Page 65 of The Bet
So I sit, and I wait, and I hope the moment never ends.
Because in this small apartment, with these girls and these shelves and the taste of beer on my tongue, I feel more at home than I ever have in my whole life.
It’s a perfect moment.
But I know it can’t last.
We’re watchingthe ending credits scroll forMean Girls, everyone in a pile around the living room. God, how long has it been? Have I really been at the apartment two hours? I’m getting ready to get up and go, when the mood changes.
I feel it first in Stella—my daughter goes still, her phone clamped tight in her hand. Kayleigh is half asleep on the floor, Simone is giggling into her popcorn, but Stella’s upright, a queen about to call for heads. It’s her tone, more than the words, that gets my attention:
“Okay, pause. I need everyone’s attention for a second.”
Andie looks up from her phone, biting her lip, wary. She knows the shape of incoming danger, but not the flavor.
Stella stands, sets her beer on the table, and claps her hands once, sharp as a gunshot. “This is important. I have something to show you all. It’s kind of like a public service announcement. You could say I’ve been waiting weeks to do this.” She grins, innocent and predatory all at once.
I see Andie flinch, her legs drawn up to her chest. She glances at me, a silent what the fuck, and I offer the smallest shrug I can muster. I want to reassure her, but I can’t do anything of the sort when allegedly, we hardly know each other.
Stella walks to the projector, flicks off the overhead light, and drops her phone onto the coffee table with a click so loud it’s as if she wants to punctuate the moment. She cues up her laptop, connects it, and for a few seconds, the screen is just the Windows login. The girls settle in, all of them braced for a prank or a meme war or, god forbid, old high school party photos.
Not this.
Not what’s about to happen.
Stella queues the file, labeled in plain black text on the desktop: “CC stairwell.mp4.”
The video starts. At first, there’s just the blurry stutter of a phone camera, pointed down a dorm hallway. A hand, pale and familiar, fumbles with the focus. The sound is all echo and static and the faint, giggly voice of Stella: “Oh my god, what is—wait, is that?—?”
The camera pans, zooms.
And there it is: the Century College stairwell, cinderblock and ugly paint, lit by blue fluorescence. The lens shakes, finds two people on the stairs. At first, the bodies are just a tangle of skin and motion—one perched on the other, hips grinding, hair wild, the rhythm of sex unmistakable.
I see it in a heartbeat and feel my guts drop into a hole.
It’s Andie.
Naked. Wild-eyed. Riding me, her knees braced on either side of my lap, her breasts bouncing in the harsh light. I see my own hands gripping her hips, my mouth open, my head thrown back. The sound isn’t great, but it’s enough. I hear my own voice, low and hoarse, saying, “I claimed your ass cherry and pussy cherry. All of you belongs to me.”
Andie’s answering scream: “Yes yes yes! Ooooh, Daddy, yes, my cherries belong to you!”
Then, it gets worse. She lifts herself off of me, my cock visibly exiting her slick pussy, and turns around so that her back is to me.
“Are you ready?” I growl in her ear.
“Yes, Daddy. Put it where it belongs.”
Then, the girls gasp as Andie angles her asshole and begins to lower herself onto my huge cock. We watch as my veiny ten inch monster disappears inch by inch into her straining anus, the rim raw and reddened, as she gasps with pleasure, her breasts bare, legs spread wide.
“Mmm, you’re such a butt slut,” I growl into her ear, my hands steady on her hips. “Is my horny little slut ready to get fucked in the ass?”
“Yes,” she mewls, leaning back as her asshole swallows the length of my dick. “Fuck my asshole, Daddy. Give it to me the way I like. I’m your anal whore. Trash my hole and make me feel good.”
I’m on my feet before the sentence finishes, beer bottle slipping from my hand and hitting the coffee table with a bright, brittle crack. My jaw is so tight I feel my teeth grind. The video keeps playing. On the screen, I fuck Andie harder, her moans climbing the echoing stairwell. The girls’ faces are frozen—Kayleigh, eyes round as plates, hand over her mouth; Simone, a blush rising from neck to cheeks; Mary Kate, mouth open, blinking as if the images are a trick of the light.
Andie doesn’t move. She’s gone pale as paper, her hands knotted so tight in her lap I can see the tips of her knuckles through her skin.
The video keeps going. The bodies on screen are frantic, obscene, lost to everything but the feel of each other. There’s a final crescendo, Andie’s voice breaking as she comes, and my own, ragged “That’s my good girl—take it, take it, all of it—” and then, finally, the camera goes black.
