Seven

“All right, so the winner . . .” Dora announced, waving her hand in the air as she tried to think of a worthy prize. “The winner gets to . . .”

“Kiss the girl of his choice,” Giordi quickly suggested.

Joslyn rolled her eyes, “In which case Dora and I would severely lose when we aren’t even competing. No, I think . . . I think that – how about the losers have to . . . oh my God, okay, losers have to streak down the street.”

“Streak? As in–“

Dora’s face lit up, “Yes! Naked! Naked boys in the snow! God, it’s a dream come true.”

“Fuck no, man,” Grant snorted, pushing away from the table and making for the living room. “I’m not letting my dick chill in – it’s like negative twenty out there!”

“It’s like three Celsius,” Joslyn retorted. “And you’re not going to hurt it just running down the street. Unless you fall. . . but hey! If you win, you don’t have to do it.”

Silent until this point, Orlando mused, “So we could all win or all lose, though, right? I mean, are we timing it or–“

”No, you’re right,” Dora agreed. “The neighbors may be delighted or disappointed tonight.”

Sidling up beside Joslyn and slipping his arm around her shoulder, Giordi confided, “I just don’t want you to be disappointed when you see how small the average male is, though you’ll be delighted when you see . . .” and he motioned to himself.

With a raised eyebrow, Joslyn inquired, “Does that mean that you forfeit? Or that you already know you can’t do it.”

“Isn’t this supposed to be physically impossible?”

“Shut the hell up, Grant. You’re ruining the fun,” Orlando snickered, standing and stretching his arms high above his head, then swinging them behind his back. He could feel his nerves beginning to twitch, causing his stomach to knot up. There was no reason to be nervous, but no matter what, he definitely need to keep his stomach calm. The worst that happened was that he spewed chunks. Everywhere.

“So are you guys in or not?” Joslyn demanded, though already she was pulling shiny pots out of the cupboard. Clearly, she wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“What are the pots for? Coverage? It’s going to take a lot more than a pot to cover this--”

Dora shook her head, “You sure are quick to assume that you can’t do this, and with that kind of thinking. . .”

“No, the pots are so if you puke, you can at least keep it contained. It’ll make clean up easier on you.”

“On us! You aren’t even going to clean up after us? After we do this simply to impress you girls?” Orlando laughed, giving Joslyn a playful shrug.

She rolled her eyes, “Buy me roses, Orlando. Chugging a gallon of milk isn’t going to get me to the altar or into bed.”

“Damnit . . .”

Dora pulled the three gallons of milk out and set them on the table, explaining as she did so, “Okay, so the rules. Um . . . you have to chug. It’s not a race but . . . I mean, you have to chug. If you puke, you lose. If you chug it all and hold it down, you win, and you can keep your little thingy nice and warm tonight.”

“Honey, ain’t nothing little about–“

”Giordi. Shut up.” Joslyn rolled her eyes again, giving him a playful punch in the stomach that he pretended really hurt.

Orlando didn’t want to sit, so he popped the top off and stood by the table, the pot before him. He bounced foot to foot, wondering if Grant and Giordi felt any anxiety at all at attempting the supposedly impossible. Grant had retreated. Giordi wouldn’t shut the fuck up about his dick.

“All right. Let’s do this,” Orlando insisted, ready to get it over with. “Are you girls going to count us off?”

Neither Grant nor Giordi felt like sitting either. Chugging milk just wasn’t a challenge to take sitting down. Dora counted them off and, at go!, all three boys bottomed-up their jugs and began swallowing chilled milk as quickly as they could.

At first Orlando couldn’t understand what the big challenge was. It just felt like he was drinking a huge glass of milk. Really fast. A bottomless glass, actually. He tried to swallow without thinking about it, not giving the milk time to sit on his tongue; not giving his brain time to measure just how much milk was pouring into his stomach. At first, this method worked.

But then he felt his stomach begin to churn. He wasn’t even halfway through the gallon when his throat began to tighten. His cheeks ballooned out as his stomach began to fight against the flow, but he continued to try and force it down. Soon his entire body gave a great convulsion, though, and suddenly his abdomen began pumping itself, his stomach visibly heaving. The milk that had still been in his mouth went shooting across the room, splashing across the tab le and dripping to the floor on the other side. His body wasn’t satisfied there, though. With more, much stronger heaves, all the milk came rushing back up, spewing from his mouth like the cement fish fountain in the center of their shared courtyard.

Joslyn and Dora both shrieked as though this had been unexpected, and Dora began dry-heaving at the sight. Remembering the pot, Orlando leaned over it, but by that point, there was very little left to remain contained. Yellowed, curdled milk jiggled on the table as suddenly Giordi – possibly in reaction to Orlando’s puke and Dora’s gagging sounds – vomited up his own chugged milk. Of course, Grant wasn’t much further behind, his puke shooting clear across the table. Joslyn dove back to miss the projectile vomit and, a screaming mess of gags and laughter, stuck her face in the freezer to calm down her own jumpy stomach.

“Oh my God, this is the most disgusting–“ Dora started to say, but suddenly Orlando leaned back out and let forth an earth-shattering belch.

“Ew! That was even grosser,” Joslyn insisted, though Dora begged to differ. Grant and Giordi thought it was hysterical, though, and guffawed as Orlando’s cheeks puffed out, another belch ripping from his throat. They pounded their own chests and added their burps to the chorus, laughing amid their groans of disgust and discomfort.

Once the belches had fizzled out to nothing more than mere hiccoughs, a heavy, smelly silence blanketed the kitchen for one long minute. The boys were covered in curdled milk; the kitchen looked like the morning after a frat party; Dora was pale as a sheet; Joslyn was battling utter disgust and absolute fascination.

“Well boys, how do you feel?”

“Like I’m going to be puking for the next three days,” Grant groaned, turning his back to the battle scene. The stench violated his nostrils nonetheless.

“I meant, do you feel ready to get nekkid?” Joslyn giggled. “You boys get this mess cleaned up – I’m going to go wake up the neighbors.”

“No!” all three simultaneously yelled, but really she had just pulled Dora into the living room to get away from the puke. The boys could clean it up. That was what being an adult was all about, after all. One had to clean up their own vomit. After a milk chugging contest.

“Man, I don’t want to deal with this,” Giordi frowned. “Can’t we just tape off the kitchen until tomorrow or something?” Orlando tilted his head to the side, considering this. He didn’t live here, after all.

Grant snickered, “Man did you see how far my puke went?”

“CLEAN!” Dora hollered from the living room. She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to eat in that kitchen again. Why hadn’t they done this outside?

Oh, right. Because the streets outside glittered with ice, and the cars and small lawns were coated with a thin layer of frost. Every breath sent fragile clouds of vapor drifting through the air.

And the boys were going to be baring – or bearing? – it all.

As they waited, Dora suddenly turned to Joslyn beside her on the couch and posed, “You’ve never seen a naked guy, have you?”

“What? Of course I have!”

“I mean in real life. In actual detail.” She studied Joslyn’s face closely and saw the embarrassment, as though her innocence was a black mark on her record.

“Well, I mean . . . I’ve seen the pictures in text books and stuff . . .”

“Joz! You’re so cute,” Dora giggled, giving her cousin a tight hug. “I forget sometimes just how young you are. Well, don’t be too excited. They aren’t anything special, and I bet these wussies are going to be running too fast to see anything anyways.”

“Except their pale asses, glowing against the snow,” Joslyn snickered back.

It was still a while before all three boys finally trooped into the living room and flopped onto various flat surfaces. Clean up had been disgusting, to say the least, and had ensued with no small amount of yelling, crude jokes, and hollered questions about what kind of cleaner to use on what surface. Dora had insisted that simply wiping up the vomit was not enough. Things needed to sparkle, and they probably should burn a candle.

“To ward off evil barf demons?” Joslyn teased.

Dora rolled her eyes, “Please, Miss Innocent.”

“Dora!” Joslyn hissed! Fortunately, though the opportunity was prime for Joslyn to finally get some ribbing as good as she gave, Dora could sense true embarrassment and knew better than to humiliate her cousin too badly in front of the boys.

So to prevent Orlando’s quirked eyebrow from leading to a question, she asked, “You boys ready for your little moonlit stroll?”

“Drop your drawers, soldiers!” Joslyn drawled, jumping up from the couch and clapping her hands. “Let’s get this show on the road outside!”

“Man, do we have to? We’re knackered!” Grant moaned, rolling onto his stomach on the couch.

Dora nodded, “Of course you have to. That was the deal. You all three lost, so you all three get to go for a little run.”

“But it’s so COLD!” Orlando pointed out.

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about because it’ll all be too small to be seen anyways.”

“But what if we get arrested?” Giordi pointed out, hoping Dora and Joslyn would buy the mature, responsible adult card. After all, it wasn’t that he minded showing off the goods . . . but it was really, really cold.

“Psh. When have you ever been worried about getting arrested, Giordi Mancini,” Joslyn shook her head. “Come on.” She led the way onto the front porch; as soon as the door was shoved open, an arctic blast scratched at all their cheeks.

“God . . . fuck, man, this is the worst night of my life,” Orlando mumbled, already rubbing his arms for warmth with his clothes on.

The girls ignored the boys’ groaning, instead explaining, “Okay, you have to run around the block. So, down to the stopsign, then left, then left, then left; all the first lefts and it’ll get you right back here. Oh, and you can keep your shoes on if you can get your pants off over them. Or want to bend over and tie them back on . . .”

“What if we accidentally run up someone’s driveway in the dark?” Grant laughed, highly amused by what he clearly found unlikely, but an amusing option to consider. Giordi and Orlando tried to shrug off the possibility. Worse, what if someone was having a lawn party, or came driving down the street with their flashers on?

“You won’t. Now go! Take it off and go! The sooner you strip and faster you run, the quicker it’s done,” Joslyn reminded, holding her arms out for clothes. For a moment no one moved, but the girls weren’t budging.

Orlando took the first step, grumbling, “You know what? Fine. Fine! We’ll play your dumbass little game because next time it’s going to be your turn to strip.” He pulled his shirt up and over his head, throwing it in Joslyn’s face. With Orlando started, Grant and Giordi pulled their shirts off, too, following Orlando further as he tugged his jeans off, struggling and nearly falling flat on the porch in an effort to get them over his shoes.

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” began the chant, hopping foot to foot in nothing but shoes and boxers.

Dora bit her lip to keep from laughing too hard, then urged, “Almost there. Ready set go!” The boys gave each other anxious looks, then simultaneously turned their backs, yanked their boxers off, and took off down the street, waving their arms in the air to try and work some sort of warmth up in their bodies.

“Oh my gosh!” Joslyn squealed, grabbing Dora’s hand as both jumped with laughter, watching three bare backsides disappear down the street.

“I can’t believe they’re actually doing this,” Dora laughed, shaking her head. “Come on, let’s look for them around the corner. With the speed they’re running, it shouldn’t be much longer.” They skipped down to the sidewalk and, sure enough, only a couple minutes later the three rounded the corner, running a bit slower now, and clearly winded from the sprint. In the dark, it was impossible to make anything out against their shadowy outlines, but the girls began cheering and clapping and waving their hands. Who cared if the neighbors came out? Or better yet, called the police?

“Aw, Joz, you’re first naked ma– men . . .” Dora mused, giving Joslyn a playful shove. But with the speed and darkness and her own slight shyness when it came to sex and nudity, Joslyn didn’t see anything but a shadowy netherregion.

“Whoo!!! Look at ‘em go!” she yelled along with Dora, clapping her hands and dancing around as the cold began to eat through her sweater. The boys ran on, ignoring their screams, no longer waving their arms in the air. They cut across the lawn to short-cut it to the porch, leapt up the steps, dove inside, and slammed the door shut behind them.

Slowly the smiles drooped from the girls’ faces. They shared alarmed looks, then raced to the door. Of course it was locked and they could hear the boys snickering on the other side.

“Let us in!” they yelled, pounding on the door as the night suddenly grew much colder.

Someone, Giordi it sounded like, yelled back, “Not until you take your own midnight run!”

“Sorry, not happening!”

“Then you aren’t coming inside!”

“Then you aren’t sleeping with us tonight!”

“Wait . . . that was an option?” Orlando suddenly asked; the hesitation in his voice carried through the door.

Taking the bait, Joslyn continued, “Well, you know, we figured you boys would be rather cold after your run, so we thought a little cuddling wouldn’t hurt anyone . . .”

There was discussion. The sound of muted voices arguing slipped out.

“Five seconds or the offer is revoked and we go sleep at Orlando’s house.”

The arguing grew louder.

“Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”

The door swung open, but the boys had already disappeared, running upstairs to grab clothes. Except Orlando, who yanked a blanket up from the couch, wrapped it around his waist, and groaned, “Fuck, my clothes are still outside, man!”

“Party in Joslyn’s bed!”

“Nope, in Dora’s! It’s bigger and she changed her sheets more recently! Come on, Orlando!” Joslyn called over her shoulder. He yanked his clothes up from the porch and hurried upstairs.

“Do you think all five of us can spoon in Dora’s bed?” Grant suggested from his room, pulling boxers on and rubbing his arms.

Joslyn called back, already cuddled down beneath a heap of blankets in Dora’s room, “Depends if Giordi leaves his ego in his room or not!”

“I think you mean my dick!”

“God, grow up,” Dora rolled her eyes.

“Seriously,” Orlando mocked, sliding into the bed between Dora and Joslyn. He buried his nose in the back of Joslyn’s neck, making her shriek.

“What the hell is that?”

“Orlando’s–“

”Shut up, Giordi!”

“I’m just saying . . .”

“Don’t say anything,” Grant laughed. “Now let’s make sure we don’t have any male-on-male here.” He dove beneath the blankets on Joslyn’s other side, leaving Giordi to turn off the light and curl up against Dora’s back, complaining about the lack of warmth in her bony ass.


	Seven “All right, so the winner . . .” Dora announced, waving her hand in the air as she tried to think of a worthy prize. “The winner gets to . . .” “Kiss the girl of his choice,” Giordi quickly suggested. Joslyn rolled her eyes, “In which case Dora and I would severely lose when we aren’t even competing. No, I think . . . I think that – how about the losers have to . . . oh my God, okay, losers have to streak down the street.” “Streak? As in–“ Dora’s face lit up, “Yes! Naked! Naked boys in the snow! God, it’s a dream come true.” “Fuck no, man,” Grant snorted, pushing away from the table and making for the living room. “I’m not letting my dick chill in – it’s like negative twenty out there!” “It’s like three Celsius,” Joslyn retorted. “And you’re not going to hurt it just running down the street. Unless you fall. . . but hey! If you win, you don’t have to do it.” Silent until this point, Orlando mused, “So we could all win or all lose, though, right? I mean, are we timing it or–“ ”No, you’re right,” Dora agreed. “The neighbors may be delighted or disappointed tonight.” Sidling up beside Joslyn and slipping his arm around her shoulder, Giordi confided, “I just don’t want you to be disappointed when you see how small the average male is, though you’ll be delighted when you see . . .” and he motioned to himself. With a raised eyebrow, Joslyn inquired, “Does that mean that you forfeit? Or that you already know you can’t do it.” “Isn’t this supposed to be physically impossible?” “Shut the hell up, Grant. You’re ruining the fun,” Orlando snickered, standing and stretching his arms high above his head, then swinging them behind his back. He could feel his nerves beginning to twitch, causing his stomach to knot up. There was no reason to be nervous, but no matter what, he definitely need to keep his stomach calm. The worst that happened was that he spewed chunks. Everywhere. “So are you guys in or not?” Joslyn demanded, though already she was pulling shiny pots out of the cupboard. Clearly, she wasn’t taking no for an answer. “What are the pots for? Coverage? It’s going to take a lot more than a pot to cover this--” Dora shook her head, “You sure are quick to assume that you can’t do this, and with that kind of thinking. . .” “No, the pots are so if you puke, you can at least keep it contained. It’ll make clean up easier on you.” “On us! You aren’t even going to clean up after us? After we do this simply to impress you girls?” Orlando laughed, giving Joslyn a playful shrug. She rolled her eyes, “Buy me roses, Orlando. Chugging a gallon of milk isn’t going to get me to the altar or into bed.” “Damnit . . .” Dora pulled the three gallons of milk out and set them on the table, explaining as she did so, “Okay, so the rules. Um . . . you have to chug. It’s not a race but . . . I mean, you have to chug. If you puke, you lose. If you chug it all and hold it down, you win, and you can keep your little thingy nice and warm tonight.” “Honey, ain’t nothing little about–“ ”Giordi. Shut up.” Joslyn rolled her eyes again, giving him a playful punch in the stomach that he pretended really hurt. Orlando didn’t want to sit, so he popped the top off and stood by the table, the pot before him. He bounced foot to foot, wondering if Grant and Giordi felt any anxiety at all at attempting the supposedly impossible. Grant had retreated. Giordi wouldn’t shut the fuck up about his dick. “All right. Let’s do this,” Orlando insisted, ready to get it over with. “Are you girls going to count us off?” Neither Grant nor Giordi felt like sitting either. Chugging milk just wasn’t a challenge to take sitting down. Dora counted them off and, at go!, all three boys bottomed-up their jugs and began swallowing chilled milk as quickly as they could. At first Orlando couldn’t understand what the big challenge was. It just felt like he was drinking a huge glass of milk. Really fast. A bottomless glass, actually. He tried to swallow without thinking about it, not giving the milk time to sit on his tongue; not giving his brain time to measure just how much milk was pouring into his stomach. At first, this method worked. But then he felt his stomach begin to churn. He wasn’t even halfway through the gallon when his throat began to tighten. His cheeks ballooned out as his stomach began to fight against the flow, but he continued to try and force it down. Soon his entire body gave a great convulsion, though, and suddenly his abdomen began pumping itself, his stomach visibly heaving. The milk that had still been in his mouth went shooting across the room, splashing across the tab le and dripping to the floor on the other side. His body wasn’t satisfied there, though. With more, much stronger heaves, all the milk came rushing back up, spewing from his mouth like the cement fish fountain in the center of their shared courtyard. Joslyn and Dora both shrieked as though this had been unexpected, and Dora began dry-heaving at the sight. Remembering the pot, Orlando leaned over it, but by that point, there was very little left to remain contained. Yellowed, curdled milk jiggled on the table as suddenly Giordi – possibly in reaction to Orlando’s puke and Dora’s gagging sounds – vomited up his own chugged milk. Of course, Grant wasn’t much further behind, his puke shooting clear across the table. Joslyn dove back to miss the projectile vomit and, a screaming mess of gags and laughter, stuck her face in the freezer to calm down her own jumpy stomach. “Oh my God, this is the most disgusting–“ Dora started to say, but suddenly Orlando leaned back out and let forth an earth-shattering belch. “Ew! That was even grosser,” Joslyn insisted, though Dora begged to differ. Grant and Giordi thought it was hysterical, though, and guffawed as Orlando’s cheeks puffed out, another belch ripping from his throat. They pounded their own chests and added their burps to the chorus, laughing amid their groans of disgust and discomfort. Once the belches had fizzled out to nothing more than mere hiccoughs, a heavy, smelly silence blanketed the kitchen for one long minute. The boys were covered in curdled milk; the kitchen looked like the morning after a frat party; Dora was pale as a sheet; Joslyn was battling utter disgust and absolute fascination. “Well boys, how do you feel?” “Like I’m going to be puking for the next three days,” Grant groaned, turning his back to the battle scene. The stench violated his nostrils nonetheless. “I meant, do you feel ready to get nekkid?” Joslyn giggled. “You boys get this mess cleaned up – I’m going to go wake up the neighbors.” “No!” all three simultaneously yelled, but really she had just pulled Dora into the living room to get away from the puke. The boys could clean it up. That was what being an adult was all about, after all. One had to clean up their own vomit. After a milk chugging contest. “Man, I don’t want to deal with this,” Giordi frowned. “Can’t we just tape off the kitchen until tomorrow or something?” Orlando tilted his head to the side, considering this. He didn’t live here, after all. Grant snickered, “Man did you see how far my puke went?” “CLEAN!” Dora hollered from the living room. She wasn’t sure she would ever be able to eat in that kitchen again. Why hadn’t they done this outside? Oh, right. Because the streets outside glittered with ice, and the cars and small lawns were coated with a thin layer of frost. Every breath sent fragile clouds of vapor drifting through the air. And the boys were going to be baring – or bearing? – it all. As they waited, Dora suddenly turned to Joslyn beside her on the couch and posed, “You’ve never seen a naked guy, have you?” “What? Of course I have!” “I mean in real life. In actual detail.” She studied Joslyn’s face closely and saw the embarrassment, as though her innocence was a black mark on her record. “Well, I mean . . . I’ve seen the pictures in text books and stuff . . .” “Joz! You’re so cute,” Dora giggled, giving her cousin a tight hug. “I forget sometimes just how young you are. Well, don’t be too excited. They aren’t anything special, and I bet these wussies are going to be running too fast to see anything anyways.” “Except their pale asses, glowing against the snow,” Joslyn snickered back. It was still a while before all three boys finally trooped into the living room and flopped onto various flat surfaces. Clean up had been disgusting, to say the least, and had ensued with no small amount of yelling, crude jokes, and hollered questions about what kind of cleaner to use on what surface. Dora had insisted that simply wiping up the vomit was not enough. Things needed to sparkle, and they probably should burn a candle. “To ward off evil barf demons?” Joslyn teased. Dora rolled her eyes, “Please, Miss Innocent.” “Dora!” Joslyn hissed! Fortunately, though the opportunity was prime for Joslyn to finally get some ribbing as good as she gave, Dora could sense true embarrassment and knew better than to humiliate her cousin too badly in front of the boys. So to prevent Orlando’s quirked eyebrow from leading to a question, she asked, “You boys ready for your little moonlit stroll?” “Drop your drawers, soldiers!” Joslyn drawled, jumping up from the couch and clapping her hands. “Let’s get this show on the road outside!” “Man, do we have to? We’re knackered!” Grant moaned, rolling onto his stomach on the couch. Dora nodded, “Of course you have to. That was the deal. You all three lost, so you all three get to go for a little run.” “But it’s so COLD!” Orlando pointed out. “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about because it’ll all be too small to be seen anyways.” “But what if we get arrested?” Giordi pointed out, hoping Dora and Joslyn would buy the mature, responsible adult card. After all, it wasn’t that he minded showing off the goods . . . but it was really, really cold. “Psh. When have you ever been worried about getting arrested, Giordi Mancini,” Joslyn shook her head. “Come on.” She led the way onto the front porch; as soon as the door was shoved open, an arctic blast scratched at all their cheeks. “God . . . fuck, man, this is the worst night of my life,” Orlando mumbled, already rubbing his arms for warmth with his clothes on. The girls ignored the boys’ groaning, instead explaining, “Okay, you have to run around the block. So, down to the stopsign, then left, then left, then left; all the first lefts and it’ll get you right back here. Oh, and you can keep your shoes on if you can get your pants off over them. Or want to bend over and tie them back on . . .” “What if we accidentally run up someone’s driveway in the dark?” Grant laughed, highly amused by what he clearly found unlikely, but an amusing option to consider. Giordi and Orlando tried to shrug off the possibility. Worse, what if someone was having a lawn party, or came driving down the street with their flashers on? “You won’t. Now go! Take it off and go! The sooner you strip and faster you run, the quicker it’s done,” Joslyn reminded, holding her arms out for clothes. For a moment no one moved, but the girls weren’t budging. Orlando took the first step, grumbling, “You know what? Fine. Fine! We’ll play your dumbass little game because next time it’s going to be your turn to strip.” He pulled his shirt up and over his head, throwing it in Joslyn’s face. With Orlando started, Grant and Giordi pulled their shirts off, too, following Orlando further as he tugged his jeans off, struggling and nearly falling flat on the porch in an effort to get them over his shoes. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,” began the chant, hopping foot to foot in nothing but shoes and boxers. Dora bit her lip to keep from laughing too hard, then urged, “Almost there. Ready set go!” The boys gave each other anxious looks, then simultaneously turned their backs, yanked their boxers off, and took off down the street, waving their arms in the air to try and work some sort of warmth up in their bodies. “Oh my gosh!” Joslyn squealed, grabbing Dora’s hand as both jumped with laughter, watching three bare backsides disappear down the street. “I can’t believe they’re actually doing this,” Dora laughed, shaking her head. “Come on, let’s look for them around the corner. With the speed they’re running, it shouldn’t be much longer.” They skipped down to the sidewalk and, sure enough, only a couple minutes later the three rounded the corner, running a bit slower now, and clearly winded from the sprint. In the dark, it was impossible to make anything out against their shadowy outlines, but the girls began cheering and clapping and waving their hands. Who cared if the neighbors came out? Or better yet, called the police? “Aw, Joz, you’re first naked ma– men . . .” Dora mused, giving Joslyn a playful shove. But with the speed and darkness and her own slight shyness when it came to sex and nudity, Joslyn didn’t see anything but a shadowy netherregion. “Whoo!!! Look at ‘em go!” she yelled along with Dora, clapping her hands and dancing around as the cold began to eat through her sweater. The boys ran on, ignoring their screams, no longer waving their arms in the air. They cut across the lawn to short-cut it to the porch, leapt up the steps, dove inside, and slammed the door shut behind them. Slowly the smiles drooped from the girls’ faces. They shared alarmed looks, then raced to the door. Of course it was locked and they could hear the boys snickering on the other side. “Let us in!” they yelled, pounding on the door as the night suddenly grew much colder. Someone, Giordi it sounded like, yelled back, “Not until you take your own midnight run!” “Sorry, not happening!” “Then you aren’t coming inside!” “Then you aren’t sleeping with us tonight!” “Wait . . . that was an option?” Orlando suddenly asked; the hesitation in his voice carried through the door. Taking the bait, Joslyn continued, “Well, you know, we figured you boys would be rather cold after your run, so we thought a little cuddling wouldn’t hurt anyone . . .” There was discussion. The sound of muted voices arguing slipped out. “Five seconds or the offer is revoked and we go sleep at Orlando’s house.” The arguing grew louder. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .” The door swung open, but the boys had already disappeared, running upstairs to grab clothes. Except Orlando, who yanked a blanket up from the couch, wrapped it around his waist, and groaned, “Fuck, my clothes are still outside, man!” “Party in Joslyn’s bed!” “Nope, in Dora’s! It’s bigger and she changed her sheets more recently! Come on, Orlando!” Joslyn called over her shoulder. He yanked his clothes up from the porch and hurried upstairs. “Do you think all five of us can spoon in Dora’s bed?” Grant suggested from his room, pulling boxers on and rubbing his arms. Joslyn called back, already cuddled down beneath a heap of blankets in Dora’s room, “Depends if Giordi leaves his ego in his room or not!” “I think you mean my dick!” “God, grow up,” Dora rolled her eyes. “Seriously,” Orlando mocked, sliding into the bed between Dora and Joslyn. He buried his nose in the back of Joslyn’s neck, making her shriek. “What the hell is that?” “Orlando’s–“ ”Shut up, Giordi!” “I’m just saying . . .” “Don’t say anything,” Grant laughed. “Now let’s make sure we don’t have any male-on-male here.” He dove beneath the blankets on Joslyn’s other side, leaving Giordi to turn off the light and curl up against Dora’s back, complaining about the lack of warmth in her bony ass.