Chapter 3
3
“ I don’t think there’s a future in pickleball,” the guy sitting behind Derek slurred. “I just wanna get drunk and have fun. That’s my objective.”
Derek glared into his pint. In addition to having the stupidest thoughts on earth, Behind-Him-Guy was wearing a fedora. A fedora . Like 2013 never happened. But then the idiot had probably been rocking the hat since 2009. Just pushed right through the cringe and out the other side, fedora fully intact.
“I have multiple PhDs in gaming,” Behind-Him-Guy said to no response from his table. “That’s the thing, though. You can’t work in the industry without compromising your vision.”
“Great insight, bloke,” Derek muttered. “Stellar stuff.”
He and Mara had anniversary plans tonight. Secret plans he wasn’t allowed to know about. His wife had taken the wheel on this thing and requested he leave the house for a couple of hours. So, while she was doing whatever she was doing, he was at the corner pub listening to the worst conversation of all time.
He shouldn’t have been listening. The footy was on the massive screen in front of him. Lions versus Suns. The scores were tied, and with both teams in the finals starting next week, tensions were high. But Derek could barely glance up from his beer.
He’d always judged retired players who wouldn’t watch footy after their careers ended. He’d called them whiny pussies. Now, he had twin crosses to bear; hating football and being a hypocrite.
But ‘hate’ wasn’t the right word. He missed the game like an old friend. The big things—wins and finals and the built-in social network—but also stuff he didn’t expect—the smell of a fresh-cut field at 5am and the knot winding through his gut when February rolled around and the start of the season was imminent.
It wouldn’t be so bad if other retired guys he knew felt the same way, but no one did.
He and Willow had left the league at the same time, but Willow still went to Sharks training sessions and did TV guest commentaries and panel shows. He was even talking about playing a couple of games with the seconds this year.
Derek could play for the seconds; any regional team in the country would probably be happy to have him, but that was completely unfair. Ex-pros like him ruined local comps. They dominated the game, driving away local players who had to actually work for a living.
“Besides,” he’d told Byron the last time they’d had beers. “I retired so I wouldn’t fuck up my body before my kids are old enough to ride bikes. I’m not gonna sign on for some amateur team and fuck myself anyway.”
“So, find something else,” Byron had said. “Kickboxing. MMA. You love that shit.”
“Same problem as footy. I’m either munting my body or destroying guys who don’t deserve it.”
Byron, who was the assistant coach of a seconds team in Western Australia, groaned. “You can’t?—”
“And the media’ll jump up my ass. The last thing I want is them saying I’m doing the ‘Jordan Goes Baseball’ thing.”
Byron didn’t say, ‘Well, be a sulky little bitch then,’ but he might as well have. He got up to get fresh pints, and Derek thought it was the end of it, but a week later, his best mate was on the phone. “Got a gig for you, bloke.”
Derek had been at his desk, dick deep in line edits and in no fucking mood. “Don’t love your odds, bloke.”
“Not taking no for an answer. There’s an under-sixteens team in Beaconsfield that’s struggling. One of the locals is stumping up to put on a clinic, and I said you’d help out.”
Derek almost dropped his phone. “What the fuck?”
“Pack it in. It’s your cousin’s team. Maggie Hardiman.”
Derek almost dropped his phone again. “ Maggie’s playing footy?”
“Wants to. She won’t if they can’t keep the team going.”
“Fuck dealing with teenagers.”
“They’re not teenagers . Well, they are, but they’re still kids. Just show up for a few hours, take them through some low-level stuff and leave. It’s not a big deal.”
“Bloke…”
“The money’s not there,” Byron said coldly. “No one’s invested. You’ve got a chance to do something good here. So do something good.”
Derek had tried to talk his way out of it. He’d said Beaconsfield was in butt-fuck nowhere, and he was dogshit with teenagers, and Maggie was only his second cousin, but Byron wouldn’t hear it. A week later, he was driving east. He’d told Mara he was going to see his cousins, but not why. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was just embarrassed to have been strong-armed into doing the first football-related thing he’d gone near in years.
The oval where the clinic was held was as patchy and potholed as the one Derek had grown up playing on. The girls were familiar too, loud and loose with multi-coloured hair and tatty clothes. Like his sisters, Derek guessed they’d already seen too much bullshit and only expected to see more. Maggie barely acknowledged him. Just gave him a half-assed wave and kept talking to her mates.
“We’re still waiting on a couple of girls,” their coach, a grandad with more energy than experience, told him. “How about a tour?”
The tour turned out to be more of a debrief on the shittiness of most of the players’ lives and the cooked state of the women’s league.
“They’re not bad players,” Coach Gavin had said as soon as they were alone. “They’ve just had a rough go of it. There isn’t a budget for boots or pads, and the boys don’t like sharing the oval. We only got a regular night for training a few weeks ago.”
“Right,” Derek said, desperately wishing he could throttle Byron.
“But they all want to be here. They show up whenever we can get access to the field, day or night, rain or shine. They love the game, and they’re bloody beside themselves to meet you.”
Derek hadn’t believed that for a second. He was right not to. The girls who made up the Beaconsfield under-sixteens were cheeky little bastards. Worse than any of the boys he’d done clinics with back when he was still playing. They talked whenever he did, rolled their eyes at corrections and constantly asked for breaks.
“Your uncle’s boring,” a girl with pigtails told Maggie during one such unscheduled break. “I thought he was meant to be, like… cool .”
“He’s not my uncle,” Maggie had protested. “We’re hardly related.”
At that point, Derek had lost it. “Yeah, Maggie, that’s why I can run and bounce at the same time. And, Pigtails, kick straight once, and you can shit-talk me. Until then, quit wasting time and get back to the fucking drills.”
He’d expected them to be horrified, but Maggie and her friend had pissed themselves laughing.
“Scary,” Pigtails said in a stage whisper.
“So scary,” Maggie whispered back.
Derek found himself fighting back a grin. “Get back to work. People paid for this clinic, and I bet it wasn’t either of your dads.”
“My dad’s in jail,” Pigtails said.
“So’s mine.” Derek shot back. “I can still kick right.”
Pigtails, who’d turned out to be called Sandie, had given him the finger, but to his surprise, she and Maggie went back to training. They stopped taking random breaks and told off the other girls for doing it. By the time they broke for lunch—tinned spaghetti and sandwiches—all of the Beaconsfield under-sixteens had stopped giving him lip and started following orders. He was shocked by their improvement, not just their attitudes but their playing. Coach Gavin wasn’t wrong; they were full of potential. Maggie was one of the best on ground; she had a great kick and an even better tackle, putting her body on the line in a way he hadn’t seen outside barfights. He’d told her so, and she’d smiled so wide you’d have thought he’d given her a new phone.
“What did I tell you?” Coach Gavin said happily as they walked to the carpark when things wrapped up. “They’re great girls; they just need a chance.”
“Call this number,” Derek had said, giving him Chase Hanson’s card. “I wanna donate boots and balls and tackling bags.”
“Fantastic!” Coach Gavin hesitated. “Is there any chance you’d, uh, come back? Put in a little more time with the girls?”
Derek had known the question was coming, but it stung more than he expected to say he didn’t have the time.
“I understand,” Coach Gavin said. “But you’re good with them.”
“Anyone with experience’ll be able to get them to the next level.”
The old-timer gave him a wry look. “They like you. They’re already starting to trust you. And they’re not used to anyone worth a damn caring about them.”
Derek had been wrestling with those words ever since. Caring had never been his strong suit. He cared about Mara and his boys. He cared about his friends and, despite their many fuck-ups, his family. But footy had always been about what he could do. Where he could go. He wasn’t the coaching type. He wasn’t even the watching-the-game type anymore. But at random points in his day, he found himself remembering Maggie’s tackling or Sandie giving him the finger and grinning.
“I remember when I thought the world was getting better,” Fedora Man slurred behind him. “Now I know we’re all headed for oblivion.”
Derek imagined what the Beaconsfield under-sixteens would make of this knob and snorted. They’d eat him alive and spit out the fedora, and that was no more than the prick deserved. But he couldn’t coach them. He didn’t have the time or the skills, and they deserved better.
Draining the last of his beer, Derek checked his phone, wishing Mara was there. He was getting creepy about her; he knew that. He couldn’t stop pushing for more sex, dates, time. But she’d always been his lifeline to the outside world—the person who made it possible to socialise without putting his head through a plate glass window. And the less connected he felt, the more he needed her. It felt like she was the last person in the world still speaking English.
Tapping the tabletop, he wondered what she’d planned for them. It was something kinky—something she’d promised would be intense but safe and fun. Derek was man enough to admit he was doubtful. He trusted Mara, but he was always the one who organised this kind of stuff. He didn’t know how much intensity she’d be able to bring to a scene on her own.
Maybe that’s the point , he thought. Maybe she’s looking for something new…
His mind wandered back to the under-sixteens. The girls were about to start pre-season training. They’d gotten all their new gear, but Gavin had posted on the team’s Facebook page asking for volunteer coaches, and no one had replied or even liked it…
Mad at himself, Derek stood to get another beer. As he did, his phone rang. Mara was calling.
He picked up. “Hey, baby. Everything okay?”
A stranger’s voice came through the line, deep and robotic. “Not hardly. I’ve got your wife.”
Derek’s blood turned to ice. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he knew this had to be the start of the scene, but the rest of him lurched into panic. “The fuck are you talking about?”
“Your wife,” the stranger said. Their voice was distorted like a whistleblower on TV. “I’ve got her, Hardiman. Do you want her back, or should I keep her?”
“You fucking?—”
Derek became aware everyone, including Fedora douche, was staring at him. He was speaking way too loudly. “Hang on,” he muttered.
The robot voice laughed. “Whatever you say.”
Avoiding everyone’s eyes, he shifted between tables to the exit and ducked into a concrete alcove outside the pub, blood pounding in his ears. What kind of game was Mara playing? He’d wanted to be the one to kidnap her. This was… God, it was fake, wasn’t it?
“The fuck’s happening?” he barked down the line. “Where’s Mara?”
Another robotic laugh. “Want me to show you?”
Whoever they were, whatever they were using to modulate their voice, he caught the twist of a Kiwi accent. Mara couldn’t do a Kiwi accent. She couldn’t do any accents. And she didn’t know any Kiwi blokes, even if he’d wanted them to be pretending to hold her hostage. Who the fuck was involved in this shit? What was happening?
Derek gripped his phone. “Seriously, what is this? I’m not fucking around. Tell me. ”
A distorted sigh. “Slow on the uptake, aren’t you, Hardiman? Here…”
There was a crackle, and Mara’s voice came over the phone, high and trembling. “Derek, I love you. I’m okay. Please do whatever they say.”
His body went slack with relief. He loved his wife, but she wasn’t a professional actress. He knew what she sounded like when she was in a genuine panic, and he knew how she sounded when she was playing. Whatever this was, it was a game. He turned his back to the street. “I’ll come get you, baby. I’ll come find you.”
The mechanical voice was back, and the snorting robotic laughter was weirdly familiar.
“We’ll see. And you’ll see, too. Did you get my message?”
Derek pulled the phone from his face. There was a text from Mara. He opened it. It was a photo of his wife tied up on what looked like a wooden floor, with grey duct tape over her mouth. Her hands and ankles were bound together, and she was naked except for black lace panties.
“Sexy, isn’t she?” the robot asked. “And gagging for it. You must not be giving it to her right, Hardiman.”
He heard Mara’s moan of horror, and his head throbbed like an open wound. Whatever the reality of this scene was, Mara hadn’t tied herself up and taken a picture. Another man was looking at her body. Another man had touched her. He opened his mouth to tell whoever was on the phone this was fucked, and the game was over, but the words didn’t come.
“Hardiman? I’m waiting.”
“I’ll do whatever you want,” Derek growled. “Just tell me where she is.”
“Not so fast. First, there’s something you need to do for me.”
“What?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Get back home. Your wife’s waiting.”
The call ended, and Derek swore. He started up the street, walking so fast it was almost a run. And though his head was on fire, and he wanted this done with, he was aware of something else. After months of zero stakes, this was the closest he’d come to the way he’d felt when he was playing footy, and it felt… good. Or, at least, better. Brighter or something.
He imagined Mara watching him, her blue eyes knowing the truth even if he wouldn’t say it. You missed this. You missed taking risks, and you couldn’t give them to yourself, so I did.
She was one fuck of a girl, his wife. Smarter than anyone gave her credit for, including his stupid ass. If the bloke was real, he was someone safe. Mara wouldn’t do anything to put their relationship, family, or reputations in danger. She’d never let him down. Never put him in harm’s way. No, she was asking him to trust her the way she’d always trusted him in the scenes he’d put together.
“Alright, baby,” Derek muttered, rounding the corner of his street. “Wherever you’re going with this, I’m in.”
He half expected to find his front door wide and a stranger in his hallway, but the locks were in place, the security system active. More proof there was nothing to worry about. Only, he was sure Mara wasn’t there. It was quiet, and the house had that flat feeling of emptiness. He wandered through the living room and kitchen, looking for fuck knew what when his phone rang. Another call from Mara. He answered at once.
“Where is she?”
“Somewhere nearby,” the robot said. “But you won’t find her until I want you to. Go upstairs; I’ve got a little surprise.”
Gritting his teeth, Derek headed for his and Mara’s bedroom. Sure enough, the space had been fucked with. The mattress was bare, and one of those tripod ring light things was parked in front of it.
“The fuck’s going on?” he snarled.
“Patience, champion. You’ll never get your wife back like that.”
Derek squinted. No one called him ‘champion’, except… He gripped his phone tighter. He couldn’t fucking remember…
“You gonna film me and Mara fucking or something?”
“Shut up,” the voice growled. “I’ll tell you what’s happening, dickhole.”
Derek grinned. He knew who he was talking to. He’d been so caught up in the idea that the fake kidnapper was a man that he hadn’t remembered Mara did know a Kiwi. Beth Myers, Byron’s missus. Relief flooded his body. He didn’t want another guy touching Mara, but Beth was a whole other kettle of fish. Considering she and Mara had once made out at a bachelorette party, very much to his and Byron’s approval, he had no problem with her seeing Mara’s tits.
“Happy about something?” the robot, who was almost certainly Beth, asked. Now he was listening closely, Derek couldn’t believe he hadn’t clocked it was a girl. Panic had made an idiot of him. Whatever Beth was using as a pitch shifter, it didn’t disguise the female tenor of her voice. But that didn’t explain how she seemed to be able to see him. He turned on his heels, looking for a secret camera. “Where are you?”
“In your wife’s pussy. So you might wanna do what I say before she comes all over me.”
Derek swore a blue streak. Knowing it was probably Beth didn’t change the mental image that had been conjured in his head of another man inside Mara.
“You done?” the voice on the line asked.
“Fine. What do I have to fuckin’ do?”
“Get your clothes off.”
Derek gritted his teeth. Not since his last grand final had he felt this manic, but despite his rage, he was fully torqued, his dick straining against his jeans. He decided to click fully into the headspace of the fantasy. He stripped off, but when he got down to his underwear, he paused.
The voice laughed. “Shy?”
“Fuck you,” he muttered, pulling off his CKs. His cock bounced up as he kicked his briefs away, hard as it had ever been. “Now what?”
The voice gave a metallic laugh. “Now I’m gonna let you go.”
“The fuck ?”
“Click the link I’ve just sent you, and everything will become clear. Be a good boy, and you might see Mara again.”
The call ended, and Derek opened the new message from Mara’s phone. He clicked as instructed. A video chat opened, and he blinked at his confused face. Then the screen reduced, showing a shadowy figure sitting in a dark room.
“Hello again, Mr Hardiman.”
This was a different man talking. Not a man. Voice-to-text. A boilerplate British accent with robot undertones. He squinted and saw the figure—Beth?—was wearing a white rubber mask. They looked like No-Face from Spirited Away. “The hell?”
“Put your phone in the tripod in front of the bed.”
“Why?”
“Because if you ever want to see your cunt wife again, you’ll do what you’re told.”
All the air rushed out of his lungs. He almost shouted at Beth that he didn’t give a fuck what they were doing—no one talked about Mara like that—when it clicked again: No-Face wasn’t Beth. No one they knew would say something that horrible about Mara.
It was her, his wife, making whatever was about to go down just between them. Derek looked away so she couldn’t see his growing awareness. If this was what Mara wanted, he was all in. Ready to show her he could wear the saddle and not just carry the whip.
“Fuck you,” he told No-Face. “Let me talk to Mara.”
“She’s a little busy right now. Put your phone in the tripod and sit where I can still see that famous cock.”
Derek complied, arranging the tripod so that his dick was in the frame. He gripped his shaft and displayed himself to the camera. “This what you wanted?”
“Not quite,” the voice-to-text said. “You’ve been with a lot of women, haven’t you, Mr Hardiman?”
“How’s that relevant?”
“Ha-ha-ha,” came the mechanical reply.
Goosebumps spread down his arms. No matter what this scene was, he was still naked and hard in front of a camera anyone could be recording from. He let go of his cock, his heart pumping so fast it hurt.
“I’ve got a question for you, Mr Hardiman,” whirred the robot. “Do you want Mara to die today?”
Somehow, his heart beat faster. He could feel his pulse in all his fingers. “No. Fuck, please?—”
“Get your hand back on your cock and answer my question.”
Derek clenched his teeth. He’d never been on this side of BDSM—being put in your place and straining to get out. His frustration bordered on rage, and it was like nothing he’d ever felt before. Not after the most humiliating football losses, not after getting dragged out of barfights where guys hit him from behind so that they could tell their mates they’d punched a pro. Yet he was still hard, and when he re-wrapped his hand around his dick, he grunted at how good it felt.
“That’s it,” the robot said. “Now talk. Have you been with a lot of women?”
“Yeah, I’ve been with a few.”
“But you’re always in charge, aren’t you? The big man outside. The big man in bed.”
Against his will, Derek started squeezing himself. He realised what he was doing and loosened his fist, his face burning. “It’s what I like.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” came the response. “And how do you like being submissive? How do you like being under my control?”
“I don’t.”
“Really? Because you seem to be masturbating.”
Derek swore. He let go of his cock altogether, then remembered his orders and grabbed it again. “That’s what you fucking want, don’t you?”
“It is.”
“What’s your fucking problem?” he snarled. “I smash your missus or something?”
He felt a surge of shame as soon as he said it. He never talked like that in front of Mara. Showing that side of himself to her felt as degrading as everything else. And yet, he began to pump himself, embracing this scene as he’d once had to embrace his seedy past. Let her see. Let her fucking know.
“Ha-ha-ha,” came the response. “We’ve never met. You don’t know me. I just want to make the famous Derek Hardiman demean himself. Then I’m going to show the whole world what it looks like when a has-been loses control.”
The words stung like a whip. “You fucking?—”
“Remember what I said. Follow orders, or I’ll kill your wife and dump her in St Kilda Bay.”
Derek swore and kept moving his fist up and down his shaft.
“Think about the answer to this next question very carefully. What would you do for the woman you love, Mr Hardiman?”
“Anything,” he hissed through his teeth. “Fuckin’ anything.”
“So, make yourself come, you selfish, arrogant prick.”
Derek’s chest was tight as a drum, his hands and feet cold with anger. He worked robotically, pumping himself like he was turning a crank.
“Pathetic,” the robot said. “I think you need a little inspiration.”
Like magic, the wide-screen TV behind the tripod turned on, and he saw a video of Mara. She was fully naked and rubbing a vibrator between her legs. Her eyes were closed, and she was sucking a dildo, the thick flesh so realistic that for a second, Derek thought she was actually cheating, and black stars popped behind his eyes.
“Your wife’s having a lot of fun with our toys,” the robot said. “Does that turn you on, Mr Hardiman? Do you think you can come now?”
Derek looked at his phone screen, at the shadowy figure watching, and he let himself believe it. It was all real. Mara was in danger. Mara was being forced to make herself come in front of other men, and this was what he had to do to save her. He’d have footage of himself jerking off all over the internet forever. His public persona would be destroyed, and everyone he knew would watch the video. He accepted all of it, and as he began to pull and stroke himself like he did when he was alone, his mind went blank, and his body relaxed. He felt so high, like he’d taken three caps of E.
“Jesus,” he said, letting his head roll back on his neck. “Fucking hell.”
“That’s it,” cooed the robot. “Harder now. I want to see you COME.”
Derek obeyed, gripping himself tight and pulling his fist across his aching flesh. “I’ll come for you,” he told the robot. “Just you fucking wait.”
“I know you will. Spit in your hand. Make it all shiny-wet for me, Derek.”
“You’re a fucking pervert,” he groaned as he did exactly what he was asked.
“You’re one to talk. I heard you and your slut wife have a sex room. That’s disgusting. You’re both disgusting. Look at her, now.”
Derek stared at the TV. Mara was riding the leather saddle horse he’d bought when they first got a house together. She had a sparkling blue buttplug in her ass and clamps on her nipples, and she was coming, moaning and writhing as the seat vibrated her pussy. Derek burst everywhere, hot come pumping across his chest and down his fist. “Fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck….”
“Good boy.”
Derek screwed his eyes shut, somehow still coming. “Fuck you—oh Jesus… oh fuck…”
“Good boy.” The robot repeated. “You’re even better at following orders than your whore of a wife.”
Covered in sweat and come and shaking from head to toe, Derek peeled his eyes apart. “Give her back to me. Right now.”
“I will. First, I have to upload this footage. When I’ve done that, you can have her. If we can even manage to tear her off that vibrating cock.”
“Fuck you?—”
“You’ll get your wife back in an hour or so. Go mop up.”
His phone went black, and one of the strangest, hottest experiences of Derek’s life ended.