That's Not In The Rules

That’s Not in the Rules 

I didn’t realize how fucked up things were going to get when James pulled Twister down off the bookshelf, sliding it from between Trivial Pursuit and Life, and lifting the lid of the multicolored box, because I viewed it as an invitation to reminisce about a game we’d both played growing up with our respective friends during our respective teenage years in our respective hometowns, a common link, as it were, to our respective pasts, so I helped him, my dear friend Liz’s spouse, the two of them hosting my husband and me along with three other couples that night for dinner and drinks, our kids all happily occupied together running around in James and Liz’s basement, the two of us unfolding the creased plastic and then smoothing it flat atop their living room rug, my husband out in the backyard with the others listening to Dire Straits in armchairs staring at orange flames leaping from the fire pit, likely nursing his final beer before coming in to give me the raised eyebrows that meant Let’s get the kids and get out of here, the part of the evening I always loved best because I got to leave with the kindest, most handsome guy in the place, and when James then said,  Let’s play, I protested, asserting that it was, at minimum, a three-player game because who would spin the spinner but James insisted he could do it from whatever position he might find himself in which kind of seemed like cheating because I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to lift your hands or feet once they’re planted, but the rules were fuzzy and also I’m trying to be more of a “life’s short” person so I went with it, kicking off my slides and placing my left foot on red as directed, and as the black plastic arrow spun round and the combinations were called, both of us laughing slipping twisting, somehow James’s left hand came to rest on my right ass cheek, and I inhaled sharply but told myself it had to be an oversight, all of our limbs mixed up together as they were, and so I waited for him to spin again feeling that certainly his hand would move but then as he placed one foot on green, his hand remained, him now straddling my hips and when I felt him hard against me I froze, which is the point of the game, right, to freeze, to hold your position until you’re once again directed to move, and for all the times I’d imagined myself in this type of scenario and for all the pep talks I’d given my daughter about personal space and her power, I remained there and said nothing, simply endured, until the kids all burst upstairs and the spell was broken and James was folding up the white plastic and placing it back in the box which he slid on the shelf for the next time he wanted to thrust himself into someone’s personal space, and then my husband was at my side and we were heading out, me robotically hugging Liz and James too, for chrissakes, thanking them both for a ‘lovely evening”, James waving like this was any other Saturday night, and me, spineless, parroting, Yes, let’s definitely do this again soon as the front door swung shut behind us, James and I on either side of what was true and what was right and just what the hell if anything I was going to do about it.