by Rebecca Foxx
Handcuff Me
Chapter 1
“Shit!” Britney exclaimed, smacking her hands on the steering wheel. “Why does this always happen to me?”
She was heading home from a party at her friend’s house when her car started to smoke. She pulled over to the side of the road and proceeded to look through her phone for someone to call. It was after midnight, and she was anxious to get home. She’d been partying for a week straight after finding out she got into grad school for graphic design, and all she wanted to do was go to bed. Her friend, Justine, had been throwing a wild party at her parent’s house.
Though Justine was in college, she still lived with her parents to save money here and there. They all lived in Shallow Hills, Maine, a place that was both rustic and rural. Surrounded by dark forest on all sides, there was nowhere for Britney to walk to get her car fixed. She decided to call a tow company who told her they’d be there in less than an hour. Bored, and incapable of hanging out in the woods alone at night, she called her step brother, Dylan.
Dylan and Britney had always been close, ever since his dad married her mom back in high school. Dylan used to play as the quarterback for their school’s football team, and Britney was sure that he would start playing professional football after college. Instead, Dylan went into a police academy and came out a handsome fox of a cop. He was at least a foot taller than Britney, with a six pack and muscular arms.
He was handsome but not intimidating, and he had curly brown hair that he kept cut short. His eyes were shaped like almonds and the irises were the color of ink. Every time Britney thought about him, she became wet.
It was completely taboo to have a crush on your stepbrother, so she never told any of her friends. Instead, she acted like being related to Dylan wasn’t a big deal, and started dating other football players instead. Britney herself was curvy with a large chest and thick blonde hair. Her eyes were the color of amber and she had a tiger tattoo that spanned from her left shoulder to her right. She didn’t find it difficult to find boys to date, but she did find it difficult to stop thinking about Dylan.
It got even worse when she was drawing on her graphics tablet. She would draw different characters that resembled herself and Dylan, either with curly black hair and a tiger tattoo or with some other body part that signified both of them. She was always up late, creating different storylines of the characters falling in love and screwing passionately in the forest. She would imagine different kinky scenes of Dylan tying her to a tree and making her beg for mercy all night long. Of course, she could never show these to anyone.
The portfolio she submitted to the Vermont College was filled with landscapes and portraits. She knew her work was good regardless of whether or not Dylan was a part of it, but she didn’t feel that fiery spark of creativity when she drew landscapes.
Often she would be daydreaming so heavily about him that he would wind up in the background of her landscapes, walking with a stick and talking to a dog. She included a few of these in the portfolio, as they weren’t too erotic and she liked the way the sunset looked against his curly brown hair.
That night, she’d been partying with her current boyfriend, Chris. She and Chris had been dating for almost eight months, and he was pretty serious about her. If Britney were honest with herself, she couldn’t have cared less about Chris. She would have left him in a heartbeat if Dylan ever came into the picture and asked her to be with him.
It wasn’t that she considered herself a cheater, but she didn’t consider Chris to be her steady boyfriend. There was barely any romantic chemistry between them, and she kept catching Chris eyeballing the other girls at the party. He was probably screwing one of them and Britney just had no way of knowing.
Though she was a close friend with Justine, Britney considered herself to be closer friends with Nicole. Nicole had been a friend with Britney since high school, and had been there when her parents divorced and her mother remarried.
“Dylan is so hot,” Nicole used to gush. “You’re so lucky you have such a hot step brother. My step brother is like, fourteen and covered in zits.”
“Stop it,” Britney used to laugh. She would brush off the subject, hoping Nicole wouldn’t date Dylan. “He’s just my step brother, it’s not a big deal.”
“Oh I know it. Dating your stepbrother would be like, the worst. It’s like social suicide, you know?”
Britney knew all right, but that didn’t stop her from daydreaming. Even now, as she dialed Dylan’s number in her phone, all she could think about was becoming intimate with him. But she knew she needed to keep her hands to herself. It wouldn’t be wise to start screwing around with her stepbrother, especially not now that they still lived under their parent’s roof.
She’d been renting an apartment throughout college, but after graduating, she moved back home just like Justine. Dylan on the other hand had purchased an apartment down the street and was waiting to move in the very next week. He’d already purchased furniture, a new bed, and a bunch of exotic looking plants to hang in his kitchen.
Britney couldn’t wait for him to move out so she could spend some one-on-one time with him.
When he finally answered the phone, Britney was so distracted with her daydreams that she didn’t even notice.
“Hello?” he said again. “Britney? You okay?”
“Oh my god, sorry,” she said. “Um, my car broke down.”
“Did you call a tow?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said slowly. “But is there any way you could come wait with me? It’s dark and I’m afraid someone is going to come out of the woodwork and kill me.”
She could sense him smiling on the other side of the phone.
“Sure, I’ll be there in ten.” Click.
Okay Britney, keep it calm, she thought to herself. He’s just your stepbrother. Nothing weird is going to happen. Right?
Chapter 2
When Dylan finally arrived, Britney had been lying on the back of her car for almost half an hour. The tow guy had called and told her he might be running late, which pissed Britney off. She wanted to get home and get drawing. If she was going to see Dylan, that might stir up some strange feelings in her, and she would probably need to make a plethora of art to get over her strange emotions.
Dylan’s cop car was number 665, which Britney always thought was hilarious.
“You’re only one number away from being the devil,” she used to say to him.
“You wish I was the devil,” he’d respond. “Then we could take over the world together.
As she saw the headlights approaching, she bit her lower lip. Now that Dylan was actually here, she felt nervous. They hadn’t seen each other in several months, as she was busy with school and work and he was simply busy with work.
The last time they saw each other was over Thanksgiving break. He’d told her he was too busy with training during Christmas, and wouldn’t be able to make it. On New Years Eve she wound up with Chris at a strange party filled with people she’d never met before.
She ended up crying when she’d gone home later that night, which she’d chocked up to having drunk too much alcohol on an empty stomach.
“Hey loser,” Dylan said when he exited the car. “What’s up?”
“Oh you know, the usual.”
“Did you fill your car with corn oil instead of gas again?” he teased.
“No, see I actually hit a homeless person and then drove off. Throw on the cuffs, I’m going to jail,” she said, holding her wrists out to him.
He leaned over and grabbed them, pretending to arrest her.
“Looks like you’re coming with me,” he joked. “You have the right to remain silent.”
His hands felt warm around her wrists. She could smell his lotion, which was a mixture of aloe and cucumber. She looked into his eyes but they were so dark she couldn’t tell if his pupils were dilated or not. There was one streetlight on the road behind her, and its orange glow illuminated Britney’s body so she looke
d like she was on fire.
She knew she was blushing but it was too dark for Dylan to notice.
“Um, you’re still holding my wrists,” she said shyly.
“Does it bother you?” he asked.
Britney had no idea what to say so she shook her head no. Dylan was always teasing her like this, either tickling her uncontrollably or teasing her.
Suddenly Dylan’s head was illuminated by golden light. He looked like a demonic angel with the way he was grasping her wrists. “I think the tow guy is here,” she said.
“I think so too.” He let go of her wrists and turned to face the tow.
“What happened?” ask the tow man. He was a pretty round guy with a large white beard. Britney thought he looked like Kris Cringle but said nothing.
She explained to him what had happened—that the car had been driving like normal when it started smoking. The man told her it was probably something to do with the transition, and that she might need to take it down to the shop. Britney crossed her arms and bit her lip again. She didn’t know what to do about her car being broken, and it stressed her out that she might have to dish out a lot of money to get it fixed.
There was always the option of making a few drawings and selling them on the Internet for a flat fee. If she drew anything erotic, she’d wind up making a lot of money off of them.
She and Dylan sat on the back of his cop car and watched the older man chain their car to the tow. Britney couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he also looked like a plumber. He explained to Britney where he was taking the car and that she would be able to pick it up tomorrow.
“So now what?” Dylan asked, poking her in the stomach.
“Want to get a drink?” she asked. “Wait but you’re on duty.”
“Ah my shift ends in about…now,” he said, checking his wristwatch. “Let’s go to the bar. But I should probably change out of my uniform because it might not look too good to se a cop getting drunk at the bar. We can stop by my apartment really quick so I can pick up a few things.”
“What? You moved out?” she asked.
“Yep. It figures you wouldn’t know, I moved out a few months before you came home from school. It’s kind of nice, being away from the house. I’ve really missed living on my own. I have a bunch of those plants hanging in my kitchen, you know the ones from home depot?”
“Yeah I remember,” she said.
When they were younger, they used to love running around Home Depot when their parents were distracted with buying gardening tools. Britney loved the plants section because it was steaming hot and covered in puddles. She and Dylan would play tag, occasionally ripping the leaves off tree stems or eating daisy petals.
Britney slid off Dylan’s trunk and hopped in the front seat.
“I feel like I’m being arrested,” she said.
“What crime did you commit?” Dylan asked, rolling the windows down.
“I already told you, I killed a hobo. Duh.”
He chuckled. “You’re definitely going to jail for that,” he said.
“Oh man, for how long?”
“Forever,” he said.
Dylan’s apartment was located on the outskirts of the forest in a small neighborhood called Palo Rouge. It was filled with cherry blossom trees and small red houses with bright green fences. Dylan said it gave him a headache to live there and that he could only come and go in the early morning or late at night, when the bright red of the houses were dulled.
“I’ll just be one second,” he said, running into the house.
“Okay,” she said as the door slammed in her face.
Chapter 3
Britney waited awkwardly in the car. She craned her neck to look at the other houses, curious about the lives of Dylan’s neighbors. She wondered if he talked to any of them, or if there was anyone attractive living nearby. She knew it was crazy to feel jealous about Dylan, especially because she knew he hadn’t had a girlfriend in months.
The last girl he’d dated was named Rachel but he’d broken up with her for reasons Britney never found out. He knew things had been going well for a while, but one day he’d texted Britney and told her he’d ended things with Rachel.
Suddenly the front door and opened and Dylan ran down the steps towards the car. He was now wearing a pair of black jeans and a loose white shirt.
“What’s up?” he said while getting back in the car. “You ready to get your drink on?”
“You know it,” she said, fist-bumping him. A bolt of electricity coursed through her system the minute her skin touched his.
They drove down the street to a local bar called Blue Love. It was owned by a Green family that had moved to New Mexico in the late eighties. The bar was connected to a restaurant that was only open until ten at night. The bar, on the other hand, closed most nights at 2am. Britney knew some of the bartenders well from the past few times she’d gone there with Chris.
Her boyfriend usually enjoyed getting too drunk at the bar before passing out in Britney’s car on the way home. It was always a big deal getting him off the barstool and into the car safely. He was a big guy, and a real pain in the ass to lug around.
Britney wondered what he was up to tonight. He was probably still at Justine’s party getting hammered with his friends. Her car was destroyed and it wasn’t like it was Chris’s fault, but she felt like he should claim responsibility for it. He’d been driving it around earlier that day and she was worried he’d done something stupid with it, like drag racing.
“So, how are things going with your boyfriend?” Dylan asked, disturbing the silence.
“They’re alright,” she said. “He’s really been getting on my nerves lately.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, we were actually both just at this party and he was flirting with all of my friends. I guess it’s not that big of a deal. We’ve been on the verge of breaking up anyway.”
She couldn’t believe she was spilling all this to Dylan. It was like he’d opened up a well of information inside her and now all she wanted to do was tell him everything. She wanted to talk about how she’d ben so lonely the past few weeks, and how she’d missed Dylan while he was off training. She also wanted to tell him about how she’d been selling her art, but that would mean admitting that she’d been drawing him, naked.
She shuddered at the thought. It was completely embarrassing, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. He was basically her muse, her source of creative inspiration. It had gotten her into grad school, so why not continue doing it? Telling Dylan on the other hand was completely out of the question.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said after a while, though he didn’t sound sorry at all. “Maybe you’ll find someone new to date? Someone who actually respects you.”
Was he talking bout himself? Britney wondered why his tone of voice sounded so strange. It couldn’t possibly be because he wanted to date her. That would be absurd. But if they did get together, that would be the most incredible thing that had ever happened to her.
It would be difficult hiding it from their parents, of course, but eventually they would let them know what happened and maybe everyone would get over it. Britney once cheated on her math test her senior year of high school and her parents had managed to forget about that. They’d also forgotten about the time that she’d accidentally crashed her car into another parked car.
“I can’t think of anyone else who would want to date me,” Britney said.
“Are you kidding me? You’re beautiful. And with those curves, any man would be lucky to have you.”
Oh my god, he’s actually flirting with me, she thought to herself.
“Really now? You think my curves are sexy?”
“Well yeah,” he said, running his hand through his hair.
They arrived at the bar and Dylan parked the car around back.
“Listen,” he began. “About what I said before—”
“It’s fine. I’m not weirded out.”
“Good,” he said. “Because I’d hate it if you were.”
She turned to him at the exact moment he was turning towards her. She opened he mouth to ask him a question but no words came out. Instead, a thick silence passed between them. Dylan took this as an opportunity, his one chance to truly show Britney how he felt. He took her face in his hands and kissed her passionately, dragging her lip outwards with his teeth.
They made out for a few more minutes, fog forming on the windows and windshield, until Dylan suddenly pulled away.
“I’m so sorry I don’t know what came over me,” he said.
“It’s fine, it’s not a big deal,” she responded. But it was a big deal. Dylan had kissed her. He’d finally shown her that he cared about her, truly cared. He’d even shown that he was attracted to her body as well. Now that they’d kissed, anything was possible.