The Game

Truth. Dare. Double-dare. Torture. Kiss.

Or promise.

It was just a game. Bored on a Sunday afternoon, rain pelting down outside, fire crackling inside. A cosy warmth in the living room with the scent of burning redwood from the fireplace. She was curled up on the couch, a high-backed faux-antique thing surprising comfortable, throw-rug over her knees, an Anaïs Nin paperback in hand. The hard tapping of the keys of Caleb’s laptop from his desk in the back corner provided a regular background rhythm, like the rain, like the fire. Working away as he always did, writing something and intensely focused.

She forced herself to keep her eyes on her book and not look at him or watch him work. He always noticed when she did and that was the last thing she needed. But the familiar sound of his typing was a reliable routine she found comfort in, despite herself.

Jack wandered in from the kitchen, staring despondently at his phone.

“Oh man, my date tonight has ditched me. The bastard.”

He threw himself onto the couch beside her with an air of ostentatious despair, which was Jack all over really, but she shifted her legs to give him room. The guys had been share-housing here since the end of high school, a good four, almost five, years ago now. But she’d only just come back from university a few weeks earlier and had been staying in their third room since. A welcome return and falling straight back in with the old crowd. They were twenty-somethings now, not teenagers any longer. Adults. Technically. If still young enough to get bored and think up stupid games.

Caleb continued to type furiously without looking up. He freelanced, was breaking into journalism and probably had some big deadline looming. She admired his focus, his ambition. All she wanted to do was sit on the couch and lose herself in one book after another, ignoring the fact she’d have to decide what to do with the rest of her life sooner or later. But Caleb knew what he wanted and had the drive to achieve it.

She gave Jack a vaguely sympathetic smile. “Which one was tonight’s date? The blond or the brunette?”

Jack, slight in build and unprepossessing in stature, but with a fierce sense of humour and an ability to turn the head of just about every young man he set his eyes on, sighed with too much melodrama.

“The blond. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The man’s got a mouth like a fucking Hoover, you know. I was looking forward to getting my dick sucked on command tonight.”

She snorted. “So the brunette is the guy you’re in love with across town? Now I get it.”

“Beth, sweetheart, my love life is a complex creation. I am not in love with Patrick, or with Ben. But I do exist in a state of burning lust for them all.” He turned pained eyes on her. “But Ben’s ditched me for tonight and now it’s too late to make arrangements with anyone else. Nobody ditches me, dammit.”

“You’ll have to make him beg forgiveness next time,” she said, mildly.

He laughed. “Oh I will, don’t worry. He’ll be begging me hard indeed.”

She grinned. She liked hearing tales of Jack’s love life and the adventures he was embracing. It reminded her things had changed since she went away, that they were no longer awkward kids, but were finding themselves and deciding on their lives and moving forward as independent adults.

Well, the guys were. She was still treading water, trying to figure out what came next in life and not ready to face the real world yet.

Jack flopped back with his head against the couch. “Ah well. He’s the one missing out on the best arse fucking of his life, right? I was going to seduce him over hours too.”

“Uh-huh. How do you do that then?”

He gave her a sideways grin. “One finger at time.”

In the back corner of the room, a chair scraped against the floorboards.

“Ugh. Jack, man. Please.” Caleb’s pained groan cut across their humour, long suffering and a little too authentic. “Go easy on the fine detail, huh? Not all of us want too much info, thanks.”

She clucked her tongue, putting her book down at last, because there was no use pretending she was still actually reading it. Looking up over the back of the couch to Caleb at his desk. Blond hair, tall, broad, the shoulders of a fucking god. Caleb had filled out in the four years she’d been away. He’d lost the adolescent scrawniness of their teenage years and grown up into this man she sometimes wasn’t sure she recognised, but who she did find it hard to keep her eyes off.

“Caleb, it’s the twenty-first century,” she said, in exactly the tone of voice she knew provoked him most. “Stop being so fucking homophobic.”

Caleb turned sharp, blue eyes on her, pinning her in his sights in that intense way he had.

“Wow, mouthy much. That’s a nasty presumption, Beth Henderson. You don’t get to waltz back into town after so long away and presume you know what I am,” he said, in exactly the dark, hard tone of voice that provoked her most too. “Someone should teach you to mind your manners.”

She grinned nastily at him. “Nobody’s managed to yet. Deal with it, Caleb.”

He held her stare for several long seconds and she found it impossible to look away. Almost willing him to come back at her. Maybe: I’ll deal with you, all right. Or perhaps: I’ll teach you not to be so fucking mouthy. Or something. Some response in kind.

But after a few hard seconds he turned away with a dismissive roll of the eyes and her shoulders dropped with a sigh.

“I’ll defend to the death the right of my best friend to fuck whomever he wants, in whatever way he wants, whenever and wherever he wants. I am not homophobic,” he said, before giving Jack an apologetic grimace. “But I will admit to carrying around way too much baggage my definitely homophobic dad drilled into me for too many years. Sorry, man. I’ll do better. It’s on me, not you.”

Jack waved that away. “We’ve all got baggage, mate. You stood by me when I came out. No matter what your Dad, or mine, said. I know you’ve got my back.”

Caleb closed his laptop, coming across to the back of the couch and leaning over to clutch hands with Jack. A gesture of solidarity. Friendship. The two men had been friends for longer than anyone Beth knew, their families knowing each other since they were babies and travelling in the same conservative, religious circles both later grew up to reject. While she’d come along in primary school, the new kid in class, seven years old and desperately shy, lonely and frightened. Until Caleb sauntered up, because even at eight years of age he’d had a saunter, and asked if she wanted to sit with him and his friend at lunch.

The three of them had been inseparable ever since.

Well, at least until she’d gone away to uni. When she’d left, Jack was still in the closet and Caleb not entirely out of his family’s pray-the-gay-away church. She’d come back to Jack embracing the gay scene and Caleb taking on anybody who dared voice a word against it, if also struggling to get his own head around his oldest friend’s newly outed proclivities. She respected Caleb for that. For standing by Jack despite his upbringing, for fighting to be better. He slipped sometimes, but he admitted to his own baggage, he fought against it and tried damn hard. She admired him greatly on that score.

Not that she’d ever let him know it. That would spoil their own games.

When Caleb turned from Jack, he leant over the back of the couch towards her, his face only inches away from her own.

“I’m not homophobic,” he told her. “And you need to watch your mouth before it gets you into trouble.”

She smiled as sweetly as she could. “Make me.”

For a dark flash of a breathless moment, she actually thought he might. The way his jaw stiffened, the skin tightening about his eyes. The tension in those shoulders. She waited for him to step up to her throw-away challenge, her ridiculous provocations, this verbal sparring they inevitably, constantly, indulged in, but which never seemed to go anywhere.

But then he exhaled an annoyed breath and pushed himself away with a shake of his head. Her eyes lingered on his back as he disappeared into the kitchen. On those broad shoulders, that strength to him, the way his shirt fit his form so perfectly, his jeans comfortable but close-fitting in kind.

Only after Caleb disappeared out of the room did she turn back around. And found Jack watching her as closely as she’d been watching Caleb.

“One day, you’re going to push him too hard and he’ll push right back,” Jack said.

She sighed. “If only.”

“You ever going to tell him you want him? Because this pulling at his pigtails to get his attention thing is so very high school,” Jack said. “We’re meant to have grown up since those days.”

She opened her book again. Looked down into the pages, at the print swimming before her eyes. Making it very clear she did not want to discuss this, though it was impossible for her to read a word and Jack’s eyes remained tight on her.

“Caleb isn’t interested in me,” she said, staring only at her book. “He made that very clear.”

“Four years ago. When you were about to leave him to go off to university and nobody knew if you’d ever be back.”

“And now he has his life together and a career happening and doesn’t need me swanning back into his world like the confused mess that I am,” she said, in a moment of uncharacteristic honesty. But she’d always been able to talk openly with Jack. It was only Caleb where words of emotional truth dried up. “If you guys hadn’t agreed to let me take the extra room, I’d still be couch surfing, in debt, with no income. Because I know it was Caleb who got me the job in town, don’t try to tell me otherwise. I might not know why, but I know he did that for me.”

“You really don’t know why?” Jack raised his eyebrows at her. “He’d never let you face harm, Beth. We’ve got your back, the both of us. We’re your friends. No way were either of us going to let you come back home to couch surfing and starvation.”

She reached out and took his hand, squeezing his fingers. “Thank you. And thank him for me too, hey? Sure as hell he isn’t going to take any gratitude direct from me,” she said. “Anyway, Caleb’s got his shit together in all the ways I don’t. He doesn’t need me messing up his life any further than I already have.”

Jack clucked his tongue. It sounded almost like a telling off. “You’d be surprised. Caleb likes to sort out messes.”

Footsteps sounded, cutting off the conversation, and she was glad because she didn’t want to talk about this. Burying her head in her book again as Caleb walked back into the living room. He had a couple of beers in his hand and handed one of the green bottles to Jack, clinking his own with it.

She thought about pushing to say where was hers, but Jack’s accusations about her immature approach to needling Caleb were too fresh, so she kept her mouth shut and her eyes on her book.

A green bottle edged her peripheral vision anyway. She looked up. Caleb was holding one out to her.

She reached for it, still self-conscious. “Uh, thanks.”

He jerked it just out of her reach, so her fingers closed on thin air. “Say please, Beth. Mind your words for once, hmmm?”

Her teeth ground together, but she did kind of deserve that. And he undoubtedly expected her to bite back with some new challenge at him, because that’s what they did. Since her return, that’s what she and Caleb always did.

Still, never hurt to keep him on his toes. She cocked her head and looked up at him through her lashes with the widest eyes, biting at her lip and affecting the most contrite expression she could.

“Please, Caleb? I’ll be good, I promise.”

His eyes widened, breath catching. Then he shoved the beer at her and turned away with a low curse and a shake of the head. Only partially hiding his grin though. She clinked bottles triumphantly with Jack.

Caleb threw himself into one of the armchairs, leaning back, and she tried hard to keep her eyes on her book and not on the way his jeans outlined the shape of him so damn well. He really had grown up in the last four years. He had the whole career, social life, healthy food and exercise, adult approach to everything totally handled. Whereas she barely surfaced outside the house except to do her share of shopping or chores, or go to work. The job Caleb found for her, a straightforward retail clock-on, clock-off position with a kind boss and zero stress, which gave her income enough and eased the worry.

The rest of the time she stayed inside and read books, for weeks and weeks now, while the guys moved around her without pressure or judgement. And sometimes, if she’d been living on toast for several days straight, she’d look up to find Caleb had cooked some nutritious meal including actual vegetables for all three of them. Or if she’d spent more than a couple of days inside buried in books, Jack would drag her out to the garden to sit in the sun, where he’d tell her stupid stories about his love life and have her laughing in minutes.

They’d welcomed her back in, gave her a place, then gave her space. It was comfortable here with them. Safe. Just what she needed while she tried to figure herself out. She’d be forever grateful to them for that.

“So,” Caleb said, pulling a face as he looked out the window at the rain. “Jack’s date has ditched him. I can’t go for a run because it’s practically flooding out there. And Beth’s been reading the same page of that book for at least the last half hour.” He turned back to the room. “Anyone want a game?”

She looked up with a frown. “What do you mean, I’m reading the same page?”

“You’ve got it open to page 97 right now. This morning you were reading me passages from page 125,” he said, then grinned. “I do notice details, Beth.”

She screwed up her nose at him, but closed the book, because, well, he was right, and there was no point denying it now. Also, with the book closed he couldn’t prove a thing.

“I’m in,” Jack said. “What game? Strip Monopoly?”

“Ugh, no,” she said, cutting that idea off before it could take hold. “Last time we played that you two ganged up on me.”

Caleb took a sip of his beer, grinning around the bottle. “You like it when we gang up on you, Beth.”

“Yeah, well I’m not playing Monopoly against you two again any time soon. I still can’t find my favourite socks,” she said. “What about cards? Poker. We could play for secrets.”

“Betting secrets is too hard to score. And you always win poker,” Jack said, before a slow smile shifted across his face. Something knowing in it. Something deliberate. “We could go for a good old-fashioned game of Truth or Dare. Just like back in high school.”

Silence. Beth’s gaze shifted unwitting to Caleb, only to find him watching her back. Was he thinking of the same things she was? The same memories. It’d been a long time. Almost five years. Playing Truth or Dare out on Jack’s parents’ back patio, that summer night only a week before she left. With insects buzzing and beer plentiful and the weight of their adolescence, but the future of adulthood, hanging over them all. High school newly over and her scholarship across the country looming.

Tell me your secrets, Beth. The ones you don’t want anyone knowing…

She’d trusted him that night. She’d handed him all the hidden truths about herself, that which most confused her, and terrified her, about who she really was.

Then less than a week later, she was moving away and he was making his suddenly fierce disinterest only too clear.

I’m not who you need in your life, Beth.

They’d only been kids back then.

Not anymore.

“What kind of stakes?” she said into the silence, but had a feeling it was only moments before Caleb would’ve asked himself.

“First one to call Game Over loses,” Jack said. “And the loser makes dinner for everyone tonight.”

Her eyes hadn’t left Caleb’s. Waiting to see what he thought.

“I could play that,” he said, if quietly. “Beth?”

She licked her lips. Her mouth had gone dry, for some reason.

Then she shook her hair back over her shoulder, took a gulp of her beer and gave them a twist of a grin.

“Sure. Let’s play.”

Round One

Jack dug out an empty shoebox from somewhere deep in his cupboards, because Jack had way more pairs of shoes than any sensible human being needed, while she wrote out the options on six small pieces of paper at Caleb’s writing desk.

Truth. Dare. Double-dare. Torture. Kiss. Promise.

She folded them up under Caleb’s supervising eye, because their games always required at least one to witness any definitive action, and put them in the shoe-box. They would play by the old rules, the ones remembered from an adolescence that seemed long ago and just yesterday, all at once. Each taking turns to think up challenges for the other two, who’d pick from the box to determine the type of challenge to be faced.

First one to fail or refuse to meet a challenge would lose the game.

Game Over.

The rain pelted down hard against the windows. They sat in a loose circle on the thick, brown-wool rug before the fire, pushing back the furniture to make space. The shoebox with its six folded bits of paper inside sat between them. Jack piled more logs onto the fire, scoring prime position in front of it in doing so, while Caleb leaned back against one of the armchairs, so she did the same against the couch across from him. Beers in their hands, close warmth inside the room. Friendship she’d always been able to count on, even when she and Caleb were sniping at each other.

They cut cards to see who would go first. Beth scored the round; she’d be the one coming up with the challenges. While Jack picked up the honour of selecting from the box first.

“First round is just a warm up anyway,” Jack said, with an airy wave of the hand. “Nothing to worry about.”

Considering Beth was first up to challenge, he was probably right. She usually needed a warm up to get into the swing of games like this, her opening gambits were inevitably conservative, to the point of downright timid. Jack generally got into games quickly, he was so laid back little ever worried him, and Caleb had a habit of going in hard from the start on just about everything he ever undertook. But Beth couldn’t help but be reticent at first.

Jack pulled a bit of paper from the box, laughing as he read it.

“Not quite opening with the big guns, but it’s getting there,” he said, then showed them the bit of paper.

Kiss.

Beth bit back a groan. Jack was probably more at ease with that than she was, because now she had to come up with some cool opening challenge to give him, and the options were frankly limited.

“Hell, I don’t know,” she said, huffing breath. “This is just a warm up, right? You two are not allowed to hang shit on me for weak challenges in the first round.”

“I’ll hang it on you regardless, Beth, you know that,” Caleb said. “That’s why you like me so much.”

She flashed a dark look his way. “How about I tell Jack to kiss you? Nothing’s stopping me.”

“Consent, my dear. I don’t give it, that’s what’s stopping you.” He crossed his arms, facing her down across the living room rug. “It’s Jack’s turn, not mine. You can’t make me kiss anyone I don’t want to.”

“Shame,” Jack cut in with an overdone sigh.

Caleb smirked. “See? Jack’s been wanting to kiss me for years. That’d be no challenge for him.”

“It’s true,” Jack said. “You’re hot for a straight guy.”

“Fine.” Beth glared at them both. “Jack can kiss me then. And show you what you missed out on four years ago, Caleb Parker.”

It was a low blow and Caleb’s expression tightened for it. He didn’t even try to hide the clenching of his jaw and for a moment she almost regretted saying it. Four years ago they were just kids, eighteen, barely out of high school. Nobody should be held to task forever over decisions made at eighteen.

But she couldn’t help it. She’d trusted him with her deepest, darkest secrets about herself and his response had been to break up with her. I’m not who you need in your life. That still stung, even all these years later.

Jack was happy to play along. “Seems like a good opening move to me. Let’s see if I can play straight for long enough to annoy the fuck out of Caleb. Challenge accepted.”

He pushed forward to crawl across the rug to her. She kept her eyes on Caleb until Jack was right in front of her and even then she was conscious of the dark stare Caleb didn’t let break. He wasn’t happy. Which was kind of the point, though she couldn’t help but wonder at herself for pushing him so hard so early. Jack was right. Sooner or later, Caleb would push back.

Jack put a hand to the side of her face, tipped her chin up with the most gentle of touches and pressed his lips to hers. His mouth was warm, soft, tasting of mint. He kissed her gently. Sweetly. Without passion, but with genuine affection. It wasn’t a brief kiss. He took his time, probably because he was as aware as she was of Caleb watching on, and wasn’t that really the challenge she’d given Jack here? To show Caleb what he’d missed out on when he broke them up?

She did try to push the kiss deeper. If anything, Jack was too giving in his kisses, too caring in his touch, though undoubtedly the young men he usually gave them to didn’t complain. But her yearning was for something other, darker, and Caleb’s eyes were intense upon them, so she put her hands on Jack’s shoulders and pulled him more firmly to her.

Jack let her get so far, but only so far. When she pushed the kiss even further, her tongue in his mouth, he pulled back with an amused glint in his eye.

He winked at her as he sat back in his position on the rug. “Not bad for a gay man, huh?”

“I’ve had considerably worse from straight men and gay women,” she said, with as satisfied a smile as she could conjure, before turning with deliberate innocence to push the shoebox across the circle. “Your turn, isn’t it, Caleb?”

“Subtle, Beth,” Caleb said. Not at all happy. “You don’t need to take these prompts so literally, you know. Kiss doesn’t have to be kissing one or the other person.”

“Don’t worry, Caleb. I might pick kiss myself at some point. You might still get a second chance.”

His eyes narrowed. Something fierce in them. “I’ll make you kiss my feet before this game is out. Just like four years ago. Remember?”

The flush rose up her cheeks, her face heating without her being able to stop it. Four years ago the game had indeed gone there and yes, she did remember, in very fine detail. Kiss my feet. The breathless warmth that challenge, that command, had given her, terrifying in its intensity. Caleb’s eighteen year old eyes, as dark then as now, very certain of what he wanted. Hard demand in his voice and her body responding to it in an instant.

Kneel before me and kiss my feet, girl.

And she’d done it too. Going to her knees slowly before him, bowing her head, lowering her lips to his boots. Consumed by the rush of need which came from being made to do so. His commands, in that tone of voice he used, were something she’d never been able to resist and he’d known that. He’d made her confess it in the very next round.

Tell me your secrets, the ones you don’t want anyone knowing. Did you like being made to kiss my feet? Did you like submitting to me?

Yes.

And then he’d rejected her for it, so screw it, and screw him, that was four years ago, not now.

“You going to choose or not, Caleb?” she said, with a nod to the box. “Because four years was a long time ago.”

He leant forward and pulled out a bit of folded paper, glancing at it without reaction, before handing it to Jack, who lay on his side stretched out before the fire.

“Promise,” Jack read, with a snort. “Lucky bastard.”

“Beth?” Caleb prompted, because it was still her round to choose challenges.

She sat back against the couch and considered. Staring furious into the fire rather than at Caleb, or even at Jack, because the memories of that last game were way too close and so was the hurt which had followed it. Part of her wanted to make Caleb promise to kiss her after all, but after that exchange there was no way she was giving him the satisfaction. So what, then? She could turn it around and make him promise to kiss her feet maybe, like he’d forced her to do four years ago.

But she wasn’t eighteen anymore and her life might be a confused mess, but she’d grown up at least a little in the intervening years. Enough to acknowledge she did not want Caleb at her feet. That was very much the opposite of where she wanted him.

“Well?” Caleb pushed, when she’d been silent too long. “What promise do you want me to make you?”

“Promise me an honest answer,” she said, with a certain calm.

His eyes turned wary. “An honest answer to what?”

“To whether or not what happened the last time we played this, four years ago, is why you broke us up.”

He looked away first. In silence, with a tight expression and a rigid set to his jaw, while the weight of her question hung in the air between them. Jack pushed himself up with an audible exhale, but she didn’t move. She kept her eyes on Caleb and waited for her answer.

“Fuck me, Beth. You’re hitting hard early,” Jack said. “Well done.”

Neither Caleb nor herself responded. The only sounds in the room were the crackle of the fire as a log shifted within it and the rain hard on the windows outside.

“Caleb?” she said, when he still wouldn’t look at her.

“You really want to rake up four year old shit?” he said and took a drink of his beer. “We were kids. You were going away. It was best for both of us.”

“Promise me an honest answer,” she said. Before suddenly shrugging and throwing an arm over the couch behind her, sipping at her own beer as if she didn’t give a shit. “Or call Game Over and go make us dinner. Whatever. Up to you.”

He looked at her with an angry flash in his eyes.

“I am not cooking dinner,” he said. “I promise, if that’s what you want. So you want the answer now, or in another four years?”

“Now, thank you.”

“Then, yes. The stuff in that last game was a large part of why I did it. But not in the way you think.”

It hit her like a slap across her face. “Wow. Okay.” For all she’d just pushed him to confess, it was harder than expected to hear her long-held suspicions confirmed outright like that. To know for certain it was what came out about her in that last game that was why he’d ended things between them. It caught in her chest and hurt way harder than she was ready for.

She raised a hand to her hair, pushing it out of her face. “Thanks for being honest, I guess.” Not daring to look at him, not looking at either of them. Fuck, it even brought the prick of tears to her eyes. No, not now, dammit. Not in front of them. Not in front of him. The last thing she needed was to cry over old shit in front of Caleb now. Bloody hell. So much for being four years over whatever teenage immature thing they’d once had between them.

But a lot had happened in four years and sometimes it seemed like she’d spent the whole time trying to figure out that final game and how it had changed things.

Maybe he saw the distress she tried to hide. Maybe he just knew her too well. He pushed forward, suddenly close, and reached out to take hold of her chin. Moving too fast for her to catch on or try to stop him. He physically forced her head around to face him, making her meet his eyes.

“I said not in the way you think,” he said and sounded so damn firm about it. “I was a kid, Beth. I know I didn’t handle it well. But I promise you I did not break us up because I didn’t like what happened in that last game.” He paused. “You really want an honest answer?”

She nodded, unable to speak. Gasping at the forcible way he moved her. His grip on her chin was hard, unable to be defied, and the proximity of him was close. His face right near her own.

“I broke us up because I liked it too much,” he said. “Way too much. And it scared me.”

He let go of her face. Pulled himself back with a jerk and a shake of his head. “And you were going away.”

“I didn’t have to go away. Caleb, I would have stayed—”

For you.

She cut those words off before they were uttered, because it wouldn’t help now and that was four years ago. He was right. They’d been kids. Teenagers. She’d been offered a place at one of the most celebrated universities in the country on full academic scholarship. He had a journalism cadetship with the local paper starting after the summer. Their high school thing had never been going to last. It would’ve been foolish to think it might.

“No way was I letting you miss out on uni by staying with me,” he said, voice hard as stone. “Anyway, why does this still matter to you? Aren’t you over me yet or something?”

“Egotistical, much. Not everything’s about you, Caleb,” she said, because no way was she answering that question. And it wasn’t her challenge, so she didn’t have to.

She gulped back her beer, finishing the bottle, but couldn’t make herself get up to get another one, if only because she didn’t want it to look like she was trying to escape the room. She was conscious of Jack and Caleb exchanging frowning glances, that her tone must have been more strained than she’d meant it to sound.

“If it’s not about me, then what is it about?” he said.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

Which was exactly the wrong thing to say, because Caleb’s shoulders pulled back, eyes turning alert. Now he knew it was about something, it wasn’t just their usual back-and-forth. Even Jack looked up from where he was lying on the rug before the fire, interest piqued.

“What happened, Beth?” Caleb said and though his voice held that same firm, won’t-be-denied tone typical of him, it felt less like their regular sniping. That verbal sparring he and she usually indulged in, because it was easier than confronting any lingering emotional fallout from four years ago.

He sounded like he was asking with serious intent. And though she still rolled her eyes, leaning back against the couch with a shrug, she felt like telling them. They might know how to make sense of it better than she could, anyway.

“It was nothing, really,” she said, almost apologetically. Staring at the patterns in the wool of the rug beneath her legs. “I made a right fool of myself. Last Spring, a handful of months before I came home. It was stupid.”

“So stupid that more than half a year later it’s still bothering you,” Caleb said. “You need to tell us what happened.”

She looked up with a weak smile. “Promise not to laugh at me and I’ll tell you.”

“I promise,” Jack said, propped up on one elbow by the fire.

But Caleb shook his head. “No. I’ve already made promises to you. You shouldn’t need this one, so I’m not making it,” he said, then paused. “Trust me enough to tell me anyway.”

She bit her lip. Conscious of the crackle of the fire, the rain, the silence inside while they waited for her to say something. It was warm in the room and her clothes were for cold weather; a skirt long and thick, an old jumper over a faded t-shirt. But she couldn’t make herself move to take off any layers. They let her sit quiet for as long as she needed.

“Okay,” she said at last. “And you may as well get a laugh out of it. Good if someone did.” She took a long breath. “I was seeing this guy. Nothing serious. Been on exactly one date with him. He reminded me a bit of you at first, Caleb. Domineering and pushy.”

And charming, and sharply intelligent, and handsome as fuck, and way, way too attractive to her. Just like Caleb. But she didn’t say that out loud.

Caleb rolled his eyes at the crack, waving her on with a get-on-with-it gesture of the hand.

“But he wasn’t like you really. This guy could dish it out, but he certainly couldn’t take it,” she said. “You’re at least happy to cop back what you throw out there. Not him.”

“Bit fragile, was he?” Caleb said, dry and ostensibly unamused, but she had a sense he was pleased.

“You could say that.” She brought her beer bottle to her lips, before remembering it was empty and letting it drop again. “I got really drunk one night and he came over unexpectedly. Somehow I ended up telling him about our games. That last game.” She winced, almost apologetically. “I never told anyone about that stuff. Never. But maybe because he reminded me of you, Caleb, and I was so drunk and lonely, and I told him about the…” Kneel before me and kiss my feet, girl. “You know.”

Jack snorted. Lying back and listening, maybe waiting for her story to build to the promised punchline. She had told them they would laugh. She hoped they would laugh. She wasn’t sure how she’d deal with it if they didn’t find it funny.

“What did he say to that?” Caleb said.

“Oh, his eyes lit right up. He told me he knew what I’d like, then started going on about consensual non-consent. And, uh…” She hesitated on that part, biting her lip. “Well, to cut a long story short, I broke his nose.”

Jack almost choked on his beer, spluttering laughter over by the fire. “You what? Holy fuck, Beth.”

At least one of them laughed, because Caleb said nothing. His expression remained serious.

“It was an accident!” she said, protesting Jack’s humour, if half-laughing herself. It was easier to laugh. “I was drunk. He came at me without warning. I panicked. I lashed out.” She put her head in her hands, because this was embarrassing as fuck. “Kicked his face without meaning to and broke his nose. Not my finest hour, I’ll admit. Breaking some guy’s nose in a bedroom game gone wrong. Fucking hopeless, right?”

Silence met that, no laughter at all now. Jack pushed himself upright, suddenly as serious as Caleb, who himself had gone very still. Both of them staring at her. She’d hoped they might find the story amusing. A joke at her expense willingly told, because if she couldn’t share her embarrassments with these two, she couldn’t share them with anybody.

And it needed to be an embarrassment. It needed to be a joke. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it otherwise.

“Come on, guys. It was just one of my standard fuck ups. I’ve got plenty of them. I told you my life is a mess,” she said. “There are reasons I’m single. Safest for everyone, obviously.”

“Your long story short skipped over an awful lot of detail,” Caleb said, an unevenness to his tone decidedly uncharacteristic of him. “What was your trigger to end the game? The consensual non-con? Because I’m presuming nose breaking wasn’t it.”

“What do you mean, trigger?”

His expression tightened. “Safe word. Or similar. What did you agree to use?”

“Oh.” She picked at the wool of the rug. “There wasn’t anything like that. It wasn’t discussed and it’s not like I’ve done anything of the kind before. I just got drunk and said too much about games back home and next thing I know he was on top of me.” She swallowed, very firmly not looking up at either of them. “Forcing me down. There wasn’t any discussion about anything, he just… well. Grabbed me, dragged me to the floor. You know. I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know what to do.”

Caleb was up on his knees in an instant, eyes wide and aghast. He looked shocked. Horrified.

Furious.

“You mean that fuck pulled you into a game of non-con without a safe word?” Caleb said and she jerked back at the force of his tone. “Without discussing the parameters? That’s not a game, Beth. That’s…that’s…” His jaw clenched. “That’s not fucking consensual. That’s fucking assault. I will fucking kill him.”

Jack took hold of Caleb’s arm, dragging him back, maybe to remind him anger wasn’t going to help now.

“Sweetheart, what that guy did was wrong. All the ways wrong,” Jack said. “Were you okay? Are you okay? You should have called, told us. We could’ve been there. We could’ve looked after you.”

“I’m fine, you can both calm down,” she said, voice tight. “He was the one who copped a broken nose.” She shrugged, a hard, jerking movement. “He called a few times after, tried to explain he only meant it as a game. I told him to stay away.”

Caleb’s fists were clenched, those writer’s hands more comfortable with putting words on a page than with fighting. Yet he’d taken up boxing training in the last few years, so maybe he could do that too. He certainly had the well-defined arm muscles for it.

“If he ever, ever, tries to contact you again, you tell me,” Caleb said. “You tell me, Beth. I will not have him near you again. Nobody does that to you. Nobody. Understand?”

She didn’t know what to say, the words evaporating in her throat, so she just sat there, breathless in the face of his intensity. He was so much more angry about it than she was. It wasn’t that big a deal really. Yeah, the guy had been a prick, but she wasn’t defenceless and she wasn’t stupid and he was the one to have his nose broken.

It hadn’t even been the reason she’d come home. Well, not that alone. She’d finished her undergraduate studies and yes there’d been some nice offers of post-graduate scholarships on offer, even a Doctoral candidature if she’d wanted it. Graduate studies had always been the plan. But after breaking that guy’s nose and her rapidly collapsing personal life after, she had no idea who she was anymore or what she really wanted. She certainly wasn’t able to make decisions about any real future.

She’d needed to take time out, re-evaluate. So here she was. Come running back home, tail between her legs.

Caleb was so serious. Full of fury on her behalf. It took her breath away, the force of him like that.

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Leave her be, Caleb,” Jack said. “She managed the fucker alright. She did break his nose. She doesn’t need you playing hero now, months after the fact.”

Caleb looked away, jaw still clenched, but with a reluctant nod of acknowledgement. Still not mollified, still seething, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do now.

Jack looked from him to her and back again. “Right, intensity break. We all need another beer.”

He jumped up to go get them, leaving her alone with Caleb, but still not sure what to say. How to say it. Thank you. I was fine, but…thank you anyway. For worrying. For caring.

The words wouldn’t come.

“I wish you’d told us you went through something like that,” he said, staring at the fire and not her. “I wish you’d told me.”

“Caleb, you were thousands of kilometres away. I didn’t want to worry you. It’s okay. I’m okay. Nothing so horrendous happened in the end.”

He looked down at his hands. “I wish you’d been able to tell me. If I’d been around it wouldn’t have happened, if I’d—” He stopped. Shook his head. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”

He was still so angry. But not with her and she felt calmer for having finally told him. Maybe he was right, maybe she should’ve said something earlier, called them when it happened. Asked for their support, because she’d needed it at the time. The incident had left her confused and upset and unable to process what had happened. All she’d wanted to do was shove it out of her mind, then make light of it, make it a joke.

Only Caleb in defender mode told her it wasn’t a joke and it wasn’t her fault either and that eased the discomfort in her chest. He didn’t get angry at her, or laugh at her. Caleb’s anger was entirely placed on the guy who’d tried to attack her. And also maybe on himself, for not being there.

Jack returned with the beer and she gladly accepted hers. She hadn’t meant the story to be so dramatic. All she’d wanted to do was explain why she’d asked Caleb for that particular promise. Why his reaction to their game four years ago still meant something to her. Because that game still meant something to her. It was the only time she’d ever confessed to anyone that she might harbour certain unpalatable desires, dark needs she couldn’t explain, not even to herself. Caleb was the only one to have ever drawn those truths out of her. Except for the one other time that ended in a guy’s broken nose.

She gulped the beer. When Jack sat back down, he pushed the shoebox her way.

“Right, your turn Beth,” he said.

Caleb turned to look at her, that dark expression still on his face. “And mine to choose the challenge.”

Her head shot up. Oh. In all her intense questioning of Caleb’s motives for rejecting her four years ago, and her own subsequent stupid story, she’d forgotten about that.

It was her turn to choose next.

And Caleb’s to challenge.

She pulled a paper out of the box and swallowed hard before looking at it.

“Truth,” she said, mouth dry.

Caleb’s grin surfaced. “Excellent. This is going to be fun.”

Round Two

Truth.

It wasn’t just a single question, not the way they played. With their rules it could become a full-scale interrogation and Beth had faced Caleb’s interrogations before. Four years ago perhaps, but she never had been able to stand up to them.

Last time, she hadn’t really wanted to.

She wasn’t so sure about now.

The room suddenly felt way too warm. Maybe it was the fire. Maybe the beer. She dragged off her old jumper, leaving her in only the neglected t-shirt and ancient skirt with the torn hem; her slum-about-the-house clothes. The same kind of thing she’d been wearing for weeks now. She looked like crap, but at least she was comfortable and the guys never seemed concerned. Caleb, of course, always looked exceptional, even in old clothes. And Jack was one of the most fashion-conscious, best dressed people she knew.

“Jack, you need to arbitrate this. Properly,” she said, though she looked at Caleb. “Make sure it’s fair.”

Jack snorted, making himself comfortable in front of the fire, as if ready to enjoy the show.

“Yeah, because fair is how we always play, right?” he said, then reached over to high-five Caleb. Typical.

Caleb considered her with an anticipatory expression. Something she might even have described as predatory.

She wished she didn’t find him so hot when he looked at her like that.

“Four years ago our game was stopped right when it was getting interesting,” he said. And so it had been, Jack’s parents coming home right when the intensity was ramping up in ways it never had before.

She sipped her beer. “Now who’s trying to rake up four year old shit?”

“I dared you four years ago to kiss my feet,” he said. “And I know you remember it.”

All too well. The whole night was crystal in her memory, that summer evening too warm, out back of Jack’s parent’s place with too many empty beer bottles in the recycling already. Caleb, eighteen, hot as fuck, pushing the game up a notch like he always did.

Kneel before me and kiss my feet, girl.

That command. That dare. Twisting nerves in her gut at the dangerous demand in his voice, a desperate warmth going straight to the sex of her with it. It was the sort of dare she should refuse, or laugh at, or throw back in his face. Not take seriously. It wasn’t the sort of thing she should want.

It wasn’t the sort of command she should desperately wish to obey, right then, right there, in front of Jack and all.

Only the game had given them licence. Caleb to order it. She to do it. She’d been barely eighteen. She’d hardly known what sex was yet, awkward fumbles about all she’d ever done. But something in the determined command Caleb had given her yanked every hidden desire from out of her core and displayed it openly, for him, for them all, and the game, it had been the game.

And that’s all it had taken for her to go to her knees before him. To bow her head and lower her lips to his boots. To acknowledge all too easily the power she wanted him to take, that she wanted him to be, and if he’d told her in that moment to stay down, she would have done so without question. She would’ve done anything he told her to do. Kiss him, beg him. Undress for him. More. Anything. No matter that Jack watched on, no matter how wrong any of it was. She’d have obeyed him in every way, craving his orders. Wanting his commands.

She’d wanted him so badly.

Then Jack’s parents had come home early.

“I remember,” she said, drinking her beer and not meeting his eyes.

“So you remember what came next, too?”

Tell me your secrets.

She swallowed hard. “You asked me if I liked it when you made me submit.”

“And what did you say?”

She shrugged, conscious of Jack watching with sharp eyes from where he lay back in front of the fire. Just as he had watched back then.

“I said yes. That I liked it. I liked you making me kneel.” She tried to keep her breathing even. “When you forced me to give in to you. We all know all this Caleb. We were all there.” She paused, before forcing herself on. “What I want to know is if you liked it too?”

He didn’t shift, though this was his interrogation of her, not the other way around.

“I’ve already told you I did,” he said. “Too much.”

She turned to meet his stare head-on. “Pity you broke us up, then, hey?”

Caleb jerked back, even as Jack burst into laughter, loud and raucous. Falling back by the fire and slow-clapping.

“Oh fuck. Burn. That’s gotta hurt, man,” Jack said. “Nice turnabout, Beth.”

Caleb glared. “Shut up, Jack.” He turned the dark look onto her. “It’s my turn to ask questions and hers to answer. So tell me, Beth. What else do you like?”

She drank her beer and wouldn’t meet his eyes. She should have known—had known—that he’d hit back at her all the harder for the crack about breaking them up. Which made her wonder, vaguely, why she did it, pushed him so, poking and prodding for reaction. Maybe it was just habit. Maybe.

Caleb wasn’t going to let her off lightly now.

“Beth?” Caleb said, as her silence grew. “I asked you what else you like?”

“Rainbows and ice-cream and cute fucking puppies.”

“You owe me truth. That is not the truth,” he said and she flinched, she couldn’t help it. “You liked it four years ago. I want to know if you still like it now. What else of that kind of thing you like. Tell me your fantasies, Beth. I want to know the desires in your head.”

Oh god. Of course he’d choose to press her on this, especially after she’d thrown that breaking-up line at him. Demanding truths, revelations from her. But what could she say? She didn’t know how to talk about it. She didn’t have the words.

It wasn’t that she wanted to refuse, the game had barely begun and a few home truths, a handful of sexual fantasies admitted to, was hardly something to walk away from. But for four years she’d tried desperately not to even think about this, let alone sort out what she thought or wanted inside her own head. She’d certainly never discussed it with a single soul. Well, except when she got drunk and broke a guy’s nose.

For four years she’d tried to run away from this. Now Caleb would make her face it and she didn’t know how to answer him.

“I…I liked what you made me do in that last game,” she said, repeating the same stuff they already knew, because she had to say something and wasn’t sure where else to start.

“We’re already aware of that. I’m asking for more,” Caleb said, sharply.

She raised her hands in a confused gesture.

“I don’t know how to say it beyond that, Caleb,” she said. Admitted. A confession that felt significant and her shoulders dropped with it. “I’m not trying to be obtuse, I promise. I just don’t know. I don’t have the words. I can barely understand it inside my own head, let alone articulate it out loud.”

She stared at the thick brown wool of the rug on which they sat. Running her fingers through its swirls and not looking up at either of them, though she was conscious of them exchanging a look between themselves.

“Okay,” Caleb said at last. “You like to be dominated. With a caring hand or a rough one?”

“Caleb, I don’t know about this…”

“I asked you a fucking question. Answer me,” he cut in fiercely, in a sudden commanding voice, and her breath practically stopped in her throat. His tone was so forceful she wasn’t sure how to resist it.

Nor did she want to.

“Rough,” she said, voice low. She risked looking up at him, an unsure raising of her gaze to his, and then couldn’t look away.

“You like to be forced?”

Her face burned red. She hated the feel of it. But he stared directly at her with those dark eyes and she couldn’t look down. She was caught in his sights.

“Yes.” A breath of a word.

His head cocked, as if considering his next question. Or working her out. “You like to fight?”

“I…I like to lose the fight. I like…I think I like to be overpowered.” She shook her head in confusion at her own self. A nauseous swirl was in her gut to be saying this out loud, yet it was met by a more insistent need to answer his questions. He had asked. She must answer. “Or, maybe, I think, for someone else to take power? To have control. Over me. Maybe?”

“What about pain?”

She covered her face in her hands. “Oh fuck, I don’t know. How would I know? It’s not like I want to be like this. I wish with every fucking bone in my body that I wasn’t.”

That was met by silence and she wasn’t sure why, because that seemed the least confronting thing she’d said so far. Of all he’d made her confess here, that was what stopped him? She was aware of the guys exchanging yet another look, communication without words, clearly about her. She’d got used to that over the last few weeks, the way they worked between themselves to look after her while she sorted herself out. And she really needed to sort herself out.

After a moment, Caleb said, “have you experimented with any of this? What have you tried?”

She took a drink of her beer, gulping it down. The details of the fantasies in her head were too hard to talk about. But since that last game she’d not been able to deny they existed. Sometimes she still thought about that night four years ago when lying alone in bed, her own hands reaching for herself, Caleb inevitably on her mind.

To talk about this, out loud, was excruciating. But she’d pulled truth from the shoebox. These were the truths he insisted upon. She wasn’t going to resist that.

“For a while I found a few websites, read a few stories,” she said, because at least it was something. “I—”

“Yes, we’re all very grateful for internet porn,” Caleb said. But somehow, that firm, take-no-refusal tone he turned on made it easier for her to talk about it, if only because he gave her no other option. “I asked what you’ve done, not what you’ve seen or read.”

“Nothing. Okay?” The admission came out of her like a confession of the most depraved sort. “I’m very dull and boring. I had only a few short-lived flings while I was away and none of them were with anyone I could talk to, let alone admit this stuff.” She gulped back more beer. “There were only two people I ever said anything even vaguely about it to and one of them was Broken Nose Guy. Look how that turned out.”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “So who was the other?”

“Oh, just a woman I dated a few times. I told her about the nose incident, which meant I had to explain about the games stuff first,” she said, running a hand through her hair. “She, uh, didn’t approve.”

“What do you mean, she didn’t approve?”

She tried to drink her beer, but found the bottle empty. The guys were only half way through their current bottles, which meant she’d really gulped hers down. Not that the liquid courage was working right now.

“This isn’t an exciting story,” she said to the empty bottle. “Seriously. No weird sexual fantasies or anything in this. It’s just a bit sad, really.”

“Answer my question, Beth.”

She sighed and gave in.

“She didn’t think I should want that kind of thing. The being dominated thing,” she said. “She said I was weak and manipulated into wanting it. Like I didn’t know any better, was brainwashed by the patriarchy or some shit.” She uttered a rueful, soft laugh that didn’t have much to do with humour. “She used to say that as a feminist she could never condone such things. Like policing other women is any kind of feminism. It was still better than when decided I must’ve been abused as a kid.”

“She what?” Jack burst that out.

“She decided I had to be hiding some kind of past trauma as the root cause of my so-called errant fetishes,” she said, waving a hand as if to wipe it away. “When I said no, there was nothing like that, I had a really happy childhood, she got angry. Told me I was self-hating, that I couldn’t value myself. That I was screwed up and needed to see a psychologist.” She tried to smile, to make light of it, but couldn’t quite manage the expression. “According to her, I need therapy and a lot of it, because something is very wrong with me.”

Which had been what finally broke them up, because not even Beth could countenance staying with someone who thought of her as broken. But it had taken time to get to that point and she knew it made her look foolish for letting it go on even so long as she had. It was hard to explain what hearing those things over and over again by someone who professed to care had done to her confidence. That relationship, short lived as it was, had given her a blow far harder than the stupid nose guy ever had.

Caleb stared with his mouth slightly open, jaw stiff, an expression she might have taken as shock except this was hardly the most shocking thing she’d said. This was boring stupid relationship stuff she inevitably screwed up. He didn’t say anything, which was unlike him for he could always find the words he wanted, and she could almost see the fight behind his eyes, tension in his muscles as he tried to figure out what to say. Maybe deciding between swearing fury or offering sympathy.

She hoped he’d settle on the former. Caleb angry over a righteous cause was comforting. He was a man who stood up for what he believed in and she’d always been able to rely on that.

His pity was the last thing she wanted.

Jack pushed himself upright. “Holy crap, Beth, that’s awful. You’ve been through some terrible shit. I hope you told her to fuck off.”

“Yeah, totally. Well, eventually. It took me too long to figure out she was as bad for me as broken nose guy, but I got there in the end.” She tried to smile. “I told you guys I’d messed myself up while I was away.”

Caleb’s jaw tightened. “No. That’s not on you. None of that is on you. Don’t take responsibility for someone else’s toxicity,” he said and the fury in his tone was strangely consoling. “Never let anyone tell you your desires are wrong, Beth. Never let anyone tell you what you feel is wrong, or that you are wrong. Ever. There is nothing wrong with you. Understand?”

She bit her lip, nodding. Buffeted by the force of his words.

“I do understand that, I promise. I don’t believe women should police other women’s desires. I told her to fuck right off. Just probably not as fast as I should have,” she said. “But after her, and nose guy right before her, my confidence was shot. I had no idea who I was anymore. That’s when I came home. I needed to be some place people understood me. For four years nobody had.”

Without a further word, Jack pushed himself to his knees and crawled across to her. Threw his arms around her tight and held her in a warm, caring, and most of all safe, embrace. Which made her eyes burn with the threat of tears. Four years of running, of bad relationships, of never feeling understood, of never being able to understand herself. Four years of not knowing how to deny the fantasies in her head, but not knowing how to deal with them either.

When Jack pulled back, he put both his hands to either side of her face.

“We’ve got you,” he said. “You’re home now and we’ve got you.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

He kissed her forehead, as Jack was wont to do when he was in paternal mode. She’d seen him do it to Caleb more than once too, which Caleb seemed to tolerate with long-suffering forbearance and the occasional roll of the eyes, because it was Jack, and that was just what Jack did. And both of them would give Jack his way if it made the man happy.

Jack sat back and pointed at Caleb. “You bombed out on trying to solicit any salacious detail about our Beth’s sex life these last four years, Caleb,” he said, and she knew he was deliberately trying to lighten the mood, turn it back onto Caleb to make her feel better. She appreciated the effort, despite its obviousness. “Expect she’d have more detail to tell you, did you?”

Caleb drank his beer and shrugged.

“She’s got plenty to tell. I just need to ask better questions. I’ll know better next round.” He smiled at her. “I’ll get you yet, Beth Henderson.”

She laughed, strangely relieved. “You wish, Caleb Parker. Now it’s Jack’s turn, I think.”

They settled themselves back again. Jack pushed more logs into the fireplace, having made himself unofficial keeper of the fire, before reaching over to the shoebox sitting on the rug between them.

He pulled out a bit of paper and read what was on it. His face fell when he did.

“Ah, fuck. Dare.”

Jack threw the paper to Caleb by way of proof, as if any of them would lie about copping dare. Caleb held it up so she could see it too.

“The locked case in your room,” Caleb said, with zero hesitation. “I dare you to drag it out here and show us what you keep in it.”

“Caleb, come on, man. Don’t be an idiot.”

“I dare you, Jack.”

Jack ran a hand through his hair. “Seriously? You’re going to push this one? Beth’s not up to this right now.”

“Beth can take it. She’s stronger than you and me both,” he said. “Go get the case, Jack. Or call Game Over if you really object.”

Jack waved that away. “Fuck. Fuck it. It’s just a case full of sex toys, you know.”

“If it were just sex toys you wouldn’t keep it locked.”

“In this house? I so would. You two would steal them otherwise.”

But he got up to go get the box, dragging his feet and pulling faces the whole way. Caleb sat back with some satisfaction when Jack returned dragging a wooden black box with a thick lock, dumping it in the centre between them all.

Caleb nodded to it and Jack huffed a breath, giving the other man a dour look, before unlocking it and throwing it open.

“See. Sex toys,” Jack said.

And so there were. Beth’s mouth dropped open as she sat forward to stare at the plastic and latex bits and pieces, bubbling out laughter at the comprehensive range of fun Jack kept locked away. There were dildos and butt plugs, at least three pairs of handcuffs, bright red soft rope, and some leather things she had no idea what they even were, though they certainly looked interesting.

“Holy crap, I don’t even know what this is for,” she said, pulling out a string of hard metal rings.

Jack smirked. “Cock cage, sweetheart. You really do need to get out more.”

“Like I’d ever have needed one of those,” she said, smiling. “I like your selection, Jack. Puts my couple of vibes to shame.”

“Before you start plotting to steal my toys, you should know Caleb’s collection is even more impressive.” Jack looked across to where Caleb sat drinking his beer, having not even tried to look at what was in the box. “Only his has more leather, whips and chains in it, not to mention a few darker implements I won’t scare you by naming.”

Caleb shrugged. “One of us had to experiment these last few years and not just lurch from one bad relationship to the next.”

She gave him a dour look. That was a low blow. Admittedly, she’d thrown a few at him, and the crack about breaking them up had been a particularly nasty one, so he probably deserved the revenge.

Jack whacked Caleb on the shoulder for it though. “Play nice.”

“Beth doesn’t like me playing nice.”

“Hmm.” Jack turned to Beth. “Just to even the playing field a bit, you know he’s not got into any relationship since you left, right? He’s fucked about for four years, but won’t commit to anyone. Won’t get close to anyone. Runs a fucking mile as soon as anyone even suggests the words emotional attachment.”

Caleb gave him an unamused look. “Thanks for that, Jack.” Which only made Jack chuckle low and wink at Beth. Something felt lighter in her chest, knowing Caleb also had lingering issues following their parting four years previous.

She poked through the toy box a bit longer, laughing about each item with Jack, while Caleb watched on and didn’t even try to look in the chest. The box he’d dared Jack to open up, even when told it was only sex toys. After she’d been laughing for at least five minutes, she glanced to Caleb and found him watching her with mild eyes. Leaning back and drinking his beer. Why? Why had he dared Jack to unlock this? It couldn’t have just been to show her some sex toys, because she was pretty sure Jack would’ve happily shown her any time she asked. That was no dare.

“It’s got a false bottom,” Caleb said, with a nod to the box. But he didn’t attempt to reach in or show her. He let her look down inside it herself, then press the bottom beneath all the sex toys, and yes, there was a click, and something shifted.

Jack went quiet, but didn’t try to stop her. She lifted the bottom of the box, shifting aside dildos and handcuffs and blindfolds as she did, and found a thin space beneath. An envelope lay in there.

She took it out. It was addressed to Jack.

“Say Game Over and I’ll call it, Jack,” Caleb said quietly, still not moving from where he sat. “But I think you should let her know.”

Jack exhaled a long breath. “I’m not cooking dinner,” he said and nodded his okay at Beth to go ahead.

Inside the envelope was a letter. Handwritten. Dated about two years ago. An unusual enough artefact in this age of email, even if it wasn’t kept hidden beneath a false bottom in a box filled with sex toys.

She opened the letter. It was short, only one page.

It opened with the salutation: To my lost son, who’s memory I will always love.

It closed with a farewell: You are no longer welcome to contact your mother, your brothers or myself. We hope you enjoy your chosen life, but you are no longer part of this family. Goodbye.

She read it in silence, tears streaming down her cheeks she made no attempt to hide.

“Oh. Oh Jack.” She put a hand to her mouth at the horror of it. “I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Jack reached over to take her other hand in his. “It is what it is.”

Two years previous, when Jack had come out. It wasn’t even an angry letter. If anything, it was loving in tone. Jack’s father had written to wish him well for his life, to tell him that he still loved him and always would. But that Jack was never to be part of the family again.

She dropped the letter into the box and threw her arms around Jack. Held him tight, squeezing shut her own eyes because she couldn’t help the tears, it was too awful. She’d known two years ago that his coming out hadn’t gone well with his family; there’d been a couple of nights when she’d spent hours talking to him on the phone in the middle of it all, feeling like she should come home, to be there for him. But he’d convinced her not to, that he was okay.

She hadn’t known about the letter. She hadn’t known just how irrevocable the parting of Jack from his family had been

“I should have been here,” she said. “I wish I had been here. You needed me. I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t here.”

“You were off getting educated. Which was exactly where you should’ve been,” Jack said. “I made Caleb promise not to tell you about the letter. I didn’t want you rushing home just for me.”

She pulled back, holding him by the shoulders. “Oh, Jack.” They’d spent hours on the phone over the last four years, chatting online or video calls. Maybe in the first year she and Caleb had avoided talking to each other, but Jack had pulled them into group conversations regardless and found all sorts of ways to get them on the line together. Their breakup might’ve felt brutal, but they were still friends, they always had been and they always would be, all three of them.

How had they talked so much, without talking of the right things? How had they all desperately wanted to be there for each other, but had failed to be anywhere close?

Jack raised a hand to her face. “Don’t fret about me. Caleb had my back, he got me through. You were alone facing your shit.” He pushed the hair back from her face with a gentle touch. “But we’re all here now. Back together. That’s what matters. Okay, sweetheart?”

“Okay, Jack.”

He took the letter and put it back in its envelope. Slipped the envelope back into the bottom of the box, then put the false bottom back into place. Hidden by toys designed for fun, for pleasure, for sex, for games. Distractions to stop anyone, maybe even himself, ever getting to the bottom of the box.

She wiped her eyes. Then she wiped his. He laughed with rue and kissed her forehead.

“Fuck it. This game has got way too intense. Surely we need another beer.”

“I’ll get it. But only one more,” Caleb said, pushing himself up, perhaps so they didn’t have to. She still leant against Jack, holding his hand. “I’m not letting us play this game drunk.”

Which was a shame, because getting drunk seemed a welcome prospect right now. But Jack nodded, “yeah, good call,” and Caleb went to get the beer. When he returned and handed Jack’s to him, he also reached down to the other man’s shoulder and squeezed. That was all. Caleb wasn’t one to talk about emotional issues, he never had been. But his actions spoke volumes.

Jack pushed his box of sex toys to the side and they sat back, beers in hand.

“Right, my turn,” Caleb said, reaching forward to pick a slip of paper from the shoebox. “Time to ramp things up a bit, what do you say?”

He opened the paper and jerked back.

“Fuck,” he said, then showed them what was written on the paper. “Torture.”

Jack laughed. He laughed hard. Throwing his head back as if that was the funniest thing he’d heard all afternoon.

“This game had got way too touchy-feely anyway,” Jack said. Then he reached into the box of sex toys beside him on the floor, pulled out a butt plug and threw it at Caleb.

“Enjoy, my friend.”

Caleb caught the plug, then sat staring at it in stunned, open-mouthed silence, the look on his face something akin to outright horror.

Round Three

“No.”

Caleb finally managed to say something, even if it was only a single word and it sounded strangled, like he had to force it out from between his teeth.

“I get to challenge,” Jack said, still stifling laughter. “It’s torture, Caleb. I’m actually going light on you here. I’ve got much bigger ones in the case, you know.”

“No way, Jack. This is beyond the pale.”

Jack curled up in hysterics. “I love the way your language gets all formal when you’re stressed. You’re such a fucking writer.”

Beth watched the men with her own mouth hanging open. That the game had lurched to such a sudden place wasn’t that much of a surprise; sooner or later, with the three of them, this game had always been going to go there. Probably why Caleb was so insistent on them not getting drunk if they were to play.

But that Jack was the one to turn first, spin the first betrayal, and of Caleb, that was a shock.

Caleb’s frantic gaze turned to her. “Will you tell him this is ridiculous?” he said. In his hands, he still clutched the squat rubber object causing him such consternation. “Back me up here, Beth.”

She opened her mouth to at least offer some kind of protest to Jack, but stopped before finding the words. This was a game about alliances, making them, breaking them, and using them to come out on top. Jack might have stunned Caleb by ramping up the challenges to the next level, or perhaps the next three levels, and it was pretty unfair. Caleb had used his dare to Jack to help him, to do what he thought best for his friend, letting Beth know of the traumas in Jack’s history that he hadn’t been able to tell her himself.

She could back Caleb up. She probably should back Caleb up.

But she was as adept at games as they were.

She bit her lip. “Sorry Caleb. You want to go easy on the torture, you’re playing with the wrong people. I’m siding with Jack on this one.”

“Damn you, Beth Henderson. I will so get you for this.”

“If you don’t want to do it, you can always call Game Over.”

His jaw clenched. For a moment she thought he might even do that. Despite her earlier needling, Caleb wasn’t actually homophobic, and he’d fought for his best friend’s rights to the point of severely straining his own family relations, for his parents were as conservative as Jack’s. But he did have an acknowledged unease over certain sexual practices he’d never quite been able to lose, all that baggage drilled into him by his arsehole Dad. Jack was more forgiving about it than she usually was, though she did admire how hard Caleb worked to overcome the prejudices of his upbringing. Jack’s coming out hadn’t surprised her, but it had surprised Caleb. And yet he’d never once wavered in his support, not from the first moment Jack told him, even if he hadn’t quite been able to square his own comfort levels with the finer details of his best friend’s sex life.

Caleb was also proud as fuck and no way would he want to lose this game. Especially not after Jack turned on him so unexpectedly.

“I am not cooking dinner,” he said, with furious intent. Glaring hard at Jack. “This is a betrayal, friend. There will be consequences.”

Jack grinned. “You’re the one who wanted to ramp the game up a bit. We were all getting too emotional really.”

Caleb exhaled hard and looked down to the butt plug with wide eyes, as if he still wasn’t quite sure to believe it. It wasn’t a particularly big one, at least not by the standards of the internet porn Beth occasionally surfed and which she’d already been forced to admit was about as adventurous as she’d ever really got with her sex life. She knew what a butt plug was, but she hadn’t actually seen one outside of certain online videos before.

“You’ll need lube,” Jack said, taking a sip of his beer.

Caleb’s teeth clenched. “I am not doing this here in front of the two of you. I won’t put this in with an audience.”

“You have to,” Beth said, enjoying the moment. “Rules of the game, proof must be provided. That means witnesses.” She laughed. This was going to be fun. “Come on, Caleb. Give us a show.”

“You watch yourself, Beth.” He pointed a finger at her. “I’m coming for you.”

“Promises, promises.”

He turned to Jack. “It’s your challenge to make. You want a witness?” he said and Jack nodded. “Fine. You. But not her. I’ll do it in the bathroom, you can witness as proof it’s done. But I won’t in front of Beth.”

Jack considered. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go with that.”

Beth turned with open-mouthed protest. “What? No fair, Jack. I want to see too.”

“Sorry Beth. I gotta give him that much.” Jack pushed himself up to standing. “I am forcing a sexually dominant hetero man with way too much baggage about anal sex into wearing a butt plug. Gotta leave the guy some dignity. Or else what more will I have to strip off him later?”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” she said, with grin. “But point taken.”

Jack jerked his head at Caleb. “Come on then, friend. Let’s go get that plug inside you. And don’t complain. I could’ve picked the cock cage.”

Caleb’s eyes closed momentarily, his every muscle tense. He looked vaguely sick. But he gave a short nod and pushed himself up, clutching the plug in his hand. He didn’t look at her, not even anywhere near her. He stared furiously ahead and stalked out of the room with jerking limbs, Jack following behind with more laughter.

It wasn’t real torture. Not really, not in a pain sense. Surely. Like, it would probably hurt at first, wouldn’t it? But then he’d get used it. Wouldn’t he? She only knew from what she’d read and seen online, she didn’t have any practical knowledge, but it wasn’t that big a butt plug so far as she could tell and Jack knew what he was doing. Jack adored Caleb as much as she did. Caleb would be safe with him.

Probably.

She grinned as she waited, drinking her beer. Unable not to think about what was happening in the bathroom, picturing images in her head. Part of her was genuinely frustrated she was not getting to see it, but part of her was okay with that too. It was the perfect choice of torture for Caleb, hitting psychologically as much as physically, right where he was least confident or sure of himself. And Jack was as dominant as Caleb was, he’d enjoy making Caleb do that.

Her preferences were different. If she enjoyed seeing Caleb brought down a peg or two, it was only because she knew he’d come back all the harder from it.

When the boys finally walked back into the living room, Caleb didn’t look at her. His cheeks were flushed, his expression held very still. When he sat, it was with an awkwardness he couldn’t quite hide, though he obviously tried to. He picked up his beer and gulped down several large gulps.

Jack sauntered back into the room grinning ear-to-ear.

“Done,” Jack declared.

She grinned around her beer. “What’s it feel like, Caleb? Does it get you excited?”

“Shut up, Beth.”

She laughed. “So much for the writer’s formality with words.”

Jack plonked himself back on the rug, in his place by the fire. “He took it. Didn’t complain. It was a good size for him, really.”

“If you two are quite finished,” Caleb said, through clenched teeth. Still gulping back beer. “My challenge is done. Let’s move on. Beth, your turn.”

He didn’t even throw in a threat, which showed more than anything just how disconcerted he was. He pushed the shoebox her way. She was rather glad he wasn’t going to be choosing her challenge this round.

Mind you, with the way Jack turned on Caleb, she might not be any safer with him.

She reached for a piece of paper. “Oh. Um.” She showed it to them. “Kiss.”

Caleb smirked, but it was Jack she looked to. It was Jack’s round to pick challenges. Jack, who one might ordinarily think would be kinder, except Jack worked too strategically and had already shown himself quite willing to betray when it suited him.

“I’ve got an idea you could pick, Jack,” Caleb said, still with an undercurrent of anger, and held out his foot towards her.

She crossed her arms. “I’m not bowing down to you, Caleb. You’re not getting inside my head and I’m not giving you what you want. You can’t command me,” she said. “It’s Jack’s choice, not yours.”

“By the time I’m done with you, Beth, you won’t just go down on your knees for me, you’ll be begging me for the privilege of kissing my feet.”

Jack smiled knowingly.

“You’re as subtle as a fucking sledgehammer, Caleb,” Jack said. “Each to their own, of course. But sometimes I find a lighter touch can be more effective.”

Caleb flashed dark eyes his way. “Not the impression I just received.”

Jack chuckled low. “Hey, I’m about to give you a gift, mate. Make up some for the bathroom.” He glanced her way. “Beth, you can kiss Caleb. Let him show you what you’ve missed out on these last four years.”

Her mouth went tacky. It was unsurprising, of course. As soon as she pulled kiss from the shoebox she’d known it would be something like this. And surely it was better than being told to kiss his feet. It was just a kiss. Never a chore to kiss Caleb. It wasn’t the first time, back when they were teenagers they’d kissed all the time and she’d missed it these last few years. Missed the physicality of him, the feel of him against her. The possessive, commanding way he kissed. She’d missed him badly.

But he’d been the one to break them up, to tell her he didn’t want to be with her anymore.

Caleb raised eyebrows at Jack. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to make her do?”

“You were expecting something else?” Jack said.

“You made me take a fucking butt plug, but all you want of her is a basic kiss with me?” He crossed his arms. “What if I don’t consent? What if I say no?”

Jack clucked his tongue. “Caleb, mate. You’re not going to say no, there’s no way you’d say no to getting your lips on Beth again,” he said. “Remember what I said about a lighter touch? Here’s your chance. Use it well.”

Caleb huffed, but pushed himself up. No sign now of the awkwardness in movement which had marked his return to the room. Standing tall and solid, and she looked up, suddenly nervous. Shy, even. Why on earth would she be shy around Caleb? She’d known him since she was seven years old. He knew her better than anyone else ever could. But perhaps that was the problem.

“Come on. Up you get. If we’re doing this, I’m not doing it sitting down,” he said, almost negligently, and her cheeks burned with the casual disregard he turned on her.

She wanted to snap at him, verbally swipe. Push him to a reaction, like she was usually too good at doing. But a fear gripped around her spine. What if he just gave her a brief peck on the lips and that was it? What if he really didn’t want her anymore?

Her hands shook as she made herself stand. This wasn’t right, not over a kiss. She might not have got up to that much while away, but she had kissed enough others to know she was good at it. And it was just a fucking kiss.

She stood in front of him, but couldn’t quite meet his eyes. He looked exasperated, as if he just wanted to get this over with, and her stomach twisted into knots. His disinterest was plain. All he wanted was to get this challenge dealt with, so he could ignore her again.

“Okay, get on with it,” he said, callous and disregarding. As if he couldn’t care less.

Her shoulders dropped. “Do you have to make this so difficult? It’s just a kiss, Caleb.”

“You like difficult, Beth. You must know I’m never going to make things easy for you.”

She pushed the hair out of her eyes. “Fine. Whatever you want.”

She leaned forward and planted her mouth lightly on his own, a short peck on the lips, because he’d made it clear he didn’t want any more and she couldn’t bear to stand here and be disregarded so plainly. To have her desires thrown back in her face, her interests so uncared for. Yes she wanted to kiss him and they both knew that, she hadn’t exactly been subtle herself. Yet here he was shrugging at the chance and not giving a shit.

It was as brief a kiss as she could make it, one he didn’t give any response to at all. He just stood there and passively took it. She pulled back again quick enough. Blinking hard so as not to cry. Damn him. Why did he always manage to do this to her?

He let her step back, before giving her a sharp smile.

“That’s not what I want,” he said, then grabbed her arm and pulled her back to him.

He had his lips down on hers and his tongue shoved into her mouth before she knew what was happening. One hand gripping her arm so hard she’d feel the imprint of his fingers for a week, while the other came around to the back of her head, weaving tight into her hair. Holding her off balance, just where he wanted her, so she had to clutch to him, holding onto him as if he were a lifeline, an anchor. He was all she had to steady herself; without him she would buckle, she would fall.

He tasted of toothpaste and power. Suffocating, all consuming. His hand in her hair gripped painfully hard and it hurt, and she whimpered, a sound muffled by his mouth. But she did not consider pulling away. She could not pull away. She did not want to.

Her body responded with an intensity that was utterly terrifying. She melted against him, into him. Kissing back with her hands on his sides and his body hard against hers. His mouth was hungry and possessive. His lips on hers, his tongue in her mouth, his hands on her body. The sheer force of him overtook her and she let it. She let him.

This was not just a kiss.

Oh, she was lost. Only then she did realise just how badly she was lost if she kept playing this game. Kept letting the guys play it like this. Sooner or later, Caleb would challenge her and she’d be on her knees, doing what he said and unable to resist. Humiliating herself for his pleasure, letting it happen. So fucking lost. He’d have the kind of control that scared her. All the more terrifying because of how much she wanted it.

You shouldn’t want this. It’s wrong to want it like this… Words in her head that were not her own. Which sounded too much like her ex-girlfriend. Stand up for yourself. Stop him.

But with his mouth down on hers and he taking total control of that kiss, she wasn’t sure how to do anything other than let him have his way.

“Ahem.”

Jack, somewhere in the distance. Caleb ignored him. She focussed only on Caleb.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. I’m regretting this now,” Jack’s voice came again, cutting through their world of two. “Either you two can get a room, or we can continue playing the game.”

She couldn’t consider those words. They were elsewhere, they were another world. She could only lean further into Caleb, who gripped tight about her. Kissing him with all she had and letting him have anything he wanted.

Until Caleb released his hold on her. He stepped back, so she was standing suddenly alone, breathing hard and shaking. The imprint of his lips still vivid upon her own.

Caleb smiled dark and leaned over to her ear, as if to share a secret.

“I’m going to own you, Beth Henderson,” he said in a low, vicious voice. Seductive. His face so close to hers his breath was warm on her cheek and she leant into him, she couldn’t help it. “I’m going to take you and I’m going to control you. You’ll beg me for the privilege of kissing my feet. You’ll do everything I fucking say. You won’t know how not to. Even when I make you scream, and I will make you scream, you’ll come crawling to me, begging me for more on your fucking knees.”

He stepped back with that wolfish, ruthless grin. “Because I’m going to fucking own you.”

Then he turned and sat down, picked up his beer and leaned back against the armchair as if nothing had happened.

While she was left standing, shaking, not even sure what had happened. Terrified that maybe he was right.

Side Character Syndrome, Chapter 4