I knew what he wanted to talk about. The same thing that we always talked about when we talked seriously -- our relationship, the status of it, whether we should come out, why we aren't living together.

As it stood, we were dating, technically. Sleeping together sometimes. Although after our little break-up and make-up its been a little less often. I don't know -- things just haven't been the same because I've hurt him. I've been forgiven, the battle is over, but he's been acting distant, I've probably been acting weird.

He's twirling the grass around his toes as I sit next to him. He doesn't say anything, and I keep looking at his cute little boyfeet. He complains that they're too small, but even if they are, I don't care. They're damn cute feet. I've given him foot massages when he hasn't even asked me too and I've sucked on his toes during foreplay. More men should have feet like his.

He can tell I don't want to look at him. His hand rubs across my back and rests on my shoulder. I sigh and rest my head against his. "I'm sorry, it's early. I don't know if I'm in the mood for something his heavy."

"I know, Josh, I know," he said. "But it's like we're right back where we started."

"Isn't that what we were doing though? Starting over?"

"I guess so," he said. And here's where our relationship is most flawed -- in our inability to communicate. We both keep saying that we want things to get better, and I'm sure we both really do, but we don't talk about how we're going to fix things. "Are you hungry?"

"Yeah. Should we go out for breakfast?"

"I've actually got some stuff here, if you don't mind watching me try to cook," he said, and smiled. It was good to finally see him smile.

I laughed and draped my arms around him. He hugged me briefly, then stood, pulling me up with him. I nearly lost my balance, and he steadied me by clutching at my arms. He tipped his head up once he had brought me close enough and kissed me. In a way, it reminded me of our first kiss -- tentative, a little held back, so I opened my mouth so he could slip his tongue in. Still he held back. His tongue lightly grazed the front of my teeth.

When I pulled away, he looked sad. The normal crystal clearness of his eyes was gone, which could have just been from lack of sleep, but probably not.

We just stood there for a few minutes, him still clutching my arms, not quite looking at each other and silently waiting for something to happen -- something that would evaporate all the soggy wet that had pooled in our relationship, something that would allow us to stop acting like strangers.

His next door neighbor came out onto his back patio, whistling. "We should go inside now," I said.

"You are still going to make me breakfast?"

"Yes I am," he said, and pulled me by the hand back into the house.

A couple of nights ago, Justin had been over at my house talking about some song he had just written. And being the braggart he usually is, he made it sound like it was going to be the next "Let it Be" or "Hey Jude." Chris was holding his tongue, waiting, just waiting for Justin to actually mention the Beatles, so he could tease him. He had little tolerance when it came to Justin's ego, but rather than get angry, he would make fun of it.

Like when Justin wouldn't shut up about his ability to make free-throws, Chris had dragged him out on to the basketball court to prove it. We all laughed and snickered as Justin missed every shot because Chris would make faces or tickle him every time he went to throw.

Or when Justin mentioned that Britney said he was a good kisser, then went into detail about his kissing technique, Chris planted a huge, wet one on him -- with tongue -- that almost made me jealous.

Justin never actually mentioned the Beatles that night, but every chance he got -- like right in the middle of watching a movie, popcorn flying out of him mouth -- he would say 'Damn, I'm a genius' and hum a bar of his new song. Every time he did that, Chris would say 'I am the Walrus' and hum a few bars from that.

I giggled every time, and Justin looked at both of us like he didn't know what was going on, even though I knew he knew that 'I am the Walrus' is a Beatles song.

Chris was like that. He tried not to directly confront any problem he was having with someone. He would always find some way, some stupid little trick, to get around it.

So after he buried himself in the directions on the back of the bisquick box, with all the ingredients strewn across the table, I didn't mention the fact that the real reason I was over at his house was to talk and not to eat breakfast.

He was going to make waffles apparently, because he hauled the waffle iron out of the bottom cabinet and thunked it on the counter.

"Are you sure you know how to use that?" I asked.

"Um, yeah," he said. "I used it once to mold the forehead of that Klingon costume last Halloween." He stuck his tongue out at me.

"Yeah, right. You did no such thing," I said. "I bet you've never used that waffle iron."

"Maybe I haven't...but don't you -dare- doubt my phat waffle-making skills"

"Do I have to call up Justin now?" I asked, trying to keep a straight face.

"What for?"

"So I can compare the size of your egos... or should I say 'Eggos.'"

"Ha-ha, you're -so- funny," he said, and flipped me the bird.

Chris managed to make some decent waffles, and effectively postpone our little 'relationship' discussion. After he poured enough raspberry syrup on his waffles to freak out someone with diabetes, he kept dipping his finger in and licking the syrup off. His tongue flicked along his finger like he was imagining it being some other part of the body.

I tried not to stare at Chris' new oral fixation, and pretended that the front page of the newspaper I was reading had an extremely interesting article on it.

"I wonder what some other uses for this syrup are?" he asked, rhetorically.

I lifted my eyes from the newspaper. "We are not using that stuff in bed," I said, as seriously as I could, but he licked his fingers again and I giggled.

Somehow we made our way up the stairs, my shirt being left somewhere in the kitchen, the rest of my clothing handing along the banister and on the stairs. Fortunately, the syrup was not going to be involved, at least not this time -- Chris was too busy trying to push me up the stairs to remember to bring the syrup along.

He pulled me toward his bedroom door and wondered when talking about our relationship had turned into making out and having sex.

"Chris, Chris, wait--

"Wait? What?"

He ignored the fact that I had stopped kissing him and was biting along my collarbone. "Chris, I thought we were supposed to talk..."

"Talk--yeah--mmhmm." His hands were slowly making their way down my back.

"Yeah. Talk. I know you didn't just ask me over here so we could have sex."

"Maybe I did, though." he pressed me against the wall and kissed me again.

It's not that I really didn't want to have sex with him right then and there, he was my boyfriend after all. But I wish we had actually talked about why we were still awkward with each other. Because each time we fucked without dealing with it, we drifted further from sorting it out.

He pushed me back on the bed. "I promise -- we'll talk soon. I just need this now."

"So do I," I said as he slid down my body and licked the inside of my thighs. "But we have to stop being like this."

"Yeah, I know," were the last words he said to me before his mouth came down softly on my penis, and I lost my capacity to think maybe he should stop.

End.

Originally written as an *Mprov on 1/16/00, finished 1/18/00 with the words raspberry, battle, crystal, braggart, boyfeet, tolerance, Klingon, diabetes.