"If it isn't the sunshine kid, up bright and early," Howard says from the sofa. He moves the Sunday paper he's been reading out of the way and I make a place for myself beside him.
"You won't believe the dream I had, Howard, it was wild! Literally, I was this mad fashion beast and-"
"That sounds a bit like every day life, doesn't it?" He interrupts wryly.
I don't get around to telling him about the antelopes or the paper plate planets, plus it might be a bit weird so I just let it go. I'll tell the moon, instead.
"You're just jealous that you haven't got what it takes to be an icon."
He looks at my silver sparkly boots and smiles pityingly.
"You might be an 'icon', but you lack subtlety. You're unable to grasp the finer art of nuance." His lecture is broken off by a hasty smile.
"And anyway, every time I look at you now, all I'm going to see is you curled up, drooling in to my armpit and kicking your legs about in the bed like a retard."
"No! You're mixed up!" I tell him. "I don't remember that!"
In spite of my own horror, this does make me laugh. His comment stirs a vague memory in me of being too hot, robe and limbs twisted up in too many blankets, wrapped in a pair of pale noodle arms, hip nestled in to the warmth of.. something.
"Well, you wouldn't, would you, sleeping beauty?" He asks me, smirking. "Out like a light, you were." Howard snaps his fingers. "I had to take the banana away from you," He tells me.
"So that wasn't what I was feeling all night?" I fire off smartly.
Howard shifts a little, blushing. "I don't know what you mean, sir," He mumbles indignantly, looking away.
"Howard, it's alright! I already know you love me," I tease him. "It's only natural, innit?"
He squirms, going all red in the face, crossing and uncrossing his arms over his chest.
Just to make it worse, I move in close to him, fingers poking, and put my head on his shoulder. "You've gone all red, Howard! You know what they say! No smoke without fire!" I crow.
"If I give you fifty Euro will you give me the Howard Moon special?"
"Don't touch me," He warns unhappily, moving my hands away.
A part of me feels like it's still all a joke, but another part of me, most likely the plaid parts, whisper hungrily: A song, a feast, a place!
"Oh? I'll touch you if I well please!" I tell him defiantly, grabbing his wrists and throwing a leg over his knees. "You weren't complaining last night, were you?"
He pulls his arms away and clenches them towards his body. "I said 'don't touch me!'" He reiterates.
I jab at his ribs with stabby fingers, trying to tickle, making him twist about. In his struggle to get away, he leans close to me for a second, and I take the initiative once again.
"Next time, have courage enough to make the first move, yeah?" I tell him boldly.
When Howard looks at me, his eyes are narrower than usual, but for a second I see them flash with a certain kind of clarity. "You really do mean it, don't you?" He asks, somewhere near disbelief, hovering just to the left side of wonderment. Howard's very sensitive- I've always known, of course, but now I have a better appreciation for it.
A laugh, a sideways look, anything can set him off, cripple his sensibilities.
Before I can really answer, I hear someone on the stair and Naboo appears.
Howard shoves me off of him in a kind of frenzy, pushing me backwards on to my side of the couch with right force, and, in an almost-hysterical attempt to compose himself, crosses his legs tightly.
The whole thing is so sudden that all I can do is huff and adjust my hair, trying to act natural, hopefully to counter balance How ridiculous Howard is being.
"All right, you lot?" Naboo asks, surveying the scene between us with a small smile.
"All right, Naboo," Howard says, picking up his newspaper and fidgeting with it awkwardly.
"I've just come to get some records," Naboo says. "I'm on my way back out. Found this outside the shop, though." He sets a bottle of Bailey's down on the table with a heavy 'thunk' and disappears in to the recesses of the flat.
"Excellent! I love Bailey's!" I lean forward to inspect if it's been opened or not.
Howard sits forward as well, but he looks unsettled.
"You aren't going to drink that, are you?" He asks apprehensively.
"Sure I am!" I say, grinning. "It isn't even open! Put a bit in my coffee? It'll be delicious."
"Vince, no. I don't think it would be a good idea." Howard's getting paler by the minute.
"What's the matter?" I ask, waving the bottle at him. "You don't like Bailey's?"
He shakes his head gravely.
Naboo reappears, clutching a battered copy of 'Husk' on vinyl under his left arm.
"I'm off. Stay out of trouble, you two," He says, and then he puts his hands on his hips like a mean granny. "And?" He asks, eyeing Howard and I both.
Resentfully, Howard and I mutter our prompted response in unison, like naughty children being held responsible for our actions. Howard looks away while I stare at my boots, toeing at the leg of the coffee table.
"If you make a mess, clean it up.."
Naboo flashes us a beatific smile and is gone again.
Two hours later we're a teensy bit pissed and I'm rocking the man-corset like a fierce bitch.
"How can you 'not believe' in it?" Howard asks me exasperatedly. He's fixing coffee cocktails, and I watch him empty the last of the Bailey's in to my Mick Jagger coffee cup. Steadily, he crosses the room with our drinks and settles on his end of the couch.
"I can 'not believe' in it because it isn't real!" I answer, reaching to take my mug.
"Just because it doesn't technically exist doesn't mean that it never will. We might not have the technology yet, but space lifts are the wave of the future, oh yes."
"Maybe the reason it doesn't exist is because you can't just take a lift to space!" I tilt an eyebrow at him saucily and take a big drink. Seems to me like the answer's in the question.
"You know this is mostly Bailey's?" I ask.
"Try mine," He says. We switch mugs, and I find that Howard's is mostly Bailey's as well.
"Here, you have this one back." He says after a minute. "I don't like drinking out of Mick Jagger, it feels creepy."
"I love it," I say, licking the rim of my mug and leering at him suggestively before I set it down.
"You would," He counters, looking at me sideways.
"Massive gayist," I accuse casually, leaning my head back against the arm of the couch and stretching out, putting my silvery Bowie boots all over Howard's tweedy legs, leaving glitter in the scratchy weave. I close my eyes and yawn.
I feel his weight shifting on the sofa, and when I lift my head again I see him half-leaning, all sneakily, two pinched fingers pulling ever so slowly at one end of the lacing on the man corset.
"Hey, what's all this?" I ask, siting up. "Oh, Don't undo my lacings! They took forever!" Howard moves again, so he's sitting under my knees and the backs of my thighs now, and he reaches out a hand to push me back down, playfully. I open my mouth, half in surprise, half in possible complaint, but he's got a look about him that I've not seen before and I don't want to stop him.
The cozy, day-in-at-home atmosphere changes all at once and the whole flat is rippling with electricity, a white hot fire that seems to be coming in waves off my skin.
Our alone-ness is suddenly tantalizingly, achingly exciting to me.
With a tiny tug, the knot at the top of the corset comes undone. I make a small, disapproving sound, looking at him in the hopes of catching his eyes with mine.
Howard smiles at me but only holds my gaze for a second or two- he's busy working out how the laces go, pulling the lace out through one eyelet first, and then the other, tugging the corset open as he goes. Methodically, he undoes the lacing entirely, bit by bit, his fingertips grazing my skin as he peels me out of it.
By the time the corset is off, left unceremoniously on the floor, my breath is catching in my throat and there's nothing I can do to hide the insane size of my erection. Slowly, Howard runs a hand up my thigh, tracing small circles over my hip with his careful touch.
"Howard," I say, softly, reaching out to touch his hair, to stroke the line of his jaw with a finger.
"Is this courage enough?" He asks me quietly, planting scratchy mustache kisses on my stomach. Involuntarily, my hips buck up toward his kissing lips, and he takes the opportunity to move, so he's lying between my legs, pressing his own erection up against me, all heat and force.
We're kissing, and it's so good- better than I'd ever imagined it might be. Howard grinds against me and I moan in to his mouth, seeing stars.
I can't keep his lips on mine the way I want to; his kisses wander down my chest, a desperate tongue searching me out while frenetic hands strip me out of the rest of my clothes.
His mouth is hot and wet and immediately I try to think of something that will keep me from going straight over the edge. Floppy clown shoes! Cheese toast! Big, Mexican pinatas!
Christ, nothing is working!
I can only manage to think of him, think of what he's doing, which brings me even closer.
I'm crooning, tangling my fingers in his hair. My head explodes and begins to float away with the realization- this is real. This is happening.
The plaid parts of me are singing, feasting in celebration of their place, finally found.
"Oh, God! Howard!"