Chapter 2- Trash

Despite what I might have thought in the beginning, I soon had what I wanted anyway. Quiet disapproval was better than screaming, anyway, and that was mostly what I got from Ben. Not that it was entirely quiet, of course. But my host became the background noise in my head, like a song that occasionally pops up to linger for awhile before fading again. Which was just fine, because outside our shared head space, I had more than enough to deal with.

For someone so quiet, Ben had a shockingly disorganized life. His tiny apartment could technically be called a one bedroom-or at least, the landlord was calling the extra room with the walls that didn't quite go all the way to the ceiling a "bedroom." Mostly so he could charge more for it. I wondered if that was legal, briefly, then decided I didn't actually care.

The first thing I set out to do was to clean the place. It wasn't a pig sty, but it seemed like someone had made the occasional half-hearted attempts to clean before giving up. "Cleaning" mostly involved clearing away the clutter. Which was easier said than done. The kitchen table was mostly covered in life debris-papers, a plastic grocery bag with the receipt still in it but no actual groceries, a library book that was past due-my fault, technically-an empty tupperware, and, seemingly just to send me into a panic of my own, a stack of bills that effectively stopped me from trashing the whole pile. The bills turned out to have already been paid, but it only really proved the point that most of it was junk. "Why would you keep this?" I asked aloud, holding up an electric bill. It was meant to be a rhetorical question. I could see the reason well enough on my own.

I forgot about it.

I raised an eyebrow. The "voice" was defensive, but it was still more than I'd expected. I'd mostly felt compelled to break the interminable silence of the apartment. We got all of two channels on the television, the only radio in the apartment came from the alarm clock next to the bed. It was talking to myself or hoping the neighbor's dog would start barking again.

I discovered quick enough that I could goad Ben into saying something once in awhile by messing with the "order" of his life. Not that it was imperative that he talked, or anything. But I was bored. It amused me. And we were neither of us social creatures by nature, so when the desire to talk to someone did present itself, Ben was usually my only option.

The only thing he seemed to have splurged on in his apartment were books. Granted, they were usually from the bargain bin of the used bookstore, but they made for fun material nonetheless.

"You know, if you didn't buy so many of these, you could probably use the money to buy a second bookshelf." There were little piles of books that wouldn't fit on the lone bookshelf scattered around the apartment. The television sat on a rolling cupboard that held a VCR and a few tapes, all of which looked about the same quality as his book collection-which, of course, carried over into whatever space wasn't filled with tapes. Pulling one from that pile, I waved it around, saying, "Look at this. Is that supposed to be a laser gun on the cover? Made by who, Milton Bradley? It looks like a toy." And this would go on, until either I got bored again, or I was rewarded with-

What is wrong with you?

I just grinned, tossing the book haphazardly back where it had come from.

To be fair, not everything I did to my host was intended to drive him crazy. I did actually ignore him most of the time. But even when I thought I was being kind, Ben seemed violently disagree.

At the school, there was a fellow student teacher. Ben had known him before, but they had not spent a great amount of time in each other's company. But that odd fluttery feeling humans seem to get when they experience attraction was present, and I thought. Well. Nothing was going to come of it, but I could briefly entertain anything to save me from a headache for awhile.

And so I sought out this man. Our lunch periods coincided-when there wasn't something to do during lunch, anyway, which there very often was-I would find him in the staff lounge.

What are you even doing? Ben demanded one day as we were headed back from lunch. He's mentioned an ex-girlfriend, remember?

So? I didn't see how that was relevant.

Ben made an exasperated "noise." I'm not gay.

I never said you were. Again, I didn't see how this was relevant. Humans seemed to mostly have sex for recreation anyway-Ben, for example, was neither a virgin nor a father-so I couldn't really understand what a person's gender had to do with anything. I thought he was merely being stubborn and abandoned that. It was pointless, anyway, and the school year came to a close soon after, regardless.

There is a human saying-"be careful what you wish for." It's a little to apt for my liking.

Anna, Ben's younger sister, came down for graduation, and we, along with Ben's aunt Eileen, went out for dinner that night. It was probably the nicest meal I'd had in a human body, which is the only pleasant thing I could say about the meal.

"Oh, hey," Anna said, about half-way through the meal, when we'd exhausted most of the obvious topics of conversation. "They're opening a chapter of that club you were talking about a few months ago-what was it called?"

I swallowed the mouthful of spaghetti I'd been chewing, rifling back through Ben's memory to find what she was talking about. Sure enough, there was a brief mention of the Sharing from when he'd first started going. I could feel Ben's resentment as I answered, "The Sharing?"

"Yeah. They've got one of those by me now." Anna wasn't looking at me, but down at her plate now. "My roommate's thinking of checking it out and wants me to go with her. Are you still going to that thing?"

I opened my mouth to respond-to rattle off the script that was meant to be used for these sorts of things-but no sound came out. Instead, my lungs seized and for a few breathless moments, it seemed like my throat had squeezed itself shut. The force of it took me by surprise and it took several long seconds before I could reassert control, pushing back until I came up for air again, breath coming out in a hacking cough. "Fuck," I wheezed, reaching a shaking hand for my water glass. Ben might be desperate, but I was still stronger than he was. Mostly.

Eileen patted me on the back, and Anna looked up from her food. "Go down the wrong way?"

My face screwed up into what was meant to be a smile, but didn't quite succeed. "Something like that," I said. Then I changed the subject. He wouldn't take me by surprise again, but even so, I didn't really want to die that day.