"Danny?"

"Yeah, Case?"

"Can I use the word 'prostate' on the air?"

Dan Rydell leaned back in his chair and smiled as he looked across theoffice at his partner. "Well, I suppose it would depend on the context."

"Followed by the word 'cancer' and preceded by the phrase 'former hockeyplayer Alexander Leech died of'."

"You're probably okay with that usage. I wouldn't, however,recommend something like 'Danny, I want to do things to your prostateyou never dreamed possible.' I don't think the network would like thattoo much."

At that moment, Casey was infinitely grateful that there were nobeverages of any sort in his mouth. Had there been, his keyboard wouldlikely no longer be functioning, due to the amount of liquid spewed forthonto it.

"Um, thanks Dan, I'll keep that in mind. In fact, I'll make a note ofthat." Casey picked up a nearby pen and started to not-reallywrite, while not-really mumbling, "Next time Dan and I discover thatwe're GAY, don't mention it on the air.....What?? What are youtalking about, Dan? Where the hell did that come from?"

Dan grinned. "I just wanted to make sure you knew which uses of'prostate' were and were not appropriate on the air. Come to think ofit, you'd have similar issues with 'prostrate' as well. Forexample, 'After being tackled, Deion Sanders was left prostrate on thefield,' would be fine. However, 'Dan, I want you prostrate on my bed,'would probably not be okay."

"You know what, I'm just going to leave now, because you're reallyfreaking me out. If you need me, I'll be in editing." Casey pickedup some papers and some tapes and walked out the door.

Approximately three minutes later, Casey reappeared. Seeminglyafraid to venture all the way into the office, he leaned against theclosed door. Looking over at Dan, he again exclaimed, "What?"

"'What' what? I'm gonna need a little more to go on than that,Casey." Dan didn't even bother looking up from his computer screen.

"You know what I'm referring to. Unless aliens have come down and erasedyour brain in the past three minutes, you know exactly what I'm talkingabout."

"To my knowledge, I have had no interactions with aliens in the pastthree minutes. It's been at least--" Dan stopped typing long enoughto check his watch. "--23 hours, but I digress. The point of myquestion was not that I didn't know what you were talking about, butthat I didn't know what you were asking. So I will rephrase: What,exactly, would you like to know, Case?"

"What's with the all the gay comments? Why, in the space of oneminute, did you make two separate, deliberate, and unsolicitedcomments about my wanting to get you into bed?"

Dan finally turned around in his chair and looked up at Casey. "Well, I don't know if I'd say 'unsolicited'. I mean, you were the onewho brought up the word 'prostate' in the first place. I think you werepretty much asking for that one."

"You're avoiding the question."

"Am I?"

"Yes, you are. Dan, are you trying to tell me something?"

"How very perspicuous of you, Casey."

"I think you mean 'perspicacious'."

"What?"

"Perspicacious - having keen judgement or understanding; acutelyperceptive."

"Ah. So what's 'perspicuous' then?"

"Clear in statement or expression; easily understood; lucid."

"What are you, a walking dictionary?"

"Yes, Webster's New World, page 1008. You're still avoiding thequestion."

"What was the question?"

Casey finally walked fully into the office, perching on the edge of thetable. "Dan, why the hell do you know anything about gay sex anyway?"

"That wasn't the original question."

"Well I'm changing the question then. Dan, what's going on?"

"Okay, you've now thrown out, like, four different questions. Pick one."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

Casey paused, draping himself backward over a chair, head resting onhis hands, looking at Dan across the desk. "Because I actually haveabout 4 million different questions and ideas running through myhead, and I can't manage to get a handle on any of them, or put theminto any kind of order or prioritize any of it. Which is kinda why Icame back from editing so quickly, with only the word 'What?'"

"Oh."

"That's all you can say? Just 'Oh.'?"

"What do you want me to say, Case?"

"I want you to tell me that I'm reading too much into this and we canjust go back to our regularly scheduled friendship, already inprogress."

"Fine. You're reading too much into this, and we will now return toour regularly scheduled friendship, already in progress."

"Is that true?"

"No."

After a few moments of banging his forehead on the back of the chair,Casey finally just looked up and said, "Dan, can you give mesomething I can work with here?"

"Fine, but give me about an hour - I gotta finish this segment I'm workingon."

"You mean, you're actually going to be able to work after thisconversation?"

"No, but it's a nice excuse to give me an hour to figure out what thehell I'm going to say to you."

"Fair enough. Although it looks like my day is shot forproductivity."

"Sorry about that. How about I give you this to go away with: You don'tknow as much about me as you think you do--"

"But--"

"Wait, let me finish. And, I don't think you know as much aboutyourself as you think you do."

"Gee, thanks Yoda.

"Fear not, young Jedi." Dan smiled, "I promise we'll talk in alittle while."

Frustrated, Casey clambered out of his chair, and headed back toediting. Dan leaned back, stared at the ceiling, and slowly startedspinning.

Half an hour later, Casey burst back into the office. For his part,Dan had neither written any more of his script, nor figured out whathe was going to say to Casey. Mostly because Dan still wasn't sure whatthere was to tell him. Mostly, he just wished he'd never made his prostatecomments to begin with.

"Okay," Casey said with an exasperated tone in his voice. "I can't waitany longer. But I have managed to put some order to mythoughts. So how about I just fire questions at you, and you answerthem?"

"Eh, what the hell. It's not like another half-hour was actually gonnahelp me anyway. What's the first question?"

"Why do you have any kind of a working knowledge of gay sex?"

"Hey, you knew what I was talking about..."

"Yeah, but it wasn't necessarily in my active memory. And besides, itsnot like it would be that hard to figure out from context."

"This from walking dictionary boy! Personally, I'd rather have gay sexin my active memory than a perfect definition of 'punctilious'."

"A punctilious definition, even."

"What?"

"Punctilious, it means 'very exact, scrupulous'."

"Can you use it that way?"

"Honestly, I have no idea."

"You know definitions of words you don't even know how to use?"

"Hey, you brought it up..."

"Never mind. The reason I know about gay sex is because I have a previouslyundisclosed fondness for gay movies."

"Really? Huh. Any reason this is previously undisclosed?"

"Well, since I have already been told by my father that I have a 'a gayhaircut', and the woman in business affairs said that it was'vaguely gay' when I sang 'Happy Birthday' to you on air, I didn't reallyfeel any great need to perpetuate the rumor."

"Ah."

"That's all you have to say? Just 'Ah.'?"

"Pretty much. So when did you discover this great love of gaymovies?"

"A little while ago. I was flipping through the channels one night,and there was nothing on. Then I came across this British moviecalled Get Real. It had sports in it, so I started watching. Turned out it was about two guys in high school who fall in love. Iended up getting completely sucked in. It was actually a really sweetmovie."

"Wow, you really are a woman."

"What, women like gay men?"

"So I've heard."

"Weird. Anyway, that was what got me hooked. And now there's thisnew show on cable called 'Queer As Folk', which is actually where I learnedmy intricate knowledge of gay sex. It's pretty crazy how explicit theyare.... Hey, maybe we should go work for a premium cable channel..."

"What, so then we could not only talk about gay sex on the air, but wecould actually fuck each other on top of the anchor desk too?"

Dan sputtered and nearly choked. Recovering nicely, he smiled and said,"I could think of worse things we could do....."

Casey blushed and went silent for a moment, looking slightly struck.When he finally managed to speak again, it was rather hesitantly. "Um,Dan, are you... um... you know.... ah...gay?"

"Hmm. Well that's an interesting question you got there, Case...."

"Interesting because the answer is 'yes', or interesting because theanswer is 'no'?"

"How about interesting because the answer is 'sort of'."

"Not quite what I was going for, Dan, but something I can work with atleast......"

"Something you can 'work with'?"

"You know.... an answer I can get a handle on... can use to gather otherinformation from you, based upon that original answer."

"For instance?"

"For instance, is your answer 'sort of' because you don't know, or becauseyou're bi?"

"Um... the... you know... second part of that...." The look on Dan'sface as he spoke indicated that he would really rather be hidingunder the table at that particular moment.

"You're bi?" Casey's face, on the other hand, seemed to show nothingbut fascination.

"Yeah," was Dan's sheepish reply.

"Wow."

"Yeah."

For some reason, it took Casey almost a full day to completelyprocess everything from their various conversations.

"Dan?"

"Yeah, Case?"

"What did you mean, yesterday, when you said that you thought Ididn't know as much about myself as I think I do? Or something to thateffect, only grammatically correct."

Dan paused in his typing, trying very hard not to look panicked. "Uh...nothing really, it was just something I said to get you out of the room."

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Because I'm blatantly lying to you in a pathetic and obviouslyfailed attempt to not have this conversation."

"Come on Rydell, spit it out."

"I'd really rather not."

"You know I'm not going to shut up until you tell me what you meant."

"Unfortunately, I do indeed know that." Then Dan muttered tohimself, "All too well in fact..."

"C'mon Dan, you know want to tell me."

"Actually, no, I really don't. But I am becoming acutely aware thatthis fact is never going to penetrate your stubborn, piggish little mind."

"Piggish?"

"Yes, piggish. As in 'like a pig, gluttonous or filthy'. As in yourgluttonous desire for whatever it is you think I'm thinking."

"I don't think you can use it that way."

"Whatever."

"You've yet again successfully avoided my question."

"That was the intent."

"Dan, if you don't tell me what you meant, what you think you know aboutme that I don't, I'm going to go out there and tell Natalie that youhave something you're not sharing."

"Fine, I'll tell you, but you so don't want to involve Natalie in thisone."

"Why, what is it?"

Dan spun around and looked at across the room at Casey. "I don't thinkyou're straight either."

"Oh, you don't?"

"No, I don't."

"And what, exactly, brought you to this conclusion?"

"You really wanna know?"

"Yes, I really do. What was it?"

"'Homicide.'"

"'Homicide?'"

"Yes, every time we watch 'Homicide', instead of commenting on what agreat show it is, or how well written it is, or how interesting the charactersare, all you ever comment on is Bayliss."

"He's a good character."

"The best on the show even, but that that's not what you normally say."

"It isn't?"

"No."

"What do I say?" Casey was beginning to look a little worried now.

"Most often you comment on his neck, and how long it is. You'venever gone so far as to say that it's attractive, but I think that'swhat you're thinking. Or sometimes you comment on how tall he is. Orhow long his fingers are. All in all, not your typical straight mancomments."

Casey just kind of coughed and sputtered. "Hmm.... really?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sure I've commented on his character before. Like in the laterseasons?"

"Yeah, I believe you've made several comments on how you thought it wasinteresting that Bayliss ended up being bisexual."

Casey just nodded, clearly trying to put on an inquisitiveexpression. "Hmm. That's interesting."

"Yeah, I thought so."

A week later, Dan walked into the office in the early morning to findCasey at his desk, already at work.

Upon Dan's entrance, Casey looked up and calmly said, "So Dan,would you want to have sex on the anchor desk?"

After Dan retrieved from the floor everything he had previously beencarrying, he looked over at Casey and responded, "Well, I'm not surethat I'd want to do it on the air, but I won't say the thought hasn'tcrossed my mind."

"With me, or just in general?"

"Excuse me?"

"Have you thought about having sex on the anchor desk with me, or justin general?"

"Do you really want to know the answer to that?"

Casey looked up at Dan with an almost smug look on his face. "Yeah,actually, I do."

Dan was getting noticeably more and more edgy. "Can I ask you aquestion before I answer that?"

"Um, I guess... "

"You know that conversation we had last week, about you possibly notbeing straight?"

"Yeah?"

"What's your current opinion of that theory?"

"Let's just say I've watched a lot of Homicide this past week."

"And?"

"Kyle Secor is one damn attractive man."

"And would you want to have sex with him on the anchor desk?"

"I don't know, the anchor desk is kind of hard...."

"How about behind the anchor desk?"

"Now that could be fun."

"Casey, would you want to have sex with me behind the anchor desk?"

Completely, straight-faced, Casey looked up at Dan and simply said, "Nope."

Dan's hopeful expression fell within an instant. But before he couldsay anything, or skulk away, Casey smiled and added, "I want to havesex with you in a bed."

Quicker than Casey imagined possible, Dan had walked around the deskand was leaning against it, the outsides of their legs lightlytouching. He reached over and fidgeted with the collar of Casey's henley."That can be arranged, you know."

Casey smirked in response, "Can it?"

"Oh yeah, it definitely can." Dan looked up and out the glass wallsof their office. It was still early enough that the rest of thestudio was essentially empty. Confident that they were alone enoughfor the time being, Dan leaned in for the kiss.

They were both hesitant at first, lips lightly brushing, fingerstentatively intertwining, both still making sure that the other was alrightwith this new development. The hesitation, however, was only momentary.Once Dan slipped his tongue into Casey's mouth, and Casey drew Dan intohis lap, they both knew they were all right. And they were both gladthey had not returned to their regularly scheduled friendship, alreadyin progress.

After about a minute (or ten, they really weren't sure), Casey pulledaway, and looked up at Dan. "We really shouldn't do this here. Andyou're getting heavy."

Dan stood up, stretched, and looked at his watch. "You know we don'tofficially have to be here for at least another three hours....."

"Pshaw, we could even be a bit late."

"Pshaw?"

"Yeah, you know, as in 'an exclamation of impatience, disgust,contempt, etc.'"

"More like as in 'Hi, I'm Casey McCall, and I just stepped out of thefifties.'"

"Hey, you wanna get pinned?" Casey asked as he stood, and leaned infor a quick kiss.

"Hell, can we just get back to my apartment?"

"Now that, I think I can do." And they both grabbed their coats andheaded for the door, both trying to remember if there were securitycameras in the elevators.