Chapter 9: The Accidental Menage, Part Two

In retrospect, any rational person would have realized that a week-long district attorney conference wouldn't really last an entire week, from Monday to Sunday. If I'd thought about it at all, I would have known that, duh, it was only a work week, and that Mom would be back on Friday night. And I certainly wouldn't have invited the girls over to play on Friday night.

They had been "checking in" on me all week. Monday was Natalie, Tuesday was Pam, and Wednesday was Laura. I had Thursday night off. They all called, of course. I could hear Pam's vibrator through the phone.

Anyway, playing is exactly what we were doing when Mom walked through the front door on Friday night, just after nine o'clock. Five-card draw. By the time she arrived, Natalie had run out of chips and was out of the game. She was in the kitchen making popcorn. Laura was seated to my left and Pam to my right. All three of us looked up when we heard the door open. We were just as surprised to see Mom as she was to see us.

My mind was whirling. Two weeks ago, I probably would have fallen on the ground and begged her forgiveness for even considering having friends in the house when she and Dad were both away. Please, Mom, don't beat me. But two weeks ago I had a completely different set of friends. A younger set. A more immature set, perhaps. I was a much more confident kid now.

And I was a kid with a plan. That moment represented the very first instance that I even thought of blackmail in connection with the video that my mother had made. I had had it for over a month, a video with my mother and my new friends admitting transgressions that could have gotten them fired or blackballed or divorced. Such as, in my mother's case, divorced from a man who provided most of her disposable income. Before it had only been a source of knowledge, perhaps of inspiration. Now it was something different.

"Stay cool," I muttered to my guests.

"Ladies," Mom said cautiously as she walked in. She was wearing one of her DA power suits, a gray jacket with a matching short gray skirt. I could always tell when she had a bad case, because she always used that outfit to focus the jury's attention on the legs perched atop the three-inch heels rather than on the actual facts. Underneath the jacket was a tight white shirt primly buttoned at the collar.

"Deirdre," Laura and Pam acknowledged her together.

"What's going on?" Mom asked.

"Poker," I said, gesturing to the rather obvious pot in the middle of the table and the piles of chips, Laura's smallish pile and the more or less equal piles belonging to me and Pam.

"Since when have you played poker?" she asked.

"Monday, right?" I looked around the table. "No, it was Sunday. You guys?"

"Since college," Laura said as she studied her cards. "I'm gonna raise you thirty."

"Since high school," Pam laughed. "I'll see you and raise another thirty."

"I'm out," I said.

Laura called, and Pam showed her the three jacks in her hand.

"Damn it," Laura slapped down her cards. "All right, my deal, right?"

She picked up the cards and started shuffling. Mom, meanwhile, had slowly sidled around the table and slid into the seat opposite me.

"So, is this seat open?" she asked.

Pam and Laura looked at her and burst into laughter. My mother frowned. Nothing could have been better calculated to bother her than being the subject of laughter.

"Come on, deal me in," she insisted.

"Why don't you watch a hand first?" I asked.

"Just let me use the powder room and I'll be right back," she said.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Pam hissed after Mom had left the room. Laura just looked worried.

I was very proud of myself. I didn't say a thing. Just stared them into silence.

Mom came back and Pam dealt the cards. The hand was over quickly. Our rule was that if one person put all their chips into the pot, the others could call, and then everyone had to show their cards. Laura pushed all her chips in, and Pam and I called. Laura had two pair, Pam a pair of kings, and I had a full house.

"Fuck," Laura said.

"Laura," my mother chided her as if she were about to go get the soap.

"Oh grow up, DeeDee," Laura said, using the nickname my mother had hated in college.

Meanwhile, she was looking over at me nervously. I looked her directly in the eye and nodded. A broad grin spread over Laura's face as she reached for the hem of the green polo shirt she had on.

"So what am I bid?" she said.

"I don't want it," Pam laughed.

"Me, neither," I said. "Guess it's five hundred from the bank."

I watched my mother's eyes widen in horror as Laura pulled her shirt over her head to reveal her unharnessed breasts.

"What the hell is going on?" Mom asked as I counted out five hundred in chips from the "bank" and threw Laura's shirt onto the couch.

"Strip poker, Mom," I said. "But you're gonna have to buy in since you're late."

Mom rose to her feet in high dudgeon, her hands on her hips.

"All right. First off, I want you two bitches out of my house," she glared at Pam and Laura, "and then my son and I are going to have a very long talk."

I looked at Pam and Laura, both of them looking to me for guidance.

"Well, it is her house," I pointed out. I turned to the kitchen and raised my voice. "Natalie!"

"I'm coming," Natalie said impatiently, her voice growing louder as she got closer to the living room. "God, I think one of those unpopped little fuckers burned my boob. Sorry, tit. No wait, breast."

She was naked, of course, having run out of chips and then out of clothing earlier in the game. She walked in carrying a bowl of popcorn in one hand and applying an ice cube to her right breast with the other. Her head was bent to look at the injured flesh and it wasn't until she was within ten feet of the table that my mother finally found her voice.

"What the fuck!" Mom yelped.

Natalie froze.

"DeeDee," Laura gleefully scolded her with a finger, perfectly echoing the tone Mom had used on her.

"Mom's kickin' us out," I explained to Natalie. "So you better get dressed. Unless you still want to play, Mom?"

"Look, you little son of a bitch, I —" she began.

"Maybe you should sit down, Mom, and let me explain the stakes."

Stunned by the unexpected authority in my voice, Mom sat down.

"Okay, so me and the girls," I started.

"Women," Mom hissed, almost as a reflex.

I stared at her and then continued.

"Me and the girls were playing for the right to be master or mistress of the house for the rest of the weekend. But since you're here, that job's already taken, isn't it? So I'll tell you what, since you're already mistress, you can wager that. And if you win I'll give you back your tape."

"My what?" she asked.

"The tape you made of the girls last month when you played hearts together, where you confessed to sleeping with some tennis coach."

Mom flushed a bright red.

"There's no such tape," she sputtered.

"Oh, but there is," I insisted. "The one where Pam confesses to posing naked."

"That's where you learned about the magazine from," Pam stared at me before turning on Mom. "You fucking bitch."

"And Laura confesses to doing one of her son's friends."

Laura was just glaring at Mom.

"And Natalie says she slept with her husband's best man, although, seriously, Nat, you weren't even married yet."

Natalie's glare was equally as murderous as Laura's.

"I've never showed the girls the tape, but I'm sure they'll admire the way you maneuver them into their seats in front of the video camera on the shelf back there, and then sort of steer the conversation over to sex."

My mother was speechless for the first time in my entire life.

"So do they stay or go?" I asked. "'Cause if they go, I gotta tell you that after you finish yelling at me, I'm gonna go up to my room and e-mail a copy of the tape to Dad. Not the whole thing, of course. Just the part with you."

"You wouldn't dare," she hissed.

"I think he would," Pam chuckled.

Laura and Natalie joined her as the laughter grew.

"And if I win you give it to me," Mom raised her voice to override the laughter.

"That's right," I agreed.

"And your little skanks here crawl on home."

"My guests will leave, yes, mother."

There was a long pause as the lawyer in her weighed her options. None of them were really that good.

"All right, you bastard, deal the fucking cards."

"Okay," I said. "First, all the other girls started with four items of clothing, just like I did. "So you need to lose the jacket and shoes and the pantyhose."

She angrily stomped off to her room.

"I can't believe you're really gonna pull this off," Laura said giddily.

"Shut up, bitch," I growled.

"Sorry, sir."

Mom returned with the proper attire a few minutes later.

"Now," I explained as she took her seat. "As I said, since you came late, you're gonna have to buy in. The rule is that if you have no chips, you have to sell a piece of clothing to the bank for five hundred in chips. Or, you can put it up for bid if you think you can get more from me or the girls. If you don't, you can take the five hundred from the bank. And the good news is once you start winning, you can buy your clothes back any time you like."

"Well, isn't this just your adolescent fantasy run amok," Mom said.

"Yeah, I guess it is," I agreed.

"Mine, too," Pam smiled.

"And mine," the other two chimed in.

"Bitches," Mom muttered.

I smiled and continued.

"If you sell it to the bank, you can buy it back later for what you paid. That's how Laura got her shirt back. Once you put it up for bid, though, you have to pay the buyer twice what they paid to get it back. So like if Laura wants her bra back, she has to pay Pam what, twelve hundred in chips?

Pam pulled Laura's bra out from underneath the table.

"'Course it's a little wet," she giggled.

"It's wet?" Laura squealed.

"Sorry, since Nattie bought my panties, I had to use something to keep my skirt dry. This is very expensive leather."

"You slut!" Laura said.

Pam smiled and stuck her tongue out.

"See, Pam could buy her panties back from Natalie for eleven hundred, but that would let Natalie back in the game," I said, ignoring the girls and continuing my explanation. "So you ready? What are you selling?"

"My panties," Mom said after a very long pause.

She stood up and slipped her hands underneath her skirt, pulling an incredibly tiny piece of fabric down her legs.

"Five hundred please," she said, throwing it at me. It was a black thong, which I held up for everyone to see.

"Sure you don't want it out for bid?" Pam laughed. "I'll give you six hundred."

"I won't have it off long, bitch," my mother snarled. "And if you think I would pay you anything to buy it back... just deal the fucking cards, Terry."

Laura won a small pot, and then Pam won a fairly sizeable pot. Mom had dropped out early both times, but Laura's chips were once again getting a little low. Mom was actually a fairly smart player, and in the third hand, we ended up going head to head on a series of raises that seriously depleted both of our stacks of chips. She finally called me, and I laid down a flush.

"Shit!" she threw her cards down.

Laura went all in early in the next hand, and we all called. Mom gleefully pulled in the smallish pot with three twos. Laura sold her jeans to the bank for 500, leaving her sitting at the table in just her panties. Mom gave her a couple of looks, and then snidely asked her if she'd been dieting.

"Just getting a lot of exercise recently," Laura smirked, as Pam and Natalie burst into laughter.