Sheldon knocked three times on Penny's door, calling her name. Then he repeated the sequence two more times. He usually found the familiar repetition comforting, but not tonight. The woman in question opened the door to her apartment. He raised an eyebrow at her appearance. She was wearing… well, hardly anything. Nothing but a sports bra and a pair of barely-there shorts. A large percentage of her smooth, golden-tanned skin was exposed and seemed to glisten in the light. She sagged against the doorframe as if she were tired, but she summoned up a smile for him. "What's up, buttercup?"

His attention snapped back to his dilemma. "I'm caught between the grasp of two conflicting exigencies."

"Huh?"

"Or as you might say, between a rock and a hard place. May I come in?"

"Sure, why not?" She opened the door wider and stepped aside, noting the takeout bag in his hand. "Hey, is that your dinner? I thought you refused to eat dinner anywhere but in your apartment, in your 0,0,0 spot."

He didn't even bother correcting her about leaving off that last zero for his 0,0,0,0 spot. She tried to understand him and accommodate him, and right now, that was more than he could say for his other so-called friends. Plus, his food was getting cold. He entered her apartment but stopped and glanced around uncertainly. "It's rather warm in here."

"Yeah, my air conditioning's out," she replied with a shrug as she closed the door.

"Then why are you using candles for illumination?"

She scowled at him. "Fine, you got me. I'm trying to save money. My utilities bill last month was more than what my car's worth."

He shook his head. "I have no intention of dining under such adverse conditions," he said and turned to leave.

"Wait… please don't go." She caught at his arm. He paused and stared pointedly where she was touching him until she let go with a roll of her eyes.

Penny bit her lip. "You know, I thought I did the right thing, breaking up with Leonard. I knew I didn't feel the same way about him that he did about me. But I kind of regret it now because I've been cut off from all of you guys. Priya doesn't want me hanging out with Leonard at all, so I feel like I can't even come over for Halo nights. You're the only one who's gone out of your way to spend time with me. I've been feeling really lonely lately, so I wish you'd stay."

"Is that a tier one friendship request?" he asked.

"Does it have to be?" she asked softly.

Without knowing why, he found himself saying, "No," without stopping to consider his answer. Curious, he thought. Compelled by an impulse he didn't quite understand, he entered her apartment. He set his dinner down on the coffee table. Then he looked around, realizing he had forgotten something in his hurried exit "Drat. I require a beverage," he grumbled.

Penny had sprawled loose-limbed over a chair, fanning herself with one hand. "Help yourself," she said, waving toward the fridge.

He quickly crossed the combined living area into the galley kitchen. Opening her refrigerator, he sighed loudly. "The only beverages you have are wine and wine coolers."

"So?"

"So what if you have a guest over?"

"Then they can drink wine or wine coolers… or tap water."

He shuddered dramatically. "Perish the thought."

She padded over to stand behind him, sighing in contentment as she felt the cool draft on her skin. "Why don't you just walk the ten feet over to your own apartment and get yourself a drink?"

"I'm afraid that's impossible." He selected a wine cooler with a dubious expression.

She leaned in behind him and snagged the bottle full of some cheap red vintage. "Whatever... your food's getting cold."

With a high-pitched whimper of distress, he hurried back to the loveseat, drink in hand. He shifted several times on the cushions to try to find a comfortable position. Giving it up as a wasted effort, he tucked into his meal. Penny had stretched out in the chair again. She held the wine bottle by the neck and alternated drinking from it and rubbing the cold glass along her limbs.

After a few minutes, he stopped and looked at her. "Have you eaten?"

She waved the bottle at him in response. "Nope. This is my dinner. You saw my fridge. Right now, I think it contains nothing but half a jar of olives and a few soy sauce packets."

He sighed and set down his fork. Nothing was going right this evening. Had he known he was going to end up eating dinner here, he would have ordered food for her as well. Since his routine had already been "shot to hell", as his dad used to say, it might as well be disrupted further. With another sigh, he rose and got a plate and fork from Penny's kitchen cabinets. Then he carefully scraped half of his mee krob onto the plate and held it out to her.

"You're… you're sharing your food with me?" she stammered.

"Consider it an equable distribution of resources," he replied, picking up his phone. With a few taps, he had placed another order to be delivered to her apartment, although it wouldn't arrive for an hour. "I suppose a partial meal is commensurate reimbursement for hosting me in your stygian abode."

She rolled her eyes at him again but picked up her plate. The food disappeared quickly.

"So did Leonard kick you out for the evening?" she asked as she finished the last of the tiny meal.

"No, I would never have allowed such a ridiculous proviso in the roommate agreement. But he is indirectly the cause of my presence here, or rather, his betrayal of a friend is."

Penny's eyebrows rose. "What'd he do now?"

"As you know, he has entered into a carnal relationship with Rajesh's sister after specifically promising not to do so. While I have never been furnished with a written copy of the Bro Code, I believe that violates more than one of its rules."

"Not to mention Raj's sister," she quipped.

"Precisely," he replied, and then gave her an uncertain glance. "Was that a joke?"

"Yup."

He wheezed the breathy gasp that passed for a laugh with him. "Very good, Penny."

"So that's why you left?" she asked. "Not that I blame you," she added in a low aside.

"No, Raj made a tier-one friendship request that I boycott any romantic assignations that might occur in our apartment."

"Holy crap, that worked? I wish I would've thought of that."

He gave her an exasperated look. "Priya came over to have dinner with us, but they didn't even finish their food. Shortly after our order from Siam Palace was delivered, she leaned over and whispered something in Leonard's ear. Of course, I heard it perfectly, but if I were to repeat it out loud, I can't guarantee I wouldn't regurgitate my dinner."

"Eww," Penny said, wrinkling up her nose.

"My thoughts exactly," he replied. Then he frowned. "It's still too hot in here." He picked up the bottle in front of him and only then noticed it was empty.

Penny glanced from him to the bottle. "Are you sure you're not drunk? You're the only person I know who could toss their cookies after one wine cooler."

"No, actually, I find this beverage refreshing and pleasantly fruity. As a host, you have been remiss in your duties by not offering me another one."

She opened her mouth, but then apparently reconsidered her reply. Instead, she grabbed another cooler from the fridge for him. When she came back, she sat down next to him on the loveseat. She smirked at him when he didn't scoot away or complain about her proximity.

Instead he complained, "I'm getting overheated." He tugged ineffectually on the collars of his double-layered shirts.

"You're wearing two shirts. You could take one of them off," she said, arching an eyebrow at him. "Why do you wear two shirts at a time anyway?"

"Under ordinary circumstances, I am perfectly comfortable dressed in layers. However, in this hellish environment-"

Penny groaned. "Will you just shut up about my apartment and take off your shirt?" she cried.

She was starting to irritate him, especially since she was right. Her suggestion was, unfortunately, a perfect example of Occam's Razor: the simplest solution was often the best. With a growl of frustration, he stood, yanked both shirts off over his head and tossed them down onto a nearby chair.

"There! Is that sufficient for you, or must I be subjected to more of your verbal harassment?" he grumbled.

Penny's eyebrows rose as her eyes flicked over the sight of his naked chest. Her gaze dropped lower, and she smirked at him again. "Oh yeah, this is good," she murmured.

His heart rate started to speed up. This wasn't the first time he had realized that a woman was looking at him in admiration, but he had simply never cared before. The way she was eyeing his chest made him decidedly nervous. Perhaps he could distract her.

"We should play a game," he blurted out. "Do you have Klingon Boggle?"

"Actually, I think you should tell me how things are going with Amy," she said with a sly grin, reaching out to slap his knee playfully. "Are you ready to take the slash out of 'girl-slash-friend'?"

He peered at her in confusion. "Are you implying that Amy is a lesbian? Because I must admit there are certain indications that she might be, notably her obsession with your perfect figure." Perfect? Did I just call Penny perfect? he wondered. He was starting to feel a little lightheaded. He frowned thoughtfully and peered at her feminine attributes. Every line of her body was graceful, supple, and aesthetically pleasing.

"What? That's not what I meant!" she cried.

Suddenly aware that he had been staring at her soft curves, he yanked his gaze back to her face.

"I think she's just jealous," Penny continued. "I mean, I hope that's all it is. But I wanted to know when you're going to officially ask her out. Where did that lesbian stuff come in?"

He was having a hard time following the conversation, but he dredged up the appropriate details. "You said slash," he replied. "In fanfiction, that is a term used to denote a homosexual relationship."

Penny squinted at him in confusion. "I don't read fanfiction."

He sighed in disappointment. "Well then, in answer to your question, I have no desire to alter the para- parameters of my friendship with Amy." His tongue stumbled a little over his words. "I appreciate her intellect. She's been helping me with… with various constructs designed to facilitate social interactions at my work." Yes, that was what Amy had called it.

Penny patted his knee. "Honey, the fact that you just used a whole bunch of big, long words to try to say 'be nicer to people' tells me it's probably not working."

"Oh no, I have no intention of being nicer to people," he exclaimed, with a degree of horror which should have been reserved for a suggestion that he dip himself in a vat of bubonic plague. "I wanna trick people into thinking I like them."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course you do. And I'm sure Amy's the expert, seeing that before she met you, everything she learned about friendship came from monkeys in cages."

He frowned thoughtfully. "You know, I think you have a point," he said slowly. "Maybe I should run my ideas by you."

"Yeah, sure, why not?" she asked. She leaned over, snagged the bottle of wine, and drained the last of it.

"Very well. First idea: many people bond over recent sporting events, like, 'Hey Bill, how 'bout those Dodgers?'"

The corners of her mouth turned up. "Yeah, then Bill will say, could you believe that ref's call from the third inning? And you'll stand there with no idea what to say next, because you'd never actually bother to watch a ballgame."

"Hmm. I do believe you're right," he mused. That's the second time tonight."

She gave him an exasperated look. "Don't sound so surprised. Of course I'm better with people than both you and Amy combined. But since I guess that was sort of a complement, I'll let it slide. Okay, what's your next brilliant idea?"

"Shared activities. Perhaps I could invite Gablehauser to join our vintage video game tournaments on Friday nights."

Penny groaned aloud.

"No?" he asked curiously.

"No! The man already thinks you're childish and annoying. Seeing you and your friends playing video games would definitely not help with that impression. Plus, I'm pretty sure at the end of the week he wants to go home and relax, not hang out with the people who drive him crazy all week long. Besides, didn't you try that with Kripke when you tried to make him your friend?"

That had been a huge mistake, he recalled. "Yes, and despite my best efforts to pretend to be his friend, he still refused to let me use the supercomputer!" he cried. "Fine, you're right. Last idea: humor."

"What, your lame physics jokes? I don't think so. Sweetie, you just need to give people a chance to get to know you better. I mean, I thought you were bat-crap crazy when we first met, and yet here I am, hanging out with you and nobody's holding a gun to my head."

He stared at her for a moment and then shook his head. "That won't work. There's no one at Caltech who's as kind and tolerant as you."

Before she could react to what was at least the third compliment he'd paid her in the last half hour, he went on. "But I wasn't going to tell jokes. I used physical comedy. I did this to Amy, and she thought it was funny." With that, he stood up, turned his back to her, and in one swift movement, yanked down his pants and underwear.

"Hello, Dr. Cooper," she murmured from behind his back.

"Well? Is it funny?" he demanded.

Penny stood, knocking over the wine bottle. She didn't bother to pick it up but stood silent.

"What do you think?" he asked.

That was when she stepped in front of him. Her eyes were alight with some inscrutable emotion, and she licked her lips as her gaze traveled down below his waistline. He was entirely exposed, and the situation should have been embarrassing. Instead, he felt a rush of heat, and his body responded to her bold stare. That was enough to spur him to action, and he clapped one hand over his hardening length as he reached for his pants with the other. He became instantly aware that he was in no state to accomplish such a maneuver. He wobbled, lost his balance, and fell toward her. She tried to grab his shoulders to steady him, but his momentum took them both down in a tangle of limbs. With a speed he didn't know he possessed, he managed to wrap his arms around her to break her fall.

He landed heavily on top of her, but he couldn't move. Not only were his arms trapped beneath her body, but his mind was completely occupied, cataloging the sensation of her body beneath his. She was wearing nothing but those two tiny scraps of fabric. He could feel her bare skin pressed up against his almost everywhere else, and the effect was mesmerizing. His one hand, splayed against her back, felt the silken texture of her skin as an exquisite torture.

"Are you alright?" he asked in a low voice, hoping she would shove him away or give him some catalog of injuries to redirect his attention.

Her hands were trapped against his chest and in response, her fingers curled, tangling in the dark mat of hair on his torso. He froze in shock even as he felt his erection grow until it pushed insistently against the juncture of her thighs as if it had a mind of its own. Why didn't she push him away? Why wasn't she… Oh.

His conscious thought process turned off entirely as she slid her hands up behind his neck and pulled his head down to hers. A flash of heat raced through his body as their lips met. She moaned, and the sound caused him to buck his hips against her core. There was a sound in the distance, but it barely registered. All he wanted to do was to lose himself in this flood of sensation: her touch, her voice, the scent of her hair. He wanted more.

But a moment later, a familiar but unwelcome voice fell upon his ears, breaking his trance as effectively as a bucket of ice water.

"Hello, bestie? Leonard told me Sheldon was over here-" Amy's cheerful greeting ended in a shocked gasp. "Sheldon? Penny? What the hell?!"

There was a moment of stunned panic as Penny's eyes met his with an identical expression of horror. They scrambled apart. With no time to pull up his slacks, Sheldon grabbed a throw pillow and clasped it protectively over his groin.

"I don't believe this! How could you do this to me?" Amy cried. She turned to Penny. "You... you man-stealing bitch! You know how hard I've been working on him. I told you my five year plan! What, a couple glasses of wine, and you can't keep your hands off my boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend?" Sheldon repeated incredulously.

He heard Penny whispering profanities under her breath. Aloud, she protested, "No, no, no, Amy. You've got it all wrong. This… this isn't what it looks like."

"Not what it looks like?" Amy snarled, taking a few steps closer.

Sheldon glanced back and forth between the two women. "What does it look like?" he asked in confusion.

"Oh, I don't know… a romantic candlelight dinner, a bottle of wine shared between the two of you... And then you couldn't even wait to get back to the bedroom before you started going at it like two capuchins in heat!" Amy shrieked.

"This is just a big misunderstanding," Penny pleaded. "Sheldon was just telling me about your social friendship experiment. He wanted to know if mooning someone was funny, so he pulled down his pants, and then he tripped…"

"And the rest of his clothes magically disappeared as well? He fell directly on top of you with his arms around you? I may be naive, but I'm not stupid. Besides, it was hard to miss the fact that he was fully aroused!" Amy pointed at the pillow accusingly.

"Not since you walked in," Sheldon said, and only belatedly realized his comment could only make matters worse.

"No, really, that's actually not…" Penny began and then stopped. "Oh, hell, even I wouldn't believe me," she muttered. Then suddenly, she spun and pointed at Sheldon. "He doesn't lie. If you hear it from him, will you believe that there's nothing going on between us?"

Amy scowled and crossed her arms over her chest, but she turned to Sheldon expectantly.

He looked at Penny and then a muscle in his cheek jumped. "I don't know exactly what your intentions were, but I can't completely exclude the possibility that we were about to have coitus."

"Wait, what?" Penny cried.

Amy threw her arms up in the air. "I knew it! We're through! I never want to speak to either of you again!" She stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Penny sank down onto the love seat, put her head in her hands and groaned. With Amy gone at last, Sheldon quickly pulled up his pants. He was about to put his shirts back on as well when he heard a muffled sob. Dropping his clothes, he immediately sat next to Penny and patted her shoulder. "There, there, Sheldon's here."

She buried her head in his shoulder and clung to him tightly. "Why does this always happen to me?" she whispered. "No one's going to believe us. They'll all take her side. They all think I'm a slut. Everyone's going to hate me."

He stroked her hair soothingly for a few minutes as an idea slowly coalesced in his mind. Finally, he said, "What if her suspicions were true? What if we did meet for a romantic liaison? The rest of it-" He swallowed hard. "The rest of it has already proven to be true, hasn't it? You wanted to have coitus with me as much as I did." He was still touching her, caressing her soft skin. She was curled up in his arms as trustingly as a child, and now she raised her head to look at him. Tears glistened along her eyelashes. "You mean you want to tell all our friends that we're... together?"

"Only if it would not be a lie," he answered.

She beamed, wiping away her tears, and slid her hands around his neck. "Sheldon Lee Cooper, are you asking me to be your girlfriend?"

"Yes," he said simply.

"Okay," she whispered. She seemed to melt into his embrace, soft, pliant and eminently desirable. She pulled his head down to hers until their lips were almost touching, and then she grinned wickedly. "If they're gonna talk, let's give them something to really talk about."

Half an hour later, the delivery boy from Siam Palace knocked on the door to apartment 4B. There was no answer. He knocked again and waited with the same result. Swearing under his breath, he was about to turn away when he heard a loud, drawn out moan. Pressing his ear to the door, he listened in gleeful astonishment to the unmistakable sounds of a man and woman getting it on. The woman's cries grew louder and louder until she screamed, "Oh yes, Sheldon, yes, yes, yes!" He heard the man shout in ecstasy a moment later.

The delivery boy drew back in confusion. "How the hell does a guy with a name like Sheldon get that kind of action?" he wondered aloud, shaking his head. Assuming the performance was over, he had just turned to leave when the door opened. A tall, dark-haired man peered around the other side of the door, which was strategically positioned to shield his lower body from sight. The teen was relieved that he did so, because he guessed the guy was completely nude. The taller man held a twenty dollar bill out toward him.

"Uh… are you Sheldon?" The delivery boy couldn't help but ask in astonishment. The guy was really kind of funny looking, not at all the type that you would expect to have a woman screaming his name that loud. He could definitely use some pointers from this guy.

Just as the man opened his mouth to respond, the hottest woman he had ever seen appeared. Her long blonde hair was tousled, her face was glowing, and she was wrapped in just a sheet.

"Who cares about the food, honey; come back to bed. I'm not done with you yet." She grabbed the twenty from her boyfriend's hand, shoved it at the delivery boy and took the food from his slackened grip. "Thanks," she said with a huge smile and quickly closed the door.

Shaking his head, he started back down the steps, muttering in awe to himself, "Damn. Forget pointers; that guy should be giving lessons."