The Loft Game: Astro Boy

This is the seventh Loft Game story, and they should be read in order unless you don't mind dealing with unexplained references and spoilers about past events. It starts with

The Loft Game: Kermit

and Literotica's series feature should show the order.

In the notes at the end of

Sauron

, I mentioned that the next episode was tentatively entitled

The Loft Game: Gibraltar

. However, story events got rearranged as I was writing, and here you are with

Astro Boy

.

This is the first episode in which I've actually given a name to the school Chips attends--McVay College--because it was becoming increasingly clumsy not use one. It is, of course, a fictional Pennsylvania institution so that I can play fast and loose with geography, traditions, etc. without having some alum say, "Hey, wait just a damn minute!" You should view it as one of the numerous private, liberal arts institutions that dot the Northeast.

This one has a couple of flashbacks in it. I used one in

Sauron

and decided I liked them for a certain type of situation. Since there's no font control on Literotica, they're set off by single diamonds. So, if you see one of those, don't be confused.

Anyway, Chips has said, "See ya in September," to those heading home before the final day of exam week. The seniors she isn't likely to see on the weekend were sent on their way with a hug and "If you come back for reunions next year, maybe?" Chips and Em are planning to head out bright and early Sunday morning.

--C

--------------

Five months ago, I sat in an armchair on the basement level of the library, eavesdropping on Em talking with Logan. Her words and the searing flash of heat that shot through my entire body when I heard them had bent my freshman year onto a new course.

I mean, Em had gone from a furious "Are you fucking kidding me!"--the "bitch" hanging unspoken in the air on the end of that sentence--to one of my best friends.

And my Friday nights had become infinitely more intriguing than the occasional foray to some party with other girls in my dorm. Or hanging in underwear and a ratty old T-shirt in the privacy of my room, determinedly not thinking about my roommate, Taylor, who'd taken up semi-permanent residence at her boyfriend's.

Which, to my needy imagination, meant getting her brains bonked out.

As for my sex life, it had gone from one not-exactly-sober hookup with a guy who got things done in the moment but whom I barely thought about after the door closed behind him to ...

Well, I couldn't say I was getting laid regularly. Certainly not compared to my last year of high school when a steady boyfriend plus an Airstream camper behind our garage that was determinedly overlooked by parentals meant at

least

weekly.

No, doing the actual deed probably averaged monthly at best since that day in the library. But if you expanded the definition beyond the letters p-in-v, then yeah, my sex life had re-blossomed.

And now, five months later, I was sitting in that exact same chair, and Em had Logan on her phone once again. Only this time, I wasn't eavesdropping on one side of a conversation. This time, Em and I were huddled in front of FaceTime with Logan looking back at us. The topic was whether my re-blossoming sex life should flower just a tiny bit more.

"Come on, Chips!" Logan said.

"We're nervous too," Em put in, "but--"

"No."

They were trying to convince me to change my mind about the game that was happening that night. It wasn't a Loft Game; those were over until next September. But two years ago, another game was started. Just one a year, played the last night of exams.

I knew what Em meant by nerves. Boys versus girls, Victoria had explained. Not super concerning in itself. But "Whichever side loses, they

all

lose." There were so many questions around that, so many unnerving possibilities. Questions Victoria had grinned her evil grin about and refused to answer.

Yeah, like that's a shocker.

The sarcastic thought had run through my mind as we sat in Dunkin' that night. Play and find out. She hadn't said that, but we knew. We all got off watching those moments when the unknown suddenly showed a hidden side.

The look on a newbie's face when they learned the words "strip poker" covered a knock on the door of strangers, stark naked.

The eyes of a girl who knew that, when the back room door closed behind her, she'd find out exactly what the deliberate vagueness surrounding the words "give a blowjob" encompassed.

It hasn't happened with a guy ... yet.

I'd seen guys lose the main game, but never their first time facing the prospect.

Someday.

Savor the anticipation, girl

.

You either sucked it up in those moments or you didn't. You could quit at any time.

The amused gleam in Victoria's eyes at the prospect of first-timers finding out what the words "they all lose" meant. I wrenched my mind back.

"There are reasons. Next year," I promised my two friends.

Em leaned back in her chair and considered me. I had said something about "reasons" when I'd asked her if we could leave on Sunday instead of Saturday. I promised her a story on the ride home. I had mentally crossed my fingers when I did: it would be a

version

of the story, some balance of privacy and prurience.

"C'mon! This is

SOOO

not like you!" Logan's fake-frowny toddler face was kind of funny and I laughed. "Stop laughing!" she demanded. "More girls means more chances we win."

"Five of them and six of you. You've already got an edge," I countered. I understood that Logan and Em liked the idea of more newbies for this game, herd size lessening the intimidation factor, but, "It's a no." My tone was firm. "Now, the whole point of getting up at this stupid hour was some last-minute before an exam that's less than two hours away," I said pointedly.

Em sighed. "Bye, Log." Logan's scowl disappeared from FaceTime, and we pulled open our backpacks.

When I said bent in my freshman year, perhaps a better word would have been kinked it. But no, the kink didn't come from that time meeting Em. That perverse bit had always been lurking down deep inside me. The twist was now it didn't lurk.

Despite my refusal, somewhere a few inches behind the button of my jeans there was a knot of heat over the notion of the game.

Fuck!

I pushed away the thought of a guy sprawled in front of me.

Not now!

"Okay," I said to Em. "I'm betting we're gonna have to do a visualization of ..."

• • •

Em and I stared at the sign that read "CS 1137 - Prof. Horner - 9:00 a.m." Appended below it was taped the standard university notice that told us, "Exam in progress.

NO

cell phones permitted."

"Good luck," I said as I dutifully surrendered mine to the bored TA sitting there.

Em and I had taken Intro to Data Visualization for different reasons.

Her adviser had told her, "Emily, you have to take at least one semester of QCR in order to graduate"--Area Studies in Quantitative and Computational Reasoning, but nobody bothered with that mouthful--"and this one can be useful for a biology major." Em said the woman had laughed and added, "And Horner gets a pretty good score on Rate My Prof."

Corey Horner was mid-thirties and, even I had to admit, kinda hot in a rumpled way. And Em's tastes absolutely ran toward hot, rumpled, and thirty-something. "q.v. Ryan," as the freshman guide to footnoting would explain.

Not that I'm saying that's what made up her mind. Though, of course, that's exactly what I

did

say and then ducked the carrot stick hurled in my general direction, fortunately for my bed not loaded with onion dip.

I hadn't ended up in the course through quite that personal a touch. My adviser had looked at me, probably Freshman Clone #20 for his day, with a bored expression and opened with, "Here's the second-semester freshman pack for you." He was filling out the registration form before I could say a word.

Which, of course, hadn't exactly gone over too well with Non-clone #20.

A class with Em would be fun, and college was supposed to be fun, right? And I'd have to take a course in that area at some point, right? And some dick guy was dismissing me, right? So I waited until he handed me the piece of paper, then I drew a firm line through "PSYCH 101" and wrote "CS 1137." Then I stared at him until he signed it.

"Easy peasy," Em replied as she accepted the chit for her phone. The statement was belied by the gulping noise and big eyes she made. I took to writing small programs in R like a duck to water. Em didn't.

An hour later, I contemplated the computer screen with satisfaction and hit the Submit button. Em glanced over as I stood, and I gave her an encouraging grin. I retrieved my phone from the now-deep-in-a-book TA and headed for the student center. We'd agreed to meet there when we both finished because,

clearly

, carbs would be needed after the ordeal.

Victoria was there, lounging alone at a table. "Done?" she asked, sliding her backpack off the other chair.

I nodded.

"Me too," she said. "Only I'm done-done. Feels kinda weird."

"What's next?"

"My mom and dad are both architects at one of the big firms in Pittsburgh. They got me an entry-level job. The pay's shit, but after a year, the company pays for grad school part-time at CMU. That's too nice a bennie to pass up."

It took me a second to realize what CMU meant: Carnegie Mellon University. I couldn't help the little flutter the mention of that school brought.

Ethan's only got three hundred chips left.

Something must have shown on my face, because Victoria raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, just I know somebody starting there in the fall," I said.

"Ah."

Is that "Ah" as in "Small world"?

Or is it "Ah" as in "Suuure, Charl. Just 'somebody.' Totally believe you."?

She wouldn't know ... I mean, only Brey and Logan were there. Well, and Em, of course, but--

"So, tonight. Is there a problem?" she asked.

The sudden change of topic took me a second. I pulled back from spinning on whether the whole loft knew about my booty weekend with Em's brother, especially what happened at H

2

O. "Problem?"

"It didn't seem like you. I just wondered if Kevin was being an asshole to you and that's why."

Our eyes met. Kevin had it in for three of us who'd been outspoken in blocking a friend of his from the Loft Game. Victoria was one, and he'd gotten even with her. Hannah was the second. She could escape his revenge if she got through one more evening. I was the third, and I had another year with him. My chances of escape were smaller.

He'd passed me on campus a day before and said with that fucking smirk of his, "If I don't see you before you leave, I'll definitely see you next year. Have a good summer."

Yeah, that's totally not "Have a good summer anticipating me winning and you losing next year."

I pushed that dread away. "I think he's pretty much always an asshole, but no."

I hesitated then told her, "I have something on Saturday and don't want to spoil it."

She didn't seem confused by that elliptical answer. In fact, the twitch of her lips said she probably understood it all too well, but she contented herself with a mild, "Hannah said it was something like that, but I wanted to make sure."

I wondered if Victoria knew, specifically, what that Saturday "something" was. Hannah, Owen, and Victoria were all seniors, and they'd played the game together for four years. They were friends, and maybe Victoria had figured it out from little clues over those years. I wasn't going to ask because, if she didn't know, I was afraid my face would burn. Because, of course, her obvious response would be, "No, I don't. Tell me."

Then I'd have to explain. And while I wasn't embarrassed that I was going to

do

it, some part of me was too shy to come out and say, "I bet being the filling in a threesome." Her face didn't give a hint one way or the other.

"Well, enjoy your something and maybe next year."

Despite the poker face, something in her tone convinced me that she

did

know, but that she wasn't going to call me on it. Maybe because it was between Owen, Hannah, and me and none of her business. Maybe because she wasn't supposed to know.

Maybe it was nothing more than the loft was the loft, and the student center wasn't the loft. Victoria could be a stickler about how things should be sometimes.

"I gave you some shit when we met," she said in another sudden change of direction. It was true. She'd halfway scared me from playing my first main game. Well, maybe not halfway because, fantasies. But still.

"You did," I admitted. "I was, like, freaked out a little by it, and then five minutes later I found out we were playing a completely different game that I'd never--"

"Trust me," she interrupted. "Hannah's one of my BFFs, but I gave her a raft of shit for that afterwards. I'm sorry for that part. I actually liked you a little more when you sucked it up and played anyway." She paused for a second. "I was worried about what Hannah told me, you asking about faking and bailing."

I wondered if there was still a question in her mind about me.

"I was just curious," I said. "Even now that I've seen how it can be. How, how--" I waved my hands because I couldn't come up with an adjective intense enough. Humiliating? Terrifying? Horrendous? "I won't welch. Even if it's Kevin."

After a second, I added, "

Especially

if it's Kevin." Victoria cocked her head and met my eyes. "I'm not the weak link," I said defiantly.

She held the gaze for a long second, then said softly, "No. Fuck him. It's not right, but fuck him."

"Though not literally."

She laughed at that, and the serious moment broke.

"Not in this lifetime," she agreed. She glanced around as someone settled at the table next to us. The student center was starting to get busy as students filtered out of exams. "Sit outside?" We flopped on the grass.

"Like a month and a half ago, 'member when you asked what Emily meant?"

I did. I'd told Em how shaken I was by meeting Victoria, and she'd said, "Talk to her sometime about the game."

"I'm a little bitchy to every girl her first time or two in the main game. I'm sure Emily told you what I said to her." I nodded. "I've said the same to all of them, even before I was senior girl. I'd have said the same to you, 'cept Hannah got me more worried in your case." She gave a little sideways grin. "Part of it is just that I

am

a bitch."

I laughed dutifully.

"But part of it is that, if a girl's on the fence, trusting in 'quit any time' as a get-out-of-jail-free card, I want her gone. It's okay if someone doesn't want to play. Take tonight--if you had told me that you weren't coming because you weren't up for that kind of bet, I'd have had zero problem with you. I might have been a little surprised, but I wouldn't have cared. However, if you showed up and let everyone else take the risk of losing, then bailed when you lost ... well, fuck you."

I kept quiet, not knowing where this was going but sure there was more.

"It's happened before," she said.

Some impulse made my mouth bypass my brain. "Jennifer."

I managed to surprise her. She stared at me, eyes wide. "How--?" They narrowed to slits. "She's been talking." Her tone was hard: the grim Victoria I'd first met.

You weren't kicked out of the loft for bailing in the main game. If you realized you'd gotten in over your head, you could change a "yes" to a "no" and go back to playing green. And unlike the way it sometimes went down out in the world, withdrawn consent was respected in the Loft Game, ironclad principle from Kim's day down to Victoria's tenure. But if you took that route ...

You. Did. Not. Talk.

Do

that

and you were gone. Em's fury when she'd caught me eavesdropping that day in the library was all about unknowingly breaking that rule.

"No!" I said quickly to stave off the thunderclouds I could see brewing. "The green game the night Chloe started."

"What about the green game?"

I told her how I'd guessed. How I learned that, if a girl found out she just couldn't, she could go back to the green game. How I'd seen the excitement on Jennifer's face at Nick and Em's bet contrasting with the shock on green-gamer faces. Adding two and two.

"Ah." The storm clouds receded. "That's Jennifer." I filed that cryptic bit away without comment. There was a waspish edge to Victoria's voice, and I figured Jennifer still had a place on her shit list.

"Not a good night," she said, "but we covered it."

"We" being the girls

, I figured.

And "covered"--did someone take Jennifer's place? Was that what she meant way back then by "get out and we'll clean up your shit"?

Ideas ... theories ... flickered through my mind.

Hannah?

Hannah had said, "A different guy. Different reasons," of her ordeal.

Carrie?

"Carrie's, like, a total give-'em-a-show type," Em had described.

"I'd have been more panicked when Kevin chose that if it were my first time."

It took a second for Victoria's words to make sense.

Not Hannah or Carrie!

"You had to when Jennifer refused?" I asked tentatively when she didn't immediately continue. She seemed to ignore the question.

"I had this friend in high school, Hailey," she said, off on another tangent. "She was a year ahead of me, so we weren't, like, besties or anything, but we were on lacrosse together, went to the same parties because our friend groups overlapped. You know."

I did. Most of my high school crowd were in my class, but activities and boyfriend/girlfriend status drew in some from other years.

"She got accepted to McVay, too."

Oh, maybe this isn't a tangent after all.

"She tracked me down after I'd been here a week to touch base. I met this guy she'd started seeing, Devin, and a couple of friends of theirs. It was pretty cool having someone from home be here. I mean, I was meeting other people myself--I actually met Hannah during Freshman Week--but Hailey knew who had the best parties, which places didn't check IDs too hard, you know. So it was cool sometimes hanging with sophomores and juniors.

"One night, we were at Devin's place. The three of us and his apartment mate were smoking some weed. Out of the blue, Hailey said, 'Let's play strip poker.' We ended up naked." She rolled her eyes. "I didn't know it was a tryout at that point."

I felt the now-entirely-familiar warmth pulse in me as I pictured her story. I remembered how exciting just being at college was those first couple of weeks.

Pile on top some of

that

kind of excitement

... I suppressed the shiver.

I wanted to ask, "How'd the night end after the game?" but didn't. I think she knew, because her eyes wrinkled in amusement. I had a suspicion that nameless-roommate-of-Devin might've totally boned a freshman that night.

Or did ...?

I forcibly pushed an Owen--Hannah situation out of my mind.

"She invited me to the green game the next week. She and Devin played both games."

"Not his roomie?"

"Not then. He was a civilian. I said it was a tryout."

We brought people into the green game in boy--girl pairs for balance. The upperclassmen all knew other guys who would play if told about it--hell, I probably knew a couple myself. Girls were the bottleneck. If Devin wanted his buddy in the game, they needed to recruit some of us.

"I got the invite for the main game two months later. I played my first one right after Thanksgiving. Hailey lost. Devin won. And--" She turned to face me, all traces of amusement leaching away. "And she kinda half-smiled because, even though losing is embarrassing, and she was going to start getting shit from everyone any second, the winner was a guy she was with. I mean, they were already hooking up.