“Hardly, Brooke. It’s not Elaine’s style.” Samuel laughed.

“Well, see, that’s why I don’t think I wanna know what either of you two would do.” She looked at them with a coy smile. “But feel free to answer if you like.” She took the empty glasses in front of her and started filling them with liquor.

Henry looked out of the side of his eye to Sam’s father. “I kind of liked what she said about the mood being right, don’t you?”

The man nodded as he replied. “Yeah, that’s my answer. The mood will do it every time.” Samuel let his mouth curl up into a smile.

The dark-haired woman savored the answer for a moment, and then her blue eyes shone brightly as they came to life. From out of nowhere came her boisterous reply, “URP! WRONG ANSWER!”

She laughed at their startled faces and handed each of them a glass of liquor. She sat back, pulling a glass up to her lips and chuckled. “All of you got it wrong.” She winked at the group gathered before her and tipped the glass, spilling the liquid into her mouth.

“So, Oh-great-wise-one,” Brian smirked as he reached for a shot of his own. “What is the right answer?”

“Hmm…” Brooke licked her lips to get the last of the sweet tasting liquid that clung to them and smiled. “I don’t even know if I should share it with you.” She sat back and watched their changing expressions.

“Come on, Brooke, you’re among friends,” Peter coaxed her.

“Family even,” Rick chimed in, eager for the answer.

Brooke stood up and walked around the table, positioning herself with her back to Samuel. “What do you do to put her over the edge?” She grinned. “This…” The woman thrust her tongue out as far as she could and proceeded to put it through its various exercises. When she was finished, she winked and reached for another glass of liquor.

There was a stunned silence as the men sat there replaying the memory clip in their heads. Finally, one by one, each tried to recreate what they had seen. Brooke casually walked back to her chair and sat down; putting one booted foot on the edge of the bed and watched their amateur attempts.

“Hey, Brooke, how’s this?” Rick called out, and then set about displaying a less than stellar performance, his tongue barely moving at all.

“URP! Wrong answer, Rick.” Brooke laughed. “You can’t do it.” She reached up and poured him a glass. “Take it like a man,” she pointed to the drink, and then moved on down the line.

“Okay, I think I can do at least some of that.” Brian’s deeply concentrated attempt looked more like a stingray swimming in the ocean than anything did. His tongue mobility was there but the gene for rolling it was long removed from his family. Finishing, he closed his mouth and swallowed. “The question I have is, what do you do with it?”

Laughing even harder now, she handed her brother-in-law a glass and filled it. “URP! That’s definitely the wrong answer, Brian. If you have to ask what you do with it, I’m surprised that Randi’s still with you.”

Turning in her seat she looked over at Peter. “Care to give it a shot or do you want another replay, Petey?” Brooke held up her hand to conceal her oral activity from Samuel’s view, and then proceeded to demonstrate her exceptional ability once more.

“What is it…” Samuel leaned in his seat to see. “What is she doing?”

“Ah, Mr. Moleson,” Peter saw the man starting to get up in his peripheral vision. “I…I don’t think you want to know. Just keep it in your mind that your daughter is in very good…ah…ah…hands…” his eyes blinked at a particularly difficult example that Brooke was demonstrating at the moment, “…yeah…hands.” Peter got up and moved closer to Brooke. His eyes were riveted on her tongue. “Is that even possible?” He glanced over to the other men behind him, then back at Brooke. “Are you double…double…” his eyes got bigger and he flopped back into a chair. “Hell, they never told us about that in health class.”

“You know, Brooke,” Henry smiled at his daughter’s talents. “Your mother was right.”

She finally reeled in her tongue and closed her mouth. “About whaz, Pop?”

“You are my daughter.” Henry stuck out his tongue and demonstrated his own ability with a brief episode of dexterity.

“And I thought it was just fancy whistling that you were teaching me.” Brooke winked and mimicked her father’s actions with her own.

Taking several small steps, Samuel finally got the dual tongue display in his view. Stopping dead in his tracks at the sight, he covered his eyes with his hands. “Oh God!”

Brooke’s heart started racing with the sound of the familiar phrase and she quickly looked over to her future father-in-law and grinned. “Yep, and the apple didn’t fall far from that tree either.” She swept the room with her gaze, a broad smile spreading across her face. “I’m telling you, it works every time.”

The bride-to-be came walking back into the room with Ida following close behind, the two still carrying on in mid conversation. “Yeah, well thanks for that,” Sam put her hand out to steady herself against the wall as she rounded the corner from the hallway into the party room. “Oh, lost my balance a little there. You’d think I’d know this path by now, I’ve taken it so many times.”

“Are you okay?” Ida grabbed at Sam’s arm and guided her slightly.

The blonde giggled then went back to her previous train of thought. “Thanks for that refreshment…no, refreshing conversa…talk. Let’s do it again, sometime.” Sam furrowed her brow as though she were deep in thought. “Do we get refreshment…no…coffee…” she stopped in mid sentence, then started over again. “Do we get breaks like this at work?”

“Hardly,” Ida nudged Sam in the direction of her seat. “Your boss is a real slave driver.” The older woman watched out for her Boss’s love interest as Sam plopped down into her chair, then moved around the group to take her own seat.

Fanning herself with both hands, Sam turned toward her sister, who was sitting next to her. “Whew! It’s getting warm in here. Don’t you think?”

Amid the concealed chuckles and giggles of the bathroom travelers, Sarah answered her. “It must be that ski clothing that you’re still wearing, Sis.”

Hearing the reasoning of the teen, Randi and Crystal looked at each other and grinned, knowing full well what was making Sam so warm.

“I don’t know what you all are getting so giddy about.” Mable looked around the room at the women on either side of her. “The poor girl’s dressed for the ski slopes and here we are inside and enough bodies around her to make anybody warm.” The matriarch looked over to Sam, “Sweetheart, do you need another drink?”

As if on cue, the bride-to-be started to get up from her seat, ready for another bathroom trip.

Mable listened to the sound of cackling voices all around her as she showed her concern for Sam. “What’s so funny?”

Sarah studied her rather flushed looking sister for a moment, then tugged her back down into her seat and handed her a present. “Open mine next, Sam.” She looked to her sister with hope in her green eyes. “Please?”

“Sure, Sarah.” Sam took the box. “Let’s see what you got me.” The bride-to–be smiled at her sister, then quickly pulled off the decorative wrapping and opened the box. “Oh my!” Sam paused from saying anything more as she tried to focus on the articles in the box. Gingerly, she reached in and took the first piece out, holding the delicate looking sheer material in her hands for all to see.

“Whoa! That’s some nice looking top there. That sure ain’t no winter nightie.” Crystal voiced her opinion as she half stood up trying to peek into the box. “Let’s see the rest.”

“Sure it will keep her warm. That warming will happen about ten seconds after Brooke sees it and then everything will heat up.” C.C. shot a glance to her ex-roomie and teased. “Won’t it, Sam?”

The blonde smiled, her face a continual shade of red now from the alcohol. “Whatever you say, C.C.” Sam giggled. She laid the top down and picked up the remaining piece in the box. Holding it up, she tried to decipher where it was to be worn. The two spaghetti-looking straps confused her and she looked at the size of the article again.

“Sarah, I may have to return this. It doesn’t seem to be the right size.” Sam held it up by the waistband, stretching it open to look through it, seeing Mable’s face outlined by the two thin straps. “I’ll never be able to fit my head in between those straps.”

The giggles started all over again as they realized that it wasn’t Sam’s head that needed to be there.

“Sam…” C.C. called to her friend as she watched her try to make sense of the piece from every conceivable angle. “Sam…” she said a little louder.

“What, C.C.?”

“Sam, they’re crotch-less panties with a matching top.” C.C. giggled. “That piece is not the top.”

The blonde’s eyes got bigger as she slowly turned the article of clothing to its correct position. “Well, I hope you didn’t pay full price for these, they seem to be missing some material.” The blonde looked up at the sound of laughter erupting around her. She looked to her sister. “Sarah, why would you get me these?”

“Well,” the teen shrugged her shoulders. “I figured that Brooke wouldn’t mind you finding religion in bed as long as you wore something ah…” Sarah smiled devilishly, “…inspirational.”

“Oh God.”

“C.C. took me to get them,” Sarah started to point the blame. “She said that Victoria’s Secrets was the only place that you shopped besides Frederick’s and there wasn’t any of those around.”

“Oh God.” The bride-to-be brought her hand to her face and hid in the material she was holding.

“Yeah, well you picked them out, Sarah,” C.C. tried to shift the blame away from herself.