Cyrus felt his irrational anger fizzle as if it had snapped once it reached the breaking point.
He had only wanted to teach arrogant Ryan Standish a lesson he would long remember. He smiled as he continued to hear the jockstrap plead with him as the roaring fire warmed its jockstrap body. Someone had changed the jerk into a jockstrap... lesson learned.
Satisfied, Cyrus was about to swing his hand away from the burning rubbish barrel when he heard his step-father yell out his name. "Cyrus, what the hell are you doing naked in the damn backyard?"
Cyrus had completely forgotten he had stripped off the jockstrap for his deranged naked dance around his step-father's rubbish barrel, which still contained a raging combustion of paper, scraps and other combustible household waste. His fingers spasmed and he dropped the jockstrap.
There was a piercing mental scream even without the benefit of direct physical connection as Ryan's jockstrap form was committed to the flames.
Even Cyrus's stepdad heard the agonized wail, but he mistook it for the sound of a bug getting roasted by the nearby electric zapper as Ryan's mere ounces of plastic and cotton fabric faced almost instant immolation.
"Oh fuck!" Cyrus gasped. His naked, sweaty body gleamed like polished bronze in the evening twilight.
His step-father's frown increased. "Get your skinny ass in the house and into some clothes," the man said as he grabbed the nearby stick he used to stir up contents of the rubbish barrel. Cyrus watches sparks rise into the air from the raging conflagration contained within the rusty barrel.
His step-father's eyes knitted together suspiciously. "What was that I saw you drop into the fire?"
Cyrus had to bring himself to listen closer. "Drop? Oh... just an old jockstrap." He still felt too stunned to make up a creative lie.
The answer baffled his step-father. "Better not have been drugs."
Cyrus rolled his eyes. "I don't do drugs, Bill."
"Get on in the house." Bill poked at the dwindling flames in the rubbish heap again. Cyrus stared at the shower of sparks that drifted back down as fragments of ash.
"Fuck," Cyrus muttered again as he headed toward the backdoor. What had he done?