“We did this last night, didn’t we, Gabriel?” I ask.
Matthew and Jesse start laughing but Gabriel gives me a look, although he can’t hide the amused expression on his face.
Honestly, he loves me.
“Blindfolds on!” Alana calls, and I pull mine on, as does everyone else. “Now when I say go, you’re going to grab your rope and make it into a square shape which you’ll set on the ground. I want to see you relying on each other even when you can’t see. You have to have faith in each other. You have two minutes, starting now!”
Someone must dive down to grab the rope because Gabriel is suddenly feeding it to me. I pull it toward me and reach out to smack around on Matthew’s face for a second before I begin to wrap it around his neck.
“That’s my throat!”
“I’m sorry, the moment I lost my vision and this rope was fed into my hands, my hands started working automatically. Strangling you was all I could think about,” I say.
Matthew rudely grabs it before I can wrap it around his neck, and when I try to gently wrap it around his wrists, I’m told that it won’t make a square at the rate I’m going. Even so, we endup with our perfect square on the ground well before the two-minute mark is up, telling me that I would have had plenty of time to choke Matthew just a little bit. When we take our blindfolds off, everyone gets to witness how beautiful Gabriel made his line and how crooked Donna made hers. Like did she come into work inebriated?
After a few more shapes, none of which involve wrapping it around Matthew’s neck, we are finally free of our blindfold and rope as I question what exactly this taught us—that Donna wouldn’t know what a straight line was even if it bit her in the ass?
“Are we done?” I whisper to Gabriel. “Please. Gabriel. I can’t take much more. My body… it hurts.”
“You’re going to survive.”
“I touched Matthew.”
“Yeah because you were trying to fucking off me when you thought no one was looking!” Matthew complains. “Do I have rope burns on my neck?”
“Has your neck always been so long?” I ask.
“What the fuck is wrong with my neck?” he cries as he clasps his hands around his neck.
Jesse pulls Matthew’s hands down. “Your neck is perfect the way it is.”
I offer my sweets a smile. “Look at me. Wingman of the year. It only took some minor near-death situations not at all caused by me,” I say, proud of myself.
Jesse, who is trying to play the “I’ve never been with a man so I can’t be with Matthew even though he makes me feel tingly inside” card, scowls at me. I merely smile back at him. You’d think after working with me for this many years, these people would recognize that their misery fuels me.
“For our next game, we’re going to set up a few zones,” Alana says as she makes circles on the ground with her ropes. This lady must really enjoy bondage to have so many ropes.
“You’re going to pick one person on your team to be a zombie. They’re going to be in the middle and tied to a chair with a rope that will loosen, so every time it’s their turn, they get to step forward one foot. The rest of you need to work together to figure out how to protect yourselves from the zombie. Each turn, you can do only one thing. You can use anything in this room, but you can only leave your circle to grab one item per turn. When the zombie touches you, you are out. I want to see teamwork. I want to see you making decisionstogether. You can only grab one item, but you should all discuss with each other to decide which item. Any questions?”
I raise my hand.
“Yes!” She sounds far too happy to be given a question.
“Can I leave? Zombies make me feel extremely uncomfortable and are against my beliefs.”
“Ignore him,” Michaels unfairly states. How would he know what may or may not frighten me?
“I want to be the zombie,” Gabriel announces.
“Never mind, I want to stay,” I say. “I want to be bitten by you.”
“Can I change teams?” Donna asks.
“Please do,” I tell her. “Alright, first order of business. I get to tie up Gabriel.” I take him to the middle where a chair sits and wrap the rope around his waist. “I can’t wait to get bitten by you.”
“I… I think I’m just supposed to tap people, not bite them. I mean… do you really want me biting Chris?”
“Go for his eyes.”
