Dale blinked his eyes open, letting the congealed bits of sleep fall onto the sheets. Stretching wide, and yawning, he rolled over to find the bed empty beside him. Feeling the empty groove, Dale found it still warm. Pushing himself up on an elbow, he turned toward the sound of falling water, and saw Ben standing in the shower.

The shower curtain was clear vinyl, so only the speckled drops interrupted Dale's view. The warm waters sluiced down through the air to strike, and trickle down Ben's body; to saturate his short blonde hair.

Dale watched his roommate, his lover. Arousal began to stir, but just then Ben bent forward and turned the water off. Stepping from behind the curtain he toweled himself dry.

They ate a quick breakfast together, Lucky Charms, and then Ben was off to his first class of the day. Dale went through the motions of working out, and then lounged on the broken-down futon that he and Ben had found waiting for them when they moved into the freshmen dorm.

Ben was from Louisiana, and was majoring in Journalism. Dale had been born and raised in Southern California, and his parents lived only an hour's drive from the UC San Diego campus. Dale was studying physics, with a possible eye on hopping to the college of engineering. The two had been randomly assigned to share the small room, as indeed had been most of the freshmen.

Dale was a shy boy, long closeted. Ben was generally gregarious individual, but he too kept his sexuality a closely guarded secret. They'd been roommates for a month before either discovered there shared enthusiasm for men; Dale had been amusing himself in the bathroom, with a copy of playgirl, when Ben walked in on him. From that, most embarrassing of starts, there relationship had blossomed into what Dale liked to envision as a beautiful, if well hidden flower.

Dale lounged upon the couch, watching the small TV that Ben had brought with him from home. He had no classes to attend on Fridays, but his course load more than made up for that between Monday and Thursday. He cast an idle eye at his closed, noticing that his piles of clean laundry and dirty laundry had merged and were threatening to spill off the floor onto their beds (Ben and Dale has long since pushed the sub-size twins together).

Dale sighed, and stood, naked from the futon. He approached the closet, lamenting that it had fallen upon him to sort through his laundry. A shadow moved within the closet, fleeing from his approach.

Dale froze. At first he thought that perhaps Ben had snuck back in to play a prank on him. "Ben? Is that you in there?"

The shadows remained still.

Dale backed slowly into the kitchenette, picking up a butter knife, he again approached the closet. "Ben, if that's you in there, I am so going to kick your ass."

The shadows remained silent.

Reaching the closet, Dale flung the door open, butter knife held before him. Nothing sprang out to devour his face. No robber pointed a gun at him. Dale gaped, mouth open as though to catch flies.

Where the back wall of the closet had been, he found piles of clothing; piles of clothing masking the mouth of a corridor. The piles lined a corridor clinging to the walls, floor, and ceiling. Dale stepped slowly forward, into the darkness. A dusty breeze brushed his face. He knelt, only a foot within the passage, and examined the floor. No longer carpet, it seemed woven from old sweaters and bits of sock.

Dale stood, and looked down the corridor, at the edge of the feeble light streaming through the open closet door he could make out a twist in the corridor, it seemed to rotate on its side, and then lead up. As he stared at the twist, and thought to approach it, he felt a moment of dizziness, and thought for a moment that the twist was in fact approaching him.

A dark figure, taller than a man, and far broader has emerged from the twist, and stalked towards him. Dale turned, and fled. Tripping over a pile of laundry he fell free of the closet, and hit his head on the post at the foot of his bed. Falling into darkness, he heard the closet door slam shut behind him.

Dale felt a hand caressing his face. His eyes blinked open, he saw Ben crouching beside him and felt a dull ache on the crown of his head.

There was a look of concern in Ben's face. "What happened to you?"

Dale looked from the closed closet to his lover's face. "I don't know. I guess I must've fallen."

Ben reached up, and pulled Dale's hair away from his forehead. "Well it looks like you hit your head pretty bad. There's a bit of blood here. Do you want to go to the student clinic?"

Dale thought for a moment, and then shook his head, taking care not to magnify his headache with rapid motion. "No, it's just a bump."

"You sure, you could have concussion or something?"

Dale nodded, again with care, "Yeah, but could you grab that bag of frozen peas from the freezer. I have a monster headache."

While Ben found the pair's makeshift icepack, Dale stood up and stumbled into the bathroom, a small, long dried trickle of blood ran down his forehead to pool in his eyebrow.

Ben brought the icepack into the bathroom, and aided in washing the blood from his lover's brow.

Dale caught Ben's hand and held it, gazing into the reflection of his eyes. "So how was your day?"

Ben smiled, a bit sheepish, and withdrew his hand from Dale's. "Not too bad. There's something we need to talk about though." Ben turned and walked to the small front room of the dorm.

Dale, worried, turned and followed. Halfway across the bedroom, he paused, and turned to face his closed. Without thought his hand reached towards the knob.

Ben's voice came from the front room, "Are you coming, or am I going to have this conversation with myself?"

Dale pulled his hand back, and looked at the door. Shaking his head he turned and entered the front room.

Dale sat down on the futon, beside Ben, and held the bag of frozen peas to his head. "So what's up?"

Ben sighed, long and deep, "No point to beating around the bush. I'm joining a fraternity."

Dale allowed confusion and hurt to show upon his face. "You're moving out on me then?"

Ben allowed his head to drop, "I knew you'd see it that way." He adjusted his position to face Dale, "Look, these guys have a lot of connections. Connections that I'll need after college, to get a job, to land interviews. I need to do this. But yes, next year I'll have to live in the frat house with the brothers."

Dale felt a lump in his chest. He was so in love with Ben, he'd thought that they'd always be together, and now to discover that they may not live together again until after they graduated...

Ben took Dale's hands in his, "This isn't the end, okay. Hell, why don't you come with me tonight. There's a meeting tonight for all the prospective pledges. I've already got an in, but I'm sure you can get in too if you want."

Dale and Ben went to the meeting. It wasn't held at the frat house, but at a local bowling alley. As always, they walked a few feet from each other. Dale was uncomfortable with the distance between them, but knew that Ben would never want to look like a fag to his brothers-to-be. Dale felt like a fool, he hated the concept of fraternities, but was willing to swallow his pride if it allowed him to continue living with his love.

The frat boys proved to be everything he had feared, and worse. They were young, hot, and homophobic. Not only that, but he noticed the pledge master wearing a small silver cross around his neck, and a bible prominently atop his pile of text books.

Dale managed to act the part of the eager, heterosexual freshmen, and was invited to pledge. He accepted, of course, but felt dirty afterwards.

Ben and Dale returned home. On the way Dale listened to Ben go on at length about how great the guys were, and how happy he was that they'd invited Dale to pledge.

Dale's life went on that way for a time. They'd spend their evenings listening to the frat boys make bad jokes, which all too often centered upon how stupid and/or girly fags were. Then they'd return to their dorm room and make love, almost like they used to.

Dale felt dirty inside, tired of lying and listening to the filth. He watched, helpless, as Ben metamorphosed into one of them. He made the same jokes, drank too much, and began attending church with the pledge master.

One morning, after Ben had gone to class, while Dale was watching television, he realized that he no longer loved Ben. He wasn't even sure that he still liked him. For Ben he had remade himself. Yet Ben seemed to grow more distant each night. They barely talked anymore, and sex had become less like making love, and more like fucking some cheap ho. Dale couldn't remember the last time Ben had kissed him, or told him that he loved him, or held him, or had his eyes open while they screwed.

The second semester was nearly over. Soon he and Ben would've returned to their homes for the summer. Once they'd talked of renting a beach condo for the break, but all talk of that had ended when Ben decided to join the frat.

That night, Dale told Ben how he felt. The two fought, until finally Ben stormed off, fake ID in hand, to join his brothers at the bar. Dale fell onto his bed. At first he just lay there, then he rolled to his side, and kicked Ben's bed away from his, sending the pillow flying and the sheets falling to the floor.

Dale stood then, and stripped the sheets from his own bed, wanting nothing on which Ben had lain to ever again touch his skin. Wadding the sheets up into a ball, he flung open the closet door and threw the tight wad in.

He moved to slam the door, but paused. He'd expected the sheets to give a single thud, but instead he had heard a chorus of muffled impacts. He opened the door wide, and turned on the closet light. The closet had no rear wall.

Dale remembered his nightmare from the month before, realizing that if a dream that had been, he was asleep now.

"Fuck it."

Dale grabbed his back pack, and shoved some granola bars and batteries into it. He picked up his flashlight, flicked it on to make sure it worked, and turned to face the corridor.

He moved to step towards it, and then paused. Dashing into the bathroom he returned to the open door, while shoving a plain white bath towel into his pack. Turning again towards the unknown corridor he stepped into the closet.

Long Dale wandered, in the eternal night of the Closet Dimension. At first he saw no sign or spoor of the beast who had scared him away before, of the thing that had blocked off the corridor from his closet.

Though he had a watch, Dale soon allowed himself to lose track of time. The world he'd left behind held nothing for him, and he found solace in his walkabout in the depths of his closet.

Some weeks after leaving his home, he came upon cavern in the near eternal solidity of the junk. Within the cavern he, after a time, found two mountains. In the cozy valley between them lay a small farm. Dale passed through the fields, pausing once or twice to survey the strange crops; here athletic socks grew from the junk, there dress socks sprang in neat rows. Even a small patch of pantyhose grew near a bizarrely dressed scarecrow.

In the house between the mountains he had a strange woman, and from her he learned much of the new world to which he had come. Though he never learned his mentor's name, or saw her face beneath the wide brimmed hat she ever wore, Dale spent three years aiding her with her work, and meeting the more friendly denizens of the closet that would come to visit with her.

Having learned as much as he felt she could teach him, wanderlust again claimed his soul. A desire to get ever further from the world which had left him feeling dirty in a way that the Closet Dimension's endless fields of dust couldn't, drove him far from the portals of men, and into realms beyond comprehension.

For seven more years he explored the universe, surveying strange planes and alien realms, always from the vantage of a junk drawer or pocket. He mastered the ways of the closet monsters, and came to live in peace among them. He learned how to avoid the giant albino wolfspiders and how to seek out the closet trolls for trade. He discovered the ancient prayers to the woogans, the gentle and intangible spirits that grow fat upon the very essence of junk, and also discovered the truth that one being's junk is another being's treasure.

After many long years, far from the real world, loneliness finally got to Dale. A need for a true companionship, for a man to spend his life with, began to consume him and to fill his soul.

And so, at long last, Dale followed the secret ways of the Closet Dimension, and returned to those regions where the portals open into the realms of men.