The Games People Play

This is a work of erotic fiction. It involves themes of rough, coerced sex. If this offends you, please find a genre other than non-consensual. All characters are over the age of 18.

THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

"...every gambler wants to lose..." James Caan, "The Gambler"

When Evelyn called me at work I knew what it was...knew what it was before I heard the tone of her voice...before I even heard my secretary switch her through.

"Jack, I'm at the casino," was all she said. No preambles, not even a hello. My mother-in-law's voice was grave.

"I'll be there in" —I glanced at my watch, just before one o'clock—"be there in fifteen minutes or so."

"Thank you. I'm so sorry to have to call you like..."

"It's okay, Evelyn," I cut in. "Don't go in 'til I get there."

I felt the anger flush through my face, then that wave of resigned sadness that made me sag back in my chair. Then I did what I had to do...got up, told my secretary that I had a family issue and had to step out. On my way out I stopped in the credit union which was located on the ground floor of our office building and asked for a print-out on our account. All of our money was there, pitiful as it had been of late. This should have reassured me, but instead it set off a worried twist deep in my stomach.

I pulled into the casino lot and found my mother-in-law's red Honda. I looked at my watch: ten minutes flat, even with the stop at the credit union. Evelyn was standing outside the car, and straightened as I parked. I saw she had been crying, her arms hugged tightly around her mid-section.

"I knew, I knew..." she started, the words choked off in a sob.

"Let's find her," I said. I couldn't talk about this with Evelyn, not now, not ever really. My wife had never gambled, not even lottery tickets, until two years ago. And it was my mother-in-law who had coaxed her along on those early trips..."just keep me company, honey"...maybe six months or so, and then Kim started going on her own too. Small dashes of cash at the slots, money left over from the grocery trip, change cashed in at the Coinstar machine.

"I saw her already," Evelyn muttered. "I went in. She didn't see me. She's playing..."

"She's playing her machine, right!" I said, again the anger flushing my cheeks. Kim had her favorite slot, her lucky slot. But if it wasn't open, any machine would do. Two years and Kim had put us behind a major eight-ball, she'd bled down her 401K, maxed out four credit cards, tapped into out checking account for a mid-five figure hit. And she'd stopped, and stopped and stopped. And every time slid back in...counseling, group therapy...the last time was seven months ago.

Now here she was middle of the day when she should be at work.

"I called her at work and she'd called off sick they said," Evelyn blathered. I glared at her and caught myself...my mother-in-law had suffered every bit as much as I did, probably even more, knowing as she did that she was the one who opened the door to this. My wife didn't drink. My wife didn't smoke. My wife didn't even fucking curse. My mother-in-law had towed a hard line with her only daughter...and then she'd blundered her into this mess. Evelyn could take a twenty to the casino, lose it or win a hundred with it, and walk away. Have a nice lunch and go home. Kim was a degenerate junkie.

When I thought of that my legs actually buckled. I felt my mother-in-law's hand grab my arm; the lines of pain were etched deep on her face.

We found Kim pressing buttons, that trance-like gaze I'd seen before. We stood next to her, but she focused on the whirling symbols, the cacophony of beeps and buzzing alarms filling the air about us. She pressed again, and then again.

"Kim," I said.

Nothing at all. That bleary-eyed focus on the screen, her mouth rigid...my wife's pretty face pinched in concentration.

"Kim," I said louder and touched her shoulder...I shook it.

Finally she looked up, no cognition at first, her mouth moved without words.

"Kim," I repeated.

"Oh,God, I'm sorry," she whispered. I saw the panic, the veneer crumbling away...and I knew this was going to be bad...I looked at Evelyn and saw that she'd registered it too. My wife's eyes brimmed and tears broke down her cheeks, she suddenly seemed close to collapse. This was going to be the worst.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

$44,000.00

Forty-four thousand dollars. I had first heard the number in the parking lot after we'd walked Kim outside. Actually the first words were "some money"... "it's a lot"..."fifty, maybe a little less"...

Evelyn had muttered "...fifty...fifty thousand...fifty thousand dollars..."

Kim was seated in the passenger seat of my car with the door open while her mother and I stood. She whispered back "...probably a little less..."

"A little less," I yelled, loud enough to turn the heads of passerby. I slammed the roof of my car hard. "A little less than fifty grand. You embezzled fifty fucking grand from your job and you...you fucking gambled it here. How long. ...How long did it take? How long!"

Kim didn't answer, she cringed into the seat.

"Jesus Christ what're we gonna do," I heard myself plead. Two years ago fifty would have been nothing really...two years and now we were literally bled out with my wife's devastating habit. Even Evelyn had been bled down so far that she'd had to move in with us...her retirement and small savings account handed over to her daughter before I even knew the true extent of the hooks this had in her.

"Do they know," Evelyn asked.

"They will, right Kim," I said. My wife had been working as the office manager of a small law firm since our youngest daughter had gone to first grade. She had her CPA. "...I said they will find out, won't they?"

My wife nodded.

"What do we do," Evelyn said in a barely audible voice.

"Can you get the money put back in their accounts without them..."

"Tom knows, I think."

"He knows," I said—Tom Morrissey was the chief partner in the firm, his father Mark now in his eighties and living on a golf course in Sarasota.

"He asked me something about it yesterday," Kim whined. She put her small fist to her mouth a bit down on her forefinger.

"He knows."

Kim nodded, a deep rattling sob coming out as she bit harder.

"What should we..."

I raised a hand to cut Evelyn off. I lifted my wife's chin gently...god, how I loved this woman. Even with all this, I loved her at a level I would never had thought possible in my youth.

"Fifty will finish our credit union off," I said. "...I think it'd be best if we make a direct approach to Morrissey. Cough up to it and offer the money. Full restitution and your resignation. Just pray he doesn't go to the cops."

"The police, he wouldn't..." Evelyn blurted, her hand to her mouth with the horror of it, the scandal of it coming out.

"If he does, we're sunk," I said.

"Oh my God, Kimberly," my mother-in-law fairly gasped...wobbly enough that I put a steadying hand to her shoulder. "Everyone will know, all our friends will know. Oh, please, no. They'll all...

"But the money will be back," Kim sobbed.

I snapped my fingers, making my words hard. "Kim is bonded. If Morrissey or any other lawyer in that firm contacts the bonding company they will institute and audit. An audit Kim, an audit that will show every machination and dodge you pulled. And a bonding company will turn the matter over to the district attorney. And then they'll go after their money in civil court while you maybe go to jail. You work in a law firm, Kim, does that sound about right?"

"And the papers and the television will all..."

I looked at my mother-in-law as the words slackened. I didn't care about her right then, or my wife or even myself really. I had two daughters to worry about, two daughters in parochial school. I didn't want them to see this.

"We go to an attorney right now, right from here. We get a legal opinion on how to approach this."

"I'm so sorry..."

"I know you are, baby," I said, kneeling down to face her...I kissed her forehead gently. Let's fix this and then figure what we have to do to get you off..." I glared at the casino "...off this thing."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

$44,700.00

Five banded stacks of hundreds on our coffee table. It was two days later. Four of us sitting in our living room, the girls spending the night at their friend's house—Evelyn seated with her hands folded on her lap, Kim and myself on the sofa, Tom Morrissey in the chair opposite us, casual in his white polo and gray slacks. He glanced down at the stacks of bills, and then slowly lifted his gaze to Kim. His face was carefully blank.

My wife had just made her confession, had broken down at several points as she buried her face into her hands. Other than the occasional nod Morrissey had shown nothing.

"The money is all..." I said finally.

"I did know something was off," Morrissey cut in, nodding again. "I asked Kim about it last week...did she tell you that."

"...Yes."

"So the contrition I'm hearing and the cash on the table are probably only here 'cause she knew I was sniffing her out. ...She knew I was asking questions and, despite the fact that I am sometimes dumb as a rock..."

"No, it wasn't that..."

"I said sometimes dumb as a rock, Kim," he growled, slicing off my wife's tear muddled words. "Not always. Once I picked up that we were missing some funds, you knew I'd keep on it. I'd get another accountant to dig through the books and you'd be cooked."

"It's the gambling," Evelyn interjected, the first words she'd said. "That casino, those..."

"I've had four clients go to prison in the past year for things they did to support a gambling habit. Four!" he had his hand up at Evelyn, four fingers jacked.

"The money will make you whole," I said, not liking where this was sliding.

"Kimberly is bonded. I turn her in and the bonding company makes me whole. Then they come after you for the cash they paid me. She's the CPA, she must've spelled that out to you. And they will look to you withdrawing that dough...from where'd you get it?"

"Our credit union..."

"Paper trail that would put you in at least some legal risk too, as a co-conspirator maybe, though I think they'd leave that slide. They'd push Kim to the max though. They like to set examples."

"Please," I heard myself say.

Tom Morrissey stood...he was a big man, over six feet and burly, thick through the chest and neck, his head was leonine with thick graying hair, the only thing belying his fifty-plus years on this earth.

"You recording this?"

A chorus of "no's "...all of us shaking our heads.

"This state criminalizes unauthorized or surreptitious recordings. If you are recording me, I am expressly stating that I do not give my authorization to be recorded in any way. Do you understand that, everyone here?"

"Were not recording you," I said, and heard Evelyn and Kim echoing me.

"Good," he said. "I'll accept your settlement offer...the cash on the table and Kimberly's resignation. I'll give her a month to find something else and I'll give her a recommendation just to get her moving."

"Thank you," I said, hearing Evelyn and Kim join me in a muttered chorus.

"One caveat though." He lifted a judicious finger.

"Anything," I said too quickly.

"Hear me out," he cautioned. "I will only say this once, and this offer is only in effect right now."

He looked to each of us, his heavily lined facial features giving away nothing.

"What," I heard myself whisper.

"I have a go with your wife right here and right fucking now."

"...What?" I said in a voice not my own, vaguely aware a sharp gasping intake of air from my wife and mother-in-law.

"I didn't slur, did I?" Morrissey said meeting my gaze. "I have a twenty-minute or so go with your lovely wife...right here and right now. Right there, right on that couch."

"Get the..." I was standing, my vision blurring as I looked at him.

"If it's no, I'll understand," he said, just a flicker of a smirk now. "I'll call the bonding company before I'm out of your driveway, and of course I'll absolutely deny what I just said here on ten stacks of bibles."

"Get out," I seethed, pointing at the door.

"Thank you for the pleasant discussion," Morrissey answered, offering a slight bow as he began to turn away. "Kimberly, I'll be watching for you on the six o'clock news in about two weeks or so."

"Kim, no," came Evelyn's shriek of a voice. "Mr. Morrissey no, please don't..."

Tom Morrissey glanced at her and then at Kim...then at me. "You all have a nice day."

"Stop, don't go...wait," Evelyn shouted. She was standing, trembling, her hands aflutter.

"Mom," Kim saw the expression on her mother's face. "...Mom," she repeated in a quavering voice.

"You cannot be arrested. You cannot. Think of the scandal...the girls in school..."

I looked at my mother-in-law and did in fact flash to the image of our daughters being tormented by classmates...seven and nine they were old enough to understand it all. But I also saw that in that moment my mother-in-law was thinking of herself more than anyone else. The shame for her, for the family name...it was all crushing in on her even then.

"What are you fucking saying," I blurted, my vision a darkening tunnel.

"...You know what I'm saying," she choked, turning her face away so as not to look at her only daughter.

"Mommy."

"Kimberly just do what he wants," she went on, her back stiffening. She finally turned and looked at me squarely, tears running down her cheeks freely. "...Jack, You have those two girls to worry about."

""Mommy," Kim whispered plaintively.

"You have to grow up, baby" Evelyn said. "...Just do what you have..."

"Yes, or no," Tom Morrissey said...the exchange between us had been so intense that his presence had been forgotten.

"Kim," I said, sitting back and brushing my wife's smooth cheek. "I will stand with you..."

"Tell her to do it, Jack," Evelyn spoke up. "You have to let her do it."

"Shut the fuck up you fucking bitch. She's my wife."

"And she's my daughter. She's my baby."

"I can't let you all be...embarrassed," my wife said in a voice barely audible. "Please don't hate me, Jack. I love you, only you. ...Only you."

"Jesus Christ," I said, sagging down until I was on my knees in front of her.

"Yes?" Morrissey asked. He was standing by the door, his meaty hand enveloping the knob.

"...Yes." Kim nodded.

"...Yes. " I nodded.

"We can go in..." Kim said in a shell-shocked voice, her big puma-like eyes blinking wildly as she peered back towards our own bedroom.

"No, right here, right on the couch."

Seconds of silence ticked by. I heard a truck pass by outside.

"...You can go...I'll be okay," Kim said in a faltering tone, her eyes averted to the floor.

"Uh, uh, they're staying," Tom Morrissey announced calmly.

"What!" More disbelief on a day filled with more disbelief than I'd ever imagined.

"You heard exactly what I said...you stay, and Mom there stays. Both of you can take a seat. I can get laid anytime I want, pretty much. This is gonna be special. Like the old Kodak commercials...'what memories are made of. You park your asses and you watch the whole show."

"I can't," Evelyn was saying. "I can't, you can't make us."

"You watch me and your sweetie on the couch or you watch her in cuffs on the news. ...Now sit!" He looked at me and gestured to wear he'd been sitting. "You and me; we'll swap seats, okay."

"The money," Kim whimpered, pointing to the bills.

"Yap, yap, yap, fucking yap," he laughed. "You in or not?"

My wife was trembling uncontrollably now; she managed a meek nod.

"Come on then," he said, dropping onto the couch and without another word grappled Kim into him and forced a kiss on her, holding it there while she thrashed for air.

"We all ready," he said as he pulled his face free, making sure to look at both Evelyn and myself. He grabbed Kim's blouse and without a word tore it open neck to navel, buttons skittering across the hardwood floor. He set a beefy hand over one of her heavy breasts and squeezed lightly. Again he looked at us...I was locked in to them, unable to look away if I tried, Evelyn had her face buried in her hands, sobs wracking through her slim body.

"Nice tits, huh," he said absently and slid his hand beneath the lace of her brassiere. "Half the reason I hired her was to stare at this rack." He met my eyes again. "...We still good, Jackie?"

I nodded tightly.

Morrissey slid down and hiked my wife's skirt up...it was knee length, Kim had always favored more conservative dress, like her mother. Kim averted her eyes and strangled a sob as he got his fingers into the waistband of her pantyhose, standing as he roughly peeled them off her legs.

"Holy fuck, I can't believe this shit," he said, and bunched the skirt up and tugged it down along her body too. "...Off, off," chortled, tumbling her across onto her face and yanked the shredded blouse off her back, struggling with the bra hooks for a second and then almost tearing the plain white panties from her body. He lifted her a bit and reached beneath her to strip off the unhooked brassiere, flinging it across the room.

"Fuckin' fun," he said to himself, out of breath a bit. He reached down and picked up the pantyhose and in a flash was knotting her wrists behind her back. Her hands pinioned, he flipped her over onto her back, and heaved her squarely on the couch...women's sobs filled the air. He bent his mouth to Kim's breast and sucked hard, then the other, lifting his head to pull the breast taut with the nipple between his teeth.

"Here it is, darlin'" he said standing to unfasten his belt, looking at me as he ran the zipper and dropped his slacks, kicking free of his black loafers. He slipped his boxers down and his cock sprang to attention...thick, heavily veined, the uncut foreskin lending it an almost alien aspect. "Eight inches, I've been putting a ruler to it since I was eleven." He pulled the polo over his head. He was rock solid without the definition of a weight lifter, copious hair matted across his chest and over his shoulders and back. He left his black socks on.

He knelt on the couch and forced my wife's legs apart, her laid his erection on the dark triangle of pubic hair. And then he stopped, hiking up on his arms to look at me.

"I'll make you all a deal," he smirked, nodding at me. "I will dress and leave right now. I'll take the forty grand and call it square. I won't fuck Kimberly here blind while you and Mom watch. ...You just have to stand up and drop your pants and show us you don't have a raging hard-on right now."

Kim twisted her head to look at me through a shroud of tears...my mother-in-law lifted her eyes to me.

And I froze there.

"I'm not joking one bit here," Tom Morrissey went on, stroking is cock in the coarse tangle of hair. "You drop your pants and if it's a limp wet-noodle hanging there I'll walk out the door. ...If nothing else I am a sport."

For the past few minutes, since I seen him cover my Kim's mouth with his...since he'd torn her blouse open...I'd...I had felt my own cock hardening...when he'd roughly peeled her pantyhose down, when he'd tugged her nipple between his while teeth...the hardening, the feeling of my shaft bent in at an awkward angle, pinched, a dizzying rush of blood in my head as I watched him knot off the pantyhose around her thin wrists. ...The lust rising like a geyser from some depth I'd never known.

"You gonna show it?" he asked again, and then shook his head.

"Jack," Evelyn mouthed. Kim was slack-jawed as she looked at me with truly desperate eyes.

"He's hard as a fuckin' rock, bet the house on that" Morrissey laughed, and then reached down to guide his massive cock into my wife's vagina, one vicious thrust burying its entire length inside her. Kim gasped, stiffened. "Not you though," he admonished to my wife. "No more betting for you."