The Friends with Benefits Experiment

by QxSess15

The true method of knowledge is experiment.

-William Blake

Part One- Spring Affair

Chapter One: Have I Lived?

Music blared from her ear buds. The song was upbeat and inspirational. It asserted that when you find your courage and face your fears, you've lived.

To Penny the sentiment was depressing.

It was, at least, when she applied it to her current circumstances. Still living paycheck to paycheck. Still being rejected from every audition. Still unable to find true love. She would move back home if it weren't for the possibility of being taunted holding her back.

Penny trudged the last steps to her landing and stopped short at the sight before her: Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper pacing the distance between their doors as his fingers made his normally perfect hair stick up in several directions.

"Hey, Sheldon. What's going on?" she asked as she breezed by. He answered irritably with his normally absent Texan accent tinting his words.

"What's going on? What's going on? I'll tell you what's going on. My roommate conveniently leaves the country when I need him the most. That's what's goin' on."

"Sheldon, calm down. Leonard didn't suddenly decide to leave the country he's been on that yearlong study thing for like two months."

"Yes, Penny. I am fully aware that deserter won't come back from Germany for the better part of ten months. There is no reason for you to rub that in my face." Penny took a deep breath and tried again.

"Is there anything that I can help you with, Moonpie?" she asked a little too sweetly.

"No, I'm fine," he replied. Penny stifled a sigh of relief before turning to unlock her door. "Well, now that you mention it…"

So close, she thought.

"I was having lunch with Lalita today and she made the most disturbing announcement. She's moving back to India to get married."

"I thought Lalita was your friend. Aren't you happy for her?"

"She asked if we could be 'friends with benefits' for the time that she has left in the country."

Penny slumped against her door and pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off a stress headache. "Ok, I would love to help but I still don't see the issue here. She asked to be sex buddies, you said no. Why are you still freaking out about this?" Her question was met with silence. When she looked up, Sheldon was staring blankly at her while a dark flush crept up his neck and stained his cheeks.

"Sheldon, you did say no, right?" He quickly shifted his gaze to his feet and fidgeted with the zipper on his jacket.

"Sheldon?"

"Oh, alright! I asked if I could think about it. Happy?" he snapped while ruffling his hair for the umpteenth time.

Penny started at him in shock.

I'm going to need a large drink.

SHE DREW THE FRAGRANT WINE TO HER LIPS and watched as he perched precariously at the edge of her couch, silent. One very large gulp later she decided to get some answers. "I'm curious," she started. "Why didn't you immediately say no?"

"I just couldn't." Sheldon sighed and took a tentative sip of his hot beverage. "She was giving me that look—the one that Princess Panchali gave to the Monkey when he first refused to help her free the other monkeys. So I asked if she would give me a few days to think about it."

Penny blinked.

Princess Panchali? Dear God, he's attracted to a fictional character… Whack-a-doodle!

"That's it? You didn't say no immediately because of a look that reminded you of a character from a children's story? You know that's crazy, right?"

"Penny, I'm not crazy. Though, now I wonder why my mother didn't get that second opinion at my father's request." He took another tentative sip of his cocoa looking like a lost little boy.

She kept quiet for a moment.

My poor dumbass.

"Wait. Sheldon was that a joke?" she asked smiling. He smiled back serenely.

"I think you should go for it." He gave her an incredulous stare. She hid her smile in her sip of wine as his expression morphed from incredulous to bemused. "I think it would be a good experience for you. You would definitely learn a lot about yourself."

"Learn a lot about myself?" he parroted derisively. "Penny, I have two PhDs and full knowledge of how the universe works. I don't need to engage in coitus to-"

"Sheldon, you're not a whole person. You yourself have said that you have trouble understanding human relationships. There are a lot of people who have benefited from this type of arrangement. Don't knock it until you try it." Sheldon stared at her for a minute processing her opinion.

"What do you mean I'm not a whole person?"

"You're practically the smartest person on the planet. You know all sorts of interesting facts on every subject and yet it feels like false advertising when you can't grasp and master human relationships. I think that your narcissism gets in the way of you being able to participate in and learn from human experiences. When you learn to read how others behave you also start learning more about yourself. Besides, what's the use of being a genius with photographic memory when you're not willing to experiment and then use the results to your advantage?"

"Eidetic memory and point."

"Sheldon, whatever you decide, I'll back you up and guide you either way."

SHE PULLED OFF HER UNIFORM SLOWLY allowing her thoughts free reign over her concentration. She couldn't believe that Sheldon was actually asked to be a sex buddy by another human being. But then, she supposed, that stranger things have happened.

Penny shook her head at her snarky thought. That really wasn't very fair of her. She idly wondered if Sheldon would really take Lalita up on her offer. Hell, if she were in Sheldon's shoes, she'd jump at the chance to have an arrangement where emotions weren't an issue. Penny knew that she wasn't wired that way. The few arrangements she participated in ended with her broken heart.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

She unfastened her bra and sighed in relief before she let it slide from her body and on to the floor. Penny was of the opinion that friends with benefits was a recipe for disaster. Women, after all, are emotional creatures. It's virtually impossible for them not to catch feelings while in the presence of the object of their affections.

Penny sighed and shook her head as she moved to the bathroom. She twisted the taps to get a shower going. She slid her cotton briefs down her legs and quickly removed her make-up before stepping in the shower.

Penny once made friends with a girl in college named Aylissa who had a no-strings-attached affair with a guy on her street. Aylissa confided that her high sex drive tended to distract her if she didn't keep it at bay. In high school she was always chasing after some boy and failing some of her classes as a result. The interesting thing about Aylissa was that she was a very smart girl. Amazing things happened when she focused on her school work. Aylissa credited finishing high school with the help of an older cousin. Said cousin gave her some pointers on how to use boys to tide over her sexual appetites so she could focus on her education. Years later, Aylissa got her Masters in Communications and delivered an inspirational speech as her class Valedictorian. She moved to Texas where she got a high-paying position at some oil company. Penny heard that after a year she met the man of her dreams and married him several months after meeting him. Aylissa got her 'happily ever after' through using casual arrangements to her advantage.

Penny reached for her shampoo and worked the sweat and restaurant smells from her hair. She had no doubt that Sheldon could easily explore his sexuality without emotion. He's a man who isn't really distracted by pesky things like feelings and romance. Only women are burdened with that problem. A woman's entire world focuses on relationships from the time she can play with dolls. For generations that has always been the innate desire—the be-all end-all goal—for real women to make a home for a family. This is why men tend to be more successful than women in the business and financial arena. It's also the same reason why men are more adept than women in successfully engaging in casual relationships. All men have to do is focus on physical pleasure for twenty minutes to an hour and then they go back to focusing on conquering their other interests.

She closed the taps, dried off and untangled her hair. It really wasn't fair. Penny admitted to herself that she was a bit envious of her friend Aylissa and her wonderful life. One thing was clear to her. She really did have to figure out a way out of her current miserable existence of living hand to mouth and not doing the things she loved.

SHELDON CONTINUED TO PACE HIS APPARTMENT while sipping his second cup of chamomile tea. He'd hoped it would relax him enough to allow for some rational thinking. No such luck.

The only coherent thoughts that his mind was able to conjure was that of Penny's earlier statements.

'You know all sorts of interesting facts on every subject and yet it feels like false advertising when you can't grasp and master human relationships.'

False advertising indeed.

Yes, it was true that there are some aspects of the human experience that elude his understanding but that, by no means, meant that he was misrepresenting his character. Could it?

… And what of that other nonsense?

'I think that your narcissism gets in the way of you being able to participate in and learn from human experiences.'

Is it really narcissism when one is confident in the breadth and depth of one's ability to puzzle out the vast mysteries of the universe?

Sheldon paused mid stride to ponder that possibility. If he really wanted to be honest with himself, he would admit that he really wasn't sure. At least, within the context of this new development he wasn't.

He turned on his heel and moved in the opposite direction toward his spot.

For the sake of argument, Sheldon would cede to the notion that (loath as he was to think it) Penny's assessment was correct. What if he was a narcissist? How would narcissistic behaviors short change him from gaining knowledge in everything? As far as he was concerned pursuing theoretical physics was a challenging and rewarding subject matter. He explored the possibilities of both loop quantum theory and string theory. String theory simply made more sense. It really wasn't a difficult conclusion to draw and narcissism never even interfered in his academic pursuits and experiences.

But what of the rites of passages that he never experienced because of his highly developed intellect? Did his alleged narcissistic tendencies cheat him from growing and developing emotionally as he grew into manhood? Has narcissism kept him from understanding others thereby robbing him of the chance to really know everything?

He certainly didn't believe so.

Sheldon wasn't sure engaging in this sort of arrangement was something he could do. He got up and put his empty cup in the sink. Maybe his problem was that he didn't have enough information. He hurried over to his laptop and did the one thing he was extremely good at: research.

After several hours of appealing to the Google gods for wisdom and one very surprising Skype conversation with the venerable Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, Dr Sheldon Lee Cooper BS, MS, MA, PhD, and ScD, made a decision. He picked up his phone and quickly dialed Lalita.

"Hello, Dr. Gupta? Dr. Sheldon Cooper here. About your proposal…"