Molly's Dare

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she looked like she regretted them. She sat up suddenly, looking over at the bag on the desk. Trying to sense whether Jack would push her into doing some if she rejected the dare. I didn’t know what she was afraid of. Everyone could read the looks Paul gave every girl in Bean Hall. Unlike Joan, we didn’t think he was some pure soul. But he was also a bit of a scaredy cat. He liked to make a comment, pretend it was innocent, and then retreat like he’d just been misunderstood. Even given this chance, I didn’t think he was going to do something totally out of left field. “Whatever,” Molly muttered, eyes drifting over to Joan for a second. “Just give me the dare.”

Paul was obviously overwhelmed. It was actually a little funny. Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink, I recalled. He could say whatever he wanted, but it was going to stick to his reputation for the rest of the year. He seemed to be slowly waking up to that reality as we watched him, waiting to see how far he thought he could push it. “Uh, take off your socks for the rest of the game,” he said.

“You dog,” Jack chortled. “You got a foot thing, Paulie? Hoping Molly’ll jerk you off with her toes?” Joan made a sound, half frightened and half scandalized. Jack didn’t even notice. ‘Paulie,’ on the other hand, obviously did. Color flooded into his face as he grasped for an explanation that wouldn’t make him sound like a sicko.

“I’m not– that’s– fuck! It doesn’t mean anything, I do not have a foot thing! I just thought it was–”

“The most clothes you could get her out of,” Jack said sagely. “Smart, smart. Yeah, it’s not like you’re gonna be seeing any more of her any other way. Nice try.”

Paul’s crazed looks switched between Molly and Joan, and even briefly to Harry and me and Lea, looking for one of us to intervene. Nobody could think of anything to say. After a few months of living with Jack, the rest of us just ignored him when he made an ass of himself. Paul had never grown those calluses. “I’m not a foot fetishist,” he promised everyone present. “It just seemed like an easy dare!”

Molly shot Jack a dirty look that said he had made a mountain out of an anthill. “It’s fine, he’s just being him,” she muttered. She pulled off her sneakers and slipped one foot out of her socks and then the other. I remembered the glee she’d had when she put them on, the perfect finish to her business-chic outfit. She threw them into the middle of the circle. “There? Is everyone happy, foot fetish or not? It’s my turn, anyway. Lea. What do you want?”