Stripped

"Why the hell did I agree to this?" Justin grouched, glaring icily at the blonde in front of him, his girlfriend, like this was all her fault somehow. The fact that he had readily agreed to and even advocated the idea had slipped his mind.

"Because you were hoping it'd be me, Rachel or Frankie sitting here nearly naked." Alicia told him sweetly, smiling at him despite the resentment radiating from his every pore. She didn't voice the second part of her reasoning, which was that Justin had consumed a few too many alcoholic beverages while they'd been at the club earlier.

"Yeah, I gotta say I think I would have preferred that myself." Joey flicked his eyes briefly sideways at Frankie but she said nothing, as well she might. She was pretty good at this game and so far the only thing she had been obliged to take off was her sweater. Underneath which she was wearing a t-shirt anyway.

"Well come on Justin you gotta start us off again." Lance slurred in an impatient manner.

"Aight… strawberries." He muttered. Strip poker, he could have done that. Strip go fish he could have worked too. Card games he was good at. Strip Pictionary, anything but strip word association. What kind of chump came up with that idea? Oh, yes, Chris Kirkpatrick on an alcohol and sugar buzz. Whatever, he had lost his over shirt, the wife beater he'd been wearing underneath, his pants and on the last turn his second sock had come off. There wasn't much left to lose.

"Fruit." JC replied promptly in a bored tone. He had tried to sit the game out but hadn't been allowed. Oh how he had tried.

"Food." Rachel said after a slightly too long pause. Apparently they were going to let her have that one though; the rules were that if you paused too long or repeated a word the round stopped and off came an item of clothing. And just to add some more fun, if you questioned somebody else and they proved you wrong, that also would cost you. It was a really stupid, adolescent thing to do but they were intoxicated and she had to say while she would never steal another girl's guy on principle, it was nice getting a 'better' look at the famed abs of Justin Timberlake.

"Candy." Chris replied, candy being something that had been on his mind today. He'd had a craving, hence the sugar high.

"Sweet." Alicia chirruped in an overly perky manner. She was a very happy drunk. Some people went hyper, some people got depressed, some aggressive, she just got happy.

"Salt." That was Lance's contribution.

"Cinema."

"What? Where did cinema come from? It ain't even a word, I don't think that counts." Joey quickly protested.

"Cinema? Hello, movie theatre. Where'd you think the word Cineplex comes from? Of course it's a word, dumb a*s." She tossed her hair abruptly over her shoulder. "Sweet, salt, both types of popcorn which you eat when you go to the movies, so, cinema. It's perfectly valid. But that means that you hesitated in which case it's your turn, Fatone. Get it off." She smirked, enjoying her victory slightly too much. Joey just gave a groan and yanked off his shirt, annoyed that for the first time that evening he'd been caught out. And it had happened while he was trying to catch somebody else out. The irony was a killer.

"Yeah, yeah. You and I both know you want this and that's the only reason you're picking on me."

"Whatever, Joseph." Frankie socked him in the arm. "Now come on, start."

"School."

"Pencil."

"Art."

"Paper."

"Colouring."

"Felt tip."

"Hey, hey, hold up baby." Justin spied his opportunity for some payback and grinned malevolently at his girl. "What the hell is a felt tip?"

"You know, a colouring pen." Alicia looked puzzled that she was being questioned.

"You mean a marker?" JC supplied.

"Yeah that's it."

"Hate to remind you darlin' but we're in America now and your weird British terms aren't acceptable." A pair of furious grey eyes met vengeful blue ones but it was no use because everybody around her was nodding and making noises of assent. And dammit she'd already taken her cardigan off, so it was the shirt or the jeans and she'd much rather they saw the bra than the other item of underwear. Wincing, telling herself they'd seen her in a bikini before, she reluctantly unbuttoned her shirt and slid it off her shoulders to wolf whistles and cat- calls. Of course none of her bikinis were pink and lacy, were they?

"Timberlake, you are so sleeping on the couch." She informed him nastily. "Sun." She grabbed Chris's beer and took an unnecessarily long gulp.

"Snow." Lance offered up.

"Weather." Frankie giggled. The humour behind the statement was a mystery to all but her.

"Wet." Joey trilled in a slightly falsetto voice.

"Wellington boot."

"What the hell?" It was JC's turn to object now. The game had advanced (or maybe degenerated was the correct term) to the point where there was an objection being raised every five seconds. Obviously people were trying to get clothes off of each other and were not in the correct mind to weigh up the risk that it would be they themselves having to strip. Of course it wasn't particularly likely that JC was objecting just for the sake of seeing Justin naked - which was the only place left for him to go if the complaint was upheld.

"You know, Wellington boots." He explained. "Little kids wear them to go jump in puddles and stuff."

"They do?" Rachel asked sceptically.

"Yeah, they do!" Justin insisted. "Don't they baby?"

"Never heard of them." Alicia replied innocently. Of course she had, it had been her who explained the concept to him when he'd visited her parents back in Rhyl with her and asked what the hell the green, calf length rubber boots sitting in their porch were. Being Welsh she was a lot more familiar with a good old pair of wellies than any of the Yanks in the room could be but she wasn't going to speak up because she was still smarting. Besides, what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, as her mother always used to say. She wasn't quite positive what that meant but she took it as an eye for an eye. Especially as she didn't see why Justin should get away with using British terms when he'd made her take her shirt off for doing so. He'd just wanted to see her bra, she was sure of it.

"Sorry J but looks like you lose." Chris rubbed his hands evilly at the prospect of his friend's imminent humiliation.

"Ok, ok." Justin gulped, looking incredibly nervous and strangely young as he stood up. Stepping sideways out from the chair. He took a few steps back. His instinct would be to stick near the cover of the table but there wasn't enough room to manoeuvre. Alicia's eyes met his briefly and he looked away, downwards, mortified. The prospect of further and much worse embarrassment loomed in front of his face, and he took a deep breath, biting his lip as he stuck his thumbs in the elastic of his blue boxers. "You ready for what I'm about to do here?"

"Ready." The overly gleeful chorus came.

"Good. 'Cause I'm-a do it right… NOW!"

Seven people were left sitting dumbstruck at the table. Had they not all been so drunk one of them might have been quick enough to react and catch hold of Justin before he bolted for the door. By the time any of the guys managed to get up the pounding of running feet on the stairs had begun and they knew there was no way to catch him before he got to his room.

"Oh don't bother." JC dismissed the attempt with a flick of his hand. "He'll have locked the door before you even get to the stairs, a*s." He sounded vaguely amused at Joey's poor attempt to lurch out of his seat and race after him.

"So how am I supposed to get in?" Alicia complained.

**

It had been another half an hour before everybody had said their goodnights and retired for the evening. Actually it was now technically morning but such distinctions weren't important. What was important was that the door to the room Alicia shared with Justin was locked and she was stuck on the wrong side of it.

"Justin!" She hollered, banging on the door. Had he fallen asleep? He wasn't staying that way for long.

"I ain't strippin' and that's that!" Came the shout back. He hadn't been asleep at all but his pretence at it hadn't lasted long either. He wasn't patient enough.

"Baby they all went to bed already!" Alicia let out a half groan half yell. "I'd like to do the same so if you could let me in I won't have to kick your arse in the morning!" The Welsh accent rang a touch stronger.

"Yeah right!" Justin scoffed. "Y'all are just waitin' for me to open up so you can make me expose myself. Not gonna happen!"

"I can tell you what won't be happening ever again if you don't let me in this door, Justin Randall, and hint, it's you ever having your way with me EVER again."

"Do I look stupid to you?"

"I can't see you 'cause you won't open the bloody door but you sound like a butthead." She fumed, now too irritated to be polite.

"Now I really ain't letting you in."

Leaning against the door, giving it a slight knock as she pushed her head back into it, she slid wearily to the floor, scowling. What she wanted was to go to bed. There was too much alcohol in her system now and nobody else was still up to talk to her and in that case she wanted to get into her nice comfy bed. Well, technically it was Justin's nice comfy bed but tom-may-toe, tom-are-toe. It was where she was supposed to be sleeping and she couldn't get to it.

"Oh Justin, baby?"

Five minutes or so had passed and an entirely too sweet voice was passing through his door… or was it under his door? But that little digression of thought was beside the point, however the sound was getting in, he was cautious as he approached it and his left eyebrow remained raised in his best sceptical and suspicious expression.

"Yes?" He drawled slowly, stringing out even the most monosyllabic of words.

"You wanna let me in?"

"You, yes." Justin agreed readily. "Chris and Joey, no. I ain't opening the door, woman."

"They've gone to bed, honey bunch, they're not here." Alicia let out the throaty sentence, attempting to sound sultry and alluring. In all honesty she was probably too drunk for that but then so was he. Everything was relative. "But I was thinking you and me could finish it off, just the two of us…" She let the thought trail off and could practically envision the thoughtful expression and the processing of the words and the light bulb coming on over his head.

Justin on his part was considering this very carefully. He very much liked what she'd just insinuated but he was not a stupid man and was well aware that the previous threat still stood. Grabbing his bathrobe from where he'd tossed it on the bed earlier, he quickly slipped it on and belted it in a firm knot around his waist, and taking a quick look saw that the bathroom door was wide open and left another avenue of escape. Slowly, carefully, he went to the door, unlocked it and slowly pulled it open. Alicia stood there with her hip c*cked to the side, her arms tightly folded over her chest and a pointed look on her face.

"And are Chris and Joey anywhere in sight?" She asked rhetorically. "Witness me, all alone."

"Just how I like ya." He gestured her in and shut the door behind her as she headed for the bed, yanking her long hair out of its ponytail and removing her jewellery as she went. He locked the door, just in case.