Brushing up on history

After a lot of crying and agonizing, the two of them finally read the new rules, which confirmed their greatest fears. If they didn’t play the game, it would begin playing for them every midnight, administering more and more **** punishments with each passing turn. The only way out, according to the game, was by reaching the end. When a player reached square 100, they were released from the game and were given a great reward, though it didn’t specify what.

It did clarify some things, though.

To start, changes in general. A single change could result in millions of other changes, all done just to satisfy the game’s new truth. The new truth always superseded the old truth and the bare minimum effort would be put in to justify or rectify any contradictions. However, for some reason, Talia and Hank only remembered the old truth.

Hank was a virgin his whole life. Talia was gay as a rainbow. Neither of them ever had sex with each other, and even though Hank had an unrequited crush in middle school, they considered each other more akin to siblings.

But, reading his and Talia’s biographies for the past year told a new story. According to the biographies, Sarah and Talia split up exactly one year ago, shortly after their move. Everything was the same on that front aside from the timeline being condensed. The gambling, the ****, the firing, it all happened much quicker, but the result was the same. Talia had no money or car, Hank let her crash at his place and picked her up. And then things got different again.

They went straight home, unpacked her stuff, and then, out of sheer boredom, had sex. And that became the gist of it.

The biographies described a full year of the two of them just using sex as a pass time. Their friendship was bland and strained, as it was now, but they just kept living together and having sex to pass the time. There was no passion or attraction. They didn’t even get naked.

In lieu of rent, Talia’s concerned mother in Germany sent them a constant flow of condom money, as Talia was jobless and Hank couldn’t afford the amount they needed on his wages. Everyone believed the two of them would do without them if they couldn’t buy any. All of their friends and family were deeply concerned and after spending Regina’s birthday last month shamelessly fucking in her hot tub, everyone distanced themselves even more.

According to the story, they visited Ophelia’s yesterday on their way back home from buying lube at a local sex shop. They set up the game, but by the time it came to play, they got bored and started going at it until midnight, when they reached their 2000th fuck.

But neither of them remembered it that way.

A lot of other stats were changed, too. Hank’s virginity was listed as having been lost a year ago. He was written to have had vaginal sex 2000 times. It was absurd. His average number of sex had per day the past year was almost 5.5. Oddly, though, other related stats stayed the same. He didn’t have any more kisses, he hadn’t felt or even seen any more boobs than before.

Talia had opened her phone to call her mother, but had begun crying, reading all the messages begging her to be careful and confirming money was sent for condoms.

Another horrifying rule explanation was added to the rulebook explaining Minimum Quotas.

Apparently, Hank’s new daily minimum of makeout time with Talia was a quota he needed to keep or risk punishment. It didn’t specify what the punishment was or could be, but he didn’t want to be punished by the game anymore. In essence, as well as changing their past, it could also define their present. Set rules for them to follow.

They couldn’t run from the game. By midnight that night, they needed to have completed the minimum number of rounds or else face the game playing on their behalf.

“I cannot believe that this is my fucking life.” Talia punched the seat as Hank sped down the rainy freeway. There wasn’t much traffic so early in the morning, so they were going much faster than they’d hoped. The plan was simple: use their combined credit limits to bribe the witch into ending the game.

Hank knew exactly where the exit was. He made a note of it so he could go back there with someone else. Share the experience or see if there was anything for existing customers. However, not only could he not find Ophelia’s just off the highway as it had been between his home and Seattle: he couldn’t find the exit at all!

He kept getting on and off the freeway, circling desperately until finally Talia had an idea. “The bios said we got the game near Zara’s Toy Chest.”

Hank face palmed. “Of course it moved!”

It was three in the afternoon before the pair had to accept that Ophelia’s did not exist. Defeated, they went back home. As soon as they parked, the rulebook flashed.

No returns without a receipt.

“Now it fucking tells us.” Hank sighed, exhausted. Two tanks of gas and hours wasted, just to have their stupidity waved in their faces. “I’m gonna make some chicken tenders if you want any. We can start the next round.”

She slumped in her seat. Chicken tenders. He ate like a twelve year old. “Yeah, let’s start the next round.” Talia scoffed.

“Talia, I’m sorry.” He was getting tired of apologizing. She was already tired of hearing it.

“Really glad I did Spooky Buddies.”

“If we just had the receipt—“

“Are you blaming me for this?”

“No! I’m just saying it sucks that we don’t have the receipt.”

“How was I supposed to know that—“

“I’m not blaming you, Talia.”

“I’m the one who’s got a ruined reputation here! I’ve been violated nonstop for the past year!”

“And I haven’t!?”

“Oh please! You’re living the straight male fantasy! Live in sex doll who wants no attachments. Meanwhile I’m known as the washed up whore who fucks a gas station clerk all day to sleep in a bed!”

“I want attachments! I wanted my first time to be special! I wanted every time to be special! And now all the friendships I worked so hard to maintain—that you dropped a bomb on when you left—are abandoning me. Bye-bye everyone I love! I’m forgetting you to have bland sex with the girl you all hate!”

“Fuck you!”

“Do you want tenders or not?”

***

After sobbing into each other’s arms for an hour, the two now sat in the living room, staring at the board, each holding a plate of chicken tenders and broccoli. Apparently, with Talia living her for a year, the cabinets and fridge had been stocked with some vegetables. Not a lot given Hank’s meager wage. But it was better than just chicken tenders, beer, and ego waffles.

“Spooky Buddies.” Hank extended his pinky to Talia. Though feeling better with food in her, she was still remarkably upset and afraid. But she figured Hank must’ve been, too.

She believed that she was much worse off than him in all this. Hank was most certainly a victim. But Talia was way more of a victim. Just lost a relationship she thought she’d have forever. Now the whole world thinks she’s some slut attached to some deadbeat’s penis. She loved Hank like a brother. Or at least she had at some point. But now, she was revolted by him.

He was lucky that they were in this together, because she would walk away right now if she could, even if that meant leaving him behind. She had a future. She had drive, and ambition, and purpose. He had enough luck to keep him scraping by paycheck to paycheck.

She took his pinky in hers. “Spooky Buddies.” She said, reaching for the die. She rolled it between her fingers, then shook it between her palms.she was not going to try and cheat the roll, this time. Although they had determined that the minimum round roll was going to be useless for them. They were going to rush through as quickly as possible. Nonstop rounds. Just to get it over with.

And the crusty stains in the couch and carpet reminded them that no matter what, it was probably best to comply with the game. Hopefully the reward at the end was an undo button. A way to teach them a lesson to be grateful for the lives they had or something.

She cast the die, barely registering that it landed on One. It didn’t matter. They were playing till the end. She reached over the board and grabbed a challenge card for herself and one for Hank.

Challenge: Take a picture of yourself sucking a cock and send it to your previous boss, your mother, and a friend. If you refuse or fail, add a consonant to your next letter change. You have one hour.

Talia had initially been devastated by the card. It was a nuke for her professional and family life. She could just send such a photo to Hank, who had the only penis she had accessible, so that may not have been such a big deal. But school admins talked. Her name was already in some mud she needed to clean off. And she couldn’t send a picture like that to her poor mother! But then she glanced down at the chicken tender in her hand and got an idea.

Hank, meanwhile, was reading his own challenge.

Have sex with the other player without a condom. You must ejaculate inside this player. If you refuse or fail, add one additional detriment to your next detriment change. You have four hours.

“I refuse.” He sighed, feeling the card rip itself from his hand.

“What’d you do that for?” Talia asked, pulling the chicken tender out of her mouth and lowering the phone she just took a selfie with. She quickly navigated to her email, composing a new message to her old boss. For the subject line, she put simply the word ‘it’.

“It wanted me to cum inside you.” He scratched the back of his neck. She nodded, accepting his decision. As far as she was concerned, they never actually had sex. And she certainly wasn’t going to let it happen, now. Still, she appreciated that he hadn’t tried to pressure her, despite that being the bare minimum.

Talia disliked foul language for sex organs. Unless she was extremely angry, she almost always preferred their more official names. A comfort level thing that just opened a pedantic way to get around the challenge.

“What’s with the selfie?”

“Cock is a word for chicken. And the prompt didn’t even say to send the picture explicitly. It just said to take a picture of me sucking a cock and send ‘it’ to certain people.” Talia opened up her messenger and texted her mother a single word: it.

Finally she opened Hank’s contact info, and sent him the same word. “I thought we agreed no trying to trick the game?” He asked, checking the text.

“I’m not tricking it!” She argued. “It wants this. It wants nit-picky little exploits and loopholes. I think it wants us to be clever.” That had to be it. The game was harsh, but fair. Well, not fair, but at least it was to be exploited both ways.

Hank scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I’m not sure we want to be testing stuff like that.”

“Your penis is not coming anywhere near me.”

“I didn’t—“ he groaned. She’s got it worse than you, he had to remind himself. “If you’re sure you’ve done the challenge, then slide the card into the discard slot to complete it.” He explained. “Then we’ll roll for movement, draw our categories, and go from there.”

Hank played a lot of board games and so had gotten pretty good at identifying terms, phases, and orders. If this game was being moderated by their friends, then he’d agree that the challenge was vague and could have been interpreted the way Talia had given. People would have groaned, but it would’ve been fair play. But the game was moderating itself.

Talia pushed the card into the slot, expecting the card to be snatched from her fingers by the box. But instead she just felt it slip in gently. The rulebook began to glow with a new entry.

Players are encouraged to find and exploit loopholes whenever possible. However, if a gambit fails, the challenge is considered failed. Sticking to the spirit of a challenge is safer.

Talia’s notebook flew open. Strangely, this time, it was the last page that began glowing.

Your message was acceptable. However, no male chicken was used in the creation of that chicken tender and thus you failed to suck any cock. Challenge failed.

Unused Punitive Modifiers:

• Add a consonant to your next letter change (failed challenge).

In Hank’s journal, a similar text popped up in the back page.

Unused Punitive Modifiers:

• Add a detriment to your next detriment change.

“No!” Talia slapped her hand against the table. She thought she was being clever! How was she supposed to have known if a literal cock had been shredded into the chicken tender? It wasn’t fair!

But she had to push forward. Nonstop. There must’ve been a way to undo this at the end. And if not, there was no use in waiting any longer. Her fingers picked up the die and tossed it. Two. “Damnit!”

Suddenly, the yellow pawn began gliding across the board, moving forward two squares on the board, putting it on a blue square. A word change. She reached over and drew a category.

Physical Traits

Word replacement! A word in your biography will be replaced by another word.

The replacement word is the last color you thought of.

Word: Blue

Her journal flipped the complete opposite way, opening to the first page.

Eye Color: Brown

Eye Color: Blue

Talia blinked, the room suddenly just slightly brighter. She reached for her phone and turned on the camera. Staring back at here were someone else’s eyes. A vibrant, bordering on unnatural shade of blue had replaced the milky brown eyes she’d inherited from her father.

Her hand experimentally came up to her face, but she stopped herself from trying to poke her eyeballs to test them. They were real, she knew. And as far as changes went, they weren’t all that bad.

“Whoah—“ Hank recoiled when Talia turned to face him. Her eyes were… so blue. A beautiful shade, but not hers. She cut him off with her finger. Her voice was hard and sharp from frustration.

“If we have a reaction to every little thing, we’re gonna be here for days.” She said, handing him the die, which he accepted, unable to look away from her eyes.

He rolled onto the table, the die coming up on Four. His pawn slid forward slowly, allowing him to do the math before it reached its destination. He was heading straight to a black Detriment square. His hand uneasily reached for the Category Cards, afraid of what a detriment might do to him.

When he flipped the card over, the front was black with white text, inverse of all the other cards.

Detriment: Cannot skip work to play the game. Will work all scheduled hours unless instructed otherwise by management. Draw another card.

He let out a sigh of relief, allowing the invisible **** to snatch the card from his hand as the detriment wrote itself into his biography. That didn’t matter, he thought, since they were finishing the game, today. A bit heartened, he reached for another card.

Detriment: When landing on Red tiles, roll a D6:

• 1-4: Treat the Red Tile as if you had landed on it twice.
• 5-6: Nothing.

That one was significantly worse. There were a lot of red tiles. And Hank was only on square 5 out of 100. With this he had a two in three chance of getting a second number change every time he landed on a red square. The card shot out of his hand and the words were burned into his biography.

Note to self, NEVER land on black, Talia thought as she reached for the Challenge Deck. Hank looked shaken, but was keeping it together. She knew he needed support, but she just couldn’t give it to him past an apologetic look as she passed him a card.

Talia’s challenge was actually achievable this time.

Challenge: Masturbate to orgasm. However many minutes it takes for you to finish the challenge becomes the value of your next number change. Refuse or fail and the number becomes the number of minutes between now and midnight. Your time begins now.

This one had no time restriction, it seemed. “I need to do this alone.” Talia stood up. “Please don’t disturb me.” She started toward the bedroom, but stopped. “Unless something changes with the game, obviously.” She added. Then she sprinted off to the guest room and locked the door.

Hank’s challenge was also doable. Somewhat. Maybe.

Challenge: Text Vera West and convince her to come on a date in tomorrow. Fail or refuse and your next number change value is doubled. Cancel or miss the date and your next number change value will be tripled. You have one hour.