like my father and my neighbors in Levare could live peacefully. Someone had to do the work that was necessary to protect those people so they could live the lives that they wanted to live. I believed that I had what it took to protect the people who couldn't protect themselves."

"Regular people, people like you and Shawn and your brother and Andy and Mary and Hannah and Leah, they all need someone like me to protect them from the ugliness that exists in the world. Regular people need people like me so they can live their regular lives. I believe that what I did was right. I believe that I served justice. I believed that then, and I believe it now. I believe in the work that I did. I don't apologize for it. The people that I killed and the people who were executed through my testimony, ALL of those people deserved to die. The ones that didn't deserve it, they went to prison to serve terms of punishment, or they were released."

Bem had confused me. Everything he'd said up to a point seemed like an apology for what he'd done. The last thing had been a defiant justification for those same actions. I didn't get it and said as much. Bem tried to explain. "The trouble is, I don't know if I can go back to being a regular person. I thought I was resigned to never having the life my father had. I thought that I could live the rest of my life as a soldier. Not a literal soldier in the service of my country but live a soldier's life. I thought I could live to work, live to perform a task and relieve the pressure with emotionless sex."

Bem shook his head miserably. "I found out that I can't. I want to be loved. I want to be held like you hold me. I want to be loved like Shawn loves you. You guys showed me what I was missing out on, and I realized that I couldn't...that I can't go on forever the way I have been."

Bem's defiant gaze softened and grew thoughtful, maybe even wistful, as he expressed his wishes. "I want what you guys have. I want someone to be naked with. I want...I want someone...I want someone to hold me and tell me that everything will be OK. I want that so badly, Church. I don't think I can have that though. The past keeps crying out to me."

"Your...uh..." I said and swallowed the next word that I planned to utter. I almost said, `your victims,' but I knew that wasn't right. Bem had been involved with death, but he wasn't a murderer. I had to remind myself of the difference and reframe my question. "You mean the people that you...I mean the people whose deaths you...uh...brought about? You hear them?"

Bem shook his head and his dead eyes returned for a second. "Big Guy, no one I killed EVER cried out." The dead eyes faded, and depth returned to my friend's gaze as he explained. "I don't hear them...those people. I hear my actions. I hear the things that I've done, and I feel like I'm marked by them. I believe that the people who I betrayed and those that I killed deserved what they got. I believe that my actions were right, but that doesn't make me any less a betrayer and a killer. I am no less marked."

"Since you guys visited me, three months ago, and I realized what I wanted and what I didn't think I had a right to hope for...since then my actions have been crying out to me every time I hear loud noises. Those cries, that's what I was trying to shut out with the drinking and the drugs and the sex."

"The things that I've done weren't wrong, but they were still bad things. How can I ever hope to have love when I've done so many bad things? How can I hope to live in peace when the past cries out to me? How can I show myself to anyone and expect them to like what they see? Church...Church," Bem raised his hands in front of his face to look at his palms, "I've been a part of so much evil. There's so much blood." Bem trailed off again and left us both in thoughtful silence.

I thought about everything that Bem had said. I thought about the things that he'd done, the people who he'd betrayed and killed, and the people that he protected with those actions. I thought about the friendship that he and I had, and the performance that he claimed he put on for me. I thought about the mask he said he wore. I thought about what Bem had been to me, the happiness he'd brought into my life and the loving kindness he'd shown to me. I would be lying to myself if I didn't admit that finding out about Bem's past unnerved me, but the greater lie would be for me to pretend that what he'd told me made me love him any less than I did.

I gathered myself and told my friend how I felt. I told him what I believed and what I thought he needed to hear. I told him what I knew would make the most difference to him in that moment. "I am not afraid of you, Bem."

Bem raised his face to mine again with his mouth gaping open in shock. "You're not?" He asked.

"No, I'm not!" I confirmed as vehemently as I could in the predawn quiet of a residential backyard.

"But, why not?"

"Because I love you too much to be afraid of you." I explained to the man I still thought of as my very best friend in any world. "Your past is terrifying. I don't pretend to understand how you could have been a part of those things, but I can't judge you for them. I don't have the right to do that. All I can do is judge you for what you've been to me. You have always been my friend. You have always been kind to me. You have always believed in me. I believe in you. I believe in the decisions you made. I believe that you are a good man. I believe that I am safe with you around. I trust you completely. I did before, and I do now, and I always will."

A single tear traced down Bem's left cheek. "You really trust me?" He gasped. "Completely."

"Completely?" Bem asked.

"I trust you enough to be completely vulnerable with you. I trust you enough to have no secrets from you. I've trusted you that much for a long while now, and what you've told me doesn't change any of it."

"But, just you." Bem said like it was a statement of fact.

"NO!" I whisper-shouted at him. "Not just me. I trust you with myself, and my husband, and my family. I have faith in you. I believe that you would never hurt any of us and I believe that if anyone ever tried to hurt any of us, you would show them no mercy. I believe that what you did to Zeke, even if it was excessive, was the right thing to do. You protected my sister, like you helped me protect the world, like the job you did for your country protected your way of life. I believe that me and my whole family is SAFER with you around than we could be without you."

Bem's manner changed. He was excited instead of worried. "Can it be the same as it was?" He took my hands and held them. "I'll be who I was, the mask will never slip again."

I shook my head. "It can't be the same, but it can be better. Throw the mask away. Don't calculate every move. Just be yourself. If you feel silly, be silly; if you feel serious, be serious. You don't have to live with all that locked inside. I can help. I'm not going to push you, but you can tell me anything, as much or as little as you want. You'll never have to worry about driving me away, me or Shawn."

Bem's face twisted with fear when I mentioned my husband. I rushed to reassure him. "I won't break my promise. I'll never say a word to Shawn, but I think you underestimate what he can handle. He is a very pure young man, but he's also a realist. He understands how the world works. You think he's spent years working for Ars and somehow didn't see how the world works? We both...we need you in our lives. I don't want to be friends, brothers really, with a mask. I want my brother to be a person, no matter who that person is."

"You think of me as your brother?" Bem gasped in surprise.

I grinned and teased Bem a little to lighten the mood. "Kind of a brother with benefits but without being creepy because we're not actually related."

"I'll be your brother with benefits!" Bem latched onto me and embraced me with strength beyond what he appeared capable of.

I returned the tight squeeze. "I'm glad you told me. Keeping that up must've been exhausting. Maybe now you can really be yourself."

"Thank you for understanding, Church." Bem broke the embrace and held my hands.

"Thank you for trusting me enough to speak up." I held Bem's hands up and kissed them one at a time. "Don't look at these and see the blood, don't look for the negative. These are wonderful hands because they're your hands. If you ever find yourself hating them, bring them to me and we'll see what else they can do." I brought Bem's right hand to my mouth, sucked his thumb in, and swirled my tongue around the short, thick digit.

"Fuuuuck," he moaned, "don't...oh my."

I released him with a slurp and a smile.

"You're such a tease." He accused.

I laughed and got ready to change the subject onto happier things when another discussion we'd had recently popped into my mind. "The other night," I asked, "when I told you that Mary and the twins were coming with us, you said if they hadn't you would have killed Zeke. Did you mean that?"

Bem's dead eyes came back, but just for a moment. "I considered it. I didn't do any more than consider it. I'm glad I don't have to make the decision."

"Why? I mean...why did you even consider it?" I asked, stunned that Bem would go that far for my sister.

"It's funny," Bem brightened up, "I really like Mary. She's my complete opposite. She acts hard, but she's really sweet and caring. When she's with Hannah and Leah, I know who she really is. That's why I volunteered to go to Zeke's yesterday morning. I wanted to spend some time with her. She's hot to. I like slim, mature women. If she was going to stay, I didn't plan to leave her here alone with that piece of filth. He would have ruined her life. Guys like him don't change...not ever."

"I...uh...I don't know what to say." I stammered, still in shock at the discussion I was having.

"Don't say anything." Bem shrugged like it was a non-issue. "She's not staying so it doesn't matter."

I thought about that. Bem's free admission of his potential willingness to kill my brother-in-law scared me, but there was a piece of me, a small piece, that wished I could've done the same.

"Church," Bem said in a very small voice, "would you hold me please?"

I wrapped my arms around my friend and held his body against mine. Bem settled against me, his front to mine and his chin on my right shoulder. I felt his heat and breathed his scent. It was comforting to be close to him.

"Church," Bem whispered in my ear, "could I have some magic please?"

I wondered if giving Bem my magic would become a habit. I wondered, but decided I'd worry about that some other time. I activated my Vitalis power like I had the night before. I let the magic gather in my whole body and I offered it to Bem from every point of contact between us. I felt the magic flow into my friend.

"So good, Big Guy." Bem said to my ear in a voice that sounded dreamy.

I wondered what my magic was doing to him. "What does it feel like?" I asked.

"It's like...it's like," Bem pondered aloud, "it's like being in your arms, but inside me to."

"Like sex?" I asked.

"No," Bem leaned back to look in my face, "like...like I can feel your kindness, your friendship filling me up. It's like being part of you...almost like that wish I told you about, where I get to be part of you and Shawn. It makes me feel...I feel," Bem's eyes darted to the side in what I took to be an evasion, "Big Guy...I...I'm not jealous of Shawn, but I wish...I wish...I wish I wasn't so fucking lonely!" Bem buried his head in my chest and tightened his arms around me like he never wanted to let me go. He didn't cry, but his breathing seemed ragged and miserable against my body.

I held my friend and rubbed my hands up and down his back. I offered some advice that Shawn had given me. "You've got time, Bem. You have time to find someone to love you. You have time to find someone who you can show the real you to, someone you can be naked in front of, someone who will love you like no one else can. Until then, spend time with me and Shawn."

"Big Guy," Bem whispered, "Shawn is a lucky guy."

I offered a mild correction to Bem's statement. "I'm the lucky one."

Bem leaned back again, so he could look in my face. His eyes were hot, and his face was gravely serious. "Listen to me, Church." He demanded. The fact that he was using my name instead of calling me `Big Guy' told me he was very serious. "Shawn is a wonderful person, and you are lucky to have him, but...but...just don't think that he's not lucky to."

"OK." I agreed.

Bem settled against my chest and seemed to melt into my body. "Hold me forever, Big Guy, please."

"How about until the sun comes up?"

"I'll take what I can get."

Bem and I maintained our embrace. I rubbed his back and left my magic active. My power didn't seem to overflow Bem like it had with Joe, and I wondered if that meant something. Just around the time the sun crested the horizon, something changed between me and Bem. Instead of my magic flowing from me into him, instead of the power moving only in one direction, I felt like the magic started to return to me. The feeling I got was very much as Bem had described to me. I felt Bem inside me. I felt like our embrace had gotten much more intimate, like I was swimming around in Bem's love and friendship. It felt amazing.

Bem felt the change to. I could tell even though he didn't say anything. I closed my eyes to block out the distraction of the sunrise and let the feelings wash over me. I felt like I had been wrapped in a blanket of Bem. Like somehow my friend and I were the layers of a jelly roll, one of us the cake and the other the jelly, rolled and combined into a single experience. It was intimate and intense. I explored the feelings for what seemed like a very long time but must have only been a few minutes.

The yard swing moved as I felt someone join us. I opened my eyes to see Shawn. He had his hand on my shoulder and looked at me with a clenched and worried expression. "What are you doing?" He asked. "You feel strange. Not bad, but...I can't describe it."

I wasn't sure how to answer him. I was in the middle of something incredible, and I wanted to share it with my husband. "Hug us." I said to Shawn.

Bem turned his face to my husband and agreed. "Hug us." He insisted.

I opened my left arm to invite Shawn in. He accepted the invitation and wrapped his right arm over my back and his left arm over Bem's. I gathered Shawn into us and felt my magic flow into him. I felt the combined magic that Bem and I shared flow into my husband. Shawn's frozen eyes widened in surprise as I added him to the experience. "What is this?" He asked.

"I don't know."

"Me neither," Bem added, "but it's wonderful."

I agreed with Bem. "It's wonderful."

The same change that had occurred between Bem and I happened between Shawn and us. The magic equalized much more quickly, and our three separate experiences seemed to merge into a single one. Shawn draped himself against me and Bem with his face between ours. Our breathes mingled and Shawn's scent blended with Bem's to create a masculine perfume that soothed instead of aroused.

"What's happening?" Shawn asked us both.

"I love you." I said to answer Shawn's question.

"I love you too." Bem said to Shawn.

"I...I...I love you to...both of you." Shawn replied. His wide eyes narrowed to sensuous slits as he relaxed into the shared experience. "I love you, Church." He breathed over my face and rested his head against my shoulder.

Bem added his thoughts to the experience. "This is...this is a little like I thought my wish would be, the three of us, sharing each other like this."

I didn't say anything to that. I felt too good to say anything in reply. I could have stayed like that, lived the rest of my life in that moment. I felt like my soul was open and communing with the souls of my husband and my best friend. It was the most intimate experience I'd ever had. The experience was even more intimate than sex. It was physical and sensory and emotional and so intense. I actually thought it was possible for the three of us to combine into a single entity like Bem had wished, and in that moment, I was ready for it to happen.

I reveled in the closeness to the two people who were most important to me, basked in their combined presence and enjoyed them. The experience was wonderful...until Joe ruined it.