Friend is a Four Letter Word

"This was a bad idea."

George says this aloud for prosperity, a figurative pencil mark on that mental tick sheet he’s kept since primary school. It’s nothing fancy, two lines, one horizontal; the other thicker and slashed down the center. It’s filled with neat check marks representing the good and bad things he’s done throughout the course of what up until the last few years had been a fairly boring life. A bit heavy on the right for a while, his good side. The one his mum was always proud of. That one’s filled with good deeds, like the time he helped a grandmother cross the street or returned a dropped tenner to its rightful owner, that sort of thing. Nothing epic, but still noteworthy; how often do those situations actually present themselves, outside the cinema or a Mitch Albom book?

No, he’s had far more encounters with the left side of the list, the bad side of his nature. It feels like the only thing he’s left with these days. Herrick notwithstanding, it’s been ages since he’s had a chance to do something he’s proud of. He’s too busy fighting off all those deviant left side impulses, and doing a crap job of it at that.

"You said that already." He can barely understand Mitchell; his voice is muffled by the arm he’s thrown across his face. It’s a dramatic look, very Bram Stoker’s Dracula, what with the pale skin and little bite marks across his neck and shoulders. Annie’s bite marks. Those had to be—no, those were definitely from Annie. "What time is it?"

"I have no idea." Something tickles his back, warm and lumpy, with a bit of fur across the surface. George cries out and shimmies to the edge of the bed, stopping at the sound of giggles under the comforter. "Annie?"

"Your feet are huge," Annie pronounces; all wild hair and smiles when she pops out from the sheets. She looks sweet and happy, but that’s Annie. She’d find the silver lining in a hurricane if she had to. "I never noticed that about you George."

Last night she’d been relentlessly cheery, positive and upbeat while saying the dirtiest things…

"You’re wearing socks?"

She wiggles her feet, "They get cold."

"No they don’t." Mitchell replaces his arm with a nearby pillow. "You don’t get cold."

"I can if I want." She sticks out her tongue out and pushes George’s feet with her fuzzy toes. "And they would’ve been before. When I was alive, my feet would always be cold after—well, everything."

She grins like a naughty schoolgirl, the kind that says I’ve gone in the cookie jar again or I’ve cheated on my exams, not a more appropriate I’ve shagged my flatmates senseless, why the hell did I do that? No, he’s the only one wearing that particular smile, which isn’t a smile at all, but more like a teeth baring grimace of mortification.

"Why are you still naked?" George says, though he’d planned to ask something that didn’t allude to sex in any shape or form. Something like, I could do with some tea or—actually, that’s as far as he’d gotten. "I mean, can’t you just..." He makes a sweeping motion across his body. "Pop them back on again?"

"It was hard enough getting them off. You were there. Need I remind you about the bra incident?"

George did remember, most of what happened last night was coming back to him now, in vivid flashes of skin and sweat, pointed teeth and warm wet tongues. Her bra—yes, that was an adventure, the straps kept slipping from his fingers like silky wet eels. He’d just manage a brief glimpse of her nipple before things snapped back in place again. It was frustrating and exciting, like a dime store peepshow. Annie just giggled, while Mitchell remained unimpressed and impatient. He took over with his hands and mouth, touching and kissing her in various (impressively creative) distracting ways that allowed George to finish the job, and the three of them to…get on with things.

Annie’s right, it had been an ordeal, and one he still isn’t clear about the ins and outs of. Something about her state of mind and concentration, along her wanting to be naked…

"I like being naked," she insists. "It’s a bit relief actually. And why do I have to get dressed when you’re not? Neither is Mitchell."

"We haven’t gotten up yet."

"Neither have I."

"Not technically, but—"

"That’s not fair, is it?" She slides down and lays against Mitchell’s back. "Is it because I’m dead?"

"Of course not."

"Do I disgust you George?"

"No—no!" His eyes drop, unintentionally of course, but all this talk about being naked sort of—weighs them down momentarily. The sight of her—of them, all tangled and pressed together is a number of things (another check on the left column for starters) but disgusting isn’t one of them. "You know that’s not what I mean, you’re brilliant. You were brilliant. We—what you did with…"

She leans over and whispers in Mitchell’s ear, "Did you hear that Mitchell, George said I was brilliant."

"You were." Mitchell speaks into the pillow, so it sounds more like "Oo ehr."

Annie gives a cocky headshake and tosses back her hair, "Well, I’m not just about tea you know."

Her exaggerated wink makes George tug his end of the covers, "Don’t—don’t wink at me, it makes me feel like I’ve been molested."

"Oh, please." She gives him a snort and eye roll, "It was your idea."

"It—was not."

Mitchell twists and sits up, throwing Annie a bit off balance. It makes the sheet to slip and fall to her waist, which in turn distracts George because—well, because she’s still naked, isn’t she?

"Hold on—did you say this wasn’t your idea?" Mitchell’s wide awake now, his voice clear of that phlegm-filled sleep that lodges in George’s throat every morning. "You can’t be serious."

"Yep," Annie’s lips make a soft popping sound that’s vaguely familiar. "That’s what he said."

George stiffens. "Wait a second—are you saying—the two of you, I mean—Annie! Could you please cover those—you’re—I can’t finish a sentence while you’re—sitting like that."

Mitchell glances at her, and then gives another, proper look, "You’re still naked."

She wilts with a coquettish eye flutter, "You noticed."

"How could I not?"

"Could we focus please?" This earns exasperated looks from the other side of the bed, the left side, which can’t be a coincidence, can it?

"He wants me to get dressed." Annie pouts (pouts?!). Mitchell shakes his head, emphatic. "Don’t listen to him."

George lifts his hand, like a good lad, a pious lad who would never, ever suggest a shag with both of his flatmates. "I am not the cause of this."

He points to Annie. "You’re the one who wanted her clothes off."

"Only because Mitchell asked me to! Told me to, you didn’t ask for much of anything, did you?"

"I don’t recall you offering any please or thank yous either." Mitchell’s voice becomes a high falsetto, "Harder Mitchell, faster. You were a bit rough with me actually."

"I don’t sound like that." She squints and leans in closer. "But I’m sorry if I hurt you—wait, I don’t—not all of these are mine."

George tugs the covers higher against his stomach "That’s impossible. You can’t possibly tell whose teeth those are—you know what? Stay naked. I don’t care anymore. I’m getting dressed now."

"Oh, come on George," they whine simultaneously, and Annie crawls out from the covers, towards him. She grabs a fist full of comforter and pulls, halting what was supposed to be a hasty retreat. George has one foot on the floor, the other still on the bed, and his cock swinging like a semi-hard pendulum over the edge of the mattress. He thinks of the tick sheet again, then his mother—which sends his brain careening to the present out of self preservation.

"Don’t go." Annie’s pouting again, still naked of everything but her fuzzy grey socks. She looks ridiculous and brilliant. Her feet have transformed somehow, become the center of several strange and wanton possibilities wreaking havoc with his mind.

"I’m still cold." She shivers for effect and George stops breathing momentarily.

"You can’t get cold." Mitchell’s studying her ass intently; George can’t see where his hands are anymore. "You don’t feel cold." He leans in and flattens his tongue against her thigh, "And you feel—fantastic."

George feels himself slipping, ceding another chunk of his morality to the sight of that skin and those impressive wild curls. He remembers her hair and that bloody popping noise. He remembers her mouth.

She’s definitely not just about making tea.

Mitchell breaks his thoughts with a quick slap to her rear. Annie yelps and falls backwards, taking the comforter with her. George freezes, still half out of bed, visibly betrayed by an obvious erection. Mitchell grins against her shoulder. Annie crooks a finger, beckoning like a sultry little siren, daring him to give in and let her steal his soul. And would that be such a bad thing really? She’d probably make better use of it than he has anyway.

"This was not my idea," George insists, for karma or the tick list, or—something that actually matters. "All I said was—"

"You said, I bloody love you guys." Mitchell’s impatient again, already fingering Annie with deliberate back and forth precision. She worries her bottom lip when he pinches a tight nipple. "I could shag the lot of you right now, right here on the bloody kitchen table because you’re my friends, my best friends, I fuckin’ love you both." Mitchell pauses when her breath hitches and cuts his eyes at George, staring at him across her back. "I’m paraphrasing of course."

Annie braces against the mattress and ruts her hips, moves faster, faster until she’s keening and calling their names in raspy puffs of air. They watch her come in reverent silence, captivated when she smiles, a lazy, crooked grin that comes with being thoroughly satisfied. George feels flush and clammy; it takes him three tries before he can actually speak again.

"Well, I—that is definitely…."

Mitchell takes her in his arms. "Annie’s a bit cold George."

George nods and slides back on the bed.

"I suppose we should warm her up then."