Chapter 11

“She knows about The Game,” I said.

Dan had joined Melissa and they were both on speaker. I could imagine them sitting in their living room, side-by-side. Part of me felt like I should have just driven over there to have this conversation, but the other part of me knew being face-to-face would make this a lot harder.

Now, the way I opened the conversation seemed innocuous, but my intonation was everything. The Game. Capital T. Capital G. Our group of friends had called it that for twenty-three years. It was a way of talking about the sexual encounters we had with each other during the course of our D&D games specifically. We could talk about ‘the game’ all day and know we were talking about the combat, or the storyline, or who was bringing the snacks. But ‘The Game’ was a different matter.

“Fuck,” Dan said.

Melissa was silent.

“She just told me before she left,” I said. “She’s apparently known for a couple of years. Caught us the night of the Masquerade Orgy.”

“The one with Count Whats-his-face?” Dan asked.

“Count Fiorenzi,” Melissa corrected him, somehow still keeping her head on straight and correcting her husband about proper names and places like always.

“That’s the one,” I said. “She says she hasn’t told anyone, and I believe her.”

“God, this is going to be awkward,” Dan groaned. “We can’t just ... ignore this, right? Like, pretend everything is normal and we’ll just ... get on with our lives?”

“She told him for a reason, Dan,” Melissa said. “She told you for a reason, right Shane?”

I swallowed and nodded, then remembered they couldn’t see me. “Yeah,” I croaked out.

“God damn it,” Melissa said.

“What?” Dan asked.

“She’s trying to replicate the situation,” Melissa guessed. She always was quick to catch on to any mysteries or plots I put in front of the party. “She wants to have a Game like ours, not just a game.”

“Oh,” Dan said. “Well, that’s not- I mean, she’s twenty. Same age as we were when we started things, right? And you had the whole talk with her about birth control and stuff.”

I was not surprised that Dan had left that talk to his wife to have. He was one of my best friends, but the reason he and Mel got along so well was that he was laid back and happy to put his nose to the grindstone and provide for his family while she took charge of pretty much everything to do with the home and family dynamic.

“I don’t think we could stop her if we tried,” Melissa said. “And we’d be gigantic hypocrites if we tried to punish her or something. Even if it is a bad idea.”

“We haven’t even hit the big one yet,” I said.

There was a moment of silence on the phone.

“Oh, fucking come on,” Melissa said. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Wait, what else?” Dan asked.

“She wants her Game to be the one Shane is running for her, not just tips to run it herself or something,” Melissa groaned.

“Jesus Christ,” Dan said heavily. And then he snorted.

“What’s so funny?” Melissa asked.

“I- Nothing,” Dan said.

“I’m missing the punchline here too, buddy,” I said.

“OK. I just - it was a momentary, errant thought - but I thought ‘Like mother, like daughter,’” Dan admitted.

“Dan!” Melissa scoffed, and I could hear her slapping his arm.

“What?” he asked. “You have to admit, babe, you were the one to start things off way back then. The first one to flash some skin, the first one to make us all get naked when we got into the city baths. The first one to give a celebratory blowjob - still one of the best I’ve ever gotten.”

“Well, I wasn’t the first one to actually have sex,” Melissa said, her argument a little weak. That had been Jack and Veronica, but they’d already been in a relationship and been fucking for a couple of years prior to The Game.

“Either way, she put it out there to me, blunt as can be,” I said.

“What are the boys like?” Melissa asked. “Trustworthy? Is she interested in a specific one?”

I sighed heavily. “The guys bailed on the girls,” I said. “One got dragged back to his home state or something by his parents, and two of them didn’t want to dress up in character like the girls. So it was just me, Rhia, and her two friends.”