Page 29 of Dirty Tricks

My stiffness slowly eases as the boy gets into position, the large wooden beam trapping his legs while some of his friends pick up foam fruits and vegetables, pelting him with the soft replicas while others take photos, and he tries to bat the projectiles away.

“You want to try?” Finn asks in a voice meant just for me to hear.

There’s a softness to his tone and his arm is no longer a metal band over my chest, becoming warm and pliable. He’s teasing but in a nice way, not the sharp manner he sometimes has.

I want to encourage the change in behaviour by joining in, but I’m scared. My instincts are screaming.

It’s silly. We’re at a party. Everyone’s having fun. My friends are downstairs getting drinks and will join us at any moment.

There’s nothing to be frightened of, except for the decorations, which were built that way on purpose.

But experience twists his sweet words into arsenic laced candy, a treat with deadly repercussions. My friends are in the building, but I don’t have an ally in this room. Just two boys who’ve hurt me before, one of them armed.

“Maybe later,” I whisper back, the breath in my lungs disappearing as I wait to see how the refusal lands. Then I have a moment of inspiration and turn to tease him. “What about you? I wouldn’t mind a few shots of you in manacles, you naughty boy.”

The change in him is immediate. Any remaining menace evaporates in an instant and he laughs, really laughs, not the hideous chuckle he makes when something hits him the wrong way.

“You fancy yourself as a torturer, do you?”

“I don’t need to torture you,” I respond, falling into the game with relief. “Unless you’re determined not to give up your secrets.”

His arm loosens and I slip from his hold, bouncing over to where a large leather whip is curled atop an aluminium bench, the sink old and chalky where limescale coats the surface. I give it a test snap, the leather thong longer than I first thought, bouncing on my toes in delight as it cracks the air.

“Wow. Guess the dungeon’s got a sexy new mistress in charge,” he teases, light on his feet as he crosses to the wall, staying out of the reach of my new favourite weapon.

Finn inserts his hands into the metal rings, gripping hold of the chains above because they’re too loose to contain him. He shakes them, the metal rings clanking against each other like harbingers of doom.

“Confess,” I shout, my voice louder than I meant it to be. When I snap the whip, a couple of boys move away, laughing uneasily.

It feels like power, and I love it.

The whip cracks again, my eye carefully measuring the distance, so it doesn’t accidentally hurt someone. A laugh bubbles from my chest, the sound a joyful counterpart to the absolute gloom of the room.

“Hey, pretty lady,” Todd says, grabbing it from my hand while others raise their voices in protest. “I think you’d better be careful playing with these things. They’re not toys.”

My skin crawls at his unwelcome touch, then a soft foam tomato hits against the side of his head, lessening my revulsion, twisting it into mirth. His illusion of control shatters. I can’t hold back a giggle but cover my mouth with both hands, my shoulders shaking.

“Get the pictures,” Finn orders me and I’m happy to oblige, taking half a dozen burst shots with my phone.

“Not withyourcamera,” he scolds, smirking as I draw near and put my hand into his jeans pocket to pull his phone out. “While you’re there…”

“Nope.” I say firmly, walking back a metre to get some shots with his device, taking them from a couple different directions while he mugs, poking his tongue out, rolling his eyes back until they only show whites, shaking his head until his hair sticks out in all directions.

I forgot how much fun he could be when he wants to. It’s been so long since he wanted to be this way at all.

There’s a twinge of guilt that I cheated on him, but it’s barely there, gone the instant I try to examine it. We’re over at midday tomorrow either way, and I no longer believe Finn cares for me. Not in that way. Not as a boyfriend should care for his girlfriend.

A fact I’ve spent too much time and energy avoiding, even when he invited his friend to share against my explicit wishes.

He mugs for the camera, pulling ten different faces in as many seconds, making me laugh and struggle to capture each one before he moves to the next. There’s a small ache of sadness that this wasn’t a larger part of his personality.

But it’s past time to call this thing.

“I need to break up with you,” I whisper, well below an audible level, the words a test run just to see how they feel in my mouth. “We’re not a good fit.”

When a shiver runs through me, I look upward, seeing Todd’s eagle eyes fixed to my lips. I see him flick a glance at Finn whose smile is still in place but now with a hard edge. He slides his wrists free of the manacles and I have the horrible sense he heard. Somehow, he heard.

But then he laughs as another boy tries out the pillory, his neck almost too large for the carved hole, his wrists caught as the board comes down to kiss against its neighbour, trapping him in between.

---