Serving Pleasure by Alisha Rai

insisted on them as a condition of his moving here, and though he was thirty-five and well past the age where he should care what his parents thought about anything, he understood his situation was peculiar.
    His family had been through enough because of him, and it caused them a great deal of heartache that he now lived an ocean away. He couldn’t deny them this small measure of comfort.
    Which was why he was sitting here on the couch in his studio, staring at his phone. Though his mother called any time she grew anxious over him—which was quite a bit—his father only called him Thursdays, after he’d eaten dinner. Micah suspected the scheduled call was an effort to counterbalance his mother’s more erratic behavior.
    Right on time, the phone buzzed. He snatched it up, and Papa’s face filled the screen. “Micah,” his father boomed. The booming was normal. The man didn’t know how to speak at a quieter volume.
    The older man’s broad face crinkled, his smile beaming through the video. Micah gave a tight smile, the now-familiar mix of love, shame, and frustration running through him. “Hello, Papa.”
    “Angie,” his father said over his shoulder. “I told you he was fine. Come see.”
    His mother’s worried face appeared over her husband’s shoulder. Ah, more guilt. Before his injuries, his mum’s face had never had so much as a wrinkle on it. Now there were lines around her lips and mouth. They were always creased when she looked at him. “Stop yelling, David. Hello, my love.”
    “Mum.”
    “You didn’t call me back yesterday,” she chided.
    “I know. I apologize. It slipped my mind.” He was speaking formally, sitting up straighter. Look normal. Be normal.
    His mum tsked. “I would have called the police if you hadn’t picked up today.”
    “Please don’t do that,” he said mildly. She’d called the police twice in the past year when he ignored her calls in London.
    He’d tried to be understanding, but he couldn’t deny that had been tiring. A benefit of moving here was that his family didn’t have his local emergency numbers memorized. Yet.
    “Then you need to keep in touch,” she said sternly.
    “Angie, don’t lecture the boy,” his father practically shouted. He leaned in closer. “How are you doing, son?”
    “Well, thank you.” Be normal.
    “You look pale.” His mother frowned at him.
    “I don’t get pale.”
    “You’re lighter than you were when you lived here. It’s called the sunshine state, isn’t it? Not because it rains all the time, surely. If you were leaving your house, you wouldn’t look like that.”
    The woman should have been a detective, not a nurse. “I leave my house.”
    She harrumphed. “Your hair is getting longer.”
    How she could tell, he wasn’t sure. Before the call, he’d ensured his hair was tightly restrained, solely because his mother was mildly obsessed with its length.
    There was a barber not far from the flat where Micah had grown up. He’d visited the old man once a month since he was fourteen until about two weeks before the incident. He’d used to wear his hair shorn close to his skull, hating the hassle of how thick and fast it grew.
    He didn’t wear it long now out of fashion, but because the idea of someone standing behind him with a sharp object made him want to throw up. He couldn’t use an electric razor on himself, because the noise unnerved him. So, long hair it was, for the indefinite future. At least that way he could tie it back and forget it for a while.
    “Boy looks like a warrior. The ladies like long hair,” his father piped up, saving Micah from a reply. Papa winked at her and patted his now-short hair. “Remember how beautiful my hair was when you first saw me? Made you fall in love at first sight.”
    “Who says I fell in love with you at first sight?” his mother groused, but she covered her husband’s hand with her own, darker brown over light.
    Micah dropped his eyes, a pang in his chest. His