Penny was pulled out of sleep reluctantly by the increasingly urgent twinges from her bladder. She moaned softly in protest and opened one eyelid just a crack. It was still dark, thank God. She stirred slightly, and that was when she became aware that the warm weight across her stomach was not a blanket.
Holy crap on a cracker, what did I do? she thought. She couldn't even remember meeting anyone last night… just challenging Sheldon to a target shooting match. And then they'd both had a few more drinks so she could drag him out onto the dance floor… She must have met this guy dancing. She couldn't remember anything about him, but it didn't matter - not like she was ever going to see him again. She opened her eyes, slid out from under his arm and rolled silently off the bed and onto her feet. She'd had a lot of practice at this particular maneuver over the past few years. The movement made her head throb, and the room seemed to spin for a moment.
The man mumbled in his sleep, but didn't stir. Penny was about to mentally congratulate herself on a clean getaway when she saw a familiar shape glowing faintly from the bed. She couldn't stop the expletive that fell from her lips, although she managed to keep it to a whisper. It was the Batman silhouette from a glow-in-the-dark watch face… just like the one Sheldon wore. Panicked, she searched frantically around on the floor until she found her purse. Pulling her phone out, she used the screen's backlight to get a better look. Her heart sank. Yes, it was Sheldon, as she had never seen him before. His torso was bare (and perhaps more of him too), and he was lying on his side. The arm which had been draped across her midriff now extended toward her as if he was reaching for her in his sleep.
She wanted to swear a blue streak. She wanted to cry. But either of those things might wake him, and there was no way she could face him, knowing what she'd done. So instead, she swiftly hunted for her clothes, using her phone as a flashlight. She followed a trail of commingled clothes to the door. Ignoring her aching head and full bladder, she pulled on the unfamiliar cream-colored dress, sparing only a passing thought to wonder where she had gotten it. She stuffed her bra in her purse, but unfortunately, she couldn't find her panties. She had a sinking suspicion they were tangled in the sheets somewhere. Before she pulled on her shoes, she listened for a moment, but all was quiet. Sheldon must still be unconscious from the double whammy of too many beers and - holy crap on a cracker - losing his virginity to her. The thought made her wince. She had to get out of there fast. If he knew what she had done… she couldn't even contemplate his reaction, but she knew it would be bad.
She slipped a hand inside her purse, hoping she hadn't lost her room card or ID. Instead, she encountered some kind of pamphlet. Fishing it out, she held it up to the thin bar of light coming from the window's parted curtains. It was a lurid brochure for an escort service. She vaguely remembered picking it up and teasing Sheldon about it, asking him why he didn't want to get laid.
An idea occurred to her as she stood there, pamphlet in hand. It was a terrible, mean, cowardly idea, but if it worked… She could scarcely breathe, and her hands shook. Maybe Sheldon wouldn't hate her. Maybe he wouldn't banish her from his life forever. Maybe they could still be friends. She'd been so lonely recently, lonely enough to wonder if dumping Leonard had been a mistake. Through it all, only Sheldon had gone out of his way to spend time with her. He had even broken his normal routines to eat dinner at her place sometimes. In return, she had made sure her apartment was as clean as she could manage and kept her kitchen stocked with Yoohoo and herbal teas. He'd come to mean more to her in the past few months than she ever could have imagined, and she couldn't stand the thought of losing him. That fear was the reason she crept back and laid the brochure on the nightstand.
She made her way back to her hotel room, feeling dizzy and nauseous and hating how pathetic she was. After a long, hot shower, she crawled into her own bed and stared sightlessly at the walls. Finally, hating herself even more, she downed the contents of several little bottles from the mini fridge and sank into a restless slumber.
Sheldon slept much later than usual that morning, although he found it hard to care when his head throbbed so badly. He couldn't even muster the energy to wonder why he had slept in the nude. After drinking a full bottle of water, he closed the blinds tightly and lay back on the bed, willing his headache to go away. Within an hour or so, he felt sufficiently improved to get up and get dressed. He was fervently hoping that his friends had had enough partying and were ready to go home. As he sat up, he first noticed the odd trail of clothing leading to - no, from - the door. Then his gaze fell upon the nightstand. On one side of the alarm clock lay a brochure he recognized, the one with the disgusting photo of the topless woman. On the other side of the clock was a delicate, diamond-studded band sporting a large princess-cut solitaire, shining in the early morning light. An engagement ring? Or could it be a wedding band? He froze as his mind leaped to a very unpleasant conclusion. The last time he had gotten drunk, he had mooned the audience at an awards banquet during his acceptance speech. This time in his inebriation, could he have actually done something worse? He lifted his hands to his face, and something glinted dully at him in the dim light. Incredulously, he stared at the simple band decorating his left hand before he swayed and collapsed onto the bed. A few minutes later when he regained consciousness and dragged his eyes open again, the wedding ring was still there. His stomach twisted, and he ran for the bathroom. Having emptied his stomach, a pounding headache started making its presence known. He groaned.
"I am never going to let Penny talk me into drinking again," he whispered. He collapsed back onto the bed, only to leap up again quickly. Who knew what germs or effluvia were contaminating the bedding? He yanked back the bedding, exposing a tiny scrap of hot pink fabric. He stared at the thong as if it might bite him. Despite his headache, he quickly stripped the bed of its linens, rolling the offending garment up inside the sheets. Then he stumbled unsteadily toward the shower. Twenty minutes of scrubbing under steaming hot water helped him to feel slightly less ill, but panic started to set in again when he went to get dressed and found that the clothes on the floor were the remnants of a crumpled tuxedo. The pieces - coat, bowtie, vest, cummerbund, shirt, and pants - made a trail from the door to the bed, where his undershirt and briefs peeked out from underneath the bed skirt. A more thorough examination of the room also revealed three used condoms in a trashcan pulled near the bed. The evidence, though circumstantial, was overwhelming. Last night, he had gotten so drunk he had married a complete stranger, and one who most likely charged by the hour at that. He had lost his virginity to a hooker. His mother's Southern Baptist standards rushed to the forefront of his mind. He dropped his head in his hands and groaned. "If there is a hell, I'm going to it now for sure," he muttered.
He stayed holed up in his room the rest of the morning, uncertain what to do. The woman was gone, but for some unfathomable reason, she had left behind a very valuable-looking ring. Once Sheldon regained some of his equilibrium, he decided that he needed to go home, sit in his favorite spot, and be surrounded by his beloved action figures and whiteboards. Only then would he have the presence of mind to think about this situation rationally.
He dreaded the idea of talking to his friends and was certain they would pepper him with awkward questions. But when he finally contacted them, he found out he wasn't the only one who was nursing a hangover. Raj and Penny were in a similar state. Howard and Bernadette had apparently had some minor squabble and currently weren't speaking to each other. Raj was mourning the loss of his "lady of mystery", aka the waitress who had ignored him all evening. Ironically, only Leonard and Priya seemed to have enjoyed their weekend, probably by staying in their hotel room the whole time, coitusing like bunnies.
Sheldon asked to ride in Leonard's car, but then had to suffer the humiliation of being relegated to the back seat while Priya rode up front. Apparently in Leonard's mind, a girlfriend of a few months trumped a roommate of several years, even if said roommate was hung over. Sheldon was too exhausted and dejected to even protest much. By the time they reached Pasadena, he had come to one conclusion: what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas. It was a tired cliché, but it also seemed to apply to his circumstances. What he had done was both extremely personal and intensely embarrassing. While he experienced an almost compulsive need to blurt out secrets that other people told him, when it came to his own life, he had always been very private. Unless there was a compelling reason to involve his friends (and no such reason came to mind at the moment), no one needed to know about his folly.