The Loft Game: Elf on a Shelf

The semester is over and Chips heads back home for Winter Break and some fun with her friends, old and new. Maybe she's a little different than when she left for Freshman Week?

This story chronologically follows The Loft Game-Barney. And, as will become obvious, there's a little bit of a theme to it. Just consider it part of the playfulness of the holidays.

—C

Since freshmen weren't allowed a car on campus, I caught a ride with Emily back to New Jersey for winter break. She was thrilled: someone to split gas money and keep her company. My parents were thrilled: they avoided a five-hour-each-way drive. I was thrilled: I didn't have to listen to my parents grilling me about the mundane details of campus life nor my little sister's prattling.

Five minutes off campus, Emily said, "Never have I ever done it in the water."

"What?"

"Never have I ev—"

"I heard you. But if you're thinking about drinking on this trip, pull over. I'll drive."

She laughed. "No. We play for points. You keep track. We'll settle up when you come to a party at my house over break."

"You haven't invited me to a party."

"I am now. My parents are going on a ski trip for a week starting the fifth. You'll come down and stay. So anyway ... never have I ever done it in the water. Showers don't count. If you drink, you have to give details."

"Um, that's kind of the reason you drink, so you don't have to say anything."

"Ohmygod, bitch! Just play the damn game."

"Drink. With my last boyfriend, Christian, in his swimming pool, late at night, this past July."

"Good?"

"No. Let's just say that water is a bad lubricant washing away a good one. I was sore as hell later."

She winced. "Cancel an item from the bucket list."

"Never have I ever bought something in an adult store."

"No drink. Never have I ever done it in my parents' bed."

"No drink."

I considered. "Never have I ever had a friend with benefits. One-night stands don't count."

She peered in her mirror and then ducked around a car driving slowly. I waited patiently. "Drink. Ryan is how I keep from climbing the walls after Friday games. We met in early October."

"Sophomore?" That was Emily's year.

"He's not a student." She caught my raised eyebrows. "No, not faculty. A townie. One drink each; mark it down."

I downloaded a scoring app so I wouldn't have to keep overtyping in Notes and marked it. I sat contemplating my next move. I assumed she was doing the same, but then she asked, "What do you do?" For a second, I didn't understand. Then I did.

"Mostly go back to my dorm and have trouble falling asleep." I debated leaving it there, but I wanted to sound out attitudes toward things. "I ... umm ... I hooked up with Carter after that last game."

"I knew he had his eye on you."

At something in her expression, a sudden idea struck me. "Have you and he ever ...?"

There was the barest hesitation. "Toward the end of my freshman year." She glanced over to see how I took that.

I processed the fact that we'd banged the same guy. I wasn't invested in Carter. Besides—the thought occurred a second later—there's a small chance that we're going to have lost in the main game to the same guy over the next few years. I was okay.

"It was just a booty call," I said to let her know.

"Good. Things can get dicey with relationships and the main game."

"Is that why Megan and Mike don't play anymore?"

"I've never asked, but I think so." Muttering in exasperation, she pulled into the right lane to get around another grandparent doing fifty in the fast lane.

"Never have I ever sent a nude," I said.

"Drink. My high school boyfriend. I super regret it now because he refused to delete it when we broke up."

The miles rolled past. "Who invited you into the game?" I asked while thinking about my next never.

"Well, technically Carrie, but that's just because girls invite girls, boys invite boys. It happened because Ben"—I couldn't place that name, but there'd been a ton of faces that last game—"saw me drunk-playing beer pong at the Gamma house, and I bet my bra."

"Did you lose?"

"I suspect it's still pinned up behind the bar along with a lot of others. I did the old down-the-shirt-sleeve thing. They booed and told me I was no fun."

"That's funny." We shared a chuckle. "Never have I ever done anything sexual with a girl."

"Ohmygod. That's so, so not fair. I told you about that when we first met," she complained.

I shrugged, completely unrepentant. "And the deets?" I pressed.

"A friend and I were drunk. We made out and touched a bit."

"Under the bra or down below?"

Emily didn't blush easily, but I got a little color out of her that time. "She wasn't wearing a bra, and she had her hand up under my skirt, but it was mostly just on my ass."

I decided not to abuse her about the "mostly."

"Did you like it?"

"It was just kind of okay. I didn't get grossed out, but I wasn't super turned on. I stopped it before it went on to ... you know."

Three questions later, she nailed me about my most embarrassing moment ... well, before joining the Loft Game, that is. "Never have I ever been caught while doing it."

My silence was answer enough. Finally, I said reluctantly, "Drink. In September, that guy I hooked up with. His roommate walked in."

"Was it obvious you were in the middle of it?"

"I was on top, so yeah."

"Fuck! Oops. I guess you were." She giggled.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her glance over at me when I didn't laugh too. I'm sure she saw the color in my face as I remembered, but she wasn't a total jerk about it.

"Was it bad?" she asked sympathetically.

I shook my head. "No ... well ... I mean, yeah, it was bad. But no worse than one guy seeing you with some other guy has to be. I—"

She waited to see if I was going to go on. I wasn't sure if I wanted to. But somehow, after our first meeting in the library when I'd come clean about some of my desires, she'd become my confidante. I didn't know if she felt the same way about me. Maybe this game of Never Have I Ever was an overture in that direction. Either way, part of me wanted to go on, hoping it wasn't a bad idea.

"I've fantasized about it a few times since then."

"How so?"

No eyebrows of judgment.

"Have you ever seen the movie Inventing the Abbotts?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, in it there's this scene where Jennifer Connelly is on top of this guy on a bed out in the garage, and his younger brother comes through. The older brother can't see because he's facing the wrong way, but she does. She doesn't stop. She holds the younger brother's eyes, not embarrassed at all, letting him watch her have sex. I ... I've fantasized about if I'd done that." Then I gave an embarrassed laugh. "I couldn't've, though. The guy I was with was yelling for his roomie to 'Get the fuck out of the fucking room!'"

Now Emily laughed. "The fucking room. Get it? The room in which fucking occurs."

The juvenile reaction pulled me back from my awkwardness. "Yeah. I got it. A ten-year-old would've gotten it."

Maybe a quarter of a mile passed in silence, then she spoke. "I think everyone who plays in our game has got some exhibitionist in there along with the voyeur. The proportion varies. I mean, Hannah always wants to perv on people and Carrie's, like, a total give-'em-a-show type, but I think you have to have a little of both or you wouldn't play."

I thought about that. It was probably true of me, although I knew watching was unquestionably more interesting to me than showing.

She let me ruminate on it for a mile, then, "Never have I ever given a lap dance."

"No drink. Never have I ever ..."

When she dropped me at my driveway, my phone told us she was in for five shots and I owed three. There'd been a lot of "no drink." We weren't all that different ... at least until I shamelessly used the year's difference between us. In other words, until I used the fact that she played the main game and I hadn't yet. I mean, how often do you get a chance to force a drink with, "Never have I ever asked a guy to jerk off"?

"Bitch!" But she was smiling as she said it. "We'll settle when you come down. Come for the whole week my parents are away."

Suddenly, I pictured her brother, Ethan. "That might be fun."

Christmas was great because, well, Christmas is always great. I ate too much. Everybody, including me, loved their presents. The family watched It's a Wonderful Life for the nineteenth time in my nineteen years.

The following days I hung out with some of the gang, comparing stories of college life ... which, of course, got heavily censored on my part. Rumor had it that Christian was asking around about me, but I didn't pursue it. We'd moved on.

New Year's rolled around, and at the end of it, I wondered if I could put "pimp" on my résumé.

Therese was sort of the quintessential frenemy. We'd been close at the beginning of middle school. Then Mother Nature got busy with her before most of us, and she got used to being queen bee with the boys. Until Max sophomore year—I got the promposal and she didn't. I was never sure whether she really liked him, or simply that there was too much status in being a sophomore at the Senior Prom. The final straw was when the goddamn rumor mill murmured that I'd given it up to Max that night ... some hurtful things got whispered behind my back. Pleasant became not-so-pleasant on both sides.

There was a moment the summer after junior year when she caught her boyfriend cheating. I found her in a back bedroom in tears. Sisterhood trumped personality, and I told her the right things and got her cleaned up enough to confront him. I made sure he was the one ostracized, not her.

But the armistice ended when I got interested in Christian. At first, I didn't notice. Then some things filtered back, and I was puzzled and hurt. Julia clued me in. "She's super into Christian. But you were nice to her when she and fuckface broke up, so she's torn. She hates you but doesn't hate you, you know?"

Now it was New Year's, and I was in our basement with the gang. Mom and Dad were chill as long as nobody got stupid. It was 11:58. Ryan Seacrest was filling time on-air while we waited for the ball to drop. I'd gotten a text earlier that day from Emily.

≪ Bored at thought of same old new year party. Wanna go to Times Square?
≫ Not a chance. Crowded, cold, vomit.
≪ Come on!
≫ Guys peeing on sidewalk right next to you.
≪ They do not
≫ Truth. Heard it from impeccable source. Besides, rain predicted midnight.
≪ Ur no fun
≫ Come by me. Having people over. You can crash here.

There was a pause.

≪ Be there in 2.

I saw Christian hovering about ten feet away. In between us and a few steps back was Therese. As the clock ticked over to 11:59 and the noise got louder, she stared at him and then furtively glanced over at me. Then back to him. One of us seemed still interested, and her name wasn't Charlene. I watched the way she watched him as the minute ticked down: the gaze raking up and down, the lips slightly parted, the flush.

Oh, yeah, she wants him bad.

"Hey, Chips." He sidled over in my direction. "We haven't had a moment." I heard the slight fuzziness in his words and knew he'd had a few.

"Lots of people here to reconnect with, and my friend Emily is here." I glanced over to check where my guest was.

She'd arrived about 11:15 when things were in full swing, calling "Hello?" as she came down the basement steps. "I kinda walked in because your parents are partying. Your dad sent me down here."

At first, I'd figured I'd have to entertain and shepherd her. But she pressed a wrapped box into my hands and said, "Open it later. Now, where's the bathroom? I need to pee so bad."

When she emerged, she'd stopped by the bar and I'd introduced her to a couple of my friends. Five minutes later, she was caught up in the blow pong game in the corner.

"Maybe we can hang after they leave, catch up." Christian's voice pulled my attention back.

Catch up. Yeah, right. That's what you mean. We'd ended pretty cleanly back in August, a little sad but neither of us heartbroken at the time, though I got pissed later. His interest now had me skeptical. I suspected freshman men being low on the totem pole with college women had more to do with it than missing me.

"Ten, nine, eight, ..." The countdown finished and noisemakers blew. Christian wrapped me up in his arms. It was a long kiss, longer than mandated by tradition. When he tilted his head back and looked me in the eyes, I could read the question. I pretended I didn't see it, leaned in for a hug, saying, "Happy New Year," to him. Then an impulse swept through me. Call it leftover Christmas Spirit. Over his shoulder, I mouthed at Therese, "Go for it."

I ignored her look of astonishment, half-pushed him in her general direction, and turned to the guy next to him. As I made the rounds of quick-peck-and-well-wishing, I let a thought bubble up. I pushed it away. It came back. And again. The idea grew in scope ... as did the excitement.

One o'clock came and went. I hit the power button on the Bluetooth speaker. "Everybody, time to call it a night. My parents ..." I waved my hands toward the floors above. There was some grumbling, but a general exodus started.

"Not you," I said to Christian. I ignored his suddenly hopeful look.

"Not you," I repeated to Julia and then again to a guy carefully chosen: Anthony. Anthony had three things going for him. One, he and Julia had had a "moment," as she put it. Two, he was firmly on the road to shitfaced. Three, he had little ... make that no filter.

"Not you," to Therese, who gave me a second shocked look. She was part of the squad when all of our girlfriends hung around, but never when it was just a few. "Play your cards right," I said enigmatically.

When the last of the not-invited-to-stay had announced their Uber was outside, I poked under the bar for an unopened Tito's I'd squirreled away to keep it from the crowd. I looked at the remaining five. "We're gonna play Inquisition, and I'm the inquisitor."

I ignored Christian's complaint of "Not that game!" and Anthony's general moan and Emily's puzzled frown.

"Why do you get to be inquisitor?" asked Julia.

"Because I paid for the beer and vodka."

"You make an excellent point," she laughed.

"Julia invented it one drunk evening when—"

"I was totally sober!" she protested.

"When she was so completely sober," I continued smoothly, "that she woke up at 3 a.m. in a friend's house and couldn't remember how she got there."

I ignored the tongue stuck out at me and the muttered, "That was after we played."

"It's Truth or Dare with some changes," I told Emily.

"Seriously? Truth or Dare ... like, in high school?"

"Exactly," chipped in Christian. "Like in high school."

"No. I promise. Some bad decisions might be made in the next hour or so."

"Well then, I'm in," she laughed.

"The first difference is that all questions are anon—"

"It's my game," Julia said. Her tone was frosty, but we could all see the twinkle.

"Sorry. Go ahead, Your Majesty."

"The first difference is that all questions are anonymous," she said. I rolled my eyes. "You write them down, three of them, on cards and the inquisitor asks them."

"Okay," Emily said. "Do we put down who they're for?"

"No, everybody's going to get asked all of them. The penalties also get written down on separate cards, so no one knows who thought of them. The inquisitor matches them up."

"Okay."

"If you want to answer, you immediately say, 'I'll talk.' If you don't want to answer, you have to say, 'You'll never make me talk.' If you say those wrong, you drink." Julia pointed at the Solo cup of beer in front of each person.

"Then the inquisitor will try to make you talk, i.e."—she actually said the letters—"the dare. Then you have three choices. You can do the dare. Or if you don't like it, you can immediately say, 'Wait, wait, I'll talk.' If you say that, then you have to answer the question and take a drink.

"The third option is you can say, 'Do your worst' when the card is flipped. If you say that, then the inquisitor will give you some Truth Serum." I waved the bottle of Tito's in one hand and five shot glasses stuck on the fingers of the other. "However, you can only choose Truth Serum five times."

"Seems fairly straightforward."

"Wait, there's more. If you rat out your fellow conspirators ... mention anyone here by name ... you drink. If you forget your hands are tied and point, you drink. If you call the inquisitor any name but an insult, you drink." She rattled off another half-dozen fouls, ending with, "And as I said, if you don't get the four phrases right, you drink." She repeated the four for Emily's benefit.

Emily digested it all. "So, by calling dibs on asking, Chips gets away with not drinking."

"Oh no! She stays sober so someone's using common sense if things get crazy outta hand. But she'll be drinking by the end, trust me. It's ... well, trust me."

Ten minutes later, I tossed the index cards down on the table. "You guys are chickenshit. This is like we're still high school students, uncertain if we're gonna get to second base in the back seat."

At the protests, I held up a card. "Let's take this one. 'Have you ever made out with someone here?' You know Christian and I have, and you know Julia and Anthony have. Emily, no. As for Therese: I don't think so, but who cares if she has? The point of the game is to have questions that are actually awkward to answer. And none of us are freakin' sixteen anymore."

I tossed the deck of blank index cards back into the center. "Try again. Three questions. All of them at least semi-evil. And ditto the dares."

I still sent one or two back to their authors. I ignored the little note on the bottom of one of Julia's: Who is this and what have you done with my friend? I was always the crazy one. Then a smiley face and a heart.

I flipped through them. I laid a dare card on the table to show it was active. "Spit or swallow? Christian?"

If he'd had beer in his mouth, he would have demonstrated spit. "Neither!"

Julia's elbow was up in a millisecond, pointing. "Foul. Wrong words. Drink."

He glared, and I waited until he took his drink. "It doesn't ask will you give a blowjob," I said reasonably, "just what you'd do if you were giving one. Spit or swallow?"

"Fuck!" Julia's elbow was just as quick the second time. With another glare, he took another penalty drink. "I'll talk," he said with elaborate sarcasm. "Spit, of course."

"Spoken like a rookie." Half of us at the table practically had an aneurysm at Emily's dry comment. I was surprised myself for a second. Then I thought about Emily, the last nine weeks, and wasn't anymore.

Julia's eyes were dancing as she nodded. "Yeah. See, it stays in your—"

"Oh my God! Just stop! TMI," Christian said. "I answered."

"Yes, you did," I said. "Julia?"

"I'll talk. Swallow."

I moved on. "Therese?"

"I'll talk. Sometimes swallow, sometimes let it just dribble back." The girl-caucus decided any swallow was "swallow."

It went around the table, ending with Anthony's half-laughing, half-belligerent "I'll talk. Spit and I don't give a shit if that sounds rookie."

I declared, "Social for the girls on sisterhood. Social for the guys on bro-ness." They all took a drink because their answers matched.

"This game is seriously fucked up." Emily was laughing hard.