“Nat, how ‘bout comin’ over tonight for a little Monopoly?” My friend, Luke was on the phone. It was Friday, July 8th, and my best friend was apparently bored. Monopoly, if a more boring game had ever been invented, I’d love to know what it might be so I could avoid it. But Luke likes Monopoly and I always enjoy his company, and to be honest, I was bored, too.

I’m eighteen, two months graduated from high school, and have a summer job with the Forest Service before starting college in the fall, but I was tired of evenings home alone. Mom, Dad, me, and my little sister went on a vacation trip to the coast over the 4th of July weekend. Unfortunately, I had to come home right after the weekend because of the stupid job, but Mom, Dad, and little sis weren’t planning to be home until the tenth. I have a big brother but he’s staying at his apartment in Boise, where he has a summer job before going back to college.

Given the alternative of staying home alone another night or playing Monotony with Luke, I’d choose Monotony any time. “Sure,” I told him, “what time?”

“Great,” he said, “how ‘bout seven, I’ll order us pizza ... Oh, by the way, Katy’s coming over, too, why don’t you give Taylor a call, I’ll bet she’d love to come.”

I shuddered, Taylor ... she was my senior year study hall partner, and we’d gotten pretty friendly over the year. She has a boyfriend, though, much to my dismay, not that I’d have had the courage to ask her out, anyway – wayyy out of my league: long, red hair; gorgeous, green eyes; small, pixie-like nose on her prettier than pretty face; starter on the basketball team since she was a freshman; won the state title in the hundred-meter dash, 2nd place in the 400; and her boyfriend is a hunk. In short, for 99.5% of the guys in school, she was one of the untouchables, the kind of girl that I had no doubt would be just as pretty, probably much more glamorous at our 25th reunion. Besides that, I’ve seen her mom at basketball games. Trust me, Mom ain’t no slouch. I just happened to be lucky enough to be paired with her daughter for study hall.

Someone took a snapshot of Taylor and her boyfriend at the prom last March, her long, emerald green dress with a slit up the side nearly to her thigh, long red hair off to one side. That picture somehow made it in the yearbook and I memorized every detail; her red high-heeled shoes strapped around her ankles, red lipstick with that irresistible, dazzling smile on her face...

Why would someone like that want to go out with me? I don’t consider myself bad-looking, but at 6’2”, 142 pounds, I am not an athletic powerhouse ... or any other kind of powerhouse, either.

Maybe you can tell from my short description of Taylor; yeah, I’ve had a secret crush (along with probably every other male in school) since we first sat down at the same study hall table way last September. And it’s only gotten worse since, one of those things that I was certain that if I’d been naïve enough to think she might be romantically interested and tried to do something about it, it would likely ruin the friendship that we’d developed.

“I’m hearing your hesitation, you do know she and Dan broke up after graduation, don’t you? ... and I have it on good authority that she likes you.”

I didn’t know, I hadn’t seen her since graduation ... except in my dreams.

“Yeah, as a friend ... not exactly a dating type friend,” I told him.

“Well then, just ask her as a friend, like I’m asking you. There, see how easy that was, problem solved. Besides, she’s good friends with Katy, we’ll have a great time.”

I rolled my eyes, Luke! He’s always been easy with the girls, he has no fuckin’ clue what it’s like to be shy. Asking another guy-friend is a hell of a lot different than me asking a girl ... especially a girl like Taylor. Besides, “How am I supposed to call her, I have no idea what her phone number is?”

“If that’s your only problem ... give me two minutes, I’ll text you. Be here at seven ... with Taylor.”

“Lu...”

The asshat disconnected!

And about a minute later, a text message from Luke popped up, a phone number, 208-384-... (sorry guys, I am NOT giving out Taylor’s number). All I had to do was click on that number, so friggin’ simple. Then why was my heart pounding a hole in my chest? Why did I feel like I’d swallowed an entire school of goldfish? I don’t think I’d ever wanted anything, ever, as badly as I wanted my finger to just make a very simple, quick tap on my phone. No way, I couldn’t do it, I’d go to Luke’s but by myself, he’d just have to get over it.

I put my phone in my shirt pocket; out of sight, out of mind. There was no way a girl like Taylor Morrison would go anywhere with me, even a simple Monopoly game at Luke’s house. And then ... oh fuck! I heard it ringing! I didn’t, did I? Accidentally touch that number? In a panic, I reached for the phone, madly trying to disconnect, my fingers fumbling like they were coming completely loose from my hand, when this voice I recognized from so many hours in study hall said, “Hello?”

Oh crap! What now? I stammered, managing to get it out of my pocket, “Taylor?” I asked. Well, duhh, who else would it be with her voice on her phone?

“Nate? Hi,” God, her voice hadn’t ever sounded quite like that in study hall, sultry, sexy.

“Uhhh...” If I’d thought my heart was pounding before ... At least I’d managed to retrieve the phone out of my pocket without dropping it. “Umm, Luke called me a minute ago, wanted me to come over to his place for a game of Monopoly. I wondered...” my heartrate ballooning again, “he said ... Katy’s coming over, too ... thought you might wanna...?”

“I’d love to! What time?” Omigod, Omigod!

It took me a minute to recover and answer, “Seven ... he said, at his place, said he’d order pizza,” I couldn’t believe this! I was going out (well, just to Luke’s but still... ) with Taylor Morrison! THE Taylor Morrison! I glanced at my watch, I had no clue what time it was then, hadn’t even thought to look after Luke mentioned Taylor. It was five-thirty-six. “Pick you up at quarter-til?”

I felt her smile coming through the phone in her voice, “I’ll be ready, sounds like fun.”

Okay, now what? What do I say? I didn’t even know how to get off the phone, I was so excited. I wasn’t exactly used to this, it was date number two for me. The other had been set up by Jimmy, my big brother, a disaster, Lisa, the sister of one of his friends. My fault, not hers, I was just too shy, couldn’t put two rational words together. She must have thought I was an idiot, no way could I talk to her after that.

“Okay, see you in a bit, then,” I said. Lame!

“See ya,” she answered, then was gone.

Okay, fifty-four minutes to get ready. We live just over three miles from town on a little acreage, so I’d have to leave at six-thirty to get to her place by quarter-til, not that I’d ever been to her house, but at least I knew where they lived. I probably shouldn’t say I’ve never been there, I’ve driven by, just imagining what it might be like to actually date her, felt kind of like stalking.

I jumped in the shower in a near panic, four minutes later I was drying myself. Brush my teeth, shave ... who am I kidding, I have no beard! Well, I could use cologne, anyway, if I had some. I checked the other bathroom, Jimmy had some, he’s three years older, said the girls loved it. At eight minutes after six I was dressed and ready to go.

Oh shit! I’d forgotten one thing, my only transportation was Dad’s old pickup. It’s what I’d been driving to work, but to pick up Taylor? No way! Not that I had much choice. It’s an old ‘83 Ford four-wheel-drive F350, an ancient monster of a truck, lumpy and torn bench seat, rattles in every seam, diesel engine that roared ... and stunk. But it’d pull Mom and Dad’s big travel trailer, and that’s what mattered to them. I had a full-ride scholarship to Boise State, so was planning on using part of my summer’s earnings to buy a car, but fat lotta good that did me now.

I went into another panic, finding a blanket to put on the seat, and doing a quick vacuum with the shop-vac, at least get rid of some of the dirt. When I was finished, the interior wasn’t even remotely okay for a girl like Taylor, any girl for that matter, but it was all I had. It was better than it had been, though, albeit not much.

I was five minutes late, another panic attack coming. I started the old truck and groaned, listening to the roar from that big diesel engine. Well, it couldn’t be helped.

With a little speeding and running a couple red lights after being sure there wasn’t a cop in the area, I was only a minute late to Taylor’s. I jumped out and gave another groan when I looked back from her walk at the ride I was expecting her to sit in. Hell, she’d need a friggin’ ladder!

And she was all smiles when she opened the door. About the only thing I could do was stand there and gawk. She had on a halter top, tied in the back and around her neck, and sort of loosely hanging about halfway down her tummy, showing off her nice midriff, bare in the back except the tie (Nice? What a lame word for how she looked!), no bra? a pair of tight, frayed denim Daisy Duke shorts that couldn’t have been more than six inches long, and a pair of ankle-high boots with about three-inch heels. Gawd, she looked good!

She glanced at our ‘ride’ and if I told you I was embarrassed, it’d be the understatement of the year, maybe the decade. It never affected her smile in the least, though. “This yours?” she asked me. That voice ... I nearly died! How come she didn’t sound like that in study hall?

“Dad’s,” I told her, “they took the car on vacation, left this for me to drive”

“Cool,” she said, “I’ve always wanted to ride in a ‘real’ truck.” She rolled that ‘real’ word almost like a growl. Then she added, “Maybe after Luke’s ... we could go for a ride somewhere?” Was she kidding? Mocking?

“Uh, yeah, anything you want,” I realized how that must have sounded, “I mean ... I’d love to take you for a ride, wherever you’d like.”

At the truck, I reached up and opened the door, then gripped the soft, bare skin of Taylor’s waist, the electric shock passing from my fingertips through my body like a lightning bolt. I’d never actually touched a girl before. Well, except for holding hands with Lisa that time, but that hardly counted.

There was no conversation in the truck once I started that big engine. The thing did have a muffler, but it was pretty damned ineffective, the cab was a dull roar. Taylor acted like she loved it, though, watching me shift through the gears like she’d never seen a manual transmission before. She probably hadn’t, they’re practically extinct except for the old trucks like this one.

We made it to Luke’s and Taylor waited for me to open the door for her and help her down. I’d been looking forward to this ever since helping her up. I still couldn’t believe she was letting me touch her like that, and looking at her from this angle, there was no doubt she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her boobs might not be very big, but through that top, she looked perfect to me.

And she held my hand walking up Luke’s sidewalk like she was my girlfriend or something!

On the way in, she whispered in my ear, “Just so you know, I suck at Monopoly, I’m always the first one bankrupt. I squeezed her hand and whispered back that she’d probably be lucky tonight. Actually, I was the one being lucky. I wasn’t on cloud nine, it was at least fifteen or twenty, a heck of a lot higher than just nine.

Luke’s smile was a mile wide when he opened the door and saw Taylor with me, “Knew you could do it!” he blurted out.

“Yeah, well...”

“Pizza’s not here yet, should be any minute,” he said, “got the game all ready to go while we’re waiting.”

I couldn’t help but glance a little longer than necessary at Katy when she came in the room, wearing a short skirt and spaghetti-strap tank top. It didn’t look like either girl was wearing a bra. No complaint from me!

I’m not going to bore you to death with a play-by-play of the Monopoly game. Suffice it to say that what Taylor said about her Monopoly skills was entirely accurate. She sucked! Of course, maybe bad luck played into it a little, too, you know, when almost her every roll landed on someone else’s property, go to jail, Community Chest with taxes due or some such thing. By the time the pizza arrived, the rest of us had three-four properties. Taylor owned one railroad. Somehow, she had the skill to circumnavigate the entire board without landing on a single vacant property. She was a really good banker, though.

And those distracting nipples protruding through her top, oh my! I know that if it was just Luke and me, she could have snuck extra five-hundred-dollar bills out of the bank into her money pile and neither of us would have noticed. Between her and Katy...! Those short shorts hadn’t been helping, either.

Katy, on the other hand, was on a roll, already adding houses on her Pacific, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania properties.

We took a break from the game when the pizzas arrived and sat around the dining table eating and talking. Taylor made me feel about a mile tall when she told us, “I wish I’d broken up with Danny a long time ago,” looking over at me with that million-dollar smile on her face. I don’t know if she meant what I thought, but it sure didn’t hurt my ego any. My emotions had been running sky high ever since that accidental phone call but with that one little sentence ... holy shit! I was seriously in love with that pouty face every time she got a bad roll, which was pretty much every roll.

After the pizza, Luke made a suggestion, “Guys, look at that sunset, it’s really nice outside. Why don’t we move our game outside?”

“Uhh, bugs...?” Katy reminded him, quite sensibly.

“Got it covered,” he answered her, “Dad bought this really cool screen house that just kinda pops up. We can have it set up in five minutes.”

So, we pulled the screen house out of the garage, out of its bag, and like Luke said, it just popped up, done in about two minutes. We found four lawn chairs, a table, and he lit a gas lantern, then we carefully moved our Monopoly game stuff out to the screen house. It felt so good, a little breeze blowing, under a thousand-year-old (well, almost) elm tree, great view of the gorgeous sunset, and we were playing again.

It was probably a half-hour later when the game began to get interesting. I’d accumulated hotels on the orange properties; Luke, both the red with hotels and yellow with two houses each; and Katy the green, and Park Place/Boardwalk, each with four houses. Taylor had finally managed to accumulate the three purple properties in front of my orange, and had four houses on each. She’d just rolled doubles, landing on my hotel on New York Avenue, owing me $1000. The pretty pout on her face and eyes was almost worth telling her to forget it ... but not quite.

I held out my hand, a grin on my face, “Thousand bucks, please,” I told her.

The pout grew, saddest face I’ve ever seen, I think. I motioned with my hand that I wanted my money.

“It’s all I have,” she complained, starting to count. My grin widened, rubbing my hands together, and waving my fingers in that ‘gimme’ motion.

She handed me the thousand, with a very stern, “Don’t like you anymore.” I hoped she was kidding.

“You got doubles, get to roll again,” I told her, sorting my cash and stuffing it away.

She rolled, double twos, four. I don’t think any of the rest of us could hold the chuckle as she landed on Luke’s hotel on Indiana Avenue. Her eyes were wide, disbelieving her luck. He checked his property with a hotel, “That’ll be Thousand-fifty, please,” holding his hand out as I had, knowing full well that she had no money left, damn little, anyway.

“I ... uhh ... don’t have anything,” she said.

“You have properties, could just deed them over to me,” he suggested, trying to be helpful, I guess.

Taylor groaned, “Guess I’m out of the game, huh?”

“Well, I can think of one other option,” he said, “your boots, I like your boots, give them to me until you can buy them back and we’ll be even.”

Her eyes went wide, so did mine and Katy’s with what he was suggesting. Granted, this was only boots but still...

Taylor scooted her chair back on the grass and slipped one high-heeled boot off, then the other, handing them over to Luke. I couldn’t help but wonder ... Besides, I never realized before that I have a foot fetish. Her feet were just so ... I can’t even think of a word.

Luke took the boots, setting them beside his chair. “Hopefully, you’ll earn enough to get them back. Otherwise, we might have to bargain further for their retrieval ... and I believe you had doubles again, it’s still your turn.”

My cock had gotten so hard, thinking of the possibilities. Pervert!

This time, Taylors hands were shaking when she picked up the dice again, cupping them in both her hands and shaking, suddenly dropping them on the game board – a five and four, nine. She began to move her little hat and we could see the instant she realized where she was going to land, “Noooo!” she wailed. Right on North Carolina Avenue, four houses, owned by none other than Katy.

One turn, three rolls, three huge losses, I don’t think I’d ever seen that before.

She looked over at Katy, eyes imploring for mercy, terror written all over her face. Katy’s smile grew, “I believe,” she started, “you have a top that I just love ... if you want to stay in the game, that is.”

Poor Taylor was practically in tears. I was torn between feeling sorry for her and excited out of my mind to see what was going to happen. “I can’t ... please!” she wailed.

“Oh, I think you can, maybe even want to, but I’ll sweeten the deal a little, I’ll throw in Park Place and Boardwalk, houses included ... I’ll even buy hotels for them. All you have to do ... after you give me your top, is to kiss Nate. I understand he’s never really kissed a girl before; you can teach him ... right here.”

Now my eyes were wide, my jaw dropped open. Was she kidding?

I watched Taylor, glancing at me, “I like that part, been wanting to do that all night ... all year, really, but the other ... please, Katy!”

She’s been wanting to kiss me, even before tonight? My heart flip-flopped, I could barely breathe, hardly able to believe what I’d just heard.

“Nope, it’s all or nothing, come on, girl, I know deep inside you’re dying to do it.”

“Easy enough for you to say!”

Katy chuckled, “What, you never got naked for Danny?” Taylor shook her head.

“Well, it’s about time, then,” Katy said.

Katy looked at me, “Nate, you want to untie those little knots on Taylor’s back, help her out a bit? I think she’ll make it worthwhile for you.”

She took my hand, tugged me to my feet, and positioned me behind Taylor’s chair. Every square inch of my body was shaking, my arms hanging at my sides. Katy led one of my hands to one of the dangling ends, then the other to the other end. “Well, girl, you want him to pull those or not, yes or no?”