Kiss List (10 page)

Thankfully, the knock on the girls’ locker room door came quickly. The kissing session with Graham had stretched for some time after the football practice ended so all the other boys must have cleared out by the time we got to the locker rooms. “Just a few stragglers,” Doug confirmed when I opened the door. “They’re all gone now. We’re good to go.”

I put my backpack on my back, slung my duffel bag with all my school clothes over my shoulder, and followed him to the boys’ locker room. “So what exactly do you have in mind for this photo shoot again?” I asked. I had blocked Doug out when he first tried to describe it to me before practice but now that the time for the shoot had arrived I wanted the details.

“I want to create an image that portrays how the educational system, like, indoctrinates us and stuff and turns us into cookie-cutter members of society,” Doug said. “I want to portray people displaying primal passion behind the locker doors to show how school locks us in these stereotypes. Do you know anything about Plato and the Allegory of the Cave?”

I shook my head. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Doug look annoyed but he continued. “Well, I think of myself like a philosopher who will take a photograph of the real world behind the illusion of the stereotypes and reveal it to the prisoners. That might not make much sense to you if you aren’t familiar with Plato but maybe one day you will get it.”

We walked into the boys’ locker room. “So... what? You’re going to take a photo of each of us side-by-side in two lockers?” I asked.

“Sort of,” he said as we rounded a row of lockers. “Except that I need you in the same locker.”

I didn’t even have time to process his words when a beautiful sight came into view – Graham wearing only his spandex shorts and a football helmet. My breath caught in my throat. He was drenched in sweat as though he had just finished a hard run. He looked exquisite. I had not noticed how amazing his abs were before. On the football field I had of course let my eyes wander and noticed that his abs were decent but not like this. These were in the same league as David and Sam. It must just be the way the sweat and light glistened off of them.

“Uh, um, what?”
I stuttered. “What do you mean the same locker? We can’t put two people in the same locker. There’s no way we’d fit. It’d barely fit one of us.”

“Yes you’ll have to squish,” Doug said. “Graham will go in first and then you can kneel under him. I want you to lift up your arm and spread your fingers across his chest so that it looks like you are clawing your way up his body in the heat of passion. Don’t worry, though, I’ll shoot the photo so that only your arms and your fingers will be visible. No one will be able to tell that it’s you.”

I was horrified. “Ah, are you okay with this?” I asked Graham. “It’s a little racier than I had in mind so it’s fine if you’re not.”

Graham shrugged and stepped into the locker. I looked at him in desperation.

“You promised me,” Doug said. “Come on. Let’s do it.”

I tried to think of some way to get out of this but came up with nothing. I had promised Doug to help him and Graham was already in the locker. I couldn’t claim cold feet now, not after what I had asked of each of them. I reluctantly stepped up to the locker.

“Why are you sweating?” I asked Graham.

“I asked him to go for a quick run to enhance the definition of his muscles. Now get in,” Doug said.

Graham was squeezed like a sardine into the locker. I had to put my hands on his body to pull myself in. I hesitantly reached in and grabbed his shoulders. I pulled myself to him and felt his sweat soak into my skin. “Sorry,” I said. “This is a bit uncomfortable.” I practically slid down his body as I knelt and then arranged my hands across his chest

Doug closed the locker door behind us.
The door was a criss-cross metal designed that allowed for maximum ventilation. As a result, it was completely transparent so it wasn’t like I was being locked in a tiny box or anything. Still, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable as the door pressed me closer to Graham. There was no space between us at all and I couldn’t move.

“You’re not locking it, right?” I said as the thought suddenly occurred to me.

“Just for a moment,” Doug said and I heard the sound of metal sliding through the slots in the handle. “The lock is an important symbol for the shoot.” I heard the sound of the locking clicking into place, trapping us inside the locker. “This is perfect guys, hold it just like this,” Doug said.

Easy for him to say.
I was feeling incredibly uncomfortable. Kneeling down had put my face level with Graham’s waistband. The scene must look wildly inappropriate from behind. Then another thought occurred to me. My last name was printed on the back of my jersey. “You’re sure that the photo will only include my arms, right?” I asked, beginning to panic.

“Hmmm,” Doug mumbled in response as he continued to snap photos. “Okay, would you mind taking the helmet off now?”

I felt Graham move around as he took the helmet off. I wondered why Doug had requested that if we were supposed to be anonymous. Maybe he wanted a shot with my hands, the helmet, and Graham’s torso and was going to crop Graham’s head out? That seemed odd but I had given up trying to understand Doug’s artistic sensibilities.

I felt Graham press his body slightly against my head and I bit my lip to keep from saying anything. Graham had done everything I had asked of him and I didn’t want to snap at him, especially when my actions were almost certainly going to cause him to lose his girlfriend. Still, the feeling of his sweaty abs pressed against my face was uncomfortable.

Well, perhaps it wasn’t all bad. A lot of girls would have loved to be stuck in close quarters with Graham. His body was incredible. I tried my best to enjoy the moment. I let my hands slide across his skin.

“That’s good!” Doug cried. “It’s really helping get different shots. Keep going.”

Emboldened, I began to stroke Graham’s body softly. I felt him shiver under my touch. Was I making the big bad football star and homecoming king tremble? I restrained the urge to giggle. Perhaps I could torture him a little while I was here. I ducked my head down and pressed my lips lightly against the spandex of his inner thigh. Graham jumped and I heard his head hit the top of the locker. He grunted in pain. I smiled. I was enjoying teasing the boy. He rested his hand on the back of my head and I figured he was trying to think of a way to get me to stop torturing him. I couldn’t help but let my lips lightly brush his thigh one more time.

“Are you getting this?” Graham asked excitedly. Except the voice was not Graham’s at all. My head snapped up in horror.

Sam Queen’s triumphant face was staring back down at me.

“What’s going on?” I screeched. “What are you doing in here?”

“I believe
it’s called revenge,” Sam said. “You got some interesting photos of me. Now I’ve got some interested photos of you. Sadie Anderson, captain of the girls’ soccer team, with her face buried in the crotch of some guy who looks naked in a locker. Pretty juicy stuff, wouldn’t you say? I figure we can distribute the ones with my head cropped out. I just requested ones with my face for bragging rights down the road.”

My mind shut off. All I saw was red. I went berserk. I yelled and tried to claw Sam’s chest with my fingers. I rammed my head into his crotch as hard as I could.

My head just hit hard plastic. Sam grabbed my arms by the wrists and pressed them against the locker door to keep them from scratching him. “That’s a high-quality baseball cup you just smacked your head into,” I heard him say. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice it. I figured I better be prepared if I got into a locker with you.”

“Get me out of here!” I screamed.

“Easy now,” Sam said. “The lady has a point, Doug. I believe there’s just the little matter of deleting the photo of me from her phone. Sadie, what’s the password to your phone?”

I hesitated for only a moment. My phone was in my backpack. If I told them the password Doug could delete the photos of Sam and I would have no leverage against him. Why hadn’t I backed it up? I guess I was too nice to put it anywhere else and risk it getting out and embarrassing Sam. Now I needed it but I couldn’t bear to spend any more time in the locker. It had seemed kind of sexy when I thought I was in the locker with Graham. Now that I knew I had been the victim of a prank by Sam and Doug, I felt humiliated. The sensation of the sweat from his lower abs being rubbed into my cheek became disgusting. The smell of his sweaty body made me want to gag.

“It’s 5575,” I admitted. My street address. Not very clever but then again I never expected anyone would actually want to hack into my phone.

“Excellent,” Sam crowed. “Doug, will you do the honors and delete those photos? I think Sadie’s enjoying herself down there so we’ll wait until you’ve finished the job.
Wouldn’t want Sadie to stop you.”

“Actually, kid,” Doug said, “I don’t know anything about deleting photos. I’ve got different instructions.”

What was he talking about? Apparently Sam was perplexed as well. “Different directions?” he said quizzically. “No, Missy and I agreed that if I helped she would have you delete the photos.”

Missy.
The name sent a chill through me. Missy was behind this? How?

“Sorry comrade,” Doug said. “Missy was pretty clear when she talked to me. I was to lock you two up and then forward the photos of you to her."

“The photos of Sadie,” Sam said angrily. “You can forward the photos of Sadie and me with my head cropped out to Missy, but the old photos of me on Sadie’s phone from when she and David Reagan jumped me get deleted.”

“Nope, Missy gave me very clear instructions,” Doug said. “Delete the photos of Graham and the soccer chicks. Take photos of Sadie and Sam in the locker and send them to her. Send the photos of Sam from Sadie’s phone to her. Leave Sadie and Sam in the locker. Then I get my paid and her dad recommends me to his friend with the photo studio.”

“No, that’s not... wait,” Sam said. “You didn’t mean leave us in the locker. You can’t do that. School’s out for the day. We’d be here all night. You can’t...”

“
Chillax, man,” Doug said. “Missy said there’s a night custodian who comes by in a few hours. Just in case she told me to leave an anonymous tip with the coach of the girls’ soccer team a little later tonight so he can make sure you both get out safely. We’re not psychopaths here.”

I thought my heart was going to stop beating. “Doug, listen to me,” I said. “What you’re suggesting is very serious. If you don’t...”

“Lighten up, chick,” Doug said. “Missy and I are going to hang onto these photos for a while. If either of you rat on us, we’ll let these photos out. I don’t think you want these getting around.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked on the verge of tears.

“Sorry,” Doug said. “This Missy chick seems a bit cold but she pays well. Besides, I’m sure it won’t be too bad. You two are both the popular, good-looking, stuck up kids in school. I’m sure you won’t mind getting friendly for a couple hours. Oh, I almost forgot.”

I hear the clicking of buttons. “Who are you calling?” Sam demanded.

“Missy wanted to give you both one more way out. She said I was supposed to call someone named Dylan on Sadie’s phone and leave it on speaker,” Doug said. “Okay, see you both later.”

“Doug!” Sam yelled but I could already hear Doug’s footsteps fading away down the hall.

“Hello?” a new voice said. My heart sank. Dylan.

“Don’t say anything!” I hissed.

“Dylan, we’re in the boy’s locker room,” Sam yelled, ignoring me. “We need your help.”

“What? Who is this?” Dylan asked.

“Dylan, it’s nothing,” I yelled. “Someone is just messing around with my phone. Ignore him.”

“Dylan, it’s not a joke. This is Sam Queen. I’m here with Sadie. We need...”

“Sam Queen?” Dylan said, clearly annoyed. “Why are you and Sadie together?”

“Dylan, it’s nothing,” I yelled. “Seriously...”

“Come help us!” Sam yelled over my voice.

Then we were both talking at once. I desperately didn’t want Dylan to know what was going on. I could imagine him coming here and finding us like this. I couldn’t live with the look on his face. There was no way I would be able to explain it to him.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Dylan’s angry voice finally broke through, “but I’m done with this conversation. It sounds like you both are having a fun time horsing around together. Well, please don’t let me stop you. I can take a hint. Goodbye.”

I heard a click and then the phone went dead.

“Why did you do that?” Sam cried. “He could’ve gotten us out of here.”

“Me?” I yelled. “You do this to me and you want to know why I don’t invite my boyfriend here to see us like this?”

“Don’t put this on me,” Sam said. “I never would have had to resort to this if you hadn’t blackmailed me.”

“Blackmailed you?” I screeched. “All I asked was for you to be nice and be a good person and to apologize for being a jerk. You call that blackmail?”

“Yes, when you keep the pictures, I do,” Sam said. “How was I supposed to know you weren’t going to release them later? Maybe at the end of the year or when you left high school or even years down the road? How was I supposed to let you get away with making me look like a fool and holding it over me for the rest of my life? At least now we’re even.”

“Yeah, right,” I said.
“Now Missy can blackmail both of us."

We both fell silent for a moment, not knowing what else to say. I felt the cold metal floor of the locker pressing painfully up against my knees and Sam’s warm body against my face. The combination of pain and humiliation was excruciating.

“How did this happen?” I finally asked.

Sam grunted. “You tell me,” he said. “All I know is I got a call from Missy earlier today
sayingshe was texting with Graham and he mentioned some sort of weird photo shoot. She said she knew that you and I had a falling out and she asked if I wanted to get even. She said she would work something out with the photographer. Then this guy Doug finds me at school and tells me to meet in the locker room. He texted me while I was out for a run and said to high-tail it back here and put on my black spandex shorts and find a football helmet. That was easy enough. You showed up and for a while it was working great. Then it all fell apart. I don’t have any details about the photo shoot or why Missy set this up or any of that.”

I, unfortunately, had that information. The sinister mind of Missy James had now fully revealed itself. Graham had
fessed up and she had managed to orchestrate this entire scheme from across the country. Doug must have told Graham he didn’t need him for the locker room shoot. Why had Missy allowed the kissing on the football field to take place at all? To give Graham a treat or was trapping me really important enough to her that she would let her own boyfriend cheat on her just so she could get back at me?

Sam sighed. “I’m sorry, Sadie, I didn’t know it would go this far.”

“That’s alright, Sam,” I said reluctantly. “I’m beginning to think that this is all my fault.”

“How did it get this bad?” Sam asked. “I just remember how I caught you in the hallway that one day and you took me to the gym and kissed me. I was so happy. Then somehow things fell apart on the baseball diamond and we started fighting and things got out of control and everything. I don’t know what happened to me, I was jealous and upset and I wasn’t even thinking when I punched Dylan. I know I shouldn’t have and I felt really bad but after you and David got back at me I felt like I had to even things out.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve dug a much deeper hole than I ever knew I had and I think it’s only going to get deeper. One bad thing just seems to build on another until it’s overwhelming.”

“Sort of like
The Crucible
,” Sam said.

“What?”

“
The Crucible
,” Sam said. “We’re reading it in my 10X English class. Abigail Williams is the antagonist of the book and, some would say, one of the great antagonists of all time. I have a different take, however. I think she starts accusing other people of being witches to shift the blame away from herself and then goes after people like Goody Proctor out of jealousy. She sinks so deep into her lies that she gets trapped in them. I think she’s fundamentally a tragic character, not an evil one.”

I thought about that. Who knew Sam was so deep? “I didn’t know you were in accelerated English,” I said. That was a really tough class at our school.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asked. “You just assume that I must be a dumb jock because I play baseball?”

“That’s not what I mean,” I said. “Well, I guess it sort of is. I don’t assume you must be a dumb jock because you play baseball. I assume it because you’re so popular and, I mean, good looking.”

Sam was quiet for a moment. “You know that’s the second time you’ve commented on my looks,” he said. “Do you remember when we met and you said I was cute?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And you said I was cute.”

“You are cute,” Sam said. “You’re also kind of intimidating. You’re one of the best athletes in the school. Really, you’re not just cute, you’re smoking hot. Yeah, I’ll admit I’m a bit intimidated by you. Maybe that’s why I act so stupidly around you."

“I think it’s your friends you act stupidly around,” I said.

Sam was quiet for another few moments. “Sadie,” he said, “do you think there’s ever a chance that we go start over and be friends?”

I sighed again. “Sure Sam. Though we might be busy dealing with whatever Missy wants for a while.”

“More than friends?”

Did Sam want to start up something romantic with me again? After all that had happened – me blackmailing him and him trapping me in this locker? It seemed impossible that he would still be interested. Maybe all it took for boys to get over a major emotional injury was to be stuck in a locker with a scantily clad girl for a while.

“I don’t know about that, Sam,” I said. “We tried that. I think maybe we’re just too different.”

Sam thought about that. “It just seems like a waste,” he said.

“What does?”

“That too unattached people – sorry, I’m assuming you’re unattached after that phone call to Dylan – who
are attracted to each other can’t just have a casual physical relationship,” Sam said wistfully.

Ugh.
Boys. “Are you suggesting a friends-with-benefits relationship?” I said critically.

“Why not?” he said “I think you’re hot.
You think I’m hot. No offense, but you clearly have no trouble making out with guys without getting emotionally attached. Why can’t we have a bit of fun until one of us finds a partner that we’re serious about?”

“Uh, Sam, I think maybe we should wait to discuss this at better time. I’m not comfortable doing it with my head attached to your waistband.”

“Here, come on,” he said and I felt him pulling up on my arms.

“There’s no room, Sam,” I said but he somehow managed to squeeze his body into the back of the locker and pull me up. I was face-to-face with him. The locker wasn’t even big enough for him to stand up straight; he had to hunch over. It didn’t look at all comfortable. My arms were squeezed tightly against my body so my hands rested on his
pecs. The helmet dug into my side but somehow, when I stared into his beautiful eyes, it didn’t seem so bad.

Of all the guys I had kissed, I had to admit that Sam and David had the most incredible bodies. David was beautiful in an innocent and pure sort of way. Whenever I was around him I wanted to throw him down and make out with him. It was kind of exhilarating to think of corrupting him. Sam was different. He had Graham’s All-American jock-like features with the chiseled jaw and piercing eyes. When I looked at him I wanted him to take the lead. He seemed like he had an aggressive side just waiting to be unleashed. My knees started to feel weak. I wondered what it looked like when he turned that aggression into passion. I suddenly yearned to be the subject of that passion, to be the one all-consuming focus of his entire mind, body, and soul.