The Loft Game: Scotty

Another girl with the same question, I grinned to myself as I joined the laughter at Hunter's discomfort. Unfortunately, we didn't get an answer to the question.

As I gathered up my phone from the box by the door, I met Gwen's eyes. She gave a little shrug and nod, her face a little pink. Her eyes flicking to Nick and back, as if to say, "Yeah, I'm gonna."

"What about Gwen?" I said to the room as people settled in for the main game.

"For this?" Victoria asked.

I nodded. She looked around at the other women, seeing shrugs and nods that conveyed, "Maybe, yeah."

"Seriously?" Kevin asked.

"Yes, seriously," Victoria said. The exasperation leaked out with those two words, especially since she didn't bother to look at him. "Anyone can propose a new member. It's the rules. But"—her focus clearly turning back to me—"we are a little heavy on women. Maybe we talk about Gwen over the coming weeks and don't rush."

"Nick too, maybe," I offered. "He seems chill."

Victoria looked over at Owen and tilted her head in question.

"Actually, he's come up," Owen said. "Mike knows him best. He's trying to feel him out." He shrugged. "We're losing a lot at graduation."

"I know."

I did a count around the room. A lot of seniors, and Ben was a super senior. Em had mentioned he added a second major his junior year, and so he needed some more credits. That's a big hit on the main game.

"I mentioned the green game to my roommate," Logan said. "She didn't say no."

"Bring her some night," Carrie said.

The game went okay for me. I realized early on I probably wasn't going to win. A couple of the guys got off to too good a start early, building large chip stacks. I was going to have to wait another week—no, two weeks, given Ethan's visit—before having a chance at seeing Owen and Hannah's expressions turn nervous. But neither was I ever in any real danger of being the loser.

A thought struck me. At a break, I asked Hannah, "Our bet, what if I don't win before you two graduate?" They were seniors.

I saw the momentary nerves. "I dunno. What do you think?"

"I'm assuming you're not staying near here after graduation?"

She shook her head. "I'm going home to Virginia for a couple of days, then starting a job in Raleigh. I dunno about Owen." She gestured him over.

"I think too bad for you, and we're off the hook," he said with a hopeful look. I'd have wagered a lot that his mind had darted to my comments about his ass.

"I think too bad for you that you have to buy a plane ticket to come back whenever I want," I retorted.

The three of us stared at the impasse, each having their own inclinations but each wanting to play fair.

I thought for a moment. "We cut cards. If you have high card, Owen, I'm out of luck, and you two are off the hook." I hated that prospect, but whatever.

"I can't guarantee I can come back if you win," he protested. "I don't know where I'll be working."

I shook my head and turned to Hannah. "If you have the top card, you two pay up before you graduate, regardless."

"And if you win?" she asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"I get to invite a fourth."

Where did that come from?!?

Are you thinking Julia?

Julia had had an adventure of that kind at school. She'd told me about it when we were in Daytona. I got the impression that, while she wasn't going back for seconds with those two, the idea of something similar might not totally repel her.

But your best friend? Ick!

I pushed the mental babble aside as Owen said, "Male or female?"

"Never mind," I said hastily. "Umm ... if I win, it's not just after the game. It's the weekend."

Wheels spun behind eyes.

"Double or nothing, basically," I said. "Got the guts?"

"Okay," Hannah said. She turned to Owen and waited. "You can quit any time. That's the deal," she reminded. Hannah's mantra.

He nodded.

The thoughts of that card-cut kept my mind occupied. I mean, not really. I was all concentration while a hand was in progress. And I was rapt rubbernecking when Luis led the boys' side of baring it all, as well as each of successive striptease, doing my best to get a little color out of them.

But I figured I was going to get naked. Just random card luck said somewhere around a 91.7% chance when I first sat down because we had twelve players. I was better than some of them, so it might have been a little lower, but those early chip stacks more than made up for it.

So, I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn't the first girl to drop her panties on the floor, endured stoically when it came my turn to give everyone a full frontal, and in between hands contemplated a card-cut.

In that sense, I was marking time to see how the game ended, hoping and praying for a dramatic comeback by a girl, complete with taunts of "Losers!" to the boys, but fatalistic that my fun would be limited to heckling another girl as she eyed the man waiting for her at the back room's door.

Bleh! Better you than me, Victoria, I thought when the final showdown happened, and Zachary conceded to Kevin. Ever since I'd realized that he and Josh had leered together over my performance as a fellatrix, I'd had a chip on my shoulder. No pun intended.

"You know, Vic," Kevin said, "I've never had the pleasure of trying you out. Most of the others here, even got one from Megan before she quit. But almost three years and never you. Now's my chance to see how you stack up."

I saw the faint expression of distaste on a couple of faces, including guys'. Being compared was different from being teased or taunted or even downright mocked. I knew; he'd tried to get Owen to rate me on a scale of one to ten.

How was telling someone that they weren't that good at a blowjob different from "You even hint a girl's got a fat ass ..."? I now had a good inkling of why Carrie had said, "He walks the line," and Brey had snapped back, "He crosses it."

"How do you think you'll do, Vic?"

"You're gonna see stars and think you've gone to heaven," she replied, "and my name's Victoria, not Vic."

He stood. "Sorry. Well, Victoria, that sounds like something that's been worth waiting for." He stood and moved toward the back room, and Victoria rose with him.

"Just pretend it's another of those flat whites from Dunkin' you get all the time," Carrie suggested.

"Does she suck them down or sip?" Zachary asked, "Just asking, because—"

Suddenly, Kevin turned and dropped into the armchair. "But I think I want a show instead."

The room fell deathly quiet.

"Yeah, much as I'd like to see if you can deliver on those stars, I'd really like to see a show."

The tableau held: a room of frozen figures waiting. Victoria with a shocked expression on her face. Kevin with a smirk.

Guys usually go for the blowie, I'd been told. They had.

They can see a woman jill anytime they want on Pornhub, Hannah had said. They could.

Except not this time.

Kevin's eyes flickered my way, the smirk still there. They traveled to Hannah, though her attention was all on Victoria.

Fuck! Victoria, Hannah, me: this is payback for Josh.

The paralysis broke. Victoria moved toward the back room, Hannah a second behind her, the other women starting to rise too. Hannah's eyes caught mine, and she gave a toss of her head for me to follow. "Bring your clothes," she mouthed.

"Victoria, I'm so sorry," I burst out as the door closed behind us. "This is all because of Josh. If I hadn't—"

"It doesn't matter!" She had a determined look on her face. "I lost. He won, fair and square. It doesn't matter what his reason is."

"But—"

"Chips!"

I stopped talking.

"You didn't make me vote no on Josh. I'm a big girl. Do I like this? No. Would I rather another asshole got invited to the main game? Ten times no."

Hannah moved closer to Victoria. "What do you want me to do?"

"There's a memory stick with my name in the bin." Hannah kneeled down and reached under the bed. She pulled out a plastic tub I didn't even know was under there. "Password's Johnston1955, capital J, rest lowercase."

I saw the other women start to pull on clothing. "I thought we had to, you know, stay naked."

"No," Em said quietly. "Once the game ends, it's over for everyone else."

"But when the guys had to, we—"

"No, it's the same. But they just want to get it over with, so it kinda moves along quickly, and dressing in the middle would break the mood. For this ..." She shrugged. "There's going to be time."

From across the room, I couldn't make out what all was in the plastic tub Hannah was rooting through. The distinctive shape of a miniature Patrón Silver bottle and a Tito's label clued me to some of it. Earbuds and what looked like an old-fashioned iPod. Other stuff. Hannah pulled out a small thumb drive and closed the bin. Then she slipped out the door.

"Lights low, please," Victoria called after her.

"The rest of us?" Carrie asked Victoria.

"Off to the side, where I don't see you."

The others nodded. Emily leaned toward me. "Not a word once we go out."

It was quiet in the room, and no sounds filtered from the outer room except some chairs shifting. Victoria heard Em's words. She met my eyes.

"You're allowed to get a kick out of it."

Of all the things I expected her to say, that wasn't it.

"I don't know you very well yet, but I've got some idea. And I'm telling you that, no matter how humiliating it is for me, I'm not gonna hate on you if you get turned on. There are no different rules if a guy picks this instead of a blowjob. So"—she broke eye contact—"whatever. Up to you whether to bust my chops or what Emily said."

Victoria would never bitch out. I'd believed it before, and she proved it that very second. But I could hear in her voice that she wasn't indifferent to that choice.

I remembered when a guy had to do this, how the room had been tense with excitement, but mostly quiet. The knowledge that the act itself was enough to fulfill the room's desire. And this wasn't a guy.

On paper, purely as an abstract thought, what Victoria had to do wasn't any different from what Owen or Ben had to do. But somehow, sexist as the idea might be, I knew I didn't believe that. I had this vague notion—

Be honest, Charl, not vague.

I thought about nights when I'd turned around into the position I liked and slid my fingers beneath my underwear. Or maybe Em's Christmas gift if fingers weren't enough. The time it had taken, how easily outside things could throw me off my stride.

Then I pictured doing it with an audience. Not a boyfriend who was taking part. A dozen people breathing heavily as they sat around and stared. I thought back to the two times I'd watched a guy on that couch. Time had seemed suspended, but five minutes? Ten at the outside?

Not a chance it would be that quick for you, Charl.

And with someone giving me grief?

Could I even manage?

I could see the same tug-of-war on the faces of the other women. Someone's predicament, regardless of gender, making it exciting. Dread at "What if it were me?" Empathy. Anticipation. Compassion. A swirling bundle of competing emotions.

We'll be there for you. Victoria had said those exact words to me the first time we met. It made sense.

So did Hannah whispering into Owen's ear, telling him about the possibility of a threesome to help him along.

So did the airline bottles in the tub—not during a game where sharp wits were needed, but for immediately afterwards to support the worst happening.

So did Victoria's casual flirt with Ben the night he lost. Nothing overt said, but had there been a subtle message that there might be a "later" to the evening?

"Whatever. It's cool, Chips," Victoria repeated.

I thought about a day that might never come for me. I thought about how "might never" could just as easily be "next week." I thought about the help I'd want in that moment of dread.

I grinned a friendly grin. "I don't promise not to enjoy it. But I can do that quietly."

A flicker of answering smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. "Asshole." No heat in the word, not the bitch of our first meeting.

We left her there and filed in under the watchful gazes of guys all fully dressed. You could feel the electricity in the room: half tension, half a bong-hit of carnality.

Hannah touched the light switches, and the room darkened, too dim for me to see how affected the men were. The spotlight over the couch came on some small degree, low enough to still feel intimate, bright enough that our eyes would adjust and see.

I leaned back in my chair and let the considerations of the back room leak away into nothingness. Visions of the upcoming spectacle danced in my mind. I knew what it looked like in a video when some woman reached down to help herself along in time to a man's thrusts. I certainly knew what a solo act was like in practice. But this, not a screen, not me in my bed. Someone else right in front of me, alone, quailing but determined because "she had to" ...

Nobody said anything as the wait went on. The only sounds were bodies shifting in chairs and people breathing. The tension ratcheted. Then the latch to the backroom clicked. The door opened a crack and stopped. I saw Hannah point a remote. The TV up on the wall opposite the couch started playing a clip already cued up.

A swirled-hand graphic stood out against a black backdrop. I'd spent more than a few evenings and afternoons in my family's Airstream with Christian, the blinds pulled against outside light and prying eyes. Some of them had included an iPad propped on the bedside table, and I recognized that logo.

The fleeting surprise that Victoria had an art-house porn video ready fled as quickly as it came. A mere instant of putting myself in her place told me it made sense. I made a mental note.

The logo dissolved to a walk-in shower, color stripped away to monochrome shades of cream and darkness. The only illumination was from the rays of sunlight slanting downward from the small window set high on the wall, visible bars of light in the steam. The ethereal music of the opening screen faded to an open mic picking up the sound of water hitting tile.

A man with the most perfect torso I could imagine leaned against the tile, one arm bent above his head to grasp the pipe where the showerhead emerged from the wall.

A rolling sea of smooth curves formed the powerful shoulders and pectorals. An eight-pack of abdominals defined what lay below. A trapezoid of smooth, tanned skin with only a tiny trail of dark hair leading the eye downward, cut short by the screen's edge. A face chiseled by a Roman sculptor. Not handsome, but undeniably sensuous. Hooded eyes, dissolute lips, a tangle of mussed hair, a day or two's worth of dark stubble. A rough god of carnality.

I was distracted by the door to the back room silently swinging open. Victoria emerged. In the dim light, I saw her eyes search across the room and lock onto the screen. I wondered if she'd pre-gamed in there, an airline bottle or two for liquid courage.

Then I wondered what else was in that bin, and whether she'd pre-gamed in another way, gotten herself started down the road to where she had to go. A sprawl back on the bed with something palm-sized and quiet.

Every male eye was locked on Victoria. The gentle sway of her breasts as she moved, the trimmed triangle of hair between her legs, pulled their gazes. Even those of the male god on screen gave that illusion as he stared straight into the camera.

Hers avoided any contact with the living and were riveted on him. I watched her as she stretched onto the couch, quarter-turned onto a hip, face to the side so she could still see the screen. Her hand slid down her belly.

Movement on the TV pulled my attention. The camera began a slow dolly shot backwards, inching the man's body into view. The v-cut down from the hips of that ripped abdomen and the trail of dark hair down from his navel led relentlessly toward an intersection point.

I sucked in my breath, along with at least half of the women sitting beside me.

I'd seen Mike and walked away with my libido merrily whistling. This ... well, the director chose their male model to impress his audience.

Any flickering thought of what it would really be like, of throat or cervix wincing, disappeared before it even registered. Visually, there was no such thing as too much. The director's intention struck its mark in me.

But it wasn't only what nature had endowed the man with that triggered the flare of heat that pushed from my groin out to charge everything with an adrenaline tingle. It came from the thin, dark line of shock cord wrapped around the base, clenched tightly with a spring fastener like those that held the drawstring of my fleece's hem, indenting the hard column of flesh in encircled.

Victoria's fingers descended, legs separated by the smallest amount.

I recognized the excited, exhaled "Jeez" as Zachary's voice. Victoria's eyes flicked to him for a millisecond and then back.

"It's been a while," Luis said quietly, anticipation palpable in his tone. Victoria met his gaze for a one-two heartbeat before returning the video she'd chosen. I wondered who the last time had been. Hannah had told me she had to do it once, and comments implied Carrie had.

"Worth watching them have to," Kevin drawled, satisfaction oozing from every word. Victoria didn't deign to look away from the screen.

"Begin." The single word, spoken by a woman off-camera, cut through the sound of a shower. My eyes snapped back to the TV.

The god's hand closed around it.

It took somewhere around twenty minutes. Not for him. Somewhere partway through, as a flush started to creep down Victoria's neck to stain her collarbone, the same unseen woman's voice said, "Stop."

Except for that cruel cord, it might have been too late. The veins along his penis stood in stark relief from the rigid length as his hand came away. His thighs quivered in a way I found delicious. He forced his ragged breath into deep, deliberate inhalations to fight down the urge.

I looked back at Victoria. Her eyes were glued, comments from the men in the room finally pushed out of her mind, all her attention on the obedient scene in front of her. The rhythm of her fingers changed.

"Begin."

I watched him build a second time toward climax until his breath grew labored and the hand on the overhead pipe seemed more for balance than artifice.

The voice off-screen denied release yet again, and we waited.

My hunger didn't fall back in sync as the man's breathing eased a second time. Instead, it grew with each passing minute. I wanted nothing more than to say, "Carter?" with a tone that implied anything he wanted in his room after if he would just nod yes. But I'd agreed to silence.

"Begin."

I watched the men watch Victoria, no attention of theirs spared for the TV. Certainly not with a living, breathing woman plummeting down a pit of erotic abandon just mere feet away.

I knew what they were thinking: You lost, and regardless of how you feel, I will savor every lust-filled second of it to the fullest.

The same had run through me when Owen and Ben took their turns up there. It was heady. I couldn't begrudge the men.

Unless it was you up there. I pushed that voice away.

I watched the man on the screen. I watched the men in the room watch the woman on the couch, imagining her underneath them. I watched the woman as she drove herself inexorably toward her goal. And though the sight of fingers working was not innately interesting to me, she'd called it correctly. I was utterly turned on by it. Not by the act itself. By why the act.