Eric was definitely pushing me to get my ass off the living room couch and into the kitchen. “You know what I would love? Some of your carrot muffins,” he said stoically.

I picked up the television remote and started channel surfing, but the sun’s reflection poring through the living room windows over exposed the television screen, making my mid-day soap operas hard to see. Suddenly I felt depressed; a fag so upset by his medical condition that he had succumbed to one of the most depressing habits--- watching daytime television during the week. I was becoming a fat vampire who longed for the night because that way the increasing love handles around my mid-section could be drowned in shadows.

“Why don’t you turn that garbage off?” Asked Eric from the kitchen, moving around in his gym outfit and fixing himself a protein shake as commercial after commercial radiated promises of getting me a new job, a lawyer, or an abdomen and glut workout machine.

“Because I don’t want to.” I felt like a baby and damn it, I was going to act like one. The whine of the blender drowned out the TV volume so I quickly increased it, my remote control having power over Eric’s health shake.

He was quiet as I landed on a talk show about fat mothers who are raising fatter children and the resentment their kids have towards their fat family. Hell, at least I wasn’t that much of a loser and I realized seeing obese teenagers cry over their diets of fried food and sugar made me feel better.

I could hear Eric’s footsteps approaching from behind and suddenly his arm swooped down to mine, pulling the remote control out of my hand.

“Give it to me!” I demanded.

He pushed my walker closer to me. “Get ready. We’re going out.”

A wave of relief overcame me but I couldn’t give into him that easily. “I don’t want to go out.”

“Yes, you do Drew so quit acting like you don’t because I’m not going to beg.” He tossed me my sweatshirt in silence then grabbed his wallet and car keys from the kitchen counter.

I didn’t know what to say so I stated the obvious, “Where are we going?”

“An adventure. C’mon.”

Periodically we’d take each other out on excursions that the other didn’t know about. It would be what we called, “homo adventures.”

I sat in the front seat of the car, watching Eric drive down Los Feliz Boulevard heading east. “Where are we going?” I whined.

“I don’t know,” Eric responded.

“As our therapist said, ‘if you don’t know, who does?’”

“Fate knows.”

And with that he turned up the radio, cranking the new Madonna dance remix as he drove faster through the mid-day traffic. My mind started playing his bluff and going through our adventure lists, wondering where he was taking us. The mountains? Palm Springs? A hot dog stand? A car wash? A bathhouse?

I’ll never forget the time Eric told me he was taking me out for an adventure but I had to wait for a phone call as to where to meet him. It was 8pm on a Sunday night and he gave me an address. It turned out to be a bathhouse! We rendezvoused in the gym area and had some fun playing with each other on the bench machine, followed by more sexual antics in the steam room, the sauna, the movie theatre, the pool, and finally the Jacuzzi. Not only was it hot, but in a strange way intimate because we were comfortable in trusting each other enough not to be threatened by the staring eyes of some attractive men watching us while we had our fun.

Ironically however, Eric eventually became a sexaholic and had to undergo treatment, so I knew we would not be returning to that memory. Suddenly, we turned a corner and I knew where we were going, “The LA Zoo?!” I asked. He remained silent, giving himself away.

What followed was a pretty fun afternoon. It was a workday, so the zoo was particularly empty. Eric rented a wheelchair and we played out scenes of BABY JANE throughout the park, with a particular funny reenactment of the dinner scene inside the bird aviary. We were silly, and Eric shrouded me with peanuts, popcorn, and souvenirs as he raced me along walkways and ramps throughout the themed lands.

Upon returning home, I was exhausted, but went to the kitchen anyway.

“What are you doing?” Eric asked.

“I…was going to make some carrot muffins. You still want them?”

“Sure,” responded Eric.

We were silent in our smiles, knowing full well we had supported each other in turning a bad day into a good one.