1
"Alan, come in." Carl stands to greet him, but from behind his desk and across the room. That's one thing Alan likes about him. Although Carl utilizes many instruments to impose and influence, he never chooses his stature. That would be too easy.

Alan has never held much respect for persons who take the easy route.

Alan has yet to peg Carl, though the fact that Shirley deemed him peg-worthy is a distinct point in his favor. That Carl had the sense to see that his peg would not be enough to keep her--at least not enough to keep her happy--earns him another two.

"Carl." Alan nods to him and helps himself to the coziest seat and plumps the throw pillow beside his hip. "Why do I always feel like I'm being summoned to the principal's office when you call?"

"Too many overlapping memories, I suspect."

"Speaking of over laps, I've been wondering: is this a firm that believes in bare bottomed discipline? If so, I must confess: I've been bad. Tell me: Does Shirley spank? Or better still, do you?"

Alan tries for lascivious. It's his usual fallback image whenever it suits his purposes to have his talent and intellect underestimated for the moment.

Carl contorts his face in that way that says it all.

It's times like this that Alan misses Paul the most; he could always be counted on to be loads more fun.

Carl continues as if he's heard nothing but standard, every day pleasantries, which, considering the present company, perhaps he hasn't. "I'm told that you're something of an expert in anti-trust. We have a client facing a hostile take-over."

"Ah. The most exciting kind."

"Our client is colorful, little sail making company--Harbor Industries. Keith, the CEO, came to me this morning. It seems that his partner, the only other major shareholder, is in a financial bind and intends to liquidate his shares. Keith is unable to pick them up, but--here's where the fun begins--Doyle Sails has a standing buy order for any available shares.

"Harbor is in a position to be gobbled up."

"Fascinating to you and doubtless thousands of amphibious turkey aficionados around the globe, but I fail to see what this has to do with me."

"Big things start small. A journey of a thousand miles…one small step for man and all that. I believe in nipping things in the bud; you're our chief bud nipper."

"Ah. Yes, I see. You'd like a demonstration. On your bud. Certainly. If you would just clear your desktop..." Alan rises as if to remove his jacket.

Carl purses his lips and waits just the perfect beat. "This bud's not for you." He takes the top file from a stack and lets it fall open. "My advice to Keith was to make the company as unappealing as possible. And nothing says 'acquire me not' like a class action law suit. Looking through the file, I see that we advised them they were in jeopardy of one several years ago."

"Because?"

"Oh, I don't know. 'Sweat-shop' is such an old-fashioned term." Carl slides a handful of pictures of the Harbor manufacturing loft across his desktop.

Alan flits his eyes to the glossies. "Charming company you keep, your clients."

"As I said, they're old business; before my time." Carl rummages through the file some more. "There's a follow-up letter advising Harbor that a precedent setting case had been decided and that partially because of this, in the firm's opinion, its Dickensian labor practices were on legally defensible ground."

Carl slides another piece of paper across the desk. Predictably it's signed in rich fountain ink, Denny Crane.




Alan bristles. He suspects the feeling on his neck is similar to that which the mouse must get when he hears something metallic whistle behind him a split-second after noshing down on that lovely hunk of cheese.

"I'm still not hearing an anti-trust issue." Alan pushes the papers back across.

"Stick with me, son. We're not even to the opening titles yet." Carl offers the façade of a smile.

"The test case was a 2000 ruling in favor of a Bostonian manufacturing corporation: Nilferex. The employees filed a class action law suit and lost, but there were a number of irregularities. The judgment was won more on charisma and courtroom performance than on statute law. There may even have been some hankie-pankie with a juror. The case is ripe for appeal.

"I suggested that Keith encourage the Harbor employees to file their own class action lawsuit alleging unfair labor practices, then--to really mix up the margarita--also push the Nilferex plaintiffs to appeal the 2000 ruling."

"You advised your own client to start a multi-million dollar lawsuit against himself? Been eating much cow lately?" Alan lets his tone convey all that his words do not.

"The idea isn't to go that far," Carl says. "We just need to put on a show for a few weeks until our client can come up with funds to buy the controlling shares."

"Or pay his employees a living wage."

Carl's eyebrows tip acquiescence, but there are some things that rich, successful lawyers can't--or don't--say. Even amongst themselves. Not and sleep at night too.

"Fascinating." Alan crosses his legs in the other direction. "Yet amongst this handpicked and carefully choreographed cast of hundreds, I still don't see any role for me."

"Mm." Carl works his eyebrows around. "Son, let me be honest; you're not here for your anti-trust skills."

"I'm stunned."

"Without the Nilferex case being revisited, a new filing won't carry much threat. But the Nilferex plaintiffs refuse to appeal. They seem to think it would be a waste of time and money. Apparently they feel that the original lawyer was someone who cannot be beaten."

Alan starts to get a very bad feeling about this meeting.

"We need someone--someone who might seem to be in the know--someone whom they might have reason to believe--to convince them otherwise."

The bad feeling cramps down hard, swells and rises in his throat. Carl's pushing another paper across the desk, and Alan knows he doesn't have to look at it, but of course he does have to because he's always been somewhat masochistic about things like that.

It's a copy of the filing of the original class action lawsuit against Nilferex over ten years ago. The one that Carl wants overturned--or at least to set things in motion to that effect. Up at the top, printed in crisp laser font, the copy text now somewhat faded but having been highlighted in neon pink, those words that shock and awe: Counsel for the Defendant, Denny Crane.

2
"Anyone can do this." Alan tosses the paper back in Carl's direction knowing full well that anyone cannot.

"Anyone cannot. Since the firm represented Nilferex in the original case, it can't be anyone who was here then. The discussions will non-privileged--limited to general law and public trial records--and yet the potential enjoiners have to believe that the outside advisor is bringing to the table some good faith, non-privileged knowledge that the case is winnable.

"So, it can be you and it has to be you. Assuming there's no issue of marital privilege." If Carl thought the weak joke would dilute the tension, he's apparently mistaken. Alan doesn't laugh and Carl hastens with his eyebrows to transpose the flippancy to a question. After all, this is Massachusetts: he's not in New York... or Kansas any more.

"Back-burnered." Alan strives for his merciless, derisive tone that carries even money as to whether he's telling an outrageous smart-ass lie or an outrageous smart-ass truth. "You wouldn't believe the difficulties finding white satin pumps in a size 15."

"You might be surprised." Carl shrugs his forehead and looks back to the pile. Apparently he takes the inanity to mean that things are back to status quo.

He closes the file, stacks it on top of four thick binders and slides them a token distance across the desk. "This is all the public information--"

"I won't do it."

"Pardon?"

"If you want Denny to reassure them, have Denny go himself. Or have you even discussed this with him?"

"We will." Carl says it almost gently. "Or you can, if you'd rather. But it won't change what needs to be done."

Alan makes restless but ultimately impotent leg movements, he remains to listen. It seems more prudent than the alternative. He's come to terms with exposing himself to heartbreak, but having to give up grand impulsive gestures made in a fits of pique because someone else now matters to him--that's been more onerous price to pay for love.

Carl's voice drones on. Now he's sounding more like Paul, but sadly, not in the fun ways. He needs this fixed by NYSE opening Monday. He's giving Alan suggestions for approach, key points, names, and he's not smiling anymore.

It sounds like he's gotten all the inside info he's going to get out of Carl, and so at last Alan stands. "I won't do it," he repeats. He smooths the paisley tie he borrowed from Denny down the front of his torso. "You are trying to use me as a tool against someone I care deeply about, and I won't be used. I only see one tool in this room, and I have no mirror." He casts a baleful look to Carl.

Unruffled, Carl reaches down and pulls a binder from the floor near his feet. "At last count, Nilferex employed 203 three-quarter time employees at below $4/hr and with no benefits. Most of them speak little or no English almost none of them at the level required to understand the labor law postings. The worst part is that most of them came from countries so poor that when they were hired, they believed they'd really made it big with this job." He turns over a picture of a Nilferex production crew.

Although he is fully aware of the probable consequences, Alan stops and looks. It doesn't seem right that a decent soul should have the option to turn away from those in need.

"Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it." Most of his constitutional law class had attributed that quotation to Justice Earl Warren, but he had known it was Gloria Steinham, earning him a bonus points on the quiz as well as a memorable evening in bed with professor Connie Blynn and her infamously unshaven vulva. Alan nearly smiles at the memory, but quashes it lest Carl be taken with the erroneous idea it has anything to do with him and his detestable ploy.

He's less sure than ever what he thinks of Carl. He's not sure which is the moral high ground or the low. He doesn't even know if he's won or lost this encounter, but he knows that although it has nothing whatsoever to do with the terms of his employment, he has no choice about this case.

"Have the rest sent to my office." In a rough movement, he snatches the top binder and tromps out before anything can happen to make him feel worse.

3
"What's this I hear about you trying to get one of my cases overturned?" Like a polar icebreaker, Denny barges into Alan's office and idles in front of his desk.

Since this happening is hardly a surprise, it's easy for Alan to appear unfazed. "Actually, I'm to see about having one of Judge Wrenn's decisions overturned. It has nothing to do with you."

"Of course it does! Denny Crane: never lost. Never will!" With open palm, Denny thumps the glass desk top. It shudders and threatens to give way.

Alan blinks. "You won. Eight years ago. I have the decision here if you've forgotten." Alan waves a loose wrist at the reams in front of him. "The appeal is irrelevant; it's Wrenn's whose record will go down with any reversal."

"No. It's me. None of my wins have ever been reversed on appeal. None."

Alan stares. That's hardly a credible claim.

"None," Denny repeats.

Credible or not, Alan no longer doubts. There may only be one thing left about which Denny cares enough to maintain fastidious correctness, but that one thing would be Denny Crane.

"You're saying Denny Crane was wrong."

"I am not saying anything." Alan sets down his recorder. "I'm doing the job for which I am paid. Handsomely and by your firm, I might well add. But if you're asking, then yes, I do happen to think he was wrong to push for such a finding." Alan flips open a folder. "This decision is horrific."

Again, Denny's double-take is so predictably timed that Alan's purposeful avoidance of reaction follows with almost scripted fluidity. "Nonetheless, this action is solely business, not personal." He opens a random file and pretends to begin to read.

"They're the same," Denny says. "Denny Crane: I am my legend. Undefeated. Ever. Attack the legend and you attack me."

"I think you may be making more out of this issue than there is."

Denny's face furrows in confusion. "There is nothing more than me."

Patience waning, Alan opens his mouth to respond. Exasperating loses its quirky charm much faster over work and deadlines than Scotch and cigars.

"--and he's all that I have left."

4
It's the time when they typically meet and sit. Sometimes they talk, sometimes not, but always they share something of themselves.

Tonight Alan needs that dreadfully. It's been a lonely day. To add to it, Clarence says that Denny had an…event with a client and Shirley had him removed from the table, but Alan's been unable to find out further details.

"I don't want you on my balcony," Denny says, almost before Alan makes it through the sliding doors.

He stops behind Denny's chair. "Okay." Alan pats the back of the chair twice. After a long moment he turns on heel.

"Where are you going?"

"Home, I suppose."

"Stop for cat food. We're out. Or are you going to turn traitor on General Patton too?"

It is another of those Dennyisms where you wonder if maybe he's trying to be funny, lighten the mood. Or if it's just one of those Denny...things. Without seeing his face it's an even bet.

"I'll get the tuna," Alan tries for neutral. "I like the way it smells." This time he pats Denny's shoulder, not the chair.

"And don't kiss me!" Denny flinches from the contact. "I'm too mad at you."

The most joyful and the most painful thing about Denny can be the way he never pretends with Alan. There is no question that it's worth it, but at times like this, Alan has to remind himself that he made the choice and why.

"I wasn't planning to." Too light even to be felt--but he himself knows, and that's what mostly counts--Alan bushes at the nape of Denny's neck with fingertips. "See you at home," he says.

5
Years of marriage convinced Alan that togetherness is sometimes best achieved though controlled and meted and separation. It works that way with Denny too, although for entirely different reasons. His wife had been as terrified of ending up alone as he had been, whereas Denny simply can not be bothered to remember most things from the recent past.

In the grocery store, Alan turns over countless cans of cat food and lingers contemplating items that could easily be added to Estelle's list. Still, when he arrives home the house is dark and the master bedroom door is closed.

Alan doesn't sleep that night. In the garden bedroom he stays up and researches labor law over countless cups of coffee.

Before dawn he goes into the office and naps on a couch in there. There's safety in numbers he figures, the windows don't open, and besides, who ever heard of night terrors coming during the day?

6
Alan dreams of drowning. It's a dream that comes often these recent days... weeks ... months. He dreams of drifting aimlessly on a warm and salty sea, naked and vulnerable as the day that he was born. He's being rocked, lulled by the rhythm of the waves as he floats up and down again, riding the sinusoidal crests.

Then the waves part, and he's sucked under into blood red depths, and he's drowning, dying, but he's not afraid.

He's at peace at last.

Oddly, though, he won't remember this dream. He seldom, if ever does.

7
Alan goes to the men's room and dunks his head under the sink. It's well known he's a pig; he wasn't with Denny; he wasn't with anyone else from litigation; so the rumor mill cranks up full steam with theories of whom or what (or what combination) could be responsible for his current condition.

The rumor mill isn't doing well with Alan. No one here but Denny knows he's a widower. The word is that he's divorced having left his wife in the third trimester of pregnancy for a pole dancer who could open a screw-top wine bottle and light a cigar properly at the same time.

He started that one himself.

He'd far and away rather be thought of as an ass than as someone with a heart to break. He's fairly sure that's another of the things that drew him to Denny in the first place.

He wipes his face and does the best he can with his hair. His meeting with the Nilferex leader is in three hours. More beads of clammy wet drip down from his hairline into his eyelashes. He gropes for another towel and tries again, but ends up feeling more smudged than dry.

8
The walk to his office takes him past Shirley's. She's in already. So's Carl. So's Denny. Odd for senior partners.

Alan prefers not to call it eavesdropping, more like keeping in tune with the beat of his surroundings. Not that eavesdropping is outside the scope of his scruples, but going behind a friend's back might be.

"This is a serious allegation," Shirley says. "Is there any truth to the reports that you've been in inappropriate contact with the opposition?"

"Never!" Denny springs up to emphasize the point. His pants don't come with him, but a cloud of red feathers materialize from his fly.

"Or a blood soaked chicken rancher," Carl amends.

Despite himself, Alan chokes.

All eyes shoot to him.

Leaving a feathery trail behind him, Denny stomps over and slams the office door closed.





9
Clarence arrives before 7:30, and Alan tries to gather himself for the day, yet he suspects it doesn't work. He sees Clarence survey his total aspect.

"Are you and Mr. Crane fighting?" Clarence asks.

"I prefer to think of it as sifting out our differences." Alan pushes back a swatch of hair. His forehead is still clammy and damp.

"That's kind of hard to do if you're not talking, isn't it?" Clarence looks increasingly uneasy, but he remains in the doorway. "I've got some experience with people who run away, but in my case, they're all me." He offers a shy smile.

Alan opens his mouth to try to explain that this is different with night terrors and window ledges and broken glass and blood and how this isn't running away but being safe and prudent, but just in time he realizes how stupid that would sound and closes it again.

Clarence's eyes are kind and seem to lack capacity to hold a grudge.

"Can I get you something?" Clarence asks. "Coffee? Breakfast?"

"That's not your job"

Clarence is still there.

"But it's very kind of you to offer. A coffee and a bagel would be much appreciated.

"Clarence." Alan calls to him just as Clarence turns to go. All of the sudden it seems vital that he does.

"And if you care for something your self, what I could use more than anything is the company."

Clarence's smile is brilliant. "I could do that."






10
The coffee is mediocre, but the cup is large and there is plenty of sugar and cream. The bagel he leaves untouched--perhaps for later. His stomach has never done well with stress or fatigue.

Clarence leads off. He sounds uncertain, but he always does, so Alan doesn't make much of that at first.

"I had dinner with Mr. Espenson last night."

"You did?" Alan brightens. He's seen too little of Jerry of late and just the idea remedying that bolsters him. "How is he?"

"Good. Good," Clarence repeats. "He looks happy. He's dating a woman again."

"He is?" Alan wonders what else he's been missing while he's been wrapped up in his own little world.

"The woman he's seeing, I think she's an engineer or something. She likes everything lined up and things on graph paper and all." Clarence makes column gestures with his hands.

Alan chuckles. "There's something fairly apropos about that."

"He'll be in soon. Maybe you should talk to him--"

"I'm delighted with our conversation here."

"I didn't mean about you."

Knowing Clarence, that probably wasn't an intentional jab, but it stung still. Alan thought he'd gotten better at thinking outside his own narcissism. Or maybe it was just that around Denny, things generally focused on, well, Denny.

"It was sort of a business meeting," Clarence continued. "He's looking for someone to take a case with him."

"And he came to you. That's quite a testament."

"I think he was coming to Clarice. Or to me because of how I know Clarice. Anyway, I turned him down."

"Ah." Alan reaches for balanced phrasing. "Clarence, you as well as anyone here understand that Jerry's social and communication patterns are unique, but I'm certain that if he came to you for help on a case it would only be out of the utmost respect for your insights--however it may have been worded."

"Oh, it's not that. I don't mind being used. I know it's part of the game. It's the case. I'm against it."

"Pardon?"

"It's a man who wants to sue to be allowed into the Red Hat Society because he likes tea parties, rhinestones and waiters with tight tushies. I guess Mr. Espenson thought I'd be sympathetic because of Clarice and the gym, but he doesn't understand that it's not the same thing at all, and I can't stand up and argue that it is.

"I thought you might be able to help, since you seem to have a soft spot for--"

It's difficult to see Clarence blush, but not impossible for those who know him well.

"Hats?"

"I was going to say 'Mr. Espenson.'"

Alan's eyes feel less heavy. "That too. Unfortunately, I'm swamped right now."

"He thought you'd say that, which is why he didn't want to ask you after all you've done for him. So I told him that if it happened to come up, I'd mention it." Clarence gives an awkward grin.

"I'll…discuss it with him. Maybe once I get this current matter in hand--" Alan makes a loose sweep over his desk.

"Either way, he asked me to give you something if I saw you before he did."

"What?" Alan sits up straighter.

"But I don't know. If you're going to see him anyway, maybe it would be better…"

"Clarence!"

"All right!" Clarence lurches over the desk and lands a fat smooch on Alan's cheek.

Outside the glass wall, Denny catches them in mid-pucker.

Alan's eyes catch his.

"Oh dear," Alan says.

The glass panels seem to tremble with his footsteps as Denny stomps off down the hall.

11
The first meeting with the Nilferex labor leaders is a fair success. The other employees would be gathered in two days to reconsider. Alan heads back to the office to refresh his charm if not his armament of persuasion.

Shirley knocks on his door casement but enters anyway without breaking her stride. "Alan." She closes the door behind her.

"Shirley. You're going to have to leave that open. You know Denny doesn't like it when we're alone." Alan looks up and manufactures a leer as duly expected

"I'm sure you can appease him with a Happy Meal." She settles herself onto his couch.

"Is that what you did?"

"In a manner of speaking. How're things going?" She asks the last with more than casual interest.

Of course she would. Managing partners don't make a habit of dropping by for pointless chit-chat.

"If you mean with my caseload, adequately."

"I ask because I see that Denny is out in the hallway pouting." Shirley nods toward the door. "It's the same look he used to get when he found out I'd faked an orgasm."

"I wouldn't know."

Despite herself, Shirley smiles.

"Although I do hear that you had him withdrawn prematurely." Alan times the addendum for maximum effect. It works. Sort of.

"That's not your concern."

Wordlessly, Alan conveys otherwise.

Shirley appears to accept as much. She even backpedals. "I misspoke. If you find yourself concerned you'll need to discuss that directly with him. Unless that presents another problem?"

Alan declines to respond. It's clear that she knows the answer.

Shirley lets it pass. She has more class than to wallow in a win. "But, gee, look: We've gone and wandered off point. I was surprised to hear that Carl's assigned you to the Harbor Industries case. I didn't know that there was any anti-trust issue."

"There isn't." Alan relaxes now. "And I'm surprised to hear that you heard it. I thought this was sub rosa."

Shirley takes a seat and waves her hand. "Even for roses there must be billing. At $600 an hour, not even you can stay that sub."

"Never let it be said I didn’t try."

Shirley's mouth quirks, but she holds the business poise.

"You don't approve of Carl's scheme," Alan surmises. Her body language is easy to read, but the deeper significance is what intrigues him. "Is there discord amongst the upper echelons, perhaps? Fresh conflict that might ignite sparks where there once were...sparks?"

She stares him down with practiced ease. "Let's just say that in my opinion this matter could be handled within Mergers and Acquisitions. It's not the practice of Crane, Poole and Schmidt to excuse associates from cases for personal reasons, but in this instance I find that the specific performance required is more appropriately handled elsewhere within the firm. And, since I am Schmidt, if you were to ask to be removed from the Harbor Industries case, I would do so. I will handle Carl and should there be a need for further explanation, I will simply say that I found your performance so far, unsatisfactory."

Alan puzzles back at her. "Why are you doing this...and I am fervently praying that you will say 'in exchange for sexual favors.'"

Now she relents and does let him see the grin before she reins it in. She presses her lips and explains. "You and I are members of a club...a very exclusive club as you know, though it might not appear that way from the outside. That gives me a rather keen sense of...fraternity. You must be in a difficult position. I don't envy you that"

Alan straightens his already perfectly plumb tie. "You should envy me, Brother Schmidt." He cranes his neck as if to leer down the folds of her blouse. "Now, tell me, does this club of our have guidelines about the sharing of brotherly love?" He wets his lips and waits.

"I take that as a no thank you?"

"I have yet to have a...partner call my performance unsatisfactory. I have no intention of letting you be the first. Although, if you would like to schedule a performance review, my evening calendar seems to have suddenly opened up for the immediate future."

Alan stands and walks around to stand too close to her, that surrealistically intense drama that no one else can see seeming to play put behind his eyes, beneath his skin.

Shirley stands, prepared to verbally parry back, suppress a laugh, or knee him in the testicles--depending on what happens next.

Yet still she's taken aback, for he simply speaks.

"I'm going to keep the case. Partially because it needs to be won, but also I believe that a relationship should be strong enough to sustain itself though exogenous conflict. If it isn't, if the structure is so flimsy as to be threatened by the mundane discord of daily life, then it is not one I treasure. Or should treasure," he amends with a wry nod.

"Careful, Alan. Denny Crane is the rock," Shirley speaks so evenly. "He's shattered better people than you."

Alan laughs. "No doubt. That's no Herculean task." He gives her a quizzical look. Almost tender. "Were you shattered, Shirley?"

"We were talking about you."

"Hm." Alan keeps his eyes steady. "I'll wager you look almost ethereal shattered...quivering...all a-tremble." He strokes her lapel. "It makes me veritably ache to think of you that way."

She holds him with a look that could turn men to stone, but doesn't flinch even as he tops the curve of her breast before withdrawing.

"I'm keeping the case," he repeats, and opens the door to see her out.

12
For as many hours and nights as Alan spends in solitude at Denny's estate, he has forgotten what it is like to close one's eyes in loneliness. He's forgotten the gnawing ache that wears through the body to the soul to reach places that no visceral pain ever can.

Alan tells himself he'll sleep tonight because if he wants this to work he has to be as big as Denny. Or at least pretend in a convincing manner from time to time. He tells himself that for a lawyer that should be no work at all.

He takes the Wedgwood room; it's the safest, but still he locks himself in and hides the key.

Sleep he does, for a few hours at least. When he arises it's in the normal, unhappy way. He urinates and lies back down, but the loneliness is too loud for sleep and so he gets up and finds the key.

Dragging the silk comforter behind him, he curls up on the couch to whatever's on TMC.

It's Jezebel: the woman who did wrong before man and God. It's a detestable portrayal of the erstwhile south, he realizes even before the first hour's played out, but he does love Bette's eyes, and so he mostly watches those. He'd like to have them, he thinks. Bronzed, perhaps. Set on a cherry wood plaque. Or possibly made into a pair of cufflinks. Or maybe just hanging as a rear-view mirror dangly. So much more original than fuzzy dice.

Denny comes out and paws the remote as he harrumphs into a chair. Without a word (although he does scratch his balls) he changes the channel to something more heteronormic: a black and white with a bunch of neatly costumed bonded men clapping each other on the backsides and clutching long gun barrels against their hips with nary a woman to be found in the entire film.

They're on about Russia, but before Alan can decipher if they're invading or defending it, he's dropped off into an exhausted sleep.

13
There are seven bathrooms in Denny's mansion, not counting the servant's quarters. Alan barges in while Denny is in his.

"Denny, this is a ridiculous way for two grown men to behave. I have a proposition for you, one in which I can see you already have at least a modicum of interest: fornication. You don't have to kiss me, talk to me or even look at me. I will simply stand, lie, sit or squat in the position of your preference, you have your wicked way with me and we both go in to work satisfied and infinitely less tense with smiles instead of frowns upon our faces. What do you say?" Alan bats his eye lashes.

Denny glares at him, grabs a bottle of hand lotion, stomps back out to the master bedroom and slams the door.

Alan turns the shower on full and cold. This is worse than he had thought.

10
The first time they had sort-of-sex together, it was a little...odd. Denny had taken Alan to his favorite cathouse in DC to celebrate his seventy-fourth birthday. Denny went off with five women--he said it was too hard to choose, and "it" was too hard to waste any more time trying.

Alan chose a statuesque woman with extravagant long legs and sheaves of brown hair cascading down her back. She looked a lot like his mother had when he was young, conversed about her time in Peru and the poetry of Neruda, and with one hand she masturbated him over and over again not quite to orgasm through his trousers on the sofa of the public room.

Even in private he elected not to have intercourse with her, although perhaps if there had been more hours in the night they would have made it around to that eventually. When Denny barged in it was to find Alan bound and naked on the floor with her spouting filthy words as she tightened painful looking knots about his genitals.

Alan called her Mommy, begged for permission to orgasm, turned his head toward Denny and came. He sighed a great exhalation, clearly letting go more than just air as she urinated all over him.

"I came to tell you the Jacuzzi's free," Denny said. He wore a Scotch in each hand, three shades of lipstick on his genitals, and his wedding band. That was it as far as Alan could tell. "I thought since we missed our balcony time it could be just you and me."

"I'll be there in a minute," Alan said.

The woman cut him loose before she clomped away in her stiletto boots.

Alan pulled the dildo out of his own backside and sent it skittering across the floor.

"I think they want you to shower first," Denny said.

"I was planning on it."

"No problem. I'll save your spot." Denny padded out whistling the theme from Bonanza.

11
The bubbles tickled and the steam was hot. One foot at a time, Alan eased himself into the other side of the burbling Tub o' Love. His muscles unknotted and the Scotch slipped cool and light down his throat. It was a stimulating contrast at first and easy to welcome too much too fast. Shortly Alan wished he'd passed it up. Perhaps it was the long day, the plane travel, the orgasm, the 40 percent, the heat and steam of the tub, but it was all going to his head, and in its place the blood was draining away.

Or maybe it was that for the first time in forever he was learning to be at home with himself, and after all the years of effort expended, the head rush was dizzying in its intensity.

"Good day," Denny said. "The Celtics took the title, I got a full court press, and you got... What do you call that anyway?" Denny gave him a quizzical look.

"I don't know," Alan chuckled. It gave him time to measure out his next words. They had yet to explore all this territory, and one could never be sure where Denny's landmines might lie. "Aside from an enormous physical and emotional relief? I don't know. I've never felt the need to label my orgasms or erections." He was definite woozy now--probably should get out of the tub--but this would be just the wrong moment in the conversation to waggle his naked body in front of Denny.

"Mm. Good day all around then."

Denny took a drag off his cigar and set it back in the appropriate spot in the cigar ashtray modeled after a reclining Rubens figure. "There was this corporal in my army unit who used to get off by covering himself in axle grease and...well...it had something to do with a fan belt, I don't know exactly what, but no one wanted to ride in his jeeps. Axle grease--what kind of sense does that make?

"At least the gay guys, that made some sense. Denny Crane: who wouldn't want that?" Denny made an expansive hand gesture in front of himself. "Even I'd want me. Not that I'm gay, but if I were… But axle grease: You never get it out of your pubes." Denny scratched below the waterline and poured more Scotch for the both of them.

Sometimes Alan thought he could listen to Denny for the rest of his life and never understand him--but not in the way that average people assumed that meant. He pulled himself up on the side of the tub before the wooziness got any worse.

"You know, what I like best about being with you?"

"Do tell." Denny prepared to revel in every word.

"You are the only person in my adult life to whom I have never have to explain or justify myself. That is an immensely liberating thing. There have been times when I--"

Denny had his head back against the tub, eyes closed and...was he snoring?

"Denny, I'm baring my soul. My deepest insecurities. If you aren't capable of offering reassurance, the courtesy of some acknowledgement would be nice."

"Hmm?" Denny opened one eye. "Were you saying something? I wasn't listening. I thought you were going to talk about me." He closed the lid again.

"Right." Alan curled up on his side on the cool tile, ran fingers through the damp of Denny's hair and sipped Scotch until a woman in latex came in and told them it was time to go.





12
"So...you're sleeping with him?" Melissa just appeared in Alan's office.

"Yes."

"Because he keeps you from jumping off a ledge."

"You might put it that way." Alan's eyes twinkled and he smoothed his tie--the tie Denny had worn into the office the day before. He doubted that Melissa noted the second entendre, but so be it. Such was the burden borne by those cursed with a brilliant but twisted mind.

"You know," Melissa twisted a strand of hair between her fingers, "I took an online course in sleep disorders. It was mostly about sleep apnea, insomnia and bedwetting, but still, I think I could help. I could even ditch the, you know--"

"Snow suit."

"Yeah."

"Tempting," Alan dunked his tea bag twice and tossed it, "and I do confess to a bit of an enuresis fetish, but Denny and I have things well in hand for now. Thank you anyway." Little finger extended, he sipped and acknowledged her over the rim of his cup.

Melissa shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I think you should know--it's common knowledge among the assistants--we've caught Mr. Crane following us around--up the stairs and such--with mirrors glued to his shoes."

A chortle escaped Alan's throat despite himself. "Thank you for the warning. I'll be sure to keep my panties on around and about the house."

Melissa gave him a peculiar look, tossed her hair, and sashayed out.

18
It's Denny's singing that wakes Alan again. He checks the clock. His (hopefully) last meeting with Nilferex is in two hours, so he gives up on his snooze and struggles bleary-eyed into the bath.

Denny's cleaning his ears with a Q-tip and singing a horrendous version of "She Drives Me Crazy." At least Alan thinks Denny's using the pronoun as originally written. With Denny's singing it's not always easy to tell anything, and when he wants to make a point, all bets are off entirely.

And there's another indication that something's up.

"Your lucky boxers," Alan says. "Are you in court today?"

"Settlement conference. With your boyfriend."

"Jerry?" Alan's virtual ears twitch. "You're taking my--"

"Jerry. That's what I said." Now Denny's humming 'Never Gonna Get It.' "Jerry and that gay client with the bright, red--" Denny flails for the word.

"Hat."

"That too. Doesn't feel so good to be betrayed, does it?" Denny pulls the Q-tip out of his ear canal. It's covered in red glitter.

Alan decides to use one of the other washrooms this morning.







19
Alan takes one of the Town Cars in to the office. He gets a surprise as he slides across the back seat and the largest red hat pin he has ever seen stabs him in the buttock.

The talks don't go all that well. The Nilferex crew seems to feel that Alan's hiding or holding out on something. It's the way he keeps squirming in his seat.

Apparently it's not over yet.

20
Alan walks in and closes the office door behind him. He's holding a crushed swatch of red, woven straw found on the floor of the elevator next to a purple bra.

"Denny, I need to know this: Have you been in inappropriate contact with the Red Hat Society opposition?"

"No."

"Good. I feel much better. By the way, you have red felt fuzz all over your face."

Denny whips out his hankie and wipes. "What's inappropriate? That society is supposed to be about having fun, and they're all having fun. We all are. All except you. Everyone's happy; no one's getting hurt, so lighten up. Well," Denny backpedals a tad, "Patricia bites a little, but since she takes her teeth out, it's not too bad."

"Denny--!"

"I'll tell you something." All the banter is gone from Denny's tone now. "I may not be the same lawyer I once was, but I'm better now. This settlement is a good thing all around, and if you don't believe that--if you truly believe that the legal process matters more than the people--then why the hell have you been breaking my heart these last few days?"

Denny shakes a shower of red sequins out of his trousers, pulls them up, and plunks himself down behind his empty desk.

21
Alan's called to Shirley's office. Once upon a time that would have given him a partial erection, but not this week. He finds that this routine is getting very old indeed.

Or maybe it's just that he is.

Besides, his buttock still hurts.

On the TV in the background, channel seven news is playing quietly. It's something about a chemical spill on I-93, then it switches to a warehouse fire. Shirley thumbs the volume down and speaks over it with ease.

"The Harbor Industries case has been put on hold, possibly indefinitely. We won't be needing your involvement any further. The stock has been sold privately to the tentative agreement of all parties." Always succinct and to the point, Shirley appears to be done.

"All parties. Does that include the men women and yes, children working slave hours?" Despite a certain relief, Alan's anger and outrage are real. It's funny how even when he thinks he knows what he wants, it turns out he doesn't always.

It's Carl who takes that one. "You may care to know details of the buyout--unless your concerned that doing so would ruin your platform for another speech. And Emmy."

Shirley's mouth twitches at the corner.

Carl passes a folder to Alan. "Sandhill Enterprises. It's a small company. It makes kites, parasails, decorative flags and whatnot. They'll have to renovate extensively, voiding the grandfather clause. So--"

"Denny Crane. Crumbelivable. Denny Crane. Crumbelivable. Denny Crane." From the TV screen, news flash footage of Denny and Jerry leaving the building after the settlement announcement rolls. Each repetition of the name is punctuated with a little hop from Jerry. The settlement headline scrolls across the bottom. Denny has pulled it off again.

Behind them swarm a sea of Red Hatted ladies so thick it looks like a bedazzler ran amok amid the tomato harvest...and one very gay red-hatted man.

Carl hits the mute button. "In the meantime, the IGWU has taken note of this activity, and is aggressively perusing not only Harbor but Nilferex as well."

"So, you're off the hook." Shirley smiles in dismissal as if that wraps up everything in a neat little package.

Alan knows she's neither that stupid nor that insensitive and wonders what in the world is going on. He looks from her to Carl, but no more clues are forthcoming.

"I see," Alan says, although he does not. But this is neither the place nor the parties to whom to admit his deficiencies. Smoothing his tie in place, he stands, collects the folder, and leaves.

22
Alan pushes the brim of his red Panama out of the way and peers into the dim of Denny's office. Through the invitation of the wide open balcony doors, he can see a decanter stands on the middle table, a crystal of amber on either side.

Some might call that silent overture bull-headed, but those people simply don't speak Crane. In Crane talk, that conventional gesture was appeal and apology all in one. The apology being not so much for things done or said or intended, but more for all the precious time wasted along the way.

Alan has not only become fluent in Crane, but appreciates its particular charms. For one living with his own demons he'd oftentimes just as soon not approach too closely, Crane translates particularly well for him.

He accepts the glass, the seat, the company and--by implication--all that goes therewith.

"I hear you won your case," Alan says.

"Of course. I hear you settled yours."

"Not exactly. It was settled for me."

"Same thing." Denny lets go a puff of smoky breath. It curls around the polyester red rose sported in his lapel. It's a tacky looking one--like something that might come off a cheap hatband.

"Harbor Industries was bought out by a small synthetic fiber mill and stitchery, rendering the matter moot."

"All's well that mends well."

"You know that anti-trust was my prior field."

"Really. I thought it was embezzling and hostile takeovers," Denny baits.

Alan bypasses the diversion. He's weathered far worse from Denny by now. "I still have many contacts in the field. It took some digging, but it turns out that the acquiring corporation--Sandhill Enterprises-- is owned through a roiling alphabet soup of LLCs, DBAs, and PCs--by one Dennis Crane. But I'm boring you, I'm sure."

Denny's face cedes nothing.

For what seems like a long while, they are quiet.

"You can't buy out a corporation every time we have a fight," says Alan.

"For God's sakes, I'm seventy-seven years old. How many more times do you think I'll have to?"

Alan hears genuine irritation now. And fear.

There can be no good answer to that, so again, they both fall silent with their expensive and delightful vices.

"What are you going to do with a parasail company that's about to be driven under?" Alan asks at last.

Denny brightens. "Take up parasailing. Maybe in Bermuda. Whattda think of that?" Wistfulness gone, he sounds playful again, almost young.

"I'll come with you," Alan exhales a cloud of smoke.

"You hate nature. And heights. And water."

"I do. But it would be great fun to urinate from up there. And I hear you can get us a great deal on sun hats."

Denny chuckles. "I still got it."

"Yes, you do," and Alan realizes it's really over. He resolves to do what he can to never waste that kind of time and precious feeling again.

"What?" Denny asks, suddenly.

Alan is staring at him again.

"I want to make love to you right here and now," says Alan. "I want to do a million things to you that I don't know are possible and a thousand or so that I can promise you are. I want to do it in front of Shirley and Carl and the channel seven news helicopters. I want the telephoto lenses to record the name on your lips for all posterity as you cry out your climax across the city and play it on the big screen before the Red Sox games for good luck."

"You're a pervert."

"I am. Did you have a point?"

"I'm not having sex with you out here. I'm old. Concrete's too hard on my knees." Denny grunts and turns away. Still, there's a parasail rising up between his legs.

Now it's Alan's turn to chuckle.

"And I'm not kissing you either. I'm still mad at you. Just because I'm here with you, don't you think I'm not."

"Got it," says Alan. He sets down his drink and takes Denny's hand. It's warm and soft and it squeezes back when he squeezes it.

Together they watch the sun go down over their city.

1
Denny Crane. Like all of the best things in Alan's life, this one had snuck up upon him unawares, while he was busy with plotting along other lines. A friend had once observed that she believed that was the only way he would be sloppy enough to allow love to fall into him.

But this time Alan gave himself at least partial credit: discounting his personal hygiene routine, moving in with Denny was as close as he'd ever come to doing something for his own personal good.

The joy of shared solitude was one of the keenest pleasures in Alan's life. He'd erstwhile considered it a fortuitous luxury to be savored where found like a tropical breeze on a mid-summer day rippling through the hair of the beautiful woman by your side.

Until he met Denny, who showed him that winners are only those who hunt down and keep whatever it is they want.

The divorce from Bev had hit Denny hard, not so much because she was the best of his catches, but because he feared she might well be his last. He hadn't discussed it with anyone else as that wasn't the image he cared to project.

He hadn't discussed it with Alan, because Alan already knew.

Getting lies tangled was a perpetual occupational hazard for lawyers, and Alan could no longer remember which one he'd told that night. The night terrors? Burglars? A clown convention at his hotel? Construction? Anyway, it had surely slid out almost without conscious thought.

"Stay as long as you need." Denny had replied in his magnanimous style with a grin that had declared at least one of them knew exactly what was going on.

Alan had turned--chuckle pressed inward, face pressed out to the anonymous skyline--delighted in his shattered ruse.

He had yet to leave.




2
They'd sat with cigars and coffee mulling Denny's current case. It was one of those earlier balcony nights--on the cusp between the insecure sort of love where it seems that honesty might be a bad idea and the incurable sort where it's clear that what's a good idea or bad no longer matters as the choice is no longer yours to make.

"You think I need you, but I don't." Denny had made the accusation when Alan offered a suggestion that was a little too close to on point.

"Actually, I no longer do believe that." Mentally, Alan substituted an unspoken "this time" with a "yet."

"Like the horseshoe crab you'll no doubt survive anything, including the next ice age unscathed and in unparalleled style."

Denny looked to Alan but saw no cynicism there. It was one of the rules of their balcony, but even still, it seemed wise to check. He fortified himself with a nip of Chivas.

"You weren't in Boston then--you might not know--but for decades, before the mad cow, I was the kind of man who never had to wonder why anyone wanted to be around. But now, if it's not for attention or money, I have to-- I like you fine, Alan. But sometimes I have to wonder."

Alan went for the half-truth. It had been a long time since he'd had to make unfettered honesty work, and he was still rusty, though getting better, one balcony evening at a time.

"I choose to be with you because we bring each other joy. That is a rare and precious thing--not one I would choose to abandon before it abandons me." He turned nearly full on to Denny and looked him in the eye because Denny deserved at least that much.

"Besides, where else would I go?"

4
The next morning at breakfast, Alan settled for a V8 and an icepack. The hand wasn't bad, but his left cheek had swollen to an impressive size and color. He made a terrible noise every time he tried to sip until finally Estelle brought a straw.

Denny, however, had pancakes, eggs and sausage. "A workout always gives me an appetite," Denny said, "sexual or not." He chomped a sausage link. He seemed to have no trouble swallowing now.

"Speaking of," said Alan, with an admirable attempt to sound better than he felt. "I don't remember much of last night until waking up with you, a sore jaw and a curious taste in my mouth. Tell me, did I try something? Moreover, did I succeed?"

Denny shot him a look, but couldn't rouse much rancor. "You hit like a girl" was the worst he seemed to have in him.

"A girl taught me how to hit," Alan managed giving up on the juice and going back to the icepack. "Her name was Stephanie. I misinterpreted some Coleridgian quotes of hers about pleasure domes, sacred rivers, sunless seas, romantic chasms and so forth, placed my hand under her skirt. She punched me with what I now recognize to be a right hook, albeit I never did learn to execute one properly.

"She told me she'd give me fighting lessons in return for cunnilinugus, after extracting a promise that I would not attempt penetration. It lasted nearly every day for a month or so behind the school, until I got tired of eroding myself nearly raw against the wall once she'd left."

"I have a hard on the size of a Cruise missile." Denny abandoned his breakfast in favor of observing his lap.

Alan started to grin but immediately felt his mistake. He re-applied icepack to cheek with a grimace.

Denny looked at his watch. "Get in the car. Barry's going to fit you in before his regular patients."

"I don't need a doctor," Alan said. "Just--"

"You don't know what the hell you need. Never have. Get in the car." Leaving his plate, Denny stomped out of the kitchen.

5
Fourteen hours, four x-rays, two shots and an odd number of pills later, Alan looked a good bit more like Alan--at least when viewed from the right.

They sat on the back porch drinking cognac as everyone knows it's unwise to mix pain pills and whisky--especially with a head injury. Alan's jaw also suggested he forgo the cigar, so he settled for inhaling Denny's sloppy seconds in an anti-aromatherapy kind of way. Staying up and suppressing yawns proved to be also too painful, so earlier than usual he said his good nights.

"You're sleeping with me," Denny announced.

"I believe that is the water-cooler opinion." Alan's quirky grin was almost back. "Although, sadly, that's not where the smart money is. However," Alan brightened, "if you have a bet riding and would like to rig the game, count me in. For your own sake, of course. Sweet pea."

Not even the most outrageous flirtations could get a rise that night. "We'll take the Wedgwood bedroom." Denny continued. "The window's up high. I'll lock the door and keep the key. Marguerite's already put the ankle rope in there."

"That should play well at the water-cooler."

Still nary budge. Alan had yet to ask exactly what happened. Like so many things in his life, he suspected he would be happier--or at least less unhappy--the less he knew.

But it had to have been bad if even the most outrageous flirting couldn't get Denny's goat.

"You scared me last night, Alan. I'm not doing that again."

Alan looked away. He'd had little opportunity to see Denny scared in the past, but it wasn't something he was eager to repeat. "Yes. Yes, well--" He seemed about to say more, but instead he just swallowed hard. He fumbled for his snifter and raised it to his lips, but finding it empty, he set it back down. "Yes," he said again and left it at that. "And another thing: you've got to make up with Hands."

"Jerry?" Alan laughed. It hurt, but not as much as continuing to hold in everything inside him would have. "Why this rush to throw us back together? You're insanely jealous of him, and now you'd rather I slept with him than you?"

"Do it tomorrow."

"Make up, or sleep with him?" Alan tried to distract. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't really a masochist--not even so much in bed--and poking at this raw wound had no appeal.

Denny glared. "This can't go on. I can't keep knocking you out. You're my friend; I like you. You have to fix it with Hands."

Alan startled. His little idiosyncrasies and neuroses he didn't so much mind--not even the painful ones. They were so much a part of him that at this point that would be like minding your own spleen or left foot. Besides, he'd grown rather fond of being an enigma to unwrap. But having his psyche be so transparent, that was almost too much to bear.

It jolted him back. "Tomorrow. I'm not even certain Jerry'll see me after what I did to him." There. He'd said it. It's said that fear, once exposed and expressed loses its power. Alan had never found that to be true.

"I was wrong, Denny. I thought ethics required me to use all my legal skills to win. But there are greater ethical codes that supersede and bind humanity than that of the American bar. At least I hope there are, or we're in a great deal of trouble as a species."

"People take their chances in life every time they get out of bed," Denny said. "You can't be responsible for all of them. You can only be responsible for yourself. These night terrors...it's not healthy. You've got to make them stop. I don't like you seeing him again, but you've got to be happy, Alan. No matter what I think." Denny crammed a cigar in his mouth and fumed away.

6. The funniest thing happened with the night terrors: they just up and stopped after that first one. By the time he met Jerry next over the Tarties, it had been so long since he'd had one that Alan had forgotten there had been any agenda other than gaining back a friend.

Alan climbed in the master bed where, on his side, Denny toyed with the Nimble Nancy and What Wanda Wants dolls (sold separately).

"I suppose you'll be seeing a lot of him now," Denny griped. In a surly display, he swiped the half-dressed dolls to the carpet.

"He's a friend," said Alan rummaging in the nightstand drawer for his current book. "Not like you. Don't you have friends?"

Denny considered. "I have useful contacts, I have you, and I have women I have sex with."

Alan laughed. "I wouldn't have sex with Jerry even if he would agree. Which I doubt. There is a certain ingenuous purity about him that I would be loathe to besmirch."

"Yet you're willing to besmirch me."

"Any time, any day. Just say the word." Alan oozed a leer at him.

"I still don't like it," said Denny. But he no longer sounded too upset. He pulled on his eye shades and rolled onto his side. "Believe it or not, not everything revolves around you," Alan said. His bookmark had slipped out, and he flipped in vain for his page.

"I'm working on that."

"No doubt." It was a pretty night, so Alan arose and slid open the patio glass doors leaving only the screen in place. He turned out the bedroom light and lay down to the lullaby of cicadas, whippoorwills, owls...and the intermittent pig.



7
"Night terrors are conventionally a result of stress or anxiety--not necessarily something obvious immediate, but frequently something repressed, so with me--" Alan let the sentence trail off and shrugged. "At least that's what my favorite psychotherapist said." He snagged his Boston Bruins teddy bear--the one that had been mysteriously redressed in a CRANE 00 jersey the week after he moved in--and curled up on his side of the bed with Denny "Blades" Crane cuddled to his chest.

Denny looked up over his skin mag. "Might want to think about stopping back by. Doesn't sound like he was quite done with you."

"She. And she wasn't."

"Why'd you stop going?"

"She died." Taking the teddy bear with him, Alan rolled over onto his other side to face the wall.





8
Alan woke, gasping, pouring cold sweat, with Denny's hands biting hard into his upper arms.

"Wake up!" Denny's voice was insistent. "If there's one thing I despise worse than sharing my bed, it's sharing it with someone who's flopping like a trout." Still, there wasn't any bite behind the words.

Alan crumbled to the pillow, waiting for his heartbeat to return to normal. So much blood. Blood all over the road. Something about being run over by a car… He swallowed and closed his eyes. "A nightmare," he said. "The normal kind. It's nothing." He opened them again and sat up.

"What was it about?"

"I don't remember." He didn't. He thought it was probably just as well.

Denny stared him down.

"I don't. There's been so much, so many--" He let the sentence trail off. "You tell me, Denny: what is it that happens with our eyes closed, our brains asleep. Is it memories? Promises? Planning? Healing? Haunting? You tell me."

Denny shrugged. "I don't know what the hell's happening half the time I'm awake."

"Then, perhaps we're both better off." Alan got up, headed to the bathroom, and turned on the fluorescent light. Soon there was a flush.

When he returned he flicked off the light switch. "I'm going to watch TV for bit."

Denny fumbled to find the remote.

"In another other room. I don't want to bother you."

"You won't. That stuff you like puts me to sleep."

There was a TV in every room, including a surround sound home theatre for twenty downstairs. This wasn't about the TV. They both knew that.

"The remote's probably under your bottom," Alan said. "It always rolls there when you fall asleep."

"I'll get it! I'll get it! Geez!" Denny slapped Alan's hand.

Alan chuckled and got back in on his side.

9
Someone who didn't know them would have guessed the reverse, but it was Alan who favored the straight blade. He'd found a bone-handled brush and razor set complete with leather strop at an antique shop in Providence and used it as part of his morning routine.

Whatever the temperature, he stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror and strained his neck, watching with great intensity as the blade scraped only micrometers from jugular and carotid alike.

Denny challenged him on it, regarding it as more of his disturbed and disturbing behavior. Alan of course denied any such thing, stating instead that he was only considerate of those with. ..sensitive vulvas, perineums, anuses and such. The last he said with a pointed look to Denny, which earned him something on the order of a pig grunt.

And yet, shaving over his neck always made Alan feel most alive.
Denny chose to shave with the newest from Schick or Gillette--the Mach 4 or Warp 9 or whatever was the coolest gismo out at the moment. He chose to shave on the toilet (in a make-up mirror that swung out from the wall) for the patently obvious reasons.

Alan liked to watch, which to Alan's enormous amusement seemed to unsettle Denny more than any of his suggestions for bedroom activities ever did.

So of course he did it every chance he got.

Denny caught Alan once shaving?--playing?--not playing? with the razor held taut against the fresh film on his neck.

"What the hell are you doing?" Denny asked staring in from the door.

"Considering mortality." He held stock still, his head at an angle, every tendon, muscle, and vein outlined in the mirror.

"Don't bother," Denny muttered turning away. "The view's not that great from here."

Alan wiped his face and dressed. That morning he not only let Denny pick the music, but he didn't even complain about the stop at Denny's favorite steak and egg breakfast place that always gave him heartburn the rest of the day.

10
The first time they had sort-of-sex together, it was a little...odd. Denny had taken Alan to his favorite cathouse in DC to celebrate his seventy-fourth birthday. Denny went off with five women--he said it was too hard to choose, and "it" was too hard to waste any more time trying.

Alan chose a statuesque woman with extravagant long legs and sheaves of brown hair cascading down her back. She looked a lot like his mother had when he was young, conversed about her time in Peru and the poetry of Neruda, and with one hand she masturbated him over and over again not quite to orgasm through his trousers on the sofa of the public room.

Even in private he elected not to have intercourse with her, although perhaps if there had been more hours in the night they would have made it around to that eventually. When Denny barged in it was to find Alan bound and naked on the floor with her spouting filthy words as she tightened painful looking knots about his genitals.

Alan called her Mommy, begged for permission to orgasm, turned his head toward Denny and came. He sighed a great exhalation, clearly letting go more than just air as she urinated all over him.

"I came to tell you the Jacuzzi's free," Denny said. He wore a Scotch in each hand, three shades of lipstick on his genitals, and his wedding band. That was it as far as Alan could tell. "I thought since we missed our balcony time it could be just you and me."

"I'll be there in a minute," Alan said.

The woman cut him loose before she clomped away in her stiletto boots.

Alan pulled the dildo out of his own backside and sent it skittering across the floor.

"I think they want you to shower first," Denny said.

"I was planning on it."

"No problem. I'll save your spot." Denny padded out whistling the theme from Bonanza.

11
The bubbles tickled and the steam was hot. One foot at a time, Alan eased himself into the other side of the burbling Tub o' Love. His muscles unknotted and the Scotch slipped cool and light down his throat. It was a stimulating contrast at first and easy to welcome too much too fast. Shortly Alan wished he'd passed it up. Perhaps it was the long day, the plane travel, the orgasm, the 40 percent, the heat and steam of the tub, but it was all going to his head, and in its place the blood was draining away.

Or maybe it was that for the first time in forever he was learning to be at home with himself, and after all the years of effort expended, the head rush was dizzying in its intensity.

"Good day," Denny said. "The Celtics took the title, I got a full court press, and you got... What do you call that anyway?" Denny gave him a quizzical look.

"I don't know," Alan chuckled. It gave him time to measure out his next words. They had yet to explore all this territory, and one could never be sure where Denny's landmines might lie. "Aside from an enormous physical and emotional relief? I don't know. I've never felt the need to label my orgasms or erections." He was definite woozy now--probably should get out of the tub--but this would be just the wrong moment in the conversation to waggle his naked body in front of Denny.

"Mm. Good day all around then."

Denny took a drag off his cigar and set it back in the appropriate spot in the cigar ashtray modeled after a reclining Rubens figure. "There was this corporal in my army unit who used to get off by covering himself in axle grease and...well...it had something to do with a fan belt, I don't know exactly what, but no one wanted to ride in his jeeps. Axle grease--what kind of sense does that make?

"At least the gay guys, that made some sense. Denny Crane: who wouldn't want that?" Denny made an expansive hand gesture in front of himself. "Even I'd want me. Not that I'm gay, but if I were… But axle grease: You never get it out of your pubes." Denny scratched below the waterline and poured more Scotch for the both of them.

Sometimes Alan thought he could listen to Denny for the rest of his life and never understand him--but not in the way that average people assumed that meant. He pulled himself up on the side of the tub before the wooziness got any worse.

"You know, what I like best about being with you?"

"Do tell." Denny prepared to revel in every word.

"You are the only person in my adult life to whom I have never have to explain or justify myself. That is an immensely liberating thing. There have been times when I--"

Denny had his head back against the tub, eyes closed and...was he snoring?

"Denny, I'm baring my soul. My deepest insecurities. If you aren't capable of offering reassurance, the courtesy of some acknowledgement would be nice."

"Hmm?" Denny opened one eye. "Were you saying something? I wasn't listening. I thought you were going to talk about me." He closed the lid again.

"Right." Alan curled up on his side on the cool tile, ran fingers through the damp of Denny's hair and sipped Scotch until a woman in latex came in and told them it was time to go.




12
"So...you're sleeping with him?" Melissa just appeared in Alan's office.

"Yes."

"Because he keeps you from jumping off a ledge."

"You might put it that way." Alan's eyes twinkled and he smoothed his tie--the tie Denny had worn into the office the day before. He doubted that Melissa noted the second entendre, but so be it. Such was the burden borne by those cursed with a brilliant but twisted mind.

"You know," Melissa twisted a strand of hair between her fingers, "I took an online course in sleep disorders. It was mostly about sleep apnea, insomnia and bedwetting, but still, I think I could help. I could even ditch the, you know--"

"Snow suit."

"Yeah."

"Tempting," Alan dunked his tea bag twice and tossed it, "and I do confess to a bit of an enuresis fetish, but Denny and I have things well in hand for now. Thank you anyway." Little finger extended, he sipped and acknowledged her over the rim of his cup.

Melissa shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I think you should know--it's common knowledge among the assistants--we've caught Mr. Crane following us around--up the stairs and such--with mirrors glued to his shoes."

A chortle escaped Alan's throat despite himself. "Thank you for the warning. I'll be sure to keep my panties on around and about the house."

Melissa gave him a peculiar look, tossed her hair, and sashayed out.

13
There was once that Alan thought it might be over. Sporting only elephant boxers (with the trunk predictably placed) Denny charged into their master bedroom. "You'll have to leave. I need the bedroom. I've got a woman coming over. For sex."

"I see." Alan closed his laptop and began to gather his things.

"What're you doing?" Denny asked Alan plucked a set of PJs from the drawer.

"You said--"

"Just for sex. It's not like we're sleeping together. Not like--" Denny made a vague hand gesture between the two of them. "Thirty minutes tops. Maybe an hour. She likes to shower before and after."

"Some people are peculiar that way. But just to be on the safe side, in case she wants to shampoo and condition--" Keeping jammies and nightcap in hand, Alan kneed the dresser drawer closed with unnecessary force. Even though he'd always prided himself on being too smart to fall for those bubble gum crooners who claimed that true love was the answer to everything, he was never failed to be astounded when reminded anew how much it could hurt.

When he turned, it was to find Denny in front of him. Well inside his personal space.

"Alan, I'm worried about you."

Alan tried and failed to stifle his irritation. "Denny, I'm not delicate. If you want me out of your bedroom, your house, just say so."

"I would." Denny grabbed his shoulders. "Alan, I want you to be happy. You haven't had a girl since last season. That's not good for you. It causes--"

"Acne."

"Worse."

"Ah. As per high school."

With great intensity, Denny searched Alan's face. "I'd do anything I can for you, but I can't be what you want. I don't want you...hanging around waiting for something that's not going to happen. You're in your prime. That's a precious thing. I don't want you to leave...but I have to wonder if you should."

"Ah." Alan pulled away and walked over to the patio doors. Even the infamous fan of eye contact had to concede that some things hurt less if you could pretend no one was there to hear.

He wet his lips. "Denny, I have been a part of things--sexual and otherwise--that would shock and appall even you. I have agreed to these degrading and degenerate acts for the sake of a momentary caress, to bask in an affectionate gaze of another, or even-- rarest and most precious of all--to hold for a few heartbeats the fleeting illusion of love. It's no great sacrifice for me to abandon said degeneracies for a chance to live within the real thing.

"You needn't worry about me and my prime. My...priming is going quite to my satisfaction, thank you."

"You just keep getting weirder the longer I know you."

The beginnings of a grin slipped out as Alan re-directed his stare toward Denny's... trunk. "I wonder why that could be."

Alan went to the bedside alarm and set it. "I have a seven AM meeting. Is 5:30 ok with you?"

"Why are you asking me? I'm always up before you. I don't need any damn alarm."

"Just checking." He was, but not exactly about the wake-up time.

Arms full of PJs and legal papers, Alan took his mouse and laptop but left the power cord behind. He figured he'd be back in plenty of time. His battery should outlast Denny by a long shot.

14
"Caesar, beware the Ides of March," Alan said as Denny lumbered out in vaguely togaform terrycloth bath sheet with Denny Crane embroidered about the edges in repeating sequence.

"Try anything and I'll stab my sword up your damn asp," Denny grumbled as he dried between his toes.

"Wrong play." Alan made the mild observation as he turned the next page of Finnegan's Rainbow. He'd yet to process a single word.

"Same thing." Denny dropped the towel and climbed into bed. Naked. "They both loved a great man; they both killed themselves in the end."

"It's not at all the same thing." Alan laughed and closed the book, not even pretending to bother with the marker. "Brutus took down Caesar first. And don't flatter yourself: I'm not going anywhere."

"We all die. At least Caesar died great." Denny's expression changed from the maudlin to the distinctly better. "And he got to make love to Elizabeth Taylor."

"As did Mark Antony." Alan made the observation with a thoughtful leer. "He got Caesar's woman after he--"

"You keep your sword away from Shirley, or it'll be your asp on the line." Denny bolted up in bed and jabbed a finger into Alan's chest.

Alan chuckled again. "I hear that Caesar had a mighty scepter."

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Still, Denny visibly puffed beneath the covers.

"'I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.' Now, where should I bury him, I wonder?"

"Touch my scepter and I'll save you the trouble of falling on your own sword."

"Promises, promises," Alan flirted.

Denny rolled onto his side and pulled most of the covers around his ears.

Alan turned out the lights. "You know, after Caesar died, Elizabeth Taylor wore a collar of Caesar's...image about her neck." In slow, languid circles he caressed the curve of his own chest.

"I could have one made for you," Denny mumbled from under the strata of cotton and down.

"I'm all a-flutter," Alan said.

And yet, he was too aroused to sleep. A while later, after he thought Denny was snoring well, he crept into the bathroom and gave it up into the antiseptic darkness and his own hand. So great was his relief when he climbed back in that he failed to notice the subtle change in cadence in the porcine noises from Denny's side.

15
"What are you looking at?" Alan asked as he perfected his bow tie.

"You just look...nice." Denny said in that silken bedroom voice of his.

For St. Patrick's Day, Alan was going as a leprechaun lawyer--black pinstriped knickers, vest and top hat. Denny was going as the rainbow. Alan had already pointed out this meant he could be found at Denny's end.

Alan laughed. "Have you ever wondered if it's that you like your women mannish or your men feminized?"

"I try to say something nice--"

"No, really, you must admit, there's a certain trend here given the dress style of certain cocktail waitresses with whom you have graced the floors of certain and various coat check rooms around the city." Alan indicated his tailored black and white garb. "And don't think I didn't consider that when I chose the costume." Then, to complete the look, he stuck an oversized hat pinstripe hat atop his head with a grin.

Denny glared at him, but plucked the shamrock from his own pocket. Each leaf was emblazoned with one quarter of his NAME. He tucked it into Alan's lapel buttonhole at patted it in place. "For luck."

"You think I'll get lucky tonight?"

"Something green, or you'll get pinched."

"Don't think I hadn't considered that either." Alan gave the shamrock back. "Here, you need luck more than I do. I've been doing just swell."





16
If the costume thing hadn't been bad enough, some associate who would never have a career as a party planner had had the terrible idea to pour Irish coffees all night. Too soused to stay up, but too wired to sleep, they lay in bed tossing and turning and annoying each other progressively more and more.

Until one time they tossed and turned face to face.

Even in the dim, it was clear that Denny was...up. All the way up. And he wasn't moving away.

Any other man might have been apprehensive. Their friendship stood on a layered foundation of tacit trust. But Alan knew better than to believe Denny would eschew or deny himself anything that might feel good.

And Denny Crane certainly wasn't afraid of a little thing like another man's penis.

Confidence perhaps fortified with Jameson's, Alan took hold of Denny's lucky charm.

Denny groaned and pushed his hips upwards, but only a handful of times. Never a great one for patience, Denny pushed Alan's head down to his crotch.

Alan swallowed the penis in one needful gulp.

Alan had wanted this to last. He wanted to do so many things, but the twist of Denny's hands in his hair, the press of pubic musk in his nostrils, intoxicating him--all but taking his mind, the deconstructed sound that Denny made as he writhed, all of it threatened to take him at any time.

It had been too long since he'd lain with anyone this way.

He tried to think about tort reform, Bill O'Reilly, clowns, anything to make it last, but there was something insuperably erotic about someone wanting you this much despite himself, and somehow nothing else mattered except the immediate weight of their combined longings. As Denny's head swelled in his mouth in that recognizable pre-orgasmic tumescent flare, everything long denied was all too much and Alan spilled over his own fist into the depths of the mattress only moments before Denny came silently, clutching hard at the back of his neck.

17
Alan always showered after sex. It used to be his favorite part. There was a certain gratification in watching all ones dirty sins stream off the body and down the drain. You didn't need a psychology degree to figure out that analog.

It had been a while since the shower had been his favorite part, but still he relished the feel of the warm water upon the heightened nerve endings of his skin.

And he did still feel a certain peace as he scoured and watched the detritus swirl down the drain.

In cloud of steam he came out in a terry robe and a towel turban around his head to see Denny watching late night TV. Rock Hudson was on the phone to Doris Day pretending to be someone he wasn't while she lapped up every word.

"Pillow Talk," said Alan.

"Forget it. That's for girls and gays." Denny's eyes remained glued to the screen where Rock gave a hearty if false laugh. "Besides, I'm tired." Denny pulled the comforter up around his chest.

"Yes." Alan stood and considered the body language. Perhaps the Jameson was wearing off, or perhaps Denny's comfort zone was not as large as his appetites. Few things were. He chose a neutral approach.

"The thing about night terrors is that they're linked to distress and bad feelings. I feel quite sure they won't come back tonight. If at all. If you like, I can sleep in the other room."

Denny turned his eyes away from Rock and Tony Randall and onto Alan. "Do you know why I took your wrongful termination case?"

"You shanghaied my case away from the lawyer I hired."

"That's what I said. I took it because when I heard about you I said 'There's a man who deserves Denny Crane.' Not many people do.

"I saw that you were a man..like me. A man who was out to get what he wanted, not out to screw anyone else, but sure as hell going to get what he deserved. I saw a man who was doing something very uncommon these days: he trusted. He trusted every one around him to be strong enough to either take what they wanted to or to get out of his way. He trusted the people around him live the way they wanted--not be sheep. Cattle. Cows.

"I said, I could get behind a man like that. Maybe...even be friends one day. A man who respects other peoples' free will like that."

On the screen, Rock was doing his split personality act on the party line. Now that he'd stopped talking, Denny appeared to be glued to the show.

Alan just stood and blinked to focus--not primarily his eyes. "Denny, you're my best friend; I'm closer to you possibly than I've been to any one in my life, but I'm not sure I ever will understand you."

"You don't have to make it sound so special. It's a big club. In fact, I'm the president and charter member." Denny turned off the TV and nestled down on his side of the bed.

Alan climbed back in. After a brief moment's hesitation, he reached for Denny's hand.

18
It had something to do with the Republican nominations. Alan preferred not to know too many details, but there would be a houseful of overnight guests all of whom had their own Wikipedia pages, among other things.

Not that he was looking forward to going and all the tongue-biting that would entail, but being left out of Denny's head was always worse. He barged in on Denny without preamble. "If you wanted me out of the house for this soiree, you might just have said so."

"I would have," said Denny, utterly placid. Not even midway through oiling and cleaning his pistol collection, he didn't look up but kept his eye on the slide.

Alan blinked in confusion. "Louisa's cleaning and freshening my bedroom. Apparently it's been...assigned out for the weekend."

"Kittrick. I thought he'd like the garden view. Seems like a pansy kind of guy to me."

"You put someone else in my old bedroom."

"What's the big deal? You haven't slept there in weeks. But if you want that room for the weekend, just say so to Louisa; she'll change the list.

"Judas Priest, you spend three seasons trying to get into my bed, now you want out? You're worse than my third wife. At least I could buy her back with diamonds." As usual, Denny's mumble was pitched just loud enough to be heard by the intended person

Alan blinked again, reorienting as his suppositions flipped 180 degrees and fell back in place. "I'd assumed--" He had. He'd assumed rather a lot about Denny, he only now realized. That was very bad--and almost always counterproductive--policy with Denny, and so he cleared his throat to start again.

"I would think that having me here, especially...patently roomless, would be somewhat awkward for you. Considering." He rummaged Denny's face for clues.

"Awkward." Now Denny did look up. "What the hell's awkward? It's your own damn house. Sleep wherever the hell you want--the garden room, our bedroom, hanging upside down from the shower for all I care. Since when did you get so twisted up about what anyone else thinks?"

Denny set down his Glock and looked up with one of those moments of absolute clarity that never failed to give Alan chills. "Little people sabotage themselves all the time. They have what they want, but they give it away. They decide they don't deserve it, they haven't earned it, that in the name of fairness they should let it go. The difference between the successful and the average is that the successful are confident enough to keep what they get."

Then he went back to his guns.

And so that night Alan had excused himself early from the black-tie meet and greet, claiming terribly painful ailment of the tongue. He'd lain awake in the master bedroom, waiting for Denny to come in.

"What?" Denny asked as he undid his bow and tossed his cufflinks (a gift of President Bush) onto his dresser.

Alan rose from the bed and came from behind to help. Had he ten years previous to imagine the pivotal points in his life, he never would have dreamed of one occurring a house full of GOP.

But life is funny that way.

"I want you to do the most explicit and carnal things to me." Alan whispered in Denny's ear as he unfastened the studs on the tuxedo shirt one by one. "I want to do them until we both cry out in pleasure and the entire household comes running to find us shattered, drained and thoroughly sodden, sapped in each others arms."

Denny glared at him in the mirror. "You just don't know when to stop, do you?"

"I love you." Alan stopped on the middle stud and caressed his chest.

When finally undressed, and the lights were out, their fingers fumbled for each other under the covers until they met in the middle and held.




19
Denny's bad hip was acting up. Alan had watched him put on the good show with it all night, but it was late, the car ride had been long and the strain was all too evident now. Denny was paying quite a price for proving there was nothing wrong with him.

Denny hit the sofa straight away. He didn't even try for the stairs. Alan began to undress him, cufflinks, tuxedo studs, tie. He'd always been a sucker for men in rich formal wear. The first time he'd masturbated to Top Hat instead of Barbarella he'd known he'd known his life would be...interesting.

"You gave quite a performance tonight." Denny's cologne was intoxicating, and the effect on Alan increased exponentially with the gap in Denny's shirt. In the bottle it smelled like alcohol and allergies, but once mixed with and steeped in Denny's odors and oils, it took him to another world.

He stopped and laid his head upon Denny's breast. "I suppose you'd go and get testy if I were to call you 'Daddy.'" He toyed with the gray and white chest hairs in the way it had played out in his old incestuous fantasies.

Denny groaned, but in all fairness, it might as easily have been because of the hip. "I really wish that therapist of yours hadn't died."

"As do I. But if I'd finished therapy, where would that have left us?"

They stayed like that until Denny's hip could manage the staircase.

Bad hip or not, Denny managed to make love twice that night.

20
For two who agreed on so little, this was an easy call. The only way to properly savor the heady triumph of a late November win was in the company of one's best friend. And in finer points: the whisky should be over twenty-one years old, the cigars should be fresh, and the courtesans should be both.

But they had all served their purpose, and Denny and Alan had outlasted the lot. The Scotch had been drunk. The hookers were gone. In the ashtray, stubbies smoldered out, and dawn was only an hour or two away.

From behind, Alan watched Denny prepare for bed, stripping the residuals of his clothing, donning the pressed and creased pajamas, fastening each button in the mirror as if his appearance here were every bit as important as it was in court.

"You really were magnificent today," Alan said. He must have drunk more than he'd thought. He hadn't planned to say that out loud, although the thought was exactly what he meant.

Fortunately Denny was too absorbed in himself to notice.

"I was. Denny Crane: legal genius. I've still got it." Denny beamed into the mirror.

"No, I mean..."

"What?" Denny whirled on him. There was no hint of intoxication about him anywhere. Not that it would be easy to tell given his norm of behavior, but still...

"Forget it." Alan squirmed and tried to deflect the flow. "I've always been an imprudent drunk. I've probably already said too much." Among his many paradoxes, despite all that had passed between them Denny still shunned most overt talk of affection or even regard.

But Denny just gave him an odd look and shrugged it off. "It's a special night. You get a free pass. This time." He checked his hair one last time and kicked his bedroom shoes off.

Alan looked Denny over--really looked. The irony was it was clear that he didn't have to say it--Denny already knew. And yet, somewhere deep inside, the need to say the words was absolute.

"You are magnificent Denny." He poured every long-forbidden feeling he'd ever had into that sentence and let it go.

"Denny Crane." Denny stood before him and spread his arms as if to the skies.

Alan grinned in an open way very few others ever saw.

Denny pulled back the covers and clambered in.

They made playful love nearly until dawn.




21
The leaves had all but given way and the frost had already come and hard. Alan had always hated to be cold. It made him feel orphaned--abandoned--like the Little Princess or the Little Match Girl. It was one reason he hadn't been afraid of getting caught in one of his grand ploys: Brazil seemed more and more and more inviting with each winter that rolled around.

"You have more money than you can ever spend," he complained to Denny one particularly bitter November balcony evening. "Have you ever thought of cashing it in--moving to the islands. Coconuts, grass skirts, Scotch daiquiris, tiny Speedos, warm sand beneath our feet?"

"Never," said Denny. "This is my city. I'm like...the fisherman king--bound to my land." He gestured out over Back Bay and the Charles. "But don't let that stop you," Denny added with a sly glance aside.

Alan snuggled down, shoving his muffler up around his ears and his mittened hands deeper into the pockets of his coat. "I never thought I'd see a silver lining in global warming," he said. "But I'm beginning to get on board."

"Damn straight" said Denny. He poured them both another finger. "Bikini season year round. Never say God doesn't have a plan."

"Lovely. I'll order us a matching pair."

"Make them blondes," said Denny as a paralegal walked in to drop something on his desk. "I haven't had a blonde in a while." His tone declared a pointed choice to misunderstand.

Alan balked. For as much as was raw and open between them, equally much was tacitly left undiscussed. Here on the fourteenth floor--the top of the very phallic symbol of Denny's power and heteronormative domain--Alan was never quite sure just where Denny was inclined to let his image go. He prepared to backpedal as far as necessary.

But then Denny wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close enough to feel his heat. "Come here," he said in a voice loud enough that the paralegal looked out in dismay. Denny guided him to the balcony rail.

"Think of it," Denny waved a hand over Back Bay. Women in bikinis as far as the eye can see. That's our city. Yours and mine. Why would you ever want to leave?"

Alan looked out as last of the leaves blew amongst the twinkle of the city lights. He watched one twist and dance until it skipped and danced clear out of view. He pressed his shoulder a little closer to Denny's chest. "Why, indeed."