There's Never Enough Listerine

Finally, the bastard let go of Jordan’s hair and he was able to fall back onto the floor gasping for air. “See, you play shy and innocent but I knew that you wanted this. Shame Tiffany interrupted us before and you could’ve had it twice already.” Jordan stared at the floor in shock, he wanted to curse him out but no words would come. “It was nice of her to get you all prettied up for me though. Of course a thank you would be nice.”

“Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” Adam stood up his dick still swinging freely. “You should get back to work now.” The music immediately stopped and Adam put his cock away and buckled his belt. In a second he was the spitting image of an elite businessman, while Jordan looked like the discarded cum rag he felt like.

Jordan slowly stood up and picked up his shoes, he tried to block the memories of what he had just done as he worked his feet back into his heels by repeating the only thing he had managed to memorize all day. Cosmo’s top 10 tips to a sultry nighttime look to drive him wild. Before he could escape Adam gave one more piece of advice, “Oh and, Ms.Applebottom, next time, less teeth.”

The rest of the day was a real struggle to stay focused on work. He actually found himself glad when his phone alarm beeped and he had to touch up his makeup or answer one of Janet’s random quizzes. When he wasn’t he was reminded again of what he looked like now with each typo and grammar mistake. He blamed his new press-on nails. Soon he started picking up his phone out of reflex to study or to fix his makeup.

Finally, the workday was done! Eric had picked him up on the way home and immediately asked how his day was. “Fine.” He lied. “How was yours?” He replied quickly so Eric wouldn’t have time to insist he could tell something was wrong.

“Pretty good. Hectic, but I managed to get everything I needed done today. Oh, I meant to tell you yesterday, I found your wallet.” Eric took the little piece of leather out of the console and handed it to Jordan.

Jordan held his wallet in his hand, the black leather contrasting his bright red nails. Was it really only last week he had at least a modicum of control over his life? “Hey!” He exclaimed upon opening it, “it’s empty!”

“Yeah, the bartender said that’s how it was turned in.”

“Great, I’ll have to cancel my credit cards, and whoever stole it has my license, that’ll be a bitch to replace.”

“It’s not that bad, buddy.” Eric could tell his words didn’t help so, slowly, he tried something. He took Jordan’s free hand and intertwined their fingers as he drove.

“What are you doing?!” snatching his hand away.

“...practicing.” he lied to ease his friend’s dwindling masculine pride. “I thought, well...I was hoping I could so if I ever get a real girlfriend things will go better.”

Jordan sighed, giving him his hand back. “...okay. Just don’t be weird.” It was at least one small way he could repay his best friend. He wouldn’t admit it to Eric, or himself for that matter, but having his rough, strong, hand to hold on to somehow did make him feel a small amount of comfort.

They finally broke apart as they pulled into a parking spot at their apartment complex. Jordan immediately kicked off his heels and threw himself on the couch. “What happened?” Eric asked as he knelt on the floor beside Jordan.

“Nothing.” He said softly. “Just...a rough day. Boss is a dick.”

“They usually are.”

“Nah, you were a nice boss.” Jordan took Eric’s hand. “I’m sorry I was terrible.”

“Hey, you weren’t terrible. Not in the ways that count.”

“You’re just saying that cause I’m your girlfriend.” Jordan laughed.

“Momma didn’t raise no fool.”

Jordan playfully slapped Eric’s broad shoulder before sitting up. “Any more talk like that and you’re sleeping on the couch tonight.” Jordan went to their temporarily shared room and spent the next ten minutes brushing his teeth. Upon his exit, he stopped and his eyes lit up with glee. The tape was gone from his door! Tentatively Jordan tried the knob and sure enough, it opened! “Eric!”

Eric came running and found Jordan standing in an empty husk of a room. Gone were the dirty clothes and clean clothes piles, gone were his DVDs, blu-rays, and his computer. Gone was his bed, carpet, and worst of all his keyboard. Even his drywall was gone.

The stunned pair heard the front door open and close as Lauren came in carrying groceries which she sat on the dining table when she spotted the couple staring into the empty room. “The guy came by today,” Lauren called from the kitchen. “He said had to get rid of anything contaminated by mold.”

Unable to hold back any longer Jordan turned and wrapped his arms around Eric and began to cry into his chest. Everything was gone! He was stuck like this and now everything that was his old life was gone. He couldn’t even play music to drown his sorrows.

“What’s wrong? I thought she’d be happy.”

“It’s been a rough day. We were hoping it would be an easy fix so we could rent it out again.” Eric swooped his arm under Jordan’s knees and lifted him off the ground. Not even bothering to struggle Jordan held onto Eric as he was carried to their bed. Eric slowly stroked his friend’s hair and slowly rubbed his back while he cried over the loss of every scrap of his former self.

Twenty minutes later they woke up to the sounds of their stomachs growling and Jordan’s alarm beeping. Jordan still clung to Eric as his face turned bright red to match his nails. “C-could you fix dinner?” He sat up tucking his hair behind his ear unaware of just how feminine he looked.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Eric left for the kitchen leaving Jordan to fix his thoroughly ruined makeup.

The only way to save it was to start all over. By the time he had cleaned his face of any makeup, Lauren invited herself to sit beside Jordan at the vanity. “Hey, everything okay?” Lauren wasn’t her usual bombastic self. She was gentler than before, like someone approaching a wounded puppy.

“I’m okay. Just a rough day like he said.”

“Tell me about it.”

Jordan paused the makeup tutorial video on her phone. “My new job? It’s mind-numbing, my boss is a dick, and I just found out my ID is gone along with my money and credit cards.”

Lauren wrapped her arms around Jordan. Any other time he would have been excited to have a beautiful college girl wrapped around him and pressed up so tight, but today he enjoyed it for what it was, a small sign of compassion. “You need some help?”

Jordan sighed, “Yeah, I will never figure out this contouring stuff.”

“Here.” Lauren took the stick out of Jordan’s hand. “Just a little teeny tiny bit on the nose.” She drew a small line along the sides of his nose and up to the crux of his eyelid. “A little on these beautiful cheekbones.” She drew a small line under each cheekbone, “And one here under your lips.” Jordan felt a strange connection between her and Lauren as she watched her in the mirror. “Now we blend.” Jordan was impressed by how with a few simple techniques how much more feminine he appeared. Impressed, but still hated it of course. “Jordan.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Depends on the question.”

“Just, you seem like a girly girl, so I’m just curious why you needed my help with contouring.”

Jordan swallowed hard as he tried to come up with a plausible excuse. “Um, well...my mom, like, never believed in makeup. She was, like, super religious. So she refused to teach me. And, like, if she caught me with makeup I’d get in trouble.” It wasn’t exactly far from the truth. His mother was super religious and hated seeing her son wearing makeup.

“Oh. I’m sorry. My mom is religious but she wasn’t that bad.”

“I remember.”

“You do?”

“I mean, I remember from what Eric told me. She sounds like a really nice lady.” Jordan frowned, his life may have sucked back then but there was nothing like Eric’s mom’s pot roast. Jordan’s stomach grumbled once more. Lauren frowned, she could tell Jordan was sad being kept a secret from their mother.

“Lauren!” Eric shouted from the kitchen.

“What?!” She yelled back turning in Eric’s computer chair.

“Help.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “He is so hopeless in the kitchen. I don’t know how you put up with him.”

“We usually just order takeout.”

After dinner, Jordan sat on the couch with Eric and Lauren. Lauren had insisted a romantic movie would fix Jordan’s bad day. Jordan didn’t quite believe her but he was sated on a full meal so he didn’t care what they watched.

“Hey! Did you do your nails?!” Lauren asked with all her usual cheer.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Let me see!” Lauren grabbed Jordan’s hand in hers, examining her beautifully delicate nails. “They’re so cute! And your shoes!” Lauren somehow yelled even louder than before. They missed the first fifteen minutes of the movie while they discussed where she went for her nails and her shoes, and how much the cost of each were. By the end of it, Jordan had promised to go with her to the mall that weekend so they could have a full day of beauty just to make the conversation stop.