(Shelby)

New York was the destination of 90% of the losers of that amateur theater company in Cleveland, including me. But with no money, no professional record, and no good agent, let's face it: the biggest opportunity we'd have would be at the Cleveland Public Theater earning base salary for a three-month run. It meant, on the other hand, that I wouldn't have to wait tables for about three months.

I auditioned once to get used to the market outside of college and high school. It was a comedy play with a musical number. My first audition was an interview and a singing test, maybe that's why I was called back. The second audition was playing a scene, and that's when I realized my comedy timing suck. I was 18 at that time and I had just arrived in Cleveland, barely having a drama education, so for all that I didn't see the experience as a resounding failure. That was just over a year ago.

"Have you heard the news? Meg is going to New York!" Robert walked over to me with a beer in hand and his eyes wide. He even let out a little scream.

"And? Did she win the lottery?"

"No, she got pregnant!" Regina replied with a certain indifference.

"What?" I was genuinely confused because Meg was a classmate, and as far as I knew, she was just as broken as the rest of us. "Did she, by any chance, get a rich boyfriend or a sugar daddy?"

"Surrogacy." Regina explained. "That's what I call despair."

"Look who says it..." Emilia, another college mate snapped at my roommate.

"The pole is a valid option! I make more money in one night than Shelby makes in a week waiting tables." Regina took a drag on her cigarette.

"Well… that's true." I admitted.

"Even so, I use my body to generate money without interfering with anyone else's life. It is my problem alone." Regina argued. "Surrogacy sounds like desperation to me."

"How does this surrogacy thing work?" I was intrigued. I looked around, but Meg wasn't at the party to explain what she'd gotten herself into. I imagine that if she was indeed pregnant by someone else, there would be no reason to go to a party where alcohol and marijuana circulated freely.

"A couple who can't have kids the normal way paid good money for her to get pregnant. Something like $70,000 and all medical and living expenses paid until the child is born." Regina knew everyone's business. I was amazed how she managed to handle so much news about other people. Although she was the main reason our phone bill was so high.

"Seriously?" I was amazed.

"Yeah. She was desperate." Regina still didn't approve of our colleague's attitude.

"70 thousand dollars?"

I thought about what you could do with $70,000 free of rent and medical bills. I could pay my CSU tuition, I could complete my major in theater, and still have enough money to go to New York. Or rather, I could forget about CSU and go straight to New York.

When would I have the opportunity to make $70,000 worth of parts from non-union companies in Cleveland? Or waiting tables? Only if I got lucky and find an eccentric millionaire who left me a thousand dollars as a tip after eating an apple pie. And this should happen at least twice a week. That is, it was impossible to make so much money with jobs that were at the base of the social pyramid. I was about to turn 20 and I was on my own in the world. I didn't have an enlightened, much less wealthy family to ask for help. My mother was a poor housewife who sold cakes to the neighbors, and my father was a racist and alcoholic worker, but who went to church every Sunday to assuage his own sins. My brother didn't even wait to graduate from school: he left home six months after I left for Cleveland.

To be honest, I didn't think Meg lost her mind. On the contrary, I thought she got a great job. It was an excellent contract of employment for nine months. The big question was: would I have the courage to do this? Fuck, the job consisted of getting pregnant, with all the risks and hassles that involved. I knew from experience that getting pregnant was easy: it was hard to deal with the aftermath. I chose not to deal with it, not least because I was a senior in high school and wanted to get the hell out of Findlay, Ohio. I would never even have made it to Cleveland with a child in my arms. On the other hand, getting pregnant as a form of employment wasn't an anchor, it was more a route out.

The subject died after a few light comments. I wasn't worried about staying at the party late as I didn't have any commitments the next morning. At the party, I ran into my ex-boyfriend and my ex-friend. I looked superior, like someone who didn't care about the situation. Just pretending really, because it hurt like hell to be discarded the way I was. I smoked some weed, drank my ass off, and honestly, I don't even know how I got home.

…

(Juan)

I was exhausted. I was in the OR for three hours, and the patient died on the table. I was heartbroken. It was a case of trauma. The woman was pregnant and had a traffic accident. We had to do an emergency C-section and then stop the mother's internal bleeding. We couldn't save the mother because there was so much damage. The child was in the incubator, premature, and still struggling to survive. The child's father was desperate when he arrived at the hospital and learned everything. I definitely didn't want to deal with obstetrics and I certainly hated pediatrics, because seeing a sick and dying child wasn't for everybody.

I tried not to get involved with patients, but medicine taught us that total detachment was also bad. If you weren't able to feel compassion for the sick person or family members at the time of the loss, then you could never be a good doctor. Seeing such a young woman die because of a traffic accident, seeing a child who was barely ready to be born and now become an orphan, was too sad.

This was the highlight of a day filled with routine, case studies and paperwork. People think that the hospital is that thing that never stops, which is not always true. Part of the time is dedicated to case studies and paperwork. There were days when I didn't even go into the OR. Saving lives was hard work, and losses always had an impact.

"Why that face?" Hiram asked as soon as he saw me dragging my feet home.

"Hard day. We lost a patient who was pregnant."

"What happened?"

"Traffic accident. Drunk driver I guess. The police were there, but I didn't get involved in the details. I don't even know if the child will survive."

"It sucks."

"Don't tell me that. But anyway, how was your day?"

"It was fun. Today I hosted a group of children at the farm's natural conservation area. So it was fun chaos. Those kids don't understand the difference between a botanist and a zoologist and they were more interested in knowing if there were bears and snakes there, than all the cool trees that were preserved."

I smiled at Hiram. I knew him well enough to know that he really enjoyed the school field trips because he was so good with kids. Hiram worked for an agricultural company that maintained a small ecological conservation area on an experimental farm. He was one of the botanists responsible for researching the quality of the plants generated from the fertilizers and, from time to time, this company received excursions from schools in this place because it was a great social advertisement. Hiram was always scheduled on visits. He walked with the students and the professor in charge on a one-hour course, explained the natural biodiversity of the region, and then introduced the greenhouse, which was basically where he worked every day.

"Did anyone ask about lions and giraffes?" There was always a kid who thought that lions and giraffes were animals that inhabited American forests.

"Not this time. I confess I was disappointed." Hiram smiled and kissed me quickly. "Nick called me. He said he's having a date at the bar today to celebrate his birthday. Are you coming?

"Okay. But we can stay long because tomorrow I have to work early."

"We'll just stop by, I promise."

Hiram was almost two years older than me. We graduated from Biology together at OSU because I graduated early from high school and he stayed an extra year in college. We are two biologists, but we are completely different. He graduated with a major in botany and I with a major in biomedical sciences. I went in on a football scholarship, and Hiram had a rich family. I'm 1.87 m tall and I like to work out. Hiram is 1.70 m tall, thin and not into sports, but he loves hiking in the woods. I'm not a naturally bright guy, but I excelled in school by being very focused on my studies. Hiram is a naturally smart guy, and he has a hippie aura, he's more sensitive. We are so different that to this day I don't know how we worked as a couple. But we do.

We met at a mutual friends party. I was playing for the Buckeyers and suffered a knee injury in a scrimmage during the preseason of my junior year. It was the end of my sports career, in return, I got a hefty severance pay, which paid for my medical school in Philadelphia. Anyway, I went to this party still on crutches, and I had just broken up with Nina Lawrence, my girlfriend for two years. I was devastated because she had been, until then, the girlfriend I loved the most, however, out of blue, she broke up with me. I was introduced to Hiram and was I swept up in his good conversation. We drank, we laughed, he kissed me and I broke his nose. Afterwards, I was remorseful for not having done better, and I went to visit him in his dorm to apologize. Then, we became good friends.

In my senior year, I was so involved with Hiram that I confessed that I loved him. We started dating after that day, and we had sex for the first time. Sex with a man is neither better nor worse than sex with a woman. It was just different, and I think a woman has certain attributes that are highly attractive to me. But the talent Hiram had with that mouth... oh my god! That was unique.

We liked each other a lot, the sex was great, but it wasn't an easy start. More than the gay culture issue that I wasn't familiar with, there was still the issue that Hiram wanted an open relationship, and that bothered me. There was also the specter of AIDS that threatened everyone, not to mention Hiram was socially using drugs. I also know that he slept with at least two guys at parties, even after our relationship became exclusive. The first time I had penetrative sex without a condom with Hiram was a few months ago, after our most recent AIDS and STD test results. I made this decision in full confidence only after Hiram actually changed his behavior after his second stint in rehab.

...

Hiram and I took a cab to that party. Nick was one of Hiram's childhood friends, and was his first boyfriend. That wasn't the slightest problem for me, because I met Nick when we first moved to Cleveland and saw what a great guy he was. Unfortunately, HIV caught Nick, his health wasn't the best, and we didn't know if this would be his last birthday party or not. When we arrived at the gay bar, I greeted the birthday boy and we sat down at the table to drink a beer.

I still didn't feel fully integrated into the gay community. To be honest, being in a relationship with a man was the only thing that connected me to that culture. I was into other things that were much more heteronormative, as Hiram used to say. I looked at all those guys. Some were very funny and the conversation was good, but they were Hiram's friends, not mine.

"People! Attention, attention, attention!" Max, Nick's boyfriend, came up to the table. "I need to make a very important announcement, the most important of the night."

Amidst squeals, Max smiled and greeted the small audience like a ballerina before pulling Nick onto the table.

"Thank you for your attention." Max chuckled. "I want to announce that Nick and I are going to handcuff each other!" He grabbed a beer and lifted his glass. "People! I asked this angel to marry me and he accepted!"

We applaud. Not just Max and Nick's friends, but everyone in the bar, including gay men, some women and the guys who just worked around there. The bar owner offered a round of beer on the house to the newlyweds. Only one round, of course, as the guy is not an insane trader. Nick and Max kissed, then got off the table and kissed more before starting to dance. Of course, same-sex marriage wasn't legal in Ohio or the rest of the country. Even so, many gay couples performed symbolic ceremonies to mark their commitment in front of friends and families.

We joined them on the dance floor, and I could see all these men enjoying themselves. It was particularly curious to see those with beards bigger than I'd ever thought to have kissing like there was no tomorrow. Sometimes I felt guilty about not being... gayer, but I tried hard to fit in as much as I hated all that electronic music and the Pet Shop Boys crap. In addition to having an unbelievable penchant for movie musicals, Hiram loved Pet Shop Boys. He played It's a Sin every time he wanted to piss me off. I tolerated Barbra Streisand and all the diva songs and musicals he was into, but Pet Shop Boys was cruel. But yeah, here I was dancing to Pet Shop Boys with Hiram to celebrate Nick's birthday and engagement.

"I love you." He said in my ear and smiled.

"You can only love me with all this sacrifice I make for you."

Hiram and I left the bar a little drunk but still aware enough to get a cab and not get ripped off or something. We were feeling good, Hiram was happy, I was happy. When we got home, we had a little private celebration in our bed, which was far from elegant. I fucked him properly, with speed and power. I made him moan loudly and come to the point where the sheet got a nice stain.

"Wow!" Was all I managed to say as we finished our celebration. I was exhausted, it was dawn and I had to get up early to work.

"Marry me?" Hiram said and I was taken aback. I looked a little confused at my boyfriend. He had formidable expressive green eyes, and the way he looked at me at that moment was different. He was fragile, as I had never seen him before, at the same time he was determined and courageous. I couldn't explain.

"What?" I saw the sudden change in Hiram's face at my rather blunt response.

"Marry me?" he asked again.

"Hiram, you're still in that Nick's party mood and..."

"No!" He put his finger to my lips to silence me.

"I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Marry me?"

I took a break and tried to start over.

"But aren't we already together? Don't we already live as if we were married? Isn't that as far as it goes, since a marriage between us wouldn't be recognized by the state?"

"I know. I know that legally this is impossible. I know it would be a symbolic act and blah blah blah. It's just... we've been together all this time. We've lived together for four years. We've seen the worst and the best in each other and we've stayed together. You gave me an emotional stability that I never had. I love you, Juan Ernesto Lopez, because you are the guy who fought for me when I was giving up. Even so, you never really tried to change me, because you were always okay with the way I am, just as I respect the way you are. We complete each other. We become the best partners and the best lovers. After you said you wanted to be a father and build a family with me... that moved me. More than just that, that gave new meaning to our relationship and my life. Nick's party tonight was great, but I was left thinking that my friend will probably die before he has a chance to build something bigger and deeper. I don't want a shallow life anymore, Juan. The idea of raising an adopted child or, I don't know, wow... that's amazing. It may sound old-fashioned, especially coming from me, but I would like to build a real family."

"Would you go on this with me, really?"

"Yes. I'm knocking on the door of 30 and I'm not getting any younger. I feel good, I feel stable, we're clean of that plague, we even have sex without a condom now..." We laugh a little. "So I think the right time has come to move on to a new stage by your side."

"Are you really serious?"

"Dead serious!"

"If so, I accept to marry you."

"Do you really accept it? Really?"

"Yes, Hiram Joel Berry, I will marry you with a party, a cake, a first dance, and possibly someone in our family making an unforgettable drinking faux pas."

Hiram pulled my face in for a kiss, and that was how we sealed our engagement.