Losers and Winners

Alberto cheered just like half of the guys sitting at the bar. Franklin and the other half looked away from the screens behind the bar. Some were reaching for their pockets.

"All right, man," Alberto said. "It's my lucky day." Turning to his friend he cheerfully said, "All right, dude, pay up. I can take cash or check."

Franklin didn't laugh. "Alberto, I fucked up," he said softly.

"What did you do, man?"

"I don't have three hundred bucks. I don't even have a hundred. I'm not even sure I can buy you another beer."

Alberto looked at him. "Yeah, I wondered about that. I thought you'd said you weren't doing so good. The White Sox are in last place. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I thought they were due for a win," Franklin said. "Law of averages."

"Dude, there is no such thing as a 'law of averages.' That's just some shit people say."

The two men sat in silence, with pretty waitresses bustling around in their little outfits.

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking," Franklin said. "Between the plumbing and the roof this month, I knew we didn't have any money."

"It's not cool to make a bet you can't pay." Alberto said.

"The only thing I've got, really, is the truck. I could sign it over to you, but I would still need to drive it. You know, without that we're screwed."

"That F-150 is worth a lot more than three hundred bills," Alberto said. "And actually, I don't need it."

"So what do you need?"

Alberto laughed out loud. "At this point I'd say I need to get laid," he joked. "Here, bend over, we'll call it even."

"Fuck you," Franklin said, and the two guys laughed.

"If I really just needed to get laid, these are definitely some nice chicks working here tonight, but, you know, they're at work, I don't think it's cool to hit on them." Alberto mused.

Franklin said, "Well, they couldn't help me pay this off anyway. I got no say in what they do."

Alberto said, "Good point."

"It's not like I'm married to them. They do what they want."

"What if you were?" Alberto asked.

"Married to one of these waitresses?"

"Yeah."

Their heads swiveled as they eyeballed the waitresses. Franklin asked, "You mean would I let you fuck her?"

"Something like that. I mean, three hundred bucks is a lot of fuckin', you know? Like that one." There was a moment of respectful silence as a petite blonde with major cleavage carried a tray past them.

"A couple of them'd be worth it. And sure, if I was married to one of them we could settle this bet easy," Franklin said. In fact, over the previous months, sitting at the bar, the two friends had discussed in detail what they would do with which waitresses.

"But like you said, you don't have them to offer," Alberto said. "I can hit on a waitress without your help, because in fact you are not married to any of them."

"Right. I got a wife already, and she doesn't work in this dump."

"It's true, you do," Albert said. "It's okay if she's not a cocktail waitress, she'll do. I'll accept your offer."

"Are you kidding me?" Franklin set his beer down and studied his friend's face to see what the joke was.

"What? Your old lady is one of the hottest women I've ever seen."

"So you're saying I should let you fuck my wife to pay off three hundred dollars?" Franklin thought he must have heard wrong.

"Uh, no, man, I can fuck a hooker in the parking lot for fifty bucks. Your wife is hot but I'd be getting screwed both ways on that deal. For three hundred bucks I should get her all night."

Franklin looked at his friend. "I don't know what just happened here. Are you saying you want to spend the night with my wife?"

"Under normal circumstances it would be nothing more than a passing thought and I wouldn't say anything. But you do owe me three hundred bucks. Also I don't think she'd mind."

"Not mind! You don't know her."

Alberto said, "You don't know how she looks at me sometimes."

Franklin was beginning to panic. "Well, any of us might check somebody out sometimes. That doesn't mean we act on it."

"Some of us might bet more than we have, too," Alberto said. "That doesn't mean we don't pay it."

There was a long silence. Then Alberto said, "All right, man, the truck. Fuck it. But I'm taking it. If I own it I'm going to drive it."

"She is not going to like this idea at all," Franklin said, softly.

"What, sleeping with me? You're right, she'll be pissed off by the idea of it. Let's just do the truck."

"I guess we could ask her," Franklin said. "I need that truck."

"You'll be on her shitlist for a long time. Just for suggesting it."

"Oh yeah, no kidding."

"So let's just do the truck," Alberto said.

"I guess I'm the one that should ask her," Franklin said.

"If we're going to ask your wife to spend the night with your buddy, then we should both ask her, together."

"I suppose so. She can't kill both of us."

Alberto asked, "Are you all right with this? Because, let me tell you, I am going to get my money's worth. I'll have her all night and I don't think we will be getting a lot of sleep."

Franklin pictured it, then put the image out of his mind. Sex with Christie had not really been what it used to be for several years. He ran through the scenario in his mind. What if she liked it? What if she preferred Alberto over him? Franklin knew he should pay more attention to her anyway. She loved him and he was confident she would not leave him even if Alberto turned out to be God's gift to women. Which Franklin did not think was likely. Alberto was a kind of shy fellow who never played around much even though he was single; he was probably no threat in the bedroom. When was the last time he got laid? It had been months. It wouldn't hurt to let him have a little fun after going without. And who knows, Christy might find it a little fun giving him a treat.

Franklin said, "There's no way in the fucking world she will say yes to this. Let's go talk to her and then I'll get the title to the truck."

Franklin texted Christy that were going to have company and they rode to his house in the F-150. It was a quiet ride, luckily only a couple of blocks. He parked in the driveway and as he put his hand on the door handle he sighed, "This could be bad."

"Well look what the cat drug in," Christy said as they came into the living room. "Hey Berto, been a while." She gave Alberto a little hug and stepped back to look at them. "Okay," she said. "What kind of trouble have you boys got yourselves into now?"

Franklin looked at the floor and said, "Honey, I fucked up."

She nodded patiently and watched the two of them carefully. "What'd you do?"

"I bet on the White Sox," he said.

"And don't tell me, they lost," Christy said.

"Yeah."

"And you don't have any money."

"Yeah."

"So you want me to pay it off."

"Uh, sort of, uh huh," Franklin said.

"I take it you bet against Alberto here." She had her hands on her hips now, fire in her eyes.

"Uh huh."

"And how much do I owe him?" She was trying to keep it light.

"Three hundred dollars," Franklin said.

"Three hundred fucking dollars! You bet three hundred fucking dollars on a fucking baseball game?" She turned to Alberto. "Sorry, Berto, but we don't have any three hundred dollars. We barely have enough to keep beer in the fridge."

Alberto smiled sweetly at her. "But there is another way you could pay me."

That shut her up.

"Talk," she said finally.

"If I spent one night with you it would erase the debt," Alberto said. The two men braced themselves for the shit to hit the fan.

Christy glared at him for a second, then visibly settled down. "One night, huh? Did you discuss this with my husband?"

"I, uh, I mentioned the idea to him," Alberto said.

"Franklin, what do you think about this?"

Franklin spread his hands and said, "I told him to take the truck. That's the best thing. I'll go get the title."

He took a few steps and Christie said, "The truck! What are we going to do without the truck? How are you going to work? How will we go anywhere? You'd give away the truck for three hundred fucking dollars?"

"Well I owe him," Franklin said.

"Yeah, I see the problem," Christie said. She was trying to be reasonable. At least it was Alberto and not one of Franklin's slimier friends. Still, she felt obligated to make both of them twist in the wind a little longer.

"So you offer your wife as a whore for three hundred dollars," she said.

Alberto interjected: "Oh, he didn't offer. Franklin didn't like this idea one bit. I suggested it, and we couldn't think of anything better. We were hoping you'd have an idea."

"You're pretty proud of yourself with that kind of talk, aren't you," Christie said, and she was right.

There was a long minute of silence and then Christie issued her statement. "So look, I like Alberto. If I wasn't married to this dickhead I'd fuck his brains out in a heartbeat. But I am married, and I consider that important, so I behave myself. But --"

She let another half a minute pass. "For the benefit of my marriage, it looks like I am going to have to do something I never thought I'd do. Did you say all night?"

"Yes ma'am," Alberto said.

"When?"

"Jeez, Christie," Franklin said, "We didn't talk about any details."

"Okay, tonight. It's nine o'clock now," Christie said. "You have me till nine in the morning. This will happen exactly one time, and then you two promise to never pull this shit again, you got it?" Both men agreed. Franklin felt like he had just dodged a fast-moving train.

She turned to Franklin: "Where are you going to go?"

"I don't know," Franklin said. "I could go back to the bar, I guess. It's not like I can afford a hotel room."

"Back to the bar to spend more money," she said. "No, I'll tell you what, you get the couch tonight."

"Okay, sweetie."

"Don't you sweetie me, motherfucker," she said, in case her feelings were not clear. "You get the couch, and I mean the couch. You can get up to use the bath- no, if you have to pee, the front door is right here, go out and pee in the bushes next to the driveway like a fucking dog. Then come straight back in and back to the couch."

Turning to Alberto she said, "And you. Listen, I am not going to be a piece of meat here. I'm not a whore and I am not your toy. You will get your three hundred dollars' worth but I will not stand for any mistreatment, abuse, or disrespect. Do I make myself clear?"

Alberto gulped and said, "Yes, ma'am."

"And don't fucking call me ma'am. I'm not your fucking mother."

"Yes m-, okay Christie."

She looked down at herself. She was wearing baggy old jeans and a t-shirt. "Your timing is fucked up, too," she said. "I look like a fucking hobo. Let me at least get dressed. You guys stay here, I am going to change before we start this shitshow."

It was a long ten minutes. The men sat in the living room, Franklin on the couch, Alberto in a stuffed chair, and tried to make small-talk, but it was awkward.

Part of it was that Christie was a knock-out. Men flirted with her whenever she went anywhere, and she had learned to handle them gracefully. In their years of marriage she had never so much as kissed another man, even when she found herself hungry for attention.

The bedroom door squeaked and Christie came down the hall to the living room. She stopped in the doorway to let the guys get a good look at her. She had put a bit of makeup on her pretty face, brushed her hair and tied it in a ponytail on the side that was very sexy, and she had changed into a little nightgown that, Franklin knew, she had not worn for at least five years. It was a pale orange bordering on beige, almost see-through but not quite, with a seam under the breasts that pushed her up to reveal miles of beautiful flesh. The skirt came down an inch or two below her crotch. When she moved her breasts quivered and swayed under the soft fabric.

"Wow," Alberto said, standing up. "You look amazing."

"You haven't worn that in a long time," Franklin said.

Christie smiled at Alberto and murmured a thank-you, then pointed a finger at Franklin and said, "I don't want a fucking word out of you. Do you understand?" Franklin nodded.

She stepped up to Alberto and put her arms around him. "You're so tall," she said. "And look at these muscles. Kiss me." Alberto bent his head down and Christie tied him up in a lip-lock, standing right in front of the couch.

"Oh, I liked that," she said as they broke their kiss. She ran her hands over his chest and up and down his arms, squeezing his biceps.

She said, "I suppose we should start with some foreplay, shouldn't we." She sat in the chair Alberto had just vacated, leaned back, and spread her legs. No one was surprised to see that she had no panties on. "How about you eat my pussy for a little while?"

"Do you have to do this in front of me?" Franklin said.

"What did I tell you?" Christie fired back at him. "The White Sox are the worst team in the league and you bet on them. Money you didn't have. You lost the bet. Zip it."

"It does seem a little rude to do this in front of him," Alberto said. "We could go in the bedroom."

"I see," Christie said. "So tell you what, instead of eating my pussy, let's start with a blow job."

"Okay," Alberto said.

"Just joking. There's no difference. Get down here and get mama's engine fired up."

Christie made a bit of a display of it, looping her long legs over the arms of the chair and opening her crotch for the world to see. She was not wet. Alberto paused.

"I'm waiting," she said.

Alberto got on his knees in front of the chair and began licking her pussy. Christie looked down on him with a mostly disapproving look. "Have you ever done this before?" she asked.

"Sure I have," he said.

"I was hoping you would pay a little more attention," she said.

Alberto focused, using his tongue to carefully stimulate her, licking from the taint to the clitoris, flicking his tongue, and Christie put her hand on the back of his head. "Oh yes," she said. "That's better. Anything that's worth doing is worth doing right, isn't that right?" Alberto did not answer.

Soon Franklin could hear his wife's pussy sloshing. In some ways he was sorry he didn't go down on her more himself. She obviously liked it, and he knew that. He was lazy. He was a loser, he'd lost a bet and now his best friend was licking his wife's pussy and she was moaning with pleasure.

Christie gave Alberto's forehead a light push and said, "Okay, that's good, you got me warmed up. Let's go to the bedroom."

The relief in the room was palpable.

Christie led Alberto by the hand back to the bedroom. This was the bed where she and her husband slept. Occasionally there was some romance, not often, it had more bitter than sentimental memories for her. She had pulled up the covers when she changed her clothes, now she pulled them down again.

"Okay, Alberto, you won the bet. What do you want to do? We've got all night."

"Jeez, Christie, I don't know. This happened pretty fast."

"Yes, it did, didn't it," she replied, with a sardonic tone. "Well it's fine with me if we don't do anything." She sat on the bed in her nightgown, waiting. "You know, the funny thing is, I might have considered cheating with you if you had made a move."

"I thought about it," Alberto replied.

"Sorry," she said, "I'm not into mind-reading."

Alberto sat beside her. "Listen, Christie, this wasn't my idea. I mean, I have pictured being with you many times, you are like my biggest fantasy. But I didn't mean for it to be like this."

"Okay, nice," she said. "But it is like this. I'm yours for the night. It's fine with me if we go to sleep and get up in the morning and I'll make you breakfast and you can go home. Or, we can pretty much do whatever you want to do, within reason."

"Well this is so complicated," he said.

She laughed. "It doesn't get simpler than this. You and I have both secretly wanted to get together for a long time. Here I am basically naked in my bed, telling you to do whatever you want with me. All night long."

"What would you like to do?" Alberto asked her.

"Oh that's easy. I'd like to go to dinner in a moderately nice place, maybe Mexican food or sushi, have a drink and dance to a slow song, pressing our bodies together on the dancefloor and getting our hormones worked up, then go a private place where nobody knows we are, and fuck our brains out till morning."

"Yeah, I see."

"But we don't have the luxury of that. So here I am." She shifted to spread her legs and show him her pussy. "You want it, it's yours. You won it. White Sox lost. Of course."

Alberto was standing above her, fully dressed. She was sitting there looking up at him in a nightgown she'd bought years ago to kindle the interest of her husband.

"Let's start where we were in the living room," Alberto said. "First, I'm getting out of my clothes. You can wear that, if you want."

"Okay," she said. "Do you like it?"

"Yes, I love it on you."

"So I'll keep it on. It definitely doesn't get in the way of anything."

Alberto shuffled out of his jeans and t-shirt, and tossed his clothes on the floor near the closet, where it would not get mixed up with Franklin's things. He was not hard. She was not wet any more. Christie scooted to the head of the bed and put some pillows behind her head so she could watch him, and she spread her legs for him.

His lips touched her labia very gently, and she thought, maybe this won't be so bad after all. He felt some of the tension leave her body, and used his tongue to explore this pussy that he had dreamed about for so long. They had all night -- that's a long time. It's not a race, if anything this would be an endurance test.

He licked along the outside of her tender areas, in the fold on the outside of her vulva. She closed her eyes and moaned and relaxed. "That feels very, very good," she said. He went up and down both sides, occasionally sweeping his tongue across the folds of her labia, lapping lightly at her vaginal opening.

She was getting salty, wet. He could feel her legs trembling as he held them open with his hands. He let the tip of his tongue slip into her vagina, gently, warming her up for what he hoped would be an exciting -- and exhausting -- night. She shifted to give him better access.

Alberto reached his hands up to feel her breasts. How many times had he imagined touching them? And there they were, his, he'd won them. Well this was better than a fucking truck at any rate. He squeezed the heavy flesh, found nipples through the fabric and pinched lightly, all while his tongue explored her nether part.

And then he moved in on the clitoris. It had probably been fifteen or twenty minutes, she was wound up and ready to explode, and Alberto placed his tongue directly on her clit and flipped it up and down rapidly, like a motorboat, and she exploded. The headboard was banging against the wall, she was moaning and her whole body was convulsing as if she was being electrocuted. Alberto held her in place and maintained the stimulation until the orgasm subsided.

She looked down and smiled at him. "Well that was nice," she said. She did not change position or discourage him from continuing; he took this as an invitation to repeat the episode, and placed his mouth on her pussy again, eliciting another orgasm of similar magnitude in one minute. Christie smoothed his hair in an affectionate but impersonal sort of way, contemplating the strange series of mistakes that had led to this moment.

Meanwhile in the other room, Franklin sat on the couch trying not to hear the moans, the movements, the headboard hitting the wall. He had lost control of his imagination. His friend, in his mind, was one of the world's greatest lovers, and was giving his wife pleasure that she had never known, nor would ever in the future be able to experience with him, her own husband. Franklin heard low moans and pictured his wife with her legs high in the air, and Alberto ramming his enormous erection into her like a pile-driver. She would be smiling up at him, her eyes crossing occasionally, her nipples hard and beet-red, as Alberto, cool and sophisticated, employed his sexual mastery to explore the depths of her vagina with his cock, touching her in places that her undeserving husband had never reached, and never would.