Page 23 of Jacob Michaels is Not Crazy

The house was on fire.

That’s what woke me up.

Flames.

Smoke.

Heat.

Oma and I needed to get out.

Except, when I sat up in bed, my chest heaving, my heart thumping, sweat beading on my forehead, everything was dark and quiet. I heard something scurry away. I glanced in the direction of the sound but saw only a shadow slip through the bathroom doorway. Clutching my hand to my chest, I smelled the air, listened for the crackling of a fire. Within the space of heartbeats, it became apparent that I had only had a bad dream. With mild trepidation, I pushed the covers off and slid my legs over the side of the bed.

My feet touched the icy floorboards but I didn’t even wince, instead, I focused all of my energy on other senses. What could I see and smell? The room was pitch black and I could smell nothing—other than how Oma’s house normally smelled. Wood and cinnamon and a faint undercurrent of the lavender cleaner she liked to use when performing the task. I pushed off of the bed gently and stood at my bedside, my head turning slowly, my nose and eyes laser-focused on their assigned tasks.

Nothing.

I was alone and everything was quiet and still. There was no fire. I had merely been dreaming. Nothing more.

Just as I was going to sit back down and slide my legs back under the covers, staving off the frostbite that was threatening my toes, I saw the light. A sickly, eerie green light slithering under the door. Something between a glowstick and radiation beamed from under the door and cast the room in an eerie, putrid glow. My eyes grew wide as I stared at the crack under the door where the green light was coming from. As I watched, the light grew brighter by the second as my eyes grew wider at the sight. Within ten seconds, the room was filled with the color of the light and I had to reach up to shield my eyes in an effort to keep from being blinded.

When I opened my eyes, the sun was rising in the sky and was filling the bedroom with light. I was comfy, cozy, snug as a bug in a rug in bed. I had only been dreaming. I sighed to myself as I pulled the covers more tightly around myself. Spring was looming in the background, but upper Ohio had decided that one more really severe cold snap was necessary before winter would give up the ghost. I shivered slightly, tempted to roll up like a burrito and attempt to go back to sleep. As I rolled to my side in the bed, my phone on the bedside table caught my eye.

Text Lucas and tell him to come over and crawl into bed with you. He’ll make things warmer.

Shaking my head clear of the thought, I gathered up my nerve and got out of bed, wincing and hopping from foot to foot on the icy floorboards. After making the bed and generally straightening up my room, my cell phone stayed in my mind. I wanted to text Lucas. But that wasn’t the right move at this point in our…relationship? I needed to establish boundaries in whatever it was we had going on. Coming off as overly eager or ready to try and fall in love, or hell, even have an actual relationship wasn’t the best move. Well, maybe Lucas would have welcomed such a move, but I wasn’t so sure that it was something that I could commit to at the moment.

But you want to, dumbass.

Okay. So, yeah. I wanted to—for once in my life—jump headfirst into something besides my career and not care what consequences might come my way. Especially with a romantic relationship. As I went into the bathroom and went about my morning routine of getting ready for the day, I couldn’t help but consider my past relationships. I’d literally only dated two guys in my life—and I wouldn’t have categorized either as all that serious. Nice, sure. Serious? No. One was at the beginning of my rise to stardom in the industry, so we all know why that didn’t work out. The other one was a few years before I had come back to Point Worth looking for silence and, love, I guess. It just fizzled out.

Passion is important in a relationship. I hadn’t been passionate about either. The sex had been mediocre, maybe because I hadn’t been that into the guys I’d been dating, but I hadn’t been that interested in sex, truth be told. When I was a teenager, I was pretty sure that I was gay. I had even told Oma that I was gay. I found guys attractive—even wanted to express my appreciation for them physically from time to time. But when I went to Hollywood, and my career started, I found myself less and less interested in guys and sex.

Guys had always been more sexually attractive to me. I had never found a single woman attractive in a sexual way. Beautiful? Hell to the yes. Did I ever want to have sex with a woman? Fuck no. Nothing against women, but guys were my thing. Or, so I’d thought. When I got to Hollywood, started working hard, traveling, becoming Jacob Michaels, I suddenly wasn’t so sure about anything. No. I wasn’t questioning if maybe I was straight or bisexual or something…but maybe asexual? Sometimes the very thought of having sex completely turned me off.

Some of the hottest guys in Hollywood—sexual orientation is always debatable when it comes to a lot of rich and famous people—had tried to get in my pants. It was always a struggle to not throw up a little in my mouth each time. The whole concept of someone wanting to date me or have sex with me because they saw me as this “gorgeous movie-slash-rock star” made the bile rise from my gut and settle at the back of my throat.

That was it, though, wasn’t it? After a long time, I began to realize that I was definitely gay and not asexual. I just couldn’t get sexually aroused by people who wanted to have sex with me because I was Jacob Michaels. I wanted someone to want to be with me and have lots of sex with me because I was Rob Wagner. Or Robert Wagner or, hell, even Robbie Wagner. I wanted someone to want me for me—not all the glitz and glam and things they believed because PR and the media had told them to believe them.

Lucas likes Rob Wagner. A lot.

Was that why I was so drawn to Lucas? He had been attracted to me when I was just Rob Wagner in high school? He didn’t care that I had become a celebrity and famous the world over? He didn’t care that I had played concerts and performed on the most revered and storied stages all over the world. He didn’t care how much I got paid for a single movie. He didn’t care if I had won any awards or knew so-and-so or what kind of car I drove or if I had a big, fancy house. The first question he had asked about my acting career was whether I had gotten to see the Northern Lights while shooting in Finland.

Just invite him over. Nothing has to happen. Nothing has to be assumed.

When I walked down the stairs, my room was in perfect order and I was wearing long underwear, jeans, a t-shirt, sweater, wool socks, and hiking boots. A suitable outfit for a cold Ohio day. Oma would be pleased. In fact, when I walked into the kitchen, hugging my arms around myself, she was at the stove, dressed similarly to myself and making breakfast.

“It’s twenty-damn-degrees in here, Oma,” I grumbled as I went to the fridge for orange juice, then remembering I hadn’t picked any up as promised the day before, frowned as I opened the door.

Orange juice. Oma never failed.

“I turned the damn furnace up ya’ titbag.” She grumbled back with a smile on her face. “I didn’t have it cranked that high because I thought they was lying about this cold front coming in. It’s damn near the end of March and it feels like the beginning of January.”

“You aren’t lying.” I agreed as I poured a glass of juice.

“Now they’re saying we might get one last snow tonight before all is said and done.” She shook her head. “Can you believe that shit?”

“Well…yes.” I laughed as I put the orange juice back in the fridge and poured myself a cup of coffee. “And you shouldn’t have a problem believing it either. You’ve lived here over a hundred years.”