Sandy 15 - The Mindgame's Afoot
Friday evening Sandy arrived at the address that Sally had given her. Sandy rang the doorbell. Shortly the door opened to reveal a disheveled woman in her late twenties. She looked like she had been in the throes of raunchy sex and just threw on a housecoat to answer the door.
"Hi," the woman said with a big smile. "You must be Sandy. Come on in. We were just getting ready to pair up for play. I'm Nancy."
Sandy handed Nancy a large plastic tub of banana oatmeal cookies that she had baked.
"Oh, thank you," Nancy said. "They look homemade."
"Yes. These are my favorite. They are both healthy and delicious."
"Come in. Come in. Please make yourself comfortable."
Nancy closed the door, set the tub of cookies on a small table, and pulled off her housecoat. Nancy hung the coat on a peg by the door and pointed to an empty peg for Sandy. Sandy was wearing a sort of front-wrap dress. It had two panels with cloth straps. The strap of the inner panel slipped through a hole in the waist on the other side. Sandy had tied the straps loosely with a big bow in back. She reached behind her, pulled on the ends of the bow, shrugged off the dress, and hung in on the peg.
Nancy took Sandy's hand and led her to meet the group. She knew Sally and Lisa, but the other faces were all new. They all appeared to be in their mid to late 20s, and they all wore friendly smiles, but were otherwise highly diverse.
Nancy was a plump, full-breasted white woman. It was hard to tell whether she hid her intelligence behind a ditzy demeanor, or whether she was just ditzy.
Cassandra was a short, slim woman who appeared to have Chinese heritage. She wore glasses, her ponytail of dark straight hair fell past her buttocks. She had small firm breasts but was not as flat-chested as Sandy.
LaTasha was a tall, black woman - even taller than Sally. LaTasha must have stood at least 6' 3". She had an athletic, well-toned body. Sandy wondered what her sports were.
Tiffany was also black, about 5' 6", but she was very big. She had oversized tits, a big belly, thunder thighs, a big ass, and a big laugh. When she was introduced, Tiffany stepped up to Sandy and pulled her into a bear hug. Sandy felt like she might get lost between Tiffany's boobs. "I'm happy to meet you Sugar," she said with an enormous smile.
Last was Cheyenne, a brown woman with a sleek body and beautiful face. She might be Native American, Sandy thought, but with the name Cheyenne, she doubted that. Perhaps she was a blend.
As Nancy introduced everyone, Sandy noticed that while none of the women wore clothing, most wore some sort of jewelry or tattoos. Cheyenne and LaTasha both had pierced nipples. LaTasha also had a belly button piercing. Cheyenne wore a chain around her waist with ends that hung down her hip on one side. Though it was hard to see clearly, Sandy thought that LaTasha also had a clitoral hood piercing. Nancy wore bangles on her wrists and anklets and had various tattoos on her arms. Cassandra wore a necklace with a green pendant that looked like jade. She also had a tattoo above her hairless pussy that looked like a Celtic knot but was probably a Chinese design.
After the introductions Nancy told Sandy that they had just drawn names from a bowl to pick partners. Sandy was going to play with Lisa. Sandy was happy to be with someone familiar.
Sandy asked if there were any special house rules. Nancy said, "Not really. We are going to play three matches. You and Lisa will play a match against each of the other teams. The first team that makes bid twice, wins the match. Each team gets 2 points for winning a hand, 3 points for winning a match, and 1 point deducted for each trick they go under bid. A slam bid and made gets 2 bonus points, a small slam bid and made gets 1 bonus point. There is no reward for going over bid. We'll all help with the scoring, so you don't need to worry too much about that."
Sandy smiled. "Thank you." She thought to herself that they are pretty much all special house rules. She would have to adapt her style of play accordingly.
Sandy and Lisa's first match was against Chyenne and LaTasha. The tables were in different rooms so there was not a lot of background chatter. As they sat at their table, Cheyenne was to Sandy's left and LaTasha to the right. Cheyenne grabbed the deck, shuffled twice, and offered it to Sandy to cut.
Lisa won the first bid of two spades and went down by two tricks. She apologized to Sandy. Sandy just smiled, "Don't worry about it, Lisa. We are still getting to know how each other plays. Once we find our connection, we'll get it back."
In the next hand, LaTasha won the bidding at three hearts. Sandy had passed all around. Sandy led with the two of hearts. Cheyenne laid down her dummy hand and LaTasha said, "Oh, shit."
She played Cheyenne's three, which Lisa covered with the two of clubs. "Double shit," LaTasha said. Sandy kept a straight face. She did not relish winning in this way.
Because the tables were in different rooms, conversations at one table didn't carry to the next.
Sandy said, "Excuse me everyone. My most profuse apologies. LaTasha, if you play out this hand you will go down by three. I don't want you to do that. I didn't really come here to play bridge. I came because Sally invited me to meet everyone, which is what I really want to do. But then, Sally said that she looked forward to kicking my ass tonight. It pushed my competitive button. But not against you.
"What I would really like to do this evening is to chat with all of you, to get to know each other a bit better, and to make Sally eat her words. At least a little bit. "How good is she?"
"Really good," Cheyenne offered. "She almost always wins."
"Hands, matches, or the tournament?"
"She only ever loses a hand once in a while."
"Ok. Here is my proposal. Lisa, do you mind losing this match?"
"I have never won a match. I don't expect to win."
"Well change your expectation this evening. How about if we forget about the cards? LaTasha and Cheyenne win this match with seven points, two for each hand and three for the match. Lisa, you and I sit at minus 2.
"Is everyone ok with that?" Everyone nodded.
"How are the tables in the second round determined?"
LaTasha said, "The two winners face off and the two losers face off?"
"Ok. That means that you two will face off against Sally and . . .?"
"Cassandra. She is also really good. She has beaten Sally in several hands."
Sandy picked up the cards, dealt them out, and fanned out her cards. She said, "May I please introduce myself? Most people call me Sandy. I will graduate with a major in theoretical mathematics at the end of this semester. I have played bridge since I was eight. I played my first youth tournament at 10-years-old. At a tournament I played when I was 13, one of the masters in attendance asked me who I studied with. I named my elementary school and told him I just played with my friends. 'What,' he asked, 'you still have friends when you play like that?'
"The master took me under his wing. He came to my house once a week to talk bridge. We talked about various strategies of play, but mostly he taught me that the game was not just about playing the cards, you also had to communicate with your partner and to play your opponents. A year later he asked me to be his partner in a masters' tournament. We lost our first game but won the tournament. We went on to win 15 or 20 more tournaments.