Handcuffs by Bethany Griffin Read Free Book Online

brother. His dad works with my mom.”
    “Ernie Libman’s little brother’s having a birthday party. With cake and ice cream and all that?”
    “I guess.” I let him unbutton the top two buttons of my shirt, and then I shift so that my chair rolls to the side and his hand falls away. He overwhelms me, and I’m not sure what I want. I pull away from him, so that maybe I can focus.
    “You think they’ll have a pony or a clown or something?”
    I push my hair back. “I don’t really know.”
    “So what do we have, like half an hour, an hour?”
    “We have all day. My parents will just be here part of the day.”
    “Do you want to have some fun?” What kind of question is that to ask the girl who is panting with lust for you?
    He pulls a pair of handcuffs out of the pocket of the oversized black jacket that Raye believes I hate. The jacket I secretly think is sexy as hell, in some weird, perverse baggy-and-faded way. Real handcuffs, shiny metal cuffs linked with a chain. Something in me surges toward him, opens to the challenge in his eyes.
    “What did you have in mind?” My voice is steady. I don’t want him to think that I’m some silly Kandace-like girl giggling at his every word, but I do need to keep him interested. In me.
    He puts one cuff around my wrist, and it is so big that it makes me feel tiny and delicate, like I’m made of porcelain. It tightens to grip my wrist and even bites into it a little. He runs his hand up my arm and shivers run through me. Then he pulls my other arm back around the chair so that they nearly meet. I have to wiggle around to get comfortable, and while I’m doing that, he snaps the other cuff. It’s cold and harsh.
    “Do you trust me?” he asks.
    “No.” I want to. I’ve always wanted to trust him, more than anything. But I don’t.
    “Good.”
    He unbuttons my shirt the rest of the way. Making eye contact the entire time. It’s weirdly exciting, staring into his eyes and feeling his fingers carefully opening each button. I catch my breath, and in that second I hear the front door slam and the creech creech creech of athletic shoes on the stairs.
    My mom throws the door open. My heart totally stops and I’m sure I’ve stopped breathing. I watch her like a person in a coma, a person who is already halfway dead. Mom is wild and disheveled, and I will learn later that the stain on her shirt is my brother’s vomit. There’s a towel in her hand. I don’t notice the shirt because I’m looking at her face. I do notice the towel because it falls to the floor and just lies there. It’s been several minutes. My lungs are collapsing. Finally, I gasp and take a long slurping breath. I’m alive. The horror begins to take over as my body goes back to breathing on its own. The whole thing seems to be in some sort of crazy slow motion.
    “Jane, where’s that towel? The interior of the Jeep is going to be—Oh my God.” Dad is standing behind Mom in the doorway of the den.
    My shirt is still on, pushed back and then scrunched above the elbows. My bra is just loose enough that it has shifted forward. They can’t see anything, but they have to realize that he can.
    I can’t keep from looking over at him even though I’m about to faint. I would pretend to faint if I thought it would make them stop looking at me like this. He is balanced between the mahogany desk and the wall, where he stumbled when the door opened. He is very, very still, and his face is whiter than usual. He slides the tiny key to the handcuffs out of his pocket, moving delicately, holding it between his finger and his thumb.
    “Oh, Parker,” my mom breathes. Her eyes move past me to him. “You should leave,” she says.
    “Parker . . .” He reaches for me. But I’m in this weird position where the only place he could touch would be my face or, well . . .
    “No,” my mother says.
    “Get. Away. From. Her.” Dad’s voice is shaking. I can’t look at my dad. Mom is angry, and I can deal with