For those of you who have read some of my other stories, you'll know that I am not one to back down from a wager. Hubby and I had scheduled a seven-day Mexican Riviera cruise for the Fall, and I wanted to bring my sister along too. Unfortunately my sis was still suffering the economic woes of a recent divorce, and could not afford to buy her own ticket. That's when I approached hubby and suggested we gift her the tickets. He was not at all receptive, given the cost, but I kept up a steady nag trying to see if he would relent.
About a month before the cruise, hubby came home from work only to be subjected to my whining about a tic for my sis. Instead of turning me down, he suggested a wager. One hand of draw poker, and winner takes all. "Here's the deal," he said, "If I lose, we'll buy a ticket for your sister tomorrow. If you lose, I get to take you to our favorite theater tomorrow night."
Our "favorite" theater was actually a skuzzy adult theater, backing up to an adult book and video store. Hubby had taken me there a few times for a little "stimulation" therapy, as he called it. Although I thought the place was pretty trashed and disgusting, the movies were usually pretty good, and it always lead to a night of passionate love-making afterwards.
"If that's all I have to do to get my sis her ticket, we don't even need a bet, let's just go." I said, thinking that I wish I had known earlier what it would take.
"I'm not finished explaining the payoff." Hubby remarked. "If you lose, I get the pleasure of escorting you to the theater, with you wearing nothing but your London Fog trench coat and your CFM pumps. But wait, it gets better! Once we get into the theater, we're going to grab a front-row seat, and I'm going to zip tie your wrists to the chair. After that, we'll see what happens."
I told hubby I'd have to think this one through, as what he was proposing seemed pretty risky. As the evening wore on, and after a glass or two of wine, the idea of subjecting myself to his "theater scenario", seemed more and more erotic β I mean, the idea of being restrained in my theater seat, and probably exposed to a group of strangers (remember, hubby never said exactly what was in store for me after zip-tying my wrists) was rather titillating. I finally resolved to accept hubby's wager, but I thought I'd bump the bet a little.
"I'll take your bet." I told him, "But if you win, and I go through with your scheme, we're still buying my sis a ticket for that cruise."
He turned around with quite the impish grin, and agreed to my conditions. "Just remember." He said, "I'll be the one to decide just how extreme my little theater scenario will be....assuming that you lose the poker hand, right?"
I nodded in agreement as hubby went off to grab a deck of cards. We both sat at the kitchen table as he shuffled the deck a few times. He pushed the deck my way to cut, but I grabbed up the deck and shuffled it a few more times. After emptying the bottle of wine into my glass, he dealt us each five cards. I was pleased to find a pair of queens in my hand, and slid the other three cards down for the draw. Hubby only laid a single card down, holding back four. With a lovely red glow to my cheeks, courtesy of the bottle of merlot I had consumed, I laid down three queens, confident that I had just won my sister a free ticket to a Mexican cruise. Unfortunately β and I looked it up to confirm the ranking β a flush beats three-of-a-kind. Hubby's hand contained all hearts, and I realized that I would soon be visiting our "favorite" theater!
Hubby came home from work the next evening just as though it were any other Friday night. Conversation at dinner was the usual review of the day's events and news, and not a word was mentioned about our wager from the previous evening. I was beginning to think that maybe he didn't really intend to go through with the pay-off, and since he wasn't talking about it, I wasn't going to start.
At about 9pm, as I began sipping my second glass of brandy for the evening, hubby walked out into the living room carrying my trench coat. The butterflies in my stomach instantly started fluttering, and I could feel my face flush. "It's showtime!" he said, the impish grin returning to his mouth.