Ellen's Bet

This story had been here at Literotica some time ago. I unpublished it here in favor of publishing it and other stories at --- some place else! I've had to submit this several times because in the previous forewords I mentioned the name of the site where the stories are. Apparently, that's not allowed at Literotica. It was rather off-putting - after all, people generally don't like the implication that they're trying to get away with something or being underhanded. But then I considered that even people who run erotic stories sites get to have their neuroses and insecurities, too.

Anyway, 'wherever' the story is now, it's a free read there, so my thought was I'd make it available again to readers here. Having to go to the trouble of submitting it several times, I suppose, can just be put in the No Good Deed Will Go Unpunished file.

This is chapter one of eight. I've found in the past that it's a good idea at Literotica to submit a chapter, wait to make sure it posts correctly and completely, and then submit the next chapter. So all the chapters will be posting over the next few week.

Enjoy.

BB

Ellen's Bet

Chapter One

I know what happened to me and how it happened. No, wait. I suppose that isn't the right way to phrase the matter: it makes the situation sound too much as if some random event, over which I had no control, befell me. Perhaps the better way to express myself is: I know what I foolishly got myself into. Lately, I'm beginning to understand why this happened, but I still have to decide what I'm going to do about it. That last part has been on my mind a great deal lately.

My name is Ellen Ryan. I'm a thirty-eight-year-old married mother of three, and I'm only beginning to dimly understand why I impulsively placed myself in such jeopardy. Just an insane thing to do on the road? Sub-consciously looking for an illicit thrill? Vera Farmiga's character in Up In The Air has come to mind. Mid-life crisis? I still don't know. I've never been to Las Vegas (not even 'to see the shows'). I don't buy lotto tickets. I don't participate in the office football pools. Yet for some dark reason my mouth engaged itself and I found myself in the middle of this experience.

I have a Master's Degree and do consulting and training in a very specialized field. Most of my work is here in Chicago, where my firm's offices are located, but I travel two or three or four times a year.

A few weeks ago, in early February, 2010, I traveled to work with a firm in Baton Rouge, introducing the staff to all the aspects of a proprietary process they were licensing from us. I was there for the week before the Superbowl and had two more days of work on the Monday and Tuesday after. The mid-thirties-something manager who was my host on behalf of his firm, Patrick, invited me to his home to watch the game. His invitation was a thoughtful courtesy. He and his wife, Roberta, were having a small party and had invited me and four guys from the office, all younger and single.

Patrick told me he invites some of the unattached fellows from the office each year in case they have no other social option to watch the game. Some of them accept; some don't. He told me it's usually different guys from year to year as last year's unattached males have often become somebody's boyfriend this year. Patrick and Roberta's kids were at grandma's for the weekend and were not being picked up until Monday.

I gladly accepted Patrick's invitation. I enjoy watching the game each year, although I have no greater interest in football. Besides, the event would be something to do with an empty day in a town I was visiting for the first time.

The guys and I had been invited for a couple of hours before the game to share a buffet meal with our hosts. The other four guests were all quite young: I'd estimate twenty-three to twenty-six. To the extent I cared about the outcome of the game I was rooting for the Colts, mostly because they play in the state next to ours. My husband, David, lately has found following the Colts to be much more satisfying than watching the frequent gridiron frustrations of our hometown Bears. My hosts and the other guests were all rooting for the Saints, Louisiana's hometown team that plays home games just eighty miles to the south. As we sat around the dining table sharing good food and drink, we also shared our different perspectives on the outcome of the game, and I actually found myself unexpectedly becoming a little contentious and stubborn.

"Well, if you're so sure the Colts are winners I'll happily put a thousand dollars on the Saints," said one of the other guests, Steve, a young man's brashness and thoughtless enthusiasm animating his voice.

"Well, I'd love to take your money from you," I replied without a moment's hesitation, and without a single thought to the import of what I was saying.

Of course, I didn't have the cash to cover a bet of that size. The expression had leapt from my mouth: a demonstration of my sudden confidence in a Colts victory, but all five men had taken my statement to mean I accepted Steve's wager. The other four quickly chimed in that they would make the same bet.

"No, no. I just meant I'm sure the Colts will win," I said. "I don't have that kind of cash on me. You don't think my company hands out that kind of per diem, do you?" The next words came out of my mouth as if someone else controlled my vocal cords. "But that would be quite a pot of money. If you're all willing to put up a thousand dollars, then I'd be willing to bet my ass on the Colts."

Silence fell and I saw five faces bearing looks of confused anticipation. Roberta looked troubled, and she cringed.

"What do you mean, Ellen?" Patrick asked.

A lightheaded feeling engulfed me; my stomach was turning, and I felt giddy as I said, "Simple. You guys put up a thousand dollars each. The Colts win and I take the cash home with me. If the Saints win" (and here I almost faltered but somehow continued, my incredulity at the absurd words emerging from my mouth masked by a contrivance of sophistication) "I'll strip naked and my body is yours until tomorrow morning. It's all I've got to cover the bet with. You can use it in absolutely any way you like. Anything you want, any way you want it."

I couldn't believe the voice speaking those words was mine. My sagacity, in which I take such pride, had utterly abandoned me. I also knew, though, it was my voice and that those were words that, for some dark and unknowable reason, wanted to come out of me. I felt high, like I'd had a couple glasses of wine too many, and I realized the source of my intoxication was the incredible, reckless risk I was taking.

I looked at Roberta and said, "Of course, I don't mean that Patrick should participate."

There are women who shock and fluster easily. That night I discovered Roberta isn't one of them. "He'll take the bet," Roberta said. "His birthday is next week and this will be my little present to him. Of course, if he loses and blows a thousand bucks on those damned Saints he can hardly expect any other present from yours truly."

Patrick looked at me hard and asked, "You're sure about this, Ellen?" He showed a look of skepticism. This was not a proposition he could ever have expected to come from the mouth of the consummate professional from Chicago. On the other hand, maybe he assumed this was simply the kind of thing we urbanites amuse ourselves with in the big city.

I told him, truthfully, I couldn't believe I was doing this, but I was entirely serious about the bet. I would gladly take the money home with me if I won. If I lost I would pay off my end of the bet willingly and consensually, if not gladly.

I specified several conditions, and was frankly amazed and bewildered at how my mind seemed to have a naturally ability to cover the bases quickly and thoroughly. I wanted five thousand dollars in cash on the coffee table by the kickoff. If I lost they were done with me by 7:00 a.m. since I was to lead a 9:00 a.m. training session. There would be absolutely no pictures or videos. I would do oral bare (even flavored condoms in my mouth make me sick to my stomach), but that vaginal sex required a condom.

The young man who'd first offered to risk his cash on the Saints asked, "Condoms for anal, too?"

I'd not even thought of that! My husband and I do anal only infrequently because I don't care for it, so the act ends up a birthday and anniversary and Father's Day treat for him. As the expression goes, any resolute answer is better than the most profound pondering. "Yes," I said, "condoms for anal, too." I thought I said it in a very nonchalant way while thinking, 'Oh, my God! If I lose this how many times will I have to take one up my ass tonight?'

There was an exodus as all five of them left to drive to the nearest ATM to get the cash they required. After they were gone Roberta and I sat on stools at the kitchen island, she picking up little bits of turkey and putting them in her mouth.

I'd learned earlier that she's a lab manager with a firm that does a wide variety of drug and chemical testing.

"So, what's this all about, Ellen?" she asked with a neutral voice.

"God, Roberta, I have no idea," I said truthfully, looking into her eyes and shaking my head slowly. "It just tumbled out of me. I've never done anything remotely like this, and I have no idea where this notion came from. The last bet I made with my husband the loser had to make dinner and clean up the kitchen for a couple days." I felt my face flush. Did she believe my claim that this was far outside the norm for me? Somehow I felt she did understand, and that I could be candid with her. "But it's giving me a hell of a thrill I've never felt before. I want to win the bet, you know, prove that I was right, and I want to win the money, but I'm also terrified of losing. It's a very interesting, I don't know, I guess you'd call it 'tension'. I wonder: what'll I do if I lose?"

Roberta met my eyes with a steady gaze and said, "You're a big girl, Ellen. All grown up. What you'll do is take off your clothes and do what you agreed to do. When you lose a bet like this it's all you can do."

She held my gaze for long moments. Finally, I caught the meaning underlying her comment. I said, "You?"

She nodded and went on to describe an experience she'd had in college. She was twenty-five and in the last year of her graduate program. There were two boys who assisted with her thesis research as a financial aid campus job. They were sophomores, nineteen-year-old undergraduates and football players.

Roberta had studied at a small liberal arts college in the South. The school was small enough that sophomores sometimes made the cut for varsity. These two mostly warmed the bench, but they had some team pride. The big homecoming weekend game was approaching against the traditional rival school, a squad her school's team hadn't beaten in years. She didn't hesitate to tell her two assistants that they were going down that weekend. They thought otherwise and a bet ensued.

"I lost," Roberta said with a shrug of her shoulders and color suffusing her cheeks. "Our team broke its losing streak, but the game went down to the wire. I've never had a feeling in my life like the one I had for those two hours watching the game."

"So, what did you lose?" I asked, wondering if perhaps I was overstepping. I supposed she was relating the story because her bet with the boys had been in some way similar to mine.

"God, look at me. Nine years ago and I'm still blushing about it," she said and continued with a sigh. "The next afternoon, Sunday, I had to go to their dorm room. I stripped and got on one of their beds. All fours. They stripped and high-fived. One got behind me. The other got in front. If I lost I'd agreed to be 'roasted on the dick spit' I think is what they call it these days.

"They both got to do both ends and weren't very nice about it. The one in front made me open my mouth and then slapped my face back and forth with his boner before he stuffed it in my mouth. The one in back jammed his hard-on into me without any warning. When he was done he gave my ass a couple of good slaps and told me what a good fuck I was. The second session didn't go any better.

"It was nothing short of the most total humiliation of my life," she went on, "and made worse by the fact that I was a woman in my mid-twenties and had to submit to this from a couple of teenagers. In their dorm room! I had to face them afterward in the lab for another month, two days a week. Thank God their work on my research finished at the end of the semester and I no longer had to endure their smirks and rude jokes."

She was silent for a moment, clearly in the grip of her recollection, a troubled look on her face. "I'll tell you something," Roberta continued. "I like reading erotic stories on the online sites sometimes. I tend to gravitate toward the ones in which the female character has to have sex because she lost a bet or is being blackmailed or in some other way coerced into sex she wouldn't choose to have. Most of them tell how the woman, as she's getting fucked, has this moment when the eroticism of the moment hits her, she begins to enjoy what's happening to her and she just comes and comes.

"Forget it. When I went to pay off my bet I used the women's bathroom before I went to their room. I didn't have to pee. I just squirted my vagina full of liquid lube. I was terrified of having to pay off a bet like that and knew I would never get turned on. I was right. The idiot behind me told his buddy how wet and ready I was. Asshole!"

I looked at Roberta: her face, her eyes, her hands on the countertop, the one squeezing the other slightly. I suspected I was hearing a story only Patrick had heard before.

Considering my current circumstance, I asked her the question most on my mind. "Why did you make the bet?"

"The same reason you just made this one, I guess," Roberta said. "They told me what they wanted if I lost. The adrenaline rush was incredible. I told them I'd think about it and let them know in a couple of days, but I knew instantly that I was taking the bet.

"It's funny. I didn't see myself losing the bet and having to let them have me, and I didn't see myself winning the bet and watching them pay off. No, I saw myself sitting in the stands that Saturday watching some boys play football, knowing that depending on how the contest went I either would or wouldn't spend part of the next afternoon giving two boys I had no romantic interest in a fuck and a blowjob. The thought of losing and having to pay off was scary and humiliating, and that made the risk I was taking, I don't know, some sort of a big, delicious thrill."

I looked at her again and knew her explanation was at least a possibility for what I was doing that night. I had one final question I had to ask before the men returned. "What were you going to get if you'd won?"

Roberta rolled her eyes and smiled in a way that revealed her embarrassment. She reddened more than she yet had. "OK," she said. "If they lost they were going to have to come to my place. They would have to strip and then jerk-off while I watched. I was going to make them do it one at a time. I thought it would be a laugh. Mostly I wanted to experience their embarrassment. I was going to make them squirt their cum on a plate and lick it up.

"Then they were going to have to give each other blow jobs while I watched. And yes, they were going to swallow. I figured after jerking off they would take forever to come again. I pictured myself, I don't know, as the worldly and sophisticated grad student, sitting back with her clothes on, having a laugh at the expense of two naked and humiliated undergrads. I thought I'd feel a sense of justice. You know, getting back at them when the loathsome bet they'd proposed blew up in their faces. College girl curiosity? I don't know. I guess after the bet was made I had this little fantasy about exploring the role of femdom for a day."

I reassured her. "I'd rather win that tonight than some money. It sounds like some real entertainment. Why didn't you tell me this half an hour ago?"

Her laugh was hearty and deep.

After we stopped giggling I got serious once more. I heard the garage door opener start: Patrick and the boys returning. "Um, if I lose are you really OK with Patrick being in on this?" I asked.

She put her hand on mine and said, "It's OK. Patrick's a good boy. He can have his fun if he wins. Our marriage is solid. He won't be following you to Chicago with stars in his eyes. And he'll have me on a pedestal for years for letting him make his macho little wager." She got serious, made eye contact and cupped my cheek in her palm. "I just worry about you," she said. "Those are some young guys. If you lose this you're gonna have a lot of hard-ons to satisfy tonight. Even Patrick can do it a couple times in a night with the right incentive."

I didn't have an answer for her, but I knew what she said was true. Then the guys all were piling through the door from the garage. Apparently, they'd not each been able to withdraw the money they needed in the way they'd planned. ATMs will only spit out so much cash per day per account, so they'd had to do some creative financial juggling. Patrick and one of the others had advanced them all some cash since they were able to withdraw enough currency using the various banks Patrick and Roberta and the other guy maintained accounts with, using various cards, from debit to credit to equity line to brokerage account. In the end they'd been able to assemble the required amount.

We all moved to the living room and settled into seats, snacks and drinks on the coffee table. The game started shortly after. Two of the young men sat on the couch. Patrick and Roberta shared the love seat. I sat in a rocker on the other side of the couch from the love seat. Another young guy was in the lounger, and the last one sat on a chair that completed the living room group.

The five thousand dollars sat there on the coffee table, and I thought that Ben Franklin was looking at me as if he had serious doubts about my prudence and sanity. 'What are you lookin' at, Bub?" I remember thinking, my sentiment directed at Ben. 'You had quite a colorful sexual history yourself!' But as the initial emotional rush of making the bet was dissipating I was beginning to see his point. I looked at the stack of bills thinking I make very good money. While an extra five thousand dollars of 'spend it on crazy stuff' cash would be nice, I hardly needed it.

I considered that I was betting my body, my modesty, my self-respect, my dignity against that impressively tall stack of twenty and fifty and hundred dollar bills. What would Gloria Steinem say? Betty Friedan must be spinning in her grave! At the same time, I felt an exhilaration I'd never experienced before.

Imagine walking out of here with all that cash, smugly satisfied, the winner, rubbing it in and leaving these guys so utterly disappointed and dreaming about what could have been! Would the young guys masturbate when they got home to mental images of fucking a woman with my face and a body they had to fantasize about because they never saw mine nude? What a feeling of power those thoughts stirred in me!

Some of the thrill and excitement came from what I was risking. The term 'gangbang' drifted through my head, to me only a theoretical concept, something from a vulgar story. Would that dreaded possibility turn into reality later this evening with me at the center?

I - married for twelve years, every day of it faithful to my husband, and a mother of three darling girls ten, seven, and six - could in a few hours be on a bed (Bent over a table? On all fours? On my knees?) with five hungry and hard cocks just waiting to use me one after another.