“I’m guessing this isn’t how you usually spend your weekends?” Tim asked.

“You mean watching straight guys take baths?” Ben replied innocently enough. “Oh, you’d be surprised. It’s a fairly common occurrence.”

Tim’s laughter echoed in the small tiled room. “Well, what do you do besides that?”

Ben shrugged. “Hang out with Allison Cross. She’s my best friend.”

“And what do you usually do together?”

“Shop, mostly. Hit the movies sometimes or just drive around. What about you?”

“Me and my friends? Same stuff you do, I guess. We don’t shop, but we drive around and try to find somewhere to hang out. There’s been a couple of good parties this year, too.”

Ben didn’t know anything about that. He was rarely invited to any parties. Such things were the mysterious domain of the popular kids. He had almost forgotten the crowd Tim ran with. How the nice person in front of him could be cronies with the biggest assholes in school was hard to comprehend.

“Haven’t been on any dates yet?” Ben asked, even though he knew otherwise.

“Yeah, that too,” Tim said without any great enthusiasm. “Shit. I still haven’t called Krista since this happened. She’s going to be pissed.”

“Who’s that?”

“My girlfriend. Krista Norman. Maybe you know her?”

“I think so,” Ben said evenly as an image of an anorexic witch sprung to mind. “Wow, and you haven’t called her for a week?”

Tim shrugged, slipping further down into the tub. “I guess I should have, but it just seems pointless right now. The pain killers pretty much kill my sex drive, you know.”

Ben didn’t know, but now he could safely assume that Tim wasn’t hoping to initiate something with his weird choice of social setting. Such a shame. It would have been a scene right out of those magazine stories. The straight guy starts talking about his girlfriend and gets aroused, eventually turning to the only other warm body around…

“She never puts out anyway,” Tim continued. “She’s a real cock tease.”

Ben swallowed a laugh, Tim’s line fitting the fantasy all too well.

“That sucks. You’ll probably score major sympathy points, though, when she sees you injured.”

“Hey, yeah! You’re right!” A lazy smile came over Tim’s face as he considered the idea.

Ben cursed his mouth and brain for conspiring against him. Soon after he was sent upstairs to fetch a new outfit for Tim, which was fun and only helped to further the feeling that they were a young married couple. Was Tim at all aware how this felt for him? Did he care, or was all this just a blur of opium-induced numbness for him?

As the afternoon faded into evening, the pressure outside finally peaked and exploded. The sky opened with a grumble of thunder and a hammering of rain. They killed the air conditioner and opened the windows, enjoying the rhythmic sound of water pummeling the leaves outside.

Ben busied himself in the kitchen, attempting to make a simple dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. He had gone over the process a dozen times with his mom, who was becoming increasingly puzzled at his sudden interest in cooking.

The pasta sauce wasn’t a problem, since it came from the supermarket in a jar. The meatballs were trickier since the meat wasn’t fully defrosted. Ben sculpted them into balls as best as he could, his hands stinging from the cold. Timing was something he hadn’t considered before he started. The pasta was finished boiling before he had even started frying meatballs or warming up the sauce. He took the pasta off the heat but left it in the water in the hopes of keeping it moist.

After an hour of effort, he ended up with pasta that was much too soggy and meatballs that were slightly burnt on the outside but barely cooked on the inside. Because he couldn’t mess up the sauce, and as he had done with his pancakes, he used a generous amount of it paired with Parmesan cheese to help cover up his mistakes.

Ben set the dining room table, but abruptly changed his mind, feeling it revealed too blatantly his domestic fantasies. That and the result of his labors didn’t seem worthy of such a formal presentation. He brought the plates into the den instead and placed them on the coffee table. MTV serenaded them in the background as they began their meal.

Tim reacted to the food like a ravenous stray dog. He tore into it at a speed that promised he wouldn’t be tasting very much of anything, much to Ben’s relief. They were halfway through their meal when the power went off. A vehement snarl of thunder followed the sudden silence, the storm proclaiming its role in the outage. There were a few minutes of scrambling in the dim light until matches and candles were found and lit.

“Romantic,” Tim joked as they resumed eating.

“Isn’t it?” Ben tried to chuckle casually.

“It’s funny. It’s like fate has some crazy plan in mind for us. You running into me that day and dragging me to the hospital. Then you take care of me, do all the stuff you’ve been doing, and now this.” He gestured to the nearly empty plates in front of them. “Dining in candlelight. It’s so close.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know. If you were a girl it would be perfect.”

Ben raised his head to make eye contact, and for one electrical moment, Tim looked at him as if he were just that. Then the amorous expression was replaced by one of confusion followed by a few sniffs. “Is something burning?”

Ben sniffed a couple of times himself. “Shit! The garlic bread!” He darted into the kitchen or at least intended to. With the lights out he ran into a number of walls, probably dislodging a multitude of crucifixes. Eventually he spotted a glow that revealed itself to be the smoldering remains of the bread loaf. He felt around for oven mitts, took the pan from the oven, and tossed the charred bread into the sink, running water over it for good measure.

With the emergency over, Ben leaned against the kitchen counter and took a deep breath. If only he were a girl, huh? On one hand Tim’s words meant that he was the wrong gender and didn’t stand a chance in hell. On the other they also said, with a few physical differences aside, that Ben was everything that Tim was looking for in a guy. Girl. Whatever.

* * * * *

The lawnmower sputtered and chugged, running off fumes now. Ben eyed the three remaining strips of grass yet to be mowed and hoped he could finish without having to refill the tank. He broke into a run, pushing the mower ahead of him with all his strength. A few strenuous moments later and the lawnmower gave one final protesting cough before dying just seconds after the last blades of grass had been sheared.

Ben smiled in satisfaction as he surveyed his work. The yard didn’t look perfect, but then it never did. As he cast his eye over the lawn, a movement drew his attention to the house where his mother stood in the window. She was peering at him intently as she had been all day, treating Ben with suspicion ever since he had come home this morning. She had assigned him an unmerciful number of chores and regularly checked on him as he worked, as if to catch him doing drugs or whatever else she suspected. Once the mower was put away, he stepped into the kitchen which connected to the garage.

“All done then?” his mother asked as she handed him a glass of Kool-Aid.

“Yeah, with everything,” Ben gasped after chugging the drink. “I’m going to take a shower now.”

“Afterwards you can help me make dinner, since you’ve been so interested in cooking lately.”

“Yeah, all right.”

Ben took his time in the shower, since it was apparently the only time he would get any rest today. Some way to spend a Sunday! After he relieved himself sexually, he stood tranquilly under the stream of hot water for what felt like half an hour. Eventually he reluctantly turned off the water and stepped out. Wiping the steam from the bathroom mirror, he eyed himself as he dried off, wondering all the while what Tim would think of his body. Was it good that Ben was so slender because it was more like a girl? Or would it be better if he had muscles that could compete with Tim’s?