Revenge Games (Revenge Games Duet Book 1)

by Sky Corgan

  I loved Darren's mom. She spoiled me rotten when I was there. We'd go out shopping, and she'd buy clothes for me that my parents could never afford, dressing me up like a doll. Darren seemed to approve, but I could tell it made my parents uncomfortable when I came home from his house with new things.

  Education was at the forefront of Darren's parents' list of priorities for him, and for me too when I came over after school some days. They'd send us up to his room and make us finish our homework before we could do anything else. His dad was more of a stickler on it than his mom, though he assured me that she was only being lenient with him because I was around.

  Our homes were so different; it was like being in two separate worlds. When I'd go to Darren's house, it was all about studying and superficial things. When we'd go to my house, it was all about having fun and family time. I thought we balanced each other out well. Darren helped me to understand my schoolwork better, and I helped him to relax and just be a kid.

  By the end of the school year, we were inseparable. Best friends to the end. We did everything together, from studying to going on vacation to sleeping in the same bed when we stayed at each other's houses. I was so used to us being together that I got upset when his father wanted to take him on a boys-only fishing trip without me.

  “I don't understand why I can't go with you,” I complained, sitting on his bed and staring at my feet.

  “Because you're not a boy,” he told me.

  “I still don't understand. What's so different between boys and girls?”

  He thought for a minute. “Well, I have a penis, and you don't.”

  “What's a penis?” I gave him a quizzical look.

  He scratched the back of his head, obviously uncomfortable. “You know, a penis.”

  “No. I don't know. What's a penis?”

  “It's what I pee out of.”

  “Oh, well, I have a penis too.”

  “No, you don't.” He shook his head.

  “Yes, I do,” I insisted.

  Darren sighed. “Do I have to show you?”

  “Show me what?”

  “My penis.”

  “Why would you have to show me? I have one too.”

  “No, you don't.”

  “Yes, I do.” I scowled at him.

  He stood up and hesitantly began unbuttoning his pants. “I'll show you, but you have to show me yours too.”

  “What are you doing?” I eyed him nervously.

  “I'm going to show you my penis.”

  “Why? I have one too.”

  “Just look,” he groaned, pulling his pants and underwear open.

  Not thinking much of it, I stood and looking into his pants, expecting to see the same plain surface that was my downstairs. When I saw the short fat pink worm dangling there, I gasped and quickly looked away.

  “Ew,” I cringed before taking another quick peak and saying, “Ew,” again. “What is that?”

  “It's my penis,” he replied, his voice dull from offense.

  “Ew. Let me see it again.”

  “No.” He quickly buttoned his pants.

  “That was gross.”

  “That's my body you're talking about.”

  “Well, it is.” I shrugged, thinking about how odd it had been.

  “Show me yours now.”

  “I don't have anything to show you.” I gave him a confused look.

  “I showed you mine, now you have to show me yours. That's how this works.”

  “But I don't have . . . one of those.”

  “I know. I want to see anyway,” he sounded as casual as if he was asking to see one of my coloring books.

  Suddenly, I felt embarrassed. Was I deformed? Was I supposed to have one of those ugly things too? I wasn't sure anymore.

  “I don't wanna,” I pouted.

  “Tara, that's not very fair.” He crossed his arms over his chest, giving me a disapproving look.

  “Mine isn't like yours.”

  “Of course it's not. You're a girl. Boys have penises. Girls don't.”

  That did make me feel oddly better. If there was anyone who would tell me I didn't look right down there, it was Darren. Maybe I should show him, just for my own peace of mind.

  “Fine,” I sighed, pulling open my shorts and underwear with deliberate jerking motions. I couldn't even stand to look at him as he gazed down into my pants.

  After a few seconds of Darren silently staring, I let go of my waistband, listening to it snap shut. When I finally looked at him, he had a thoughtful expression.

  “Well?” I asked. “Are you happy now?”

  “It's not what I thought it would look like.”

  “What do you mean?” My mind filled with horrors. Maybe I really was deformed after all.

  “There's nothing there.”

  “Of course there's nothing there. I thought you said you knew that.”

  “My mom's is hairy.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Because she showered with me when I was little.”

  Now I definitely thought I was deformed. It depressed me, and while I probably should have asked my mother about it, I didn't. I kept on thinking that my body was deformed until sex education class in middle school.

  Darren and I shared a lot of our firsts together. He was the first boy I ever saw naked, and he handled our first kiss with the same scientific curiosity as everything else.

  We were ten at the time, and his parents had finally decided that it wasn't such a good idea for us to be sleeping in the same bed together anymore. They made Darren fix himself a pallet on the floor, and I slept on his bed, staring down at him to talk until the late hours of the night.

  That particular night it was storming. I had always been afraid of thunder, and God was being especially tumultuous. In the middle of the night, I found myself crawling down onto Darren's pallet so that he could comfort me while the weather raged on.

  We had got onto a conversation about two kids who had been caught kissing in the hall and were sent to the principal's office. At that point, I was kind of getting interested in boys, but Darren still thought girls had cooties.

  “Have you ever kissed a boy before?” he asked me.

  “No. Have you?”

  “I don't kiss boys.” He smirked, being a smart ass.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No. I wonder what it's like.”

  “I hear it's supposed to be magical,” I replied dreamily, thinking of all the Disney movies I had watched.

  “Magical enough to go to the principal's office for?” He quirked a brow.

  “I guess so. I don't know.” I shrugged.

  “I'd like to try it sometime.”

  “You. Kissing.” I wrapped a hand over my mouth to hold in the giggle.

  “Adults do it. I mean, we're going to be adults someday. We have to try it sometime.”

  “Do you think kissing makes you an adult?”

  “I don't know. I think it's part of it.”

  “I want to be an adult.”

  “Me too. Do you want to try kissing and see if it makes us feel any more adult?”

  I thought for a moment. In all the movies that I'd seen, kisses were reserved for your one true love. I loved Darren, but not like that. Still, the thought of kissing was exciting, and I didn't know if I could wait until I got older. Having a boy as a best friend gave me an opportunity to get ahead of the game, and I did like trying new things.

  “Sure,” I said finally, feeling suddenly nervous.

  “Alright.”

  A bolt of lightening streaked across the sky, illuminating the room. The thundering that followed made me press myself into Darren's chest. He grinned at me, gently rubbing my back and soothing my fears.

  “I hate that,” I grumbled.

  “I know.” He paused for a moment, “So, um, how do we go about doing this?”

  “I think you're supposed to kiss me. The boy always kisses the girl.”

  “Um, alright.�
� He stared at me awkwardly for a moment.

  “What?”

  “Aren't you supposed to close your eyes or something? That's how they do it in the movies.”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess so. I mean, I think you're right.”

  “So, close your eyes.”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My heart was drumming in my chest, partly from fear of the storm but also from anticipation. Was this the right thing to do? Best friends aren't supposed to kiss each other. But I was too curious to stop it.

  “Pucker your lips,” Darren told me, and I did.

  The moment was far from magical and too quick to calculate. For a fraction of a second, I felt Darren's lips graze mine, as gentle as a summer breeze, and then he was gone. When I opened my eyes, part of me wondered if I had imagined it. Wasn't I supposed to feel different?

  “How was it?” he asked, giving me a look as if he was processing his own feelings.

  “A bit disappointing,” I admitted, trying not to frown.

  “Yeah. I thought it would be different too.”

  “Do you feel any older?”

  “I think so. Maybe a little,” he replied thoughtfully.

  “I'm not sure if I feel any different.”

  “Maybe we should try again.”

  “No. I don't think so.” I shook my head, thinking that it probably hadn't worked because he wasn't my one true love.

  “Oh, alright,” his voice sounded different, but I couldn't quite pick up the emotion. Maybe he was hurt that I didn't want to do it again. I couldn't understand why he would be. Neither one of us felt anything from the kiss. There was no point in doing it again.

  Everything I learned about sex came from Darren. While my parents sheltered me from the world as much as possible, his parents did their best to educate him. When he was eleven, they gave him 'the talk', which he passed on to me. The whole idea of sex seemed silly to me at the time. You put what in where and a baby comes out nine months later. Why would anyone want to do that? It sounded horribly uncomfortable.

  Darren furthered my education by letting me watch porn with him in his room. While his parents had put an adult filter on his computer, he easily found a way around it. The guy was too smart for his own good.

  The first time I watched porn with him, I remember thinking about how weird it was for two people to do something like that. We were both twelve at the time, and while our bodies were changing, we didn't have a full understanding of what that meant. Still, the act of doing something forbidden was exciting, and I strangely never felt awkward around Darren, no matter what we did.

  When we turned thirteen, Darren's mom stopped letting us sleep in the same room together. My parents put a stop to that long ago. That didn't keep us from winding up in bed together though. It didn't matter whose house we were at or which room I was sleeping in, every night after midnight, Darren would come crawl in bed beside me. He'd wrap his arms around me, and we'd fall asleep cuddled up together. To anyone else, it might have seemed inappropriate, but for us, it was strictly platonic, something that we always did—always had done since we were kids.

  Darren would set the alarm on his phone and make sure he was up and back in his room before our parents woke up. It was probably more of a hassle than it was worth, but Darren didn't mind. He said it would feel strange being under the same roof as me and not waking up beside me. I felt the same way.

  In fact, we continued to sleep in the same bed together until I got my first boyfriend when I was fifteen. I felt bad telling Darren he couldn't sleep with me anymore, but it just didn't feel right dating another boy and still having Darren in my bed. It would feel like I was cheating, and I wasn't about to start my love life out on the wrong foot.

  Like what you've read so far? You can get the rest here: Damaged