The Perils of Having Attractive Friends

Chandler looked down as he shuffled his feet. Focusing on the reflected light that danced across the leather of his shoes every time he moved his foot from side to side. It was as if he were gazing into a pair of funhouse mirrors as he studied the distorted images cast in the vamp of each shoe. Even though he knew he probably looked foolish, he was more than content to remain mollified by the amorphous shapes that floated in the shine of his knock-off Italian loafers. The one's he bought at the discount shoe store back home just before they left for Ross's wedding. Before they got to London. Before last night. It was just a few, short days between then and now, but after everything that had happened, it might as well have been a lifetime ago.

A part of him wanted to stare at his shoes forever. Keep his eyes fixed downward so he wouldn't catch a glimpse of her as she stood across from him while they waited for their turn to walk down the aisle. He needed to delay the inevitable. Because he knew that once he looked at her, he would gaze into her eyes. And if he gazed into her eyes he would be forced to speak. And once he started to speak, they would have that awkward kind of conversation between a man and a woman that he usually tried his hardest to avoid. But he knew he could not avoid having that type of conversation with her. Monica deserved more than that.

When Ross first told him the order in which the bridal procession would enter the venue, and who would be paired off with who, he grumbled at the perceived lost opportunity to perhaps flirt a little as he walked with one of Emily's bridesmaids. Spend the reception charming some nice English girl and somehow convince her to go to bed with him. But once he was told that he would be matched up with Monica, he figured it made the chances of indulging in a questionable hook-up the night of the wedding very unlikely. He chuckled silently to himself at the irony of that.

Although, he could not enjoy the feeling of mischievousness that washed over him as he recalled last night's activities for too long, and his impish smile faded almost as quickly as it appeared. He knew that soon, the music would start, and he would watch as everyone began their march towards the alter, and he would have to link arms with Monica and figure out exactly what the hell he was going to say. That thought filled him with a sense of dread accompanied by that all too familiar sensation of dehydration and cotton mouth he developed every time he was about to talk to a woman he had slept with, or wanted to sleep with. His body seemed intent to rob him of any degree of comfort as he wrestled with his own mind at how to proposition her to agree to continue their tryst.

He knew he had to play this just right. If he came on too strong, he could appear too cavalier about their friendship and willing to toss it aside for a quick romp in the sack. If he played it too cool, he might come across aloof, causing her to think that he had already forgotten about last night, and that sex with her was an afterthought. He had to strike the right balance that properly recognized what they had done without appearing too eager.

The only problem with that plan; he was too eager.

He felt this almost greedy, yearning need to feel her flesh against his again. Where their skin almost stuck together like tacky paper as they held each other tight in their moments of climax. This intense intimacy they shared was difficult to forget and impossible to ignore. Their sexual compatibility was something he had never experienced before. As if their bodies were designed to be fused together in coital bliss.

Just thinking about it now made little beads of sweat form along his brow and run down his spine. Leaving him slightly uncomfortable in his tuxedo as his shirt began to cling to his back and his hair felt matted and glued to his forehead. He was this mess of awkward, hopeful lust and he feared it would be much too easy for her to read it all over his face if he looked up at her now, because she knew him better than almost anyone. She would see exactly what he wanted without him uttering a word.

Unfortunately, he could read her like a book as well, and he was worried about what he might see in her eyes as she looked back at him. That she might have a twinge of regret at the corners of a forced smile. Or fear in her eyes at the thought of ruining their friendship over something as cliché as a one-night stand. That she would see that he wanted to ask her if she would be willing to continue this crazy experiment, and that her answer would be no.

Monica tugged slightly at the fabric about her waist. She was acutely aware of how little this light, sheer red dress left to the imagination as it hugged her figure. While she was never that adverse to showing off the body she worked hard to maintain, it was always within reason. But now, she was suddenly very self-conscious about how it fit, and what she looked like, as she stood just a few feet away from the man that played a starring role in last night's drunken hook-up.

She smirked a bit at her modesty, especially after everything that had happened between them. What was she trying to hide that he had not already seen? There was probably not one inch of her that he did not already know completely. No curve he was not now intimately familiar with. No part of her that he had not touched. Just the thought of it made her skin feel warm and she wondered if she might be blushing as she recalled all the places on her body where his lips had been. She could practically feel a phantom kiss right at this moment just below her bellybutton and above her waist as he teased his way down her body with his mouth.

Still, there was this instinctive sense of self-preservation and a need to be in control over how much of herself she allowed him to see. Leave something to the imagination, only to be revealed in private later on. Where she could hear the audible gasp escape his lips as he ogled her while she slowly slid her clothes off. A tantalizing cat and mouse game she usually reserved for men she wanted to seduce. And as strange as it might have seemed to the Monica that she was a mere twenty-four hours ago, she found that she did want to seduce him. Again, and again. And despite her ill-timed inhibited behavior about how she looked, there was no doubt that this was the perfect dress for that job.

When she had her first fitting back home, she was surprised by how elegant and sexy this dress was. Usually, bridesmaid dresses tended to be so garish and unflattering. Something to wear once and then to be buried away in the back of the closet, hidden from the world and never to see the light of day again. Dresses of pastel pinks, blues and greens with ruffled collars and embroidered flowers along the neckline. Tasteless accessories to lug around all day that only an elderly aunt from Staten Island would find sensible. But when she put this dress on, it practically screamed aloud that this was the type of dress that was made to wear on a night you planned to have some amazing sex. Which at the time, she found hilarious, because the idea of sleeping with someone in London was so remote, that the dress might as well have been a potato sack.

Having sex really was something Monica had almost given up on entirely. It had been a long dry spell since she broke it off with Pete a year ago. And really, her unexpected celibacy started even before that. They had stopped sleeping together when his trainer had put them on this arcane, enforced sports sex embargo the moment he began his Ultimate Fighting career. Her sexual frustration in those last few weeks was nearly palpable. Here he was, in the best shape of his life, all muscle and sweat and dripping with masculinity and he was forbidden. Untouchable. It nearly drove her mad.

Although, if she were being honest, the flames of her desire for him had waned towards the end anyway. And they were all but extinguished whenever he showed up after a fight with a new and never before heard of injury. He was no longer a man she wanted to sleep with, but some overgrown, adolescent, testosterone junkie that frankly, she could not get away from fast enough.

Her dates since then, if you could call them dates, were disastrous. There was the arrested development case that was Chip Matthews, ruining a long-held high school fantasy with his incessant juvenile behavior. And then on Thanksgiving, she indulged in that desperate, skin-crawling evening with Timothy Burke. A night that she had all but purged from her memory. The whole year left the idea of actually meeting someone and sleeping with them seem as remote a possibility as her sprouting wings and flying to the moon.

So, she threw herself into her new job, and being the head chef at Allesandro's left her with no time for a social life anyway. And the motivation to go out on dates was gone. And for a while, she was okay with that. She was fine with putting love and sex on the back burner while she focused on her career. What would be the harm in a few more sexless months? Which no doubt would have included this weekend in London. The way her luck with men had been going all year, this dress was not going to help matters. Regardless of how sexy she thought it looked.

But then there was the incredibly stupid idea to sleep with Joey. Which turned into an amazing night with Chandler. And suddenly, she was reacquainted with all the reasons why she loved sex. And now, to be standing here, wondering exactly how she was going to convince her friend to jump back in the sack tonight, after all but resigning herself to a chaste life just a few days ago, filled her with this anxious, nervous energy that made her feel more alive than she had at any point this entire year. Perhaps even longer than that. It was as if she found this spark inside herself that had gone dormant for so long. And it was sex with Chandler that managed to get it lit once again.

All she had to do now was get him to look at her. Get him to look up from the floor and flash her one of those earnest half-smiles that she knew he reserved for those times when he was trying to be sincere about how he was feeling. That cute little crooked smile he has that would tell her everything that was going on in his head. But he won't look up. And now she wondered if perhaps he regretted crossing that line. And if he was having second thoughts, was there a chance he was right to hesitate. Maybe they did make a mistake. Maybe what they did was crazy. Stupid.

Once it was their turn, Chandler briefly glanced over at Monica, who was staring straight ahead. He then looked forward as she slipped her hand through the crook of his arm. He let out a quiet, nervous chuckle as he peered out from the vestibule and into the main room where the ceremony was being held. He then let out a deep breath before they entered and started to walk down the aisle. He was keenly aware of where her hand was on his arm, and he felt so stiff and uncomfortable, which surprised him. All he had been thinking about since last night was her soft, gentle touch. Her hand on his body once more. And now here she was, connecting them with physical contact, and he had no idea how to interpret exactly what any of it meant.

But he knew he had to say something. It was eating him alive not knowing.

"What we did last night was…"

"Stupid."

Monica picked up on his hesitant and uncomfortable tone, and immediately, she decided to cut him off so he would not be the one to say it first. She could not bear being rejected. Not by him. Her pride would not allow it. This required a pre-emptive strike.

"Totally crazy stupid." He looked out and nodded at some random guest he did not know. He could feel himself reverting into that awkward, foolish man he could become in times like this. The guy who breaks up with women for stupid reasons. Ends everything before it can even start and he tries to spare himself any pain from the pratfalls of misguided expectations when it came to women.

Monica was disappointed to hear him agree with her so quickly. She hoped that maybe he would offer up some kind of protest, but he did not.

She tried to sound confident. She tried to convince herself that she believed everything they were saying. That it was indeed, a bad idea.

"What were we thinking?"

And like a flash of light, there it was.

Chandler could not put what he perceived in that moment into the type of exact words that could succinctly describe it. It was in her voice. Her tone that sounded forced and betrayed. It was in the way her fingers tightened on his arm as she was speaking. It was there in how she inhaled afterwards, almost regretfully sharp. They way her eyes moved. The shrug in her shoulders.

And he knew it right there and then. She was trying to sell him something she herself did not believe. And before he could even process all of this information and think about what he was going to say, he just blurted his proposition out in the most calm and confident way imaginable.

"I'm coming over tonight though, right?"

Monica, still stiff from her attempt to appear disinterested, felt her willful discipline collapse inside her. There it was. Exactly what she wanted.

Maybe what they were doing was stupid. Maybe this was all a bad idea. But she did not care. She wanted to have sex with him. He wanted to have sex with her. They were on the same page. The die was cast. They would deal with the consequences later. Worry about their friendship when they got back home.

For tonight was not the time to fret over the consequences of their actions. Tonight, was the time to put this dress to use. Tonight they surrender themselves to their carnal desires. Tonight they take whatever was left from Monica's crappy year and burn it in effigy with the flames of their passion. Discovering their sexual chemistry here in London was almost serendipitous. For today there was going to be a wedding, which meant tonight would be the wedding night. And wedding nights, much like this dress, were meant for sex.

"Oh yeah, definitely."