Bone

Underneath her little red dress, Stacy Kerr's ass looked like two volleyballs in play, Casey mused, watching Dan's latest flame do her own version of the Boogie Shoe Two-Step. The happy couple had moved from the hot spot on the copy machine to the corner by the water cooler, then on to a semi-secluded spot outside Isaac's office, rarely allowing a paper's width between them. Casey had seen Dan make a lot of moves, but none that involved his knees bending to quite that degree. He looked downright…flexible.

Dana's margarita-fueled exhibition had wound down around 1:30 AM, but not before she'd led a conga line through the 12th floor restrooms and outside the production booth where Sally was preparing to take center stage with the West Coast Update. Sally had not approved, which just made Dana flaunt her leadership skills even further by cajoling the entire Sports Night technical team (and Stacy Kerr, who apparently needed little encouragement to bare her own assets) to moon the competition.

Ah, yes, it had been a good night for CSC's premier sports broadcast team.

Once the Dana show had left the building, however, some of the bleary joy in the evening dulled for Casey. Natalie and Jeremy had holed up behind Dan's desk, making out sloppily, giggling. The production guys were trying to learn the Electric Slide from Kim, with predictably uncoordinated results, which led to the also predictable bickering over who was doing it wrong, where the left foot was supposed to go, and the precise definition of a "shimmy."

And Dan and Stacy appeared to need a room, and fast; Casey thought "tongue-lashing" might be too mild a description for the snacking going on against the wall outside Isaac's office. He shook his head. Danny strikes again, he thought, wondering if this was the price he'd always pay for being the uncool one. Professional beach volleyball players never came up to him in bars and slapped his ass. He'd even have taken one coming up and slapping his face, but that never happened, either.

Dan was a chick magnet, no question about it. He had a peculiar combination of puppy dog entreaty mixed with complete self-confidence—and women went for it like recruiters to a 6'10" kid with a three-point shot.

Casey looked around the studio for someone to play with, but all the sober people were working, and the non-sober ones had either already clinched up for the evening, or packed it in, like Dana. He'd just about decided to head home himself when he saw Dan extricate himself from Stacy's mouth and shake her loose. He propped her up against the wall, held up a finger, as if to say, "Hold that thought," then shambled over to where Casey perched on a desk.

Leaning in close, speaking just loudly enough to be heard over the raucous strains of "Brick House" streaming through the speakers, Dan said, "Hey, buddy, do me a favor."

"A favor?" Casey asked, a little surprised. Dan seemed to be doing very well all on his own. "What possible favor could I do for you at this particular juncture?"

"A really big favor." Dan had that puppy dog thing going again, which Casey could sometimes resist, but not when it came accompanied by The Lean and The Earnest Look as well.

"Tell me what it is first," Casey said.

Dan glanced over his shoulder and waved to Stacy, who wiggled her fingers back at him and smiled what Casey decided was a wildly wicked smile. When Dan turned back, he was a few inches closer. Casey could smell the big blue margarita on his breath and something fresh, like sea water and sunshine. He could see Dan's eyes were bloodshot and noticed that his mouth was a little swollen.

Casey could see the appeal of Dan. Really, there wasn't anything about Dan that wasn't appealing. Too passive, he decided, looking in those bloodshot eyes. Everything about Dan is appealing, he decided and nodded at the more active phrasing. Everything about Dan is appealing. No wonder the women lined up.

"Case?"

Oops, Casey thought. It appeared that while Casey had been pondering Dan's appeal, Dan had actually been talking to him. "Sorry. Wandered off for a minute there."

"You back now? Because this is really important."

"What is?" Casey asked, resisting the urge to lean away from all that appeal.

"Geez, Casey, can you keep your mind on the matter, please? The favor." Dan sprayed him a little with the last word, but even that just seemed sort of endearing, which made Casey think perhaps he'd had one too many $2-off giant blue margaritas. Which seemed a shame, really, since he'd only had one to begin with.

"Right. The favor. What's the favor?"

Dan again glanced at Stacy, then turned back to Casey with the horniest, happiest, most appealing look ever.

"Seems our new friend Stacy is a team player," Dan whispered in Casey's ear.

"A team player? Well, yes, Danny, that's right. She plays on the pro beach volleyball tour, remember?" Casey started to wonder if the Dan show would be over soon, too, if he couldn't remember already explaining Stacy's professional career in obnoxious detail while snapping Xerox copies of her hind quarters.

"C'mon, Case, even you're not that dim. She's a team player," Dan emphasized the last two words with hard pokes to Casey's chest. "She likes one to set and one to spike."

A team player. One to set, one to spike. Good Lord, Casey thought. Surely Dan wasn't suggesting…

"Spike?" Casey squeaked. Spiking a woman sounded almost…painful.

Dan leaned even closer, and Casey could smell his Old Spice deodorant.

"You're so damn literal sometimes," Dan growled in his ear. "She likes doing it with two guys."

Casey's heart jumped at the same time a muscle much further down his body also sprang into action. Stacy Kerr, she of the volleyball ass, she of the moon-'em-all philosophy, liked doing It with two guys. Stacy Kerr liked a two-player game. Two guys. And here they were: a Danny guy and a Casey guy. Two good guys.

"I don't know, Dan," Casey said, a protest being the knee-jerk reaction to most things Dan suggested after midnight, even as a little voice in his head started shouting "go for it! go for it!"

"You don't know?" Dan said. "Of course you don't know. I don't even know. But don't you want to know? Wouldn't you like to know?"

Casey looked away, concentrating on his feet, sidled up next to Dan's. They had the same size feet, even though Dan was a little shorter. They wore the same size shirt, right down to the collar measurement. They traded sweaters regularly. Casey caught himself wondering what else they might have in the same size, then wondered where the thought had come from and why it surfaced now.

"It just seems…"

"Hot? Incredible? Really worth trying at least once?" Dan helpfully filled in the gap Casey left in the conversation.

Casey didn't say anything, just pursed his lips and tried, unsuccessfully, to stop picturing a slab of Stacy Kerr between two matching slices of white bread. The little voice had moved from shouting to stamping its foot and screaming "what, are you crazy? go for it!"

"Do you know the two keys to being a successful beach volleyball player?" Dan asked. Casey shook his head.

"Ball control and stamina."

He found himself nodding at Dan before he knew he'd decided. Now Dan nodded with him, with a little secret smile, just for him.

"Ball control," Dan repeated.

"And stamina," Casey said back, with his own head bobbing.

Stacy Kerr smelled like suntan lotion, like the beach, like wind in your hair and that tingly feeling you got on your shoulders when you'd been out in the sun too long because you couldn't bring yourself to head indoors. Not on a day like that, not when the sun shone hot, and the breeze blew cool, and you knew logically all those rays were bad for you, but decided to go with the theory that if photosynthesis worked for plants, it might work just as well for you.

Stacy Kerr made 2 AM feel like noon.

She made a room at the Sheraton feel like a day at the shore.

While Casey and Dan stood with their hands in their pockets just inside the door, she spread out beach towels, bright fluffy piles of them, on the bland tan carpet, then stripped off her little red dress with one practiced move, draped herself on a towel emblazoned with the Hawaiian Tropic logo, and crooked a finger at them both.

Casey couldn't speak for Dan—he wasn't even sure he had vocal capacity himself—but between the residual buzz from The Smoking Dog and the visual feast stretched out on the bed of terrycloth on the floor, he felt like he'd stepped into some other world. Some place where, for once, stripping down in front of other people didn't seem embarrassing. A place where it seemed perfectly reasonable for a woman to want one man to set her up and another to spike her. A place where Casey could watch his best pal strip down right next to him. Not like in the locker room, or the dressing room at the studio; no, it wasn't like that. It wasn't like that at all.

Boxers and all, they stripped.

Stripped right down to the boner.

Casey couldn't remember being this turned on. Ever. He admitted the kinkiness of it all had something to do with it. Stacy herself looked like all his juanior high fantasies made flesh and dwelling among us. And then there was the Dan thing.

Dan and his thing.

The thing that seemed about the size of his own thing, when he dared to take a glance at it. Gratifyingly familiar, Dan's thing was. Not so strange after all, Casey thought, relieved. Yes, they'd wandered into a kinky frame of mind, but at the heart of it, they were still just three naked people trying to make each other feel good. Nothing wrong with that, he decided as he dropped to the towels, wondering if he'd be able to remember the rationale come morning, then convincing himself he not only should remember it, he would remember it.

Under his hands, Stacy's skin felt warm and unbelievably smooth. Smooth thighs, smooth stomach, even her underarms were bare and soft. She slid sweetly through his fingers, twisting under his hands. Dan tucked himself in on her other side, turning her so she faced Casey, and he paid homage to the back side while Casey learned the front.

Casey felt his face heat, felt sweat break out on his forehead and under his arms. But the hottest spot had to be between his legs. The Smoking Dog, indeed. He jutted against Stacy's smooth belly, rubbed himself against her, feeling himself swell even harder, feeling himself paint her skin with hot little leaks.

Amazing, really, given how shy he was, how awkward sometimes, to be so into this, so fast. "Into it" didn't even describe it. He was into, through, and pinned beneath it, bowled over, dragged under, just a ball fallen into her court. And Danny's court. Don't forget Danny's court, he chided himself. Stacy Kerr was a hot little number, but the real kicker, the last-second-shot-in-overtime adrenaline kicker was the reality of Dan, naked and sweaty, too, his long legs and his long arms visible behind Stacy, his bare flank looking more naked to Casey's eye than the two exposed breasts staring at him from Stacy's torso.

Stacy murmured directions and happy little sighs, rocking softly back and forth between them. Casey found they were so close together he could put his palm on her waist and let his fingertips stroke Dan's side at the same time, so he did that. Then Dan started murmuring, too, moving even closer, reaching over Stacy's body to pull the three together as one undulating unit.

Casey met Dan's eyes over Stacy's shoulder, saw the heat and arousal in them, the flash of mutual recognition (It's Danny there. It's Casey there), saw another secret smile. A little time out of time, Casey thought, a little time-out. Closing his eyes, he moved his hand from Stacy's waist to Dan's back, spreading his fingers wide, pressing in hard, moving Dan's hips into Stacy's, where her hips picked up the motion and sent the wave into his own hips. Together, they surfed it, rhythmic and steady.

Stacy, obviously the captain of this particular team, chose Casey as the setter and Dan as the spiker, based, she explained very nicely, on the calluses on Dan's right hand from hours spent on a tennis court.

"I like a hard serve," she whispered as she licked Casey's ear. "Watch and learn; you never know when we'll have to send in a sub."

God, he loved a woman who could talk sports and talk dirty at the same time.

Stacy nudged Casey onto his back and straddled his hips, lifting her ass for Dan. Casey slid one hand between her thighs, making sure she was ready, searching out the finer details about what made her squirm. Over her shoulder, he could see Dan tearing open a condom, sliding it on, and his own dick twitched at seeing those long fingers gliding slowly, smoothing it down. Feeling one reaction after another to Dan's body, Casey started to wonder just who his little voice had been so excited about going for—Stacy or Danny.

Dan's fingers met his just inside Stacy's body, and Casey pulled away, startled, but Dan caught his index finger on the way out and pulled it in again,a the two of them opening her wide, playing in the same sandbox. She felt just as smooth inside as she did outside, Casey thought hazily, his fingers rubbing against Dan's inside the hot channel.

"Good enough," she gasped, leaning over to kiss Casey, dropping to her elbows and giving Dan a perfect angle in which to enter her. Casey pulled his hand away and put it on her shoulder, letting his other hand slide down her side to her hip. Casey could feel it when Dan moved inside her, could feel it through her mouth, the jolt of her in-drawn breath, the tremble in her arms. Then he felt the sliding motion begin, the thrust and counter-thrust, the motion of the ocean, moving above him. He liked the view over Stacy's shoulder; he thought he could get used to that view. Dan knelt behind her, his legs straddling Casey, too, his back straight, his eyes closed, and his face scrunched in concentration, his tongue held between his teeth. Casey could see him start to tremble, too, see his hands tighten down on Stacy's hips as he thrust harder, then faster, then harder still. Casey felt his own body shiver, watching him, watching them.

Stacy lifted her head, then bent with the thrusts, dropping down so her breasts scoured Casey's chest, hard nipples burning him, burying him in all those sea smells. God, they looked good. Smelled good. Felt good. If only he could thrust his hips and reach one or the other of them, he could tumble over with them. But given the way she crouched and the way Dan knelt, Casey could do nothing more than lie underneath them, stroking Stacy's back and enjoying the view, envious already of their obvious enjoyment. He considered reaching down and finishing himself off, but decided the anticipation had its own brand of reward. Besides, he thought, he might miss something.

So, he just watched, which he suspected was what Stacy had intended all along.

Patience, patience, he said to himself. He tried breathing deep, but that just brought all those marvelous smells deep in his lungs. He tried closing his eyes, but he could still hear the rough little pants from Dan and the catchy breaths from Stacy. He even tried repeating the first four stanzas of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," but all those water images just brought him right back to the room, right back to his prime spot on the bottom, right back to where his closest buddy was fucking the living daylights out of a pro volleyball player they'd met in a bar.

Stacy screamed when she came. She literally screamed, and Casey shushed her until the sounds diminished to exuberant moans. He could do without explaining their particular tableau to the Sheraton night manager. A few seconds later, Dan shuddered all over and groaned low and deep in his throat, finally bending, leaning on her back, his hips still thrusting unsteadily against her, as if they couldn't help themselves, as if they couldn't stop, even when it was done.

That alone almost put Casey over, too. Almost.

"You all right?" Casey heard Dan whisper against Stacy's back.

She nodded, panting. "I'm fine, I'm fine, but your friend here could use some help," she said, sliding down, spreading herself out on Casey for a minute, and he could feel her wetness against his crotch, the heat of her pulse throbbing against him. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the muscles quiver in her back—aftershocks, twinges, latecomers to the pleasure party. Unconsciously, he started thrusting against her, his stressed-out dick lavishly grateful to have a warm wet spot to rub against, but she rolled off him, propping herself up on one elbow beside him.

"I thought we might ace you, but it looks like you're going to need an assist," she said, and Casey wondered what the hell she meant. Maybe he didn't love a woman who could talk sports and dirty at once, because his literal mind needed more data.

"You go ahead," she prompted, looking from Casey to Dan and back. She ran a hand down her side. "I'll coach."

Stacy liked to be watched, he'd figured that out. And she liked to watch; she'd just made that clear. But if Stacy went from participating to watching, then…

"I don't know that we need coaching," Dan said, very matter-of-factly for a man with a full condom dangling off his dick. "Casey? Do we need coaching?"

"I…" Damn. Casey's voice cracked before his little voice could say "hell no! we don't need no stinking coaching!" Dan seemed confident, as always. That was good enough for him, Casey decided. "No coaching required," he managed to say, his mouth going dry as the full implications of where they were headed sank in.

He watched as Dan peeled off the condom, watched as he tossed it in the utilitarian Sheraton waste-basket. Watched as Dan once again knelt and took up his spot on the towels, only this time, there was no meat to the sandwich. This time, Dan straddled Casey's hips, just the two of them, with no buffer, no filter. Casey felt the trembling start again, felt his breath catch in his throat, looking up at a whole new Dan, feeling like a whole new Casey.

"How you doing?" Dan asked quietly, a little breathless, but otherwise, so normal, so very Danny, that Casey just grinned stupidly.

"Doing good, doing fine," he said, his fingers itching to see if that spot next to Dan's hip, right next to the bone, could possibly be as smooth as it looked. Dan's groin, heavy and soft, brushed against his as Dan settled down on him, sitting on his lap.

"We're doing okay, right?" Dan asked, and Casey saw that as buzzed and hot as he'd been earlier, Dan now sat sober and cool, aware of where they were and just what they were doing. Casey admired that ability; he still felt drunk and beyond horny. He could smell Stacy's sunshine scent, mixed with Dan's darker smell, and he could do no more than nod at Dan and reach for him, hoping he'd understand the reassurance in the gesture.

He gripped Dan's hair in both hands and dragged him down, feeding on him, no longer caring that he was being watched, no longer caring that he hadn't ever, really, in his whole life admitted that what he felt for Dan went beyond friendship. That what he wanted from him had an awful lot to do with his heart and body and not a lot to do with his gender. And finally, thinking maybe he was getting just a little bit hysterical, in addition to having an almost certain case of blue balls, he decided if the entire Evian Women's Pro Beach Volleyball Tour wanted to sit and watch him making out with his friend Dan, that was just fine with him.

Dan kissed like he talked—busy and pretty much non-stop. Meanwhile, his hands traced down Casey's ribs and belly, and he tucked Casey's erection up tight against his crotch, aligning it with the head snugged up against the back of his balls, pressing the shaft hard against the ridge that led back to his ass. Casey thought it felt as warm there as it did between Stacy's thighs. Not so strange after all, Casey thought again, finding the similarities comforting and the differences intriguing. He bumped his hips up, watching for signs from Dan that it was okay to do that. Dan lifted up a little, braced himself on his knees and palms, and pulled away from his mouth just long enough to say, "Yeah, that's it, just like that."

Given permission, given a warm, solid space to thrust against, Casey closed his eyes, closed out Stacy's avid gaze, closed out thoughts of what tomorrow might bring, and rocked up hard between Dan's thighs. The sensation, unique in his experience, seemed to come from more than just skin on skin. Maybe because even with his eyes closed, even on the edge of orgasm, he felt right at home, naked there, trapped under Dan's body; he felt it to be a good thing, this night in a stranger's hotel room, this time on the beach towels, with the smells of sunscreen and sex in his nose.

Dan let go of his mouth, and Casey felt his forehead drop down on his own. "Good, Casey, that's good," Dan whispered, and the sound of that voice, so close to his ear, that familiar voice coaching him, coaxing him, made Casey seize up, made what had started out as a search for relief into something a lot stronger, a lot warmer. He pulled Dan's hair harder than he meant to, shouted something louder than he intended, and drenched them both in gut-clenching spasms, shaking.

Dan slid off him, putting Casey in the middle, keeping one hand on Casey's stomach. Stacy cleaned them both off with a towel that proclaimed, "Volley Girls Have The Biggest Balls," and Casey flinched, too sensitive to appreciate the rough cloth, still trying to catch his breath.

"I knew you two would be good," she said, patting Casey's hip one last time. "I could tell by how you are on the air."

Food for thought, Casey decided, exchanging a wry look with Dan. Banter and brain-sharing were one thing. Body-swabbing had always seemed to be something else. But Casey had to admit Stacy made a valid point: they were good together, in apparently every way.

Stacy dropped the towel in a laundry basket and announced she was going to take a shower. Casey watched the taut globes of her ass swing as she walked away from them, thinking he'd never seen a woman's body from quite that angle before, and what a great body it was. Beside him, Dan laughed under his breath.

"That is one healthy girl right there," Dan murmured.

"Yes, indeed," Casey whispered back. "Healthy as a horse. The very picture of health."

"I think she has a future in tag-team wrestling," Dan said, his fingers stroking lightly up Casey's chest.

"I think she has a future in whatever field she sets her mind to," Casey replied, shaking his head in admiration. He turned to Dan and saw a look on his face that he'd only seen a couple of times before: a look he reserved for someone he found beautiful, for someone he wanted to be closer to. But the look wasn't directed at Stacy's back; no, this time Casey caught it right between the eyes.

They'd met a woman in a bar. They'd come home with her, stripped down for her, set her up and spiked her. It could have ended there. It could have ended with Casey sliding into the groove so recently inhabited by Dan. That would have been the straight up thing to do. That would have been the straight thing to do.

And yet…

That's not at all what happened. Now Stacy stood apart, showering by herself, while he and Dan lay bare, in a tangle of arms and legs, talking to each other as if they sat upright at their desks, clothed, as if there wasn't a thing strange about finding themselves on the floor of the Sheraton, naked and touching.

Stacy called it an assist. Casey knew it was a lot more than that.

More like an excuse; a way to get the ball rolling.

More like hearing the national anthem at a whole new ball game.