Chapter 3

Tea at my house was a quiet affair; something my mum had striven to achieve. She insisted that we eat as a family at the dining table and always prepared a good, wholesome meal with dessert. Dad moaned as usual about the dessert and how it was affecting his figure but still polished off his portion promptly. I didn't have any problems with eating what was put in front of me.

After the meal I dumped the dishes in the dishwasher and cleared away the rest of the waste from the kitchen before being excused. Normally I would head for my bedroom and finish off any homework I had but tonight I headed for my bedroom knowing I had other preparations to make.

Using my phone or the house phone was out; I didn't want to give away my identity that easily. Getting around that obstacle was simple enough. When I'd received my new cell phone it had included a pay-as-you-go SIM card with a few credits on it. I still had my old cell phone so sticking the two together gave me an unused phone as far as the outside world was concerned.

I slung my old phone on charge and turned my attention to the pictures I'd taken.

It didn't take long to copy them from the memory card and into the computer and not much longer to email them to my Hotmail account for safekeeping. Moving the folder containing the files from the 'my pictures' folder was a sensible precaution against them being discovered accidentally. I didn't believe that my mom or dad checked up on my computer usage but it was better to be safe than sorry.

After making sure that everything was out of the way I opened each of the pictures with Paintshop Pro. The screen displayed a series of dark images that revealed very little, light-coloured blobs on a very dark background. Clicking on Adjust, One Step Photo Fix produced something that was much more presentable. It had a bad colour cast but it was now easy to tell who the people were and what they were doing.

Working through all of the pictures took a little time and there were still one or two that I could do nothing with, but I ended up with a dozen pictures that would have graced any voyeur site on the net. Cutting and cropping allowed me to create an image of each of the women in a compromising position. I printed each one out on good quality photo paper and spent a couple of minutes admiring them.

The one of Helen with her skirt and knickers around her ankles was particularly good in my opinion. A smile crossed my face as I toyed with the idea of sending her a copy.

The smile changed to a frown, how would I send her a copy? Snail mail was an option but I'd been thinking of using email and for that I required an email address for Helen and an account of my own that I could use that wouldn't reveal who I was.

Back to the computer and off to the Google website to create a gmail account.

Hmmm, a name was needed. I wasn't going to use my own name that's for sure. The book I was reading caught my eye, 'Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy'. That would do nicely.

'Rising Tom' it was.

I sat back and stretched, was there anything else I needed to do?

Nothing that I could think of.

I glanced at the clock, seven o'clock just gone.

Well there was no time like the present I thought as I reached for my now anonymous mobile phone.

As I punched the number I'd been given into my phone I noticed that my hand was clammy. I let out my breath slowly and hit the green dial button.

The ringing tone came through clearly and I held my breath, who was going to answer?

"Hello," said a woman's voice in my ear.

"Good evening," I responded, "You, err, left me a note to call you."

"Oh," said the voice in surprise, "I take it that you are the person who dared my daughter?"

"I am if your daughter is Natasha Young," I responded.

"She is," replied Helen. "Do you have a name?"

"I do, but you can call me 'Tom' for now."

"Well, Tom, as I spelt out in my note," she said, "there are two options. Which one is it going to be, trouble or fun?"

"Oh, fun," I replied carelessly, "Why would I want to cause such a beautiful woman as yourself any trouble?"

"I'm glad of that but you don't need to try smooth-talking me," she said. "I'm up for as much fun as I can get."

Now that sounded promising.

"So what is it you want us to do?" she asked.

"It's not so much what I want you to do but what do you want to do and how can I help?" I replied. I wanted to find out what they wanted and just how far they were willing to go. Whatever the limits were I was going to comply with them.

"I was thinking that maybe you could come up with a few dares for us to do?" said Helen.

"That is something I could do but what limits would there be?" I asked, still trying to find those limits.

I heard a sigh clearly before Helen answered, "I suppose there have to be limits," she said. "Let's keep it to things that are potentially embarrassing. If we find that things are going well we can always change the rules."

"That's a good starting point but tell me, what am I going to get out of this?" I asked. I knew what I expected but let's see if they could suggest something different.

"Well, you will know where these events are going to take place," she replied. "You'll know the time as well so there will be no chance of you missing our, uhmm, exposure. I'm sure you will be more than happy to be there and watch."

"That does sound like fun," I agreed. "Let's try out a few dares and see how we get on."

After a moment I added, "If all of us don't enjoy what we are doing then we'll pack it in."

"That's very magnanimous of you, Tom, but I have to give you a warning first," she said.

"You do?" I asked in surprise.

"I do," she said seriously, "though I hope it's not going to be necessary to carry through on it. I can tell from your voice that you are quite young, which I am taking to mean that you are at the same school as Natasha and Kirsty."

"Uh umm," I murmured noncommittally.

"Nothing that happens between us is to jeopardise my daughter's education or reputation and that goes for Kirsty as well," she said. "Do you understand?"

Jeopardise Natasha's reputation!

I nearly spluttered down the phone, I could publish full frontal nudes of her and that wouldn't put her reputation in jeopardy but I thought better of saying anything like that, not to her mother.

"I've no intention of hurting anyone," I said, "So if anything concerning what we are doing becomes public knowledge it won't be because of me. Is that good enough?"

"Fair enough, Tom," said Helen. "Now have you any idea what you'd like us to do first?"

I grinned, partially in relief; this was something I'd given a lot of thought to. I'd wanted to be prepared just in case the promise in Helen's note had been for real. I'd been involved in a few truth or dare parties at one time or another so the idea of a dare was easy enough but what could we do for forfeits?

Let's see if the dare I'd come up with would be acceptable first, we could deal with forfeits later.

"I take it that flashing your boobs in a public place would be the sort of thing that you are looking for?" I asked.

"Possibly," replied Helen, "but I don't think we'd be doing it on the high street at noon."

I chuckled, "How about through a window in the evening?" I asked.

"I take it you have a particular window in mind?" she asked.

"I do," I replied. "Are you familiar with the McDonalds on Bond Street, opposite the multi-storey car park?"

"Yes," came the slow reply.

"The place is pretty quiet on Wednesdays, especially about eight o'clock," I waited for Helen to say something but she remained silent. "The upstairs is almost certain to be empty so the dare is for all of you to go there and, one at a time, flash through the window."

The phone remained silent but I waited, it wasn't my turn to say anything.

"I take it that you'll be watching the window from the car park?" she asked.

"That does seem to be a reasonable assumption," I replied, "but there might be other people watching as well."

"One moment," she said and things went very quiet. I blinked in confusion, what was happening now?

"Tom?"

"Yes."

"We agree," she said.

"I look forward to seeing you," I replied hoping she'd catch the double entendre. I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself.

"I'm sure you do," said Helen her voice letting me know that she'd caught my pun.

"One other thing," I said before she could end the call.

"Yes?" she asked.

"What is the forfeit if you fail?"

"Forfeit?"

"Yes," I said, "There's always a forfeit for failing a dare."

"I don't know," she said, "what did you have in mind?"

"Nothing," I replied honestly. "The forfeit has to be something that you don't want to do but know that you can if you want to avoid something worse. It also has to be something that the rest of you will make sure is done."

"Such as?"

"I don't know," I said, "something like eating a jar of pickles or getting spanked by the other girls. Whatever it is, it will be your forfeit and I'll have nothing to do with it."

"That doesn't seem right," said Helen. "It'll be your dare that is refused so you should gain something from it."

"Then come up with a forfeit that does that," I said. "Hopefully you'll never need it."

"We'll think about that," said Helen. "But for now we accept your dare for tomorrow."

"OK, I'll be watching," I said again. "Bye," I turned the phone off, and pumped my fist.

Yes!

One advantage of anything happening on a Wednesday night was that I was allowed to use Mom's car. Normally I attend a club on Wednesday's and after acting as a chauffeur for me for a couple of years Mom was more than happy to hand over the keys to her car once I had my license, even if it was only for one night a week. Up until now I'd only ever driven to and from the clubhouse but tonight was going to be different.