Making Space

"Oh! Gross!"

Monica winced as she heard Rachel's near blood curdling screech puncture the quiet morning air and practically reverberate throughout the apartment. Although she had no desire to see exactly what "gross" thing Rachel had found in the bathroom, and was more than content to finish washing the dishes and pretend she had gone deaf, her protective instincts took hold and Monica rushed over to find out what was wrong.

She wrapped her knuckles with a sense of concerned urgency on the door, and turned the knob to open it. "Rachel? Is everything all right?"

Before Monica could push the door open, it violently swung wide as her roommate, dressed only in her bathrobe, appeared before her in the entranceway. Rachel's hair and skin were still slick from her shower and Monica tried to bite her tongue as she dripped on the floor. She glanced back at Rachel, who was surrounded by steam that hung heavy over her shoulders like a protective ghost. She held a stick of deodorant out between her forefinger and her thumb and leaned away from it, as if it were a dead fish she had found. Her lips turned up in disgust as she compelled Monica to look upon it.

"Eww!"

Monica eyed the label and shook her head, confused by her roommate's aversion to Lady Speed Stick.

"Is this what you screamed about?"

"Uh, yeah!" Rachel huffed, growing impatient with Monica's obtuseness. "What else could it be?"

Monica studied the deodorant closer, hoping to find what it was that had set her roommate spiraling off on yet another meltdown. "Is it because it's lavender?"

Rachel stomped her foot and glared at Monica. "No! Look at the top!"

Monica inspected the stick once more and screwed up her face in disgust as she saw three curly, dark colored hairs stuck to its white, powdery applicator.

Rachel waved it under Monica's nose. "These are a man's armpit hairs. Who would do this?"

Monica immediately turned away and nervously chuckled, as if she knew exactly where those little black hairs came from, and was fearful that she would give away her secret if she made eye contact with Rachel. "What? That's ridiculous. How do you know they belong to a man?"

"Ross used to use my deodorant all the time when we were dating and it always looked just like this!" Rachel waved the stick under Monica's nose once more.

Monica grimaced and leaned back, but then tilted her head as her brain snagged onto something Rachel said. "Wait. Ross used your deodorant?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "He said he had sensitive skin and men's deodorant gave him a rash."

Monica wanted to press further, and add yet another arrow to her quiver of embarrassing anecdotes that she could torture her brother with, but instead she closed her eyes and tried to focus on what lie she would tell, knowing full well that Chandler had to be the culprit in Lady Speed Stick-gate. She darted her gaze from the deodorant back to Rachel as her mind raced for something to say.

"Maybe they're yours."

"What?" Rachel suddenly became overcome by a sense of indignation. "I do not have arm pit hair. If I did, it wouldn't look like this!"

Monica's eyes lit up with discovery. "Joey! It had to be Joey!"

Rachel's face twisted up in disgusted curiosity. "What? Why?"

"I bet he comes over here and uses all our stuff. The other day, I realized I was missing some tampons and I found them across the hall!"

Rachel screwed up her eyes in revulsion. "What? Why would he take those?"

"I don't know. He's Joey…he's disgusting."

Rachel looked at Monica with apprehensive eyes as Monica began to wilt under her roommate's interrogative glare. She closed her eyes and hoped Rachel would buy her weak explanation.

"The nerve of that guy." Rachel turned, ready to storm out of the apartment. "I am going to go give him a piece of my mind and tell him to keep his hands off our stuff!"

Monica reached out and grabbed Rachel's arm to stop her. "Oh, Rach….do you think that's necessary? So he used your deodorant and took my tampons. Is that really something we want to make a big deal out of?"

Rachel stared incredulously at Monica. "Yes! It is. He can't keep coming over here, going through our things, using our deodorant and tampons."

"Well, to be fair…I don't think he actually used the tampons…that would be a neat trick if he did."

"What are you talking about?"

Monica paused and then acquiesced to Rachel with a nod. "You're right. We should say something." Monica's face lit up. "I'll go!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, you don't want to go over there like this. Joey won't listen to a word you say and he'll just keep thinking about how you're naked under that robe."

Rachel stopped, tilted her head and nodded, realizing Monica was right.

"Why don't you let me go. I'll tell him to get his own stuff and to replace your deodorant."

"And your tampons!"

Monica nodded slowly. "Right. Sure. I'll get him to buy me a whole big pack!"

"What?"

"You know me. I buy in bulk."

Rachel eyed Monica suspiciously, but then relented as she walked back to the bathroom. "Okay, but this is the last straw! If I find him wearing my lipstick or mascara…"

Monica reached out again and reassuringly grabbed Rachel's shoulders. "He won't. I promise. I'll talk to him. Us ladies gotta stick together, right?"

"Okay." Rachel nodded and grimaced as she looked down at the deodorant in her hand. "I used this. I'm going to have to take another shower now."

Monica slow-walked her way towards the front door and watched as Rachel closed the bathroom door behind her. Once she heard the latchbolt click, she turned quickly and took a few fleet strides to her bedroom. Once inside, she reached into a drawer on her bedside table and grabbed a handful of tampons and then jogged out of the apartment and across the hall.

Monica hastily opened the door to Chandler's apartment, and he dropped his spoon into his cereal bowl, clearly startled by her abrupt entrance. He was about to carp at her, but then looked down at the clutch of tampons in her hand and jumped back as if she were holding a fistful of daggers.

"What are those?"

Monica's eyes darted around the room. "Is Joey here?"

"No, he had an early acting class."

She then shoved the tampons in Chandler's face as an offering. "He needs to keep these somewhere, just in case Rachel comes looking for them."

Chandler leaned back, as if he were being confronted by a supernatural being. "Rachel is going to look for…uh…lady stuff…in Joey's bedroom?"

Monica stopped, only half-listening to him and furrowed her brow. "What?"

Chandler leaned one hand on the counter and relaxed as he tried to slow everything down so he could wrap his head around what was happening.

"Why would Rachel come looking for…feminine things from Joey?"

Monica rolled her eyes, still slightly put off with Chandler's inability to speak frankly about all things menstruation related. She then smiled sheepishly as she was about to reveal her motives to Chandler, feeling slightly embarrassed at having roped Joey into another ridiculous lie.

"Well, I might have told her he took them from me."

"Oh." Chandler nodded and returned his attention to his cereal, as if he was completely satisfied with her answer. Already accustomed to wild tales of astonishment and fantasy when it came to covering up their clandestine relationship.

"You have got to stop using Rachel's deodorant when you are at my place."

Chandler screwed his face up defensively. "What? I don't use her stuff."

Monica leaned in to him and took in his scent from the nape of his neck. "Then why do you smell like Lady Speed Stick?"

Chandler leaned away defensively and tightened his collar around his neck, as if to hide the flowery smell left lingering on his skin from Rachel's myriad of shower gels and soaps. He then shook his head in defeat.

"Lavender is a very flattering scent for me!"

Monica flattened her lips as she tried to hold back a smile. "Well, you're going to have to figure something else out because you leave little hairs behind whenever you do."

Chandler nodded and scratched at his chin, letting his fingers run over his sandpaper like stubble in an attempt to regain some form of masculinity, even if only for himself. He then let his shoulders slump as he realized that perhaps, he was getting too comfortable sleeping at Monica's apartment.

"You're right. Maybe I just have to get up earlier so I can sneak out and get ready for work over here."

Monica looked around his apartment as a sense of despair washed over her. She didn't like the idea of Chandler leaving her bed in the middle of the night. She enjoyed waking up next to him in the early morning hours before anyone else could find them. It was as if the world belonged to the two of them at dawn. A secret, private world where there were no lies, no hiding, no pretending they didn't care for each other, no friends with their prying eyes.

It was their magic time.

He would pull her into him, she would take in his scent, which she now realized was an intoxicating mix of his sweat and Rachel's bath products, and she would find him irresistible as they engaged in a quiet, sensual round of lovemaking against the backdrop of the sunrise through her bedroom window.

But, regretfully, she had to acknowledge that they were sleeping in later and later as the first few weeks of their relationship stretched into months. It got to the point where Chandler would only have time to quickly freshen up before Rachel woke and everyone else came by for breakfast. She sighed, but then shook her head defiantly. She was not going to be denied those sleepy, stolen, incredible mornings to a stick of deodorant.

"No. You're not leaving any earlier. You should just leave some or your stuff at my place. You could fill up one of the drawers in the bedside table with toothpaste, deodorant, shaving cream, stuff like that."

Chandler took a moment to process what she was saying and Monica froze as she quietly admonished herself for forgetting exactly who she was talking to. She knew that this was a perfectly reasonable conversation to have with your boyfriend after dating for a few months, but her boyfriend was Chandler. And he was not always perfectly reasonable.

She watched his face and worried that maybe they weren't exactly at the "keeping stuff at each other's place" phase of their relationship yet. She wondered if she might have pushed too fast, too soon and tried to think of something she could say to puncture what she imagined was an ever growing, invisible balloon of tension between them.

But, she found herself without the ability to find the right words to say to diffuse the situation, and instead, she prepared herself for some kind of typical Chandler freak out. One where he stammered and tripped over his tongue as he tried to figure out the perfect way to convey to her that he thought it was a bad idea. The kind of clumsy stalling he would usually do as he attempted to let someone down without offending them. Or, perhaps he was simply readying himself to run out of the apartment, never to be seen or heard from again.

But much to her surprise, he simply nodded in agreement, and the look on his face told her, that this idea did not scare him at all. And, as he had done so many times since they came home from London, he showed her, he was not the same old Chandler. Not anymore.

"Yeah. That sounds good. But, uh, you know, maybe you should keep some of your stuff here too." He pointed at the tampons in her hand. "Even those lady things."

"They're call tamp…"

Before Monica could finish, Chandler cut her off by plugging his ears with his fingers and letting loose with a series of "La-la-la-la"s.

Monica reached over and pulled his arm down. "Okay! Okay!" She laughed to herself and thought that, while he was not the same old Chandler, he could still have his moments.

Chandler suddenly sprang up, with renewed excitement. "Oh, wait!"

He ran into his room and emerged with a small, black toiletry bag. "Fill this up with whatever you need and we can keep it under the sink in the bathroom. This way no one will think it's belongs to a girl."

"Okay." Monica nodded and chuckled.

"And…if you want…bring some clothes over, just in case you need them."

Monica arched a suspicious eyebrow and flashed a sly smile. "Oh? And what kind of clothes were you thinking I could leave here?"

"Well, off the top of my head, maybe that lacy red thing you have with the matching garter belt?"

"Oh? Is that all?" Monica leaned in an ran a playful finger up his chest.

"Uh, maybe…we should see what you have on now? You know, so we can get an idea of the kinds of clothes you could leave here."

Monica laughed but then waggled her eyebrows excitedly and grabbed his hand as she led him to his bedroom. "Okay!"

Monica stopped at the door and turned to face him. "Hey, maybe I can leave a few things in your jewelry box. Just in case we want to go somewhere nice. This way no one will ask me why I have nice earrings on or something."

Chandler stepped back and looked down at her with incredulous eyes. "I don't have a jewelry box."

"Chandler." Monica stared at him with a mix of wry insistence that he come clean, and sincere affection for his futile protest.

"What? I don't have a jewelry box! Quite frankly, I'm insulted at the insinuation."

Monica adopted a pair of stern eyes and tilted her head towards him. "Chandler."

"Okay, fine. You can keep some stuff in there. Now can we go have sex?"

Monica laughed and pulled him into his bedroom. She could not stop herself from surrendering to this giddy, exhilarated feeling of joy as he leaned in to kiss her. That delighted sense of elation was there every time their lips met. This mix of exciting and new with the familiar and comfortable. And it tasted like honey spiked with habanero. A sweet, spicy surprise that had all the flavors she was looking for in a man.

And she realized that despite his lapses into the benign ridiculous behavior she had grown accustomed to over the years, he was not the old Chandler. Not in the ways she was afraid he would be when they started this love affair. Not in the ways that everyone she knew would no doubt remind her of every day if all of their friends were privy to this secret romance. And she wondered if that was the reason this was all going so well. The pressure was off. He was free to be this newer version of Chandler. One that endeared himself to her with every small act that showed her he was in this, just as much as she was. Whatever it was that kept this magic going, she was willing to surrender to it.

Even if it meant stashing a few tampons in Joey's room.