Ian had come down the stairs for something and Carla was in the kitchen making a cup of tea when she heard the doorbell ring.
"Ian, don't answer it!" she called out as she hurried to the living room.
Too late, Ian had already opened the door and was saying hello to...her heart stopped; it was him, Ian's father. He looked just as she remembered but there was something very different about him.
"Ian come over here." she said, her eyes still glued on Kane.
Ian looked at Carla and then back at Kane his blue eyes flashing.
"Obey your mother." Kane said, his eyes flashing at the boy.
Ian hesitated and then smiled.
"Ian, why don't you go upstairs and put in a movie?" Carla said.
"Really? I can stay up?" he asked excitedly.
"Just this once." Carla said.
Ian ran off afraid that Carla would change her mind. She waited until she heard the movie start and the door close before turning to Kane.
"What do you want?" she asked.
Kane was totally unprepared for meeting his son face to face, he was struck by the boy's beauty; there was no denying who his parents were, he was a combination of the best of both of them. He was glad that he had made contact even if it was brief; the boy was already having urges that he didn't understand. In the few seconds of contact, Kane was able to give very brief instructions to Ian telepathically which to Kane's relief he understood. He liked the name Ian and wondered why she chose it.
"Carla, I..."
"You what? She demanded as tears ran down her face, "What do you want?" she repeated.
Kane heard and felt her anger.
"Carla, my name is Kane Brenin. I was hoping to talk to you and explain..."
Carla cut him off.
"Explain? After five years? How did you find me?" Carla asked.
"A friend helped me. Please may I talk to you?"
"About what? How I followed you to your car and rutted with you like a common whore?"
"I'm sorry about that night, if you'll let me explain..."
"Are you here to take Ian away from me? Because if you are, I will kill you."
Kane held up his hands in surrender.
"I didn't know about Ian until recently and I'm not here to take him from you. I just want to talk and that's all."
Carla gave him a wary look.
"Why now?" she asked.
"That's part of what I want to explain to you, haven't you been wondering about that night? Why you came with me so easily?" he asked.
She did want to know why she did something so out of character for her. Reluctantly she let him in; Kane glanced around the room and followed her in.
"You have fifteen minutes." Carla said as she sat as far away as she possibly could from him.
Kane nodded, fifteen minutes was more than he thought he'd get. He started over with his name.
"As I said my name is Kane Brenin and I have absolutely no excuse for the way I treated you that night and for the past five years. I am so sorry that I left you, I had no idea that you were pregnant..."
"How could you? You didn't even tell me your name and then you had the gall to try and hypnotize me when we were finished. If I hadn't said my name on stage, would you have even asked? Do you have any idea of how that one event changed my life? I couldn't even come up with a good story as to how I ended up pregnant with a white man's baby. To this day my friends don't know what happened that night and I refused to tell them."
"Carla, I understand that you're angry and you have every right to be but give me a chance to explain, the only thing is its going to take longer than fifteen minutes."
"Talk." she said and sat down, "you have thirty minutes starting now."
Kane waited until she was sitting before he sat.
"I don't even know where to begin, the night that we met... no, that's not a good place to start. The night that I met you, I was angry a very angry and bitter man. I have a condition which at the time I saw as a curse, I'm allergic to the sun and I have been since... a long time. Anyway, I felt like that I was being cheated out of something and decided to live my life as I saw fit no matter who got hurt. The problem was that no matter what I did, my condition wasn't going to change. I was a selfish bastard, I know that but at the time I didn't care, that attitude drove away my friends and family with the exception of one person and I almost lost his friendship as well. For the longest time, I thought that all I wanted was to be alone, when my last friend walked out on me I found out that being along wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Fortunately when I called, he came back. I have many bridges to mend but I wanted to start with you."
"Are you dying?" Carla asked.
"No I'm not dying." Kane replied puzzled by her question.
"So this isn't a bucket list type of thing, you're not going around trying to make your peace with those you've wronged?"
"No, I want to apologize and do right by you and Ian." Kane replied.
"Are you looking for absolution?" she asked.
"No, Carla..."
"Good, because if you are; go to a priest, I can't give you what I haven't even given myself."
Kane was taken aback with her self loathing but he continued-time was getting away from him.
"The night that we met was a particularly bad night, all I wanted to do was fuck someone and it really didn't matter who it was. I was already at the bar when you got there, I saw you walk in with your friends and something happened that I had been trying to avoid, I wanted you and I don't mean to fuck; I wanted to make love to you. No woman had ever affected me that way and I didn't want it, I didn't want to feel that way about anyone. Instead of walking away, I decided to take you to the car and .... Do you remember when I kissed you? It was supposed to be the kiss I give to every woman before we ... well anyway, it turned into something else, something much more intimate. When I entered you, it was my intent to hurt you for making me feel things that I didn't want to feel, it never crossed my mind that you would become pregnant; I wouldn't have left had I known. I can only imagine what the past five years have been like for you and I know that there is nothing that I can say or do that can take away the pain that I've caused you and Ian but I would like to try."
Carla gave him an incredulous look.
"You used me? You didn't know anything about me but chose me to fuck because I made you feel something? What in the hell does that even mean? How many other women have you fucked because they made you feel something? How many children do you have floating around out there and by the way; Ian isn't your son, he's mine! You weren't here when I dodged the questions about the pregnancy or when he was born and it was obvious that his father was white, you weren't here when he almost died! So you're right, there's nothing that you can do about any of it."
Kane sat silently, she wasn't ready to listen but he had to know something.
"You said that Ian almost died, when was that?"
"Why do you care?" She asked.
