A new player

Talia took no risks in fulfilling the quota. She did not just let Hank kiss her. The quota was not for kissing. It was for making out. Both of them were shaking like washing machines when Hank ed her on the couch. Talia, needing to feel control, grabbed Hank’s shirt and pulled him in, shoving her tongue into his mouth and started her timer.

Initially both had been so disgusted and frigid, shoulders arced liked scared cats. Talia despised the feeling of his beard scratching her face. Hank initially sat, chastely letting Talia do all the work. He’d only ever been kissed a couple times in his life, and never made out. He also didn’t want to step over any of her boundaries, so left it up to her to set the pace.

“Please,” she said, each word between smacks of her lips. “Don’t. Just. Sit. There. This. Is. Humiliating. Enough.”

Ten minutes in both of them grew, not comfortable, but bored. Eyes checking the phone timer every few seconds, only to be disappointed by the display. By minute fifteen, all the tension was mostly gone as it just faded into something they were just doing. Like laundry. Just two people shoving tongues down each other’s throats.

When the timer finally went off, both pulled away, gladly, wiping their mouths with the back of their hands. “How long does your date have to be?”

“It didn’t say. But her shift ends in fifteen minutes.”

Hank did the math, guessing Vera would arrive at around noon. If they rolled the minimum rounds and got a six, and each challenge they drew somehow required an hour to complete, then the latest the date could go was 06:00 pm to ensure Talia and him could finish the game after Vera leaves. He intended for it to be much shorter. A few rounds of Smash, have Talia feign an emergency, finish in less than two hours.

“What do we do about the board…”

***

Vera’s car shook and rattled with the bass of her rap music. What is with this rain all week? She wondered, wipers swiping across her windshield, driving to Hank’s house. All the cracks on her phone screen made it difficult to really see the navigation, but she made do.

Not even Michael’s tuna breath could ruin this for her. She was about to have a threesome. She hadn’t had sex in years, so when Hank of all people asked if she wanted to Smash over text, she was all too happy to agree. She didn’t think much of Hank’s character—cheating on his girlfriend, fucking up his teaching career, winding up back at the gas station he’d left Vera at five years ago. But he was chill enough. And he apparently knew sex.

He sometimes said more, sometimes said less, but sometimes that girl, Talia, would stop in with him. Reeking of sex, hair frazzled, dopey look in her eyes and bow legged. Vera knew that only one thing happened in that house and she needed to break her dry spell with no commitments. Better the devil she knew.

She pulled up to the house and hurried herself to the porch. Before ringing the bell, she noticed a little leather journal sitting right in front of the door with a note addressed to her.

If you want to play, you’ll need to write your name in the book.

“Oh, so they’re kinky kinky.” She shook her head. She could get behind that. Might need to ease into it, but they were hosting. At first, her assumption was that this was some sort of guest book, a trophy of all the names they’d fucked together. But flipping through the pages, if that was the case, then she was the first one. There were only about a hundred pages, so she flipped all the way to the end, finding absolutely everything blank.

Vera reached into her pocket for a pen she’d stolen from work, chastising herself for not wearing her spiked choker. Usually it was too mall-goth for her tastes, but if these two were this kinky, she probably would have made a better impression.

She scribbled her name on the first page, closing the book and tucking it under her arm. Then she rang the bell. It did not take long for the door to open, Hank, who had clearly just gotten out of the shower, opened the door with a nervous smile. The guy was nervous all day.

“Hey, good to uh,” he blinked hard, realizing what he was saying was stupid. “Glad you came.” He corrected himself, motioning for her to enter.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “You have no idea how much I’ve needed this.” She stepped in, enjoying the warmth of the heater compared to the damp air outside. The thought of her sorority roommies giggling and cackling about bullshit that didn’t matter sounded like hell compared to getting dicked down and eaten out for a little while.

“Can I take, your jacket?” He asked.

She nodded, putting the journal in her hands and allowing Hank to step behind her and pull her ratty hoodie off her shoulders. He was off to a great start. “Where’s Talia?”

“Oh, she’s waiting out in the bedroom.”

Straight to the point. Fine by her. “Then let’s not keep her waiting long.”

Hank seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Yeah, I wasn’t uh, planning on this taking super long. Just…”

“Doesn’t take a lot to get me ready.” Vera assured him. She was fine with rushing through the foreplay. She knew why she was here. Her attention turned to the book in her hand. “Oh, was there anywhere you wanted me to put this?” She asked, holding up the book and waiting for hank to turn around.

Before he could turn around, a worried voice called from down the hall. “Um… Hank!” The woman was clearly fighting to not sound panicked. “You need to see this. Now.”

“Sorry, one second.” Hank lifted his finger, not even turning his head to address Vera before sprinting down the hall. Vera sighed. Whatever the issue was, it better not interfere with her getting laid, she thought. Vera didn’t really care about exploring Hank’s house. She didn’t really give a shit about him outside of work and fixing the problem between her legs. If he and his weird fuck buddy did a good enough job, then maybe this became more regular. But for now, this was just a cheaper alternative to weed and shrooms to keep the bad thoughts out.

What did catch her eye, though, was a board game sitting in the living room. It looked like some chutes and ladders doing a Jumanji tie-in. She knew Hank liked collecting board games, so wasn’t surprised that he had a weird version of something so simple.

For some reason, she was actually interested in it just from its macabre presentation. The side of the board was carved to have the visage of a woman who’s eyes were covered, framed by ornately carved floral patterns that were all obviously phallic and vaginal homages. Two decks of cards locked in cages on the far side of the board and a blanket lay discarded on the floor next to the board. Perhaps this was a BDSM twist on snakes and ladders. That might be fun…

Did they set all this up? She examined the other side of the board. The Reality of it Is… How commanding a title. “The reality of it is,” she could imagine Talia saying, tying Vera’s limbs to the bed at the behest of a card, “toys don’t get to move themselves.”

Any foreplay Hank had wanted to do was now fully unnecessary. Her mind was awash with fantasies of what the cards might call for her to do. She never wanted to both play and lose a game so badly. She hated board games, but she supposed that with how much Hank and Talia had sex, they must’ve found ways to make it the most exciting and fresh. She was going to trust the pros. And if it wasn’t good, then who said she had to make it to tomorrow?

There was a tight, muffled exchange down the hall as Vera examined the board some more. There were two pawns on the board already. Yellow and blue. It looked like they already had a head start—fine by her. But there were two pieces unclaimed in opposing corners. Black and red.

Hank was probably untying Talia that very moment. Vera could practically hear the squishing between her own legs. She figured she should show some eagerness to get started. Black always was her color.

She pulled the piece from the slot and examined the board. All the squares, seemingly colored randomly, were all numbered in the most stereotypical goth font. She figured 1 was probably a safe bet to start out on. She placed the pawn down on the red square all the way at the bottom of the board, coinciding perfectly with the sound of a door being flung open, feet stamping down the hall.

“Vera?” Hank’s concerned voice echoed off the wooden floors, growing more forceful when he realized Vera wasn’t by the door. “Vera!” He cried out, rushing out of the hall and suddenly freezing, staring down at her as if he was seeing a dead woman walking.

Had she done something wrong? She just wanted to skip to the fun part. “Oh, sorry, I just figured I’d get myself set up so we could get right to it.”

Hank’s eyes widened, Talia sliding out behind him with the same horrified look. “Do you…” He lost his breath, Talia picking up, suddenly tinged with curiosity.

“Do you know what that is?” Talia asked, studying Vera’s face for a reaction.

“Idunno. Looks like chutes and ladders, but like, BDSMey.” She shrugged. “Honestly, I was just expecting a threesome, but this sounds hot.”

Hank shook his head. “A threesome?”

Vera furrowed her brow. Why was he being weird. “Yeah? You asked if I wanted to smash?”

“Play Smash! Like, the video game!”

Vera felt way more disappointment than she thought she should, quickly checking her texts. He was right. She must’ve misread his text. “Fuck.” She sighed.

“Vera,” Talia walked around the couch suspiciously eyeing the notebook in her hand. “Tell me you didn’t write your name in that book.”

“Well, y—“ She paused, taking stock of the situation. This had to be part of it, right? They left the book on the porch with pretty specific instructions. They knew she was coming over and left this game out. This was roleplay. It had to be.

Whatever, if this is what they need to keep things fresh, then so be it.

She pointed the face of the book away from her and slid her thumb under the cover, opening it to show where she’d put her name. The whole time she stared down Talia’s unreal blue eyes with Vera’s patented blank stare.

“Oh, Vera, no.” Hank whimpered, palming his face.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” Talia asked, distant, afraid.

“Let me guess, this board game is a mAgIc sex game and I just sold my soul yaddah yaddah, can’t leave till we finish, yaddah yaddah, I saw Jumanji and need to get laid so let’s cut to the chase.”

Talia became even more incredulous. “You know?” Her brow twitched. “How the fuck do you know? Are you behind all this?”

“No, Talia,” Hank sighed, as if annoyed. “She’s not. She’s just like this.” Talia looked to Hank with an expression Vera couldn’t read, but it wasn’t a happy one. She was really getting into character. “Vera, start flipping all the pages.” He ordered.

Already feeling in a submissive mood, Vera did as he ordered, bending the book and letting the pages fly past her thumb. It felt longer, somehow. As if pages kept appearing halfway across her thumb as they cascaded. For a few seconds this continued until Vera looked down at the book, mesmerized by the image of pages falling from a stack that never got smaller into a stack that never grew taller.

“Think of something only you know. Literally couldn’t possibly be known by anyone else.” He urged her, the thought came instantly. “Stop on any page.”

Number of bullets fired at Dale Reyes: 58
Number of bullets fired into Dale Reyes: 17
Number of murders: 1
Number of human traffickers killed: 1

She slammed the book shut, seeing all the statistics about the night she killed her ex boyfriend. As far as anyone knew, he ran off to Russia and left her behind. Anyone but her.

“Whelp. Are we going to be chased by demons or something? Because I’m straight up just going to throw myself into a bathtub face first.” Vera leaned back into the couch, popping her back.

“No,” Hank said. “The game just takes facts about your life and makes them different. Like, Talia and I were just friends three days ago. But one round on the board and apparently we’ve had sex, like 2000 times in the last 6 months.”

Vera furrowed her brow, looking at Hank as he stepped into the living room. “Uh… is it really 2000 times? That seems…”

“Impossible?” Talia interjected, tapping her foot. “Like, physically not a thing that can actually happen? Yeah. Believe me. I know.”

“So you guys didn’t… you aren’t…”

“No!” They both answered in sync.

“Not actually,” Hank clarified. “The rest of reality shifted around that being a fact, but for some reason, we can’t it the new way.”

“So the changes are always sexual?”

“We haven’t fully determined, yet. It seems like a theme, but sometimes it’s innocuous. Like eye color, or…” he looked to a photo of his ex. “Other stuff.”

Vera nodded, running her tongue along her teeth behind her lips. “Ok, so how do we play?”

Talia snapped her head in disbelief. “How are you taking this so well?”

“I’m not really married to my current shitty life. If it’s worse than right now, then who says I have to see tomorrow?” She shrugged. Part of her was actually a little excited.

Sex had been something so wrapped up in trauma for her. It had robbed her of so much of her life. She’d already given up on her current life, so what was the big deal with trying out a different one?

***

Vera didn’t really want to read the rulebook. She just wanted to know how to play in the most basic sense. To Hank and Talia, it was as if Eva were treating this like any other game she was learning the rules for. She almost had no interest in how to maximize her understanding or mileage. She just wanted to know when to roll, when to draw cards, and what the colors meant.

She basically refused to hear any explanation beyond that. She even seemed annoyed that she had to do a challenge before receiving her first change despite already being on a square.

Talia rolled the minimum rounds and had scored a 5 on the die, meaning they could play six rounds at most. Something all of them were relieved by. Then came the challenge phase.

Vera snatched the first card off the top of the deck, impatient to begin. She read the card quickly.

Challenge: Text a photograph of your vagina to your roommates captioned: “This thing controls me.”

If you refuse or fail, add an additional word to your next word change. You have twenty minutes.

“So, what does this mean? If I don’t do it, my next change is more ****?” Vera asked, showing the card to Hank.

“Not exactly. The next time you land on blue, it will be more ****. But I have to caution you about refusal.”

The challenge was one she would do gladly. She hated her roommates. Three of them, college sorority girls who were always happy or bitching about shit that didn’t matter. However, she liked the idea of just letting the board run wild with her life. It was barely hers anyway.

Talia drew a card for herself, and one for Hank. Hank sighed, reading his.

Receive a blowjob from another player. Finish on a DIFFERENT player’s face.

Fail or refuse and lose your movement phase this turn. You have one hour.

Talia was so disgusted by her card. She knew she’d agreed to not resist, but couldn’t fully suppress the urge. Even knowing it would only make things harder, she couldn’t help but consider saying no.

Take and post a smiling selfie of you wearing cum on your face on your public Facebook. Caption the post “Game night is so fun! Some girls just don’t know how to have fun!” You may not take down the photo or alter your Facebook in any way.

Fail or refuse and multiply your next number change value by two. You have one hour.

“It looks like they’re trying to synergize our challenges, Talia.” Hank noted.

“Just great.”

Vera snatched his card and read it. “So, I’ll suck your dick, she’ll take the load and post it. Got it.”

“Whoah!” Hank blushed, growing very uncomfortable. “Don’t you want to… discuss it?”

“Not really.” Vera shrugged. “Do you want a free BJ or not?”

Vera’s candor and forwardness both unsettled Talia and made her grateful. She couldn’t really stew on whether she wanted cum on her face or could tolerate the humiliation of posting it. Talia could just let Vera take the lead and accept it.

“Talia?” Hank turned to Talia, as if asking for an out. He always needed someone else to make the decision for him.

“Tell me when I need to step in.” Talia sighed. “I’m not fucking with another number change.”

Vera slipped off the couch, kneeling between Hank’s legs. Despite her speed, she didn’t exactly give off an air of eagerness. Her face was flat and emotionless as always. Like she was stocking a fridge at the gas station. Impossible to read. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Do you, pussy?”

Talia’s knee-jerk reaction had her jump in. She hated that word being used like that. “Hey! Let’s not do name calling, ok?”

“Am I putting a dick in my mouth or not?”

“Yes.” Talia answered for Hank. Vera didn’t wait for him to . She yanked down the elastic band of his sweats, finding his limp dick under a thick brown bush.

“Trim this more often.” Vera said, grabbing the soft cock in her hand and lowering her mouth. Her septum piercing grazed his tummy as she took him in her warm, inviting mouth, gently sucking the air out.

It was the first blowjob Hank ever had. His lungs seized and his whole body tightened, as if he’d grabbed an electric fence. Unsure what to do with his hands, he grabbed a pillow off the couch and hugged it to his chest, trying not to moan. Talia sat awkwardly with her hands in her lap, just waiting for her moment, growing less certain with each ing minute.

“Why won’t it, ugh.” Hank finally gasped, looking down at Vera after twenty minutes. Vera’s card shot into the discard pile, having been failed. Talia wanted to scream at her for letting it happen, but decided not to do anything that might encourage her to make either Hank or Talia or both fail as well.

Vera popped the soft penis out of her mouth. “It’s been going non stop for six months. Shit’s desensitized.”

“But we never actually had sex!” Hank protested.

“Your bodies definitely did.” Vera shrugged. “You need some mental stimulation. Talia, show him your tits or something.”

“What?” Talia shook her head. “No. Ew. You do it.”

“I’m already sucking his dick. Just do some dirty talk.” Vera rolled her eyes, going right back to running her tongue around the spongey flesh.

Talia checked her timer. Thirty-five minutes left. There was still time, but not too much. Hank’s face was scrunched in frustration. Fine.

“D-do you like that?” Talia managed to say, voice not very sexy. “Naughty boy.” She shook her head, grimacing. It felt very wrong and disgusting. She was trying to imagine what gross shit men liked to hear. Her and Sarah’s dirty talk was always very pleasant and respectful. “You’re a very, very, very bad boy.” She alternated between calling him naughty and bad for another few minutes.

“You’re just making me self-conscious.” He shook his head. “Can you… ugh… can you be, I don’t know. Can we try it where you’re encouraging?”

Talia’s eye twitched. “Encouraging? What am I, your mother?” Talia scoffed, adopting an over the top doting voice. “Oh, sweetie, you’re doing such a good job just sitting there.”

Hank’s head rolled back, body relaxing some. Vera lifted a thumbs up to tell her to go on. Oh, my god, I am his mother. Talia realized, dread filling her. Hank’s relationship with his mother was… hectic to say the least. She wasn’t a very stable or safe person to be around as far as Talia could tell. Hank had always been an insecure attention seeker, so she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised that he was trying to get validation and attention from a matronly figure.

But why did it have to be her?

“You’re doing great.” Her voice was less energetic than when she was going over the top. Talia didn’t want to be anyone’s mother. And she found the mommy fetishization a gross perversion of one of womanhood’s powers. Motherhood was supposed to be a respectable, noble thing for the women who chose to pursue it. It wasn’t supposed to be kink material for men. “Keep it up. Come on, you can do it.”

After another few minutes, Hank’s body began to tense up. “I—I think…” Vera started waving Talia over. Talia’s heart dropped, pulling her long blonde hair back and dropping to her knees next to Vera. She closed her eyes, unable and unwilling to look at what was about to happen to her.

She heard some rustling and then felt the hot warm liquid hit her face. She had to fight the urge to recoil, feeling another rope streak across her eyelid. “Ewwwww.” She whined, finally rolling away.

“I’m sorry!” Hank cried out. Talia had to fight the urge to wipe all of it off immediately. She couldn’t fuck with it until the challenge was over. She wasn’t taking any chances.

She could only open one eye, afraid of semen getting in her other, and so navigated to her camera with a single half squint. She looked like one of those poor girls in a men’s porn. Claimed and marked. And yet the card demanded she smile. She couldn’t look at the camera, closing both her eyes, but gave a wide, toothy smile and snapping the picture.

Then she navigated to Facebook. It was the only social media she had and hadn’t been active on it for years. On occasion she’d hop back on for some professional engagements, but most of the people who would see the post before Facebook’s moderation team took it down were people she met once at symposiums or workshops and probably wouldn’t who she was. She was a little concerned about family, but she could just tell people she was hacked and deepfaked and the older ones would probably buy it.

She numbed herself while she wrote the demeaning, misogynistic text called for by the card, then attached the awful picture of herself. She hit post without a thought and immediately rushed to the bathroom to wash off her face.

Vera sat next to Hank on the couch, waiting for Talia to return. “I-I’m sorry you got involved in this.” Hank nodded, keeping his legs crossed from the ed sensations.

“I’d suck a gorillian dicks before driving a Ford.” Vera said as if she were a sleazy used car radio ad.

Hank blinked, nodding. Typical Vera. “Does this seriously not bother you?”

“No.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on living to today. You invited me over so I stuck around to see what’s up. I wasn’t planning on living past today, I play a game and we’ll see what’s up in the morning. If I get sick of something, then I can always be done with everything. A lot of shit stops bothering you once you realize that.”

Talia came back to the living room, face wet all over and red where she scrubbed too hard. She flopped herself onto the couch, fighting the urge to open her phone and watch how long it takes for the post to be removed. To agonize over who was seeing it. But she just turned to Hank and gave a nod.

“Ok,” he pointed Vera to the Category Deck Cage, which was now opened. “So, since it’s your first turn, you’re going to go first this phase, but in the future you go third. You’re going to draw a card and since you’re on space 1–a red space—it’s going to determine what numerical statistic gets changed about you.”

Vera was all too eager to draw the card and read it.

Presentation and Body:

Roll 1d6. Add the result to your number value.

Vera furrowed her brow. “One dee six?”

“A six sided die.” He handed her the cube from the table.

“One dee chud.” She said, rolling it. Talia rubbed her temples. This woman talked like one of her brain rotted students. She was already growing exhausted of her. 4. She looked back at the card, but was disappointed. “Nothing happened. What the fuck?”

Hank handed her the glowing notebook. “When something changes, the book will glow.”

“Pog.” She snatched the book up and opened it at one place, though it somehow shifted to the exact middle when it folded apart. The text was glowing bright, scribbles in the margins doing the simple addition.

Clitoris Length: 1.105 inches Die result: 4 Adding number value to die result *Result: 5.105 inches**Clitoris Length: 5.105 inches*

Vera felt a sudden shift between her legs, an overcrowding as the text rewrote itself. Other stats like girth and weight also changed, but weren’t highlighted. They were too numerous for her to track, especially when she already knew what she needed to know. She could feel it throbbing down there, pulsing against her panties.

“Hell yeah.” She laughed, card ripping from her hand into the discard slot. She slid her fingers under the waistband of pants she hadn’t filled in almost a year. “That’s awesome.” She laughed, shamelessly gripping the fat organ under her panties.

“What is it?” Talia demanded. “Stop doing that.”

“Clit’s big as a dick now, chuddie.” Vera answered, lifting her middle finger. “Not gonna stop unless I get a little reciprocation for the BJ.” She turned to Hank with blank eyes, continuing to stroke the slab between her legs. This was exactly the kind of stuff she was expecting, hoping for even. How bad could she fuck up her life on the way out?

Hank’s cheeks flashed, looking away. “I uh, if a challenge comes up, maybe.” He cleared his throat.

“Stop!” Talia stomped her foot. “Just stop that! How can you be enjoying this?”

“Enjoyment has nothing to do with it. Nothing matters, genius. I’m horny, I’m gonna diddle myself. The game’s gonna fuck more things around in a minute anyway.”

“You pick weird friends, Hank.” Talia scoffed, grabbing the die off the board.

“He picked you, Nympho.”