Getting to know one another

The week before the trip home was more difficult than Don had anticipated. While Doctor Prescott's assistant worked on creating a digital footprint for the newly invented relationship between Mike and Xue Li, Don and Mike had to work on their own part of the scam. The part that involved them being a newly married couple.

With Don as the wife.

The whole thing was a nightmare. Doctor Prescott watched them the whole time, either on a digital feed or in person, to coach them on their presentation. They had to be believable. If they weren't able to sell their relationship as real, Don was doomed to return to Macau alone, most likely doomed to be **** into a life of prostitution.

And so Don tried hard. He took walks holding Mike's hand. He practiced speaking English with a Chinese accent. He even worked on walking in the ridiculous high-heeled shoes that Xue Li had in her collection. Don laughed at Mike's jokes, he rested his head on Mike's shoulder while they watched TV, he even started calling him sweetheart.

What really made Don mad, though, was Mike. He was barely trying! Don knew that Mike had the lions-share of memorization to do, having a full binder of details on Xue Li's life to internalize, but if he couldn't get used to being around Don physically, intimately, they were both sunk. The problem was that every time Don got too close, Mike got awkward. If Don sat too close, or tried to hug his friend, Mike would excuse himself, saying he had to go to the bathroom. If Don practiced staring Mike in the eyes, Mike would look away and not make eye contact. If Don held his hand in public, Mike would get all sweaty and weird.

He wasn't even trying!

"Do you want me to end up on the street wearing trashy clothes giving blowjobs for a living?!" Don blasted his best friend on the second day of their wait, "Flashing my tits, being treated like a slut? Like a dirty whore?!"

"I, ugh..." Mike's eyes grew wide and his forehead began to sweat," You're not... I mean..."

"You're the worst, Mike," Don said, throwing his hands in the air and turning to leave, "Of course I'm not. But unless you start working with me, that's what you're going to make me."

It didn't help that when Don started to lose his concentration, allow his mind to wander, sometimes his body would behave in ways he normally wouldn't. Sometimes in the middle of a movie, Don's hand slipped down and rested on Mike's thigh, softly rubbing it up and down. Mike coughed and jumped at the touch, bringing Don's mind back to the present. He mumbled an apology, but found himself doing it again twenty minutes later. Eventually, on the fourth time, Don just decided to leave his hand. After all, a wife had to feel comfortable touching her husband, right?

Another time, as Don was zoning out while Mike recited details of Xue Li's life to him from his work, Don began to slide the banana he was eating in and out of his mouth ever so slowly. It was Doctor Prescott who stopped him that time, reminding Don that while it was good to practice acting sexually comfortable with each other, he was distracting his friend. Mike, for his part, who had turned beet red, stood up, hands over his crotch, and darted for the bathroom where he stayed for at least ten minutes.

"You're making good progress," Doctor Prescott told the pair after four days, "but you only have three days left. If you really want this to work, you're going to have to make it work. You're sitting together and remembering birthdays, but I haven't even seen you kiss! Remember what the stakes are."

And so, more than halfway through the week, Don once again stared at his best friend, worried that he was going to have to do all the heavy lifting to make things happen. He had done it when he was in his old body, and it looked like he was going to have to do it again in his new one. Three days to learn to act like a married couple or he was doomed to a life of prostitution. Don was damned if he wasn't going to make this happen.