Jayleen

"And clink! DOWN the hatch!"

I swallowed hard, feeling the sting of the vodka and shaking my head. I tapped my chest twice and then reached for some cola to chase it down.

"First shot of the night done," I cheered, eliciting shouts and whoos from the remaining cast, now sitting in a circle on living room floor.

"Yeah...the 'first shot'," Natalie laughed, making eyes at Hector. The two of them had started on a tequila bottle as soon as the party started.

"How was your first shot?" asked Kim K. looking over at Illy as she grimaced.

"It's like...warm?" the innocent blonde replied. "Like it feels hot in my throat?"

"Burning sensation," nodded Hector obviously, in between gulps of iced tea.

"Yeah," Illy answered exuberantly, before looking embarassed. "Oh, that's why they call it that..."

Natalie and Kim K. both laughed and jeered, but I just shook my head. Of the seven of us only Moggie and my brother Liam weren't drinking, meaning I had four girls and my play "prince" to do shots with, and I clearly had some catching up to do.

"Alright enough, you two, let's play some cards," I said, dealing out the white cards to the six players.

"Are we playing STRIP cards against humanity?" Moggie said smiling widely at Kim K. The half-asian girl let out a nervous half laugh, but otherwise the joke didn't land.

"No, but the instructions says whoever POOPED last has to go first," teased Natalie, looking over the game's rectangle ruleset.

"Let's not," I said loudly, trying to gain control back over the room, "play with that rule and how about...Illy, you go first, since you haven't played before."

"Okay!" She grabbed her pile of white cards. "What do I do?"

"Put those down for now and pick up a black card," I said, "you need to read it aloud so everyone knows what the prompt is."

"Hey you only dealt us six cards," said Natalie fanning her deck.

"We only play with six," I waved my hand, chidingly. "I find people tend to take too long if I give them too many cards."

With one last look around, I turned to my brother. "You sure you don't wanna play, Liam?"

"I'm good up here," he said from the couch behind me, his grey laptop whirring on his lap.

"50% of all marriage end in [BLANK]," said Illy haltingly. She set the card down in the center of the circle, the whole group starting to murmur and giggle to themselves.

"Okay Illy, we'll give you our picks and then you have to shuffle them and pick your favorite."

She folded her hands and nodded. Realizing I hadn't even looked at my hand, I picked up my six cards and started to look them over.

My choices were:

- 50,000 volts straight to the nipples

- Birth control

- Firing a rifle into the air while balls deep in a squealing hog

- The Holy Bible

- Lumberjack fantasies

- And Not Wearing Pants