Blazing Addles

by Lyrastar

So it turns out that Denny's sleeping with the love of his life. What could possibly go wrong? DennyAlan slash. High end of mature spectrum with mm sexuality.

"Denny Crane. Denny Crane." The dulcet tones rolled over his lips and off in continuous waves, creating a mellifluous lullaby to himself.

"Denny Crane, Denny Crane." One phrase came between each inhalation, each exhalation, keeping perfect rhythm with the rise and fall of his barbershop-striped pajama shirt.

"Denny Crane." He rolled over. Something wasn't right. He fumbled up through the layers of sleep, unclad succubae, kneeling associates, and fence-hopping sheep. There was a clamor from the side of the room—from his altar to, well, to you-know-who—and a loud clatter that forced him awake and as fully disoriented as if it were mid-day.

"Denny Crane!" He shouted into the blackness. He blinked around in a frenzy, but could see nothing at all. He thrashed in the sheets, turning every which way, but still there was only black.

As an afterthought, he pushed the satin sleep mask up off of his eyes.

But it was too late. A shot cracked the air and a searing pain through Denny's body. Without his volition, his hand reached behind and to the pain. It came away coated bright red with blood.

That, Denny could see all too well.

I've been shot, Denny thought as he slumped back amongst his pillows. It was either supremely proper or tragically ironic that Denny Crane would go out in support of the right to bear arms. As he lost consciousness, his most acute regret was that he couldn't decide which of the two it would be.

His second regret was that he still had never gotten around to having sex with Glenn Close.

---

"Marlene!" Paul barked into her office. "Conference room. Now!"

"Hostile takeover?" Marlene asked. "Fine. That's one of my fortes. Just give me a minute to fix my lipstick." The best lawyers know that appearance matters. A lot.

"No, worse—better—I don't know. Denny Crane's been shot!" Paul hurried down the hall.

"About time," muttered Marlene, when the door had latched behind him. She closed her computer and began punching furiously into her Blackberry as she walked, stopping only long enough to lock her office door behind her. Just as she reached the elevator, she pressed 'send.'

---

"Shirley!" Paul leaned in to her doorway.

She looked up and over her purple plastic frames and braced herself. This would not be good.

"Denny's been shot." Paul saw her face crumble and kicked himself for his thoughtlessness. "He's all right," he hastened to add. "He's at Mass General. Apparently the wound is very minor. As we speak, he's in surgery to extract the bullet. "

"They told you specifically that he would recover in full?" Shirley pressed.

"Yes. In fact, they had planned to do the surgery outpatient and send him home this afternoon, but he refused. He said that he had bought and paid for a wing there, and same as with a woman, he should be able to spend the night."

Shirley rolled her eyes, but her color and composure were returning. "At least with the wing, he might be able to last the entire night."

That was better. Paul started again. "I'm assembling the partners in the conference room to work through the situation."

Shirley looked at her watch. "I'll notify the other offices. Terry in Chicago should be up by now, and Hong Kong never sleeps. I'll wait a bit for L.A. Barry's not a morning person. At least, not according to the memos on the women's room stalls."

She picked up the phone and pressed the button for the London office. "Thank you, Paul." As she listened to London ring, she peered up over the top of her glasses, prepared to ask more, but Paul was already gone.

---

Brad was the last to arrive in the conference room. He looked harried and smelt of Denise's shampoo. "Sorry. I came as fast as I could."

Marlene made a little sound that might have been a cough but wasn't. She rubbed her throat. "Sorry." She directed the word at Brad, but 'smug' would have been a better descriptor of her demeanor than 'sorry.'

Paul waved to a chair. "Brad. Come in. We have a situation. Denny's been shot."

"I heard. He'll be all right?"

"Certainly not! Unfortunately, he'll be exactly the same as he was before, but there'll be no permanent damage from the hit."

"Do we know who did it?" Brad crossed his legs.

"Denny Crane."

"No, who shot him?"

"Denny Crane."

"No, the guy who shot Denny." Patience waning, Brad's words accelerated even more. "Have they found him?"

"Denny. Crane." Paul annunciated deliberately.

Marlene punched keys on her Blackberry. Perhaps Denny was more of a team player than she had realized.

"Denny tried to kill himself?" Brad shot bolt upright. "That doesn't make any sense! That man loves himself more than life itself!" Brad stopped and squirmed. Maybe he shouldn't talk so fast. He tried again. "You know what I mean. And anyway, he's a much better shot than that."

"Denny shot…himself?" Shirley leaned across the table, frank incredulity on her face as well.

"There is a certain…concordance to that." Hands in pockets, Alan strolled through the door. "It would be not unlike him to insist upon securing such an honor all for himself." Alan oozed into a chair and lounged back.

"Mr. Shore, you have not been invited here." Paul used his principal's office voice. "This meeting is for partners at Crane, Poole and Schmidt and not for friends of Denny's."

Brad coughed. Shirley considered her pencil. Marlene sat, squidlike, unblinking, eyes upon Paul.

Alan picked up a plum from the fruit bowl and fondled it. "Thank you, Paul, for articulating my case more succinctly than I ever could. I cannot for the life of me understand why you don't take more trial cases. Is it the travel time that puts you off?"

Discretion is often the better part of valor, and while valor might not be Paul's strong suit, discretion certainly was. Pretending he'd heard nothing, he reviewed his hastily jotted notes.

He cleared his throat. "There is no suspicion of suicide. Apparently Denny shot himself accidentally with a gun which he keeps under his pillow."

"Kirk." Alan smirked.

"Pardon me?" Paul whipped off his glasses.

"Kirk Douglas takes the other pillow."

"Denny's sleeping with…Kirk Douglas?" Paul's words came out in a perplexed staccato.

"Kirk Douglas is a .38 special. Part of Denny's Gunslingers of the Silver Screen collection. He was one of a matched set. As are Wyatt Earp an Doc Holliday: a pair of single shot Colt .45s. While Wyatt and Doc are able to exist side by side in perpetuity on Denny's living room gun wall, Burt and Kirk are not to have such a happily ever after. Burt Lancaster, of course had to be summarily disposed of, leaving Kirk Douglas alone and ruining the display set. Denny chose to mitigate the damage by choosing to sleep with Kirk. It seems to work out well. He says that anyone who could take down the Roman Empire can assuredly handle the odd Bostonian intruder."

"I don't recall Spartacus utilizing firearms in his revolt," said Paul.

"You'll have to take that up with Denny. His version may be different."

"Isn't it always?" Shirley said.

"I would have expected Denny to be sleeping with Charlton Heston, if anyone." Brad mused aloud. "President, spokesman,…'cold, dead fingers.' I could see the appeal."

Alan wrung his hands. "Ah, I believe he is, in a manner of speaking. That esteemed appellation was especially reserved for a darling, if perhaps somewhat antiquated, little shooter somewhat dearer and nearer to Denny's—"

All faces turned in expectant horror.

Alan dropped his right hand below the table and jiggled his arm in an ambiguous motion. "—heart," he finished, with conviction.

Paul cleared his throat. "In any event, while he was in bed, it went off unexpectedly—"

"Par for the course," Shirley said.

"It was a single shot—"

"No doubt."

"—impacting no one but himself."

"Three for three. That would be Denny," Shirley finished.

"But he's not seriously hurt?" Brad asked.

"No. According to the doctors, it's only a flesh wound. They say that he was extremely lucky. The wound just happened to land in his most expendable part."

"Leg." Brad nodded. Statistically most likely, and exactly where the Marines had taught him to aim to disable with non-lethal force.

Brain, thought Marlene. With as little as he was running on, a few cubic inches of cerebrum more or less couldn't possibly matter.

Johnson, thought Shirley. Grudgingly, she raised her opinion of Denny's marksmanship to be able to be able to bulls-eye such a target.

"Buttocks!" Alan ejaculated. It was always nice when the conversation came 'round to a topic on which he had some not inconsiderable expertise.

"Yes," said Paul, referring to his notes. "Apparently so— Mr. Shore, what are you doing?" Paul removed the offending reading glasses once again.

Now Alan squatted between the table and chair with his right hand stretched between his legs. "How precisely, I wonder, does a man shoot himself in his own buttocks?"

"That's easy; shooting himself in the ass has recently become one of Denny's pet hobbies." Shirley tapped her pencil against the table.

Paul continued, "Of more acute interest is: how do we keep this fiasco out of the public eye?"

Marlene thumbed her Blackberry. "My niece does Pilates with an editor at Reuters. She can find out what's coming over the wires. She'll have us tied in to every split infinitive and comma splice."

"Don't email—call!" Paul said. "Every second counts."

"On it." Marlene typed a frenetic pace out the door.

Brad stood. "I'll go to his house, meet with…Kirk Douglas and whoever else is in Denny's bed. See if there's any damage control to be done."

"Good." Paul nodded. "Go. Brad—"

Brad turned.

"I suggest you take latex gloves."

"Prints. Right. Could be more investigation. I'll be careful."

"I'd meant social diseases, but regardless, do be. And now for the issues direct from the horse's ass—"

"Mouth," corrected Alan.

"No. Someone must to go to the hospital to prevent Denny from saying anything stupid." Paul rolled his face and retracted the superfluous modifier. "—prevent Denny from saying anything." He raised his gaze to Alan and waited.

Alan straightened and tipped his nose back in quiet contemplation. "Hospitals. A ménage of sick individuals stewing in a broth of pathology, pain and assorted bodily fluids stirred in with a soupcon of stainless steel instruments designed by sadists to fit uncomfortably into assorted seemingly improbably bodily orifices." He slid his chair in towards the table.

"Yes, I'll go. I expect I should feel right at home." Flipping his plum in the air and back to his palm again, he headed down the hall.

"I'll update the other offices." Shirley rose from the table. "If this leaks, we need to be sure we're all presenting the same story—regardless of how much Denny would love to be on the front page of The Sun."

"Shirley." Paul caught her wrist. "One moment. Before you make those calls, you and I need to review the partnership agreement."

"Pardon?" Shirley blinked in her 'Because I'm a lady, I'll give you one chance to rephrase your mistake' tone.

Paul steamed on, apparently oblivious. "There is a clause permitting involuntary buy-out of a senior partner in the event of gross negligent or reckless behavior. While much of Denny's past behavior has stopped solely at gross, this new development meets both of the relevant cited criteria, and I am not going to sit by and permit it to continue any longer. He has endangered this firm time and time again and now his very life. How many more warning signs do we need? How many more cover-ups are we going to perpetrate? When did Crane, Poole and Schmidt become a firm that operates under the table? Do we want that kind of name?

"Shirley, we need him gone."

"No."

"No?"

"No. As you say, this concerns Crane, Poole, and Schmidt. I'm Schmidt. And as the only named partner still allowed to handle sharp objects unsupervised, it's safe to assume that no one cares about that name more than I do. But that name wouldn't have the significance it does were it not for Denny. He built this firm up from the ground—and you and me along with it. His charisma, his creativity, his drive, and yes, his mind allowed us to rise with him to a place that neither of us could have reached by ourselves. He's given his life to this firm; it is his life, and after forty years of dedication, I won't be a part of ripping it from him when he needs it to support him for a while instead."

Paul's furrows deepened. "I am not pulling this out of thin air, Shirley. It is not a whim or a caprice. It is a contractual term of the agreement we all signed—you, me, Edwin, Barry, all of us. We all agreed, even Denny—when he was fully in possession of his faculties, I might add. It's plain as black and white."

"Yes, agreed. And when you find in that contract the clause that states that the partnership must always be smooth and easy, I will consider the validity of your position. However until then, we are partners. That is a partnership agreement—not a lack of partnership agreement—and I will not be enjoined to re-interpret it otherwise."

"The buy-out arrangements outlined are very generous. We would hardly be throwing him out on the streets—"

"Wouldn't we be? This firm is Denny's his yardstick. You know how Alzheimer's works. If we pull his environment out from under his feet, how long do you think he'll last? What do you think will become of his mind deprived of the context for what he has left of his higher reasoning? Throwing him out on the streets would be kinder. But send him home to do nothing? Just what do you think become of him then?" Shirley set her face.

"I won't do it, Paul. And neither will you."

Paul turned his back to her and paced to the glass wall. He watched the associates and employees scurry about in the halls. His halls. Their halls. "Are you sure that the history of your relationship with Denny puts you in the best position to be objective enough to spearhead this decision?"

Shirley made an incredulous sound and gathered herself. "All right, Paul, number one: presuming that by history you mean 'sex,' you should know that if I were to offer a sinecure partnership to everyone whom I have bedded, we would have to rent two more floors in this building and treble the size of the kitchenette. Number two: without spoiling for you any by-products of your imagination—which, knowing nothing more, I can promise you are far more interesting than anything that actually occurred— I can say that nothing occurred between us in that…history, as you so genteelly term for the sake of my delicate sensibilities, that would justify my endorsing his annual seven figure take home—unless I were to allot $100 for every time I asked him to put more weight on his elbows. And number three: we had no relationship in that 'history.' We had sex—not good sex, albeit, but sex. We do have a relationship now, and while that might well be coloring my decision, I do not apologize for it; I am grateful for it. Had I had that perspective earlier in life, and looked to do right and not just be right, I might have caused a good deal less hurt."

There was a reason that Paul had chosen to pursue his career agenda working with papers and not people. "If word leaks out, it will be a catastrophe," he tried.

"No. It will be awkward, but it will be manageable. Crane, Poole and Schmidt is one of the fifty most powerful law firms in the US. We have offices on three continents; I think that we can survive one slug in the behind. Denny's in trouble. Handling trouble is what lawyers do. That is what we're here for. That is why we exist."

Paul leaned over the table toward her. "The Denny Crane I knew and respected would never have asked anyone to jeopardize this firm because of his own personal weaknesses."

"The Denny Crane you know and respected is lying in the hospital because of his own personal weaknesses. I do not recall him asking anyone for anything. Is it just possible, Paul, that in the sudden excitement, you have…jumped the gun—so to speak—a bit?"

Paul sighed. "He's losing it, Shirley, rapidly. You—of all people—must be able to see that."

Shirley scoffed. "Of course I do. And it scares me too. Seeing someone you love being disappearing bit by bit in the grip of an impassible, insuperable force is one of the most horrible things any of us can face. We all want to regain control—or at least to not have to face the sad deterioration day by day by day.

"But sending him away is not the way to accomplish that. I wouldn't do that to any one of us just because it made my life easier. I wouldn't let anyone do it to you—not even someone softhearted acting only out of distress and difficulty facing such a painful truth. I wouldn't let anyone do it to you, to anyone who has edified this firm, or to anyone I whom love. And I won't do it to Denny.

"And neither will you." Despite the conclusion, Shirley's face conferred far more sympathy than triumph.

Of course she was right. She was Schmidt.

A good attorney knows when to let go his losses and make the best deal available from his current position.

Paul cleared his throat. "Jack Holan in the Chicago office is… close with the Chicago A.P. bureau chief. Need be, he might be able to help quash media attention."

"He'll be my first call." Shirley picked up her pad. She paused. "Thank you, Paul. We both know that under contract law, your analysis was quite correct and would have prevailed."

"No, Shirley. Thank you. As you say, had I made the argument, it might well have prevailed. And that would not be correct." He offered her what he could of a smile

Shirley nodded to him and turned for the door.

Paul sank into a chair, forehead pressed tight into his hand.

---

Alan followed the numbers down the top floor of the west wing: 40W… 42W… 44W…. There it was, in bold block letters, printed on an index card slipped into a plastic temporary retainer on the door: 46W—Crane, Denny. Alan swung the door open and went in.

Directly in his line of sight was Denny's bandaged backside hanging out of one of those woefully inadequate hospital gowns that tie around the neck. Denny himself lay curled on his right side, facing a television suspended from a corner of the ceiling, clouded beneath billows of grey.

From above, Judge Joe Brown lectured a tearful defendant on taking responsibility.

Alan waved his way through the haze and flicked on the bathroom vent fan. "I don't believe that smoking is actually allowed in here." He set his briefcase down on the floor.

Denny pulled the cigar from his mouth. "Name's on the wing. What are they going to do? Shoot me? It's been done. Old news."

"While your prestige, or at least your payouts may well hold sway with the hospital administration, you might find that smoke detectors are frequently illiterate, immaterialistic, and shockingly unimpressed by the power of a name. Even such an illustrious one."

Denny jabbed the cigar straight up over his head. "Got it covered."

Alan looked up to the place where the mangled remains of a smoke detector dangled by one wire. Barely recognizable but for the confession, it had clearly been taken out by something much larger than a 0.38. "So I see."

Denny exhaled a generous cloud. "Have a seat." He gestured to the one between bed and TV.

Alan peered over. It was a bedside commode.

"Lid's down," said Denny.

"It's a mite low for my bad knee." Alan unlocked a bedrail and edged onto the mattress. There was not enough room on the Judge Joe side, so Alan took the side with the buttocks. He paused and rolled eyes around the wad of sheets. "The instrument of demise of that armed and dangerous alarm: would it be anywhere on the premises? I, myself, am rather fond of my body parts, especially the more," he sniffed, "sexually responsive ones."

Denny grunted. "Can't keep pistols in a hospital bed, man. Remember the sponge-baths! The water! You democrats don't understand anything about respecting the firearms that are at work keeping you safe."

"No doubt." Alan pulled onto the mattress. Leaning against the headboard, he stretched his legs out along the length of Denny's backside, ankles crossed, hands folded neatly atop his abdomen.

"This is nice." Denny blew out a puff. "Almost like old times."

"It seems to be lacking something."

"Scotch. Did you bring it?"

"I'm told it makes a poor mix with Percocet."

Denny grunted. "I'm not taking it. Percocet's for pussies. That's the problem with your generation—can't stand feeling a little pain—want to solve everything with a pill instead of—"

"Weaponry?"

"Exactly." Denny exhaled again. "Puff?" he asked. He extended an arm back to offer Alan the cigar. "It's my last one until Pamela smuggles me in a box after her break."

"Pamela? I have visions of come-fuck-me red lipstick meets crisp, starched nursing whites."

"Exactly. And the way she has with a thermometer. My temperature isn't the only thing that rises a few degrees."

Alan winced. "And so you have Florence Nightingale cum Linda Lovelace bootlegging for you?"

"Traded for the Percocet." Denny waggled the cigar again. " You want it or not? You know exactly where my mouth's been."

"Yes. And I'm surprised you've yet to cough up a fur ball."

"Last chance." A few ashes dropped off as Denny shook the cigar. "You're the weirdo. I should be the one to worry getting it back. What if that AB-CD thing is catching?"

"I think you mean AC-DC, and you would know by now."

"Don't be so sure. I don't know most of what I know any more."

Alan took the cigar and drew in deep.

"That's better. Real men shouldn't be afraid of germs. If you can't shoot it, it's not worth worrying about.

"Hey, speaking of, want to see my scar? I told them to make it pretty." Denny pushed the flimsy fabric off even farther and began fumbling with the edges of the tape.

"Thank you, Denny, but no." Alan hastened to pat the tape back down. "My weathered system can only handle so many joys in one day, and hearing of your anticipated recovery has somewhat exceeded my joy quota for the moment. Perhaps tomorrow."

"Offer's always open." Denny draped the gown flap down again.

"Denny, the partners are up in arms—"

"Mm. Shirley. She's just scared. Afraid Denny Junior was caught in the line of fire. He's fine, look." Denny flipped up the front of the hospital gown. Mercifully from that angle only the wall and Judge Joe could see.

"Generous, I'm sure, but do remember my joy quota. I'll need to save some for Christmas."

"You'll have to reassure Shirley. Give me your phone."

"I wouldn't describe the humor in which I left her as being a chit-chatty one."

"It's got a camera, right? The same one we used that night with the triplets."

"They weren't triplets; they were a chamber quartet. And yes." Still warm from his belt case, Alan passed the phone over.

"Quartet, huh? I'd had the feeling I'd been missing something."

"You don't say."

Denny held the phone out in front of his groin and pressed a button. "There you go. Take that back and show Shirley. Virgo intacta. She'll settle right down."

"I doubt that is precisely the meaning you intended." Alan took a moment to examine the phone before closing it and returning it to his waist.

"'Intacto.' Whatever. September 4th. Shoe fits; I'm wearing it."

"Actually, Denny, it's not so much Shirley as it is Lewiston."

Denny shrugged. "It's all right. You can show him too. Never figured him for a swish hitter—"

"Switch hitter."

"—but we are talking about Denny Crane. I've moved better men than him. I'm officially banned from Marine barracks, you know."

"Yes, but I understood that to be a different issue."

"That's their story. Cover up. Even the military fears Denny Crane. Go ahead; show Lewiston. Men looking at me doesn't make me gay. Fortunately, or I'd have to buy more pink. Much more pink."

Alan passed the cigar back. "My friend, this isn't funny. What Lewiston lacks in charm, tact, wit, liberal thinking, and fluidity of existence, he more than compensates with aim and potency."

Denny chuckled.

Alan refused to play along. "The partners are in a stir over this. Together, Lewiston and Shirley have the power, the politics and the persuasion to get the votes. While you stand there playing with your guns and your holsters and your saddlebags, the wagons are circling in the periphery. Can you hear them? Can you smell them? Can you feel them closing in? There is only so much that I can do. While my arsenal of chicanery, deceit, malfeasance, and plain dirty tricks remains –as always—at your disposal, I fear I shall have to say something I had though I never would: Denny, this time I am uncertain as how much I shall be able to help."

"They may ignore you, but they can't ignore Denny Crane."

"That is entirety of the problem. Denny, you shot Denny Crane. Even your Escherian ratiocination cannot present such an action in a favorable light. They consider this evidence that you are not only incompetent but a dangerous liability and that it is not only necessary but is an act of beneficence to buy you out and see that you are safe and comfortable. Like an endangered species being tucked lovingly into a 20x20 zoo enclosure with all the amenities for its own protection."

"Mm." Whatever Denny was thinking, the murmur was almost too soft to hear.

Alan took a breath. "Have you ever considered that laying your skull—whatever the relative condition of the contents thereof—next to loaded weapons might not be the best way to prolong your legal legacy?"

"Guns don't kill people—"

Alan rolled his eyes.

"—unless they're locked, loaded and immediately at hand the moment you need them."

Despite himself, Alan chuckled. Staring at the back of Denny's head, he could imagine the "gotcha!" on the other side. He should have had more faith. But that wasn't the point right now. He had come to save a friend, and he couldn't do that were he swept away in that friend's world. However much fun that might be.

He tried again. "You live in one of the most secure buildings in the city. You don't need Kirk or any of them. Why do you take such a risk?"

"Nah! You pansy-ass liberals, you never see: force and security demand more force and security. That's what weapons build-up is all about. Anyone who could get past the building guards and devices is no slouch. This city's full of robbers, rapists, and insanely—though understandably— jealous husbands who all want a piece of Denny Crane. Who can blame them? I don't, but I need to be ready for anything. Anyone."

"What did happen in that bedroom, Denny?" Alan asked in his fragile-witness tones.

"Oh, I could tell stories—"

"I'm sure that you could, and ordinarily such an offer would appeal immensely to the more prurient and strong-stomached aspects of my psyche, but time is at a premium. Even now Paul is surely making phone calls to others who are making phone calls to others until some critical telecommunicatory mass is reached, and a young man with a tenth grade education and his name machine-embroidered onto his coveralls will arrive to chisel "Denny Crane" off of the door. "

"It'll take more than one." Denny mumbled into his cigar.

"Perhaps. But Boston does not lack for the underemployed or the underpaid, and it will happen."

Denny pushed up on his elbow and craned his neck to glare over his shoulder. "You're just as bad as they are!" He spat the words at Alan's face.

"Denny, because you are upset, in pain, and likely still under the influence of a number of chemicals administered intra-operatively, I shall decline to take umbrage at that remark. I shall merely remind you that 'they' are concerned about you, whereas am concerned for you. If you can no longer appreciate the difference, perhaps I should put my name in the lottery for your office so I would at least have access to our balcony and revel in my memories of a friend I used to know and care for very much. "

Denny shifted fully onto his side again. "I see the difference. But when it smacks you in the face at ninety miles an hour, it hurts the same whether it's the bluebird or the shit."

"How you were passed over for Poet Laureate, I shall never comprehend."

"The Library of Congress is run by fairies."

"Which explains much, but is a subject for another time. Denny, what happened? They say that Kirk…Douglas went off unexpectedly in your posterior. As picturesque a scenario as that is, I find it implausible for a number of reasons. Is that true, or is there more to this story? Consider it privileged if you like, but if we are to stand against this together, I must know the truth."

"Privilege." Denny's voice sounded uncharacteristically bitter. "Friends shouldn't need privilege."

"Precisely."

Denny clicked off Judge Joe. He set the burning cigar down on the bare surface of the nightstand. He tried to roll over, but stopped with a sharp inhalation that was actually painful to hear. He rocked back onto his right hip, and instead curled and pivoted himself around in the bed until his head was at the foot and his eyes were face to feet with Alan's shoes.

With a sigh invoking all the martyrs of eons past, Alan maneuvered until he too was lying feet on pillow and face only inches away from Denny's.

"I slipped." Denny said the words impassively, but his gaze was unfocused, far past Alan's glossy leathers and many years beyond.

"Slipped?" Hand? Sock? Rug? This could be defensible. Alan ran possible ways to present such a scenario through his mind. "What slipped how?"

Denny shook his head. "No. I slipped. It's not the guns, Alan; it's me."

Alan raised eyebrows and waited.

"I've been sleeping with guns since I was thirteen. Never has anything like that happened. Never.

"Your answer is: I don't know. One second I was awakened by a noise. I thought— I thought— Alan, I don't know what I thought. I went for a weapon like I would in any trouble, but— But then…after that… I don't know.

"At thirteen, I could handle myself. Handle a weapon. But I've slipped beyond that, Alan. I've slipped somewhere back beyond thirteen. How pitiful is that, Alan? How sad, humiliating and pitiful."

Alan swallowed. "In the dark, the altered consciousness that is that state between sleep and wake and the next potential orgasm, strange things may happen. Men may not be responsible—"

"Don't!" Denny barked at him. "Don't. Don't belittle this. It's me. Don't belittle me. If you are my friend, face it with me. Don't pretend it's not real. If I have to live with the whole truth, so should you. A burden shared is doubled."

Alan bit back a laugh. "I play pretend in bed with lovers, and I'm not going anywhere." Mindful of the IV site, Alan squeezed his hand, once, likely too hard, then he let it go.

The room was quiet but for the steady hum of the bathroom fan.

"What does a man do," Denny wondered, "when he's slipping so far, so fast, that he can't even orient himself to the fall?"

"Generally he flails out, grabs the biggest branch he comes across, and holds on tight."

Denny reached between them, clutched at Alan's hand, and clamped on much harder than Alan had to his.

"Denny." Alan spoke very quietly.

"Don't get mushy. I hate that." It may have been the effects of the anesthesia tube, but Denny's voice was sounding increasingly rough.

"I'm not. It's just that your knuckles are scraping up against my…branch."

Denny glanced down through the space between them. "Oh. Sorry." Denny pulled their joined hands over against his own thigh and left them there.

---

Denny was almost asleep when the door swung open. A 40ish year old leggy blonde in nursing whites sashayed in with a package tucked under one arm.

"Mr. Crane, I brought you a big… Oh!" Nonplussed, her eyes darted between the two men lying wrong-way-round on the bed.

"Indeed?" Alan eyed her up and down like a pastry shoppe window display. She was everything Denny usually looked for in a woman—that is, unescorted and not currently divorcing him. "Denny, I must complement you on your choice of medical institutions. While it's reported that senior citizens are being screwed by our healthcare system, you seem to have made the situation work to your advantage."

"I'll just come back in a couple minutes." Eyes on the bed, she backed towards the door.

"Nonsense," Denny muttered, slapping Alan on the ass. "Alan's my plug-puller. Anything you have to say to me, you can say to him as well."

"I must say, I am particularly hoping for the phrase, 'It's time for your alcohol rub and enema, sir' but I don't see how I could be so lucky." Alan swung himself off the bed and entered well into her personal space. "Alan Shore." He extended a hand. "I take it that you must be… Pamela. And you have something that I want."

He reached straight toward her right nipple, halting less than a millimeter away from a sexual assault charge. He paused deliberately, then veered off toward the wooden box she carried pressed against her side. "I'll take…that," he said, tugging on it with a smooth, steady and surprisingly suggestive movement, so careful never to contact anything but the box.

Her eyes flicked to Denny, awaiting further instruction.

"Plug puller, remember," Denny repeated. "It's fine; he can handle my stogies any time."

Eww factor aside, Denny did have an almost fool-proof knack for getting the last word at a whim, Alan reflected with admiration.

Pamela tried a different tack. "Mr. Crane, doctor's orders: you're due for a dressing change and another dose of antibiotic." She bustled over to take a set of vital signs.

"Does it go in the ass?" Denny spoke around the thermometer in a way that even Alan found a tad disturbing.

"No; it goes in the IV," she tapped the catheter taped to the back of his hand. "And keep your lips wrapped around the thermometer." She jiggled it as a reminder.

"I admire a woman who gives clear-cut direction," said Alan.

She gave him the evil eye.

"Particularly to lie prostrate on a bed, extend one's arm, open one's mouth and wait. It is situation so rife with enticing possibilities."

She dropped Denny's arm and charted the numbers. "Listen, if I'm interrupting here…"

"Not at all." Alan stooped to collect his briefcase. "I am off for a bit. I take it that this antibiotic infusion will keep him safely in place for an hour or so."

"Unless he wants to wander the halls with a pole and his bottom hanging out a gown."

"Hmm—" Denny tilted his head.

"Denny, behave or I shan't bring you back that surprise I promised."

"Oh, all right. But where are you going? What's more important than your best friend being shot?" Denny grumbled as Pamela began to work on his backside.

"I must prepare for a deposition in the Holman case tomorrow. Frannie's Fancies. Women's undergarments have long been a puzzle to me—among other things, it seems the epitome of gilding the lily, something I cannot comprehend. And worse than that, this case is a miasma of disputed allegations, intent, awareness, temporal succession as well as the nuisances of feminine under-fashion detail."

"What's it about?" Denny asked.

"At its root, intellectual property."

"Intellectual…panties? They didn't have those in my day."

"A woman is alleging she sent our client unsolicited designs for a line of…fancies, and that our client produced and used said designs without recompense. Our client claims never to have seen these communiqués, but the prima facie evidence is not supportive. We have computer forensics investigating the emails in hopes of giving credence to her statement, but I fear we may have to argue independent development and significant differences in marketed product, which is hardly a promising tactic given the blatant similarities. Although examining the evidence should be a great deal more fun."

Denny waved him off. "Email, schemail. There's a reason it rhymes with 'female.' You get one, and it seems like a great idea, so you get a couple dozen more, and soon they're taking over your life. Taking you away from things you love: your friends, your alcohol—"

"Your panties."

"Exactly.

"Ouch!" Denny jumped as Pamela dabbed at the sutures.

"Frannie Holman, huh? I'll tell you what this case is really about," said Denny as he settled down again.

"Money."

"Sex. It always comes down to sex. Even when it is about money, it's only because the money can buy us things that lead—or might ultimately lead—to sex. Ow!" Denny flinched again.

"So far your proposition has merit, and you have my attention." Alan stared in the direction of Denny's bared ass. "You know something of this case?"

"The plaintiff is young, sexy, with boom-bas out to here." Denny stretched out his arms.

"You slept with her?"

"No. Well, I don't know. Bring me a picture—preferably a naked picture, I'm not good with faces—and I'll tell you.

"I slept with your client. Well, not slept. We had sex; I was being a gentleman with that eunuchism."

"Euphemism," Alan mumbled.

"Oh, the fanny on that Frannie—" Denny's drifted off a tide of nostalgia.

"Denny, I am certain that in your own little universe, this is all makes perfect sense, I however am not sufficiently of a mind to comprehend such warp jumps and skips. Would you care to explain in a little more detail?"

"Your client is Frannie Holman—married to Doctor Robert Holman, right?"

"Yes, and if you tell me that you had sex with him—"

"Of course not. He's a gynecologist. About twenty years ago, when obstetric premiums, skyrocketed, he asked me to set up a personal financial structure to allow him to go bareback—"

"Bare."

"—without malpractice insurance. I set up a series of trusts, and had him put the rest in his wife's name so that he is without assets—no financial exposure in the event of a lawsuit. "

"And then you had sex with his wife."

"Mmm. Why not? It's not like he could divorce her. She had all his money."

"Impeccably reasoned."

"And he still can't. He has to get his money back first."

"Or, have someone else do it," Alan mused.

"Forget the computers, the fashion, the panties—well, maybe not the panties; it's all about the people, the husband, the girl. That's where you dig in your deposition.

"Ouch!" Denny winced as Pamela made a final twist of her wrist between his buttocks and dropped the gown flap back down.

"Thank you, Denny. That may be of some use." Alan opened his briefcase and pulled out a zippered leather bag.

"What's that?" Denny asked. "Dear God, please tell me it's the panties."

"Toiletries," said Alan. He set it beside the sink. "I detest that not so fresh feeling, don't you? And I see no reason to continue to carry them around. I'll be back in a few hours."

"You're spending the night?" Denny jerked his head up.

"It is the Denny Crane wing. This is my big chance; I've always wanted to spend the night in Denny Crane."

"Who wouldn't?" Denny nodded gravely.

"Pamela, could you possibly arrange a spare cot in here? Perhaps one of those exam tables with the stirrups and warming drawer for the speculums and lubricant."

"I'll have to check with someone on that." Pamela looked skeptical.

"Denny Crane." Denny settled himself down amongst the sheets.

"Ah, well," Alan smoothed his jacket with a hand and addressed her. "If it's too much trouble, we can always share his. I'm small and don't take up much room, although should events turn to the sexual between us, I will claim that my meaning was misconstrued."

Pamela looked to Denny. "Plug puller. He gets what he wants. But I get the side of the bed by the window. My bullet, my room, my name on the wing."

Hand to his breast, Alan smirked at her.

Pamela fiddled with the IV. "I'll see what I can do."

---

Morning sun filtered in through the slats of the horizontal blinds. Denny tried to sit before he remembered that he shouldn't, and pain shot through his ass all over again. His eyes flew open to see that Alan's recliner was empty, the hospital issue blanket rumpled in a wad.

"Alan?" he wrenched his neck to check the bed behind him, memories of Nimmo Bay foremost in his mind.

"Guess again."

His neck whipped towards the doorway. Shirley stood there bathed in the soft glow of early light. Now he was no longer in Nimmo Bay but Morningwood Court, and as his hand went between his legs—just to check if needed—he wondered if he was dreaming.

Not likely. She had all her clothes on, she wasn't talking dirty, and there was nary a whip in sight.

"Shirley! You came!" Denny struggled to prop himself up on an elbow.

Shirley's pumps clipped across the tile. "Yes. I thought, in case you didn't pull through, you should see what that expression looked like once."

"You can't fool me, Shirley; you're not an Academy Award winning actress. That night after the Fourth of July picnic—the fireworks—that was the real thing that I saw and heard."

"Number one: that night after the picnic, that was gas that you saw and heard. Number two: I might not have an Oscar, but at least I don't have to claim a Razzie or two under my professional belt. And number three: as for what I do have under my belt, well, let's just say every day is Independence Day for Schmidt." She set a potted plant on the window sill—purple pansies—moved the blanket and sat down in Alan's chair.

"Then why did you bring me flowers?"

"I didn't. They're from Chuck in word processing. He says, 'Get well soon.'"

"Come on, Shirley." Denny fluffed the pillow and patted it in invitation. "For old time's sake. It'll be fun. Look, they've given me a little thingie to make the bed go up and down." Denny pressed a button on a console, and with a whirr, both the head and the foot of the bed began to angle up.

"And if that button could make your little thingie go up at will, your suggestion might be worth my while. As it is, I have a dinner meeting in twelve hours, so I don't have the time to spend stroking your…ego, and other affiliated accoutrements."

"Shirley, I know you; you're just saying that. Admit it: I had you scared."

"Perpetually, Denny. Perpetually."

"Psychologists say that fear and sexual arousal are the same response expressed differently based on contexts. So, given your druthers, which one would you rather…experience?" Denny held out his arms.

"Psychologists also say that men who smoke giant, putrid cigars to completion would like to fellate engorged phalluses to their heady culmination. Since we're playing Sigmund Says, you tell me: which one would you rather…experience?"

Denny chuckled. "Aw, Shirley, you always knew I like 'em feisty. Lock the door. Call the nurse if you want. I know you like to have another woman to order around. And she's just your type: she wants to have sex with me too."

The best thing about Denny was that he actually seemed to believe every ludicrous thing he said. And somehow he managed to make them come true, need be.

Shirley sauntered over to his bedside. She dropped her voice to a sultry tone and heaved her bosom in the direction of his face. "There's no need to call the nurse," she purred into his ear. "We don't need her."

"We don't?" The elevation of Morningwood Court was increasing by the second.

Shirley reached for his hand and Denny sucked in his breath. "Go easy on me, Shirl. I've lost a lot of blood; I could faint."

"Mm." Shirley caressed his hand with two fingers, then slipped them under the bands that wrapped his wrist. "See, this is why we don't need that silly nurse. The nice thing about hospitals is that if you forget who you are, where you are, or which room you belong in—voila! It's all right here. No need to ask. Isn't that great? We should start something like this for you at the office. Maybe with a GPS so that the postman could return you if—no, make that when—you get lost at lunchtime."

Her fingers went to the second band. "Look, it even has your blood type, useful for the next occasion on which you forget how to handle a gun."

"Not useful. Denny Crane: A+. Who would expect anything else?"

Despite herself , Shirley laughed. That hadn't been at all the effect that she'd been going for, but easier to patent a sunbeam than to try to funnel Denny Crane.

Denny slid over, and Shirley sat down beside him on the edge of the bed. She tried to let go of his hand but he held hers lightly. She waited for the next inappropriate remark. And waited. And waited.

Was that water she heard running in the bathroom? Shirley glanced over to the closed door.

"So." Oddly, it was Denny who was not laughing now. "For the sake of argument, working on the unlikely theory that you aren't here to have sex with me, what are you here for?"

"Can't I visit a sick friend?"

"I've been sick before now."

"Maybe I hadn't noticed."

"How's your father?"

She looked at the floor. "The same. And 'the same' for him means worse than last time I saw him."

"I know."

Of course he knew. Trial lawyers don't ask questions they don't know the answers to. It's much too dangerous. She had to remember not to underestimate him. Sick…or not, he was still Denny Crane.

"That's all Alzheimer's ever means."

Shirley cleared her throat. What had he asked and why? "Alan tells me you were very helpful with the Holman case."

"Did he? Well, Alan tells me that you and Paul want me out. So tell me again, Shirley. If it's not for sex, why are you here? Either tell me the truth, or take off your pants. Personally, I'm hoping for the pants. Truth is overrated. That's why I became a lawyer."

Shirley pursed her lips and considered. "I am going to tell you a secret, Denny, and if you repeat it, I will go out in the hallway, grab the biggest orderly I can find and have him draw a pint of blood out through your penis every hour and contribute them all to the Obama for President Charity Blood Drive.

"The rumor mill holds that I came back to Boston because Paul told me that the firm was in trouble. That isn't true; I came back because you were in trouble."

"I know." Denny sounded unconcerned.

Shirley rolled her eyes. "Yes. I assumed that there was room for no other conclusion within that bloated ego structure of yours. That isn't the secret. What you don't know—at least I pray to God you don't know judging by the way you treat the man—is that Paul never told me that the firm was in trouble; he told me that you were."

Denny did a double-take. Even now, it was very seldom that he was truly caught unawares. Shirley was one of the very few who could tell the difference between that and Denny just being…Denny.

But the occasions were becoming more frequent. She decided to keep that knowledge to herself.

She didn't think Paul deserved the satisfaction of knowing he had won, so she decided to keep that to herself, too.

"Every single person in that office adores you, Denny. Especially Chuck in word processing. And yes, despite the posturing and bluster, you are quite right: in a very real way you are the firm—or at least a controlling interest therein. If you aren't okay, then the firm isn't okay. If you're going to be an active part of Crane, Poole and Schmidt, then we need you to be okay. Or at least to do a better job of acting okay than you have been. Can you do that?"

Denny shrugged vacantly. "Easy. I have an Oscar."

"Don't start, or I'll invite you up to compare Emmys, and I don't think you'll like where that leads."

Shirley dropped his hand and rose up from the bed. She paced aimlessly around the room. "I'll be keeping an eye on you. I need you to be okay, and I'm Schmidt."

That had been water running in the bathroom, but now the sound had stopped.

Shirley's tone brightened. "So, Alan says he wants you—"

Denny waved her off. "Alan's a weirdo. Don't mind him; it has nothing to do with you and me. Two men don't have to be gay to love each other." His eyes widened. "Is that why you wouldn't take your pants off?"

"—wants you to take a deposition with him this afternoon." Shirley made a tiny sobbing sound. Not everything that could be done in this world was worth doing, and sometimes she wondered why she tried.

"Are you sure you're up to this?" Shirley asked.

"Take off your pants, and I'll show you what I'm up to."

Shirley put palms on the edge of the mattress and leaned over into his face. "Do you have any idea what the case is about?"

"Of course; it's the one where I slept with the client. The pantie one."

"Ah! Now that is the quintessential Denny Crane response: clarifies and reassures to exactly the same degree. And they were afraid that surgery might have changed something crucial. Those fools!"

Denny grabbed her shoulders. "Shirley, trust me. Have I ever let you down?" In that moment, he looked deep into her eyes just the way the old Denny would have done.

"Only in bed." But it took a lot more effort than usual to summon the automatic joke.

"That was a long time ago; here's your chance to see if anything's changed." He patted the mattress, and everything was back the way it should be again.

"No thanks," she said softly. "I believe you."

Denny cleared his throat. "You know, there is one thing you could do to help…our case. How about a kiss to make it better?"

"A kiss?"

"Sure. Your lips used to be able to work miracles with my body."

"Those were very tiny miracles."

"Give it a try." Denny flipped up his gown. "What've you got to lose?"

"My breakfast?"

"Shirley, mad cow. I need to collect all the memories today that I can."

Shirley's eyes darted to where the bathroom door had opened behind Denny's back. "All right, but close your eyes. It helps the magic fairy dust." She puckered up and exercised her lips in preparation.

Denny squeezed tight, and a feather-soft mouth brushed against his buttock cheek. He groaned, and lips nibbled delicately around the wound, stinging just enough to make him feel it, but gently enough to let him know they cared.

"Say, it. Say it, please," Denny clutched the pillow to his chest. He mouthed his own name into the foam.

"Denny Crane." It wasn't Shirley, but Alan's modulated that voice pronounced the words.

"Wha?" Denny jerked away.

Alan straightened in his a bathroom towel—a rather small hospital issue bathroom towel—and nothing else but a little mousse and steam. "Ah, look! It worked. With one kiss your…vitality has come screeching back." He nodded to Denny's groin.

"That doesn't count!" Denny blustered in dismay. "I was thinking of a girl!"

"The battle cry of many a married man picked up on the fens on a Saturday night," said Alan.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Denny asked.

"I live here. Don't you remember?" Alan gestured around the room. "His and his towels, hospital corners, tiny cakes of antiseptic soap, overhead pages just as one is nodding off, and 9PM bowls of Jello in two different flavors that both taste the same." He noticed the pansies and fondled a petal. "Pretty. Chuck?"

"Mm. Yeah," Denny grunted. "I hope I don't have to break his heart him."

Shirley blew out a breath. "Actually, you're both going to have to make other arrangements for your Jello and floral appreciation seminars. You've been discharged. Apparently the nursing staff expedited the arrangements—gee, I wonder why. That's why I'm here. I thought I'd give you a lift. No, that's not true either. Some woman named Pamela called and said there was $200 in it for me if I had you both out of here before her shift starts at 8:00."

"She wants me," Denny intimated to her. "I drive her crazy. Can't do anything else while I'm around."

"I'm sure that was the subtext; only my poor cell connection prevented me from picking up the subtle cues in her voice." Shirley tossed her head toward the door. "Get dressed. My car's waiting downstairs."

"We did have this covered, Shirley," said Alan with a cold and fishy stare. "I have my car. It has wheels, gasoline—all the requisites. I see no reason it is not as useable as yours—aside from not being, if you will pardon the pun which I do not find at all humorous, a vehicle in the employ of Crane, Poole and Schmidt."

"I have more room. Including a rear seat. Considering the location of Denny's injury, I thought it would be a more comfortable ride than your Viper."

"But it's a chick magnet," Denny protested. "We were going to pick up women on the way."

"You can't pick up women the day after surgery," Shirley said.

"Sure I can. I asked for heavy duty stitches. Told him I had a lot of sex. Is that why you wouldn't take off your pants? Gotcha covered. The only thing that'll split open will be your legs. Let's go. Alan won't mind. We settled that; I sat on his head." Denny motored the foot of the bed up and down in little jerks.

"Thank you, Shirley, for your concern, but I have made certain considerations for the situation." Alan picked up a pink furred donut cushion from the nursing supply area. "Your vehicular services will not be required. You may leave. Alone."

Shirley drew herself up. "Alan, since you and your inadequate linen have probably spent a less than restful night, partially at my request, I am going to deliberately overlook your tone. But I will remind you that because I am Schmidt, of Crane, Poole, and—oh, yes—Schmidt, I am your boss, and I do make the rules."

"It need not remain that way." He challenged her with unblinking eyes.

Brow furrowed, Denny looked between the both of them.

"You don't trust me?" Shirley asked.

"Last we were in the same room was at a certain meeting to which I was pointedly not invited. I have to wonder, what other meetings have occurred in the interim while I was conveniently—for you—here and not there," Alan said.

Shirley grabbed his wrist and pulled him farther from the bed. She spoke in a harsh whisper. "Alan, I am sorry. I do realize that for forty years your entire world view has been predicated on the presumption that everyone you meet is either dead set against you or willing to bed you, and that the fact that I am neither must be deeply unsettling. Nonetheless it is true. I am here because my car is bigger than yours. If you wish to turn that into a bathroom contest, feel free. Considering that your performance is tied to a forty-three year old prostate and mine is not, it's likely I can win with either criteria. But that's the only reason I'm here. Nothing nefarious. Catching you in—or partly in—a towel has been only a fringe benefit. Word of honor." She made a Boy Scout sign.

"If I were here to do any one ill, you would not have to cast about for suspicion, innuendo and suggestion. You would know immediately," Shirley said.

The towel slipped a little more.

Alan bowed his head, but did not adjust his wrap. He put his left hand to his breast. "I can and I do. And in that case, Shirley, with our relations restored to their former state, may I say that you are looking a wee bit under the weather yourself? Perhaps a kiss to make it better. As you may have seen testament, my skills are—" He gestured to Denny's lap. "Monumental."

"Ha! Down, tiger. They don't bottle enough mouthwash to compensate for where those lips have been."

"Hey! My ass has been surgically scrubbed," said Denny.

"In that case, all my other body parts are available for your perusal." Alan put his hand to where the fold of his towel was gradually coming undone.

Shirley looked at her watch. "Tell you boys what. If you're down in the car with all your body parts, monuments, stitches and pansies inside the next twelve minutes, I'll split that $200 bucks with you."

"Oh!" Denny hopped out of bed. He grimaced as his bad leg took weight.

Alan dropped the towel in a heap and picked up his briefcase. "Ready."

"Alan!"

"What?" He turned to her in perplexity.

"Clothed," said Shirley.

Alan heaved a melodramatic sigh. "You might have included that in the initial oral agreement. Sometimes it's hard to believe that you're a lawyer."

Denny stood at the window plucking at his pansies. "He loves me; he loves me not…."

He looked over at Alan and tossed the final petal down on the sill. "He loves me."

---

As was becoming par for the course for him, Denny woke up disoriented when the noise and the rumbling had ceased and wondered what he was doing alone.

Except this time his ass was sore. Which wasn't par for the course. At least he didn't think it was.

He was lying on leather… but he was completely dressed. That was odd. It was a car seat. That boded good things, but he did hope the good things were at least eighteen. Ah, yes, it was Shirley's car service! He was in the back seat of Shirley car—just like 1974—except things were better. It was a much better car, she no longer needed lessons in how his stick-shift worked, and Nixon had been pardoned.

Problem: she was up front, and he was back here idling in neutral. If they could only get rid of the driver—

Driver. Don't drivers usually…drive?

"What is it? Why're we stopped?" he asked. "There's no flashing blue lights behind us, and we're not picking up hookers." Denny paused. "Are we picking up hookers?" That Shirley was quite a woman. He'd have to give her first pick. He wriggled up on an elbow and straightened his lapel and tie.

Alan's viper roared up behind them and came to a screeching halt.

Shirley turned around in her seat. "We're there, Denny. We're in your driveway—your home. Or don't you remember that either?"

"It looks bigger in my mind." Denny pushed at the car door handle. It swung open from the other side and Denny was face first into Alan's crotch.

Denny rolled his eyes up.

"Or maybe it just looks bigger standing up?"

"I get that a lot," said Alan. He offered his arm down to Denny.

"That's not what I meant," said Denny. "You missed the first part."

"Did you?" Shirley asked.

"Probably, but I'm getting used to that."

"Never fear." Alan hooked arms with Denny and helped slide him through the car door. "That's one of the things I like about you. One of the most charming aspects of our conversations is how seldom it is that you do mean what it is that you actually say."

"I am a lawyer."

"Yes, that too."

"Ow!" Denny grimaced for real as he worked his legs out. He'd stiffened up during the ride—and not in a happy way—and bearing weight on his bad hip hurt. A lot.

He leaned on the car door and considered his options. Shirley. There was a rumor that she took steroids—perhaps she could be of use. But that would be—not how he wanted to be seen in her eyes.

"Lean on me," Alan murmured. "It's all right. I've got you." He shifted Denny's weight off of the door and on to him.

"You won't tell Shirley?"

"Only that I arranged things as to better enjoy the proximity of your…pinstripe." Alan smiled.

"Careful you don't get pricked."

"I'm a big boy; I'll take my chances."

"Boys. Inside. The neighbors." On the stone stoop, Shirley held the door.

Denny poo-pooed her. "This is nothing. You should have heard them the weekend of my Saint Patrick's Day party. NASA got great satellite pictures. Now let them try to claim there is no such thing as little green men. Or big green men."

"Inside! Now!" Shirley sounded like she meant it.

Arm in arm, they limped up the flagstone.

"Ms. Schmidt. Mr. Crane. Don't forget this." The driver held out Denny's fuzzy pink donut seat cushion.

Shirley walked back to take it from him.

Denny turned his neck. "Leave it. I've got plenty more in the closet. Use 'em as sex toys. Besides, I think that one's still sticky."

"Uggh!" With a spurt of a adrenaline, Shirley flung it across the yard.

"Little green men and flying saucers! NASA's gonna go ga-ga over this!" Denny put most of his weight on Alan's shoulders for the step up over the threshold.

---

Inside, Alan closed his cell and picked up his satchel. "I'm going to have to leave in a bit. One of my occasional clients and frequent entertainment expenses is again a unwilling guest of our misguided city."

Shirley checked her watch. "When's the Holman deposition?"

"Three," said Alan.

"It's eight-forty now. The home health nurse should be here by ten, but I have to leave for a meeting with the Gregg's before then. Can you stay?" Shirley looked to Alan.

"Afraid not. I need to be sure I make her arraignment. I'm counting on her to be my escort for my niece's wedding."

Shirley sighed. It was always something. "Denny, maybe you could take a nap until the nurse arrives."

Alan's face questioned Shirley thoughts.

"We have to do something. How much trouble can he get into in bed?" Even as the words came out, Shirley realized the dilemma.

Denny seemed not to hear. He rummaged in the umbrella stand for something. "Why should I take a nap when I'm going to the office later? I do my best sleeping there." He picked up a .22 rifle from amongst the umbrellas and fishing rods.

Alan set his satchel down. "I'll stay."

"I'm going to change." Using the rifle as a cane, Denny hobbled off towards the bedroom.

"What's wrong with the suit you're wearing?" Alan asked as he trailed behind. "I picked it out for you to wear home especially." He could sound a little petulant at times.

"For one thing, it makes my ass look fat." Denny answered from the bedroom doorway.

"That's the bandage underneath," Shirley said.

Denny stuck his head out. His jacket and pants were off already. "Shirley! You're looking at my ass again. Come in here. Lock the door. Bring the condoms from the bathroom. How're we fixed for birth control? Are you in a fertile phase?"

Shirley threw up her hands in exasperation and wandered off towards the kitchen in search of a glass of water. Or vodka. Whichever came to hand first would do.

That left Alan with bedroom duty. "Let me help you, Denny. Be a pal; let me play with your nice things. My daddy won't buy me any. He says I haven't been good. What does he know? He should have asked my sister." Alan met Deny at the closet.

"And for another, it's sissy," Denny continued, pawing through his rows of suits. "I'm not going in to work wearing something you chose. Only my wives get to pick out my clothes. Or future wives. Or future ex-wives. "

"Yes, I see your point. How about this one?" Alan pulled down an expensive silk.

"Maybe. Do you think it goes well with yellow? I wanted to wear this shirt." Denny waved the rifle to a starched yellow with thin white stripes and a broad white collar. "Frannie always liked me in lemon meringue."

"Sweet." Alan held the shirt against the jacket and examined it. There could be only one verdict. "Denny Crane," he pronounced.

Denny winked back. "Denny Crane. Tie and hankie?" He pushed the button on his electric tie rack and gave it a spin.

Alan hung the suit and shirt up on Denny's clothes horse. "I wouldn't presume."

"Mm. Smart. I divorced Clovis for that."

"I thought it was because she slept with Bruce Springsteen."

"No. No. We had an…agreement about him."

Alan raised his eyebrows.

Denny stopped at a candy-store pink tie and hankie set. "What do you think?"

"It's the cherry on top."

"Um." Denny rolled his eyes back. "Frannie. What that woman can do with a cherry stem—" Denny laid the set out on the clothes horse as well. Still limping on the rifle, he turned back to Alan. "Well?"

"Well?" Alan asked.

"You can get out now. I'm going to change."

"Not too much, I hope. I like you just the way you are."

Alan shuffled and tried again. "You're less than twenty-four hours out of surgery. I had thought perhaps that a… gentleman's gentleman might be of use."

"You thought wrong. But for the record, I don't hold it against you. If I were you, I'd want to see me naked too. I do want to see me naked, but that's not a homosexual thing. It's just--"

"Denny Crane." Alan filled in the blank.

"Exactly." Denny dropped his boxers and, from the bottom up, began to undo the buttons of his shirt.

Alan blinked. "In that case, perhaps I shall go see to Shirley's… needs."

Denny reared up. "Alan, don't you do it! I'll sit on your face again!"

"Promises, promises. That's the problem with you big shots: you're all talk. When it comes time to put your—hmm, for the sake of the censors , shall we say— 'money' where my mouth is, you freeze."

"It's not nice to have sex with your best friend's girl in his own kitchen."

"Would you rather I stay here? There is some evidence…pointing in that direction."

Denny glanced down. "It's not what it looks like. I was thinking of Shirley."

"Mmm." Alan took a step towards him. "Shirley." He craned his head down and his face around. "Shirley." He rolled the name over his lips and tongue. "She does seem to have that…effect." On the last breath, he exhaled with precision, "on men, or at least select parts thereof." He exhaled again, and Denny sucked in his breath.

"Shirley." Denny closed his eyes.

"Denny Crane."

Denny sucked in a harder breath. He bent over and grabbed himself. His eyes flew open and his words came out strained. "Alan. My stitches. Get out before they…pop."

Alan swished smugly out of the room.

---

"Alan, a word with you, please." Shirley caught him in the study.

"As long as the word isn't 'deeper.' That one causes me certain psychological distress."

"Don't worry; you're in the clear with me."

Alan seated himself in the chair behind Denny's desk.

As usual, Shirley wasted no time. "Denny said that you told him that I—among others was in the process of trying to have him removed."

"I may only attend staff meetings for the fruit, Shirley, but occasionally, despite my best efforts I do hear some of what you and Paul have to say. I'm thinking earplugs in the future, but as for the events of yesterday, it is too late."

"Alan, I know that you dislike many things about me, but I did think that we had arrived at a certain understanding. As senior partner, I have neither need nor intention of explaining my actions to you or any other associate, but I do require a response from you on one specific matter if I am to retain you here— or at any of our offices: do you honestly believe that I would do such a thing to Denny?

"Because I know you like to play the misunderstood loner raging against the authority, and far be it for me to interfere with what fun and games you two can still manage at your combined ages without the inclusion of a prescription card or a vacuum pump, but know this: you do not have a monopoly on loving Denny Crane.

"And if you repeat that, I'll have you transferred to open the office of Crane, Poole and Schmidt: Iceland. Solo practice."

Alan leaned back. "Shirley, as for my response you should know several things. First, I am inordinately fond of Nordic skiing. Perhaps, in preparation for my seemingly imminent transfer, you could assist with me with having my board waxed."

"Don't you ever quit?"

"Only until next season. Second, I do not dislike you. While I may dislike the fact that I have not been afforded the opportunity to…know you at all the many warm and rewarding levels of your--" He made an unmistakable gesture with his palms, "Depths, valleys, and mounds. While you might perceive some...palpable frustration on my part surrounding that lamentable omission, that is not the same thing as dislike.

"Although if it disturbs you as much as it does me, I do have a suggested remedy for said situation—"

"Next!" Shirley raised her hand to call a halt.

"Yes, then, moving right along." Alan shuffled some unrelated papers on Denny's desk. "Thirdly, having just now expressed such admiration for you—and all your dark, steamy pits and strengths and positions and such— I will say that I do believe that you would stop at nothing to do what you believe is right. No matter the pain or grief or personal cost to you. That is characteristic that I as a coddled libertine neither possess nor understand, and therefore, I fear it.

"And in case you were wondering, it is also a compliment of the highest order."

"Funny, to my ears it doesn't sound that way." Shirley pressed clasped hands to her chin.

Alan exhaled. "Do you ever wonder why you keep me on at Crane, Poole and—most acutely relevant to this exchange—Schmidt?"

Shirley pursed her mouth. "I think I'll take the fifth on that for now."

"We complement each other. You can do things I cannot. I do things you cannot. Denny can do things none of us can."

"You said a mouthful there."

"Together we will make it work. Separately, I must say, we are all a bit sadly…lacking. Especially me."

"I wouldn't have put it that way."

"Then you don't know me well enough. But the offer to remedy that situation is always open. Do you prefer top or bottom?"

"Denny didn't tell you?"

"He did. But I was hoping to hear you talk dirty."

She laughed just a tiny bit, then returned to topic. "He's slipping fast, Alan. I will do my best against anyone and everyone, but even still, I don't know how long I can protect him. And I'm Schmidt."

Alan stood from the chair and put his hand to his suit breast. "Then, I guess you'd best think of something, and soon. He saved my case yesterday. I need him. And as I work for you, that means that you need him, a thought which should make Denny and his crane inordinately happy in more ways than one.

"Letting him go is not acceptable and cannot be an outcome. It will not be while I have any association whatsoever with this firm."

"Then, we stick together."

Alan nodded. "So it would seem."

In the background, a brass clock with an honorarium plaque ticked out the seconds.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack. They both turned and ran for it. In the bedroom, Denny stood in a fresh pair of meringue colored boxers, one leg in and one leg out of a pair of trousers with a rifle in his right hand. In the far corner, Shirley Schmidt Ho slowly deflated into a pitiful heap on the carpet.

"Oops," said Denny.

"Oh dear," said Alan.

"Oy," said Shirley. She headed back for the kitchen. This time it would be vodka even if she had to have it delivered in.

---

The court reporter was already in the conference room, bent over to set up her stenotype, when Alan arrived. She was blonde and very female in that professional, cork-driven-in-too tight way that always caught Alan's eye—among other fluid filled organs of his. His favorite part was when the tight ones popped, he thought as he admired her skirt stretched taut against her rump. Then they sort fizzed out the neck, over the top, running down your hands and wrists for you to lap up in intoxicated delight.

Alan didn't think that his corkscrew had yet had the pleasure of penetrating her cork, though seeing her face might help. Or it might not. Any other day he would have undertaken the preliminaries towards rectifying that deplorable oversight, but today he had bigger concerns.

"Denny Crane." Barely limping, which must have cost him the grit of a few teeth Alan presumed, Denny blew in the conference room door.

Alan turned from the rump, taking care that his jacket covered the worst of his corkscrew. "Denny, perhaps you've noticed: no one's here yet."

"I know. Just getting into the mood."

Alan pulled out the chair at the lead counsel's position at the table. Fortunately, he looked before he sat.

"Denny, your bottom cushie is in my seat."

Indeed, there it sat smack dab center in the "captain's chair" looking much like a big, fat, fluffy, pink tribble.

With a hole in the middle.

"My seat. You asked for Denny Crane. Denny Crane doesn't do second chair. When you get him, you get the whole enchilada, not just a few taco chips."

Alan smoothed his hand over his breast. "Let's say we let the office furnishings battle out any inherent hierarchical structure amongst themselves. I have no strong feelings as to specifics of seating arrangements for their own sake—unless we are speaking of sexual positions with an inamorato, in which case the standard gentlemen's agreement in these parts is that the one better blessed below the navel provides the lap."

The courted reporter choked and did a double-take. Alan eyeballed her back, calculating whether that remark had improved or deteriorated his chances. He'd bet on the former. The more tightly corked, the less easily they could be shaken. He unbuttoned his jacket and casually arranged himself in second chair.

"But just as a favor, let's say you let me ask the questions. I've had disturbing past day or so. A dear friend had a close call, and I could use the distraction from my woes. And I wouldn't mind the chance to impress around here either. You never know when—" Alan turned to face the hallway windows. "Big Brother might be watching." Alan leaned forward and gave a hammy wave and grin as Paul walked by the outside glass.

Paul returned a tentative half-wave with a certain full glower.

"Name's on the door. My way or the bi way," Denny mumbled.

Time was growing short, so Alan decided to let that one pass. He swallowed and began a new tack. "Denny, I asked you here. I want you here. I need you here. Your insight is invaluable and I am in fact depending upon it to win the day. But considering that this deposition is costing our client $1000/hour and that my contribution to this case is untangling the facts of the matter while yours has been primarily—" He paused.

"The big enchilada."

"—I am going to insist that I guide the course of our questioning."

"Bah." Denny grumbled and batted the back of the chair with his palm. "You younger generation: you still don't get it. Practicing litigation may be about facts and laws, but winning litigation has precious little to do with either. When you're done practicing and all you need is the win, you don't need to know anything about either. Believe me! Why do you think I'm head of the division?"

Alan scratched his left ear.

Unmindful, Denny continued. "To win, what you need is to know the people involved. You don't need to know what kind of case your opposition has— or your client has; but you do have to know is what kind of opposition—and client your case has."

Alan's removed his finger. He was suddenly much less itchy, and besides, he needed the ear to hear.

Denny rocked the back of the chair between his palms. "Tell you what," he relented. "I'll go first, but if and after the parties are sworn, you can take over from there."

"From there." Alan cocked his head. "An interesting compromise as conventionally, in Massachusetts state proceedings, the swearing of the parties would be considered the beginning."

"Ah." Denny raised a hand and swept a flourish around the room. "But here we're not in Massachusetts, my friend. In these hallowed halls, we're in the province of Denny Crane.

"Dick!" Denny stepped away from the table and turned to toward the door, arms held out in greeting.

"Denny." A silver-haired lawyer shook Denny's hand while the young lady beside him squirmed on her brand new candy-apple red heels.

Denny ushered the two to seats on the plaintiff's side of the table. "Alan, this is Dick Plankston. Dick and I go way back together."

"A pleasure, I'm sure. Any old buddy of Denny's is fodder for one more night of cigars and tall tales." Alan held the door for an expensively dressed couple who hurried in. "And I think you should know our client, Franya Holman, and her husband, Robert."

"Frannie." Denny held out his arms again, and she kissed him on both cheeks. He oogled her. "Frannie and I have gone way… down together."

Frannie chortled as Denny held a chair out for her. "Pay no attention to him, dear." She addressed her husband as they took their seats and sat up straight.

"Ah." Alan rubbed his hands in Frannie's direction. "I see you have already picked up on the local carrier wave. Paul must be broadcasting rather loudly today."

"Denny, Alan: this is Haleigh Jane." Dick introduced his client with a nod.

"Like the comet." Denny leered down her top as he stood over her. "I hear that you have a very impressive tail."

"Maybe you also heard that your chance at it only comes around every 75 years. Catch you in 2061." Haleigh recrossed her legs.

Denny furrowed his brow. "2061. I'm saving that for Katie Holmes. She'll be legal then. I think."

"Shall we get started?" Plankston fired up his computer.

"Actually, Dick, I thought we might get a few preliminaries out of the way first—you know to avoid dragging so much...unpleasantness into the official transcript." Denny spoke in that mild tone that only those who still paid attention to him knew meant he was either badly constipated or moving in for the kill.

Alan smiled. He knew Denny wasn't constipated.

"Such as?" Distracted, Plankston fiddled with the batteries in his mini mouse as his monitor came on with a familiar chime.

"Such as, how long have you two been having a sex affair...and more importantly," Denny stammered the silent beginning of a second question. "How could you prefer him over me?" Denny waved a backhand toward the doctor who sat with his mouth agape and his wife agape at him.

"On second thought," Denny turned to the reporter and leaned against the table, "go ahead and swear them in. I want that last answer for the record."

Through mascara laden not-quite tears, Frannie jabbed her husband hard in the ribs. "You momzer! Shteyner af deyne beyner! Over a million women in this city and you couldn't manage to find one Jewish one?" Frannie drew her elbow back farther and drove it into him again.

This time, Robert cringed.

"You can go." Denny dismissed the court reporter. He an Alan followed her cute little butt out of the conference room and down the hall.

---

Shirley glanced up to Paul's knock on her door casement. At the sight of his expression, she didn't just peer over her reading glasses; she pulled them off and folded them into her hands.

"What is it now? The Holman case?" Mentally, she ran down the decision tree for potentially salvaging options. "Maybe we can get a note from his doctor."

"No. Not that." Paul lowered himself onto her sofa that backed against the glass wall. "Apparently, that one's settled. Remarkably, to the satisfaction of almost everyone involved.

"The case is dropped. The plaintiff will pay all legal fees accrued to date. I believe Alan Shore is presently closeted in his office discovering numerous billables that he carelessly omitted in his original accounting —at least I hope so. Of all the activities in which Mr. Shore might be engaging that would impel even him behind a locked door, that is the amongst the least objectionable."

Shirley chuckled.

Paul continued, "In consideration for not pursuing tortious interference, fraud, malicious prosecution and a bevy of other ostensibly sustainable charges, the wife gets six months in Aruba while the husband gets—" Paul looked uncomfortable.

Shirley waited.

"As it was explained to me, six months in the former plaintiff."

"Ah. Charming." Elbows on the desk, Shirley clasped her hands into a steeple. "Not exactly a candidate for the Hallmark Movie of the Week, I agree, but so far, I fail to see a problem."

Out in the hallway, Denny and Alan strolled by the glass. Denny twirled his butt cushie in the air around his wrist. Through the panes, Alan made a funny face and rabbit ears over the back of Paul's head.

Shirley looked down at her desk in plenty of time to swallow the incipient laugh.

Paul's monotone droned on. "The problem is that Denny has fired his home health nurse. No, strike that; that happenstance was contributory but not causative. Our problem is that it led to the subsequent action of home health firing Denny in response."

"That's not so bad. There're plenty of agencies—" Shirley reached for the phone. She'd been through a number with her father.

Paul interrupted. "You misunderstand me. It's not the agency that fired him; it was home health as an entire institution; he's been blackballed. Apparently this morning, he made an indecent suggestion to his assigned aide. As I had just eaten lunch, I did not ask the specifics, however the young lady did decline."

Shirley leaned forward. "So far, classic Denny." But more than words would present more than just a P.R. problem. She'd been through some of this with her father as well. "He didn't try to—"

"No. There was no battery of any kind. Reportedly, it was all a very polished sort of repulsive, degrading, sordidness."

"Denny's signature style." Her tone remained sardonic, but Shirley relaxed again.

"In fact, at one point he allegedly offered to 'sweeten the deal' with a new convertible: an offer which I am told the young lady was willing to take in good humor. However upon her continued refusal, Denny contacted the agency, had her taken off of his case and—and here is where our problems ensue—told them exactly why and what he would require in his series of aides, with emphasis on the 11P to 7A shift."

"Dear God." Shirley bowed her head.

"They discharged him summarily, had him placed in the National Nurse Offender's Registry—"

"There's such a thing?"

"—and now no licensed agency will enroll him. Although the agency director did send me a list of several 900 numbers she had reason to believe might also provide services along the lines of Denny's specifications." Paul tossed a folded print-out onto Shirley's desk.

Shirley re-ordered her thoughts. "This 'offender's registry': is it a public database?"

Paul shook his head. "No. Internal use only—discretionary with no objective criteria. That can't hurt us even if it did leak out. But this does leave Denny without a keeper."

"To be fair, do we know that he needs home health? He looked pretty... robust in the conference room."

"The last time he was alone in the dark, he shot himself." Paul paused for emphasis. "And his hospital discharge instructions include some extensive wound care. Not complicated, but hardly the easiest place to inspect, reach or treat one's self. No matter how many years of specialization and identification with that area it one might have."

Paul looked to Shirley. "I don't suppose that you—?"

Shirley's face shot down that proposal before it even left the chute.

"—have another suggestion?"

"There is the obvious one."

"Mm. My thought as well. But the request will have to come from you. He won't talk to me."

Shirley shrugged her face. "From where I sit, it seems more the other way around."

Paul startled "Pardon me?"

"Nothing. I'll take care of it." Shirley reached for the phone again.

"You meant that." Paul sounded hurt. It didn't happen often. There weren't many people he respected enough that their opinions mattered.

Shirley stood up and walked around her desk. "Paul, you are repeatedly voted managing partner because you do an insuperable job of it, which is largely because of your personality construct. No one who profits from the success of Crane, Poole and Schmidt would argue to change that persona. Likewise, we wouldn't want to change anyone else who is making a considerable contribution to our combined strength. And from your desk as managing partner—with an eye to the bottom line—I doubt that you do either."

Shirley exhaled and sat beside him on the sofa. She planted a friendly hand upon his leg and left it there. "Paul, I know you to be too fine an individual to put personal tastes or considerations ahead of the good of the firm. I have seen nothing to make me doubt that. But, for so long you have given so much of yourself so consistently as business manager, that sometimes it surprises me when Paul Lewiston— the private man, with his own opinions—makes an occasional understudy appearance.

"I won't ask you to give any more of your life—of yourself —than you already have to acting as manager for us. As a partner and as a person, I am grateful for every bit of it of your time. But as a friend, I am alerting you that yes, your slip is showing around Alan. It's not a big thing, not ordinarily one worth mentioning, but knowing that you take pride in a meticulous appearance, I wonder if you might want to hitch it up a bit."

Paul sighed and rubbed his chin.

Alan walked by again, this time making rabbit ears over the back of both of their heads.

---

This time there was no knock. Shirley looked up only as Alan crossed into her peripheral vision. "Alan, come in." She gestured to the seat that Alan was already folding himself into.

"Shirley. You rang. I assume that you want something. On the off chance it is sexual favors, I will tell you that I had plenty of protein and am quite refreshed."

"Thoughtful, but I'll let you save your protein for, preferably, another time and most categorically, another partner.

"We have a problem with Denny."

"Meaning, I presume, you—singular or plural, please choose the applicable form and put the other back— have problem with Denny, as I can assure you that I do not."

"Home health will no longer be providing him services."

"Ah, yes. Denny filled me in on the particulars during the car ride over. Something to do with a blow-up doll, two dozen silk ties, a recording of Bolero on continuous loop and a can of Cheez Whiz. Or maybe it was just the can. There was a good bit of street noise at that time, and I missed some interesting bits of the proposed scenario. I was hoping he would retell it to me over scotch tonight."

"Which provides a convenient segue into the reason I did ask you here. Denny needs some...personal assistance for the next several days, as well as an assessment of whatever the conditions that lead up to the instigating event. And perhaps some...guidance in preventing any similar events. You're the only person he actually hears and listens to. We—and, yes, you may translate that as 'I' if it affects your response—were hoping that you would provide the help he needs."

Alan rearranged his arms across the sofa back. "You believe the terms of my employment contract to include assigning me to play the role of orderly? Not that I am adverse to doing so under certain conditions, but typically that is as part of sex games including very naughty nurses and/or very dirty doctors." He batted her an enquiring eyebrow. "Or are you saying that my recent protein consumption might not have been entirely in vain?"

"I believe that as you earn over one third of a million dollars per annum from this law firm, it would behoove you to consider a request that puts you out very little from your daily rut and is in the interest of the well-being of a major constituent of said firm. Not to mention a man you call your best friend. And that cannot be an easy commodity to come by much less replace."

Alan was unshaken. "You believe that Denny who, need I remind you, only minutes ago resolved a multimillion dollar case involving computer warfare in less than a day is incapable of taking care of himself, deciding if he needs help or of requesting it if he does? You said that I am the only one he really hears. Have you considered that may be as I am the only one who really hears him?"

The point hurt, but Shirley collected herself for another run. "I believe that Denny is a proud man—and rightly so—as are we all. As a friend, I would not want to put him in the position of being obliged to ask for help—especially from those friends who are, or should be, most painfully aware of his situation.

"But, I do concede your point, and I will rephrase my request: will you instigate a discussion with Denny that includes the possibility of your staying with him during his recuperation?"

"No."

Shirley sat nonplussed. She had learned to expect almost anything from Alan, but never that.

"I did so over an hour ago. Even as we speak, my hotel is having a few of my things packed and delivered to Denny's house. To save more jostling about in the back seat of the car. Not an activity I would normally opt to minimize, you understand, but sadly for me, the sensitivity of his post-operative posterior presents extenuating circumstances." Alan rested in smug summation.

Shirley pursed her lips. "You might have told me this at the beginning."

"But then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing your repressed, angry countenance, veritably simmering over with urges unspent. It is so similar to that transcendent expression of a woman extant in that ineffable space and time when she feels the first stirrings of prospective orgasm, yet presses them down, intent upon magnifying the intensity of the final release.

"Yes, that's it." Alan pointed. "That face right there. Mmm." He closed his eyes and exhaled in a frankly indecent manner.

Shirley rocked back in her chair. "Then, I suggest that you take a picture, as I promise you, this is as close to seeing that face on me as you are ever going to get."

Alan whipped out his phone and, arm outstretched, held it open in her direction.

"What's that?" Shirley peered across the gap to the tiny screen.

Alan turned the phone around to look at the last picture. "Yes, that. That would be Denny's...reassurance to you, that he wished sent."

Shirley slipped her reading glasses back on and took the phone from his hand. She examined the image up and down. "Not much of a reassurance, is it?"

Alan shrugged. "He was having a bad day. And it's chilly in those hospital gowns."

Shirley took one last look before she closed the phone. "I see that Fenway Park's not the only thing that's changed since the seventies." She passed the phone back and nodded Alan out her door. "Go on. It must be almost his nap time. Take him home before you two really do make me feel old."

---

Denny moved even more laboriously getting out of the car than he had that morning and a concerning, dark stain had seeped through on one side of the rear of his trousers. The man was seventy-three years old, Alan reminded himself. Bringing him to work for Show & Tell barely a day out of surgery might not have been the most considerate thing he had ever done.

Alan extended an elbow for Denny to take, and arm-in-arm they began a sedate march up the peony lined flagstone aisle to the threshold.

Using his own key, Alan opened the door. The security system buzzed its warning tone, and Alan disarmed it with a few keystrokes. He led Denny to the overstuffed sofa, where Denny collapsed, his good side on the leather, with a heavy sigh.

"Don't get too comfortable," Alan cautioned. "You're due for a wound cleansing and dressing change. Not that I wish to incommode you, but I am disinclined to attempt it in here. I fear you might be misperceived as wounded prey." He gestured around the living room walls where from all sides, various tusked, toothed and antlered game animals—as well as a splendid Chinook, easily over four feet in length—stared down at them with reproving glass eyes.

"Just five minutes," Denny muttered. He nestled his head against a padded leather arm and closed his lids.

Something in the way the late afternoon sunlight made him appear a lot older than seventy-three. Or maybe Alan had simply forgotten how old seventy-three really was.

Denny made it easy to forget a lot of things.

Kneeling on the carpet, Alan began with Denny's shoes. He chatted as he removed first one, then the other, then the socks. "Denny, I know that you had your heart set on a cozy victory dinner for four tonight with a selection of rare prime rib and even rarer prime women, but I'm afraid I am going to have to beg off. I did not sleep at all well in that hospital recliner, and I find myself now utterly exhausted. Could we possibly postpone the celebration and eat here tonight? I could do something easy like, say, whip up some noodles. That is one of my specialties." He slipped Denny's top arm out of his jacket and removed both cufflinks, setting them carefully atop the coffee table.

Denny jerked his head around. "Drop it. I know what you're doing! You don't have to coddle me! Don't you think I know my own condition? I live with; I see it better than you. I just don't want to talk about it. Doesn't change a damn thing. So why not spend the time talking about something more fun? Like...shooting things. Or sex."

"Oh, I think you're plenty fun. But if you insist, let it be noodles, then." Alan undid Denny's tie and laid it aside. "What kind do you prefer? Long or short? Wiry or plump? Straight, or the kind that curves up just a little bit? Do you like them extra firm or just soft enough to give way at the first suggestion of teeth? I'm thinking slathered in a rich, creamy, white sauce served with one of those extra large spoons so you can swirl and twirl them around as they slide and slither over your tongue. What about you?"

Alan unfastened Denny's suspenders, and slipped his hands below the waistband to gently tug out the overpriced Italian shirt.

"You're doing that on purpose," Denny grumbled.

"Naturally. My friend has too much on his mind—"

"Don't hear that much," Denny mumbled into the upholstery.

" –and I'm trying to make him laugh instead of dwelling on his woes. My comedic repertoire is somewhat limited. Unless disrobed, of course, but I had dismissed that set of options as inappropriate between us.

"Or was I premature? Not a problem I encounter frequently, but these circumstances are extraordinary, and one must always be on guard. Never get a second chance for a first impression and all that."

Denny chuckled.

"Ah! See there! Laughter. It worked. And not even at the cost of my modesty." Alan started on Denny's shirt buttons from the bottom up, while Denny worked from the top ones down. Eventually they would meet in the middle.

"Thank you, Alan," Denny said quietly.

"It's no trouble. But we are going to have to get you up for the rest. And no, that sexual entendre was wholly unintended—a realization that likely surprises me as much as it does you."

"That's not what I mean. I mean for that case today. I don't know what's happening to my mind at times any more than the rest of you, but I need to be able to trust it when I can. If I can't trust myself to do, to live, then what's left? Nothing. I might as well just...shoot myself." Denny pointed an index finger gun toward his temple, apparently oblivious to the obvious.

Alan raised his eyebrows, but decided to let it pass. It was so Denny, it could even be read as a sign of recovery.

"Paul and Shirley would be happy to let me lie here and rot. They think that because I'm not the old Denny Crane, that this one's no good for anything but a paperweight. And I almost believed it.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to doubt yourself?"

Alan worked the top arm free of the shirt. "Is my response intended to be confined to a professional sphere? If not, I will have to extract from you an assurance that any answer I might give would be privileged. I have worked too hard to establish a reputation as sententious solipsist to have it dismantled by a casual slip."

"I doubted myself this morning," Denny said. "But when you fall off a horse, you're supposed to mount right back on again. Shirley wasn't going to let me...mount. But you..." His words trailed off.

"It's no trouble," Alan repeated. He pushed to his feet and extended a hand. "But we are going to have to get you up."

Denny bent his knees and tried to slide his feet off the edge. A sharp grunt slipped out, and he stopped where he lay. "I don't know if I can."

"Would you like a pill?"

"I don't want a damned pill. I just want the pain to go away."

Alan wriggled the rest of Denny's shirt and jacket off. "Stay there. I'm going to go run a bath. The hot water is good for the aches and pains that come from lying too long on medical tables. This I know for a fact."

"That doctor said that I'm not supposed to soak it underwater."

"A shallow bath: one buttock in and one buttock out. Shallow is yet another area of my expertise. I'll be careful; I always am when it's a fellow's first time. That's why they call me Easy Alan."

Alan reconsidered. "Well, it isn't the main reason, but amongst all the explanations given, it's the one my mother found most palatable, so I use it when in her social circles.

"Besides, I've been curious about your master bath. I never did get to see it during the time I was staying here, but a mondaine of our mutual acquaintance once described it as an E-ticket ride."

Denny grunted. "More likely, she meant Denny Crane was."

"No. As I recall, she said that you were Disneyland."

"As it should be."

Alan's mouth twitched into a smile. "I'm going to go run the tub. Wait there, Mickey." He tossed his own jacket over a chair and headed toward the dining room and bar.

"I thought you were going to my bathroom."

"I thought I'd fix us some scotch to pass the time."

"There's scotch in the bathroom," Denny said.

"Glasses?"

"Above the mini-fridge."

Alan peered at him.

"Well, who the hell wants warms champagne with their bath?"

Alan rolled up his cuffs and headed for the master suite.

---

In the other room, water ran, and Denny had almost drifted off, but in a minute, the plangent sounds of Barry White oozed into the air waves, catching his attention with a promise to love him just a little more.

Alan called from the bedroom doorway. "Denny, how do I turn of the disco ball?" Flashes of light and color kaleidoscoped behind him.

"You can't. It's wired into the sauna jets. You'd have to turn them off. Or you could shoot it down. I left that .22 against the wall over by Schmidt Ho."

Alan glanced between the rifle, the deflated doll in a Shirley's suit, the bathroom ceiling with the turning lights and mirrors, then back to Denny. Oddly, it all seemed to make sense...albeit in a cuckoo's nest sort of way.

"Since mirror balls have been out of season since 1978, I suppose we'd best leave it be. What the hell; this could be fun. Old memories and all that. I did have a bit of a thing for Robin Gibb—so delightfully androgynous. In my tentative years, he made me always made feel like I wouldn't really have to choose.

"Come on." Alan returned to the couch and slipped an arm around Denny's waist. "Put your arm around my neck. Up we go." Alan hauled, and with a grunt and grimace, Denny was back on his feet.

"Now the rest of it. Drop 'em mister. I don't have all day." Alan tugged at his waistband, and the slacks and boxers slid off onto the carpet.

With a little help, Denny stepped out of them. Together, they limped into the bathroom.

"You moved a lot better when Shirley was watching. Perhaps we should keep her around. Continually feeling obliged to pace yourself against a rival self thirty years past who you believe she still sees should present an inspirational challenge."

"I do everything better when Shirley's watching." Denny loosened up a little with each step. "Or when her cousin's watching me with Shirley. That girl was hot. I wonder where she is now."

"Probably pining her heart out for what she never had."

"Mm-uh. She had me. Shirley told me she expected me to be considerate of her family. Who am I to refuse?"

Alan steered them to the edge of the tub. Only a third full or so, Jacuzzi jets swirled barely below the waterline. "Left foot in first. Hold on to me. Then down on your left side." Alan eased him down in the tub. "I'll take the dressing off once you're in."

Chutes of water splashed against the sides as Denny arranged himself with the bandage mostly up. Alan peeled off the blood-laden gauze. The staple line was completely obscured by clotted blood.

Alan reached for a washcloth.

"You're not staying in here." It was that inimitable Crane intonation that managed to balance precisely at the midpoint between a question and a statement.

"I don't wish to alarm you, but your incision is draining heavily. It requires some attention." Alan dabbed at the staples and Denny jumped.

A jet of water sprayed over the side and into Alan's chest.

"You're going to be completely soaked from these water sports," said Denny.

Alan continued to blot at the surgical site. "You might mean 'spouts,' but either way, I'll take my chances. I generally have to pay a good bit extra for that, so it seems that we have a win-win here."

In the background, the Love Machine crooned on, bragging about how he was qualified to satisfy you.

---

Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. Steam from the bath rose up around his eyes. The Jacuzzi motor hummed and Sade sang about a smooth operator as the disco ball turned round and round. Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. The rhythmic pattern became hypnotic. Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. He ran the cloth over the curve of Denny's rump so lightly, careful not to press too hard on the damaged flesh.

Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. With each pass, he blotted up just a little, then returned the cloth to the water to rinse and began afresh. Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. He wrung out the cloth and gently dabbed it along the staple edges again.

Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. Alan marveled at the variations and permutations of curves extant on the human body. How breasts and bottoms and shoulders and knees and cheeks and tummies and calves and wrists could all be so identically alluring in their sensuality and yet each one on each individual utterly unique. Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. Like the snowflakes, each was a miracle unto itself. But unlike the snowflakes, which dissipate at once upon first heat of tongue, a lucky and considerate man may have his curves and eat them too.

Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. Combined with the actions of a generous dollop of scotch on an empty stomach, the steam was making him more than a little light headed. It got worse as he leaned forward over the tub. In the background, Brandy bleated out a question, her plaintive adolescent voice asking the same thing over and over in a dozen different ways: had he ever?

Have you ever loved somebody so much...?

Had he ever? The words buzzed around his head as the disco lights spun around the room. Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. He must have he, was sure. He had memories, like still photographs, of girls and schools and stolen summer nights. There must have been a time that he had been that needy—that open. But it was so many years and pains and scars ago, that it seemed like a handful of passed over photos stumbled upon in a younger man's life.

He had certainly loved somebody so much as to be afraid to try again.

Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. His hands moved mechanically as the song played on. He tried to block out the insipid words, but like trying not to think of a pink bunny rabbit, that only made it worse and he choked back a sniffle—or maybe it was only the steam—at the lyrics that didn't seem so very trite any more.

Dip. Swish. Wipe. Dip. It took both hands to part Denny's cheeks, and the washrag was a little awkward in the small space, so somehow in the mix of music and lights and steam it got left in the bath. Swish. Slosh. Rub. Slosh. He worked on the crusted debris, running fingers over the bare skin, working them into the little matted hair . Swish. Slosh. Rub. Slosh.

"Alan?"

Alan startled. Oddly—with his fingers on a man's asshole—he had all but forgotten that he was not alone. "Yes, Denny?" Swish. Slosh. Rub. Slosh.

"There's no sutures in there."

"There's drainage matted in your hairs. It's a matter of hygiene if not explicit surgical aftercare. Hold still. This is another area of my expertise."

"Alan."

"Yes, Denny?" Swish. Slosh. Rub. Slosh.

"Because you're my friend, I'm going to count to three. Then you're going put both hands in the air and show them to me. If anything is still touching my asshole, I'm going get a gun and shoot you."

Alan chuckled and sat back on his heels. He drained his glass and poured another. "No worries. Your virtue is safe with me. I wouldn't dream of destroying all this exquisite sexual tension. For one thing, it would kill our ratings, and both my agent and I were counting on a fourth season. But moreover, it's the infinite possibilities of a sex affair that enchants me far more than any mundane realization.

"Within that artificially constructed world I can be and do and experience anything at all Nothing is out of bounds. After that, the coupling itself is so often only a bittersweet dénouement with possibility after possibility sequentially tossed to the trash."

"Not with me," Denny said. He sipped from his whiskey glass. "Sex with me has been known ruin women forever."

"Yes. So Becky at the Bagel Barn has told me."

Denny grunted. "Give it up, Alan; I'd ruin you."

Alan sniffed. "I've been ruined before. It's not so bad. And it only hurts a little at the beginning." He reached for a handful of cotton swabs and splashed more water over the staples.

"It's getting cold," Denny complained.

"Sorry." Alan ran some more hot water and swirled under the spigot with his hand.

"I kissed a man once," Denny said out of nowhere.

"Really? One of those Harvard secret society things?" Alan turned off the tap and began to swab around each staple.

"No. Key West. She said her name was Dorothy and that she could stomp her ruby heels, click her breasts together, and carry me away to Oz. Turns out, that like Dorothy, she had a pet riding in her basket. I put my hand down to pat the pussy, and Toto leaped out instead. Who knew?"

"Indeed. Judy Garland propositions you on the gay Riviera. Herbert Hoover himself would have been hard pressed to penetrate that disguise."

"He was a good kisser, too," Denny continued. "A shame I had to kick him out." Denny reached between his thighs and repositioned his balls. "My Tin Man had bolted up stiff in the forest and was squeezing and begging to be oiled."

"There are those who maintain that a mouth has no gender," said Alan in a conversational tone.

"If you're trying to talk me into a blowjob, it's not going to work."

Alan gave an abrupt snort. "In my twenty odd years of a legal career, I have had occasion to talk just about every sort of person into just about every sort of thing. Albeit, I have never had to talk a man into a blowjob. I believe that it contradicts at least one law of nature—likely more."

"Not my nature. You and your...gory holes," mumbled Denny.

"No, not me actually. I like my meaningless sex encounters to come with an identity—to know that our ships have crossed and to watch the other one in question sink gently over the horizon into the sunset and the vast seas beyond. It appeals to my romantic nature.

"It is my love affairs that that I require be devoid of as much personal revelation as possible."

"What is it you see in that sicko stuff?"

"Please specify which sicko stuff you mean. Even constraining the discussion to this week's exploits alone, the possibilities reach well into double-digits."

Denny grunted. "That homo stuff. What the draw? If it's the penis, you can buy them now, you know. Have them delivered mail order. Fed-Ex."

"Yes, I know. I keep a catalog on the table in my reception area along with USA today, People, Wall Street Journal, and Cosmo."

"So what'd the big deal then? Two holes to one. Two breasts to none. Seems like a bad trade to me."

"I don't think it is something you can understand."

Denny jerked his head around and glared, splashing water over the sides.

Alan shook his head. "That's not what I meant, you know that full well.

"It would be like trying to explain the difference between red and green to a person who was born color-blind. If you have to ask, there is no mutual foundation on which I can base an explanation.

"It's not as simple as an act or an appendage. There is a certain connection between two men that cannot be shared with women. When you join with a woman, you are acutely aware that man and woman are two disparate varieties created individually, and even in the most intimate of acts—or especially in said act—they will always be separated by factors which they cannot control.

"With men, it's different. You have a bond. Whether he is older or younger, you have either been where he is, or you will be one day."

"You'll never be where I am. God willing." Denny added the last in a different tone of voice.

"There are other kinds of loss beside the cognitive. The exact specifics are something of lottery, yes, but the eventuality of age and decay are not. If by chance, I do not meet my demise under the tires of another disillusioned one time paramour, I shall surely be where you are one day.

"I don't bother to wonder whether it will be brain or heart or kidneys or—the smart man's bet—liver that goes first, but I do confess to some curiosity as to if anyone will be there for me." Alan sat back on his heels. He hit the button and the jets, lights and music all stopped. He flipped a lever, and water began to drain from the tub.

"You should get married again," said Denny.

"I don't think I can." Alan stood to fetch a bath towel as well as his glass of scotch.

"It's not hard. Look at me. I'm up to six without trying. I'll even do it with you if it'll help."

"I'm not like you, Denny. There was something within me that was single use only."

Denny snorted. "A condom."

"Ha!" Despite himself, Alan laughed out loud.

Denny chuckled almost silently to the wall. "I was better off when I thought that homo business was only about the sex."

"Well, there's that too, but entirely secondary to other elements of physicality. As you say, there is little a man can offer as a sexual partner that can't be equaled or exceeded by a woman with a well-stocked toy chest and muscle in her dominant arm. And a woman can put her heels behind her ears as well."

Alan held the towel out in front of him. "It's the subtle aspects that change everything. When a woman holds you, she makes you believe that you have worth. That if you are good enough to lie with her, have her drawn to you, that there must be something within you fine and pure enough to deserve such empathy. But you know it cannot last, for you know how you are unable to stay pure.

"When a man holds you it doesn't matter if you are good or bad, or weak or strong, dirty or righteous. When you are in his embrace, you are safe from any evil—without or within. You are untouchable."

"You like that," said Denny.

"I do." Alan swallowed. "Can you stand?"

Denny twisted on the slippery porcelain.

Alan reached an arm down to help him to his feet. "And the brute power of a man impassioned is remarkable as well. Something that through no fault of their own, women cannot approach. But to be with someone whose solidity and strength exceeds yours is to be free sexually. You can let loose any wild throes that overcome you and need not fear for hurting the other.

"And don't we all yearn for a lover whom we cannot hurt, no matter what?" Alan held wide the towel.

Denny held onto the wall at the head of the tub, with one hand and a towel rack with the other. Standing sideways, he stepped out of the tub first with his one leg. Alan offered his arm and took most of his weight. With a grimace, Denny swung the other leg out of the tub.

He turned around to Alan.

Alan looked downward then up to Denny's face.

"It doesn't count; I was thinking of Shirley." Denny stepped into the towel. He paused as Alan leaned in to wrap the towel around his shoulders. His eyes widened.

"And I'd sleep better tonight if you told me that you are thinking of Shirley too. A real friend wouldn't be shirk at a little lie."

"You've got it, mister." Through the terrycloth, Alan patted him down. "Turn those big brown eyes on me, and I'll tell you anything you want to hear."

"'Cheney in 2008.'"

"Don't press your luck, or I'll finger paint a quail on your posterior and invite him over for drinks. Up against the counter, mister." Alan picked up a tube of antibiotic ointment.

"What?"

Alan gestured to the vanity. "Hands on the counter, bend over, and spread your legs. Pretend I'm Police Woman with a baton. Go."

Denny limped over to the sink. "Mm. Angie Dickinson. She was hot. I enjoyed her more in Big Bad Momma, though."

"Clearly. Though I am glad there is at least one person on the planet who did. Now quit stalling. You heard me, mister. Shed 'em and spread 'em." Alan slapped the tube against his palm with a resounding whap.

In the mirror, Alan saw Denny's eyes widen.

Denny dropped the towel to the floor and leaned over the sink. "All right, but no cavity search. I'll be good, honest."

Alan smacked the tube against his palm again. He squeezed out a squirt of goo. "This might sting at first."

"Hurry up and do it." Denny ground out.

"Now, now," Alan smoothed it over the necessary area of Denny's ass. "The finer things in life should not be rushed. And I intend to savor this fully. Would you pass me that packet, please?"

"Which one?" Denny had his eyes closed and his forehead hung down almost to the counter top.

"That one there." Alan pointed to a small, square individually wrapped pack on the counter.

"Where?" Denny's head hadn't moved.

"Never mind." Alan leaned forward onto Denny's backside, and stretched an arm around his shoulder.

"You're hurting me."

"It's for your own good. You'll thank me in a moment." With his teeth, Alan ripped open the wrapper. He removed the rubbery contents and studied it with queer consternation. "Do you know how to put one of these things on?"

"Just hurry up and get it over with; I'm cramping." Denny shuffled his feet.

"Keep your legs apart." Holding it by a pinch, Alan picked a spot along the edge of the flimsy article and began rolling with his thumb. When the backing came off, he threw it aside and pressed the sticky side of the wound dressing against Denny's rump.

Denny jumped. "Ow! Be gentle!"

Alan smoothed it over the curve of Denny's rump and rimmed the edges to help it stick. "Relax. It only gets better from here." Lightly, he slapped other good cheek and withdrew. "All right; I'm done. You can straighten up."

"You're enjoying this." Denny spat the words out.

"I am." Alan draped a terry robe around Denny's shoulders. "Why should you have all the fun? You've been encouraging me to find more joy in firearms, and I am finally beginning to see your point." He held the robe to allow Denny to work his second arm in. "Why does my pleasure bother you? Wasn't it good for you?"

Denny jerked the robe panels together and tied the sash loosely, but it failed to do the job. The evidence was obvious on direct examination of the gap. "I need a cigar." He stalked off into the bedroom.

"And don't follow me," Denny shot back. "I need a little alone time to...fire and clean out my hand cannon.

"Oh dear." Alan watched Denny walk away. He fussed with the sticky, wet splotches that covered majority of his shirt. From the corner of the bedroom, the face of Shirley Schmidt Ho appeared to mock him from where she lay, used, abused and utterly deflated on Denny's rug.

Resigned, Alan returned to the guest room alone.

---

Boston was not a pretty city, thought Alan, but it did have its perks and amenities. In damp boxers and undershirt, he sat on the back deck listening to the cicadas and watching dusk fall over the backyard garden. He'd eschewed a cigar; they were reserved to crown that certain sense of satisfaction that comes at the conclusion of a good meal, a good trial, a good orgasm, or a good day in general.

At the moment, he was anything but satisfied, but he held hopes that his day might not be yet over.

Behind him, the screen door slid open. Denny stepped out onto the deck wearing gold striped pajamas. He was preceded almost equally by both the cigar between his lips and the tent between his thighs.

Alan glanced over at him, then up to Denny's face.

"Couldn't do it," Denny said. "Can't lie on my back. Can't get the—" He made a rude motion with a curled palm. "—mechanical advantage lying on my side. Sixty years of habit: you can't put an old swine in new grasps." He tossed a donut cushion onto the seat beside Alan's and tried to sit.

His erection immediately poked through his pajama fly, popping in and out as he wriggled to find a comfortable position on the wrought iron chair.

Alan watched, glued with interest, until he had to readjust himself in his own seat to avoid a similar circumstance.

Denny gave up and stood again. He paced behind Alan and gripped the chair back, discretely transferring some weight from his bad leg to the chair. His gaze dropped down to Alan's lap. "We could use the doll," he suggested. One hand went to Alan's shoulder

"You shot the doll, remember?" The tautness in Alan's muscles relaxed a little under the caress.

"Oh. Right. We could get hookers, then."

"Do as you feel you must, Denny, but I am rather hoping you won't. It would spoil our special time, something I put above both my own pelvic congestion or anything which can be purchased for an hourly fee—no matter how enjoyable said purchase might be." Alan leaned back and rolled his neck.

"I've missed you too," Denny mumbled. "I wish you wouldn't work so much." He kneaded the shoulder briefly, then dropped his grip. "And now that I finally have you all to myself, I can't even sit and enjoy our balcony time." He paced to the edge of the deck and drew on his cigar.

Alan stood. He stepped through the door to the guest bedroom, and rough scraping sounds ensued.

When Denny turned around, Alan had moved the bed in front of the patio doors. Alan flopped down on one side and patted the coverlet beside him.

Denny grinned. He came back inside, stubbed his cigar out on a tray on the nightstand, and settled down on his side of the bed.

Alan nestled up along side him—face to face and only a couple inches apart. Starting at the sternum and moving down to the navel, he ran the back of his fingers over the sateen of Denny's pajama top. "Nice PJs. Soft." He stroked again—this time a bit more firmly and with the pads of his fingertips.

"Mm," Denny grunted. "They ruined my favorite ones. Ambulance people cut 'em right off me. My lucky pajamas. I boned Céline Dion in them."

"Lucky pajamas, indeed." Alan's hand went to the breast pocket of the pajama top. "A handkerchief?" He pulled out a polka dotted silk square and shook it out.

"Cum cloth," said Denny. "A gentleman always cleans up after himself."

Alan ran it between his fingers, sniffed once, then folded it and tucked it back in the breast pocket.

"Careful. My nipples are erogenous zones," said Denny.

"I'll file that away for future reference." Alan patted the hankie flat against Denny's chest, letting his hand linger over the nipple for several seconds.

"I remember when we used to sleep together," Denny offered conversationally.

"Yes, the good old days. Then you broke it off and got married, I had a number of increasingly desperate and imprudent affairs in a pathetic attempt to ease my pain, but fortunately we have come through that and arrived in a place where we can still be friends." Alan clasped at Denny's hand.

Denny jerked his arm away. It flung over the side of the bed and brushed against something. "What's this?" Denny picked up a paper roll.

"Nothing. There was just a little confusion. I asked my hotel to send over the long, thin object from my bed, and they sent the wrong one. Although in retrospect, the one I meant was likely not still on the bed but in the bathroom sink soaking in ten percent bleach, so I shan't hold anyone but myself to blame." He reached to take the paper from Denny's hand. "But forget this. You were talking about us sleeping together. Why don't we return to that?"

"These are plans for a house," Denny said. He held the drawings up to better light.

"A duplex. Now, about sleeping with me—"

"Forget it. I'm on to you. You can't distract me with dirty talk. Only women can do that.

"Unless I do it myself," Denny added by way of an afterthought. "I thought you liked your hotel?"

"I do. But in life, things change, and I must plan for certain eventualities."

"Are they throwing you out over that silly business with the Danish volleyball team? I thought we paid 'em off?"

"I did. And it hasn't been decided yet." Alan made another try for the plans, but Denny yanked them aside.

Denny peered at the diagrams. "There's an inner door between them." He hurled the paper down to the floor in anger. "This place isn't for you! It's for me!"

Alan swallowed. "You're wrong, my friend. As well as being uncharacteristically presumptuous. This is most emphatically for me. It's so seldom we are graced with something in life that makes us truly happy; do we not owe it to ourselves to covet and cherish it if we are?

"It's said that boys look up to their fathers, but my father was not a nice man, Denny. He was impassible, cold, self-centered and supremely manipulative. He was in every way that which I aspire to make others believe that I am. I have always wanted a father figure I could admire and seek to emulate for his own excellence, and not be driven to copy by some sort of forced Darwinian imprinting. I have found such a man, and while I have done many foolish things in my lifetime, I cannot imagine anything that would be quite so foolish as allowing him to slip away."

"You want to have sex with your father?" Denny boggled.

"I want to cherish that which I hold most dear, and for that I do not apologize."

Denny grunted. "Damn straight. If you're going to take after me, that's one thing you never do."

Alan chuckled. Suddenly he craved a cigar.

"So this duplex. Is it built yet?" Denny relaxed against the mattress.

"Haven't even looked at land. It's just a thought. I was going to talk it over with some friends."

"Oh. So you have friends now."

"One."

"And?"

"I haven't yet brought it up. It's not an easy subject to broach."

"Kings are supposed to die reigning," said Denny. "Preferably in their mistresses' arms. That's the worst thing about our system. You do your best work—give your best years— then instead of honoring you, keeping you on the pedestal you've built for yourself with your own youth and sweat, they toss you aside and vote in someone newer, sharper. Someone without mad cow. I've been king of Boston, Alan, and I deserve to be recognized for that until I die.

"I don't want to go out ignominy. I don't want it, and I don't want to think about it. I know you're here to nursemaid me—"

Alan opened his mouth, but Denny just steamrollered over him.

"— and because of that you can fondle my ass, you can steam my noodles, you can point out every place I've slipped, but you cannot make me think."

Alan spoke very softly. "I would never do any of that, and I promise you, Denny, as long as I'm around, you will never have to think." He cleared his throat, and his voice rose louder now. "But I do have an unrelated question: do you care for wainscoting in a living room, or do you prefer a less formal look?"

"Interior decorating is for faggots."

"Indeed it is. Shall I take that to mean I should use my own discretion?"

"I don't want your sympathy." Denny directed the remark to someone beyond Alan's shoulder.

"You don't have it. But as a man with no shame whatsoever, I am not above asking for yours."

"You've got it."

Alan took his hand again. This time Denny let it stay.

"I'm stiffening up."

Alan looked down to Denny's pajama fly.

"Not there. My hip." Clearly uncomfortable, Denny shuffled his weight on the bed.

"Would you like a pill?" Alan sat up and put his feet onto the floor.

"No. The last thing I need is anything to increase my haze." Denny shuffled again. "I was thinking that instead of getting up, maybe I could just sleep here. Since I can't get off anyway, I guess it doesn't matter." Denny plumped up Alan's pillow. "And this is kind of...nice."

"It is," said Alan. He went over to the closet. In with fishing rods, clothes, tackle and creels, he found and extra blanket.

"When we're living together, you're not going take advantage of me, are you? Sexually, I mean. When I'm too old and feeble to fight back?"

"I wouldn't dream of it. The fight is most of the fun. I told you that." Alan spread the blanket over Denny's form

"Maybe I won't fight you," Denny mumbled. "By then, who knows what other offers I'll get."

"You're Denny Crane; you're just now working off offers from the eighties." Alan tucked the blanket around Denny's chin. "I am certain that you will never lack for adoring volunteers."

"Damn straight," said Denny. "Still, it's nice to keep my options open."

"Perhaps you could keep your options on your side of the bed," said Alan as he peeled off his damp underclothes. "While my intentions are honorable, as you know I have a sleep movement disorder, and I cannot speak for what my various and sundry body parts might do when freed from the chains of my strict mental and moral discipline."

Denny chuckled. "That's what you'd like me think."

"Denny," Alan paused as he peeled back the covers. "There are no armaments in this bed, are there?"

"Of course not. This is the guest room. I keep my munitions much closer at hand. Nothing here but fishing gear and a few assorted sex toys."

"And into which category would this fall?" Alan asked. He drew his hand out from under a pillow, and held out an orange, snub-nosed pistol.

Denny craned his neck. "Both. That's a flare gun." He reached for it. "For emergencies. It can't even—"

There was a crack and the room erupted in a blinding yellow glow. They both covered their eyes, and when they dared look, the six-foot-tall poster of Denny that hung from the wall was already almost entirely demolished by flames.

"Ooops," said Denny.

"Oh dear," said Alan. From the bed they sat quietly and watched the fire die out.

Alan turned on the overhead fan and opened the glass patio doors. He turned to Denny. "Only the one?" he asked.

"Mmhmm."

Alan crawled under the covers. "Good."

"At least I think so. Or was it maybe a set?"

Alan chuckled. "Would you pass me your cigar?"

"Oh no. You're not going to smoke in my house."

"Just a puff or two. It seems to be the trendy thing to do." Alan nodded to the charred and smoldering remains of six-foot Denny on the wall.

Denny passed over both the cigar and a lighter. "All right, but don't stay up too long. I need my beauty sleep." He closed his eyes and began to snore.

Alan sucked in a drag and blew out a giant breath. Perhaps life could be better than this, but he had not the foggiest conception of how.

---

Through the patio window, birds twittered and bees buzzed the morning sunshine in. Disoriented, Denny woke with a start to the first rays upon his face. He was used to being up at 5:30, and he was used to waking up if not in his own bed, then underneath a woman or two. But he was in his own guest room and, aside from himself, the bed was empty.

He checked the clock: 6:35 and the alarm not set. He smelled coffee. Denny put one foot out of bed, then the other, then his knees buckled and he all but crumpled to floor.

"Are you all right?" Alan's freshly shaved face poked in the door.

"Fine." Using the bed, Denny pulled himself up. His ass hurt, but only from where he had shot himself as far as he could tell— not from any weird business— so he categorized that as okay. Mad cow and scotch made a bad mix in that one couldn't always be quite sure whom one had had sex with. He trusted Alan, but then again, he was Denny Crane and who could blame a guy for going a little nutso around that?

"Up late, actually. Couldn't sleep." Alan walked beside him, easy catching distance away. "It's just as well. I want to grab Paul Lewiston's ear—as well as certain select and delectable parts of Shirley's anatomy—before the maddening crowd arrives."

"I hope you didn't use up all the hot water," Denny rambled, trying to cover up his infirmity with words. "I seem to need a good scrub." He brushed specks of ash off of his neck. They fell onto the duvet, already covered with fallout from the charred poster, and he shook that off as well. There was a small blood stain on the sheet below. He assumed his pajama bottom must be soaked through, but he wouldn't put a hand to check, not with Alan watching.

Of course, Alan would have already seen it.

"There's plenty. Let's go. I favored a colder shower this morning; it restores the blood flow to more appropriate organs for the work day. " Alan stepped over to take Denny's arm as he limped towards the hallway, but Denny shook him off.

Denny frowned at him. "You're dressed."

"Yes. I borrowed one of your shirts. Mine were all wrinkled in the move—not to mention now smelling somewhat charbroiled. Besides, it arouses me to walk around swaddled in your pheromones in plain view of God, Paul Lewiston, and the rest." Alan lowered his nose to his chest and took a melodramatic whiff.

"Don't try to change the subject," Denny growled. "You were going to leave without me."

"I was and I am. As soon as I've changed your dressing. Which brings me to a delicate subject: would you like some privacy before I put on the clean one, or are you strictly an after coffee and breakfast kind of fellow?"

"Thirty minutes. I'm going with you." Denny reached the bathroom counter and dropped his pajama bottoms. There was a little blood, not too bad.

"No time. I need to catch them before the staff meeting."

Denny grit his teeth as Alan pulled the old dressing off. "You're going to talk about me."

"You always assume people are talking about you."

"I'm right."

"You are." Alan swabbed at his bottom with a wet washcloth. "It's not so bad; just draining a bit in one spot. You're healing remarkably; you must have grade-A quality ass."

"So they keep telling me."

Alan rinsed the cloth under cold water and wiped again, a little more aggressively this time.

"I'm going with you. If you're talking about Denny Crane, people should see Denny Crane, otherwise they tend to lose the man in the myth."

"We could use a little cover of myth on this one. They should see Denny Crane recuperated. I'll let you know how it goes." Alan dabbed at the staple line, but no fresh drainage emerged.

"It's not fair. You're always running off and leaving me barefoot and...expectant."

"There, there. I laid your bunny slippers out for you," Alan soothed. He blotted the area with a dry towel.

"It's not funny, Alan. I put the 'Crane' in Crane, Poole and Schmidt—or at least I put the Crane in Schmidt. I should be there."

"You should. But not draining blood out of your bottom. You stay here and work on healing here. I'll go in and work on some healing there." He spread a thin film of ointment over the wound.

"Denny Crane can clean up his own messes."

"I'm certain that he can. But isn't it nice that he doesn't have to?" Alan stuck a clean dressing on. "Speaking of, remember your maid service will be here this morning. Try not to shoot them."

Denny glared at him.

"Bye, dear. The coffee's fresh, and I left you half of my banana." Alan gave the rim of the dressing a final rub, blew a kiss through the air, and left.

---

Alan zipped up and pushed the door to the bathroom stall open—and nearly into Shirley Schmidt.

"Shirley." He stepped primly around her and over to the sink. "We must stop meeting like this. You know how possessive Denny can be. Although I do do much of my best work in bathrooms, it's more typically on my knees." He contemplated her V-neck. "Or is today my lucky day?"

Shirley followed him to the sink. "I wanted to speak with you about Denny. In private."

"Then it is true that great minds think alike. And as my mind is currently thinking of the twenty-four most stimulating points of contact between my tongue and your person, perhaps we can arrange a meeting of said...minds." Alan removed his jacket and held it out in both hands as if prepared to lay it upon the floor. "I believe it is the customary gesture of gallantry for the gentleman to offer up his cloak to the purpose of wooing a lady. And a more delightful sacrifice was never made."

Shirley pursed her lips. "Save your dry cleaning money for your trousers, and tell me what you know."

"I know I don't spy on my friends." Alan replaced his jacket and turned the faucets on full. The sound of rushing water against the metal basin was an impediment to conversation, and Alan took his sweet time and splashed a good bit more than necessary.

Shirley declined to raise her voice. He would hear. "How is he?"

"Recovering."

"I'm glad. But that's only half of what I meant. I'm not trying to hurt him. I admire and adore him as much as you do. But we cannot pretend that this didn't happen. To do so belittles what he's going through."

"He's the same as he was yesterday in that deposition. He is the same as he was last week in court." Alan grabbed a hand-towel from the stacks.

"That tells me almost nothing. Except that you feel the need to protect him. And that in itself makes me ask 'why.'"

They faced each other in silence. Alan held the towel stock still.

The outer door swung open. Paul's stepped halfway in then pulled the door hastily to. "Pardon me—"

Shirley grabbed the inside handle. "No, Paul, come in. I was just asking Alan about Denny's condition. You should hear this too."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to call Brad in as well? An execution squad is most commonly at least three persons, to disperse responsibility and guilt," said Alan.

Shirley ignored the bait. "Save the showmanship for when you need it. The partners need accurate information. What can you tell us about the shooting?"

"It was an accident, nothing more."

Paul made a noise of disbelief.

Alan turned to him and brightened. "Don't be that way. Trust me; I should know. And I have the most to loose. I am the one sleeping with him now."

Paul's eyes flew wide. "Would you care to define 'sleeping with?'"

"Not unless sworn in, and even then, I would tap dance around it to the best of my abilities."

"Alan, this is unacceptable," said Shirley. "You were sent in to ameliorate the situation—"

"It ameliorated mine; Denny's too, I believe. He's been positively disconsolate since the loss of the doll." Alan smirked.

"You cannot carry on a sexual affair with Denny," Shirley said.

"Why not? There's precedent. Right here amongst the people in this men's room."

"Even assuming his competency—"

"Which is not to say that we are," Paul interjected.

"—you're opening the door to a nightmare should your name ever be put up for partnership."

"Yes, on the day when Porky Pig flaps over and lands on the frozen river Stygian waters, perhaps I'll lose some sleep. Until then, the only event that strikes me as less likely than being nominated for partner is the chance that I would accept such a nomination. What is, however, a very real and increasingly probable happenstance is that I be slated for termination. I'm told that Paul pencils in fifteen minutes to fire me each time he fills out his weekly planner. And it occurs to me that being the butt boy of a named partner might buy me some leverage in that case."

Paul choked in his throat. "In the name of—!"

Alan ran blithely over him. "Of course, being the butt boy of two named partners would really lock it in. What do you say, Shirley? I'll still be free every Sunday and Monday evening during football season and during every Red Sox game. I'd be happy to show you my...credentials."

"No need. I forgot my glasses and have trouble with small print." Shirley nodded to Alan's groin. "In any event, a red herring is a losing lawyer's favorite ploy, and this story is beginning to smell quite fishy to me, so we're going to drop it. I asked you about Denny's mental status and the cause of this recent event. I am hoping to handle this privately and without causing him further discomfiture, but if you won't cooperate I will have him assessed by outside parties."

Alan fastened his jacket and let his hand linger on the button. "I shan't ask Paul as we are all aware he hasn't erred since that one shameful potty-training incident on his second birthday. But you, Shirley: have you never made one single, humiliating error in judgment in your personal life—something that had nothing to do with your performance as an attorney or your contributions as a partner? And has that incident ever followed you through the years and cities, and personnel and rumor mills? And is that pattern something you condone or argue to perpetuate...or perpetrate on others here at Crane, Poole, and Schmidt?"

Paul looked to her with interest. Shirley inclined her head in concession. "You make it difficult to disagree."

"No. Only to disagree honestly. Far from my favorite kind of argument and a dirty trick, I agree, as I know you won't condescend to any lesser levels, but efficacious in this situation nonetheless."

"He does have a problem." Paul spoke from the corner.

"He does. He doesn't need two more," Alan said.

Paul shook his head in clear disapproval, though it was less clear as to what of.

"If we let this ride for now, you'll ensure that he gets a comprehensive medical evaluation and help." Shirley's face held a question although her tone did not.

"I will."

Paul shook his head again.

Shirley touched Alan's cuff. "They have medicines now, but they only work if started early. If you wait too long—"

"I said, I will." Alan's palm went reflexively to his breast.

Shirley nodded. "All right. That's settled. Then we're due at a staff meeting. Oh, and Alan—"

He tilted his head in her direction.

"For the record I have never been humiliated by any of my choices. And it wasn't a single experience; it was—by Denny's reckoning—somewhere between two-hundred and twenty-two-hundred 'experiences.' Depending upon exactly what one counts." She smiled and strode out of the men's room, grazing Joel Landson heading in.

Paul and Alan watched her go, Alan counting out loud and ticking off numbers on his fingers. At this rate he wasn't even going to get near the two-hundred mark. Clearly Denny had some more storytelling to do.

---

Melissa buzzed him at his desk. "Phone call on line three. It's Mr. Crane."

Alan frowned. Denny knew his cell number. Or at least had it on speed dial. "Is something wrong."

"I don't know; he just keeps saying his name."

"Ah, good! Apparently not." Alan picked up the line. "Denny, I told you never to call me here."

"I was bored. I miss you. Can you come home?"

"Now, now. I have work to do and an appointment for sex at 2:00."

"Sex. Oh, that's different. Someone I know?"

"I shouldn't think so. One of the transcriptionists. Amazing fingers, and she hangs on every word I say."

"Blonde?"

"Redhead."

"Big breasts?"

"Medium."

"Birth mark?"

"Left calf."

"Don't know her," said Denny. "Take notes for me?"

"I'll dictate and have her take it down as we couple."

"Mmm. I like it when you talk dirty. Come home soon." Denny gave an unsettling grunt, then the line went dead.

---

Alan sat at the window of Denny's darkened bedroom with his back turned to the room. Clothed only in boxers and his shirts, he spoke quietly into the phone of regrets for this week, but hopeful plans for the next.

The bathroom door clicked and fluorescent light flooded across the space. "What are you doing?" Denny demanded. He stood naked and dripping on the carpet.

Alan craned his neck around. He held a cordless handset up in the air.

Denny held up a matching one.

Oh dear. "Simon, I'll have to call you back." Alan clicked the connection closed.

"In my own house? With another man?" Denny dripped onto the bedroom carpet and slammed the handset on to the dresser.

Alan stood and turned to face him. "As thunderstruck as I continue to be by the magnitude of your homophobia, I've always felt...special...in that you would create such loopholes in your logic just for me. Are those salad days coming to a close?"

"Of course not." Denny went back for a towel. He wrapped one around his waist, the embroidered name falling front and center. With the other towel, he dried his upper half. "When you love someone, you don't have to like them. Or what they do."

"Then I fail to see the problem." Alan went to the bathroom for dressing supplies and opened a new pack.

"You're supposed to be with me!" Denny held the dresser and leaned over.

"I am with you." Alan spread his ass cheeks apart.

"You're cheating on me with him." Denny made a jerky gesture towards the phone.

"You had no objection to my dive into the typing pool this afternoon. Hold still." Alan smeared the antibiotic on.

"That's different. She's a girl." Denny paused and looked over his shoulder. "She was a girl, wasn't she?"

"A woman, and yes. But I see no difference between her and him—aside from somewhat less confusion about whose underwear is whose when reclaiming it from the pile on the floor. You're done." Alan pressed the dressing on and slapped Denny's other cheek in dismissal.

Denny straightened up. "You bet your balls it's different. Girls have—" Denny made cups with his palms and jiggled them in front of his waist.

"So does Simon." Alan tossed the wrapper out.

Denny dropped his hands.

Alan crossed back to stand in front of him. "Denny, I have and will continue to make many concessions in my life in favor of more time spent enjoying our friendship; I don't begrudge any of that. I value you beyond anything I may have traded for such a privilege. However, there are certain pleasures that I have no wish to relinquish. And as an Olympic level hedonist yourself, I don't believe that you would ask or wish me to."

"He's a man; I'm a man! There's nothing you can be getting from him that you can't get from me." Denny shed his used towels and tossed them onto the bathroom floor.

Alan regarded him queerly. "No, I don't believe there is."

"Then why do you need him? Why can't Denny Crane be what you need?"

"Which of us are you asking?" Alan held his eyes.

Denny's eyes narrowed. "You think that—sublingually—I want to have sex with you?"

"No." Alan went to the dresser and removed a pajama set from the bottom drawer. He passed it into Denny's hand. "I know for a fact that you do not. Given the extent of your capacity for delayed gratification, were that the case we should have both been prostrate on the floor in rug-burned bliss with a spent jar of Tucks pads between us before the first commercial break of the first episode.

"But I do think that Denny Crane is—beyond all else—a consummate expert at getting whatever he wants. If you want more from me, why aren't you taking it?"

"I don't want that with you."

"Denny, even you must realize that you must make a decision here. You cannot have it both ways."

"Sure I can." Denny swirled a fingertip about his ear. "Mad cow. I can say one thing one day, and forget it the next. And it's not fair of you to use our relationship to push me into something I don't want. That's what God invented secretaries for." One hand on the dresser to steady himself, Denny stepped gingerly into his pajama bottom.

"Denny, I give you my word of honor—and you are one of the very few souls who can believe the import that my own particular brand of honor does hold for me— that I would never intentionally do that. Or want to. But I have no wish to cause you pain or distress, yet I cannot change who I am or what satisfies me.

"There are as many kinds of sex as there are people, breed of dogs and sheep, phallic vegetables, 900 numbers, posters of celebrities and small furry rodents all put together. You have already been a larger part of my sex life than most persons with whom I have had penetrative intercourse."

"As it should be," Denny muttered.

"One thing I have learned from my sex therapist is that labels and conventions don't matter. Desires and pleasures and being true to oneself is what does. We can't process, bottle and label our feelings and then dole them out a drop from here, a swig from there in some FDA approved pyramid plan of what we should and shouldn't do to be healthy. We have to trust ourselves to seek out what we need in raw form. There are no safety or warning labels. We have to trust who we are to believe that what completes us, what makes us feel good is okay.

"I am merely concerned that amidst your homophobia and preconceptions, you are missing out on that which you have just now told me you want very much.

"If there is something you want—something I'm able to give and enjoy giving—I merely point out that it is available to you."

Denny pulled back the bed sheets. He kept his gaze down and away. "This is my side. And with the staples in, I can only sleep on my left side, so if I'm turned away from you, it doesn't mean I want to be." He lay down and faced the edge.

"Got it," said Alan. He flicked off the bathroom light. For a moment he contemplated his dress shirt, then finally climbed in the other side as he was.

Alan pressed his chest against Denny's back. It was less of a physical feeling, and more to open some channel between them, to validate a connection previously seen only in his mind's eyes. He reached around with his arms and was grateful for the odd position. It was so much easier to give when he didn't have to face the donee. Hands slipped under the pajama top and began to move against Denny's chest, then it was physical for him as well. He rubbed stiff nipples against the curve of Denny's back and wondered if, given enough time, he could come from this stimulation alone.

But Denny lay disturbingly still. A man did have a right to change his mind, didn't he? Even if he didn't remember what he had decided in the first place.

Alan willed himself stop and pull back. It wasn't difficult; he'd had plenty of practice over the years.

"Denny--?"

"Don't make me think about it," Denny mumbled. "Thinking's not my strongest suit these days." He picked up Alan's palms and placed one over each of his breasts.

As the blood rushed away from his brain, Alan again began to move.

Denny's respirations quickened, and Alan dropped one hand lower, to belly and flanks and whatever else was exposed above the elastic band. He moved rapidly caressing all the skin he could reach, as if in the sweep he could somehow collect something of Denny and save it for all time.

Denny's erection bumped Alan's wrist, and Denny either shivered or recoiled. From behind, Alan couldn't be sure which. Alan paused and held on just breathing. He'd broken moments far less fragile than this.

"Denny Crane." The words came out crisp and clear.

"What's that for?" The absurdity added to the emotional hash tipped some critical mass, and Alan would have laughed if he weren't afraid that would be the one thing too much for his friend to take.

"You're incredulous," said Denny. "I know. I've see it every day. You can't believe you're actually here with Denny Crane. I'm helping you get through this."

"You're helping...me?"

"I am."

"You are," Alan murmured, and he allowed it to be true.

With a deliberate movement, Denny placed Alan's palm atop his bare erection, and Alan's breath was drawn completely away.

The contact seemed more spiritual than sexual—albeit in a libidinously spiritual type of way. The pressure in his own groin seemed to fuel more a need to touch than to be touched, the perfect situation for prolonging this communion.

But there is something catalytic about the touch of unmistakably aroused bedmate, and Alan became a man obsessed. He dropped his head to Denny's neck and began to suckle, freeing some barely concealed oral reflex. Wrist kept pace with lips, and when Denny went still within his hand, it took Alan several seconds to realize why. He raised his hand to his nose and inhaled deeply, wiping the semen off on his face and neck. Then, just before his hand dried, although he knew he shouldn't, he allowed himself one tiny lick.

Not for the first time, he angered at what HIV had stolen not only from the dead and infected, but from everyone who had relied upon the carnal to connect with the world and those whom they loved. He could empathize with those who risked death rather than surrender the one contact that allowed them to feel alive.

"Alan." Denny's voice broke his reverie.

"Yes, Denny." Alan locked his arms around Denny's chest and held on.

"Aren't you going to—?"

"No."

There was a pause. "You don't know what I was going to say."

"It doesn't matter. There's nothing I want that is not contained in this moment, so whatever it is, the answer is 'no, I'm not.'"

"Alan."

"Yes, Denny."

"I...read people; I can't read you from behind me." Denny started to roll within Alan's embrace, somehow bumping hip against Alan's groin in the process. His head still pressed at an awkward angle into a pillow. "Now I can read one thing." Denny spoke into the feathers. "But that's not enough. Let me turn over." He jerked loose of Alan's arms and tried again to roll. It put pressure on his injury, and he winced.

"Stay there," said Alan. He clambered over Denny's body to lie facing him, balanced precariously on the mattress edge. He teetered, and Denny grabbed his shoulders, pulling him in. Through his boxers, his erection crowded Denny's thigh in a tantalizingly casual way.

"Better?" asked Alan. He forced an especially light tone into his voice to counterbalance his mood, which was anything but.

Denny shook his head. "I don't get you." He searched Alan's face, dropped his gaze down between their bodies, then brought it back up to hold his eyes.

Alan smiled a little wistfully. He put a hand to Denny's shoulder and fondled the soft fabric of the pajama top. "My friend, one of the things that draws me to you—awes me—is the indefatigable manner in which you turn everyday life into the absurd, and then on a whim, stand in front of a judge and just as easily present the absurd and turn it into something patently matter-of-course. I cannot pretend to understand it, nor do I wish to, as I prefer to enjoy the perfect wonder.

"But I ask you, can you credit me the same? Can you trust that although you may not share or understand my predilections, that they do in fact work for me?"

Denny gripped his shoulders tighter. "I need this to work for you. I don't want you holding back...going to someone else because you think that I'm afraid."

Alan looked away, more because he had no choice. "You'll have to forgive me. In my egoism and in my self-absorption, I utterly failed to consider that you might be afraid too." He let his forehead fall to Denny's breast.

Denny put his arms around him. "You have a lot of issues, don't you?"

"You have no idea." Alan nestled a little closer in.

"Alan." Denny's voice was very soft.

"Yes, Denny?"

"You're on my side." Denny jerked his head towards the empty half of the bed.

"Sorry." Hands first, Alan crawled back over his torso. He put arms around Denny's chest and closed his eyes.

---

It was just as well that he had sleep disorders, Alan thought as he plopped three ice cubes in his coffee and downed the cup in one continuous gulp, or it would be hard to get ahead of Denny in the morning. Not that he was certain to be ahead of him any other time, but at least this way he wasn't starting off the day already behind. He did take it as a good sign that Denny was already back in his habitual routines.

Alan had weathered one pang of guilt, but dismissed it more as a projection of his own patterns and poor decisions. Denny Crane was not wont to regret—assuming he remembered—anything he did. Especially if it involved a dose of robust sex.

But he had been in the bathroom a long time. It wasn't the wound; that was healing rapidly. Alan set the cup (Pam Grier with an automatic weapon—her clothes disappeared when filled with hot liquid, but the machine gun did not.) down and went to check.

"Are we all right in there?" Alan tapped at the door of the master bath.

The door flew open. "You gave me a hickey!" Denny stood there naked, pointing to his neck.

Alan thumbed the bruise in contemplation. "Apologies. It seems that in the heat of passion, my lips took on a mind of their own. Usually it's my penis. Perhaps you'll decide you did get the better bargain."

"You have to do something; I'm going into work tomorrow."

"I don't think that there's a cure for hickeys," said Alan. "Although I did once try to convince Tabitha Porter that swallowing semen would fade them faster."

"Does it work?" Denny pricked up his ears.

"After exhaustive experimentation, I must conclude, 'no.'"

Denny's face fell. "You did this to me; you have to fix it." He jabbed Alan in the chest.

"We can always tell them it's a powder burn from a wayward shot."

Denny's eyes narrowed. "Are you going to tell them?"

"Tell them what?"

"That we're having not-sex together."

"No need."

"Right." Denny nodded in decision.

"I already did." Alan smirked.

"What?"

"Yesterday."

"We weren't having not-sex yesterday!"

"Which is quite possibly why they didn't believe me. What can I say? I tried. My sacred duty to truth and candor has been fulfilled." Alan turned to go, but as he did, he spied Denny's pajamas on the floor. Bundling them up, he reached for the laundry hamper, but stopped before he lifted the lid.

They were still warm, possibly from the shower steam, but—as Alan preferred to think—perhaps from the heat of Denny's body. Alan lifted the bottoms to his face—crotch first—and drew in a breath.

"You're kidding." Denny gaped at him.

"One of the core comforts of an intimate relationship is the freedom to be who one is without fear of reproof. To date, you have not disappointed me on that score. Alan inhaled again and sighed.

"It's not reproof; it's confusion. I live in a damn big comfort zone; I'm not used to finding myself outside of it."

"Somehow I suspect that you're big enough for a comfort zone to form around you via gravitational pull."

"When I was your age, being a weirdo meant being able to understand all the words to disco songs. These days—" Denny shook his head.

Alan gave the flannel a last caress and chucked it into the laundry bin. He creased his brow and reached for words. "It's said that smell is the strongest trigger of emotional memories, but I suspect it's something more visceral than that. With smell, you inhale and absorb tiny molecules of the subject. They cross the alveolar membranes of your lungs and actually enter your blood and your own cells. Everything we have ever smelled becomes part of us. It's about the most erotic concept there can be."

"Smelling pussy turns me on." Denny nodded.

Like holes in the ozone layer, comfort zones weren't formed in a day.

"Okay, we'll run with that that for now." Alan dropped to his knees and leaned his cheek against Denny's thigh. He breathed in through the curls and out against the damp skin of the genital set. He watched as the penis began to fill and lift, and he smiled to himself at the sharp little hiss that Denny made.

Denny's hand went to the base to coax himself along.

Nuzzling the hand, Alan salted little kisses along the shaft. Denny groaned and rubbed his penis against Alan's other cheek. Rasping now, Alan exhaled over the base and balls as Denny strained to guide his semi-erection up to the parting of Alan's lips.

He made it. Alan kissed the tip once. Denny gasped and tried to push it in.

Alan stood up, leaving Denny holding...his bag.

"That's it?" Denny blinked.

He did look adorable standing naked and holding his...junior member.

"I'm afraid we don't have time." Alan straightened his collar and tie.

"It won't take me long." Denny gave himself an enthusiastic tug.

"That's what I'm afraid of. The finer things in life should be savored." Alan brushed nothing in particular off of his trousers. A prominent erection stood outlined when his arms jostled his jacket hem.

"You like it." Denny's eyes rested on Alan's front. "Living on the edge."

"I do." Alan's skin was warm, and his heart thumped in his ears. It was aroused that he felt most alive.

"I don't. Never saw the point to going wanting when a man can have anything he wants." Denny turned back towards the sink. He poured a splash of mouthwash into a cup and swished it around.

Alan watched him in the mirror. "I was thinking: I could come home for...lunch."

Denny eyeballed him in the glass. "Lunch?" The word came out a gurgle.

"Lunch. I know you'd planned to stay out another day, but I have a motion before Judge Brown this afternoon—a motion with no arguable legal merits whatsoever, yet one I desperately need to win, a situation which immediately makes me think of you. Besides, I think he likes you. Something about the way he says your name. I could swing by for lunch and pick you up. If you were willing."

"If you tell me to meet you at the door wearing something sexy, I'm going to shoot you, say I thought you were a burglar, argue it myself and get myself off."

"As far as I'm concerned, you needn't wear anything at all. Judge Brown, however, may hold a different opinion. Or he may not. But you'll have plenty of time to consider it. We appear at 3:00. I'll be here by 12:00."

"That's a long lunch."

"In some things, size matters."

"In that case, I'll take a pill."

"If you like. In that case, it's rather irrelevant."

"Not to me it isn't."

"I suppose not." Alan traced the hickey with his finger. "I think a point collar will cover it if you must, but I rather like that color on you." He kissed his own fingertip, then pressed it to the mark on Denny's neck.

Denny did a double-take. With a strained smile, Alan nodded his good-byes and left.

---

Lunch was forgotten in the tangle of sheets. They lay naked, Denny on his side, sticky and depleted, while Alan spooned with him from behind, visibly undepleted, and played fingers through the mess of pubic curls.

"All this time you spent to get me into bed, and you don't even want your orgasm?" Denny spoke with eyes closed, chin hung down to his chest. "If you're going to have sicko gay sex, you ought to at least get an orgasm out of it."

"I'll take that up with the sicko gay sex committee." Alan chuckled gently against his back.

"It's some kind of self punishment, isn't it?"

"Perhaps."

"You don't think you deserve Denny Crane. Well, you're right. But so what? No one does; Denny Crane's a gift."

"He is that. But I live with myself twenty-four-seven. I know better than anyone exactly what I do and do not deserve. I've done terrible things in the so called name of justice, Denny. If there is any fairness at all in justice, I must concede my pound--or fifty-- of flesh."

Denny grunted. "You have to do unfair things for justice. You'd be derelict not to. Someone has to. That's the beauty of the American way. And the beauty of an orgasm is that it's one perfect moment that anyone can have, regardless of worth, merit, money, power. You don't have to earn it or deserve it—it's just right there whenever you want it. It's the first and last truly equal opportunity."

"Perhaps that's why the deprivation the most elemental level of human pleasures seems most fitting for someone who has violated some of humanities most elemental codes."

Denny snorted. "Your sex therapist owes you a big refund."

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen my starting point."

Denny shook his head. Alan cuddled in closer against his back.

"There's also an inherent vulnerability with after orgasm—an emotional refractory period that coincides with the genital—during which a man's shields are down and he cannot raise them, no matter how imminent the danger, and any thing—any one—can work its way in. Vulnerability is one of the only things I truly fear."

"You think I'm a danger?"

"I think I have no defenses against you."

The sheets crinkled as Denny shifted his weight. "Alan, I'm seventy-four years old. I just did something I thought I never would." He grabbed Alan hands and pressed them against his heart. "If you can't lower your shields with your best friend, just what the hell's the point?"

Slowly, Alan began to move against Denny's leg.

"It doesn't hurt any more," Denny said. He stuck his bottom out and jiggled it against Alan's hip. "It's more kind of...an itch."

Alan pressed the length of his torso along Denny's backside, and he moved faster now. Alan lowered his face to the curve of Denny's neck and pressed nose and mouth flat, forcing himself to struggle for every partial bit of a breath. His head went light and he was flying, but it had been too long.

He had forgotten how to let go when it had to be emotionally and physically at once.

He placed his length along the crack of Denny's ass. He thought, despite Denny's words, it must hurt at least a little, but Denny didn't flinch, and he wanted this for himself too badly now. He arched his belly and strained to keep from chafing against the bandage as he rocked, and the increased muscle tension drove him closer, yet still not close enough.

His thrusts were wild now, and his length fell out of the crack. Too close to stop, he rubbed madly against the skin of Denny's rump, but his climax only edged further away. He smashed his face hard, resolved to take in no air, and he grew faint and heady, but his erection and potential climax had all but drifted away.

A cry of frustration escaped. Denny had rolled to face him, and suddenly his airway was free. . Alan's lungs gasped in reflexive to suck in a huge breath, and Alan flushed with the flood of fresh oxygen to his brain.

Denny took his dick in hand, and the shock was too much. Alan spilled in great spurts over Denny's fist.

"Hold me," Alan managed with the first words he could form.

Denny did.

"Harder. Harder. Harder." Alan choked out with his face pressed to Denny's chest. His breathing came in deeper and deeper sobs until Denny let loose his crushing embrace.

Alan looked up, his face eerily calm and dry. He tried to remember the last time he had lain like this with no desire to climax, only to feel.

It was half of his adult lifetime ago. What a catastrophic void that was. He generally stuck to the rule that the only people who were allowed to touch him were people who could never really touch him. Not for the first time in his personal life, he had the sickening feeling he had made a tragic mistake.

"Forgive me," Alan said. He drew a hand across his face to check, but to his relief, it came back dry. "Another reason I eschew mixing sex and love."

"Then you're missing out on something wonderful," Denny said.

"Yes, I have been."

Denny stroked his hair, as Alan began to fade in and out.

"You smell good," Alan murmured.

Denny froze. "You're not going to sniff my shorts again, are you?"

"Not right now." Alan pressed his face against Denny's breast. "You just smell so very, very good."

"Floris for Men. Flown in from Harrod's."

Alan squeezed his chest. "Indeed." Before he nodded off, he had a thought. "Set the alarm for two, would you."

"You don't need the alarm. I'll wake you up."

Alan opened one lazy eye to him. "We can't miss that court appearance."

"I said, I'll get you up. I'm not going anywhere." Denny stretched one arm to the nightstand for his smoldering cigar. With the other he stroked Alan's hair.

Alan closed his eyes. His head sagged down to Denny's chest, and let himself doze off.

---

Of course they won the motion. Alan never considered that it could go any other way once Denny walked in, and if Denny did, he never let on. Never lost; never will.

The derriere being healed to a reasonably comfortable state, they opted for dinner out—a treble celebration with Crane & Shore, surf & turf, and scotch & soda.

They arrived back at the a quiet and darkened house. "I miss our balcony," said Alan. He slouched into a living room chair.

"We'll get it back," said Denny. He walked toward the bedroom, discarding articles of clothing along the way.

"Do you want me to change your bandage?" Alan started to pry himself up from his seat.

"No need," Denny called back. "It's stopped oozing. I can reach it myself."

Alan sank back in his chair. He wasn't needed anymore. He lit a cigar and inhaled until he felt slightly sick.

Denny padded back out wearing pink jammies with little red hearts all over them and fluffy pom-poms at the drawstring waist.

Alan raised an eyebrow.

"I'm running low," said Denny. "Been going through a pair a day with that damned shot. It was either this or the ones with the elephant trunk over the fly."

"Something to look forward to." Alan set his cigar down. He wondered if he would get to see it.

Denny took the chair beside him and picked up the remote control. He clicked on the television. "Oh, it's B Movie Babe week! Look, Green Slave Women from the Planet Exo. That's a good one." Denny lounged back and scratched. "And the really good ones come on this weekend: I Was a Teenage Ho-wolf, Rocketship KY, and The Tingler."

"Pity I'll be missing them." Alan sipped scotch.

"Why? Going somewhere?" Denny turned to him, his face was unreadable.

"Not that I know of." Alan guarded his tone.

"Good. I hate eating marshmallows alone." Denny turned up the volume on the TV.

Alan started to speak, but Denny cut him off. "Look, look! Here's the good part. Watch where the green girl hides her lasergun." He waved at the screen with the remote control.

"Ingenious," said Alan. He twisted his head upside down to try to get a better view.

"I taught her how to do that," Denny said.

Alan just stared at him.

---

For the first time in a long time, Alan slept like a rock. If the alarm went off, he didn't hear it. Instead he woke to Denny in a candy-cane shirt and suspenders shaking him by the shoulders.

"Get up, lazy bones. Lock and load! Today's the day that Denny Crane is back in the saddle."

Alan pulled the pillow over his head. "Perhaps you could wait for me down in the livery, pardner. Somewhere between the green slave women and the fourth glass of scotch I seem to have misplaced a few hours sleep. What time is it?"

"Six o'clock." Denny pulled the pillow off. "Come on; you and me, soldier. We're flaming in together, you and I."

Alan pulled the duvet up. "I must have forgotten to tell you: we're not going in. The hospital called. You have a post-operative check this morning at 10:00. I thought I'd take you in case he needs to do something--give you something."

"You go in. I'll call the car service."

"I'd hate to think of you stoned and running about Boston with your bottom hanging out and a drain hanging out your bottom. You might get taken advantage of. Worse, by someone who isn't me."

Denny peered at him. "You just...forgot to tell me?"

"I am sorry, but what does it really matter? Wake me at eight and have your saddle soaped for both of us."

Denny sat on the edge of the bed. He was silent almost long enough for Alan to fall back to sleep.

Almost.

"You know, this not-sex is kind of fun."

"Mm."

"But I am feeling a little...one-sided." Denny fidgeted with the hem of the sheet that bore his embroidered name.

"You like things one sided. As long as it's on your side." Alan tugged the coverlet to his chin.

"I do. But I wouldn't want you to feel used."

"I liked feeling used by lovers. It is much safer than the alternatives and virtually obligation free."

"You're never obligated to me," said Denny.

"Nor are you to me."

"No, but hypothetically, if we were to not-do something that you wanted, what would it be?"

"I can't think of a single thing I wouldn't want to not-do."

"Hm." Denny stretched out on the bed and reached under the sheet.

Alan was suddenly wide awake. "Denny, this isn't a good idea. I've never been a...morning person, so to speak, and am somewhat slow to rouse. This isn't a token gift of appreciation that you can drop off and be about your business."

Denny shrugged. "It's not like I have any place to be without you." He loosened his tie and undid his top button. He slid his arm back under the sheet and placed his hand in the way he always liked it himself. "How about it? Does that feel good?"

"That feels...phenomenal." Alan closed his eyes and, just for the moment, allowed himself to be taken away. And how much lighter he felt once he did. "But I promise you, I am quite fine. As much as I appreciate the gesture, it's not something you have to do."

Denny's focus faded into the distance. "In fifty years of law, I've wielded power and won litigation that's made tens of thousands—hundreds of thousands of people happy. But do you know how many people I've made happy for myself?"

Alan swallowed. "I do not. But if it is your goal to make it one more, there's no need. You've already done so. He brushed the back of his fingers along the side of Denny's jaw. "I shouldn't risk gilding the lily."

"You fairies and your damn flowers," said Denny. "You give me fair warning before any...gilding. I just had this suit cleaned."

Alan chuckled, and his muscle tone went noticeably less tense. It had been so long since he had encountered anyone he held in higher esteem than he did himself, that he had forgotten how good it felt to relinquish so much trust.

Or that he even could.

Denny flashed a private smile. "That's better. Relax, I know what I'm doing." Hand still under the sheet, Denny kicked his shoes off one at a time. One flew into the deflated corpse of Shirley Schmidt-Ho, and knocked her face first to the carpet.

"Dear me," said Alan. He sat up and cricked his neck to regard the doll.

"I know what I'm doing; you remember that." Denny voice called him back with impassioned intensity, as if to brand the words in some metaphysical way.

"All right," said Alan. His head lolled back, and he let out a gigantic sigh.

"You remember that," Denny repeated softly. "There may come a day when you have to do it for the both of us."

---

Surgical follow-up clinic was on the sixth floor. "Denny Crane. Ten o'clock appointment. Denny Crane." Denny propped his hands up on the entrance desk and waited to be recognized.

The receptionist checked her computer. "I'm sorry, sir. We don't have you."

"Crane, Denny. Try it that way. Denny Crane."

The receptionist glanced askance at him and pretended to look. "I'm sorry, still not there." She hit a button, and new listings scrolled by. "Oh, I see! You do have an appointment, but not here. Ten o'clock, Dr. Lee, 1262, neurology. That's—" she pointed to the elevator bank.

"I know where it is," said Denny. He stalked off down the hallway with Alan hopping to catch up.

"You said it was for the staples." When Denny sounded really angry as opposed to posturing angry, it was generally because he was afraid.

"I'm sorry, Denny. I must have misunderstood." Alan's voice took on his shaggy-dog story lilt. "The hospital called, I wasn't really paying attention. I heard ten o'clock today, the important part—and considering everything, I must have just naturally assumed the rest."

"You're lying," Denny said. "You didn't think I'd come if I knew the truth."

"I know that one of the best hospitals in the world called to say they wanted to help. It seemed reasonable to at least stop by."

Denny glared at him. "I wasn't scheduled for another six months. Paul must have told him something. Or Shirley did. I hope she didn't tell him about our threesomewith the drag queen. I didn't know. He even had Streisand's nose."

"Then, I can set your mind to ease," said Alan. "They've told no one outside the top levels of the firm and are fighting tooth and nail to see that it stays that way. At one point Paul seriously considering having me killed because I knew too much." Alan cocked his head. "Or perhaps that was merely an excuse to act out his fondest desires."

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Denny didn't move. "This doctor--what if he knows?" He turned his eyes to Alan.

"This isn't about pride," Alan said.

"It's always about pride. It has to be. At the end of the day, it's all we really own. Life can take anything and everything from you, but never that because you make it up yourself as you go."

Alan swallowed. "He's trying to help you, and can only do so if he knows the truth."

"What if he can't help?" When the biggest people looked so lost was when the true fragility of the human condition became most apparent.

Alan swallowed. "Then we go home." He rested a palm upon Denny's shoulder.

"Home." Denny exhaled, squared his shoulders, and strode down the hallway to 1262.

---

They left just in time to hit the lunch hour traffic snarl.

"You knew," said Denny. His eyes were closed and his voice was ominously soft. He stared straight ahead from the passenger seat.

"I scheduled it," said Alan. Up on the clutch and down on the gas just a smidgen, he rolled a couple more feetdown the street.

"You have no business trying to run my life. I'm not senile yet."

"No."

"I make my own decisions."

"You do. And no one is stopping you. In fact, they are encouraging you."

"Pushing. You're pushing me."

Alan rolled a few more feet forward and stared off over the line of traffic ahead. "When my wife died horribly, it killed most everything that mattered to me—in me. I did not believe that I could feel that way again. Or perhaps I didn't want to. Perhaps I still don't, as I am not certain that anything is worth enduring that amount of pain again. But it seems I am now in a position where I have no choice."

"We can't stipulate our feelings," said Denny. "No. We can't. I have often thought that God and the Devil must have teamed up before the fall to create such a wonderful and terrible trick."

Denny chuckled. "Who needs the Devil when we have Bill Buckner?"

Alan didn't laugh. "I don't want to lose you, Denny. I can't put it more clearly than that. And if out of my terror and my selfishness I seem to endorse you protecting yourself a little more strongly than an outside party strictly should, perhaps, if in your lifetime you have ever suffered such a loss, perhaps you will empathize and grant me a little latitude with my reactions. Please believe me when I tell you that in the most literal sense of the word, I do not believe I can survive that kind of grief and loss again."

"Then you shouldn't be here." Denny gazed out the passenger window.

"Probably not." Alan placed his right hand upon Denny's thigh and smiled out the side of his face. "But aren't stolen pleasures the most fun?"

Denny chuckled. He opened the left side of his jacket, nudging Alan's hand away from his leg and reached into his inside pocket. He pulled out the prescription slip and twiddled it around.

"There's a drug store two blocks down. Pull in, will you," Denny said.

Alan glanced to him.

"What?" Denny shot a look back to him. "I'm out of condoms. They sell the jumbo packs." Denny set the prescription on the dash and leaned back in his seat as the car inched forward through a traffic light.

---

Denny sat at the kitchen table staring at the capsule in his hand.

Alan slid into the chair beside him. "I don't think it works by staring at it."

Denny grunted. "I looked this stuff up. Did you know it's related to weed and insect poison as well as chemical weapons?"

Alan reached across the table and picked up the bottle. He rolled it over, and the capsules rattled against the plastic. "Nerve gasses. Yes, I did. They're all types of cholinesterase inhibitors. In an over-dosage, there are symptoms similar to those shown with organophosphate poisonings. In prescribed doses, for people who have need of it, this particular formulation acts specifically in the brain to return diminishing chemical levels to pre-illness states and have been shown to allow as much as five extra years of meaningful cognition."

"It's killed people's livers." Denny rolled the capsule between thumb and forefinger. "If my liver's going to go before me, I promised it would be barrel-aged single malt or nothing."

"The first medication developed did, yes. This one has not shown those problems."

"Yet."

Alan remained silent, for it was either that or agree.

"You want me to take it," Denny said.

"I would never ask a friend to make a life altering decision on the basis of what I want. And with a loved one, I should hope I wouldn't have to. But it terrifies me how very close I am to beseeching you to do just that." Alan set down the pills and folded his hands atop the table.

"If I take it, I have the disease." Alan had to strain to hear the mumbled words.

"And if you don't, then what do you have?"

"Who knows?" Denny shrugged.

Alan creased his face and tried to think like Denny. "The pill can't give a person Alzheimer's."

"Of course it can. I create my own reality. Always have."

"That would explain much." Alan sipped from Denny's whisky glass.

The kitchen clock ticked off seconds as Denny contemplated the pill. "When I stand up in front of judge jury and explain things the way I want them to be seen, that's the way it becomes. The judge gives his ruling, it's entered as a legal ruling—a fact—and from then on, that's the way it is. It's Denny Crane's gift. He can make anything he says become true."

Denny hesitated, then started to speak again. "This pill is a commitment, Alan. He said that this stuff works like a dam. Once you start it, you have to keep taking it or you lose everything you built up. If I acknowledge I'm committing to an Alzheimer's medication for life—" Denny raised the capsule in the air, and his voice trailed off. "That's not the reality I want to create."

"All successful people mold their own reality. They take action to make what they want become real. That's what a life lived is. So I suppose the question is, what do you want for your mad cow, Denny, and what are you going to do to make it happen?"

With a rough movement, Denny grabbed the glass of scotch and downed the pill.

Alan picked up the empty glass and twiddled it. "When the doctor said to take with a meal, I suspect he had something other than this in mind."

"Don't tell me what to do." Denny stalked off into the living room.

Alan followed with the bottle and two glasses. He poured for both as if nothing had happened, brought the humidor over between them, then sank into an overstuffed chair.

The Chinook stared down at him with beady eyes. Alan stared back. "I've been thinking: when could we go fishing again?" He cut the end off a Padrón and raised it between his lips.

Denny grunted into his drink. "Not for a while. They'll need me to make up for the time I was out. Things aren't the same without the Big Bird around the place."

"They will, and they aren't." Alan raised his glass of scotch in a toast.

"Maybe next month."

"Sounds good. Perhaps Simon might like to go with me before then." Alan held the flame to the cigar and puffed until it caught.

Denny glared at him.

"Kidding," said Alan. He exhaled and waved the cigar in the air.

"Not funny. You're sleeping with me now. I expect you be faithful, or...I'll sue you for breech of promise."

"Ha!" Alan chortled. "I'd love to see old Jibber-Jabber Sanders hearing that one!"

"Could be fun," said Denny.

"Could be," Alan agreed. "So...I should call Simon?"

"Don't even think about it." Denny chewed his cigar.

"Promise," said Alan. He blew a ragged smoke ring toward the Chinook.

Denny reached for the TV remote. "So what'll it be tonight? Zombies of the Stratosphere?"

"A true classic. And you say it gets better than this?"

"It does." Denny reached between his legs and rearranged his genitals with his hand.

Alan kicked of his shoes and put his feet up on the coffee table as the intro credits rolled. "Oh goodie. I can hardly wait to see what's coming next."