Learning to Communicate

[Thank you for your patience. Enjoy, though short.]

Frank and I have been living together for a month now.

I have gotten more and more used to him being around. I don't feel like I have to fill the silences between us with unessacary chatter. I'm perfectly happy sitting in silence with him, our eyes glued to the TV, and eating peanut butter cups. He even peels them himself. When we eat dinner, we sit on the floor and pass the salt back and forth. It has become an almost normal exsistence with him. We see Dr. Grace for an hour on Sundays, where she gives him little intelligence tests. She says he does well. I actually went out and spent money on him. We bought him new clothes. And I remembered to cut out the waistline where his tail was. I also discovered he wears no underwear. Ever. I couldn't help it, but I blushed so bad walking in on him dressing.

That is probably the only thing that still bothers me. I feel a certain tension between the two of us. Sometimes, I think it has to do with his oncoming burst of hormones. Other times, it feels as though it is something much bigger. The way he looks at me makes me want to yell sometimes, shaking him by the shoulders and scream "What?! What do you want?"

We've become frequent guests at Mikey and Anna's. Frank listens to her belly on the couch, his ear pressed into her stomach and his brown eyes staring widely into space. He makes her laugh a lot. Ecspecially the time Mikey came into the living room carrying a bowl of popcorn, spilling kernels. Frank followed behind, eating them off the floor. I had kind of gotten used to the more disgusting of his habits, such as eating whatever he happened to find, licking himself, or sometimes sneezing on whatever was nearby. Now, the four of us eat dinner, three of us talk afterwards, and two of us go home to my apartment. Having another person, as strange as Frank was, seemed to fit all of us well.

I glanced over. Frankie was lying next to me on the bed, and we were watching late night television. He looked like he was drifting off though. "Tired?" I asked him. He only stirred, his little eyelashes flashing open before shutting again. He yawned, buried his face in his arm and rolled into my side. I didn't mind for once. I muted the TV, leaving the light to flicker, and pulled the covers up. I was not looking forward to work the next day. I had started typing up a reference for someone, only to suddenly find myself up to my elbows in a proofreading project. Is everyone's grammar so bad that one must hire guys like me to fix it? Yes. God, yes it was.

Frankie stirred. I barely felt it when he placed his lips to the back of my neck, moving under the tendrils of black hair sitting there. They moved down, gracing along the still muscles, and putting themselves under my ear. That's when I opened my eyes, fully aware of his movements. I could feel them even as they parted. He took a breath against my skin. Every hair on my body stood up on end. My discomfort and pleasure hit me at once, from the unwanted flicker of heat that licked at my thighs to the fact I hadn't moved away yet. My mouth moved wordlessly, only mouthing the word I wanted despertly to say yet was stopping myself from saying it. His lips closed again, placing what I guess was a kiss on the pulse point under my ear lobe. Another breath from both of us was the sound I could make out.

"Stop!"

There, I said it. And meant it. Oh, I hope I meant it. He stopped immediately, hovering still close to me. I shoved my back against him and scooted him to his side of the bed. I kept my eyes fixed into nothing. He whimpered somewhere behind me. I could feel the mattress shift with his weight as he rolled over, putting his back to me as well. I never found sleep though. All I could do was stare and listen to the suspicious noises of rustling sheets.

..::||~*~||::..

My work day sucked. Just like I had imagined it would. In fact, the only thing that really brought me any joy was the picture I put up next to my computer. I think I'm the only guy in the office that doesn't have anything personal in his cubicle. No pictures or frames or funny calenders. Now, I had a picture. In it, I was laughing my ass off, sitting on the counter and pointing at the look on Mikey's face. Frankie was firmly wrapped around his leg, giving his knee a solid bite. I had no idea why, but Anna had captured the whole moment on film, right down to the terrified look on Mikey's face. So here it was, amusing for me in my crappy as hell day.

Mr. Johnson sent out a memo reminding everyone that Friday was crazy tie day. Crazy tie? What the fuck constituted as a "crazy" tie exactly? If I wore one depicting a very large penis, was that crazy enough?

Crazy enough to get me fired? I could only dream....

I dumped my stuff on the couch and wrenched out of my jacket. Frankie was not there as per usual. "Frank?" Nothing. I looked down into the bedroom. "Frank?" Still nothing. Huh. Maybe he was sleeping. I turned around, heading for my message machine on the bar. It was sitting there was though I might have left it from this morning. Just a bowl full of soup and a plate with cheese toast. Both hot. I stared at it so hard I felt my eyes burning after a minute. I didn't have to turn around to know he was suddenly behind me either. "You did it," I said numbly. Who else?

"You made me a dinner to come home to." I took a breath. I knew how the people in the Twilight Zone felt.

His long fingers brushed mine again. I didn't move, even as they slid into my hand, touching my fingers, my palm, closing around my wrist. Not even the shallow breath on the back of my neck made me move from the spot I felt rooted to. "You did this," I repeated.

I didn't even move when his other arm circled around my waist, loose enough to be cautious, too tight not to be affectionate. I knew things, the simple and distant way they had been, were not going to be the same after this.