Roy was getting that restless, jittery feeling in his knees and elbows again. It was a sensation not unlike the growing pains those of us fortunate enough to grow during adolescence get. Ron was dimly aware of the fact that when those jitters came upon him he had a tendency to behave as well as feel like a jumpy teenager.
‘For the love of the cheese buss, will you hurry it up in there already? I’ve got a tinder in half an hour and she’s built to win. I’m punching above my weight here Baz, I got to freshen up!’
The sound of the shower continued indifferently for another five minuets and just as Ron began to give way to the urge to kick in the door it opened.
Roy’s mouth opened, and for once nothing came out.
What had just pushed passed him nonchalantly could not so easily be put aside as the mingled odours sensed by his flatmate a fortnight ago,
When later he described the moment he called hire ‘Baz with tits’, but for now he was wracked by conflicting emotions. It sure looked like Baz, the hair was similar and… the way she moved. Roy couldn’t take refuge in the idea that it was Baz’s sister, he knew he had none.
The worst thing was that as she walked past him in that short robe, the top of which barely hung off her shoulders seemingly hanging from the nipples themselves he was instantly attracted to her.
‘Baz?!’ he stammered as she receded down the hall in a seductive sway that somehow kept the awkward clump of his friends heavy gait.
She turned looking at him with those same disinterested yet wary eyes.
‘Don’t you have some unlucky lady to accost Ron? Noticing his downward gaze she pulled her robe shut and disappeared around the corner.
Ron went into the bathroom, splashed water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror. He chuckled to himself thinking of the hollywood cliche he had just mindlessly reenacted. Well, that’s where the cliches end he thought to him self, and applying a dab of one of his many colognes he made up his mind to try to have sex with this… Baz with tits after he got back from his date.
So he preened, plucked, shaved and perfumed himself until he no longer smelled of earth, lawn cuttings and sweat, but instead he was transformed into the oily top predator of nightclubs and carparks.
By the time he was finished his confusion had been replaced with a sort of floaty ecstatic bliss; his glum, sardonic flatmate had been upgraded to a hot chick! true, she was still glum and sardonic, but he could deal with that, even if he couldn’t seduce her, she was still shower candy, walking around in that too short bathrobe of hers…his?
Ron strode out of the bog as usual like a conquistador setting foot on the sands of a new world, bequeathed to him by a god who mollycoddled only Spaniards, and men called Ron. His patterned silk shirt clung like a jealous lover to the athletically muscled torso he earned with sweat and toil in the gardens of the suburbs. He felt powerful, in control. The nagging flatmate who belittled his sexual conquests and nagged him like a fishwife about everything from his standards of pot washing to the time he spent in front of the bathroom mirror was now a woman, and thus subject to his powers and charms.
Ron strode, leading with brass best buckle into the kitchen where Baz was busy fussing over the cutlery. Ron knew what was happening, Baz was separating the plastic from the wooden spatulas and serving spoons, attempting to bring order to their drawers. Ron didn’t give a shit. The scent of his cologne filled him with a lusty desire to possess all women, and to him his flatmate’s transformation hinted at a world where men would become women to sate his appetite.
Ron approached Baz from behind, leaning over his left shoulder, his stubble brushing and ensnaring some of Baz’s curly hair, stretching it straight.
‘I could help you with that, but I never thought the wood and plastics needed separation, you know all that plastic used to be wood. Hard, tall trees, but it got buried in times gone by. Nothing had learned to eat wood yet, so it stayed there and turned to the stuff we make plastic with. Now we’re killing the planet by burning the stuff, making bags with it and throwing it in the ocean… That’s what happens when wood goes uneaten.’
Ron felt Baz tense then slowly relax as his allegory (gleamed from a simplistic discovery channel documentary about the formation of the world’s oil reserves) lulled him into a false sense of security, then when he concluded with the inevitable sexual innuendo Baz twisted strongly to face him.
Ron didn’t know wether to expect a slap or a kiss. He got a kiss, long and passionate, but there was something about the roughness of Baz’s tongue, the texture of his skin that seemed odd. It was certainly a good kiss. Ron leaned in closer, Baz ground his crotch into Ron’s thigh with the enthusiasm of a Jamaican yardie under the influence of extacy.
For a moment he tried to ignore it but then Ron Jumped out of Baz’s arms faster than a cat dropped in a cold bath.
‘What, you knew I didn’t have that bit off Ron, is it too much for you?’
The roles were reversed, Baz stood with twitching erection barely concealed by his all too short robe and Roy was backing slowly towards the safety of the bathroom, eyes fixed in terror at the thing he did not expect as if it were a poisonous snake that might hurl itself at him at any moment.
He reached the door fumbled it open and shut himself in.
He turned on the cold tap and again splashed himself with cold water. This time he didn’t laugh. He had ruined his hair.