by Alexa Land
“Imagine that, this color in the reject bin.” I pressed my eyes shut and said, “This is an improvement because I can’t see it now, but it still smells horrible.” I opened my eyes and looked around as I asked, “Wait, are all the windows open? I’ll never forgive myself if that furry bastard escapes.”
“They’re all only open a couple inches, on account of the pigeons. The cat won’t be able to get out.”
“What pigeons?”
“Nothing. Forget I said anything.”
I caught his wrists and asked, “What pigeons, Quinn?”
He frowned and said, “I was lonely this weekend, so I might have invited a few pigeons into our apartment. That wasn’t the best idea I ever had though, and it took a long time to convince them to leave again. Now they keep coming back and trying to get in. Shit, there’s one now.”
I followed his gaze and saw a big, fat pigeon standing outside the living room window, staring at us. “Do I even want to know how you invited them in?”
“I made a trail of birdseed from the fire escape to the living room. It worked like a charm. But later on, convincing them the party was over proved to be problematic. They reminded me of that guy from the other week, the one who wouldn’t take a hint and go home after he spent the night with me. I should probably mention that one or two pigeons might still be in here somewhere.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I keep hearing this fluttering sound,” Quinn said. “But maybe I’m just having some kind of trauma-induced flashback. It got a bit out of control in here at one point.”
I muttered, “Good lord,” and turned and headed for my bedroom.
Quinn followed me and asked, “Where are you going? Don’t you want to hang out?”
“What I want is a nap. I have to set an alarm, though. I found out right before my friend took off and left me with his devil cat that the thing needs medicine twice a day. God knows how I’m going to get the drops down its throat without it tearing mine out.”
“I’ll help if you want,” he said.
I turned to him and said, “Thanks for the offer, Quinn. I appreciate it, but there’s no point in both of us getting clawed to ribbons. What I really need is a suit of armor to get through that task in one piece.”
I assumed he was kidding when he said, “I’ll see what I can do.” I gave him a little wave, went into my bedroom, and did a thorough sweep for the tuxedoed chupacabra before finally collapsing onto my mattress.
*****
When I emerged from my room a couple hours later, freshly showered and somewhat rested, I exclaimed, “Oh my God, Quinn, now what have you done?”
“Better, right?”
“No, it’s not better! It went from a large intestine to a hot pink disco ball!” My roommate had somehow managed to apply a coat of pink glitter all over the sticky walls, and I told him, “At least before, we had a chance of painting the room white again to try to get our deposit back. But now there’s no way!”
“Don’t you think it’s pretty, though?”
I stopped to consider that, and then I had to admit, “Okay, it does look kind of cool. But the landlord is still going to kill us.” When I glanced at Quinn, I almost did a double-take. He was covered in as much glitter as the walls, and he was dressed only in a pair of hot pink briefs and a big pair of safety goggles. When he put them on top of his head, he revealed white raccoon eyes, in contrast to his sparkling complexion. I asked, “Did you apply the glitter by rolling in it, then throwing yourself at the walls?”
“No, I came up with a better idea.” He demonstrated by putting the goggles back in place, picking up a paper plate full of glitter and my blow dryer, and sending a cloud of glitter flying at the wall with a burst of warm air. He then aimed the dryer at the wall and blasted away the excess glitter.
“That’s actually pretty clever, but please don’t take that as encouragement to glitter up the rest of the apartment.”
He seemed very pleased at the praise. “Thanks! And I won’t, I promise. I just wanted to jazz up my room and the living room. That’s it.”
I didn’t even want to know what he’d done to his bedroom. Instead, I asked, “Have you seen the cat, and is he all sparkly now, too?”
“I found Puffy under my bed. I thought that was probably a pretty good place for him, so I closed my door and the connecting door to the bathroom and set up his food, water, and litter box in my room. I think he needs some personal space, so I’m just going to stay out of there for a while. This all must be pretty upsetting for him.”
“Thanks for doing that. The bad news is, it’s almost time for his medicine, so we’ll have to go get him. He needs a dose each day at noon.”
“What’s it for?”
“I have no idea, actually. My friend just said it was important. In fact, he said he used to bring his cat to the office with him to make sure he never missed a dose,” I said. “He had to leave to catch a flight, so I didn’t get to ask a lot of questions. All I know is, I need to administer three drops in the back of the cat’s throat every day.”
“Okay. Well, I put together the stuff you asked for. That should help.”
“What did I ask for?”
“Before you took a nap, you said you needed a suit of armor. It’s in the kitchen.”
I was curious to see what he was talking about, so I went to take a look. A pile of totally random items were heaped on the table in the corner, including some jackets, duct tape, rain boots, a couple colanders, and a tall metal bird cage with a little fake bird at the top. “Okay, I give up,” I said. “What am I looking at here?”
“Two suits of armor, one for you, one for me. The cat tried to claw me when I found him under my bed, so you’re right about needing protective gear. I gathered up all I could find, then went across the hall and borrowed a few things from Mr. Hostetler. Nice guy, by the way.”
“Nice? He once accused me of stealing his paper and threatened to cut my balls off.”
“Well, you shouldn’t mess with senior citizens’ newspapers.”
“I didn’t!”
Quinn picked up a couple things from the table and changed the subject by asking, “Do you want the colander or the birdcage?”
“For what, exactly?” He held the metal colander in front of his face to demonstrate its protective qualities, and I said, “Okay. But how exactly is a birdcage going to help us?”
“Same way.” He put down the strainer and said, “The cage is open on the bottom. See?”
“No way is it big enough to fit over your head, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
Quinn sighed and said, “I love you, River, but you can be a pessimist at times. Of course it’ll fit. Watch!”
Before I could stop him, my roommate jammed the birdcage over my head. It caught for a moment, so he gave it a hard tug, and as it banged down onto my shoulders, I exclaimed, “Ow!”
“Oops, sorry. You okay? I didn’t mean to pummel you with it.”
“I’m fine, but this is ridiculous. Help me get it off.” Quinn and I both tried to lift it, but it wouldn’t budge. I muttered, “You have got to be kidding me.”
“I don’t get it. If it went on, it should slide back off. Bend over!” He grabbed me in a headlock and tried to wrestle it off of me.
The narrow base was tucked under my chin, so no way would it lift off again. I yelled, “Stop pulling before you decapitate me!”
Quinn let go and studied me for a moment. Then he rotated the cage around and said, “Well, the good news is, you won’t starve.” He opened the little metal door, which was right in front of my mouth, and I rolled my eyes.
“I can’t believe you did this to me!” I grabbed the cage with both hands and wrestled it wildly, but all that got me was a sore chin. “I have a bunch of stuff to do today, and a very important date tonight, and now apparently I have to do it all while looking like an escaped freak show act. Come and see Polly, the human parakeet!”
“You have a date?
Awesome!”
“Could you maybe not sound quite so surprised?”
“Sorry. Who are you going out with?”
“Cole.”
“The guy you’ve been pining for since I’ve known you? How’d you get him to give you another chance?”
“It was a miracle, and I really don’t want to screw it up by arriving for our date looking like I’ve lost my damn mind!”
“I won’t let you mess it up.” Quinn chewed his lower lip for a moment, then said, “Maybe if we butter your chin, the cage will slide off. Or wait, anal lube! Nothing’s slipperier than that stuff! Stay right here. I have a huge bottle of it in my room!”
I muttered, “There’s a shocker,” as my roommate ran from the kitchen.
Someone knocked a moment later, and I sighed and went to see who it was. The cage made a little squeaking sound when I walked. That was extra special.
I swung the door open and muttered, “Oh hell.”
Cole stood in the hallway, staring at me with wide eyes. In the next instant, he burst out laughing. I couldn’t help but grin a little as I stepped aside and let him in. When he saw the living room walls, he started laughing even harder and blurted, “I have so many questions!”
A moment later, Quinn came running out of his bedroom, still just in the goggles and skimpy briefs, with a gallon-sized jug in his hands. He held it up over his head like it was the damn Lion King and yelled, “I got the anal lube! Bend over, River, and I’ll slick you up!”
I turned to Cole and exclaimed, “It’s not what it looks like!”
Cole started laughing again, so hard that he had to take off his glasses and wipe his eyes with the back of his hand. “You’ve invented a brand new kink,” he managed, once he caught his breath. “Forget puppy play, that’s so 2015. All the cutting edge kinksters are giving parakeet play a try!”
I started laughing, too. When I finally got it under control, I said, “Cole Ealy, this is my roommate, Quinn Takahashi. Quinn’s out of his damn mind. This birdcage was his idea of protective headgear so I could give Puffy his medicine. Now it’s stuck.”
Cole was still chuckling as he examined the cage. Then he said, “You know who’d have the tools to cut right through this? Your brother the metal sculptor.”
“Yeah, he would. I’ll give him a call and head over there, right after I get the medicine in the cat.” I looked around and muttered, “What did I do with my phone?”
“Oh. Here you go.” Cole pulled it from the pocket of his jeans and handed it to me. “I found it in with my stuff when I got home and figured you’d probably be looking for it, so I thought I should bring it over.”
I thanked him and shot my brother a text. Meanwhile, Quinn tried to hand the lube jug to Cole and said, “I was going to pour this on River’s head so he could slip out of the cage, but maybe you want to do the honors.”
Cole took one look at the sticky jug and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Thanks,” he said with a grin, “but you go ahead. You know, I had no idea you could buy lube in gallon jugs.”
“You have to order it online. I’ll text you the web address if you want,” Quinn said enthusiastically. “It’s way more economical than those tiny little containers.”
“Useful, too.” Cole’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Go ahead, lube River up.”
I frowned as I pocketed my phone. “Skye’s in his warehouse and says I can come on over, so maybe we can skip the lubricant.”
“But if the slippery stuff works, you can save yourself a trip to the East Bay.” Quinn stroked the side of the cage and added, “Plus, I like Birdarella and his gilded cage, and it’s a shame to cut it up if we don’t have to.”
“Fine,” I said. “Try the lube. You have one shot. After that, I’m driving to Oakland.”
“Bend over,” Quinn said.
I fought a sigh and bent at the waist. My roommate shook a huge glob of the cold, viscous liquid onto the back of my neck, and I flinched and exclaimed, “Ugh, it feels nasty! Hurry up and get it over with.”
Quinn set the bottle aside, and then he crouched down and forced both his hands under the rim of the cage, presumably so he could spread the lube. After a moment, he said, “Shoot. I think I’m stuck.”
“You’d better be kidding,” I muttered. When I straightened up, the huge glob of lubricant ran down beneath my T-shirt and into the waistband of my jeans. I pressed my eyes shut as it soaked into the denim.
Quinn struggled to remove his hands, which were cupping the sides of my head like ear muffs. After a moment, he gave up and said, “So, um, maybe Cole can drive us to Oakland. Your brother owns welding equipment, so he can probably fix Birdarella’s cage after he cuts it off.” He dragged me with him as he sidled over to the table, and then he stepped into a pair of tall, yellow rain boots. “Oh, you know what, though? We still need to give the cat his medicine. Didn’t you say that’s supposed to happen right at noon?”
“Damn it,” I muttered. “Yeah, it is, but I guess it’s going to have to be delayed. I can’t do anything with you stuck to the front of me.”
“I can do it,” Cole said. “If the cat needs medicine, we shouldn’t wait.”
“Are you sure?” He nodded, and I said, “I owe you one.”
As we offered him useless suggestions for how best to administer the drops, Cole outfitted himself with the makeshift protective equipment. He decided to go with a heavy coat and an old pair of leather work gloves, and Quinn convinced him to wrap tape around the cuffs of the gloves to create a cat-proof seal. “You need some kind of helmet,” Quinn insisted. “Your glasses won’t protect you if the cat goes full-on defense vortex.”
Cole reluctantly sandwiched two mesh strainers around his head and taped the handles together so they were jutting straight up, and then he smiled at me and said, “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m sharing a golden birdcage with a fake, neon yellow sparrow and my glittery, underwear-and-goggle-clad roommate. I’m in no position to laugh at anyone.” I was grinning, though.
“Do you think he’s a sparrow?” Quinn asked. “I’ve been calling him a chickadee.”
I stared at him and said, “I don’t care.”
“Alright,” Cole said, “here goes nothing.” He retrieved the medicine from the huge bag of Puffy’s belongings, and then he went into Quinn’s bedroom and shut the door behind him.
It was quiet for a minute. We could hear Cole talking to the cat in a calm, soothing voice. I began to feel a bit of optimism. Maybe Puffy liked Cole, and things were going to go smoothly.
Or not.
In the next instant, the cat let out a tremendous yowl, and there was the sound of something, possibly a lamp, crashing to the floor. Screeching and cussing (by Puffy and Cole in turn) punctuated the sounds of a mighty struggle. I half-expected the Incredible Hulk to bust through the wall at one point.
“I wish we could help him,” I said.
Quinn struggled wildly to pull his hands out from under the cage, shaking me back and forth like a terrier with a rat. “It’s no good,” he said when he finally gave up. “I’m really stuck. There’s another problem, too.”
“What is it?”
“I’m starting to get turned on.”
“Oh hell no,” I exclaimed. I whipped us around and searched the kitchen, and then I grabbed a flat, aluminum pizza pan and shoved it between us.
Quinn asked, “Did you seriously just erect a boner shield?”
“Don’t say ‘erect’. The last thing I want to think about is you with a hard-on.”
“You might possibly be a little bit repressed.”
“No I’m not! But the man I love is currently in the other room, risking life and limb for me, and how would it look if he came back out here to find my hot roommate pressing his stiffy into my hips? It’s bad enough that you were yelling about lubing me up when he arrived!”
Quinn flashed me a huge smile and said, “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Wh
at part?”
“You called me hot. I’d kiss you right now if I could reach the cage door.”
“And all of a sudden, I’m grateful to have this thing stuck over my head.”
Cole emerged from the bedroom and shut the door behind him about ten minutes later. He looked shell-shocked as he dropped onto the couch with a mangled strainer in each hand and muttered, “I’ve seen things. Terrible things.”
“Oh crap,” Quinn exclaimed. “Did I leave porn running on my laptop again?”
I shot him a look as Cole shook his head. “That cat’s not of this earth. I’m pretty sure its head rotated all the way around at one point.”
“Maybe we should call a vet,” Quinn suggested.
“We should call an exorcist,” I said. “Are you alright? Did he draw blood?”
“I’m fine. Good thing I was wearing these gloves though, because at one point he latched onto my hand like a honey badger and wouldn’t let go. But I finally got the medicine in him. Don’t ask me how.” Cole looked at us, then blinked and asked, “Why is there a pizza pan sandwiched between the two of you?”
“It’s a boner shield,” Quinn explained, and I tried to whack my forehead against the bars of the cage. “It’s not River’s fault, he isn’t interested in anyone but you. But there was a lot of friction, so before I knew it, there was Mr. Springy, ready to come out and play.”
I exclaimed, “Oh my God! You didn’t really name your dick that, did you?”
“Of course not. His name is Darth Maul,” Quinn informed me.
“That’s it. I need this cage and this lunatic off me.” I grabbed my keys from the kitchen counter, then turned to Cole and said, “Um, could you please drive us to Oakland? I’d call an Uber, but…yeah, that would be totally humiliating.”
He flashed me a big smile. “Absolutely. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
I ended up carrying Quinn, because he was too uncoordinated to walk backwards. Go figure, for a professionally trained dancer. He wrapped his legs around me, and I adjusted the pizza pan and grasped him by the backs of his thighs. We passed two of my neighbors on the way out of the building. Needless to say, they stopped and stared with their mouths hanging open. Quinn called, “Come on, you live in San Francisco. You have to expect this kind of thing now and then!”