Samantha Morris and Alan Jones were best friends. They had known each other since they were kids, and they had gone to the same college once they'd moved away from home. When they had graduated, it made sense for them to move into an apartment together to share expenses and to keep their parents from worrying about them. It worked out well. Sam did the shopping and Alan did the cleaning, they paid their bills together and got along as well as they always had. One thing they never talked about, though, was their sex lives. Both were careful to never be disrespectful with the people they brought over for such things, but living in close quarters meant that sometimes they saw things.
One thing that Samantha had seen was a glimpse of a girl, bound and gagged on her best friend's bed as she was on her way to the bathroom late one night. It had stuck with her for months, even though she didn't bring it up.
What she didn't know what that Alan knew that she had seen the girl. He'd left his door cracked open on purpose.
That had been months ago, and now they were sitting in their living room on a Saturday night, drinking beers and playing Jeopardy along with the contestants on television. It was something they had always done.
Samantha was humming along to the theme song of the second episode of the night, when Alan looked over at her. “Hey, I've got an idea.”
“Oh, lord,” Sam groaned. Alan was notorious for getting her into trouble with his ideas. “What is it this time?”
“Want to make this more interesting?”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Maybe. What did you have in mind?”
“Let's keep track of who gets the most answers right during this episode. Whoever wins gets to make the other person do whatever they want for a night.”
Samantha thought that over. It sounded innocent enough, really. And if she won, then she could make Alan cook her favorite dinner or something. She shrugged and nodded. “Sure, works for me. You going to keep score?”
Alan pulled out a notepad and wrote both of their names at the top of a clean sheet of paper. “Yep. I'm on it.”
So the game started. Each of them was reasonably intelligent, and they answered most of the questions. Samantha was feeling somewhat complacent by the time the Double Jeopardy round came around. She had some knowledge about each of the categories, and even though she was currently behind by three points, she figured that she could easily make them up.
At the commercial break, she got up and stretched, heading into the kitchen. “I'm switching to soda. Want anything?”
“Grab me a coke?” Alan asked.
Samantha nodded, pulling two cans out of the refrigerator before going back and flopping onto the couch just in time to start playing again. She pulled ahead of Alan by two points as the game neared its completion. When the Final Jeopardy question was asked, they were tied, though, so it all came down to that one question.
And of course it had to be about American History, which was a subject that Samantha despised. Luckily Alan wasn't much better at it, if she recalled correctly, so she wasn't too worried.