Dare Club

Anything that happens in Dare Club, stays in Dare Club. Whatever happened, whatever was done or said, we swore that we would never tell. We crossed our hearts and hoped to die. Those were the rules.

Growing up, Jennifer, Erica, and Ashley were my best friends. Actually, they were my only friends. We went to grade school together, attended high school together, and when we were sixteen we invented Dare Club together. My name is Roxanne. I am writing this because... Well, I guess I don't know why I am writing this. Maybe, I just want whoever reads this to understand... Fuck. It doesn't even matter. Read it or don't. Fuck you. Fuck everybody.

Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry.

I don't recall whose idea it was originally, but I remember Dare Club began because our regular Friday night sleepovers became a little boring. We grew tired of the same old gossip, the board games, the all night talk about boys, and all the other things girls do when we stay up late and are alone. Oh sure, we still did those things, but we had an exciting game to looked forward to after that. Wait, it was Jennifer. Yeah, it was Jennifer's idea.

I'm so sorry, Jen.

When we began the game the rules were simple. The best and worst games always have simple rules. We spent one whole night coming up with twenty dares each and putting them into an old shopping bag. Each dare could be as naughty or nasty as you wished. The harder, the better. And as time would reveal, our dares were deviously creative and darkly disturbing, but always entertaining.

Later that night, we negotiated the rules. Everyone agreed to chip in ten bucks a week and add one more dare to the shopping bag. Dares had to be sealed with tape. You couldn't tell anyone what you wrote. If you chose to do a dare, it must be done exactly as written. And anything that happened in Dare Club, was forever a secret. We crossed our hearts and hoped to die.

Stupid little girl bullshit.

Ten bucks a week was half of my allowance back then, but I didn't care. The game was awesome. I was always nervous opening a dare, we all were. That was part of the fun. Opening that piece of paper and discovering what fate had in store for each of us was like some disturbing ass-backwards Christmas gathering. It could be just as fun reading the dares and laughing about them as it was to witness someone doing one. On the other hand, the game had a way of revealing that we weren't just giggling girls, we all had darker sides. The amount of money in the pot was proportional to our cruelty. And money had a way of making morals and self-respect become blurry guidelines. Sooner or later, people will do just about anything if there was enough money at stake.

That first night, Ashley ate three boogers for forty bucks. Stupid game.

I'm so sorry, Ash.

We had sleep overs at my house every Friday night. It was either there or nowhere. My stepdad was always an asshole like that. Never trusted me to spend a night at any of the other girl's homes. He was afraid I might have fun outside of his supervision. Maybe, I might actually get to kiss someone, other than my best friends during a stupid game. Fucking whatever. FUCK!

So, every Friday night, was Dare Club. We would take turns drawing one of the sealed pieces of paper. For anyone brave enough to do a dare, it was like winning the lottery. That cash grew quickly. If no one did, the pot grew even larger for next week. Simple.

At first our dares were silly girl pranks, "French kiss one of the other girls," "play with my dog's balls until he gets a boner." Whatever.

After the pot passed a hundred dollars, it got more serious. It wasn't really a game anymore. We didn't want to see anyone walking home with free money. We wanted them to earn their payday. The entire point to the game was to see someone do something we'd never get to see outside of Dare Club. And as time would reveal, nothing short of humiliation or abuse would satisfy us. That's when our "dares" started turning serious; "wear a see-thru shirt to school with no bra," "drink a glass of pee." There was something seriously wrong with us.