Close Friends Book 1 Part 08

August 1980

"We're home!"

Gus looked up from where he and Lois were propped up against pillows on the waterbed.

Bob came in, closely followed by Demi, who shut the door and looked around. Her eyes stopped at Mick, seated on the recliner. She stepped around Bob and looked hard at him.

Tilting her head, she asked, "What happened?"

Gus looked at Lois, then at Demi when Mick ignored her question. Mick looked at the floor, a lit joint between his fingers. His eyes glowed red, the look one gets when stoned out of their mind. His hair was disheveled and there was a stain on his dark t-shirt.

"Um," Lois said as she and Gus got off the bed, then came around. Lois hugged Bob, then went around and gave Demi a quick hug. "Glad you guys are back."

Gus stood next to Mick, a hand on his shoulder. "Yeah. Uh, some shit went down the day after you left." He stepped over and hugged Demi, giving her a quick kiss on the lips, then hugged Bob, his fists beating his back for a moment as Bob returned the gesture.

Mick sighed, then looked up. "Hey." The others waited as Mick took a deep hit off the joint, then lowered his gaze to stare at the floor.

Demi sighed. "Okay. Want to fill us in?" She and Bob sat in the customary spot at the end of the couch, near the recliner and Bob's daybed.

Gus and Lois sat in Mick's normal spot where he and Sam cuddled. Until a few days ago, anyway.

"Mick?" Gus asked, and waited, and Mick looked up. The look on his face broke Gus' heart.

"Yeah?" Mick asked, his voice sounding more tired than they'd ever heard.

"Can I tell them?"

Mick shrugged and took another toke. When he sat back, Demi snatched it from his hand and crushed it in the ashtray on the table. "That's enough for you, I think." She got up and headed into the kitchen. "I'm putting on some coffee, and you're gonna drink it."

Mick shrugged again and sat there, silently.

Gus sighed, then told the story of Sam coming over in tears at Dan's news about Mick and Lois making out in his car. When he finished the tale, Demi was near tears and Bob was frowning.

"Damn, that's tough. But nothing was going on, right?" Bob asked, looking at Mick, then Lois.

"Of course not!" Lois said. "It was just stupid bad luck that Dan drove by at that exact moment and saw me hugging Mick."

"But you were kissing, too?" Bob asked.

Lois exhaled. "Yes. I kissed Mick. I was thanking him for being there for me. It was like for five seconds." She shook her head. "Not like you haven't kissed me, or Sam, for that matter."

Bob held up his hands, palms out. "I didn't mean it like that. We all know how it is between us. I was thinking of how it looked from Dan's perspective, driving by like that."

Lois nodded. "Yeah, just damned bad timing."

"But doesn't Sam know all this?" Demi asked.

"She wouldn't listen." Mick's voice sounded hollow, as if coming from far away. Heads turned to look at him. "I tried to tell her. She screamed at me and left. I've called her, gone over there, she won't talk to me."

"Damn." Demi shook her head and got up when she heard the coffee pot finishing. She brought a steaming cup back and held it out to Mick. He ignored it, staring at the floor. She kicked his shin.

"Hey!" Mick's leg swung sideways.

"Here! Drink this. You look like shit."

"Thanks," he said, frowning, but took the cup and blew on it. He sipped, then cradled it between his hands.

"So what are we gonna do?" Bob asked.

Lois sighed. "I need to talk to her."

"She was really freaked out," Gus said. "Poor thing's been dumped before. I think some asshole treated her very badly. It shook her confidence."

Mick nodded and sipped his coffee. "Yeah, she told me about that asswipe. If I ever see him..."

"Anyways, she's holed up in her room I guess. Won't talk to anyone." Gus pulled Lois closer, kissing the top of her head.

"I'm going to call her. She has to talk to me." She got up and went over to the bed where the phone was on the nightstand.

---***---

"Hello?"

"Hi, Sheila. This is Lois. Can I speak with Samantha, please?"

In the time that Sam's mom paused before answering, Lois' heart sank. With each passing heartbeat, the chances of fixing this with her friend faded.

Finally, Lois heard the sigh over the phone. "I'm afraid she doesn't want to talk to anyone right now." There was another, shorter pause. In a low voice, Sheila said, "I don't know why, and she won't tell me anything."

Lois sighed, an identical sound as Sheila's. "There's been a big misunderstanding. I want to fix things with her. Tell her what actually happened. She's mad at me, and I know why. I want her to know that we love her and miss her."

"Let me see if she'll come to the phone."

Hope pulsed faintly in Lois' chest. "Thank you." She heard the receiver being put on the table in Sam's living room. Lois could picture the room with the small table and one chair in the corner where the phone was.

After a minute, there was noise, then a long exhale.

"What?" It was Sam, but not like Lois had ever heard her before. Usually, Samantha's voice was like fine silk, soft and warm. Her single word was uttered in a flat, angry tone.

"Sam, please. Let me explain what happened." Lois took a breath, ready to launch into the explanation she'd thought through carefully.

Before she could speak, Sam spoke loudly. "I don't care about anything you have to say!" Her volume rose as she began yelling.

"I've been through this before, and I'm not falling for it again. You're not going to trick me and tell me everything's alright when I know it's not!"

"Sam!" Lois cried out into the phone. "Stop, please! Listen to me."

"Shut up!" Sam screamed, the sound fading as Lois could tell Sam held the receiver away from her head.

"Sam!"

There was no sound, then Lois thought she heard faint crying. "I trusted you. I thought you were my friend." Sam sobbed into the phone.

"I didn't do anything."

"You did!" The venom returned in force, her words cutting like a knife. "I saw you! And Dan saw what you two were doing. I can only imagine what else you two have done."

"We didn't!"

"I saw you!"

Lois hung her head. "Yes, I mean, we did that. But nothing else, I swear!"

"I don't believe you. I know how this goes. He's got you doing him now. He doesn't need me."

"He does!"

"I very seriously doubt that. I know you like to be in a threesome. You lost Demi, but now you and Gus have Mick. You wanted that, didn't you?" Sam's words were as hard as bricks.

"No, Sam, it's not like that. Mick wants you back."

"You're so full of shit! You and Demi are more than enough for those three, and probably ten more!" The words shook Lois, making her rock back, her eyes wide.

"I'm done with the lot of you. Don't ever call me again!" With that, Sam slammed the phone down. Lois heard it miss and a mournful wail as Sam picked up the receiver and slammed it down again, breaking the connection.

Lois sat there, staring at the phone in her hand. She looked down for several moments, then hung up the phone and placed it on the floor by the waterbed. She looked up at the others, sitting silently, watching her.

Gus got up and went to her, sitting and wrapping her up in his arms. Lois burrowed against him, tears spilling from her cheeks.

"Oh, God. I've messed everything up."

---***---

Gus opened the car door for Lois, and she got in. He closed it, then got in the driver's seat. They backed out and headed out of the apartment parking lot.

"I hate seeing him like that," Lois said as Gus turned onto the main street.

"I know. He goes to work, comes home. Hardly talks." Gus shook his head. "He smokes weed and drinks beer, and just sits there."

"Has he tried to talk to her?"

Gus nodded. "Oh yeah, but not for the last week or so. He's called so many times, but she won't come to the phone. Her mother won't let him inside when he goes over. He even wrote her a letter, but she sent it back in a big envelope, all ripped up. You could tell it was never opened, the pages were still in the original envelope."

"Oh, damn," Lois sighed. "Has anyone else tried to talk with her?"

Gus nodded. "She won't talk to me. She won't answer the phone or come to the door."

"Mick's spiraling and neither of us know what to do for him. Bob and I have talked to him, so has Demi. Tried to cheer him up."

"He needs Samantha."

"Yeah." Gus drove on. After a few minutes, they pulled into the parking lot for the movie theater and went inside.

After the show, they got something to eat and ended up behind the dark K-Mart building, parked between two large dumpsters, all but invisible. Gus and Lois got into the backseat, but the urgency wasn't there.

Holding her, they sat quietly, both thinking.

"What are we going to do?" Lois looked up at Gus.

He shrugged. "I don't know. Sam won't talk to anyone. Bob thought about going to her work, but that might not go well, and we don't want her to get in trouble or anything if she gets upset."

"Given how she's reacted so far, that's a safe bet."

"Yeah. So, I don't know."

"I miss her, all of them. What we had." Lois snuggled closer to Gus.

"Me, too."

"Do they blame me?" Lois' voice sounded small in the dark backseat.

Gus looked down at her. "No," he said forcefully. "What happened was bound to happen, the way we were all going. You did nothing wrong."

"But Sam hates me, and now we're not really hanging out anymore. All of us. Bob and Demi are usually at her house now. You said he pretty much just sleeps at the apartment."

Gus felt a tear land on his arm and he pulled her tighter. She sniffled, then said, "We were all so close. Now with Sam gone, and Mick like this, it's like we've all broken up. We can't even make love in your bed because Mick's always there."

"We'll get it worked out, somehow."

"But how?" Lois wiped at her tears.

Gus shook his head. "She has to listen to someone. Sam's hurt, but it's over a misunderstanding."

"I hope she'll listen to someone. She hates me."

"I tried, and she doesn't believe me, either."

They sat in the car, then decided to go home. The mood was too somber for fooling around. Gus thought that was all too often the case these days.

---***---

Gus trudged up the stairs, tired from a long day working at Kelsey's. He'd been thinking about the cookies he'd made last weekend. Chocolate chip with crumbled hash mixed in. One of them was enough to make him mellowly high all evening. With a sigh of relief, he opened the door and walked in, closing it behind him.

As usual, music was playing on the stereo and Bob and Mick were there. What caught his attention were two women rolling on his waterbed, giggling like little girls.

Gus looked at them, realizing they were Ann and Jenny, and that they were acting strangely. They were also dressed in a way he hadn't seen them before. Jenny rolled over onto her back, looking at Gus upside down with her sparkling eyes that captivated every man that gazed into them. She stared for a moment, then burst out laughing, her perfectly shaped boobs wobbling on her chest, covered only in a loose tank top.

Looking lower, he saw that she only had on slight, frilly pink panties that were more see-through lace than anything else. Her trimmed brown bush was clearly visible through the fabric.

Gus' eyebrows shot up at the sight, never expecting to see Jenny like this. And certainly not on his bed.

Then Ann sat up next to where Jenny lay on her back. He shook his head, not believing what was happening.

"Hi, Gus," Ann said in an overly sweet voice, as if not sure she wanted to sound seductive or cute. The halter top she always favored was loose and askew, one breast clearly visible. Her nipples were light pink, only a shade darker than her creamy, freckled skin. Like Jenny, Ann was only wearing a pair of cream-colored panties. Gus could confirm that Ann was indeed a true redhead, her bright orange bush obvious.

"We were waiting for you to get home," Ann said softly as she placed a hand on Jenny's tummy where her tank top had ridden up, her fingers moving over the tanned, perfect skin.

"Yeah," Jenny said, still on her back, her neck craned so that she looked at him upside down, and giggled before continuing. "We know how much you like to be with two girls, so..." she let her words linger.

"Um," was all Gus could get out, still shaking his head at the sight. Deep laughter pulled him out of the trance the two partially clad and very attractive girls had cast on him. He turned and saw Bob laughing on the couch, his belly bouncing as he wrapped his arms around himself. Mick was grinning like an idiot from the kitchen.

A momentary happiness passed through Gus, seeing Mick laugh. Then he remembered why.

"What the hell?" Gus looked at Bob, then at Mick.

"Dude!" Mick said, waving him over to the kitchen counter. "You're not gonna believe this." Mick looked down at something on the counter pointedly. He looked back up at Gus and raised an eyebrow.

Gus walked over to the counter and saw what Mick was talking about. A crumpled piece of foil was open on the counter, covered with a layer of plastic wrap. On it was a small chunk of a chocolate chip cookie, surrounded by crumbs.

He looked up at Mick sharply. "There were six left this morning!"

Mick's eyebrows went up and he shrugged. "Yeah, there were, and they were there until these two came over and raided our fridge." He nodded with his chin over to the bed. "I didn't know they'd found and ate them until after."

Gus turned and walked a few steps to the side of the bed. Looking down at Ann, who had her palm against her bare tit, idly stroking it. "Ann, did you guys eat all those cookies?" Jenny burst out laughing as if it were the funniest question in the world, and rolled back and forth. Gus had trouble not watching her boobs roll under her thin shirt.

"Um... yeah," Ann said in a little girl's voice. "They were yummy!" she sang out loudly, then bounced on her knees, causing the bed to undulate under her. It threw her off balance and she toppled over. Her hands shot out and grabbed at Gus. He reached for her before she could fall to the floor. One hand landed accidentally on her bare tit.

Jenny had seen where his hand ended and rolled over. "Hey! How come you're feeling her up and not me?" she asked petulantly.

Gus grunted as he got Ann back upright. "I'm not feeling her up!" He released her when she was safely back on the bed, the feel of her warm tit still imprinted on his hand and mind.

"Sure looked like it to me," Jenny said, then with a gleam in her eye, she sat up suddenly and wobbled on the moving waterbed. With a smooth motion, she pulled her tank top up and off, throwing it away. She plopped back down, her tanned boobs moving in ways that caused blood to shoot into Gus' dick.

"Gus," Jenny called out plaintively. "Come here and feel me up, too!" She rolled a bit and Gus tried but failed to look away. She looked over at him and scowled playfully. "You know they were gonna pay me to take pictures of my boobs, right?" She cupped them and pinched her nipples, not breaking eye contact with him. "I'll let you do things to them. Don't you want to?"

Gus heard someone call out from behind him, "Hell, yeah!" Probably Bob, Gus chuckled to himself. He thought they were not as big as Sam's, probably closer to Lois' size, but dammit they were perfect.

Ann had been watching Jenny, and not to be outdone, slipped her halter off and tossed it across the room at Bob, hitting him in the face. "What about you, big guy?" She wiggled her torso, causing her pale, freckled and very cute tits to wobble enticingly. "I hear you're a stud! Why don't you come over here and show me?" she said seductively, but unable to contain a giggle.

Gus went around the bed, picked up Jenny's top and dropped it on her chest. "Here, put this back on please." He walked over to Bob, who looked up, embarrassed by being caught sniffing Ann's halter top. Gus held out his hand and Bob handed it over guiltily.

He walked back to Ann and held it out to her. "Please," was all he said. He went back into the kitchen and leaned against the wall, out of sight of the bed.

Mick was quietly laughing, having watched the entire thing. "Are they dressed?" Gus asked, his face in his palms. Even with all that was going on around the corner, with the associated discomfort, it was good to see Mick laugh. It had been a long time since he'd had anything to laugh about.

Looking around the corner, Mick watched the girls slowly put their tops back on. He lingered until the last boob was covered, then turned to Gus. "Yep, they are now." He chuckled and lightly punched his friend on the arm, causing Gus to drop his hands from his face.

"Dude! That was awesome!"

"Yeah, maybe for you, I just wanted a hash cookie. They ate the last of them. You know just one of those things would knock either of them over. They ate three each!" He shook his head, and looked at the girls, who were lying down, giggling on the bed, their previous antics forgotten.

"I can't believe they're even conscious!" He looked at his friend. "Damn, I hope they don't remember any of that."

"I'm gonna!" Bob called out, laughing. "Dang, what a show!"

---***---

"I mean it, Jenny. Knock it off!" Gus pushed her off him again. "Are we almost there?" Gus asked, then sighed as Bob laughed in the front seat.

"Yeah, pretty close," he chuckled. "Want me to drive around the block a few times until you guys are done?"

Gus groaned as Jenny leaned over him again, her hand grasping his cock over his shorts. "Just get us there? Please?"

He moved her hand away. Again. How much of this was he supposed to take? He shook his head as he looked down at her.

Man, she was so beautiful. The look she was giving him only added to his erection. The fact that her hand had crept back to his lap under her head didn't help, either.

"Please, Jenny?" he asked softly.

She pouted. One of the sexiest sights he'd ever seen, only to be quickly rivaled by the sight of her face turning and burrowing into his lap, her mouth closing on his hard dick over his shorts.

Not only that, she'd moved the hand he had on her back onto her tit, and was pushing it against her. He could feel her hard nipple against his palm.

She wasn't acting! She wanted to do it with him!

He knew that no mortal man should ever have to be put in this situation. Beauty like this, both inside and out, rarely comes around.

And it never comes after me! The images of Lois, then Demi and even Sam flashed through his mind. They were beauties, each one of them. Jenny was off the charts gorgeous, but his three girls were just as beautiful in their own right.

His dick twitched, both from Jenny's ministrations, but also from the thought of the three girls he loved so much as his. He'd not thought of Samantha as his, but there was no denying the love they had for each other, but had not yet acted on.

He squirmed and felt the heat from her breath on his cock, praying that there wasn't a wet spot from her saliva.

His dick twitched, and he felt her giggle as she increased the pressure her mouth was putting on his shaft.

But he loved Lois! He couldn't cheat on her! Would she understand? He looked down at her, amazed at how she looked, trying to blow him and wondered how much more he could take before breaking down and allowing her.

His eyes wandered down her body, admiring her perfection. There was nothing he'd change about her looks. Coupled with her incredible, warm personality, she was the ideal woman.

The woman with his dick practically in her mouth.

"We're here!" Bob announced jovially. "How are you guys doing back there?" He asked, turning to look in the back seat. "Oh, shit," he said softly, grinning at Gus.