Chapter 6: Am I Too Late?

Monica and Rachel gazed up at Chandler from the couch in her apartment. Both of the girls were sporting twin, knowing grins.

"So…. did you do it?" Monica nudged.

"Yes, yes, we had the sex."

At his dejected tone, Monica's smile faded, and she felt a twinge of pain in her heart for him. "Uh oh…. was it bad?"

"It was fine, you know, but she didn't… agree with me as strongly as she agreed…. With Joey."

Monica and Rachel sent Chandler sympathetic looks.

"It was more like, 'I see your point; I'm all right with it….'" Chandler muttered.

"It was the first time. There's not always a lot of…. agreement, the first time…" Monica pointed out.

"Yeah," Rachel added. "Not for girls, anyway. Guys agree…" she snapped her fingers. "Like that!"

"Look," Chandler rounded the couch. "You have to help me, OK. Look…. I know what to do… with a woman. I know where everything goes; it's always…. nice, but I need to know what makes it go from nice to 'My God, somebody's killing her in there!'"

Monica smirked. "Right: I'm gonna show you something a lot of guys don't know – Rache, can you hand me that pad, please?" Her friend dutifully reached onto the side table and retrieved it. "All right…. Now:…"

"Wait, you don't have to draw an actual – Whoa, she's hot…." Chandler interrupted himself mid-sentence, craning his neck to see what Monica was doodling.

"Now, everyone knows the basic erogenous zones," Monica lectured. "You got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and…. 7…."

"There are 7?" Chandler croaked in a hoarse whisper.

"Let me see that…." Rachel leaned in to check her best friend's work. "Oh, yeah…."

Chandler pointed at something on the pad. "That's one….?"

Monica held in a snort. "Kind of an important one…."

"Oh! Oh, you know what? I was kinda looking at it upside down…" Chandler laughed.

Monica pursed her lips in an indulgent smile.

Rachel failed to hold in a chuckle. "Well, you know, sometimes that helps…." At Chandler's gobsmacked stare, she just bit her lip and turned away, playing with her hair.

"OK, now most guys will hit 1, 2, 3 and then go to 7 and set up camp," Monica lectured.

Chandler frowned. "That's bad…?"

"Well, Chandler, let me put it this way: if you go to Disneyland, you don't spend the whole time riding the Matterhorn," Rachel pointed out gently.

"Well, you might, if it were anything like 7…"

"All right," Monica interrupted the sibling-like squabble. "The important thing… is to take your time. You want to hit 'em all. And you wanna mix 'em up – you gotta keep them on your toes."

"Oooh, toes!" Rachel chirped, raising her arms in a touchdown gesture. At Chandler and Monica's intrigued looks, she flushed. "For…. for some people…."

"All right, you could start out with… a little 1…." Monica began. Unbidden, she suddenly had an image flood her mind of Chandler kissing Kathy right on the lips. Sure, she had seen them kiss before, but never before had she felt an odd sting of…. something she didn't want to name…. when she had.

"A 2. A 1, 2, 3…." She continued, trying to focus.

The image would not go away, though: she saw Chandler kissing Kathy's lips, before blazing a trail to her neck before nibbling at her ear.

"A 3…. A 5…." She grinned saucily and scribbled something down on her sketch. Now she could envision Chandler and his woman lying on a bed, as Chandler gave attentions to her hipbone.

"A 4…."

Her vision now showed Chandler face-planting into her boobs, feasting on the nipples, and Monica felt her own begin to pebble under her blouse.

"A 3, 2…." Ears, neck…. Monica could feel goosebumps alighting around both places on her own body just imagining it, fantasizing about it….

"A 2, 4, 6…." Monica now felt heat pool between her thighs as, in her mind's eye, Chandler hit '6' – right there on the inside of the thigh. Her voice was starting to become heavy and labored, the further she lost herself in the dream, the fantasy, whatever this was. It felt – no, seemed! Seemed…. so good… she repeated the most recent pattern again.

"4…. 2…. 2….." Monica was starting to breathe in rough gasps. Her eyes had by now closed, and all she could see behind her fluttering lids was the image of Chandler attending to his lady love. Except the jealousy she had felt when envisioning Kathy wasn't there anymore…

…. Because Monica was no longer envisioning Kathy.

"4, 7!" Monica cried out, now seeing Chandler with his mouth…. His mouth on…. on….

"5, 7! 6, 7! 7! 7! 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7…!"

Monica's breasts were by now heaving like a bellows; she was bouncing a little on the couch. In her fantasy, she came hard…

… at the same moment that she actually came. Hard. In her jeans.

Her head thrown back with wonder, she breathed out one last, stunned "7….." even holding up seven fingers.

Monica opened her eyes, noticing how Chandler and Rachel were torn between wanting to stare at her, while just as quickly glance away. She grinned tightly, awkwardly, fidgeting on the couch for a moment before politely excusing herself and jumping up to dash into her bedroom, her mind spinning.

As soon as she slammed the door shut behind her, Monica leaned her forehead against the wood. She was agog, stunned and shaking, and not just from the pleasure she had managed to conjure into being for herself, without even having to touch herself.

No, what was making Monica tremble now was how, almost without her noticing it, she had gone from picturing Chandler and Kathy doing the dirty deed and hitting all the erogenous zones, she had gone from picturing Chandler making love to Kathy…

… to picturing Chandler making love to her.

Frantically, Monica tore off her soiled jeans. Her underwear almost followed, but then she paused, seeing the stain on her panties.

Gulping, dipping a finger in behind the elastic, Monica touched herself oh so tenderly. When she withdrew her hand, it was sticky, and she held up the same hand to her mouth in shock, disbelief and more than a little terror, as it dawned on her:

Oh, God…. she desired her best friend. She was in love with her best friend.

Only now he was with someone else. Someone who made him happy.

After Montauk, Chandler had dropped the whole running joke about why he couldn't be her boyfriend. Now, he actually was a boyfriend, probably the most successful boyfriend in his life, and it was to a woman whom he had lured away from his roommate.

Monica flashed back to the two kisses she and Chandler had shared during their weekend to the beach. How Chandler had kept persisting on asking why they couldn't just go out. It had been the man's way of hitting on her, though Monica hadn't exactly viewed it as him hitting on her at the time. She had given her reasons for why such a relationship could never be….

…. except now she did want it to be.

"Monica….?"

Monica jerked sharply, startled, hearing coming back to her ringing ears as she heard a knock at the door. Her throat was dry, too dry to answer and when she didn't, Chandler pushed in.

"Oh, God!" he stopped, pulling up short upon seeing his best friend in nothing but her soiled underwear. "My eyes! MY EYES!" To his credit, he slapped his palm over his eyes, even turned to flee, only to run into the wall.

Dragging him back into her room, Monica closed the door behind them both. "It's OK…. It's OK…"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you…." Chandler slowly lowered his hand from his face and opened his eyes. His gaze immediately went right to the dark stain on Monica's pink panties. "Wow…. You got hit with all that just from picturing….?" His hand fished at the air, the question trailing off.

Monica's cheeks flushed pink and she glanced down, biting her lip shyly.

"Were you picturing me and Kathy doing that, and it aroused you?" Chandler finally found the words.

At that moment, Monica took a deep breath. When she lifted her head to meet Chandler's gaze, there were tears in her eyes.

"I…. wasn't picturing you and Kathy…."

Chandler turned his head to the wall, nodding vigorously. "Oh. Oh, I see… So…. you and Richard, then?" At Monica's headshake No, he frowned. "You and Pete?" His tone was deeply skeptical, even concerned.

Again, Monica shook her head, smiling helplessly. "I…." She flushed prettily. "I was actually fantasizing about…. you and me…." She winced, biting her lip and wringing her hands at how Chandler's orbs expanded in shocked wonder. "I was picturing you making love to me…."

The heat suddenly seemed to have increased in the room by several degrees. Monica felt tears slip down her cheeks. If ever she had had an epiphany, this had to be what it felt like. For all the good it did her.

"Except…. I'm too late…. Aren't I?" Her cringe deepened at how Chandler continued to gape at her, at a loss for words. "Am I too late…?" He still didn't answer her, and she sighed. "I'm sorry…." She whimpered. "I understand now how, back on Montauk, you were trying to tell me something. I think I was starting to get to that place where… you already were – remember the night when I woke up, crying from that dream?" At Chandler's slow nod, she gulped hard. "Well…. what I dreamt was that… we were married…." She swallowed again. "We had a baby…." she whispered.

Chandler frowned in bemusement, studying her. "I never knew I could make people cry that badly. The thought of being with me was really that terrib-?"

"Wonderful," Monica cut across him, and she began to weep, her bottom lip quivering as she held a hand to her mouth. "It was wonderful. I even told you that night it was a good dream, remember?"

Chandler sucked in a breath as the memory dawned on him. "You said you wanted it to be real…."

Monica whimpered and nodded. "Chandler, I was just so scared about losing our friendship, that I…. I tried to fight whatever I was feeling! Not acknowledge it. I thought I cared about you too much to risk being more…." She exhaled deeply. "But now I realize that I care about you too much to not risk being more." She smiled tearfully at him, shrugging haplessly. "Except now I'm too late: you're with Kathy, and…. Mmmm!"

Monica stiffened in shock as Chandler suddenly wrapped his arms around her waist, drew her close and kissed her deeply on the mouth. Instantly, Monica swooned into the embrace, her lashes fluttering shut. Melting into the kiss, she looped her arms water-soft around Chandler's neck and dreamily kissed him back, not even caring that she was making out with him while standing half-naked, while wearing ruined, cum-soaked underwear, in her bedroom.

Instantly, the muscle memory of how his lips had felt on hers that summer's day outside Central Perk, then again while lying in the sands of Montauk, came roaring back, and Monica let out a hum of pleasure. "Mmmmhmmmmm….."

It was many minutes before Chandler and Monica broke apart, their arms still around each other, and with their foreheads touching.

"Who…. who said… you were too late?" Chandler rasped.

Monica blinked, hope flaring in her chest. "Because… because you have a girlfriend!" she hissed. "You're… you're with Kathy…."

"True. I'm with Kathy. I'm attracted to Kathy…" Chandler conceded. "But I'm not head over heels in love with her. I haven't carried a torch for her for much of the last year."

Monica's jaw dropped. "You…. you love me….?"

She shivered, leaning into Chandler's touch as he caressed her cheek with his hand; she drooped her eyes shut and pressed a fierce kiss to his palm. "I love you, Monica Geller…."

Monica moaned happily. "I love you too, Chandler Bing…. I'm sorry I made you wait as long as I did."

"I would have waited as long as it took," Chandler murmured, grinning at her when Monica opened her eyes; she weakly smiled back. "I love you. I always will."

Monica drew away from him and took a deep breath. Dancing around him, she opened the door and peeked out into the living area of the apartment: Rachel was gone. Nowhere in sight.

Monica slammed her bedroom door, locked it, then proceeded to strip off her soaked underwear, all while ignoring Chandler's amazed stare.

"Then prove it," Monica challenged, even though she already believed Chandler and knew he was being nothing less than sincere. Taking him by the hand, she guided him purposefully to her bed. Lying down on the mattress, she watched as Chandler's orbs bulged and darkened as she opened her legs. Spread them for him. Monica's throat bobbled. "Show me that you love me…." Her own irises turned black with lust and crippling love. "Make love to me, Chandler…."

Slowly, Chandler clambered onto the bed and moved to straddle her. Impatient, Monica curled a palm around his neck and dragged his face down to hers so that their lips met. Crashed together.

They moved slowly, learning together. Chandler pleasured her just the way she had taught him with her little lecture on the notepad. He was a kind and gentle lover, faithful and attentive, and when Chandler finally buried his face into Monica's wet folds, lolling out his tongue to slurp at her slit, Monica fisted her fingers into Chandler's hair and bucked her hips, her lower lips into his talented upper lips, letting out happy screams.

"7! 7! 7, 7, 7, 7, 7!"

Her thighs clenched around Chandler's head, and she cried out as he brought her to blissful orgasm.

His mouth now coated in her juices, Chandler crawled up Monica's body and kissed her deeply, so she could taste herself on his tongue. When they broke apart, she let out a whine, warmth flooding her body from how much she loved this man. Dearly. Deeply.

"I have to go break up with Kathy…." Chandler whispered, rising off her.

Monica sat up and stared. "You'll really leave her for me?"

"I have to," Chandler pointed out helplessly. "I can't lead her on; it wouldn't be fair."

Monica smiled in understanding. "Be gentle," she advised.

"I'll try." Chandler grinned, pointing at her. "You stay right there now, mistress."

"Mistress?" Monica arched an eyebrow, amused.

"Well, until I end things with Kathy, you're technically the other woman," Chandler reminded her.

Monica failed to bite back a grin, and made a show of swooning onto the bedspread. "How romantic!" she sighed.

Chandler smirked. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be back to finish you off." Monica trembled in delight.

The anxiety of her waiting nearly a half an hour was crippling, but finally, her bedroom door opened and Chandler slipped in. Eyes full of purpose, he crossed to the bed.

Sitting up, Monica unbuttoned and removed her blouse, then very slowly wrenched down her bra cup to expose how her tits were pebbled and peaked with arousal, the nipples purple and budded.

Chandler stripped within seconds, and Monica's jaw dropped.

"Wow, you are really fast!"

"It bodes well for me that speed impresses you." Chandler clambered on top of her, and Monica spread her legs for him again. Glancing down briefly, she greeted the sight of Chandler's cock like an old friend. Perhaps it was fortunate that this was nothing she hadn't seen before.

"I think it's safe to say our friendship is effectively ruined…" Chandler observed the obvious.

"Eh, we weren't that close anyway!" Monica shrugged, as she gathered her new lover in her arms and pulled him close.

Reverently, tenderly, Chandler mounted her and mated with her. The moment he breached, Monica flopped her head back into the pillows with a sigh. He was large, and Rachel had been right: there wasn't a lot of agreement the first time, but that was more to physical unfamiliarity and discomfort more than anything else.

There was no such discomfort emotionally now, not for Monica. Not anymore. She and Chandler gazed into each other's eyes and shared content smiles.

Once the pinch of having him dwell inside her receded, Monica and Chandler embraced, kissing lazily, languorously.

Slowly, solemnly, they made love.