‘She’s not playing,’ Ben said, abruptly.
I turned to him. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Ron, you’re the only female here. All the dares will involve flashing them.’
I opened my mouth to object.
‘Trust me, they have bigger tolerances than you and much lower standards,’ he added.
‘Why do you call her Ron?’ one of the boys, Patrick, asked.
‘Long story,’ Ben said.
‘They have a secret society of two,’ Andy told him.
‘Any interesting rituals for membership?’ Patrick asked, pulling a leer.
‘Why do you have to be so infantile?’ Ben said.
‘Being oversensitive where this lady is concerned is certainly one of them,’ Andy said to Patrick.
I felt Ben’s pain increasing by degrees and didn’t know how to help. I didn’t want to be the meek little woman in a slew of nudge-nudge-wink-wink but I sensed anything I said would be used against us, so I stayed silent for Ben’s sake.
‘You in, then, or is your keeper calling the shots?’ Patrick said to me, in his Captain of the Debating Society voice. I realised I disliked Patrick quite a lot.
Andy shouted: ‘Yeah. Let her play! It’s feminism, innit!’
‘I’m not being a knuckle-dragger, I’m looking out for you. What would Rhys want you to do, faced with this shower?’ Ben said to me, quietly.
Invoking my boyfriend had the intended effect. Rhys would be cracking his knuckles and offering them outside.
‘I’ve had a head start on you, I’m going to sit this one out,’ I smiled, and they all booed.
The game rolled round the group, with confessions of kinky fantasies about double-teaming crusty tutors, downing pints in one, and Andy rushing over to a window and mooning passers-by. The barmaid merely grimaced and kept flicking through the magazine she was reading at the bar, content that, despite the arses, we were more than doubling MacDougal’s take on a slow weekday evening.
‘Ben Ben BEN BENNY!’ Andy howled. ‘Your turn. Truth or dare?’
Andy’s eyes flickered maliciously in my direction. I had an irrational fear the ‘truth’ might involve me somehow. But what truth was there to fear, exactly?
‘Uh. Dare,’ Ben said.
Andy leaned over to Patrick and they conferred in whispers, punctuated by evil snickering. I gripped the sides of my chair.
‘Ben’s dare is decided! Kiss her,’ Andy said, gesturing towards me.
‘No way, she’s not playing,’ Ben said, with a dismissive laugh.
‘So? Were the people on the street outside who were treated to my sweet cheeks playing?’
Ben took on a very steely look. ‘No. Bloody. Way. Truth, or – I’m out.’
‘You don’t get to choose,’ Andy shook his head. ‘Get busy.’ He waggled his tongue at me.
‘Urgh. I’m not going to say no again,’ Ben said
It was irrational and ridiculous but with the emphatic urgh noise I felt wounded. Ben’s determination was understandable and respectful and yet so vehement I couldn’t help but wonder if the idea genuinely repulsed him. OK, he thought I was ‘sharp’… that didn’t equate to not thinking I was a hag, did it? We all admired the work of Charles Dickens in tutorials but it didn’t mean we wanted a ride on his moustache.
‘OK. Ben’s a wuss. Truth! Truth.’ Andy waved his hands around in a solemn bar-room call for quiet please and attention. ‘Right.’
Andy and Patrick went into their snickering huddle again, soon emerging.
‘Given you seem something of a swordsman, your truth is – who have you had since you got here? Names. Details.’
‘Ahhh, yeah, well, a gentleman doesn’t tell,’ Ben said, but the table banging had already begun.
‘No way. Truth, or dare!’ Andy shouted. ‘Truth-truth-truth-truth …’
Ben chewed his lip. I was seized by a powerful desire to not hear his score sheet. I wasn’t bothered, as such, but his lady killing was something very separate from our friendship. I suspected he’d politely failed to notice Caroline’s crush because she was too close to me for comfort. If they were all itemised, these encounters, with a bunch of names, I’d be strangely compelled to go round putting faces and sketchy biographical detail to them, like a repentant hit man revisiting the stories of his victims.
‘This isn’t fair …’ Ben was struggling to be heard among the jeers and the catcalls ‘… on the people I’d be talking about, is it?’
People. There it was, the plural that signified a vast hinterland of conquests. The Drambuie sat uneasy in my gut.
‘Fuck’s sake. We’re not asking for a blow-by-blow – haha,’ Patrick said. ‘No need to be coy. If you’re a good hunter, you hang a stag’s head on your wall.’
‘I’ll start you off, there was Noisy Louise in the first week …’ Andy said, with a cackle. I gripped my chair harder, knuckles whitening.
Ben flicked a beer mat across the table. ‘No. I’m not doing any of this bullshit.’
‘Oh, don’t make us punish you,’ Andy said. ‘You don’t want to discover the punishment but it does involve being upside down in that bin without your clothes.’
There were a lot of them, and Ben’s fight club numbered only me. I started to feel genuinely worried for him. I didn’t want the extent of my protectiveness to be revealed. I was bothered enough that it had been revealed to me. As an only child, I’d never had a sibling to look after in the playground, but I guessed this was how it might feel if someone threatened them. Quite primal.
‘Do the dare,’ I nudged Ben in the ribs, acting casual, ‘I don’t care.’
‘Don’t you?’ he said, looking vaguely horrified. OK, my feelings were definitely hurt. I was offering him a spade and he was reacting it as if it was digging his grave, rather than an escape tunnel?
‘Ahahhha!’ Andy whooped and the table-banging recommenced.
‘Ben, who gives a shit, really?’ I hissed. ‘It’s only a kiss, we know it doesn’t matter. If you can face it …’
I nodded in encouragement as he stared at me, weighed things up.
He leant down, swiftly, and gave me a closed-mouth, firm kiss on the lips that lasted only seconds. Despite its brevity, I responded, kissing him back with a bit more passion, lips slightly apart. (After all that, didn’t want him to think I was a rubbish kisser.)
He pulled back a small distance, as if he was going to stop. Then he unexpectedly moved forward and kissed me again, something more like a proper kiss, open mouths, tips of the tongues touching. I felt his hand on the side of my midriff as he steadied himself.
He tasted of alcohol with the tang of salt, and oh God, completely unexpectedly, I dissolved like a teaspoon of sugar in a mug of hot tea. While my brain stayed fairly on-message, my body rebelled. It was as if it registered superior genetic material and issued immediate instructions to my nerve endings to have thirteen of this person’s babies and sod whether I liked his CD collection. In seconds, I crossed the line where I didn’t know if my willingness to collaborate to a respectable standard was authentic passion. Ah. Life lesson. This is why you don’t kiss friends for dares.
Ben broke away again abruptly, making no eye contact at all. We quickly started assembling