Summary: While hosting a TV party at his house to watch the premiere of his humiliating commercials for the world's messiest game show, our intrepid hero casually admits to his best friend that he wouldn't be entirely opposed to trying the thing out again, at least on his own terms. Moments later, a studio is being built in his basement, his wife and best friend are getting very friendly...and it's probably too late to back out now.

Setting: The early Eighties

Author's Note: Warnings for humiliation and alcohol use. Contains some adult content. As the title suggests, this story includes some intimacy between a married couple and a third party, quite possibly to soon include a fourth, in case some readers would wish to avoid that. Also, opinions expressed by the characters do not necessarily represent the author's views. This was originally posted to the now-defunct WAM Story Archive in 2016.

The fun challenge in writing this one was explaining how a couple who weren't by any means well-off would be able to pull off some epic messy funtimes. Sometimes it helps to have a creative best friend...

*****

"Not all the beer in the world could make this better," groaned Todd in utter disbelief, sitting on the couch in his basement with his wife and his best friend watching late-night television after work. Several weeks before, he had been strong-armed into starring in a series of TV spots to advertise the upcoming season of Gunge-A-Palooza, which billed itself as the world's messiest game show, and the humiliation he had suffered at the hands of the show's host that day was now being replayed before his eyes. And his wife's eyes. And his best friend's. And...pretty much the entire 18-to-40 viewing demographic across the nation, but then again, who was keeping track?

Still, one can't blame you for trying, thought Darren, eyeing the empty beverage cans on the coffee table in front of them. "Ugh, I don't remember Sharky being so brutal when we were on the show together," he said aloud, crossing his arms over his chest with disapproval at the host's open mockery of his friend and coworker, who was growing increasingly dejected onscreen with each new round of mistreatment. Enviously confident by nature and used to speaking his mind, Darren looked cautiously over at Todd, who was leaning back into the couch cushions watching the commercials through splayed fingers, one hand drawn over his face in frustration.

"He was much nastier on his home turf," Todd finally admitted, "and I guess you could say he lives up to his name. Keep watching, it gets far worse." Biting his tongue to avoid revealing any more, he recalled the host's parting words after the taping, which had been nothing short of thinly-veiled threats not to complain to anyone else about the way he had been treated.

Todd's participation in the advertisements had been part of a corporate sponsorship contract with the game show that his boss was heavily relying on to bring more visibility to their workplace, a children's party venue. Well aware that any rebellion on his part could put the crucial deal in jeopardy, he had been left with little choice but to submissively take whatever the show host had in store for him, all while unconvincingly smiling for the cameras to somehow maintain the illusion he was actually enjoying himself.

"He's a total sadist! I swear, you can tell he's getting off on this," Darren said in awe, watching Sharky ridicule Todd onscreen for being unable to answer some insanely difficult questions, then take entirely too much pleasure in punishing him with an excessive gunging of chocolate syrup. "I mean, don't take this the wrong way, it's obvious you were told to put on a happy face but you look like you were ready to cry by that point, and the guy just kept dishing it out." Having been somewhat of a bully himself back in the day, he took special offense at the host's smug ways.

I did cry as soon as the camera was off, Todd recalled unhappily, his mind flashing back to the way he had finally been unable to take any more and he'd pulled his knees to his chest, bowing his head in defeat and trying to shut out the sight and sound of the host as he stood trimphantly over him, unable to resist getting in a few final taunts.

"Yeah, Sharky's a first-class jerk," he agreed, trying to shrug casually and taking a long drink from the tall can of beer in his hand before setting it on the coffee table to join its many empty companions, as well as the telephone he'd disconnected from the wall when it had rang one too many times during the airing of the commercials. He'd deal with his newfound notoriety later. "But you know who wasn't?" He gestured to the screen as the emcee's assistant, Star, stood patiently beside him on the stage, the many sequins on her cheerleader's-style costume glittering under the spotlights.

"Wow..." Darren was rendered momentarily speechless at the sight of the young woman who appeared to be around his age. Tall and willowy, she almost appeared to float over the stage rather than actually walk across it, her long plume of feathery golden hair drifting in the air behind her.

"Sounds like you approve." Seated between them with one hand resting supportively on her husband's knee, Cindy couldn't help but smirk as she noticed Darren's reaction.

"Well, duh, she's a total knockout," confessed Darren, who was used to speaking his mind. "I mean, not that you don't look amazing as well," he added, catching himself. Cindy smiled reassuringly at him, letting him know no offense had been taken. In truth, Darren had never found his friend's wife anything shy of attractive, but in a very down-to-Earth way in contrast to Star's movie-star looks. Whether Cindy had time to apply a full regimen of makeup before work or just run a comb through her hair, she always had a genuine smile on her freckled face and infectious enthusiasm for whatever might greet her that day, and he found that beyond appealing. Darren had been thrilled for both parties when she and Todd had finally started dating, as her spunky personality had helped him become at least a little more outgoing.

"Trust me, she's absolutely intimidatingly beautiful in person," Cindy agreed, "and I was a little taken aback when I caught sight of her leaving the studio arm-in-arm with Todd after the taping." Beside her, her husband gulped, a gesture she found endearing. Growing more serious, she continued, "but I quickly realized it was more for mutual support than anything. I could tell he was down about the way he'd been treated -- and, watching this now, I can see exactly why -- but she looked downright devastated." Cindy recalled how troubled the show's assistant had appeared as she'd stammered an apology for whatever had happened in the studio, her heavily made-up eyes reflecting the true remorse she'd felt before she'd hastily excused herself. For his part, Todd had leaned against the car window the entire way home, repeatedly reassuring her he was fine when she'd attempted to ask and yet obviously lost in a world of hurt.

"I guess I can come out and say this, now that this trash has finally been aired on TV," Todd cut in sullenly. "That was Star's first and only day filming with the game show; she actually found Sharky so detestable she just quit on the spot. That's why she's mostly edited out of these spots; she's not going to be on the new season." Feeling guilt welling up, he sighed despondently. "Nice girl, but I feel bad she's probably waiting tables again."

"And just what is wrong with that?" sputtered Darren with mock indignance as his friend fell all over himself apologizing for unwittingly insulting his status as a waiter at their workplace. He snickered. "Nah, it's okay. I get it. It was her first acting gig and she willingly gave it up. I've got to hand it to her, that's some integrity right there."

"Yeah, wherever she is now, I hope she's doing okay. I left that show feeling sorry for myself, at least until it really hit me on the way home that Star was out of a job, and she was the one I should feel bad for." Todd's eyes were locked on the television as his onscreen self floundered clumsily in an oversized pool of thick green gunge, desperately scrabbling for his car keys that Sharky had maliciously thrown in and ordered him to retrieve as the final stunt for the TV spots.

Darren had been unable to resist chuckling at one or two of the first misfortunes his friend had been met with on the show, only to watch the rest in stony silence once it had become apparent just how degrading the host had meant the stunts to be, and this one topped them all.

"Y'know, maybe this will backfire on Sharky," Darren offered as the credits rolled. "Back when this was a kids' show, at least it was fun and playful. With a new format based on revenge and nastiness, it's not like there's gonna be fistfights in the parking lot over who gets to appear on it, so who knows, they might just cancel it altogether."

"One can only hope, right?" asked Todd, cracking open another can of beer while his friend scrambled to find a better topic of conversation.

"Hey, I always meant to ask, you two don't have kids yet so what's with all that stuff in the corner, anyway?" Darren inquired, gesturing to a far corner of the unfinished basement where an array of items were stacked against the wall.

"Oh, those?" Todd shrugged, eyeing a plastic wading pool printed up with images of cartoon characters, several folding lawn chairs and a deflated plastic pool raft. "The previous renters left in a hurry, but the landlord's a good guy and told me to keep their outdoor stuff around in case they come back for it, though just between you and me I doubt they will this late in the game. It doesn't take up much space so I hardly mind." He missed his friend's sly smirk.

"Why the pool raft when there's no pool?" Todd began to tell him about a pond located on the adjoining property when Darren cut him off, this time jabbing a finger at the cinder-block wall nearby. "Okay, and who puts a shower in their basement?" he asked, squinting at the utilitarian design of the thing.

"You've seriously never seen one of those before?" Todd rose to his feet unsteadily, wishing he hadn't accepted Darren's challenge to take a drink every time they saw him gunged on TV. Eager to demonstrate the device as well as share some knowledge, he walked over and twisted one of the simple valves on the wall, watching rusty water dribble from the showerhead. "Ha, that's probably the first time it's been used in years, but the thing still works. These were actually really common in the post-war housing boom; the couple would dig out the basement first and live there while they built their home overhead. Of course, they needed to shower in the meantime, so this was a temporary solution. I'm sure there was once a commode as well but it's been taken out."

Darren nodded, impressed. "Hey, if you're ever struck by the sudden need to shower in your basement, at least it's there, right?"

*****

Well into the season premiere of Gunge-A-Palooza that immediately followed the TV spots, the small cluster of beer cans on the coffee table had grown into a wobbly pyramid, contributed to by all three parties. By mutual agreement it was soon decided that Darren was in no shape to drive and should spend the night, and Cindy graciously brought him a spare pillow and several blankets. The trio lounged on the couch, with Cindy sprawled across the two men, neither she nor Todd taking offense when Darren eventually gathered the courage to stroke her long legs that rested over his lap. His moves were affectionate, maybe even sensual, but also non-threatening as he frequently glanced her way for approval or lack thereof. Eventually, emboldened by the alcohol and encouraged by Todd's sufficiently glassy-eyed expression, he asked the question that had been on his mind forever.

"So I've got to ask, if you had such a lousy time on the show and hated getting all that stuff on you, what was with your little messy makeout session after-hours at work?" Todd's face went pale, but Darren pressed on. "Y'know, in the party room, after everyone else went home for the night? I kinda thought you were into that kind of stuff."

"Who told you about that?" Todd gasped in shock, his hands freezing in place where they'd been busily massaging Cindy's shoulders.

Darren's grin widened. "Two words, dude: security cameras." He could only afford to see his friend in a state of sheer panic for so long before he eventually broke down and told the truth. "Nah, I'm kidding, you can check for yourself, there are no cameras." Doubled over in a fit of mischievous laughter at having got one over on Todd and inadvertantly hugging Cindy's legs against his chest, he finally straightened, fixing his best friend with a knowing look.

"Calm down, I'm probably the only one who knows about it, but the one morning I was taking some bags out to the trash bin out back and that plastic tablecloth you'd rolled up from the party room was hanging out of it, just flapping in the breeze. There were slimy handprints and smashed food all over it and it wasn't too hard to guess what had gone down--"

Todd cut him off, uncharacteristically shrugging off the situation as he leaned back on the sofa with his arms behind his head, though his face did grow somewhat flushed. "Okay, so we did get carried away, but nobody else was there and besides, we're married so who cares? It just sorta happened, and it was fun on our own terms and without Sharky around." His mind flashed back to the impulsive food fight he'd engaged in with his wife and the passionate encounter that had followed.

"I never said I was judging, although it is a little ironic that the quietest guy at work secretly managed to out-kink everyone else," Darren countered, his wicked grin never fading as he caressed Cindy's ankles. Even in cheap foam sandals, jeans and a t-shirt that was a freebie meant to advertise their workplace, she still managed to look incredible. "In fact, I've been meaning to ask you this. Y'see, I've been sorta seeing this girl, nothing too serious yet, but she's, uh, familiar with Gunge-A-Palooza and she's been giving me a few hints that she'd love for me to get her messy." He laughed awkwardly, for once sounding self-conscious, while Cindy pulled back her legs, regarding him thoughtfully from her position cuddled against Todd. "I'm new to all this and maybe a little nervous I'll do the wrong thing, so...how exactly does that work out?"

"You've found someone? I'm so happy for you!" Cindy leaned forward on the couch, grasping Darren's hands in hers eagerly, her joy for her friend genuine as she had been able to tell that he often felt like a third wheel when they hung out together. "I've got it!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, releasing Darren's hands to reach for her drink. "You should practice what you plan to do before you meet up with your girl, but you'd need a partner..."

"I see where this is going," Todd groaned. "That's it, you're cut off," he joked, half-heartedly attempting to wiggle Cindy's can of beer from her hand. She tightened her grip on it and playfully pressed him back against the couch cushion with one arm, then sent a light splash of the beverage his way.

"No, seriously," she pressed on, undeterred by her husband's protest as she watched him trying to hide his grin while wiping the sudsy brew off his arms. "We could do a practice run and I'd even fill in for her. No pressure, just some silly fun between friends, and then you'd be confident about trying this with her. When do you want to go for it?"

She was hardly expecting Darren's sudden reply of now, but Todd waved a hand dismissively at the idea.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to this," he said while smirking. Despite his earlier protests, the idea of watching his wife voluntarily getting messy was more than a little enticing, as she'd never been anything less than enthusiastic about it, between their initial appearance on Gunge-A-Palooza together and the food fight at their workplace. "But we can't go raiding the fridge upstairs. There's maybe half a carton of milk and a jar of peanut butter left until payday and we've got plans in mind to actually eat that stuff. Oh, and the beer, which is definitely not getting poured anywhere but into our mouths. You'll have to bring your own supplies for your little game."

To his shock, Darren snapped his fingers, grinning deviously. "I've already got that one covered. I was kind of counting on you guys agreeing to this. Help me bring some stuff in from my car?" He locked eyes with Todd, who was already conceding defeat to his friend's well-concocted scheme. "It's kinda too late to back out of this one now."

*****

"Darren!" exclaimed Todd, standing in his driveway in utter shock once his friend had lifted the trunk lid of the ridiculous land yacht of a car he drove, revealing dozens of containers he recognized as the contents of their restaurant's salad and dessert bar. "You're going to get us both fired!"

"Calm down, it's not what you think, and I didn't steal any of this," his friend insisted, hefting the first metal bin from the trunk. "I take my job as 'Assistant Kitchen Manager-in-Training' very seriously and would never stoop to that level. When I got to work first thing in the morning, I discovered some fool had mistakenly unplugged the refrigeration on the bar, and everything had sat out a little too long to safely serve it to our guests." He grinned, proud of his solution. "So I had the staff replace everything with fresh items, while I stowed the questionable stuff in the walk-in refrigerator to see what the boss wanted to do with it. Right before close, he finally showed up and said it needed to go, so I volunteered to take it out to the trash bin. Somehow my hands slipped and it all ended up in the trunk instead," he finished, an expression of mock innocence on his face.

Todd couldn't prevent a smirk from playing across his face as he picked up another bin. That far-fetched, long-winded explanation was so typical of his best friend! "Sometimes I can't believe you manage to get away with this kind of stuff," he admitted. "And by the way, you're cleaning up afterward."

*****

Still wondering how he had allowed Darren to talk him into taking part in his plans, Todd helped carry the covered containers of food into the walk-in basement, obeying his friend's orders not to peek under any of the metal lids. By the time he'd returned from the refrigerator with another round of drinks, Darren had already slid the wading pool out from its storage place against the wall, setting up a webbed lawn chair in the center of it.

Huh. I thought you said you had no clue how this messy stuff works and yet you've set up your own little studio, Todd thought, his head swimming from the alcohol he'd consumed. It's almost like you thought this one out way ahead of time. Knowing Darren, he certainly had.

*****

While her husband dutifully carried the food trays inside, Cindy discretely pulled Darren aside to ask him a few questions about his new girl, including her style of dress, and she giddily made her way up to the bedroom, shuffling through clothes in the closet until she found something that approximated what he'd described.

"Whoa," Todd said in awe when she descended the stairs, dressed in a fluttery red tank top with rows of ruffles across the front. Brief denim shorts and a pair of sandals topped with foam flowers completed her outfit, a far cry from her usual devil-may-care style of dress. "Those are some sweet threads, but aren't they going to get wrecked?" Their clothing budget was as limited as their food budget; in fact, through repeated launderings and out of sheer necessity he'd salvaged the jeans and t-shirt he'd worn to the Gunge-a-Palooza taping, and he feared she would regret having destroyed an outfit in the morning. Especially one he would definitely not mind seeing her in again.

"No fears, they're remarkably washable, and the tank was a gift I received years ago, but it's not really my style so that's why you probably never saw me wear it before," Cindy reassured him as she stepped delicately into the empty wading pool, settling onto the lawn chair and crossing her legs daintily at her ankles in a way that was lost on neither Todd nor Darren. Tugging at the ruffly top, she pointed out that it was polyester and probably hard to stain permanently. "The shorts will be fine, too, but I don't even wear them out of the house. I found out after I bought them that they don't cover nearly enough. Live and learn, I guess."

*****

"Watching that silly show together was so much fun, but now can I find out what that 'sweet surprise' is you said you had in store for me?" Cindy asked, an inflection of naivete in her voice as she put her limited acting skills to use portraying Darren's mysterious new girlfriend. "Don't leave me waiting, I want to see it for myself, although I think I have some idea where this is going."

Stealing a look Todd's way, she was amused when he shook his head in feigned exasperation from his seat on the sofa, but the eager expression he couldn't quite wipe from his face betrayed his true reaction to what he was witnessing.

"Mmm, you're gonna see a lot more than that," Darren boasted, scarcely believing his luck that he had such an accommodating friend. Moving behind Cindy, he tilted the contents of the nearest bin over her, and she gasped in surprise as the chocolate pudding oozed slowly over her hair.

"Don't move," Darren hissed when she dipped her head forward, sending the flow mostly down her back and away from her face. The dessert was still formidably cold, and as it made its gradual descent over her body, she couldn't resist ignoring his advice to rub her arms to ward off the chill.

"Darren!" she finally cried in mock indignation, running her hands through her hair and then bringing them in front of her face for inspection, then flicked the globs of pudding into the bottom of the pool, where they landed at her feet, lightly spattering her sandals. "I can't believe you actually did that!" Her friend fixed her with a deviant grin, already thrilled at the results from his mischief.

"Well, babe, you'll find I'm full of surprises, and I'm hardly done yet." Fumbling for another food bin, he discretely removed its lid while Cindy was preoccupied with gauging Todd's reaction. Though he gave her a simple thumbs-up gesture, his face had already grown flushed, and he tried to brush it off by taking a sudden interest in the small print on his beer can.

"There's just one thing; I can tell you're so chilled that you're rubbing your arms," Darren teased. "May I help you with that?"

Cindy gamely agreed and he withdrew his hands from the container behind his back, revealing both contained a generous scoop of chocolate pudding, and clamped them to her bare shoulders. As Darren smoothed the mess over her arms, Cindy couldn't help throwing them around his neck, transferring a small amount of muck to his shirt collar. When his massage reached the crest of her tank top and he gave her a questioning look, she gave him the faintest perceptible nod, but out of respect he turned Todd's way as well, unwilling to reach that territory with his friend's spouse without explicit permission.

"I...I guess, maybe. Sure," Todd stammered, unable to resist staring as his friend's hands worked their way over Cindy's chest. Darren may have been new to messy play, but when it came to intimacy he clearly knew what he was doing, leaving his friend strangely transfixed seeing his wife react to his skilled touch.

"Darren..." Cindy sighed, all pretenses of acting gone as his hands worked over her breasts, the gauzy ruffles of her tank top now slick with pudding and clinging to the fabric of the shirt itself.

"Darren!" Todd exclaimed with such sudden alarm in his voice that the other parties froze and looked his way. "I...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wreck things," he quickly corrected himself, feeling his face positively burning now. "I'm sure your girl will love that when you try it with her, but for the practice session, at least keep 'em above the waist, okay? We're not swingers or anything." Mortified, he crunched down into the couch cushion, wishing it could swallow him whole. He may not have been able to resist raising an objection, but what he was witnessing was beyond a turn-on.

"I'll, uh, be right back," he excused himself, leaving Darren and Cindy to exchange confused looks over his abrupt change of heart. After a few moments of solitude in the basement, Darren finally broke the silence with a characteristic snicker.

"He's pulling the old 'stick in the mud' act really well, but he's really just changing out of his work uniform so he can join in, isn't he?"

Before Cindy could answer, she felt the neckline of her tank top deftly pulled forward and Darren's gaze drifted lower. She clapped a sticky hand to her forehead, scarcely believing she was spontaneously going this far with a mutual best friend. But Todd did say it was all okay if we stayed above the waist, and he is headed down here to join us, right?

"I thought you'd lost the bra when you changed, but whether that was for me or for him or even for both of us, I won't even dare to ask. Man, is he lucky!" Still holding her top open to expose her, Darren pushed a double-handful of whipped topping down the front, then crushed her against himself in a hug, only pulling her into a kiss after she'd given him a discreet wink of approval. Feeling the melted topping oozing beneath her tank top and onto her shorts, Cindy fumbled to whisk away the errant mess, only to have Darren gently seize her wrists and bring them to her sides.

"Ssh," he reassured her, his hands now unabashedly roaming over her soaked clothing that lay over the contours of her body. "I'd never dream of coming between you two, but I want to have you hot and ready for him."

"Keep this up much longer and I might be hot and ready for anything, so now that we've gone this far, you'd better make sure it ends well, one way or another," Cindy responded truthfully, her voice husky as Darren, kneeling in the mess that had gathered in the pool, grasped the back of her shorts and pulled her closer, the first few fingers of each hand clutching the denim fabric tightly and the rest pressed directly against her exposed skin.

Moments later their flirtation ended when Todd descended the stairs, dressed exactly as they'd predicted in his stained t-shirt from the filming, but accompanied by Star, the former assistant from the game show who had just knocked at the front door. She promptly clamped a hand to her mouth in amusement at the sight of the duo in the wading pool, catching sight of the multiple types of mess covering them both and more unused food containers sitting nearby.

"Darren, you could have told me you were dating the Gunge-A-Palooza girl," Todd began, breaking into laughter before continuing. "Let alone that you'd told her to meet us here!" He shrugged helplessly in Star's direction. "Don't get me wrong, I hated that game show as much as you did, but it might have set off something. We're all a little weird here; I guess join the club?"

"You should follow your own advice," Darren said, taking two handfuls of his friend's shirt and tugging him into the wading pool, where he promptly slid in the muck and fell onto his backside in the spilled pudding amidst giggles from his wife. Not releasing his grip, he leaned in close, exchanging amused grins with his friend. "Unless three's a crowd?"

(To be continued...)