My buddies and I meet once a week to play poker. My place is the preferred venue, since there are no wives here, the furniture is very comfortable, and the beer is cold and plentiful. Any time my four buddies come over, I tell my niece, Marissa, to make herself scarce. She's finishing up her MFA at the university, which explains why she is living with me while she finishes her degree. She will be leaving after this semester, to get a real job in a big city, I hope. She's a talented artist, she's been told. Myself, I have no artistic sensibility, so I can't judge. I do have a sense of propriety, though, and I don't want her around my degenerate poker buddies.
They know she lives with me. Each time we play, they ask about her, usually within the first twenty minutes. I can't blame them. She's a beautiful young grad student, and they are slobbering old lechers. I feel a the traditional familial obligation to my sister to protect Marissa from their hungry stares and wandering hands.
Marissa stays away on those nights for as late as she can. Occasionally, the grind of her studies and her jobs force her to come back to her room. When she enters the room, she tries to slip by with a minimum of social contact. She says hi, smiles, and can't help flounce as she walks. The guys turn red, clear their throats, and grumble their own hellos. She often wears her jeans fashionably tight, her short fashionably brief, her shoes and sandals fashionably bare, but her tops are decidedly unfashionably revealing. They hug her generous young curves and sway a bit as she moves. I wonder how she doesn't get groped as she walks down the street most days.
Of course, it's not my place to comment on her sartorial choices. She's a beautiful woman with a sunny personality and most people would agree she's nature's gift to anyone who meets her or sees her. She seems to enjoy her role as eye-candy, but never acts loose or cheap. She's a naturally effusive, ebullient, happy person and everybody loves to be around her.
The warm weather had arrived early this spring, and Marissa's inclination was to set her body be free from encumbrance. She spent several weekends at the beach, carrying a towel, a tiny bag that held her sunscreen, her moisturizer, her phone, her pencil for sketching. It didn't appear that there was any room for a suit in there, even the most revealing. But she had to have a suit, didn't she?
"Where's Marissa today, Ned?" Joe asked after downing a beer and belching. "I haven't seen her around much. I hope this doesn't mean we have to keep playing cards until three in the morning!" The guys all laughed, but I was convinced that they would all be willing to wait until dawn for a chance to see Marissa.
"She's putting together her final art project for school. She said she might be gone all night."
"Does she ever use your backyard to sunbathe?" Wolfy asked, his narrow yellow eyes flashing the thoughts he held. "I bet she likes to lay out nude. She does, doesn't she? Mmmm." His long, narrow tongue flicked like he was tasting the air.
"Marissa is too busy just to lay out. But I promise, if she every does, I'll be sure to take pictures for you."
Everyone laughed, but Wolfy said, "Pictures, hell! I want video. Better yet, call me and I'll take the video." He and the fat guy, Chubs, did a high five, after Chubs moved his slice of cold pizza to his other hand. The last guy in our group was the quiet one, Tingle. He was usually busy scratching himself somewhere, so I controlled my desire to call him "Scratchy" not Tingle.
Our money changed hands like it usually did among friends. Up a couple hundred, down a couple hundred, roughly even by the end. The pizza was gone, the beer was cold but no longer refreshing, and the air was stale with cigar smoke. Joe used his hands on his lower back to crack it before standing. Wolfy rolled his head on his shoulders. Chubs burped long and deep then rubbed his stomach, and Tingle used the Ace of Hearts to scratch behind his ear. The game was breaking up.
Then Marissa showed up. "Hello, Uncle Ned." She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. Wolfy leaned forward to try to look down her blouse, but what more he expected to see than what was already clearly outlined by her clingy T, I couldn't imagine. Force of habit on his part.
"You take yourself to your room, dear," I said. "We can talk more in the morning. Good night." She straightened up, smiled to each man in turn, and shrugged her shoulders. She was wearing those damn tiny shorts again, which made her thin legs appear to bulge at the thigh and calf muscles. She raised on her toes before leaving.
"I wanted to ask a favor, guys," she said. "It's for my school final project. Would you be my first patrons?"
Wolfy agreed though there was no way he knew what a patron might be. Chubs knew, because his fat cheeks turned bright red. Joe looked stumped, probably caused by the number of beers he had consumed. Only Tingle raised his hand, tentatively. Marissa called on him by pointing her pretty manicured finger.
"Will this cost us anything?"
Marissa's laugh flowed through the room like fresh spring water over a stony brook, bubbly and sparkling. "Of course not! You'll just be my test subjects. But I promise not to hurt you."
Wolfy looked slightly disappointed.
"Thank you guys so, so much! Good night!" She skipped to her room. The guys were quiet, looking at each other, until I broke them up.
"Okay, okay, quit listening for her using the washroom. Time to go, my friends."
"Man, I'd like to bite that round ass," Chub said. The others laughed nervously.
"I love her tits. Lovely little tits. I bet they get sharp when she's horny," Joe said.
"I'd like to see the whole package," Tingle said, trembling at the thought.
"But When?" asked Wolfy, "when does she want us to help her? Tomorrow? Next week?"
"It'll be soon, guys. I'll let you know, I promise. It'll have to be no later than our next poker game, okay? She's graduating soon."
That satisfied them, and they gathered up their stuff and left me with the mess, as usual.
I liked getting up early in the summer, because the sun always beat me awake. It was there, shining its welcome to a new day. I made enough coffee for Marissa and me, poured myself a cup, and sat down to wait for her.
She showed up around 8:30 in the morning, pretty early for a college student. She wore a short terry-cloth robe that opened half-way down her front, and her thin, shapely legs poked from underneath. She grabbed a cup of coffee and a piece of toast and sat down across from me.
"Do you want to tell me what you have in mind, Marissa?" She smiled, but didn't answer.
"You have to be careful. My friends are old, from the 70s and 80s. They were raised to think about women in a more aggressive manner, you know? I don't want you to get hurt."
