“What kind of penalty?” Sloane asked.
“Any penalty we decide. Everybody gets to kick him in the butt, or he has to go outside and bay at the moon, or he — or she — has to take off one piece of clothing or —”
“Hey,” Helen said, “I like that last one.” Some how I knew she would. “That sounds like a swell game.”
“That’s a pretty big glass,” Jack objected.
“That’s the point,” I explained. “Nobody can just chug-a-lug it down. You can take a big drink or a little one, but remember if the next player finishes it off, you gotta peel off one item of clothing — a sock, your pants, a bra, or whatever.”
We haggled a bit about the rules, but finally everybody agreed to them. We all discarded our shoes to get that out of the way. I caught a glimpse of Sandy’s face. It seemed completely indifferent. We pulled our seats into a kind of circle and began passing the glass around.
Sloane, of course, polished off the first glass, and Helen, with a great deal of giggling and ostentatious display of leg, peeled off a stocking. I think that mentally she was still at the “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine” stage of development. Then Jack caught Sandy, and she mutely followed Helen’s example.
It went several rounds, with Sloane, Jack, and me pretty well able to control it — simply because we could take bigger drinks. I hadn’t dropped it on Clydine yet.
“Come on, crumb,” she hissed at me. “I’m beginning to feel like a virgin.” Helen was down to her panties and bra, and Sandy was in her slip. I’d lost one sock and both Jack and Sloane were down to their slacks and shorts. I was trying not to look at Jack’s tattoos.
“How much have you got on under that?” I asked Clydine. She had on a dark jersey and a pair of slacks. No sox.
“Just panties,” she said. “I want to beat that dim-witted exhibitionist down to skin.” Her competitive spirit was up. It was a silly game, but we were all drunk enough to start taking it a little seriously.
So the next time around, I emptied the glass, Clydine stood up and slowly pulled off the jersey. Her little soldiers snapped to attention. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Jack. Clydine took a deep breath, and Sloane choked a little.
“Come on, come on,” Helen snapped, “let’s get on with the game. That’s not the only set of boobs in the room.” What a pig!
Sandy lost her slip, and then Helen’s bra went. She thrust her breasts out as far as she could, but they were pretty sorry-looking in comparison to my two little Mends. It’s a funny thing about nudity. Helen looked vulgar, but Clydine didn’t. My little Bolshevik was completely natural about the whole thing. After the first shock wore off, her nude breasts were almost an extension of her face — pretty but not vulgar. Helen’s face stopped at her neck with the sharp line where her makeup left off. Below that she was obscene.
I lost my other sock, Jack lost his pants, and Sandy’s bra went. There was a sort of simplicity, almost purity in the way she numbly exposed herself.
“Break-time,” Sloane giggled. “My kidneys are awash.” He hustled on back to the can with Jack right behind him. Clydine wandered around a little, looking at the furniture, and Helen sat sulking. She was obviously outclassed; Sandy had a great shape, and Clydine, of course, was out of sight.
“It’s not much of a game really,” I said apologetically to Sandy.
She lit a cigarette, seemingly oblivious of her own nakedness. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s only for a little while, so it doesn’t make any difference.” I was suddenly disgusted with myself for having come up with the whole silly idea. Why does a guy do things like that?
“I’m not being nosey,” I said, lying in my teeth, “but why do you hang around with Jack anyway? You know there’s no future in it for you.”
“Oh, Jack’s all right,” she said. “If it wasn’t him, it would just be somebody else. It’s only for a little while anyway.”
She kept on saying that. Nobody was that cool. Maybe it was just a way of keeping things from getting to her.
“I like your little friend,” she said, suddenly flashing a quick smile toward Clydine. The smile made her face suddenly come alive, and there was something just under the surface that made me look away.
Sloane and Jack came back, and the rest of us trekked back one at a time to use the facilities.
The game continued in a fairly predictable way, with all the girls winding up totally nude, and Sloane, Jack, and me in just our shorts. Despite some fairly obvious suggestions from Helen about where the final penalty should be paid, each couple retired to a separate bedroom for the last stages of the party.
As I said before, Clydine and I had both gotten pretty well worked-up the preceding night, and we went at each other pretty hot and heavy the first time. The booze, however, took its well-known and pretty obvious toll. I wasn’t really making much headway the second time around, just sort of trying to entertain a friend, so to speak.
“It’s not working, Danny,” she said softly. “We’re both too tipsy. Let’s talk.”
I started to roll over.
“No,” she said, locking her legs around me, “just stay there. It’s kind of nice, and this way I’m sure I’ve got your attention.”
“Oh, gosh, yes,” I said, mimicking Carter. “This may add an entirely new dimension to the art of conversation.”
“Just relax,” she told me. She pulled me down.
“We’re not for keeps, Danny,” she said after a moment. “You know that, don’t you? I’m saying this because I keep having this awful impulse to tell you that I love you.”
I started to say something, but she squeezed me sharply with her legs.
“Let me finish,” she said, “while I’ve still got the courage. I know you think it’s silly, all this — well — political stuff I’m involved in, but it’s awfully important to me. I believe in it. I wish you did, too. Sometimes I just wish you’d believe in something — anything, but you don’t.”
I started to say something again, and she gave her pelvis a vicious little twist that damned near emasculated me.
“I’m going to do that every time you interrupt me,” she said. She had a long memory. I don’t think I’ve ever been so completely helpless before or since. She had me — as they say — at her mercy.
“In about a month,” she went on, “you’re going back up to the U, and I’ll be starting to go to class here in a couple of weeks. You’re going to be gone for ten days on this hunting expedition of yours. Between now and the first of October — less than ten days — is all we’ve really got. Am I getting maudlin?”
I didn’t dare answer.
“If you’ve gone to sleep, damn you, I’ll cripple you.”
“I’m here,” I said, “don’t get carried away.”
“Have I made any sense?” she asked.
“I’m tempted to argue,” I said, “but I think you’re probably right. If we try to keep it going after I get to Seattle, it’ll just the on us anyway, and we’d both feel guilty about it. It’s easy to say that it’s only thirty miles, but the distance between Seattle and Tacoma is a lot more man that really.”
“It’s a damned shame,” she said. She rocked her hips a few times under me, gently. “When it comes to this, you’re just clear out of sight, but that’s not really enough, is it?”
“Not in the end, it isn’t,” I said sadly. “At first it is.”
“Let’s give it another try,” she said. “I want to say something silly, and I want you to be too distracted to hear me.”
This time we made it, and just as we did she said, “I love you,” very softly in my ear.
I whispered it back to her, and then she cried.
I held her for a long while, and then we got up and got dressed.
Sandy was standing at the kitchen sink with a cigarette and a glass of whiskey, still nude, looking out the window at the moonlight.
“We have to run, Sandy,” I told her softly. “Tell Jack, OK?”
She nodded to me and smiled vaguely at Clydine. “He’s asleep now,” she said. “He always goes to sleep. Sometimes I’d like to talk, but he always goes to sleep. They all do.” She took a drink of whiskey.
“It’ll be all right,” I said inanely.
“Of course,” she said, her voice slurring a bit. “In just a little while.”