Eternally the college cliche, all of the nearby bars had a place to play Beer Pong, either out in the open or in the back ready for installation. As such, Jessie wasn't remotely surprised by Lauren's choice. If anything, the surprise was the fact that Jessie didn't make a comeback on Lauren's originality.
It's a simple enough game, 10 plastic cups are set up like bowling pins and partially filled with beer, and players threw or bounced ping pong balls and tried to get it to land in one of the cups on the other side. If the ball goes in, the player who controls that cup has to drink the beer inside and the cup is removed from the table or "sunk." For hygienic reasons, a cup of water was kept near by to clean off the ball. Whoever sinks all 10 cups first wins the game. There's several more rules that go into this game, but whether or not they're used is left to the discretion of the players or some higher ruling order (like The World Series of Beer Pong). Fortunately for Lauren, no one around the college really made any commitment to a rule set - Jessie was the only person she needed to convince.
While the table was prepared, Lauren decided to begin the rule negotiations. "So, I was thinking we make the game rules: overshoots, no defense, being a klutz, and islands. Naturally, it's just you and me, no teams."
"Works for me," Jessie said grinning ear to ear.
This particular set of rules meant five things. Some players accidentally land the ball in or knock over their own cups, the klutz rule makes these balls sink and the klutz has to drink them once they're refilled, if that's necessary. This rule would become a huge advantage for Lauren once Jessie had downed about three cups. In some games, the players are allowed to swat away balls that hit the table or a cup (anything prior would be goal tending and automatically sinks the cup). Lauren got rid of this ability because her reflexes weren't fast enough to do it without becoming a klutz herself. At any point in the game, it's entirely possible the ball misses the table and cups entirely, striking neither before falling off, this is called an overshoot. If a player overshoots and has more than one cup left, the player has to drink one of their own cups, and since Lauren always bounces her balls, this rule isn't a serious problem. If Jessie also bounces, no loss, but if she doesn't, then Lauren is in for a payoff, especially as Jessie drinks. The island rule carried two rules with it, the first being that the cups would not be rearranged at any point in the game, making it harder for less coordinated players to get lucky as the cups become separated. The second is that when there are three or more cups and one cup was no longer touching any other cups, the turn player could call "island" and attempt to make the shot into the isolated cup. The island rule carries with it no penalty for missing the island, but a great reward for sinking the island - the player who sunk the island had to drink the island cup and one other cup on the table. No risk, high return, especially if a drunken Jessie attempted to sink the island.
For someone who's such a lightweight and with rules so severely stacked against her, Jessie certainly seemed to reek of confidence. Then again, Ryan probably taught her the same way. Lauren chose this set of rules because she had the most experience with these rules when Ryan helped her practice for this game. Though they spoke nothing of Jessie in all this, it was entirely expected that Jessie would be comfortable with them as well. All it meant to Lauren had to sink a ball first. If she could do that, her victory was almost guaranteed.
"And the penalties for losing," Lauren continues, wearing her own smug smile, "will be paying the bartender, drinking what's left on the table, and the naked lap shutout."
As if on cue to Jessie's eyebrows shooting up, the bar patrons began cheering and hooting. While she wasn't sure if there were proper names for either of them, paying and drinking were self explanatory and eliminated the need for any titles. What got everyone going was the naked lap. It only applied in the cases of shutouts, but when that happened, especially with girls playing, people went wild. In the event someone could win before the opponent could sink even one shot, the loser would have to strip down and streak around the outside of the house they played in, in this case the bar. It was much more popular in team games, where the chance of the lap happening increased, but Lauren was confident. Sinking just one shot would guarantee she wouldn't be running, and massively increased the chances Jessie would.
"Alright, fine," Jessie calls over the crowd, which only increased in volume.
With the table set, both girls took their positions on opposite ends of the table, the bartender positioned at the side with a coin in his right hand.
"I'll flip the coin, catch it in my hand, and present it on my wrist," he says, his free hand going through the motions. "Since the big girl decided the game, we'll let slim call it. In the air, sweety."
Before the coin can even make one full rotation, Jessie calls, "Tails."
Lauren's heart had to be beating a mile a minute. As Ryan could testify, Lauren wasn't so good with alcohol either. She could handle four, maybe five cups of beer before the alcohol would effectively do her in. And while this is a problem, she couldn't quite figure out why she was so nervous. She had stacked everything in her favor, so there shouldn't be any reason to worry.
And the coin landing on heads only helped to solidify her assurance.
So why is she only feeling worse?
Lauren's subconscious was trying to tell her the critical flaw in her plan: she based everything off the idea she'd score first. While Lauren couldn't fathom this consciously, her flushed face and twitching legs showed everyone she was less than convinced in some way. Likewise, if Jessie should score first, her own mind would effectively break itself, magnifying her stress and result in her running the lap. Her entire plan was effectively decided off the first score.
With one last breath to calm herself as best she could, our vengeful heroine begins her strike. The ball flies from Lauren's hand to...
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