Chapter Two: Nobody's Perfect

It had all happened so quickly, Butters thought confusedly, as loud music thumped in his ears. One minute he was in his room, arguing with Eric, and the next minute he was trying to pull a long blond wig down over one eye while they stood in line. He turned to his, um, "date." Maybe Eric would understand how uncomfortable he felt.

"Goddamnit, I hate lines," Cartman muttered, jumping up and down up to see how close they were to the end of it.

"Uh, Eric, I forgot to ask you somethin'."

"Well, what?"

"Where are we in our relationship?"

Cartman rolled his eyes. "Jesus wept. Look, Butters, this is not a date, it's—" One of the Raisins hostesses hovered perilously close—"—I, I mean. . . .EY, bitch! I don't WANT to have your mother over on Sunday, I'm already takin' you out tonight, you better drop them panties later on and—and bake me a PIE!"

Hm. Ok, Butters thought, clearly a well-established relationship.

"I just wanted to ask," he said, dropping his voice, "'cause I'm supposed to be pretendin' to be your girlfriend an'. . . an' I d-dunno what that's s-supposed to look like, but it'll be easier if you tell me what I'm supposed to d-do."

"Oh." Cartman thought for a minute. "Well, whatever you do, I don't want to have you all clustering up next to me and being all cuddly and stuff. I gotta have elbow room to get through those wings. I need some space."

A lady behind them in the line glared at Cartman. He glared right back. "Mind your own business, you bitch queen!"

They were now at the head of the line. One of the girls—was it Mercedes?—bounced up and smiled. "Hello, there, welcome to Raisins, be sure to try our cheddar chicken poppers!" She led them to a table.

Cartman had brightened up a bit. "This is great, huh, Bu-I mean, Marjorine?"

Butters allowed himself to glance around the room—all those girls, lots and lots of girls. . . "Yeah."

"Cheddar chicken poppers, oh boy." They sat down and Cartman immediately picked up a menu. "Let's see—I wanted those wings, because they're awesome, and I want the little pizzas, but I gotta try the cheddar chicken poppers, too—you think that's enough?"

Butters was confused. "Well, sure, Eric, I mean that sounds like a lot for two people."

Cartman blinked at him. "What. Did you want anything?"

Butters was speechless for a minute, and then exploded, his voice cracking high, "Wu-well, heck yeah! Now, you listen to me, Eric Cartman, you drag me out here, an'-an' I didn't even wanna go, I'm doin' you a favor, so you just better be nice to me, gosh darn it, and buy me anything I want!"

A lot of heads swiveled in their direction, and there was a smattering of applause. Butters felt warm breath tickling his ear: "That's right, honey. You tell him!" He froze. He'd know that voice anywhere.

It was Lexus. It was Lexus, and she was waiting on their table! And he was dressed like a girl! And he was out with Cartman! And this dress made him look fat!

There was no doubt about it—Cartman looked pissed. He hadn't thought about this part. He took several deep breaths through his nose, let them out slowly, and said through gritted teeth, "Of course, honey, get whatever you like." He kicked Butters under the table.

"Ow!"

"Be on a diet," Cartman hissed.

"So-son of a biscuit, Cartman, how can you. . . I mean, you're so. . . "

"Just do it."

Fine, Butters thought angrily, he wasn't hungry anyway.

"Hi, there, welcome to Raisins! Are you ready to order? Can I recommend our special wings?"

Cartman straightened up a bit and put on his "elegant" voice. "Why, yes, the wings sound good. And we'll have the little deep-fried pizzas and the cheddar chicken poppers and a pitcher of Vanilla Coke and—am I forgetting something?"

Butters pulled his wig down a little more and tried to speak in a high-pitched voice. What did his Mom always say?

"Oh, no, I'll just have a side salad. . . and some D-diet Coke."

"O-KAY," said Lexus, taking the menus, "I'll put your orders right in, thanks for coming to Raisins!" She turned to go, rolled her eyes at Butters, and winked, sashaying off.

"Hu-hey, Eric," Butters said, "L-lexus just winked at me!"

"Oh, please, Bu—Marjorine, we've been down this road before. You always think the waitress is fl- um, being extra friendly," Cartman said, quickly correcting himself.

"N-no! I think she was really bein' friendly this time! Oh, golly! You think she, y'know, knows?"

"Knows what?" Cartman asked in an innocent voice.

"Knows," Butters said urgently. Even Cartman could tell—Butters was dead serious. He thought some more. This was more complicated than he'd thought it would be.

"Well, no," he said at length, "because you're doing a pretty good job. I mean, she must totally think you're a girl, and remind me to thank you later on, Marjorine, because I will probably forget. Look," he added, seeing that Butters looked dubious, "those chicks at the party—they totally thought you were a girl, right? They thought you were a weird girl, but they thought you were a girl. They even felt bad for you. Didn't they give you a makeover? So probably this Lexus ho---" Butters knitted his brows—"I mean, you know, Lexus must think you're a girl too." He stopped talking. Lexus was already back with their order.

"OK, the wings, the pizzas, the chicken poppers, and the pitcher of Vanilla Coke—that must be for you," she said, sliding tray after tray in front of Cartman.

"Sweeet."

"And you had the salad and the Diet Coke." She leaned down and put her hand on Butter's back. "I don't think you need the Diet Coke and salad so much, know what I mean?" she whispered, and patting him on the back, she withdrew. Butters gargled in shock.

"I-I-I, I mean, holy nutsack!"

Cartman looked up from the wings—he wasn't wasting time. "EY! Watch your mouth! You're supposed to be a lady!"

"N-no, Eric, she, I mean, Eric, she p-patted me on the b-back, Eric, I don't get that, you said the waitresses wouldn't pay attention to me! You said I totally looked like a girl!"

Cartman didn't bother to look up this time. "You do totally look like a girl."

"But why—why is she touchin' me like that? Is she tryin' to get a bigger tip?"

"Doubt it," said Cartman. "Remember, she was there when I said I would buy you whatever you wanted, dammit, so she knows that if she's getting a tip, it's coming from me."

"Su-so. . . I don't get it, why's she actin' like this?"

Cartman shrugged. "I dunno, dude, she's probably just lezzing out on you or something, it happens." He went on to the pizzas.

Butters stabbed at his salad. Dang it, he hated salads, maybe he could steal a wing from Cartman—nope, they were all gone. "That's another thing I didn't get—when I was going to the slumber party, you said for me to go with it if they started lezzing out."

Cartman actually dropped the pizza he was holding. He looked across to Butters, eyes like saucers.

"Did they?" he said at last. That was funny. Butters would have sworn that nothing was more interesting to Cartman than deep-fried pizza.

"I dunno, Eric, that's the problem, I dunno what lezzing out means."

"Oh." Cartman looked disappointed. "Hmm. Well, you know when we had that substitute teacher, Miss Ellen, you know, the one even Stan fell in love with. Chef asked her out on a date and he said it didn't go too well, because she was the kind of girl, who, you know, doesn't like Chef."

Butters was now totally confused. "So that's what lezzing out is?" he asked. "It's when a girl doesn't want to date Chef? So like, my mom lezzes out because she doesn't date Chef?"

Cartman was getting confused, too. "Listen, Bu-, I mean Marjorine, how am I supposed to know? She's your mom!"

"Well, but Mom doesn't date Chef. You know that. 'Cause she's married!"

Cartman was now getting annoyed. "That doesn't make any difference, dumbass! Your Dad's married too, and he was going down to all those movie theatres and bath houses and stuff!"

The coins finally dropped. "Oh. Oh. So, like, lezzing out—"

"Yeah, it's like when girls get together like your Dad—you know, like that. Anything like that happen at the party?" Cartman asked hopefully.

"No."

"Oh," Cartman said, looking totally disillusioned. He went back to clearing off the cheesy chicken poppers.

Butters was in shock. Was that why he hadn't gotten anywhere with Lexus? Because he liked her, but she didn't like boys? Well, that would make sense, it would explain why she was only nice to him before when he had money and now that he was a girl . . . He tried to drink his Diet Coke. Darn it, he hated diet soda, too, and he hated the way the dress was bunching up under his butt, and Cartman was being worse than usual, and gosh knew that was pretty bad.

"Eric," he said, "I don't wanna be a girl anymore. I hate being a girl."

Now everyone was really looking at them. There was total silence. Somewhere, a spoon dropped. Cartman dropped his head into his hands, ignoring the wing sauce that was now getting in his hair.

"Great, Butters, just great," he muttered, "that was really helpful, that was truly craptastic, what the fuck do you think you're doing? Look," he hissed quietly, "I can't make you into a girl, but I can help the process along by sawing your balls off later, is that what you want me to do, huh?"

Butters tried to think of something to say to repair the damage, but Cartman was already getting out of his seat and dropping some money on the table.

"Ok, here's the damages, bitch, I covered it all, but if you think I'm leaving with you you must be crazier than usual. Screw you," he added, taking a deep breath, "I'm going home."

And Cartman stalked off into the night.