Lance was clean. Spotless, all the time, like he’d wiped himself down in Windex. Everywhere he went, cleanliness inevitably followed. Justin thought he might have been able to tolerate Lance’s tidiness a bit better, had the blond been a little less enthusiastic about it all. Justin had long ago concluded that Lance would probably have a nervous breakdown if he left so much as a single chore undone. Sometimes, Justin just wished Lance would loosen up.

There were a number of things Justin wanted very badly to change, to fix, to do away with. Most of them involved Lance in some way, and that disturbed Justin because he felt certain that such thoughts did not come to those who were in love with the person they labeled, ‘significant other.’ But that didn’t keep the shameful musings at bay, so Justin finally just accepted them as they came and let them pile up in the back corner of his mind. Which worked, for a while, until the heap began to overflow, drifting from the back, to the in between, and finally to the forefront of his thoughts.

In the morning, Justin would sit at the kitchen table and watch as Lance wiped the crumbs off the counter from the bagel Justin had split in half. He’d toasted the bagel, too, so Justin watched as Lance rubbed the fingerprints off the glossy sides of the toaster before putting it away. Justin hadn’t bothered to pour himself a glass of orange juice, he’d just taken the carton along with him to the table, content to drink right out of the cardboard. Lance brought over a tall, clear glass which he filled two thirds of the way full with Minute Maid. The carton went back into the refrigerator and Justin left his half finished breakfast on the table.

Justin dropped his towel on the floor and stepped into his boxers, pulling them up around his waist. He looked at himself in the mirror, turning his head from side to side and examining his complexion, the stubble that peppered his chin, the faint smudges beneath his eyes.

Lance was whistling as he came into the bathroom. He smiled at Justin in the mirror. Justin smiled back. Lance automatically bent to retrieve the damp towel, folding it into precise thirds, then draping it evenly across the rod by the shower.

Justin frowned.

The dishes had to be done before Justin got any sex. Even if the mood struck them unexpectedly, Lance would leave the bed afterwards to rinse and load their plates, silverware, and glasses into the dishwasher. Justin thought that kind of ruined the afterglow, but he never said anything, just lay there in bed staring up at the ceiling as he listened to the sounds emitting from the kitchen.

Occasionally, Justin wondered if Lance was turned on by the vibration of the vacuum, because he sure spent a lot of time going from room to room and making neat, uniform patterns in the carpet as he went. When Justin asked Lance what he wanted for Christmas, Lance told him about the Dirt Devil 2000, which could lift even the toughest stains and clean in even the hardest to reach places.

Lance was into recycling, too, and set up the different colored bins in the garage, beside the door that led into the house, for convenience. He bought a trash compactor and when it arrived, made Justin listen to a very detailed lesson regarding its proper use.

Soon, it wasn’t just the fact that Lance was the cleanest man on Earth that bothered Justin. He began to notice the way Lance almost always chose shows like 20/20 and the Discovery Channel over MTV. He was annoyed by the method Lance used to fold his socks, because Justin preferred to ball them up in pairs, rather than leave them folded together with the cuff of one overlapping the other. Justin decided that he strongly disliked the way Lance tacked up lists of things to do or buy all around the house and kept a pad of sticky notes in his pocket, just in case. Justin especially hated that Lance wore scratchy woolen socks to bed, went grocery shopping for real food and not the microwave kind, pressed his pajamas, called his mom at least once a week, and remembered to get his flu shot on time. Also, Justin realized bitterly, Lance did not own a single article of clothing with holes or stains or places where the fabric had rubbed particularly thin, but not all the way through.

There was nothing old and familiar and haphazard about Lance. Everything was new and clean and organized.

Justin went to Joey’s house to spend the night because they were on break and Lance was out of town for FreeLance, and Justin didn’t want to be alone. Joey let him in and smiled lazily, taking Justin’s bag and dropping it at the foot of the stairs, in the middle of the road.

He ushered Justin into the kitchen, where there were dirty dishes stacked all around the sink, milk encrusted and covered in what looked like a tomato based sauce that Joey used in practically everything. There were sporadic smears of mud on the linoleum, tracked in from out of doors, and the garbage can in the corner was perilously close to overflowing. Joey poked his head in the refrigerator, fumbled around, and pronounced that he had “shit nothing” for dinner, except some day old pizza, two day old Chinese, and beer.

Justin looked at Joey’s coffee stained sweatshirt and smiled.