"So how's this going to work, George?" I whispered, craning my neck to see over his rather attractively bulky shoulder. "You going to play lookout while I scrub down?"
"Or I can play hide and go seek the girl parts while you scrub down." He offered.
I, in turn, offered a smack upside the back of his head. He didn't seem too interested in the idea after that.
"All right, coast should be clear," he announced, still rubbing the sore spot on his scalp. It was a wonder indeed that he could reach skin through all that hair. All that hair…God, wouldn't it feel so good to run my fingers through it while he's naked and sweating and I'm underneath him and oh, that does feel nice…
He turned to face me, big doe eyes fixed on mine. "You ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." I replied.
It was dark, thankfully, as we traipsed the empty grounds of the seemingly deserted camp. But just like the night we arrived in Toccoa, appearances were deceiving. On the outside it might have been just another lonely base, where people came to get their asses whipped into the right shape to fit into the ever-evolving machine of war, but beneath the skin there was a lot more life than could be found by just one over the shoulder glance.
In our quarters, Liebgott, Muck and Martin were playing craps on a cot while Guarnere muttered to himself and cracked his knuckles. Malarkey would be lying on his back, counting the minutes before the lights went out and then there was Sergeant Lipton, the company mother. He'd fuss over the lonely ones, the ones that kept to themselves, mostly poor Gene who was just fine and dandy with his own thoughts that turned inward like a reflection in the mirror.
Ever the southern gentleman, Gene would be polite in answering the Sergeant. Perhaps it was also because he'd get an ass whipping if he wasn't polite. I never pictured the sad-eyed medic as a violent type anyway.
Liebgott, however, needed a few beatings to keep his hot, fat head in its place. Sometimes it just grew too big for its britches and took over the entire barrack. Sergeant Lipton would get up, switch his commonplace soft everyday gaze for the reprimanding glare and Liebgott would sink back into bed like a whipped puppy. His fists would constrict one last time, the remaining surges of fury filtering out of his system, and he'd clear his throat. All contrite and the like.
God, it was just too funny. The dynamics of the Easy boys.
I closed in on George as he stopped in front of the shower barrack. He waved his hand in front of his face and looked back at me with the most disparaging expression on his face. "Fuck me, would you go wash yourself already? You smell like the rotting carcass of a dog that's been eaten, digested, regurgitated, eaten again and then shat out and left to decompose in a gutter."
Sure, George. I'd love to fuck. But when you put it that way, it just kills the mood completely.
"That's what happens when you don't shower for two weeks straight. Learn from my example, my old friend…shower regularly. Restrict yourself to two packs a day. Oh and...stay in school."
"Too late for that one," he chuckled.
I gave him a pat on the shoulder and then snuck quietly into the little slipshod shack that served as our showering sector. Inside, there were wooden stalls, pitted from routine use by slap-happy knuckles and unruly boys that just didn't know how to go about their daily business without breaking a few teeth first.
This was the way it usually went for me. If I wanted to shower, I had to have a guard posted outside just in case the enemy caught even the slightest trace of female scent on the air and came sniffing around like a pack of hungry dogs. That would just not do.
It had to be George. No one else knew my secret and I planned on keeping it this way for a very long time. Until I died, hopefully. Or the end of the war. Either one would suffice, really, as long as they didn't distinguish any differences in my anatomy from their own.
And if they ever found out…I would shoot their nuts off.
"How's it going in there?" George called from outside. His voice was muffled by thick slabs of concrete and cracked tile. But George had this special ability…if he wanted to be heard, then by God he was going to be fucking heard. And with style. Usually it was a sarcastic remark or a joke that reached our ears, but sometimes, in a blue moon, there was something of a serious nature lurking around beneath that dense, brown thicket of hair.
It wasn't often though. We came to expect something snotty every time he opened his mouth.
Of course, I'd mastered this ability years ago. The boys had just now learned of it.
"Well, there's water, there's a bar of soap and when the water and soap become one, I shall proceed to clean myself," I replied, rolling my eyes as I turned on the shower head. The change of clothes, bar of soap and fresh chest-wrap I'd brought with me tumbled out of my arms into the sink closest to me and I looked around one last time to make sure I was completely alone. Finding that I was, indeed, solitary in the shower barrack, I stripped down until I was completely naked and flung my clothes in a nearby corner, where I'd be able to find them afterward.
I fished the bar of soap I'd brought with me out of the pile of clean clothes and bandages and kept it locked in a tight grip (a slippery bar of soap was a fucking bear to catch once it escaped your hands). Checking the temperature of the water first, I then stepped underneath the cool, steady stream and had to hold back the deepest, most beautiful sigh of relief. It was a shame, really, to waste such a sound on something so common as taking a shower. On the thought of being washed, actually sanitary for once, after I got dressed and walked back to the barracks with my sentinel standing outside the door, probably checking every last pocket his clothing provided for a spare smoke and, if he was lucky, perhaps a lighter.
But I didn't want George getting the wrong idea and come in, either worried I'd slipped and fell right on my ass or aroused or an odd combination of both. I kept the euphoria to myself for the time being.
Plus I wanted him to be equally, and beautifully, naked, as I knew him to be underneath all those bothersome clothes, when he saw me bare-bottomed for the first time.
"Are they having sex or cleaning you up?" He quipped. "Cause from here I can't tell. It sounds a little raunchy."
"That's because everything sounds raunchy to you, George," I replied, running the soap over my arms. I swore that I saw the topsoil of an entire country going down the drain as I scrubbed two weeks' worth of grime off my skin. "I could say something about Sunday school and you'd still find something sexual about it somewhere. Even if you have to dig it up out some dusty old grave from a conversation three years back."
For a few minutes, I bathed in beautiful, watery silence. That last retort must've made him smile and agree to armistice or frown and think up something equally ego-deflating to say in return. Meanwhile, I enjoyed the lack of conversation. It was something George and I could endure in each other's presence. Not having anything to say and not really giving a fuck otherwise if there was any discussion between us at all. It had taken years of growing used to one another, of finding out each other's mannerisms and decoding cryptic body language, but we found a rhythm that we liked best and stuck to it. It was off-kilter and, to the rest of the world, terribly crass, but we were too used to it by now to change the coarse, brusque cadence.
"You done yet?"
"Rush me and I'll have to come out there and kick your ass."
"And risk being discovered?" He snorted. The crude sound ricocheted off the tile walls with a metallic sort of thud. "Like you'd endanger your secret just to do what you've been doing since you were four years old."
"That's right." I cracked a smile as I massaged the lather into my scalp. "And I can still kick it as expertly now as I did then."
"Oh, right," he replied sarcastically. I could almost see the movements he made as he depicted this lapse in recollection. "Those mud wrestling contests when we were in grade school…you won all of those."
"Very good, Luz. I guess your memory's not so shoddy after all."
"Actually, the correct phrase is that's bullshit because I beat your scrawny ass into the dirt on multiple occasions."
"George?" I called to him.
A pause. He was thinking this over. Either a threat or something like adoration was about to come his way full speed ahead. "Yeah?" He finally replied.
"Shut up and take it like a man."
"You first."
"Ladies first, actually," I retorted.
"Then you should already be lined up."
"Do you find it fucking entertaining to risk exposing me?" I snapped. "It's bad enough that Gene's starting to look at me like I'm some kind of three-headed monster, but now I have to listen to you shoot off hints like a fucking ballistic pistol."
There was a sliver of a laugh in his voice as it reached me. "I do find fucking entertaining."
"That's not what I asked."
"I took it out of context," he explained. "All I heard was fuck and entertain and after that my brain just completely shut off."
I rolled my eyes and shut off the water. Part of me mourned the loss of the comfort, but the other half was screaming for a little shut eye. Then there was the other fraction…the one that wanted to both beat George's big, infuriating head against a brick wall and then proceed to fuck him senseless against said partition. It was so confusing sometimes, being attracted to a member of the pig-headed race known simply as males.
"You men are all the same." I mused forlornly as I pulled a fresh pair of fatigue trousers over my damp legs.
"Then you should thank me for setting a good example for you."
"George?"
"Hmm?"
"Can you help me out here? I need an extra pair of hands to get this fucking breast-crusher into place."
"I can't promise that I'll be on my best behavior, but I sure can try."
Oh, how I wanted him to be on his worst behavior. But that should be saved for another time and I hoped to high heaven that he would keep his hands to himself for now. Or at least conduct them in a mannerly fashion. Neither seemed possible when it came to George Luz; I only hoped that I could keep my own unruly hormones in tact if he happened to let a hand slip in the wrong direction.
God, if you want me to remain a virgin, you will help me out a little here.
He came inside and his eyes widened a little bit as he calculated my state of undress. Luckily he could only see my unclothed back. "Holy mother of God you're naked as a jaybird."
"I did warn you. I guess you weren't listening."
"And for once, for not listening, I have been rewarded. I'm a happy, happy boy." He grinned wickedly. The elfin creature from our golden days was beginning to peek out from beneath his adult guise. I wasn't fooled by the front; he would always be a little kid wrapped in the image of a grown man.
"You'll be a happy, happy boy with no hands if you don't behave yourself."
"I do like it when you threaten me with punishment, Max," he purred.
His eyebrows danced as he neared me and I couldn't take it. I looked away, busying my attention with something less…arousing. Ah, my breast-holder wrap. That seemed relevant to our situation. If it weren't for the fucking breasts, I wouldn't be here in this stupid situation. Well, neither situation really…being attracted to your male best friend was less likely when you were of the same gender.
Heat still pooled in the bottom of my stomach. Fucking tease. One of these days, if he didn't cut that shit out, he was going to find himself smashed up against a wall with lips and teeth and tongue attached to his neck. Then he would be sorry he ever provoked the little black lust monster.
"So, how do I do this?" He held up the wrap that I handed over to him and examined it as if it were a conundrum. Or a corset. Both were complicated and much too hard to understand while looking through the male eye. "Do I just slap it on or is there more to it than that?"
"Just wrap it around my chest and hook it in the back or something. It's not fucking rocket science."
"Well god damn if it isn't Aunt Flo coming up for a visit," he drawled in his infamous Major Horton impression. It dredged up quite the laugh in response. "You on the rag or something Max?"
"It's just so infuriating," I replied, lifting one arm as he wrapped it around my upper torso. "You men are so good at tearing things off that you forget the mechanics of putting things back on."
"Feeling philosophical today are we?"
"A little."
Silence swept over us as he concentrated on making the bindings comfortable enough to breathe in, but not in danger of becoming loose on one of our Currahee runs. It would be quite the scandal if I was being shouted at by the Lieutenant and during the spit-shower laced with accusations of inadequacy my female parts happened to pop out to say good morning and kindly ask the loud mouth to please shut the fuck up…
Let's just say it would go over much quicker than a fart in church.
"There," he said at last, breaking the quiet that had settled over us like a protective wing. He patted my side and appraised his good work. "Comfortable my pet?"
"Snug as a bug in a rug."
"Fan-fucking-tastic," he announced. He threw up his hands in victory. "I'm a genius. Beethoven is nothing but a dim light bulb compared to my brilliance. Monuments should be erected in my honor."
"I can find at least three things about that sentence that was completely and utterly disgusting."
"Of course you can," George teased. "It's because your mind is as dirty as a cesspool."
"Because of you," I made it a priority to point this out. As it was completely and utterly his fault that my mind was nothing more than a gutter and the current of his dirty thoughts ran through it on daily basis. Not to mention the influence of the other guys…Liebgott especially had a filthy way of thinking. It was no secret that I would be his favorite person if I ever was discovered. Simply for having breasts. And that would be all.
"That's right," he admitted proudly. "Because of me."
"Who's fucking playing and who's not?" Liebgott's obnoxiously loud voice emerged victorious over the background noise of exchange that passed between the lot of us. I'd been watching Roe silently for the past ten minutes. The poor boy looked as if someone had just shot his best friend.
Then again he always looked that way.
Martin stuck a finger in his ear and shook it, as if to wiggle the pain out of it. "Fuck. Don't you got a mute button or something?"
"God damn, Joe, who shit in your coffee this morning?" Malarkey asked.
"Don't give him-" I gestured to George. "Any bright ideas."
"What the fuck did I say?" George lifted his hands in feigned innocence, but I could see the gears of his mind turning as it processed the idea.
"Deal me in, Lieb," I said. "And Gene too."
"What?" The medic perked up instantly. Realization caught like a snag in an old sweater in his stony blue-gray eyes.
I perched on the edge of his cot, where he had been sitting, cross-legged and characteristically brooding as he stirred the melting pot of his thoughts. "You're playin' poker with us."
"Naw," he drawled. Something like a shy smile lit up his gloomy face like a pale paper lantern. "I'm…I'm not all that into cards. Don't reckon I remember how to play, really."
"Don't be a pussy, Gene." Lieb barked from across the way. Already, Malarkey, Lipton, Toye, Guarnere, Skip, Martin and George were gathering around him like flies on shit. Judging by the smears of sweat-tinged dirt on his face and the greasy state of his mussed-up hair, I could only guess he smelled like it too.
"Yeah, come on," Martin joined in with a roguish grin. "We won't bite unless you want us to."
"Even then we might protest." George quipped. The men broke out into shared, sociable chuckles.
"Well fuck me on a stick," I proclaimed to the room. Gene looked at me in that muted little way; he was so accustomed to profanity being thrown around like a soiled rag that it didn't disturb him anymore, not in the least. Besides, from the rumors I'd heard being tossed casually around the mess hall, the man could curse up quite the storm himself if caught in the right, or rather wrong, mood. "This just ain't going to fly," I said, offering him a gentle, playful nudge, the same kind I gave George on a daily basis. "If you're bunking with us, sharing our stink with us and having to listen to George snore all night, then you're one of us. There ain't nothing else to it."
"That sounds uncomfortable to me," Guarnere mentioned passively in his usual Philadelphia twang as he sifted through his hand. "The fucking on a stick part. I'm used to waking up to the smell of your un-wiped asses in the morning."
A swell of giggles broke out amongst the lot of them. Even hot-headed Liebgott cracked a devilish little smile in honor of Guarnere's distracted train of thought.
"Don't you guys ever think of anything besides sex?" Lipton inquired. There was hope in his voice, hope for his own race, but it was hollow optimism at best. Even he knew that all men thought about was fucking. They were sex organs with legs. Even he thought about it.
"What else is there in life?" Muck asked. The funny thing about it was…he had asked in earnest.
"I snore?" George received the news a little belatedly and said this more to himself than to the group, but it was processed with much astonishment. This was all news to him. "Fuck, since when?"
I shrugged half-heartedly, still lounging on Gene's orderly cot, mirroring his posture as I tried to convince him to join us. "I don't know, women seem to get along just fine without it. Sex, I mean, not George's snoring. I could live without that."
"How would you know anything about women, pipsqueak?" Liebgott narrowed his eyes at me.
"More than you'd think, hot-head," I replied. "Had a lot of friends of the female race back home."
Gene looked at me sideways, as if through a prism, and I threw off a lot of colors as he witnessed their crystalline birth, but none that he could shape into familiar names. Something about the way his eyes dug into my exposed corners unnerved me, but everyone knew he meant no harm. Just the opposite, really. His hands evoked calm when there seemed nothing but chaos. When he was conceived, some said he had been fashioned out of the same material angels were made of and that was where he derived all this healing power.
Or he just knew how to bend words.
Hearsay was all a bunch of shit anyway.
Liebgott was growing very annoyed with waiting. A dangerous thing, the Jew and impatience sitting under one roof. "Are we going to fucking play or just sit around with our fingers up our asses?"
"I opt for the second choice," Malarkey remarked calmly. "This toilet paper we've got sucks. My ass has not stopped itching since I took that big nasty shit yesterday."
"I could have gone my whole life without knowing that, Malark," George replied. He put a hand on the man's shoulder, a gentle smile on his lips, but I knew it was made for mockery. "Thank you."
Even Lipton had to laugh at that one. Gene cracked a peculiar little smile too.
"So, Doc," I returned to my mission at hand; I would conquer. I would emerge the champion in this game of evasion that he liked to play. "Poker? Come on. I'll show you how. You can cheat off me."
He shrugged a little, almost as if he were digging up some excuse, any one of them really, to refuse. But, after a moment, he looked like he was breaking down. He was going to give in. I reigned triumphant.
Until -
"Roe," came a voice from the doorway. We all looked up at the same time to see who it was who had horned in on my unmistakable accomplishment. "We've gotta do supply room check. Come on."
It was Spina. Fuck all. Fuck all. Fuck it all. I had been so close and that damned medic came and ruined all my prospects. Gene looked rather relieved as he unfolded his agile legs from underneath him and hopped off the bed, spritely as a fucking nymph. We all watched him leave. As soon as the two men had left the building, I threw up my hands in anguish.
"Fucking Spina!" I cried to the heavens. "I will kill that man. I will hang his balls up on my fucking wall like a trophy!"
"As if it didn't stink enough in here," Muck observed as he looked over his cards.
The smart ass remark flew straight over my head; I was still upset over the fact that I'd lost to a fucking medic. A first aid jockey for God's fucking sake! "I was so close to cracking him!"
"Are we still talking about nuts?" Martin piped up. He sounded more nervous than inquisitive; could I really blame the poor man? It was a sensitive subject amongst the male populace.
"Are you going to fucking play or not?" Liebgott snapped, motioning to my untouched hand. "I'm growing gray hairs on my ass waiting for you."
"I'm fairly sure those have been there for a couple of years at least Lieb," George duly noted as I sat down next to him.
Lipton, the sensible one of our motley group, shook with laughter beside me. The feeling of being soaked in the sound of it was like a warm embrace after a long, cold winter.
After months of P.T., the company was finally moving on to bigger and better things.
We received the announcement of being removed to Camp Mackall the morning of our one hundred and twelfth day of boot camp.
All of us were dog tired, straight down to the roots of our bones, and I nearly fell asleep in my slop twice after a long night of little sleep (someone had been having very naughty dreams indeed, probably Liebgott from the sound of the voice) and what would be our last trip up Currahee. Twenty minutes up, twenty down. Our best time yet.
George had to drag me out of my food at least once or twice during the course of the meal and Gene just watched from across the table, silently assessing the situation. Wondering if there was anything he could do, perhaps, as was his modus operandi. I still hadn't forgotten his narrow escape from our poker game and schemes began to separate themselves from one another and categorize in my head. George never wondered what I was thinking. He already knew it wasn't decent and so was content enough with knowing his influence on me was still strong as ever.
Near the end of 'breakfast', First Lieutenant Winters stood up and cleared his throat. Immediately the noise in the room died down. It was no secret that Winters was widely respected by all, even the reluctant Guarnere who couldn't stand the fact that his First Lieutenant wasn't Catholic. His reasoning seemed a little one-dimensional to me, but who was I to say anything? I couldn't stand a guy back home just because of an irritating fucking stutter.
We all looked up at him, some with mouths half-full and slack, the morning sludge dripping out of the sides of their mouths.
"I've got an announcement to make to all of you, on behalf of Lieutenant Sobel," Winters declared to the hushed room. "At 14:00 hours, we will be moving out of Toccoa and be relocated to Camp Mackall to begin primary training."
A few cheers erupted as Winters dismissed himself from the center of attention and sat back down next to Lewis Nixon, who looked a little worse for wear himself even from the other end of the table.
"Holy mother of God, I thought we'd never escape this place," George breathed a sigh of relief.
"We're just being moved to another Sobel-occupied Hell on earth," Malarkey shrugged cynically. "Until that man is completely out of our lives, there will be nothing to celebrate."
"A little morose in light of such good news, Malark," I said. "I mean, come on. We're at least escaping Currahee. One out of two banes of existence removed from our daily routine…that's not bad for a company of worthless shitheads like us."
"God, I fucking hate packing," Liebgott sulked as he lifted his fork to his lips. "I always feel like I'm going to forget something."
"What the hell, Lieb, you're a grown man," George laughed aloud, unable to contain his glee at such a perfect opportunity for relieving his need to belittle something on a daily basis. "Who packed for you when you left home? Your mommy?"
Liebgott's pained gaze suddenly turned murderous. I decided it would be better for everyone, especially George, if I staged an intervention to help lighten up the mood again.
"George," I nudged him as I stabbed absently at my food. "Your mommy helped you pack too."
A few snickers circulated around the group, but Liebgott couldn't control himself at receiving such delightful news; the Jew let out such a throaty laugh which filled up the room to its brim that even Winters himself couldn't help but look and see what all the commotion was about. Gene bit back a smile and he bent his head, pretending to find something interesting in the pile of slop that lay untouched on his plate.
"Insisting on carrying out my suitcase because she didn't want me to pull a muscle, Private Austen, does not qualify as helping me pack."
"Georgie's mommy didn't want him to hurt his little self?" Martin managed to say in between winded little sniggers.
Liebgott joined in, still slapping his knee from the hilarity of it all. "Aw, did she fold your underwear for you too George?"
"Great, this is just fan-fucking-tastic," George leaned back in his chair, chewing over the situation carefully as if it were a very meaningful line he'd come across in a book. "Accusations of being a momma's boy are now going to stick to me like glue. Thanks, Max. An early Christmas present and it isn't even close to fucking Thanksgiving yet."
I gave George a playful nudge, a hopeful endeavor to soothe ruffled feathers and mend all strains between us, but perhaps his pride had been wounded too deeply.
He didn't bother returning it.
By the time 14:00 hours came and went and we found ourselves on a train to North Carolina, all had been forgiven between George and me.
On the train, once we had boarded, he slumped down next to me and mentioned something about a long nap and promptly settled in. He let me take a snooze on his shoulder as the train started to lurch slowly forward. I fell asleep to the rocking motion of the train moving beneath me and the warmth of George's body snuggled close to mine; his head rested against my temple and I heard him heave a contented little sigh before I slid into a peaceful doze.
When I woke, the sun had moved and the world looked as if it were thrown beneath golden shadows. Gene Roe sat quietly across from me, his blue-gray eyes illuminated by the gentle light as he watched the scenery fly by in a blur of green and blue skyline.
Guarnere was next to him, fast asleep, his head drooping into his chest and Liebgott was sitting the next row over, looking rather like a petulant child with his arms fastened across his chest as he slumped low in the seat. But his face appeared calm, almost thoughtful in its serenity, and I paid no more mind to him. He was simply enjoying not being shouted at and having to run up the steep slopes of Currahee for once.
I stretched and George's head slipped. He made a little noise in his sleep, but didn't seem to move much. His temple was pressed against my collarbone and I could feel the rhythmic in and out pulse of his breath against what little bare skin there was to be found underneath the fatigues. Gene didn't even look away from the window; he seemed transfixed in deep thought.
"'Ey, Gene," I said, my voice still heavy with sleep. "When did you get here?"
"I think you fell asleep before I came in." He replied, his eyes still searching the horizon.
"I won't argue with you there. I don't think I've ever been as tired in my entire life as I have been these past few months."
He allowed a small smile of agreement. "I don't think I have either."
I continued on. "And George here…he's about as pleasant as a wolverine in the morning. It's definitely taking some getting used to, seeing old Luz up before sunrise."
"You were friends then," Gene began. "Before you came to Toccoa?"
"Oh, yeah," I waved my hand indifferently. "George and I can trace the origins of our friendship all the way back to grade school. He was the little brat who stole my slate pencil and I had to wrestle him in the mud to get them back."
Gene snorted. It sounded so foreign coming from the Southern gentleman that I almost mad a double take, expecting to see Toye or Muck bent over and riding out the last of a very hearty laugh.
But it had been him for certain. I just hadn't thought such a thing was possible as a sound like that coming from Eugene Roe.
"Sounds like an interesting start to a friendship." He said with a wide grin.
"It really was," I replied, nurturing a nostalgic smirk that had been revived by the memory. "But once we got past childhood, it worked out in the end. We're still here."
I looked over at my sleeping friend. His eyelids fluttered as he raced through a pleasant dream. He breathed in, a soft, vulnerable sort of noise, and released it; the warm air flooded over my neck like a wave and I was sort of lost in it for a moment. Gene didn't seem to mind at all the tapering off of words. He sank back into a companionable hush, tranquil and unaffected by the rickety movements of the train.
I pressed my cheek against George's disheveled hair, closed my eyes and wordlessly thanked God I'd come along. Maybe another nap wouldn't be such a bad idea.
A/N: So, second chapter. Chyeah! A lot of the other Easy boys were involved in this chapter. Because, like I said to someone else, friendship is a character in of itself in this series. So expect a lot of friendship, but there will also be little progressions in Luz romancin' in every chapter. Or...you know...whenever I decide it's time to add another one in! Thanks, by the way, to britt, anonymous and Miluielwen for the reviews! They were all appreciated and taken directly to heart! Glad I was able to entertain. Hehe. :)
Also, please do excuse Maxine's bad manners. She's got a dirty mind and she's hormonal and poor George is basically a best friend/sex object in her eyes. She will grow up. Don't worry! :D
Please, feel free to let me know if I'm doing anything wrong. Or if you're feeling generous...what I did right! I love reviews. As do most writers. So...yeah! :D
disclaimer - Rick Gomez's Luz is a sexy beast and I only wish I owned him. BoB belongs to Ambrose, Spielberg and Hanks!