Monica had said 3 a.m., not before, and now it was 2.55 and Chandler was so antsy he could hardly stand still, let alone finish his coffee. He shouldn't have set his alarm as early as 2.45 in the first place, but then he had hardly been able to sleep anyway. And now he found that waiting for her in the kitchen straining his ears for her knock was driving him just as crazy as lying in his bed staring at the alarm clock, afraid to shut his eyes for fear of falling asleep again. Getting everything ready – the box of condoms, the box of tissues and the towel she still insisted on having handy, even though her period was as good as finished – hadn't taken more than half a minute either, and now there just wasn't anything else to do but wait. Wait and try not to wake Joey with his impatience.
Waiting was always the hardest part of their affair, and today was even worse. The last time they had been able to steal a few minutes alone had been Thursday night and that had been much too hurried and urgent to be really satisfying. After that everything seemed dead set against them to stop them from celebrating another completed week since London – week 6 in fact. Monica had had to work a double shift which meant they hadn't been able to see each other in the morning at breakfast, and he had an unbelievable amount of end-of-the-months report piles to deal with which kept him in the office until late. When he finally got home, Joey had insisted on a foosball tournament followed by pizza and endless TV and since he just hadn't been able to think of a convincing excuse, it had been easier just to go along. Sneaking around Joey was somehow getting harder and harder to do anyway. Right now he was getting more of a problem than Rachel who finally seemed to have accepted Monica's weird refusal to share the identity of her secret boyfriend. Once he was safely in Monica's bedroom, all he had to do was to ensure that Rachel couldn't recognize his voice though the wall between their bedrooms. And remember to cover himself up before he left too. But Joey was another problem altogether. He hadn't said anything so far, but it seemed to Chandler that somehow Joey sensed that something was wrong, by the way he looked at him sometimes with a frown, as if something struck him as odd that he couldn't put his finger on. He kept telling himself that it was probably just his imagination, but it was making him more and more uncomfortable. And last night, just a few hours ago actually, when they had finally gone to bed around midnight he had heard his roommate toss and turn – and snore too - for quite a bit, and he couldn't be sure if he was really fast asleep by now. But that couldn't be helped. If only they could have a night to themselves, with no delays, no waiting, no interruptions, just one whole night they could spend together in peace. A night away – that was something to think about right there.
Then it was finally 3 a.m., Saturday already for 3 hours, but still no Monica. Maybe his clock was fast? Maybe hers was slow? Maybe Rachel was still awake, or had just woken and gone to the bathroom? Maybe … Chandler almost forcibly stopped himself from pacing around the kitchen and risking to wake up Joey with it and took a deep breath instead. And another. Then he closed his eyes and counted to ten, then to twenty, then to thirty … Then he looked at the clock again. 3.01, and just as he looked, it clicked to 3.02. He put his mug on the counter and then, oh thank all the angels in heaven, there was her knock. 3.02, he would have to adjust the clock by two minutes then. But first things first, and he opened the door to let her in and chuckled with delight, when he saw her standing on the doorstep in her black bathrobe with a piece of the black negligee showing that he was crazy about. She giggled happily in return and they kissed eagerly, then he put an arm around her to steer her to his bedroom without any more delays. His body was already reacting to her, the feel of her lips, her breath on his face, her body under that bathrobe – AND the negligee. It made his heart beat faster and his breath stop short, let alone caused that weird feeling in his stomach which he couldn't get used to even after all this time, and his penis stirring and thickening in anticipation which he was actually very used to, but which was still thrilling. In his mind he was already busily mapping his moves after they had arrived in his room, how he would take off her bathrobe, but not the negligee, not yet, and then pick her up and climb on the bed with her, hold her tight, kiss her senseless …
He was so preoccupied with this that he didn't quite register Joey getting up and walk to his door. When he opened it, there was no time left for thinking. He pushed Monica away from him by pure instinct and gripped the edge of the kitchen counter with both hands to steady himself, gritting his teeth. Oh god, not this, not now … Then Joey switched on the light and blinked at them sleepily, totally befuddled.
"Monica? What time is it?"
"Uh, 9." He had answered without thinking and wanted to kick himself as soon as it was out. Fortunately he remembered just in time to push the clock out of sight.
"But it's dark out …!" What to say, what to say … eclipse? Blackout? The world ending? Fortunately Monica came to his rescue. She even remembered to hide that corner of the negligee, though it was fortunate that the perceptive part of Joey was still asleep, or he would have noticed it first thing.
"Well that's because you always sleep to noon, silly! This is what 9 looks like."
It sounded crazy to him, but Joey seemed to buy it.
"I guess I'll get washed up then." He actually grinned at them. "Watch that sunrise!"
And with that he marched into the bathroom, his eyes still at half-mast. When the door closed behind him, Chandler tentatively started to breathe again. Monica put her hands to her head, freaking out now that the danger was passed.
"I'm really getting tired of sneaking around!"
"I know, me too." It was fun, but too much was too much – and suddenly something clicked.
"Hey! What if we went away for a whole weekend?" He grinned excitedly, almost dancing in place. "We'd have no interruptions and we could be naked the entire time!" And do it, again and again, not just all night, but all weekend ..."
"All weekend? That's a whole lotta naked!" There was that sparkle in her eyes that he loved so much. Especially when he caused it. It put his brain into overdrive at once.
"Yeah, I can say that I have a conference and you can say you have a – a chef thing."
"Oohh, I've always wanted to go to this culinary fair that they have in Jersey!" Monica was almost skipping with joy. Time to put her back on track.
"Okay, but you know you're not though ..!" Her face fell a little, but she shrugged gamely. Well, he would make sure to make her forget all about the culinary fair right now. New Jersey though, there was an idea - but first things first.
"Let's go." And he tried to steer her towards his room again, but Monica hesitated.
"Wait! What about Joey?"
Right. Shouldn't be a problem anymore, but better safe than sorry … He went to the bathroom door and opened it cautiously. And there was Joey, on the toilet seat with his toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, fast asleep again. Just as he had thought. No problem there.
He turned back to Monica, shrugging, and she just nodded and then hurried to his bedroom, actually beating him to it. He followed her as quickly as possible, not even bothering to close the bathroom door again, and then they were in his room, in front of the bed, unable to wait any longer, to endure even the slightest further delay. As soon as he had shut the door they reached for each other in the dark, pulling each other close and kissing hungrily, and then they were already lying on the bed, pressing close, still in their bathrobes and not caring, fumbling and clawing at each other urgently. He pulled her on top of him and pushed her panties over her buttocks and down her thighs and she kicked them away and then straddled him, clawing at his boxers. He rolled around again and on top of her, pushing down his boxers with one hand just as far as necessary and then entered her swiftly, pushing into her blindly and without thought, never taking his mouth from hers the whole time. She screamed and moaned into their kiss, drumming her heels against his legs and buttocks and clenching her fists in the fabric of his robe. All the layers of clothes between them somehow only heightened their urgency and greed for each other. His thrusts became faster and harder until he felt as if it was getting out of control, as if he was a machine that could no longer be stopped, without brake or emergency button. Then her body arched under him, lifting him up with it, and she seemed to tighten all around him, locking him inside her, squeezing him until he couldn't move anymore, couldn't even breathe for a long, long moment until she collapsed again whimpering and moaning and he sank down over her, hardly noticing his own orgasm rolling through him. When he tried to push himself up, he almost fell down on her again, his arms too weak to support him all of a sudden. He rolled away from her and stretched out, panting and sweaty, with hardly any strength left to find and grasp her hand and entwine his fingers with hers. He heard her breathing beside him, gasping and almost wheezing at first, then gradually stilling and evening out. Finally she turned to him and hooked a leg over his waist, sliding a hand under his robe and t-shirt. He heaved himself around on his side too and they lay close for a while, just huddling and kissing lazily, too exhausted to even try to get out of their clothes. Only the muffled thump and startled swearing from the bathroom when Joey finally fell from the toilet, jolted them out of their contented reverie and made them cling to each other in panic, holding their breath and listening. Then they heard Joey shuffling out of the bathroom back to his room, muttering and yawning, and relaxed again as the door was shut and the bedsprings squeaked as he fell into his bed.
.
Much later that morning when Joey had finally gotten up and lurched into the shower, totally oblivious again of their nightly encounter, he set about booking their hotel room in Atlantic City. When it turned out that the hotel they had stayed at on their weekend trip with Phoebe after the birth of the triplets was full, he suddenly remembered a conversation with a work colleague about the Resorts Casino Hotel. It was awfully pricy, but actually offered rooms with ocean view and a lot of other extras that he thought would give Monica quite a thrill and make the weekend even more special. And if they went by bus and didn't go out for dinner, the total costs of this weekend trip would still be affordable.
Joey caught the tail end of his confirmation when he came out of the shower in a cloud of steam, but accepted grudgingly his explanation that he needed to fill in for a work colleague who had gotten sick at a conference in New Jersey. As did Phoebe who was still eating breakfast at the kitchen table when they went over to no. 20, in a rather striking long red dress. Over breakfast, Joey wolfing down everything in sight as if he'd had nothing to eat for two days, she told them how Monica had beaten Rachel three times at rock-paper-scissors to get her to go for bagels from Zabar's on her own for once.
Then Monica entered, cheerful and radiant, in a tight dark blue sweater that complimented her eyes - and some other things too - and a long tight bluegrey skirt that immediately had him thinking about the best way to remove it from her or at least get his hands under it and slide them up -
"Hey, guess what I'm doing this weekend! I'm going to this culinary fair in New Jersey."
He froze, his lewd thoughts cut off abruptly. Oh no, he'd done it again, and such a rookie mistake too. No way they would swallow that much of a coincidence …
"Oh weird, Chandler just told us he's got a conference there!" Yup, they were done for.
"Oh now that-that-that's funny, it seems like Chandler's conference could've been in Connecticut or Vermont!" Monica sounded amused, but there was an edge in her voice that made him start to sweat.
"I'm not in charge of where the conference is held. Do you want people to think it's a fake conference? It's a real conference." It sounded lame even to him, but to his relief nobody seemed to want to argue the point. And then Ross came in, in a nervous frenzy as usual and asking for Rachel, swigging his Pepto Bismol that he had begun to take around with him everywhere lately. Chandler wondered once more how many bottles he had gone through in the last weeks, and if he was close to bursting from constipation yet. It turned out that after two weeks of negotiating, hesitating, procrastinating and nerve-wrecking it looked like Emily would come to New York after all - meaning that things were finally coming to a head. And now he had to break it to Rachel somehow.
Phoebe got up to stand close to him and they all followed suit, looking at Ross who was staring back defiantly.
"Wait a minute! So when Emily comes you're just, you're not gonna see Rachel anymore?"
"Well look, I'm just trying to focus on the "I get to see my wife," part, all right?"
Yeah, like such tunnel vision would resolve everything.
"Wow, so you guys are, you're never gonna be in the same room together? How is that even gonna work?" Leave it to Monica to point out the obvious pitfall.
"I have no idea. I mean - but I assure you I will figure it out."
They all gave the likelihood of Ross figuring out that quandary some thought. This time it was Joey who voiced the obvious.
"Doesn't seem like it's going to work …"
And Rachel had to enter at that exact moment, with the tension in the air so thick it could be cut with a knife, and they had to think up a plausible reason to leave the two of them alone together. He thought the idea with the mattress flipping was pretty neat until he realized that the four of them would be stuck in Monica's room until the latest staging of the never-ending drama was finished. Again. And what if once more they wouldn't get out until next morning, just like that horrible time two years ago when Ross and Rachel fought all through the night, forcing them to stick it out in Monica's room? He shuddered at the memory of how they had been trapped there for more than 12 hours without food (except the organic wax strips) and no possibility to relieve themselves. Joey hadn't been the only one who needed to pee urgently, he himself had been so desperate that they ended up sharing the bowl once they were back in their apartment.
No, he could not let that happen again, so the first thing he did was listen at the door to make sure they could escape before things really got ugly. But it was hard with Monica standing so close behind him, and then he got distracted again when Joey started rummaging under the bed, treating them all to the impressive sight of his backside.
"Hey, Joey's ass! What are you doing?" That was Monica, not too pleased with the sight of Joey climbing all over her bed. Chandler was amused at first, until it occurred to him that Joey might have found something of his under there and almost started to panic again.
Finally his roommate emerged again, with a big box that he set on the bed.
"Well, remember when they got in that big fight and broke up and we were all stuck in her with no food or anything? Well, when Ross said Rachel at the wedding, I figured it was gonna happen again, so I hid this in here."
To his surprise Monica seemed quite intrigued and not in the least disturbed that Joey had invaded her privacy so blatantly.
"Ooh, candy bars, crossword puzzles …" And how could she have missed the box under her bed all this time? Had she actually been this much distracted by him? The thought made him ridiculously happy again, and not even Phoebe's snarky remark could put a dent in that. He ventured closer to examine the contents of the box himself.
"What else have you got in here? Magazines, Doritos … Condoms?"
"You don't know how long we're gonna be in here! We may have to repopulate the earth!"
"And condoms are the way to do that?!"
But actually he was impressed. Monica had even found a walkie talkie. Granted, there was only one, and he was quite sure that Joey had accidently dropped the other into a sewer, but it was still good thinking. It also reminded him to make sure he'd packed condoms. Lots and lots of condoms. In case they did get out of there again in time to catch the noon bus and start on their naked weekend …
His thoughts were cut off again by Rachel's screaming which had Monica and Phoebe hurry out as one like two mother hens to comfort a stray chicken. Still, it got them out of that room, and a lot sooner than he had expected.
"Sweetie, we heard you crying, please don't cry …"
"It's LE POO!" Rachel wailed.
Phoebe put an arm around her. "I know it's le poo right now, but it'll get better."
Oh yeah. A lot better. Now they could finally escape. Hit the road. Vanish into the blue where no one would find them. Get away, get lost, arrive at the hotel and start on their weekend of doing it, doing it, doing it all night long. He could feel the joy bubbling over in him, filling him to the brim, until he had to force himself to keep a serious face and not start dancing instead. Soon, so soon. He could hardly wait. It was going to be so good. And once they managed to get away from their troublesome friends and be alone together in peace, nothing could possibly go wrong anymore.
Absolutely nothing. He was sure of it.
