"Good morning gorgeous!"
The enthusiastic greeting echoed in my ears. Consciousness emerged from slumber but I could barely open my eyes. I was comfortable here in the bed with a soft pillow beneath my cheek and cool sheets across my body.
"It's nice to see you this morning! Happy New Year!" A happy but unfamiliar male voice addressed me from somewhere nearby.
That's right! Last night was New Year's Eve. That would explain the dull throb in the back of my head and why it was so hard to wake up. I cast my mind to last night's party. I arrived in costume and there was music and some sort of a game and - that was strange - I couldn't remember anything else.
I mentally scanned my state. Sleepy. Sore head. A pasty mouth. Dehydration. A little muscle fatigue. My usual morning hard on. Everything seemed to be normal, or at least curable with paracetamol and a few strong strokes.
I cracked open an eyelid. Bright light flooded in and I caught glimpse of pastel pink bedsheets. I didn't own pink sheets. Where the hell was I?
A wave of confusion washed over me, and I felt a little anxious at my predicament. I don't like being out of control, and my fingers and toes tingled as an shot of adrenaline surged through my body and roused me fully awake.
Both eyes burst open to focus on a figure looking back to me from a doorway beyond the foot of the bed. It was the face of a handsome young man, probably about twenty-five, but at least fifteen years younger than me. His Mediterranean skin glowed with an aura of health and his style of neat black hair, thin moustache and stubble conveyed the fashion of youth.
He wore loose boxers and a fitted black cotton singlet. He smiled at me as he leaned into the door jamb, with his muscular shoulders exposed. He wore loose boxer shorts and as his ankles crossed I detected his cock dangling against the fabric.
His form was slim and toned, with athletic muscles. He folded his arms which only accentuated his ripped forearms.
Before I could formulate my reply, a slight blonde girl appeared and poked her head from behind the man, smiling at me.
"Good morning gorgeous," she greeted me with twinkling eyes. The same greeting, I thought suspiciously. What is going on here? "Happy New Year!"
She stepped deftly into the doorway, turning sideways to press her body against the man's and she delicately trailed her fingers on his cheek and let them rest upon his chest. Her Mickey Mouse nightshirt only just covered her crotch leaving a glorious view of her slender, toned legs and she pressed her groin hard against his thigh.
"Hi Honey." She tilted her face upwards, pursed her lips and they kissed intimately. She pulled away and looked back at me with a new sort of smile.
"I'll get you a coffee," the man said to me. "Your mouth might feel a bit - unsavory." He disengaged from her body and disappeared out the doorway while the girl glided into the room and perched herself sidesaddle on the bed beside me.
I still had no idea who she was, or who the man was. Or how I got here. Or even where 'here' was. Introductions by name always seem a good start, so I initiated.
"I'm James."
"I know silly! What? Are you saying that you don't remember me?"
"Sorry," I admitted.
"I'm Angela. You remember my boyfriend Mark, right?"
I gave a face that conveyed a mixture of 'no' and 'I'm sorry'.
"Wow!" said Angela in an animated way. "And last night? What do you remember of that?"
I shook my head again. "The party. There was dancing. There was a game. There was -." My mind's eye recalled snippets of disco lights, and preparing for a challenge involving a bucket of icy water. And then nothing. Just waking to a greeting from these beautiful strangers in the morning light.
"Wow!" Angela repeated. "You don't know what you've missed!" That was stating the obvious.
"Why will my mouth be unsavory?" I asked with hesitation. Angela looked blankly at me. "Your boyfriend. He's getting me coffee for a reason."
She studied me for a short while, and I could tell from her expression that she was reading my face to establish if I was pranking or if I genuinely could not recall. "You consumed a lot last night," she informed me.
"Alcohol?" I tried to clarify.
"Something like that," she said cryptically. "But not really, no."
"So tell me," I prompted. "What happened?"
Angela crossed her thighs, reached an arm behind her to lean back and looked up to the ceiling as if it helped her to think better. She flicked the blonde hair from her eyes in a sexy way and started to recount the events.
"Well, you were right about Sally's party. We were downstairs in that entertainment area under the house that joins up with the pool deck. That's where the disco was. All the girls wanted to dance with you." Angela looked at me coyly like it was something that always happened to me, but honestly I was a pretty dorky dancer. "And then we started the ice challenge. We did it with the big plastic bin, remember?"
I shook my head.
"We had a big bucket about this big." She gestured with the biggest circle that her arms could manage. "It was full of water and ice. We'd dunk our head in and see who could last the longest. I only lasted ten seconds but you were a champion. Over a minute!"
"At least I can last a long time at something," I joked with no recollection of the game.
"Don't kid yourself James. You proved last night with us that you can last the distance in the bedroom! Anyway, when you pulled your head out, you flicked it back, but the floor was all wet and the tiles were slippery and you fell backwards."
"Did I hit my head on the tiles?" I felt behind my head expecting a bump or some dried blood.
"No. There were cardboard boxes from the drinks and you hit your head on that. Sally wanted to call an ambulance, but the rest of us thought you were OK since you had some padding."
"It wasn't long and you were back out on the dancefloor busting moves and getting plenty of attention. Then your dancing kind of went a bit off piste and everyone thought you'd just gone a bit over the top with the free booze."
"No," I interrupted. I wasn't drinking at all. I was actually planning to drive home. My car's still at Sally's I hope."
"Yeah, so in hindsight, it might have been from the bang on your head or something, but we thought you were just really drunk. Like too drunk to even walk."
"I see."
"So Mark and I offered to take you home and look after you."
"Thanks," I replied with sincerity but after tossing it over in my mind I blurted out. "Were you planning on taking advantage of me?"
