The ringing of Al's cell phone woke him from a troubled sleep in which he'd dreamed he was trying to rush home on a Skytrain that was travelling all the way from somewhere in the middle of the United States, but first he had to track down a child he apparently had, and he was frantically trying to locate her, he was pretty sure it was a girl, although he didn't know her name, and in the middle of his frantic search he walked into a fabulous bakery and was captivated by the selection of doughnuts, cinnamon buns and muffins, all of his favourite baked goods. 

The roller coaster of emotions left him feeling exhausted upon waking, and as he felt for his phone, the ringing of which must have contributed to his vague feeling of urgency, he noticed the arm reaching for it was encumbered by a weight resting on it. His eyes cracked open, and he blurrily sought the identity of the weight.

It was morning, he was pretty sure, but the diffuse light through the blinds suggested it was very early in the morning. He needed to turn on a light to get a good look at who was in his bed, but he was sure at least that it was a who; his cat, Samson, was too fuzzy to be the weight on his left arm. He felt smooth skin, silky hair and moist lips exhaling regularly, breath tickling the hairs on his arms.

Rachel, he thought, smiling. He reached his right arm around the body and drew it to him, feeling naked skin against his, and it was then that he noticed the body was too small to be Rachel's, too compact, and that it didn't smell like Amarige by Givenchy, Rachel's perfume, but some fruity aroma that was also pleasing. The erection that had been building withered immediately on the realization that this was not his wife. 

A groan escaped from the lips of the person in his arms. "Five more minutes," a woman's voice slurred. "Need more sleep." Definitely not Rachel's voice, which had imprinted itself on his soul since he'd first reunited with her over two years ago. 

It was a voice he recognized, however, and dread filled him as he put that voice together with the size of the body that was still in his arms, and his dread grew when he discovered that his erection was returning, because she also felt pretty damned nice in his embrace, and he didn't want to examine what that meant right now because he had bigger things to worry about, like the fact that he couldn't remember how she'd ended up in his bed in the first place, or the fact that she had a husband who was twice as big as he was and would murder him if he found them like this, or, most worrying of all, the fact that he had no idea where Rachel was if she was not in his bed.

The phone continued to ring, and he thought that if he answered it he might get an answer to one of those worries, but when he reached his right arm to where it rested on the night table, glowing with activity, the woman in his embrace wrapped an arm around him, and he felt her small breasts against his chest as she nuzzled her face into his neck, rolling her head off his left arm and returning some feeling back to it. She felt very, very good against him, and now his erection was brushing her leg, and he still hadn't reached his phone.

"Mmmm," she purred sleepily. "Morning, lover."

Finally he grabbed his phone, but it stopped ringing before he could answer it. The light from it was still bright enough to illuminate the face of the woman in his arms, though, and confirmation of his suspicions arrived just as the phone informed him that he'd missed a call from Rachel.

"Um..." he stammered. "Uh, Lauren, I think you need to wake up."

Her hand trailed down to his erection, wrapped around it, and for a horrifying moment he thought he was going to ejaculate then and there, but then something must have made Lauren realize something was wrong, because she took a quick breath and opened her eyes, and she mercifully released him, and blinked up at him, and by the light of the phone he could see her examining him and the circumstances in which they found themselves. 

Lauren Hasegawa had also reunited with him two years ago. She'd been the first to contact him after thirty years apart, and when he'd first seen her Facebook profile pictures he'd noticed she was pretty and pixie-like, retaining the eyes and cheekbones of her Japanese father, and the brown hair and creamy skin of her English mother, and ditching the bowl-cut hair of her years back in Queensborough, where they all grew up. As he'd redeveloped his friendship with her, and with her husband Joe, and Sunny and Rachel, he'd occasionally wondered what it would be like to sleep with her, even though his heart belonged to Rachel from the very beginning. He couldn't help it; he was a healthy male with normal vision, and Lauren not only had the cutes but a confidence and an adventurousness that endeared her to everyone she met, and he'd wondered if she carried those traits into the bedroom. 

Now here she was, and all he could feel was dismay. 

"Um," she said, "What the hell are we doing naked in your bed?"

"That's what I'd like to know."

"Can we turn on a light?"

"Yeah, hold on." He reached to the other night table so as not to brush against her again, and turned on the light. Lauren sat up, not bothering to cover herself; confusion had replaced self-consciousness for both of them. 

She looked down at what she'd just grabbed only a few seconds before and said, "As soon as I noticed that wasn't Joe's cock I was holding, I knew something wasn't right."

"I suspected. We've all seen that monster; I can't imagine walking around with that between my legs."

She smirked, and one of her dimples popped. That, and her sleep tousled hair, stirred him again, and he said, "Is it wrong that I'm turned on by you right now, regardless of my confusion?"

She shrugged. "I'm not surprised. I'm pretty hot, and you and Rachel and I aren't unfamiliar with each other's bodies, and although our experiences are usually on the other side of a screen, we must get some enjoyment out of it, or else we would have stopped a long time ago. What unnerves me, however, is that right now you and I don't have a screen between us, and that is a problem, because I suspect we've done more than just look."

She lifted the top sheet and examined the fitted sheet, which was stained in that familiar way. He felt them and found them still damp. There was even a drop or two of what looked like blood further away from the other fluids. He checked himself over but didn't see any signs of a cut or scratch. "Jesus," he breathed, "what did we do?"

"You don't remember?"

He shook his head. "You?"

"No. Were we drugged, or something?"

"That's one explanation, I guess." He checked the rest of the sheets, the night tables, the floor and the chair in the corner. "Uh, Lauren, if something did happen here, I don't see any evidence that we used protection. Should we be worried?"

She rolled her eyes. "Uh, no, I've been on the pill since Tosh was born; no more kids for me." Suddenly she gasped. "The kids. Where are my kids?"

"They must be with Joe."

"But why am I not with Joe, that's the question I need to answer. And where's Rachel?"

"I don't know, but she just called; I couldn't answer it before it cut off."

"Where's my phone? I bet Joe must have called a zillion times by now."

He looked around and said, "Maybe in the living room? Maybe you dropped your purse there?"

"Yeah, good thinking." She left the bed and strode naked out of the bedroom, and he couldn't help looking at her tight little ass as she walked away. "What in the world?" he heard her groan from the living room. "Did we tear off each other's clothes in a frenzy of passion as we stumbled into the bedroom? There's a whole trail out here."

"I don't remember," he mumbled, more to himself, as he discovered Rachel had left a voicemail. He called his voicemail and put the phone to his ear.

"Al! Where are you?! Is Lauren with you?! Oh, Jesus, fuck, we're in trouble! Please, call me back as soon as you get this message, I need to know you're okay!"

That was all. The blood drained from Al's face and extremities as he noticed she'd also left a bunch of text messages. He hadn't woken to those, apparently. What in the world happened to them? Had they been drugged as Lauren had suggested? Why? How? Who had drugged them? Why couldn't they remember anything?

He called her back, not worrying about the texts right now; all that mattered was that he heard her voice, that he knew she was okay.

His heart sank as the phone rang and rang, and finally went to voicemail. The robotic voice of the phone service informed him that the owner of the phone wasn't picking up and to leave a message; Rachel never put her own voice on the voice message or informed the caller that it was her phone they'd reached, because she'd had problems in the past with creeps and trolls who'd tracked down her address and phone number and left disgusting and hateful messages. It killed him that she'd been so tormented in the past that he couldn't even have the comfort of hearing her voice in a voice message, and he wished he could have time alone with the assholes who'd tormented her, even though he was too much of a wimp to actually do anything to them.

"Rachel, it's Al. I'm here. Lauren's with me. I'm sorry I didn't answer before, I think..." What could he tell her that wouldn't damn him and Lauren before they could discover what had happened? "I think something happened to us. We're here at home. Call me back."

As he hung up, he wondered why she didn't pick up right away, if she'd just called and pleaded for him to call her back. She hadn't been on the phone, or else his call would have gone right to voicemail. Al pictured her phone lying on the ground somewhere, unanswered, while something bad happened to its owner.

He dropped his phone on the bed and ran to the bathroom, reaching the toilet just in time before he threw up.

Hi there! Thanks for finding this story. This is the opening chapter of the second novel in the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club series. The series began with "We find what is lost," introducing Al, Lauren, Rachel, Joe and Sunny, and giving background to what you're reading here. 

If you like what you just read, click on "Vote" to send the title up the rankings. If you already read the first novel, you'll understand right away the reason for their dismay. To find out what Lauren thinks about what just happened, click on "Continue reading."

Leave a comment if you like, I'd love to know what you think!