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The look on George's face was almost worth the embarrassment. "Every time, I mean, every time I start to think that this situation cannot possibly find a way to get more mental, and then you want me to what?"
"Let me try to ride along some time when you and Nina have sex?" All right, when she said it again out loud like that it did sound sort of mental, yes, but what was a ghost to do, really? And at least she was asking, it wasn't like she was one of those creepy horror-movie ghosts who just went ahead and licked you when you were asleep, or anything...
"It's not like sitting in on a lecture at uni, it's, it's... it's personal."
"George. I'm a ghost. I'm a ghost who was linked to the place where I died. So far as having to listen to your flatties having sex goes, that house was basically me. Think about it for a minute."
George obviously was, by the colour his ears were turning. "So, what you're basically saying is, you've already sort of been a... guest, whether we liked it or not. Oh, my god, you would, you would have, everything, since me and Mitchell moved... I mean, when he brought home those dirty DVDs as a gag, or..."
"Or that night you and him got hammered and started going at it on the sofa, yeah." George's blush spread further down his neck. "So it's not like it wouldn't be anything I hadn't already had to put up with, it's just... a bit more deliberate?"
"Oh, god, this is worse than the time my Mum got into my — And I'll bet you've already talked Nina into this, haven't you, oh, my god..."
"Actually... it was sort of her idea?"
"What?"
"Well, I was telling her about that time I had you try tasting food for me, and we got to wondering about what else I might be able to do in that line, and... Erm?"
"Nina!"
Nina clumped down the stairs and took one look at George: "You've put it to him, then."
"Yes, she's 'put it to me', what the hell are the two of you thinking? This is mental, I mean, it's... it's an invasion of our privacy, even if Annie can't help it sometimes, and it's completely insane even if I thought it was going to work."
"It's not like I was just going to climb into bed with the two of you one night or something! And I, that is, we... erm..."
"We've already had a go," Nina said.
That seemed to stop George's train of thought in its tracks, or possibly derail it altogether. "Come again?" he enquired, blinking.
Nina cleared her throat. "Well, it's just, that, erm... In the interests of science, it seemed better to begin by approaching this... scientifically. By... well... Some small initial tests?"
George had evidently gone straight to where Annie would have expected most blokes to go with that, surprised speculation elbowing aside the stunned and offended in his eyes. "You're telling me that the two of you... have... had..."
"For certain definitions of — I may have been a... little drunk. The point is, George, we've established that the basic premise, erm, holds, and... Well. This seemed like one logical direction to continue... research?"
"I wouldn't ask if it was anyone else, George," Annie said. "You're my best mates, I... Being here, with Mitchell and the two of you, it's like staring through a window at something that you can never have, ever again, and I... I just need to feel something, even if it's just once. I need for the feeling of Owen's hands pushing me down the stairs not to be the last touch I remember."
And George blinked, his face finally softening from its initial hurt and confusion, and nodded. "Oh. Ah... yeah, I suppose I can see that's... All right."
How all right George actually was with it once they'd got as far as the bedroom was subject to question, though. "You're sure you wouldn't rather just, erm... watch from over there, or something?" he offered wanly, glancing askance at Annie as she flopped onto the bed beside Nina.
"Could have just downloaded some porn for that."
George sighed, deep and heartfelt, and sat down on the bed on Nina's opposite side. "You'd think I'd be happier about having two beautiful women in my bed."
"You're a romantic." Nina shrugged. "And clearly haven't been being invited to enough orgies."
"Mitchell would be all over this," Annie agreed, grinning at the thought.
"You're making me think about Mitchell and sex at the same time," George said forlornly.
"The sofa, George."
"...Let me rephrase that, you're making me think about Mitchell and sex and all of us at the same time."
"Not nearly enough orgies."
Nina had by now shimmied out of her camisole, laying it carefully aside over the headboard. Not hard to mark the direction of George's attention as his hands faltered over his own buttons. "Wish I could, you know, take my top off or something, maybe that might help... put you at your ease?" Annie offered.
"I'm not entirely sure that getting them out would actually improve the situation."
"Come on, George, we know Mitchell thinks about them." Annie plucked at her shirt. "If I'd known these clothes were going to be my eternal death-shroud, I'd have worn a different bra."
George had managed to drag his eyes back up about a foot. "You're very... comfortable, about this," he said to Nina as she tossed aside her knickers.
She gave him a look that was about equal parts I am a bloody nurse, you do recall and I wasn't joking about the orgies. "Yes, well, nothing like waking up naked in the woods every month to make you re-evaluate your inhibitions."
"I like my inhibitions where they are, thanks."
And his pants, apparently. "Look, I've seen you both turning into giant hairy man-wolves, this could hardly be any more intimate than that. Really, George, you're making such a big deal out of it."
"Because this isn't at all weird. Maybe you could... wear a blindfold, yeah?"
"Now who's the kinky one?" But Annie turned away to give George some space to finish disrobing and tuck himself safely under cover of the duvet. (Or whichever way round he'd done it, for someone who did wake up naked in the woods all the time he could be awfully modest.) "Just... Pretend I'm not here. Do what comes naturally."
George buried his face in the pillow. "Oh, god, now I'm going to be hearing David Attenborough giving a running narration on the mating habits of the British werewolf."
Bless her, Nina managed to laugh at the joke and not at George, wry fond look warming into concern. "We don't have to do this if you're really not okay with it," she said, stroking his arm. "If you're... having a real issue —"
A flash of a different sort of alarm, here, one that Annie almost suspected was the realisation that a chance was about to slip out of his grasp and for once he had it within his ability to address that. "No, it's all right, it's..." And a shy, clever smile: "Do you want me to show us on the doll?"
Which was George, sweet, bonkers George, and that look ordinarily would have been Annie's cue to withdraw, to the extent that she could when she always had that subliminal awareness of the bounds of her house, her haunt, and what was going on within it. She had to resist the instinct to blink away downstairs to fuss over the kettle. Instead she settled herself in a better spot amongst the pillows as the two werewolves began nipping at each other beneath the duvet. (Where was she supposed to look?) Nina reached up for her hand, drawing it to where Annie could rest fingers on the other woman's temple like they'd... practised, yeah. Just like that.
This was... this was somewhere between mad science and an improv game, trying to submerge into someone else's head. Annie closed her eyes to focus on sensations; nothing here like seeing, exactly. More of an... awareness, the brush of lips against hers (she hadn't really thought about that, what it would be like to kiss George, which was probably Mitchell's fault for having such sexy... eyebrows), the faintest suggestion of warmth and skin, the gentle drag as Nina ran her fingers through George's hair. It felt easier to be Nina, she had some of the same shapes in her head, and the wolf as much a part of her now as the scars George nuzzled so reverently on his way to, erm (and that was a bit of a surprise, though she supposed it stood to reason a werewolf would be all for getting a good scent of his mate), considerate of him to think first of concentrating on his partner's... partners' enjoyment, with this tender attention at her — at Nina's — at her — and Nina was, Nina was, Nina was enjoying this, very very much —
Oh. She remembered this.
Riding a crest of borrowed ecstasy over and down, becoming the shudder of a wolf howling her joy at the moon... It should have been creepy, George was right. But... You're sharing this with your friends, your friends who you love. Who love you enough to share this with you. Annie's fingers brushed short hair as he resurfaced with the sparkling shiver of a circuit completing, ripples doubling as they rebounded and merged —
Was that right...? She snuck a peek at George; he certainly seemed surprised about something as well, and not at all averse to it. Oh, far from, a sort of lunatic wonder dawning in his eyes as they met hers... Well then. Fair enough, let them all share in each other's pleasure, and if the neighbours hadn't thought this house next door was haunted before they were certainly wondering about some mysterious shrieks tonight...
She'd ended up between them, ghost lump on the wrong side of the duvet. "That," Annie said, "was brilliant."
George's brow wrinkled with a smile. "Yeah," he agreed, not opening his eyes. "Nina?"
Nina couldn't seem to get her eyes open all the way either, teeth glinting in a deranged smirk. "Just a bit of brain-damage, nothing that wasn't completely worth it."
"You are beautiful, Annie," George said, a bit slurred into the pillow. "'Nd this isn't just me talking bollocks because 'M... yeah. You're Annie. Our Annie."
Annie put a hand to her mouth to cover the grin she felt splitting her face. "I had better go before he proposes to both of us. And Mitchell's going to be home any minute wondering what we're doing for tea." George opened one eye as if this reminder of what he'd been about before this interruption might be enough to send him rushing downstairs to set his kitchen right again straightaway, then squeezed it shut again, clearly giving over to well-shagged bliss. Annie kissed each of them on the forehead, and quietly withdrew.
Mitchell had just come in, standing in the kitchen looking as if he were trying to puzzle out why there appeared to be a cooling shepherd's pie left unattended on the table. "George and Nina forget something and run out to the shops?" he asked, going to set the baking-dish into the fridge.
"We all went upstairs to have sex," Annie said, trying to make it sound like the most reasonable thing in the world.
Mitchell made a distracted noise of acknowledgement. And then, a moment later, reared back out of the fridge with a look of utter consternation; "What was that?"
"Well, it was mostly them, I just sort of... Helped?"
He stared at her, frown deepening, then with a sigh he shook his head: "Every time I miss a house meeting."