Halloween, 2020

It wasn't a dream.

It was his body being penetrated, not Wèi WúXiàn's.

The sweat-shiny face above him, the cock slowly rocking its way into his ass, were not Lán Zhàn's.

The man begging "Please stop squeezing me. Please relax. I'm going to cum too soon if you keep this up." was not Lán Zhàn.

Ming Lim, Michael sighed internally, insanely happy for the first time in months, and lost himself to another orgasm. Or maybe it was a continuation of his previous one. Was it possible for men to have two in a row with both his cock and prostate untouched? Ming Lim, above him, hadn't even managed to get all the way in, but he, too, started cumming. He slumped down, nose buried in Michael's neck. "Oh, how I missed you," he crooned.

"Nǐ huíláile? You're really here? I'm not dreaming?" Michael babbled, wrapping his arms and legs tight around the body lying on top of him. The pillow and skin around his ears and neck were feeling slightly damp with something other than sweat.

"I'm really here," Ming Lim lifted his head with a kiss and smiled. "Let me dispose of the condom. Be right back." Cleaning that up took far too many seconds, but soon they were once again wrapped around each other. "Lan Qinyang is a miracle worker when she needs to be. The hardest part of getting back here was, oddly enough, the waiting. I missed you. So much," he squeezed the body in his arms again.

"How?"

"Lan Qinyang inserted corporate spies into SmarTek years ago. Even before I came here to study. The problem was that they didn't have any reason to be close to anyone in the Directors' offices. My first secretary, Mrs. Yu, was old enough to think about retiring, but her son was unemployed. So she needed the income. Lan Qinyang's husband owns hotels. And my new secretary's father is a manager for one of those hotels. Yang Yim promised Mrs. Yu that her son could work at the hotel as soon as she, Yim, was hired as my assistant."

"Sounds convoluted."

"It was pretty normal, I guess. Employees bribing each other must occur often enough that my father didn't bat an eye. Her connection was just far enough away from the QishanWen Medical Group that he didn't feel threatened by me hiring Yang Yim. She was able to slip documents for me to sign without anyone else knowing. Another spy managed to get me a cell phone; Chen Song texted me every once in a while about you."

"What kinds of documents? And if you had a cell phone, why didn't you text me?"

"I didn't trust myself to text or call you and be able to keep quiet about it." Ming Lim again squeezed the body in his arms and tried to snuggle closer. "Yang Yim gave me papers for a replacement passport as mine had been 'stolen', a US Visa application. Divorce papers."

Michael raised his head from where it had been laying on Ming Lim's chest. "You're divorced?" He felt like his face was going to split in half, he was smiling so broadly.

"It was official last week. We had no assets to divide, and neither of us wanted anything from the other's family. Do you think I'd be here in your bed if I was still married?" Both men looked away from each other, not exactly sure what the answer to that question would have been. Probably not what it should have been. "It was almost as easy as getting married. Much more pleasant, though…. Michael." His eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry that I hurt you like that. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you. Especially not to the point where you were in so much pain, you needed to forget me."

"You don't mind if I'm in pain during sex." Michael deadpanned.

"I do mind, even during sex." Ming Lim shrugged carelessly. "Won't make me stop, though." A tear slipped out. "I love you. So much." He rolled them over so Michael was sitting on top of his lover. "Ride me; I need to be in you again."

Michael leaned over to search through the disheveled blankets for the bottle of lube. "Are…. Did you use a condom because you and Wang Lina…."

"I never touched her. I wasn't sure if you wanted to do it bare. And I wasn't sure if you had…."

When Ming Lim failed to finish his sentence, Michael felt forced to do it for him. "Slept with anyone else? I didn't. I dated two people after I forgot you. Got to second base with the girl. Do you know, I've never gotten to second base with any other girl?"

"Oh?" Ming Lim nudged his hips upwards. "What did it feel like?"

Michael rubbed lube all over his lover's cock. "Her breasts? Soft. Squishy. Kinda like a less stiff stress ball. It felt really nice. She seemed to enjoy it."

"So who's are better?"

"Jealous?" Michael laughed and leaned over to squeeze his boyfriend's 'breasts'. As he sat back, he grabbed the cock under him and settled over it. "Shit!" he hissed. "You feel so fucking…. Don't move!" he ordered as Ming Lim's cock surged upwards.

"I can't help it; it's been ten months."

"It's not even been ten minutes," Michael muttered and bit his lip as he sank down on the last inch. "Fuck you're huge. Gimme a minute, huh?" He rocked his hips a bit. "I didn't think you were interested in women's breasts."

"Until I started wanting you, I only got off watching or reading porn with girls. Just because I had never liked a specific girl before I met you doesn't mean I didn't think I was stick-straight."

"And now?" As his insides adjusted to the invader, pain muted to a dull ache. He experimented with raising up a bit and sinking back down. "Oh, shit, you feel so good!"

Ming Lim moved in response. "And now? Now all I want is to stay in your body. Can we just do this for the rest of our lives?"

Michael grinned, "Only if we swap positions occasionally."

Ming Lim grinned back, deliberately mis-interpreting his lover's demand. "We switch positions quite frequently. You're very flexible like that."

"Asshole," Michael hissed. Then hissed in reverse when Ming Lim changed his angle of penetration and brushed up against that special bundle of nerves.

"You love me anyway. Tell me about your other date?"

"You want to talk about the people I dated while you're balls deep in me?"

"I've got to think about something unpleasant or I'm going to cum too soon. What was he like? It was a 'he', right?"

"It was a he, yes. We kissed and shit for a couple weeks. Then I said I wouldn't sleep with him yet, and he dumped me."

"And shit?"

"You seriously want details? While we're fucking for the first time in ten months?"

"Yes."

Michael pressed his hips down hard and ground in small circles making the man underneath moan loudly. "We kissed. Like all the time. In public even. The first time he gave me a hand job, we were in a public restroom." As Ming Lim's face darkened in displeasure, Michael reassured him. "We locked the outside door; there was no one peeping at us."

"Where did you give him a handjob?"

"In his bed, usually after he blew me. I finally decided I was going to give him a BJ back, but then he asked to fuck me. I wasn't ready for that, yet, so I said I wanted to wait. And then he dumped me, so I never did do it. Now, can we please stop talking about him? I wanna cum and he's spoiling my mood."

"Cum for me," Ming Lim urged. Above him, Michael sped up his motions, one hand reaching down to stroke himself.

With a muffled, "Fuck, yes," Michael's body jerked a few times, off-white ribbons of cum flew out to cover the chest below him. Ming Lim held tight to the body slumping over him, and let his own orgasm erupt.

Exhausted, sweaty, and messy with semen and lube, the two boys snuggled close. Ming Lim swiped a few strands of hair off Michael's forehead. "Shēngrì kuàilè." Then he sang softly, slightly off key, "Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, happy birthday. Happy birthday to you."

"You're the best birthday present I've ever received. When did you get here?"

Ming Lim kissed Michael's hair. "We arrived in Los Angeles yesterday. Our flight landed in Boston around seven. Sheng Lin suggested we stay overnight in LA; I just wanted to get here as quickly as possible so I could spend the whole day with you."

"Sheng Lin came back, too? Nice."

"A whole entourage came back with me. Seriously. We took up almost the entire first class section on the plane. Sheng Lin and Wang Lina, of course. But also Yang Yim and Lan Qinyang. Plus a few of her aides."

"How did your parents take you leaving?"

"Badly. I turned my phone off on the way to the airport in Beijing and haven't turned it back on yet. They found out about the divorce the day after it was finalized. There was a huge blow up. All four parents were screaming like crazy people. I still don't know how they found out. Lan Qinyang bribed some high level official to grant the divorce and keep quiet about it. She was pissed when I texted her to let her know that they knew.

"My father showed up at the airport while we were waiting to board. He had some other high ranking official with him, someone important enough that we could be escorted out of the airport. Lan Qinyang was prepared for that after the divorce debacle; we were in a private lounge with my father's official's superior."

"You officially one-upped him?"

"Ha ha, good pun. But yeah…. I guess it's a good thing she's got the connections she has. The US ambassador to China personally walked our Visa applications through. We're on tourist Visas until the spring semester starts and then we're on student Visas. Wang Lina and I re-enrolled at Harvard."

"You're still going to study there?"

"It's not a useless degree. I'll finish my music degree, too. Lan Qinyang set up a bank account for me and Wang Lina; we're no longer dependent on our parents."

"Well that's good," Michael retorted. Then his phone buzzed. Again and again. "Who's texting me at this time of the morning?" he groused.

"Michael. Oof! It's nearly ten in the morning!"

Michael paused in his crawl over to his nightstand, accidentally elbowing a soft spot. "It's nearly ten in the morning on my birthday. On a Saturday. The one day of the week I get to sleep as late as I want." He unlocked the phone and started reading his messages. "Time to get up and showered. There's a host of people headed this way."

"Oh? Who?"

"My parents just exited 128 so they're maybe twenty minutes away. Sherrie and Su Tiao will be here about the same time, too."

"Who are Sherrie and Su Tiao?"

Michael rolled out of bed, with Ming Lim right behind him. They started stripping the dirtied sheets. "She's my lab partner at school. He's her boyfriend. Did you ever shop at Sue's Curiosity Shoppe in Chinatown? He's the owner's son.

"Oh… and you've been outed to my family. My mom had figured it out even before I went cuckoo. When the whole amnesia thing started…. Well, the only reason they could think of was that we were madly in love with each other and this was my way of dealing with you getting married."

"It's fine. My mother knows." At Michael's startled look, he added. "She went to Disney to surprise me on my birthday. Instead, she got the surprise. I don't think she told my father. He's never said anything if he knows."

With time running out, the two boys quickly remade the bed, took a shower together, refrained from getting each other off again, and hurriedly dressed. Michael made sure the condom was disposed of and the lube was hidden in the back of a drawer, sprayed the room with an air freshener, and the two headed down to face the crowd.

Michael had noticed that there are some people who, when they reach a certain age, appear ageless. From previous conversations with Sheng Lin, he knew Lan Qinyang was in her late forties or early fifties. He couldn't guess that from her face, though. Her skin was unlined, her hair looked natural, not dyed. It was obvious she wasn't in her early twenties; she had that invisible cloak of maturity that took decades to perfect. With that face, though, she could be thirty or sixty.

What he wasn't sure about was how she achieved this. With some people, it was just a part of their genetics and the perfect skin care regimen. Lan Qinyang, however, was a cultivator. Sheng Lin had mentioned that, back when he was alive, strong cultivators were able to increase their lifespans by more than double. Some were able to live for three or even four centuries! And yet they still looked like they were perhaps only in their sixties.

Right now, she looked exhausted; however, she shook off all offers for a bed to take a nap. "The best way to beat jet lag is to stay awake during the day and sleep at night."

Michael didn't have much time to ponder agelessness; his family and friends arrived with many hugs and kisses for both the birthday boy and the newly returned. Even Wang Lina found herself being embraced by a crying Mary Yang.

Eventually, the under-forty crowd were ushered outside, leaving the 'adults' in the kitchen preparing a birthday feast. The youngsters dragged the chairs from the pool deck to a fire pit behind the garage and proceeded to light up a fire. Even though it was late October, the weather was mild and warm; the fire was perhaps unnecessary. It gave people something to look at when Michael's stranglehold on Ming Lim made them feel uncomfortable. The two were seated on the end of a chaise lounge, Michael sitting behind and wrapped around Ming Lim.

"Jie…" Michael asked. "Not complaining, but why did you guys come so early? I thought you were coming for dinner."

Ming Lim snuggled his face into his boyfriend's neck. "You were complaining earlier," he quietly rebutted.

Eleanor shook her head and laughed at Ming Lim. "Mom got a text last night saying there was going to be a birthday surprise, and we might want to be here for it. Chen Song suggested we come for lunch since the present was arriving between eight and nine and you'd want some time alone."

"An hour wasn't much time to be alone together after we've been apart for ten months," Michael groused.

"Hey, we were also excited for your birthday present," Matthew interjected. "Eight months of you being nutso? We were hurting, too, you know. LimGe may be your boyfriend, but I thought of him as my friend, too! And Mom? Mom cried for like two hours straight last night after she got that text. I'm the youngest, but you're her baby…. You know that, right? She worries about you the most."

"I never asked for that," Michael insisted.

"Not jealous, bro. Just being honest. Lim's like family, you know?" Then he did his best Stitch impression. "'Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten.'"

Michael's face fell. "But I did forget."

Ming Lim twisted so he was sitting on his heels between Michael's legs and cradled his lover's face between his palms. "You did what you had to do. No one blames you. No one. We were worried about you. We worried for you." He lowered his voice, so the others couldn't hear his confession. "Being away from you? It was agonizing! I felt so lost…. So alone. From after our last kiss last December all the way until I slid into your bed this morning… I haven't felt like a whole person.

"I existed. That's it. I didn't live. I grieved, but you weren't dead." He swallowed harshly. "I had no peace, no tranquility. I played my violin and sounded wooden. I missed you so much. That you had to forget me for a while so you could have some peace? I would rather you forget me for the rest of our lives than have you just… existing like I did.

"I fucking forgot you! How can you say that's acceptable?" Michael's eyes filled with tears. "You should hate me."

"I can never hate you." Michael's head dropped to rest on his boyfriend's chest. "I love you. I have loved you through every lifetime we've shared. And I will love you through every one still to come. Don't cry, love. Bié kū. Bié kū. It's over. We can heal now, be whole now." He shushed and soothed, rocking the younger boy in his arms.

Matthew waited as long as he could before he decided to change the mood. "Come on, Mikey boy. Enough's enough. You're supposed to blow your boyfriend, not the party!"

Michael responded by letting one hand leave his boyfriend's back and lifted a single finger in a salute towards his brother. Eleanor wasn't as restrained. She reached over, ruffled her youngest brother's hair, sighing. "You asshole." Then she dug her knuckles into the skull.

"Duìbùqǐ! Duìbùqǐ! Duìbùqǐ!" the younger one cried out and jumped out of his chair, narrowly escaping the foot she stuck out.

Eleanor turned to the four guests, "I apologize for my brother. He's an ass."

Yang Yim looked confused. "I'm sorry? I don't know that word? My English is not so good." Eleanor roughly translated, and Yang Yim giggled behind her hand. "My cousin is like that, too. Always being silly, yes?"

Eleanor bit her lip to refrain from calling her youngest brother another inappropriate-in-mixed-company word. He was looking at Yang Yim with an incredulous look on his face; Eleanor's translation did not mean anything close to 'being silly'! Instead, she offered, "We can talk in Chinese if that is easier for you."

Yang Yim looked over at Sherrie, "Nǐ shuō Hànyǔ ma?"

"Bù shuō." Su Tiao answered for Sherrie, then translated, "She wants to know if you speak Chinese."

"Nope. Sorry," Sherrie laughed. "But go ahead if it's easier. I don't mind."

"Oh." Yang Yim's smile dimmed. "It's all right. I speak English a bit. I ask to make clear when I don't understand."