No, but she has to keep playing.

He was not evicting Roslyn, or even Daniel who had also been quietly waiting in the hope none would notice he no longer belonged.

Instead he spoke with an unexpected playfulness.

“I do think I have not been served the full value of defeating your bids.” He spoke to Daniel. It was subtle but a distinct smile had spread across his lips and reached his eyes. He was teasing Daniel. He faced his gaze to Roslyn.

“Curled under the table, I can’t see my prize.”

Roslyn was not ready for this overt expression of desire. He wanted to see her. Sitting directly opposite her, The Man in Green was the one her body was most obscured from. And he was tired of it. His audacity to make explicit the implications of his actions shocked her. He wanted to see her. Fear at his naked desire to observe her, and to know her so intimately overwhelmed Roslyn. The adrenaline of her fear turned curiously in her blood to a more pleasant feeling. The warmness welling between her legs grew slick. Without anything between her and leather stool, she felt the wetness of her pussy grow torrential. Her hands, which were clutching her crotch were growing wet to the touch. While his green eyes locked with her brown eyes the scent of sex spread onto her hands and into the stool below her. If anyone at the table gave so much as a deep breath she would be unable to deny the distinct scent of pleasure that now accompanied her nervousness and shame. She was melting before him like an ice cream in the summer heat, and he did not even know it. She was mortified by the thought that he might be sensing his effect on her.

“I didn’t bid her, I bid her clothes,” Daniel fired back. “Which were won and paid for fair and square.” Roslyn almost gasped relief to have Daniel come to her defense. She had started to wonder whether Daniel wanted to protect her dignity at all, which now stood on a precipice.

“Then bid her,” the Man in Green smiled. He was asking for what there could be no precedent for. She was not an object. There was no consensus on what she was worth, or what she would represent as a chip to be bid. The Man in Green thrived in this ambiguity.

“Bid her? Are you insane?” Daniel immediately returned. Roslyn’s breath quickened as she watched powerlessly as her very being was being discussed as a piece on a board.

“It seems like it’s all you have left.” The mustached older man added in. He looked to the Man in Green for support but instead all he got was a distasteful glance. The Man in Green did not want an ally in his machinations.

Daniel looked around and understood his and Roslyn’s predicament. If he did not acquiescence he would have to leave the table, with Roslyn in tow. If he agreed, he would leave Roslyn to the ambiguity of the Man in Green. Roslyn’s heart screamed in her chest. She had no idea what it would mean to be won. There was no precedent for there to be an implication. Their game of poker had derailed from the merely unorthodox, to the uncharted. Somewhere deep within her, she knew that the answer to what ‘being won’ would mean rested in her own agency. What she allowed would be what it meant. But Roslyn had lost all sense of agency. She had allowed the currents of the cards to dictate her position and she was not sure if she had the boldness to shape its flow. The older woman might have been right. Some animal part of Roslyn, might be getting what it wanted. But the dignified PhD student was agonizing under the humiliation.

“Will the little slut allow it?” The young woman posed to the table. With a surplus of audacity the woman poked Roslyn in the side as if checking if she was a real human. Roslyn flinched to the side and winced at the moniker of ‘slut’. A word she’d never use on other women but felt acceptably applied to her now.

“Perhaps you can be enticed.” The Man in Green pushed in the diamond ring, alongside chips worth more than Daniel had earned the entire night. Daniel’s eyes glowed greedily at the bounty on the table. To his credit he hesitated for a long while before finally answering.

“Alright, I bid her.”

Everyone waited for Roslyn to say something. The power to resist this current of humiliation once again implicitly rested with her. Yet again she felt no real choice was posed to her. Daniel needed the ring back. That wealth currently on offer was obscene, life-changing money. Whatever further humiliation was in store could not be more than what she was already guaranteed by refusing to play further. Once she lost the dress her complete mortification was guaranteed. Now she was just following the natural course of events. This at least was a narrative that allowed Roslyn to justify her behavior. The pooling of warmth in between her legs may have been a contributory motivator but she refused to humor the thought. Roslyn said nothing, and the dealer dealt out the cards for the round.

Once again the Man in Green interrupted.

“You know that’s not how we play.” He was calm again. The hunger of his eyes had mellowed into a playfulness now that he was confident he would get what he wanted.

“All bids go on the table.”