"Joy, can we get some service?!" calls Michael as Calum's mum whizzes past with another full tray.
"Keep your pants on! At least until you've had dinner!" she calls back, unloading food onto a nearby table.
Michael's been joined after his no-circumcision-for-my-son victory by the guys and they're all ravenous having been ejected from the Bris prior to eating the delicious looking food by a furious Maddie and an apologetic Geordie.
"I've always said there's only two reasons to be friends with lesbians. They're never try to convince you that the only reason you're gay is that you haven't met the right woman and they know how to change a flat tyre."
"It wasn't about them. It was about my son. If I don't look out for him who will?" Michael's voice, steady and calm, with not a hint of a joke is the only way the guys know he's serious.
"Wow. If you're not careful, you might turn out to be an alright dad, in spite of yourself," Calum smiles at him, everyone may think that Michael's a selfish bastard but he's always known different. "To Michael," he toasts him and the rest join in.
"Okay boys, what'll it be?" asks Joy.
"Nothing for me, thanks"
"Corey, honey, you really should try to eat some of your protein off of a plate..."
"I read for every thirty kilos lost you gain an entire inch of cock," Corey confides to the table.
"So if you just drop another ninety k you'll have a four inch pecker!" Joy quips, making everyone laugh.
"Cheese burger, french fry, chocolate shake, apple pie." Haksou astounds the whole table into silence when he rattles off his order.
~~~
"Sorry."
"S'ok."
The guy Sam's just caught with his elbow as they all left the diner stops in the street to look back, smiling in Sam's direction and not taking his eyes off him.
"Hey I know that guy, he works out at our gym." Calum turns to Sam after looking back to make sure he's still looking, searching for his name. "Er....Jake! I think he likes you"
"Yeah? How can you tell?"
"Because he's looking back!"
"Probably just stretching his neck..."
"Will you listen to yourself? Always putting yourself down."
"Well better me than them, I'm gentler." Sam smiles wistfully.
"It doesn't sound like it. You know it is possible that someone would actually like you, you know?"
"Yeah it's possible. However the statistical analysis of a guy named Jake, looking like that, liking a guy named Sam, who looks like me, would be in the point zero five percentile. In other words practically zip. Anyway I'm sure Michael's more his type."
"How'd you know?"
"Because Michael's everyone's type." Sam looks at Calum as if he's mad not to notice that. "Which explains why he's had everyone."
Calum makes a strangled noise at the back of his throat.
"I know, I know, except for you. Which is kind of weird when you think about it..."
"Weird? He's my best friend!"
"So?"
"So, everyone knows you don't have sex with your friends!"
"Oh right, sex is only what you have with complete strangers. But never with someone you might actually give a shit about. Who made up these crazy rules anyway right?" Sam says quickly, seeing Calum's face fall.
"Beats me. Let's go have a drink."
~~~
Luke and Chloe cross the street, her eyes growing wider and wider the further along Freedom Street they go as Luke gives her a list of all the do's and don't's of the evening.
"Oh my God!" She whisper-shouts, "Look at that person! Is it a guy or a girl?"
Luke grabs her hand, "Don't point! No matter what you see. Guys kissing guys, girls kissing girls..."
"Well what if I see a guy and a girl kissing huh? That would be something different down here. Oh stop pretending you're so experienced..." She rolls her eyes at Luke's expression. He's been here twice and thinks he knows it all.
"More than you. Don't forget what I said..."
"I know, I know. If I see him...pretend I didn't."
Luke speaks rapidly, his nerves betraying him. "Don't even look! That's even if he's there which he probably isn't. But if he is, don't even look."
~~~
"So how long do you plan for this to go on? Or do you plan never to speak to me again?" Geordie asks Maddie's back as she disappears into the kitchen for the umpteenth time with an uneaten plate of food.
Slamming the latest platter down on the kitchen table, she stands up, her hands on her hips and confronts Geordie, "What would you like me to say?"
"Anything," Geordie spreads her hands, accepting of her fate.
"Okay then, how about I have a house full of uneaten cold cuts and an uncircumcised son, how about that?!"
"Look, Michael's going to take out the insurance policy at least he's agreed to do that. That's something isn't it?"
"Oh my consolation prize!"
"You cared about it enough last week!"
Maddie opens and shuts nearly every cupboard in the kitchen as the speaks, "So was this afternoon, but now I've been humiliated in front of our friends, my relatives, the Rabbi...where's the goddamn plastic wrap?"
Handing it to her, Geordie hopes for a break in the conversation or at least a truce.
"And you let him do it," Maddie continues.
"Me?!"
"You're the one who decided to call off the Bris. Of course I know it's not very important to you or Michael but it happens to be a very important ritual in my family."
"You know there are a lot of men that think circumcision is a cruel and barbaric practice," Geordie follows Maddie out of the kitchen, if she has to speak to her back then so be it.
"I don't care what men think about their dicks! I care that you put Michael before me but why should I be surprised? You always have..." Maddie is steaming, she's so angry that she can barely look at Geordie right now.
"Oh for Christ's sake are we really going to go through this again? I don't want to have this conversation!"
"Yeah and I didn't want Michael to be the baby's father in the first place. But, no, you had to have it your way. It had to be Michael or no-one. And now he's a part of our lives forever, whether we like it or not!" Slamming the fridge door shut, Maddie walks out.
YOU ARE READING
Queer as Muke
Fanfiction"The thing you need to know is, it's all about sex. It's true. In fact they say men think about sex every twenty-eight seconds. Of course that's straight men. With gay men it's every nine." Twenty nine year old advertising executive Michael Cliffor...
