The Return Of The Emotionless Robot

Socialist Steve, the guitarist in Celeste's band, has dreadlocks the way Allston has bedbugs. Ben has decided that the dreadlocks are a separate, sentient life form. He firmly believes that the reason Steve is always late for rehearsals is because of his hair. Oh, he's not grooming it. It's just that while Steve is tuning his guitar, and getting ready to leave, his dreadlocks are playing XBox. When he says "Hey...guys? I've got to go, or I"m going to be late." They reply "ssssssss ssssssssss ssssssss" which is Dreadlock for "Fuck off, if I don't help Ryder shoot the guards, I'm never gonna get past this mission."

Tonight, Steve is on time, which is good, because this will be one of the last shows the band has before Celeste moves to LA. The show is in a huge house in Jamaica Plain. The kind of house with constant parties, a sweat lodge, and a stripper pole. I am sitting on a couch with Sora and Lola, who are discussing how cool it is that they're both Puerto Rican, when Ben walks in the room and announces that he's high. This is glaringly obvious.

Shortly after Ben's arrival, a band begins to play. I whisper back and forth with Sora and Celeste. Ben stands in front of us, swaying, but not to the music. At one point, he walks over to the couch, says something to Sora and walks away.

"That, DOUCHETRUCK!" Sora says, gets up, and leaves the room.

I put my head in my hands. Celeste rubs my shoulders. I count to ten, and prepare to go after Sora. But before I can get up, Sora is back. He grabs my right hand, opens up the palm, and places a tiny orange squirtgun in my hand. I shoot him the Velociraptor look. He takes the gun, and fires it at the back of Ben's head, then quickly, moves it into his pocket.

Ben touches the back of his head, looks to his left, sees Socialist Steve, makes a disgusted face, then turns back to watch the band.

Sora squirts him again. Ben glares at Steve, then stumbles over to us and says "His hair is PEEING on me."

Sora says "ssssssssssssss."

This goes on for about ten minutes, at which point Ben leaves the room. Sora and I follow. The three of us end up on the porch, where someone is passing around a hookah. While I am inhaling, Ben begins a rant on Socialist Steve's hair, which somehow ends with him talking about how I'm dating a toddler.

Sora pulls the squirtgun out of his pocket, and says "Bad Ben! Bad!" and squirts him like a cat.

"Oh. You. You little. I thought." and at one point a noun comes out of his mouth, but it is entirely unmemorable.

A short while later, we go back upstairs, watch Celeste's band, and drink.

When the show starts to die down, Sora, Celeste, Steve, and I head into the kitchen to get more beer, and make snide comments. Ben is already in the kitchen talking to someone "...and I totally shouldn't be eating chips because they're not on my 700 calorie a day plan, but I can't seem to stop myself, they're just so good, of course, I'm a little high right now, but, you know. Did I mention I'm in a band? We just had a show a couple of months ago, and"

"We?" I interject. "You're the only member of your band. Remember? No one else in Boston is talented enough to work with you."

"You just. You shut up. Why don't you take your little THING there, and."

Sora takes out the squirtgun again. "Bad Ben. Bad!" And he squirts him.

Ben's eyes explode. "STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!!! I'M NOT FAT!!! WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME FAT???"

And the room goes completely silent.

"Ummmm." Steve says. "No one called you fat."

"YES HE DID!" Ben screams, then takes a deep breath. "All night long, he's been following me around, squirting me with that ridiculous little gun, and calling me fat."

"Actually," Celeste says "he's been calling you bad. And then squirting you. Like a cat. Like a BAD cat."

Ben turns red. Steve shakes his head.

Ssssssssssssssssssssssss.

I haven't posted here in eons because I'm finally dating someone. Someone who isn't awful at sex. But more importantly, someone who reads my LJ and probably doesn't want me broadcasting our sex life over The Internet.

I'm a terrible boyfriend.

I met my boyfriend (Sora) at a reading I was giving in a nearby state. At the end of the show, he came up and flirted me dizzy. I gave him my e-mail, imagining I'd never hear from him again. So when he showed up the next week at another reading several hours from where he lived, but down the street from my house, I was pleasantly surprised. When he asked if he could stay at my house, I politely offered my couch, but suggested (because I'm oh so subtle) that we hang out in my bedroom to talk, so as not to keep my roommates up (their bedroom being several walls away from my bedroom, but only a sliding door away from the living room couch).

After an hour or so of not at all sexual or romantic conversation, I decided to change into pajama pants. Not being overly forward or an exhibitionist, I changed in the bathroom,. When I came back, he attackissed me and much makeoutage occurred. Kiss, kiss, chew lips, cling to shoulderblades, all is good. Then, declaration of his virginity. Oh, really? He says "I've never" and then he smiles like a doughnut and beings sucking my dick. Well. Better than most guys who've been down there, but not so good that I doubt his first time status. He's down there about five minutes when he stops and smiles at me. I figure he needs a break, so I begin going down on him, and it's not long before he's finished. Then he clutches my arm, rolls to his side, turning us into spoons.

Hmmmm. There was good suckage, but he didn't finish me off, and that's bad suckage. But I like this guy, and it's his first time, so...whatever.

When we wake up the next morning, he starts talking about our first night together. "That was great. I'm glad you came first, though. I'm useless after I come."

Blink. "Uh. I didn't come."

He rolls over and gives me a horrified look. "Oh, God, really? But...but...but there was wetness."

"It wasn't---"

"Oh God." He says. "I'm such a bastard. I'm sorry."

And we do the "I feel so guilty"/"Don't worry about it" dance for a few minutes, and then he returns to sucking my dick. After a while, his jaw gets tired, and he goes to work with his hands. Perfectly considerate and great. And then I come. A lot. Geyser is an understatement. You know the fountains at Bellagio? That's just a trickle. The Pacific Ocean? A puddle. I come for days. And when it's over, he says "ON MY FACE???"

His glasses are spotted with come. As is his chin.

We had been face to face when I came. And I wasn't aiming or anything, I was just kind of...every where.

"I'm sorry." I say. "I guess you don't have to feel bad about the whole not finishing me off last night."

"Wait. You already said not to worry about it. You," he hits me with my pillow, "Jerk-Off-Asshole-Bastard." (JOAB) But he is joking, and we return to making out, and yea, it's a good day.

I tell this story to my roommate, Celeste, because 1.) I think it's funny & 2.) I'm a terrible boyfriend. I even mock Sora's intonation from when he said "On my face?" because it's hilarious.

Fast forward a week. Sora and I are in the living room, watching MXC. Celeste, is in her room. Presumably asleep. For no good at all reason, except that the option is there, I start working my way into Sora's pants. I'm being completely evil. Tease, tease, and then full fledged fellatio. We are both super quiet. After he comes, he tilts his head and asks "On the couch?" And from the other room, Celeste goes "Oh....oh, no. Dudes, not on the couch! I have to watch TV on that thing."

And I lie that we weren't doing it on the couch. She says "Ok." And we almost get away with it, except that when we walk by her bedroom on our way into my room, Celeste opens the door and sees the huge stain on Sora's shirt.

We are now forbidden from sharing the living room couch without supervision.

I used to give my roommates, Celeste and Sir Trick, who were a couple, a hard time because every week or so I'd need to take a piss while they were busy fucking in the shower. When my boyfriend, Sora, moved in, I had to decide whether to take the high road, and not seek vengeance by long shower-fuck sessions, or take the low road, and see if we could make more noise.

For once in my life, I took the high road.

Apart from a couple of noise battles (when you try to prove how much better your sex is by increasing the volume of moans, shouts, and smack noises), we tended to let our sex remain private.

One afternoon, Sora and I were in the kitchen arguing over something stupid, and we heard the roommates getting it on. We ignored it. And after a half hour or so, Celeste came into the kitchen, with a huge glob of come on the front of her shirt. Sora and I contained most of our laughter, and didn't even say anything when she said "Oh my god, dude!", turned around, and ran into her room to change her shirt.

Later that night, after drinking enough Coronas to be declared official citizens of Mexico, Sora and I stumbled into our room for some loud, sloppy, lights out, almost sex. Because Sora had a nasty habit of falling directly asleep after orgasm, we had a standing/sitting/laying down agreement that I always got to come first. So I did. Once devoid of sperm, I knelt down to reciprocate, and Sora promptly rammed his cock into my nose. After the requisite name calling (I chose douchenozzle for this particular occasion) and ass smackage, I forged ahead with the fellatio.

Once he'd come, we made out for a bit, and then Sora decided to take a shower before he fell asleep. He threw a towel around his waist, and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. He was too tired to hear the water running, so when he opened the door, the apartment was filled with all three of my roommates screaming. Sora screamed because he'd walked in on Celeste and Trick's shower sex, and Celeste and Sir Trick screamed because Sora's face and belly were covered in blood. Apparently, he'd rammed my nose harder than either of us had realized.

The next day we put memo boards up on our bedroom doors, and the bathroom with "Occupied" and "Vacant" signs.

"You're moving?"  Ben asks when we get back to his apartment. 

I've been thinking about it since he got back from New York.  And the phone call I made at work was to Celeste.  Her roommate is moving to North Carolina on December first.  He's leaving behind his old computer, his bed, a few shelves, and most importantly, a room of my own.  No van seat perpendicular to Ben's bed. 

"Is that why you've been so happy?  Because you're leaving me?" 

"Leaving you?  Since when are we together?" 

He fluffs his hair.  "You know what I mean.  Good for you, though.  You do need to get your own place.  But now where will I get my crab cakes and coconut shrimp from?" 

And I reassure him that I'm not disappearing out of his life.  Celeste's house is a half-hour walk or ten minute bus ride away.   

"Oh, good."  He says.  And we don't discuss it again until December first, when I throw all my stuff into my backpack, and one of his suitcases, and tell him I'll be back in an hour.  

"And the next time you see me, I won't be your roommate, I'll be a guest, so you'll have to start treating me better."  Though I know he doesn't treat his guests any differently than he's treated me for the last three months. 

"So, what now?  Am I supposed to hug you goodbye or something?" 

I wrap my arms around him.  There is a split second where I debate kissing him, not because I'm still in love with him (I'm not sure I am), but because I know it will infuriate him 

Instead, I smile, pick up my bags, and walk to the elevator.  Fucker didn't even offer to help carry my bags.

There is no rock, no hard place. I am between a buffet and a comfortable bed. Everything but my clothes is packed up and waiting by Ben's door. I spent Tuesday night sleeping on my new bed. Spent last night in the familiar position slightly to the right of Ben. I want these two worlds to converge. I want the ability to spend all night talking with Ben, while still having my own space. I want my apartment with Celeste and Trick to be in Allston, so I can be closer to the places I have grown accustomed to being. 

In the year that I lived in Mission Hill, I never had a regular place I went to. Likewise when I lived in Cambridge for nine months, and the almost year I lived in Slummerville. I've only been here for three months, and there's a breakfast place where the only waitress worth tipping knows my order as soon as I go in; and there's a comic book store where they know, in advance, what I'm going to buy, and they ask me vague questions in an attempt to figure out whether or not I'm schtupping Ben. 

I have to stop writing his name. It's been almost two weeks since I've had a night where he hasn't had a significant role in a dream I've had. I can barely make it through a conversation at work without his name coming up, either by me mentioning him, or a coworker asking about him. 

I hereby pledge to go one week without speaking his name to anyone. There will be no "Ben" in my world. Nothing will be beneficial or benevolent or bent. Cincinnati's football team will be The Tigers. I won't say I've been thinking about something, I will say I was thinking about something. I will not be "on a bender", I will be drunk. When I give advice to Celeste as to how she can feel better, I will not suggest Benadryl, but, rather, an anti-histamine tablet. I'll even refrain from mentioning benign harmless things that sound like they might have Ben in them. I'll pass up bananas for plantains, bandannas for doo rags, banter for rambling. No more conversations about Bangladesh. I swear, I'll quit talking about him cold turkey. And that's a promise you can take to the place where money transactions take place.

Yes, I'm vanishing. Yes, life is more complicated than explaining calculus to someone who doesn't speak the same language as you. Yes, Asscat scratched the blood out of my hand last night. Yes, taking three hits of acid on your first time is an incredibly stupid idea.  Yes, I'm fine now, thanks for not asking. 

When Ben asked me to feed Rufus while he went back to New York, he said "And this time, I promise the power won't go out." 

Celeste, who I called to keep me company while Lissabelle torments Ben, smiles at me through thirty-seven coats of lipgloss. "The whole arrangement is just decidedly weird." Ben and Lissabelle are in his apartment, packing, unpacking, repacking for their return trip.  The acid was so good, Ben's going back to buy one hundred hits. Celeste and I are in the hallway, passing one of Ben's Gauloises between us. 

I inhale and then try to flick the cigarette, but the filter catches under my nail. "How so?" Twitchingly. 

"Well...." And I hate the way that word hangs between us, as though I'm going to tell you something you already know, but don't really want to hear right now is sandwiched between the e and the first l. And I know what she's trying to say, it's weird how I met and fell in love with Ben so quickly, and then unceremoniously moved into his apartment, even though he doesn't really love me. And it's weird how Ben, who doesn't love me, and who hasn't even known me for very long would let me move in with him. "You know, the whole, uh...living situation." 

I know. 

In the reflection of Celeste's lip gloss, I see Ben open the door. "Hey, hun, you're gonna want to get your shit off my bed, because everything that's on my bed in three minutes, gets put in my bag and taken to New York." 

I head into the apartment, collect the notebooks Celeste and I have been writing in, place them on the piano, and then lay across his bed. 

"No. I'm not taking you. Nice try." He pushes me off the bed, and begins throwing things from the bed into his bag. "Oh, check these out." He picks up a pair of argyle knee socks. 

"Hot." I say, because they are. 

"You are sooooo gay." Lissabelle says. And I'm not sure whether she's talking to me or Ben. Sure, Ben is the one who has pink hair, eyeliner, and knee socks, but I'm the one who's attracted to him. 

"He didn't used to be gay." Celeste says. So they're talking about me. "You know, apart from the whole sleeping with men thing." 

I should be saying something clever and catty, but I have been abusing my brain and body for the past week or so, and they are both decidedly unhappy with me. 

"Fascinating as your socks are," Lissabelle says, "we are way late right now, so you need to pack so we can get out of here." 

"Bitch, we're only late because you forgot to pack." Ben says, fluffing his hair. "So, no more from you. Shhhh. Shhhh." 

And then they are packed and gone. And it is Celeste and I alone in Ben's apartment. She is standing in front of the mirror, "Adam, do my lips look puffy?" 

"No." They look varnished like the hardwood floor in a sports arena, but they don't look puffy. 

"Ok." But she continues to look at her face in the mirror. This is Ben's apartment. There are mirrors everywhere. "We should go out for a walk. Moving would be really good." 

Yes, yes it would. "Where should we go?" 

"Outside." 

So we head out to the streets of Allston, where the colors are vivid and the wind is a word I can't come up with. We don't go anywhere exciting. An ATM and the ice cream shop. Then we are back in the apartment, and it is time for Celeste to go home. "Bye, Adam. See you later." And she smiles, again. I can see myself in her lips, alone in Ben's apartment, looking at the calendar, trying to figure out how long it will be before Ben comes home.

I am Contrast. Do gooder nice guy does what told.  Folds blankets for sleeping guests.  Buys presents for friends and loves and loves and would do anything for and is supremely talkative.  Give me a topic and yes, I'll listen too.  Tell me a story.  That's fabulous.  I love you but don't you piss me off.  I disappear.  Give me a new haircut and I'll be silent forever.  You can give away everything I don't own.  I'm a packrat who doesn't care anymore.  Take everything.  We'll call it even but it's not balanced and certainly not fair. I'm a flying fish on land with a papercut tongue. Come kiss me. 

It's morning and I wake up alone in a haunt of ghosts. I wronged that one and that one and that one and that one, but that one took off in the night with my discman and the last fleck of trust, that one strapped wings on my back, kicked me, and had the nerve to act pissed when I flew away, and that one is Princess Thundercloud and she wouldn't have been happy if I hadn't left her crying. 

I part my ghosts with morning breath and mint leaves. Stand still. Let the room cross me. I want and am wanted and am wanted dead. 

This is every morning before I go to sleep. I can't sleep for all the dreams and guilt I'm not having. Fuck you all, I'm sorry. 

I can't even decide whether to use punctuation today. It's noon now and so dark outside I am snowblind. 

Celeste is having a party. It's not her birthday or Halloween, but it is somewhere between and around both. I have forgotten we are supposed to dress up naked insecurity costumes. And when she reminds me, I have no clue what I will be but instinctively know it will be conflicted like my determination to be something but my resingedness as to what. 

I spend my day laying on this bed that isn't mine running around town collecting ideas and ending up with nothing. I don't want to go to a party, I want to be alone with all these ghosts figuring out who is who and then blending them all into some forgettable mass and flinging them from the apartment. I want to be surrounded by people who love me and will tell me I'm imperfect and kiss me on the flaw and say fuck you don't leave me ever. 

I am Contrast but this is a gray day. I don't know where my thoughts begin or end or rest comfortably in the middle drifting off and around but still tethered to my vagrant mind. This is a gray day and I want something immediately but I don't know what it is except not gray. 

Color comes home. Rather, Color comes to his home and I am already here. "We'll go as ourselves" he says and the floor turns luminous wood wherever he stands. The mirror explodes. And this apartment is vibrant and alive and humming electric and I think the whole world must be reacting to him and everything beauty and everything colorful but outside is still gray and wet and we have three hours until the party. 

Color says "Paint me." And I am Contrast. He is feeling creative so I am flat piece of wood without texture or design. I paint because he wants me to and the colors on his arm clash brilliantly like him and my perception of him and me and my perception of myself. His arm is bright green dark blue painful yellow soothing purple and then fleck red and spit orange and he is blissfully unhappy with the results. The party is two hours away and we start over. River of purple splotches of yellow red leaves footprints like a soccer player in a marshmallow field and there are other colors there I can't name but can paint and yes that's it entirely. Color is acid and giggly. I adore Color but stay gray until I look myself in the mirror. I am Contrast I see things in contrast. My face whitens with black lines sectioning things off the part of my hair I like turns black the rest white and my hands only comfortable when cracking knuckles paint themselves in contrast but not really color. Soon I'm wearing a coat and it appears that wings have sprouted from my back but more likely I pulled them off someone else and tied them around my body. My wings are black. Color's are white. So we are both contrasting, but we are not both colorful. 

We are late to the party and giggly and depressed and frantically apathetic about being late. The outside gray has turned darker but still gray and it is of course raining and I envision all the color in his face and hair and arms swimming away from him and my contrast sludging into this gray day night. We make tepid jokes and Color says "I think I like you most because you're decidedly not crazy though everything in your life right now is." 

I say "It's because I've grown to realize that I'm never going to be stable if I keep reacting to things around me so I just stopped reacting outwardly and now I seem serene though really what the fuck am I doing with my life?" As if to explicate this, a car passes too close splashes water all over me but it is raining anyway so what the fuck do I care if I get any wetter I just keep walking and spouting philosophy about how happy I am these days but really I'm so full of shit that I'm wasting away to nothing.

I am the subject. Am is happy to be helping. In is the preposition I'm currently stuck with. Love is the real object. See? Ben, David, Dmitri, CSB, Ryan, it doesn't matter who, does it? Fuck who is the object of my desire, desire is the objective.

I've been mocking Ben for lamenting that no one he's attracted to is attracted to him. I haven't met anyone gay or straight who doesn't think he's attractive. Of course, I suffer from the same affliction (the no one I'm attracted to is attracted to me thing, not the everyone thinks I'm attractive thing, I wish). Should have gone for the guy on the T with the staring problem. Dealt with that musician guy from the Lizard Lounge. Dmitri who's far away and already has a boyfriend. Or David, who I'm starting to realize is from another planet.

Celeste says "It sucks that Ben led you on for so long." But he never led me on. I led me on. Ben is always direct with what he wants, needs, expects. I'm not. This is why no one ever knows what I want. This is why everything.

Trick says, "Ben doesn't deserve you. Go for David." But Trick has never met David. And when I question the accuracy of the word deserve, he recants.

Deserving is a stupid word. The bitch that moved into my old apartment and posted a Craigslist ad of my room deserves a snatch full of razor blades and rubbing alcohol. And may the blades be lubricated with leprosy and Hepatitis C. What she gets is an asshole ex-roommate who refuses to be in the same zip code as her, thus not paying his share of the bills. And since that's me, I deserve the heavy backpack grinding away what's left of my spine.

I need to relearn the ability to be direct. You there, in front of me in line at the Store 24, you've got a great ass. Clarissa, if you weren't so silently judgmental, you'd be happier and have more long term friends. Celeste, thank you. Ben, I love you, and thank you for putting up with me at my most awkward and freakishly dependent. We need to go see Serenity. We need serenity. Serenity now, goddamnit.

I need to relearn the ability to object. I can't work seven nights a week. No, I won't meet you halfway if you live in an abattoir. I'll just leave what you need by the front door. I'm fine. Thanks for not asking.

This is as up front as I get. Seven years ago, the only man I ever trusted when he said he loved me, killed himself. I only think of him every time I feel anything like love. So fucken what? Everyone has ashes under their scars. You either get over it or you don't. Either way, life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. If you don't make a decision, you're stuck on the same boringly inconclusive page for the rest of your life.

I only love improbable relationships because they're uncomfortably familiar. I love Ben because I don't know, his voice makes my ears twitch, he's starting to write like breath, he doesn't talk like FM radio, he doesn't act his or anyone else's age. I love him because it feels natural.

He deserves better.

Before leaving for New York, Ben and I were eating breakfast at our favorite diner, when he said: "You always order the Eggs Benedict, and you manage to get like three quarters of the way through breakfast without cracking the yokes. That's damned impressive."

Later that night, during a poetry event, Zuzu asks "Are you aware of how many times you mention Ben's name in a sentence."

"Only about once a sentence, thank you. It's just that I usually run said Ben sentences together."

My grandmother called today to let me know that my grandfather just got out of the hospital, and that my dad, who I haven't seen since...let's not speculate on that one...is staying with them for a while. So I'm going to Connecticut. Connecticut, place of my birth and adoption, where I nearly grew up, but for my father being transferred to Cape Cod when I was six.

Ben plans on arriving sometime early this morning, possibly giving him enough time to sleep before he goes to work. I leave at fuckall o'clock tomorrow morning, so that my grandmother can cook a meal large enough to cover the two years since we've seen each other: potato pancakes, waffles, bacon, and Eggs Benedict.

There's a variety of reasons why I haven't gone to visit them since I moved back from Arifuckenzona. They've been dealing with a sick relative (my not so great great uncle), selling off a house (my great grandparents'), and spending as much time waxing the floors of God's house as their local church allows. I've been busy with work, moving, writing, sodomy, and coming up with excuses why I can't go visit them. There's never enough time. But there's nothing like the possibility of imminent death to inspire family members to take personal time off from work to de-guiltify.

Before I go, I make a run to the grocery store to buy jello, soy milk, and rice. Things Ben likes that I don't. It doesn't occur to me until I'm back at the house that I'm hungry but I haven't bought anything for me. I don't know whether I neglected to buy groceries for me because I knew I was leaving tomorrow and didn't want to waste money or because I've never been good at putting myself before others. You're more or less than welcome to draw your own conclusions, just draw them with pencil because you may change your mind later.

Celeste calls during my walk home to let me know that yesterday, someone broke into the coffeehouse and stole the cash register. In addition to the physical presence of the register, they also got away with all the money inside of it. Approximately forty cents in pennies. Somewhere, there's a very winded, very pissed off thief. I'm presuming they ran, because it's hard to look nonchalant when ambling around Boston with a cash register under your arm or trenchcoat.

I'm tired now, but not sleepy. I've got a million things to write about, but can't seem to get them to lineup properly in my mind. I'm still hungry, but not motivated enough to go out and get something to eat. Tomorrow is a banquet. I will eat every bite that's offered, and with any luck, won't crack until the very end.

***

When I get back from Connecticut, and Ben gets back from New York, he is all apologies and duct tape band aids. He takes me out to the movies. We go to the Different Twist for dinner with Trick and Celeste. He tells us about his trip. "It was awful. I decided to try two hits at once, and I ended up spending most of the night outside, trying to talk to the rocks or some shit. When I came back in, I borrowed Lissabelle's cell phone to call you, but you didn't answer. Thank God. Anyway, I gave the phone back to her, or at least, I thought I did. When we were getting ready to leave this morning, she said she couldn't find it. So I cleaned the entire commune. Twice. No phone. I unpacked all my stuff, and repacked it, and unpacked it, and repacked it. No phone. She kept screaming at me and telling me what a terrible person I was. And I wanted to find the phone, not just to shut her up, but so I could call you, because I desperately needed to hear someone say something nice to me."

Trick coughs conspicuously. Apparently, Celeste told him about the I Don't Love You Conversation.

"Anyway, she had one of her friends hypnotize me, to see if that would help me remember what I did with the phone. I didn't. And when we finally gave up, Lissabelle put her coat on, and the phone was right there in her pocket, and the bitch didn't even apologize."

"Wait," Trick says, "you thought to get hypnotized in order to find her phone, but you didn't think to have her check her pockets. Why not just burn the house down and use a metal detector to find it?"

"Booooo. Anyway, we're going back next week because I was only able to get a dozen hits, and I have friends coming down to visit tomorrow. Oh, Celeste, can Safey stay with you while my friends are in town?"

I flinch. Trick flinches. Celeste rolls her eyes. "Of course. Did you think of, I don't know, asking Safey how he felt about it before asking me."

And he dribbles forth more apologies. And he pays for my pizza. And whatever.

At work, the next day, I am so far beyond overtired, that I strongly suspect the ASL sign for coma was invented to describe the way I feel. Ben calls the work phone around eight to ask me to bring him some food. I say "Sure thing, baby, I'll see you when I get home."

Things wrong with that statement:

1. Baby? What the hell?

2. Ben's apartment is not home.

A few minutes later, one of the new waitresses, Hill, taps me on the shoulder and says "Ben is on the phone for you again."

I decide to be funny, to go way over the top with the whole baby thing, so I put on my sexy phone voice and say "Hey, baby," (shudder) "what's up?"

"Baby?" Says Ben my boss, not Ben my future ex-boyfriend. "It's Ben."

And I say "Uhhhh....Hey?"

And when I weasel my way out of that conversation, David (my almost mutual infatuation partner), who's been standing around the corner the whole time says "Baby? Who's your baby?"

And I say, "No one. I'm just really drunk." And it's true, four Peachtree Schnapps, Smirnoff, Peaches, Chambord and Champagne will do that to you. But, given how stressful this week has been, the solution seems to be, drink more. So, after work, David and I take the T together, discussing everything but the word baby. I get off the T and head to Ben's house where we take loads of digital pictures, change our LiveJournal layouts, and drink Rated X liquor, thus keeping everything I've drunk, a fluorescent shade of pink. And while we drink and take pictures,we play En Vogue's Funky Divas album.

"This is so gay. You're not allowed to tell anyone about this." Ben says. "Especially not the part about how I got really into it and sang the lyrics in the most sincere way possible."

"Ok." I say. "I won't."