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Technical Difficulties Episode 01

By: LucyH



Fall, 2007

A harvest moon shone down on the feed lot that crisp, cool night in October, making the row of light posts down the center redundant. Most of the cattle slept, their hides and ears twitching reflexively to shake off flies. Two black cows in the paddock on the end poked their heads through the fence and nosed around in the mostly empty trough. They ignored Zach's approach. 

Everything Zach knew about handling cattle, he'd learned that week. Don't bother sleeping cows. Pick one that's awake and approach slowly from the front to avoid startling it. Act like taking a stroll in the feedlot at midnight is a perfectly normal thing to do.

Zach stepped on the trough and boosted himself up over the fence beside the smaller of the two animals. He checked the ground for cow patties before climbing down on the inside of the paddock. The cow half turned its head and looked at him with a glimmer of curiosity. He petted its flank, hoping to reassure it. The cow resumed nosing around in the trough.

The smell of cows, and particularly their poop, got on Zach's last nerve, but he was too hungry not to bite. He pressed his face against the cow's neck, got a big mouthful of dirty fur, and sunk his fangs in. The cow's skin twitched, as though Zach were a giant horsefly. He choked down as much blood as he could stand to swallow, fighting his reflex to gag. Why did the one species of mammal (besides humans) too stupid to run from a vampire have to taste so horrible?

Summer 1997

Ryan hurried to wiggle a hand free of the rope that bound him to his father's old weight bench. The stifling heat in the garage added to his impatience. He inched up, trying to get a bit of slack, and a big splinter jabbed into his arm; the bench was home built from rough, heavy lumber. At least the movement won him a free hand.

Layla and Zach yelled to each other and made ray-gun sounds as they fought the imaginary bad guys in the front yard. Ryan used his fingernails and incisors for the delicate job of loosening knots in the kite string that bound his other hand. He couldn't afford to get too frantic, or he'd just tighten them and end up hopelessly stuck without scissors. 

It was even harder to be methodical when he felt the knot loosen, but he fought the urge to tear at the string, and instead eased the loose knot down its length until he could slip his hand out. Once he regained the use of both hands, he sat up and freed his feet with little difficulty. He ran to the big garage door. Before he reached it, the door flew open. Ryan squinted into the blinding sunshine. 

Layla aimed her water pistol at the junk in the garage behind Ryan. "We're here to rescue you. Let's get moving before the guards come." 

"Whew. Thanks. It's lucky you made it." Ryan ran out into the gravel driveway and followed Zach and Layla as they took off down the sidewalk toward their home base in the neighborhood park.

"Hurry, they're chasing us," Layla called over her shoulder, and picked up speed.

Heat radiated from the pavement and a mirage shimmered on the road ahead. Ryan felt light-headed and sweat rolled down his back under his t-shirt. "I can't go any faster. They poisoned me," he shouted.

Zach turned around and walked backward for a few steps. "Just move as fast as you can, then. I'll cover you." 

Ryan staggered the rest of the way to the park and collapsed on the packed dirt in the shade of the cedar bushes with Layla and Zach. The game always ended there.

Layla caught her breath first. "My turn to be the prisoner next."

"No, it's my turn," Zach argued.

Ryan took the squirt gun from Layla's lap and sprayed water into his mouth.

Layla shook her head. "Ryan's mom comes home soon. We only have time for one more game." They weren't supposed to tie each other up, because it would be dangerous if the house caught on fire, according to Ryan's mother.

"Yeah, but it's still my turn." Zach sat up straighter and frowned. 

"I'm moving tomorrow. This is my last chance to have a turn." Layla pried her squirt gun out of Ryan's hand and took a drink. 

Zach started to sound more pissed off than whiny. "I know you're moving, but we can't play the weight bench game properly with two people, so it's the last chance for all of us. You had a turn right before Ryan." 

"You two can find somebody else to play with," Layla said. She sounded sad.

"Who?" Zach demanded.

Layla shrugged. "I don't know. Anybody."

Ryan worried that they wouldn't get to play at all if they kept bickering. "How about you play rock paper scissors for it or something."

Zach glared at Ryan. "Why should I have to play rock paper scissors when it's my turn?" 

Layla sniffed, and Ryan realized she was trying not to cry. She got into a crouch and crept out of the hideout.

"Nice going," Ryan grumbled.

Zach crossed his arms. "What? It's not my fault she's being a bee with an itch about it."

"She is not." Ryan rolled his eyes. "You can have a turn tomorrow. I'll go outside by myself." 

"What are you going to do out here?"

"Who cares? I just promise I'll do it. Come on. Don't ruin Layla's last day here."

"Fine." Zach ripped a twig off the nearest bush.

Ryan chased after Layla, calling her back.

Technical Difficulties Episode 02



The next day, Ryan did get pretty bored waiting outside while Zach tried to escape, but they came up with a new version of the game after lunch. The bad guy would catch both of them, and make one torture him until he revealed the location of some secret plans. In the beginning, nobody actually got hurt. They imagined that a screwdriver was red hot metal and some scraps of cut wire delivered electrical shocks. The prisoners would bravely refuse to spill the secret, and help would arrive in time.

A couple of weeks later, a thunder storm chased them inside after they spent the morning swimming. As usual they ended up in Ryan's garage. Zach lay down on the weight bench and grinned at Ryan with a purple popsicle mouth that matched his swim trunks. He told the imaginary bad guy that he was wasting his time, while Ryan tied him to the bench. Ryan chimed in to agree with Zach, though really he was paying more attention to wrapping the skipping rope around Zach's ankles. He saved the kite string for the wrists, because it was harder to escape that way.

They went through the usual routine with the screwdriver and the wire, but Ryan got bored. He found a pair of needle nose pliers, and used them to pinch Zach's stomach lightly. Zach grimaced and pretended that it hurt. Suddenly Ryan had to know what would happen if he pinched his friend for real, and he did it right as it occurred to him.

Zach yelled and jerked away. Adrenaline hit Ryan's veins hard, and he felt his next heartbeat. He was sure Zach would be mad and get him in heaps of trouble.

Ryan was wrong. Zach stared at him, breathing hard for a moment, then clenched his teeth and told the bad guy to go to hell. Ryan caught another bit of skin between the pliers and squeezed. Zach squealed and struggled. Ryan kept pinching him in different spots on his stomach, riding a kind of roller coaster thrill. Surely any second Zach would tell him to stop it. Probably, he'd tattle or punch Ryan as soon as he got a chance, and Ryan knew he would deserve it. What he didn't know was why he kept hurting his friend. 

Zach started to cry, and Ryan finally felt guilty enough to put down the pliers. He said that their rescuers had arrived, and cut the kite string to free Zach in a hurry. Zach sat up, and Ryan handed him his beach towel so that he could dry his face. They sat next to each other on the weight bench while Zach's sobs subsided. He sniffled and dropped the towel on his lap. "Want to come over to my house and play battleship?" 

Battleship bored Ryan, and Zach won most of the time, but he jumped at the chance to partly make up for the thing with the pliers. 

Partway through the game, Ryan got to the point where he couldn't take any more suspense. "Are you going to tell on me?" 

"B 7. What?"

"Miss." Ryan pointed to Zach's stomach. It was covered with sharp purple bruises that stood out against his light skin. "Are you going to tell on me for that?"

Zach looked down and his eyes widened. "Oh. That. No. Just a minute, I'll go change so my parents won't ask what happened." He pushed his chair back and ran upstairs to change out of his swim trunks.

Ryan wondered if he was really going to get away with it that easily.

***

The next morning, five minutes after Ryan's mom pulled her car out of the driveway to go to work, Zach knocked on the door. He wanted to play the weight bench game again, and be the prisoner. That's when Ryan knew he was going to get away with it for sure. 

Zach was always the prisoner after that, and Ryan made him cry a lot of times that summer. When school started, they still snuck into the garage to play the weight bench game on Saturdays when Ryan's mom went to her bipolar support group. 

One Friday in April, 1998

Zach tiptoed out of bed and crouched by the night light. He pushed up his pyjama sleeve and examined the red marks on his arm, left over from last week's weight bench game. It really did look like he could have stumbled into a bush like he told Mom, but she was starting to worry and ask if Zach had problems with bullies. The funny thing was that the reason he didn't have trouble with bullies this year was that they were afraid that Ryan would beat them up if they crossed the line. Alone, Zach would get picked on for being small and geeky. 

He picked at a small scab, and worried. The weight bench game made him feel brave, like he could handle anything. He didn't want to stop playing it, but what if their parents found out and Ryan got in trouble? Would Ryan stop being his best friend? Then he'd have to deal with real bullies - kids who would attack him for no reason and make fun of him even more if he cried, until he just wanted to hide all the time. Ryan and the weight bench game were the reason his life didn't suck anymore, and he was sure that parents wouldn't be able to understand that.

Zach heard footsteps coming upstairs. He scurried back to bed and pulled the covers over his head so his mom would think he was asleep when she came to check on him. On his way past the window, he noticed Ryan's bedroom light on across the street, and felt a pang of jealousy. Ryan stayed up really late on Friday nights just like Zach did, but he didn't have to pretend to be asleep. He didn't have a bedtime.

May 1998

Zach unrolled his sleeping bag on the floor in Kevin's basement, silently stewing in resentment about having to be there. He ignored the other boys playing monkey in the middle with Danny's sock monkey. He was going to miss his chance to play the weight bench game this weekend, because he was stuck at the lamest birthday party in the world until noon on Saturday.

He climbed his sleeping bag and covered his head with his pillow to block out the noise. Somebody stumbled over his feet. 

"Jesus, watch where you're going," Zach snapped, without looking to see who it was.

"You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain," Kevin said. 

Zach should have remembered that. These were all kids from his Sunday school class. Kevin was home-schooled, and they were the only 'friends' Kevin could invite for his thirteenth birthday party, which was why Zach's parents forced him to go. "You also shouldn't step on people," he grumbled. 

"It was an accident."

"I know. Just... never mind." 

Someone knocked on the door to the rec room. "It's time to quiet down. We're going to bed." Kevin's dad called through the closed door. 

"Okay, goodnight!" Kevin yelled. 

They eventually quit throwing the stupid sock monkey around, and did something that involved gathering at the far end of the room and whispering. Curiosity got the better of Zach and he took his head out from under the pillow. The other boys clustered around something on the floor and hunched over to look at it.

Zach told himself it was probably something lame, but went to take a peek anyway. It wasn't like he had anything better to do. He squeezed in between Danny and Kevin and found himself looking at the glossy pages of a porno magazine with lesbians. One lesbian had the other tied to some contraption he didn't have a word for, and was spanking her. Zach's jaw dropped. 

Danny turned the page, revealing more pictures of the same lesbians in new positions. "Chill, Kevin. You can't commit adultery in your heart if you're not married, and God actually never said anything about lesbians. You're safe." 

Zach didn't believe in God, so he tuned out the discussion and just stared at the pictures blissfully. He'd never given much thought to lesbians one way or the other, but wow... He caught himself starting to drool. 

The magazine was whisked away abruptly. Zach blinked and looked up. Kevin shut the magazine and clutched it to his chest. "We shouldn't be looking at this," he said.

Danny rolled his eyes and reached for the magazine, but didn't try to wrest it from Kevin's hands. "Ok, fine. Give it back and I'll put it away." 

"No. This is my birthday party, so I'm responsible. I'm going to give it to my parents to get rid of." 

Danny put a hand on Kevin's wrist. "Are you crazy? We'll all get in trouble." 

Kevin shook his head hard. "It's better to get in trouble than go to Hell." 

"Hey, since I'm going to Hell anyway for being an atheist, what if you give it to me?" Zach suggested. He meant it as a joke, but Kevin thought for a few seconds and handed it over. 

"No fair! It's mine." Danny said.

"Either Zach takes it or my parents do. It's my party, so I'm in charge." Kevin said, and crossed his arms.

"You're such a prig. No wonder you don't have any real friends," Danny hissed. 

The hushed bickering continued for some time, but nobody could change Kevin's mind. Zach held the magazine and stared at the leather-clad lady on the cover, not quite trusting this surreal stroke of luck. 

When he got a chance later, Zach whispered to Danny that he'd hand the magazine over after church so there would be no chance of Kevin finding it with Danny's stuff and deciding to tattle. It also meant he got the magazine to himself all Saturday night.

Lying in his sleeping bag in the dark, Zach mentally reviewed those lurid pictures. His thoughts rambled through the pages of the magazine, and he imagined scenarios that became incoherent as he drifted toward sleep. He took the place of the naked woman with her hands tied, and when he looked over his shoulder, Ryan was the one holding the whip. It was by far the hottest thing he'd ever imagined.

Zach jolted wide awake, and thought, "Oh fuck," over and over. Suddenly he was very glad he was missing the weight bench game that week. He really, really didn't want to go there. It was hard enough being small and geeky; adding gay to the mix, and scaring Ryan off in the process, was a recipe for total disaster.



Technical Difficulties Episode 03



They never played the weight bench game again.

Winter 2003

Ryan's girlfriend, Trisha, inspected the three-foot wooden cube that Zach had just finished painting black. "I think it's going to need another coat." 

Zach poured more paint into his tray and gritted his teeth. "Yes, we've already established that it takes three coats to cover." He usually managed to be nice to her for Ryan's sake, but there was only so much Trisha he could take. He was also a bit grouchy because he hadn't wanted to spend his weekend painting props for the drama club, but Trisha had roped Ryan into it. Zach went with him so he wouldn't drown in estrogen. Why the hell did they need two dozen huge black wooden cubes, anyway? It seemed like a stupid waste of trees and paint. 

Trisha held her hands up defensively. "Jeez, you don't have to bite my head off. I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page here." 

"Yeah. We're all on the painting stuff black page. It's all good." He smiled as he loaded his roller up with paint, and imagined rolling it over Trisha's made-up face and highlighted hair. He might be too chicken to hit on Ryan, even after finding out he was bi, but at least he was man enough to admit to himself that he was bitterly jealous.

"Okay then. Well, I'm going to do another cube now, I guess." Trisha walked off, and Zach didn't pay attention to where she went.

A redhead in a tight black shirt and jeans came in through the back doors of the auditorium, carrying her coat over her arm. She had a perfect miniature hourglass shape. Zach paused with his roller still on the paint tray and watched her walk down the center aisle toward the stage where they were painting. Her gait looked almost like a dance, with the way her hips swayed. Instant attraction.

"That's Trisha's cousin, Melissa," Ryan whispered. 

"The one she wanted to set me up with, and I resisted?" Zach looked down at his paint tray and moved the roller around, trying to look busy.

"Yep," Ryan said with a smirk in his voice.

"Call me shallow, but suddenly, I'm liking that idea," he muttered. Maybe a really pretty girl could help him get his mind off Ryan. He applied his paint roller to the nearest cube and peeked over the top of it at Melissa. 

Ryan snickered.

Melissa looked a little lost until she spotted Ryan and made a beeline for him. "Heyas. I decided to come help after all." She had a loud voice like Trisha's - not attractive, but unless her personality was too much like Trisha's, he could probably get over the volume.

Ryan introduced Melissa to Zach and suggested that Zach could set her up with a roller and a tray. He did, and they hit it off right away. For all her flaws, Trisha was a good matchmaker. If Zach had met Melissa without having met Ryan first, he'd have fallen madly in love. Since it happened the other way around, she was just good company and a very pleasant distraction. It didn't hurt as much to see Trisha with Ryan when he had a date of his own.

But alone in bed at night, he couldn't think about Melissa. It always came down to Ryan, rope, and something painful and perverse. He wanted Ryan to strip him down, burn his name into his skin, make him bleed, bring him to tears, and use him for a sex slave. 

The scary thing was, if anything ever happened between the two of them, he was pretty sure Ryan would eventually do most of that. The scarier thing was the possibility that Ryan would have no interest in doing any of it, and Zach would have to deal with the fact that the person he wanted most in the world didn't want him.

Prom night, 2003

The last notes of the last dance of the evening faded from the hazy air in a swirl of blue disco lights. Zach hugged Melissa and patted her on the back, feeling the ridge of her spine through the smooth fabric of her dress. He figured he'd done his duty as a good boyfriend: brought her flowers, posed for pictures, danced with her, and paid attention to her. He told her she looked like a movie star at an award show, and meant it. The short gold dress suited her delicate pixie shape – sexy without being vulgar – and her curly red hair was extra shiny. It had been a surprisingly pleasant evening, much better than the 9th grade farce that convinced Zach to avoid school dances. Hopefully, though, the best was yet to come.

Melissa tilted her head back and he gave her the expected kiss. Her lips tasted sweet like chocolate. Even sweeter, for the first time ever, they both had excuses not to go home that night. A twinge of anxiety followed that thought. He had something important to ask her, and he didn't know how she was going to take it.

Lights came on in the ballroom. Melissa slipped away to get more pictures taken with her best friend while the DJ packed up. The girls giggled and struck poses. Zach stood back and watched Melissa appreciatively, for once not thinking that he'd rather be Ryan's date. Those glittery spike heeled sandals did wonderful things for the shape of her legs. He'd never seen her wear heels before. It distracted him enough that he almost jumped out of his penguin suit when Terry tapped him on the shoulder. 

Terry grinned, displaying a mouthful of teeth that clashed with each other at odd angles. "Room 1462."

"Um, thanks. See you in a few." Zach dropped his gaze back to Melissa's legs.



Technical Difficulties Episode 04



Terry and Ryan did their best to make themselves the center of attention as usual; they jumped on one of the beds and had a pillow fight, pretending to be girls.

The burnt smell emanating from the kitchenette was a result of Trisha's failed attempt at chocolate chip marijuana cookies. She hacked at the lumps of charcoal with a spatula. "We could still eat them. The middles aren't black," she told her skeptical friends.

"Might as well have just smoked it. Now the room is going to reek like pot anyway," whined a girl with claw-like acrylic nails. "At least there's some left. Who's got a light?"

Lonnie dashed inside from the balcony that overlooked the hotel swimming pool and barely made it into the bathroom before he started tossing his cookies. Luckily, the burnt cookies largely masked the sour smell of tossed cookies.

Melissa drained the last drops from her fourth cup of extremely spiked tropical punch. She shook her head and smiled. 

The moment seemed right. Taking advantage of multiple distractions, Zach towed Melissa into the walk-in closed without anyone looking their way. She went with him cheerfully.

He closed the door and braced his back against it. Melissa stuck her empty cup on top of the water heater and kissed Zach with a lot of tongue. He responded with enthusiasm. She leaned into him heavily, then drew back and patted his jacket pocket with a frown. "What's all lumpy?" 

Now or never. Drawing on the courage supplied to him by vodka, he pulled out the toy handcuffs. The tissues he'd wrapped around them to keep them from clinking fluttered to the floor. "These." 

She lowered her gaze and bonked her head against his shoulder, but he caught a glimpse of a grin as she did it. "Good grief, Zach, have you been carrying those around all night?" She sounded amused, at least, and possibly pleased, but he couldn't tell for sure.

"Yeah. Um..." He tilted his head, trying to see her face. No luck. "Would you handcuff me to the clothes bar?"

Melissa was silent for a long time. Zach started to wonder if she even heard him. Just when he was about to ask again, she sighed, all traces of good humor gone. "No."

It felt like she'd stabbed him in the gut with a giant fork. "Please? You can do anything you want with me."

"I said no." She lifted her head and stepped away from him.

The fork twisted, tugging all his internal organs out of alignment. "Or I'll do anything you want," he added with a forced smile.

Melissa snatched her cup off the water heater. "What I want is to have fun at the party, not play dominatrix in the coat closet." 

Zach kept his back against the door. As long as she was still in the closet, there might still be a chance to talk her into it. "You like oral sex. What if you cuff my hands behind my back, and I'll lick you as long as you want?"

"No. I don't want to put those on you and every time you ask is a huge turnoff, okay? I'm not even in the mood to kiss anymore." She reached for the door handle.

He covered it with his hand. "You could hit me instead."

Melissa raised her voice a little. "What is this, Green Eggs and Ham? No. And no to everything else you're about to say." She tugged his arm, trying to get his hand away from the doorknob.

"Ok, Green Eggs and Ham. Can we skip to the part where you try it and find out you like it? Wouldn't that be at least a little fun, having total power over someone?"

"Holding the door shut is really immature. Let me out." Melissa dropped the plastic cup and used both hands to wrestle with Zach for control of the doorknob. She kicked him in the shin, but not enough to hurt.

The handcuffs swung from his fingers and clattered against the door as they struggled. The rational part of his brain knew he should drop the subject and let her go, but the giant fork of desperation overruled it. "I'm just asking one little thing. Not even asking you for anything sexual that we haven't already done. I've done lots of nice things for you, haven't I?"

The volume of Melissa's voice climbed. "What, so everything nice you've done for me was to get me to ... do things with you in the closet? Stupid me, I thought you were being nice because you liked me." She hit her forehead with her palm.

"It's not like that. I love you. But this one little thing is really important to me, and I don't see why you're making such a big deal about it. Why can't we just do things you like with me wearing handcuffs? Please, Melissa." 

"Are you deaf? I said no. No. N. O." She drew the letters in the air with her finger. "Stop acting like an overgrown three year old and let me out of this freaking closet now."

Zach inched over and blocked the doorknob with his body. "Shhh. You're being really loud. Please? At least try it for five minutes."

"I'm loud because you're not listening to me." She poked him in the arm. "Why don't you try eating Trisha's cookies for five minutes to find out if you like them?" 

"Oh come on. Nobody likes burnt cookies. I'll let you out if you can give me one good reason why you won't do it."

"Here's a reason. I don't want to play your stupid game with that dorky toy. Congratulations. You've ruined prom night. Want to try for more?" She reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his cell phone before I processed what she was doing. "I'm calling the police if you don't get out of my way. It's not legal to trap somebody in a closet. You want an adult criminal record?" 

He tried to catch her arm, but she staggered away, steadied herself with a shoulder against the wall, and flipped the phone open. When it dawned on Zach that she might be serious about calling the police, he took two steps forward and reached for the phone. She thrust it at him, yanked the handcuffs out of his grasp, and flung the door open. Everyone at the party stood clustered around the closet door in the hall, and a lot of them snickered.

Melissa pushed past Ryan and Trisha, and strode to the back of the room. Zach froze for a moment with everyone staring at him, then chased after Melissa as she pulled the balcony door open. To his surprise, she didn't try to stop him from coming out on the balcony. He got there just in time to see her fling his handcuffs over the railing. They splashed into the hotel pool a story below. A couple of late night swimmers looked up. He stared at them as Melissa stormed back inside. 

One of the women in the pool ducked under the water and came up a moment later holding the handcuffs. They had a little laugh about it and she deposited the cuffs on the edge of the pool, then looked back up and waved. 

"Yeah, absolutely hilarious," Zach said under his breath. 

Inside, Melissa shrieked, followed by a crash.

He charged back inside to find Melissa face down in a puddle of orange liquid that was soaking into the dark gray carpet. A split second later, he registered the tipped-over table, the upside down punch bowl on the floor, and the scattered plastic cups. 

"Ow ow ow. Stupid shoes," Melissa said through clenched teeth. 

Zach moved automatically to help her up, but she stopped him short with her glare.

"Don't touch me." Her voice was cold enough to chill a penguin to the bone.

Ryan complained about the punch being gone while Trisha gave Melissa a hand up and helped her limp to a chair. The girl with fake nails burst into a fit of stoned giggles. Terry smirked at Zach. Some guys debated whether the hotel was going to charge extra money for cleaning. Genevieve whipped out a digital camera and snapped pictures of the incident, while Lei shook her shoulder and protested that taking photos of somebody who just got hurt wasn't nice. Lonnie flopped on a bed, pulled a pillow over his head, and yelled at everyone to shut up. Words devolved into white noise and meaningless syllables. There wasn't enough air in the room. Zach fled.

He was too upset and too drunk to drive, so instead of going home, he took the elevator to the top floor of the hotel, where he found the exercise room still open, but empty.

Zach sat on an exercise bike and watched the news on T.V., hoping to numb his brain. 

The door opened, and Ryan's reflection appeared in the window. 

Zach looked over his shoulder. "Hey."

Ryan dangled the handcuffs from his finger and offered them to Zach. "I got these back for you."



Technical Difficulties Episode 05



Seeing Ryan holding handcuffs made Zach's brain buzz and his heart race. "Thanks, but you can keep them." He glanced back up at the T.V. screen, feigning interest in the warm front that was moving across the country. 

Ryan hung the toy on the handlebar of Zach's exercise bike and stood beside him. "Are you okay?"

"No." He dried his sweaty palms on his pants surreptitiously. "How'd you know I was up here?" 

"You couldn't have gone too far with your car keys in my pocket." 

Zach remembered then that he'd let Ryan borrow his car to get some supplies for the party. So Ryan was right, he couldn't have driven home after all, even if he'd been stupid enough to try. "Oh. Right. Is Melissa still here?" 

"No. Trisha took her home. She was still pretty upset after you left."

"Do you think she'll get over it if I apologize?"

"Honestly? No. She was already mad at you before you dragged her into the closet. Trisha says she thought you rented a room for just the two of you, and wasn't happy when she figured out you didn't."

"Why was she mad at me about that? I never told her anything to make her think I rented a room."

"I really don't know. Sorry." Ryan sounded sympathetic.

A fresh wave of misery welled up inside Zach, and he suspected that any words he spoke would come out in a flood of tears. Ryan hadn't seen him cry for a long time. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat and get a grip.

Just when it felt like the emotion was ebbing, Ryan laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment. The unexpected gesture pushed him over the edge. He hid his face in his hands and struggled against sobs that made it hard to breathe. The fact that he was embarrassed to cry over a girl in front of Ryan made it that much worse, and harder to stop.

Ryan tapped his arm and handed him a towel. Zach hadn't even seen him get it. "You're gonna be alright," Ryan said. 

Zach flashed back to the time Ryan let him up from the weight bench after the thing with the pliers, and handed him a beach towel. Did Ryan remember that too?

Ryan put his arm around Zach's shoulder in a lazy half-hug. His body felt drastically different from Heather's little pixie shape; so solid and right. 

If ever a moment had a purpose, that was the time when Zach was supposed to confess his feelings for Ryan. He opened his mouth to speak, but his throat constricted like it always did when he tried to bring this subject up. He couldn't breathe until he decided to say something else. "Fuck" he muttered into the towel. He sat still, hyper-aware of Ryan's arm around him, and helpless to do anything about it.

An unfamiliar male voice asked, "Is everything okay?"

Zach raised his head and opened his eyes to find a security guard staring at them from the doorway. It felt like they'd been caught at something naughty.

"Yes sir. My friend is just having some girl trouble." Ryan's calm, matter of fact tone brought Zach back to reality. Nobody could read his mind; his thoughts were his own. 

Static and an incomprehensible voice on the guard's radio distracted him. He nodded to Ryan and Zach, raised a hand in a farewell gesture, and left the room asking the voice on the radio to repeat itself. 

Ryan lingered for a minute with his arm around Zach's shoulders, petting his arm, and Zach wondered if Ryan was hitting on him. Guys don't usually hug each other like that, and Ryan wasn't in the habit of hugging Zach at all. Maybe the handcuffs had given him ideas. Zach wanted to respond positively, but he froze up so much that he couldn't move.

Ryan stepped away from Zach and tried to convince him to go back to the party, as if nothing had happened. The imaginary fork in his gut twisted so hard that he barely made it to the bathroom before he threw up.

***

Ryan felt like a sick puppy, getting turned on from seeing Zach cry. It didn't bother him to think about getting a little rough in bed, but he wasn't supposed to like seeing his best friend truly unhappy. He couldn't help it, though, any more than he could help the x-rated thoughts that popped into his head when he saw those handcuffs. Ryan had all but forgotten their old game with the weight bench, and now, thinking back, he marveled at what weird kids they'd been. Zach would probably get freaky in bed, wouldn't he? He'd go for the kind of things that Trisha thought were too perverted. If only he were not so straight. 

It seemed wrong to think about Zach like that when he has so upset, though. Ryan decided to focus on being nice, and brought him a towel. Still, he couldn't resist putting his arm around Zach for a minute, just to test what would happen. Zach cried for a while, then went still and silent. Ryan squelched an urge to kiss him. Zach didn't need more things to stress about, especially not tonight. And anyway, Trisha would kill them both if she found out. Maybe some other time, he'd ask about the handcuffs.



Technical Difficulties Episode 06



Fall 2005

A year after Ryan moved out of his mother's house into his own apartment, his father called out of the blue and asked to meet him for the first time since he was a baby. His first reaction was to tell his father to go fuck himself. Ryan didn't blame the guy for leaving Mom, because anyone would have left. Ryan himself had signed the lease for his apartment on his 18th birthday. But his father knew Mom, knew about her mood swings, and left a helpless baby and a little girl in her care anyway. That was unforgivable.

Ten minutes after he cut his father off and slammed the phone down, though, Ryan called back. He invited his father and stepmother over for dinner, if only so that he could have a face to attach all that resentment to. 

Two days later, he answered the door and found himself looking at that face -- at least the part of it that wasn't hidden by a bushy grey beard. The features that the beard didn't hide looked nothing like Ryan's, except for his eyes. He had one green eye and one blue eye - something Ryan had never seen before except in the mirror. 

Ryan's stepmother looked like she couldn't have been much older than Ryan, but she wasn't pretty enough to be a trophy wife. She hid most of her chunky figure under loose black clothes, but when she raised a stubby hand to wave to Ryan, he saw enough of her forearm to notice white blotches on her dusky skin. They all stood there in silence, sizing each other up for a few seconds.

Ryan spoke first. "Well, hi, come in. As you might have guessed, I'm Ryan."

His father stepped into the front hall and put out a hand for a handshake. "Good to finally meet you, Ryan." 

He shook his father's hand because he wasn't feeling quite hostile enough to ignore it.

His father's wife followed behind him, and kicked her shoes off beside the door. "My name is Jamila. It's nice to meet you." She had a gentle voice.

They sat around on the mismatched castoff furniture in Ryan's living room and inquired about each other's lives, while the tray of lasagna finished heating up. Their conversation started out fairly normal. Ryan told his father about his job as a waiter, and his girlfriend, Trisha. His father wanted to know whether he planned to go to college or get married, and seemed a little disappointed when he said he didn't know.

Ryan was surprised to learn that his stepmother was a church secretary, and his father was a minister. "What denomination?" he asked. 

The volume of Dad's voice rose. "None. We don't figure we need a council of strangers to tell us how to run our church, when we have the word of God to go by." He stared at Ryan, as if daring him to challenge the statement.

"Oh." Ryan mentally ticked off the 'fundamentalist' box. "But you weren't a minister when you were with Mom, were you?" Mom had only described him as a jerk, and occasionally a liar.

Ryan's father relaxed his posture a notch. "No, I got the calling a few years later."

"How do you get a calling?" 

"It's different for everybody, but God sent an angel to me."

"Oh. What does an angel look like?"

"He appeared to me as fire in the night."

"Wow. I bet most ministers don't get a personal invitation like that." Ryan tried to remember what the symptoms of schizophrenia were, besides hallucinations. He drew a blank.

His father gave a slow, dignified nod. "Well, minister is just my official earthly occupation. I'm also a prophet." 

Ryan coughed to cover up a startled laugh. Was that a joke? He stole a glance at Jamila, who was picking bits of fluff off her shawl and giving no sign that she found anything unusual or funny. "So God uh... gives you messages?" he asked.

"Yes. The first thing he told me to do was start a church. So I did."

Ryan raised his eyebrows. "Then what?" 

"Then he told me to have as many sons as there are nations in the world." 

"What?" Ryan couldn't help the bug-eyed look. 

"God wants me to have a lot of sons," his father said slowly, with exaggerated enunciation as though he thought Ryan was mentally deficient.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Ok, yeah, I get that. But there's gotta be more than a hundred countries in the world."

"A hundred and ninety five, in fact, or ninety six if you count Taiwan. Unless God reveals otherwise, I count Taiwan."

"Yeeeahhh. So how do you think you're going to manage that without the Mongol hoard at your disposal?"

"I can tell you don't believe me, Ryan, but every word I speak is true. The women in my congregation give me children."

The oven timer beeped and Ryan sprang up to get the lasagna, glad to have a moment to collect his thoughts. He tried decide whether to laugh, worry, or just think of this as a curiosity. Unfortunately, he couldn't make up his mind before they were all at the dinner table discussing prophethood again.

Jamila picked at her salad and said little, while Ryan's father expounded at length. "I'm just a humble servant of the Lord, Ryan. When He calls you to be his prophet, you get down on your knees and thank him, because what could be a more precious gift than the words of God? You don't do like Jonah and run away, just because people might not want to hear His message." He bellowed the last bit. "You say 'Yes Lord,' and you do what he tells you. You preach his message." 

Ryan worried briefly about whether his upstairs neighbor would be upset by the noise. He helped himself to another roll, not because he was hungry, but to get a little relief from his father's intense stare. "Hey, I wasn't saying you should say no to God. I was just curious how you know it's God telling you stuff. If it was me, I'd wonder." 

"When you are touched by the Holy Spirit, you cannot mistake it for anything else. It's as obviously real as this table." He thumped his hand on the rickety table, rattling the dishes. "But you have to open your heart, just like you have to open your eyes to see the table." 

"Oh." Ryan took his time buttering the roll. "But why is God contradicting himself, then? Wasn't he pretty much against adultery in the Bible? Now he's asking you to sleep around so you can make lots of babies? How does that work?" He snuck at Jamila. 

She sat up straight with her eyes downcast.

Ryan's father shook his fork for emphasis. "It's sanctified because the Lord requires it. It's a pure spiritual union, not some kind of animalistic fornication. My sons will go to all the nations of the world and preach the words of God."

Suddenly, things clicked in Ryan's brain. "Whoa. Is that why you wanted to meet me? You still don't care about me at all, do you? You only want to convert me so I'll help with this scheme."

"It's not a scheme. It's God's command, and it is not to be mocked." 

Ryan would have laughed if he hadn't been starting to wonder whether this guy was stockpiling assault rifles and arsenic somewhere. "I think we'll have to agree to disagree about that. Why don't you tell me about my half brothers and sisters? How many do I have, anyway?" 

"You have thirteen brothers." 

"And sisters?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Nine or ten." 

"You don't know how many daughters you have?"

"We don't do paternity tests on the girls. It's too expensive." 

Ryan couldn't explain how wrong he thought that was without getting back into the discussion about religion, so he just inquired about his 22 or 23 siblings. They turned out to all be under the age of 5. One of them was Jamila's son, and she volunteered that he liked Legos. Ryan thought she seemed too young to have a kid, especially one old enough to be interested in Legos, but he kept that to himself. It was easy to mind his manners when speaking with Jamila. She seemed so sweet that he couldn't help liking her.

When Ryan's father excused himself to go to the bathroom after dinner, Jamila insisted on helping Ryan clear the table. When she brought a stack of plates from the dim dining room to the brightly lit kitchen, Ryan noticed the bruises on her cheek and neck that she'd nearly concealed with heavy makeup. Her dark skin must have made them easier to hide. She lowered the plates into the dish water. 

"Did my father do that to you?" Ryan asked.

Jamila raised a wet soapy hand to her cheek, and it hovered just short of touching her face. "Yes. Prophets can be temperamental." An apologetic smile flickered across her face. "It's not an easy job." 

Ryan blinked in shock. "I assumed you'd lie about it." 

Jamila shook her head no and slipped her hands back into the dishwater. "Lying is a sin."

"So's hitting your wife." 

"Maybe yes, maybe no, but only Christ was perfect." 

"There's no maybe about it. It's just not cool. Look, when you decide you've had enough, if you need a place to go, you can come here and crash on my couch or something while you get stuff straightened out." Ryan spoke quickly, afraid that his father would come out of the bathroom before he got it all out.

Jamila kept shaking her head and started washing silverware.

"Just remember the offer. Never think you have no place to go," Ryan insisted.

The bathroom door opened and Ryan's father emerged, tucking in his shirt. Ryan punched him in the face. 

His father staggered back against the wall and raised his hands, getting ready for a fight. "What the..." 

"There. Now you match your wife," Ryan said.

Jamila appeared at Ryan's side touched his arm to get his attention. "You should respect your father." There was reproach in her voice, but no anger.

"He's not my father. He's just my sperm donor. A worthless, disappointing sperm donor who needs to get the fuck out of my house. Now." It felt really good to say.

The bearded man clenched and unclenched his fists, and his face contorted with rage. Ryan expected some kind of physical retaliation, but instead, he whirled around and stalked out of the house. "May the Lord have mercy on your soul." He spit it out like a curse.

Jamila followed in his wake, her shoulders slightly hunched. "Bye," she murmured as she crossed the threshold. Ryan thought she looked resigned, and he had the gut twisting feeling that she was going to pay for what he just did. The rage had to go somewhere.

Ryan kicked the door and swore as their car pulled out of the driveway. Now he knew where his violent impulses came from. They weren't the result of his dysfunctional way of looking at things, his mother's neglect, or the stress in his life. They were a crappy genetic legacy from his disappointing sperm donor. Meaningless. And they would probably never go away. People like Jamila would eventually suffer for it. If Trisha knew what was good for her, she'd run like hell, not drop hints about wanting to get married.



Technical Difficulties Episode 07



While Trisha poked around in the detritus on the lake shore, Ryan lay on their picnic blanket with his eyes closed and listened to the lapping waves and seagulls. He and Trisha had the beach almost all to themselves that afternoon in October. It was the first time since his father's visit that he'd felt really peaceful, and Ryan wanted to soak up as much of that serenity as possible before another mad week of waiting tables in an understaffed bistro.

A shadow crossed Ryan's face and he looked up. Trisha stood over him with a large wet scallop shell in her hands and a big grin on her face. "Look at this one. Isn't it nice?" 

He didn't really care about shells, but managed to find something nice to say anyway. "Yeah. You don't find a lot of big ones that aren't broken."

Trisha crouched down beside him and offered him the shell. Both halves rested, closed, on the palm of her hand. "Look at it." 

Ryan looked at it. "What are you going to do with it?" 

"Give it to you." A gust of wind rustled the nylon of her jacket.

Ryan rolled onto his side and took the cold, wet shell with two fingers. He held it away from his body so it wouldn't drip on him. "Thanks." It dawned on Ryan that scallops don't live in lakes. Trisha was up to something, and he had a bad gut feeling about it.

"Look at how pretty the inside of the shell is."

Ryan opened the shell with trepidation, and found a man's ring - all gold except for a single diamond set flush with the band. "Ryan, will you marry me?" Trisha asked.

"Um." Ryan couldn't bring himself to say he'd marry Trisha. Not only had he been thinking of breaking up with her, but in his mind's eye, he saw Jamila following his father out the door, with her shoulders hunched. "This is a really bad time to ask."

"What's wrong? Is there somebody else?" she asked, her voice turning shrill.

"No." At least, there was nobody else he had a chance with. "Remember I told you about my sperm donor coming to visit?"

"Good grief, Ryan. You're not him." She plopped down on the blanket.

"No, but I hit him without meaning to, or even knowing I was going to do it until it happened. Sometimes it's like... I think something and I do it at the same time. It's like there's a wire loose or something."

"You've never hit me, and we've been together three years. I know you, and you're a better man. Don't let that loser spook you and keep you from living your life." She sounded desperate.

He wanted to choke her so she'd stop arguing and understand this was serious. He set the shell and ring on the blanket and sat up, hugging his knees to his chest. "Don't tell me what I'm like. You have no idea."

"I know what kinds of things you do. You're always taking care of the people you care about, not hurting them." Her eyes glistened with tears.

"Trisha, I almost got fired for losing it on a customer last month."

"He threw wine on you on purpose. I'd have slugged him." 

"Well maybe you have a problem too, then."

"There's nothing wrong with standing up for yourself and other people. Nobody expects you to be a doormat."

"What if I hurt you and think I'm just standing up for myself?"

"You're being ridiculous." Tears rolled down her cheeks and she tried to mop them up with her sleeve. The water resistant material just spread the tears around, so her whole face got wet.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just not ready to make that kind of promise." 

Trisha snatched up the shell and the ring and jammed them into her jacket pocket. "Whatever. Let's pack up. It's getting cold." 

Ryan rolled the cooler toward the car, and Trisha folded up the picnic blanket. She looked out the window as he drove, and eventually stopped crying. They made it halfway back to town in silence before she told him, "I guess you should know - I'm pregnant."

"Fuck." It came out of Ryan's mouth as he thought it. 

She burst into noisy sobs. 

"Sorry. I'm really sorry. But this isn't... good. How did it happen? I mean, you're still on the pill, right?"

"I was. I stopped it yesterday," she choked out.

"And those condoms should have been fine. And I know this isn't what you wanted me to say, but I don't want kids. Not now, not ever."

"You're just upset because of your dad."

"Sperm donor. And yes. And I don't plan to get over it." 

"Why can't you just stay away from those people and try to...to have a normal life?" 

The car ran over a scrap of junk on the road and lurched hard. Ryan realized he was doing 40 miles an hour over the speed limit. He took his foot off the gas pedal and squeezed the steering wheel instead. "I'm not a normal person."

He felt guilty listening to Trisha cry, and tried to think of something honest he could say that would make her feel better. Nothing came to mind. "Literally my whole family is crazy. The world doesn't need more of us."

"Are you asking me to get an abortion?"

He thought about it carefully before he answered. "Yeah, I guess I am." 

"No."

Ryan started to steer the car into the other lane of traffic in front of a big truck, but caught himself in time to swerve back into his lane and pull into the parking lot of an abandoned gas station. 

"I want to go home," Trisha said.

Ryan shut off the engine. "I almost got us both killed a second ago. This is not okay, Trisha. It's never going to be okay. I don't belong in the gene pool.

"For chrissake. Just give me the keys. I'll drive. I hope for our baby's sake that you're going to grow up soon and stop being such a drama queen."

He pulled the keys out of the ignition and threw them at her as he got out of the car. Before circling around to get in the passenger side, he kicked the derelict gas pump and slammed his fist against it.



Technical Difficulties Episode 08



Fall 2005

Zach held the door for Ryan as they stepped out of the bail bondsman's dingy office. "I like the Bikers for Boobs breast cancer poster."

"Sorry, I know this probably isn't how you wanted to spend your reading break." It was just like his sister Amy to call and ask him to bail her out when he was in the middle of having his own crisis. They'd been on the way to the pub to talk when she called. 

"Nah, I mean it. Actually, it's an interesting cultural safari." Zach walked a couple steps ahead of Ryan toward the city jail, and then hesitated at the end of the sidewalk. "Which way?"

Ryan rolled the bail bond up in his hand and took the lead, crossing the jail parking lot to a side door with smokers clustered around it. A pockmarked meth addict with shrivelled lips stared at them as they passed. They didn't belong, especially Zach with his ultra-geeky "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish" t-shirt, looking at everything with wide-eyed curiosity. 

Inside, Ryan slipped the bail bond into a slot for the clerk behind the bullet proof window. 

"Ok, she'll just be a few minutes. Have a seat, sir," the clerk said through the speaker. They sat on the nearest grubby bench. 

"That means an hour." Ryan translated. "Can I tell you the problem while we wait?" 

Zach's gaze roamed around the room, taking in the peeling paint, missing floor tiles, and surveillance camera. "Of course. I kinda wondered why you didn't tell me in the car." 

"Trisha asked me to marry her, and she says she's pregnant."

Zach's head snapped around so he could stare at Ryan in alarm. "What did you tell her?"

"Not now, and please get an abortion."

"And she's pissed?" Zach's posture relaxed a little.

"Yeah. And she won't do it."

"How far along is she?"

"I don't know. Didn't ask. I wasn't exactly thinking clearly."

"Hmm." Zach bit his lip. "You sure she's really pregnant?"

"She took three tests to be sure."

"What I meant was... okay, there's no nice way to say this. What if she made it up?"

"She wouldn't do that." Ryan said, though there wasn't a lot of conviction behind his words. He just felt obliged to defend her on principle.

"Most girls wouldn't, but Trisha... I could see her making it up. That or get pregnant on purpose. Think about it. She's been hinting since high school graduation that she wants to get married. Now a couple weeks after you tell me you're thinking of breaking up with her, poof. Pregnant. Either it's a hell of a coincidence, or it's a desperate move to hang onto you 'cause she knows something isn't right." 

"God I hope you're right. With my sperm donor showing up and things, I've been thinking maybe I should just get snipped or swear off girls or something. Now it's too late."

"Is that why you were thinking of breaking up with her?"

"Nah. I told you, I'm just bored. Antsy. Tired of... I don't even know what. She doesn't do it for me." 

Zach gave him the ghost of a smile and raised an eyebrow. "She must do it for you at least a little, if you believe she could be pregnant."

"Not really."

"Then break up with her already. Get it over with." He sounded cheerful.

"Then I'd be just like my sperm donor, if she's really pregnant."

"No way. You'd do the every other weekend thing, right? And Trisha might micro-manage the kid a little, but she'd basically be a good mom. She'd buy food, at least."

Ryan remembered how Zach's family fed him a lot because his own mother would forget to bring food home. Zach's parents were social workers, and Ryan's family was more like a case file. "I guess you're right. We're not my parents. I just didn't want this. I'd almost decided to break up. Almost decided for sure not to breed. Now this." 

"Find out if she's really pregnant before you try too seriously to figure out what to do. I think the odds are 50-50."

The door opened and a woman in high heeled stripper shoes and not much else stalked over to the window. She shoved a bail bond through the slot. Ryan didn't feel comfortable talking about his problems with a stranger in the room. "I'll check," he said, "So how are things going with you and Rosemary?"

"Okay. Um..." Zach bounced his foot against a leg of the bench. A couple of the smokers came in from outside bickering about who bummed more cigarettes. 

"What's her major again?" 

"Fine arts. She's really good."

"Oh yeah? Is she using you for a model?" 

Zach blushed and hid behind his hand. "A little," he mumbled. 

A few feet away, the bored clerk told the stripper to have a seat and wait a few minutes. 

The stripper scowled. "No, I am not having no seat. You tell him he can get his own ass home. Some of us gotta work for a livin' here. You tell him he can go across the street and finish fillin' out his own forms like a big boy." 

"He'll just be a few minutes," the clerk repeated.

"Yeah right. A few minutes. I waited here three hours last time. I don't know what you guys are doin' in there, but it's not work; that much I know." She snatched her handbag off the counter.

"Nobody's forcing you to stay, ma'am," the clerk said, and didn't quite manage to get her finger off of the speaker button before the start of an exasperated sigh. 

The stripper strode out. Zach stared at her back as she left. "Uh, sorry, what were we talking about?" he asked after the door swung shut behind her. 

Ryan patted Zach on the shoulder. "Rosemary's art."

"Oh, right. It's just really good. I'm no art critic, so I don't know what to say about it, but she draws people and they look like people. That's more than I can say. Um... why are we waiting for Amy, anyway?" 

"If I don't take her by the ATM on the way home, she's never going to pay me back for that bail bond." 

"Makes sense. But why bail her out at all, for that matter? Not that I don't think it's nice to help your sister, but she keeps doing this. Maybe she could do with a good hard jolt of reality."

"I don't want her to get tempted to call that jerk, Donnie. If he bails her out, she'll feel like she has to get back with him. If she gets back with Donnie, she'll stop working and start using."

"She's working? That's great." 

"Well, she's getting the occasional temp job, but it's a step in the right direction."

"Is she going to be able to get to work, though? This is what... her second D.U.I.?"

"Third, but it's her first adult offense. Besides, she never had a driver's license in the first place, so it's not like she's worried about having it suspended." Ryan almost leaned back, but then remembered how filthy the walls were. He leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees instead. "I'm sorry to keep dragging you into this freak show that I call a life."

Zach shrugged. "As I recall, I volunteered to come along for the ride. Besides, variety makes people smarter, and I have a physics exam next week." He looked up and studied the water stained ceiling tiles and flickering fluorescent light.

Ryan got lost in thought for a bit. He admitted to himself that Zach didn't seem to mind, but this was one of those times when he felt like Zach was out of his league, even as a friend. What was somebody from a normal family, with university scholarships and a respectable career ahead of him, doing hanging around with him? It wasn't like Ryan rose above the freak show - it was only luck that he hadn't been arrested since he was 15. Well, luck, and maybe some of Zach's good influence. How long would it be before they got so completely different that they had nothing to say to each other anymore?



Technical Difficulties Episode 09



Zach and Rosemary hadn't intended to finish off the entire bottle of peach schnapps, but it went down like candy. They sprawled side by side on the institutional grey carpet of his dorm room. Zach rolled onto his side and propped his head up to watch Rosemary lick the last few drops from the mouth of the bottle, using her tongue in lewd ways.

Zach touched one of the springy pink curls that fanned out around Rosemary's head. "Why are we on the floor? The bed is softer." 

"It's like ending up in the gutter, but we didn't have to go out." 

"Huh. That ever happened to you? I mean, actually waking up in a gutter? I always wondered if really this was something that happened."

"Not exactly, but after the senior prom, me and my friends wandered around drunk because the limo driver supposedly didn't show to take us home. I mean, he didn't show. Supposedly he got sick." Rosemary licked the bottle once more and dropped it on the floor. "We decided to sleep in the gutter just to say we did it, but there were a lot of ants, so we got a taxi. I ruined my dress lying in ketchup, though. Maybe that's what the ants were because of. Ketchup." 

Zach giggled. "Ketchup. Heh. My date ruined her dress with orange punch. Well, I mean, it might have washed out. I don't know. She dumped me and I never saw her again." 

"Oh yeah? Why?" 

"It's kind of embarrassing."

"Yeah? Good thing we're totally smashed, eh?" Rosemary nudged his leg with her foot and grinned.

Zach flopped onto his back and hid behind his hands. "I don't know if I've had enough to drink." He wanted to tell the story, though, because he was curious about how she would react. 

"I'll make you a deal." Rosemary got up on her knees and pried Zach's hands away from his face so she could kiss him. "Tell me, and I'll tell you my deepest, darkest secret that I've never told anyone, and probably never should, but I kind of feel like it right now."

"I don't know if that's fair, 'cause this one isn't exactly a secret, but okay..." Zach told the story of prom night, from badgering Melissa to handcuff him to the clothes bar, to her throwing the handcuffs off the balcony and Ryan retrieving them. He left out a couple of the more obnoxious things he'd said, though, and the part about lusting after Ryan.

Rosemary climbed on top of Zach and straddled him, grinding her hips suggestively. "So do you want me to play dominatrix?"

Zach winced. The hip grinding wasn't exactly comfortable, since they were lying on a cheaply carpeted concrete slab. "You would do that?"

Rosemary pulled the zipper on Zach's hoodie partway down. "Why not? Where'd you put the handcuffs?" 

"I left them at the hotel."

"Awww. Bet you wish you didn't." 

"Yeah, but they're not hard to find, if you keep being so... if um... you know, after you sober up, if you're still... offering."

"I will."

"Just to be nice? Or because it does something for you?"

"Being nice does something for me, Zach."

That had a ring of truth to it. He pulled her the rest of the way down on top of him so he could hug her. "I like that about you." Zach nuzzled Rosemary's cheek. "So what's your deep dark secret, hmm?" 

"Get ready to bite your tongue, 'cause if you laugh at me, I'm going to be mad." Rosemary whispered in his ear.

"I'm not going to laugh at you. Promise." Zach stuck his tongue between his teeth anyway, though, and held his breath just in case. One of the fun things about her was that he never knew quite what to expect.

In the softest of whispers, Rosemary said, "I fantasize about having anal sex with my brother." 

Zach bit his tongue hard. "Oh yeah? How does that go?" he asked when he trusted himself to speak.

"You know how my family used to live on a boat? It was hard to meet other kids and make friends, or date."

"Sounds frustrating." He petted her and wondered what a normal reaction would be, then decided it didn't really matter. 

"Yeah. We were all really close, because, you know. Boat. And I got the birds and the bees talk from my mom, except she was all embarrassed, and didn't make a lot of sense. I got confused and thought anal was, you know, standard."

Since Rosemary seemed to be waiting for him to say something, he commented,"I don't think my mom would've done a good job either, but maybe not quite that bad." 

"Well, lucky you had the public school system, then. Anyway, I started thinking my brother John must be lonely too, because he didn't have a wife, and imagined him coming into my room and crawling into bed with me and, you know, doing it. Just never got rid of the idea, even when I got my facts straightened out, and we moved back into a boyfriend, I mean a house, and I finally had a boyfriend." 

"You want me to pretend to be John? 'Cause I will." If she was going to put him in handcuffs later, it seemed like the least he could do.

"Does it bother you?" 

Zach thought about it carefully for a moment. He was pretty sure it was supposed to bother him, but it didn't. "No." 

"Then yes please?" she said in a squeaky, happy voice.

"Let's do it right now while I'm still too drunk to be shy."

"Yay!" Rosemary bounced, squishing Zach's pelvis against the concrete.

"Ow. Tell me about him. What do I need to know?"

"Sorry." Rosemary climbed off of Zach and hauled herself into Zach's bed. "He calls me Jellybean." 

"Jellybean," Zach repeated. He followed her onto the bed. The room held still a little better than it had been doing before they ended up on the floor, but he was still miles from sober. "It suits you. Delicious and bright colors." 

Rosemary rolled toward the wall to make room for Zach. "I don't actually know why he calls me that." She wriggled out of her jeans and tossed them onto Zach's desk chair. "Lucky for you, John isn't usually too chatty. Unless you get him going on one of his pet subjects of course. So it's mostly just like relax, be quiet so we don't wake up Mom and Dad, and that kind of thing. Mostly he's quiet if you don't say anything to him first." 

Zach fished a condom and lube out of the coffee can on the bookshelf by the bed, and stuck them in his jeans pocket. "Have you had anal sex before?"

"No." She reached under her t-shirt and unhooked her bra. 

"Okay. Me either. I'll be extra careful." Zach suddenly had a desperate need to pee. "Take a couple minutes to get settled, and I'll be back." He got up and paused with his hand on the door handle for a moment, while he checked to make sure he was all the way dressed. Pants: check. Shirt: check. His face was probably covered in Rosemary's glitter, but there wasn't anything he could do about that, so he left his room and walked down the hall to the bathroom, trailing his hand along the wall that didn't have a lot of doors.

He made it to the bathroom without meeting anyone, but on the way out, he stumbled into the hairy guy from a couple doors down whose name he forgot. Zach bounced off the guy and staggered sideways. "Oops, sorry there." 

The hairy guy sniggered. "Busy night?"

"Yeah, Tinkerbell's been sitting on my face, and she's insatiable." Whoa. Did he really just say that? Zach moved to make a hasty retreat.

The hairy guy caught his arm and pointed to the floor.

Zach looked down. The lube. Right. "Oh, THAT." He crouched and scooped it up. "Thanks. Bye!" This time he did make a quick escape, and ran back to his room, only bouncing off the wall once. When he reached the door, he composed himself, and turned the handle slowly, making as little noise as possible. He slipped back into the room.

Rosemary had turned out the light and hooked her iPod up to his computer to play soft, floaty music at low volume. She lay curled up in bed with her back to the door and the covers pulled up over her head. 

He tried to close the door silently, but was too clumsy. The door thumped shut. Oh well. Zach locked it and climbed into bed with Rosemary. He got under the covers and spooned up with her. "Hey Jellybean," he whispered.

"What are you doing?" 

"Um... playing house." He kept his voice to a whisper, on the theory that people sound more alike that way.

Rosemary started to roll over. "Aren't we a little too old for that?"

Zach nudged her back to her original position. He knew he looked nothing like her brother, so it would probably be better if she didn't see him. "Not this version. Just close your eyes and relax. I want to pretend you're my wife."

"I'm pretty sure we're not allowed to do that."

"We're not, but if we're quiet, nobody will know." He kissed the back of her neck and slid a hand up under her shirt. "I know you're not a goody two shoes, Jellybean." 

Rosemary squirmed and clamped her arm down across her stomach to keep him from touching her breasts. "Hey! Knock it off, John."

"Shhh. Don't get us in trouble." Zach squeezed his hand under her arm and pinched one of her nipples. She gasped and shuddered as she relaxed her arm to allow him easy access. It was fun, being able to get a response out of her that easily, even though he didn't share her kink. He flicked her nipple and nibbled at her neck.

She pressed back against him with her hips. "Okay. But if you get me pregnant, I'm going to kick you where it hurts." 

Zach bit his tongue and snuggled her. "I've got that covered in at least a couple different ways, Jellybean." He took the condom out of his pocket and ran the edge of the wrapper over the curve of her breast under her shirt. 

Rosemary giggled and shoved Zach's hand away. "Hey! That tickles." 

"Sorry. But keep it down." he whispered. "What if you roll over on your stomach and let me take your underwear off?" 

She started to move, then hesitated. "Promise not to look?"

Zach scooted back and sat up to give her room to move. "No. You're too pretty not to look at."

Rosemary rolled onto her stomach, but held onto the waistband of her underwear with one hand. "I don't want you to look, though."

"I promise I'll only think about how pretty you are, and how nice this is going to feel." He left the condom on the pillow in front of her face, and petted her bottom until he felt her relax, then moved her hand away. When he started to pull her underwear off, she lifted her hips to cooperate.

He peeled the covers back, too, leaving her bottom and her legs bare in the soft white glow of the computer monitor. Technically, it wasn't anything Zach hadn't seen before, but the way she made an issue of it this time made him want to look at her that much more. "Take your shirt off too." 

She followed the order and dropped her shirt over the side of the bed, without looking at Zach. He caught a glimpse of her face from the side, though - enough to see that she'd closed her eyes like he'd suggested. It was surprisingly adorable, when he thought about all the imagination at work behind those glitter dusted eyelids. He'd be quiet and just let her feel. 

If Zach had learned one thing from reading websites about anal sex (and daydreaming about Ryan having his wicked way with him), it was that rushing was bad. He rubbed her back and legs until she wiggled and strained toward him impatiently, trying to get him to touch her butt. She closed her hands into fists and spread her legs a couple inches. He frustrated her for a minute, just for the fun of watching her beg for it in body language, before he put his hands there.

Rosemary's hands uncurled, and she made a soft, encouraging sound. Zach imagined that he would be just as eager if he were in her position, waiting for Ryan to fuck him. It occurred to him that he didn't need to feel guilty anymore for thinking about Ryan during sex, since she was obviously thinking about somebody else too. He spread her ass cheeks and looked at her hole, imagining that he was Ryan and she was Zach. Suddenly he needed to be out of his pants. He scooped up her hands and put them where his had just been, so that she held herself exposed for him. She got the idea and kept her hands there while he shucked his clothes. (That was one thing that he could rush.) 

Zach took the lube out of his pants pocket and squeezed a little onto his finger. Good - his body heat had warmed it up pretty well. He applied the finger to her ass and rubbed it in tiny little circles. She whimpered and raised her hips toward him. "Please," she whispered.

He let her have the tip of his finger inside her, and she let out a sigh that would probably have been a moan if she were not making an effort to be quiet. 

The tip of his finger didn't satisfy her for long, though. She lost patience and grabbed his hand, pushing his finger deeper inside her. Zach drew his hand back, because he imagined that's what Ryan would do if he got too pushy. (And he didn't have the faintest idea what John would do in Rosemary's fantasy, so channeling Ryan seemed as good an idea as any.) She tugged on his wrist, but he refused to move. Finally, she put her hand back on her ass cheek, and spread herself open for him again. He rewarded her with two slippery fingers. She groaned as he eased them into her, and he almost forgot to shush her.

Zach fucked Rosemary with his fingers, gradually abandoning the extreme caution he'd started with. She breathed hard, and occasionally a little squeak escaped from her throat. 

"You ready, Jellybean?" he asked.

She answered yes several times. 

"Then open the condom and give it to me." 

Her hands darted for the condom, as quick as a snake strike. The words were hardly out of his mouth before she was handing it back to him. (That was exactly how he'd have done it, too, if Ryan had asked.) He leaned down to kiss her hand as he accepted it. Thinking about handing Ryan a condom made him extra hard, which made it easy to apply the condom and lube one-handed. When he was ready, he pulled his fingers out and lift her hips. 

She took the hint and got up on her hands and knees for him. "You have no idea how much I've needed you." 

"I might have some idea." He pushed into her with a series of careful nudges, and tried to force himself to stop thinking about Ryan, because he was afraid this wouldn't last very long if he didn't. Instead, he conjured up a mental image of ducks. They quacked and milled around, ruffling their feathers. It helped a little, but she felt so good and tight that the ducks kept disappearing. 

She moved with him, pressing against him to get his cock as deep in her ass as possible with every slow thrust. "Need this..." 

Her enthusiasm tempted him to take her hard. It would feel so good and her reaction would be pretty, but he was afraid it'd only last about 5 seconds. He held off and thought about the ducks, sliding in and out of her slowly. Rosemary's whole body rolled with it; he'd never seen her so lost in the moment. Zach gave her lots of what she needed, but when he got close to the edge and accidentally thought about Ryan enjoying him like this, he couldn't help coming. 

They collapsed clumsily to a horizontal position. Zach lay there dazed while Rosemary got herself off by rubbing her crotch against his hip. (The only thing that worked and didn't involve a shower sprayer, according to her.) He stroked her hair, and whispered, "Jellybean" one more time. That seemed to be the magic word; she squeezed him and shivered.

Zach drifted off to sleep with Rosemary draped over him, and when he woke, he could tell from her slow breathing that she'd fallen asleep too. He tried to extract himself and get rid of the condom without waking her, but she stirred and opened her eyes as he stood up.

"So do you think you're going to respect me in the morning?" she asked, and held her hand up to stop him before he could give her an automatic yes. "I mean, seriously. Real answer. Think about it."

"I don't have to think about it. But...just a sec." He dropped the condom in the wastebasket and cleaned up a little with a tissue from the box on his desk. "Sorry. That was a little distracting. Better." Zach came back to bed.

Rosemary gave him a worried look. "I'm sobering up fast and you're making me nervous." 

Zach draped an arm over her shoulder. "Yeah, I'm going to respect you in the morning. But I have to confess, I didn't tell you the whole truth last night, and I kinda feel like I owe it to you." He saw the worry lines on her face deepen, so he hurried up and got to the point. "You're not the only one obsessed with someone else. I've got a very specific idea of who I want to tie me up."

She laughed.

Zach pretended to pout. "Hey. Why do you get to laugh when I wasn't allowed to."

"'Cause I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at us. Major difference." Rosemary pulled the covers up "Who is it?"

"Ryan. Which nobody else knows, by the way." He got under the covers with her.

Rosemary giggled. "You're gay?"

"No, I like women and Ryan. And stop laughing."

She took a deep breath and got the giggles under control."He's pretty masculine looking."

"Yep."

"Want me to pretend to be Ryan for you?"

"I don't know how well that would work. You're very female. There would be some technical difficulties."

"Okay, so I don't come with the right equipment, but that can be fixed. Any sex shop in the city will sell us a strap-on. You can close your eyes as well as I can."

"Nah. Too much of a stretch, even with the lights off. And besides..." He trailed off because he was afraid the next thing he was about to say would make her start giggling again.

"What?"

"Maybe it's sort of silly, but I haven't totally given up hope that it could happen with me and him someday. And if it does... there are certain things I want him to be the first one to do, okay?" It occurred to him as he said it that wasn't normally a good sort of thing to say to a girlfriend. 

"Awww, that's kind of sweet." She stroked his cheek and smiled. "But you know, Zach, since we're fixated on other people, we're not much of a couple, are we?" 

Zach gripped her shoulder."We may be fixated on other people, but that was the best sex I've ever had, and we get along so well. I don't want to break up."

"Same here. I'm not saying we should change a thing right now, and I'll always be your friend."

He relaxed his grip. "So we're continuing with the benefits?" 

"I can't think of a single reason why not." She turned her head and kissed his arm. "And thank you for tonight, and not just for good sex. It means a lot to me to just have someone who knows my quirk and still likes me. It takes a huge weight off."

"I know exactly what you mean."

Rosemary went back to her own room, because she couldn't sleep very well in a single bed with Zach. Ordinarily, he found it more comfortable to sleep alone anyway, but when she walked out the door that night, the room felt too empty. Alone in the dark, he lay awake and watched the hours go by on his digital alarm clock.

Around three in the morning, his computer went "Bing!" - the sound of e-mail arriving. The only person in the habit of sending him e-mail at this hour was Ryan. Zach's heart did an extra little skip, and he couldn't resist getting up to check. 

Sure enough, he had a message from Ryan. The title was, "Aaarrrrgh!"



Technical Difficulties Episode 10



From: Ryan Kane

To: Zach Hudson

Date: Sat. October 29, 2005

Subject: Aaarrrrgh!

So Trisha wasn't kidding. I went to the midwife with her (and scored a lot of points for it, at least). She's def. pregnant. I actually agree with you though. I doubt it was a real accident. But that's not the kid's fault, is it? I've decided I'm going to do the right thing and stick around until he/she turns 18. Maybe Trisha will calm down a little when she decides she's caught me. Hope so, or it's gonna be a rough 18.5 years.

When do you get back in town for Xmas? 

Zach read the e-mail twice, then picked up the phone to call Ryan and talk some sense into him. Halfway through dialing, he hung up. A call at three in the morning would wake Trisha, and she'd want to know what it was about. He hit the reply button on the screen and watched the cursor blink for a while before he realized that e-mail just wasn't the best medium for what he actually wanted to say. Zach shut the computer down and slipped a fresh sheet of white paper out of the printer. With the page in front of him on the desk, he uncapped his favorite black felt tip pen.

He wrote a passionate letter, begging Ryan to let him be the bad guy and steal him away from Trisha. He declared his love and his lust, and asked to be Ryan's boyfriend and whipping boy. At the bottom of the page, he signed, "Yours. Truly. Zach." Then he folded the page, tucked it into an envelope, and printed Ryan's address on the front. He held the sealed letter in his hands for a few minutes and imagined what it would be like to add a stamp and drop it in the mailbox. To hear it slip into the pile of mail, irretrievable, and know that in a couple of days, Ryan would finally know how he felt.

It was impossible, of course. When he couldn't resist the impulse any longer, he stuffed a towel under the door, opened the window, and turned on the hotplate. Zach held the edge of the envelope against the burner, watching the paper turn brown as the element heated up. Brown became black, and flames devoured Zach's words. He dropped the remainder of the letter onto the hotplate when he couldn't hold it anymore, and the whole thing burned to ashes.

***

December 2005

Ryan perched on a bar stool, taking a breather after the lunch rush. The phone in his pocket vibrated. He fished it out with a sigh, and checked to see who was calling, though he already had his suspicions. Yep, Trisha again. "What's up?" he asked her, hoping she'd get to the point and leave him alone so he could relax in peace. 

Trisha got to the point for once. "I need you to drive me to the hospital. Like, now." 

Ryan's brain snapped to attention. "What's the matter?"

"I'm having really bad cramps. I think something is wrong. Ohmygod hurry!"

"Alright. I'll get you." He stuffed the phone back in his pocket, grinning like a madman.

Dave, the bartender, squinted at him. "What do you know that I don't?"

Ryan hopped off the stool. "When the boss man finishes reading War and Peace or whatever he's doing in the bathroom, can you tell him I left early to drive my girlfriend to the hospital? She's freaking out and she says it's an emergency."

Dave frowned. "Huh?"

"I may have just dodged a bullet," Ryan explained.

Comprehension dawned on Dave's face and his forehead smoothed out. "Uh, okay. Good luck, I guess?" At work, everyone knew that Ryan wasn't looking forward to being a daddy. 

***

Trisha stopped speaking to Ryan after he dumped her on the way from the hospital. "I just lost our baby and you decide to rip out what's left of my heart? I am so glad I didn't marry you, because you are a complete asshole," were her last words to him that day.

"Would it have been better if I'd waited until you got up, then knocked you back down again?" he asked.

She only glared at him. 

Ryan didn't mind the silence, since he was sure Trisha didn't have anything nice to say. He ran her by the pharmacy and filled a prescription on the way home. She probably had a right to be mad at him. Dumping her just then wasn't a very nice thing for him to do. He'd wanted to have it over and done with too badly to care, though.

When they got home, Trisha phoned her parents, and Ryan locked himself in the bedroom with the pamphlet about surgical sterilization that he'd picked up in the waiting room. He spread it out on the bed and studied the procedure. It didn't look fun. Ryan decided he wasn't in a rush to let anyone near sensitive parts of his body with sharp objects, any more than he was in a rush to hook up with another woman. He stuffed the literature between the mattress and the box spring, where random houseguests wouldn't find it by accident. 

Ryan flopped down on the bed and closed his eyes. The Prozac his doctor had talked him into trying made him sleepy. He drifted in and out of consciousness, disoriented in a mental twilight.

He couldn't remember what day it was, what time it was, or whether he was supposed to get up and go to work. Zach spooned up with him and kissed the back of his neck. "Shh. Get some sleep. I've got you." Ryan snuggled back against him and fell asleep, soothed by the steady rhythm of Zach's breathing. 

Angry hammering on the bedroom door woke Ryan up. He reached for Zach, but found only a lump of disarranged blankets. It took a moment to work out that it didn't make sense for Zach to have really been there, then remember that Trisha was still in the house and still too angry to speak to him, and that the door was locked. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be right to leave her locked out when all of her clean clothes were in the bedroom. 

He opened the door. Trisha flicked on the overhead light brought a huge duffel bag into the room. She turned her back to Ryan and scooped the contents of her dresser and her half of the closet into it. Ryan got back in bed and pulled the covers over his head. Trisha dragged the bag of clothes out into the hall, threw some things on top of it, and left again, slamming the door behind her. A few minutes later, he heard her car start and pull away.

***

Christmas Day 2005

Ryan pressed his face up against the living room window and shielded his eyes from the glare of lamps and Christmas tree lights. He looked past the brightly lit nativity scene on the snowy front lawn, to the darker, unkempt house across the street. The silhouette of his mother's head and the back of her rocking chair were outlined sharply on the window blind; she must be watching television.

Every year since they'd moved in across the street, Zach's parents had invited Ryan, his mom, and sometimes his sister Amy over for Christmas dinner and presents. Ryan was the only one who ever went. Amy had ended up in juvenile detention before her first Christmas in that house, and Mom believed that they'd only invited her to be polite. No matter what Ryan told her, Mom insisted on staying home with a turkey and stuffing TV dinner. 

Ryan felt a tap on his knee, and turned around to find Zach's cousin's little girl handing him a gift in angel wrapping paper. She'd just learned to read, and she beamed with pride. He thanked her and turned the package around to read the tag. It was a gift from Zach's parents - probably random housewares, if the last few years were any indication. He looked across the room to catch their eyes and thank them, but they were too busy talking to Zach's grandfather.

Zach waded through the obstacle course of relatives, gifts, toys, and wrapping paper on the floor to get back to his seat next to Ryan. He opened his mouth to say something, but the back door opened. Instead of saying whatever it was he'd been about to say, he leaned sideways to see who'd just come in. "Oh boy," he muttered ominously. 

Ryan tried to see, but it was impossible without getting up. "What?"

"Trisha." 

"Trisha?" 

Zach straightened up and rolled his eyes. "Yep."

"But why?"

"I'm sure we're all about to find out."



Technical Difficulties Episode 11



***

Previously in Technical Difficulties... 

Zach has been obsessed with Ryan ever since they were kids and Ryan tied Zach to a weight bench in the garage. Ryan has been having non-platonic thoughts about Zach ever since Zach had an inadvertently public argument about a pair of toy handcuffs. Unfortunately, they're both scared to mention these feelings, because they're best friends, and don't want to screw that up. 

Both the guys have been involved with women the meantime. At the moment, Zach has a friend with benefits, Rosemary, who is obsessed with her brother, John. Earlier in the fall, Ryan's girlfriend, Trisha, got pregnant. Supposedly it was an accident, but it looked suspiciously like an attempt to rope him into marriage. A couple of weeks ago, she had a miscarriage, and Ryan dumped her. Now Trisha has crashed Zach's family Christmas gathering. 

***

Christmas 2005, continued

Zach's mom shot Ryan a perplexed look as she got up from the couch. 

Ryan shrugged and held his hands out, hoping she'd understand he had nothing to do with this. "Should I...?" he asked, looking back and forth between Zach and his mother, feeling awkward.

Zach's mom settled it by heading down the hall to greet Trisha. "What a surprise. We didn't think you'd come this year." (Translation: What are you doing here? We didn't invite you.) Conversations in the living room trailed off, and heads turned to look down the hall.

Though Ryan heard the subtext, Trisha sounded clueless. "Hi, Mrs. Hudson. I just wanted to talk to Ryan, and I thought he might be here since he wasn't home, and I saw his car outside, so I thought I'd stop in." 

"He's here. We were all about to open gifts." 

"Great. That's perfect, because I brought gifts." Trisha sounded chipper. 

"Oh dear. Well, I hope you won't be offended that we don't have something for you, since we weren't expecting you."

"Of course. It's a strange year. I brought you this, though." 

"Thank you. Well, I can offer you some cookies. We have too many, as usual." 

Zach's relatives exchanged puzzled looks. Ryan wished he had the option of hiding under the covers until she went away.

"Oh my goodness, those look delicious. I'll definitely try some later. Thank you." The sound of her voice came closer to the living room.

Trisha appeared in the doorway, wearing the red sweater that Ryan had given her last Christmas, and shiny red lipstick to match. She carried a gold present about the size of a paperback novel. Trisha picked her way across the room toward him in stocking feet, oblivious to the gaggle of Zach's relatives. Ryan felt a little sorry for her, but mostly the weird drama annoyed him.

She sat on the arm of Ryan's chair, between him and Zach, and offered him the shiny present. "Here, open it." 

Ryan kept his hands on his lap. "What's this about?"

Trisha waved the present in front of him. "Trying to give you a present. Merry Christmas." 

His imagination flashed through several ideas of what could be in the box. A desiccated fetus. The wedding ring again. An improvised explosive device. Anthrax. He inched away from her as far as he could go in the chair, and stared at the box. "Why are you giving me a present? I'm a jerk, remember?" He knew better than to repeat her exact choice of word in front of Zach's family.

"I'm sorry I said that. I talked to Amy and she said I ran you off by pressuring you too much to get married and start a family right away. I never meant to upset you. It's just that I thought you wanted it too, but I understand now that it was just my wishful thinking." Her voice sounded soft and reasonable.

"Uh...it's okay." It wasn't okay, but he really didn't want to get into that with ten people staring at them. His jaw clenched and his shoulders tensed up. 

"Let's just start over. No pressure. We're young. There's lots of time." She put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a little squeeze. It made him think of being crushed by a boa constrictor. Her hair brushed his cheek, and the imaginary constrictor stuck out a forked tongue to taste its prey.

"No." Ryan said it more loudly than he'd intended, and stood up from the chair. 

Trisha wobbled and might have fallen if Zach hadn't caught her present-wielding arm to steady her. She slipped off the chair arm. "Don't you think we have something worth saving?"

"Not really." Ryan backed away from Trisha and stepped on something that crunched underfoot. He checked. It was just an empty plastic bubble pack. 

Zach got up and put a hand against Trisha's back. "Come on. This isn't the time to have this conversation." He propelled her back the way she came. 

Ryan let his breath out and took his foot off the crushed packaging. 

"I wasn't trying to... oh never mind. Whatever." Trisha let herself be escorted out. She looked back over her shoulder at Ryan, and her lip quivered like she was about to cry.

Zach walked Trisha back down the hall and around the corner to the kitchen door where she came in. They held a tense, hushed discussion.

"Sorry," Ryan said to Zach's bemused family. He walked halfway to the back door, wondering whether he should handle this, or let Zach take care of it. He paused to eavesdrop.

"It's Christmas. I was trying to give him a present. How is that strange?" Trisha complained. 

Zach said, "It's strange because this isn't about a present. It's about relationship drama. We didn't need that. You're making everyone uncomfortable."

"That's cold." There was the sound of a zipper being done up, presumably Trisha's coat. "He dumped me the day I lost my baby, and you're telling me to get out of your house because I tried to give him a present and asked nicely if he wants to get back together, because I still love him anyway?"

"Exactly. Even if he'd tried to push you under a bus, I don't appreciate you showing up uninvited and using my family's holiday as a stage for your relationship drama. Use a phone like a normal person."

Trisha cried audibly. "This is what I get for trying to be a nice person. Shoved out the door to spend Christmas alone. Fine. Whatever. I hope you get some twisted satisfaction from this, 'cause at least somebody should be happy." The door opened, then slammed.

Ryan dared to peek around the corner into the kitchen. 

Zach actually growled softly at the closed door. 

"Sorry, I didn't..." Ryan began.

The sound of Ryan's voice made Zach jump. "Aah!"

"...know what to say to her. Thanks."

Zach held his hand against his chest and took a couple deep breaths. Outside, a car started. "No problem. Actually, I've wanted to tell her off about those weird little head games for a while. It was nice to have a legitimate excuse to do it." 

"Oh. That's good, I guess." For a moment, Ryan allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy that Zach ran Trisha off so fiercely because he was jealous, not just because she was acting obnoxious. He felt himself smile, and for a moment, he felt pure happiness for the first time he could remember in his adult life.

It lasted about three seconds, then Zach shattered the illusion. Instead of leaping into Ryan's arms, he poured himself a cup of coffee and headed back to the living room. 

***

Spring 2007

The unexpected knock on the door came as a welcome distraction to Zach. He'd been working on a term paper too long, and reading bad photocopies was giving him eye strain. "Who's there?" he called.

"Rosemary."

Since it was just Rosemary, he didn't bother putting on pants. He answered the door in his t-shirt and boxers, standing so people in the hall wouldn't see him.

Once the door was closed and out of the way, she bounced into his arms with a big grin and hugged him. "You wouldn't believe what happened."

"The Easter bunny gave you this week's winning lottery numbers in advance?" Zach locked the door as a matter of habit. 

"Better."

"Two weeks' worth of lottery numbers?" He patted her on the back and then disentangled himself so he could move papers and clear enough space on the bed for her to sit with him.

"Nooooo... John and I ...you know, got together. I just had to tell someone and well, you're pretty much the only one." She beamed.

"Wow." In retrospect, he should have seen this coming, but he hadn't expected her to actually sleep with her brother. "So how does that work?" He sat down on the bed, where he'd been reading a minute ago.

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean you know the whole... not socially acceptable thing. How are you going to handle it?" 

"Oh, that. Well, you're the only one who knows, obviously. I'm going to transfer schools and move in with him at the end of the semester. We'll be roommates. That's all anyone else needs to know." She plopped on the edge of his bed beside him and bounced.

"Isn't that a little fast? When did this all happen?"

Her smile faded a little. "Yesterday morning. But I mean, we've known each other for twenty one years, so it's not like getting hitched in Vegas or something." 

"You have a point. Sorry. You really surprised me. I didn't think you were really going to..." 

"What did you think I was going to do?" She pulled a couple of rainbow lollipops out of her coat pocket and offered one to Zach.

Zach accepted the offer of free food by default. "Thanks. I don't know. Eventually find somebody shorter and a little less blonde?" 

"Well, I did, didn't I?" She went back to grinning and bouncing. 

"That you did." Zach shook his head and laughed. "I don't know if you're the sanest person I know, or the craziest." 

"Is believing that love is more important than getting everyone's approval sane or crazy?" She tore open the lollipop and stuck it in her mouth.

"I guess when you put it like that, it sounds downright reasonable." Zach twirled the lollipop between his fingers and put off opening it while they were still chatting. 

Rosemary talked around her candy. "Speaking of love, you've got to go out there and get your man."

"I'm no closer to being able to do that than I was last fall." 

"Want me to help you?"

"I think since we're past junior high, this is something I'm supposed to do for myself."

"Your call. I just sort of feel like I owe you one, you know?" 

"Why?"

"Because you helped me to accept myself the way I am."

"You've done me the same favour." Ok, it wasn't exactly the same favour. He'd pretended to be John countless times, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but he'd never actually let her tie him up. He had decided only Ryan was allowed to do that, and that it was actually a good thing that Melissa had refused. Still, the fact that Rosemary was willing to do it made him feel less like a freak.

"So why haven't you got your man yet?" she asked.

"I told you. I wig out every time I try."

"You should practice and desensitize yourself. Pretend I'm Ryan. What are you going to say?" 

Zach grinned nervously. "You sure you're not looking for blackmail material here?" 

"As if. I'm serious. Try it."

He looked at Rosemary, but he couldn't stretch his imagination far enough to think of this girl with pink curls, glitter, and heavy mascara as Ryan. He closed his eyes, so all he had was the sense of another person in the room with him. "Ryan, I..." his voice caught in his throat. He took a slow breath and tried again. "I..." he remembered the letter that he'd written and burned almost verbatim, so it wasn't that he didn't know what to say. He just couldn't speak. "I can't do it." Zach felt defeated. 

Rosemary gathered him into a hug and swayed back and forth to sooth him. "You will." 

"You can't know that. I've been in love with him for years, and he still doesn't have a clue." 

"I do know it. It's a gut feeling, and those are usually right."

Zach leaned on Rosemary and let her comfort him. 

Summer 2007

Ryan started to turn in to the gravel driveway in front of his mother's house - the one where he grew up across the street from Zach - but stopped the car when he noticed the pile of old furniture by the end of the driveway, getting rained on. There, between a soggy threadbare recliner and a broken card table, sat the old wooden weight bench. 

In his mind's eye, he saw the bench sitting out in a torrent of rain in his back yard, with Zach chained to it on his back, held down with some serious handcuffs and padlocks, so he wasn't about to escape. The rain plastered his blonde hair against his head, like when he'd just gotten out of the pool, and his wet t-shirt and shorts clung to every little contour of his lean body. He'd closed his eyes to keep raindrops from hitting them, and he shivered hard. Ryan crossed the wet grass in bare feet holding a keyring.

A long rumble of real thunder made it into Ryan's imaginary scenario. He stood over Zach, blocking the sheet of rain that had been spraying his face. Zach opened his eyes a sliver for a moment to look at Ryan. "Why won't you let me up?" 

Ryan got down on one knee and rested a hand against Zach's cheek. "Because you look ungodly sexy chained up and wet like this."

"And I wouldn't look sexy somewhere else, like say, the living room?" he asked, his voice trembling with cold. 

"You will." Ryan kissed him on the forehead. "Just not yet."

"Oh come on. You're not really going to leave me here again." He raised his body a couple inches toward Ryan, rattling his chains.

In reply, Ryan slapped Zach's cheek hard enough to turn his head. It made a wet sound. "You're not ready to come in yet. You're still trying to tell me what to do." Ryan went back inside, where he could ogle him through the patio door. Soon, when he brought Zach in, he'd strip off the wet clothes and warm him up in bed with body heat.

The headlights of a car coming up behind Ryan snapped him out of it, and he pulled the rest of the way into the driveway. He shut the engine off, leaned on the steering wheel, and rested his head on his arms. It had been ten years, perhaps to the day, since they'd invented the new weight bench game, and a little over four years that he'd been itching to tie Zach up again. He wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd fallen in love.

It was wonderful that he could adore Zach and want to hurt him at the same time, without feeling too conflicted about it. Pretending not to want him that way was too hard, though. Ryan made himself a promise. If, in one year, he still wasn't over Zach, he'd take the chance and make an obvious pass at him. Then he revised it to six months. There wasn't much more of this he could take. 

He shut off the engine, found his umbrella, and headed inside to check on Mom. She was in a bad depressive phase, and sometimes didn't take very good care of herself. She didn't answer the door when he knocked. That didn't surprise Ryan. He let himself in, and walked upstairs in stocking feet, homing in on the sound of the television.

Mom lay in bed in the dark, watching a show about storm damage on the Weather Channel. Her lank, greasy hair showed that she still hadn't showered, though she'd promised that she would when Ryan came over a couple of days ago. She flipped the channel a few times. "Hi Ryan. I didn't want to answer the door in my housecoat. I was just about to get dressed, though." 

He wondered if he was expected to believe the obvious lie. "No worries. I just came to see how you're doing."

"My back hurts, but other than that, I'm okay."

"Are those exercises the doctor gave you doing any good?" Ryan came in and sat on her rocking chair - the one she told him she used to sit in to feed him when he was a baby. 

"I can't do them. Lost the paper somewhere."

"Want me to get you another one?" 

Mom shook her head and turned off the television. "No, it's okay. I don't need you to run errands for me. I'm a big girl." 

"I know you can run errands, but sometimes you don't get around to it when you're in this kind of mood." He rocked. It helped to keep him patient. 

"Yeah, I know. But I should get out of the house. It's good for me. I know that." 

"Want to go somewhere today? I don't have work until five. We could go to the place with all the cheesecake and pie." 

"Nah. It'd take me an hour to get ready. I can't make you sit around waiting for me for an hour." 

"I'll wait."

She looked down at the remote in her hands and chewed on her lip. "If you're sure..." she said after a while.

"I'll wait. It's really not a big deal." 

Mom climbed out of bed, muttering about her back, and selected some clothes from the wrinkled heap on top of the dresser. "I'm sorry for being such a pain. I know you're just trying to look out for me."

"Don't worry. Everyone is a bit of a pain sometimes. Just...oh! I meant to ask you, is it okay if I come back later with a truck and get the old weight bench that you put out at the curb?" 

"Sure. I've been meaning to get rid of it for years, but it's so heavy. Trisha and her friend came over yesterday, though, and moved it for me so she can use that corner of the garage to store her kayak for a while." Mom leaned on the door frame, clutching the bundle of clothes to her chest, and looked tired.

"Trisha was over here?" Ryan got to his feet.

"Yeah, she's been over a few times since you two started thinking about getting back together." 

"What? She told you that?"

"Well, it just kind of came up in conversation." 

"I see. The thing is, we're not thinking about getting back together. Maybe she is, but she's delusional." 

Mom frowned and looked skeptical. "Well, you must have said something to get her hopes up." 

"The only reason you haven't heard me complain about her lately is because she hasn't tried to contact me lately."

"Oh. And I have her kayak in my garage now. Maybe I'll ask her to come get it."

"Nah, that'll just make drama and encourage her."

Mom's forehead furrowed and she tilted her head a little. "That's so strange. She told me that you told her I was in a funk. How did she know if you didn't tell her? I was presentable that day."

"A good guess? All I can tell you for sure is that we are never getting back together."

Mom shook her head. "You know some very strange people, Ryan." She plodded into the bathroom and closed the door.



Technical Difficulties Episode 12



***

Previously in Technical Difficulties:

Zach and Ryan have been best friends since they were kids. When they were twelve, Ryan used to tie Zach to a weight bench and torture him using random stuff he found in the garage. Zach liked it. Now they're all grown up, but they're still interested in playing that game, as well as a few others that are best played in bed. 

The trouble is that they're scared to mention it to each other. Ryan thinks Zach is straight, and Zach is too shy to hit on Ryan. Pretending not to have the hots for each other is driving them both crazy. For the first time since high school, neither of them has another lover to distract him. 

*** 

Fall 2007

For someone waking up on a cold tile floor with no memory as to how he got there, Zach felt pretty good - no stiff muscles or hangover. He opened his eyes and found the biggest cockroach he'd ever seen staring him in the face. Zach scrambled to his feet, and the roach ran for cover behind a shower curtain. 

The room was unfamiliar. A tiny bar of soap wrapped in paper that rested on the edge of the sink. Mold flourished around the base of the tub and toilet, and the wallpaper peeled at the corners. A note, written on "Valu-Rest Inn" stationery and taped to the mirror, read:

I turned u into a vampire to save ur life. U can drink animal blood, but human is better. Sun will hurt u. Don't kill anyone or be too obvius or the other vamps will flip out. TTYL, if I can.

What a bizarre, creepy prank. Who would even think of something like this? Students? Zach could imagine the kids he taught putting toilet paper in his yard, but this seemed too elaborate for a bunch of eighth graders. The narrow handwriting had an adult feel to it, too, but Zach couldn't figure out why he got that impression. Thinking about students made him wonder whether he'd missed work. If he lost his job because of this, someone would have to pay. 

Zach left the bathroom to search the rest of the room for some indication of what was really going on. He found nothing - no luggage, no people, no more notes. Outside the window of the shabby motel room, dusk colors faded from the sky.

He opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Zach touched his pockets automatically to check for his keys and wallet, and then while he was at it, he inspected the contents of the wallet to make sure everything important was there. It was. 

At the other end of the lot, a neon sign read "Offi e." He checked his room number, and then crossed the pavement, noticing for the first time that he really needed a change of clothes and a shower. It was going to be a little embarrassing to talk to the hotel clerk in that state.

A pimply kid looked up from his magazine as Zach walked in. He flipped it closed and stashed it under the counter before Zach could see what it was. 

Zach tried to act casual. "Hey. I'm in room eighteen. I was wondering... can I see a copy of my bill and check out?" 

The kid muttered a positive response and poked at the computer. "You know, you're paid up in advance for three more nights, right?"

"Um. No, I didn't know that. Who paid?" 

"Uh, Zachary Hudson."

"When?"

"Two days ago."

"Can you refund the extra days on my credit card?" 

"No, sorry. For one thing, you've gotta be Zachary Hudson to get the refund. For another, I can't refund something to a credit card if it was paid in cash. And anyway, you can only cancel 48 hours in advance, which means I can only refund one night."  

Zach had a bad feeling about this. If he or someone else had paid five nights in advance with cash, there must have been a reason, even if he didn't know what it was. He decided not to check out until he figured out what was going on. "Oh. Right. Never mind. Forget it." 

The kid narrowed his eyes. "You okay, man? No offense, but you seem kinda... not okay."

Now that he thought about it, Zach did feel a bit light-headed and hungry. "Yeah. Fine. Do you know where I can get something to eat around here?" 

The kid behind the counter didn't look entirely convinced. "Neptune Grill just the other side of the motel should still be open if you hurry." 

Zach thanked the clerk and hurried to Neptune Grill. He didn't recognize the area of town. In fact, he wasn't even sure which town he was in. All he could tell about it was that it bordered on rural, and looked rundown, with a weedy trash-strewn lot between the motel and the restaurant.

Neptune Grill was still open. A waitress with dark circles under her eyes showed Zach to a booth and stuck a menu in his hand. "Take a look and decide what you want, sugar. I'll be right back." From her bored tone, Zach guessed that she called everybody sugar.

Nothing on the menu looked appealing. At first he thought he must just be put off by the smell of whatever seafood they were deep-frying, or disgusted by the film of grease on the menu. Then he nicked his tongue on a fang, and realized that the problem was much bigger.

***

Ryan usually wouldn't take personal calls at work, but the pool hall was so dead that he hadn't served a drink in fifteen minutes. He was in the middle of re-stocking the beer fridge when the call came. He pulled the vibrating cell phone out of his pocket and glanced to see who was calling. It was Zach's number. He covered one ear with his fingers and pressed the phone to the other. "Hey. Don't you ever check your e-mail?"

It wasn't Zach, though, it was his mom, and she talked so fast that Ryan couldn't hear her over Carlos Santana's guitar solo coming out of the jukebox. The woman needed to remember to breathe.

"I'm at work. Can you talk slow and loud like you think I'm a moron? Otherwise I can't hear you." He checked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was looking for a drink.

She talked to him like he was a moron. "Have you heard from Zach this week?" 

"No. Is something wrong? I e-mailed him to ask if he wants a pair of free concert tickets that I can't use, and he hasn't answered."

"He's been missing for a few days. He hasn't been to work or called in. We're really worried." 

Ryan's stomach twisted itself in a knot. Zach had just started his first real job as a math teacher. There was no way he'd blow off work without a good reason. Something bad must have happened. "Did you call the police?" 

"This afternoon. They helped me find your number."

"Did you call his friend Rosemary?"

"No. We can't remember her last name."

"Bellefeuille." How could he forget the name of a girl he spent so much time being jealous of? He spelled the name for Zach's mom. "She lives with her brother, John. Phone might be in his name," he volunteered as an afterthought.

"Do you have any other ideas?"

"I wish I did." 

Zach's mom said something else, but he couldn't hear her because a big excessively tattooed guy started smacking his hand against the bar and complaining about having to wait. 

"I gotta go. I'll see if I can think of anything else," he said on his way over to deal with the customer, and ended the call since he couldn't hear anything anyway. Ryan fetched the tattooed guy's beer without comment. The guy didn't tip, and Ryan didn't care. He moved through the rest of his shift on autopilot, his mind busy trying to think where Zach could be. After a few fruitless phone calls to most of their mutual acquaintances, including Trisha, he ran out of ideas.

The second the numbers on the clock turned over to 2:00, Ryan finished cashing out and split. He couldn't stand having to be polite to one more customer, and pretending to care what they wanted to drink. He muttered profanities to the empty parking lot on his way to the car. Ryan plopped into the driver's seat, slammed the car door, and switched the CD out for a mix of loud, angry music. His phone rang. Caller I.D. said it was from a pay phone. He stopped inches short of hitting the play button on the stereo and answered the phone instead. "Hello?"

It was Zach. "Hey, I need to ask you a huge favor." 

"Where are you? You'd better call your parents and tell them you're okay." 

"I'm at gas station by highway ten and eighth line road. I'm stuck out here without a car, and I really need a ride and a place to stay for a day or two." He sounded worried.

"You do know you're an official missing person, right?"

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Can you get me?"

"Yeah. Okay, but what's going on?" Ryan pulled his car out into the empty street. "Your mom called me freaking out wondering where you are."

"I'll tell you when you come get me. Just please don't tell anyone I'm here, okay? Not yet." 

"If you were anybody else..." 

"Thank you. Thankyouthankyou. I'll watch for you." 

"It's gonna take me at least half an hour to get there." 

It ended up only taking twenty minutes.

***

Zach showered the cow smell off in Ryan's bathroom. The familiar surroundings made his predicament feel all the more surreal, but he was glad he'd called Ryan. When he'd run out of pre-paid motel stay, and realized he only had enough money in his account to pay for one more day, he'd realized he needed help. It had to be either Ryan or Rosemary, and Ryan won out because he lived nearby, was fairly nocturnal, and didn't have any roommates. Going home to his parents was out of the question; They weren't the sort of people who would shelter a vampire, keep a secret, and refrain from calling an exorcist. 

Ryan had taken the news of Zach's vampirism surprisingly well. "Why wouldn't I believe you? You don't make stuff like this up," he'd said. 

Zach dressed and checked out his reflection in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Ryan had given him a clean t-shirt and sweatpants that didn't smell like cows, for which he intended to be eternally grateful. It was a secret thrill to wear Ryan's clothes, even if the pants were an inch too short. His face was a shade paler than it used to be, but for a blonde geek, it didn't look particularly strange. Fortunately, his fangs retracted enough that they didn't make it hard to speak, and unless he grinned, they remained unobtrusive. Zach emerged from the bathroom feeling like an almost-civilized human being again.

They sat on the couch in the living room to talk. Zach explained what he knew about vampires, which wasn't much, then let Ryan check his wrist for a pulse and lean in close for a curious look at his fangs. When he retreated back to his end of the couch, Zach breathed a sigh of relief, not only because Ryan didn't look troubled by the fangs, but also because he smelled like white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, and it had been driving him crazy to have Ryan right next to him when he was so hungry. He couldn't eat cookies anymore, but smelling them still made his mouth water. 

Ryan stroked the light brown stubble on his cheek and looked thoughtful. "You're going to need a safe place to stay while you figure out how to work this thing, aren't you? You only asked for a couple of days, but you aren't going to get it all figured out and find a permanent home that fast, especially since you're broke." He must have understood, without asking, that Zach couldn't go home to his parents. 

"Well, um, yes, but I don't want to be a big mooch." Zach admitted.

"I know, but where else are you going to go? You have to stay here. I don't think you'll be much trouble anyway. I mean, what are you going to do, eat everything in the fridge? Wake me up bright and early by singing in the shower? Steal the silverware?" Ryan chuckled.

"I'd still try to earn my keep - cook, clean, prepare your tax return... whatever you need." Zach wanted to add sexual favors to that list, but he still couldn't get those words out. 

"Cool. Never thought I'd have live-in help." Ryan twisted around to pick up his coffee to take a sip. 

Zach thought about Ryan's tongue, warm from the coffee, running up the inside of his thigh.

"Would you fix the driveway?" Ryan asked, "I hate fixing driveways after that summer working for my uncle, and the landlord won't do anything about the pothole." 

Zach tore himself away from a daydreaming about Ryan's coffee-heated tongue, and forced himself to think about damaged asphalt. "Yeah, no problem. I don't really get tired, and I don't have to breathe."

"Well then, we have a deal." 

"You're a life saver."

"Nah, more like a Jolly Rancher." Ryan's tone of voice turned from glib to serious. "Speaking of which, are you hungry? I mean, I don't know how much you need, or... um..." His hand holding the coffee shook, and he set the cup back down.

"I'm a little hungry," Zach adnmitted. Trying to live off cow blood had made him feel like he'd been eating nothing but celery all week, and Ryan wasn't helping matters by smelling delicious. He didn't want to scare his friend too much by admitting that he was ravenous, though.

"You can bite me if you're not going to freak on me, or take chunks out, or drink more than about a pint. I'm curious to know what it's like." His fingers worried at the collar of his t-shirt.

"That would be great, thanks." The trouble was, he was afraid it would be really really great - not the blood per se, but having an excuse to put his mouth on Ryan and suck. He forced a casual tone of voice. "I don't know how much I need, but I promise I'll be polite if you decide to cut me off." 

"You're sure you'll be able to stop?" Ryan nibbled his lip and tugged at a loose thread near his throat. 

"I think so, but I never bit an actual person before." Zach thought that he could manage a chaste little wrist nip, while sitting so Ryan couldn't tell if he got too excited, but he had visions of going overboard and licking too much or moaning or something. Was it really a good idea, coming to Ryan for help? It seemed brilliant a few minutes ago, but now he doubted it.

Ryan got to his feet. "C'mon downstairs, then, so we can do this the paranoid way. If you've never bitten anyone, you don't know what will happen, and I want to be around to enjoy my new and improved driveway." He walked away without waiting for a response.

Zach followed him down the basement stairs. It was the first time he'd been down there since Ryan turned half of it into a rec. room, cheaply carpeted and separated from the utility and storage area by wall of white paneling. Ryan had put an old couch down there along with the T.V. and exercise equipment. Zach froze on the second to last stair when he saw the hulking homemade weight bench. 

Ryan disappeared into the utility room and came out with a coil of white rope in his hand. He must have noticed Zach's bug-eyed expression, because he said, "C'mon. This is just to protect me in case you freak out unexpectedly. I won't hurt you." 

Now that Zach's heart couldn't race, panic didn't have the same edge to it. He still couldn't talk, but at least he could worry coherently: If Ryan got him on that bench and put any part of his body in his mouth, he would find out how badly Zach wanted him. Lying on his back with his wrists and ankles tied to the bench, there would be no way to hide.

After a few more seconds of silence, Ryan's reassuring smile faded and he sighed, sounding annoyed. "Take it or leave it. I'm not letting you bite me if there's a chance you might do worse."

"Makes sense," Zach whispered. He couldn't quite agree to let Ryan tie him up, though.

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Is this about the game we used to play?"

Several more seconds of painful silence ticked by. 

Ryan's fingers tightened on the coil of rope. "It is, isn't it? Look... I'm sorry I went kind of psycho on you. I really am. I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes. Right now, though, I'm just trying to do you a favour, okay?"

Zach knew he should just get it over with. He should ignore the fear, walk down those last two steps, put his arms around Ryan, and tell him everything. Instead, he stood there like a statue. Zach's statue impression was quite good, now that he was a vampire.

Ryan beckoned for Zach to follow him back to the utility room. It wasn't a frightening direction, so he followed. When he caught up, Ryan stood with his hand on the steel support pillar in the middle of the room. "Here," he said, "If you just put your hands around the pole and let me tie them together, that should be safe enough. You won't be grabbing me or going anywhere unless you can take the whole house with you."

Zach melted with relief and disappointment at the same time when he realized that Ryan had no intention of tying him to the weight bench. "Sure. Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking," he babbled as he put his arms around the pillar and clasped his hands on the other side.

Ryan pried his hands apart and turned him around, tying his hands behind his back instead. Zach cooperated, but wished that he could watch Ryan wind the rope around his wrists. He wanted to look for any sign that Ryan was lying about just doing him a favour. 

Ryan finished the knot and stepped back. "There. Try to get away?" 

Zach felt for the ends of the rope, but Ryan had secured them out of reach. He tugged on the restraint just hard enough to know that escaping wouldn't be easy. The rope was tight enough that he couldn't slide his hands out. "You got me."

"Great." Ryan peeled his "Bob's Booze and Billiards" t-shirt off and chucked it into the open washing machine. "Can't be leaving fang marks where they'll show at work. They already think I'm crazy," he explained.

Zach loved Ryan's shape. This guy was always in motion; he worked out to relieve stress, and he was usually stressed about something -- the dysfunctional family, Trisha, or his employer, who was usually teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. He was a little hairy, but it was fine fuzz that looked like it would feel really soft. His skin was fair, with a light dusting of freckles all over. Zach wanted to admire him, and brush his cheek and lips against Ryan's chest if only he'd move a little closer. Fear forced Zach to look away, though. He pretended to have an itchy ear, and rubbed it against his shoulder while he tried to distract himself by mentally reciting a Shakespearian monologue. Friends, Romans, countrymen...what am I supposed to do now? It didn't work too well.

Ryan stood right in front of Zach, and offered his shoulder to bite. So much for the chaste little wrist nip he'd been psyching up for.

"Maybe this isn't a good idea," Zach mumbled.

"What's wrong?" 

"It doesn't matter. I just realized this is a stupid idea, and I'm sorry I didn't figure that out sooner. I should go." Go where, he didn't know. It was two hours until dawn. He contorted his hands in an attempt to free himself.

Ryan stayed put. "No. This is as easy as it's ever going to get. I'm right here offering you blood. You don't have to trick me or wrestle with me or talk me into it. I'll cut myself if I have to. You can't hurt me too bad by accident. I mean, if you can't eat now, when are you ever going to do it?"

"It's not that. Please just let me go." Zach strained to reach the ends of the rope, but he couldn't. Shifting around made him bump his chin against Ryan's shoulder inadvertently. Ryan's skin was as soft as it looked, and because Zach didn't have body heat of his own, Ryan also felt really warm. He radiated heat and life, and Zach wanted to feel that all over him and bask in it. Did he feel cold and disgusting to Ryan? He couldn't decide whether he wanted to lean into that warm body or disappear.

"Friends don't let friends do really stupid shit. I'm not letting you go until you eat or give me a good reason why not." Ryan sounded serious about it, and he was still only inches away from Zach. Zach's heart should have been racing like a panicked Chihuahua, but it wasn't. "I really can't explain," he said, knowing that arguing was pointless. He was at a loss for words that weren't stupid or impossible to utter. Zach closed his eyes, as if he might teleport somewhere else by blocking the world out. At the same time, he wanted Ryan to put a hand against the back of his head and force his face against his shoulder. 




Technical Difficulties Episode 12



To Zach's shock, he did exactly that. Ryan's palm touched the back of his neck, and the heat shot through his body. When his mouth touched Ryan's warm shoulder, his weird new bite reflex took over. It was like biting into a peach in a way -- the fuzz, the slight resistance of the skin, and then a mouthful of liquid heaven. 

Ryan held his breath and winced as Zach's teeth went in, but then he relaxed and Zach got a second shock. When he swallowed Ryan's blood, he also drank in his emotions and knew exactly how he felt. All that delicious heat that radiated from Ryan was lust for him. Zach couldn't help doing exactly what he was afraid of; he heard himself whimper - a desperate little sound. 

Ryan pressed harder on the back of Zach's head, and he sunk his teeth deeper. This blood borne empathy felt natural even though it was completely new. He felt Ryan's pulse with his lips, and drank in his desire, savouring the sadistic streak. Whatever he wanted, it wasn't gentle. 

"Do it." Zach whispered against Ryan's wet skin.

"Hmm?" 

Zach licked Ryan's shoulder, catching a trickle of blood from the two neat puncture wounds. "Whatever you want right now. Do it." He was relieved and horrified that he just said that. He closed his mouth over the wounds and sucked gently, wanting to know what Ryan was feeling even more than he wanted to taste the blood. 

"Um, you might not say that if you knew what I want." Doubt and confusion flowed from his veins, and it wasn't as yummy.

"I can taste what you want." Except he couldn't tell anymore, after he spoke. After a little probing with his tongue, Zach figured out that the wound had closed itself. 

"Seriously?" There was a hopeful note in Ryan's voice.

"Yeah." Zach started to second-guess himself and get nervous, though, now that he didn't have instant feedback about Ryan's emotions. 

"How do I feel?" 

"Um... I can't tell anymore. You're not bleeding."

Ryan grabbed a handful of Zach's hair and pulled his head up so they could look each other in the eye. "Tell me what you think I want." 

"I don't know exactly."

Ryan's grip on his hair tightened, becoming painful.

"Ow." Zach found himself panting even though he didn't need to 

breathe. "Okay, I know you want to hurt me more than that." 

"Yeah. A lot more. What else?" Ryan's face was so close that it looked like he had just one blue-green eye.

Zach tried to close those last few inches for a kiss, but couldn't do it while Ryan held his hair. "Your lust tastes so good."

"You're not just acting this way because you're sort of drunk on me, are you? 

"I always wanted..." Even now, Zach couldn't finish the sentence.

Ryan held Zach's head back and enjoyed feeling him struggle to get closer. It seemed too good to be true. What was the catch? "You're not just acting this way because you're sort of drunk on me, are you? 'Cause I want to take advantage of you, but not if you're going to regret it tomorrow."

"I always wanted..." Zach began, but then he stopped and looked at him with big, pleading eyes. 

Suddenly, Ryan thought he understood. Zach's predicament must have been much like his own. "You always wanted... things that are too twisted to ask for?"

"Yes." 

"Me too." Ryan stroked his cheek with a couple of fingers.

Zach shuddered. "You never have to ask." He turned his head just enough to brush his lips against Ryan's fingers.

It was tempting to just take Zach at his word. It would be easy to tie him to the weight bench, gag him, and ravage him. Ryan had years worth of sick, dirty ideas that he ached to try out, and just thinking about them made him have to unbutton and unzip his pants to be comfortable.

Zach tried to glance down, but Ryan's hand in his hair stopped him. He gave a little squeak. 

Ryan came to a decision. "This is too good to mess up, Zach. We have to talk about it at least a little. But I think it'll be easier in bed with your pants off." 

Zach's eyes fluttered shut for a moment. "Okay." 

Ryan couldn't stand to put off kissing him anymore. Instead of holding Zach a couple inches away, Ryan pulled him in close with both hands and let Zach's eager mouth find his. They wanted each other so much that it was impossible to just kiss without making out. Ryan ran his tongue over Zach's teeth until he felt a jolt of pain from one of those little razor sharp fangs. He tasted his own blood. Zach gave an almost orgasmic groan, and chased Ryan's tongue with his. Ryan's heart beat hard enough for the both of them. 

Zach squirmed against Ryan as much as he could with his hands tied behind the pole. Ryan slipped a hand down the back of Zach's pants and felt his muscles flex under smooth, cool skin as he thrust his hips against him. His bed, which was up a flight of stairs and down a hall, now seemed much too far away. 



Technical Difficulties Episode 13



I know this is another too-short chapter, but I wanted to at least post something, since it's been a while.

***

Previously in Technical Difficulties:

Ryan and Zach have been best friends since they were kids, and they've wanted to do perverse, BDSM type things together for years, but each was scared to tell the other. A few days ago, Zach got turned into a vampire, though he still doesn't know who did it, or exactly why. His severe allergy to sunlight brought an abrupt end to his brief career as a school teacher, and he went to Ryan for help and shelter. 

When Ryan offered Zach blood, neither of them knew that drinking human blood would give him extremely accurate knowledge of his "victim's" emotions. Ryan tied Zach up in the basement (with his hands behind a pole) before giving him permission to bite, ostensibly just in case he got carried away and couldn't stop drinking. Zach discovered Ryan's lust, they finally told each other the truth. They just had their first kiss with a lot of tongue and a bit of fang. 

***

When Ryan came up for air, he explored the texture of Zach's soft, closely shaven cheek with his lips, and nipped at his neck. Under the perfume of fresh soap, he caught his friend's own subtle human scent, and he breathed deeply. Thank God Zach still smelled like himself in spite of being a vampire. Ryan revelled in the perfect chemical compatibility that bypassed rational thought and said, mate with this one. As delicious as it was, though, it triggered a visceral feeling of unease.

He had rarely gotten close enough to smell Zach since they grew up, and it had always been bittersweet -- a brush with something wonderful he thought he could never have. There was a night last summer when they'd shared a pup tent on a hiking trip with some friends, and he'd rolled over so that his nose was almost touching the back of Zach's neck, and imagined they were lovers. Then there was the time when he helped Zach limp to the couch after their enormous friend Gary got drunk and accidentally danced on his foot. That memory gave him the sweet sound of Zach's breath hissing through teeth clenched in agony, and a soundtrack of other pained gasps and grunts that made their way into most of Ryan's fantasies. But even as those fantasies were turning into reality, he half expected to somehow be left wanting again - wanting so badly. 

Zach tilted his head to the side, offering Ryan easier access to his throat. "Please..." he murmured.

The tiny submissive gesture made Ryan's stomach flutter and his breath catch in his throat. "You get to me so fucking bad. This is crazy." He nipped Zach again and sucked on the flesh that he caught between his teeth. 

"Me too. I- oh!" Zach's words gave way to a moan of pleasure.

The sound of Zach's voice and the delight of tasting his favourite man inspired Ryan to suck harder, intentionally giving him a hickey. That'd look pretty later. Zach had beautiful smooth skin, like a blanket of freshly fallen snow that urged Ryan to come out and play. He remembered how sharply scrapes, welts, and bruises stood out against a field of pale, and he craved seeing it again.

Zach's moan of pleasure morphed into a cry of raw lust.

***

Ryan moved away, and Zach didn't understand what was going on. Those kisses had scrambled his brain. All he knew was that he didn't want Ryan to go. "What...?"

"I can't take you to bed without untying you. Sec." Ryan said as he circled around behind Zach. 

"Ah. Right." Somehow, he hadn't thought the geometry through. He curled and uncurled his toes while Ryan worked on freeing him. Hurry up. You're too far away.

The ends of the rope swished through the air as Ryan yanked them down from the rafters. "I've changed my mind about lending you clothes." With a few efficient moves, he demolished the knot that held Zach's wrists. "Take them off," he said as the rope hit the floor.

Zach started to obey. His hands got as far as the hem of the borrowed t-shirt before he balked. Although he'd yearned for years to hear Ryan tell him to strip, and imagined following the order with zeal, it freaked him out in real life. Without blood or even a touch to reassure and distract him, he lost his nerve. It felt like a point of no return. What if he did it, and Ryan could never respect him again? What if...

Ryan interrupted the worry train by yanking Zach's sweatpants down to his knees. He grinned.

Zach's cock bounced out from under the loose elastic waistband and stood at attention. Standing there dumbly, frozen with pants around his knees, would be even more embarrassing than stripping on command. Zach peeled the clothes the rest of the way off, hyper aware of Ryan's eyes on his body. Did vampires blush?

When the clothes were out of the way, Ryan slipped his arms around Zach's waist and took two steps back, towing Zach with him. He leaned against the dryer and started making out with him again. 

For a second, Zach wondered what ever happened to the idea of going to bed together, but then he got swept away. With Ryan's hot tongue in his mouth, and one hand holding him by the hair again, he couldn't think. All that warm skin pressed right up against him now that their chests were bare felt wonderful, too. He wanted more.

***

If this were one of Ryan's fantasies, Zach would be in big trouble by now. But this was real. In a fantasy, he could do anything, and the real Zach would be fine and still like him. Here, he still didn't know where the line was, and was afraid of crossing it by accident.

One thing was obvious, though: Zach was really hot for him. He worked Ryan's already unzipped jeans down over his rump, and played with his cock while they kissed. At first, Zach's fingers just explored and teased, but soon he wrapped his hand firmly around Ryan's shaft and stroked him in a steady rhythm. Ryan reciprocated, and realized they weren't going to make it to bed. In spite of all those years of elaborate fantasies, even the floor seemed too far away now. Ryan didn't want to stop even for a moment. They were too busy kissing and groping and getting each other off to walk up a flight of stairs. 

"Can I bite one more time? Just a little?" Zach asked, getting the words out quickly between kisses. 

Ryan took his hand out of Zach's hair and pressed the side of his palm against his lips. "Yeah." He wanted to bleed his hunger into Zach's mouth and let him taste it.

The bite barely hurt at all this time. Zach's hand bumped up against Ryan's mouth, and it took him a second to understand that he was offering his own hand to bite. Ryan took the hand gently between his teeth, resisting the urge to chomp down hard. He worked Zach's cock with renewed energy, channelling all his desire into the effort to make him come. It stiffened that tiny bit more, letting him know that Zach was close. So was Ryan.

Zach whimpered and pressed his hand harder against Ryan's mouth. 

Ryan ran out of willpower and bit hard. Zach made a sound that was a cross between a grunt of pain and a moan of pleasure. Ryan had been waiting for years to hear that, and it pushed him over the edge into a dizzying orgasm. 

Zach came in his hand a moment later. 

Aftershocks tingled through Ryan's body and his legs felt weak. If Zach hadn't been leaning on him, pinning him against the dryer, he'd have slid bonelessly down to the floor. They propped each other up for a while.

"Want to go upstairs and lie down?" Zach suggested.

"Are you going to carry me?"

"No. I guess that means you're not going to carry me either." 

"Guess not." Ryan rested his head on Zach's shoulder. 

They held each other a minute longer before Zach stepped back and touched the pole to catch his balance. He had a smear of blood on his cheek.

Ryan wondered why he didn't find it particularly sexy or gross to see his blood on Ryan's face. Shouldn't he have some reaction? Maybe he was just too dazed. Was it the orgasm or blood loss? 

Upstairs, the phone rang -- not something that typically happened before dawn at Ryan's house unless there was a crisis of some sort. His friends and family knew the hours he kept, which rarely involved waking up before noon. 

Zach looked puzzled. "That's weird. You wanna answer it?"

Ryan shook his head no. "Nah. Either it's a wrong number, or they'll leave a message and I can call back after you pass out. Bed." He shifted his weight off the dryer and tested his legs. They worked. Ryan started up the stairs, and Zach followed. 

***

Zach flopped down on Ryan's bed, face down on top of the covers, and then turned his head to look at Ryan. He didn't feel pathologically shy anymore. Tasting Ryan's blood in the heat of the moment and feeling all that passion had snapped something inside him. He couldn't imagine anymore that Ryan might not be as interested in him as he was in Ryan, or that he might lose respect for him if he were too willing to take abuse. 

Ryan climbed into bed beside him and rested a hand on his ass. "God, you're gorgeous. It's nice to be able to look straight at you instead of checking you out in the corner of my eye." He propped himself up on his elbow and let his gaze wander over Zach's body. 

"You too. And to be able to do it and not have to think about ducks." Zach wiggled a little and enjoyed the heat from Ryan's hand.

"Ducks?"

"Well, thinking about baseball just gives me a mental image of you in tight pants." 

Ryan giggled. "Ducks." 

"Yep." Zach grinned. "Sometimes geese, for variety."

"I hope you can get out of the habit of thinking about water birds every time you see me naked." 

"Shouldn't be too hard. It's not like I have a shortage of other things to think about."

Ryan laid his head down on the pillow and his tone turned suddenly serious. "Like what? Here we are in bed not wearing pants, so tell me what you want from me."

"I want you to burn your name into my skin." He felt a burst of joy, hearing himself say some of the words aloud that he'd whispered to himself in the dark so many times.

Ryan's eyes widened. "Seriously?" He studied Zach's face. "Where?"

"I don't know. Somewhere you'll see it when you fuck my ass." Yes! The curse was broken, and Zach could say anything he liked to Ryan.

"We'll have to pick a favorite position." Ryan glowed with excitement, and his hand wandered down to knead Zach's inner thigh.

Zach checked the alarm clock over Ryan's shoulder. They had over an hour left before dawn. "Want to start working on that tonight?"

"Yes." He reached between Zach's legs and caressed his balls with a couple of gentle fingers. 

Zach spread his legs and felt himself start to get hard again. 

Ryan kissed Zach's forehead and rolled over to get something out of the night stand drawer. He hesitated. "Since you just stuck your teeth in me repeatedly and drank my blood, d'you want to forget about condoms?" 

Zach didn't feel like thinking about it, but he forced himself to consider the question for a moment. Ryan had a point, and he suspected that vampire physiology was different enough that it wouldn't matter anyway. "Sounds good." He let the annoying subject drop out of his mind and watched Ryan's nude body as he rummaged through the drawer. The muscles on his thighs and his butt were really well defined. 

When he rolled back over to face Zach, Ryan held a tiny bottle of baby oil. "Just stay like that." He put a few drops of oil on his fingers, and slid them between Zach's ass cheeks, eagerly watching his face as he did it. 

Zach babbled encouragement and lifted his hips toward Ryan's hand. 

Ryan paused, with a finger poised to slip inside Zach. "Tell me what else you want from me, besides a brand. If you keep talking to me, I'll play with you, but if you stop, so will I." 

"I want you uncensored." He squirmed against Ryan's fingertip. "If you want to hit me, do it without thinking twice. If you want me to leave you alone, say so. If you want me naked, tell me to strip. The only thing I really don't want you to do is ask."

"So if I told you to... hmm..." Ryan eased his finger into Zach - just half an inch while he considered what to say. 

That half inch felt really significant to Zach, though. If the tip of one finger could make him feel so opened up and taken, Ryan was going to totally own him in a few minutes -- which was exactly how things should be. 

A car pulled into the driveway out front, crunching over the strip of gravel at the end. 

Ryan paused and frowned. The car's engine shut off. "What the hell?"



Technical Difficulties Episode 14



*********************************

Previously in Technical Difficulties:

Ryan and Zach have been friends and harboured secret crushes on each other for years. Recently, Zach was turned into a vampire for reasons that remain unclear. He went to Ryan for help. Ryan invited Zach to stay with him indefinitely. Meanwhile, Zach's parents, who he lived with until he became a vampire, have reported him as a missing person and begun a serious search for their son.

Earlier in the night, Zach bit Ryan and the truth about their feelings came out: not only are they crazy about each other, but they have highly compatible sadomasochistic desires. They've spent most of the time since then making out and giving each other hand jobs in the basement. It's an hour before dawn. A few minutes ago, Ryan ignored a phone call. Now they're in bed, talking about Zach's fantasies and getting ready for round 2, when a car pulls into Ryan's driveway. 

*********************************

Zach listened for the sound of the car door opening, or the car pulling away again, but he didn't hear either one. If only he had magic vampire mind control powers to make people go away. 

"Sorry, this is weirding me out. I've got to look and see who it is." Ryan got up and crossed the room to pull back the heavy curtains and peek out at the driveway.

"Who is it?" Zach didn't really care except in so far as it affected the odds of finishing what they started.

"I don't know. They're just sitting there in the dark. At least it doesn't look like Trisha's car. It's not your parents, either." 

"Okay. Can you come back to bed?"

"Yeah, but I think it'll be better if I find out what this is about and get rid of them so I'm not distracted by wondering who is lurking in my driveway. I bet I can do it in five minutes or less." He scrambled into some clothes and wiped his hand off on the side of his pants to get rid of most of the baby oil. "Sorry about this. Don't go anywhere."

Zach rolled onto his side to watch Ryan dress. "Where would I go?"

"I don't know. Under the covers? Just a sec. I'm really sorry." And he was off down the hall toward the front door. 

Zach did get up and peek out between the curtains to see what was going on. The car's driver's side door opened, and Ryan spoke with someone female. They both sounded worried, but they were too quiet for Zach to be able to tell what they were worried about. He couldn't see who was in the car, either, nor did he recognize the woman's soft voice. 

After a while, Zach sat on the bed and listened, hoping to hear the car drive away. He watched the alarm clock as ten minutes went by, and dawn crept closer. "Get back in here, dammit," he muttered. The car door closed, opened, and closed again, and the voices moved toward the front door. 

Zach got up and closed the bedroom door, then lay back down on the bed, right where Ryan left him. 

A few seconds later, Ryan and the mysterious woman came inside, and Ryan slipped back into the bedroom. He shut the door gently behind him and sighed. "My stepmother and my little brother are here. The sperm donor went psycho, and she came here because I once told her I'd help her out if she needed a place to go. I'm going to babysit while she goes to the hospital and gets some stitches."

"Oh. That's... bad. I should get dressed, shouldn't I?" Zach tried not to sound sulky, because obviously Ryan's stepmother's problems were more serious than his temporary sexual frustration, but he wasn't sure he quite succeeded. The way Ryan tried to help everyone was a big reason that Zach loved him, but why did it have to be now?

"Yeah, I guess. Let me see if I can find my black jeans. They're kind of long." Ryan rummaged through a dresser drawer. "I don't like the timing either. But what am I supposed to do? Tell her to go away?"

"Of course not. Oh well. The day is just a blink to me. One second it's dawn, and the next, it's sundown. So if things are settled by the time I wake up..." He forced a smile.

"Neat." Ryan found the jeans and shut the drawer with his hip. "Here, these should fit. You might want to get the blood off your cheek, too. I'm going to try to get my brother settled in the living room." He stepped closer to hand the jeans to Zach. In a softer voice, he added, "We can go at it like depraved little bunnies soon. Promise. There's nothing I'd rather be doing."

"I know." Zach really did feel secure about that fact, thanks to telepathy. "Same here."

Ryan ran his fingers through Zach's hair and gave it a little tug before he darted out of the room. 

The hair tug made Zach go squishy inside. He stifled the sound that tried to come out of his throat, and took a few seconds to regain his composure after Ryan left. 

When he the moment passed, he raided Ryan's dresser for underwear and a shirt. Putting on Ryan's clothes gave him a cozy, connected feeling, and he understood why girls liked borrowing their boyfriend's jackets and shirts so much. He cleaned his face with tissues and spit, using the shiny surface of the little bedroom television for a mirror. 

Zach found Ryan in the living room, arranging sofa pillows in a sort of nest that he'd created by pushing the two matching armchairs together face to face, and draping them with blankets. By the door, an overweight, black-haired woman, not much older than Zach, crouched and talked to a little boy who looked a lot more like her than like Ryan. Even at 5 or 6, the boy was pudgy. He cast a worried glance back at Ryan, with dark eyes that matched his black hair. 

The woman caught Zach's eye and smiled at him, though her expression contained no real joy.

He waved. "Hi. I'm Zach."

The woman lifted her child up onto her hip as she stood up. At first glance, she didn't appear hurt. "Hello. I'm Jamila. This is Jerry." Her soft voice turned simple conversation into a lullaby. Jerry buried his face in his mother's coat. Jamila turned her head to the side to speak to him. "Jerry, this is Brother Ryan's friend Zach. He's staying here too."

Zach murmured a polite "Nice to meet you." 

"Mommy, I want to go with you." Jerry complained. 

"I know honey, but I need to go by myself. Look, you're going to have a special bed made of chairs. Let's see if it's comfy." 

Ryan took his bedraggled old sock monkey, Booger, down from the mantelpiece and set it in the nest. "Oh, I know it's comfy. I used to sleep in these chairs myself sometimes, until I got too big."

Jamila stooped over to get Jerry settled in the nest, and Zach got a look at the alarming amount of caked blood on the back of her head. As she moved, she also favored her right arm. 

While Jamila fussed over her son and promised a dozen times that she'd come back as soon as she could, Ryan flipped through television channels until he hit on something mildly educational with singing puppets. "Bongo's Treehouse. How's this?"

Jerry got quiet and stared at the screen. Jamila took the opportunity to slip out without a fuss.

Ryan caught Zach by the wrist and towed him over to sit on the couch. "He doesn't get to watch much T.V., so hopefully he'll stay hypnotized," he whispered in Zach's ear. 

Zach snuggled in close and draped his arm around Ryan's shoulders. "But you're not sure enough about that to go back to bed and finish what we started?" he asked under his breath.

"Right." Ryan yawned. "And actually, now that the adrenaline is wearing off, I feel like I'm about to crash. It's past my bedtime." 

Bongo's Treehouse gave way to something with cartoon animals that Zach mostly tuned out. Ryan dozed a little bit, with his head on Zach's shoulder. Even though Zach would rather they were going at it like depraved bunnies, he enjoyed feeling Ryan leaning carelessly against him. A couple hours ago, Ryan had been at the opposite end of the couch. This was a big improvement.

When the sky outside the window started to brighten, Zach excused himself and went back to Ryan's bedroom, where the heavy curtains were hung for the express purpose of keeping sunshine out, and letting Ryan sleep until noon.

Ryan followed him, yawning. "Where do you want to sleep?" 

"Where do you want me to sleep? It doesn't matter to me. I just thought it was a bad idea to pass out in the living room."

"I want you in bed with me, if you think it'll be dark enough in here." Ryan adjusted the edges of the curtains.

"You won't find it too creepy when I'm all inanimate?"

"Nah, so is everything else in the bed. I don't see the big deal."

"Well, then, just put the covers over my head if you're going to open the door to the hall, and I should be fine." Zach sat down on the side of the bed that he was pretty sure Trisha used to sleep on. Her romance novels had always been on the night table on that side. He took satisfaction in claiming the spot. 

"Oh! I know just the thing." Ryan hunted around on the top shelf of the closet and came up with a grey ski mask. He tossed it to Zach.

Zach pulled it on over his head, and climbed into bed fully clothed. "Thanks. I feel silly, though." The mask covered everything but the tip of his nose and his eyes.

"You look a bit silly too, but safety first." Ryan crawled under the covers to cuddle him and kissed the side of his head. "You can be my oversized sock monkey."

Zach smiled under the mask. "Thanks. I'd love to be your sock monkey." There was something appealing about that idea of Ryan treating him like his old favourite stuffed animal. Kids loved their stuffed animals and cuddled them for comfort at night, but also subjected them to random abuse when it seemed like fun. He and Ryan had certainly put Booger through a lot when they were about ten, and his cousin used to bang her teddy bear's eyes on the kitchen floor because she liked the sound it made. 

The dawn caught him in the middle of that thought.

***

Ryan didn't notice the exact moment when Zach passed out - just realized that he hadn't spoken or moved in a couple of minutes. He got out of bed and pulled the blanket up over Zach's head. 

It struck him how helpless Zach was, and how much he must trust Ryan to share a bed with him. Quick on the heels of that thought, another followed: there were some potentially fun ways to take advantage of this situation. Perhaps Zach would wake up tied in a compromising position some night soon.

The pitter-patter of little feet in the hallway snapped Ryan out of it. He went to the door, opening it just as Jerry was about to knock. 

"Brother Ryan, I'm hungry," the boy complained.

"Me too. Do you like cereal?" Ryan slipped out into the hall and shut the bedroom door. 

"What kind?" 

"I've got Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes." 

Jerry looked at Ryan with a blank expression.

"You've never had them?" 

Jerry shook his head no.

"They're loaded with sugar. You'll love them." He herded Jerry toward the kitchen. "But let's be quiet so we don't bother my friend. He's sleeping." 

"Why? It's getting light out." Jerry trotted down the hall to the kitchen.

"We stayed up all night. I haven't even gone to bed yet." Ryan flicked the light on and pulled a chair out for Jerry at the kitchen table.

Jerry climbed onto the chair. "Why?" 

"He was a long way from home without a car. I went and got him. Then we stayed up late talking." Ryan set a couple of bowls out on the counter.

"Whyyyy?"

The awkward why questions grated on Ryan's nerves. "The devil told me to," he snapped.

Jerry looked at Ryan with big, alarmed eyes. 

Ryan felt instantly guilty. "I'm kidding. It's a long complicated story, with no devil in it." He poured some Froot Loops into one of the bowls and set them in front of Jerry, hoping cereal would distract him. "Try these." 

Jerry ate a couple of Froot Loops and grinned. "This isn't cereal. It's candy!" 

"Is it? Well then, would you like some more candy with milk on it?"

"Nobody puts milk on candy."

"I do." Ryan demonstrated this by pouring milk on his cereal.

"You're weird."

"Yeah, that's what people tell me." Ryan topped off Jerry's bowl and sat down to eat his cereal. 

For a few minutes, Jerry inhaled Froot Loops and didn't talk, but as soon as the cereal ran out, the why questions started again. "Why don't you live with us in our village?" Jerry asked.

"Grown-ups don't usually live with their parents. Not in this country, anyway." Ryan decided on another strategy. Maybe if Jerry was busy answering questions, he'd stop asking them. Besides, he was morbidly curious about his sperm donor's cult. "What's your village like?"

"It has a lot of regular houses, and a green school that I'm going to go to next year, and a church, and some storehouses."

"Storehouses? What are those for?"

"Keeping things that people might need if there is an emergency." 

"What kind of things?" Ryan had a bad feeling about this. 

Jerry opened his mouth, then closed it. He thought for a few seconds before he said, "Just emergency supplies." 

"What kind of emergency are people worried about?" 

"If the government comes." 

"Why would that be an emergency?" 

Jerry narrowed his eyes. "Are you retarded or something?"

Ryan couldn't get a straight answer out of Jerry about the hypothetical emergency, and spent most of the rest of the day on the couch, drifting in and out of sleep while Jerry watched cartoons. Jamila called to check in around noon, saying that she had something else she needed to do and would be back soon. She wasn't back until dinner time, though, so Ryan never did get to crawl back into bed with Zach.

***

The day flashed by. One instant, Zach lay on his back, and the next instant, he'd been rolled on his side, with no sensation of movement. Ryan had been there what felt like a moment ago, but Zach couldn't tell now whether he was alone or not, because there was a blanket on his head. "You there?" he asked. There was no reply. He emerged from under the covers, and found the room dark with the door closed. Some kind of argument was going on in another room.

Zach found the lamp by the glow of the alarm clock, turned it on, and peeled the ski mask off. He'd started to smooth down his unruly hair using the television for a mirror again, when he realized that some of the arguing voices belonged to his parents. He had no idea what to say to them, but he thought it would be wrong to leave Ryan to handle the situation alone. Zach hurried into the fray.

Ryan had inserted himself between Zach's parents and the hallway to the bedroom. "He really needs sleep. I'm not waking him up." 

Dad caught sight of Zach first, over Ryan's shoulder. "Zachary William Hudson, what in the world is going on here?" 

"Uh, I'm not sure." Zach stammered. He hadn't yet decided what to tell his parents about what happened to him, but it appeared that he was going to have to figure it out in a hurry.

Ryan relaxed his stance when he heard Zach's voice, and stepped aside.

Mom rushed past Ryan and hugged Zach. He put an arm around her automatically and patted her on the back. Seeing his parents so upset twisted his insides in knots, and he wished he had something to say that would make it all better.

"Thank the Lord you're safe," Mom said, "What were you thinking, just disappearing on us like that without a word about where you were going?"

Zach stalled, trying desperately to have an intelligent thought about what to say to his parents to explain himself. "I didn't say anything?" 

"I told you, he doesn't remember anything before last night," Ryan said with exasperation.

Dad snorted and frowned. "Hogwash. You don't just forget an entire week." 

"Uh, not normally, no." Zach looked at Ryan for help, but Ryan just gave a tiny shrug and looked pained. "I'm sorry. I understand why you're upset. This is bizarre," was the only response Zach could think of.

Mom stepped back and held Zach at arm's length. "You worried us half to death."

"I'm sorry." Zach's mind remained blank, and he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Why didn't you call us last night?" 

"It was two in the morning. I figured Ryan would be up."

Mom pursed her lips. "We were up, worrying about you." 

"I'm sorry. I should have thought of that."

"We had to hear from Jamila that you'd turned up. Not from you. Not from Ryan. We heard it from a stranger. A very nice, considerate stranger, I might add." Mom shot a look over at Jamila and Jerry, who were at the kitchen table eating and staying out of it. 

"I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry." Zach didn't have to ask how Mom heard it from Jamila. Her job was helping domestic violence victims to find resources. Sometimes, this city could seem more like a small town.

Dad jerked his thumb back at the door. "Come on. Let's talk about this at home and leave these folks to their dinner." 

"Um..." Zach felt like a deer in headlights. There was still no good solution to this dilemma, just bad solutions and worse solutions. 

Jamila stood up from the table. "Actually, Jerry and I are going to take a little after dinner walk before it gets too dark," she announced.

"You don't need to do that on our account," Mom said, "C'mon Zach. We'll get something to eat on the way home." 

"I'd like to stay here, actually."

"What?" Mom dropped her arms to her sides and stared at him in shock.

Jamila shepherded Jerry over to the door and stuffed him into a coat. 

"We decided I'm going to live here," Zach said. 

"What in the world...? I thought you were happy living with us." Mom sounded hurt.

"I was, but we all knew I wasn't going to live there forever. I had to grow up sometime." Zach patted mom on the arm.

Dad exhaled noisily and crossed his arms. "Pfft. You call blowing off your first real job and disappearing for a week acting like a grownup?" 

"I swear to you I have no memory of what happened," Zach insisted, "I know it's not a normal way to behave, and I can't imagine doing it without a reason. I just don't know what possible reason there could have been."

Mom shook her head. "And we're not sure we believe you. What happened to staying at home until your student loan is paid off?" 

"Um..." Zach made a snap decision to alienate his parents by coming out of the closet. It would give them a natural reason to see less of him, at least for now. He waited a couple seconds for Jamila and Jerry to leave so that he and Ryan wouldn't be outnumbered by religious fundamentalists. "Well, I'm gay." Technically that wasn't true, but it seemed like the simplest way to present things. "And um... Ryan and I decided to give it a try together." He indicated Ryan with a tiny jerk of his head and clenched his teeth, bracing for the inevitable unpleasantness. 

Mom laughed nervously. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "You are not gay. Don't be ridiculous. You've had a couple of girlfriends, and you moped half the summer after you broke up with Melissa. I can believe you're confused, but I know you're not gay."

"Come on home and let's talk about this," Dad said in an ominous tone. 

"I wasn't moping about Melissa, and I told you, I'm staying here. I know it seems sudden to you, but it's been ten years of agonizing for me."

The pitch and volume of Mom's voice rose steadily. "So instead of getting counselling like a responsible adult, you decided to abandon your job and have a nervous breakdown for a week, and shack up with your new boyfriend, getting him to lie to us about where you were while we worried ourselves sick about you. Is that it?"

"No. The strange circumstances just made for a weird conversation. I really lost a huge chunk of time, and as far as I know, Ryan hasn't lied."

Ryan moved to stand beside Zach, and gave his hand a quick squeeze. 

Mom's attention snapped to Ryan. "All these years of taking you into our home, and this is how you pay us back? Turning our own son against us and sucking him into your lifestyle?" 




Technical Difficulties Episode 14



Zach touched his mother's arm to get her attention back. "Leave him out of it, Mom. He didn't make me do anything, and certainly didn't turn me against you. I love you, but I also love him."

"I can't condone this," Dad said.

"I know." If he'd started dating Ryan and told his parents about it some other time, Zach would probably have argued about whose moral stance was more reasonable. That night, though, he didn't have the heart to say any more upsetting things than he had to.

Mom tried a different angle. "I suppose you're old enough that we can't tell you what to do, but why don't you at least come home and take some time to think about it instead of making a rash decision?" 

Zach shook his head and crossed his arms. "I've been crazy about Ryan since we were thirteen. This is the least rash decision I've ever made." 

Mom narrowed her eyes. "Is that the real reason you'd never get confirmed?"

"No. This has nothing to do with why I don't believe in God." Zach bit his tongue, and refrained from citing the actual reasons. They'd agreed to a truce on this subject a long time ago.

"So what are we supposed to do now? Just walk away and leave you here?" Mom asked.

"I'll sit and talk all night if you want, but I know I'm not going to convince you I'm doing the right thing, and you're not going to change my mind either. Maybe the best thing to do is get some rest."

"I don't know what to think, Zach. I thought I was lucky to have a close relationship with my son, but you're not acting like the person I thought I knew. I thought I knew both of you." A tear ran down Mom's cheek, then another. 

Zach reached out to comfort her, but she backed up and leaned against Dad. "You do know us, Mom. Nobody knows everything there is to know about another person."

Dad wore a deep frown. "I'm really disappointed in you. I thought we brought you up to make better choices than this, but the door is always open. We love you Zach." 

"Love you too, Dad. Mom." 

"But this is not acceptable." Dad turned to go, and slipped an arm around Mom to steer her out of the room.

"I know," Zach said to his father's back. The door closed behind them, and Zach fell into Ryan's arms. 

The sliver of orange sunset visible through the living room curtains faded to blue. Ryan held him and petted his back. "Since we were thirteen? Really?" 

Zach was discombobulated enough that it took a moment to understand what Ryan was asking. "Really." 

"It's been a long time for me, too." 

The door opened and they both jumped guiltily and let go of each other. Jerry dashed into the living room to show off some shiny rocks that he'd found in the sand at the playground.

***

Zach muttered, "Nice," and skulked off to the basement. Ryan feigned a little more interest in Jerry's shiny rocks, until Jamila chased him into the bathroom to get ready for bed. When the door closed and the water started to run, Ryan followed Zach down the basement stairs, and found him in a despondent slump on the weight bench, picking at splinters.

"Hey, can I come down?" Ryan asked from halfway down the steps. 

Zach gave him a micro-shrug. "You can do whatever you like. It's your house."

"I mean, do you want company, or do you just want to be left alone?"

"I could use company," Zach admitted. He dropped a splinter on the rug and clasped his hands. In a voice just loud enough for Ryan to hear, he added, "Really, I could use more than just company. I wish you could just lay into me right now. Make me scream."

Ryan padded across the rug to join him. "You sure that's what you need? I'd have guessed something a little more low-key."

"Well, it's what I want."

"Jamila and Jerry are spending at least another night, though. They haven't found another place to stay yet."

"I gathered. Just saying I wish we could do that, not that we should." Zach gave him a sad smile.

Upstairs, Jerry threw a tantrum about not wanting to wear his new pyjamas, and Jamila sounded like her patience was wearing thin. 

"Actually, I bet we can figure something out later tonight, when those two are asleep," Ryan said, "But I want to talk to Jamila after she gets my brother settled. I have a bad gut feeling that my sperm donor may really be going off the deep end in a scary way, and I'm worried about my other little brothers and sisters." 



Technical Difficulties Episode 15



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Previously in Technical Difficulties

Having been recently turned into a vampire for no obvious reason, Zach is staying with Ryan while he figures out how to manage in this new undead life. They've just yesterday made the happy discovery that they're highly sexually compatible, in a sadomasochistic sort of way, and they'd like to spend a few days in bed together, but stuff keeps getting in the way.

First, Ryan's stepmother, Jamila, and young stepbrother, Jerry, showed up, fleeing from Ryan's violent alcoholic father who also happens to be a cult leader. It's awkward having family for houseguests when you have a vampire in your bed who you want to have noisy sex with. Jerry has made worrying remarks about storehouses on the cult's property, holding mysterious contents for just in case the government shows up, and Ryan would like to find out what's going on. There's also been trouble with Zach's parents, who he lived with up until he got turned into a vampire. They had reported him as a missing person, and were upset when they found Zach and he wouldn't go home with them. He told them he was gay as an explanation, and although that was easier than explaining vampirism, it still didn't go over well, and it was still hard. 

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Jamila shifted around on Ryan's basement couch, exhausted but unable to sleep. There was no way to get comfortable when her bones and muscles ached so badly. The blue-green numbers on the DVD player's clock were a blur to her dry, weary eyes, and the stitches on the back of her head itched. She wondered if it would be better to die and not have to feel so awful anymore. Guilt, self-loathing, and fear gnawed at her guts relentlessly. 

She poked at the gigantic painful pimple on her forehead just below the hair line. Stress and sleepless nights always turned her into a horrid zit monster. Jamila rose and crept up the stairs to go pop the zit in the bathroom. She peeked over her shoulder to make sure that Jerry was still sleeping before she cracked open the basement door and headed out into the hall.

A sliver of light leaked out around Ryan's closed bedroom door. That was surprising, since he'd said he was going to bed half an hour ago. She tiptoed down the hall, heading for the bathroom door, which was right beside the bedroom. Curiosity got the better of her when she he heard voices coming from the bedroom. She paused just outside the bathroom, and barely breathed as she strained to hear what they were talking about.

"I'm serious. It won't kill us to wait another day," Ryan's friend, Zach said, though his words came out tarnished by regret.

"And I'm serious about doing it now. You don't have to breathe, do you? Like, at all?" Ryan argued.

"No. I checked." 

"If I put tape over your mouth and nose, then, you won't be able to make noise, and we won't bother them."

"You're demented - you know that?"

Ryan purred, "You say the sweetest things, my dear." A drawer opened and closed, followed by the distinct sound of tape peeling off the roll.

"Wait, what about other noise?" 

"Don't worry. I promise to keep it down."

Jamila backed away from the door, and fled back down the hall in horror. It had seemed like an epiphany when she decided that her husband wasn't even making sense, but apparently she was just too stupid to understand the word of God. Her husband had spoken the literal truth when he said that demons walked the earth disguised as men. And she'd called him a liar and run off to sleep under the same roof with hell spawn! She'd left her own child in the care of a wicked man and the demon he consorted with. If she'd had more faith, and if she'd been stronger, she would have stayed where she belonged - where God wanted her. She needed to get back there. Good thing she hadn't told Ryan any of the details he'd been prying about earlier in the evening.

On the way down the basement stairs, she flicked the light on.

Jerry raised his head and squinted. "Mom?"

"Shh, honey." She tiptoed down the stairs, over to his side. "We need to be quiet. Get up and put your shoes on, please." 

"Why?" Jerry pulled the covers over his head and curled up in a ball.

"Because we need to go somewhere else. It's not safe here." 

"Why?"

"Brother Ryan is a bad man. C'mon, let's move." Jamila tugged at Jerry's blanket. Her heart pounded.

Jerry scrunched up tighter and hung onto his blanket with determination. "Why-yyyy? What are you talking about?" 

"Jerry, move. Now. We don't have time for this." 

"I don't want to."

Jamila scooped Jerry up, blanket and all, and carried him up the stairs. Thankfully, he must have been shocked enough to stop whining. She grabbed their coats on the way out the door, but didn't stop to put them on. They needed to put some miles between them and that house before they stopped to deal with anything as trivial as buttons and zippers.

***

When it became obvious that Ryan wouldn't take no for an answer -- at least not the lackluster no that he was giving -- Zach perched on the edge of the bed with his hands in his lap and let Ryan stick duct tape over half his face. He still wondered whether this was a good idea, because he felt too horrible about the conversation with his parents to feel sexy. All he really wanted Ryan to do at that moment was hurt him enough that he couldn't think about anything else. The way that Ryan caressed his face as he smoothed out the tape and ran a hand up Zach's thigh suggested that he felt differently. Oh well. Ryan featured in all of Zach's rape fantasies. If he still wasn't in the mood when Ryan decided he wanted to fuck, and Ryan did it anyway, Zach figured he would enjoy it later as a memory.

Once Zach's breath was cut off, Ryan asked him to try making noise. A series of short, soft grunts was the most he could manage. Ryan stepped back to admire his tape job. He didn't look like a man who was going to be careful and quiet; he was transfigured by the wildness inside him. The uncertainty and caution that had tempered his thoughts the night before had melted away. 

Zach looked into Ryan's darkened eyes and felt like the floor had vanished and he was falling. He realized that he'd missed that look almost as much as he'd missed the torture that inevitably followed. Zach moved his hands behind him, opening himself up to his lover. 

Hurried footsteps coming up the basement stairs made Ryan turn his head to look at the door. They listened. The front door opened and closed, and then Jamila's car pulled out of the driveway. Zach's shoulders slumped, and he would have sighed or groaned had that been an option. Not again! How many times was Jamila going to inadvertently interrupt them? 

Ryan shrugged it off this time, though. "I'll ask about it later." He scooped Zach up in his arms, and tossed him down in the middle of the bed. 

Zach bounced, and the room spun around him until Ryan pinned him to the bed with a knee in the middle of his chest. 

"Give me your hands," Ryan said.

Zach obeyed. Ryan jerked Zach's wrists into a more convenient position, and bound him with a gratuitous amount of tape, winding it almost up to his elbows. How strange it seemed that all they had going twenty four hours ago was ulterior motives and a bit of rope. 

Ryan slid his hand under Zach's head and leaned down to kiss him through the silver gray mask of duct tape. He closed his eyes, and as a result, he was taken entirely by surprise a moment later when Ryan's hand slammed into his face. There was a flash of light and a jolt of pain as the bridge of his nose went crunch. His eyes popped open and he stared up at Ryan in shock. Blood from the wound pooled behind the duct tape and ran into his throat and lungs. He tried to swallow, and his reflexes said he should cough, but he couldn't do either. Ryan held Zach's hands away from his face so he couldn't tear at the tape. 

Zach was too overwhelmed to notice that Ryan had knocked the angst out of him with a single hit.

***

Sudden, unprovoked impulses to break Zach's nose were nothing new; Ryan had been repressing them for years. When he was alone, he'd fantasized about letting go and punching Zach, then pinning him to a wall and kissing his face in spite of his struggling and cursing. He'd never considered really doing it, of course. Now that Zach was a vampire who healed so fast that a dark purple hickey vanished in under an hour, though, and he'd given Ryan blanket permission to do as he pleased, the impulse encountered no resistance on its way to becoming action.

The heel of his hand hit bone and cartilage with a satisfying crack, and Zach struggled against him. Ryan's mind soared on an updraft of exhilaration.