Birthday Girl

Hey guys,

I know this is getting pretty standard but thanks a lot for your votes and especially the comments.

I'd really like your feedback on this one since it's the first time I'm writing a sexy scene (for some reason saying that reminds me of Borat). Kindly bear in mind I'm a complete novice at this so any helpful suggestions would be much appreciated.

I have made up some places and stuff to fit the story; you'll know when you see it.

Names and places... Coincidence... fiction... unintentional

Enjoy!

P.S. Yes I'm a car guy. Well spotted, fellow enthusiast.

*********************************************

The sun is shining, the weather is sweet. I think Bob Marley wrote that song on a day just like this one. There was nary a cloud in sight in the blue sky and the sun was just on the cusp of being unbearable, making its presence known but not too much that we would run inside cowering.

The grills were out and Nick was manning them with a hawks eye of precision. If there was one thing Nick liked more than making my life hell, it was grilling. To his credit, the results were always spectacular. He always managed to come up with new recipes from the oddest ingredients and somehow the end product was always delicious. Today he was making burgers with the patties made of a mixture of chicken and minced lamb. Hopefully it would turn out ok. If not, there was always KFC.

It was an afternoon where you just wanted to lounge around and soak up the sun, which was exactly what people were doing. There were around ten people, all friends of ours milling around, some taking a dip in the pool and generally having a good time. Melissa was yet to arrive with Bill and Sally.

"Any luck?" Nick asked, after looking around to check whether Jenna was within earshot.

"Yeah, I spoke to the wildlife conservation people yesterday."

"And...?" he was impatient.

"They were hesitant at first, and it took a lot of convincing, but in the end I made them an offer they couldn't refuse." I said in my best Godfather imitation, which wasn't very good. I sounded like I had a sore throat.

"So it's done?" he asked, eyes bulging with hope.

"Yup." I said nodding.

"Hell Yeah!" he flipped the tongs he had in his hands and did a little break dance on the spot before freezing mid-step.

"Wait. What offer?" he asked suspiciously, turning towards me.

"Don't worry about it," I evaded, "Nothing you can't handle."

"What offer?" he asked again menacingly.

"It's nothing!" I said with my hands out in front of me.

"Brian, spit it out or I'll stick these in you," he brandished the tongs at me threateningly.

"Don't you trust me at all?"

"Now!"

"Youjusthavetoadoptone," I mumbled quickly.

He froze. The tongs advanced until they were right under my nose.

"I have to what?"

"You have to adopt one." I said warily, keeping my eyes on the sharp tongs twitching slightly in his grip.

I could see his jaw clenching and unclenching as he processed this information.

"You're kidding me right? Please tell me you're joking."

I didn't respond, instead pretending to look at a bird flying past overhead.

"Brain, what the hell man, can't you ever do anything right?" He stalked off back towards the grill, "it was a matter of asking a simple question, but no, you have to go and make me adopt a freaking behemoth!"

I followed at a safe distance, ready to bolt at a moments notice. I knew he would react like this, getting all mad and excited before taking a minute to listen to the whole story. He was still ranting as he attended to the grill, making sure his beloved chicken didn't get burnt. His concerns weren't totally unwarranted though, I did have a habit of screwing up in grand ways, and everyone knew that. When I was younger my mom never sent me to the grocery store. She'd tell me to get a packet of milk and I'd return with half the store, sans the milk.

"Dude, it isn't as bad as you think. It's not like you have to put a leash on it and tie it to your garage door or anything." I tried to reason with him.

"Then what? I build a basket full of fluffy pillows for it in my backyard?" He asked still pissed. "Maybe it can use the pool as a watering hole!"

"You just have to pay a small amount annually for its up-keep and stuff, that's it."

"That's it?" he echoed, calming down some.

"Yes, that's it. If you feel like it, you can go visit sometimes, but even that's optional."

"You're sure?" he asked still skeptical.

"Despite what you and your girlfriend think of me, I'm not a complete buffoon Nick. You're good, trust me."

The smile returned on his face and he flipped a piece of chicken higher than normal, catching it deftly as it came down and returned it to the hot bed of coals.

"Awesome. Now we just have to convince Jenna and Melissa to come for the trip."

"I don't know about Lissy man, I don't think I've known her long enough for her to agree for a trip."

"Just help me convince Jenna. She'll do the rest."

Knowing Jenna, that could mean showing up in a non-descript black van outside Melissa's house, faces covered with pantyhose, and putting a sack over her head, kidnapping her, and taking her all the way to our destination before revealing ourselves.

"Dude, Jenna..." I tried to object.

"Relax," Nick had already guessed my concerns, "She really likes your girlfriend, she's not going to do anything stupid, that's reserved for you."

"Are we really doing this?" I asked him with a little doubt in my voice, "you could just take her for dinner and drop the ring in the champagne."

"Don't you dare back out of this now," the tongs of death were back. Maybe he was Vlad the Impaler in a previous life. "You're the one that spurred this on, and you're not backing out now."

"Alright alright, I was just asking, that's all," I said with my hands up.

"We just need to make sure Jenna doesn't get even a whiff of this or else it will blow up in our faces."

Jenna took that moment to bound out of the house and rush straight for us wearing a long sponge-bob T-shirt that reached her knees. We immediately changed the topic and started to talk about the grass and how it's a bitch to mow. Too late, she had noticed.

"What were you talking about?" she asked as she got to us.

"Nothing." We both said in unison. That there was a guilty reaction if I ever saw one.

Her eyes narrowed and she put her hands on her hips. I saw Sponge-bob was surfing and his pet snail was directly where her legs met. I never figured out if she picked these outfits on purpose or if it was just pure coincidence.

"I'm giving you up to three to tell me what's going on."

"There's nothing going on peanut," I tried to sound convincing.

"One,"

"Baby, we were just talking about how I have to cut the grass, look at how long it's grown," Nick tried.

"Two,"

We both started talking at the same time, making a racket, but neither making any sense.

"Three."

Her hand shot out and she grabbed my right ear between her thumb and first finger, twisting it inward.

"Ouch Ouch Ouch!" I screamed, "Why me? Pick on him!" I said pointing at Nick.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"There's nothing to tell, you psycho!"

She twisted my ear further until I was bent down to her level, the pain in my ear unbearable.

"I didn't hear you. What was that you said?" she said turning her ear to me.

"Nick just tell her dammit!" I said, fearing my ear was going to tear off any second.

"We were making plans for a camping trip Jen," Nick finally said, giving her half the truth so that she wouldn't dig for the rest.

She released me and I retreated, one hand clamped over my ear, sucking in air from the corner of my lips. My ear was on fire, it was going to be as red as a tomato in a few minutes.

"Camping trip? What camping trip?" she rounded on Nick.

"We were planning to go for one during the long weekend that's coming up. A colleague of mine told me of this great place around three hundred miles from here. It's hundreds of square miles of land that's been set aside as a wildlife sanctuary and conservation effort. Pure untouched wilderness, and they have camping sites and cabins, depending on your preference. I was thinking we go for it since it's our seventh anniversary since we got together, kind of like a throwback to the old days," said Nick.

"Yeah, and it was supposed to be a surprise but you just had to go and ruin it, didn't you?" I said, still rubbing my ear.

"I'm not going camping," she said totally ignoring me, "I refuse to pee in the bushes and I will not go for three days without a shower."

"There are cabins, babe," Nick wasn't going to give up that easy.

Jenna's interest was piqued and she appeared to mull over it. "How do we know they are any good?"

Nick smiled. He had prepared for this. He withdrew his phone from his shorts and scrolled for a few seconds before handing it to Jenna. She gasped. I joined her to see what she was looking at as Nick hadn't shown me this either. It was a quaint little wooden cabin set in a lush green field against the backdrop of an imposing forest, at dusk. It had a run-down, lived in look and there was even smoke coming out of the chimney on one end.

"This is the place?" Jenna asked awed.

"Yeah, the colleague I told you about went there last month and took that pic himself, it's no advertising or Photoshop gimmick."

Jenna looked at the picture longingly and half heartedly said, "But it's almost the end of the term and you know how much there is to do at the school around this time..."

Nick had one more card up his sleeve, "They have a telescope for star-gazing."

Nick and Jenna were amateur astronomers and they loved observing the night sky at any opportunity they got. We had spent quite a few weekends back in college in the woods, away from the city lights, with a telescope, staring at the night sky trying to look for Mars or Jupiter. It was something else to be able to look upon another world, millions of miles away, revolving around the sun just as we were and try to imagine what it must be like out there.

"You're going to help me grade all the papers when we get back," she said, pointing at Nick.

"Babe, they're in kindergarten..." he stopped when Jenna glared at him, "Fine, grading it is."

"How many of us are going? Just us three?" she asked.

"Actually, we were kind hoping you would be able to convince Melissa to come," Nick said, rubbing the back of his neck. I was busy looking up at the birds again.

"I see, I have to do all your dirty work," she said, then looked at me, "You owe me for this one Bry."

She was just messing with me. She liked to be all tough because I always bullied her and she got precious few opportunities to get back at me, which come to think of it, were now rapidly increasing ever since Melissa had come into the picture. Lissy was one area she could exploit my weakness and there was hardly anything I could do about it. Dammit, I was no longer a lone wolf anymore, a renegade destined to roam the vast plains, bound to no-one and nothing, taking what I needed, doing what I wanted, eternally free, supreme master of my domain.

"Yeah fine, I owe you, you owe me, same thing," I said dismissively.

"Jenna!" we heard from the other side of the pool.

It was Sally, waving as she walked towards us, hand in hand with Bill. She was wearing a sheer white sundress, her green two piece bikini quite evident underneath. Melissa was a step behind her in a yellow T-shirt depicting Tweety on the front, her hands in her denim shorts and flip flops. She still made my heart skip a beat when I saw her flashing me a grin.

Jenna met them half-way and they had their usual Hug-O-Mania. Bill came over and we shook hands.

"Shit, is that a coal-fired grill?" Bill asked eyeing Nick's chrome plated prized possession, "I haven't seen one of these since I was a kid, used to make some of the best steaks I've ever had."

Little did he know he had made a life-long friend with that innocent comment. Nick was all smiles and proceeded to giving him an in depth analysis of the working of his overturned garbage can. That's what I thought of it, I hated cooking. I had the patience of a three year old on an espresso binge, cooking just wasn't my thing.

I was surprised when Sally gave me a warm hug. I wasn't used to hugs from people I wasn't familiar with, they were too complicated and required positioning of body parts in ways I was not competent with. Melissa being the exception, of course. She just fit into me like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. Usually I just ended up banging heads with the other person. I say hugs should be replaced with fist-bumps, make the world a simpler place.

"I heard what happened, thanks for getting Lissy home safe," she said as she pulled away.

"Uhmmm... yeah it was, I didn't..."

"I know, anyone would have done the same thing right?" She finished for me.

I just smiled sheepishly. Melissa then came up and hugged me as well, pressing the full length of her body against me. Okay so maybe all hugs shouldn't be replaced with fist-bumps. I needed to conduct a detailed research on the matter. We held each other for slightly longer than necessary before she pulled away, running her hands down my arms.

"What happened to your ear?" she asked, eyes flitting over my right ear which was so red you could signal aliens with it.

I looked at Jenna pointedly, who stared back, daring me to tell on her. Melissa followed my gaze and smiled, "You probably deserved it."

I turned to her in shock, "Who's side are you on?!"

Jenna dragged Melissa to her side and stuck her tongue out at me.

"They were planning a camping trip to the Himalayas and they were keeping it a secret from me," Jenna told Melissa.

"The Himalayas are in Nepal, Peanut," I said shaking my head, "and we were obviously going to tell you about the trip, it's not like we could have teleported you there without you knowing."

"Gee thanks for clearing that up for me Mr. World Atlas, here I was thinking the Himalayas were in Burkina Faso," she said sarcastically as she took Melissa and Sally towards the house. Sylvester could be seen looking for Tweety on the back of Melissa's T-shirt.

"Where you going?" Bill asked as the girls disappeared into the house.

"Rhinestone Everglades Conservation Park," Nick told him.

"Isn't that the place where they have all those endangered species?"

"That's the one."

"Awesome."

Nick then got a look in his eye that I knew very well. He had made up a plan and was going to go ahead and execute it without any consultation of its viability whatsoever. Like the time he decided to bring home two ducks, for no reason at all. Thankfully they ran away within two days. I shook my head slightly to warn him but I knew it was futile.

"Dude, you should totally come with us," he said a little too enthusiastically to Bill.

"What? To the park?"

"Yeah, why not? Unless you got something else to do over the long weekend,"

"Not really," Bill said as he rubbed his chin, thinking.

Nick's fished out his phone again as he showed Bill the same picture he showed us. Bill gave a low whistle.

"We can take the grill..." Nick sweetened the deal. He was a salesman through and through.

"I'll have to talk to Sally," Bill said as he handed back the phone.

"That won't be a problem," Nick said, "leave that to Jenna."

The patties were ready and Nick went about preparing the burgers, lining them up on a small table for everyone to take. The beer was running low in the cooler so I got another batch from the kitchen.

The girls came out of the house and my burger stopped half-way in its journey to my mouth. Sally had removed her sheer sundress and was now in her two piece green bikini. She was curvy in all the right places. Jenna, the petite one, was in an orange string bikini, but not too revealing. She might have been petite but no one would mistake her for anything but a female. Melissa was in a modest purple one piece with a matching sarong tied around her waist that fell to mid-thigh. Her legs just went on and on and the bikini hugged her curves like it was painted on.

All three looked sexy without being slutty. I had to physically tear my eyes away from Melissa, the tops of her breasts peeking out over the bikini were mesmerizing. Her breasts were not overly big but fit her frame just right, probably a little more than a handful. The taper of her waist that gently swelled into her hips was very feminine and sexy.

"They're coming with us for the trip," Jenna announced when they got to us.

That was fast. Apparently Jenna had gotten the same idea as Nick and had gone ahead and invited Sally as well. I looked at Melissa with a questioning look and she gave a small nod and a smile. I winked at her then turned back to the others who were oblivious to our little exchange.

"Who are 'they'?" Bill asked, playing dumb.

Sally slid up to him and snuggled into his side, "Sweetie, they're going for a small holiday the weekend after next, to Rhinestone. I was thinking maybe we can go too?" she had turned the charm on full blast, batting her eyes and walking her fingers across his chest.

"I was planning to just relax that weekend, but if you really want to, I guess we can do this instead," he said. I looked at Nick and we grinned knowingly. The guy was a genius. He was racking up some serious boyfriend points pretending to do this for her when he had already agreed to it before.

Sally's face lit up as he agreed and she kissed him on the jaw, "Thanks sweetie."

Well that was settled. We were going for a trip. I guess when you come to think of it, it was a good idea to bring Sally and Bill along. Melissa would feel more comfortable if she had her friends around compared to being alone with people she had known for only a few weeks.

We spent the better part of the afternoon planning the trip, discussing the logistics as the girls kept going into the house occasionally to do their own things. Jenna was ecstatic at having other female friends and doing girly things as opposed to being dragged into doing guy stuff when she was with me and Nick. It had to be a nice change from debating over which spanner was best suited to open a particular type of nut.

At one point Jenna was standing by the edge of the pool, talking to someone on the other side, when I got an idea for payback. Twist my ear will she? Let's see how she likes this.

"Guy's, watch," I said in a low voice.

I walked up behind her casually and stopped with my back facing her back. She was asking if anyone wanted more burgers. Pretending to stretch I lifted my arms up and yawned, then thrust my butt out behind me and bumped her.

She gave a small shriek as she lost balance, teetering on the edge, leaning more out than in. Her arms were waving frantically as she tried not to tip over. Time for the coup de gràce. I extended my index finger and gently tapped her in the middle of the back and yelled, "Timmmmmmbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!"

As if in slow motion she tipped over and fell screaming into the water, a loud slap echoing as she hit the surface face and chest first. That must have hurt. I almost felt bad. Almost. She came up sputtering and spitting water out of her mouth, her eyes shut.

"Brian, you Asshole!" she screamed pulling her hair out of her face. By some freaky telepathy powers she instantly knew it was me, even though she hadn't actually seen me yet. Either that or I was the usual suspect.

She got out of the pool screaming every expletive known to man-kind and I ran for dear life as she chased me around the pool, picking up plastic plates and glasses and flinging them at me. She tired after the third lap and went to sit on Nick, hitting him in frustration instead. He took it like a sport.