High Stakes Poker

A/N: I decided to play with the interactive nature of the site after my little experiment last time. Isaac decided to leave his decision up to chance, and a little bit of skill. I decided to try to let you all feel that experience a little, so this chapter will be truly interactive. There will be two branches that come from this chapter that will never join again. I will likely explore one of those branches deeper than the other. Of course, y'all get the benefit of seeing how both choices would have ended, which Isaac wouldn't get to do, but maybe you can pretend you had to live with whichever choice you made.

"Alright," Justin explained to us, "here's how it's going to work. We will start with two tables of four. Everyone will get a thousand in chips to begin with. Dealer will rotate around the table on each hand, starting with the oldest at the table and proceeding clockwise. This is no-limit Hold 'Em, with a blind of ten. Anyone can bet as much as they like at any point. Lose all your chips and you are out. Obviously, the first person out will be the last to choose, and so on. If two players go out on the same hand, they will play rock, paper, scissors to determine their pecking order. When we are down to four players left, we will combine them on a single table. They will take all their earnings with them. When we get to the single table, the blind will go up to 50. Does everyone understand the rules?"

There were nods all around the room.

God was I glad that Justin picked poker. Mike and I played a lot of poker together over the years. It was a game I knew well. I had no idea how any of the rest of the guys would play, but I was confident that at least I had a chance in this one.

Justin picked up a small stack of cards and mixed them over and over in his hands, then he went around the room and offered each guy a chance to pick a card at random. When it was my turn, I picked the seven of spades. I had no idea what that meant.

"Okay," Justin said once everyone had picked a card, leaving him with only one card left in his hand. "Spades will be at the table to my left, hearts at the table to my right."

I watched as Mike stood and headed to the table to Justin's right.

I sighed in relief.

The way I play poker is to try to throw people off. I tend to mix up my style on nearly every hand, sometimes playing aggressively and sometimes playing conservatively. I like to make it so people have a really hard time reading me because they can't quite figure out what the hell I am doing. This has always worked really well for me against people who haven't played with me before. It doesn't work nearly as well against Mike. Mike knows me too well. We have played poker too many times together for it to throw him off. I was glad he was going to start at the other table. It increased my odds of being in the final four. With a little luck, Mike would go out before then and I could use my strategy to maximum advantage since none of these guys had ever seen me play.

Ryan, Justin and Colin joined me at my table. Justin was the oldest and dealt first.

It didn't take me long to realize that Justin was the only real poker player at my table. Ryan and Colin knew the mechanics of the game, but not the subtleties. I correctly predicted that Colin would be the first from our table to go out. He was not relegated to last pick, however, since Cameron went out from the other table a few minutes before he did.

I didn't have to worry too much about Justin yet, as I only had to make sure I got to the final table, but I didn't want to arrive there without a substantial quantity of chips, so I leaned a little into the conservative style of play as I tried to learn Justin's tendencies.

Grant was the next to go out from the other table. I felt happy about that. I had a lot of insecurities about the monster of a cock that he had been fucking Emma with. I was glad he wouldn't be the first one to get her in our new arrangement if I didn't manage to win.

Two hands after Grant went out, Ryan joined him, and we were down to four. I looked at my chips and estimated that of the 4000 that started at our table, I was holding about 2500 of them. I had also learned a lot about Justin's style of play. I hoped he didn't change that style too much at the final table.

I glanced over at the other table. It was Zach and Mike left. I had really hoping that Mike would be one of the first four to go out. There was some consolation in the fact that Mike had a pretty small pile of chips in front of him. I was guessing it was less than 500. Perhaps we could get him out quickly with a little aggressiveness. With a blind of 50, 500 in chips doesn't really go very far.

"Okay," Justin said, "it's time for us to combine tables, but let's take a little break in between."

When the break was announced, Emma grabbed my hand and practically dragged me out of the game room and down the hall into a bedroom. She closed the door behind us and almost immediately raised her hands to my face and pulled me into a kiss. It was a deep, tongue-probing kiss that made me almost instantly hard. It was the first time we had kissed since the breakup, and it felt good.

"Ummm ... " I stammered when she pulled away, smiling up at me. "What was that for?"

"I'm just so turned on by this," she said to me. "It is even more exciting than I thought it was going to be. Clearly you've played poker before, haven't you? Like ... a lot of it?"

I smiled and nodded.

"Good," she said. "I am glad you can keep it interesting then."

"So are you saying you want me to win?" I asked. This time it was me that initiated the kiss.

"I am saying that I like that you have a good chance to win. I love the fact that you have to compete for me. It's such a huge turn on, I can see why you came up with the idea. It would suck if it had been something where you didn't have much of a chance, though."

"I agree," I said.

"There is something I want to tell you Isaac," she said to me.

"Go right ahead," I replied happily.

"I told you I wasn't sure when I was going to be able to trust you again," she began.

"I remember," I said.

"It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it was going to. I pushed you pretty hard after we broke up. I intentionally picked things I knew would make you squeamish. Part of that was me lashing out because it hurt when you rejected my offer to you that night with Ryan, but mostly I wanted to see how you would respond. I wanted to see how much I meant to you. Now I see, and I am glad. I trust you, Isaac. Win or lose, know that I trust you, okay?"

I nodded.

She kissed me again. Her lips felt so soft and delicious to me. I practically melted into that kiss.

"There is something else I need you to know," she said.

"And what it that?"

"It is actually really easy for me to understand your internal conflict. I have one of my own."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"When we started all this," she said, "I teased you. A lot. I know just how intense that teasing was."

I nodded my head.

"There are two reasons I teased you, Isaac. The first is that it is a defense mechanism for me. I have been scared to **** of having a real romantic relationship. I have always been afraid of deep emotional commitment because I am too scared of how badly I could get hurt, so I have avoided ever connecting with guys that want that kind of commitment. When I meet a guy like you, a nice guy, who likes me for something other than my body, I tease them, sometimes ruthlessly. It is the way I avoid the possibility of any emotional attachment to the nice guys."

"And what is the second reason?" I asked.

"Because I discovered I like it. A lot. I found that there were guys, like you, that actually enjoy being teased. I can see their own internal conflict. The teasing hurts, but it also excites them. I love feeding off that incredible swirl of conflicting feelings. There is nothing that turns me on more than that, not even sex. So when I meet nice guys, I tease them to push them away from me. Most of them get the hint and keep their distance. But a few are drawn to it, like a moth to the flame. I still push them away from me, but I get to have a lot of fun while doing it."

See looked down at the floor and sighed.

"I know that makes me a bit of a bitch, Isaac. I get it. But I've always pushed every nice guy past their breaking point. It's always been the end goal, even with you. And then I met someone I couldn't push away. I've finally met someone that I want to have a real relationship with. I want to take that chance, for the first time in my life. It's worth the risk of me getting hurt. So whatever happens tonight, know that I am ready for us to find that connection. I am committed to you, to us, to making us work."

Then she kissed me again. She didn't stop me when I couldn't resist the urge to slide my hands down onto her ass. God it felt so good in my hands!

"But what's the inner conflict?" I asked. That was what she started the whole conversation with.

"You said you were having a hard time picking between your desire to have me all to yourself and your desire to give me to other men. I'm also having a hard time picking. Part of me wants to be the loving and caring girlfriend you've always wanted me to be."

"And the other part?"

"The other part wants to keep teasing you. It wants to find all the buttons that make you squirm, and push them, over and over again, just like I did at the beginning. If you win tonight, you've decided to give up the part of you that wants to see me with with other men. You will choose to give up a part of you that you desire to make our relationship be all about us. I will join you in that sacrifice. I will be the sweet, innocent Emma you have always seen in me, even when no one else could see it."

"And if I lose?"

"If you lose," she said accompanied by a wicked grin, "know that the Emma that you send to be with other men is going to be the Emma that wants to push every button you have."

"I see."

"I wanted to tell you this now," she said, "so you are prepared. If you lose, it means someone else is going to win me tonight. That means the Emma that you'll get to see is going to love making you squirm. I will come back to you, Isaac, when I am done. The Emma you saw when no one else could see her will always come back to you. When it is just us, I will put the other Emma away. I want you to feel safe in that knowledge. But this game you are playing has made the darker Emma very excited, and very ready. Be ready for her claws to come out, Isaac."

She kissed me again. This time she put her hands on my ass. God that felt good.

I wanted to just stay with her, kissing her and letting our hands explore each other's bodies, but we were interrupted by the sound of Justin yelling my name out in the hall.

"I've got to go," I said, breaking the kiss and turning to go back out of the room.

When I got back into the game room, I found that everyone was waiting on me. All of my and Justin's chips had been moved to the other table, and Zach, Mike, and Justin were sitting there, waiting for me.

I was ready.

For any outcome.

I hoped.

The darker Emma that I was told about scared me a little, but in much the same way that skydiving would scare me. I would find it absolutely terrifying and incredibly exhilarating all at once. I was sure my life would never be dull with that Emma always at the ready.

But now that I knew that I had the other Emma, the one that I could always see hiding behind her darker, teasing mask, I knew that I didn't really need that darker Emma anymore. If the time came for me to go skydiving with her, I knew I could handle it, knowing that my Emma would be waiting on the ground for me when we got back down. But if I never went skydiving again, I would be happy with that as well.

Justin dealt us all our pocket cards and the games began. These were higher stakes than any poker game I had ever played, but only Emma and I knew that.

I had been worried about Zach as I had approached the final table. He had managed to acquire an awful lot of chips in the opening round. I had assumed that meant he was the most skilled player over there.

He wasn't. He had managed a couple of lucky breaks early on that had built him a substantial lead. It had made him cocky, and he hammered on people with that cockiness. Cameron and Grant had been bulldozed by it. Mike managed to hang on, but never managed to get a hand to make Zach pay for that cockiness.

I did however, about three hands in, and it was glorious. Seeing the look on his face when I took all but a few hundred of his chips was priceless. He was easy pickings after that. Justin would have been harder to deal with if he hadn't gotten nervous when he saw how easily I dispatched Zach. Once he got nervous, he made several mistakes, and Mike and I took turns capitalizing on them.

Within about half an hour, it was down to just Mike and I. Mike had too few chips at the beginning of the final round to really be the one that could challenge Zach, so he was playing a little more conservatively. He had managed to increase his count from around 500 to a little over 1500, but that still left me almost 6500 in chips, a very substantial lead.

In the first hand after Justin lost, I was dealt a queen and king of hearts in the pocket. That was a nice juicy pocket, and I bid pretty aggressively. By the time we got to the flop, there was already around 1000 in the pot.

When the flop was dealt, there were two queens and a ten. I was so busy trying to hide my glee at having three queens with a king kicker that I didn't notice Mike's initial take on the cards. By the time I looked over, I saw him smiling at me.

"All in," he said, pushing the last thousand of his chips into the table.

Shit!

I typically liked to watch for the initial expression on the other players when the cards are turned over, but I was too interested in those queens that showed up, and working too hard to fight the urge to get noticeably excited by them that I couldn't see how he got to that smile on his face. Mike was really hard to read when he was bluffing. My only chance at doing it came from watching how long it took for him to get that signature smile.

Three queens with a king kicker was a damn good hand!

Why was he so smugly smiling?

Was he trying to just scare me off, knowing full well I still had a big advantage over him, to build his stash up to a more respectable 2000? Or did he really have something lurking over there? If I matched his bet and lost, he would be up to 3000 in chips, not that far behind me.

I took another look at my pocket cards.

What should I do?