Rules of the Game

Unfortunately, I won that hand, to my great consternation, adding another hundred and twenty-five unwanted dollars. Perversely—or not so perversity, I imagine—a thrill ran through me scooping the chips.

"I was gonna ask," Nick said, as an aside. "What you intended to auction off next. I guess I don't have to ask that any more."

I blushed and smiled in embarrassment at his smirk. My nipples stirred, though not going flint-hard like they'd been before.

"I am out of easily removed unmentionables," I admitted.

Nick grinned, and so did Jim and Mike and Bill. Steve just looked irritated, though not as irritated as when I had only $5 at my fingertips. Robert and Gary exchanged a look again. What the hell were they thinking, I wondered. It made me nervous.

It took a while, but with hard work and a little bad luck, I lost the entire $125 pot. I was back to $14 again when Nick cleared his throat.

"I spoke a little too soon, didn't I, kid?"

On cue, my face went scarlet. He looked pointedly at my middle, below which, of course, were my shorts and panties.

"Um...yeah?"

"Gonna quit?" Mike asked.

"Should I?" I asked.

Mike shook his head. The rest of my cheering section said no, and I squirmed, not faking my discomfort. I kept my eyes carefully away from Steve and his scowl of disapproval.

"I'm not taking off my shirt," I lied.

The four guffawed, Gary joining in. I swear, it looked like Robert kicked him under the table. And I thought: Oh, my God...no way! Were Robert and Gary queer?

Don't use that word, I thought to myself. You're queer yourself.

Admonished, I turned my thoughts away from Gary and Robert to my four guys. My four guys, and the inexplicably silent and neutral Richard. It occurred to me that Richard had not participated in any of the banter for a long time. I had nearly forgotten about him.

"Richard? What should I do?"

He blinked, startled. "Uh...what?"

"You seem to be the only person holding his peace around here. What do you think I should do?"

"Um, I think you should quit."

"Why?" I asked quietly. The others speared him with looks of outrage, two of approval, and one of outright thanks.

"Um, because you're gonna end up naked before too long." He flinched at the strong protestation from my peanut gallery. "You are. She is," he objected defensively. "It's what you guys want, to."

More protestations.

"That's bullshit!" Bill said.

"No way!" Nick rejoined.

"We won't let it come to that!" Mike retorted.

"Not in a million years," Jim agreed. They all nodded their heads vehemently.

Richard shook his head. "What's she got on?"

Everyone spoke at once. Most were protestations. Shut up, Richard, I thought vehemently. God, why did I ever open my mouth?

"She has on," Richard enumerated for us, "a T-shirt, a pair of shorts, and probably panties." Everyone nodded, including myself. "Now, which of those three can she remove without exposing herself?"

My four grumbled and waved their hands dismissively. Gary and Robert and especially Steve, nodded in agreement. I fumed silently and remained neutrally straight-faced.

"Her shorts," Richard answered. "That's it. From there on she either takes off her panties, or takes off her T-shirt." He shrugged. "Either way, this is a game of strip poker from then on."

Now everybody had the same look on his face. Not like Steve, maybe, but certainly like Gary and Robert. Disapproving. I'd be booted out of the game. No one would take a bet on my T-shirt or panties. I had to act preemptively.

"Steve?"

He looked at me questioningly.

"You're afraid to see my breasts?"

"Now, Lisa..." Jim and Steve said together.

"No. It's okay," I apologized. "I said that wrong. What I meant is, that you're afraid I'd have to bear my breasts to stay in the game."

He, and the others, nodded uncomfortably.

"I understand that," I said. "I don't want to embarrass you." Steve nodded even harder. "I don't want to embarrass myself either," I added, laughing. "And that would be embarrassing, having to take off my shirt to stay in the game." My face reddened on cue again. At least something deemed to cooperate.

"Soooo," I said, grasping the hem of my shirt and shivering all the way down to my toenails. "I should just do it now--" I swiftly pulled the front of my T-shirt up and over my breasts, the rest following promptly. "--and get the embarrassment out of the way now." I lifted the T-shirt completely off, up and over my head, bringing it back down into my lap. "When its by choice, rather by necessity."

I sat there, my upper body erupting into a blanket of goose flesh, my nipples hardening into achy little points. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to control the automatic, defensive shrug forward of my shoulders.

"Oh, my God, Lisa," Richard muttered. He tried, unsuccessfully, to look away from my breasts.

Steve's fist banged down on the table, hard. Everything, and everybody jumped.

"Jesus Christ, girl!" His face turned the unhealthiest color of red I'd ever seen. Then it turned purple, then brown, then all or those colors together. "You...you..."

"Whore?" I asked mildly.

"Lisa!" half a dozen voices cried at one.

"Stupid girl," Steve finished in a growl. I thought, for one moment, that he would lean across and hit me. Then suddenly everybody was speaking at once.

"Lisa, put it back on."

"That's disrespectful, Lisa."

"You didn't have to do that, Lisa."

"I would have given you the money, Lisa."

"Please put your shirt back on, before this goes any further."

"I'll give you money to put it back on."

"I will too."

"Please, we don't--"

"Guys!" I interrupted. "Am I that hard to look at?"

"No, of course not!" Jim denied.

"That's not the point!" Mike cried.

"What is the point, then?" I demanded, as Nick told me I had nothing to be ashamed of. Steve glared at him as Mike answered: "The point is, you don't need to show your breasts for us to like you, Lisa."

Everyone nodded, even Steve. I sat with my nipples pointing accusingly like fingertips at Mike, as though to say, "You say!"

"Maybe I like sitting here like this," I said belligerently.

"You like being nude?" Richard demanded.

I lifted my chin defiantly. "It's my house. I'll sit any darned way I like."

"It's not your house," Steve reminded me gruffly.

"It is while I pay rent," I reminded him.

"Bull shit!" he shouted. "There ain't no damned lease. I could--"

"Throw me out any time you like?" I finished for him.

"Steve!" Jim objected.

"Lisa!" Mike reprimanded.

"Take it easy, both of you," Richard said.

Steve exploded, slamming down his fist. "Fuck you all! What I say goes. You don't like it—get out of my house."

Purposefully, I got to my feet. Instead of turning on my heel, as everyone expected me to—myself included—and storming from the room, if not the house, I dropped my shirt on the floor and unzipped my shorts. Everyone reacted at once. Some stood up, some flopped back in their chairs, all shouted at me not to do it. Jim yelled "For Christ's sake, Lisa! I'll give you a hundred bucks for the shirt. Just sit down! Please sit down," he added, in a softer, more pleading voice. He put his hand on my arm. "Don't. Please."

I shook, violently. My fingers could barely manage the button on my jeans, half undone. My chest rose and fell with the effort of my breathing. My damned nipples really ached. I was standing there, topless, in front of eight men, all staring at me.

"Fine," I said gruffly. I re-buttoned my shorts and raised the zipper. As I sat down, Jim slid $100 in chips from his pile to mine. I had $114 now. I needed to lose it fast.

For the most part, the guys ignored—or tried to ignore—my compromised condition. I felt completely out there in the wilderness. At the same time, I discovered it didn't bother me nearly as much as I had imagined, being exposed. My nipples, God bless them, stood down from attention and my goose flesh retreated to an occasional eruption on my biceps. That could as easily have been the air conditioning as mortification. More than being visible to the guys, I worried about being seen by my neighbors. Especially the teenage sons of those neighbors who might even now have binoculars train on my windows. Nipple erection time again. I wondered what each man thought of the situation.

"I'm sorry," I apologized to Steve. "I got a little carried away."

He grunted around his cigar.

"I know you were only trying to help," I said. "I appreciate that. But I'm okay."

Embarrassment and discomfort crept over every face.

"So I don't want you surprised, or enraged," I said, my heartbeat racing ahead again, "when I lose my shirt—figuratively speaking--and have to pony up something else."

Embarrassed laughter from the guys. They knew what I meant. Faces turned red. Eyes flicked to my breasts and away again, to my hidden middle, to the sides of my shorts visible against my hips.

"Let's try not to let that happen," Steve said tightly, the others nodding. Even Mike, always dependable with a quip, held his peace.

We played out the hand, and the two hands after that went quickly as well, with Nick raking in four-hundred bucks on the last pot, $45 of which was mine. I was down to $37. Small talked ruled the table with the guys alternating between baseball, basketball, horse-racing, movies for me, and questions, some of them surprisingly hard to answer, about my school work.

"The world really needs another lawyer," Mike commented dryly.

"I'm studying family law," I reminded him. "I won't be out there defending murderers or drunks."

"Quite an inclusion factor," Bill said. "Runs the gamut of the entire male population."

"Describes this exact very table," Mike quipped, a nod in Steve's direction. I laughed, and the others laughed with me. Except Steve, who continued chewing his cigar; I wouldn't make it through the next hand, and he knew it. So did the others. I was shivering again.

"We should close the window curtains," Rich said, suddenly looking around the room, the first to equate my nudity to onlookers from outside. His concern was pointless.

"They don't have curtains," Nick pointed out. "Or blinds. How can you not have blinds or curtains on your windows, Lisa?"

I tried to make light of it. "Fashion statement?" The truth was, it was fashionable to have the windows dressed in only swags and valances, a minimalist approach that also fit our budget well. "Besides," I said wryly. "Chelsea and I don't usually sit around in the nude."

"I can see why," Mike observed. "The neighbors must love when the two of you are forgetful."

"They must love it right now," Robert muttered, the first time he'd spoken in a while. Gary grunted an acknowledgment, surprising me also.

"We could block them," Jim pointed out. "Hang blankets over them or something." He sounded the most upset, though whether he didn't like the idea of the neighbors seeing my bare breasts, or sharing the view with them, I couldn't tell. Bill nodded encouragingly. To my surprise, it was Steve who tabled the idea.

"She made her choice. Let her live with it."

Both the words and his tone stung. My cheering section immediately reacted.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Mike demanded.

"This game is between us, not those morons outside," Bill said, not quite logically.

"She's just as entitled as the rest of us to sit in," Jim observed. "You invited her, remember? It's not her fault if she's not rich, doesn't have our deep pockets."

"And it was your idea to front her the money in the first place, if you also remember right," Rich accused hotly. "Its pretty callus to blame her for not wanting to be treated like a pauper. It shows real bravery on her part to sacrifice her clothes and embarrass herself this way. You don't see the rest of us doing that."

"That's right!" Mike and Jim said together.

"So stop being an asshole," Rich accused.

"And let the poor girl play in peace."

Jim said, shoving back his chair and jumping upright, said, "I'm covering those windows. Fuck you if you don't like it."

"That's right," Bill seconded, also standing up.

I put my hand on Jim's right forearm. He jerked, as though I'd shocked him with static electricity. "He's right. I did ask for this," I acknowledged quietly. "I should abide by the consequences, whatever they are." Lisa Pembroke, Martyr of San Bernadino County. "Leave the windows be. Let's play poker, okay?"

Mike was outraged. "No way! Being spied upon from outside is not part of the house rules, Lisa."

I didn't point out how illogical this was. "You wouldn't close them for someone else, why me?"

"No one else has taken off their clothes. No one else, in the history of the game, has taken off their clothes."

It was my turn to "deal", and to hide my discomfort, I picked up the deck and started to inexpertly shuffle the cards. "I'm fine like this," I lied.

"You are not fine like that," Mike countered angrily. "Steve's right. We're all a bunch of chauvinistic bastards, sitting here like this." I didn't point out that a bunch of chauvinistic bastards would already have me in the bedroom for a gangbang. I cleared my throat.

"I am about to offer my shorts for sale. In keeping with the rules of the game, I should offer them to the person sitting clockwise of whom purchased my last article of attire." I nodded to Jim, who owned both my bra and T-shirt. "That would be Bill. Bill?" I leaned forward to see around Jim. "Would you like to purchase my shorts for $35?"

Bill reddened and gulped. "I don't know," he waffled, cutting his eyes toward Steve. "I think maybe I'll check." He leaned back in his chair in embarrassment, out of sight.

"Nick?"

"Hell, yes!" Nick declared, staring daggers at Steve. "A hundred bucks." He started gathering together chips.

"$35," I said mildly. "It's what I paid for them." A lie, as they'd been a birthday gift from my mom, but close enough for argument's sake.

He didn't like it. "$75."

"I'm not bartering, Nick. $35 or nothing."

He didn't like it a bit. "$50. That's my last offer."

Mike laughed. "Guys, the bidding's supposed to go up, not down. Anyway, I'll take them for $35, Lisa," he said, giving Steve a hard look also.

I looked at Nick. Nick shook his head. I laughed, thinking how absurd this was. The others started laughing, even Robert, who shook his head dispassionately. "Only in a game of Texas Hold-em," he said.

"Never, in a game of Texas Hold-em," Gary corrected. He gave Steve a one-eyebrow, raised shrug. "What are ya gonna do?"

Steve only grunted.

I took the offered $35 in chips and then removed my shorts, half-standing, half-squatting over the chair to conceal my panties. I did this for the men's benefit, not my own. I wanted them convinced that I was embarrassed. I wanted them curious about what color they were, and what kind: bikinis, a thong, little girl panties, what?

Neither Jim, and of course not Steve, looked down to inspect them first-hand.

I deliberately looked at Richard, who by the rules of the game would be first in line for my red and white-striped thong panties. He wouldn't look at me. He began to blush, as I stared at him.

The $35 added to the $37 I already had would last this hand, and maybe halfway through the next. Unless I won, of course, which I wouldn't. But I almost did.

"My God," Jim said, marveling how I'd just lost, four queens to Steve's straight flush. It was the best hand I'd had all night. I was flabbergasted, flummoxed, in disbelief. Caught up in the betting, convinced of my invulnerability, I had actually wanted to win. I thought I had won. I thought Steve was bluffing for sure, trying to ensure a pot big enough to not only keep my panties on, but possible buy back my T-shirt and shorts. Instead, he had just wiped me out. I sat back, stunned.

"Um, Steve?"

Gloating, Steve raised his eyebrows as he hauled in chips. "What?"

"I thought the point was to let her win, Steve,"

I objected, but Steve, still grinning, cut me off at the knees.

"Was that the point? I thought the point was to play by the rules, Mike. Little Missy here wants to spout rules at me all night, I guess I can play by the rules." He looked pointedly at my absence of chips. "Fish, or cut bait, sweetheart."

"You son of a bitch!" Mike spat, standing. His fists, big as iron mallets, were planted on the table. Steve just grinned at him pleasantly. Before either could say anything more, I shimmied out of my panties, held them up for all to see. This time, Jim did look down, gawping at my bare mid-section.

"Rich?"

Rich shook his head. I started to shift the offer to Robert, but Rich cried out with a strangled: "No, I meant...you didn't name a price."

"They're not worth much," I confessed. "Make an offer."

"A hundred dollars. Two hundred!" he shouted, reconsidering.

"Forget it. They're not worth that much," Steve pointed out sagely. "They're worth, maybe fifteen bucks, twenty at the most? And they're used, besides." Smirking, he raised his eyebrows again. "Rules are rules. You bid down the last article of clothing, remember?"

I wanted to smack that grin right off his face. I almost did, ruining everything. And then it occurred to me that Steve had just solved the almost insurmountable problem I had worried about all night.

"Fair is fair," I said, slipping awkwardly into my panties again. I stood up, letting everyone see me snug them into place. Eyes popped, tongues darted out to wet dry lips "How much to take them off me yourself, Rich?" I glared at Steve as everyone else sat back shocked. "Care to set a price for that privilege, Steve?" He turned the most dangerous color of puce yet. I looked at Rich, who was patently shaking his head back and forth. "Robert?" I asked. "Gary then? I won't ask you, of course," I said coldly to Steve, whose smirk was back in place. I toed Jim lightly on the ankle. If not he, I knew Nick or Mike would accept my offer. But I had promised Jim first go, and fate had allowed me the opportunity to make good on the promise.

"A hundred bucks," he said without pause.

"Jim!" Rich cried, while Nick and Mike started to laugh. I thought Mike might offer five times that amount to remove them himself. Rich, however, was objecting that Jim had offered me anything.

"This has gone far enough," Rich said. "Lisa, it's time for you to cash out."

"I will not," I said defiantly, even as he instructed Jim and Mike and Nick to return my clothing. "You will not, either, you three. You bought those fair and square, You own them." I looked down at Jim. "Lower your offer to $50 and I accept." I turned my gaze to Steve as I continued. "I don't want Mr. Rules there setting upward limits on what you can, and cannot pay for additional services."

Services, Nick's eyes repeated questioningly. What do you mean, Services?

Before anyone could object, I grabbed Jim's hand and dragged him from his chair. "I might renegotiate the deal," I announced hotly. "In the privacy of my bedroom. Come on Jim," I said, dragging him behind me across the room. "We'll be back when he's claimed his belongings."

In stunned silence, the others watched open-mouthed as I hauled the stupefied Jim into my bedroom and slammed the door.

* * *

I shook, head to toe. Jim stood just inside the bedroom door, looking alternately at my shivering body, my bloodless face, the floor, the door, and back to my face again.

"What's the matter?" he said softly.

"What do you think's the matter?" I hissed.

"You're scared?"

"Of course, I'm scared! What a stupid question." I apologized, seeing I'd hurt his feelings. After all, he hadn't dreamed up this hair-brained scheme.

"I should get you something to put on," he said, looking around.