40

In the upstairs room of the unused storage shed, the long-awaited, very private celebration of Ryan Jaworski’s twenty-first birthday was finally getting started. Elizabeth, wearing her green thong and push-up bra, led Ryan, blindfolded, into the room. Apart from the bandanna over his eyes, he wore only flower-patterned boxer shorts. Blow-up palm trees and cardboard hula girls were in the room’s entryway and Hawaiian music was playing in the background.

As they approached the center of the room, Elizabeth whispered over her shoulder, just loud enough for Ryan to hear, “Not yet. Stay there until I call you.”

Chase Bergstrom’s chemical smorgasbord had hit Ryan like a Mack truck, which was good, because if he’d been able to think clearly, he would have wondered what was going on. The room was empty of people except Elizabeth and him. A hangman’s noose hung down from a beam in the center of the ceiling, and a throne-size wooden armchair stood under the noose. Behind the chair, almost out of sight, was a short stepladder for Elizabeth to use at the critical moment. The building’s old heating system was overreacting to the February chill, and the place was very warm.

Ryan, barefoot and guided by Elizabeth, wobbled blindly toward the noose. One hand grasped Elizabeth’s shoulder; the other, holding a bottle of red wine, waved back and forth checking for obstacles.

“Sheesus Chrise, Lib.” Ryan paused to take a long swig from the bottle. “Iss just. I don’t think I’ve ever been so whacked.” He swiveled his head blindly around the room. “So, come on, who’ve we got here?” He waved the bottle. “Hey, whoever you are, say something, okay? I’m, like, dying of …” He wiped his mouth on the back of his arm and coughed out a laugh. “Dying of horniness and cold toenails.”

Apart from getting the chemicals into him, Elizabeth had done a thorough job preparing Ryan on the landing. Wearing his favorite fantasy outfit, she got him down to his shorts and fooled around with him until he was right on the edge of the sexual precipice. The drugs had him so pumped that at one point he’d slobbered, “Just do me here, Lib, please. Forget the surprise.” Instead, not long after that, she tied the blindfold in place, good and snug, and drew him into the room.

“Okay, darlin’, onto your throne.” She put her hand into his armpit and started to hoist him up onto the chair. “One big step here.”

Ryan rocked back and batted at the air with his bottle. “Whoa! What the hell?”

Elizabeth whispered to the side, “Wait a second, Sofie. Hold your horses.” Then to Ryan, louder. “It’s just a chair here, Ry, for you to stand on. We’re going to want Big Jake right at mouth height.”

“Sofie’s here? Sofie Martinez? I didn’t …” He put one foot on the chair. “I didn’t think she even liked me.”

“Up you go. Give me this.” Elizabeth took the wine bottle out and set it behind her.

Ryan teetered to the side and then took his foot off the chair, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Lib. This is too crazy. I’m feeling, like, really … Wow. Less jus’ …”

“Oh, come on, babe.” Elizabeth spoke plaintively. “You’re going to spoil my surprise. It took me all semester to set this up.”

Ryan turned in Elizabeth’s direction, waved a finger, and slurred out, “Come on now, Libby Spencer, no means no.” He laughed and replaced one foot up on the big chair, then looked over his shoulder. “Who’s here? Seriously.”

“One more step.” Elizabeth pulled at his arm. “Then we take the blindfold off, and you’ll see. You’re going to love it, I promise.”

“I don’t know.” Ryan still hesitated. “This time, Lib, you’ve really blown the end off my weirdo-meter.” With a grunt, he heaved himself up so that he was standing on the chair. “Whoa, shit.” He wobbled and steadied himself.

“There you are, babe. Turn toward me. Perfect.” Elizabeth dropped her voice again and muttered. “Isn’t he gorgeous? I’m so lucky.” More loudly, she added, “And we have to get you properly undressed for the occasion!”

She jerked his boxers down. Ryan bent his knees and grabbed at them but began to lose his balance and had to stand up quickly, flapping backward with his arms to steady himself.

“Come on, Ry, don’t be a party pooper.”

With an obedient sigh, Ryan untangled his ankles from the shorts and kicked them to the side. His penis was standing up like the high end of a teeter-totter.

Elizabeth raised her voice, almost squealing. “Damn, Ryan, you look gorgeous! Doesn’t he look awesome?”

Ryan grinned stupidly, put his hands over his head, and gave a drunken Chippendale wriggle. “Everybody happy now?”

“You bet, and we’re almost ready for the grand finale.” Elizabeth singsonged: “Open our mouths, and close your eyes, and you shall get a big surprise.” She fondled him, keeping his battery charged.

“Sheesus, come on!” Ryan gasped. “Just keep …”

Elizabeth stepped quickly across the room, pulled the silk bag containing their handcuffs out of a duffel over by the wall, then skipped back and mounted the stepladder behind him.

“Okay. Put one hand here.” Speaking in a baby-doll voice, Elizabeth took his right hand and set it on his right buttock. “And the other little hand . . .” She took Ryan’s left hand and placed it on his left buttock. “Right here.”

Ryan leaned slightly forward, mouth open, hands firmly on his behind. “Ah, okay. Can somebody please tell me what this is for?”

“Follow instructions, Ry. Don’t move a muscle.” Then she whispered. “Everybody gather around.” To Elizabeth’s relief, Ryan’s hands stayed in place.

“This isn’t gonna hurt, is it? I’m not …” A worried tone crept into Ryan’s voice. When he wobbled backward, his head brushed against the noose. “The hell’s that?”

“Just a decoration. Keep your hands right there.” She snapped the handcuffs around his wrists and hastily slipped the noose over his head.

“What’s with the collar thing? For Christ’s sake, Lib …” Ryan was just about to get fed up, but it was too late now.

“Your necklace.” Elizabeth adjusted the noose around Ryan’s throat, snug but not tight enough to choke him. Ryan’s body stiffened and he knit his brows, trying to figure out what was happening. Then, Elizabeth whipped off the blindfold and stepped down from the ladder.

She’d done it. It was a miracle. Standing in front of him, she gave him a big smile.

“Well, la-dee-dah!”

Ryan started to smile back, then looked around, and pulled at his hands. “What the fuck, Lib?” He twisted his head to look back at the cuffs. Then he cast his eyes around the room. “Where is everybody?”

Elizabeth gazed up. “You look so darn cute.”

“Come on. Where’d everybody go?” He kept peering around, as if someone might be in a corner he’d overlooked, all the time absently tugging at the handcuffs. He’d never get loose. The cuffs were old, reliable friends.

Elizabeth turned her back and walked over to a paint-spattered bench along the wall. She pulled a towel out of her duffel and began wiping off her arms and the back of her neck, like an athlete after a good workout. Ryan’s penis, she noticed, was beginning to lose heart.

“What’s. Whass going on, Libby? Really!” Ryan kept darting his head back over one shoulder then the other.

Elizabeth pulled a fresh bra and panties out of the duffel—plain white and practical—and peeled off the uncomfortable thong and push-up bra Ryan loved so much. He stopped squirming to take in her nakedness, and she could see the look of disappointment falling over his face. She was just a piece of anatomy now, nothing especially sexy about her.

“You want me to do you some more, Ry? I will if you ask nicely.”

“Fuck, Lib. What is this? Are you pissed or something?”

She slipped on the new bra and reached around to hook it in back. “No. Not pissed.” She adjusted the shoulder straps.

“Honestly. I don’t get this.” He twisted the handcuffs. “What the hell.” He was starting to sober up, which was good. Chase told her the drug combo hit with a big punch at first but might wear off quickly with a guy Ryan’s size. “I’m feeling really weird up here.” Then, in a sharper voice: “Take the cuffs off, Lib. I mean it.”

“I lost the key.” Elizabeth was buttoning her blouse. “I honestly don’t know where it is.”

Ryan tipped his chin down and worked it from side to side, trying to see if he could squirm free of the noose.

“I wouldn’t do that, Ry.” Elizabeth pulled on a pair of jeans and zipped up the fly. “You’ll just make it tighter.”

She could see Ryan grasping the extent of his predicament and beginning to get angry. He twisted his hands harder behind his back to test if he could snap the chain that held the cuffs together. It wasn’t going to work. He shifted tacks.

“This is dangerous, you know, Lib. I’m drunk as shit up here, to tell the truth, and my feet are getting sweaty. I could slip.”

“You’re right. And it’s a bad way to go.” Elizabeth was tucking her blouse in. “Usually, when somebody gets hanged, the scaffold thing is rigged to break their neck, and they go quick. We don’t have that, so you’d strangle, which is a lot slower. People bicycle their legs to keep a little blood going and stay alive for a few more seconds.” She sat down on the bench and began putting on her sneakers. “The longest recorded time for someone to die like that is supposedly seventeen minutes. Usually, though, it’s less than two minutes.” She was leaning down, working on her shoelaces. “I got that off the Internet, so I’m not positive about the data. Could be crap.”

The Hawaiian-theme music stopped, and the noise from a dorm party in the distance either got louder or became more noticeable. The falsetto voice of some singer, repeating a phrase over and over, wailed in on top of the bass. Elizabeth looked up and saw Ryan staring at her with an expression she’d never seen before. Good.

“You’re kidding right? You really want to play this game?” He twisted around, presenting his hands. “Come on, this is bullshit. Take the fucking cuffs off.” His voice became threatening. “I mean it, Libby. Knock it off.” When Elizabeth didn’t respond, Ryan pushed on, raising his voice. “Whatever’s going on, if there’s some kind of accident, you’d be in deep shit, too. It’s not worth …”

“I didn’t force you up there, Ryan. I’m a girl, and you’re a lot stronger than I am.” She finished tying her shoes and stood up. “We were drunk, playing around—just two stupid kids in a fantasy sex game that went wrong. I’d be, you know, totally distraught.” She shrugged. “In the end, I doubt very much would happen to me.”

“Fuck this. I’m going to start yelling if you don’t get me down from here.”

“Go ahead. No one will hear you.”

Ryan breathed in, opened his mouth, and then closed it. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t an idiot, and now he was just a piece of anatomy, too, pasty and flaccid. His penis looked like a child’s punctured toy.

Libby got her purse off the bench. “Okay. I’m all dressed now, and you’re all naked.” She pulled out her cell phone. “It’s time to make our movie.”

Ryan looked confused at first. Then, it was like a cloud lifted off his face.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Libby!” He spoke in a tone of impatience verging on disgust. “Is that what this is all about? The vid?”

“That’s part of it.”

“You’re doing this because of that? Give me a fucking break!” His tone softened slightly. “It wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. Ridge promised.”

“I figured it was him.”

“Look, I’m really sorry, okay? It was a fuckhead thing to do, I admit it.” He sighed again, scornful but resigned. “Okay, go ahead and take the video. We’ll be even. Then, get me down from here. After that, we’re gonna have a little talk.” When Elizabeth didn’t say anything, he added, “I mean it. You and I have big problems.”

“The video’s only part of it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, what else? Jackie?”

“I want you to tell me what you did when you saw the flyer at Professor Cranmer’s house.”

Ryan answered too fast. “I didn’t do shit. I saw it. I thought it was sick, and that was that.” He was pretending to get even more frustrated.

“Time for me to be going.” Elizabeth picked up her purse and slipped the strap up over her arm. “Be careful up there.”

“I’m telling you the truth, Libby. I never touched the fucking thing. Now take the …”

“Good-bye, Ryan.” She picked up the duffel bag and walked toward the door. Then she paused and turned back into the room. Ryan must have thought she’d been bluffing.

“Oh, Jesus.” He twisted his behind toward her. “Just help me with …”

But Elizabeth only went as far as the bench, where she’d tossed Ryan’s pants, and pulled his cell phone out of the hip pocket.

“If you ever get down from there, you’re going to need a new cell. This thing’s going into the river.”

As she was leaving the room, Ryan completely lost it and yelled after her. “Come back here, dammit! I mean it. Hey!” Elizabeth was halfway down the stairs when his tone changed, and his voice got louder. “Okay!” His voice pursued her. “You’re right!” Then, even louder, screaming the syllables out, “Lib-beeee! Goddammit!”

Elizabeth took a seat on the bottom stair. Listening to Ryan howl was a pleasure, in a way, and she let him go at it for a while.

A few minutes later, back in the room, she approached him, keeping some distance between them. He was still pretty drunk, and his face was red from all the yelling. She didn’t want to tempt him to take a kick at her.

“It wasn’t just me,” he said sulkily. “It was mostly Mattoon.”

Elizabeth looked at him. “Okay. Let’s hear.”

“Let me down first. That’s fair.” Ryan shot her his sincere look. “Then, I promise, I’ll tell you the whole thing.”

Elizabeth turned to leave.

“Okay, okay,” Ryan said. “I saw the flyer, sitting, like, on top of the wastebasket, okay? It was so gross. I couldn’t imagine even a creep like Cranmer being into that kind of puke.”

“Uh-huh. What then?”

“You were in the bathroom. I took it. Later, I showed it to Mattoon. I wasn’t going to do anything with it, except maybe give it to you, but he talked me into mailing it in. He said it would be a joke.” He twisted his head. “This rope is getting tight, Lib. I could slip, and it would be hard for you to get me down in time.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I might not bother.” When Ryan gaped at her, Elizabeth added, “Professor Cranmer could die in prison.”

“We didn’t know that.”

“But you didn’t say anything after you did know. You didn’t, and Mattoon didn’t.”

Ryan looked to the side, started to say something, but then thought better of it.

Elizabeth looked him over for a few more seconds, then punched in the code on her phone. “You also took his credit card information, Ry. You weren’t all that innocent.”

“He kept it sitting right out on a sticky on the side of his computer, okay? So I wrote it down. I admit that.” He looked at his feet and shifted from side to side. “Can we do the video now? Then you’ll get me down, right? Honestly, I’m getting scared up here.” He swayed a little, either because he really was losing it, or because he wanted her to think so.

“First, we rehearse. Then the video. Then I call campus security. They’ll come get you.”

“That’s fucking stupid, Lib. What you’ve done here is, like, a crime. What are they gonna think? Don’t be dumb.”

“As I said, it was a sex game that got out of hand, Ry. You were drunk and pissed, and I got scared you’d hurt me, so I did the responsible thing: I called the police.”

“Such bullshit.”

“Right. So, you and Professor Mattoon …”

“When we heard about the FBI coming to Sid’s house and everything, believe me, we were like—” He was talking fast. Elizabeth slowed him down.

“Details, Ry. I need to know you’re not feeding me a line just to get off that chair.” Elizabeth folded her arms. “Tell me something you can’t deny tomorrow. Then we’ll do our recording. After that, we’ll see.”

The noose had gotten tighter, and Ryan, she could tell, really was getting a little scared. She felt a nudge of sympathy. He wasn’t an evil person, just a shit. Maybe this whole project of hers could still bring him around. Maybe he’d learn something.

“Okay, but don’t forget my Miranda warnings, babe.” He made his dimple, recalling a legal studies course they’d taken together, The American Constitutional System.

“The Miranda warnings?”

“I have a right not to incriminate myself, you know.”

Elizabeth turned toward the far wall and shook her head, as though she were sharing this bit of brainlessness with their invisible professor. What had she seen in this loser? She lifted her chin up at him. “The Bill of Rights only protects people from improper state action, Ry—things cops and officials do—not from private parties like me. Don’t you ever listen in class?”