Karma is neither fate, nor predestination imposed upon us by some mysterious unknown power to which we must helplessly submit ourselves, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions to this and previous lives, all of which determine our future. Chapter 4 What the fuck was she thinking? This was the thought going through Justin’s head as he drove away from Daphne’s and headed back home. He had meant to stop by his studio this morning, to take care of anything that had piled up while he was in Miami, but he was too upset after hearing her news. All he wanted to do was hurry home to Brian and tell him about the entire conversation. He didn’t understand several things, but he had been too disturbed to ask anymore questions and he could tell that Daphne was just as upset for revealing much more than she had intended. Although he and Daphne were extremely close, delving into her sex life was not really an everyday occurrence. She was always very private about that part of her marriage, never going into details other than to say that Alex was good in bed and that she was very satisfied. Justin in turn had never pushed for more information because he really had no desire to talk about it. Hetero sex was not his favorite topic of conversation and besides, she was almost his sister, for God sake. Hearing about her panting and moaning in bed was almost incestuous! And yet today she had revealed that there were serious problems in that part of her life and he didn’t really know how to handle any of it. Sure, she had said that they fucked like rabbits and that Alex’s machinery worked fine, but how could it if he was sterile? Justin needed to go on-line and do some research of his own before forming an opinion. Right now all he could think about was the fact that Daphne had never looked or acted this distressed. He would have given anything to have been able to help her out; anything of course except what she had suggested! He felt pretty sure that she had just thrown that out as a twisted joke, trying to make light of a very dark situation. However, more often then not Daphne’s pronouncements had some basis in reality and so hearing her say that was like taking a peek into the secret recesses of her ever-working mind. She couldn’t possibly have been serious, could she? Besides, what difference would his sperm make anyhow? She was the one that miscarried; sperm had nothing to do with it, or had it? Where did she get the sperm for this pregnancy, or the other two before that and why didn’t it work? He supposed that eventually they were going to have to discuss this again so that he could get more details. Now was not a good time though, everything was too recent, the loss too fresh. He knew that Daphne had been completely embarrassed by her slip. She had retreated into her ‘Dr. Chanders’ face and had said nothing more about herself before they finished their breakfast and he announced that he was leaving. She said that she would probably go to work on Monday and that she would call him. He wondered if she would. Did he even want her to? What if she was serious about her statement and really expected him to donate his sperm? Holy fuck…and not in a good way, he thought wryly. Justin finally pulled into the driveway at Britin. He noticed that the Lamborghini was still parked in its usual spot, which meant that Brian hadn’t left the house at all. He parked his Porsche next to Brian’s car and entered the house through the side door. Max was already busy in the kitchen, preparing their meals for the day. “Hey, Mr. J, you’re up early this morning.” “I know. I had to run into town and have breakfast with Dr. Chanders.” “Did you have a good time in Miami?” Max asked. “It was great, Max. Good food, good weather, good entertainment! You should go there sometime.” “I’d like to one day.” “Well you should go now, while you’re still young and hot. Don’t wait till you retire and have to be wheeled there,” Justin said to him, knowing full well that Max had many years to go before he got to the wheelchair stage. They had discovered Max about two years ago when they were at a restaurant in Chicago. Brian had some business in the city and he had asked Justin to come along so they could do some shopping. It was one of the few times that he and Justin could actually be in the same city at the same time and so he wanted to take advantage of the situation and replenish Justin’s pathetic, paint-spattered wardrobe. After an exhausting day traipsing up and down the Magnificent Mile, spending an obscene amount of money on clothes, they decided to have dinner at a small restaurant in Greek Town that was highly recommended by their concierge. Brian had ordered a Caesar salad and he and Justin had watched as the waiter prepared it from scratch right at their table. This was one of his favorite dishes and seeing it prepared fresh only assured him that it would be first class and not taste like the bottled shit most restaurants served. He watched as the waiter continued with the preparation, mixing the egg yolk and oil right there at the table, throwing in the anchovies, bacon bits and croutons. Shortly before they finished their dinner, they were surprised by the appearance of one of the chefs. He was making the rounds, checking on the customers to see if everything was to their satisfaction. When he came up to their table they couldn’t help but notice how good looking he was. He was obviously gay, but he didn’t fawn over Brian or Justin in any way. He was respectful and businesslike and did his job very well. They wondered why he would want to work in the restaurant business when he could have been in some magazine layout modeling an Armani suit. He was probably in his late twenties or early thirties, curly brown hair, matching brown puppy dog eyes with a body that was tanned and finely muscular and chiseled in all the right places. He looked very much like John-John Kennedy. Brian didn’t know which fascinated him more, the salad or the person making it. Justin was equally as taken with the young man because he was charming and personable, talking to them non-stop about Chicago and making suggestions as to where they should go the next day. It had been a very enjoyable evening and when they were getting ready to go, Brian had given Max a very generous tip and told him that if he were ever considering a change he should look him up. He had handed him his card as they left. Several months later Max had shown up at Kinnetik, looking for a job. Brian was delighted and after Ted had checked out his credentials and references, Brian offered him a job as his personal chef. As time went on the job expanded into more of a personal assistant-handyman-do it all-major domo type role to both Brian and Justin. Max pretty much ran things at Britin, supervising the other two members of the household staff which included Lorayna, the cleaning lady who also did the laundry and her son, Raoul, who was in charge of the upkeep of the garden, tennis court and pool area. Max also moonlighted as a model for Kinnetik, whenever they needed his type for a photo shoot. He had an apartment on Liberty Avenue that was reminiscent of the loft in Brian’s heyday. So far the arrangement had worked to everyone’s advantage. Brian had his very own salad making machine and Max had entrée into the kind of life he would never have had if he had stayed in Chicago. He had easy access to Liberty Avenue and any hot young body he was interested in. He was extremely grateful to Brian and Justin for giving him the opportunity and never lost sight of where his primary loyalties lay. He would have jumped to the moon and back if they had ever asked him to. The most ironic thing of all was that Max Steiner did not need the job. He came from a very wealthy Jewish family in Skokie, a suburb outside Chicago. He and his parents had clashed over every choice he had made, starting with his wanting to go to culinary school. His father had envisioned him working by his side in the financial investment firm they owned in Chicago. Max tried it for a few summers and thought he would die of boredom. Pushing paper and dealing with money and numbers all day was not his idea of fun. When he had added insult to injury by announcing he was gay the drama only intensified. Fortunately, he did have another brother who was willing to step into his place so his parents had reluctantly allowed him to pursue his dreams in the culinary world. They never spoke about his being gay, preferring to ignore it, hoping it was a momentary aberration on Max’s part and that eventually he would snap out of it. The Jewish community in Chicago and Skokie is huge, yet everyone knows everyone. The probability of Max’s private life remaining so was zero to none. Everywhere he turned in the city he bumped into a friend of his parents or a relative of some sort. It put a huge constraint on his dating or every finding a place to go to where he could just be himself. Even the few gay bars in the city always ended up being another place where he would bump into someone his family knew. When he met Brian and Justin that night in the restaurant and Brian had handed him his card he never thought to explore it any further. Leaving Chicago wasn’t really in his plans. However, one day he was bored and playing on the computer, so he Googled Brian Kinney and Kinnetik and was shocked at what he discovered. How great would it be to work for someone who was actually gay and successful to boot? Pittsburgh of course was a whole other story. It would probably be a huge let down after Chicago but he was a risk taker and decided to give it a try. He never regretted his decision. “Where’s Mr. B?” Justin asked. “He’s upstairs, in his office. He’s been there since he got up.” “Has he eaten anything?” “No, but he’s consumed two pots of coffee so he’s probably vibrating in place right now.” “Yeah, really; how about making him an omelet of some sort and toast, and bringing it upstairs.” “I’m on it.” “Thanks, Max.” Justin took the stairs up to the second floor. Brian’s home office was in a room at the back of the house. It had a large picture window that allowed him a view of Britin’s gardens with its tennis court, Olympic size pool and six-car garages. They used to have stables but they had torn them down several years ago when they both decided horses were not their thing. Brian preferred to have cars for toys. “Hey,” Justin said, as he walked through the door. Brian looked up from the computer on his desk. “Hey, yourself.” Justin moved over to where Brian sat and bent down to kiss him on the mouth. “You look like you could use a break. How long have you been sitting here?” “Oh, a couple hours,” Brian replied. “There were a million e-mails I had to deal with and I wanted to get them all out of the way before I showed up at Kinnetik on Monday. Nothing worse than a cluttered mail box on the first day of the week.” “Anything important?” “No, but a lot of congratulation messages on the Clio. Winning that thing was huge, Justin. You have no idea what that’s going to do for the business.” “I can only imagine,” Justin said rolling his eyes. If Brian’s business took off any more he would never see him. “So,” Brian said, turning off his computer and giving Justin his full attention, “What’s the deal with Daphne?” “Oh my God, Brian! You will never believe what she just told me.” “Try me,” Brian said. Justin proceeded to tell all, and as he was talking, Max came in and placed the breakfast tray on the table and silently left the room. Brian moved over to see what was on the table and as he sat and picked at the omelet Justin continued to talk and talk, going into every detail of his conversation with Daphne. “Holy shit!” Brian said when Justin got to the last part of the conversation. “She can’t be serious?” “I don’t think so, but she scared the crap out of me, that’s for sure,” Justin said. “Jesus, that would scare the crap out of me too,” Brian replied, swallowing the last bite of his omelet. “I’m sure she was just reacting, Brian. When her body gets back to normal we’ll have another conversation and she’ll tell me more about these pregnancies and how they’ve come about. Today was just not a good day to do it.” “No, I wouldn’t think so. I’m amazed you even got this much out of her. Daphne’s pretty tight lipped when it comes to her and Alex.” “Really,” Justin replied. “I hope this doesn’t affect their marriage though. She’s really happy with him.” “Well, we’ll just have to see, Sunshine. Now, how about making your husband, partner, love of your life, happy this morning?” Brian said, looking at Justin with an evil glint in his eye. “What did you have in mind, Mr. Kinney?” Justin asked, licking his lips and moving his hand up Brian’s leg towards his groin. “I think we should start with a trip to the bedroom and I’ll explain everything as we go,” Brian answered, his voice changing as he felt Justin’s hand on his very evident hard on. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Across town Alex parked his car in his slot in the underground parking at the condo and headed towards the elevator. He had just come from a very difficult situation, having to explain to a new patient that he had Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig disease. His keys dug into his palm as he remembered the look on his patient’s face as he delivered the bad news. That it was a fatal, neuro-muscular disease, with no known cause or cure, not the brain tumor that everyone was hoping for. At least with a tumor the guy would have had a fifty-fifty chance. There wasn’t a brain tumor out there that Alex couldn’t try to remove. Instead, his patient had just been given a death sentence with this new prognosis. This had pushed Alex into an even more depressed state of mind which he knew he should snap out of if he hoped to help Daphne get over her recent loss. No sense in both of them being morose. When the elevator stopped at the top of the building and he stepped into his foyer he noticed that Daphne had been downstairs this morning. There were still dishes left out on the kitchen table. This was a good sign; she had actually left her bed and eaten something. Climbing up the stairs to their bedroom he walked in and saw that she had bathed and even had a bit of lip gloss on. Her hair was wild and untamed, springing around her face, just the way he liked it. It reminded him of pictures he had seen of Diana Ross, the lead singer of the group, The Supremes. He had always been attracted to her music and Motown in general, even though that was all years before his time. When Motown was at its height, he hadn’t even been born yet. However, that was immaterial as the music was timeless and continued to live on. “Hey beautiful,” he said to his wife, as she looked up when he walked through their bedroom door. “Hi honey,” Daphne answered. Alex noticed that she looked better this evening. The eyes that stared back at him weren’t as haunted and she seemed excited to see him. “You look like you’ve had a shitty day,” Daphne mentioned. Alex could never hide the fact that he was under stress. The pinched look around his mouth always gave him away. “Oh, I just had to tell a really nice guy that he had ALS.” “That fucking sucks,” she said. “You would think that after all these years, and all the research in stem-cells, that they would find a cure for that mother-fucking disease.” “I know,” Alex said. “He may as well go straight to the funeral home and make his arrangements.” “It’s such an awful disease,” she said. “That it is,” Alex replied. “So, I see that there are dishes out in the kitchen, a good sign, Dr. Chanders. This means my favorite patient actually ate something, is that correct?” “Yeah, Justin came over for breakfast this morning and we had some cinnamon rolls. I also had some soup for lunch so, all in all, I’ve had a pretty good day, food wise.” “That’s wonderful, Daphe,” he said gently as he put his arms around her and nuzzled her neck. She smelled so good, he thought to himself. He would be glad when she fully recovered from this ordeal and they could get back to normal. He missed having her in his arms at night. She had never pushed him away but he could tell that the last few weeks had been horrible for her and she had shied away from any physical contact. Tonight she actually responded to his touch, which again was a very good sign. “So how was Justin’s trip to Miami?” Alex asked. “Great! I guess Brian got this amazing award and Justin was telling me all about it.” “I know. He told me a little bit about it a few days ago when he called from Miami,” Alex said. “When did he call you?” Daphne asked. “Oh, three or four days ago, I don’t remember,” Alex answered. “Oh,” Daphne said. “So, what else did you talk about?” Alex asked. “A little bit about the pregnancy,” she replied. Alex looked at her, surprised. “I thought you hadn’t planned on saying anything to him.” “I didn’t plan it, Hon, it just sort of happened,” she said, looking away from Alex. “What exactly did you say to him, Daphne?” “I kind of told him a little bit about what’s been going on with us,” she said very softly, bracing herself for Alex’s reaction. “You didn’t tell him about me, did you?” Alex asked, reaching over to her and turning her around gently so he could see her face. She looked at him with tears shinning in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Alex, it just sort of slipped out.” “You didn’t,” he said. “He knows,” she answered. TBC