Laura (II) G. ¾ & Cathy (I) C. 1.0
16 October 1981
Lovely Lisa called the game "Deprivation." I have since seen it played, usually as a drinking game, as "I've Never." In any case, given Michigan's drinking age, we didn't have any alcohol. We played it backwards, for M&Ms. We sat in a circle and took turns declaring something we had never done. As long as one other player had not done the same thing, that player and the one who had confessed his or her deprivation, got to eat a handful of candies.
For example, on my first turn, I announced, "I've never been to Europe." Of the other five people playing, only Laura and Lisa had traveled there. That meant that Cathy, Paul, Sparky, and I got to eat.
The game hadn't gone on for very long when Paul's roommate Brian came in and mentioned that one of the university film societies was presenting
2001: A Space Odyssey
on campus. He wanted us to go see it with him. Paul and Sparky jumped right up, but I noticed that none of the girls looked interested, so I said, "I just saw it last month on HBO. You guys go without me."
"What about you ladies?" Sparky said hopefully, but none were interested. I saw him consider sitting back down, then blush and walk out of the room. Paul and Brian followed.
"Let's keep playing," Lisa insisted after the door shut behind them. The four of us closed the circle until our knees almost touched. Laura sat on my left and Cathy on my right. Lisa sat across from me.
As I'd noted the night before, although physically very different, Laura and Lisa's beauty shared an ethereal quality. Both were thin and had straight hair nearly down to their waists, but Laura was a blue-eyed blonde and Lisa brunette with hazel eyes that varied from dark green to tan. Also, at just under five feet, Laura was almost a foot shorter than Lisa. Cathy was no taller than Laura, but otherwise very different, with shoulder-length brown hair and bright blue-green eyes. Although by no means heavy, she curved nicely with large breasts. Her freckled face gave her a cute girl-next-door appearance.
"You're lucky we're not playing for drinks," Laura interrupted my reverie as she took her turn. "I've never had testicles."
The three women all had some M&Ms, of course, without me. I suddenly realized what Laura had meant about me being lucky. As the only male left in the game, the women could surely find countless things about me that none of them would share.
"I've never had a penis," Lisa offered next, again leaving me out of the treats.
"Um..." Cathy blushed, then smiled. "I've never shaved my face."
"Bor-ring!" Laura complained teasingly, but again the girls ate alone.
"I've never worn a bra," I declared when my turn came, then realized this left me no better off under the rule that at least one other player must not have done the same thing.
"I've never had an erection," Laura offered next, reestablishing the female monopoly on the candy.
Lisa chucked and said, "I've never produced sperm."
"He sure has!" Laura hooked her thumb at me, reminding the others who had stayed through the whole night before. "It's yummy."
The other two women made faces, with Lisa adding, "That's more than I needed to know."
Cathy again avoided sexually explicit subjects in taking her turn, but again tried to leave only me out. "I've never kissed a girl."
She and Lisa reached for M&Ms, but Laura hesitated. "I'm not sure if it counted as kissing or not."
"Do tell!" Lisa insisted.
"I was at a dorm orientation party at the beginning of last year. In one of the games, they had you cross your wrists behind your back and pass a pair of dice down the line, one person to another. You had to keep your hands behind you the whole time or you were disqualified. There were two teams and whoever won got some prize. It's a lot harder than it sounds, back to back, your wrists crossed, trying to pass both without dropping at least one."
"Why not pass one down, then the other?" I asked.
"You can't. A player wasn't allowed to pass to the next person in line until she had both dice. You couldn't just push them on the floor from one person to the next, either. You had to pass them from person to person. People would drop a die, it would go bouncing off, then they would have to chase it down, sit down with their back to it, and try to pick one up without dropping the other.