Literal Sluts

Hakkai rarely finds the time to masturbate. He's too busy making sure the household runs smoothly. Frankly, he has no idea how bored housewives manage to have flings with milkmen on what's implied to be a frequent basis, because during the day he hardly has a time for an extra cup of tea, let alone an affair or even a quick session of discreet self-loving.

In the morning, Hakkai makes breakfast for himself, does the cleaning that's best done while Gojyo is out of the way, and then makes breakfast for Gojyo. If the redhead isn't up by then he subtly reminds him that it's daytime and that he's been up for several hours, usually by vacuuming the hall by his door, and if that doesn't work, under his bed. Gojyo's door doesn't lock, and even if it did, Hakkai would manage to get in there and clean. He's fairly convinced if he doesn't give the room a thorough cleaning at least once a week the things under the bed will start colonizing and reproducing at an alarming rate. Gojyo may think he's a nag and possibly even a psychopath, but Hakkai is doing him a favor. Gojyo gave him a new life - it would be criminal of Hakkai not to push him to live his.

Once Gojyo's done with breakfast, he finishes the remainder of the dishes, waters the plants, and usually cleans the rest of the house top-to-bottom. Gojyo is delegated to some repair task if he hasn't managed to find an excuse to leave the premises. Hakkai then spends a few hours knitting or mending clothes, not just for he and Gojyo but for Goku and Sanzo as well. If Gojyo's home, he plays Bach on the radio, if he's gone, he catches up with his soap operas.

It's not that he's embarrassed to watch them, it's just that Gojyo might fear him even more if he knew Hakkai watched them.

After a light lunch, it's time to tutor Goku, and by the time he stops off at the market and returns home, it's time for supper. Occasionally he goes with Gojyo into town, but mostly he stays home and reads. He's nearly done with his qigong correspondence course. He's considering either lock-picking or aggressive landscaping for his next foray.

Hakkai is rather fond of trite sentiments like 'early to bed, early to rise': they have their basis in fact, and Hakkai attributes his health and good cheer to getting a full eight hours of sleep every night. He reads something relaxing for an hour or two in bed, and then falls asleep. He's happiest when he doesn't dream at all.

There is no space in his life for being overwhelmed by the physical urges that plague man. That's not to say Hakkai is a neuter, but while eight months may be enough time for the newly-turned youkai to physically recover (enough to kill a few ne'er-do-wells, even), there are plenty of things that are still tender, raw, pink and unhealed. They're not visible. There's no balm for them. And even if the occasional lurid phrase in a book or on TV reminds him that he is, indeed, a man - even if watching a woman climb into Gojyo's lap makes something hot and strange uncoil in his belly - he hasn't acted on these untoward feelings. He couldn't say when exactly the idea entered his mind, but at some point he decided he'd be better off if he never gave into those urges again. They'd never brought him anything good.

Besides, he truly doesn't have the time.

Hakkai considers pointing this out when Gojyo hands him the magazine after lunch one day. It features a dark-haired, slender woman on the cover. She's draped over a desk and wearing a skirt that's far too short to be professional. The title of the magazine is apparently Literal Sluts.

Hakkai holds it at arm's length with his fingertips. The lady peers at him in a way that somehow seems inappropriately suggestive. What an idea. It's merely a photograph.

"You told me to start goin' through my old stuff like, last week or something. I threw a bunch of it out--"

"--Into the burnable bin, I should hope."

"--Yeah, sheesh-- anyway, this one wasn't my thing so I was gonna toss it, but I thought it might be your thing. Y'know. Sexy, educated ladies." Gojyo seems very pleased with himself, perhaps by the idea he knows Hakkai well enough to make a guess at his 'type'. Hakkai finds this to be a mixture of disgusting, annoying and endearing. He hasn't brought the magazine any closer.

"And what am I meant to do with this?" Hakkai asks testily. He knows the answer damn well, of course, but he's irritated by this development and hopes to set up an opportunity to lecture his lewd friend. He's already forming a list of talking points about exploitation, and respect, and having self-control.

"You've gotta be shitting me." Gojyo leans in, scrutinizing Hakkai's face. "You're a dude." Unspoken: he knows it for a fact, since he's seen Hakkai naked. "So you can't expect me to believe you've never whacked it to a few dirty pictures. That's part of the joy of puberty."

"Believe whatever you want," Hakkai says stiffly, and tosses the offending magazine on the table. He doesn't know why he didn't just throw it into the burnables bin. "It's the truth. I grew up in a Catholic orphanage, remember? That sort of thing is rather frowned upon."

"No way. There weren't any older kids with the hook-up?"

Upon reflection, there may have been. Hakkai recalls the groups of boys, and the shuffling, and the whispers at night with flashlights and heavy breathing. The way they talked made him sick to his stomach, but also made him aroused. He always felt there was something deeply wrong, though he couldn't have described it if he tried. Maybe there even times he wanted to join, wanted to see the things they whispered to each other about, but he knew they wouldn't want him there. Even if they were mostly just sharing a moment of being lost in their own fantasies, he wasn't a welcome presence.

"I don't know. I really didn't have much idea that it existed. I was too busy studying."

"And you never got the urge to crank one out? Never saw a picture of a titty and went to town? You're fuckin' with me. No one's that uptight." Gojyo sits back, satisfied with his conclusion as if he's won an argument. Hakkai lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"I fail to see," Hakkai says testily, "How my masturbatory inclinations are any of your business."

"I'm not trying to turn this into some kinda major issue or something. I just know - hey, sometimes I wanna look at some naked chick I've never seen and will never meet. It's a pretty normal thing for a guy. I figured even you felt like that sometimes, and this looked like something you'd like, so I gave it to ya." Gojyo shrugs. He's not supposed to be the reasonable one, and it makes Hakkai irate. "I don't really care if you get off to it or not. If you don't want it, throw it out."

With his hands shoved deep in his pockets, Gojyo shuffles out the door. Hakkai counts backward from ten, sitting stock still. Certain that Gojyo's left, he picks up the magazine and storms into his bedroom, locking the door behind him.

This is ridiculous. He has far too much to do. Far too much to bother with this.

He's half-hard just from his conversation with Gojyo, which is depressing. Is he so repressed that hearing his friend say such vulgarities as 'cranking one out' makes him want to debase himself?

Hakkai's so anxious he might bite his nails off, tear his hair out, crawl out of his skin. How is it than a simple pornographic magazine can have him this worked up? He thinks again of the impudent way Gojyo looked at him, and draws the curtains in spite of it being midday.

He falls back on the bed, the magazine on his stomach. Literal Sluts. What a terrible name for a magazine. 'Literary' might have been a better choice, though none of the women seem to be doing much reading or writing.

His heart thuds heavily with a sort of dread when he finally opens the magazine. It's very much what he's expecting, boring women in pencil skirts showing their stocking seams, and Hakkai admonishes himself for being concerned by it. In spite of what he said to Gojyo, yes, he's seen pornography before, and he also knows for a fact this is one of his friend's tamer collections. Even as the women remove various pieces of clothing and get on their knees for anonymous men in neckties, he only feels a sort of grudging stir in his pants. It's all so very vulgar.

There's a sort of smell about this magazine. It's an old, lingering scent that must of once have been strong, all bitterness and salty sweat. Hakkai turns the page in anticipation, his mouth going dry.

The next page he flips to has an ad for giant pink condoms. Several pages have been ripped out, and the rest of the magazine is more of the same. Hakkai flips through the glossy pages one more time to be certain. The woman on the cover is nowhere to be found.

She is a rather beautiful woman. Green-eyed, dark-haired, wonderful legs. Her chest is rather smaller than one might expect for such a magazine, and the spectacles look a bit familiar. Something about that short hair with long bangs is also...

Someone slams the front door open. Hakkai sits up so quickly his head spins a little. From the strength of the slam and the pacing of the footfalls, he knows it's Goku before the boy calls out--

"Hey Hakkai! You didn't show up for the lesson and Sanzo told me to get out or die! Are you okay?"

Well, he hadn't been planning to use that erection anyway.

"I'm fine!" Hakkai calls cheerfully, tucking the magazine under his pillow before he straightens himself out. It really had been silly of him to try and find the time to masturbate, he's far too busy. However, after doing a quick mental review, he realizes he has time to spare if he skips his reading for the night and stays up an extra hour or two. Considering the possibilities for that time, Hakkai feels revitalized and completes Goku's lesson with particular vigor

Hakkai outdoes himself with dinner. He's still cooking when Gojyo comes back from wherever-he-was, and he's engrossed enough in it he does quite a good job of ignoring him until dinner's on the table.

"Wow, looks great," Gojyo says, hunkering down in front of the feast. He leers when he asks what the occasion is, because he thinks he knows.

"I suppose I wanted to show you how much I appreciate you," Hakkai says mildly, pouring him tea.

Gojyo dips an egg roll into its sauce carefully, and eats it with suspicion. The food is fucking delicious, but Hakkai is so serene he's not sure if it's really a meal of thanks, or if death by bloat or poison is just around the corner. He decides that Hakkai probably wouldn't kill him just for teasing him with a porno mag - but he may end up paralyzed or blinded for life. Gojyo cleans his plate and asks for seconds anyway.

"Did you enjoy it?" Hakkai asks from the kitchen as he's cleaning up. Gojyo has been banished from helping, and is currently lounging on the couch like a beached whale.

"I was really hoping for a contrast in various flavors and texture. I thought the bitterness against the sweetness and umami turned out even better than expected."

"Th'fuck's umami?" Gojyo mutters, not really wanting to know the answer. He lights up a nice post-supper cigarette.

"If I find ashes in the couch cushions, I'm going to smother you with one of them while you sleep," Hakkai calls sweetly.

"Yeah right, like you didn't already put poison in the ginger dipping sauce!"

No reply. Hakkai turns the faucet off in a single, deft movement. Gojyo wonders when they got comfortable enough with one another to joke around like this. Then, for a horrible moment, he wonders if Hakkai didn't think it was funny. The four steps Hakkai takes from the kitchen to the living room are harrowing. Gojyo flinches when he reaches the back of the couch, but nothing happens.

There's a magazine dangling in his face. Literal Sluts, the one with that hot green-eyed chick.

Looks like Hakkai didn't throw it out.

"It's very rude," Hakkai says, and Gojyo groans because no good conversations starts with those words, "To give someone something to read that has pages torn out."

"First of all," Gojyo says, sitting up to look at his friend, "No one reads porn. Second of all - you actually looked at it?"

"This young lady - Miss Ho - is missing from the center of the magazine. I wonder why that could be."

Shit. All Gojyo can muster is a weak "I wonder."

"I have a theory." Hakkai has one hand on his hip. He's gloating politely. "Would you like to hear it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really."

"Let's hear it."

"You lied when you said this magazine wasn't your thing. And you gave it to me on a whim, wondering if I'd make the connection."

Gojyo makes an uncharacteristically smart decision and says nothing.

"Tell me, if I were to go through the rest of the stash - the one you think you've kept hidden from me - would I perhaps find the photos of the woman in question?"

"No," Gojyo mumbles, "I kinda... ruined 'em."

"I'm not a woman," Hakkai points out, his hand still on his hip. Gojyo just stares. He might as well have said, 'I'm not a giant catfish' or 'I'm not made of a hundred singing painted eggs.' In reply to Gojyo's gaze, he looks prim and happy. "You know that already. However, the woman in these photos--"

Could he take any longer to spit out his point? "Looks like you if you were a chick." Gojyo lets the cat out of the bag so Hakkai doesn't have to.

"Do you wish I were a woman, Gojyo?" In a single, fluid movement, Hakkai places his hand on the back of the chair and leans forward, bringing him closer than Gojyo's entirely comfortable with. Hakkai smiles and the air in the room raises several degrees in temperature and Gojyo can't remember what exactly his plan had been here. He sucks at plans. He just thought it would make Hakkai squirm and Literal Sluts was at the bottom of his well-used pile.

"It's not that. It wasn't 'cause she's a girl, not that I don't like girls, but it was more because - I mean. Crap. You're Hakkai. You don't need to be a girl. You're already great at keeping house so--"

A creak of shifting weight. Hakkai's lips brush over the ridge of Gojyo's brow. It's enough to shut him up, and they're both glad for that. "I'm incredibly disappointed I didn't get to see those pictures. Perhaps you could describe them to me, if you remember them?"

"Um," Gojyo says, very intelligently.

"If not, I'll just have to use my imagination," Hakkai sighs. His breath tickles Gojyo's ear. Damn it.

"You - uh - don't have to use your imagination?" Gojyo suggests.

"Oh?"

The question lingers in the air as Hakkai drifts to his bedroom. Gojyo stares after him for one, two, three, four seconds. What the fuck just happened?

By the fifth second Gojyo's hauled ass off the couch. By the seventh, he's naked and closing Hakkai's door behind him.


~EPILOGUE~

The Sanzo Party is enjoying their breakfast with typical enthusiasm, which means Sanzo is ignoring everyone in favor of his newspaper. That is, until Hakkai dangles a magazine right into his line of vision.

"I found this while I was packing our things. I thought it might be yours."

Gojyo spits out his miso.

Sanzo only glimpses the title, Monks Gone Wild, before drawing his gun.