Grace broke up with me on my last trip to visit her, in late October 2014. We were starting our first year of study at universities a state apart. I drove the 400 miles between us on short notice, because I made a mistake. I failed to stop one of the women I worked with from tagging me in a photo. We didn’t pose together. Her photo just captured me in the background. I told Grace over the phone that it was nothing and she said “oh, yeah, of course, nothing” in a tone that meant it was something, and that she was logging any attempt to persuade her otherwise on a list of charges to prosecute at a later date. So there I was, driving west.
When I stopped to get gas she called. She asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yes, love. I’m just filling up.”
“Okay. I saw your location stopped moving.”
“Just filling up, love.”
“Your car usually gets good mileage.”
I knew where she was going—she wanted to know if I was alone—but I had to play along until I could assuage her suspicion by answering a stated question. If I came right out and reassured her, she’d’ve seen it as defensive, and that was hard to backtrack from. “Reasonable mileage.”
“Are you packing a lot? Is the car carrying more weight than usual?”
“It’s just me and a weekend bag of clothes in the car. Empty otherwise.”
“Okay,” she said, like she was disappointed she hadn’t caught me in something. “I’m anxious to see you.”
“I’m anxious to see you too, love.”
“See you soon, Liam.”
My drive to see her frustrated me. I sat alone with nothing to do for hours on end, anticipating seeing Grace, so what came to mind was what I wanted to do with her once we were alone. I’d mentioned a fantasy to her once. In the fantasy, as soon as we get into her dorm, she strips off all of her clothes and gets on her knees for me without saying anything. There were also aspects to the fantasy where her friends are in the room watching, she’s using a vibrator on herself, and the whole thing is degrading for her. I omitted those aspects, hoping she would take some initiative on the fantasy as described. I held out hope on every drive.
When I pulled into the parking lot of her freshman dormitory at sundown, I saw that Grace was not waiting alone. Her friend Ava sat beside her on the curb. Ava scrolled on her phone and held something in a brown paper bag—probably a sugary alcoholic drink. I was not excited to see her. I met Ava at a house party the first time I visited Grace. She shook my hand while glugging an entire Four Loko and then asked the room full of people, at a volume that hurt my ears, “who else is a Four Loko girl???” (I could just tell that there were multiple question marks involved). How Grace tolerated her, it escaped my understanding completely. A hypomanic compulsion drove Ava to make interesting things happen, even if those things were stupid, like getting herself and her friends too drunk to make it home without assistance.
I opened my arms wide for Grace. “Come here, my love.”
“Thank you for driving here. I’m sorry for making you drive here.”
“I’m always glad to see you. Don’t worry about it.” I wrapped my arms around her. She was wearing a shirt with slack stitching that just fell on her body and had no shape of its own. Her form couldn’t be seen through it, but it could be felt. Feeling her skin under the shirt, I slid my hand down the curve of her side and nudged the tips of my fingers under the waistband of her jeans. I wanted nothing more right then than to carry her to her room and strip her.
“Ava wants to come over and hang out for a while. Do you mind?”
I felt the unique physical sensation of sexual disappointment. “That’s fine. Did you have something in mind to do?”
Grace turned to Ava, who was still scrolling on her phone like she hadn’t noticed my arrival. “Ava, was there something you wanted to do?”
What made Ava’s intrusion on the visit irritating—aside from delaying my sexual gratification—was that I listened to Grace complain about her during our phone calls almost daily. The two weren’t friends in any healthy sense of the word. Grace complained that Ava stole her snacks from her pantry without repentance. She complained that Ava was always showing up at events with a new guy fawning over her. She asked me to reassure her that I wouldn’t be into a girl like Ava. On the pantry-theft issue I suggested Grace tell her to stop, but I gave up on suggestions when she started factoring Ava’s snack theft into her grocery budget. In spite of whatever jealously and resentment Grace felt for Ava, she apparently couldn’t function without her.
Ava took a swig from her brown paper bag. “Just thought of it. Let’s play poker.”
In Grace’s dorm room I was aware of the first drawer of her bedside table even when I was not looking at it. It contained the vibrator I had given her as a gift when she moved in. She had said “thank you so much”, then never used it, and turned away with a shy mumble whenever I suggested getting it out. As Ava started pulling liquor out of the mini fridge and made herself a comfortable guest, it looked like on this trip, too, the vibrator was going to stay tucked away in the drawer.
Grace and I accepted one too many of the drinks Ava forced into our hands. They were shots of espresso and vodka that she mixed together in plastic cups. I remember experiencing the kind of spatial and temporal perception narrowing that alcohol causes, reducing my awareness of anything out of sight. That was one of my first times ever drinking so the details were vivid and novel. Grace was fascinated by some change in her proprioception. Her eyes tracked her palm as she moved it back and forth. Ava held her liquor much better. I felt reduced. By drinking those shots we had ceded some control of the situation to Ava.
The three of us sat on the carpet around the detached tabletop Ava had laid the poker chips and cards on. The sun was setting, and Grace lit strings of warm holiday lights on the walls. She drew the curtains to keep out the fall cold and turned on a heater in the corner, which ratcheted into a low hum.
Ava pointed at a stack of blue chips and said “Clothes, one article each.” Next she pointed at the green chips and said “Duct tape, one wrist or ankle each.” She studied our faces to see how it landed.
I almost shot her down reflexively. Seeing no possible way Grace would agree to play this kind of game with company, I thought it would be an easy win to build her confidence in my fidelity. Thirstier instincts prevailed though, and I hesitated. I looked at Grace to read her reaction, because this was a once-in-lifetime opportunity to achieve something close to what I had fantasized about, if Grace lost. I had to know whether there was a chance.
Grace glared at Ava, saying nothing. I expected her to just say no. The tension hanging in the air made me suspect this was part of a larger conflict between them that I was not privy to.
“Oh Grace, I’m sorry,” Ava said with no sincerity, and started shuffling cards. “You must be afraid of Liam getting the hots for me. We can play without stakes.”
It was just an act, to rile Grace up over a sensitive issue. When Grace had asked me to reassure her I wouldn’t be interested in Ava, I thought she was reacting to something in her insecure imagination. It may instead have been a reaction to something Ava had actually said.
“He won’t,” Grace said.
Ava stopped shuffling.
“Let’s do it. He won’t.” Grace spoke with the excessive firmness that indicated denial. Real certainty wouldn’t have required so much performance.
Unfazed, Ava said, “Ok!” and started dealing cards. “It’s Texas Hold’em.”
My input was never solicited. Grace avoided eye contact with me so well it had to be on purpose.
Ava counted our clothing articles and distributed chips. The blinds each cost one clothing chip. The duct tape restraint chips were worth four clothing chips. She explained that the winner of a hand would keep their chips, and lost chips vanished along with the clothing or freedom to articulate a limb that they represented.
For the first two orbits, no one bet. We payed our blinds in socks and checked the hands down. I had three items left: my shirt, jeans, and boxers. Grace wore a shirt, pants, a bra, and underwear. Ava wore that and an extra shirt we didn’t realize earlier was a separate layer.
The first real pot came on the third orbit. Grace paid a blind, so she was in for at least her shirt or jeans. Ava paid the other blind, and raised to two articles of clothing. I folded. Grace went heads up with Ava and had to act first after the flop.
The ace of spades, ace of diamonds, and queen of diamonds came up in the flop. These were bad omens for a preflop caller, which Grace was. I tried to signal to Grace with my glances that she should not engage further. She did not notice my signals, but fortunately she became shy about the hand on her own, and checked to Ava.
As anyone in her position must do based on the chip stack sizes in play, Ava shoved all in. This is when I decided that Ava had premeditated this situation, and her suggestion of poker was not off the cuff. By setting the rules so that clothes could only be lost and never gained, and pricing the blinds so high, Ava invalidated strategies of attrition. Only loose and aggressive players could slow their descent, and Grace was by personality a reserved player in all games.
Grace rocked in place with her chin on her knee. I knew she had lost just by reading her face. She procrastinated folding only because she resented what came next. With her limited knowledge of the game, I doubt she understood that the frustration she felt was Ava’s desired and calculated result. To Grace it was just bad luck, and her anger was at herself. She folded, and hid her face.
Ava held up the two chips Grace lost. “Excuse me. I believe you owe a debt.”
“I don’t want to do it.”
I should have said something in her defense at this point, as her boyfriend. It would have been easy to end the game if I said something. I said nothing. Grace’s embarrassment should have made me sympathetic, but it intrigued me. I wanted her to be naked and embarrassed in front of her friend, like in my fantasy.
“Wow. And if you’d’ve won the pot would you have made me strip? That’s really uncool.”
Grace shot Ava a hateful look. She had made a salient point. “Fuck you, Ava,” Grace said as she stood and removed her shirt with performative anger. “I’m going to duct tape you naked to that bed frame behind you. You’re going to sit there alone and watch me fuck Liam, something you’ll _never_ be able to do.” Grace was tilting. She threw her shirt and jeans in Ava’s face and sat down in a huff, now wearing only her underwear and bra.
We had never discussed fucking in front of anyone before, Grace and I. I was not consulted on this plan. Grace presumed to use me as a sexual pawn in her feud with Ava without asking. That tested my loyalty. I already had temptations, perverse cravings to see Grace more angry, more ashamed, and more frustrated. Watching her sit there fuming in her underwear while Ava and I were clothed, those temptations were loud. I was turned on.
“We’ll see. We’ll see,” Ava replied.
—
See my profile for the next parts and other stories!
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/k6bj77/the_last_visit_part_1_college_strip_poker