The dare, p.1
The Dare, page 1
part #0 of The Losers Series
CONTENTS
Copyright Warning
Part I: The Game
Part II: The Dare
Part III: The Clowns
Part IV: The Knife
Epilogue
The End
About the Author
More from the Author
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by:
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Copyright © 2019 by Harley Laroux
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First Kensington Trade Paperback Printing: March 2025
ISBN 978-1-4967-6168-2 (trade paperback)
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Electronic edition: ISBN 978-1-5161-1214-2 (ebook)
Cover Design: Pink Elephant Designs
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Warning:
This book is intended for those over the age of legal adulthood. All characters depicted herein are over 18 years of age. This book contains graphic sexual scenes including intense fetish, kink, and BDSM-related activities. This book is not to be used as a resource for sexual education, or as an informational guide to sex or BDSM. The activities depicted within this book are dangerous and the scenes within this book are not meant to depict realistic expectations of BDSM or fetish-related activities.
This book is strictly a work of fictitious fantasy.
The Kinks/Fetishes Within:
Erotic humiliation, degradation, fearplay, painplay, knifeplay, consensual non-consent, orgasm denial, boot worship, spanking, crying, blowjobs, clowns, group sexual activities, spit, bondage, public play, bloodplay, raw sex/sex without a condom.
Reader discretion is advised.
PART I: THE GAME
A lot of things change after high school. Straight-A students become deadbeats, shy nerds are suddenly married with kids, guys who swore they were going to join the NFL end up joining the Marines instead. People make all kinds of weird decisions once they hit adulthood - like Daniel Peters, for example, decided to start inviting freaks to his parties.
It was late October, Halloween weekend to be exact. The night was cold, an icy breeze whipping up flurries of golden leaves down the quiet suburban streets. Daniel’s neighborhood was gated, requiring check-in at the gatehouse before we could drive our car through. A list of guests had been left with the guard, and he checked it meticulously as I showed him my ID.
“Jessica Martin, hm?” he said, tapping his pen repeatedly on his clipboard. I gave him a tense, impatient smile, and glanced back at the line of cars that had begun to form behind us. Daniel was known for his massive parties; dozens if not hundreds of guests would fill his parents’ massive house, pool, and sizeable backyard. That was one thing that hadn’t changed after high school: none of us had given up partying.
“And you are…?” the guard glanced past me to the passenger in my BMW, my best friend since Freshman year.
“Ashley Garcia,” she said, staring down at her phone as she typed. “Do you, like... need my ID or something?”
“No, no, you’re alright. You ladies headed to a Halloween party?” I could feel the guard’s eyes lingering on my body - at least what he could see of it through the window. Both Ashley and I had dressed up as angels - slutty, sexy angels. My sheer white bra would’ve shown off my nipple piercings if it wasn’t for the pasties I’d slapped on underneath, and if I happened to bend over in my short satin skirt people would be getting a view of my thong. Our angel wings were small, made of white feathers, clipped to the back of our bras.
I was getting really tired of this old perv trying to make small talk. I had no doubt he’d already seen our names on the list and was just trying to get us to have a conversation with him. I impatiently glanced back as yet another car pulled into line. The truck right behind us was shaking and rumbling, the engine giving off an incessant drone that was absolute hell for my ears. Something about the ugly old beast looked familiar...
Then, glaring into the rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of the guy driving, and immediately remembered where I had seen the truck before.
“Fucking Manson Reed is behind us!” I blurted, as soon as the guard finally buzzed us through. Ashley immediately looked up from her phone, turned, and strained in her seat to look into the truck as we left it behind at the gate.
“You have got to be kidding,” she said. “Are you sure? I can’t see anything with those headlights.”
“I saw him. That’s the shitty truck he’s been driving for years.”
“You don’t... you don’t think…” Ashley sat back in her seat, giving me a serious look. “You don’t think Daniel invited him, do you?”
“Oh God, hell no,” I winced in disgust. “Daniel wouldn’t invite that weirdo. Not after what happened.”
“Remember, Daniel has been on that whole “acceptance for everyone” kick since he took that Philosophy class,” Ashley said warningly. “And it’s not like Manson lives here. Why else would he be in this neighborhood?”
I shook my head. “No way has Daniel’s invite standards dropped that low. Literally everyone from high school is freaked out over Manson – except maybe his weird little friend group. No one’s going to forget the kid who almost stabbed someone, even if it has been over a year.”
Ashley folded her arms with a little shudder and I sped up, putting the old truck further behind us. All the houses in Daniel’s neighborhood were massive, sitting on wide lawns behind tall wrought-iron gates, fringed by wild aspens wearing fall’s bright colors.
I could hear the music before I turned the corner onto Daniel’s street, a throbbing electronic beat. Cars lined the sidewalk, but I managed to find a spot a short walk away.
"Sooo, like, not to bring up shameful moments," Ashley spoke slowly, popping her bubblegum before she continued. "But didn't you and Manson have, like, a thing?"
I sighed heavily. Why did she have to bring that up? "We made out in the bathroom once, but that's not a thing." She raised her eyebrows at me skeptically. "It's not a thing!"
She made a face. "I mean... Kyle thought it was a thing."
I scoffed. "Kyle and I weren't even together. We were so on and off senior year."
"Oookay, but were you on, or off?"
"Apparently Kyle thought we were on," I rolled my eyes. "That's why he was such an asshole about it."
"Yeah, but I mean, Manson did pull a knife on him. What kind of freak carries a knife to high school?"
The kind of freak who anticipated my ex’s anger and came prepared for it. Kyle had always been an asshole to Manson - he’d been an asshole to everyone, but Manson in particular. He was the perfect victim: quiet, head down, usually dressed in black, with a denim jacket covered in patches. Manson had run with the Goth crowd, the skaters, even the anime kids. He’d somehow managed to get his foot in every reject group possible. He was a good punching bag for Kyle, especially once Kyle realized that Manson and I... had...
Not a thing, no. But as much as I had teased Manson - little stuck-up cheerleader that I was - Manson teased back. We had the misfortune of our lockers being next to each other, so there was no avoiding the sight of his annoying face. There were days we would bicker back and forth in the halls all the way to class, name-calling, insulting, laughing -
I wasn't really sure if it was normal to develop a crush on my nemesis, but one thing led to another and… then Kyle found out that I’d actually kissed Manson. It was social suicide for me, but it was a great way to piss off my ex.
Kyle and two friends had cornered Manson in the boy’s bathroom. They’d planned to beat him - Kyle told me some shit about “defending my honor.” But Manson had come prepared.
He had to have known what he was getting into when he kissed me: I was Kyle’s ex, Captain of the cheerleading squad, one of the most popular girls in school. I’d tugged Manson into the bathroom, four days after Kyle and I broke up, and made out with him against the cold tile wall.
“You know it was all just to make Kyle mad anyway,” I said briskly, re-applying my lip-gloss in the visor mirror. “He hated that kid. And remember, Kyle had dumped me for Veronica Mills! Obviously I had to piss him off.”
“Yeah, well, it worked,” Ashley shrugged. “Kyle got mad, you got back together, and then you broke up again as soon as you graduated anyway.” She rolled her eyes. “You could’ve picked someone else to piss him off with. Manson looks like he’d be into, like... killing small animals. His whole little group always freaked me out. That guy Vincent used to talk about being a fucking Satanist -”
I zoned her out as she went on. I'd said worse things about Manson to his face, worse things to all his friends; but when someone else said it, it irritated me in a way I couldn't fully understand.
I shook it off. That was the past: petty high school drama. I was better off not dwelling on it. I reached into the backseat to grab my bag, and Ashley suddenly clutched my arm.
“Manson at twelve o’ clock,” she muttered.
I looked up slowly. Manson’s big truck had pulled over to park in front of us. Oh my god. No... no, he couldn't actually be here for the party...
The truck door opened. Manson was a tall, slim guy, and he looked even taller in his tight ripped jeans and lace-up leather boots. He was wearing a black t-shirt and some kind of metal and leather harness that had three silver buckles across his chest. He’d had a mohawk in high school, but now his dark brown hair was slicked back. He’d put on some muscle since I’d last seen him. He wasn’t bulky, but his biceps strained against the sleeves of his shirt and his chest was tight beneath the leather harness.
As he hopped out of the truck and slammed his door shut, he carefully fit a shiny vinyl officer’s hat on his head.
“Oh my god, look down, look down, look down!”
Ashley tried to warn me, but I was too late. Manson walked past our car and locked eyes with me, freezing me in my seat. He had one white contact in, giving an eerie look to his face, his other eye appearing black in contrast. I gulped as he passed, unable to look away, unable to blink.
He grinned at me - a slow, knowing grin – then he was gone, down the sidewalk toward the party. I sighed, slumping in my seat. Maybe he hadn't recognized me. Maybe he didn't remember me at all.
Ha, yeah right. After that smile? Oh, he remembered everything.
And so did I.
That grin had thrown me right back in time, conjured up the image of Manson’s face when he was escorted to the principal’s office. I’d known what Kyle was going to do, and I’d tried to warn Manson the day before. I’d told him not to come to school; he’d come anyway. When all the boys were finally dragged out of the bathroom, Manson had been the one taken away by the campus guards. He’d had a big purple bruise on his cheek, a drip of blood running down his chin from a split lip, and he’d looked right at me as he passed, and smiled.
I’d never been able to interpret the meaning of it. A warning? A threat? A promise? I hadn’t seen him again since that day. Senior year had continued on, graduation had come, and Manson Reed never came back to school.
I felt weird as I thought about it, the same way I had when I’d watched Kyle go into the bathroom to jump him: boiling guilt that wasn’t strong enough to uproot my feet or untie my tongue to call someone to help. When they took Manson away…there was something scary about the way he’d looked. He hadn’t been afraid. He’d come that day knowing what was going to happen, and pulled a knife on six-foot-three Kyle Baggins and his jock friends.
I’d wanted to kiss him again as I saw him escorted off. I’d wanted to text him when I found out he’d been expelled. I’d wanted to tell him I was proud he had defended himself, that Kyle had deserved the scare, that I didn’t blame him for bringing the knife.
I never did. I had a reputation to uphold and Manson Reed didn’t fit into it.
“What. A. Creep.” Ashley said, shoving open her door. “We’re avoiding him like the plague. Hopefully he gets kicked out.”
“Hopefully,” I muttered, as I slid on my heels. The shoes were strappy and tall, with a white filigree pattern that zipped all the way up to my knee. I caught my reflection in the car window and smiled. I loved making an entrance.
The walkway up to the house was lined with jack-o-lanterns, candles flickering inside their wide grinning faces. Plastic skeletons hung from the pillars beside the house's entry doors, and fake gravestones littered the grass across the front yard. The thumping bass of a live DJ pounded through my chest, playing Not In Love by Crystal Castles as I rang the doorbell. It was only seconds before a middle-aged woman with bleached blonde hair and a glass of Sangria flung open the door.
“Oh my goooodddd, Jessicaaaaaa!” she screeched, wrapping me in a tight hug that squished me against her fake tits. “And Ashley, oh my god, welcome ladies!”
“Hi, Mrs. Peters,” I gave her a smile as we stepped into the entryway. Mrs. Peters was the literal definition of a “cool mom” - she was always present at her son’s parties, laughing, dancing, and drinking. She was one of those parents who didn’t really seem like a parent - but every now and then would drop some wisdom that could only come from decades of experience on the planet.
The pale cream walls and decorative mahogany table in the entry room had been strewn with fake cobwebs, and the light bulbs in the chandelier overhead switched out for blacklights. Lifelike mannequins of zombie babies were tucked into the corners and stared down at us from the stairway. The house was packed, as I expected. There were dozens of people I knew - some friendly, some not. Being captain of the cheerleading squad and dating the football team’s star quarterback had earned me plenty of enemies, even after graduation. I hadn’t been the nicest person in high school either - but whatever. The past was the past.
Ashley and I poured ourselves some drinks and wandered the party, meeting up with friends and making small-talk, admiring the house’s creepy decor. Daniel always had to go all-out with his party decorations. The sangria was held in a giant witch’s cauldron, the cheese dip had been molded into the shape of a brain, and even the hors d'oeuvres looked like creepy little spiders and severed fingers.
Outside, people dove into the heated pool and played drinking games at the several tables that had been setup to host beer pong and King’s Cup. The DJ played on the cobweb-strewn gazebo, wearing a bright red suit and devil horns. The backyard was large, covered with grass, with rows of bushes lining the stone wall that surrounded it. Beyond the wall, the aspens that surrounded the entirety of our town stood ghostly pale in the night, yellow leaves shuddering in the breeze.
Near the beer pong tables we found Daniel, shot-gunning a beer before he leaped - fully clothed - into the pool. But he hadn’t been drinking alone. He’d been chugging alongside none other than Manson Reed, who tossed aside his empty beer can with a smile and laughed as Daniel went diving.
I felt like I’d stepped into the Uncanny Valley. I’d been a little out of the loop since I started college, but this was all wrong. Why the hell was Manson drinking with Daniel? Why was he surrounded by people who wouldn’t have looked twice at him in high school? Why -
“Why is he staring at you?” Ashley said, holding her cup up to her mouth to mask her lips. She was right: Manson’s eyes had fallen on me and he had yet to look away. There was recognition in his gaze, and I wondered what memory came up for him first. Was it me glancing at him in silence as I walked through the halls holding Kyle's hand? Or was it my face inches from his own before we kissed, as I whispered, “Promise not to tell?”
With a sudden sharp pain in my chest, I wondered if he hated me. Not like I cared about gaining the approval of a weirdo like him, but the way he was looking at me didn’t feel hateful. He seemed curious, his eyes lingering over my face and then down, over my body. Of course he’d stare. Everyone stared. But there it was again: that festering guilt, its roots tightening around my lungs.
After all, I'd made-out with him and then immediately got back with the guy who'd been bullying him since freshman year. I’d teased him relentlessly, spread rumors about him, laughed at him, made life hell for him and his friends. If that didn't make me an asshole, I didn't know what would.
