The Handsome and The Beast

“So, dear, did you choose your specialty?” Mom asks for the hundredth time this week, making me regret visiting this weekend.

I’m in my first year of residency, and I’m currently rotating through different specialties on one-month intervals, including the ER, general surgery, internal medicine, intensive care, pediatrics, and so on.

“Not yet, Mom. I still have time.” I try to hide the bite in my voice, but she hears it anyway. She hears everything—at least what she wants to hear.

“Yes, three more months,” She snaps, and I hold the urge to roll my eyes.

“As I said, I still have time.” To be honest, I would like to pursue family practice, but I’m not gonna tell her that because she’ll be in my hair for the rest of the year because she wants me to become some famous neurosurgeon.

“I’m sure that by the time your Aunt Marie comes, you’ll come to your senses and choose neuro...” I block her out because I’m about to really snap.

Aunt Marie is her sister, but they are so goddamn competitive that one would say they are enemies. The worst part is that Martina, Aunt Mary’s daughter, and I are their pawns.

Martina was forced to get into medical school because I got into medical school, and she hated it at first, but luckily, she started to like it after a while.

The two of us get along very well. We try to ignore our mothers and their competition for who has the smartest child, but sometimes we both snap and get angry, not at each other but at them. Don’t get me wrong; we don’t tell them that. We get angry in private.

“Yes, Mother,” I reply in a monotone voice when I realize that she stopped talking, then push the plate away because my appetite is gone.

I realize that ultimately, I’ll do it their way, but no one can blame me for trying to persuade them to let me do what I enjoy for a change.

Dreams...

And when I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, my father opens his mouth.

“And when will you find a woman and settle down?” His deep voice is condescending, but I can’t comment or snap at him, so I try my best to keep calm.

“I don’t have time, Father. I’m concentrating--”

“At your age, I was working three jobs and still had you and your sister, so don’t give me this excuse.” I don’t even know why I tried to reason with him.

“It’s different. You were building houses, I’m gonna have human lives in my hands. I can’t--” Oh, how I wish I could mute myself sometimes.

“You think you’re better than me, boy?!” His loud voice booms through the house, making me flinch.

“No, Father, I was just saying that it would be reckless of me to focus on anything else, I didn’t--”

“You don’t get to tell me anything! I made you, you didn’t make me! You should be kissing my feet for that alone, not to mention that I gave you food and a roof over your head!” And I snap.

“And I’m grateful for giving me food and a roof, but don’t tell me that I should be kissing your feet because I didn’t ask you to make me! I wasn’t the one who got in bed with Mother! You did!” I didn’t actually say that, but I wanted to.

“Yes, Father. I’m sorry.” That was the actual answer.

I know, I’m a coward, but my father is a very scary man, and not necessarily because he’s 6 ft 4 and more than 300 pounds, but because, as he puts it, he’s ‘a man of God who isn’t afraid to rough me up if needed to guide me on the right path’. In other words, he won’t hesitate to kick my ass into next week, and I don’t want to sport another black eye.

“As you should!” I nod again and excuse myself to the bathroom.

I lied when I said I had to concentrate on school. Okay, I have to concentrate on school, but I can have a life in the meantime.

The only problem is that I don’t want that life to be with a woman, at least not yet.

Yes, I’m gay, and no, they don’t know, and they won’t ever find out because they would exorcize me and burn me at the stake.

So, I made a plan. Until I’m 30, I’ll live my life as I want to, and when I’m 30, I’ll find a decent girl and get married, have a bunch of kids, and forget about my sexuality.

Easy, right?

I calm down, leave the bathroom, and join them at the dinner table again.

“Your father is right, sweety. You should find a girl while you’re young and handsome.” She smiles, and I fake one of my own and stop myself from rolling my eyes.

“Mom, I’m 23, and the handsomeness won’t disappear in 10 years.” I keep my voice soft and my fake smile as well.

“I know, sweety. You’ll always be handsome, you have good genes, but you know what I mean.” She’s right, I am handsome, and I’m not narcissistic. It’s reality, and sometimes I hate it because of the attention I get, but mostly I like it.

And she’s right when she says I have good genes, but fortunately, I only got the looks and didn’t get their personalities, or so I try to tell myself.

I’m 6 ft tall, and many say that I have a touch of Ryan Reynolds’s looks. I must say that they are right, except that I have Viking-gold hair. It’s styled like his, short on the sides and a few inches on top. I sometimes wear it combed on one side, sometimes slightly spiked up, or I just run my fingers through it a few times and make it look messy.

I have almond turquoise blue eyes that have threads of sea green in them, and I feel good about it because only 3-5% of the human population has true blue-green eyes, and that’s pretty amazing considering that there are over 7 billion people on the planet.

Again, I’m not narcissistic, I’m stating facts.

I forced myself to stay another couple of hours, excruciating hours, listening to the same fucking thing over and over again, then I told them that my roommate, who is also my colleague, and my best friend, -but they don’t know the best friend part, and they never met him either because I know that they wouldn’t approve of him-, needs the car tomorrow, and I have 11 hours to drive back.

I was born and raised in Cave Creek, Nevada.

Cave Creek is a town where everyone knows everyone. The population is around 5,000 people, so my parents always pushed us to be the best of the best.

I never attended a high school party. All I was allowed to do was go to school, study, go to church, study, church, study, study, and some more studying.

It paid off because I got into Stanford, which is 11 hours away from them and I can make plenty of excuses not to visit, and one of them is that Jameson, or Jamie, as I call him, can’t give me the car, and I don’t have money to travel by plane.

I’m struggling to survive, and if it weren’t for Jamie, I would be on the streets because when I turned 18 and went to college, instead of supporting me, my parents refused to give me a penny. They said I have to start being a man and stand on my own two feet.

Yes, I get paid as a resident, but I also have a student loan that I have to pay, rent, food, transportation, clothes, and right now, I’m broke.

I do have a method for earning fast cash, but I try to avoid it if I can.

Jamie gave me the idea when I was just like I am now, and that’s so broke that I can’t even afford to pay attention.

He started to practice first and told me about it, too.

Escorting.

Yes, it’s dangerous from many points of view, but considering it’s a legal escorting company, the risks are not so high, so it somehow soothes my mind. A little. Just a little.

But desperate times call for desperate measures.

My biggest fear is that I’ll have a client who will recognize me and my reputation will be stained before I even get to have it, but I’m gay, so I work with gays, who more often than not are married guys, and they don’t brag about it.

I consider every possible alternative, but after two hours, I am empty-handed, so I take my phone and text Rose, the receptionist who handles the meetings, to tell her that I need some cash.

I spend a few more hours of the ride praying, -okay, that’s not okay. God won’t be involved in this-, hoping that the client won’t be some rude, disgusting guy because then I’ll have to say no, and it’s a possibility that he’ll get angry and things will escalate... fuck!

I hate this!

“So, how was the family reunion?” Jamie asks the second I enter the tiny apartment we’ve lived in for three years.

“Peachy. I can’t wait to go back. I think I cried when I said goodbye.” I fake a pout and plop on the small and uncomfortable couch next to him, and he laughs.

Jamie is about 5 ft 11 in height, with a lean body, dark brown hair, and light brown eyes. He’s good-looking but not my type, and thankfully, I’m not his type either, so there are no complications.

“Same old same old?” He knows about the pressure that they put on me.

“Yep. I’m gonna go to sleep.” I barely stand, cursing myself for sitting in the first place.

“Okay, good night.” I hum because I don’t have the power to answer with words, and go to my room.

As I said, the apartment is tiny. The couch is three feet away from the front door, which is why he saw me when I got in. The kitchen is part of the living room, and we have two rooms that each accommodate one double bed, a small nightstand, and a small closet.

Our bathroom is so small that if we both go inside at the same time, we will get stuck, and we will need to call the fire department to get out.

I thought of going straight to bed, but his small Honda has no air conditioning, and even though I drove with the window open, I still sweated, and my skin was all clammy, so I decided to take a shower.

I’m tired as fuck, I barely move, but I need to be fast because hot water is a luxury that lasts about 10 to 15 minutes.

I dry myself quickly, put on one pair of boxers, then plop on the bed, and I think that before my head hit the pillow, I was asleep.

I slept 7 hours but woke up as tired as I went to sleep, if not more exhausted. Honestly, I don’t remember when I last had a good night’s sleep, a good day’s sleep, or any good sleep.

Med school does that.

As I am pouring myself a cup of cheap coffee, my phone rings, announcing that I have a text, and I can’t help but groan when I see who it is.

Rose.

Fuck!