MONDAY: The Loft

"Ahhhhh! Oh God!"

"Dial it down, Jim!"

"Ohhhhhh! Oh shit!"

"I said 'dial it down' Big Guy! I'm so using the Guide Voice, here."

"Oh SHIT! Ohhhh!"

... "Sorry, Sandburg."

Face the colour of his rapidly softening dick, Jim hung his head in shame and frustration.

"S'okay, Jim. S'okay. Maybe you'll last longer next time." Blair's sincere attempt at supportiveness only served to make Jim feel more like shit.

"You mean long enough to get it all the way in, don't ya, Chief?" Awkwardly, Jim pulled off Sandburg's back and flopped on the bed.

"Maybe if we try two condoms together, man." Blair suggested. "That'll cut the sensitivity further." He rolled over so he lay tits up on the bed. "In the meantime...." He waved vaguely in the direction of his still hard, still brick-red cock. "Do you think you could...?"

"Sure, Chief." Jim was only too glad to have something to distract them both from the awkward moment. Being a Sentinel really had some big-time down sides. Speaking of which: "I'll be right back. Just gotta wash my hands." Holding his hands...well...at arm's length, Jim headed downstairs to the bathroom. No way was he gonna put his hands dick-length from his nose without a really good scrubbing. With highly scented soap. Irish Spring might bring tears to his Sentinel eyes and snot to his sensitive nose, but there was a reason why the packaged-goods firms had steered away from eau de bottom-boy.

"Hey Jim! Use warm water this time, will ya!" Blair's plaintive cry floated to Sentinel ears over the loft's second floor railing - which desperately needed re-painting. Megan had once distinguished herself as the most observant detective Jim had ever known by asking him if the paint flecks left on his perp's wrists when the handcuffs had been removed, weren't exactly the same colour as the loft's railing.

Returning to the upper portion of the loft, Jim laid into his partner, as it were. The time for foreplay being long over, Jim went to work in earnest, hoping Blair wouldn't last too long. It wasn't that he didn't want Blair to have a good time, but it kinda felt like his partner was rubbing his nose in it...so to speak.

Setting up a hot and fast rhythm, Jim quickly brought off the ever-responsive Blair.

"Thanks for the efficient sex, Jim. Very goal-oriented. And people say romance is dead." Blair huffed a little, although he had some trouble being angry with anyone who had just blown him to orgasm. Still, anger in the face of adversity. "We have got to fix this."

The delicate problem of Jim's over-sensitivity had manifested itself the very first time. They had become lovers just a few short weeks ago after Blair had been kidnapped (again), drugged (again), and nearly murdered (again). At first Blair had tried to convince his new lover that it was flattering that Mr. Control found him so exciting he actually lost control, but it was getting a little old at this point. They hadn't been lovers very long; just long enough to figure out this wasn't going to get better on its own.

"So you're the Guide, Sandburg, guide me." Jim growled, preferring to repress rather than address sensitive issues. And this issue or rather 'tissue' was particularly sensitive.

"I'll give it some thought," Blair promised.

WEDNESDAY: The Station

Jim, Blair and Simon faced the front of the elevator as they rode up to the sixth floor where Major Crime was located. The elevator ping'd and the door opened at the fifth floor, and an inwardly focussed Sandburg proceeded to exit, glance around questioningly, and jump back into the elevator just as the doors were closing.

"Premature ejaculation, Sandburg?" Simon quipped. (He'd been saving that one a looong time.)

Jim shot coffee out his nose. Blair just raised one eyebrow and continued to ponder.

"Jim! What the hell is Sandburg so wrapped up in?" Simon bellowed. "It's like he's so deep in thought he's deaf to everything else around him. I've never seen him concentrate like this."

"Er. Um." Again Jim choked on his coffee.

"Spit it out, Jim." Simon pounded Jim's broad back, even though they'd all had the first aid course that clearly stated this was not a good idea.

"Not the coffee, Jim!" The big Captain stepped back and eyed Jim warily. "I meant spit out the answer to my question. You've definitely been living in the Sandburg zone too long. You've gone over to the dark side. What is his problem, and what, may I ask, is yours?"

Shit, thought Jim. What would Sandburg do? Obfuscate...right. "Lateral thinking," Jim answered quickly. "He's been reading up on lateral thinking and is trying to apply it to the Holmburg case."

"Lateral thinking?" Simon scoffed. "More like horizontal thinking, knowing Sandburg. Oh well, carry on. And you've got coffee in your shoes, by the way." He turned and walked away leaving behind a scent cloud of illegal Cuban cigars.

THURSDAY: The Loft

After several days of gnawing at the problem, Blair flopped on the couch and stared at his partner. "Hey, Jim. When you dial down, what do you visualize?"

"That's easy, Chief. Just like you." Jim never looked up from his sports section. "For hearing, I picture an old-style radio dial - like on one of those Bakelite radios that were popular in the 30s. Sally had one in the kitchen when I was a kid."

"For hearing?" Blair sat forward on the sofa, elbows on knees. "Do you see that same thing for sight?"

"Nah." Jim rested the paper on his knees and looked over at his Guide. "It's more like the dimmer switch in the kitchen. Same principle; just seems more appropriate for sight. You know, light - sight."

Blair nodded. "Taste and smell?"

"Smell is more like a sliding scale - almost like a trombone, bringing the item closer or pushing it farther away. Taste is a size thing..."

"Always knew you were a size queen, Ellison," Blair interrupted.

"Fuck you, Darwin. I was saying. I see taste as the object in my mouth getting bigger and...oh, never mind. You did ask."

"Now the important thing. How do you dial down touch?"

"Well, that's a bit vague, ya know. I kinda see, I'm. Well. I'm not sure." Jim glanced over at Blair, looking a bit worried. Was he doing something wrong?

Blair sat back on the sofa. Jim always felt that if he could figure out how to use his Sentinel sight just so, he would actually be able to see the wheel going round behind Blair's eyes. The hamster was working overtime there tonight.

Blair mumbled, looking inward. "It's okay, Partner. It's all gonna be ok."

FRIDAY: The Loft

Blair walked into the loft just after Jim got home from the gym. Jim was sitting on the sofa channel surfing and totally undoing all the good of his workout by having a beer (not lite) and nacho chips (also not lite).

"Bought ya a present, Big Guy." Blair handed Jim a large box wrapped in plain brown paper. "Bought us a present, actually."

"What is it?" Jim asked, like everybody does when they're handed a present.

"Open it and find out." (The "Duh!" was implied.)

"Looks like a sex toy, all wrapped up like this," Jim observed, holding it different ways and finding that it rattled.

"It IS a sex toy, Jim. Open it for Christ's sake." Always charmed by the rituals of other cultures, Blair tended to resent those of his own; he thought following convention interfered with his free-spirit mojo thing. Although now that he was a detective, he was finding the free-spirit thing a little counter-productive, and decidedly irritating when he encountered it among perps and witnesses. "Just answer the fucking questions" and "Save the iguanas" weren't mutually exclusive events - just a little incongruous when juxtaposed on the same psyche.

Jim carefully pulled up the tape at one end, careful not to rip the paper. He peeked in, and then his eyes travelled up to where Blair was standing over him. "It's a Meccano set, Chief. Do I really want to know how a Meccano set is a sex toy?" A few scenarios fluttered quickly across his imagination. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably.

"Historically, Jim, before they were called 'Meccano', they went by another name. You're always telling me that the only real people were born in the 50s - remember the other name?"

"Erector Set," Jim said anxiously, beginning to see where this might be going.

"Okay, man. Here's the thing. Your problem is one of control."

"No shit, Shylock," Jim grunted.

"Hey. Watch the anti-Semitic comments, Ellison."

"Just a play on words, Chief."

Well, watch the anti-semantic comments then." Blair grinned at his own cleverness.

Jim rolled his eyes. "The Erector Set, Chief...."

"Right," Blair continued. "You have good visualization, and therefore, control over four of your senses, but touch is a bit dicey. You need a symbolic image to help you maintain control over the...."

"I get it, Chief. The toy?"

"We're gonna set up the rig."

"And what, pray tell, does that mean?"

"Well, it harkens back to my anthropological days, Jim."

"Happy days are here again." The muscle in Jim's jaw was starting to twitch.

"I spent one summer living in a 150-year-old community in the Canadian Maritimes."

"Oooh! Sandburg. Sounds challenging. How'd you make it out alive? Did you have to go to McDonald's all by yourself? Couldn't get enough funding to go somewhere more exotic?"

"Actually, Jim, I was studying a remarkable phenomenon of North American culture. Many of the descendants of the original runaway slaves that escaped into Canada via the Underground Railroad today live in a small fishing village in the Maritimes. They speak an odd dialect comprised of English, French, and native African languages. And the English spoken down that way is supposed to be closest to that of Shakespearean times spoken anywhere in the world today, and the French spoken by the Acadians is unique and did you know they - the Acadians, that is - fled religious persecution in France only to encounter it Canada and then were forcibly shipped to Louisiana and released into the swamps where the Acadians became the Cajuns..."

"And this is helping me maintain an erection how?" Jim cut in gently. He actually missed Blair's lectures and knew Blair sometimes pined for his previous occupation. Blair loved an audience - the more captive, the better. Somehow the other detectives never felt inclined to hang around and listen to his lectures. Maybe if it was worth 20% of their final grade....

Blair looked at Jim sideways. "In point of fact, man, this is foreplay. I know you get hot for my lectures. You Anthro-slut. You've never differentiated between loving me for my mind and fucking my brains out. They're related metaphors - not related activities, ya know."

Jim looked away, blushing. Shit. Blair really did have his number. He crossed his legs gingerly.

The whole time he'd been lecturing, Blair's hands had been busy. He'd finished unwrapping the box and spilled the pieces out onto the coffee table in front of the sofa.

He quickly set about piecing together the little girders and gears as he spoke.

"So while I was in the Maritimes - and actually, yes, I couldn't get the funding to go somewhere more, ah, primal - I made a point of studying the local language including the colloquialisms. Down there, they sometimes refer to getting a hard-on as 'setting up the rig'. Must be something to do with the large amount of offshore oil drilling that goes on out there. Anyway, I figure oil rigs are something you and I can relate to, so let's use the old Erector Set to set up the rig."

Jim looked dubious, but had finally, at the end of the day, at long last, after five years for God's sake, learned to keep an open mind when Blair spoke about all things Sentinel-related.

"Ta-da!" Blair announced, his expressive hands waving over his Erector creation.

Jim glanced down at the jumble on the coffee table. It was two tower-y sort of things, leaning on one another. "Doesn't look much like an oil rig to me, Chief."

Blair looked over at him, a hint of pride in his voice. "It does stray a bit from the original metaphor, but we don't want to be too tied to the literal. It's actually two interdependent rig-like structures. They're both designed to extend upwards on a mechanical cog-based system. The green one represents me, and the red one is you. Notice how they're linked at the top." As he spoke, he slowly turned a tiny wheel and they watched the symbolic penises rise to their full height.

"Objects not to scale," Jim snorted.

Blair giggled, although he'd deny it later. "But objects in mirror are closer than they appear," he responded in kind, then continued more seriously, "While each of these two rigs need each other in order to fully extend, the red one can't contract back down until the green one does so first." So saying, he released the little lever and the green one slid back into itself, followed more slowly by the red one as it was based on a larger cog.

"I want you to study this, Jim. And let me know when you feel comfortable with the imagery."

AN HOUR LATER: Still the Loft

"All right, Chief. I got this thing so memorized I could see it in the dark."
"Duh, Jim, you can see anything in the dark. Can you take it apart and put it back together like you can your weapon?"

Jim snickered.

"Not that weapon." But Blair giggled again, anyway. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, sure I could."

"Good." Blair walked over to the coffee table, studied his creation for a moment and then smacked it sharply with the flat of his hand. "Now rebuild it," he ordered, and returned to his book on the creative use of handcuffs.

TWO HOURS LATER: Still the Loft

"Okay, Blair. Done." Jim sat back tiredly on the couch, awaiting his partner's approval.

Blair walked over from the kitchen and surveyed Jim's handiwork. He reached down and tested the mechanism. The twin towers rose, and when they reached the pinnacle the green one snapped in half. The red one grew another third in height.

"Very funny, Jim, Blair snapped, cradling his crotch protectively. "That'll give me nightmares for a week. Now fix it."

TWENTY MINUTES LATER: Still the Loft

"Okay, Chief. Now I'm done for real."

Blair stepped over warily, realizing he should have been suspicious earlier when Jim used his given name. He inspected Jim's project, and after testing it a few times pronounced it acceptable.

"Now the next time we make love, you will visualize this set-up and it should serve as well as the dials, switches, apertures and slides, to keep your goddam dick hard!" Blair bit the last part out half in jest and half in earnest. "You wanna try it now?" he added hopefully.

"Sorry, Chief," Jim responded, looking at his watch. "All this work has exhausted me. I'm too tired to set up the rig, let alone do some drilling."

"Shit. Shit. Shit," Blair cursed, and wandered off to the shower for a little self-appreciation.

SATURDAY NIGHT: The Loft

"Ahhhhh! Oh God!

"Think of the rig, Jim! Picture the rig."

"Ohhhhhh! So good!"

"That's it. Harder! Yeah. Just like that, man. Now you're drilling for oil!"

"Why do ya think they call me "Slick"?

End