It wouldn't be much of a story otherwise.

I entered the house with some confusion.

Anne remained really pretty, of course, with her thick, short red hair, cute freckles, and very trim body, but, while fixing me an iced tea, she also kept talking about her boyfriend and how they'd met in Young Life.

She asked if I wanted to go swimming, indicating that no one would be home for hours, and I could probably fit into her dad's trunks. I turned that down for reasons that are literally beyond me now.

She asked if I wanted some food or maybe a glass of wine. I turned that down, as well, because I didn't drink wine. Again, I'm exposing life here, not good decision making. No judgments, please.

She asked if I wanted to play backgammon. To that, I replied definitely. My rationale: I was really good at backgammon.

I won the first match. And gammoned her in the second. She was--to put it mildly--a poor player. She exposed herself when she didn't have to. She didn't seem to know how to quickly count. She didn't know which were the valuable points on the board. Sheesh. Why, I thought to myself, would she propose to play backgammon when she knew I was good at math?

Okay, if you've been scanning this, you can start reading... the sex is about to start.

After the second backgammon victory, I relaxed a bit. I'd been tensely playing, wanting to ensure victory and avoid embarrassment. I looked more carefully. Anne looked like she was almost about to cry. Okay, not "almost," maybe half way, but definitely looking sad. She was saying something about how difficult it was to have a sister as smart as Margaret, etc, etc, when she also had super-smart parents who'd founded some sort of company that had gotten them rich. She felt like she was a loser. But how would I, being like them, know about such things?

I was busily lining up the pieces for another game, but did have the good sense to pause and take a stab at being human.

"Annie, that's ridiculous. For one thing, you have always struck me as awesome."

"How would you know that? We didn't even go to school together. We barely know each other."

"First off, I've seen you around for years, and you've always had a nice smile."

"Ugh! I hate that! A nice smile? That's the best you can do? Jesus."

I looked at her more carefully. I'd said she was trim, but she was actually kinda small. She hunched over, and I could see the outline of ribs covered by her pink Izod. She'd changed clothes when we'd come into her house, saying she'd sweated up her jeans. She now wore plaid shorts that had ridden up above her knees. I could see smooth inner thigh which had few freckles. She was rubbing her face with her hands.

"Let's do something else. Maybe that swim? We can swim laps or race—it’ll give you a chance to make up for the backgammon.” That was the sense of humor that kept my weekends wide open.

"Yeah, great, I can't keep up with in backgammon, so maybe I should race a division 1 swimmer?”

“I didn’t even swim on the team last year. If summer training goes well, I’ll join back up, but it’s not like I’ll be a star.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring. You’ve been working out all summer to make the Ivy League swim team that you were recruited to join, and I can barely keep it together to do a backstroke. That should be fun.”

"Okay, how about this. Let’s go to the pool and play a backgammon variation that evens things out."

She looked up. Her brownish green eyes clear. Her freckles numerous. Oddly, she agreed.

Half an hour later, we’d splashed around a bit, dried off, and were about to play more backgammon. I was on my second beer, as I recall, and she was drinking wine, but those transitional details are lost to history.

I do recall trying to explain the variations while not being too obvious about my effort to look into her bikini top. Did I mention she was smoking hot? Did I mention we were 19? Did I mention I was wearing her dad’s swim trunks, which were way big? Did I mention I’d been trying to hide a hard-on since she’d walked out wearing a tasteful but tiny bikini?

"Okay, we roll at the same time. You get to pick two die and use them for your turn. I get the two that remain"

She looked skeptical. "How is that remotely reasonable?"

"Well, while you're making your decisions, I get to distract you."

She smiled. "And how do you get to distract me?"

"I get to do anything I want, and neither of us can get up from our seats.”

"Ha. Deal."

We shook hands. Her hand was small. Mine was large.