Monica and Rachel noticed something amiss when they came home. "Why does it smell like birds in here? Ugh! It's bad enough that they still have those pets, but they let them wander around in here too?"
Rachel shrugged. "Maybe they came to eat our food again, and the birds followed them."
As Monica prepared to clean and get rid of the smell, she noticed that certain things were out of place. "Rachel, did you move my disinfectants under the sink?"
"No, I swear!" She never cleaned, and so never went under the sink.
Monica peered around the apartment and noticed many things out of place. "Oh my God! It's like a tornado hit." Horrified, she scurried to clean and straighten everything.
Rachel watched her frenzied activity and realized that things must really be bad. "It must have been the guys when they came over. They're such slobs."
"Yeah, but what are they doing all around the apartment like this?" She opened the door of her bedroom and gasped. "And my room too!"
Worried now, Rachel got up and checked her bedroom. "Oh my God! It's here too. What were the perverts doing in our rooms?"
Monica came to Rachel's bedroom to survey the damage. The boxes that Rachel had packed to move in with Ross were opened and rummaged through. "You still haven't unpacked?"
Just like Monica to complain about that. Rachel turned to Monica. "Hey, I didn't unpack yet because I didn't know if you were going to let Chandler move in next month or not. I might still have to leave!"
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Monica hugged her close. "You're right. Everything's been up in the air. After this, I don't know if I want him moving in, ever! I'll give it another month. If somehow he grovels enough for my forgiveness, I will give you plenty of notice, okay?"
"Okay," Rachel said.
"Now, um, I guess we have to figure out what Joey and Chandler were doing over here."
"Yeah," Rachel said and folded her arms pensively. "When did they turn into such perverts? I mean, it was one thing when they had the free porn on the TV all the time--"
"Porn!" Monica realized. "They were searching for the porn that Carol and Susan gave me to hide."
Rachel gasped. "Oh, of course! Do you think they found it?"
"I'll go check--" But then Monica stopped in her tracks, realizing that she shouldn't reveal her hiding place to Rachel. "Nice try, Rach."
"What?" She feigned innocence. "I am just concerned that Joey and Chandler might be over there breaking Carol and Susan's no-porn rule."
Monica knew her too well. "No, you just want to know where my hiding place is! I'm not gonna fall for that. I'm just gonna get back to my cleaning."
"Fine! I'll get back to mine."
Monica exited and continued restoring the living room to the pristine, freakishly neat state that she liked, while Rachel pretended to clean her own room. But she kept her door open and kept peering at Monica.
Monica also kept peering back at Rachel, waiting for a moment to sneak over to her hiding place and check it.
In the battle of wills, Rachel finally broke. "Oh, come on, Monica! Why can't I know where you hide the Christmas presents?"
"Because I don't want to spoil the surprise for you or anybody else at Christmas."
"I don't care! Surprises don't matter to me because I always return gifts. Please let me see your hiding place! I won't tell anybody else."
"Yeah right! You gossip all the time. You'd never keep it to yourself."
"Hey!" Rachel looked offended. "W-well I kept you and Chandler a secret before Phoebe saw you guys doing it. And besides, we're best friends, and we shouldn't have secrets from each other."
Monica sighed and gave in. "All right, all right, but this is only because we're best friends--and I'm gonna move to a new hiding place starting this year." She led Rachel into the living room and over to the big picture window. Then she removed the cushions from the window seat and raised the lid. The stash of porn was intact. "Ha, they didn't find it!"
Rachel was impressed. "I never knew this was hollow! You are so sneaky, Monica!"
"I know!" She put the lid down and sat on it.
Rachel joined her. "So where's your new hiding place gonna be?"
Monica refused to divulge that information. She figured that at Christmas-time, she would empty out some stuff from her locked closet and put it under the window seat. Then, there would be room for presents inside the locked closet.
"Please, Monica!"
Monica stubbornly folded her arms and shook her head.
"Oh!" Rachel turned away frustrated, but suddenly she turned back and started tickling Monica.
"Hey, what--? Noooo!"
Rachel tackled Monica and tickled her all over. "Tell me, tell me where you're gonna hide the presents!"
"No, no!" She had difficulty speaking through her laughter. She managed to roll off the window seat onto the floor, but Rachel pounced on her and still tickled.
"Come on, Mon! This is payback for when you guys tackled me and put the eye drops in."
"We--we were helping you!"
"I don't care, it freaked me out!"
Monica tried poking Rachel's eye, but Rachel kept her hands away. So Monica moved to poke her own eye, and Rachel flinched. She finally let go with a shudder and got off Monica. "I hate eye poking. I hate it!"
Monica recovered her breath and got up from the floor. "Sorry, Rachel. Come on, let me keep this one secret, and I'll tell you another secret."
"What secret?" Rachel turned around.
Monica smiled and pointed to the closet at the end of the hallway. "I keep that locked for a reason."
"Really?" Rachel looked intrigued.
"Yep. I'll show you what's inside." Monica went to get the key to unlock the door. By letting Rachel know that the closet contained a big mess, Monica could hopefully misdirect Rachel and keep her from thinking that the closet would now become the new hiding place.
Rachel waited impatiently. "Come on, come on! Where's the key?"
Monica picked up the broken half of the key. "This is it. Damn it, Chandler got to it already." She and Rachel went over to the locked closet and inspected the lock. "Broken! Does Chandler just not know how to use keys?"
Rachel was disappointed. "But you were gonna show me inside!"
"I know. Well, we'll have to call a locksmith first, then I'll show you inside. Okay?"
"Okay."
The next day, Joey and Chandler breakfasted, then settled down to read again. Joey proudly finished his first book, and turned to show Chandler. "Look!"
Chandler stopped his note-taking and smiled. "Hey! That's great. You'll be done long before the month is over. Maybe you want to space the books out, so you won't forget everything by the end of the month."
"Okay. Let's take a break now."
Chandler put down his book and notepad. "Okay, you wanna play some foosball?"
"Maybe later. How about we practice kissing?"
"What?"
"Sure, we've got a week to be kissing like a married couple, and we only did it once yesterday."
Chandler reluctantly agreed with a frown. "All right."
Joey led Chandler over to the yellow couch and pulled him close in his arms. Chandler still felt weird about kissing Joey this way, so he closed his eyes and tried not to flinch.
"Relax," Joey said. "We'll start out slow." He began with light, unthreatening kisses on Chandler's lips and cheeks, then gradually escalated the passion, urging Chandler to open his mouth, which he eventually did.
Chandler kissed back hesitantly, and pictured Monica as much as he could, but it was difficult because Joey tasted and felt so different from her. He also kept remembering his sex dream, much to his dismay.
After making out for a while, Joey stopped the kisses and let go of Chandler. "All right, um, you wanna play foosball?"
Chandler nodded and opened his eyes. "Yeah, um," he cleared his throat, "can you give me a minute, first?"
"Okay." Joey looked puzzled.
Chandler went into his room to compose himself. In front of his mirror he kept saying, "It was just a dream, it was just a dream! We are just kissing, and we are not gonna have sex. You only think that you want him because of this--this crazy situation."
At last, he felt better and joined Joey in the living room. They played foosball again, just like ordinary best friends.
