Hard Bargains

‘She’s not uptight about things like that,’ Shawn replied. It was an accurate statement. In both my freshman and sophomore years at the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California, I’d participated enthusiastically in the First Rain Naked Run, my breasts jiggling with every footfall. It’s a tradition that students brave the arrival of fall weather by streaking through the quad outside Porter College. This is the semi-tropics, of course, so the bravery has more to do with the doffing of clothes than withstanding the slightly cooler temperatures.

I met Shawn at UCSC – we both joined the orienteering club – and our relationship has thrived for nearly two years. Our home towns are only about 50 miles apart north of Seattle, so we grew up having many common experiences. The sexual chemistry between us started out strong and keeps getting more intense. Finding a guy who shares your porn preferences is a sign from the goddesses that you are meant to be together for a long time.

Some people might not think of us as conventionally beautiful, but we like each other’s bodies immensely. Shawn has pale skin with freckles on his arms that continue all the way up to his shoulders. I enjoy twirling the strands of strawberry blond hair on his chest when we are lying naked together after sex. My complexion is more of the Mediterranean variety and my hair is black like coal. I’m busty but short, needing to stand on tiptoe to reach five feet.

Shawn’s family owns a cabin deep in the woods on the Olympic Peninsula, accessible only in good weather using forestry service roads. For an unusually dry two weeks at the end of June, we had it to ourselves. Farhan and Geoff, my love’s best childhood friends, took advantage of the long daylight hours to drive up on a Friday evening and planned to stay until supper the next day.

I’m a lark, not a nightingale, so I was already suppressing yawns by the time the boys arrived. We’d hung out a few times as a group and got along pretty well. Washington State, which Farhan and Geoff go to, is a more conservative campus than Santa Cruz and I enjoyed teasing them with tales of our sexual hedonism. My experience is that guys who were raised in semi-rural circumstances sometimes behave like they’re caught between the age of chivalry and modern egalitarianism, not sure which approach to take in the company of an uninhibited woman.

‘Our guests want to play cards,’ Shawn said when I joined the trio in the cabin. The natural light had started to fade so I’d given up on Venus in Furs and headed inside.

I feigned a stern tone. ‘You mean they want to see me naked. I heard you talking about strip poker.’

Farhan and Geoff were quiet, perhaps thinking they were about to receive a lecture. I waited a beat before smiling.

‘It’s late for me. I could last for a short game, but that wouldn’t give me much time to enjoy looking at your bare asses.’

It is important to be accommodating as a host and sending the boys to bed disappointed would have been bad manners. Happily, I came up with an alternative plan.

‘How about we make the stakes that the losers have to spend the entire day tomorrow in their birthday suits?’

Of course they would accept. Hormones and male pride get mixed together and the outcome is predictable.

Geoff was the one who took the bait. ‘That’s going to be a long time for you not to be able to wear anything. Are you sure you won’t get cold?’

‘I appreciate the concern, but I’ll be warm on the inside. If we keep playing until there’s only one winner, the worst-case scenario is that I’ll spend the day ogling two naked boys – and it could be three.’

Time to reel in the fish: ‘Of course, we could set it up so that it’s guys against the girl.’

The friends exchanged hopeful glances. ‘What do you have in mind?’ Shawn asked.

‘I play one hand and you play the other as a group. First one to win five times gets to put on clothes tomorrow. The losers spend the day with their cocks hanging out for my pleasure.’

A few minutes later we were sitting around the kitchen table, me on one side, the boys on the other. We agreed to play five-card draw, allowing one round to improve and a maximum discard of three. Shawn seemed a bit jittery, managing his nerves by fiddling with the deck he’d taken from the cupboard. ‘Are you guys absolutely sure you want to go through with this?’ He directed the question to his buddies.

‘Let’s play,’ Farhan said decisively.

Shawn gave me the deck and I immediately dealt two hands. Farhan and Geoff looked over their friend’s shoulder as he picked up their cards. They seemed satisfied with what they saw.

My hand contained only mismatches: no pairs and no obvious path to a straight or flush.

‘We’ll just take one,’ Shawn said, placing a card face-down on the table. I gave him a replacement from the top of the deck.

When I said I was taking three, the boys looked pleased. I kept a queen and a 10 because they were my highest cards.

The action done, Shawn revealed the source of the confident male grins: two kings, two jacks and a 5.

I flipped my hand onto the table. ‘Three 7s for me,’ I said. ‘That gives me the early lead.’

Geoff crooked his neck in disappointment. Farhan nodded wisely. ‘You were lucky. Usually two pairs are strong enough to win.’ He had a talent for mansplaining.

Shawn gathered the cards back into a pile and shuffled them. He idly cut the deck several times then started to deal.

I picked up another mediocre hand. ‘Three cards again,’ I said, getting rid of some of the garbage.

While my boyfriend passed cards in response to my request, Farhan was whispering to Geoff. I guessed that meant they had no obvious play. Shawn isolated three cards together in his hand and looked for consensus, but Farhan shook his head. ‘Throw these,’ he said, pointing out his choices. After a glance to determine Geoff’s opinion, Shawn acquiesced. He discarded three cards and took three.

It was my turn to show first. ‘I’ve got a set of ducks.’ Using the fancy poker lingo for three 2s would be fair warning to the boys I was no amateur.