On Saturday night, while Ross was choosing between Rachel and Bonnie, and Phoebe was telling Monica about her birthmom, Joey and Chandler had been left by themselves at the beach house, with no TV or foosball or beer. Also, Chandler was tired of making sandcastles and playing with a dried up seahorse, but he remained steadfast in his refusal to play "one-on-one strip poker for practice" with Joey.

"What do you want to play then?" Joey whined. "I made all these cards."

Chandler snatched the cards away. "Tell you what: I'll play solitaire."

"Yeah, like you always do," Joey said with a smirk.

It seemed to be a sexual joke, since Chandler usually played poker with the guys when playing with cards, but Chandler decided to ignore it, because he didn't want to get into another discussion about poker, and why playing the strip version was supposedly required when you went on a trip out of town. Chandler just dealt out the cards for solitaire.

Joey sighed and got up from the table, saying, "I'm going upstairs."

Chandler kept playing solitaire for a while, but then he noticed how lonely and quiet this run-down old beach house was at night, so he went upstairs too. He decided that he would play goldfish or something with Joey, but not strip poker.

Joey was still awake and lying on his bed when Chandler arrived with the cards. (The guys were sharing a bedroom with twin beds.) Joey seemed to be sulking, or at least thinking seriously about something.

"Hey." Chandler sat on the other bed and started to offer to play cards, but before he could, Joey made a strange proposition to Chandler.

Sitting up, Joey cleared his throat and asked, "So, if Ross breaks up with Bonnie tonight, you wanna go comfort her with me?"

"Comfort her?" Chandler stared at Joey in shock. "As in sex?"

Joey nodded. "Yeah, you seem like you could use some sex, Chandler, and not the solo kind. You keep asking Monica out, even though she's shot you down all weekend."

"That was just a hypothetical, and--What does this have to do with Bonnie?"

"You know! She's hot, and you heard her all Friday night with Ross; she can go on for hours. Plus, she's made out with girls and done kinky stuff. Maybe we could have a threesome with her."

"A threesome?" Chandler repeated in disbelief. "You're seriously saying this?"

"Sure, why not? We never got to do it with Chloe, and I bet Bonnie would be better than Chloe any day. She'd talk about sex, for one thing, instead of boring copy machines."

"I-I-I don't think I want to do that."

Joey frowned in disappointment. "Aw, you're no fun, Chandler! You won't play strip poker with me. You won't have a threesome. What happened to the cool guy who dated Aurora even though she had a husband and two other boyfriends?"

"I realized that I like monogamy."

"And where did that get you, huh? Alone most of the time except when you're with Janice." He put his hand on Chandler's knee. "Come on, I'll let you do Bonnie first, before me."

"Before you?" Chandler was confused and surprised.

"Before I do Bonnie," Joey clarified, looking offended. He scoffed and pulled his hand away. "Like I'd let you do me. What's the matter with you?"

Chandler got defensive. "You're the one talking about this weird threesome stuff."

"Sure, but not gay stuff. We're not gay," Joey spoke firmly, though he looked like he was starting to have doubts about Chandler.

"I'm sorry, I just--" Chandler shrugged helplessly. "Remember when Rachel had that sex dream about us, and she said sometimes it wasn't her at all?"

"Yeah, well, we're not gonna do that. All I'm talking about is ordinary group stuff."

"Ordinary group stuff," Chandler repeated slowly, finding the phrase a bit of an oxymoron. He'd never done group stuff himself, so he couldn't think of it as ordinary at all.

Joey just shrugged as if it were no big deal. "Come on, I've had threesomes with girls already, so I figure it won't be that hard for us to work something out with Bonnie."

Chandler was still uncertain. "I-I don't even wanna have sex with Bonnie any more. I mean, she's bald now."

"But she's still got a hot body, and she's fun. If her head bothers you that much, fine. We can always ask Phoebe if she's been hiding any other hot girlfriends from us. Someone who likes getting stuff pierced more than shaving her head."

That sounded somewhat intriguing, but Chandler was still nervous. "Why--why do you wanna have a threesome anyway, Joe? I thought you liked having girls all to yourself."

"Yeah," Joey shrugged, "but don't you think we ought to try it just once? I mean, we go after the same girl a lot, or you're dating my ex-girlfriends. We obviously have the same taste in women, except for Janice. If we could learn to share, then we won't end up fighting like we did over that Dutch girl."

Chandler started to understand Joey's reasoning now. "But what would we--how would we...?"

Joey got up and sat on the bed next to him. "Well we'd have to get naked in front of each other, and we'd have to decide who would get what part of her and when. Like, are we gonna split up front and back, or top and bottom, or take turns, or what?"

"Oh, that's what you meant by 'What's heads and what's tails?'" Chandler recalled their hypothetical discussion about Chloe, and he scooted away from Joey on the bed. "Are we still gonna keep our eyes open and, and see each other?" he whispered.

Joey noticed Chandler's movement and scowled, as if insulted, and he returned to his own bed. "Well, haven't we seen a lot of each other already? Like in the bathroom and stuff? Plus, we all played that strip game on Friday night."

"Yeah, but that's different than--than being naked in bed with a girl, and being all... aroused. And doing kinky stuff."

"Fine," Joey folded his arms petulantly and lay back on his pillows. "If you don't want to find out what hot girls we could get together, too bad. I offered."

Chandler just stared at the deck of homemade cards and didn't know what to say.

After a moment, Joey murmured in warning, "I'm gonna undress." He got up and started stripping off his clothes.

Chandler turned away and kept his eyes averted, knowing that Joey slept naked. Soon he heard Joey get under the covers of his bed, saying "Goodnight" as if none of the previous conversation had happened. Then Chandler put the cards on the nightstand and got under his own bedcovers. "Goodnight, Joe."

"Night."

Chandler reached over and turned off the light. But he lay awake for a long time in the darkness, not sure if he ought to say something, or pretend that nothing had ever happened. He went with the latter.

The End

At my own discretion, I sometimes take requests for story ideas from readers/reviewers if I have the time and inclination, but this is my choice. I will not be rudely ordered around and threatened by bullies.