Chapter Four — Advanced Abed
"Truth or Dare?"
Jeff, so he thought, had nothing to fear from either option:
Truth? He had been a lawyer. He was used to bending the truth, he had the god-like ability to create truth. He could not lose with that option.
Dare? He knew his two friends. He knew: The worst dares they could possibly think of were prank calling and ding-dong ditching. Harmless things. He could not lose with the option dare, either.
"Dare," he said in the end.
"Since we mustn't strain your back, I dare you to do the same I just did and drink up." He took Jeff's glass, and filled that one, Troy's and his own,—but then, instead of returning the glass, gave Jeff the bottle. "Cheers!" he said, with a smile that could only be described as devilish on his lips.
Jeff stared at the bottle in Abed's fingers. He obviously had underestimated the evil influence he had had on his friends.
But he did not want to back out of the dare. He stood up, grabbed the bottle (which luckily was half empty—even in an optimist's eyes), raised it to his friends and emptied it, successfully suppressing the urge to regurgitate.
Having finished this ordeal with a mighty battle cry (which sounded a lot like a mighty battle burp), he said, "I hope you've got more of this stuff here—'cause I want you to drink more of this as well." Then he tipped the bottle with his foot to get it spinning.
Abed answered, "Of course, in the top cupboard," and wanted to get up and get the tequila, but Jeff said, "No, stay seated, I'll get it. In the meantime: Troy, the bottle has chosen you. Truth or Dare?"
While Troy reasoned, Jeff went to the Shrine of St Tequila (a.k.a. the cupboard) to get a new bottle of booze. On the way back, he stubbed his toe on the furniture. Suppressing a scream of agony, he limped back to the guys who were snickering about Jeff's pain. And as he sat down again on the couch, Troy said, "I'll pick Dare."
Jeff had been positive that his friend wouldn't choose truth. "Thennnn," he said, almost singing the N, "I dare you to down your glass. But it's not going to be that easy: You'll have to do this while standing on your hands."
"Pierce of cake," Troy answered, "Abed, will you assist me?", handing his glass to Abed before performing a handstand. He had obviously drunk more than was good for him: If Abed hadn't flinched, he would have been kicked in the face.
As said before, Jeff's interest in Troy's penis had subsided. A pity: Had he been watching the furcation in the Y that was Troy's body at that moment, he would have seen that the shift of the gravitational pull had rearranged the contents of the blue boxers in an interesting way: They were loose enough to shed some light on the matter, so to say.
But nobody paid any attention to that as Troy drank from the glass that Abed was holding to his lips. Not all of it entered Troy's mouth though: Some of it trickled down his upper lip into his nostrils, forcing him to cough and do his baby sneezes, to the raucous delight of Abed and Jeff.
Troy hadn't been enjoying this "pierce of cake" very much, so he was very happy when his glass was finally empty and he was able to get back on his feet. But his balance was a little bit off; when the world turned downside up again, he staggered and almost fell over. Luckily, Abed had caught him, grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and made sure he sat down safely.
And when Abed's hands touched Troy's body, an inconspicuous smile— a smile Jeff had never noticed before—had appeared on Troy's face, barely insinuated by his lips and his eyes, yet clearly visible.
"Thanks, pal," Troy said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he spun the bottle. Since it ended up pointing at himself, he spun it a second time. This time it was Abed's turn.
Without waiting for the question, Abed answered, "We've had enough Dares for now … So I say Truth."
Troy thought a moment, then he said slowly, "Imagine you had a love potion which made the person drinking it fall madly in love with you. Which girl ... whom would you have it drink?"
"Good question, Troy," Jeff said, very intrigued by this topic. He knew that Abed had had a few relationships with girls, but they never lasted long—Jeff hesitated calling them relationships at all: Abed never had spent much time with his girlfriends, as if he didn't really care for them. Maybe because there was somebody else in his heart? Somebody with whom he preferred being? Somebody with whom he already was most of his time?
Abed inclined his head and looked at Troy.
"I wouldn't use such a potion," he answered curtly. "Such a potion would always lead to ironic consequences. Madly in love might mean that she becomes a jealous, murderous stalker, like in Fatal Attraction, who tries to kill me if I don't spend every single waking moment with her, or something like that."
He said ‚she', Jeff noticed silently.
"You've got to use it," Troy insisted. "You must pick someone. But let's just say that the potion makes her fall in love with you, in a totally normal and not at all creepy way. Not like in Fatal Attraction, but like in … like in Love actually or the like. Whom would you make it drink?"
Abed thought, his eyes moving from left to right and back again, as if he were reading an invisible list, and in the end said, looking at Troy, "I do not want to answer that question."
Troy moved his hands in a gesture that said, "Well, why?," and waited for an explanation. When none came, he asked aloud, "Why not?"
"I do not want to answer," Abed repeated. "Please, Troy, I want to change my choice to Dare."
Jeff intervened. "Answer, Abed. Not wanting to answer a question because it's embarrassing is no reason to back out of it. That's part of the game YOU wanted to play with us."
But Troy said, sympathetically, "It's alright, Jeff, I think I know his reasons. Abed, I'll change it to a Dare. Let me think."
Jeff stared at Abed who now attentively and with downcast eyes inspected the glass in front of him. Jeff thought about what might be the reasons.
Maybe it had something to do with Abed's dislike of change.
Knowing whom Abed liked, whoever it would be—that would change things.
It would annihilate a part of the mystery that always enshrouded this ethereal entity called Abed, which never really belonged to this earthly realm, which always seemed to be part of an other world, and this knowledge would pinpoint, banish this being into the earthly dominion of the lesser mortals, subject it to their curious and importunate gazes and inquiries—it would injure this intangible creature in the most dreadful way: it would make it seem as human as everybody else.
That's the gist of Jeff's thoughts. His brain was at this moments inundated in alcohol, therefore quite incapable of transmitting these ideas in these words, but that's what it would have wanted to say.
In the meantime, Troy had found a new idea. "Ok, Abed, I dare you to drink your glass. But—you'll have to drink it while mooning the sidewalk."
"Moon?" Abed seemed spooked. "But ... people might see my butt."
"That's the point."
Jeff, not saying it out loud, remembered at that point that Troy had once or twice said that he liked ‚butt stuff'; in the light of what Jeff had found out about Troy that day, this utterance had gained a whole new meaning.
Abed slowly grabbed his glass and went to the window, where he opened the curtains and looked out. "There are people walking by."
"Better not keep them waiting," Troy teased.
Abed put his glass on the windowsill and reluctantly turned around. He plucked with both hands a few times nervously at the waistband, trying to delay the rise of the full moons.
But in the end, encouraged by Troy and Jeff, he completed the dare—though he did it as fast as he could: He put the glass in his mouth, holding it with his lips, pulled down the backside of his underpants, threw back his head, swallowed the liquor, readjusted his clothing and drew the curtains again. In total, his backside might have been exposed two seconds.
His bottom properly clothed, he peeked once more through the curtains to see if anybody from the sidewalk was staring up to their apartment, sighed a phew! of relief, then went back to his friends.
"Well done," Troy said, friendly patting him on the back, while Abed set the bottle into motion again. "I didn't think you'd really do it."
"Neither did I. But I had ... hick ... already declined telling a Truth, so I saw no other option." In the meantime, the bottle had come to a rest and was now pointing at Jeff.
Jeff said, "Ah, what the hey. I say Dare."
"Hick ... Since we started the nude dares, Jeff, I dare you to strip naked and ring at our neighbors'."
Troy laughed, "Awesome idea!—Jeff, you're going to love them. They're an adorable senior couple who loves pranks like these."
Jeff did not laugh, incredulously staring at his two friends of which one was silently hiccupping. "Are you insane? I can't ring at this hour at a stranger's door, naked! When they see a me, unknown, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the hallway, naked, drunk—they'll call the police!"
"No, they won't," Abed said, while Troy shook his head in agreement. "Hick," Abed added for emphasis.
"How would you know that? ... How often have you done this before?"
Abed only said, "We just know. And stop playing for time."
Jeff scratched his head. The neighbors' calling the police was not his main sorrow, it was—once more—the size topic.
While he knew that he had nothing to be ashamed of—his penis was larger than average—, he did not want to be the man with the smallest one in the group. But the more he thought about it, the more it dawned on him that he had nothing to be afraid of:
Those guys were his friends. They would probably tease him a bit—that was unavoidable, and he would sure as hell do the same in their place—, but two minutes later they would already be talking about something else and five minutes later they would have forgotten about it.
"Let's surprise some neighbors," he said, drank a little liquid courage from his glass, and almost jumped up from the couch—he forgot that his back supposedly hurt, but Troy and Abed had forgotten as well—and put his hands at his briefs. He gave it a little tug (hoping that it might look an inch or two longer) and took off the last piece of clothing that stood between this scene's rating as PG-13 or as R.
Abed—his hiccup suddenly cured, his head inclined—stared without inhibitions at Jeff's lap, Troy tried to avoid it but was obviously very tempted by the dangling object in front of him.
Jeff took no heed of them. He grabbed his glass, opened the door, shuddered—because the temperature in the hallway was way below the temperature in the apartment—and went out. Abed and Troy, greatly enjoying this, followed him, laughing and shouting. He turned around and pointed at a door (with his index finger, that is), silently asking his friends whether this was the right door. When they nodded, he rang twice. Then he stepped backwards—so that the inhabitants, when glancing through the spyhole, would see him in all his glory—, put his right hand akimbo and waited, while taking another sip with his left hand.
And waited a little while longer, rang again, took yet another sip and waited some more.
Suddenly there was another blinding flash, followed by the hysterical laughter of his so-called friends: Abed, grinning diabolically, had immortalized Jeff's dare with a camera.
The naked man stared vacantly at them, drank up and advanced towards the two, who receded, laughing. He was not sure what he should do: Destroy the camera and tear them a new one, or accept that they had played a nice prank on him and join in their laughter.
In the meantime, they had ran into their bedroom and locked the door. Jeff entered the comfortably warm apartment, closed the door behind him and put on his underpants again. Then he knocked at the bedroom door. "Tro-oy, A-abed," he said, almost singing, "come ou-out. I will not hurt you." And he added, gnarling, under his breath, "Until you open that door, that is."
"Jeff, before you do something you might regret later," he heard Troy saying, "remember how hilarious that was." Then the two idiots burst again into laughter.
A few minutes of silence and another glass of tequila later, the two carefully opened the door and peeped into the living room. Jeff had calmed down and was sitting again on the couch.
"Hey Jeff, how are you?" he heard Abed asking. "No hard feelings, right?"
Jeff just said, "If anyone ever hears about this or sees that photograph ..." and did not utter a word about what would happen if one of this conditions were ever to be fulfilled.
They rejoined Jeff, still snickering and exchanging some words Jeff couldn't hear, and sat down.
"Just so you know," Abed said, "the neighbors you rang at aren't at home anyway. There was no chance of them calling the police because of a drunk, nude stranger with a little wiener."
Jeff ignored the last part of the remark and said "Let's just continue playing, so I can get my revenge."
The bottle was set into motion, rotated counterclockwise, slowed down, and came to a halt, choosing Abed
"Before I pick, there's one thing I'd like to know: If I picked Truth, would you ask me the question Troy just asked? The one I don't want to answer?"
"Nah, don't worry, Abed," Jeff said. "I respect that this question is taboo."
"Then I pick Truth."
"Alright. But apart from that, no more backing out." Abed nodded. "OK then, my friend, tell me: What are your greatest fears?", Jeff asked, trying to get information that could be used for revenge.
Abed did not need to consider this question long. "That George Lucas should commit another Star Wars movie."
But after a short pause, he obviously found something even more fearsome than a sequel to the prequel. "No, wait, that's not it. What I fear most than anything … is the thought of something happening to Troy."
"Me?" Troy blurted out, spilling some tequila as he almost dropped his glass. "Something happening to me? Like what?"
"Anything that would hurt you. Or that would make you leave."
"Leave?" Troy was absolutely dumbfounded. "Where? How? Why, why would I want to leave you?"
"I don't know." He shrugged his shoulders and looked into Troy's eyes. "We never know what the future brings, but I fear that it one day takes you away, away from Greendale, away from me."
Troy fell silent, as did Abed.
Jeff didn't dare to say anything either: Just quarter an hour before he had considered it impossible for Abed to divulge the name of his love interest. And now Abed had done the next best thing to doing just that. It was almost as if he had professed his love to Troy.
