I'm not sure what I was thinking when I decided that sleeping with Blair was a good idea. He's male, and weird, and I spent the better part of the past three years ragging him about his inability to maintain a relationship.

Which was not fair, after all, since he dated Sam for more than a year of that, off and on, and before that there was Chris, and he was absolutely correct that I never took anyone out twice. Just I had this view of myself as stable, and of him as...well...not.

I never said I had an unskewed view of him, though he's done a lot to unskew it lately. He's stable, and resiliant. And flexible. Boy howdy is he flexible. He's the same in bed as he is out: reliable, adventurous, caring, focused, pushy, hyperactive, and vocal. Very, very vocal.

Like you'd hear me complaining. If you could even hear me over him, which you probably couldn't.

And he didn't bat an eyelash when I said I wanted to be monogamous. "Sure, no problem," he said, and kept cutting carrots. "You want to add that basil to the sauce, buddy?"

I'd been convinced he'd freak. I added the basil and he leaned over and kissed me, not a freak in sight--steady heartbeat, steady hands. Still, the table leg remark kept coming back to haunt me. I mean, how did I know he meant it? Maybe he'd been telling the monogamy lie for so long to so many people it was just unconscious at this point?

This is the stuff I think of when he leaves me alone too long. Good thing he doesn't do it often.

He came home a little late tonight, and I spent the half-hour waiting for him, convinced he'd dropped me for one of the innumerable bimbettes who follow him around like a messiah. Instead he bounced in with two bags of groceries and a suspicious-looking bulge in his jacket pocket, apologized for being late, and set about making dinner.

It wasn't his turn to shop, or his turn to cook, and when I pointed this out he just grinned at me and said "I won't tell if you won't."

"Tell who?" I asked, still upset over his lateness.

"My boyfriend. It's his kitchen, see, and he's very territorial."

I opened my mouth to deny that I was territorial at all, because I hate it when he calls me that, and then I realized what he'd said. "Did you just call me your boyfriend?"

"Aren't you?"

"Well--"

"Last I checked, a male with whom one was in a romantic relationship with was one's boyfriend."

"We have a romantic relationship?"

He stopped what he was doing and raised an eyebrow at me. "Jim, you didn't think I was sleeping with you just to get my rocks off, did you?"

"Well--"

"You idiot," he said, fondly. "Go into my coat pocket and get out your present."

"You got me a present?"

"Yeah, I got you a present."

"Why?"

"I'm a sucker for romance, that's why. Go on."

I got out the present, and had to laugh. It wasn't romantic at all--it was something he might have gotten me last month, before he wormed his way into bed upstairs with me. "Yes!" It was one of those utility plier things--a Leatherman, solid and steel and much more useful than a Swiss Army knife. I'd wanted one for a while, but had never gotten around to buying one. "Thanks, Chief."

He grinned at me. "Guess what, Jim?"

"What?"

"Romance ain't the only thing I'm a sucker for."

"Yeah," I said, as he came closer. "Oh yeah."

I still don't know what I was thinking when I decided that sleeping with Blair was a good idea, but I'm pretty sure it was a smart decision. Oh, yeah.

The End

all material on these pages copyright laura j. valentine, except where otherwise noted. email: jacquez+@dementia.org