Author's website: http://www.mindspring.com/~bluecham/

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I'm not just talking about the story, either.

Author's Notes: Thanks, MR, for the encouraging words.

Story Notes: No spoilers to speak of, really.

There is something about sleeping with Fraser that makes you purr. Well, it makes me purr.

No, I don't mean having sex, the word does also mean passing out and being unconscious on purpose, sleeping with. And I don't just mean one of us catching a few winks while the other one keeps watch. I mean me sleeping in the same reasonably comfortable place--wooden floors do NOT count--with Fraser.

For one thing, he's a cuddler. After I got to know him better and got to understand his dividing lines between kinds of sleep, it didn't surprise me; I guess it snuck past me 'cause it's casual-feeling. He just kind of--'kay, here's the other person, how we doing this tonight, your leg here, my chin on your shoulder bugging you? No? Okay, nighty-night--so I figured he must be used to it from sleeping where that's just how you sleep when you're lucky enough to be able to share a pile of covers and mattress with another warm body instead of freezing your ass off alone. I mean, "Three Dog Night" didn't get their name from what it's like sleeping in Ecuador. I've always kind of wondered why sleeping with someone else amplifies the heat like crazy. Not so you sweat out your brains and die, but say--you're sleeping in a room maybe twenty or thirty (real) degrees. You're by yourself? You shiver all night and get up sore and half-dead and blue. You're with someone, or two, or however many else can all sleep in a pile with other people with no problem if they need to, and you may not notice it's even chilly until you have to get up--and then you wonder when the living shit it got so goddamn cold. And here's these people sleeping in piles with each other and furs in igloos, pretty much naked and cozy as bugs. There's a violation in the laws of thermodynamics somewhere there, you know? Something about conservation of your valuables icing over divided by the number of people in the pile?

Still, it's not common procedure here--and just as an aside I bet that for him, at least, it isn't there, either, if the other person's not from your side of the gender tracks; you'd maybe both wrap up in your own blanket or something, then get close enough for warmskies. But with him, I could go to sleep all snarly and shit, and wake up and I've been to Aruba and there's not a creaky bone in my body, and I'm smiling like I've got some reason to at six in the morning or whenever he gets us the fuck up. Or Dief does.

Reasons that we do that, sleep together, might be...oh, say he stays over at my place 'cause we were up late watching rented movies or playing chess and talking or just generally farting around, and we don't talk about it, we just kind of drift that way and start getting undressed here and there, and things like "You need to be at the consulate earlier tomorrow or anything?" and "Is that spare toothbrush I used last week still in the drawer on the right of your bathroom sink?" and "Whose turn to walk Dief?" and stuff like that, just kind of wander in and out of the conversation until finally there we are, in our skivvies and under the covers and man, I like it, I really do. I thought it'd be weird, but with some things, it takes two or however many to maintain weird, and he just doesn't have the slightest notice of it as weird, so my weird shrivels up and blows away.

Or another reason we sleep in together might be I'm feeling down and he just stays around, talks with me, listens to me; or reads a book while I watch bad TV, or I get moody and stare out the window, or commune with the turtle, or I wander around the apartment--sometimes I catch myself kind of dancing in time with what I'm saying or thinking, but he just sits there all relaxed and listening to me, letting me talk and dance. Or hop around, or whatever. And he just stays. He says I do that dancing thing all the time. I told him he was nuts, but he only smiled at me. Nearly popped him one.

Or he's feeling down. He doesn't talk much, whatever it is, but he stays, and I talk at him or find something he'll like on TV, and sit next to him on the couch. He likes that when he's sad. With me, at least. He didn't used to; used to, he'd always go off alone, sometimes even dump Dief, but lately he's happy to have us there.

If there's some reason he can't stay, but he would've otherwise, he usually doesn't remember the reason until we're halfway drifted there, maybe half an hour into the general driftingness; and then he's "oh, forgot, have to be/do/get thus-and-such". Which was startling, with Mr. Perfect Order, until I realized that with me it's...with me. He forgets he can't do some stuff, sleeping at my place, like he could if he was sleeping at the Consulate.

And I like that, for some reason. That he forgets that. Nearly as much as I like the sleeping itself, which, like I said, about makes me purr out loud. Which if I did, Fraser would probably pet my hair without waking up. Sleeping with Stella was greatness, but she was little and of course I was always worried I'd wake her if I moved too much, or moved her too much. Fraser's like having a...I don't know, I never had anything like that. But I like how floppy he is when he's asleep--not the we're-working-here way, when you could pick him up by the feet and use his head to pound nails--cause you can crawl in and around and rearrange him with you when you move. He's got kinda long legs, though, they sometimes fall off the sides. (Mine are long, too, but I'm skinnier.)I usually get a dirty look for two seconds if I screw up and accidentally biff one of his legs off the bed and he nearly goes over, but he's got himself back wrapped up with me and asleep again by the third second, and he never remembers, anyway.

It didn't start like this, of course. There were "reasons" for him to stay, at first. As in "Hell, I ain't driving you home in this mess and I ain't lettin' you walk, and stop looking at the floor, I don't hog covers that much" kind of situations, but he was pretty easy with them, didn't take a lot of convincing, though he probably thought I was a total wuss because the storms he was used to hunkering down at a pal's over probably had their own names from the Alaska Region Headquarters of the National Weather Service, such as Niflheim Beelzebub or something.

Plus we found out we both sleep good with somebody else. Me and Stella had hell sometimes, because she's one of those people with chronic sleep disorders; not the psychological kind, the brain-chemical-balance kind. She had pills to take, but they weren't the kind that knock you out, they were the kind that help rebalance your neurotransmitters (hell yeah, I know what those are, you think they haven't been checkin' mine since I was about seven?) so they work right and you sleep. Problem with that kind is, apparently, the science is still real iffy, and the pills don't always work; matter of fact, if they work just right a little more than half the nights, that's pretty good performance. For the ones she was taking, at least.

So what happens with two people in one bed where one person can't sleep good is that both people end up awake all night, one of 'em waking the other just as the other was about to fall asleep and vice versa, and about a zillion other problems, all of 'em pretty much that, in one version or another. So we bought a good comfy couch (which she got, in the divorce, 'cause if she got with somebody else they were gonna need it). Pricey, on what we were making, but a lot cheaper than the rent on a livable two-bedroom in the part of Chicago that we had to be in for both our jobs--and then there'd also be the additional bed, and other stuff to make it a little nicer in there so it wouldn't be like being banished from the bedroom into some kind of cell.

So we traded off--whoever got the bed last time got the couch--on nights when getting any sleep in the same bed just wasn't happening. Made us both sad, but at least we knew the other one was there, not far; and they'd be able to maybe get some sleep this way, too. And we'd get in a morning quickie when we could, just to say "missed you". And if we couldn't, we could at least have some kisses and hugs and say it out loud. After the "Get any sleep?" part.

But me and Fraser are just logs. Mobile logs, but logs. Affectionate logs, I guess. I kissed him good morning a little while back, though I'm not sure if it really counts--we woke up like usual, in some kind of pretzel; he was shaking me real gentle with his hand on my waist. "It's time to get up, Ray." Soft furry voice--I suspect his mum woke him up with that voice--but I always come right awake when he says it, even though I'm still busy dealing with the squirmy happy in the tummy it gives me.

Geez, I'm disgusting. And I really like sleeping with Fraser.

So I blinked and yawned right in his face, and he winced and gave me a sour look, pretend-fending off my breath and general attitude, and I grinned and kissed him--as in, "you don't like the yawn, deal with this"--a little smacking peck. "'Morning, Frase," I grinned.

He cracked up. I'd only seen him grin or laugh enough that his eyes crinkle up a couple of times. It's cute. He said, in a "yeah, right" voice, "Good morning. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that you can be as uncouth on waking up as at any other time of day, but after kissing me, well, I think you're going to have to admit that would constitute proof of being used to me, now."

"Never," I said, pointing at him with one hand. The other hand was loose wrist-wrapped with the arm he'd been fending with. "I could fuck you and still not be used to you, you freak buck canuck." I moved my pointing hand and kissed his nose.

He laughed again and shook his head at me, smiling a little "you're hopeless but I love you" smile, and he had borderline critical bedhead and a big sheet crease in his cheek, and I was feeling squirmy-tummied enough to want to kiss him again, since hey, the first one'd been just-fine-no-problem for everybody involved--but he'd started getting up already, chuckling stupidly. Stupidly for him, at least. He's still a little blinking-sleepy for maybe a whole minute when he wakes up, unless he's been sleeping work sleep, but then he's as awake and irritating as his damn wolf--who was by that time nosing in the door and dancing around all perky, wanting to go out.

Fraser, bending over--with an adjustment to his frontal equipment--to grab his socks, said "The fact that I'm usually erect in the mornings is merely the result of my unfortunate habit of drinking tea in the evenings, so don't go getting ideas." He tossed one of my dirty t-shirts across the room to whop me in the side of the head.

"Me?" I snickered from under the t-shirt. "I ain't the one getting ideas."

"You're the one who kissed me. And mentioned, let me recall just how you put it--ah, yes, 'fucking', I believe," Fraser replied, with an extra-dry twist of his lips as he looked for the rest of his clothes--only the truly sacred parts of the uniform got perched up on hangers and chairs like somebody was still in 'em--in that voice he uses to indicate that once again, I've been, how did he put it, ah, yes--'uncouth'.

"You got the stiffie, though."

"And if you'll get out of the doorway I'll get rid of it."

"Hard to take a whiz standin' on your head," I called after him as he headed for the bathroom.

"If I have any problems, I'm sure you'll be more than pleased to rectify them for me," he called back just as he closed the door, getting the last word, the dirty skunk. I laughed at that, 'cept I shut up pretty quick 'cause I had to pee, too. I'm not in the same kind of clear and present danger a woman is when that happens, of course, but it still isn't any freaking fun...

...you know, I could do it with him. I mean, I've woken up ready to say a big good morning to him, too. It just never really, I dunno, drifts that way. Besides, I love him, and I know he loves me, and look at this whole weird-ass situation--what a shithead move it'd be, dangerous as hell for everybody involved, Vecchio more than anybody else, but all of us one way or another. Why fool with what already works?

Well, okay, there's reasons. I guess if it happened...I wouldn't exactly not leap in with all four feet. Just no need to push it.

Hell, he's right anyway, about the peeing. His cock wasn't hard hard, just kinda full, happy. Like him, like me, right then.

See? Toldja I was a poet on the inside.

I was watching Frase one evening at about ten. In the bedroom. He looked at me, his brows drawn together to make that little line he gets. "What are you staring at?" he asked, like he was pretending to be pissed, but with the half-smile that said he really just wanted to know. He'd been finishing putting his uniform up the way he likes it, and was dressed in just his boxers.

"You. Well, I know--" I grinned as he rolled his eyes, and I waved away the I-mean-why-are-you-staring-at-me. "I just mean...enjoying the view. You know you're easy on the eyes, Frase. I've said stuff like that before."

He pinked a little and looked away, lowering his head, as he fooled with something on his hung-up belt; but he was smiling softly. "Thank you kindly. I'm glad you find me...um...but..."

"But what? You get off on hearin' you're ugly or something?"

"Ray." I could hear him smiling, and he was shaking his head. "All I meant was: Forgive me if I seem abashed, rather than grateful, for the compliment. It's just that I'm...not ever really very, well, conscious of my appearance. Except as related to the suitable grooming and personal presentation of a member of the RCMP, of course."

"I know. Believe me, I know that about you. Most guys that look like you are arrogant snots 'cause of it. You just...to you, it's...your body. You live in it. That's all."

"If I return the compliment, will you believe me, or will you think I'm being 'polite'?" He came over and sat on the edge of the bed--well, plunked, sorta, making the bed bounce a little, with one knee pulled up so he could face me; I was halfway lying down, covers half hanging off my side.

"Would you be telling the truth?"

"Of course I would."

"Then I'd believe you."

"Then, I enjoy looking at you, too. You're very graceful--all right, I have to admit it's an idiosyncratic sort of grace--"

"Thanks, asshole."

We were both grinning; he just kept talking over me. "--and when you're relaxed, your movements are so...free. You...look like I'd like to feel, more often, when I'm relaxing. Your smile is almost--almost too much to take in, sometimes--" he paused while I smiled and felt self-conscious about it, my head ducking. He went on "It's so open. And I like your tan. It's light, even--just the right color to complement you."

"Huh. Other way, with me. I like the way your skin looks like snow. Snowy smooth, all over, no blotches and funny colors like most pale people, especially pale people as old as you are."

"Thanks for keeping me humble."

"No charge. Hm, you're gettin' hard. Too much tea?" I wagged my eyebrows at him.

He smirked, looking only a tiny bit embarrassed. "I do notice such things when they happen, Ray." He started rearranging the covers; he has this deep-seated determination to get his half that shows up even when he sleeps, but it's not usually a problem. He just pulls me right on over with the covers if he has to. Nobody minds it.

"I..." he paused, thinking; not hesitant, though. I can tell the difference by now. If he's just trying to think something out, he doesn't do any of his nervous things; instead he gets that tilt to his head and his lips press together, and the brow thing, kind of a baby frown; just thoughtful-looking.

He finished with the covers; we were still half sitting. He turned off the light on his side of the bed. "I've been wondering..."

When he didn't keep talking, I threw in "Couldja turn the light back on? I'm still looking."

He laughed softly, a you're-weird laugh, but I didn't care; he turned the lamp back on. Was one of those dimmer bulbs; I thought it made the cinderblock-type paneling on one of the walls of my bedroom look a little less institutional. Like I said, sleeping in anything that looks like a cell is a big fat drag. "There, look all you want," he said. I pulled the covers down to his knees and he laughed again. "Ray--I know it seems like a stupid question, but I need to hear it. Are we...I suppose I mean, are you really..."

"Interested? Hell yes. I've thought about it, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have. I, um--" he looked embarrassed again. "Sometimes, when I...um."

"If you're trying to apologize for using me as a jerk-off fantasy, it's okay with me," I said. Usually I'd flip him at least some shit for something like that, but I was feeling too sleepy and relaxed, which was why I was in bed so early in the first place. I just wanted to lie here almost naked with him and get real, real personal. Talking personal, and hopefully some touching personal, too.

Okay, it's true, I wanted to kill him sometimes, and if he were a normal human being he'd want to kill me sometimes, I know. Hey, I want to kill me sometimes. But things were getting different, since we'd started sleeping together at my place so often--at least a few times a week, lately. Yeah, stuff was mostly the same, but there was a...a kind of purry feeling whenever I'd first see him, when he came to the station, or wherever we got together, like--like he was touching me. Not the kind of purry feeling you get from the sex kind of touch, more like the I'm-taking-care-of-you kind of touch. Like your hair being stroked, or holding hands, or a massage. Or someone really taking care of you, but being real careful about it; you can tell the people that are really trying to help you, trying not to hurt, when they're changing your bandages or checking your pulse--with their fingers, not that damn cuff. You know what I mean. The people who do the high blood pressure brochures should include it somewhere in the petting-your-cat section. Forget the pets, cuddle with your friends. That's why I have a turtle. He's easy to keep happy and anyway I got Fraser, now.

'Course, as far as that goes, I guess a lot of women do it--cuddle, not have turtles, or Fraser, he runs away when they get too close, usually--gay and straight women both, and a couple of the gay guys I know do it, because they literally don't have anything to prove. I'm bi, but I've pretty much always kept it to women; less bother, less worry, and hell, I just go for them more, as a general thing. And there was Stella; by the time that was over, I was pretty old to be getting a first big start in the gay scene. But Fraser is different, nothing to do with scenes or whatever other crap. There's...just something there, that makes me think he'd be worth any of that bother and worry and danger, more than worth it. And being close to him feels so...God, I sound like a granola fruitcake, but it feels natural. Like we fit--like when we sleep.

Help me, I'm metaphorizing and I can't shut up. "So, is that what were you wondering?"

"Hm? Oh. It's...well. I can't...I don't have much--ahm..."

"If you're trying to say your experience with guys pretty much is jerk-off fantasies, don't worry, I'm not that far ahead of you."

He blinked. "Well. My experience is a bit more...material than that, but not by very much. In any case, I wondered if you..." turning onto his side, he reached over and stroked my arm, still wandering around in his head looking for the right words. He still didn't seem uncomfortable, only kinda confused. His hand rested on my forearm while he thought.

"...want to do something?" I started trying to help out; I was getting an expression that probably looked sort of like his. "Uh, make out? Kiss?" He was shaking his head slowly, like he could almost put his finger on it...I tried "Maybe you're tryin' to think of Latin words for something? Not that either, huh?"

"No, nothing so complex," he said, still looking puzzled. "The word I want is something like 'touch', but that's a bit on the generalized side." He stroked my arm again.

"We touch when we lie down to sleep. Wanna do that? Except we don't have to sleep right off? We could, you know. Talk." We'd talked in bed before, but not on purpose, not just to be doing it, somethin' to do while we...touched, or whatever he had in mind exactly.

He nodded, smiling. "Yeah. That would be nice."

I smiled, too, and I thought of what he said about my smile, and there we were, havin' a little moment, but then I had to ruin it, as usual. "Freakin' polite Canadian." The reason he said "polite" all wiseass-like earlier was that I'd been on him again that day about it, so I ducked behind that. He sighed, but didn't say anything, and we started getting laid down.

"All I said was 'That would be nice'," Fraser grumped. He reached down and grabbed my ass to pull me in close. "Oh, and I like your backside, too," he added, patting it. Payback for the moment-wrecking, no doubt.

I was still blinking from his grabbing it, but then I smiled. "Fraser, I have no backside. I got a frontside, I got legs and I got a back, but there's some kinda mysterious force, like holds up those beach balls over the fans at the appliance store, keepin' 'em all together."

He was laughing again, out loud, but still not like the neighbors could hear or anything. "I'm fond of it anyway, okay? Despite the fact it...keeps a low profile."

"'Low profile'," I muttered, and reached to grab his butt. Oooh, baby, some glutes there. "Now that is an ass. That is an ass a person could get lost in. Or wait, uh, maybe I should pick a different--"

Too late; he was now laughing so hard the neighbors probably could hear him.

I pretended to be him, sort of. "Really, Frase. That's just crude, takin' it like that."

He laughed harder, and not at my impersonation.

"Oh, geez," I sighed, "we've reached the stage where I can't say anything at all without it sounding dirty. With especial respect to asses."

"Or perhaps especial disrespect," he snorted, trying to calm down.

"Hardy ha ha ha."

He was still giggling, but his left arm was wrapped under my waist and his other hand was stroking over me, my chest, arms, shoulders, making slow circles, then moving up and down again...it took a minute to notice it from the general cuddling before, I guess 'cause a few pets and pats happen a lot when we're in bed, moving each other around and stuff; but this just kept going, and I was purring by the time I finally realized he didn't intend to quit.

Oh. Touch.

Well, sure. I can do that.

"You're a riot, Frase," I finished, and reached up and started stroking his hair. I'd kill to have his hair, and what's he do? He drowns it under that scary hair cream. At least mine's enjoying life. Fraser rubbed his head against my palm and finally stopped giggling with a sigh, though he was still smiling.

He feels incredible. I knew that already, of course, but it was different, so...on purpose, to be feeling it like this, for the sake of feeling. His skin is as touchable as it looks, and he's just the right amount of resilient underneath. We were both hard, but he was still staying out of my shorts, so I stayed out of his. I wanted in his, but God knew there was still plenty to feel up, slow and lazy.

We ended up nose-to-nose, wrapping our legs up together too, and once when I ran the sole of my foot up the back of his leg, I guess I ran it a little higher than he figured I could, because he jumped a little and giggled, and I'm all "Mm, ticklish, Frase?" and he's smiling and shaking his head and we're both smirking and it was deeply cool...

But I happened to be fucked over by work that day, and I started to...hell, I dunno, you know how it feels when someone's rubbing your back and they find the perfect spot and you float away? It was like that. His hands are incredible.

Eventually, I realized my hands on him had been still, on his chest, for a while, and I tried to shake myself awake, muttering something about "sorry" but he just shushed me, told me to relax, he could wait. Or something like that. He probably said it in Canadian. Next thing I knew he'd straddled me; he was resting some weight on me, but careful not to squish me. He slid both hands up from my hipbones to my collarbone, leaned down and kissed my mouth, real light. But slow.

"Hi," I whispered, as he rested there, one elbow on either side of my head, palms holding his own head up. I smiled. The kiss had been warm and felt like my lips were sensitized, and they'd clung at his, and it all gave me tummy squirmels, and I couldn't've helped smiling even if I'd wanted to.

"Hello," he said. "I think you're going to fall asleep in a few minutes."

"Um...is that okay?" Though we were both half-hard and pressing lightly together there, which felt better than great, I was wiped and he'd just relaxed the living hell out of me--with the touching me and the letting me touch him--so I thought I better ask just to be safe. After all, I'm not a kid any more.

He smiled. "Perfectly okay."

"This is great."

"Yes, we can do it again tomorrow."

"I'll do you. You can fall asleep on me."

"Or under you."

"Yeah, maybe that."

"I wondered if you wanted anything special before you fell asleep."

I smiled again, a slow, I-know-you're-messing-with-me smile that he answered with his small impish one. "You dirty-minded Mountie, you."

"It was a simple question."

"Kiss some more?"

"I like that idea." He straightened his legs so he wasn't up on his knees or sitting on me, but they were still on either side of mine, and one forearm went under my neck to support him on that elbow while the other hand kept stroking, petting, stroking...oh, geez, and with the kissing, and the new position, was I ever waking up. I moaned into his mouth and grabbed his ass and pulled him down onto me to let him know it, though we were just lightly touching, all along the length of us, already. He got the message, and I massaged his ass with both hands while he petted my chest and we kept on kissing; boy could he kiss, I could tell already that he really liked kissing, just for its own sake--but we were doing more than that, and I tugged at his shorts so we could do it better, shoved 'em down as far as I could without letting go of his mouth, and he helped me with mine.

Oh, my God. "Oh, my God," my mouth managed to echo my brain as I gasped for air. I lost track of time. I lost track of my mind. I lost track of anything that wasn't touching Fraser. "God, Frase, touch me--" I reached down to gently find and caress his ball sac--I have never done that with a guy before, not that I have a lot of history with guys, but some kind of gesture seemed appropriate, and it felt like maybe a nice way to say "I truly respect your equipment" before just grabbing for his dick right off; anyway he didn't seem worried, though he nearly bit my tongue, and made kind of a weird noise into my mouth as his legs slid a little farther apart. Then I took his cock in my hand and--soft, and resilient was a good word again, and extra skin, I liked the extra skin, I liked to fool with the extra skin, and Fraser was gasping now too, and it had been about one and a quarter seconds from when I said "touch me" and now I was finishing the thought more specifically because my best guess was we'd been deliberately touching, touching, touching for over an hour, "--I mean jack me, Frase, please..."

He groaned, and I could tell it was supposed to be an answer, I could hear it meant "Yeah, I'm all over that, buddy," only he couldn't get anything that long out in the split second before his hand was around my dick, squeezing and feeling the rhythm of my thrusting, and we got a backbeat going, him and me, me and him, and damn, me and Fraser can jam.

"Oh my God," I whimpered again, sounding pathetic, but that was how I felt, oh my God, desperately groping and gripping at his ass with my free hand--need to talk, can't talk, can't shut up, need to--"Oh good, oh yeah, oh I love you, God yeah--Frase--yeah--"

"Ray," he whispered in this shuddering voice, and his rhythm was all off and he was coming, moaning soft, some mewling noises, some deep groans, soft and loud and all sweet and musical, coming from deep inside him, and my hand and his dick were slidey warm wet messy oh, Fraser, fuck me--

"Ngahh!" And I was doing it, doing it into his hands, both his hands, he'd moved the one holding himself up and he was resting with his face in my neck, and his hands squeezing careful, squeezing my cock in both hands, and I yelled again and jerked up hard, but he was with me, got his knees where he could keep himself from crashing back down on me, he stayed with me, stayed with me, stayed with me--

"I love you, too, Ray," he managed to whisper in there somewhere but I was too busy flinging my arms and legs around him before I passed the hell out to reply.

"And then what happened? What would make her change her mind after all that time?"

"Guess she got old and settled, or got old enough she wanted to get old and settled, and she couldn't settle with me."

"But she knew you were bisexual when she married you."

"Yeah, of course. It was like...she never just woke up one day and said 'Ray, I can't stay married to you because I'm afraid you're staring every man you meet in the crotch' or whatever. It creeped up on both of us. I...started noticing guys more, and of course she's gonna notice that, when she and I are both staring at some guy on the tube, drooling and saying 'what a hunk'. But she used to like it. It used to turn her on."

"I'm assuming you didn't...um..." Fraser made a one-handed gesture that could have meant almost anything, but fortunately I know Fraser.

"No, no bringing anybody home for a three-way. The idea of us really doing it with another guy didn't do a thing for her. It was all hypothetical turn-on. Anyway, she noticed that I was noticing more guys, or maybe noticing guys more, and she mentioned it, and then I started noticing I was noticing guys more. And then I started gettin' worried that she'd get worried, so I started keeping it under my hat. And then..."

"...when she noticed you seemed to be, well, editing your conversation with her..."

"...she got worried. She got worried that it was she wasn't a guy, and when I said that wasn't it, she started worrying I couldn't talk to her about whatever it was, though she was still worrying about the first thing 'cause she didn't totally believe me. Frase...she's not a bigot or anything. It sounds really small of her and all when I put it like this, but it wasn't. I mean, we were having other problems. Not one huge one, a bunch of smaller but really irritating ones, and then this. She started thinkin' that I might be happier with a guy, that it might be the reason for our problems..."

"But--you begged her not to leave."

"She's not stupid, she knows there are a lot of reasons people stay together. They stay together even when the marriage is already clean to hell and gone. It's hell to break up, after that much time. Also, straight people and gay people both are always afraid that if they get a bi lover the bi lover's gonna suddenly, for no reason, freak out, and HAVE to go after whatever sex the straight or gay person isn't."

"Actually, I have noticed that."

"Thought you might've. So then...um, I think she had to start hating me a little to make herself leave. And that counselor...she...well, we went to a counselor, and Stella mentioned me bein' bi, and the counselor would not get OFF that. Couldn't talk about me bringing the job home and how that made Stel feel, couldn't talk about Stel's parents not approving of me and how that made me feel, couldn't see anything but my bein' bi and how that had to make me feel 'deprived' and Stel feel 'threatened' and when we said we had other stuff to talk about, just one session, please, this counselor decides that's proof that I felt deprived and Stel felt threatened and we were avoiding it."

"That's insane. You should have gone to another counselor."

"We did. Same thing happened."

"Oh dear."

"No shit oh dear. Apparently married bi guys were on everybody's shit list because of people saying that het women in this country would never have become susceptible to AIDS if it weren't for bisexual men."

"That's insane, too."

"I know. Anyway, you can imagine that it just got worse from there..."

"I certainly can." Fraser glanced over my shoulder at the clock. "I'm glad it's Friday."

I turned my head far enough to glance, too. "Saturday, now, for a few minutes, anyway."

"Mm." He nuzzled my hair. "And you believe that that's why all your friendly overtures to Stella are met with such, um..."

"Why she rips me a new one sometimes when I try to get next to her. And why I wimp out every time. Yeah. That's why. It makes sense, from her point of view, and...I dunno, maybe she's right, that we shouldn't try to really be friends, I mean. It is damn near impossible not to fall back into...what you shouldn't, when you share that much with somebody."

"I understand. She can't afford to be friends with you, lest she succumb to the temptation of becoming more."

I sighed. "And I can't tell her 'No, I'll be good, really, we'll just hang out' because I about busted every major internal organ I got tryin' to get her to stay, then tryin' to get her back."

"Until she met alderman Orsini."

"Prisoner number blah blah blah Orsini, you mean."

He kissed my forehead, real gentle. "Yes, that's what I mean. You could tell her about me, if you trust her that far. That might reassure her, and you could have her back as a friend."

Who else would wanna be with me and still want me to have Stel back for a buddy, even though Stel and I have every kind of history it's possible to have? I loved him a whole bunch, and kissed his pretty puffed-up mouth, and then I sighed and shook my head. "Nah, won't help. She thinks we been doin' it for months now."

Fraser sat bolt upright. "What?"

"I said, she thinks we been doin' it--"

"Why?"

"Because you live over here about half the time, and she knows I'm bi, and you're the most beautiful thing breathing on this planet."

He blinked, then slumped back against the headboard. I smiled, 'cause he was too weirded out to notice the major compliment, which ordinarily would have turned him flushed in the cheeks. Or maybe he was just still too flushed for me to see it get darker in the dimmer bulb light. "Oh. Half the time?"

"Lately, yeah. It's okay. I don't think anybody else has noticed in the sense of thinkin' we're doing it. But everybody's noticed that they had to call here for you at oh-dark-thirty at least once, probably more, some point or other."

He gulped. "I wonder when they..."

"Maybe when you started givin' 'em my home phone as an alternate number where you could be reached. When the first two are the place you work and my cell, people are gonna think you live here. Which is not all that unreasonable, since you do, kind of. I mean, you do, and your little dog, too. It's your stuff that mostly lives at the Consulate."

"Wait--I thought Stella was worried, when you were married, that you wanted men more than women. So why wouldn't she be relieved, and pleased at the prospect of spending time with you, if it seems to her that you now have a man?"

"Because gay people also think that if they get a bi lover, the lover will freak and suddenly need to feel normal and get with a member of the opposite sex. Straight people think this, too. She's afraid I might try to grab onto her 'cause she's a chick and it would be easy,'cause of who we are to each other."

Fraser stared at me, with a "you're putting me on" expression, and I shook my head at him, kind of grimly, and he sighed and said "This is all very convoluted." He lay down again and we got comfy.

I pointed out "In case you hadn't noticed, bi people always seem to get the short end of the stick with gay or straight people."

"Actually, as I've said, I had noticed that. And Stella is totally straight, you say?"

"As far as she or anybody else knows, yeah."

"Then I would venture to say it's a good thing you and I are both bisexual."

"Yeah, me too. Gays and straights are just too paranoid."

He snorted behind his hand and gave me a "Naughty, Ray," look, but he knew I was joking. I rolled him over on his back; he went, smiling, helping haul me on top of him. "As are most of our coworkers, I'd hazard a guess. Straight, that is. Still, one thing--"

"What thing?" I was snuggling with a vengeance.

He moaned real soft and started snuggling back, but managed to ask "Why doesn't anyone else seem to think...mmm...that we're...uh, that we..." I didn't blame him for getting kinda nonverbal; I was, too. God, this touching thing, I'd never done anything quite like it--plenty a lot like it, obviously, but not quite like this. I think it was just the way of looking at it, you know, way of thinking about it, that made it feel different. Or maybe it was being so used to his body, but still having the new-lover shine on the feeling, too. Though it still hasn't let up, so I don't know. The love wasn't new, anyway.

I helped him out. "That we're fucking?"

"Yes. You do have such a way with that word."

"Don't I just. The answer to that is, I have no idea. Maybe they think you've decided to try and convert me to your refined Canadian ways, or maybe they think I took you in like a stray cat. I don't know. Nobody's asked. Nobody's talkin'. 'Course, it's true Stel's the only one who knows I'm bi, as far as I know. And as far as...oh this's nice...as far as anybody else knows, you only do it with walruses or something."

"Walruses!? Really, Ray."

"Why not, I bet they got nice big--"

"I think I ought to rate a reindeer at the very least. 'Walruses'. Hmph."

"Oh, don't get pissy on me." He wasn't; if anything, he was loving me up even harder, giggling just a little. He barely had breath to hmph with. I finished "Okay, you can be Dasher."

"Huh?" His eyes were kinda glassy. "'Dasher'?"

"So I can be Dancer."

"That was awful."

"The duck boys can be Prancer and Vixen, though you get to tell whichever of 'em gets to be 'Vixen'. I plan to be in another county. Although, come to think of it, 'Prancer' isn't exactly a prizewinner, either."

He started laughing. I gotta stop cracking him up at times like that. "What about the rest?"

"Oh, Turnbull's gotta be 'Comet'. He'd never miss a chance to be his favorite basin, tub and tile cleaner."

"What about 'Cupid'?"

"Frannie, obviously."

"Donner and Blitzen?"

"The Ice Queen and Welsh, unless you think Vecchio'd want in on this, he might make a better Blitzen."

"I'm relatively sure he would choose to opt out, if given the oh my God that's good chance. Mort, on the other hand--"

"No! No fair! Dirty pool, no Mort in oh gross bed, you dirty skunk Mountie, I--mmmmph..."

When I could think again, anything beyond the kind of stuff you can probably guess, we were both really, really happy people.

"You know," I was panting, "we should consider maybe actual fucking or blow jobs or something instead of just slithering all over each other--"

--Fraser made a pleased sound, I guess at the word 'slithering', he gets turned on by things like that--

"--like snakes until we both come in three minutes, not that slithering's bad, precisely..."

"Oh, we will...Ray?"

"Mm-hm?"

He was curling up around me, wriggling in even closer, and his eyelids were drooping.

"I wouldn't really fuck you if you were a reindeer."

"Oh, God, Fraser!"

"Even if you were named Dancer. You'd have to be at least--"

"Will you shut up?!"

"--a Kodiak bear."

"...wouldn't fuck me if I was a reindeer, sheesh..."

"It was originally a Canadian island, you know."

"I'm gonna kiss you 'til your lips fall off and I can get some sleep."

"Won't your lips fall off, too, though?"

"Yeah. Just to be with yours. And if that isn't the weirdest declaration of love in the known universe I have no freaking idea what is. Hit the light, would you?"

"I love you, too, Ray."

"Hit the fucking light already."

"That's not very romantic."

"Yeah, that was Stella's big complaint."

"Liar."

"Yeah." I kissed his breastbone, which was right by my mouth just then.

He hit the light.

"Mmmm..."

"Stop makin' happy sounds, I'm tryin' to sleep." God, that happy hum vibrated so sweet in his chest and straight through mine.

"It never bothered you before."

"It never got me hard before."

I could hear him smiling. He stroked my hair. I purred. He chuckled and said "You're lying again." There was satisfaction in his voice.

"Yeah," I sighed, listening contentedly to the sound of two grown men purring. I smiled myself to sleep.

End Purr by Blue Champagne: bluecham@mindspring.com

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