Chapter Nine - 9. The Punishment
CHAPTER NINE
The Punishment
“When you said cute activities,” Taylor said, “I wasn’t expecting this.”
It had been an hour bus ride from campus into the city, and after navigating some sketchy-looking alleys, we arrived in front of a store that had a LED sign in the window that read adults only.
“I’m sure lots of people come here on dates. Bet you didn’t know this place existed.”
“Where do you think I bought that collar?” Taylor asked.
I glanced at him, unsure if he was joking, but he returned my gaze with a steady look. Well. I couldn’t be surprised.
We entered the shop, which was hushed and quiet, reminding me of a church. A lady sat behind the counter, reading a novel. She looked to be in her fifties, her arms covered in tattoos, and didn’t look up as we passed.
“What should we get?” I murmured as we walked through the shelves. I was grateful there were no other customers around. Despite my bravado, it was kind of embarrassing being here, but maybe that was just my own immaturity.
“You came here without knowing what you wanted to get?” Taylor demanded.
“Why are you so pissy? It’s an adventure.” I led him down an aisle, past brightly coloured wigs and displays of polyester lingerie, arriving at a selection of costumes packaged in plastic packets. “Wow,” I said as I took it all in. “So much choice.”
“Is this for you or me?” he asked.
“For you, of course,” I said. On one side were costumes for men: police officer, fireman, doctor. Boring. The other side featured costumes for women: nurse, librarian, school girl —
“Ah ha!” I said, snatching up the French maid costume. The black dress was decorated with a white apron and copious amounts of frills and lace. I held it up for Taylor.
“No.”
My grin widened. “Yes.”
“There’s no way I’m going to fit in that,” he said.
I read the back of the packaging. “It has elastic. It’s stretchy.”
“I’m not going to fit,” he repeated.
“We can always try.” I paused. “Do you not want to?”
“Of course I don’t want to, who wants to dress up like a maid?”
“I think it’s pretty.”
Taylor inhaled with his whole body.
“But if you don’t want to—”
“Fine, buy it,” he interrupted, taking it from my hands. “But just know you’re wasting money because I won’t be able to fit in it.”
He started marching towards the counter, but I grabbed his wrist and dragged him down another aisle.
“I thought that was everything,” he said.
“We bought one thing,” I reminded him. We passed vibrators and air-suction toys, rows and rows of dildos (it might’ve been my imagination, but Taylor’s scowl appeared to deepen) and found ourselves in front of a selection of ropes, restraints and handcuffs.
“Are you kidding me.”
I picked up a box of black fluffy handcuffs. “These seem comfortable. They’re affordable too.” I read the back. “They don’t lock, just click.”
“Good. Knowing you, you’d probably lose the key.”
“I would not.”
After shoving the handcuffs into his hands, I decided to put him out of his misery and headed to the counter — also because a couple had just entered, young enough that odds are, they probably went to Halverton uni too.
I paid for the items and was grateful the lady bagged them in a unlabelled brown paper bag. By the time we left, it was already one thirty, and my stomach was growling.
“Hungry?” I asked Taylor.
We wandered up and down a main street twice, Taylor looking increasingly irritated every time I stopped to check a restaurant’s Google reviews.
“I thought you had this day planned out.”
“I didn’t think it’d be this hard to find somewhere to eat.”
“Just choose one.”
“I want it to be good,” I said, exiting out of a review that stated the food tasted undercooked. “What do you want?”
“I don’t care. You’re the boss.”
Maybe I was, but I wanted Taylor to enjoy himself. In the end, I led him to a food court because there would be lots of options. I ordered a chicken burger meal and Taylor got a packet of salmon nigiri, a few Vietnamese rice paper rolls, and a large slice of meatlovers pizza.
“What’s the plan after this?” Taylor asked as he picked up his chopsticks.
I felt like a caveman, in comparison, chomping on my burger and getting sauce on my fingers.
“I’m not gonna lie,” I began, “I didn’t think that far ahead.”
He gave me a flat look.
“I just thought shopping, and then, you know. Back to my bedroom. But,” I added hastily, “there’s tons of stuff to do here.” I looked around at the endless stream of shoppers walking past.
“Or we could go back.” Taylor sounded like he couldn’t care less, dipping a piece of sushi into soy sauce.
“I don’t want to do it in the daylight,” I said, then felt my cheeks go warm. “I just mean — ahem.” I chugged my soft drink. “I have you here now. I might as well take advantage of your company.”
He gave me an odd look.
Maybe I should wind him up some more. “I’m sure there’s some cute activities we could do…” I perked up. “I know. Let’s go to an arcade.”
There was an arcade on the basement floor of the shopping centre, which was so loud with game sound effects and shouts that we heard it from a hundred metres away.
The place had no overhead lighting, since the neon lights attached to the machines was more than enough to see.
I converted a twenty dollar bill into tokens, and passed ten to Taylor.
The place had a system where each machine spat out tickets depending on how well you played, and those tickets could be converted to prizes, which were displayed in glass cabinets at the back of the arcade, manned by bored-looking teenage staff members.
Prizes included a lolly pop (65 tickets), a stuffed animal (300 tickets), a plastic superhero figurine (875 tickets) and even the latest Playstation (60,000 tickets).
“Whoever gets the most tickets wins,” I said.
“Sure,” Taylor said, expression nonchalant enough, but I didn’t miss the way he tightened his grip on his tokens.
He suggested playing a basketball game first. The more balls in the hoop, the more points. There was a reason soccer was my sport of choice, and I wasn’t surprised when Taylor won by a landslide. Annoyed, but not surprised.
The aim of the next game was to shoot zombies, and after that, we raced against each other while sitting in cracked leather seats and steering plastic wheels.
We played fighting games, moving the joystick around and jabbing a plastic button to kick or punch.
My fingers hurt after that one. There was also a boxing machine where you had to punch a bag as hard as possible, and we played that a few too many times, trying to break the tie.
By the time our tokens ran out, our arms were full with a long line of paper tickets. We fed them into a machine that counted them and produced a receipt with the total we’d earned. Taylor got 230. I’d gotten 232. I did the mature thing and didn’t rub it in his face.
We walked up to the counter, and a teenager with broccoli hair told me we could choose our prizes.
“Can we combine them?” I asked after looking at our options: a pad of sticky notes (what the hell); a bouncy ball (that was even more useless); and a packet of gum that looked like it had been there forever.
“Sure,” the guy said, checking his phone.
In the end, I chose a fluffy red bear key-chain that was about the size of my palm and probably worth eighty cents, rather than twenty dollars worth of tokens and more than an hour of hard labour playing arcade games.
“Thank you for consulting me —” Taylor began as we walked away.
“It’s for you.” I shoved it into his chest.
He almost dropped it. “Me?”
I certainly didn’t want it. The bear was kind of scary looking, with its big plastic eyes and sewn on smile. “It’s a gift.”
I thought Taylor might tell me to piss off and say he didn’t want the freaky, fluffy thing.
Instead he just looked at it with this small, confused frown.
“Thanks.” He met my eyes and cocked his head slightly, and I forced myself to maintain a neutral expression.
“C’mon,” he said, hand on my back, pushing me forward.
We arrived at a selection of claw machines by one wall. There were mostly parents and kids here. Taylor started feeding gold coins into one of the machines, which was full of stuffed soccer balls, volleyballs and basketballs.
“Haven’t we given this place enough money already?” I asked.
He ignored me, moving the joystick with precision. I watched as he hit the button and the claw came down, picking up a soccer ball. It slid out of grasp the next second.
“That’s so totally rigged,” I said.
He tried again, picking it up a second time.
“How are you good at everything?” I asked.
“I do this a lot with Hazel.” The ball dropped out of the claws again, and he cursed under his breath.
Hazel? I mentally went through everyone who went to our high school, searching for a Hazel.
Who was she? One of Taylor’s girlfriends?
No, I would’ve remembered. Not that Taylor really had girlfriends, now that I thought about it.
Girls liked him and they’d always talk to him and he’d usually be in a shadowy corner with someone at a party, but I never remembered him being in an actual relationship. I definitely would’ve remembered.
Maybe she was a girl he’d met at university. Oh god, what if he was going out with someone, while we were —
He glanced sideways at me. “My sister,” he explained, turning his eyes back to the machine.
“Oh,” I said, feeling dumb. “I didn’t know you had a sister.” I always thought he was an only child. He gave off only child vibes — not that I could talk, since I was one too.
“Technically, she’s my half-sister. She’s also six.”
“Right.”
I wanted to ask him more about his family — and since he was my slave he had to answer — but something about his demeanour made me hesitate, and besides, I was distracted by the claws dropping the fuzzy soccer ball into the hole. Taylor pulled it out and pushed it into my hand.
“It’s yours.”
I squished it. “Thanks. You didn’t have to.”