Rock Paper Scissors

Her name was on the Literature of Mathematics & Economics conference roster, attendee badge plucked from the folding table by the time I arrived. The absence of a nametag confirmed her physical presence, hovering nearby. I wasn’t playing that game again. Ancient egos, battling in bed and the classroom. Our sexual dynamics followed Nobel Prize mathematics, overly complex equations on simple relationships. I couldn’t solve us.

We played the same game of dirty Rock, Paper, Scissors over and over. Every round, she won, hands down. If I kept going that way today, in all probability, she would play me again, from the one, two, three, shoot: her scissors slicing my paper heart to shreds. Loving her was tautology itself, chasing my own tail. But by the third panel of the day, there she was, sitting down next to me at the back of a conference room.

Yeah, I felt her elbow, grazing my fingertips. I focused on the mathematician’s voice up front, lecturing on game commitments and credible play, so why not follow the obvious lesson?

Rock me this time.

I pulled away my arm.

A new player took charge, changing strategy.

She stiffened, her breath hitching. She pitched a new move too, pushing back: placed a hand on my knee, aggressive attack. What were we, in a dive bar? I crossed my legs, scissor-snatched my body back, and she was having none of that, the breadcrumb queen herself, tossing loaves at my feet now, pure strategy, over and over, fingertips grazing my earlobe, neck, small of my back, fine, a long time had passed since last she saw me, and I knew a thing or two, too, so I flipped again, covered her arousing rock pelting with paper, looking over, just staring at her, until she felt the execution, how my eyes burned through her, she couldn’t glance back, her rocks collapsing under me, until, all at once, her eyes swooped back up, and I faltered.

Deadlocked.

At the front of the room, the panelists discussed the Nash Equilibria, how two Players — both playing randomly — will never improve their individual gain.

I wanted to control the board. Show me your hand, I mouthed. Show me yours, she whispered.

Palm up, cupped, my hand covered nothing, instead, offered the cruel rocks we once tossed at each other, long after we stopped going to bed together. She touched a vein on my wrist with her finger, and there, she dropped the key to her room.

We left before the question-and-answer portion of the panel, and our stubborn game continued, rocking one another soft this time, we covered up nothing, clothing soon ripped to shreds on the hotel floor.