My wife’s past was a bit of a mystery to me. I knew Becky had been a bit of a rule breaker in high school and college, though I didn’t have the details. By the time we met, she had settled down.
Becky referred to her school time as her ‘lost years.’ She didn’t explain any further. Her ease at extracting her Dad’s hidden alcohol suggested that it went beyond hoarding overdue library books and eschewing the handrails on escalators.
Becky took a swig straight from the bottle and gave me one, as well. The liquid burned nicely as it slipped down my throat. While I drank, Becky took out four tumblers and then we brought our prize out to the dining room.
Sierra had most of the components out and was paging through the instructions.
“Oh my God, this is hilarious,” she said. Joey gave us both a look, as if asking us to control his girlfriend for him.
Becky responded by putting a glass in front of her brother and pouring him a drink.
“Um, thanks?” Joey said.
“I figured you’d need the support,” Becky said, “I know you’re not of age yet, but it is your birthday, after all. Just don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Joey said, looking pointedly at the perverted board game his girlfriend was paging through.
“Good point,” Becky said. She poured all of us a drink and we sat down. I was facing Sierra. Becky was across from her brother.
We raised our glasses. “To horrifying discoveries,” Becky said. We all took a sip, though I noticed my wife had more of a gulp.
“So, what are we doing here?” I asked.
“Oh my God, this game is such a mess,” Sierra said, “But I think I’ve got it figured out. We each spin the wheel to move our pawn. Then we draw cards depending on the color we land on.”
She pointed to a board that looked a bit like Candy Land. A winding, multicolored path through a strange, fantasy forest filled with faux-risque graphics. There were stylized 69s (the number, not the position) and very cartoonish pictures of people in retro underwear. At the top of the board, where the cartoon path ended, the word ‘heaven’ was written out in garish, bold gold type.
“Are we supposed to by dying at the end of this?” Joey asked, pointing at the graphic.
“I might die just thinking about our parents playing this,” Becky said.
“Come on guys,” Sierra said, “It isn’t Thanksgiving unless you’re playing a vaguely dirty board game that your sibling found hidden in your parents’ house.”
“I don’t know about this,” Joey said, taking a nervous gulp of his drink. His face went a bit flushed. I doubted he’d had much alcohol in his life, let alone something hard like scotch.
Honestly, though, I didn’t blame him for being discombobulated. If I dared think about what was going on, I was fairly freaked out, as well. I was a mid-thirties, married man, sitting down to play a dirty game with two college kids, one of whom was my wife’s brother. What exactly were we expecting to happen here?
But for all that Becky seemed out of sorts, she wasn’t stopping anything. And Sierra, beautiful Sierra, seemed to think the whole thing was silly. And I knew that, though he might deny it, Joey didn’t truly have an issue with this at all. So, all of us — still mostly sober mind you — talked ourselves into doing this thing that, in retrospect, seems like an obviously bad idea. Of course, by the time it was clear that we’d taken a wrong turn, we were too far gone to go back and undo it.
Sierra laid four decks onto the table: green, purple, yellow, and orange. She put the spinner in the middle and gave each of us a tiny pawn to put on the board. The pieces were small and made of tin. Like Monopoly pieces they were in different shapes, only these ones were supposed to be dirty. Mine was a tiny, silver-y, panty-covered butt.
Becky eyed her piece — a little circumcised penis with a tiny bump on the bottom to symbolize balls — like she expected it to jump up and bite her at any moment. I noticed she’d already finished her first glass and was pouring a second one. Joey saw what his sister was doing and quickly finished his own drink. Becky filled his glass after she was done doing hers.
“Slow down guys,” I said.
“I’m playing a sexy board game with my husband and my brother,” Becky said.
“You’re right,” I said, “Speed up guys.”
“The game is not that sexy,” Sierra said, “I mean, look at this thing. It’s all PG-13 racy. I glanced at the cards and they’re all silly stuff like kiss your partner on the bottom. That kind of thing. It’s trying so hard to be horny, it actually makes me feel less aroused than before.”
“Sounds like most of the guys I dated in high school,” Becky said with a smirk. Both girls giggled.
And just like that, the game was on. We decided that, since it was her idea to play, Sierra should go first. The spinner told her to move three spaces, which put her pawn on a purple square. She picked up the matching colored card.
“Take off one piece of clothing,” Sierra said, “Easy enough.” She lifted off her pink sweater, revealing a pinstriped, white and blue blouse.
Moving around the table, it was Joey’s turn next. He also spun a three and took a purple card.
“Take off one piece of clothing,” he read, “OK.” He reached down and took off a sock.
“Do both, babe,” Sierra said, smiling coquettishly. Joey didn’t argue, he just reached down and bared both his feet. If his sister was elfin, then Joey was a hobbit.
Becky was next. She hit a two, which was a yellow square. She held up the card and read it aloud. “Truth: when was the last time you masturbated.” My petite blonde wife turned pinkish.
“That’s a lot more than slipping off a sock,” I said.
“When I was looking before, each of the decks had a theme,” Sierra said, “Purple is clothing. Yellow is truths. The greens and oranges are different levels of dares. But, honestly, it was all pretty tame. As far as I can tell, this is as racy as it gets.”
Looking at the board, most of the early squares were greens, purples, and yellows. But as the path went along, the colors changed too, to the point that it was almost all orange at the end. For a moment, I considered what Sierra thought ‘tame’ meant. But then Becky broke my concentration.