Chapter Two — Divesting and Contortionism

Almost three hours later (including a break to get beer, make a fresh batch of popcorn, go to the toilet and just relax the strained buttocks), the movie's ending credits rolled.

They had been intensively discussing the movie while watching it, had talked about the various actors who had embodied the Joker or the Batman, how the death of one of its main actors might have affected its reception by critics and the public, the philosophical issues broached by the plot, and so on; so they felt no need to discuss it further. The only topic left unmentioned was the one thing Jeff couldn't help thinking about: the Batman's codpiece.

He had seen the movie twice, maybe thrice, not once thinking about that piece of equipment. But on that evening, his mind was set on looking at dicks. How many inches could be hiding within that armor? Would it fit someone hung like Abed or be to tight for him? What if the Batman got an erection while saving an attractive woman; was there some kind of mechanism that would hide a Bat-Boner?

Abed got up and stretched, exposing part of his midriff. He proposed, "So how about Strip Poker? We still have to learn the rules and I don't want to start too late."

"Yeah, alright. Strip Poker it is," Jeff said, showing little zeal, while picking a popcorn that had dropped between his body and the arm rest.

"I'd thought you would be more enthusiastic about it," Troy said. "After all, you have been complaining an awful lot about having to wear jammies. Now we'll strip you of them."

"Don't be so sure about that," Jeff said, convinced that he would have no problems winning. He clapped his hands, and stood up. "Alright, Red Pants, Green Pants, I'll get us some beers and then let's get busy!"

One and a half hour later, a lot of explanations had been said and a lot of beer had been drunk. And a lot of cuss words had been used, mainly by Jeff, for the game didn't go as he had planned: The former lawyer had become formerly dressed.

He had lost four games and had had to take off the pajama top, the pajama bottoms and both socks (they had agreed that one sock alone counts as one piece of clothing), leaving only his briefs with orange and black tiger stripes on him.

Troy had had almost as little success as Jeff, had lost three games as well as his socks and the pajama pants (though he had still left on the green pajama top). Abed wore his PJs the same way as before, for he had won every game.

Jeff had been holding back in the beginning: He had been playing poker for years with his lawyer friends and thought he'd give his friends a chance to win at least a few rounds. But very soon he found out, that he was no match for Abed. The guy in the red PJs was—apart from being a fast learner—an unfathomable mystery: The features of Abed's face never betrayed the thoughts within.

Troy on the other hand was no good at bluffing, Jeff could read him like an open book, but Troy also had an advantage: Somehow, he was able to see through Abed's mask. Maybe because they had been living together for quite some time now, maybe because they had many common interests, maybe because they shared a bond closer than many married couples—whatever the reason: Troy could sometimes guess when Abed bluffed.

And another possible reason for Jeff's constant losing could have been aforementioned inability to concentrate on anything else but Troy's penis to his left and Abed's penis to his right. But at least part of that mental tension had molten away now: When Troy had been taking off his pajama pants, he accidentally lifted his pajama top for a moment. That had given Jeff the chance for a short look at Troy's crotch and the navy blue, tight boxer briefs there. In that moment, he could see Troy's member creeping below the waistband almost all the way to the hip. (If Jeff had had the opportunity to get a better look, he would have been able to take consolation in the fact that Troy's penis—for whatever reason—was not flaccid, but half erect.)

In other words, Jeff's pride had taken heavy blows in two ways: His pride as a gambler was mutilated by Abed, his pride as a man was mutilated by Troy. But looking at his cards—clubs from nine to king—, he felt a bit of satisfaction. Chances of winning were always good with such a straight flush.

In the current game, Troy had already folded. Jeff was scrutinizing—without success—Abed's face. But he might just as well have been staring at a brick wall; the face, slightly inclined to the left, dark eyes staring at Jeff, gave no token of whatever mental processes went on in that strange brain. Yet Jeff was sure that he would win at least this round. He probably would have to go bare next round, but he would have at least won one game and stripped Abed of one piece of clothing—Jeff's honor and his pride would be saved.

"Look at it and weep, Abed," Jeff said with a happy grin. "Straight Flush." He took a victory sip of his beer, and went on, "Take it off."

Abed stared at Jeff's hand, his face still void of any expression.

"Now wait, Jeff," Troy said, "I know that look of Abed's. I think he holds something even better."

Jeff, horrified, looked at Troy, then, flushing, stared at Abed. "You've got to be kidding me!"

But his opponent, without showing his hand, folded as well. "No, I was bluffing. I only had a pair of sixes."

While Troy shuffled the cards and Abed started unbuttoning his pajama top, thus exposing his bare chest, Jeff sighed again with relief and got up. "I'll get me another beer. You guys want one as well?" he asked.

Abed nodded silently while Troy said, "Yes, please. And while you're up, would you mind turning up the thermostat a few degrees? It's getting chilly without clothes."

Jeff returned with three degrees of warmth and three cans of beer. He sat down and prepared for his last round with clothes on. But the next games turned out way better for him.

Probably because of the booze.

The beers they had been drinking throughout the evening had finally started taking their toll on the alertness of Abed and Troy. Jeff on the other hand had been better adjusted to drinking alcohol, so his skills did not suffer as much. Therefore he had won the following games and leveled the field: All three of them had stripped down to the underwear; Abed was just at the moment standing up to take off his pajama pants, stumbling a little bit due to his being drunk.

And while Jeff's pride as a gambler had been restored, his male pride suffered another defeat, when Abed—with just a hint of shame and reluctance on his face—took off his pajama pants. Jeff nearly choked on his beer when he surreptitiously tried to ogle Abed's tighty whities and saw the outlines of what slept there: Abed must have been hiding something even bigger than Troy's penis. Jeff didn't see the whole length of it—for it was tucked between his thighs—, but, judging by the way the underpants were bulged and weighed down by their content, there was no doubt: Abed might even put a stallion to shame.

Jeff had seen enough for a day, he had achieved what he had came for. And having a rough estimate of his friends' lengths, he felt a little bit ashamed to disclosing his own. So he yawned, checked the time on his phone, and said, "It's getting late and we're getting drunk. How about we call it a night?"

Slightly slurring the words, Abed insisted right away on his staying. "Tomorrow's Saturday, you don't have to get up early, do you?" Jeff shook his head, noticing that the world continued spinning a second even after he had stopped the movement. Abed went on, "Troy and I, we've got no plans for tomorrow either. It so much fun right now! Stay a little longer!" He pointed vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. "I bought some tequila. As they say in Spanish: Para todo mal, mezcal. Y para todo bien, también."

"Speak English, mi amigo."

"Roughly translated: For every ill, Mezcal, and for every good as well."

"You could sleep on our couch and spend the night here," Troy proffered, "if you don't want to go home drunk."

"Well, I wouldn't GO home drunk anyway, I'd call a cab," Jeff said. He then considered his options, though it was an easy decision:

Option 1: He'd go home now, spend the rest of the evening alone in his apartment, maybe visit some sites on the internet that would made him feel completely heterosexual again, and finish his day into a kleenex.

Option 2: He'd stay here with his friends, enjoy some drinks, have fun and play games.

Option 2 would probably bring all three of them a day with a bone-crushing hangover, but that was a price he was willing to pay.

"Alright," he introduced his decision, "I'll stay. But I still prefer ending Strip Poker. I'm not drunk enough to take it all off. Let's play something else." And when his friends signaled their agreement, he went on, saying, "Great. And with some tequila this might become one very fine pajama party."

Obviously, Jeff didn't realize that all three of them had but their underpants on, so technically it would rather be an underpants party.

"There's just one thing I need to do first," Jeff stated, grabbed his smart phone, and showed it to his friends. "You need to hide this from me. I don't want to drunk dial anyone." And he added, "Not again," having remembered an earlier bingeing session with Abed, when he, totally wasted, had called Britta and filled her voicemail with more or less confidential and more or less intelligible information.

"I'll take care of that," Troy said, took the phone out of Jeff's hands and went into the bedroom, while Abed, barely avoiding a collision with the kitchen counter, went to the cupboard where the two had stored their liquor. A moment later he rejoined Jeff at the table with a bottle of tequila and some glasses.

Troy reentered the room as well and got back to the subject of Jeff's phone. "You're not going to find it now," he announced.

"Did you hide it in the repair kit for the Dreamatorium?" Abed asked while generously filling their glasses, oblivious to the fact that he should not have asked this in front of Jeff.

"No, I didn't," Troy answered in a way that clearly stated Yes, I did. But since Jeff had no idea what a repair kit for a Dreamatorium might look like (though he imagined it to be psychiatric medication), this was a morsel of very useless information. He just hoped that this repair kit was stored in a dry place and not, for example, in the shower.

Troy's glass was inauspiciously filled to the brim, so he moved his lips to the glass instead of the other way round and took a first, slurping sip, grimacing as the cheap liquor burnt his innards. Then he said, "Now that Strip Poker's off the table, what are we going to play next? Charades? Beer Pong?"

Jeff didn't answer, instead he looked at Abed and, without uttering a word, passed the question on to him.

"There are two more games," Abed said, "I would very much like to play, the one's Twister, the other's Truth or Dare." Thinking that Jeff would interrupt him then, Abed raised his hand to stop him from doing so (though Jeff didn't intend to do that). "I know that you don't want to play either of them, Jeff. But please listen."

He noticed that his pronunciation had suffered from the detrimental effects of alcohol, so Abed took a deep breath and went on, a little bit slower, his eyes focused on the glass in front of him. "I've always envied the people on TV who play games like Twister—games you don't play them with just anyone; you don't share your most embarrassing secrets with people you don't trust, and you don't get into that much physical contact with people you're not comfortable around."

He paused for a moment and looked into the faces of his friends. When nobody said anything else, he went on, gazing at the poker cards still lying on the table.

"You probably won't understand this sentiment, because you two have had friends all your life—but I have not, I've been forced into solitude. ... Maybe you can understand me better if you think of my request this way." He closed his eyes and went on. "Imagine that you've been blind for your whole life, that you could never see. But you heard people talking about the things they saw, about rainbows, snowy landscapes, or just the light shimmering through a cloud. You'd envy them, wouldn't you? You'd dream of having their experience, even if it were for just for an ever so short minute." He reopened his eyes and looked at his friends. "And then, imagine that you had the chance to really see something, maybe only for a second, and maybe only a boring run-of-the-mill clover with three leaves. Still this would mean the world to you, and you probably would do everything for that, wouldn't you? At the same time, the people around you, who have had functioning eyes their whole lives, who have seen thousands of clovers, with three, four and even with five leaves—for them this little plant would be absolutely irrelevant, they wouldn't ever stop, bend down and pick it up to take a closer look at it. But you would, wouldn't you? Even if the people around you thought you a fool ..."

Then he fell silent.

Jeff and Troy, who had been listening quietly and attentively, couldn't think of anything to say

Finally, Jeff raised his voice. "I ...," he cleared his throat and went on, "We'd never think of you as a fool. And even if we did: It's often the fools who see the clearest, who see the world spinning round, as the Beatles say." He looked at Troy, who stared with a sad expression at Abed, and then finished, "I don't mind stopping a moment and picking up a little clover." He put a hand on Abed's shoulder. "Let's play!"

Abed rose happily from his chair. "Thank you."

"Yeah, let's play," Troy said, still a bit gloomy from having heard Abed's story. "Too bad, though, that we don't have a twister mat. We can't well play without one. So we'll have to skip—"

"No, I do have one," Abed interrupted and went into the bedroom, saying, "When I bought tequila, I bought a twister mat as well. Just in case it would only be the three of us."

He disappeared and left Troy and Jeff alone.

"Troy, why the sad look?" Jeff said. "Cheer up, my friend. I'm not too big a fan of this man-on-man action, but it seems to mean a lot to him, and it certainly will not kill anybody of us."

"It won't kill anyone, but I fear it might destroy something." He seemed deeply troubled. "Jeff, there's something I need to talk to you about—" But Abed reentered the room, interrupting Troy, who added in a low voice, "Later." He then got up to help Abed prepare the battlefield to be. Jeff joined them.

While they pushed aside the furniture, staggering a little bit, fighting with gravity and balance, Jeff asked, "By the way, if this game means so much to you, why didn't you just ask us?"

"I wanted to play just with you two, my best friends," Abed answered. "But that's not that easy as it sounds. Pierce is easily offended, so I can't just not invite him, I had to make sure that he couldn't come. If he found out some way, he'd just shoulder his way in—like the one time when he cost the two of you your trampoline. And the same is valid for the Dean. He is like a bloodhound—a bloodhound determined on finding Jeff. So I had to wait for an opportunity, when none of the others had time."

"Alright, but what about the girls? You don't want to play Twister and Truth or Dare with them?" Jeff said while smoothing an edge of the mat. "Apart from that, you could play these games with Troy any time you want."

"I could play Twister alone with Troy, but it wouldn't feel like the real thing with just two people. Just like it's a difference whether you go to the movies with just one friend or with two or more; it's not the same. And about the girls ..." Abed hesitated a moment, before he went on, "Don't tell them, but I just don't feel that close to them.—I really like them, but there is something a little bit off … It's different from when I'm with you guys. I don't know why, though. Maybe it's because we're of the same sex, maybe it has to do with sexual tension. Maybe we can't really be friends if there is sexual attraction."

Incidentally, Jeff looked at Troy. And the devastated expression he saw there—at that very moment, when Abed had said that last sentence—that expression told Jeff all he had up till now so miserably failed to understand about his friend.