How had she found herself in this situation? She glanced down at her body, unrecognizable in its current get-up, even the smallest movement causing her pain, and thought back over how she'd gotten here.
She'd taken a risk she wouldn't normally have taken, she admonished herself, and now she was paying the price. This situation was exactly why well-behaved women didn't do what she'd done.
She'd always been well-behaved, at least until now. She'd married right after university, popped out a couple of kids, had a good job and a good husband and a good house in the suburbs and a good life. Being well-behaved had its rewards. Mind you, an active sex life had not been one of them, but everything had its balance sheet, right? One of the costs of a middle-class family was a middle-class sex life.
But then the husband had left. Suddenly being good meant moving to a smaller townhouse so she could afford the mortgage on one salary. She took on extra work to make ends meet. She relied on her parents more. Horseback riding lessons for her eldest were gone. Ditto the hockey camp for her second daughter.
So when she'd been approached by Sami from Accounting about an evening out and a chance to earn a bit extra, she'd been interested. Very interested, even.
She tried not to admit to herself that part of her interest was in Sami herself. The six-foot brunette always looked like she'd just stepped out of a fashion magazine from the forties. There was a pinup girl quality to the swing of her hips that had Mindy fascinated. Would she have come, if Sami had been less enticing? She wasn't sure.
She'd asked some questions, of course. A card game. Did Mindy play euchre? Of course she did. But how did euchre earn her a bit extra? Well, this would be sort of like strip poker, but a different game, and some twists to the rules that she'd find out about when she got to the party. Sami would put up the money for betting, and Mindy would be the one taking off her clothes. At the end of the night, all their winnings would be Mindy's. Was she in?
Mindy checked her calendar. The kids would be with their father that night. She was in.
She'd pulled up to Sami's house in her battered Dodge Caravan and rang the doorbell. It seemed like any other house in the neighbourhood - large, probably four or five bedrooms, close to three thousand square feet, and the landscaping was clearly professional. Somehow she couldn't picture Sami getting dirt under her perfectly-manicured nails to garden for herself. How could she afford this on her salary? Her musings were interrupted when the door was opened by her hostess.
"Mindy! So glad you could join us!" Sami purred, ushering her into the living room. Two other women were already there. One was another middle-class housewife type like herself; business-casual slacks and blouse, a cardigan, some nondescript flat shoes on her feet, modest jewelry, shoulder-length hair. Sami introduced her as Marjorie. She nodded at Mindy without speaking.
The other was a voluptuous blonde in a skin-tight leather dress that showed off every one of her ample curves. "Jocelyn. Pleased to meet you," she introduced herself, extending her hand. Mindy went to shake it, realizing at the last second that it had been offered knuckles first. Was she supposed to kiss it? Confused, she dropped it without doing anything. Sami and Jocelyn both laughed.
To cover her confusion, Mindy looked around the room. The windows were heavily curtained in a rich brown silk, and the curtains were drawn. In fact no vestige of the late-spring evening sunlight was visible in the room. The table was a small round pedestal dining table in mahogany, with four matching chairs upholstered in red leather. There was no other seating in the large room at all. The only other furniture consisted of two large wardrobes, incongruous in what was meant to be a living room.
She took a seat across from Sami as her hostess began explaining the rules. "As you know, Mindy, Marjorie, this is not your typical card game. We're going to play on two teams, Mindy and myself, Jocelyn and Marjorie. That much is normal. But at the end of each hand, there will be a brief reckoning. The team that lost that hand will have one member lose an item of clothing. That will be either Marjorie or Mindy." She smiled a predatory smile at them. "The team that won the hand will gain an item of decoration for one of the two of you. The choice of item will belong to your partner - so Marjorie will wear the items picked by Jocelyn when their team wins, and Mindy will wear items picked by me. Betting is by trick - Jocelyn and I each bet five dollars per hand and get two dollars for each trick won. Do you both understand the rules?"
Both women nodded, and Jocelyn dealt the first hand. They played in silence. Mindy had never been good at coming up with a topic of conversation, but she was all right at following someone else's lead. In this case, nobody seemed to be willing to start things off, so Mindy sat there, wondering what kind of evening this would be.
Marjorie and Jocelyn won all five tricks on that hand. Mindy removed her cardigan, while Jocelyn produced a piece of leather with a buckle.
Suddenly the air in the room was electric with a tension Mindy had seldom felt. Jocelyn came around the table, brushing against Mindy's chair, and stood beside Marjorie's chair. She pointed one finger at the floor. Marjorie slipped off her seat and knelt before her, her hands clasped behind her back, her knees a little bit spread, her hands behind her back. Transfixed, Mindy watched as Jocelyn held out the collar for Marjorie, who kissed it and then put her neck into it. Jocelyn buckled it around her neck and closed it with a tiny heart-shaped padlock. For a moment the blonde stood there, stroking Marjorie's hair and cheeks. Then she made a little gesture and Marjorie rose and seated herself again. Jocelyn came back around the table, this time trailing fingers along the back of Mindy's neck under her prim French knot of hair.
Mindy shivered. Flustered, she gathered the cards and dealt the next hand.
"So, do you three know each other well?" she asked as she dealt.
Jocelyn answered, "Sami and I have been - business associates - for some time now," she answered.
Mindy replied, "Business? Sami, I didn't know you ran another business on the side." She glanced at her hand and considered. Three hearts, another turned up? Yes please! Feeling on safer ground with the cards than with the other parts of the game, she picked it up, making trump hearts, and settled in to play the hand.
