"Waiting for my girlfriend, bitch."
Mienne set her alarm to the wrong hour, which resulted in turning up to school half an hour late - late enough to be stressed out of her mind but not late enough to be spared the monotony of first period English. She had left her student diary at home. She had double booked her lunchtime commitments. She was looking forward to getting home an forgetting about it all, but she wasn't going to get away from misfortune that easily. Lucifer gave her a cocky look from where he was standing, leaning against gate.
"Whatever, bastard."
"Don't you dare call me that! Bitch!" He pushed her hard against the wire fence.
The wire rattled loudly as her back slammed against it. Mienne swore and groped for something to regain her balance. An arm shot out and caught her fall and set her back on her feet. Mienne found herself face to face with a boy she hadn't met before.
"You okay?" He gave her a smile before turning to Lucifer, "Whoa, watch yourself, Lucifer. You can just shove someone for calling you a bastard! What the fuck!"
"She should've known better," Lucifer growled, more at Mienne than at the guy. "Tell Maggie I'll call her." And he was storming away.
"I don't know what's up with him today," the guy shook his head.
"Shit. I shouldn't have said that."
"How was that your fault?"
"Maggie was looking forward to seeing him too."
"It's probably a good thing that he takes some time to cool down before blowing his head at her too."
They stood in silence watching the path that Lucifer had just walked, the anger seeming to linger in his wake.
"So... Uh, you are?"
"Oh, I'm Mienne. Maggie's friend."
"Syren. Lucifer's friend."
"Nice to meet you."
"An interesting way to make your acquaintance, but yes, nice to meet you too."
Mienne laughed. "Yeah, thanks for... catching me."
"Mienne!" Her friend, Fiona, came running up. "Oh I'm so glad you haven't gone home yet. Guess what? I'm having a slumber party this weekend! You'll come right?"
"I have to check with my mum, but yeah, I don't see there being a problem."
"It's Fred's and my birthday, and we finally got our parents to agree to the party idea. Sorry about the short notice, it was the only date that we could have it on."
"That's fine. It sound great."
"Brilliant." Fiona eyed Syren. "So who's this cute guy? What haven't you been telling us, Mienne?"
"What? Oh no no no, I've only just met him, like just now, a half a minute ago."
Syren was laughing out loud. "You're welcome to be my fake secret girlfriend any day."
Mienne blushed.
Mienne strained her ears for the sound of a doorbell as she pushed the button but only heard the throb of music through the door. She was just about to press the button again when the door was opened by a boy.
"Fiona! It's one of your friends!"
"Coming!" She was warmly greeted by an excited Fiona, who introduced her to Fred her twin brother.
"6 minutes and 20 seconds older than my baby sister," he told Mienne.
"If I hear that one more time!" Fiona threatened.
It was a small gathering of people, Mienne noted. Though she was surprised that there weren't more people, considering the amount of noise that was being made. She spotted Maggie flirting with one of Fred’s friends and sighed inwardly, typical Maggie.
"It's not flirting, I'm just making polite conversation."
"Polite conversation does not include laughing at a guy's terrible jokes."
"Maybe I have poor standards when it comes to humour."
Mienne looked her in the eye.
"Okay maybe I'm flirting a tiny little bit, but they know I'm dating Lucifer."
Mienne didn't get a chance to say anything more, because Maggie suddenly cried out, “Luc!!!” jumping up and hugging him before he was barely in the room.
Mienne stared. What was he doing here? Surely Fiona didn't just ask anyone to her birthday party.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" She asked him once Maggie had detached herself from him.
"I could ask you the same question," Lucifer replied coldly.
"Whoa Lucifer you're popular with the girls. How come you know half my sister's friends?" Fred asked.
"I know one because of good luck, and one because of back luck."
"Well if you have any left over luck, good or bad, send it my way!"
"Devil boy," Mienne hissed in his ear when Fred was gone.
"Bitch."
"Mienne, I thought I saw you."
Mienne turned to find Syren smiling at her. "Oh wow, hi."
"How are you?"
"Surprised."
"It's not a surprise party."
She laughed. "Well to see you... and Lucifer too. The former being by far the more pleasant surprise."
He laughed. "What's up between you two?"
"We're not great friends."
"Other than the obvious."
She laughed. "He's always such a jerk to me. He mustn't be like that all the time, or Maggie would have dumped his arse before he even had a chance to ask her out."
He laughed. "He has his moods. You obviously catch the bad ones."
She laughed. "He creates my bad moods."
He laughed.
Maggie interrupted the conversation. "Excuse us, I just need to say something important to Mienne." She pulled Mienne aside.
"Is it just me or are your standards of humour starting to get low? Oh wait, my bad, you're just flirting."
"Maggs!"
“Oooo… Let’s play truth or dare.” Fiona announced.
“No, let’s play it our other way – ‘Truth, dare, double dare, love, kiss or torture.’” Fred suggested enthusiastically.
Confused faces were shared among the guests.
“These are the rules,” he continued after people calmed down, “if you throw the die and land on one you have to answer a truth question. If you throw a two you do a dare. Three – a double dare, meaning the darer also had to complete the dare. Four is… um… love, kinda like truth but has to be about love, five – kiss, you have to kiss the chosen person in the chosen way. And finally six – torture… well I need not explain.”
Fiona continued on, “yes, and to make it fair, if three or more think the task is unreasonable then the darer has to chose another one. Oh and penalty… hm…”
“Do my homework for a week!” Fred smiled hopefully.
“Good try, Fred." Fiona gave her bother a friendly shove. "Um... if you fail to do the task you have to do a strip dance in front of everyone!"
"You've totally been secretly scheming in hope of seeing some skin."
"Have not!"
“So let’s get started!” Fred and Fiona seemed to be very excited, while there were a few grumbles and complaints among the others. "C'mon it'll be some silly slumber party fun."
"Well then you go first, Fred."
Fred tosses the die – Four.
“Hm… love…” Fiona pondered. “Name a boy you've had a crush on.”
"I have never!"
"Whimp! Come on, what's the closest you've come to having thoughts about a guy?"
Fred looked around the room, and knelt down before one of his friends with a serious face, "Greg, will you be my man-lover?" Greg made a pretence of running out of the room, while everyone laughed and clapped. Fred could no longer maintain the serious face and burst out laughing himself.
“Greg you have a go, Fred you dare this time.” Greg fearlessly rolled it across the carpet – six. The boy gulped.
“Torture! My fave!” Fred thought for a while, “ok everyone, tickle him for five minutes!!”
Chaos broke out as everyone pounced at Greg who swore loudly throughout the whole five minutes.
Mienne was having fun watching everyone else's antics, but it didn't stop her feeling a sense of dread when Fiona announced, “Mienne’s next."
The die bounced softly on the carpet before stopping on a three. She sighed with relief, at least if it was a double dare it couldn’t turn out as bad.
She was receiving the dare from Greg who scanned the room for something. His eye fell on the evil smirk on his friend, Kinn. “Ok, I double dare you to roll the die and take a dare or question from Kinn.”
Kinn rubbed his hands together gleefully. "That is the wimpiest way to make a dare ever, but I like it. Be afraid," he told Mienne, "I am the king of truth and dare."
"Yeah, do you like spend your spare time coming up with new ways for people to feel embarrassed, dude?"
"I wouldn't be ashamed to admit that. Roll roll roll, Darer goes first."
Greg rolled a two: truth. He sighed with relief.
“When you first heard of sex, how did you think it was done?”
There was moans of disgust around the room. Mienne sat in dread.
Greg's face reddened. “Um… I just thought that the girls screwed themselves and that we had no part in it?” Laughter rolled around the room.
Greg shook his head. "Shut up."
Mienne stared at the ground, wide-eyed, as Fiona handed her the die. This was cruel, having to go through it all twice.
"What's five?"
"Kiss."
"Damn, I was hoping for a dare," said Kinn.
"Fuck," said Mienne.
Someone whistled loudly.
"You have to... sit on his lap make out with..." Kinn looked around the room.
Maggie interfered, "Lucifer."
Two horrified faces spun around and glared at Maggie.
"Maggie!" said Lucifer.
"He's your boyfriend!" said Mienne.
Maggie smirked. "I know, I know, no need to thank me for being so nice and sacrificing. Hey, this is your chance to either kill each other or finally call a truce. Don't think I haven't noticed the animosity."
"It's not even your turn to give a dare!"
"Hey, I've been helping you whimpy darers out all evening," Kinn said, "and if Maggie is fine with it I quite like the suggestion. You have to sit on Lucifer's lap and make out with him for two minutes."
Mienne was desperately trying to think of ways to get out of the dare, but she was already being dragged towards Lucifer. He was giving her a look that said, lets get this over and done with. Maggie was his girlfriend! He should have complained more!
She was half-forced awkwardly onto his lap.
“Why hello, bitch."
"Fuck you."
“It’s just a game guys,” said Fiona. There were shouts of encouragement from the others.
Lucifer pulled her chin in towards his. Mienne almost pulled away, he was actually doing it? She should just bail and do a strip dance instead… on second thoughts… maybe not. She could feel his breath on his skin and then she felt his lips on her's. It was wet. She must have started, because he made a suppressed laugh. He was laughing? She had thought that he couldn't make things feel any worse but he just did. This was not fair, he knew what he was doing and she didn't, and it was awful and disgusting.
Two minutes was a long time. He must have started realising her discomfort, because he pulled back a little and kissed the corner of her mouth softly instead. Mienne sighed with relief and relaxed a little, silently thanking him in the only method available in the moment: pressing a gentle kiss in return.
She felt a thrill run through her as she felt the rush of cool air as she pulled away. It felt surprisingly empty now. People whistled and cheered.
"You were pretty brave," Syren patted Mienne on the back as she stumbled back to her place.
"Uh... thanks?"
They finished the round and played some other games and chatted through the night, but Mienne could barely concentrate. It was well past midnight before they changed into pyjamas and spread their sleeping bags across the living room floor to catch some sleep.
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