Back when I was a freshman in college, I met my good friend Sarah McKinley. She was always wilder than me, and always encouraging me to be more daring. She was always the girl at the party who would drink more shots of tequila than the guys, and the first girl at the party to flash her breasts. (Actually, she was usually the only girl at the party to flash her breasts.)
I had been on the prude side in high school; I had only had a handful of sexual experiences. Going to Michigan State was so different than my small high school in rural Illinois. College changed everything, and Sarah was a big part of that. She inspired me to do things sexually that I never would have done on my own. Things like entering a wet t-shirt contest during spring break, or streaking at 4:00 in the morning after a particularly crazy night of partying.
For some reason, she had an obsession for getting me to do daring things involving nudity. We are still friends, and she hasn't changed at all; I still never know what kind of crazy dare she will come up with next.
Sometimes she would dare me to do something and I just would not do it. One nice Friday evening in March of that year she dared me to do something way over the line.
"Miranda...you know what would be really cool? You know how some of the freshman dorms on the West side of campus have community showers instead of private ones like our dorm? What if a girl just casually walked into the guys shower like it was completely normal, and she just took a shower with all the guys one morning?"
"I agree, that would be pretty cool, Sarah. Why don't you go do it?" I responded. I knew where this conversation was going; she would tell me she might do it, but then dare me to do it first.
"O.K., Miranda, I will!" Sarah informed me.
This was something new. Usually she would egg me on to do the dare she presented, not just do it herself after telling me about it. I thought about what she was proposing, and I decided that the idea was too unrealistic; she would never really do it. I thought to myself that I would never really do it either, but that it was an interesting idea.
"When exactly will you be doing this?" I asked her.
"I will have to plan it out first. I will have to pick a dorm, one on the other end of campus where we would be less likely to run into guys we know from classes."
"Hold on a minute, you said 'we.' I am not strolling into the men's shower, Sarah."
"O.K., loser, be that way. I'll just have to do it myself; you can just take a plain old boring shower by yourself instead while I have all the fun."
I knew she was just bullshitting, and she wouldn't really do it. But then again, with Sarah one never knows.
Saturday night came, and we were at a party as usual. Across the room I noticed Kyle von Braun, a tall blue eyed blonde that I had the hots for. He was in my chemistry class, and for some reason I always felt shy around him. I had such a crush on him, but was always too nervous to approach him in class.
"There's your boyfriend, Miranda!" Sarah teased me. I felt like I was back in high school, not in college. She encouraged me to go talk to him, but I just couldn't do it. Two hours later I saw him making out with Jennifer Lawton, a short brunette with enormous breasts wearing a tight red halter top. Damn, I missed my shot, I thought.
We stayed at the party all night, drinking all the plastic cups of Busch Lite we could drink for $3.00. Sarah offered to play strip poker around 4:00 A.M., but couldn't find any takers. Kyle and Jennifer had left long before then, and I just sat on the sofa all alone drinking a lot of beers. Eventually, Sarah and I stumbled back to her dorm, and we flipped on the T.V. and watched some infomercials.
I was just about to go to sleep when Sarah pulled out a deck of cards from her purse. "Up for a game of cards, Miranda?" she asked me.
"Sorry, Sarah, but strip poker with just the two of us sounds pretty lame. No thanks, I need to crash."
"No, not strip poker. War."
I couldn't believe what she had just said. "War? Isn't that game a bit childish? There is absolutely no strategy, we may as well just flip a coin and call it a game."
"Why, are you scared I might win?" Sarah replied.
"Sarah, I could care less who wins. What would possibly be bad about losing a game of War?"
"What if the loser had to do something crazy?" Sarah asked with a wicked gleam in her eye. I knew exactly what she had in mind right away.
"No way, Sarah. I'm not going to take a shower in the men's dorm." I quickly said.
"Who said anything about that?" she replied.
"O.K., what is the dare then?" I asked her, curious as to what she had come up with now.
"Well, you are right, of course. That is exactly what I had in mind, but I just wanted you to think I had another idea. So here goes." She shuffled the cards and laid them out on the floor. Wait a minute, I thought, I hadn't agreed to anything yet.
"No, Sarah, I'm not playing. Go get naked in the guy's shower yourself if you want to. That is way too risky; I don't want to get in trouble. Also, that would be so embarrassing.
With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I realized that this is how I always ended up doing what she wanted me to do. By offering arguments against the idea instead of flat out saying no, I was letting her know that there was a possibility of me actually agreeing to do things like this.
Knowing that she had won the first battle before the War had even begun, she flipped over her first card. It was a seven. Without even thinking about it, I flipped over a Jack. I took both the cards and put them on the bottom of my pile face down.
"O.K., Miranda, here is the answer to objection number one. You are worried about getting in trouble. I understand that. But c'mon, really, can you imagine a group of guys reporting to authorities about the naked women that was harassing them in the shower? If it was the other way around, with a guy in the girl's showers, the guy would get busted for sure. But you have to love double standards, Miranda. No guy is going to be bothered by a naked woman. Some of them might be embarrassed and leave the shower, but report you to the R.A.? I highly doubt it."
The next round I got a six and she got a nine.
"And as to being embarrassed, Miranda, isn't that half the thrill of the dare? I know you Miranda, and I know how you think. You act all shocked, but the idea is turning you on something fierce right now, isn't it? The thought of getting in the men's shower room, stripping all your clothing off, and strutting your nude body around gets you all hot, I bet. You know you like having men look at you even when you are dressed, and the idea of being stark naked where you shouldn't be sounds so thrilling to you I bet your pussy is wet right now thinking of having to go through with this dare in reality."
I blushed. She was right, of course.
I got a three, but luckily she got a lowly two.
"It isn't a dare; it is a bet, Sarah. Basically this card game is a charade; you may as well say 'I bet you won't do it'"
"O.K., Miranda, I bet you won't do it."
"You win, I won't do it."
"O.K., let's stop playing this game then. I can see you are a wimp, and don't have the nerve to do something as exciting as this challenge."
"So it is a challenge now?"
I got a King and she got an eight!