Nothing But a Fool's Game

The five teens piled into Zack’s shiny blue sedan. Zack drove, because it was his car, while Gavin took the passenger seat, which left Victoria, Madison and Chloe in the back. There was some dispute about the front seat though, because Madison called shotgun but didn’t want to sit beside Zack and Victoria didn’t want to sit beside Gavin. So, Zack overruled the shotgun call and installed Gavin in the front seat. The only other option was to let Victoria sit up front, which Zack felt was a bad idea, though he didn’t say it out loud. But he didn’t want to appear to be siding with Victoria and truthfully, with the way she was teasing him since the morning, he didn’t trust her to behave.

The drive to the club was, however, uneventful. The girls chatted and gossiped in the back seat, talking about their plans for next year and what they hoped to find at the club. Madison wanted to find a guy, though she didn’t say why. In the front seat, Gavin remained nervously quiet. Chloe just wanted to have some fun, after all the drama of finding out about Hannah. And Victoria, she wanted to let loose since Ashley wasn’t around to judge her. They asked the boys what they were looking forward to. Gavin was just thankful to get out of the cabin for a few hours. Zack just needed a distraction.

They arrived at the club, a large long building that might have been mistaken for an old brick warehouse were it not for the large neon light hanging on the side of the building that read ‘Surrender’. It sat above two large doors, like the inscription above the gates of hell. Zack parked and they exited the car, entering the building through the doors and passing through the vestibule into a darkened room, lit only by strobe and flashing coloured beams while music with a heavy bass and an upbeat rhythm pumped through the speakers. The sound made the whole building seem to shake and Zack found himself wondering if this old building could handle the beat.

There was already a sizable crowd in the club. Some sat at the bar but many more were on the dance floor. The lights shot across the room, bare flesh glimmering with sweat beneath the passing of the beams. Bodies shimmered, moving to the rhythm, pressing and grinding against one another as they danced in the centre of the large open space. Zack could feel the sticky, suffocating body heat filling the room even where he stood next to the entrance. Those who had danced and become dehydrated populated the bar off to one side, and that was where Madison headed.

“I need a drink first,” she said simply as she slinked off towards bar, thinking that it’d be the best place to pick up a man to make her brother jealous.

“You wanna dance?” Chloe asked Gavin.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, watching the masses writhe and wriggle and calling it dancing. “I don’t really know how to. Not like this.”

“Well, watch me then,” Chloe insisted, turning with a flick of her hair and striding off into the dance floor, knowing that Gavin would follow. “I show you some moves Hannah taught me.”

“Come on,” Victoria said, pulling on Zack’s hand. “Let’s go dance too.”

The dark-haired teen watched his friend disappear into the crowd in the direction Chloe had gone, while Victoria tugged him into the sea of people in a different path. It wasn’t as cramped or as tight as Zack expected with this amount of people. It seemed Victoria had found a nice gap for them to occupy, releasing his hand and staring into his eyes as she swayed side to side in time with the beat. He bounced along too, finding his eyes wandering over her curves again, and knew that she wanted him to watch. Not just because she was dancing right in front of him, or because the look in her eyes made it clear, but he knew because she had enjoyed teasing and tempting him this whole day.

“Did Ashley really piss you off that bad?”

“Huh?”

“Ashley,” Zack said, leaning in closer. “Ever since you got angry at her this morning, it feels like you’ve gone out of your way to entice me. And I admit, I caved down at the lake, and it was good, don’t get me wrong, I’m just wondering why.”

Victoria bit her lip and looked up thoughtfully as she continued moving to the music. “You know I’m the one who suggested that Ashley go on a date with you? She was really confused about her feelings and whether she was doing the right thing, cheating on Brandon. I could have been judgemental and told her how horrible she was being, but instead I told her to test her feelings out. Go on the date and see if it still felt good when it wasn’t just about the sex.” Victoria turned her emerald eyes back on Zack and softly shrugged as she danced. “I guess it just feels like a betrayal that she wouldn’t let me do the same with Kurt.”

“Yeah, Kurt,” Zack muttered. “You don’t think he’d mind you dancing with a guy who had his dick in you just a few hours ago?”

“He was there too. If he had a problem with it, he should have said. But he doesn’t strike me as the type to get insecure because his girl is dancing with another guy. It’s just dancing, right?” She looked at him with a playful curiosity. “There’s nothing more to it, right?”

“R-right,” Zack swallowed hard. Zack had barely even thought of Victoria since coming to the cabin, since Chloe and the conversation with Gavin. But something in the way Victoria asked the question made him feel guilty without having committed any crime.

“Good, because you have Ashley and I have Kurt,” Victoria remarked firmly. “Though it’s not like Kurt and I are serious. He’s fun and he just lets himself go with the flow. But that’s part of the reason why I enjoy myself with him. Maybe if you took yourself off the leash a little more, like you did at the lake, you wouldn’t be so tied up in all these issues of yours.”

“Doubtful. Some of my issues predate me coming here,” Zack noted, thinking of his mother and Robert Ravers. “And letting myself go is what got me into this mess anyway.”

“See that’s where I think you’re wrong. You let yourself go, maybe once or twice, but now you’re all caught up in the aftermath,” she said, turning her back to him and looking over her through strands of golden hair, watching his eyes following her ass back and forth. “Take Ashley for instance. You’re both so concerned about what you sacrificed to be together that you refuse to admit that it’s not working.”

Zack exhaled hard and frowned. He did love Ashley, so it wasn’t like he was forcing himself to be with someone he didn’t even like. He liked her a lot but if he were honest with himself, every time something happened with her and another man, every time she apologised, he reminded himself of Chloe and Brandon, of the passion that had nearly burned both of those bridges. It was only by sheer luck he’d managed to partially mend his friendship with Chloe. If this shit with his father hadn’t happened, maybe she’d still want nothing to do with him. And though he loved Ashley and wanted that love to be able to conquer all…maybe it just couldn’t.

“What’s your suggestion then?” Zack asked irritably. “Give up on Ashley and just become a player like Kurt?”

“When he wants something he just takes it. He never has these kinds of problems with women. He doesn’t think about right or wrong, he just sets his sights on what he wants, and he pursues it, and takes it. I would say like an animal, but it’s deeper than that, because he has this way of showing you what you really want. He puts you on display, despite yourself, and all the bullshit you put up for the world melts away and what you’re left with is just raw and real,” Victoria said, her eyes glassy and her voice wispy, almost nostalgic. Blinking, she glanced back at Zack again, and with a small smirk, backed up against him until her ass was pressed right again the bulge in his jeans. “Like right now, for instance. You could take me on this dance floor and I doubt anyone would know. With all these half naked people around us, I bet no one would see, or hear us over this music. If you wanted me, you could have me, if you just set everything aside and let yourself go.”

“Uh…” Zack murmured. Hadn’t she just said nothing would happen between them? Was this her way of testing that?

She reached around and took his arm, drawing his hand around to the front of her dress and pressing it tight between her legs. Even through the skirt he could feel the heat emitting from her box, and when she pushed his digits in deeper against the fold of her dress, he felt it squish beneath his fingertips. She was hot and wet…but was it for him? She leaned her head back on his shoulder as he nuzzled against the curve of her neck, tasting her perfumed skin.

“You feel that? That desire? He’d know without touching, that he was wanted on a baser, instinctual level. He would know that he could have me just by looking. And you could have me too.” She paused, her lips lingering by his ear, almost waiting on him to make his move. But he felt frozen still, his body heavy and cumbersome. As she began to whisper once again in his ear, he felt her smile, “But you won’t, because you still believe in love. Love is a fool’s game, Zack. You’d be a lot happier if you just let go.”

But it was Victoria who let go, releasing Zack’s hand as she stepped out of his grasp, turning again to face him with a swish of her long, lustrous golden blonde hair. He scanned her face, her soft smile and intelligent eyes but there was something different. A twisted darkness that wasn’t there before, that made her look haunted. The mask slipped for barely a second before it was back in place, her bright beaming face glowing as it looked back at him. He thought of Kurt and his plan to figure out what had happened to Victoria and wondered what he would make of that expression. And then another thought passed into his mind.

“That man, the one who just takes you…that is Kurt, right?” he asked carefully.

“Who else would I be talking about?” Victoria replied, her eyes twinkling like dew covered grass. Before Zack could offer an alternative, she took out her phone and her attention left him. She looked back briefly and asked, “Could you get me a drink from the bar? I have to use the little girl’s room.”

She didn’t wait for an answer before dashing off through the dancers, almost instantly being lost in the sea of bodies. Even if Zack wanted to chase after her, he had no idea where she went, or which direction the toilets were if that was indeed where she’d disappeared to. His mouth was dry though after yet another bout of Victoria’s teasing, so he decided to follow her instruction, telling himself it was what he wanted to do as he shuffled off the dance floor and towards the bar.