“Chutzpah!” she exclaimed.

Ding!

“Congratulations, Alice,” Laura said. “That is correct. When you’re ready to start the next round, give the wheel a spin!”

Alice pulled hard on the wheel and sent it clattering ‘round. It finally came to rest on a yellow wedge that Laura plucked out to read.

“Alice, for you next challenge--and forty-five thousand dollars--you will be playing our resident model, Ryan, in a game of Jenga.”

Ryan was wearing only a speedo--his bulge quite visible, though it was his muscles that her eyes were drawn to. She couldn’t discern if it was his appearance or the new underwear that was making her moist at that point. Breaking her gaze from his hard body, Alice saw a large tower of huge Jenga blocks that the staff had brought out while her attention had been elsewhere.

“Are you ready, Alice?” Laura asked.

“Let’s do this!”

Ryan didn’t move so she took the first move by removing the center block in one of the rows. The block was a couple of pounds--not as heavy as she’d feared but definitely substantial. Her opponent mirrored her move on another row and placed his block on the top.

A few rounds went by before the tower was almost beyond her reach and most of the blocks in the lower parts had been removed to the point that it was slightly unstable. Alice faced a choice. She could play it safe and hope her opponent would make a mistake, or she could take a gamble that would almost certainly **** an error--if she didn’t mess up first.