'That remark you made earlier about male bonding,' said Gene. He lit his cigarette and propped his feet up on the desk. He'd taken off his boots. It was the only time Sam had ever seen his socks.

'Yes?' said Sam, impatiently. The office was silent. Everyone had slunk off home in the hour between ten and eleven, bleary-eyed from brainstorming solutions to an uncrackable case. Sam and Gene, unsure and uncaring of why, had lingered on 'til half past midnight, killing a bottle of scotch as soundly and methodically as the latest victim had been torn to pieces. The heating had been turned off, and the winter cold was seeping in through the closed windows to chill the air between them. You could almost see Gene's breath. Gene's socks, Sam noticed, were remarkably clean. They were light brown and slightly sweaty around the heels, but there wasn't one hole in them.

'I hope you weren't implying that I'm a bender.'

Sam was taken aback by the sudden change of subject. Minutes go Gene had been soliloquising on the merits of kneeing suspects in the balls to withdraw confessions. He suspected that Gene was winding him up. Messing with his 'pretty little girly head.' Though there was something in the way Gene had said 'bender,' - the hard and insistent emphasis on the first syllable and the surprising pop of the 'b', that sounded threateningly serious.

'God fucking forbid,' muttered Sam, and he realised that was the first time he'd sworn in front of Gene. Really sworn. Something meaty and Ango-Saxon and past-the-watershed.

Gene tossed back his whiskey and poured himself another triple. The smell of scotch and feet was pervasive in the claustrophobia of Gene's office.

'Good,' he Gene. 'Cause I'd hate to think your pernickerty mind was so miniscule it couldn't comprehend the difference between healthy male affection and a hankering to shove one's pole up someone else's chocolate whizz-way.'

Sam reeled with disbelief. This dinosaur of a bent DCI was daring to lecture him on the fine line between buddies and benders?

'Believe me, Guv,' said Sam, lifting his chin and looking down directly into his superior's eyes, 'I am more enlightened on matters of sexuality than you could ever, ever comprehend.'

Gene's lips quirked in a smug hint of a smile.

'Thought so,' he said with satisfaction. He wiggled his toes inside his socks.

'What's "Thought so" supposed to mean?' said Sam, snatching up the whiskey bottle and topping off his own glass.

Gene inhaled deeply from his cigrette, but didn't exhale. As he spoke his next words, wisps of smoke escaped sporadically from his mouth and nose, hitching rides on the backs of his syllables.

'Always knew you got off on it when I slammed yer up against that filing cabinet.' He spoke casually, though there was a hint of disgust in his tone. 'I'll bet you do all your gardening on at least a 45 degree slope.' Gene pursed his lips and blew a beautiful smoke ring. 'And you know how I know it?'

'You can blow smoke rings,' observed Sam incongruously. Gene nodded minutely.

'I know it because you never bloody touch another bloke. You never put your arm around Ray or Chris' shoulders when yer pissed. You never sit down beside another bloke without at least three inches of space between you and 'im. And most importantly, when I slam yer in the kidneys, you never, ever, ever hit back. Whereas I, sterling example of extraordinary heterosexual normality, never have me 'ands off other blokes, because it doesn't give the Gene Genie even the tiniest increment of the 'orn.'

'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,' said Sam, bristling at the ribbing and scarcely believeing his own audacity. He'd had too much scotch.

Gene sat bolt upright, yanking his socked feet back from the table and slamming them down onto the floor.

'I beg your illustrious bloody pardon?' he spat. 'First you call me a bender,' he stood and approached Sam, his swagger more exaggerated than Sam had ever seen it, 'and now you call me a bird?'

'It's Shakespeare,' said Sam, impotently.

Gene was nose-to-nose with Sam now. 'You, Gladys,' he said, 'seem to have developed one whopper of a death-wish.'

Sam refused to let his eyes show any trepidtion. He was not rising to this. If Gene wanted to whallop him and rupture his spleen, crack a rib or two - let him get on with it. Sam was a tower of strength. A pillar of calm. An oak in a windstorm. He was terrified.

Whatever he expected to happen, however, he was completely unprepared for Gene's next words.

'I propose a litmus test, Gladys,' he said darkly.

'A what?' said Sam.

'It's when you dip a strip of paper into water or piss or toothpaste to determine the PH of the substance,' said Gene.

'I know what a bloody litmus test is, Guv,' said Sam, affronted. 'What the hell are you trying to indicate by the metaphor?'

Gene turned his back on Sam and snatched up the scotch bottle from his desk, taking a long gulp directly from the neck.

'I am going to slam you up against this filing cabinet,' he motioned to the cabinet in the corner, 'and you are going to keep your beady eyes on my todger and witness its complete and utter lack of interested response - got it?'

Sam blinked and pinched the bridge of his nose.

'Hang on,' he said. 'You want me to - what? To let you manhandle me in order to prove your heterosexuality?'

'Precisely,' said Gene. 'We're on the same page.'

'This is too bizarre,' said Sam, half to himself. 'I'm going home.' He reached for the handle to the office door, but before he could grip it, he felt himself yanked forcefully back by his shoulders, spun around fast and hard and slammed painfully back against the filing cabinet. His shoulder blades seemed strangely pleased to greet an old friend. He flexed them. Gene's face was flushed and close, his fists bunched white-knuckled around Sam's lapels. Gene had hoisted him up to just above his eye-level, and Sam was on tip-toe.

'I proposed a game, Gladys,' breathed Gene hot over Sam's mouth. 'And when the Gene Genie says, "Let's play," you play along. Comprende?'

Sam struggled involuntarily.

'Let me go, Guv,' he said. 'You've wound me up enough for one night. There's a line.' He wriggled violently again. 'You're crossing it,' he added for clarification.

'Stay still, you little whirling dirvish,' whispered Gene. 'You're only proving me argument right.' He hoisted Sam up a little more and then let him drop back down. Sam felt his belt buckle rub against Gene's belly. 'You filthy little thing,' said Gene, low in his throat. 'You're rubbin yourself off against me.'

Sam closed his eyes and, against his will, felt himself harden.

'You're insane,' said Sam. 'You're not real.' His breathing quickened. 'I made you.' He huffed out a short, loud breath. 'I'm insane.'

'Now you're talking sense, Gladys,' said Gene. He hoisted Sam up again and let him drop back down, rubbing the length of Sam's fly from the bottom of his belly to the bottom of his own fly. 'Stop rubbing yourself up against me,' breathed Gene. 'It's filthy, that is.'

What on earth was Gene doing? Was this some twisted joke? It didn't seem to fit Gene's sense of humour. A simple mind-fuck, to laugh about with Ray tomorrow night at the Arms? Or, ominously, something more complicated?

Sam closed his eyes. He felt Gene's own erection thicken, and Gene shifted him so that it was lying alongside Sam's cock. Which was hard, Sam supposed, because of sheer friction. Or could there be something to Gene's unsophisticated theorising? *Did* Sam hold back from contact with other men because he feared potential arousal? He couldn't think about this now. Not with Gene hard against him.

Good God. Gene was hard against him.

'I think... you're failing,' panted Sam, keeping his eyes pressed closed, '...you're own litmus test.'

'What are you talking about, Gladys?' said Gene,

'You've got an erection!' said Sam, cringing at the inane bluntness of the statement.

'That's not an erection, Dorothy,' said Gene. 'Don't you know the difference between male bonding and poofterism?'

Gene poked out his tongue and licked his lips. Sam could smell single malt, fried egg butties, cigarette flavoured spit.

'Come on,' said Gene, slamming Sam's back against the cabinet again. He was goading him. Provoking him. Teasing him.

Well. If that was how it was.

'What about this?' said Sam, suddenly bold. He squeezed his hand down in between their flush bodies and gripped Gene's cock through his trousers. "Downstairs outside." What a concept.

Sam's mouth and chin were growing damp from Gene's hot breath.

'Male bonding,' panted Gene.

'How about this?' said Sam, fumbling 'til he found Gene's zip and drawing it down to free his cock.

'Male... bonding,' said Gene, with a little more apparent difficulty.

'And this...?' said Sam, wrapping his palm around Gene's hot length and beginning to steadily pump it up and down.

'That's...' Gene faltered. 'That's... fucking...' A small animalistic noise rumbled up from deep in his lungs, and he lunged forward to bite Sam's exposed neck, his teeth grating against the chain of the St. Christoper. Gene stuck out his tongue and licked right the way up the chain, following it all the way home to the hollow between Sam's collarbones. Then he pulled away, his lips wet. 'That's fucking poofterism, that is.'

Sam pulled his hand away.

'I didn't say stop, Gladys,' said Gene, his hands tightening on Sam's lapels.

Sam took Gene's cock in his hand again. This time he squeezed a little tighter. He'd never held anyone's penis but his own. The difference - the slightly shorter length, the greater girth, the circumcision - all of these he found arousing. Perhaps Gene was right about him after all.

'You want me to keep going, then?' asked Sam, opening his mouth in a slack smile.

'Fuck... yes...' breathed Gene, 'you filthy little poof, I couldn't stop yeh, could I? Even if I tried... even if I tried, I couldn't stop yeh. Fuck.'

Sam moved his hand faster. Gene began to grunt rhythmically. Softly. Softly. Then more loudly. Sam studied his face, this close like the surface of a rugged and unexplored planet, scarred and spectacular. Gene was a whole world unto himself. Sam was in awe.

Without warning, Gene let go of Sam, took hold of his shoulders, spun him around and slammed him front-first into the filing cabinet.

'Fuck, if I fucked you up against this ruddy filing cabinet, you'd like that, wouldn't you, you...' Gene seemed to run out of words. '...poof,' he added, half-heartedly.

Sam went entirely limp, held up only by Gene's front pressing against his back.

'Yeah,' he said. 'Go on, Guv. I think I would.'

Something in Gene seemed to give way, and he lost all of his words as he scrambled to undo Sam's belt and tug his trousers and underpants down until they were pooled around his ankles. Sam felt Gene shove down his own trousers, and then Gene's hands on his buttocks, pulling them apart with surprising gentleness.

Sam had never done this before, and he was certain that Gene hadn't either. They were stumbling blindly in the dark. It never occurred to Sam to ask for lubrication, and he didn't think he could blame Gene for tearing into him like an inexperienced adolescent.

It was agony, but when Gene's cock hit Sam's prostate, Sam discovered the meaning to life, the universe and everything.

'Holy fuck, Gene,' he said.

Gene was lost.

'Guv,' said Gene. 'Guv.'

'Guv,' said Sam. 'Holy fuck, Guv. What the fuck are we doing?'

Gene didn't answer. He kept ploughing into Sam, moving more smoothly now, knocking against his prostate on every other stroke. Panting and sweating like an unfit racehorse.

'What the fuck are we doing, Guv?' said Sam again, unable to comprehend this.

Gene reached around him, opened the second-top drawer of the filing cabinet, shoved Sam's fingers inside and slammed the drawer shut on them. Sam howled, fingers trapped as Gene held the drawer closed with the flat of his hand as he pounded into Sam from behind.

'Shut the fuck up, Gladys,' he said. 'I'll do the talking.' Then with his other hand, Gene reached around to touch Sam's cock "downstairs outside," and Sam came in his pants.

'You desperate little slag,' said Gene, and came inside Sam.

In the aftermath, everything was still for at least a thirty seconds.

Slowly, Gene shifted and removed his weight from Sam, pulling out, tucking himself away and zipping up his fly. Sam slumped against the cabinet, pulling his aching hand out of the drawer and reaching down to replace his underpants and trousers. He felt raw and cut open.

Gene sat back down and lit another cigarette. Sam waited for Gene to say something witty. He thought about saying something witty himself. In the end, both of them stayed silent.

Sam looked down at the angry red lines the filing cabinet had left across the fingers of his right hand. He massaged them.

Gene blew a smoke ring and put his socked feet up on the desk.