Chapter 1

She stood there, flushed, obviously agitated, staring at me in disbelief.

"You're not going to actually do this!" she said, somewhat breathlessly.

"I'm not?" I grinned. "I won, fair and square."

"But..." She was speechless. I loved it. "This is crazy!" she moaned.

"A bet is a bet," I said sternly.

It was just a routine poker night, and she came with her boyfriend. Ellen doesn't play poker. I assumed she was placating him. He was a bit of an asshole and I didn't like him or the way he treated her, but I had no say in it, of course. Neither did any of the regulars. That's probably why we took such joy in taking everything he put on the table.

The other three guys there that night were some of about six or seven regulars. They knew the deal. It was all supposed to be in fun. Everybody won some times and lost others. It all evened out in the end.

But it was Jeff's first time and he took it way too seriously from the very beginning.

There are a couple types of poker players. The kind I preferred to play with were like Tom, Clint, and Doug, who were the regulars there that night. Most of us had known each other since we were in grade school and we'd all stayed in touch after high school. We all knew each other's parents and, for the most part, all those parents treated us like our own. What I mean is that it wasn't odd at all for someone else's parents to enforce rules on all of us. And that included Ellen, who was sort of a regular herself at the games, even though she didn't play poker. Call her a mascot, maybe. If she was between boyfriends, or didn't have other plans, she showed up on poker night and either watched a movie or us play poker; whichever was more interesting at a given moment.

Then you have the players who are hungry, like winning means something special to them. Sometimes that's because they want to dominate the others ... to show their superiority. Sometimes it's because they need a score, 'cause they're broke, or owe somebody a lot of money or something. They NEED to win. It's not fun for those types, which means it's usually not fun for the rest of us either.

Anyway, it looked like Jeff was showing off for Ellen, maybe. She'd told him about our game when he said he liked to play poker. Maybe he told her he was really good, and was trying to prove it to her. For whatever reason, it became obvious that he needed to win.

And, when things turned out like they did, I sort of figured it was mostly her fault, for inviting him without talking to the rest of us first.

Ellen still stared at me.

"You can't be serious," she moaned.

"Why not?" I asked. "You brought him here."

"He said he liked poker!" she whined. "I didn't think THIS would happen!"

"Well it did," I said.

"I've never seen you guys bet anything like THIS!"

"You let him make the bet," I reminded her. "You said he could."

"He had three fucking KINGS!" she almost shouted.

"And I had a full house," I said, reasonably.

Jeff had started off bragging about how he was going to take everything we had. Some of the tense types are like that. They think it's tactics or something. They think they're psyching out the other players.

We love to see those types show up for a game. They never have a poker face worth a damn.

He met our expectations. He might as well have been wearing glasses that showed us his cards in their reflection. There were some looks between us regulars that spoke volumes as we started to play the game. What the regulars played wasn't poker, though. Not really. Not that night. I don't think any of the others liked him either. Like I said, we'd all been best friends all our lives. They all knew Ellen and they liked her. And they didn't like the way he treated her.

I think what sealed his fate was when he said, "Make yourself useful and get me a beer." He wasn't looking at her, but we knew he wasn't talking to any of us. That she got him the beer made my own poker face a little strained.

We let him win a few rounds ... got him pumped up ... and then commenced to make him a pauper. We took our time ... didn't make it obvious. It took two hours before he was down to his last chip.

"You guys take credit?" he asked, licking his lips. He was staring at those three Kings, though we didn't know what they were just then.

"Don't joke around," I said. "This is serious business."

Doug gave a honking bark and I glanced at him. He pretended to be choking on the swig of water he'd taken like thirty seconds ago—his hand was covering his smile. We had never had a game that anybody would have characterized as "serious business." Well, maybe except this one, the business of which was to separate Jeff from both his money and all that macho he'd been piling on us.

Jeff didn't notice. He was sweating and his eyes were still glued to his cards.

"I need some credit," he said. "I've had a run of bad luck. You can't shut me out now."

What he'd had was a run of bad skill, but I didn't say anything.

Clint spoke, sounding like he was bored.

"You're only down a couple hundred. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is I can get that back with this hand!" he growled.

"Yeah ... right," said Clint. "But you got nothing left to wager. It's the breaks of the game."

"Come ON, man!" moaned Jeff. He looked at the garish gold watch on his wrist. "How 'bout my Rolex?" he asked, looking around. "It's worth at least fifteen hundred."

We all knew it was a knockoff and that he'd probably paid fifty bucks for it in some back alley somewhere.

"I already have a watch," I said. "Bet or fold."

I don't think anybody expected what came next. If he'd tried to bet his car or something like that, we might not have been so surprised. But he bet something worth a whole lot more.

"I'll bet a night with Ellen," he said.

It wasn't too surprising that the first person to speak was the intended bet.

"WHAT?!" It was easy to understand why she was upset.

"Take it easy," he said smoothly, turning around to look at her. "Look at my cards."

"You can't do that!" she yelped. "You can't just bet ME!"

"LOOK AT MY CARDS!" he yelled.

The rest of us all lost our poker faces for a minute or two. I felt like giggling, but choked it back. Nothing like this had ever happened. Not in one of our games.

By the time we got ourselves under control the argument was already mostly over. Why she liked this guy so much was impossible to figure out, but she must have. Ellen looked around at all of the regulars. Then she looked at the pile of chips in the middle of the table.

"How much is there?" she asked.

Tom reached out and flicked chips this way and that. "About a grand," he pronounced.

I think that surprised all of us. The pots at our game never got that high. If we had a fifty dollar pot, it was big doings.

She walked around the table, acting like she was just thinking about things. The rest of us pressed our cards to our chests. We knew what she was trying to do. She looked miffed when she got back behind Jeff.

She looked at his cards again, over his shoulder.

"If you win you're taking me to the Alan Jackson concert, and I mean VIP all the way.

"Right," he said, relaxing a little.

"Back stage passes and everything!" she insisted.

"All right!" he yelled. "Whatever you want."

"OK," she said.

"I can't believe you took the bet!" she moaned.

"Why wouldn't I?" I asked.

"I mean all of you!" she snapped. "I thought you guys liked me!"

"Hence our willingness to take the bet," I said reasonably.

"But you guys don't think about me like that!" she moaned.

"We don't?" I grinned. "What planet do you come from?"

"But Tom ... and Doug. I've known them forever. They never made a move on me," she complained.

"You always had a boyfriend," I said. "Usually a much better one than Jeffy boy," I added.

"Why couldn't Doug have won?" she whined.

"You got a thing for Doug?" I grinned and she slapped at me. She missed.

"At least he's cute!" she snarled. "At least Doug treats me like a lady."

"Are you saying I don't?" I tried to pout. "I'm injured."

"You're an asshole!" she said. "I can't believe you'd even THINK about doing this!"

"It wasn't my idea," I said. "Your boyfriend is the one who made the bet."

"My EX boyfriend!" Her voice sounded ugly.

"I approve," I said. "I heartily approve."

She stared at me, a calculating look on her face. "So ... you're going to let me out of this ... right?"

"Not a chance," I said firmly. "I won. I get you for the night."

"You are SUCH an asshole!" she yelled. "Why can't I have Doug?"

"Because Doug didn't win," I said calmly.

I saw why Clint had stayed in when he laid down two pair; Fives and Jacks. Doug and Tom folded. I never got to see their hands, but I mean to ask about them. I suspect they folded just because they DO like Ellen, and didn't want to chance ending up where I currently was ... in a bedroom with a thoroughly unhappy woman.

Jeff slammed down his three Kings. He was very tense.

I let out with a fairly theatrical: "Shit." I saw Ellen relax.

I laid the three Tens down, one at a time, and there came on Jeff's face a look of exultation. He reached for the pot with both arms. I could almost hear him saying, "Come to papa," to all those chips.

"Don't you want to see what I have?" I asked.

"I see three fucking Tens!" crowed Jeff.

I laid down the two Sevens together and Jeff froze. I'll never forget how that look of exultation drained away and his face got pale, only to turn so red I thought he'd have a stroke or something.

"FUCK!" he screamed.

"Yeah," I said softly. "That's what you bet ... now wasn't it."

"You can't fuck me," she said firmly.

"I won you for the night," I replied.

"OK, so you won me for the night," she said, not missing a beat. "That doesn't mean you can fuck me."

"That was the bet," I said. "Everybody knew what he meant, including you."

"Bobbeeeeeee," she wailed. "You can't be serious about thinking I'd actually DO this!"

"I always thought you were a woman of your word," I said sadly.

"I AM!" she shouted. "But you can't ask me to keep my word about THIS!"

"Yes I can," I said.

She stared at me. She was panting and it made her breasts rise and fall in a most delightful way. I envisioned them naked, underneath me, rising and falling like that ... except with passion, instead of panic and anger. I wanted to ring her bell. I wanted her to want to stay in that bed with me when the morning came.

She looked shocked. Then a look of both surprise and understanding came over her face.

"You've thought about this before!" she accused.

I didn't bat an eye. "I have," I admitted.

"You motherfucker!" she moaned.

"You're not a mother yet, Ellen," I said softly.

She blinked about four or five times and her breathing slowed.

"I'm not on anything," she said. "You can't fuck me. I'm fertile."

"What about Jeffy?" I asked, almost maliciously.

"I make him wear a condom," she said. "Not that it's any of your business."

"You're right," I said cheerfully. "It's none of my business. I don't have a condom, though."

"Then you can't fuck me," she said firmly.

"Yes I can," I said. "I won the bet ... the bet YOU approved."

"But I could get pregnant!" she yelped.

I gave her a few seconds of silence.

"Tell you what," I said. "Seeing as how I'm a good guy, I'll pull out when I cum. You can take it in your mouth. How's that?"

I thought she might come unglued.

"That's DISGUSTING!" she shouted. "I can't believe you even SAID that!"

I was tired of playing around. I stood up from where I'd been sitting on the edge of my bed.

"Up to you," I said, unbuttoning my shirt. "That's my final offer. I won. Pay up."

Jeff had blustered, and tried to renege on the bet. At least he was that much of a man. I probably should have taken his stupid knock off watch, and maybe his car too, to teach him a lesson.

But the fact was that Ellen was standing there and she looked delicious. She always looked delicious with that short blond hair that fell just past the bottom of her ears. She had high cheekbones and naturally arching eyebrows. She didn't use much makeup, because she didn't need it. I always thought of the term "pixie-ish" when I looked at her.

I'd looked at her breasts lots of times and those firm, full swells had tantalized me for a long time. She had a beautiful ass too, which she routinely packed into tight jeans, like she was wearing that night. She just looked ... healthy. She was bright, and cheerful, and happy, and she made a man think about a woman's natural role in the circle of life. I'd been stiff more than a few times after watching her.