The Curse of Benji Monroe

by Nelson

Ben swiped at the sofa pillow with irritation, peeking behind and under everything to find the elusive remote control. "VIC! Where's the REMOTE?!" he yelled in the general direction of the stairs.

He heard a faraway, "What?" from the second floor, the sound of Vic's voice swallowed by the distance. Ben yelled again with his pitch a notch higher, "The REMOTE!! Where IS it?!" Still looking with no success, he muttered, "Damn it."

"Watch your mouth," Vic corrected mildly as he came down the stairs. He appeared in the doorway and leaned against the frame. "What's the matter? I couldn't hear you upstairs."

"Oh, you can't hear me when I'm yelling but say one thing wrong under my breath…" Ben grumbled at the reprimand, kneeling on his hands and knees to check under the sofa.

Vic grinned to himself and admired Ben's round behind poking up as he lowered himself onto his elbows to see under the furniture. His jeans stretched tight across his backside while he peeked and patted under the couch for the missing remote. "Lose something?" Vic asked.

Finding nothing, Ben stood up from his crouched position, and focused on peeling the sofa cushions away to look under them instead. "The remote is gone again," he said. "Do you know where it is?"

"Nope," Vic said. He glanced toward the kitchen when he heard Maggie's toenails on the backdoor accompanied by her yip to be let in. "The last time I used it," Vic said, "I put it back in the holder on the end table…where it belongs."

Ben rolled his eyes. "A big help YOU are," he said.

"Settle down," Vic said as he straightened up. "It's here somewhere. When all else fails, try the buttons on the TV," he replied as he went to the kitchen.

"'Settle down'," Ben mimicked soundlessly as Vic left. Vic was right; Ben probably was the one who misplaced it. He always found it easier to toss it someplace other than the designated holder.

Vic let Maggie in and smiled at her as she pranced excitedly, preceding Vic back to the living room to find her favorite person. Vic had just put one foot to the carpet when he heard an unwelcome expletive roll off the tongue of his irritated lover.

He frowned at what he heard. "What was that?" Vic said, materializing in the living room without Benji knowing it.

Ben grimaced to himself, on his knees now in front of the recliner, checking the cracks for the remote. He gulped when he realized Vic had heard his angry curse while he was thoroughly distracted by The Quest for the Missing Remote. He straightened up slowly, his partner coming into view beyond the back of the recliner as he rose. Ben scrambled to avoid the question, opting instead for a detour. "Vic, I didn't hear you come back in. You gave me a heart attack." He touched his hand to his heart to drive the message home. "You need to wear a bell around your neck."

Vic looked meaningfully at Ben, whose pink cheeks were starting to glow even against his tan. "I'm sure you didn't know I was in here," Vic said. "I'm still waiting for you to tell me what you said."

"Um… nothing?" Ben tried futilely. A mixed expression of hope mingled with worry shadowed his features.

Vic's lips pressed together until there was nothing more than a pink line. They eventually parted enough for him to speak. "You certainly DID say something, and you know it. Upstairs. Now."

One-word sentences. Never good. "But, Vic!" Ben rocked from foot to foot, but didn't put one in front of the other. "Whhhhy?"

"MOVE!" he roared, heading toward Ben with a finger pointing the way. Ben jumped at the sharp command, then hastily followed Vic's finger and headed for the stairs before Vic could reach him.

"But, why, Vic?" Ben asked, knowing full well the answer.

"You know why. You're intelligent enough to choose more appropriate words to fill your vocabulary. We've talked about this before."

Crap. Ben's mind was racing and came to an abrupt stop on the best excuse he could think of. He pled his case on the way up, with Vic's footfalls landing heavily behind him. "There's nothing wrong with it, Vic. It's NOT a bad word!"

"It most certainly IS a bad word, and one you know I don't allow!"

"No, it isn't!" Ben exclaimed as he stepped into the upstairs hallway. He turned around to face Vic, placing his hands on his hips, his confidence buoyed by a perfectly logical explanation. "Do you even know where the word came from?!"

Vic turned Ben by his shoulders, totally ignoring his hands-on-hips stance, and briskly pushed him toward their bedroom and the master bath. "I don't give a rat's behind where it came from. The simple fact is, it came from YOUR mouth, and that's all I need to know."

Vic's hands lay heavily on Ben's shoulders pushing him along. "But, Vic!" Ben said. "You aren't being reasonable! You just don't understand…" Ben saw the bedroom door getting closer and knew he was in for a soap sandwich in the very near future, and he wasn't even hungry. He stopped abruptly just inside the bedroom door and turned around again to Vic, this time pushing his hands against his partner's chest for distance.

"Benjamin…" Vic said slowly, in his lowered warning voice. "Turn around…and go in the bathroom. Now."

"But, Vic! It's not a curse word. It's NOT!"

"It IS and you KNOW it, now move!"

"Wait, Vic. Let me explain!" Ben said trying to make him understand, "'Fuck' is not a curse word. It's an acronym."

Vic paused, genuinely taken aback by Ben's line of defense. "Is that a fact?"

"Yes! It shouldn't count as a curse word if you know the meaning."

"I know the meaning, all right…" Vic said with his hard eyes boring into Ben. "And, you said it again, by the way." Vic crossed his arms, intrigued at where Ben was going with the argument to the point of being nearly speechless.

Ben stomped his foot softly, and said, "I wasn't cursing when I said it just now, and you don't know what it means or you wouldn't think it's bad. It's an acronym that makes a word; like 'scuba'."

Vic said nothing at first and held a look with his partner. "Oh, I can't wait to hear this," Vic said eventually, and he meant it. "How in the world does scuba have anything at all to do with this conversation?"

"I told you. Because it's an acronym, just like fu…, well, the other word."

Vic leaned against the hall wall and crossed his ankles to match his arms, settling in to hear this fascinating explanation. His curious eyes settled on his partner. "Do tell."

Ben took a deep breath and prepared to move in for the kill. He thought he could see the faintest glimmer of hope on the horizon. "Scuba stands for 'self-contained underwater breathing apparatus'. Got it?"

"Okay," Vic said. "And, that's significant, how?"

Ben explained, "Because the 'f' word is an acronym, just like 'scuba'. It comes from 'for unlawful carnal knowledge'." Vic lowered his eyelids slowly then after a moment to count quickly to ten, he looked back at Ben for the rest of the story. "It was the charge given to people for adultery in the old days, you see," Ben continued to explain. "And, if you were convicted, you had to wear the word on your clothing. See? Not dirty at all. It's a LEGAL term. You should understand that, being an attorney and all…" Innocent eyes searched Vic's.

Vic was unimpressed with the rationale once it was all spelled out, and straightened up to pick up where they left off earlier. "I don't care what it used to mean, although your knowledge of etymology is amazing, as is your argument. However," he said turning Ben around again, pushing him into the bedroom, "I know what it means today. And, when YOU use it, it means a soaping. Now, move!"

"But, I don't want you to soap my…" Ben paused, mid-sentence. "…my knowledge of what?" Ben asked curiously, stopping and looking back over his shoulder at Vic.

"Etymology. I'll explain it later," Vic said, turning Ben back around. "Right now, we have something else to address." His big hands landed once again on Ben's shoulders and pushed him to the bathroom with a swat to keep Ben from stopping yet again.

**********

Ben was lying on his side on the sofa, nearly naked, as he had stripped to his underwear. Regardless of the falling evening temperatures, Ben was hot as usual. He watched CSI with his head in Vic's lap, relaxing under Vic's touch as his fingers combed through his hair. The Quest for the Missing Remote had ended with Vic finding it lying on the kitchen counter, where Ben likely left it when he went to get a drink or answer the phone. Vic claimed the remote, and vowed that it would be returned to its rightful holding place when they were finished watching TV; he encouraged Ben to do the same thing the next time he had it.

Ben heard a soft chuckle coming from his partner and he rolled back enough to see him. Ben asked, "What's so funny?" knowing there wasn't anything funny about the murder and mayhem that they were seeing on CSI.

"An acronym. I have never in my life…" Vic said, remembering Ben's argument from earlier.

Ben tried to look pitiful, and said, "It IS. Acronym usage is NOT a punishable offense, Vic." The taste of soap still permeated his mouth, and probably still would even if Vic had let him rinse longer. "At least, it shouldn't be…"

"That all depends on the context. I don't recall your use of the acronym in question being used at all in the context of charges for extramarital sex." Vic's dark eyes had a glimmer to them as he spoke to his partner.

"Semantics," Ben said.

"'Semantics'. Exactly. The study of meanings," Vic said with a smile, enjoying Ben's continued attempts to minimize the severity of his word choice. "And, you-know-what doesn't MEAN what it used to."

"But, it DID mean what I said. Zach and I looked it up on the computer," he said.

Vic shook his head at Benji and said, "Just why would you do that?"

Ben grinned sheepishly and said, "We were interested?"

"I suppose you could look up more harmful things on the internet."

"Zach had to do it for a class. Well, not THAT word, but some others. We decided to look up a few words that weren't part of his homework," Ben said turning back to the television. He closed his eyes as Vic's fingers continued to part his hair. He said sleepily, "What was that word you said again? Ety-something-or-other?"

"Etymology," Vic said, smiling. "The history of words, where they came from, how they have been used."

"Oh," Ben said. "You need to be more open-minded. It shouldn't count if I have a perfectly logical explanation."

"You need to be more closed-mouthed, or choose your words more carefully," Vic said. He moved his hand from Ben's hair and Ben groaned in protest that Vic had stopped. Vic slid it instead over Ben's boxer-clad behind then trailed a finger up his bare spine, turning Ben's former protests to little moans of pleasure. Vic looked at his golden back, his eyes following the progress of his fingertip. He felt a stirring from the skin on skin contact with Ben, and he said about the language, "I hope I got my point across." He was trying to keep on topic, but was finding it hard with his half-dressed lover lying in his lap.

Ben shivered with the tickle on his back, and rolled back enough to see Vic. "Like you ever have a problem getting your point across." He saw a familiar look in Vic's eyes, and he smiled at him.

Vic's hand slithered into the front of Ben's boxers. "Am I getting it across now?"

Ben smiled at Vic and crawled up from his reclining position to straddle Vic's lap on his knees. Ben leaned into Vic and kissed him. "Is that what you were trying to get across?" Ben asked after the kiss. He looked puzzled at Vic's grimace, thinking maybe he missed the point after all. "What?"

"Soap," Vic said.

Ben grinned at him and said, "Serves you right. I should have gotten off on that one. If for no other reason than as a reward for my creativity."

"Creativity. I'll give you that," Vic said. "I'd rather you channel that creativity another way, though." He tossed Ben on his back on the sofa and lowered himself on top of his lover, moving to kiss him again. He stopped when he felt Ben's hand to his chest, stopping his descent. "What?"

"Are you sure you want to taste soap again?" Ben said.

"No, I don't want to taste soap again. But, I'm willing to make the sacrifice." He kissed Ben's grinning lips, closing his mind against the bitter aftertaste of suds.

End.