Much thanks to Mark for looking through this and giving me the courage to post!

Dennis Reynolds: Cuddler Extraordinaire

I'm going to be honest here: I pretty much master everything I attempt. I was always the top of my class every year-I went to Penn State on a scholarship (my high school GPA was a 3.9), and graduated Penn with a 3.7. Granted, it wasn't a 4.0, but I didn't give a good goddamn about the handful of lesser classes I'd taken. There are times when I look back at what I've done since Penn and wonder just why I didn't become a psychologist, as I would've excelled at that career (as I excel in everything) but of course, we wouldn't want to unfairly balance the economy of the psychology field would we? Even with Psychology as my minor, I still would've been the best goddamn psychiatrist available. I would've had a monopoly on the whole city of Philly! Not one mentally disturbed human being would've gone to anyone else, and truly, it was selfless of me to stand down from one of my many callings. Selfless in that nobody else could've possibly held down a job in the field with me in it. Besides, I can hardly stand listening to Dee whine about her infantile problems (like anyone really cares about why her cars somehow get destroyed on a regular basis or whatever else she bitches about) so why would I want to hear people I don't even know complain about theirs? I mean, my God! Have you heard the shit people complain about?

I often eavesdrop on strangers' conversations, with them none-the-wiser of course. There's no amount of money anyone could pay me to sit and listen to Jerry bitch about his wife not doing enough chores around the house, or some nasally overweight woman sob about her child's suicide. Get a real problem, you know? There a people out in the world who spend hours trying to find the right shade of fucking lip stain so he can wear the black and red lace corset but he can't because the colour just never matches. It felt as if one day I'd have to wear it without the appropriate makeup because otherwise it would be a complete waste having bought it. Mac constantly pulled it out whenever I told him to grab something from my wardrobe when I was in a corset mood and in a hurry and I had to tell him again and again I just didn't have the right lipstick and so he had to go back and grab the green one since I was wearing my skin-coloured lip stain with a gently-pink gloss over it. (I've since found the right colour and wore it, which you will get to hear about, of course.) Yet, she was sobbing about something that happened three months ago. Like anyone wants to scramble uncomfortably for something to say, knowing that nothing could make her feel better about her whiny emo son's bullet-sucking demise. Please desist, I'm trying to order a coffee, goddamn you!

Where was I?

Oh right, so I very quickly surpass everyone's expectations in all things I attempt. I'm not only the smartest of all my friends, but the most attractive, and talented. A jack of all trades but a master of none is better than being a master of one, no? Naturally I am, of course, a master in many trades, but we're not going to split hairs over a centuries old idiom are we?

This includes cuddling.

Now I know what you're thinking: Dennis Reynolds? A cuddler? What unbelievable horseshit! But, well, it is true. And as I am masterful at it, I wouldn't want to waste my ability on just anyone. Perhaps that's why you didn't know. You don't see world renowned chefs throwing their best dishes at disgusting peons in the streets, do you? No! You have to go to their five-star restaurants and spends thousands of dollars to enjoy the pleasure of tasting their masterpieces. I realize that I have cultivated the image of the masculine god that so often stands before people with such lesser intelligence they cannot conceive of my beauty nor do they stand in rightful awe, and people have this ridiculous assumption that cuddling isn't part of that image. If you're one of those people, I say to you, be gone, you vile creature! How dare you mock this talent of mine? Cuddling is the cornerstone of masculinity! It's up there with dominating the feeble, weaker sex, proper makeup application, and having the skills to eat cereal while driving.

So you may wonder how it is that I, Dennis Reynolds, have mastered this ability, and how I put it to use in my daily life. Why, I don't go a day without cuddling now, but that wasn't always the case. Though a master chef would not give out food freely to the unappreciative homeless, he might be so inclined to do so had he no restaurant. There have been times that I have not had such means, or ways, to serve politicians and megastar celebrities, as it metaphorically were.

Let me regale you with this tale of mine, of times where I have selflessly bestowed my gift upon plebeians, and royalty, alike.

Growing up with a twin, as inferior as she is, means you're never alone as a child. Never. Alone. Christ, can you imagine the torture that was? Don't get me wrong, I'm not some sort of pathetic, minion-esque introvert, but Machiavellian princes need time to scheme, and one cannot elevate one's consciousness to an ethereal plane of higher intelligence when you have some half-girl, half-bird grotesque monstrosity near you every minute of the day. It's not as if she wanted to be around me, either, but our nannies thought it adorable to keep us in the room together, that or simply easier to keep an eye on. It might've had something to do with the fact that every time Dee wasn't within eyesight of an adult or me, knowing I would tattle on her, she would catch something on fire.

Even worse, when you're a twin, individuality is discouraged. You were born the same day, why not be the exact same person? Everyone could easily tell who the better twin was (me, obviously) and I, of course, wanted to completely distance myself from her. Nannies were always trying to convince us to dress alike, and I absolutely refused. Dee, of course, likely wanting to be seen more like me as if she could possibly come close, would often dress up in my clothes. I swear, at least once a week, I was screeching at her: "Get out of my skirt, you bitch!" Please. Her legs are too goddamn bony and gangly to pull that off, and have you seen chartreuse against her skin tone? Got to say, not in the least bit flattering. Even as six year olds, I was clearly the better dresser.

Where was I? Oh right. Having a twin.

So when we were young-toddlers, really-we often cuddled. I don't remember it very clearly, but by kindergarten her joints had already become uncomfortably bony, less like a woman and more like a marionette puppet. Suffice to say, not the kind of body one would want to curl up against to leech warmth. Already an independent youngster, I asked if I could have my own bed.

Of course, Dee will tell you I'd already had my own bed, that I had had my own crib even, and that I, suffering nightmares, would crawl into hers. And okay, perhaps that is somewhat of a factual claim if one were to look at the facts presented in a specific way, but there is no point in dredging up that particular argument now.

And I very quickly became acquainted with the benefits of cuddling Mr. Tibbs, my stuffed elephant. I have no shame in admitting that I slept with him up until I had graduated high school. What is there to be embarrassed about? Absolutely nothing. In fact, dare I say it, sleeping with a stuffed animal gives off the aura of a kind, loving soul; the kind of man who nurtures those he bangs, you know? People love that romantic shit. And if a man, in his late teens, seeks comfort in the soft, warm, pliant plush beside him, smelling of laundry detergent and accepting of all his deepest thoughts and urges, whispered angrily to him when idiotic jerk offs had ruined his day or simply spoken because shit, sometimes, I just got important things to say, then who am I, or you rather, to judge? And if that man were to suck his thumb until he was sixteen, what then? There's nothing wrong with that.

Wrapping my arms around Mr. Tibbs and inhaling his scent, feeling him pressed into my chest, somehow calmed me. If Mom and Frank got into a screaming match about how she spent his money or what have you, leaving Dee and I crying in the corner (sometimes loud noises are just so irksome and grating) who was there to comfort me right after? Mr. Tibbs. If some pathetic, annoying jerk off spilled some fucking juice all over my brand new eighty dollar shirt because he was a spastic moron incapable of opening a goddamn lunch box, and it would have been so fucking easy to jam that straw right into his eye but no, no no, the aftermath of talking to the principal and counsellors and listening to the whimpering fool cry about it would've been so irritating, so why get weird? Why not just scream into his face and storm out of the school, call your chauffer to take you home, and vent to Mr. Tibbs and then, after the vision-shaking rage disappears, hold him close to your chest until you feel like a human being again?

I could easily picture what I would like done to me, had Mr. Tibbs been sentient enough to respond, and would try to do that to him. However, as he was so small, on the days I wished to be held, not to hold, I was left unsatisfied, forced to wrap blankets around my shoulders as tightly as possible, pressing my back against pillows I'd had shoved against the wall. It would do in a pinch, but it was hardly satisfactory.

That was why it was imperative to find a girlfriend.

Now, I don't care what anyone else tells you, Maureen Ponderosa did not have a dead tooth until sometime after high school. I don't know when she got it, but trust me, she certainly didn't have it then. I am quite sure I would've noticed, considering how many times I stuck my tongue in her mouth. Nor did she reek of kitty litter and wear the same clothes several days in a row. Whoever tells you such nonsense is lying. She was clearly the most attractive girl in school, as I do not let unattractive people drape on my arm. I cannot besmirch my chiselled body with anything but the best of décor.

Maureen was not only beautiful, but intelligent and had this aura of innocence about her. When I spoke, she really listened, and she giggled and touched my arm, and curled into my chest. When I wanted to be held, she put her arms around me, pressing her breasts against my back and I would allow myself to slip into soft reality. And boy, I knew I could please her. I had pleased our vixen librarian immensely. She taught me well, whispering orders and tying me up until I got it right. (Consensually, of course. One hundred percent consensually. I was in no way raped. I swear my friends are blind idiots.) But there was something about Maureen, something that had me lost in thought of her cute giggles and wide, adoring eyes when a love song played on the radio.

When I would go weeks without feeling emotions (emotions are childish, I know, but everybody has them sometimes) she would understand; hold me until I felt again, or let me pound her into the mattress while she begged for more and whispered sonnets of how much she loved me, adored me, worshipped me afterwards, and I finally fell back to earth, no longer an objective, detached god peering over the lowly filth known as humanity, but instead a god made flesh, walking amongst his creations. When I begged her to tie me to my bed, ride me, and choke me as I came, she would do so, and allow me to do the same to her. I dealt with her silly hopes and dreams, as if any would ever come to fruition but I let her pretend she would make it someday, and kissed her against bathroom stalls and soft mattresses, fingers entwined, and cuddled her on couches, the floor, any damn place I pleased. She was so entirely accepting of me.

Or so I thought.

As it happens, she eventually broke up with me. After everything we'd gone through, and all her promises of forever, she left me. Why, I'll never know. I suppose I'm of such higher intelligence, trying to understand the workings of someone mentally inferior is nigh impossible (though at the time, you'd never have dragged that out of me; I viewed her not as a goddess, but as a god would view the perfect sacrifice he'd waited centuries to devour, and that was a high compliment, trust me).

When the catholic school ran out of funding-how that's even possible given that they weren't taxed, the resource sucking beggars that they were-they'd had no choice but to merge with our clearly better high school. That was how I met Mac and Charlie, both so eager for approval it was sickeningly easy to manipulate them. I don't think I once paid for any drugs I ever got from Mac, and believe me that was entirely intentional. (Had I known his sexual orientation then, I would've gone about it in a much simpler, and pleasurable, way, mind you, but I had no way of knowing then.)

Now, did Mac and I ever cuddle in high school? Oh, you judgemental simpletons, always assuming. Of course we did. None of my other male friends would let me touch them; I tried with Tim Murphy once, and another with Adriano, and that was the last either of the invited me over to their house. Clearly they were threatened by my masculinity and shrunk away from the alpha male, so they could live in denial about where on the hierarchy they stood. And that, dear friends, is where the story truly begins.

Except it has already begun. I've been telling you this story for at least five pages now, but let's not argue semantics.

"Wow, your room is huge!" Mac exclaimed, dark, doe-like eyes gleaming with wonder, the first time he set foot in my house.

I shrugged. "It's decent," I said, smirking over at him. Truth was, I knew that my room was large; larger than his living room, in fact. It was why we were here, and not at his place. Simply being in that ash tray of a residence had me twitching for something to strangle. Luckily, Mr. Tibbs had been there for me, as ever.

"Hey, we should always have sleepovers here!"

That was the plan. "Oh, if you insist," I stated genially. The best way to get what you want is to convince others that it's what they wanted all along.

The thing about Mac was that he, like almost everyone, loved to brush shoulders with giants. However, many people refuse to accept they want that; love the thrill of touching greatness. They become jealous. Angry. Incapable of handling the mere presence of something or someone unfathomably better than them in every way. Mac, though, he openly enjoyed it. Rather than be embarrassed, he revelled in his worship of me. As a devout Catholic, Mac knows his way around blind faith (even if he wasn't always knowledgeable about what he believed) and there is nothing he believes in more than me. It has been that way since the moment we met.

Now, earlier that day we had smoked some weed beneath the bleachers with Charlie. We only had one joint between us, Mac telling me he had sold all the others. The rule in such situations is to take one drag and pass it to the next person. We all tried to hold the smoke in our lungs as much as possible. With the three of us in a circle, huddled around the shattered bits of broken beer bottles we'd smashed to the ground, throats drying and heads swimming, the joint hadn't lasted long. (I was taking two hits, as opposed to just one, because neither of them noticed and I knew I could get away with it. Sometimes trust in me is entirely unfounded.)

It just so happened that Mac had had the last puff of the joint, Charlie walking away as soon as he passed it. "No fair," I said, voice low and husky with the buzz. "I wanted to smoke more. You sure you don't have any more weed, bro?"

Lips pursed together and chest expanded with air, he nodded his head. Red tinged the white around his dark chocolate orbs, the strong scent of dank weed permeating the air around us.

"Blow it into my mouth," I commanded. It was a test, see. Many people are uncomfortable with close proximity, especially men with other men, the way one would be while standing beside a pillar of flame, the powerful blaze capable of burning one to death. I am all powerful and a predator in the jungle that is humanity, and everyone knows it. Everyone fears it. My intensity, my power, reminds men, the closer they are to me, that I am the alpha, not them. As drunk as that fear can make me, sometimes I need someone unafraid of the flame, see.

He leaned forward, our noses brushing and eyes locked, and he breathed out. I sucked his air into my lungs, mouths mere centimetres apart and parted slightly, and I knew then: he wasn't afraid of my power. When he pulled away, smiling breathlessly at me, I saw my reflection in his blown pupils. He stared at me the way people in the old days must've stared at the golden calves of their faith.

I could ask anything of him, and he would deliver. I knew it then as clearly as I know it now.

"Remember earlier when I said I didn't have any weed?" Mac opened when we stood in the middle of my room, hours later.

"Yes?"

"Well um, that wasn't necessarily true. I do have some, but like, Charlie already called dibs or whatever."

Why was he telling me this? See, he wouldn't have brought it up if he hadn't wanted to do something about it. If he wanted to be loyal to Charlie's dibs then he never would have mentioned it. He didn't want to offer it to me; he wanted to be convinced to offer it to me.

I'm going to let you in on something, dear reader, something that could easily change your life. People, in so many ways and in so many different things, want their most desired actions to be on the shoulders of others. They don't want to snort that cocaine on their own free will; no, they want to be exploited, convinced to do so, so that the guilt of the action is relieved. They want to be peer pressured into doing something exciting. "Dare me to do this," they'll say, rather than do it without the excuse.

"You could replace it, I'm sure."

"Not for a few days . . . ."

"You could give him catnip. He won't know the difference."

"Ya think?"

I smirked at him. "I know."

He grinned at me and pulled out a sandwich bag from his pocket. Inside was one tightly rolled joint. I shut the door behind me, and sauntered to him, revelling in his betrayal to Charlie in favour of me. Betrayal is a savoury dish when you're the one a subject is loyal to.

We lay on my fluffy, large mattress, a blood red, porcelain ashtray on my nightstand, and smoked. We had been friends for a few months, though Mother hadn't quite liked the idea of me staying at either Mac or Charlie's house as they were on the wrong side of town, so I could do so when she wasn't around. However, Frank always made me take Dee, under guise of him wanting her to "be part of the group" but that was as much a piece of shit as anything could be; he just wanted the house to himself to hold illegal poker games. We'd always return to find Asians drunk, passed out in their own sick, and have to deal with him ushering them out and paying for carpet shampooing.

However, as I had no desire to spend time in Charlie's basement, which smelled heavily of industrial glue and spray paint, or in Mac's house (as previously discussed), I invited them over to mine once I finally deemed them worthy of it. I knew they would be impressed and though Mother hardly liked them, there wasn't much she wouldn't let me do if I buttered her up enough. I was always the favourite, and rightly so.

I was on the side closest to my night stand. He was beside the wall, Mr. Tibbs by his head on the pillow. Unlike some other jerk offs, he didn't comment on it, simply smiled at him before taking a drag while we passed the joint back and forth. It wasn't as dank as the weed we'd had earlier, but we still had the heavy buzz weighing in our brains so it heightened the high. We were completely stoned, actually. Say what you will about Mac, but he knows where to get the good stuff, no matter what drug he decides to sell.

This time, it was I who had the last glorious puff.

I held it in my lungs, but not long. I rolled over, leaning over him, but so closely our chests touched, and moved towards his mouth. He tilted up, eyes closing and mouth opening, and I blew the smoke slowly past his teeth. When I pulled my head back, his eyes were still closed for a brief second. When they opened, I swear he was nearly orgasmic.

Of course I understand now that he thought I was trying to kiss him. At the time, I had assumed he was straight. Hell, I had assumed I was straight. Then, I believed it to be gratitude at me returning the favour.

Curtains open, moonlight streaming in and bathing me in a silvery, effervescent glow, illuminating my chiselled cheeks and streaking through my hair, I lay on my side, facing my ashtray. "Put your arms around me," I ordered, the memory of me speaking those same words to Tim and Adriano in the past (though we had been on the couch then) and being denied, quite viciously mind you, still close enough its vividness stung.

Mac complied.

Now, Mac is not the compact, well-muscled-but-lean specimen of abs-and-pecs perfection that I am, but he has amazing arms. Working your glamour muscles does have its benefits, and one of them is looking great in muscle tees and tank tops.

"Hand me Mr. Tibbs."

One arm left, but only long enough to hand me my stuffed elephant. I squeezed Mr. Tibbs to me, and Mac held me to him. His warm breath against the back of my neck tickled and his presence, the ability to lean back into his solid chest, quieted my mind. That day, I had had far too many thoughts and emotions piling onto one another, too intensely there and loud, but it lessened the pain of drowning in them.

I no longer had to rely solely on Maureen for the cuddles I craved.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Dennis, how on earth could Charlie not know Mac was giving him catnip? Well, that's because Charlie is retarded. I swear you could sell that man a bridge in San Francisco. I have seen him ingest more catnip than I've seen actual cats do it. Of course, most of the time he's doing it intentionally, so perhaps he had pulled a quick one on us that time.

Once I knew Mac was all right with cuddling, I didn't shy away from holding him or being held by him if I needed it. There were times I wrapped my arms around him and he, having seen me do the same, held Mr. Tibbs. At first we only participated in this highly grounding and entertaining activity in my bed at night during sleepovers, but it gradually bled into our daily lives. While we smoked under the bleachers or behind dumpsters, I'd wrap an arm around his waist and lean against him, or the other way around. Regardless of whose house we were at, whether we were stoned or sober, we'd hold each other near, no matter who was watching. Hell, if we watched a movie, we'd curl up together on the couch. Neither of us were shy about it.

In fact, one time I had both Maureen and Mac spend the night. Maureen and I spent the majority of it making out while Mac watched, clapping or giving a hearty; "Good job Dennis!" whenever she moaned. Now, her and I did slip out of my room to have sex in one of the guest bedrooms (the one with the chandelier) at one point during the night, but other than that the three of us were always in the same room together. I was beside myself with joy, as the three of us had never been able to spend time together in such a way before. Normally we were also with Charlie, who reeked so strongly of cheese that it put even me out of the mood for any sort of romantic interlude, or in public which was hardly the time or place for anything too obvious. (A quick fingerbang under the table, now that's a different story.)

When dusk melted into the silky ebony of night, crickets chirping and our eyes heavy with tiredness, all three of us slipped into my bed. It was large enough to contain us, obviously. Mac had dressed into grey sweatpants and a black tank top, having slipped under the covers when Maureen went to the bathroom to dress into her nightclothes (why she left, I've no idea), taking his usual spot by the wall. I, of course, got right in beside him, in my silky pants and button-shirt, cool against my bare skin, navy blue with yellow moons and stars decorating it. He wrapped his arms around me, burying his nose in the spot where my shoulder and neck met, grinning. (I could feel his lips, though only barely, against my skin.)

She returned, in her knee-length pink tee-shirt, the picture of a grey fluffy kitten adorning the front. She stood at the edge of my bed, staring at us. After about a minute, I finally asked; "Well? Are you coming to bed?"

She slipped into bed, and I pulled her to my chest, smelling her hair. Now, I would've thought this would've been the pinnacle of my cuddling experience, but she kept fidgeting. Everyone has nights where it's impossible to get comfortable, however the principle of the thing is what matters. That is how open we were with needing each other's touch.

Maureen broke up with me the next day, for whatever reason. She never did specify.

Both Mr. Tibbs and Mac got an earful of sobs that night. They allowed me to wail against them and clutch to them, until we fell asleep tangled together, my throat raw from screaming and eyes burning with the tears of a heartbroken man whose soul had shattered.

Going to University was the first time I didn't have a constant source of cuddling. It was, however, the first time I practically had pussy on tap. Now, I certainly wasn't an inept loser in high school, but I had only been with three women the entire time, and two of them broke my heart, one of them taking Mac's hymen along with it. Suffice to say, I had given up on the idea of love, focusing my energies on the conquest of banging as much as possible.

Women attached to me quickly, falling madly in love with me, due to my need to curl around another human being. I could only do so when I had sex, so I found ways to pound my way inside a woman as often as possible, if only so I could hold them afterwards. My early education with the delicious cougar of a librarian and my conquests at Penn are what taught me how to be the sexual master I am today.

At first I visited home every weekend, though not to see my family; to see Mac. Eventually that dwindled to once a month, until my visits with him stretched to once every three months. It stayed there, due to our stubbornness and Mac's totally gay obsession with me. (Did I tell you how he once became jealous of Mr. Tibbs? Oh, he did. He did.) However, that is hardly an issue. I enjoy his idolatry, his worship, of me.

As it happens, though, I had a one night stand with a woman who I attempted to cuddle. Rather than be grateful for my sensitivity and attention, she became enraged. She accused me of being needy; clingy. How dare she accuse me of such bullshit?! I am completely independent. I have initiative! I don't need anyone! But when someone screams at you and accuses you of such things, it sticks with you.

To make it worse, the girlfriend I obtained not long after that incident, we dated for three months before she accused me of the same thing. Look, it's perfectly natural to check up on someone every hour. Mac and I had no choice but to adopt that habit when I went to college; how else could we retain our friendship otherwise? When we were in high school, we saw each other every day due to our classes and spent the night every weekend, so when I left we went six months before we couldn't take it anymore and had to implement the hourly check-ins. (I did tell you when he got jealous over Mr. Tibbs, right? Then you know.)

So after she broke up with me, accusing me of being clingy and dependent on her, I decided that perhaps, cuddling with one night stands was excessive, and by that time I only saw Mac every three months, so I weaned myself off of the need to clutch to a warm body. That didn't mean I lost my ability, and Mac was always happy to oblige.

(Actually, I've scrolled through this whole thing, and it turns out I haven't told you that story I mentioned. It's quite the tale, so I'll do it now.)

My room was largely untouched, which was appreciated every time I showed up for my then-weekly visits. I had forbade Dee from entering, but given unlimited access to Mac. Charlie could only be there if Mac was as well, and he was absolutely not allowed to do anything with spray paint or glue in there. Christ, as if I need my room to smell like a garage of some inner-city kid's backyard alleyway.

"I make Charlie sleep in Dee's room, 'cause I know you don't want your bed smelling like him. And like, he moves around way too much on the floor and it's so distracting when I'm trying to sleep," he said when I showed up late Friday night. I was too tired for much anything else, save for whiling away the late night hours with discussions and cuddling with Mac.

"Thank you very much for that, Mac," I graciously said, touching his shoulder the way a king would knight a loyal servant.

Mac, excited to set eyes upon me as we only saw each other once a week and that was damn difficult given we were used to seeing each other every day, wasn't ready for sleep, though. He sat in my desk chair, sucking on a pen and spinning around while he told me of his adventures with Charlie while I was gone. (Dee was also going to college, and never came home to visit. Can you imagine if she had stayed? Forcing herself along on their schemes, ruining everything and exploding passer-by's eardrums while she squawked?)

Now, as I had already mentioned, I was tired, so I undressed while he spoke, telling me about some elaborate shoplifting plan he and Charlie had executed, and some (likely ugly) woman he'd banged in the process. I put on my sleepwear and he followed me into the bathroom, watching me intently while he spoke around the pen still in his mouth, while I peed and brushed my teeth. I returned to my room and got into bed, lights off, while he kept talking.

I held Mr. Tibbs to my body, and kissed the top of his head.

"Can't you just listen to me bro? Mr. Tibbs can wait."

I paused. I glared at him, though I'm sure the ferocity and power of it was impossible for him to see in the darkness of my room, as the curtains were closed. "Excuse me?"

"Well it's just, I'm trying to tell you all this awesome stuff you missed, I mean a lot of shit goes on in a week, and it's like, you're more concerned with Mr. Tibbs than listening. I missed you, y'know?"

"I never said I wasn't listening, Mac," I spat.

"Oh yeah? Then what did I just say?"

I sat up, holding Mr. Tibbs close to my chest. "You were having sex with someone."

"That happened like five minutes ago! I was just telling you about that guy we had to beat up, and I did a totally badass flying kick and you're not even paying attention! Like do you realize I only have a few days to catch you up on everything's that's happened for a whole week? And you missed last week, even, Dennis!"

"Oh my God, Mac! Forgive me if I'm tired! Do you have any idea how exhausting college is? I'm in on a scholarship, bro! If I screw up my GPA it goes away!"

"Oh dude whatever, your dad would just pay for your tuition anyway."

"Dude, do you even know my dad?"

"It doesn't matter, I'm just trying to tell you important things and you're busy making out with Mr. Tibbs!"

"I was not!" I insisted. Granted, I had practised kissing on Mr. Tibbs before, but that was long ago. Please, as if Mac didn't practise making out with walls and pillows; I had seen him do it multiple times. "I kissed his forehead! Wow, one whole second of not hanging on to every boring word you say!"

He leapt from that chair, tossing the pen to the ground. "Dude! My words are not boring! My words are like, totally-uh, you know! That word!"

"Interesting?"

"Yeah!"

"What the fuck bro? You couldn't think of the word interesting?"

"Well not all of us have rich daddies who can pay our way through college!"

"I'm there on scholarship and I'm stressed out, man! I don't come here to get lectured, okay?!"

"No," he snarled. "You come home to make out with stuffed elephants."

"You leave Mr. Tibbs out of this!" I shouted, standing up.

He leapt at me, and I (admittedly) shrieked, but not out of fear, just out of surprise, you know? Anyone would have. He tackled me to the bed, and I covered my face with my arms when I saw the flash of his hands in front of me.

He grabbed Mr. Tibbs around the throat and started shaking him, thighs straddling my waist. He sat on me, body shaking with the force of him strangling my poor stuffed elephant. He swore at him, calling him a son of a bitch and other horrible words that I had wanted to protect Mr. Tibbs' innocent, floppy ears from hearing out of anger.

"Leave him alone!" I screamed. How dare he? What had Mr. Tibbs ever done to him? What if he hurt him? Just because I had showed affection towards my first cuddle-buddy didn't mean I didn't love Mac equally.

He threw him across the room. He fwapped against the wall, but it was too dark for me to see where. I gasped, staring at Mac in shock. I had always thought he loved Mr. Tibbs, and instead, he viciously attacked him out of nowhere!

"Mac! What the fuck?!"

"I swear you love him more than you love me," he whined.

"That's not true, Mac," I told him, incredulously. How could he even think that?

"You promise?"

"Of course, dude." Even in the darkness, I could see him grin. "Now, tell me about this guy you pummelled."

He swooped down and hugged me, which was quite awkward considering my back was against the mattress and my legs were hanging off of it.

I made him get Mr. Tibbs and join me on the bed. We faced each other, Mr. Tibbs between us, and I hung onto every word, if only so he wouldn't lose his mind again. It was then I told him that maybe we should check in every hour, so that we'd know everything about each other's day. I had Mom buy him his own cell phone, because back then they were far more expensive than they are now, and to this day, we check in hourly.

(And I don't have any professors who get pissed about it, either.)

Now where was I before my fascinating detour?

Oh right.

So clearly Charlie had no idea what we were discussing when he walked in, assuming we were talking about an oligarchy (which he had no idea what that meant either, and I have no idea how he misheard to the point he heard that issue from our mouths because neither of us had uttered that word in the first place) and told Dee that we had been raising trolls under my bed. After we smoothed over the situation, we bought the bar. We never would've had it had Mac and I not been cuddling in that exact spot at the exact time.

The problem with going to Penn, as I mentioned before, was that I had needed cuddling less, but every now and then I would go into Mac's room, wake him up, and he'd lift the blanket for me, rearranging himself so he could either hold me or be held. I didn't need it as much as I used to, so I didn't do it often, but on occasion I would.

Now, I had never had sex with a man (some vague drunken kissing in college, though to be fair I was so far gone I may have been kissing a hideous woman, so I don't count that) before we accidentally turned the bar into a gay club. Perhaps I should have realized sooner that my eye could drift to the subtle artistry of a man's cock, and my mouth could water with the thirst for cum, but it hadn't. Perhaps it was that I'd always been too busy. Perhaps it was because Frank was vaguely homophobic and I didn't allow myself to look. Either way, it never occurred to me that I could enjoy sex with the same gender until I, well. Had sex with the same gender. (Drunkenly, mind you, and I certainly had my freak out, but the hazy memories of a large black man pushing into my hole while I stroked some other man's dick began to chip away into something less hazy, and more erotic.)

Is that to blame for the more frequent visits to Mac's bed, pressing my behind into his crotch, hoping for an erection pressed to my cheeks? Perhaps. It wasn't that I wanted to have sex with Mac, per se, but almost as if I wanted to test my attraction to the concept of dick. Remember my little gift of knowledge I gave you earlier, about people wanting to be convinced? Even I am not immune to such weakness. My curiosity led me to his bed, not enough to seriously pursue sex, but just enough to lead him on, knowing his religious beliefs would never allow him to take it any further than I did. It was the safest way I knew how to experiment with my own boundaries.

Feeling his erection pressed against me, and never pulling away while I very slightly, almost imperceptibly, brushed my firm, toned ass against him, held more interest to me than it would have if I had been straight. Eventually, I began to get hard from doing so. Not much later, I began to become aroused just thinking about doing it-before I had even left my bed and made my way to his.

Once I realized that I liked men, and wanted to fuck them, I occasionally brought one home. I kept it a secret from Mac, because I did not want to hear any Biblical lectures. I had no idea that he was closeted at the time, I simply believed he was entirely homophobic. I don't care about Leviticus or Deuteronomy or the Book of Abba, or whatever the hell is in that shit. I certainly don't need to hear about morality from a man who robbed convenience stores as a child to help his father cook meth. I once had to hear him evangelize about the evils of homosexuality because I told him about an erotic porn of two women scissoring their cunts together, squirting their love juices on one another's skin. It was an engaging tale filled with symbolism reflecting society's inability to accept the betterment of humanity through double-dildoing and the evils of Marxism. (You could tell they were anti-communism because of the red teapot that was knocked over four minutes in.) I had no interest in having that vitriol spewed at me because I brought home a man to bang. That would certainly ruin the mood.

However, men who are willing to have one night stands are less likely to cuddle than the women from Penn. Especially the married ones. I tended to go after closeted husbands, because I didn't want to deal with unnecessary clinginess and declarations of true love. A married man with children is far less likely to want to further the relationship into something deeper than a cock in the ass. However, they were far less likely to want to be held as well. Somehow the intimacy felt more dishonest than the fucking. I don't give a shit.

The sexual release, but no holding, had its toll on me. I'm not too arrogant to admit that. So my need to be held and to hold became stronger, as strong as my grasp on my true self was getting, and Mac was always there to oblige, always hard against me, or when I held him, uncaring that I was hard, pressed against his ass.

However, there are only so many years you can feel his boner against you before you start to wonder if it's not simply a reaction to friction, but a reaction to being a raging homo. And as we all now know, Mac is completely, totally gay.

Mac was disgusting when fat. I mean, absolutely horrible. I swear to everything you or I hold sacred, that man would have died had I not intervened with those size pills. He was jamming insulin into his body three times in a row! He was wheezing while eating! At one point, I found him passed out in the bathroom, head leaned against the wall while he sat on the toilet with his pants around his ankles, so that he could sleep while shitting into the bowl! There were wrappers, goddammit, actual McDonald's wrappers littering the floor, the echoed sounds of his diarrhoea waking me from a deep sleep. When I shook him awake he continued crapping, and had the audacity to ask me to bring him more burgers! What the shit?!

But you don't understand. He was so soft.

I could hardly go an hour without waiting for night to fall, a comforting duvet of darkness sweeping our apartment, because I knew that I would be slipping into bed beside him so I could use his body as a pillow. I couldn't stop! It was every night!

Now, I'm a sensitive man. People all over Philadelphia will come to me for my compassion and emotional depth. I'd even rate it as one of my best qualities, definitely nearing the top beside my pecs. In high school, we certainly held onto each other often, but it wasn't every single time we slept! (Of course now I have no issues with this and even enjoy it, but I wasn't romantically involved then, was I? And well, one of my female one night stands became disgusted when I assumed she'd want to sleep in the same bed as Mac. He was completely inviting, but she still left. It was obviously due to his fatness, because it certainly wasn't me.)

But even more than that, I wanted to kiss him! And if I did that, I would have to hear lecture upon lecture of how I was going to hell and I hated it when he got in one of his Biblical moods. I mean, it's utterly ridiculous. I don't wanted to be preached to, dammit! And sometimes, I wasn't quite sure if he really was into men, and if I ruined my friendship with Mac, I would have no one! No one! Who would I cuddle then, whenever I wanted to? Charlie? Absolutely not.

But just smelling him, feeling him, I couldn't function without it. It was as much my addiction as food was his. I'd catch myself staring at him throughout the day, imagining how it would feel to sink into his softness, his arms around me and heartbeat in my ear, beating a rhythm similar to Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears. It was almost as if I had a crush on him! Me? A crush on a fat man? Insanely attracted to him? No! I refuse to allow it!

So you're goddamn right I tricked him into taking those pills. What was I? Some fourteen year old pining over Maureen Ponderosa again? I was not about to go through the idiocy of falling in love, and the pain of being stranded alone after a break up, again.

The problem was, even when he lost the weight, I still wanted to feel his arms around me.

The desperate need to have him around me was too intense for me to allow it to continue. I quashed the need. I quashed it, obliterated it. I was not going to be ruled by him! I was not to be owned by that man, mind whirling with thoughts of his muscles and scent surrounding me, his whispered words in my ears until he drifted to sleep, boner sweetly nestled between my ass cheeks, both of us refusing to acknowledge it, him out of his refusal to accept he was gay and I just didn't want him to stop and if I talked about it he would pull away. It was too much! What had I become? So I put that to a stop.

I started wrapping blankets tightly around my body, as one would a straight jacket, shoving pillows against the wall and pressing my back against it.

I fucked people. Almost indiscriminately. I banged some sevens, unfortunately, and even once I dipped down to a 6.5, when normally I refuse to go below an 8.5. Men, women, it didn't matter. I held them. Begged them to hold me. I paid a hooker for God's sake so I could cuddle. Of course I banged her for three hours straight beforehand, I'm not going to pay simply for holding, but I needed it. The post-coital electricity that sang beneath my skin thrived when someone touched me. My heart sped up, my brain settled, my emotions either became less erratic or I was less numb.

The orange-burnt dawn painted my sweat-slicked chest aglow, and I would lie there with a hooker's head between my pecs until the light diffused into steely-grey and eventually a vivid blue to match my eyes, wishing that it was Mac, and then hating that I wished it at all.

It wasn't much longer that ignoring Mac's gayness became impossible, and the self-hatred for wanting to have him intensified, because I knew that even if I did pursue him and he was clearly madly in love with me, nothing would come of it because he refused to accept it! He tried to kiss me, despite all of us reeking of trash, and yet he still couldn't admit that he was in love with me and he liked men! It was infuriating!

How could I allow myself to fall for someone so delusional and closeted? Not that I was falling for him. I am not a teenager, for Christ's sake.

At least when he was fat, I had an excuse to need and want him. He was soft, like a teddy bear . . . like, perhaps, a stuffed elephant named Mr. Tibbs. I no longer needed Mr. Tibbs (and even if I had, I couldn't because Dee had the audacity to tear him in half, the bitch). But lean Mac, with his soft, puppy-dog hypnotic eyes and bared forearms with his tattoos and tight abs and trimmed facial hair, long fingers just perfect for slipping into my oiled, tight anus, curling against and teasing my prostate until he milks my semen from my thick, veiny cock, spilling my seed over his palm, stroking while he fingers me until completion, face glowing with my praise of how he's such a good boy, a good, sexy boy and god, keep going baby, just let me ride your fingers through this orgasm, okay? That's it, Mac, that's right.

I forgot where I was going with that.

The point was, goddamn Mac was hot, and I wanted to bang him. Oh God, did I want to bang him, I wanted to make him beg for my dick in his ass, and make a mess of his chest with his own ejaculate, or at least let me jerk off on his face while he rides a dildo and strokes himself until completion. And then cuddle him.

But, you know, since someone had to be a closeted asshole, I couldn't go and do that, now could I? Besides, Mac is infuriating. He's always talking over everybody and going on these long lectures about the sins of humanity and how homosexuality was the freeway to purgatory, or some other such shit.

And you know what? Do you know how hard I crashed when Maureen broke up with me? Do you have any idea what it's like to fall madly in love with someone and they, completely out of nowhere, refuse to accept their homosexuality? Wait. No, I meant, I'm talking about Maureen not Mac. Do you have any idea what it's like to fall madly in love with someone and they, completely out of nowhere, leave you? Then imagine what would happen if you eventually married this woman after a passionate reunion, to find out that she was dull as shit and then she became a cat. A cat! Would you be excited to fall in love again after that? I was beyond devastated! And Maureen was not Mac; Mac was my best friend, not just a lover, he'd be my lover and best friend, and if we fell in love, spent every night cuddling after multi-orgasmic sex, you know the kind of sex that shakes the earth and forces epiphanies and leaves you sobbing with the aftershocks of pleasure. When you're dating me, that's the kind of sex you can expect. Do you blame women and men who fornicate with me, after my record-breaking abilities at intercourse, for becoming so attached? So imagine if that happened, and you were best friends with him, and then he goddamn left you. Left you, alone and sobbing hysterically, with no one to cling to? I couldn't go through that again!

So I absolutely was not going to continue with the cuddling and the imagining of him on top of me, kissing my supple, pliant mouth while he pushes inside of me, admiring my noble jaw, high cheekbones, shining with sweat from our activities, and trailing his fingers across my toned body.

Unfortunately, abstaining from slipping into his bed was much more difficult than I expected, and I kept finding myself snuggling into his warm embrace, telling him about my day, or singing softly to him (I have to say, while Ultravox's entire discography can be taxing, I certainly hit every note perfectly).

He still refused to accept that he was in love with me. And gay. I feel like the gay thing was kind of a big deal.

All right look, so here's the deal: this whole writing thing is much harder than you, the reader, can possibly comprehend. Now I've written before, several times in fact, we even got money for the Self-Help thing, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm bored of this. I cannot possibly waste as much time as I'd need in order to delve into the complexities of this tale, and to express just how amazing I am at, well, everything I do, but specifically the art of wrapping my arms around another human being and evoking a sense of security that, well, you just can't get anywhere else. Ask anyone: the first thing that comes to mind when they hear the name Dennis Reynolds, they think of safety.

So I'm just going to skip ahead to where things . . . Well, the whole goddamn story is interesting if I'm honest, and perhaps some other time you'll get to hear it, but I'm bored with this whole "typing" thing. I really should have focused more on my sexual exploits, but I already have an erotic memoir for that.

All right, so after I bought a tablet (which, let me tell you, is not nearly as easy to use as I was told it would be) I discovered Amazon. The wonderful thing about Amazon is that I can buy pretty much anything. So on St. Patrick's Day, before we left the bar and I was actually able to get WiFi, I was browsing through Amazon and I, curious but not getting my hopes up that I could find it, searched for the elusive perfect crimson shade of lipstick. And you know what? I found it.

Even better, it was a lip stain.

Clearly I had no choice but to buy it. Now, for makeup, it was expensive, but hell, for as long as I had been searching for that gorgeous, gorgeous colour (do you like how I'm using the U in colour? It gives off that air of nobility, doesn't it?) it was worth every penny. I was, however, impatient, so I also put forth a little extra money for overnight shipping.

The excitement of knowing in the morning I would be holding that glorious tube of lip stain was unfortunately weakened when I had to sleep in bed. Perhaps I should've explained this bit earlier, but here you go: due to a stupid bet that makes absolutely no sense, I was sharing a bed not only with Mac (which I wouldn't have minded) but with my sister and an old black guy. I want to be perfectly clear, I do not care that he's black, or a man, and I suppose that being old wouldn't be too much of an issue, it's more the fact that he's all three, you know?

It was my turn to sleep in the middle, which of course is the absolute worst place to sleep when sharing a bed with multiple people. It was nearing three am, and I was still wide awake, due to the uncomfortable position I was forced into, the fact that Dee snores as loudly as a goddamn chainsaw, the old black guy at my feet had an intense case of flatulence, and Mac, well . . . actually, Mac wasn't giving me any problems. He radiated body heat and smelled of various colognes. He wasn't mixing them, but instead, it was the scent of having multiple men grinding against him, their Old Spice and Axe Body Spray and Drakkar Noir rubbing onto him along with glitter. In fact, that was the problem.

I couldn't stop thinking about it. Mac, in that tight green tank, smiling happily while he sloppily kissed and fondled a group of men, taking turns stuffing his hand down their pants and getting a good feel of another man's cock in his palm. Perhaps, if he were frisky enough, unzipping them and freeing their hard, throbbing members, perhaps freeing himself as well, grinding together until they came together as one. Or maybe, after a vigorous make out session on the dance floor, slipping into a bathroom stall and slurping a stranger's dick straight into his mouth. Would he swallow? Oh, I'd bet money on the fact he's a swallower. (He is, by the way.)

"Mac," I whispered, to see if he was awake. I was already boning up.

"Yeah Den?"

I hadn't heard him call me that in awhile. I turned onto my side and put my arm around him, pressing against his back, my hard, throbbing dick aching against his ass. I, very softly and gently, grinded. That beautiful, glorious friction was pleasurable enough I had to hiss and close my eyes. "What happened at the Rainbow?" I breathed huskily against the back of his neck, my lips grazing his skin.

He leant back into my embrace. "I told you I wasn't answering any questions."

He hadn't changed out of his tank top, or washed himself free of glitter. And God, he'd been grinning non-stop since he returned. Grinning, light in his eyes, laughing easily and walking with a confident swagger-not the forced sway that we were all accustomed to him putting on, but a genuine loping grace.

I wanted to be the one who made him smile, made his eyes light up, made him confident; I wanted to be the omnipotent presence actors and actresses thanked in award speeches for giving them all they had, all that made them smile, all that made them talented. Me. Not some random idiot in a club that he'd never see again; I was his shining, golden god, I was the beginning, middle, and end of anything and everything good in his life. And for once, he was accepting himself, and I wasn't about to miss an opportunity handed to me on a silver platter. Were I not in his life, he would be nothing, and I wanted him to know that, and accept it, and be the one that had him clawing my back and screaming out expletives.

People scream for God when they come. When he screams my name, he may as well be doing the same.

I deserved that, not the twinks, twanks, twunks, otters, and twunk-otters-borderlining-on-power-bottoming-daddies that he'll never see again.

"That's fine. I'll just use my imagination." I slid my hand up his shirt, feeling the heat of his abs against my palm. "Were you shoved against a wall, a hot rock-hard man between your legs, his steel gaze and mouth devouring you?" I thrust against him, and even through the fabric of my pyjamas and his pants I could feel the heat of his skin. I didn't do it shyly, either.

"Dennis . . . ." he whispered, circling his ass against my hard-on.

"What the FUCK?!" shouted Old Black Guy.

We both jerked away from each other out of shock; I slammed into Dee, snoring behind me, so hard she fell from the bed and slammed against the ground with a thunk.

Dee woke, shouting at me for shoving her out of bed, while Old Black Guy screamed at us for daring to have libidos. Now, I don't quite know how this happened, as sometimes I become so enraged my vision shakes with the red-hot rage of a thousand suns, burning with the need to destroy; tear through the ozone layer and melt the goddamn ice caps so I can drown the living shit out of the asshole who had the nerve to piss me off, but next thing I knew, Old Black Guy was screaming while Dee and Mac held me back and Frank was in the apartment (apparently Old Black Guy had called him) trying to convince him to stay, while that disgusting piece of shit said something about; "You never said I'd be sharing a bed with a couple of homos!" and "He tried to kill me!"

Do you have any idea how maddening it is to be so close to pushing your and his pants down just enough to slip your dick into his hot, probably-still-slick-with-cum hole and quietly, slowly bringing him, and yourself, to mind-blowing orgasm, only to have some black homophobic man shriek at you? I swear to you, I would have tied that jerk off down and yanked out every single one of his teeth had they not stopped me, though I suppose it's probably for the best as that very likely would've ended in me having to shampoo the carpet and dry clean my silk pyjamas.

Still, I suppose all's well that ends well, considering I no longer had to share my bed with him, as the bet was entirely reliant upon Old Black Guy. With him gone, there was no point, so Dee got her bed back, and we went back to sleeping in the living room. So I suppose it was a miracle in disguise.

At the time, though, I had no idea that this would turn into a good thing. I had thought I had a small window of opportunity to have Mac open and accepting of himself to convince him to love himself through his love of me. And also, just be with me, hold me, love me and let me love him the way I had with Maureen. The gut-clenching, icy fear that I had missed my chance and I'd be forced to spend another several years-hell, decades even!-dealing with his angering and infuriating internalized homophobia was nauseating. I hated that, I hated him for doing it. I needed him, needed him in every possible way you can imagine, and had spent years trying to drag his self-hatred and religious guilt out of him and suffocate it so he could just be with me, love me, let me love him. I loved him, okay?! Is that so wrong? No! I mean, sure, emotions are a weak child's game but am I a weak child? No! I am the epitome of an adult, mentally and emotionally stable male. The whole idea of love and emotions being inappropriate is something I like to call "reverse sexism" and it's due to this disgusting matriarchal society we live in, with misandrists running the superior male into the ground.

It was dawn by the time the fight was over and we were left alone. I was sobbing angrily on the couch, my body weak and mind stuffy, drifting away and above the mess that homophobia had caused. Dee went to her room (slamming her door shut behind her and calling us boners) and Mac held onto me while I screamed into his chest, unafraid to tell him of all the imaginative bouts of torture I had wished upon our former sleeping partner.

How dare he destroy our lustful encounter? What if I never got to touch Mac again, never had the chance to make love to him, feel him inside me or me inside him? And yes, I told Mac this; told him how I desired to bang him so thoroughly he forgot his name, and I no longer could because I was terrified that this little bout would have ruined any chance I had with him, after so many years of hard work.

If it weren't for me, and my gentle ministrations through cuddling and soft (though unsatisfactory) butt-frottage, he never would've taken the chance to party at the Rainbow, do you understand? This was all me! Mac's entire arc of self-acceptance was possible only through me! It could take ages to build a house of cards, but only one second and a puff of air to destroy it.

He stroked my hair while I slobbered into his chest, clutching and pulling at the front of his tank so hard it stretched. I am not going to tell you everything I said to him, because the specifics aren't important, but once the onslaught of feelings drained from me, taking my alertness and energy with it, I fell asleep in his arms on the couch.

I told Dee that Mac and I would not be going to work that day, or I was liable to murder someone (likely her). She told us to fuck off and referred to us as whatever idiotic insult she believed to be unique. Dick-nose or cock-turkey or whatever; it's unimportant. Nothing about Dee is important.

"And oh, your precious package came today, I hope you enjoy your stupid lip stain," she snapped, throwing the box at us. I was lying in Mac's lap, as we'd woke up when Dee's alarm went off, but I stayed down while he sat, so he was the one who caught it.

"Good."

"Whatever."

Mac ripped it open while Dee went into the kitchen. "Wow, Dennis! I haven't seen you in this colour since, uh, I dunno, summer or whatever. So what's up? Got a scheme? Who are we screwing over?"

"No one. I just wanted it."

"Oh come on Dennis!" Dee said from the kitchen, walking out to stare at me. "The only reason you even wore it last time was because that drag queen said you'd've made an 'ugly woman' so like either of us believe that."

"Wow, is that why you did that?"

"You're damn right I did." (In retrospect, this is probably one of those stories I should've told you, but I don't want to spend the time scrolling back and writing it all out, so this conversation will have to do.) "That drag queen was a bitch. Who says something like that?"

"Uh, because you told her that all drag queens look like the love-child of, and I quote, 'post-divorce Pamela Anderson and John Wayne Gacy.' Yeah, way to be sensitive, dick-brain."

I sat up, flinging my arms in the air. "That was a compliment! Have you seen post-divorce Pamela Anderson? She was hot as shit! And John Wayne Gacy did amazing things with skin!"

"Oh, oh really Dennis? Really? Did you seriously expect someone to think being compared to a serial killer is a compliment? A clown serial killer who skinned people? Oh my God!" She stomped into the kitchen.

"Wait a minute, so if he was like a serial killer who skinned people, then why did everybody put him in movies? And that drag queen wasn't wearing a cowboy hat at all, so I don't get it," Charlie muttered, sipping his beer.

Wait. Charlie wasn't there, why the hell do I remember him saying that?

Oh, right. This conversation actually happened in the bar. Oh well, I'm not at all interested in where this conversation took place or when, I just want to get to the amazing, hard fuck. (Spoiler alert: Mac and I have sex. I know I shouldn't give away the ending, but I honestly don't give a shit.)

So, in the interest of saving time, I'll just change a few things, if you don't mind. Actually, even if you do mind, I'm going to do it anyway, and I'm going to do it now.

Charlie, who was in Dee's apartment looking for cheese (wouldn't have been the first time, even if that were true) then looked at me to say; "Wait a minute, so if he was like a serial killer who skinned people, then why did everybody put him in movies? And that drag queen wasn't wearing a cowboy hat at all, so I don't get it."

"What the goddamn hell are you talking about?"

"Well you know, that guy, in the movies. 'Well howdy pardner, how's about I save you damsels from this moustache-twirling Indian,'" he continued, putting on a fake Texan accent.

"That's John Wayne, dude. We're talking about John Wayne Gacy. That's a totally different guy," Mac explained to him.

"Ohhhhhh," Charlie said, in a way that meant he absolutely didn't understand the difference at all. However, that was the time he found his cheese and left the apartment, taking Dee with him.

I took my new lip stain to the bathroom, only to find that my eyes were puffy and red with last night's sobbing. My skin was blotchy as well. Luckily, this was hardly the first time I was in need of having to hide an emotional outburst, so I was prepared for such an unfortunate situation. I applied a light base of liquid foundation, then dusted over it with a matching powder. I added blush, a shade slightly darker than my natural skin tone underneath my cheekbones and a lighter shade on the bone, adding that gently-sunken in look that models try to replicate. The whites of my eyes were pink, and my lids were discoloured and a tad swollen, but with my years of experience in blending eye shadow, that was easily taken care of. I added mascara, but only a dark brown so that my eyelashes were thicker looking, but not unnaturally so.

I called out to Mac; "I'm having a corset day. Could you bring me one?"

As usual, he brought me the red one (along with thigh-high nylons, but that's a given). Finally, finally, I wasn't forced to turn him away. I took it from his outstretched hand, smiling at him.

"Hey uh, did you mean all that stuff you said last night?" he asked, perfectly arched eyebrows high on his forehead, and beautiful eyes round and large, framed elegantly by his dark lashes.

"Of course I did."

He bit on his bottom lip and grinned, ducking his head. He left the bathroom rubbing the back of his neck, but before he shut the door he glanced over his shoulder at me, glitter-surrounded mouth curved up seductively. It was then that I knew I hadn't missed my chance; it was a matter of time before I found myself in his arms. And ass.

The corset was the same shade of crimson as the lip stain (which is the entire reason I bought it). It looked as if the dripping, liquid rubies of a fresh wound had materialized into fabric. I slipped into it the way my dick would later slip inside Mac's anus. It had hooks in the back, much like a bra would, so it was easy to put on without help. It didn't cover my chest at all, instead only wrapping around my abs, which is what attracted me to it when I first bought it; as I didn't have breasts, and my popping pecs are one of my best features, I didn't want to cover up. I wanted the dusting of hair across my broad chest visible, my nipples available to gaze upon.

I slipped into a matching silky thong and my black thigh-high nylons. I took the clips from the bottom of my corset and snapped them to the nylons. I appraised myself in the mirror, and there is no need to feign humility here; I was damn sexy.

I took the matching lip stain, and applied it carefully. It was dark against my skin tone, making my eyes pop and my lips appear even fuller. I tousled my hair with water and mousse, and after I grew tired of staring at myself (not tired, per se, but I couldn't look forever) I left the bathroom.

Mac was waiting for me on the couch.

"Wow," he breathed, standing up. He still had yet to change his clothes, his hair still messy and the glitter smudged even further from the mattress and sleeping with me on the couch. His green tank was stretched around the neck, but still clung to his body. He ran his gorgeous hands through his mussed hair, his bangs flopping attractively in front of his eyes. "You look good."

"I better, as expensive as this lip stain was."

He walked closer, eyes alight and mouth smiling warmly. "You do. You look amazing."

"Thank you."

He stood directly in front of me. "Why was your lipstick so expensive though? I mean, it's just makeup."

I snorted. "Just? There is nothing 'just' about this. It's a lip stain, first of all, so it won't smudge."

"Really?"

"Yeah, bro. Touch it. It won't leave a mark. It better not, at least, otherwise it was a complete rip-off."

He reached forward and pressed the tips of his fingers against my lips. He pulled them back, and of course they were free of any sort of blood-red remnants. "Hey! Cool!" He touched my mouth again, grinning. After a few moments of him prodding my lips, the smile faded from his face and his touch became gentle. His adam's apple bobbed and his eyes ticked to mine. He stopped touching me and pulled his palm away.

I grabbed his wrist, preventing his hand from going too far. One corner of his mouth twitched upward. I bit the tip of his middle finger, but not hard. Oh, so gently did I bite him, and sucked it into my mouth, as I would a penis. When he pulled it free, I held his jaw. "I could kiss you, even, and it wouldn't leave a mark."

"Ya think?"

"Let's find out," I replied huskily.

So I kissed him, lips meeting for the first time as softly as the feather of a dove would caress the face of a newborn. I pushed forward, slipping my tongue into his mouth, past his teeth and massaging his into action. Anticipation can intensify the pleasure of any activity, but when you've been waiting for decades to have this man in your arms that's enough for a lifetime. In the moment, I wished that I had kissed him all those years ago on my bed, smoke filling the space between us. So much drama could have been avoided, but it is what it is.

All that mattered was his taste, his scent. The way he gasped my name with tears in his eyes, tears of joy, when I pulled away to breathe. I dove in again, kissing him with the ferocity of a thousand cuddles laced with tension.

He fell to the couch and I, to my knees. I undid his pants and with no wait, I sucked his dick into my mouth. He moaned while I swallowed the head into my throat, his balls against my chin, and bobbed back and forth. Spit leaked between the skin of his cock and my blood-red lips. (And would you believe it, there was not a single smudge! Really, really worth the money I spent on it.) I hummed, my manhood hardening in my thong, straining against the silk.

I didn't want him to cum then, though, now did I? I had waited years for that moment. It wasn't going to end with me on my knees, untouched. "I'll be back," I promised, and hurried to the bathroom.

I returned with lubricant.

I rid him of his pants. I lowered the front of my thong, freeing my turgid, veiny dick, and slathered it (and his anus) with lube. After that, I pushed into him, slowly, the tight heat of his hole pulling me deeper.

"Oh my God, Dennis. This is all I ever wanted," he breathed.

With his knees resting over my shoulders, I shoved into him, hard, and he arched his back. I kissed him, nibbling the tip of his tongue, while I pounded into him. I grunted with each loving, powerful thrust. He threw his head back, mouth and eyes open wide while he swore his allegiance to me over and over. "Dennis, Dennis!" he cried, before pulling my face to his so he could kiss me.

Let me tell you something about my dear lover Mac: he kisses the way I suck a pipe after abstaining from crack rock for far too long. He was a man starved: starved for my mouth, my tongue. For me. He kissed me so hard I swear it bruised me, or it would've if lips could bruise.

He tugged my hair. He scratched what little of my back the corset didn't cover. He clasped my ass cheeks and forced me deeper inside him. "Harder, Dennis! Harder, please! God!" he demanded, cock bouncing with each jam of my dick up his ass.

When he came, ropes of semen shot through the air, destroying his green tank top. I wasn't done, however, so I kept slamming into him, harder and harder, running my hands across his shirt, smearing his cum and then using it to stroke his over-sensitive member. It wasn't long before he was coming a second time (another eight minutes, if you want to be precise) and I emptied myself into him, grunting and crying out with long, powerful strides into him.

I collapsed on him when finished, wet semen sticking against my bare chest, staining my beautiful corset with cum and green glitter. I didn't care. When you're in love, you find little irritations such as staining very-hard-to-clean clothes endearing. I hyperventilated into his collarbone, body shaking with the aftershocks of my orgasm.

Afterwards, I took him to Dee's bed (without bathing first, because like I give a shit about her sheets). He held me while we kissed, skin and insides tingling, fingertips trailing lightly across my flesh. When I stared into his eyes, I saw myself the way he saw me, and knew he saw me the way I saw myself, and that's what love is really all about.

Dennis closed his laptop, smirking at the rest of the gang. "Well?"

Dee blinked on the other side of the bar, polishing a glass. "That was shit, Dennis."

"Oh fuck you Dee, that was amazing."

"Uh, no it wasn't. You switched between past and present tense way too much, first of all, and your prose was shit. Granted it started strong but it ended really weak and I'm not quite sure you actually know what love is, and did you seriously call Mac's eyes chocolate orbs? Besides, it was very confusing in terms of like, flashing forward and back. Maybe even a flash sideways? It was poorly structured."

Dennis rolled his eyes so heavily his head moved along with it. "It's called non-linear storytelling, Dee. I was going for an erotic mix of Angela's Ashes and Pulp Fiction, not that you'd understand either of those things as a woman."

"I wouldn't understand, really? Really Dennis? Where do you think I get my Christopher Walken quotes?" She shook her head. "Your so-called 'story,'" her air quotes made him want to strangle her, "is shit."

"Hey, I thought it was romantic," Mac said, sliding his hand up Dennis' thigh, narrowing his eyes angrily in her direction.

"Well of course you did," Dee sneered. "And besides, you're lying anyway. You graduated high school with a 3.5 and Penn with a 3.1. Like why even exaggerate? That's impressive as it is. Oh, and by the way, those skirts weren't yours Dennis, they were mine. You were the one who stole my shit."

Frank nodded. "Your sister's right. You were always sneaking into her closet. We had to buy locks."

"Yeah, and uh, you guys banged in the bathroom and you were wearing your corset under your clothes, because I walked in on you, remember? I mean, we all kind of heard you going at it before I walked in-I mean I thought maybe a stray dog got in one of my rat traps I keep hidden under the sinks, 'cause that's what you two sounded like. And Mac totally wasn't even wearing his green tank top anymore 'cause like, he bathed or whatever? Now I can't confirm what he wore to bed, but I know that when you had sex with him or whatever, he was wearing like, that RIOT shirt, dude, an-"

"No he wasn't," Frank interjected. "He was wearing a red shirt."

"No I'm pretty sure he was wearing that weird blue shirt with the bear-elk." Dee narrowed her eyes.

"Whatever! Guys, nobody wants to read about me banging Mac in the filthy toilet and Charlie walking in and screaming hysterically-which, by the way, totally ruined the moment, and I absolutely do not sound like a stray dog-and all right, so maybe Mac was wearing pyjamas to bed and I can't remember what, exactly, he was wearing when we banged, but excuse me, I was insanely attracted to the green tank and the glitter, okay? It's called artistic license."

"For the record," Mac began, raising the hand that wasn't holding onto Dennis' knee, "I thought the story was badass."

Dee snorted. "You would."

Dennis shook his head and met Mac's eyes, heart thumping hard in his throat. Mac smiled at him, leaned forward, and kissed him gently. The Gang's opinion didn't matter; only Mac's did. After all, it was his arms he would fall into tonight, and for the rest of his life. They would wake in the morning, brush their teeth beside each other as they did every day, drive to work and scheme together, make each other laugh so hard their sides hurt, listen to each other's woes and rants and excitement, before falling into bed and starting the routine over again. If the Gang couldn't understand that that's what love was, well then, they could fuck themselves.