Bedroom Games
Page 5
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Brodie simply wiggled his eyebrows at me, as if convinced I’d fall for his charm, and tore his card in half. “That’s all it says. Shall we head to the backyard?”
“Let’s go!” A woman called behind me, and then everyone was cheering again.
House Guests had officially started for the summer.
CHAPTER TWO
“Were the other guests pleased to see me? That’s like asking a hard-partying rock star if she’s pleased to have a hangover. And trust me, I already know the answer to that.” — Brodie Short, Day 1
The backyard of The Magnolias seemed more like something from a war compound than a TV show. There was a lovely yard, of course, with a tree or two along the edges to give the house some sort of ambiance. There was even a small pool and a hot tub off to one side. I guessed that they still wanted us to wear bikinis despite the haunted house theme. The far end of the yard, though, had been cordoned off with a twenty-foot-high, solid wall topped with barbed wire and cameras. Jeez. I curled my bare toes as we stepped onto the grass and I realized it wasn’t real grass but Astroturf.
The majority of the backyard had been converted into a challenge area and roped off. A stop sign was planted to one side, and it had a card dangling from a peg that had READ ME FIRST written on the back. As I trailed behind the others, I noticed that Brodie had sprinted toward the sign, and I tried not to roll my eyes. Overachiever. I studied the roped-off challenge area instead.
The grass had been covered with an enormous, reddish mat, and I could see that stations had been set up in a strategic circle. Big fake vampire heads sat across from each station, mouths gaping open like muppets waiting to be fed. Each station also had a block, and each block was encircled by what looked like a bubbling pool of blood.
Cute. They were really going all out with this whole ‘horror’ theme.
Brodie cleared his throat obnoxiously and began to read. “Contestants! Get ready for your first challenge. Your first task as a House Guest will be to feed a very hungry vampire. And what do vampires eat? Blood, of course. Everyone will proceed to a station and wait for the buzzer. Once the buzzer has gone off, you can retrieve your special ‘vampire feeding’ hula hoop from your pool of blood. These hula hoops are specially made so that they fill up with blood when you dunk them. You must dunk your hula hoop, and then hula. When you do, it will spray blood into your waiting vampire’s mouth. Each vampire has a small bag at the base of his throat. The first person to fill up their bag with blood wins Power for the week and the right to choose their partner. Does everyone understand the rules?”
One girl raised her hand, like we were in class. “Um, is it real blood?” Her voice was high-pitched and whiny.
Brodie gave her a devilish look that I recognized as flirtation. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”
I had to hold back the urge to make a gagging noise. We hadn’t been in the house for five minutes and already the guy had tried to romance me and now this chick. He was so obvious.
“Do you think they’re really going to have this much real blood for a TV show? Really?” someone else muttered.
“Why don’t we just head out to our stations already?” Liam said. He grabbed Katy’s hand and pulled her forward, and they went under the cordoned rope, moving out into the challenge area. I followed them and noticed that everyone else did as well.
I picked a station across from Katy and Liam and stepped onto the platform, wiggling my bare feet. I glanced down at the circle surrounding my small square platform. Sure enough, it was full of some thick, viscous red fluid that I suspected was more like dyed corn syrup than blood. Somewhere in that circle was a hula hoop.
As we waited on the buzzer, I put my hands on the hips of my tight dress and assessed the other contestants. Six guys, six girls. For the guys, there was Brodie and Liam, the nice guy I’d met when I’d tripped, an older man with gray hair, and two others that were about my age. There was an older woman with wild and crazy gray hair, another woman with a short pixie cut that looked like a soccer mom, a gorgeous Hispanic woman, and a tall girl with long, silky red hair that I was pretty sure I recognized from somewhere. Another celebrity? At any rate, I looked like the most athletic of the women, though a few of the men looked like they could be powerhouses. If we had male versus female competitions, I could physically dominate the other women.
Of course, that wasn’t going to be my strategy at all. I was going to lay low and coast, hopefully hang out somewhere in the middle for the first while. Suss people out, see how things were falling, and then make my move.
The buzzer sounded.
We flew into action. I stepped off the platform and sunk my hands into the blood, looking for the hula hoop. Sure enough, the liquid was thick and sticky, and I could hear a few disgusted squeals down the row as other people figured this out. I grasped the hula hoop and hitched it around my hips. My fingers ran along it and I felt a few widely-spaced holes that were even now dribbling the liquid. Once we started ‘hula-ing,’ it’d fling out of the hoop and hopefully into the vampire’s mouth.
And since I was a Zumba instructor? I could totally rock this challenge. I could win the Power Play, get myself a sweet room to sleep in, and decide who to vote out the first week.
Annnnd that would paint a huge target on my back from day one. Not my goal. So I pretended to fumble with my hula hoop, and then I began to hula slowly, swinging the hoop around my hips. Sticky ‘blood’ spattered and dribbled down my clothing, and I realized there was a trick—if I hooped slow, the blood didn’t sling out far enough. If you slung the hoop around fast a few times, it would spray the blood far, which I realized when Liam reached one tattooed arm out, slung his hoop around his waist quickly, and then let it drop back to the ground.
Good, I thought. Let him win. I sure didn’t want to.
Minutes ticked past, and I continued to mock-fumble with my hula hoop, pretending I was having more trouble than I actually was. Blood was spattered all over my clothing and every ounce of skin, and my hair was now sticking to my head in a nasty mess. I wasn’t the only one suffering—Katy’s stand was closer to Liam’s than mine, and she looked like she’d been dipped in blood. Nobody had won yet, either. I bent over, peering at the bag in my now-gore-splattered vampire’s mouth, but it was less than half full. Jeez, this was a long competition. Someone needed to just win already so we could head to the showers.
Grimly, I picked up my hoop again and continued to soldier on, ignoring the sticky gunk on my hands and continuing to hoop faster. I stole a peek down the line to see how everyone else was doing. The woman I’d pegged for a soccer mom was holding a hand on her side and breathing heavy. The woman with the crazy gray hair? Wasn’t even trying. The guys were trying harder than most of the girls, with Liam in the lead and Brodie and two others close on his heels. I looked back down at my hoop and got back to it again, so no one noticed that I was watching the rest of the contestants so closely.
Five minutes later, I heard the buzzer sound. I looked up, wiping red gunk off of my face (I was pretty sure it was in my nose and ears at this point) and looked at my vampire’s bag. Still only half full. I glanced down the line and noticed Liam’s stand had lit up underneath. He dropped his hoop with a whoop and pumped a fist in the air. He’d won.
“Let’s go!” A woman called behind me, and then everyone was cheering again.
House Guests had officially started for the summer.
CHAPTER TWO
“Were the other guests pleased to see me? That’s like asking a hard-partying rock star if she’s pleased to have a hangover. And trust me, I already know the answer to that.” — Brodie Short, Day 1
The backyard of The Magnolias seemed more like something from a war compound than a TV show. There was a lovely yard, of course, with a tree or two along the edges to give the house some sort of ambiance. There was even a small pool and a hot tub off to one side. I guessed that they still wanted us to wear bikinis despite the haunted house theme. The far end of the yard, though, had been cordoned off with a twenty-foot-high, solid wall topped with barbed wire and cameras. Jeez. I curled my bare toes as we stepped onto the grass and I realized it wasn’t real grass but Astroturf.
The majority of the backyard had been converted into a challenge area and roped off. A stop sign was planted to one side, and it had a card dangling from a peg that had READ ME FIRST written on the back. As I trailed behind the others, I noticed that Brodie had sprinted toward the sign, and I tried not to roll my eyes. Overachiever. I studied the roped-off challenge area instead.
The grass had been covered with an enormous, reddish mat, and I could see that stations had been set up in a strategic circle. Big fake vampire heads sat across from each station, mouths gaping open like muppets waiting to be fed. Each station also had a block, and each block was encircled by what looked like a bubbling pool of blood.
Cute. They were really going all out with this whole ‘horror’ theme.
Brodie cleared his throat obnoxiously and began to read. “Contestants! Get ready for your first challenge. Your first task as a House Guest will be to feed a very hungry vampire. And what do vampires eat? Blood, of course. Everyone will proceed to a station and wait for the buzzer. Once the buzzer has gone off, you can retrieve your special ‘vampire feeding’ hula hoop from your pool of blood. These hula hoops are specially made so that they fill up with blood when you dunk them. You must dunk your hula hoop, and then hula. When you do, it will spray blood into your waiting vampire’s mouth. Each vampire has a small bag at the base of his throat. The first person to fill up their bag with blood wins Power for the week and the right to choose their partner. Does everyone understand the rules?”
One girl raised her hand, like we were in class. “Um, is it real blood?” Her voice was high-pitched and whiny.
Brodie gave her a devilish look that I recognized as flirtation. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”
I had to hold back the urge to make a gagging noise. We hadn’t been in the house for five minutes and already the guy had tried to romance me and now this chick. He was so obvious.
“Do you think they’re really going to have this much real blood for a TV show? Really?” someone else muttered.
“Why don’t we just head out to our stations already?” Liam said. He grabbed Katy’s hand and pulled her forward, and they went under the cordoned rope, moving out into the challenge area. I followed them and noticed that everyone else did as well.
I picked a station across from Katy and Liam and stepped onto the platform, wiggling my bare feet. I glanced down at the circle surrounding my small square platform. Sure enough, it was full of some thick, viscous red fluid that I suspected was more like dyed corn syrup than blood. Somewhere in that circle was a hula hoop.
As we waited on the buzzer, I put my hands on the hips of my tight dress and assessed the other contestants. Six guys, six girls. For the guys, there was Brodie and Liam, the nice guy I’d met when I’d tripped, an older man with gray hair, and two others that were about my age. There was an older woman with wild and crazy gray hair, another woman with a short pixie cut that looked like a soccer mom, a gorgeous Hispanic woman, and a tall girl with long, silky red hair that I was pretty sure I recognized from somewhere. Another celebrity? At any rate, I looked like the most athletic of the women, though a few of the men looked like they could be powerhouses. If we had male versus female competitions, I could physically dominate the other women.
Of course, that wasn’t going to be my strategy at all. I was going to lay low and coast, hopefully hang out somewhere in the middle for the first while. Suss people out, see how things were falling, and then make my move.
The buzzer sounded.
We flew into action. I stepped off the platform and sunk my hands into the blood, looking for the hula hoop. Sure enough, the liquid was thick and sticky, and I could hear a few disgusted squeals down the row as other people figured this out. I grasped the hula hoop and hitched it around my hips. My fingers ran along it and I felt a few widely-spaced holes that were even now dribbling the liquid. Once we started ‘hula-ing,’ it’d fling out of the hoop and hopefully into the vampire’s mouth.
And since I was a Zumba instructor? I could totally rock this challenge. I could win the Power Play, get myself a sweet room to sleep in, and decide who to vote out the first week.
Annnnd that would paint a huge target on my back from day one. Not my goal. So I pretended to fumble with my hula hoop, and then I began to hula slowly, swinging the hoop around my hips. Sticky ‘blood’ spattered and dribbled down my clothing, and I realized there was a trick—if I hooped slow, the blood didn’t sling out far enough. If you slung the hoop around fast a few times, it would spray the blood far, which I realized when Liam reached one tattooed arm out, slung his hoop around his waist quickly, and then let it drop back to the ground.
Good, I thought. Let him win. I sure didn’t want to.
Minutes ticked past, and I continued to mock-fumble with my hula hoop, pretending I was having more trouble than I actually was. Blood was spattered all over my clothing and every ounce of skin, and my hair was now sticking to my head in a nasty mess. I wasn’t the only one suffering—Katy’s stand was closer to Liam’s than mine, and she looked like she’d been dipped in blood. Nobody had won yet, either. I bent over, peering at the bag in my now-gore-splattered vampire’s mouth, but it was less than half full. Jeez, this was a long competition. Someone needed to just win already so we could head to the showers.
Grimly, I picked up my hoop again and continued to soldier on, ignoring the sticky gunk on my hands and continuing to hoop faster. I stole a peek down the line to see how everyone else was doing. The woman I’d pegged for a soccer mom was holding a hand on her side and breathing heavy. The woman with the crazy gray hair? Wasn’t even trying. The guys were trying harder than most of the girls, with Liam in the lead and Brodie and two others close on his heels. I looked back down at my hoop and got back to it again, so no one noticed that I was watching the rest of the contestants so closely.
Five minutes later, I heard the buzzer sound. I looked up, wiping red gunk off of my face (I was pretty sure it was in my nose and ears at this point) and looked at my vampire’s bag. Still only half full. I glanced down the line and noticed Liam’s stand had lit up underneath. He dropped his hoop with a whoop and pumped a fist in the air. He’d won.
