[identity profile] gigitrek.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] rareslash
Title: Take a Step that is New
Author: Gigi Sinclair
Rating: PG-13 for suggestive situations and culture-specific sexism
Pairings: Various
Summary: Jack thinks all that playacting might be turning him gay for real.
Notes: Possibly the only "Three's Company" slash fic in existence. I'm sorry. Someone had to do it.



Title: Take a Step that is New
Author: Gigi Sinclair
Pairings: Various
Rating: PG-13 for suggestive language and culture-specific sexism
Notes: I'm sorry. Really. But it is the only "Three's Company" slash fic in existence!
Summary: Jack worries that all that pretending is turning him gay for real.




One warm Thursday evening at the beginning of April, Jack realized his worst nightmare was coming true. After two years of playacting to keep from being evicted, he was actually turning gay.

It was only natural, he supposed. He'd spent two years making suggestive comments about men within earshot of Mr. Roper, pretending to check out guys if the Ropers happened to stop by the Regal Beagle, and inventing stories of fake breakups—his personal favorite was the tale of Raul, a Flamenco dancer who met Jack in a seedy beachside tavern before breaking his heart and jetting back to Buenos Aires—to entertain Mrs. Roper and annoy her husband.

By now, he was so used to playing the part that he'd started to do it even when the Ropers weren't around. When he, Janet and Chrissy went into the Beagle one night for a quick round before dinner, Janet nudged Chrissy and said, "Check out the Tom Selleck lookalike behind the bar."

Automatically, Jack turned to look. The guy behind the bar was a looker, with a thick dark mustache and dreamy eyes. "Wow," Jack agreed, turning back to face the girls. "He can investigate my privates anytime."

Chrissy giggled, but Janet just smiled. As soon as he realized what he'd said, Jack glanced wildly over his shoulder. "Wait, wasn't that Mr. Roper over there?"

Janet shook her head. "If you're really getting into the part, Jack, there's someone I can introduce you to at the florist's. Ted Stanley, I'm sure you'll get along famously."

"Oh, Janet." Chrissy laughed again, shaking her head. "What kind of girl has a name like Ted?"

"Thanks anyway, Janet," Jack went on, ignoring Chrissy. It was, he'd soon discovered, often the best way to deal with her. "I think I'll stick to my girls." He threw an arm around Chrissy, because he knew that would annoy Janet, and barely restrained himself from burying his face in her ever-jiggling breasts.

Jack tried not to think about the situation, but it preyed on his mind. He'd heard of actors becoming so wrapped up in their parts they forgot who they really were. Wasn't that what had happened to Malcolm McDowell when he filmed “A Clockwork Orange?” And Jack was doing far more than acting; he was living a role every day.

He started to take note each time the role leaked into his real life. He noticed when, at school, he found himself hoping to be paired up with the debonair Luc Montpelier rather than Donna Brewer for the cheese soufflé assignment. Because Donna made Chrissy look like a Nobel laureate, he told himself, and Luc could whip an egg like nobody's business, that was all. He wasn't sure he quite believed it.

Jack knew he was definitely in serious trouble when he finally got Marsha Melville—Magnificent Marsha Melville, who was famous for liking her skirts short and her liquor hard—to agree to a date with him. As they left the apartment building, arm in arm, they ran into Mr. Roper, standing outside his apartment apparently trying to peer in his own window.

If he'd been alone, Jack would have ignored him, but Marsha shrieked and said, "Jack! It's a burglar!"

Mr. Roper spun around, fists raised. "Where? Where?"

"That's just my landlord, Marsha," Jack explained. "Mr. Roper."

A frown came to Marsha's face. "What's he doing peeping into someone's window? That could be a lady's bedroom."

"Don't worry, honey," Mr. Roper smirked. "It's just my wife's." He paused for a moment, a self-satisfied expression on his face, as if he were listening to distant applause. Then he narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Speaking of ladies, what are you up to Jack?" He looked Marsha up and down with an appraising eye. Jack couldn't blame him; Marsha had legs like a grasshopper and breasts like she was smuggling watermelons under her sweater. "This doesn't look like your usual cup of tea." He put a hand on his hip and made a vague gesture, like he was ringing a miniature bell, with the other.

"This is my friend Marsha, Mr. Roper," Jack replied, thinking fast. "We're going for a manicure-pedicure at the spa." Immediately, Mr. Roper's expression changed.

"Oh. Well, in that case, have a good time, girls."

Later, as he sat in the crowded movie theater watching a boring comedy with Marsha braying along beside him, Jack realized his cuticles were actually in need of some work, and it wouldn't hurt to get his heels moisturized before sandal-season.

That was when he realized he was doomed.

There was only one cure, and that lay upstairs. As soon as he got home, after Marsha had begged off with a headache that Jack was alarmingly un-disappointed about, he raced upstairs and banged on Larry's door.

There was a chance Larry would be with a girl--there was always a chance Larry would be with a girl, even at two o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon—but it couldn't wait. As soon as Larry opened the door, Jack pushed him back inside and closed it firmly behind them.

"Jack, buddy? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Just a fairy," Jack replied, automatically. He didn't know why he did that; ever since coming to live with Janet and Chrissy, he'd developed the urge to quip even at the most serious of moments. He couldn't help himself. Pushing that aside, he explained, "I need your help. I'm turning...strange."

"You always were strange, Jack." Larry shook his head ruefully. "I don't think I can help with that."

"It's not that." Jack took a deep breath. "I need you to find me the perfect woman. Someone who'll make me...you know, feel like a man again."

"Oh, I see." He nodded wisely. "Those two downstairs got you henpecked, huh? You need someone who'll see you for the big, manly man you really are?"

Jack hesitated. "Sort of. Is there anyone you can set me up with?" He thought of Marsha Melville. "I'm a serious case."

"Sure, sure." Larry nodded, reaching out to pat Jack on the shoulder. "You leave it with me, buddy."

"Thanks." Jack heaved a sigh of relief.

From the direction of Larry's bedroom, Jack heard a female voice call, "Larry? Are you coming?"

"In about two minutes, sweetheart," Larry replied, giving Jack a wink and sprinting off to his room.

***

Three days later, as Jack was putting together a shrimp and pasta salad for Janet and Chrissy's dinner, there was a knock on the apartment door. When he answered it, Larry was waiting, a bouquet of flowers in hand.

"Why, Larry, you shouldn't have," Jack joked, then realized that was a little close to the bone. "What are you doing here?" He continued, in a gruffer tone.

"Ivana Slutskaya."

"So do I, buddy, but you're the expert there."

Larry shook her head. "No, she's a Russian stewardess. Called me up out of the blue, says she knows a friend of mine at Pan Am. I've got a date with her in half an hour, only I told Cathy Forzinski I'd go to her niece's birthday party."

"I know which one I'd prefer," Jack replied. Especially if there was fondant chocolate cake at the party.

Larry rolled his eyes. "Tell me about it. But Cathy's a hot piece of tail, and she's good for it at least twice a week. I can't risk that for a quickie with a Russky."

"Okay..." Jack could guess where this was headed. "So you want me to take her off your hands?"

He realized he sounded a little reluctant when Larry replied, "Hey, I'm the one doing you a favor here. You're the one who wanted a break from your roommates, remember?"

Jack remembered. He reached out for the flowers. "I'll be there," he said.

"The Plane Crazy bar, near the airport," Larry said, as he headed for the stairs. "Half an hour."

Jack left a note with the pasta salad, changed into a button-down shirt and jeans, and left the apartment, flowers in hand.

Two hours later, he stumbled out of a cab in front of the apartment building, feeling like he'd been hit by a truck. Or, more accurately,by a three-hundred pound Russian stewardess with a pencil mustache Clark Gable would have envied. After about twenty minutes of staring at him in silence, Ivana Slutskaya, who apparently spoke no English, downed half a dozen vodka shots, on Jack's dime of course, went to the ladies' room, and never returned.

Of course, Jack hadn't known she wasn't coming back. He'd waited, like a gentleman, for forty minutes before asking a busty brunette to check the ladies' room for him. He couldn't say he'd been entirely heartbroken when the brunette reported back the room was empty, but the window was open.

Jack had spent those forty minutes sitting at the bar in Plane Crazy and thinking about his life. When he got home, he saw the light on in Janet and Chrissy's bedroom, but instead of going into the apartment, he went upstairs to Larry's.

He knocked on the door, not really expecting Larry to answer. Apparently, Cathy's niece's birthday party had been an early-ending affair, because Larry was in, and apparently alone.

"She decided to stay behind and help clean up," Larry explained, although Jack hadn't asked. "But she was so happy I went, she said she'll come over Friday and Saturday this week." Larry grinned. "How was Ivana?"

Jack didn't want to devote any more time to thinking about her. "Larry," he said instead, looking his friend in the eye, "I'm gay."

"What? For real?" Jack nodded. "Since when?"

"Maybe forever." Suddenly, the show Jack had always felt he needed to put on in front of women made sense. He liked them, of course. Janet and Chrissy were still his best friends and Chrissy's rack was a thing of beauty no matter your sexuality, but he no longer felt like the world would come to an end if he didn't slobber over every passing female.

"Huh." Larry nodded thoughtfully. Then, without further warning, he lunged forward and kissed Jack.

It went on for about thirty seconds. It wasn't exactly what Jack would have called fireworks and shooting stars, but it wasn't bad. When Larry pulled away, he said, hopefully, "Did that cure you?"

Jack paused, then shook his head. "Thanks for trying, though." He felt so touched that Larry had tried it, he felt he had to offer something in return. "Want me to suck your cock?"

"Are you serious?"

Jack shrugged. "What are friends for?" Anyway, he thought, if he was going to start putting himself out there, who better to practice on than the man who'd had more blowjobs than most of the west coast?

***

When Janet got home from Plane Crazy, Chrissy was still up, reading a magazine in one of those silky negligees she wore even when there was no one else home. Before she could look up, Janet stuffed the bag with "Ivana Slutskaya's" wig, mustache and extra-padding pillows into the back of the hall closet.

"How was your date?" Chrissy asked.

Janet shrugged. "Not so good." Which was exactly what she'd planned. "Yours?"

Chrissy shook her head. "He told me he liked Turkish music, and I said I didn't think they could do anything but gobble. He drove me home after that."

Janet smiled. "Is Jack home?"

"No."

Janet had known about Jack from the start. She never would have invited him to move in with them if she hadn't thought he was gay; she knew Mr. Roper would never have stood for it. But Jack was in denial, she soon learned, and more than that, he seemed determined to chase after every woman he met, including, Janet sometimes thought, Mrs. Roper.

Once he started to have doubts, Janet worried Jack might move out, thinking he could "turn himself straight again" if he went to live somewhere else. But if Jack accepted himself, Janet thought, then he would probably stay, and she and Chrissy wouldn't have to look for another roommate. It would be hard to find one as clueless as Jack. Even Eleanor had caught on to her and Chrissy eventually.

"So we're by ourselves?" Janet smiled at Chrissy. She'd dumped most of the vodka shots into an ashtray when Jack wasn't looking, but she felt a little tipsy from the ones she'd consumed. That was probably why, she thought, she'd hit on the brilliant but unplanned idea of escaping via the bathroom window.

"Looks like it." A gleam came to Chrissy's eye. She could pretend all she wanted, but Janet knew that in reality, Chrissy was about as dumb as Jack was straight. She leapt up, her breasts jiggling in the flimsy nightie, and said, "I'll get the strap-on."

"And I'll push the beds together," Janet said, heading for the twin-bedded room they shared.

For a moment, she wondered if Chrissy might enjoy Ivana Slutsakaya more than Jack had, but she decided to save that one for when they had more time alone. Say, when she convinced Ted Stanley at work to invite Jack to San Francisco for the weekend.

Date: 2009-04-02 07:48 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] norton-gale.livejournal.com
*applause*

LMAO throughout this entire fic! It read like a banned episode. I love the fadeout when Jack offered to suck off Larry. I could see that Larry might go for it. After all, he's not one to turn down sex. And the twist at the end was hilarious and very logical - the whole time, Jack was Janet and Chrissie's unknowing beard.

Three's Company was a really underrated show. Yes, the laugh track was obnoxious and the scripts were cheesy, but John Ritter, the actors who played the Ropers, and Don Knotts made up for it with their flair for comedy (especially Ritter's physical comedy).

I'll be reccing this one.

Date: 2009-04-02 08:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] karaokegal.livejournal.com
That's amazing! If they'd done the series in the 2000's something closer to this could have happened someday. Great characterizations within the sit-com framework.

Date: 2009-04-02 11:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asnowyowl.livejournal.com
Heeee! Loved it! I didn't see the Ivana really being Janet twist coming at all, or the Janet/chrissy. I would have loved to stay in that room for the blowjob, though. Great job!

Date: 2009-04-03 07:44 pm (UTC)
ext_22667: a mike mignola 'read' poster (tongue)
From: [identity profile] lemorttoussaint.livejournal.com
Sitcom slash, with unexpected femslash bonus! I think I'm in love. Very cute story, and good characterizations.

Date: 2009-04-07 02:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com
LOL, this was amazing! I've never read Three's Company fanfic before, but this rocked the house.


Plane Crazy. Har!

How brilliant the fourth-wall reference by Mr Roper was, too. Nice!

Date: 2010-02-13 12:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pjordha.livejournal.com
I loved this!

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