“Nice to meet you,” Kristin says. “I’d shake hands, but they’re kind of full at the moment.”

“Yeah, let me help you with that,” I tell her. “How many am I taking?”

“All of them,” Kristin sighs. “I’m hoping that at least one of them is for you, otherwise, I think my sister might have just breezed past rude and entered lush territory.”

“Two are for him, two are for me,” Jessica explains.

I hand her two cups and offer one of mine to Kristin.

“That’s all right,” Kristin says. “I’m more of a liquor or daiquiri girl.”

“Oh my god, baby, that feels so fucking good!” Irene shouts from inside the bedroom down the hall.

Kristin looks back at her sister, saying, “Tell me again what you two are doing here?”

“We made a bet on the sexcapades going on in the next room,” Jessica explains. “I’m down one orgasm, but I’m feeling really confident about the next one.”

“You’re betting on who gets off first?” Kristin asks. “I want in. What are the stakes?”

“Well,” Jessica says, “it’s a ten-dollar buy in. I say that Alec blows his load next, but Eric here thinks that Irene’s got another one coming before that happens.”

“All right then,” Kristin says, “ten bucks on Irene hitting number two before Alec gets his first.”

Jessica looks at me and I can’t not smile at her. She asks, “Why am I getting the feeling that the two of you know something that I don’t?”

“When I first met Irene, she was always complaining about how Alec couldn’t hold his pudding—”

“Oh, good lord, is there any way we can call it something else?” Jessica interrupts.

“Fine,” Kristin says. She starts over, “When Irene and I first met, she told me that Alec had a bit of trouble staying in the game. I told her to start edging him.”

“Edging?” Jessica asks.

“Yeah,” Kristin continues. “It’s when a person gets close to having an orgasm, but before that final moment, they ease back and let the feeling dissipate. Once I convinced her that Alec would be more than okay with having sex longer, she implemented the two-bump rule.”

“The two bump rule?” Jessica asks.

“I guess that’s their word for climax,” Kristin says. “It just means that she doesn’t let him toss the dice until she’s gotten at least two.”

“You cheated me!” Jessica accuses me.

“Oh, I did not,” I retort, although I have no rationale behind the defense.

“And you,” she says, turning to her sister. “You just jumped right in there, didn’t you? Well, this sucks,” she concludes and takes an impressively long drink of beer.

A few more minutes go by and, other than the continued sounds of bedsprings creaking and the occasional appeal to a deity, there’s no sign of who’s going to go first.

What has happened, however, is that we’ve attracted quite the crowd of eager gambling enthusiasts. They’re split almost completely down the middle between those who know about the two-bump rule—all of whom are betting that Irene’s got another one coming before Alec—and those who are only betting based on the stereotype who are betting that Alec’s going to blow at any minute.

On top of that, we’ve all created a drinking game where the men drink every time Alec says, “fuck” and the women all drink whenever Irene says, “baby.”

It doesn’t take long for pretty much everyone in the now-crowded hallway to cop a buzz.

What’s most surprising is that this group, made up of at least a dozen people, all of whom—Jessica’s sister excluded—are drinking and betting, manage to stay quiet enough that we don’t reveal our presence to Alec and Irene.

Alec tells Irene that she feels, “so fucking great,” so I, along with the rest of the men in the hallway, take a drink, and I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the close attention being paid to the copulation down the hall, but I could swear that Jessica is giving me the eye.

“Having fun?” I ask her quietly.

She takes a quick drink and nods her head.

The moment of truth arrives as we can hear both Alex and Irene breathing and moaning with increasing volume.

The hallway goes silent.

All eyes are focused on the door through which none of us can see, but all of us have a vested interest.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” Irene pants, and I’m wondering what happens if they come at the same time.

“Oh fuck,” Alec says (and I drink.) “Oh my god.”

The creaking of the bedsprings increases in frequency and everyone in the hallway, myself included, starts leaning in the direction of the door, hoping to be the first to make out the sound that means victory or defeat.

“Oh, I’m going to come,” Irene says and a grin covers my face. “I’m almost there!”

Alec’s gotten quiet which could be a good sign or a bad sign for my cause.

“Oh fuck!” Irene shouts and, even though the game only states that I drink when Alec says it, I take a few gulps anyway.

The suspense is killing me.

“Oh yeah, baby!” Irene shouts and all the women drink. “Oh shit. Right there, make me come. Make me—”

Everything goes quiet.

Someone I’ve never met puts a hand on my shoulder to steady himself for the coming revelation.

That’s when we get confirmation.

“God damn it, Alec!” Irene scolds and half the hallway erupts into roaring applause, the other in jeers.

Irene comes out of the bedroom a few seconds later, naked, except for a bed sheet. When she sees the crowd, which has only grown since Alec’s bad planning cost me my winnings, she almost drops the covers.

The door still cracked behind her, I shout, “Alec, you let down the team, you fucker!”

Chapter Thirteen

The After-Party Party

Jessica

I still haven’t heard from my friend, but I’m actually having a great time here with Irene, Eric and Kristin.

Even though Eric didn’t owe me any money for his loss, it was double or nothing, I still got a decent payoff from being on the right side of the bet.

It’s been about an hour since Alec—I’m sorry, I have to—blew it, but he’s still in the room, refusing to come out.

Irene couldn’t give a fuck.

The party’s thinned out a bit as it’s a little difficult to top the sheer adrenaline of that hallway, but there are still a few people milling around, mingling.

“Jessica,” Irene says, remarkably sobered up already, either from the sexual exertion or the reasonably small amount of time since her last drink, “there was something I was going to tell you, but I can’t, for the life of me, remember what it was.”

“That’s all right. Don’t worry about it,” Eric says, trying to hide his glance in my direction and not doing even kind of a good job of it.

It’s kind of hard to tell with him, but I think he might be drunk.

Me, well, it’s not so hard to tell.

“So, how often does he sneak one in before you’ve gotten your two?” I ask Irene.

“Not as often as you’d think,” Irene says. “Actually, I think this is the first time in over a month. He’s really built up his game since we started our new program—thank you, Kristin.”

“You know, it’s so weird that we all know each other,” Kristin says. “Well, really that you and Eric know each other, Jessica.”

“I remember what I was going to say!” Irene announces, but Eric immediately asks her if they can talk for a minute.

They walk off together and I refill my plastic cup.

“How many is that, sis?” Kristin asks.

“It’s at least my second,” I tell her.

“Hmm…” she muses. “As that’s the fourth time you’ve told me that, I’m going to say that it’s at least your fifth. I’m starting to think we’re going to have to crash on the couch here tonight.”

“Why do you say that?” I ask.

“Well,” she says, “I’m sober, but I don’t know how to drive stick, so I can’t drive your car. You’ve had way too much to drive, so that’s out, too.”

“Why don’t we just call a cab?” I ask.