Under the Sea

“I guess we’re like oysters.”

“Wow…”

Hutch ignored Starsky.

“Jeeze…”

Hutch ignored him more.

“Hutch!”

“What?!” Hutch was tired, hot and snappy.

“Did you know…?”

Hutch groaned; Starsky had been reading him “Facts from the Sea” for the last half hour.

Starsky looked at him, open-faced. “What?” All innocence and enthusiasm.

“Starsky, I don’t care if the biggest crab in the world has a leg span of three meters…”

“Four,” interrupted Starsky.

“Or,” carried on Hutch, well into his rant, “that the octopus is the most intelligent invertebrate, and I certainly don’t give a damn about the reproductive cycle of jellyfish.”

Starsky looked wounded. For all of a second.

“Okay, but it says here that male seahorses are the women.”

“Starsky! I’m not interested… what?”

“I know! It says here that the female seahorse inserts her eggs into the male and he becomes pregnant.”

“Oh.” Hutch returned to his book.

“It just goes to show.”

“To show what… oh, never mind, I’m not …” Hutch looked down at his book and turned a page, noisily and pointedly.

Starsky was oblivious.

“It says here that sea anemones put their food in the anus to digest it…”

Hutch stared at the page before him, pretending not to have heard.

“Hutch! Didn’t ya hear? Isn’t that gross…” Starsky paused for a moment, and then turned his page, before continuing. “It says here that oysters are hermaphrodites and change sex whenever they want to.”

Hutch turned his page again, despite the fact he hadn’t taken anything in for the last fifteen minutes.

Starsky was quiet for a moment, before brightening.

“I guess we’re like oysters.”

“What?!” Hutch could no longer pretend to ignore him.

“Well, think about it. You used to like women, now you like me. I used to like women, now I like you… just like oysters.”

Hutch gazed at Starsky in disbelief. “It’s not the same at all…”

Starsky ploughed on regardless. “Oysters are considered the finest harvest of the sea… and we’re the best there is.”

Hutch snorted and snatched the book from Starsky, missing the mischievous look on his friend’s face.

“Oysters are aphrodisiacs,” Starsky continued, moving toward his partner with a lidded look, “and you sure as hell turn me on.”

Hutch interrupted, “And it says here that when an oyster opens its shell, a small, dark bit of grit gets in and irritates the hell out of it.”

Starsky stopped his slow, undulating advance toward his lover and instead reached out to snatch back the book, but Hutch held it fast, softening at the despondent look on Starsky’s face. Who’d have thought his pushy, confident partner could still be so sensitive?

Resisting Starsky’s attempts to reclaim the book, Hutch instead opened it and pretended to read further.

“And then the oyster wraps itself around the grit, and holds it and smoothes it, and loves it, and together they create a pearl.” Hutch looked up and met Starsky’s gaze. “Uncultured,” he smiled. “Perfect,” he added, discarding the book and taking Starsky into his arms. “And precious.”

And eyes closed as he drew Starsky in for a kiss, Hutch missed his lover’s triumphant look and the self-satisfied murmur.

“Works every time.”

The end.