Truth Or Dare

“Hey,” said Tracy, “Let`s play a game.”

“Oh no,” Dave said, “I know your wicked little mind, I`m not playing strip-poker with you, you cheat, and I`ve seen enough of Alan in the locker room, thanks.”

“Hey,” Alan protested, pretending indignation, “I`ll have you know I`ve been told I have the body of a God.”

“Heh,” Dave retorted, “You know, technically Buddha isn’t a God, right?”

“Actually,” Tracey said, “I was thinking of Truth-or-dare.”

“Oh my God,” said Susan, “what are, we fifteen?”

“Oh C`mon, it`ll be fun,” Tracey said, “I`ll go first; Dave, Truth-or-dare?”

Dave looked at his wife, Susan rolled her eyes and shrugged, which he interpreted to mean, go ahead you know she won`t rest until she gets what she wants. He turned back to Tracey, thought about it, and, erring on the side of caution, thinking, God knows what torture she`s thought up, said, “Truth.”

Tracey smirked, “Okay,” she said, studying him, as if thinking carefully about what she wanted to ask, “What`s the most intimate thing you and Susan have ever done?”

Oh you bitch, Susan thought. Tracey knew she was partial to a little, tie-me-up, tie-me-down; but it was Susan`s need to be spanked and told she`s a “naughty girl” that brought out the amateur psychologist in her.

“But why for God`s sake,” she would ask whenever the subject came up, always over a glass of wine or three, and Susan could only shrug and say, “I don`t know, there`s something about being bent over his knee and being spanked that really gets me going.” She`d always start to feel the heat of the blush rising from her neck about then. “But you`ve got a degree in philosophy?” Tracey would complain, as if her education should militate against such behaviour.

Now she was blushing fiercely, seeing the trap her friend had laid for her husband, he was damned if he lied, and if he told the truth she`d pounce on him, try to get from him what she couldn’t extract from Susan.

Dave pursed his lips, staring off into space, as if really thinking about the question; then, “Most intimate thing,” he mused. “Well I guess I`d have to say kissing, yeah kissing.”

It was Alan who reacted first, holding up his free hand, the one not holding the wine glass, “Uh you have two kids,” he said, “you do know how they`re made right, I mean you didn’t find them under a cabbage or anything,” then looking at Susan, “Or is there something you`d like to share?”

Dave frowned seriously, “Sex isn’t intimate,” he said, “sex is just physical, a kind of release, they don’t call it a drive for nothing.”

“Hey,” said Susan, who was sitting on the couch, her legs curled up under her; pretending injury, she nudged him in the thigh with one foot.

“You know what I mean,” he said, still in earnest, “all animals have sex, it`s a basic instinct nothing more…..”

“Are you trying to spend the night on the couch?” Susan said, genuinely annoyed now, “Coz you`re going the right way about it.”

“What I mean is that we`re the only animals that kiss,” he said, “all the other….”

Alan held his hand up again, “Point of order,” he said, “all primates kiss, and some of the other animals too.”

“Yeah but not the way we do,” Dave retorted, “they kiss like you`d kiss your kids or a relative, just pecks, only humans kiss with passion, have you ever seen a monkey kiss the way we do?”

“Well there is Mark Stevens,” he said, “he`s hairy enough to pass for a gorilla.”

“Rumour has it he has really big, `ahem` feet like one too,” snickered Tracey. Susan, who had just been about to take a drink, snorked hollow laughter into the bowl of her glass.

“Ha ha, you know what I mean?” Dave said, “Kissing, with or without sex is a deeply intimate, emotional experience, but sex without kissing is just a physical release, nothing more.”

“Whay Suuu,” Alan said in a southern-belle accent, flapping his free hand in front of his face, “You do know how to inflame a girls passions.”

“Well that`s the difference between men and women,” Tracey said, “for women there`s an emotional aspect to sex, we need to form an emotional bond or it just isn’t right.”

“Here here,” Susan agreed, clapping her hands, spilling some of her wine in the process.

“Bullshit,” Dave said, smiling, “that’s just something you women tell yourselves, truth is you`re no different from us, no I tell a lie, at least we`re honest about it.”

“It is not bullshit,” Tracey protested, Susan agreeing with her once more.

Dave sat forward on the couch, his knees touching the coffee table, “Is too," he said, an impish gleam in his eye,"and I can prove it, with only two little words.”

Tracey cocked an eyebrow, “Go on then,” she challenged him, lifting her glass to her mouth.

As she took a swig Dave said, “Rampant Rabbit.”

Once she`d stopped coughing up the wine that had gone down the wrong way, and as she mopped at what had spilled on her blouse, he said with a grin, “Or are you trying to tell me that you have an emotional bond with a battery operated lump of silicone; do you kiss that too?”

“That’s `kaff kaff` diff `kaff` different,” she spluttered.

“Oh yeah, how exactly?” he asked, smiling his sweetest, “oh do elaborate” smile at her.

“Well for one thing it`s not sex.”

“Ah have not had sexual relations with that woman,” Dave drawled in a pretty good impersonation of Bill Clinton.
“You women are such hypocrites,” he said, “You make us chase you until you catch us, and then make out like you didn’t want it the first place. You know what I`ve realised, we might have the reputation but you`re the ones who are obsessed with sex.”

“We are not,” the women said almost in chorus.

“Oh yeah, I read somewhere there are like a dozen different types of rampant rabbit, just that one make alone; and what do men get, an inflatable doll and sheep, and one of them is a gag.”

“Hey, hey now,” a grinning Alan interrupted, “you leave Dolly out of this, I`ll have you know that sheep got me through some very lonely nights.”

“Oh yeah,” retorted Tracey, “well, well what about porn?”

“Yeah,” Susan chimed, “she`s got you there.”

“Okay, I`ll give you porn,” he conceded, “but you have porn of your own,” and before they could protest continued, “oh you don’t call it porn; oh no, you call it chick lit.” he turned to Susan, “What`s the name of that writer you like, the fantasy one; Christine, Christine,” he snapped his fingers in frustration, Susan just watching, making no attempt to help him. “Anyway, whatever her name is, I looked in one of her books and it was full of sex.”

“One writer, really that’s your evidence,” Tracey sneered, winking at Susan, “and you can’t even remember her name, pah.”

“Okay,” he said, “exhibit B: Fifty shades of grey anyone; it wasn’t men who queued up in their tens of millions to buy them. And….. and it wasn’t men who went to the movie, and complained afterwards that it was too tame, hah. There`s more sex in that book than in all the books written by men that I`ve ever read, and I read a lot.”

“Sharkey`s Machine,” Alan said.

“What?” Dave frowned at him in a moment of confusion, then he smiled, it was a smile of fond recollection. “Oh yeah,” he said, “But that was only one page, and as I remember when I got it back from you that page was missing.”

“Don’t know what you`re talking about,” Alan said innocently, then added, “Cosmo.”

“Cosmo?” Dave asked.

“Yeah you know the women`s magazine, they always have articles on sex in it. How to have an orgasm, how to have a bigger orgasm, a longer one, multiple orgasms; it`s like they have a rule that every issue has to have an orgasm article in it.”

“Have a subscription do you?” Dave asked.

Alan`s grin widened, “I only get it for the articles.”

“What about all the pretty women in adverts?” Susan said, “After all, sex sells.”

“Oh please, I`ve seen the way you two drool over those guys in the diet Coke ads.”

“And don’t forget Poldark,” Alan reminded him, “remember how all those women wrote in to complain when he didn’t get his kit off in one episode?”

“Any nudity in Poldark is essential to the plot,” Tracey smirked.

“But the big difference is you talk about sex all the time,” Dave said triumphantly, as if he`d just turned over a fourth ace.

“Oh puh-lease everyone knows men go on and on about their sex lives,” Tracey said.

“Nuh Uh,” Dave shook his head, “I ever talk about sex with you?” he asked Alan.

“Huh? No; of course not.”

“You want me to?”

“Christ no, keep that shit to yourself.”

He looked back at Tracey, “I wonder how A……” his brain caught up with what his mouth was about to say and killed the words, “Alan would feel if he knew how much Susan knew about his sex life,” before they were beyond retrieval. Then it rebounded them back at him, how much does Tracey know about yours? It asked, and he understood what Susan had realised from the start, what Tracey had been up to, irritation killing his boozy fuzzy glow.

“Truthordare?” he snapped, the words tumbling out of him in such a hurry they blended into one.

“What?” Tracey asked.

“You heard me; my turn, Truth-or-dare?” the alcohol now adding fuel to his annoyance, turning the flicker to a gushing flame of anger.

Something in his tone unnerved her, “I don’t want to play anymore, it`s boring,” She said.

“Oh no,” he said, “You can’t duck out now, my turn; Truth-or-dare?”

She looked to Susan for help, but her friend only smiled at her. Then Alan, too drunk to notice the change in the room`s emotional temperature, nudged her shoulder with his wine glass, “He`s right honey, fairs fair, he answered your question, now it`s his turn, them`s the rules.”

She looked back at Dave, he was smiling but it wasn’t a pleasant smile, was there a hint of malice in those upturned lips? She turned again to Susan, one last appeal, but her friend was chewing nervously on her lower lip, staring fixedly at the wine glass in her lap, and Tracey had an awful premonition, you wouldn’t? She thought; you didn’t? Did you?

She turned her gaze back to Dave, the smile was gone, his eyes cold and hard, and with a terrible certainty she was sure he knew. Horror at the thought that Susan might have blabbed flushed the alcohol from her system, leaving nothing behind but a cold dread. Oh God, she thought, why did I tell her, but how could she not, they`d always told each other everything.

The memory came back then;

Susan. “So what are you telling me, all those stories about Mark are true, he`s really that big?”

Her, shaking her head, “Bigger,” she said, holding both hands at least 10inches apart, “and he can go forever, I thought he`d never come, I`m still sore from him.”

Susan. “I thought you were limping, did Alan notice?”

Her, laughing, “Told him I skidded and did the splits playing tennis, he thought it was hilarious, nearly pissed himself laughing.”

Susan, “Will you see him again?”

Her, licking her lips, “What do you think?”

Her mind now such a fog of terror, she would have forgotten that she had a choice if just then Dave hadn’t said, “Well, Truth-or-dare?” and in a wobbly voice she stammered “D-d-dare.”

Afterwards she would wonder about the look on his face when she uttered that word, was it relief, or disappointment she saw?