I glance over at you, sitting on the couch with your feet up. You’re trying to look like you’re not listening to the conversation, that you’re engrossed in your book, but I can tell by the smirk tugging at the corners of your mouth that you are enjoying the weekly call.
I hang up the phone and without looking up from your book, you ask, “So? How was everything?”
I throw a crumpled piece of paper at you, bouncing it off the top of your head.
“Next time you get to talk to her. Now put down the book and get dressed. We’re supposed to be ready at 7.”
“Why did you agree to this?" You say, sighing with exasperation. “You know I hate surprises.”
“They’re our friends and they wanted to do something nice for us. Just tolerate it. It’s only for one evening.”
“Besides,” you grump, “it’s not even MY birthday. Mine’s not ‘til Wednesday. This is YOUR birthday.”
“Hey, it’s just the most convenient weekend. I can’t help it that you were born on an inconvenient day.”
Still grumbling about having to go to a party, you get dressed. I shower and shave and put on my jeans and loose-fitting paisley shirt with the flowing sleeves. You come out of your room in the shortest microskirt I’ve ever seen and boots. I feel a momentary twinge, but I can’t decide whether it’s attraction or brotherly concern.
There’s a knock on the door and our gang walks in, not bothering to wait for an invitation. Not unusual. Our apartment is always the hangout for everybody and our friends have blended into a single group.
Tommy gives you a playful pat on the ass, although his hand seemed to linger for a bit longer than one would consider proper. Oh well, he’s always trying to get laid. “Happy Birthday, Ellie,” he says.
Shauna gives me a hug, leaping into my arms and wrapping her arms around my neck. “Happy birthday!” she squeals and rubs against me, teasing me.
Mike and Laura stand back waiting for their turn to congratulate us. Mike hugs me and Shauna moves to hug you. Once everyone has hugged everyone else (which becomes a bit of a logistical problem in our small apartment’s living room) we pile into Tommy’s van and head out.
Tommy’s van always reeks of pot, but that’s because we’re always smoking it in there. He drives for about 20 minutes and we all lounge about on the carpeted floor. Tommy has even taken the front passenger seat out. Hell, he’d probably take the driver’s seat out if he could to make more room. If Mom and Dad only knew about Tommy’s van. We’d both fucked in that van, though not at the same time and we frequently went to the drive-in and got stoned as a group. On occasion, things had even gotten interesting when we were all together. I remembered the time I’d looked over and seen you going down on Tommy and my first reaction was to be proud that I was more impressive in the cock department than Tommy and then to be proud of how good my little sister was at sucking cock. You were certainly giving it the old college try, as it were. Then there was the time I looked up and saw you watching me sucking Shauna’s rich chocolate brown nipples with something that looked like admiration.
Shauna was a dead ringer for Pam Grier in Foxy Brown. She was slim and busty and always dressed in Black Panther style leather with a black leather beret.
Her regular guy was Tommy. Tommy was about 6’2” and looked like he should be surfing in Southern California. His sandy blonde hair was always hanging in his eyes and he always had a golden tan. Laura and Mike were brother and sister. Mike was my 20, same age as me. Laura was 19, a year older than you. That made you the baby of the group. Mike had that naturally curly hair that rivaled Shauna’s for the biggest afro prize. Laura could not have looked more different. Where Mike’s hair was curly and dark, Laura’s was long and blonde and straight. Mike was a couple of inches shorter than me and Laura was just about your size. You two were constantly trading outfits. Though I have to admit, I think you always looked better in them. You had, on a number of occasions, told me how much you’d like to bed Mike but he and Laura seemed to be joined at the hip. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded fucking Laura either. She was awfully cute.
As a group we had all become the best of friends, we completely trusted them and they trusted us. I frequently got a little down when I thought of us drifting apart when we graduated. I wanted our gang to stay together forever.
As we drove, the rest of the group cast glances at each other and Laura could not contain her case of the giggles. We knew they had something planned for us, but no idea what it was.
Tommy pulled up in front of a nondescript little storefront and turned off the ignition. He turned around in his seat and said, “OK. Time to put our plan into action.”
Mike pulled two bandanas from his back pocket and tossed one to Tommy. They rolled them up and said, “OK, you have to wear these blindfolds until we tell you to take them off.”
Neither of us fought the idea. I went along because I was intrigued. You seemed more like you just wanted the surprise part to be over with and were resigned that this was the only way to do it.
The gang led us into the building and almost immediately we were hit with the smell of incense and pot and Tommy’s fucking album of sitar music. I hated that fucking thing.
What light made it past the blindfold was quickly extinguished as we went through another door. I could hear our footsteps echo and realized the room was large and probably fairly empty.
I heard two chairs scrape against the cement floor and Mike’s voice announced, “Okay, both of you sit down. Here are the rules. No matter what happens, you have to keep the blindfolds on until we tell you to take them off. Agreed?”
I nodded and assumed you did to because Mike said “Good. Rule number two. When we tell you that you can’t use your hands, you better not or we’ll make sure you don’t.” I heard the faint jingle of chain which I surmised meant handcuffs. “And please get into the spirit of the thing. Try not to make too much noise or cheat.”
“Good. Rule number three. If, at any point, you want to stop anything, you have to say ’Richard Nixon.’”
I grinned at that. Knowing that none of us would ever voluntarily speak Nixon’s name.
“At the end of the tests, we will take off our blindfold and tell you how you did and then you will get your surprise.