Game Changer

by Max Sebastian

  Hanna giggled, ‘Take them off. Go on!’

  Hayden wasn’t all that bashful. He looked as though after all these years, he kind of liked the idea of Hanna getting to see what he was packing. And he was packing something significant. Hanna’s eyes widened as his big beast was exposed. Maybe she did look a little regretful as Hayden took his seat again.

  Jake and I looked at each other, not really knowing what to say.

  Hanna spent most of the next round trying to order Hayden not to cover himself with his hands, or sit so close into the table that he was exposed only from the waist upward. But then she lost that round, and it was time for her to remove her skirt—and bare herself completely. And Hayden was adamant in saying she couldn’t cover herself with her hands or anything, either.

  I think both Hanna and Hayden quietly enjoyed their exposure. Their flirting made me feel slightly nervous, even though I still felt a strong desire for them to sleep together, if she wasn’t going to sleep with Jake. I guess I hadn’t expected this kind of easy chemistry between Hanna and my friends when the possibility of sex between them was presented.

  But here she was, naked in front of them, and the chemistry was obvious. They wanted her badly. And why not? She was so exposed, and so available. Her full breasts heaved with desire, her nipples were stiff as nails, her pussy right there for the taking.

  Now it was between Jake and I for the win. Head to head, both of us sitting there in our boxer shorts.

  Suddenly, it was real for me. The fantasy, the thought of another man spending the night with my wife. I had cold feet. I started wondering if I was crazy, if I’d regret everything as soon as it had happened. If Hanna went upstairs and fucked Jake, there was no way she could take it back. You couldn’t un-fuck somebody. You couldn’t un-cheat. Or de-cheat. Or whatever the word would be.

  Half of me desperately wanted to find out what it was like for Hanna to be unfaithful. And yet now my other half started thinking maybe life would just be more simple if she didn’t. We wouldn’t have to risk anything, there wouldn’t be any chance that our marriage would unravel.

  I started thinking perhaps I needed another night to sleep on it. Perhaps everyone would want to play the game again the next night?

  I started trying to win the game.

  ‘Oh, here it is,’ Jake said after I took the first couple of hands—and half of his pistachio shells. ‘The hustler starts coming back from the brink to seize the day...’

  ‘You’re just a sore loser,’ I snapped back.

  ‘Not losing yet,’ he insisted.

  He came back and won a couple of hands, and for a while we were going back and forth, nobody really coming ahead.

  Hayden was cheering on Jake, even though it would mean someone else than him sleeping with Hanna. I wondered if he thought that Jake getting to do it would mean she would be open to him doing so another time in the future, considering. Well, we did have three more days to kill.

  Hanna was cheering me on, as though she felt obligated to at least seem as though she was fighting for her honor. But the way she did it, I started wondering if she was having second thoughts, too. It made me resolve to win the game, at least this time. It had been a wild ride all evening—and now it was getting close to midnight—but maybe we weren’t ready for this big step in our relationship.

  At least I’d discovered the fantasy. At least I’d discussed it with Hanna. We had that going for ourselves. We’d be able to role play the whole thing when we got home, have some fun with it. Maybe we’d decide to try for a child again, and this time we would have more luck.

  I started pushing to try and win the game, and felt confident, too, based on my evening’s good fortune.

  Only, you remember what I said about what happens when you really try to win?

  Jake made a really big bet, and he was doing something with the bottom of his cards as he did it, and I started thinking—hey, that’s his tell. He’s bluffing. I went for the bet, and I lost a lot of shells. I had maybe 20 left.

  Suddenly, Hanna was saying to me, ‘Maybe we should call it a night, right? I mean, we’re all tired... we’re not thinking straight, are we?’

  I saw the shock in her face. Maybe she saw the horror in mine. This was actually happening. Jake was winning.

  It was our fault, we’d been so gung-ho with it. Maybe we had assumed from the outset that the two of us had good odds of winning—we were half of the poker table, after all.

  I tried to keep calm, tried to relax, tried to get myself in the same mindset I’d been in most of the evening, when winning had seemed to come so very easy. I sighed, and said to myself that with 20 pistachio nut shells compared to Jake’s 200 hundred or so, it would be a slow way back, but I’d get there.

  Then I was dealt a two and a three, and it seemed all over. Jake had two Queens.

  ‘Read ‘em and weep!’ he said, laying them down in front of us.

  I think he was almost as shocked at winning as we were.

  Chapter Six

  ‘I won!’ Jake yelled.

  Hanna gasped.

  I drew in a deep breath and felt a strange coldness inside my chest, squeezing my heart. Suddenly, my erection was gone.

  ‘I won!’ Jake yelled again, then, it seemed more like a question. ‘I won?’

  He couldn’t believe it. Nobody could believe it. Somehow, everybody had just kind of assumed Hanna or I would win at cards tonight. The established order wouldn’t be shaken up. We wouldn’t have to go through on the promise of Hanna sleeping with somebody else.

  And yet here was Jake, the winner.

  It was a joke to him. I don’t think he thought Hanna would go through with it, either. He turned to me and was like, ‘Come on, dude—get them off. You know the rules.’ Kidding, because what was the point of me stripping naked? The guys weren’t interested. Hanna had seen it all before.

  I think maybe Jake was just relieved that he would be able to keep his boxer shorts on in front of everyone, in front of Hanna.

  I did as I was told, removing my underwear. Feeling more than a little embarrassed by my soft dick, hardly much compared to Hayden’s monster. But nobody was checking out what I was stowing between my legs. Jake was laughing merrily, most amused, telling Hanna he was ready when she was. Hanna was looking to me, somewhat anxious—scared, maybe—and waiting for me to tell her what to do, now.

  I felt scared, maybe even a touch annoyed. It hadn’t been me, after all, who had decided on this game. It hadn’t been me who had put her out there on offer for the winner to sleep with. She’d done that on her own, with no discussion, no agreement from me beforehand. And Jake had won.

  I was embarrassed.

  Hanna stood up, and I felt as though I’d forgotten she was completely naked. ‘Okay then,’ she said to Jake. ‘Let’s head upstairs.’

  Was she testing me? Was she expecting me to leap in front of Jake and physically fight for her honor?

  It seemed to me that that most embarrassing thing of all was to have my wife offer herself as a prize, and when one of those guys won it, reneging on the promise and not giving up the offered prize.

  I shrugged at Hanna as though to say, you were the one who suggested this. You have to go through with it.

  My abdication of responsibility seemed to make her bolder in inviting Jake to join her on the way up to the bedrooms. Jake’s smile was suddenly wiped from his face.

  ‘Wait—seriously?’ he said, as though he suddenly wasn’t sure what was going on. Was the joke on him?

  ‘You won the game, didn’t you?’ Hanna asked him.

  ‘Yeah...’ he said, looking at Hayden and me, and then switching between Hanna and me as though he was watching a game of tennis. ‘But you guys... you’re married... I mean... aren’t you? You’re not supposed to... you know...’

  Stunning in her nudity, Hanna went over to link her arm in Jake’s, as though to escort him forcibly upstairs. She was looking at me as though challenging me to stop her. I was trying t
o keep calm, not to panic. And seeing her like that with him, so naked, apparently giving herself to him—I started to warm up again. That dark side of my mental makeup started to come to life again. I started to feel the dangerous arousal that went with the fear and the insecurity.

  ‘It’s just sex,’ I said, completely downplaying what I was feeling. ‘And... you know... as long as we’re all resolved to keep everything that happens in this chalet... you know... between us...’

  Hayden had grabbed his clothes to hold in front of his manhood, but he seemed keen to support what I was saying. ‘You know I won’t tell anybody,’ he declared.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Jake, somewhat stunned by what was going on.

  Hanna looked at me, a funny expression on her face, asking me silently, ‘Seriously? You really, honestly, want this to happen?’

  I shrugged, doing my best to conceal an involuntary shiver that passed through my whole body. I nodded. ‘A Lannister always pays his debts,’ I said.

  For me, it felt as though I’d just lit my insides on fire. My stomach dropped into my shoes. My heart just about stopped beating. Hayden and I watched Hanna and Jake walk slowly to the base of the stairs, and then climb step by step up to the upper floor.

  Wow. I was so frightened, and so turned on. I felt a little nauseous, if I was honest.

  Hayden took a huge breath and slapped me on the back. ‘You sure about this, dude?’

  I shrugged. ‘We’ve been married a while. It’s only sex, right? She’ll have a little fun...’

  ‘He will.’

  ‘He will. And then in the morning... we can kind of forget it all happened.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he nodded. ‘Then we have to find something else to do for three more days, right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well... I guess that was fun tonight,’ he said, and his tone acknowledged that now Hanna and Jake had gone, things felt a little awkward between the two of us. We were both naked, for one. ‘I mean... you know... it really helped pass the time.’

  ‘It did, didn’t it?’

  ‘I better... you know... try to get some sleep,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I nodded, my tone effectively giving him permission to get the hell out of there, back to the safety of his own bedroom to leave the train wreck that was me alone.

  And so there it was, just me on my lonesome.

  I felt my legs almost give way. I had to sit down on the couch, I flicked on the television to one totally baffling late-night game show. I was in shock, perhaps. Scared. Not jealous, though. My heart was pounding, I was sweating like crazy—but my cock was harder than ever.

  It was, when I tried to push away the feelings of fear, focusing on the logic that there was no way Jake would try to steal my wife even if he got all the way past third base with her. And she wouldn’t leave me. I’d have her back. I’d have her back, and she’d be sullied from a night with another man. She’d be dirty from sex with someone else. Jesus. She’d be so unbelievably sexy.

  I concentrated on breathing—in, out, in, out. Deep breaths. Relaxing. Meditating, almost. And I was calming down. As I was calming down, the positives of the experience started beating out the negatives.

  Jesus, my wife was going to spend the night with another man. What a rush!

  I did start putting my clothes back on, but was also considering whether it would be comfortable enough to sleep on the couch all night. It wasn’t the widest couch there was, and the cushions weren’t exactly the fullest. My mind soon started drifting back to the thought of Hanna being with Jake, however. Sleeping with another man.

  It was just so wicked, so against the rules. So hot.

  And knowing he was going to get to have her only made me want her more. Knowing that Hayden wanted her, too, but that she would return to me—that was hot. Just knowing that Hanna was going to get the rush of a new bedmate, sex with a man she’d never known that way. Strange cock. She’d get an unbelievable buzz—and it meant I had one, too.

  Then, as I was settling down on the couch, lengthways, imagining that this game show was going to put me to sleep soon enough, I looked up to see Jake slink down stairs.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Everything okay?’

  He looked troubled. He said, ‘Look, I don’t need to do this, dude. I can... you know... it was fun, imagining that this might be—’

  I said, ‘You won, Jake. She’s your prize tonight.’

  He nodded, accepting that I was being true to my word, or at least true to Hanna’s word, but said, ‘We could just... you know... pretend it happened... you know, Hayden wouldn’t need to know it didn’t—’

  It would have been so easy to do it this way, as well. Jake was being so gracious, I could see how weird he thought all this was, but I could also kind of see that he was a little disappointed at not getting to have Hanna for the night. Maybe I was reading too much into his face.

  I said, ‘Jake, really. It’s no big deal. It’s just sex, right? If you get to do this... you’ll have a good time tonight. A really good time... and you’ll be able to sleep late tomorrow... and then you and Hanna... you’re one day closer to the trip being over.’

  Jake said, ‘But—’

  And I said, ‘Hanna and I have been married so long... we trust each other. I know I’m not going to lose her, just because she’s had a single night of fun with someone else.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘Trust me,’ I said earnestly, feeling odd trying to persuade him to bed my wife, but that is what I was doing now. He’d won the game. It felt like bad luck to go against the will of the cards. ‘It’s okay. You go... have fun. As long as no one talks about any of this outside of the four of us...’

  ‘No, buddy. You know I’d never—’

  I just nodded. Jake looked as though he couldn’t believe his luck. I gave him a final reassuring smile, and he was away again, looking as though he was walking on clouds as he drifted back to the staircase, and headed on back up to Hanna.

  I was on my own again. I went around the room switching out lights and making sure the windows were locked, as though I needed to. Keeping as silent as I could—not for fear of waking Hayden, but because I wanted to find out if, indeed, it was possible to hear Hanna and Jake from down here. The chalet was hardly palatial.

  I was disappointed not to hear anything, however. Were they purposefully trying to be quiet? That hardly seemed fair, but then I wasn’t expecting Hanna to tell Jake that it was my secret sexual fantasy to have her sleep with someone else.

  I lay back on the couch, almost resolved to try to sleep knowing that I wasn’t going to get to hear my wife being unfaithful, my wife being naughty and sexy. Cheating on me—except that it wasn’t really ‘cheating’, was it? Not when I was basically consenting to it.

  Then I looked up one more time toward the staircase, and there was Hanna, in the flesh, standing just a few paces away from the back of the couch. She made me jump.

  ‘Hey, are you okay?’ she asked me.

  ‘Of course.’

  She seemed genuinely concerned. Anxious. She’d put on a bathrobe, and as she clutched it to her body, I could see through the gap that she’d also apparently put on a clean set of white underwear.

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ she said, and I could see she was a little frightened.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She clarified, ‘Jake and I are just... you know... going to talk a bit... get some sleep. The bed’s large enough.’

  I chuckled. ‘What are you talking about? I thought the whole point was... you know... you get to do whatever you like with each other.’

  ‘But—’

  I said, honestly, ‘Look — I know it was your idea, and we didn’t talk about it, but it was a good one. We’ve basically got nothing to keep us sane the rest of this week except who we are. Sex is the obvious answer—we have a beautiful woman and three guys here. That’s like a resource, a toolkit for getting us through this unbelievably bad vacation.’

&nbs
p; She said, ‘I don’t know what I was... I’m not sure...’

  I said, ‘Look, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. But as far as I’m concerned... well, you know how I feel about it.’

  ‘You still... feel that way?’

  I smiled, trying to make it my warmest, my most reassuring. ‘It’s my fantasy, isn’t it? And tonight we get to make it true. And the two guys here with us are our friends, and have pledged never to breathe a word to anybody.’

  ‘Yeah, but... are you sure sure?’

  She let her bathrobe hang open, and I was given a delicious view of her body. Her bra and panties were simple, plain white—and yet so very sexy, because I knew another man was going to peel them off her. And I wanted another man to peel them off her.

  ‘I’m sure sure. Are you sure sure?’ I asked her.

  ‘I... I think it would be fun...’

  I gave her a prompting look. Silently telling her: we need you to be sure sure. If I’m sure sure, you have to be sure sure, too.

  She sighed, and gave me a meek little, sweet little smile. ‘I’m sure sure,’ she said, almost whispered.

  I nodded, and reached up to kiss her, now she’d drifted forward toward me. Her lips were warm, sweet. Trembling a little. ‘It’ll be okay,’ I said. ‘You’ll have fun. And if it’s not amazing... well, we’ll say no more about it. We’ll forget it ever happened.’

  ‘And if it is amazing?’ she asked me.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’d want to... you know... know what happens?’

  I nodded. ‘I’d want to know.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Jake says you can sleep on his bed if you like,’ she said, and it seemed to remind me that the reward for winning the poker game was to spend a whole night with Hanna. Wow.

  ‘Great,’ I smiled. ‘Got to be more comfortable than this couch.’

  Thinking, Jake’s bedroom was directly opposite mine and Hanna’s. No way I’d avoid hearing them.