Third Date

"There's a bottle on his penis?"

"There's a bottle on his penis," Clef confirmed.

The voice on the other end of the line was silent. Then, with a low exasperated sigh, it asked the one question that any reasonable or not-so-reasonable person could ask in this situation.

"HOW?"

"Beats me. Hey, 'Draki, how the fuck did you manage to get a bottle on your dick anyway?" Clef asked.

"Fuck you," Kondraki grumbled.

"He doesn't say," Clef said into the phone. "Anyway, I was just wondering, is this a regular thing with your Dad? Is there a procedure for this sort of thing? Like, do you guys have a bottle-dick-remover on call or something? Some guy you usually call in this sort of situation?"

"Alto…"

"Look, I figure bottle-dick-remover is kind of like a plumber: you don't want to call someone else if you already know a guy, because the second guy will kind of fuck things up because they won't do it the same way as your usual g— and he just hung up on me. Your son is fucking rude, Ben."

"I swear to God if you don't do something about this now, I will not only kill you, I will make sure it is painful," Kondraki snarled.

"Hey, don't worry about it!" Clef said. "It's no big deal. We'll just get you to Site-69, and we'll have a medic cut that bottle off your dick with what the hell is that fucking noise, it sounds like a fire alarm?"

"It's the fucking fire alarm," Kondraki confirmed.

Clef carefully went to the apartment door and stuck his head out the door. Every door on the floor was open, and all of Kondraki's neighbors were walking out into the hallway, grumbling to themselves as they filed down the hall to the stairs. "Hey," Clef asked. "You know what this is about?"

"Not exactly," an older woman in a blue flower-print nightie said. "I think it might just be a false alar—"

There was a cry of alarm from the end of the hallway as the door to the stairs opened, revealing a cloud of thick white smoke.

"— or not, holy shit!" the old woman cried. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

Clef carefully closed the door and turned to his boyfriend, who had somehow managed to go green with nausea, white with fear, and red with rage all at once. "Your apartment building's on fire," he said, unnecessarily.

Kondraki looked down at the Aquafina bottle on his dick, then over at his apartment door, then back at the windows, and finally back down at his dick. "Leave me to die," he moaned. "Save yourself!"

"Bullshit," Clef replied curtly. "We ride together. We die together. You're coming with me if I have to knock you out and carry you on my back."

"You couldn't knock me out if you tried," Kondraki retorted. "I'll kill you first."

"Oh, there we go again with the killing and the stabbing. God, Ben, you've got such a one-track mind. Just suck it up and throw on a trench coat or something. No one will know."

Kondraki rushed back into his bedroom. There was the sound of some rummaging around in the closet. He came out wearing a black trench coat with a gigantic, tent-shaped bulge in the front at crotch level. "Wow," he said flatly. "This sure did help a lot. No one will notice anything wrong now, yes siree-bob."

"Fuck…" Clef glanced out the door. The smoke was starting to build up a bit, and the last few neighbors were quickly making their way down the stairs, heads lowered and wet rags placed over their faces. "All right," Clef said. "I didn't want to do this… but we have no choice." He took a deep breath. "Where's your pantry?"

"Wow, holy shit," Captain Buchanan said. "That's not great."

The fire was largely contained to a single unit on the northern side of the apartment building, but it was clear from the flames licking the curtains and the lurid orange-red glow that could be seen through the window that this was no mere trash can fire, a fact further evident to the dozens of glum-looking people in night dress standing on the sidewalk nearby. "All right," he said into the radio. "Let's get these bystanders out of the way first. I want…"

Buchanan's voice trailed off.

There were two men walking down the sidewalk, both of them wearing scarves around their heads and wide-brimmed hats. Only scarves around their heads and wide-brimmed hats.

And one other thing.

Water bottles.

Each of the two men in question had a water bottle on the end of their dicks.

Captain Buchanan's radio handset fell from his nerveless fingers. He felt his world collapse inward. The fire, his waiting firefighters, the bystanders standing on the sidewalk… it all fell away, leaving behind only himself, his eyes, and two stark-naked middle aged men merrily walking down the street with hats on their heads, scarves on their faces, and water bottle on their ding-a-lings.

The two men skipped into a car. One of them turned, made eye contact, and shot Captain Buchanan the finger-guns.

The car started up and drove away.