[Z]

#1: Come On Closer

In a fantasy world where TiBB members all live in the same place, this tale occurs. For the sake of this story, all members are in their mid-late twenties.

“Alright Princess?” Dean kissed his wife on the forehead, rousing her from the nap she had been taking. “I’m home.”
“Darling!” Laura reached up and pulled her husband into a hug, a smile stretching across her face. “You’re home early! I was going to get up soon to go meet you at the airport, did you get an early flight back?”
“I wanted to surprise you, so I told you I was getting on a later flight, I knew you’d come meet me at the airport so I thought I’d save you the journey. How have things been? I hope you didn’t miss me too much!” Dean sat down on the edge of the sofa, and Laura swung her legs off the sofa to make room for her husband.
“You’re so sly, oh partner of mine!” Laura giggled. “I didn’t get up to all that much really, just the usual day to day stuff, I saw a few of the gang while you were away, I went shopping with Jen on Saturday, didn’t really buy anything exciting though.” Laura lied effortlessly, Dean would only have registered the lie if he had been trained to look out for such things. Unfortunately for Laura; Dean’s ‘business trip’ had actually been a crash course in lie detection. He had long been suspicious of his wife of having an affair with Hugo, his arch-nemesis, and despite Dean enlisting Gary’s help to tarnish Hugo’s reputation, he was still suspicious of Laura, he suspected she was involved in something else, but he wasn’t quite sure what. He registered her lie, therefore, and he too didn’t so much as flinch. Dean had spent the past week with Gary, learning everything Gary had to offer in how to out people as liars, cheaters, whatever – if there was a secret to be found out, Gary would be the one to uncover it.
“I haven’t seen Jen in a while.” Dean glossed over the deception. “Is she still seeing that tennis player?”
“He wasn’t hairy enough, apparently, I thought it was a pretty strange reason to dump the guy, he was so nice, but then sometimes I swear she just invents reasons to chuck boyfriends.” Laura sighed.
“I really wish she’d patch things up with James.” Dean frowned at the memory of Jen and James’ angry falling out the month before. “It just seemed to come from nowhere. One day they were friends, the next day they were angrily ranting about each other but neither of them has said why they hate the other. It seems so odd.”
“I did ask her about that on Saturday. She just passed it off with the usual, a massive rant about him to deflect the actual question and then ending the conversation by saying she didn’t want to ruin our day by talking about him. It’s frustrating.”
“I’d ask James, but we’ve never been all that close, I think I’d come across as a bit fake if I just asked him.” Dean looked concerned. “I really hope they patch things up. So tell me more about your week.”
Laura nodded in agreement with her husband’s sentiment, and then stood up from the sofa. “C’mon, it’s been a whole week since I’ve seen you, I’ve forgotten what love feels like.” She winked at him, and took him by the hand, leading him up the stairs. As Dean followed her up the stairs, he couldn’t help but remember his wife’s words about Jen deflecting issues, and wondering if it had rubbed off on the wife he thought he knew.

Mark flipped through the stack of letters he had in the mail this morning. Bills, catalogues and flyers; never anything exciting. He sighed quietly, braced himself, before taking the stack of mail through to the kitchen, where his eternally pissed off flatmate Shaun was eating breakfast.
“I just think it’s a heap of crap, you know? He’s been hanging around here ever since he fell out with Jen and I’m getting sick of him being here all the time, I like having some time to myself, I can’t flipping have time to myself if I’ve got James mooching around the place like a bad smell, can I?” Shaun ranted down the phone to Greg. “Anyway, Mark’s come through to the kitchen now so I’d better go. Oh, Mark, Greg says hi.”
Mark waved at Shaun, signalling for him to say that he said hi back, which Shaun duly did, before hanging up the phone.
“Anything exciting?” Shaun asked.
“Nope.” Mark shook his head. “I don’t get your problem with James. The guy’s like lost his arm basically, you could cut him some slack.”
“Mark, he fell out with a friend, it happens to most of us at some point in our lives, he could get over it, it’s been a month.” Shaun argued.
“I’m just saying. Not everyone can deal with things the way you can.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Shaun snapped at Mark.
“Oh, nothing. Never mind.” Mark backed down, he knew Shaun was angry and would look for an argument if he said anything vaguely controversial. “I’m looking forward to tonight though. Should be good to see everyone again!”
“Well, it’ll be awkward between Jen and James, and we haven’t even factored in the fact that Dean and Laura could have had an argument by now, I mean Dean’s supposed to have gone back to his today. I wonder if she has any idea he was staying with Gary?”
“Gary was teaching him everything he knew. If Dean paid attention, she won’t have a clue.” Mark pointed out.
“Thank God Hugo’s not invited; that would definitely have set off an argument.” Shaun laughed.
“I wish they’d all get over that... they were out to get him and it was unfair. Sure he lied, he had secrets, don’t we all? His were just made out to be so bad because people were willing to jump on the bandwagon.” Mark defended his disgraced friend, who had disappeared off the social scene ever since Dean and Gary had exposed his double life. To them, he was Hugo, to his family, he was someone else entirely.
“So that’s what all this boils down to. I bet you’re annoyed that James hangs around here too, but you don’t want to admit it because you’ve been in his situation, you lost a friend too.” Shaun glared at Mark.
“That’s not it at all and you know it.” Mark replied angrily. “Now stop being such a moody ass and start being there for our friend in his time of need, you know we would all do the same for you, so just stop it.”
“Fine. But if he doesn’t get his act together soon, I’m telling him to cut the crap and grow a pair.” Shaun stood up and went through to his room.
“Urgh.” Mark immersed himself in doing the washing up to dissipate his anger. Shaun could be frustrating at times, and Mark hated rising to the bait. He began to think about what he would wear later for the meal.

Linda set the placemats on her dining room table. Her table had room for six people at it, but tonight there would be eleven people dining at her residence, so as a way of coping with the added numbers, instead of setting places at a table, she was going to offer up a buffet of barbecued food, salads and instead, everyone would sit in her living room. She had watched countless programs about hosting dinner parties and had the whole evening planned out in her head; the girls would be wearing summer dresses and the boys would be wearing shorts and t-shirts, and the whole thing would very laidback with a nice summery feel to it. She would serve up wine, cider, beer, champagne, whatever her guests had a fancy for, she would have it. Of course, Jen and James could barely stand to be in the same room as each other, so Linda expected that both would make their excuses to leave as soon as was politely possible. Dean and Laura would leave at a respectable time too. Shaun and Mark were always up for a party, unless they were angry at each other, which normally meant one would leave earlier than the other. She thought of her other guests; Gary, Ross, Rory and Greg, and wondered how the whole evening would pan out. She didn’t have to wonder too much, though, she had it all planned out. Her darker intentions towards one of her guests, that in particular was planned to a tee, but it had been so meticulously planned that she barely dared to go over the plan in her head, for fear of jinxing the perfectly recited plan in her mind. Of course, she would have been unable to even execute her plan if it hadn’t been for Laura, her dear friend. Linda knew what she was planning was sadistic, twisted; but the idea and method had come from Laura, who had intended it in a positive, well meaning way, it was Linda’s perverse nature that had taken the idea onto a new plateau of extremity. She felt a jolt of fear and excitement in her stomach as she looked at her watch: her guests were due to arrive any minute.

Rory, Gary and Greg stood outside Linda’s house, checking their reflections out in the pane of glass set into her front door. Rory rang the doorbell, and the three boys had only wide smiles as their old friend opened the door.
“Girl!” Linda and Gary squealed at the same time, air kissing each other on each cheek.
“Looking sharp, RoRo!” Linda hugged Rory, who took his shoes off without a telling.
“G my man! C’mon in!” She hugged Greg too, and then led the three through to her dining room. “Paper plates there, take one and tuck in! Ah, there’s the door again, back in a second!”
Linda flung the front door open to the sight of Ross and Jen smiling at her.
“Babes!” Jen almost shouted, over exaggerating almost all of her body language. “Is anyone else here yet?”
“Rory, Greg and Gary just arrived. That’s all so far.” Linda eased Jen’s transparent worries. “Rossy!”
“Linda!” Ross gave her a hug. “How many times have we seen each other this week? It’s getting ridiculous.”
“Linda!” Laura’s voice called out from the top of Linda’s driveway, as she stepped out of the taxi with Dean.
“Laura! Dean! C’mon down here and get in!” Linda grinned at the married couple. “But yeah guys, just head through to the dining room, food’s set out!”
Linda ushered Jen, Ross, Laura and Dean through to the dining room, and then made one final trip to the front door as Mark, Shaun and James arrived together. She led the trio through to the dining room, and then took everyone’s orders for a round of drinks. She cracked open a bottle of rosé and opened a few beers, carrying them through to her friends.
“We don’t do this enough,” Linda toasted. “So I think we should aim to have a gathering like this as often as possible, because it’s so hard to stay in touch if you don’t make the effort. You guys are wonderful company, and I’m proud to call you my friends.”
The group whooped as Linda rounded off her toast, and drank to her sentiments. They began to mingle; the awkward tension between Jen and James being almost forgotten among the merriment between the other friends. The evening crept up on them, and it was eventually pitch black outside, with more empties than full and more dishes than food. Dean and Laura made their excuses and left, and Jen tagged along with them ‘to lower the taxi fare’. Linda cracked a joke about the fact it was just her and the boys, and went through to her kitchen to get more drinks. Linda had been pacing herself all night, she had wanted to retain sobriety, because she wanted to execute her plan in a clear frame of mind. She took cans of cider and another bottle of wine out of the fridge; and began to pour various beverages into glasses once more. She then checked that nobody was likely to come into the kitchen, before producing a packet of pills. Date rape drugs. She dropped one into a glass of cider, watching it dissolve into the drink, before carrying the six glasses through on a tray. She handed a drink to each of her friends, and watched intently as she handed Greg the glass with the date rape drug in it. She sat back down in her seat with her glass of wine, laughing as she tuned into the conversation about Jen – James was drunk, and was ranting about her, but in a way that was so funny due to the amount of spite in his voice, that it was hard to believe that he meant every single word. She watched Greg every so often, as his eyes started rolling and he eventually passed out on the sofa. She used polite bartering to her advantage, telling Gary and Rory that he could sleep on her couch and for them not to worry about getting him home; as everybody began to leave. As Ross made his goodbyes and Linda finally closed the door and locked it behind her, a devilish grin spread across her face.
She shook Greg’s shoulders roughly, but he barely stirred, so she began to undress him. In her mind, the pretence of her being a helpful friend was wearing thin, and as she began to undo his jeans to slide them off, she knew that she was about to violate their entire friendship beyond repair. What she was about to do could turn her into a hated woman; but she wanted this so badly. She continued to undress Greg, until he was in just his underwear. She produced her digital camera, and began to take pictures of her friend in compromising positions, before taking away his last item of clothing; the last of his dignity; and kept taking more pictures. She dared not touch him beyond moving his position to take a different picture, but already in her mind she was memorising every single detail about him; noticing moles, freckles, scars. She began to take a video, to accompany the pictures, before finishing her beyond weird voyeur session. She dressed him once more, and slipped upstairs without Greg even so much as stirring. She knew that, even now, she could turn back, she could delete the evidence of what she had done before it became real: but the thrill of doing it was enough to convince her that she should steam ahead with her salacious plans. She decided to sleep on the decision; by morning, she would know where to go from here.