Nunc et in Perpetuum
"Please just tell me now if there will be a stripper," Abbey requested for what felt like the thousandth time that week.
"I have no idea," Jed replied with exasperation. And he really didn't. He liked to think that his friends had more taste than that, but putting a pre-graduation bachelor party in the hands of three twenty-two year old men was almost asking to get blackout drunk with at least one stripper. Not that any of that was what Jed wanted to do, but when was a bachelor party ever really for the groom? No, Jed was resigned to the fact that this party was the last time he and his friends would get to have fun together before they graduated in two days, so he really had no choice in the matter.
"How can you not know? Didn't Frank or Roger say anything?" Abbey asked with a frown, pausing her pacing in front of the sofa.
Jed chuckled. "I've never known you to be jealous, honey."
Her mouth dropped open and she raised her eyebrows. "I am not jealous! I just don't like being kept out of the loop."
"It's my party and I have no idea what's happening. If I'm okay with it, I should think you would be."
"Don't be stupid. I'm going to be a wreck not knowing where you are or what you're doing. I'm not going to have any fun at my own party if you don't tell me what's going on," she insisted.
"You don't trust me?" he teased, his blue eyes sparkling with his smile.
"Oh you I trust. It's those other idiots I don't have any faith in."
Jed laughed and pulled her down into his lap where he sat on the couch. "Frank is already married. And Dave is inches from proposing to Millie, but don't tell her that."
"She knows. But what does that have to do with anything?"
"It means that we're all men in serious relationships and none of us would do anything to jeopardize that. I can guarantee if anything untoward happened, you or Millie or Linda would murder every one of us."
Abbey narrowed her eyes at her fiancé. "What about Roger?" she asked suspiciously. Roger was an American Studies major with Jed and he was something of a wild partier. Jed liked him because he was brilliant but incredibly funny. Roger Schwartz would do anything to get a laugh, and Jed Bartlet loved him for it. Abbey had always been a little wary of him, but he'd never done anything specific to make her truly dislike him.
"Roger will be with the rest of us. We'll be fine, Abb, I promise." Jed kissed her cheek and gave her a squeeze. "Now what about you girls? Should I be worried about you?"
Abbey smirked. Jed didn't know that he would have had every right to be worried if he had known her four years earlier. But now she was an adult. An engaged adult. Engaged to a man she was over the moon for. "Of course not. It's just Millie, Linda, Janet, Carole, and me. Linda and Janet are married and boring. And Carole is an Art History major. Anything out of a museum is a little too much excitement for her."
"And you and Millie?"
She bit her lip and chuckled. "Millie will keep an eye on me. You know you can trust her to make sure I stay in line."
"Is that really a concern I should have?"
Abbey just shrugged. She twisted her engagement ring on her finger, admiring it as she always did. "We'll be married in ten days," she remarked aloud.
He nodded. "And in two days, we'll have graduated college. So since our families are all getting in tomorrow, this is our last real night of freedom. We'll all let loose and have some fun. No worrying, okay? From either of us."
"Agreed." Abbey stood up. "You'd better get back to your apartment. The guys should be coming to get you soon."
Jed looked at his watch and realized he had lost track of time, as he often did when he was with Abbey. Frank had told him to be ready to go at seven. It was already six thirty. "Yeah I gotta go, sweetheart. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
She leaned in and kissed him. "I'll call you when I wake up."
With that, Jed left. Abbey quickly got changed and fixed her hair and makeup so she'd be ready when her girlfriends arrived for her bachelorette party.
To say the rest of the night went as planned would be an egregious and offensive lie.
It started out innocently enough. Roger had sprung for a limo for the boys. His father was an extremely wealthy investment banker in New York, and while Roger had chosen to go to a Catholic school for college, he hadn't angered his father enough to be cut off from the family fortune.
"Get in, Jed! Tonight shall be an adventure!" Roger shouted, his body halfway out the window of the vehicle.
Jed allowed Frank and Dave to drag him into the limo. Instantly, he had a glass of scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other.
"And now, we are men!" Frank announced.
Jed laughed. "Says the old married man!"
Roger agreed, asking Frank, "How about some advice to the groom, Francis? Surely you've got some wisdom about marriage, if nothing else."
Frank downed his scotch and leaned forward quite seriously. "The first thing to realize about being married, Jed, is that the sex is going to be basically gone." The other three men laughed hysterically. "No! I'm serious! She's got no reason to let you touch her anymore. There's gonna be a ring on your finger, which means you're stuck. So you'll have to beg and bribe her if you want to touch her ever again. Get used to that idea now."
Jed smirked to himself, knowing he wasn't being naïve in knowing how wrong Frank was when it came to him and Abbey. Just yesterday, Abbey had, immediately after the first of two rounds in bed, made him promise to make her feel like that for the rest of her lives. And Jed had promised that he'd make her toes curl while she screamed his name any time she asked. She asked, and he had delivered.
"Jed?"
He looked up, shaken back to reality. "So is that it, Frank? You just wanted to share that you've got no sex life?"
Dave and Roger laughed. Frank just shrugged and puffed on his cigar.
"Alright, let's get this poor bastard to the strip club. Clearly he needs it," Roger said.
"Oh god, really?" Jed complained with a pained expression.
Dave frowned. "Are you really going to whine about a strip club?! I mean, I'm sure Millie would kill me if she found out, but that's the whole point of a bachelor party!"
"I think our young Josiah is still a little too stuck in his Catholic roots. Prudish, are we?" Roger teased.
Jed chuckled. "If you knew what I was getting at home, you'd know that I don't need to pay for anything," he boasted.
Frank perked up, the light of a brilliant idea shining in his dark eyes. "Hey Dave, didn't Millie say that Abbey gets a little saucy when she drinks?"
"Yeah…"
"Well Linda let it slip to me that she's on a mission to get the bride completely plastered to see what she'll do. I think we owe it to ourselves to sneak a peek," Frank suggested with a big grin.
Jed's eyes went wide. Secretly he wanted nothing more than to watch Abbey lose her inhibitions and see what happened. She always ended up doing the unexpected. But Jed definitely didn't want his idiot friends to witness it.
"Too bad, buddy. We're going," Dave said.
Roger howled like a wolf after telling the limo driver the change in destination.
Meanwhile, Abbey's party was in full swing. She and her friends were all drinking champagne and dancing around the living room to The Rolling Stones. Well, Abbey was. Carole was sitting demurely off to the side, laughing at Abbey and Millie dancing together, pulling Linda in between them. Janet was in the kitchen, opening the fifth bottle of champagne.
"Oh I love this song!" Abbey shouted. She downed what was left in her glass as Janet came by to refill it. "Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday! Who could hang a name on you?" she sang, bouncing around the room. She had probably consumed two bottles all by herself and she felt like the champagne bubbles were floating her into the air as she moved. She was very drunk and very happy.
Soon, however, the album ended. Abbey flopped onto the couch next to Carole. "Why are you friends with me? You're far too nice to be here," the bride slurred.
Carole laughed. Her curly black hair shook and her brown eyes crinkled with her smile. "I'm friends with you because you're fun, Abigail. I still don't know why you invited me to your bachelorette party, but I'm glad you did. You girls are a hoot!"
"I'm glad you're enjoying. But you should come dance with us. We're having a great time."
Linda came to sit on Abbey's other side. "So tell us, Abbey, why are you marrying that library rat of yours?" she asked teasingly.
Abbey frowned at her friend, despite the fact that there were two of her. "Why did you marry Frank?"
Linda scoffed, "Because he asked! And we'd been dating for almost a year. It's what you do. And after graduation, we're going to start trying for a baby." She grinned at her announcement.
"That's so exciting!" Janet said, coming over to sit on the floor with the bottle. "Gene and I are waiting another year so he can get settled in his job first. But I can't wait to be a mother. Have you and Jed talked about children, Abbey?"
She shook her head. "Other than the fact that we want them, no, not really. I'd be fine waiting for a while. We'll be in London for two years, after all. I can't imagine being all alone across the ocean with a baby while Jed is busy in school."
"You didn't answer my question, Abbey!" Linda interrupted.
"What question?"
"Why are you marrying him?"
"Before you give a long, poetic answer," Millie interjected, "what album do you want me to put on next?"
"Let's do The Supremes," Abbey called over to her.
"Perfect. I think it's in my room. I'll be right back. Now tell the girls all the sappy stuff you've given me an earful of over the last year!"
Abbey threw her head back and laughed, emitting a loud cackle from the back of her throat. "Alright, you want to know why I'm marrying him? Because I love him. I love him so much, sometimes I think I'm going to explode. You know when you first meet someone you really like and it makes your heart flutter? I've known Jed for three years, and I still feel like that every day. He makes me laugh and he makes me think and he drives me crazy in the best way. Jed Bartlet listens when I talk and takes me seriously and supports me and he loves me more than I ever thought possible. I could go on and on, but I'll just leave it by saying that I'm marrying him so that I can spend every single day for the rest of our days proving to him that I'm worth the kind of love he's given me."
Carole took off her glasses to wipe her eyes. Janet couldn't stop smiling. Linda stared down at her wedding ring, twisting it between her fingers.
Millie came back from the bedroom. "Found it! Let's restart the party with a little Motown, shall we?"
Abbey leapt up. "Yes please! Now ladies, I want all of you up and dancing."
Linda smiled to herself, knowing this was the perfect time for her to have a little fun. "Alright, we'll all dance, Abbey, but you've got to put on a show. I know you know all the words to these songs. Let your inner Diana Ross out!"
Abbey paused for a moment, thinking. "Yeah, alright." She finished her tenth glass of champagne and put it down in the kitchen.
"Ooo Abbey, do you know the choreography they did on Ed Sullivan a few weeks ago?" Janet asked excitedly.
Millie started laughing hysterically. "Please don't ask her to dance. She's so bad at it. Hilariously bad at it."
"I am not!" Abbey insisted.
"Well then maybe we should make her dance," Linda said with a giggle.
Abbey's favorite song came on and she decided to show them what she was made of. She started singing You Can't Hurry Love at the top of her lungs. She was extremely loud, but at least she had a good voice. But her dancing did leave a lot to be desired. She knew how to move her body, but she kept tripping and nearly falling over. Eventually, she just stood in one place and swayed her hips.
Carole had stood up from the couch, but she kept to the wall, watching the others dance and laugh. A knock came at the door and she went to answer it.
Roger Schwartz burst into the apartment. He saw all the ladies gyrating to the music and let out a loud wolf whistle. Dave smacked him upside the head. "Knock it off."
Millie went to greet the men with a furrowed brow. "What are you all doing here? Didn't you have plans?"
Dave grinned. "We did, but we like you all a lot better." She seemed satisfied with that answer.
Frank found Linda and pulled her into his arms. "There's my missus!" He whispered into her ear, "Anything exciting happen yet?"
She giggled. "She's so drunk. She's been singing and jumping around for a while, but I'm surprised she's still upright."
"I guess we'll have to watch what happens," Frank said excitedly.
"JED!" Abbey shouted, seeing her fiancé enter the room. "They don't think I can dance!" she pouted loudly.
He laughed and gave her a quick kiss. "Wow, you've had a lot to drink, babe."
"And you've been smoking a cigar. You know I put up with the cigarettes, despite the fact that they're gonna kill you, but cigars are disgusting."
"Well I wasn't planning on seeing you until tomorrow when I'd showered and brushed my teeth," he informed her. "But I'm glad I can see you now. What's all this about you not being able to dance? You're a great dancer."
"See!?" she yelled, looking pointedly at her friends.
"Come on, honey. Let's show 'em how it's done." Jed took her hand and spun her around, leading her in a dance to the Supremes song playing on the record player.
Janet, who had gone to the bathroom just a minute before, came back to the living room to see Jed and Abbey and Frank and Linda dancing together while Dave, with Millie in his lap, watched from the sofa. In the dark kitchen, Roger was making out with Carole. This definitely wasn't what she had expected. It probably wasn't what anyone expected.
All of a sudden, Carole screamed. Roger sprinted through the living room and out the front door.
"What happened?!" Millie came rushing over and turned on the kitchen light. Carole had vomit all over her shoes. "Oh god. Here, let's clean you up." Millie turned to Dave behind her. "Go get him and make sure he doesn't come back."
Dave waved at Frank. "Let's go deal with that idiot."
Linda followed. "Can I come? That way we can just go home after." Frank nodded at his wife and she turned to thank Millie and Abbey for the fun, while it had lasted.
Jed made a move to follow, but Dave stopped him. "It's your party. You shouldn't have to put up with any of this."
Janet put a hand on Abbey's shoulder. "We'll take care of Carole. Why don't you and Jed go for a walk or something?"
Abbey nodded and took Jed's hand. They walked down the street in the opposite direction of Dave and Frank holding up Roger while Linda followed behind.
"Not exactly how I envisioned my bachelorette party," Abbey noted.
"Me neither. Definitely not how I thought this night would go."
They walked in silence for a little while before Abbey finally asked, "So was there a stripper?"
He laughed. "There was supposed to be, but the guys decided that watching you would be more fun."
She swatted his arm. "And you didn't stop them!?"
"Hey, it was either crashing your party or going to a strip club. And seeing how you've got all your clothes on still, this seemed like the better option."
Abbey bit her lip, her green eyes sparkling. "Would you like a stripper, Jethro?"
"Not if I get called by that stupid name."
She pulled him in the direction of his apartment, located just a few blocks away. "If I'm going to give you a lap dance, I'll call you whatever I want. And you'll like it."
Jed grinned and started walking a little faster.