**

He's been gone for a few hours now.

And the 'sofa' isn't that bad . . . for fifteen minutes.

I know he probably did it to make me laugh . . . I think. And it worked until he had to go and be all confusing. Making me confused, that is. Now I'm sitting on a broken piece of furniture with my feet propped up on a homemade piece(s) of furniture and wondering when he's coming home and thinking how stalkerish and pathetic that is.

The club!

"Shit," I mutter out loud as I reach for the phone and dial the number automatically.

"Diva Divine, this is Chastity speaking."

"Hi, this is Brigitte, I can't make it tonight."

"You have to talk to Grainy, I can't tell him, you have to."

"Why? I had a . an accident last night and I can't come in."

"Well you should have called earlier, or better yet, this morning. You know, some of us take our job seriously."

"And some of us don't? Just - put Grainy on."

"Fine."

"Grainy here," is the reply I get a few seconds later.

"Hey! This is Brigitte, I can't come in tonight."

"Dammit, Brigitte, you're supposed to start in three hours."

"True, but I doubt the customers will find a dancer with a massive cut over her shoulder *and* upper back very appealing."

"What about the goods? They still in jiggling order?"

"Dammit, Grainy!"

"Can't you throw some of that chick make-up on it and cover it up?"

"Not now, it will get infected and just think of all the drinks and chicken wings you'll sell when I'm up there with a pussing, bleeding--"

"How long 'til you can cover it?" he grumbles.

"Give me a few days?"

"It's your pay."

It is my pay . . .

"How's two?"

"Good enough. But I want you working an extra dance that day, Felicia is pregnant and she quit."

"Offer at the Fetish Club?" I ask. Felicia was one of the nice ones. Well, civil.

"No, she's actually quitting. Staying at home with the kid I guess."

"Good for her."

"Take care of your accident, Brigitte. Take care of yourself."

"Thanks, Grainy. And . . . walk the dancers out when they leave okay? For a while at least."

"Huh? Why?"

"Just do it."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"Just do it," I repeat before hanging up.

**

"That was . . . Harry, that was . amazing."

"Thanks," I mutter. Glad she liked it, I feel like someone gutted me and Lauren's basking in the afterglow. But then it's not like she should feel like me, she thinks I did this for her, not to forget someone else.

"You were never that ."

My stomach is churning and I think this is one of the biggest mistakes I could have made.

Wait, 'I think'? No, no, I'm pretty damn *sure* this is one of the biggest mistakes I could have made.

"And you were so rough," she says with a conspirator tone and a smile. Just between us, like if she says it too loud someone might hear in her empty apartment. I want to tell her not to flatter herself, it wasn't for her, it was to forget, and when I couldn't forget it was to imagine it was who I wanted it to be.

"Glad you liked it." An echo of my earlier thoughts but she seems pleased enough with it.

"I did," she says in her slightly embarrassed way. When we were dating I should have clued her in that it was okay to be sexual and like different things. Or have bought her handcuffs, either way.

"I have to go."

"What?" That was a tone change, changed to completely unreceptive to whatever excuse I'll give.

"Paperwork." A try.

"Fine," she snaps, climbing out of her starched, white bed linens, the ones that survived the movement to stay on the bed.

I don't think she'll be coming with an understanding and oh so reliable shoulder after this. Second time I used her and I shouldn't have.

"Lauren--" Her bathroom door slams in my face as I button my pants. "Can't I even tell you something?"

"No, but you can get out of my home."

"I--"

"Please, Harry," she says tersely.

I'm turning into such an asshole.

**

"Hello?"

Uh-oh. I clasp my hand over my mouth. I don't think I'm supposed to be answering the phone, I should have let the answering machine pick it up like usual. This whole 'roommates' thing is going to my head.

"Hello? I think I have the wrong phone number," a woman responds.

"Who are you trying to reach?" I ask. I should have just confirmed it and hung up. This whole talking-before-I-think-thing is not in my best interest.

"Harry Senate."

"You have the correct number but he isn't in right now. Can I take a message?" I'm already seeking out a pencil like good message-taking roommates should.

"Yes," she says is a certain slow way. "Tell him his mother called."

Uh-oh.

"M-mother. Right, got it."

"And she'd like to know who the new woman in his life is and why we haven't met."

Hmm.

"It isn't so . . . it's sort of like, hmm."

"Just give him the message, sweetheart. I'll yell at him later."

"Oh, okay. Will do that."

"Thank you. Good-bye."

A click and that's over. I *really* should let the machine get it.

Ring.

"Hello?"

DAMMIT!

"Hello? Who is this?"

"Who is this?" He can't have another mother, right? "This is . . . Forget it, at least now I know why he left in such a hurry."

Click.

. . .

. . .

Maybe she didn't know me but I knew her, her voice. Miss Davis.

"Hey, I'm back," Harry announces quietly as he opens the door. He doesn't look at me and it's pretty clear what happened. Not that it's any of my business.

**

"I thought we could go out for dinner."

"That sounds good. Anywhere in particular?" Dana answers. She's seemed excruciatingly quiet since I came home a few hours ago, when someone is this polite the only reason is that they are covering for something. I could almost think she knows but she can't, how could she? I was . I made sure to act like .

"No where in mind, you can pick." Now where both dancing around it.

". Actually I need to do some laundry tonight so . . ."

"Me too." No, that wasn't quick at all.

"Okay, I can just go and get my things now and we can go."

"Okay."

"Okay."

**

"You coming?"

I peer out into the dank, dark, not at all welcoming place before me.

"I'm thinking."

He smirks and grabs for my hand. I don't know if he felt me freeze up and if he did, I'm sorry. The unsettling feeling isn't . . . it doesn't feel like it's my right. He doesn't answer to me, right?

Harry is pulling me out into the basement of his building and even if he did feel my reluctance it's not showing. I hear a tick and the humming when the fluorescent light above us brightens and it doesn't look so foreboding anymore. Walls light orange tell me a paint brush hasn't visited this hallway in a long time and before me is a drywall set up with a door in front of me and two more on either side. Apparently one is 'Storage' and the other is 'Laundry'. Two options for the tenants of this building since the third says 'No Trespassing'.

"Come on," Harry calls, already inside as he struggled with the door handle.

I walk in to find three washers and two dryers with a large table dominating the middle, an old kitchen table it looks like.

**

It's slightly creepy down here, not overtly just more like . . . too quiet. And the current goings on between Dana and I are not making it any better.

"Let's get started."

Without another thought I throw my sheets on the table and then dump out my laundry bag . . . it's been a while. The fabric piles high and Dana scrunches up her nose.

"It's not that bad," I defend but it kind of is.

She takes the duffel she's been holding and spills out a considerably smaller amount, a few shirts, some jeans, mostly a collection on silky/satiny/lace/cotton/etc. underthings.

That's not going to make things a little more uncomfortable.

She starts separating while I toss my sheets and pillowcases in one machine then pull out a few choice pieces before dumping the rest in another washer along with an ample amount of detergent. Dana just watches.

"Too much?"

"Enough for three loads."

"Not enough then."

She shakes her head and eyes my pile of light clothes.

"That's all you're separating?"

"Everything else can go in together."

"Then I'm just going to put our piles together."

She dumps hers on top of mine and the sight before me is a pile of her panties and bras laying over my powder blue, button down shirts. It's a sight. She picks them up and walks to the last washer, dumping them in.

**

"So, um, I forgot to tell you."

I did forget, after the call . . . We just put away my clothing, and I got *two* drawers and half a closet. We smiled a little but it was . . . uncomfortable. Like something was wrong. No. Not wrong. No, why would it be, a friend doesn't feel wrong over the sexual relationship of their friend. Just . . .

Awkward.

"What did you forget?"

"That your mother called."

"Oh," he says looking down and somehow I don't think he talks to his mother much, he seems to feel a little guilty about that. "So what did she say?"

"She said to tell you that she called. She said she wanted to know who the new woman in your life is, meaning, uh, me. I'm sorry I answered the phone, I should have let the answering machine pick up," I rush out. "I tired to tell her I wasn't a new woman as in, you know *your woman* but I . . ."

"Don't apologize about answering the phone. It's you're place too, roommates, right?"

He looks at me and smiles a little, choosing to forgo the inane ramblings of how I was a woman but not *his* woman and how that particular fact got mixed up . . . Hmm, that even sounds difficult when I'm think it. I sigh and slide up onto the table.

"And Miss Davis called."

Relaxation flies right out the window. Bye-bye. I probably shouldn't have said it but I have to give him his messages, if not he'll think I'm trying to hide something, or sabotage his relationship. Two things I am NOT trying to do. It's none of my business if he can do FAR better than Miss Davis. Just a *friendly* opinion.

He hasn't said anything so I guess it's up to me to fill him in on what she whined - SAID! I mean 'what she said'. I do mean that.

"She told me . . ." Uh. She didn't tell me anything. She accused, but I don't think I should tell him I might have trashed his relationship. "She just . wondered why you left in such a hurry."

Wince. That's right, got to prepare for whatever might come. I'm betting aloofness.

He nods and . . . that's it.

I won. Too bad.

**

I didn't want her to know but I should have considered that Lauren might call to chew me out, and then sigh, and then suggest we get together and 'talk it out'. The problem is I just don't want to. Really, extremely, do not even want to see her. It's bad enough that I used her for sex, twice, almost three times . . .

"Harry?" Her face is a little unsure and she shakes her head, saying never mind. Yeah, never mind you're a monumental dick. She remakes her smile and looks at me. "So . . . what are you getting me for my birthday?"

"Huh?" Huh? Switching the subject of Lauren and sex to Dana becoming a legal adult . . . and sex.

This isn't going to help me.

"Well, I was just thinking, I'll be eighteen in a few days, major milestone, thank you, and being that we are now roommates *and* friends I say you throw me a party."

"Really?" I ask, I may be smiling, it's genuine so I'm not so used to it at the moment.

"Yes, really. Either that, or I thinking big, *BIG* present."

"Present?"

"Why are we repeating each other?" She jumps down and grabs the front of my shirt. "Think of my gift! I want something amazing. Get to contemplating, Harry, because it should be great, teacher's salary or not, I want to be sailing to Milan and drinking champagne."

She finishes her dramatic ramble by getting back on the table and leaning back on one hand.

"You're going to be eighteen, not twenty-one."

"Are you aware of the legal drinking age in Italy? . . . Me neither but I'm *sure* it's got to be lower," she smiles brightly as her eyes sparkle.

She did it, changed it . . . And I'm not going to try to switch the subject back. I'm a jerk, not a moron.

**

We get back to the apartment heavy with laundry and I eye the couch.

"Getting a new one tomorrow, right?"

"Why? The one I made is perfectly fine," he shrugs dropping his clothes on the table.

"Yes, it's very macho of you to have built your own furniture, see my fragile female feelings zoom at the display. Oh, my goodness, I'm all a flutter. Now can we get a new couch?"

He doesn't have an expression but he picks his stuff and heads to the bedroom calling back, "Okay."

"So what about tonight?" I ask. I'm not suggesting we sleep in the same bed, maybe some friends can, but we can't. After . . . after everything, and the fact that he had sex with Miss Davis only a few . . .

"I can bunk out tonight, use the couch . . . cushions . . ."

I follow his eyes and realize what he's thinking.

"And why didn't we think of this *before* and avoid the spring altogether?"

"Because we are stupid, stupid people."