Another Disastrous Birthday

It started out innocently enough. Brian decided he wanted to do something extra special for Justin’s twenty first birthday. He’d thought back on Justin’s birthdays since they met and decided that he had some making up to do. For Justin’s eighteenth birthday Brian had simply fucked the young man into his mattress. Then there was the dreaded hustler incident on Justin’s nineteenth. For Justin’s twentieth birthday they’d been apart as Justin was with Ethan at the time. Now was Brian’s chance to do something that Justin would actually appreciate. He’d decided on a small party, just the two of them, and a homemade cake.
           
Normally Brian would have asked Debbie to make the cake but he thought, for this occasion, it would have more meaning if he made it himself. Sure, he wasn’t the best cook in the world but if Mikey could do it, how hard could it be? Besides, the directions were right there on the box and Brian was always very good at following directions when it was something that he actually wanted to do. Making the cake would be easy. He was Brian Kinney after all and he’d always been able to do whatever he set his mind to. And he’d set his mind to making a homemade cake.
           
The first thing Brian did was call Jennifer and ask her if Justin had any food allergies he hadn’t told Brian about. Brian was pretty confident that he knew all of Justin’s allergies, but he wanted to make sure. When Jennifer inquired why he needed to know, Brian could just hear the smirk in her voice. He’d told her simply that he was planning a birthday dinner for Justin and he didn’t want anything to go wrong. That was true enough. Brian was going to have the meal catered because he didn’t trust himself to cook an entire meal. She explained to him that Justin didn’t have any food allergies. Once that was out of the way, Brian went to work.
           
He went to the store thinking it would be simple to choose a cake, get the needed supplies and go home. He hadn’t realized that there were about fifty different varieties of cake to choose from. He was going to pick a chocolate cake, but when he got to the aisle he saw that there were nine different types of chocolate cake. Butter Recipe Chocolate, Chocolate Fudge, Dark Chocolate, Devil's Food, Double Chocolate Swirl, Fudge Marble, German Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Triple Chocolate Fudge. And that was just the Betty Crocker cakes. That didn’t include the Pillsbury, the Duncan Hines, and the store brand. Finally, after about twenty minutes of comparing directions and deciding on which cake would be the easiest to make while being the most appealing to Justin, he went with the Double Chocolate Swirl. Then there was the task of picking frosting, which there happened to be about ten different types of chocolate frosting. Luckily Brian found the plain chocolate easily. He then went about gathering the ingredients to make the cake.
           
Having never baked a cake in his life he had none of the needed supplies to do so. Not only did he have to get the oil, which only came in an economy sized bottle and he hoped Justin could make use of everything over the half a cup needed for the cake, the eggs, again only needing three and the smallest package was half a dozen, the milk, of which he could only find gallons because they were apparently out of the half gallons and smaller, even the pan and the mixer to put it all together. Brian would have just hand mixed it but the directions said it was better to use a mixer and he wanted it to be the best. The purchasing of the pan was an absolute nightmare.
           
He thought that a grocery store would have only those foil, one time use pans that you bake the cake, then throw it away. Boy was he wrong. There were fifteen different types of those foil pans, as well as heavy metal pans, and glass pans. He saw round cake pans, square ones, rectangular ones. He thought surely the box would tell him which pan to use and growled in frustration when there were instructions for each different type of baking pan. Then it came down to how Brian wanted the cake to look. Did he want a single layer cake that was bigger and would take them longer to finish or did he want a double layer cake? He thought about what might be involved in making a double layer cake and grabbed the nine by thirteen glass baking dish, deciding on a single layer cake. Then, of course, he had to go get the butter and flour to prepare the pan so the cake wouldn’t get stuck to it.
           
What originally started out as a twenty minute trip to the grocery store turned into a two hour expedition and Brian was exhausted when he returned to the loft. Fortunately it was a Saturday and he’d started early so he still had several hours before Justin would get home. If he got cooking now, the cake would be finished way in advance of when Justin would be showing up. He’d be able to surprise him as soon as he got home. Or so he thought.
           
Brian realized as he was getting everything together that he didn’t have a large mixing bowl. Having learned from the grocery store experience, Brian decided to just call Debbie and ask her if he could borrow one. He told her the truth; swearing her to secrecy and threatening the well being of all of her wigs were it to leak out to ANYONE. She laughed at that but agreed not to tell a soul, then said she’d bring the bowl over right away. After dropping off the bowl it took Brian a total of half an hour to convince Debbie that he could do it himself, that he wanted to do it himself, and that she needed to go away so that he could get started. He refused to cook with her standing right there telling him what he was doing wrong. Once Debbie left, Brian sighed with relief and got started.
           
The first bag of cake mix ended up all over Brian and the kitchen. Those bags aren’t as easy to open as they look and when he pulled hard enough to get it open he ripped the bag in half and the chocolate powder went everywhere. Brian then had to venture back to the store, this time grabbing three boxes of the mix just in case. The second bag of mix all went into the bowl since Brian used scissors to open it this time. He felt rather proud of himself until he accidentally dropped a piece of eggshell into the cake mix as he was breaking the eggs. If he’d been able to fish it out of the bowl it wouldn’t have been that big a deal but as he tried to get it out, the pesky shell disappeared into the abyss that was the cake mix. So Brian dumped that out and started over.
           
Shortly after putting the three eggs into the third batch of mix, Brian realized that he didn’t have the necessary measurement tools, or so he thought. After searching the entire kitchen, he finally found what he was looking for, carefully hidden in a cabinet he didn’t even know he had. He guessed that was Justin’s doing. He got out the measuring cup and poured in the milk and the oil. The recipe originally called for water but it said you could use milk to make it richer so he did. Of course, he ended up with milk all over himself and the counter before all was said and done. Even as strong as his arms were, he didn’t have the fine control it took to pour milk from a brand new gallon into a small measuring cup.
           
He got the mixer out and plugged it in. He’d set it on the setting the box told him to use after pulling out a timer and getting it ready. He set the mixer in the bowl, as he was supposed to do. Brian turned it on and cake mix started flying everywhere. Common sense would have told Brian to start off with a slow speed and work his way up but since he’d never done this before he wasn’t thinking about the mixer causing the chocolate goo to go all over his kitchen. He then had to get himself cleaned up enough to go buy some more eggs, this time getting a dozen. While he was there he stopped and picked up three more boxes of the cake mix, just in case.
           
After getting all of the ingredients into the bowl, Brian put the mixer in the bowl and turned it on slowly at first, speeding it up to the right speed. He had to keep a tight grip on both the bowl and the mixer to keep it from flying everywhere again. He finally managed to get everything mixed, deciding to ignore the tiny little pieces of powder that he just couldn’t get mixed in. He figured that was part of it. He realized at that moment that he forgot to preheat the oven. After getting that done he went about flouring the pan. Getting the butter on the pan was easy enough, but Brian ended up with more flour on himself and all over the kitchen, than in the pan.
           
Brian poured the mix into the pan and tried to make it perfect. He was a little frustrated that no matter how hard he tried he just couldn’t get the surface perfectly smooth, but he did the best he could and had it ready when the oven was at the right temperature. Brian put the cake in the oven, on the correct rack, then turned on the timer. Now all he had to do was wait. He decided while he waited to clean up the kitchen which was no small task.
           
The cake said it would take thirty minutes to bake, but to check it with a tooth pick to make sure it was done. Brian was still cleaning when the timer went off. He stopped and checked the cake and the toothpick came out completely covered in chocolate goo. For some reason the oven wasn’t as hot as it should have been so the cake was only baked a little on the outside. He sighed heavily and put the cake back in, turning the oven up just a little bit, then went back to cleaning. When the kitchen was completely clean, he checked the cake and it still wasn’t done baking after almost an hour. Frustration prevailed and Brian turned the oven up even higher. He then went to take a quick shower.
           
About the time that Brian stepped out of the shower, having been in it for only ten minutes or so, the smoke alarm went off. Brian ran, still naked and wet, into the kitchen to see smoke billowing out of the oven. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist before going into the kitchen and opening the oven door. As soon as he did, flames came out at him. He grabbed the fire extinguisher and put out the flames, though the room was filled with smoke and the oven was now ruined. That was when Justin decided to make an appearance. He came in the door and stood there, staring at the mess that was Brian’s kitchen. Neither said anything for a while. Justin surveyed the kitchen and saw the mixing bowl, the mixer, and the empty boxes of cake mix sitting on the island.
           
“Um.......happy birthday?” Brian said. It’d been a complete disaster, the cake, and the kitchen, were ruined, but Brian couldn’t help smiling as he saw a smile spread across Justin’s face. It would end up costing him a whole new oven, and because Brian is like that, a whole new kitchen, but to Brian it was worth it just to see Justin smile.

 

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