Wendy’s Pink Lipstick Conversion, Phase II — Monday
* * *

Later that night, after dropping off Wendy, wincing in pain, Brad pulled into his own driveway. His cell phone vibrated and rang on the console of his Jeep. Answering it, he recognized the number, and said, “Hey.”

He listened to the voice on the other end, nodding his head.

“God, it went fantastic, just like you said. Yeah, uh huh, yeah I took them.”

A pause.

“You sure? You really want me to?”

Another pause.

“I’m not sure. It seems.”

The voice on the other side interrupted him.

“No, no. Don’t do that. I’d do it. I promise I’ll do it. Tomorrow. Yeah, first thing tomorrow.”

Brad hung up the phone, sighed, opened the door of his garage, pulled in, stopped the engine, and sat behind the wheel, unmoving, hands on the wheel. Finally he sighed again, shrugged his shoulders, gathered his stuff, got out of his Jeep, and went inside.
* * *

Sara called almost the first thing in the morning. Not the first thing. Wendy did have time to get up, go to the bathroom, and get back to her bedroom to Sara’s vibrating phone.

Wendy woke up to cramps in her back and abdomen. She struggled to get out of bed, saw the package of pink pills on the dresser, remembered Sara saying how they helped, and took them with her on the way to the bathroom. She bumped into Steve coming out of her mother’s room.

“Hey Wendy.”

Relief and annoyance surged through Wendy at the same time. Even though she gone without underwear, she had remembered to wear pajamas last night. Also, what the fuck was this guy doing here? In her house? Again? Creeping on her?

“Um. Hey. Go away.”

Wendy waved her hand at him and hurried through the bathroom door, locking it loudly and purposefully behind her.

“God, Mom. Really?”

At least he was dressed and on his way out.

Squatting on the toilet, she relieved herself loudly, forcefully, and with intent, following the belching, thunderous blast from her bowels with an almost gentle morning rain, a light, refreshing tinkle chiming fountain-like against the porcelain and water.

Did you hear that, Steve, she thought. Are you standing outside the door listening to me poop, Steve?

She didn’t see any blood as she cleaned herself, but with the way she felt, she knew it wouldn’t be long. Today, maybe. Definitely tomorrow. She stood at the counter, turned the handle of the cold water tap, filled a Dixie cup, took two more pills from the package, which popped easily from their foil enclosures. She briefly wondered what she was taking, then shrugged. Sara said to take two yesterday, so taking two today couldn’t hurt, she decided. She tossed the pills into her mouth, swallowed the water in the cup, and looked at herself in the mirror.

She looked different. She knew that. Although she still resembled the girl from two weeks ago. Hell, she resembled the girl from a week ago, but. Something had changed. She could almost see it. Something pink and alive behind her blue eyes. Something that may have been there from the beginning of her life, since the day she was born, she didn’t know. She’d never felt it before, if it had been. Been there from the beginning, she meant. It was there now. She felt it on her lips, felt it in her groin, a wonderful, insistent, burning pink.

Looking at her face in the mirror, her eyelids seemed heavier, darker now.

She had spent a week having phone sex with Sara, masturbating with Sara (in school of all places), finally having sex with Sara. What else could you call it? Then having sex with that woman in the bookstore. What else could you call it? A strange woman had followed her into the restroom, and when she started touching Wendy, she didn’t resist. She didn’t say no, she didn’t protest, she didn’t kick, or push, or scream. She just put on her pink lipstick and let the woman fuck her pussy with her beautiful, beautiful, wonderful hand. And then she fucked her back. As if that was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it was.

Yesterday. It was fucking yesterday.

And then Sara called again. And she fucked herself and sucked herself at the same time. She could almost feel what the dildo felt, her wet, smooth, pink lips wrapped tight around the bulbous head, moving up and down the shaft while thrusting her pussy at the other end, her wet, needy, glistening pussy. She had almost come, she was going to come, she was so close to coming, but Sara wouldn’t let her.

Take out the dildo, you nasty girl, she had said. You don’t get to come.

Was she? Was she a nasty girl?

In the mirror she saw a towel shelf behind her, with tissues, cloths, and extra soap on the top shelf, to the side of which a self-standing silver picture framed leaned against its stand, showing her and her mother, faces held close together, cheeks touching, mouths smiling, so close the corners almost touched, smiling on a bright day somewhere. Wendy’s eyes were so bright and alive and wide. So astonishingly. Innocent. That what it was. Innocence. She didn’t know anything then. She hadn’t experienced anything then. That was, what, this very summer. Shortly after her sixteenth birthday.

She turned around, lifted the picture, and curled the corner of her mouth, considering the Wendy she saw, the Wendy as she was then, just a few months ago, and the Wendy she knew now. God, I turned sixteen without even touching myself one time. Am I retarded? No, seriously. Am I retarded? She knew other girls did. Masturbate that is. Jill. Flick the clit. Her friend Maddy even brought it up once or twice, but Wendy just quickly changed the subject. Why?

It just seemed so stupid then. So pointless. She didn’t want her body. She didn’t like her body. She didn’t want her body to make demands, much less make decisions. No. She’d do that herself, thank you. Just poop and pee, body. I’ll do the rest. I’ll feed you, I’ll give you water. A place to stay. I’ll find a nice little job for us where I can do what I need to do and you can just metabolize your way to a perfect homeostasis without me. I’ll keep you clean. And in return, you just stay out of my was as much as possible. No getting sick, no getting cancer, no finding some wretched little disease no one’s ever heard of.

You’re just going to sit tight, hold on, and wait patiently while I finish living through you and go on to.

What?

What was there to go on to?

She wasn’t a believer. Sure, she went to church. But it was just something Mom had started doing after her father died. She didn’t know if she believed in anything. Any kind of afterlife.

So.

And no getting pregnant, body. Absolutely no getting pregnant until I say it’s time. Until I say it’s well and good and time to. Become a mother.

But you let Brad shoot right inside you, and you liked it, loved the feeling of him trembling, shuddering between your thighs, oh god, that groan he made, and that face.

But surely. Oh my god. But I took a bath afterward, I cleaned up.

How retarded are you? You know that doesn’t work.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Calm down, Wendy. Just relax. You took those pills, remember? Sara said they prevent.

Wendy breathed a loud exhale of relief.

So what was she waiting for? What had made her so standoffish, reluctant to enjoy herself, her body? What had made her hang back?

Well, she wasn’t dumb for one thing. She saw how the boy-crazy girls behaved at school. She saw how stupid they sounded when they talked, saw how silly they looked hanging on to some guy one week and a totally different one the next. How they didn’t read. Or talk about anything important or interesting. Just boys and makeup, clothes and shoes. She had always assumed that Sara, Laura, Nikki, Julie, and Melani were just like that, just like those shopaholic, boy-crazy, bimbos she’d always made fun of. Her new friends now.

And they were great. A little touchy-feelie, maybe, but awesome.

I mean, did a girl really have to bang on about Austen or Atwood to have a brain?

And shopping. Oh god, she couldn’t believe how much fun she had shopping with Sara, that little flirt.

But was she a nasty girl like me?

After all, I let a stranger finger me in a restroom the same day I let Brad fuck me in the back of his Jeep. And then I blew him. It burned like hell afterward, but I did it.

She looked at herself again. No. I look fine.

Just fine.

She bent down to open the cabinet, pulled out some maxi pads and tampons and went back to her room. Yeah she used both. She’d seen Carrie. She didn’t want to take any chances. Stupid body.

But sometimes, it can just feel so good. Feel so. Right.

Wendy heard the vibrating on her night table as soon as she walked in the door.

“Hey, Sara,” Wendy answered.

“So,” Sara’s voice lilted over the phone. “Are you going to tell me about it? I’m just on pins and needs. I’m literally just on pins and needles. Can I pick you up for school?”

“Um. Sure. That would be great actually.”

“Great. I’ll see you soon!”

Nothing sexy today, Wendy picked out her old, plain white underwear after positioning her maxi pad, pulled on some baggy jeans, slipped on her pink sneakers over soft, ankle-lengths pink socks, and threw on a baggy green sweatshirt with a cartoon moose on the front. Her cramps had begun to dissipate. Those pills work fast, she noted to herself. I’ll need to ask Sara about them.

Wendy scarfed down dry toast, orange juice, and a banana, reserving a special silent treatment for her mother, who really should have known better than. I mean. Steve? What a jerk. The horn of Sara’s car in the driveway blared and Wendy jumped, shouldered her backpack, and ran out the door.

Mary just shook her head, huddling into her bathrobe. It’s not like they walked around nude or had sex in the living room. Mary closed her door. And if Wendy had to bump into Steve on his way out. Well, I mean. The sooner she got used to grown-up behavior the better. Can’t stay a kid all your life. Gotta learn about the birds and bees sometime. Well. I’m sure she knows that adults have needs. Her friends must talk about it. But shouldn’t the mother? Shouldn’t she? Didn’t she? I mean, talk to her. Haven’t we talked about this stuff? She must have had, she supposed. I mean. What kind of mother wouldn’t? Did they have that talk?
* * *

“Hey sexy,” Sara said, leaning in for a kiss on the cheek as Wendy flopped down on the passenger seat and shut the door. She took a long look at Wendy and said, “It’s your time too isn’t it? God. I feel so bloated. Are you bleeding yet?”

No one talked liked this to Wendy. She had never met anyone on such good terms with herself before, on such good terms with her own body.

“Um.”

“You taking those pills? They help don’t they? I mean they help me a lot. I used to just get absolutely the worst cramps in my back. I’m talking down for a day or two. At twelve. How the hell can a 12-year old get knocked down for a day or two like that? Then Mom brought home those pills. They worked wonders. Absolute wonders.”

“What are they?” Wendy asked, seizing the opportunity.

“Not sure. Butachloroglytricerapham or something like that. All I know is that they help with the cramps. And even the bleeding.”

Wendy noted with surprise how much Sara and she had dressed alike that day. Sneakers, jeans, even baggy sweatshirt, which is something Wendy never would have expected to see on her fashion-conscious friend. Blue though, a pretty pale blue sweatshirt. No moose. A big pink heart instead.

“What,” Sara asked, reading Wendy’s thoughts. “Can’t a girl be a slob?”

Wendy inspected Sara’s unmade face. Her skin seemed to glow even without makeup, clear, fresh, offsetting the natural pink of her lips. Her cheeks, round, high, and wide, gave Sara a cat-like look, and her hazel eyes glimmered even more deeply without eyeshadow or eyeliner. Sara didn’t need makeup, Wendy thought, makeup only added to her beauty without a corresponding diminishment in its absence.

“I can,” Wendy replied. “I didn’t think you could.”

“I can be lots of things,” Sara retorted as she shifted her Mercedes into a higher gear. “So, are you going to tell me all about it? Or do I have to pry it out of you?”

“There’s not much to say, really,” Wendy lied.

“Spill.”

So Wendy spilled.

“He did what?” Sara asked, sounding shocked, even outraged. “He took pictures? Of you? With his come all over your face? And you let him?”

“I couldn’t help it, Sara. I just felt so, so, so blissed out. So, god it sounds corny, but complete. Like I did something I needed to do, and have been needing to do almost my whole life without knowing it.”

“Your whole life you needed to let some guy fuck you in the back of his Jeep?”

Wendy deliberated for a few moments.

“Yeah. I guess you could say that. But you have it wrong, Sara. I was doing the fucking. And I felt like it was something I’ve been needing to do for, like, forever.”

An intersection was coming up, a yellow light changing to red, and Sara clutched, downshifted to neutral, foot on brake. She stared straight at the flowing traffic crossing in front of her.

“Wendy Love, you might just be the most amazing person I’m likely to meet in this life.”

Wendy shrugged.

“Besides, I kind of liked him taking pictures of me like that. Like a trophy.”

Sara spluttered.

The light turned green, but Sara didn’t say a word as she shifted from first to second to third, finally landing on fourth. Wendy stared out the window.

“Sara,” asked Wendy. “Is it supposed to burn so much when they come inside you?”
* * *

The TR-3B, commonly called the black triangle, is a tactical reconnaissance, triangle-shaped, nuclear-powered aerospace platform with an indefinite loiter time developed by the Aurora Program. The TR-3B uses a polymer coating that counteracts and absorbs radar, being able to change reflectiveness, radar absorptiveness, and color. In conjunction with the Electronic Counter Measures, the black triangle can look like a small aircraft, a flying cylinder, or trick radar into detecting a variety of aircraft, no aircraft, or several aircraft all at once.

A circular, plasma-filled accelerator ring called the Magnetic Field Disrupter creates a super-conductive, mercury-based plasma resulting in gravity disruption, reducing the effects of gravity and corresponding G-forces by 89 percent, making the vehicle extremely light and capable of astonishing feats of high-performance. The magnetic field disrupter is the thing that fucks with your head whenever you see one up close, producing that uncanny feeling of otherworldliness during a close encounter.

Able to reach speeds of Mach 9, three multi-modal, multi-vectored thrusters mounted at each bottom corner of the triangular platform propel the vehicle, making the airship fast, maneuverable, and fantastically fun to fly. Almost undoubtably the pinnacle of human, well, humanish flight, it really is something to see. And by now, most of us have. As the Go-Between drifted idly past it in his multi-phasic, sub-spatial, and trans-dimensional bubble thing, he quickly scanned the black vehicle, mildly impressed.

Oh look, he thought, somebody gave them a Big Wheel. Then the bubble blinked from existence and reappeared just outside the limits of Edge City, softly descending as three slender metallic legs materialized, extended, and held the bubble several feet off the ground. The Go-Between ran a few last-minute checks, grabbed his Handheld Device, opened the portal with a raise of his eyebrow (completely unnecessary, the portal—and everything else on the ship—remained in constant contact with the Go-Between’s neurology), and descended a set of sleek stairs, each step of the stair materializing with each step down of the Go-Between.

“Those Roadmen better not keep me waiting,” he muttered to himself.

In the meantime he drew himself up and paced up and down in front of his spacecraft, hugging himself with both arms, trying to keep warm. An impossible task on such a hard rock so far from its cold star. Still, he thought, looking around him, quite lovely, really. Nice rock formations, such gentle, subtle, and delicate shades of green and brown rolling along a cracked landscape of canyon, piled rock, and sparse brown scrub. And that blue. He’d never really seen such a transparent shade of blue, bright and pale at the same time, like a jeweled membrane stretched over the globe, mottled and dotted with flakes of white. With an entirely insignificant yellow lamp rounding the horizon in the southeast, setting the whole thing off. He could get used to that, he thought.

No time though. He knew that. Not really their fault, even though it was. A statistical certainty that these nincompoops would toss their existence away in the next great filter event, which, all things being equal, looked to be just around the corner. Nothing against them, though. It’s just how things worked for the lower orders. The universe was full of ’em, dimwitted, half-retarded species that did themselves in before they got a chance to make something of themselves. Of the thousands and thousands of pre-intelligent species in this universal quadrant alone, a mere handful survived a great filter event. Species that somehow managed to combine wisdom, compassion, love of knowledge, culture, tolerance, good behavior and bureaucratic know-how into sustainable way of life, of continual, progressive technological and psycho-technological discovery. A tall order, but his had done it.

And of those few species, those very few species surviving and even thriving past a great filter event, only a tiny fraction ascended to join the Guild. His had not ascended. No harm, no foul. A lot of work, that ascending. In the meantime, he could enjoy a nice little corporeal reality running errands for the big shots upstairs. ’Cause they didn’t like to get their psychic hands dirty with this kind of shit. Acting as a kind of intermediary between the Guild and species like this retarded monkey thing hopping around this little shithole of a backwater planet on the ass end of a backwater galaxy in a boondocks quadrant of the universe.

A Go-Between, if you will.

Course, sometimes a few particularly bad apples squeaked through a filter. It wasn’t a perfect system after all, if it could even be called a system. Really bad types that somehow evolved to be only partially less retarded than their ancestors. When that happened the Pain Rabble scooped them up. Harmless, really, the Pain Rabble, if you weren’t a lower order. There’d been rumors of Pain Rabble craft circling this planet for years, for decades even, which explained the little black toy he had seen earlier. But why the Pain Rabble would be interested in this lot was beyond his guess. They were too stupid to be much use to anybody. No monkey species ever made it through a great filter.

Where the hell were those Roadmen?
* * *

Harley-Davidson Super Glide and Softail motorcycles closely resemble the TR-3B in being nothing like that aircraft. Loud, fat, slow, capable of traveling only on well-paved streets, roads, and highways, Harley-Davidson burst onto the Vespuccian imagination after the rise of the intersovereignty highway system, bringing with it tales of horror, rape, plunder, and murder at the hands of rogue bike gangs traveling in hordes across the vast landscape of the United Sovereignties. As the decades passed, the bikes got more expensive, the bike gangs got fatter, transforming themselves into stockbrokers, lawyers, engineers, software developers, and other riffraff as they roared down the highways of life, graying, potbellied, and eminently bored.

Some of these bikers found a gig, others roamed the countryside aimlessly.

When the leader of the pack saw the white ’82 Corolla sputtering, coughing, and crepitating along a ranch road running off I-40, he motioned with a hand and head gesture, and the pack gunned their engines to sweep over the beleaguered liftback in waves of roaring Vespuccian steel. The two occupants of the tiny car, both men in their 30s with dark, short-cropped hair around the neck and ears, bespectacled in dark, horn-rimmed frames, white short-sleeved button-ups with buttoned collars, and sweat rolling down their pale faces, eyed the bikers nervously, both Adam’s apples jerking up down in a dry swallow at the same time.

The bike gang slowly overtook the frail car, each rider glancing at the white, dusty vehicle on the left with a look of contempt and utter disdain. As the last rider drifted past the Corolla, he lifted the bottom of his leather and denim jacket with one hand, showing a large, black, semi-automatic pistol which the passenger of the Corolla (but not the driver) recognized as a Beretta 92 FS. The helmetless rider turned to the driver, grinned, and flashed a peace sign, accelerating in his lumbering fashion to catch his group, already far ahead of the white car. Then the noise faded, the line of Harley-Davidson disappeared down the stretch of sun-bleached asphalt, and the Corolla continued for several thousand feet before turning off the paved ranch road onto an unpaved and unmarked side road. A billowing cloud of dust and pebble ballooned upward in its wake.

The Go-Between saw the cloud of dust and stamped his foot.

“Finally,” he mumbled.

The dust cloud neared until the Corolla, no longer recognizably white, emerged, pulled up next to the silver bubble, came to a halt, and stopped running as the driver turned the key of the ignition and removed it. The two men in thick-lensed, horn-rimmed glasses opened the car doors, stretched their legs, and climbed out the vehicle, towering over it as they looked around at the landscape, then at the silver bubble, and then at the Go-Between standing some ten feet away. The Go-Between nodded and stepped forward, all seven feet of him.

The Go-Between knew these monkeys, easily impressed with size, equating size with power and power with, well, actually that’s as far as the Go-Between ever got. He never figured out what the hell power gave these apes, and frankly, he didn’t care. As long as they did what they were told, as long as they did what the Guild wanted. And what the Guild wanted was near, obtainable, and almost vital. Important, anyway. Kind of wanted, really. Meh, would be nice to have, but you know. Not if it meant getting involved. But. Really it would be super if you could get someone down there, one of those what do you call them, Roadmen, to capture the damned thing. We would do it ourselves, you know. We could. Super easy. Barely an. No. No. Might call attention to ourselves. From whom? Now that’s our problem isn’t it? You just get those Roadmen of yours to do what they do, and we’ll remember you when it comes time to remember. Might help your kind with your, um, ascendancy issues.

Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, thin. He figured that’s what would impress these idiots, and so far it did. A seven-foot Wonko to ensure compliance, delegate responsibilities, and communicate orders. He loomed over the two Roadmen and greeted them in their language.

“Blook hundrar digba thot.”

“Huh?”

The Go-Between sensed the confusion, realized his error, adjusted the Handheld Device, and continued.

“Greetings, Terrans. Nice weather you have here.”

The passenger spoke up.

“Um. Thank you?”

The Go-Between nodded. Then he handed over the Handheld Device to the driver.

“All your instructions are in there. Everything clear now?”

The driver punched the screen of the device, expecting the screen to light up, but nothing happened. The driver held up the Handheld Device, a flat, wallet-sized device.

“Uh. How do you use this? I mean, it’s like a phone, ain’t it?”

The Go-Between sighed. It was so easy to forget how stupid they were.

“Here. Give it to me. I’ll pair it with your brain.”

The Go-Between held the driver’s head with one hand and pressed the device to side of the cranium until the device glowed and whirred. Then he turned to the passenger, who backed away, grabbed the man’s head with a large and powerful hand, pulled it irresistibly forward and pressed the device to the side of his cranium.

“There, now it’s paired to both of you. You can both use it. Just tap whatever it is you want on the screen, and the device will let you know.”

“What does it do?” asked the passenger curiously.

“What does it do? It’s a Handheld Device. It does everything.”

“But. I don’t understand. Can’t you just tell us?”

Speech? Verbal communication? The congealment of lightspeed electrochemical neurologically-processed content into sonic-level, half-understood grunts and linguistically-shrouded bellows? How retarded were these people?

“Fine. The Guild wants me to tell you to capture the thing. When you capture it, let me know, and I’ll handle it from there.”

“What thing?” asked the driver.

“What’s the Guild?” asked the passenger.

“Hello,” said the Go-Between, rapping the passenger on the forehead with his knuckles. He had seen it done once in a, what did they call it here, a movie, that’s right a movie. The gesture had elicited a humorous emotional response from the audience, and the Go-Between assumed repeating such a gesture would produce a feeling of joy and happiness in the monkey.

“You’re the Roadman. I’m the Go-Between. You worry about me and let me worry about the Guild. You just find that thing. And bring it to me.”

“But what thing?” the driver persisted.

The Go-Between pointed at the Handheld Device with his thumb.

“It’s in there. Gotta go now. Bye-bye.”

The Go-Between mounted the stairs to his craft, each step vanishing behind him as he ascended. He entered the portal, which opened as he approached, and stepped inside. Three seconds later the bubble lifted several meters, retracted the metallic legs, and disappeared.

“How long have we been doing this?” asked the passenger.

The driver looked around at the empty landscape and shrugged.

“For too long,” he said with an exhausted sigh. “For far too long.”

The passenger turned to walk to the Corolla, striking his thigh with the flat of his hand in frustration.

“And we still don’t know nothin’. We still don’t know a blessed thing.”

“Well,” agreed the driver, squeezing behind the steering wheel, “we know we gotta get that thing.”
* * *

Sara stopped the car, engaged the parking brake, turned off the ignition, and turned to Wendy. She reached for her cheek with a hand and touched it lightly, caressing the soft skin with the back of her fingers down to her chin.

“Just remember, baby. I’m here for you. Whatever happens, I’ll be here for you.”

“Thank you, Sara. I’ll be here for you too.”

“I mean it, Wendy.”

“I mean it too, Sara. Really.”

Sara leaned in for a kiss, and Wendy turned her cheek slightly towards her.

Both girls gathered their school stuff and walked to the back of Kid Lester, past the fountain, and through the double doors of the Octagon. Wendy looked but didn’t see either Maddy or Trina at the fountain.

“We’re running late,” she said anxiously.

“It’s just school, Wendy,” Sara replied.

Sara walked Wendy to her first class, Biology. She smiled remembering how Wendy had insisted on including the AP. She reached for Wendy’s hands and held them to ask her a question.

“Can I walk you to your next class? English, right?”

Wendy nodded.

“Great. I’ll meet you here then.”

Wendy watched as Sara turned around and walked away, the back of her hair bouncing, her cute little peach swaying in its loose jeans.

Good grief, she’s adorable, Wendy thought.

The morning passed in much the same way. Sara picked her up at English, held her arm down the hall to Economics, dropped her off with a squeeze of the hand, and met her again after class to lead her to French. Students ran through the halls, shouting, laughing, sometimes crying. Here and there the voice of a teacher bellowed over the herd of young people in the halls. Students sat behind their desks, head down, scribbling notes, texting on the phone, drooling on their books. Some boy here flicked the earlobes of some girl there. A jock tied the shoelaces of the class dreamer, staring out the world, floating among the clouds, Ralph Philips in the high school of the 21st century, a year away from graduating into despondency. The French teacher continually reproached Ruby Pye and Rosie Gillis for their continual whispered conservation in the mid first row of the classroom. And Wendy sat through it all, waiting for 5th period, waiting to see Brad, her heart full of expectation and alarm. Mostly she glowed inwardly, a strange kind of peace settled on her, disturbed only by a dissatisfaction nibbling rodent-like on the fringes of something approaching happiness.

She’d had sex.

Last week, last Friday, she’d been a virgin. By anybody’s standards, she’d been a virgin. Last week, last Friday, she’d been something close to innocent, that innocence which has nothing to do with guilt or crime, or wrong or right, but a simple innocence born of lack of knowledge, of wondering and not knowing. Oh, she’d spent that week masturbating and watching porn, looking at her magazine, the video Sara had given her. Then Saturday happened.

It hit like the proverbial ton of bricks.

She had gone on a date, a real date, with Sara. She had spent the entire day with her, shopping, hiking, they’d gone to that restaurant, my god, did I really, and then. She’d let Sara do those things to her. She didn’t even resist. Not even a little. And oh god, how she enjoyed it. The way Sara kissed her. The way she kissed back. Brad’s kisses weren’t like that. She liked them, but they weren’t like that. She thought she’d been over all this the next morning in Sara’s bathroom, but apparently she still had some thinking to do.

Then Sunday happened, and that was just crazy.

But why didn’t she let Sara kiss her in the church parking lot?

Then the date with Brad, and if she hadn’t of lost her virginity after what Sara had done to her with that dildo, she certainly did when Brad shoved his cock inside her, finishing what he started by spraying her insides like a garden hose. Oh god, that had felt so good. For a while anyway. Sara never did answer that. Is it supposed to burn? And now here am I in French class, je suis ici et je m’ennuie. Bored out of my mind. She stifled a yawn.

The week before last, school never bothered her. No, it didn’t enthrall her, but it didn’t bother her either. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so unbelievably discontented with her teachers, her classroom, the other students. She had tasted life, found it sweet, and now the dull flavor of quotidian gruel once again sat in her mouth. Wendy found its insipid taste hard to bear. This couldn’t be for her. This wasn’t for Sara.

“It’s only school, Wendy,” she had said, and the words reverberated throughout the chambers of her mind.

Sara went here because she chose to. Why? What made Sara want to go here? To go anywhere for that matter. Obviously she belonged to wealth. She lived in her own home, a bigger house than what her mother could afford off her income and her dad’s death benefits. But it was her choice, and her choice alone. Wendy didn’t have a choice, and it wasn’t fair. Wendy wasn’t just some kid, or some studious bookworm devoted to study, reading, and good grades. I mean, she was, but. Not quite. Not anymore.

She’d had sex. With Sara and then with Brad.

It was sex with Sara, right? I mean, that’s how girls did it with each other wasn’t it? I mean, besides that other thing she’d never do in a million years. Gross. The way that blond co-ed just came and came all over her friend’s face in the porn movie she’d jacked off to, listening to Sara and following her instructions. But she’d never do that. Not in a million years.

That woman in the bookstore.

And now to sit here and pretend to order jus d’orange avec un croissant, s’il vous plaît with the kid behind her, smelling of Noxzema and Right Guard, well. Fuck. I mean it. What if she just leaned him back over his desk, hopped on top of him, and started fucking him on his desk? I mean, I might be bleeding a little bit, but he wouldn’t care, just look at him. God he needs. And I could give it to him. Right now. Right here. I could make him so happy. I could be so nice to him. Wendy felt moisture gathering in her groin. Looking down she saw her nipples hardening against her sweatshirt, covered though they were by the thick cups of her sensible, very sensible bra. She swallowed.

“Et après, monsieur? Vous désirez un café au lait, peut-être?”

“Oui, madame.”

The practice conversation over, Wendy turned around, suddenly hot and aroused. Her hand drifted down to her inner thigh, brushing the denim of her jeans with the palm of her hand. Her nipples felt like bullets, pressed against the cups of her bra like hard pebbles in a tennis shoe. She gazed at the boys in her classroom, mostly juniors and seniors, two of them on the basketball team. Tall and fit, one black, the other white, she wondered what it would happen if she crawled under the black guy’s desk, unfastened his jeans, took out his cock and started sucking on it. She could suck cock. She knew that. She’d sucked Brad to full arousal after he’d fucked her. Sara showed her how, the movies, the dildo, and now she could do it to Thelonius, in front of the whole class. Maybe the white boy would come over, grab her by her ass, pull down her jeans and panties, and start fucking her from behind. God that would be so hot. Two guys at once, in one my mouth, the other in my pussy.

What about my ass?

Oh god, Wendy, I could have one in my ass, just like in that magazine Sara gave me. That whore on top of one stud, fucking him with her hot dripping cunt, sucking off another, while a third crouched behind her, tearing into her asshole. God. The look on her face. If it could feel that right with Brad, with just one guy, what would three be like, doing three guys at once, sucking, backing my tight asshole against another, someone under me ramming at my steaming pussy. The look on her face. She looked so. So. Complete. Like a destiny had been reached, fulfilled. Fate accomplished and satisfied.

Would I come when Thelonius came down my throat, ramming his hard cock into the back of my mouth? Would the guy in my ass shoot all over me, the cock in my pussy pulsating and shaking below me? Oh god, I’d love to come like that. I could do it, too. I know I could do it. I’m good enough. God, my lips are dry. Why didn’t I put on any lipstick?

Wendy jerked to attention, realizing she was stroking her groin through her jeans. She looked around furtively to see if anyone had noticed, but all eyes were on the teacher explaining passé composé for the umpteenth time. Dipshits turn up everywhere, even in AP. Her extreme horniness began to dissipate, leaving her feeling embarrassed and confused. Where did that come from, she wondered. Is it all the porn I’ve been watching? It’s just been a few times last week. But god, it looked so hot, once you got into it. It just felt so. Amazing. Liberating. Still. I’ve not been me lately. Or a different me than I know. How many of me are there?

She seemed to see a long line of Wendy faces and Wendy bodies stretching before her, Wendy in flowing blond hair, Wendy in short black hair, Wendy completely shaved, with nose rings, lip rings, eyebrow rings, Wendy in tattoos, Wendy crying, Wendy laughing, Wendy in dresses and pigtails, Wendy in strange leather and spiked hair, Wendy singing, Wendy dancing, slowly, seductively, Wendy in film, in videos, fucking and being fucked, Wendy in film with other women, other girls. Wendy at dinner tables, in cubicles, working behind counters and Plexiglass. Wendy clinging to the arms of elegantly dressed women, entering dark, mysterious buildings. Wendy in the corner, crying. Wendy standing in the light, on a stage, in frilly, revealing costume. All of them Wendy. All of them her. And yet, strangely, not her. And all of them, all of them, calling out to her desperately, frantically trying to get her attention.

Then the vision passed, the bell signaling end of class rang, and Wendy stood up, expecting to greet Sara as she left AP French. But Sara stood not at the door waiting, nor came she around the corner, hair bouncing and butt jiggling, nor sneaked she then upon her, pinching Wendy’s rear, or suddenly clasping her around her waist. Oh, well, Wendy thought, disappointed. She’s probably already standing in line. Then she saw her, standing half-way down the hallway, arguing with Brad, who was on his phone in front of his locker. Brad quickly put his phone in his pocket, waved his hands apologetically at Sara, but she kept pointing a finger at him. Finally, Brad turned his back on her as Megan came hurrying up, putting her arms around Brad’s waist and smirking at Sara, a smug expression spreading over the pretty blonde’s face. Sara turned her back on the couple and walked away, in the opposite direction, towards the Octagon.

Wendy hurried to the restroom, afraid she might be bleeding due to wetness. She’d check between every class, expecting to see red on her pad, but her pad remained clean. Cleanish. She’d been pretty horny that morning.

She had already pulled down her jeans and squatted on the toilet when she heard the first tremors. Two girls walked into the bathroom, laughing maliciously.

“Did you get that pic too? What a slut.”

“I know, right. And to be smiling that, like she’d just won some kind of contest. Cripes. What a whore.”

“I hope she had a good time.”

“She won’t after this.”

The two girls finished checking themselves in the mirror and left the restroom, still laughing at whatever poor girl had earned their abuse. Wendy didn’t really think about it, except to idly wonder who and what the hell they were talking about. Wendy quickly pulled up her jeans, zipped up her fly and buttoned it, and left the stall. She checked herself in the mirror, took off her scrunchie, brushed her hair, and pulled her hair back into its tail, wrapping the scrunchie around the band of golden hair.

No, she thought, nodding to herself. I’m still me. If I’ve changed at all, it’s somewhere deep where you can’t see it. Just plain old Wendy. And I like her.

When she stepped out of the restroom, she met faces she recognized but had never seen before. Jeering, smirking, derisive, ridiculing faces. Faces, once friendly, now quickly looking away or adversarial faces now openly contemptuous. Boys laughed loudly and pointed her out. Girls, gestured and jabbed at each other, mocking Wendy, or turned their backs as she walked past. Some faces seemed oblivious, others concerned and pitying.

“Hey, semen face,” someone shouted out. “Can I get next?”

“Damn, girl,” another voice cried out, “you sure look sweet like a glazed donut with come all over you.”

“What a dumb slut,” another voice, a female voice, said walking by.

“Fucking whore,” another girl said, louder.

Wendy stood mute, shocked, tears welling in her eyes. What did she do? What was everybody talking about? Suddenly a group of girls surrounded her, and Wendy backed against a locker, her tension quickly turning to relief when she recognized Laura. And Melani. And Julie. And Nikki. All of them stared tenderly at her, biting their lips, nodding their heads, a furl of concern curling each eyebrow.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. We got you.”

“I don’t. I don’t under, understand,” Wendy stammered.

“You don’t?” Nikki asked. “You really don’t?”

“Brad sent that pic out to some of his friends, and they just spread,” said Melani.

“Everybody’s seen them,” Julie state.

“Everybody,” Laura agreed.

“Brad? Brad sent what?” She remembered the pics. Just that morning she had boasted about them, she had felt so proud about them. The way Brad looked at her, the special way Brad made her feel when he held up the phone. She’d thought. She’d thought he’d wanted to keep them. As a souvenir. A memory of the special night they spent together. “How could he?”

“How could you?” Nikki asked.

“Nikki, don’t,” cautioned Julie. “She didn’t know. She didn’t think.”

“Brad’s a pig,” Laura said. “He’s just a dirty pig.”

“Sara will get him back,” said Julie.

“Where is Sara?” Wendy asked.

“Um, we’re not really sure. Come with us. Sit with us. No one will say anything to you. I mean, up close. We got you.”

“We could go off campus. Have lunch at Easters.”

Easters, a favorite hangout, grilled the best cheeseburgers in Reno County. The owner, Mitch, offered a signature sandwich, a BLT beef combo that jangled and jingled in the mouth, a cheddar-melted patty the size of Oklahoma on a sesame seed bun. But Easters, a squat wooden building with a wide porch of timber posts, sat on the fringes of Edge City, far from Kid Lester, and most kids didn’t bother going during school hours. Not enough time to eat.

“No,” said Nikki. “We need to show solidarity, present a united front. Hang together and get Wendy through this. She’d just have to come back after lunch, and then we wouldn’t be around for her. Class is going to be hell for the next couple of days.”

But for all their solidarity, the group of friends could not keep whispers from forming in front, around, and behind the five girls huddled together as they marched down the hallway to the Octagon, heads pointed straight ahead, proud, defiant. Except for Wendy, who kept her head down, deeply embarrassed and wondering at the terrible direction her life had so suddenly taken.

The lunch line stretched on interminable. Wendy’s darting eyes met darting eyes of curious and idle onlookers, classmates and underclassmen, gawking freshmen and sophomores, terrified of and thrilled at scandal and outrage. Juniors and Seniors poked each other’s ribs, gesturing back with a thumb. Wendy caught the words come, slut, whore, cocksucker, easy lay. But with the exception of a few rowdy guys, no one shouted at her. Nikki and Melani glared back at anyone poking a finger at Wendy, or laughing scornfully in her direction. At last Sara joined them, and heads facing Wendy, turned around. Even the rowdy guys shut the fuck up.

Sara stepped in front of Wendy and hugged her.

“I heard, Wendy. I’m so sorry. I thought this would happen. I tried to warn Brad, but he’s a fucking idiot. He’s going to get his.”

Sara arrived, the line moved forward without incident.

The gathering clouds burst shortly after Wendy and her friend sat down at their usual round table.

Megan Harlowe followed close behind by two other girls suddenly appeared at the table, looming over a sitting Wendy, already anxiety-ridden from all her exposure.

“You stupid bitch. You keep your dirty hands off my boyfriend, you dumb slut.”

“Seems like you should be yelling at Brad, not Wendy,” Nikki replied. “Maybe if you weren’t such a dead fuck, he wouldn’t be looking at other girls for a good time.”

“Looking at other tramps, you mean. Besides, it’s not like it meant anything to him. He knows I’m. I’m. Special.”

“You mean your daddy’s rich, don’t you,” smiled Sara.

“You’re one to talk,” retorted Megan snidely.

Sara continued to smile, staring straight into Megan’s eyes. Megan broke contact first and faced Wendy.

“He was just using you to pump and dump. He loves me. All you are to him is just a picture on a phone. Just a. Just a come-covered, stupid bimbo face smiling into a camera.”

“At least she enjoyed it,” Nikki said. “And Brad too by all appearances. Maybe you should apologize to Wendy and ask her nicely if she’ll teach you how to fuck.”

“Nikki!” This came from Wendy, who had up till then said nothing, trying to avoid further entanglement with escalating crisis.

“Bimbo,” said Sara wistfully. She looked up at Megan. “Is that what you’d like to be, Megan? Would you like to be a bimbo?”

Megan stepped back.

“No,” she answered, horrified. “No, I would not.”

“Go away,” Julie told Megan. “And take Humpty and Dumpty with you.”

Megan shrank back, turned around, and trotted away, almost breaking into a run to flee. Humpty and Dumpty followed.

The rest of lunch went slowly, mostly uneventfully. The group tried to cheer Wendy up, tried to comfort her, and Wendy appreciated the gestures. Really, she felt grateful for such companionship. The caresses on her thighs, the squeezes on her shoulders, the patting rubs on her back, the light embraces around her waist, the hands on her cheek, the whispers in her ear not to worry, it’s just school, school’s not important. What matters is how you feel, and you feel okay, don’t you Wendy? You feel good. It felt good when it happened, it felt good taking that picture, and now that everybody knows about it, it kind of feels good to get it out in the open, doesn’t it?

Even if everyone thinks you’re a slut.

Wendy nodded, trembling, biting her lip.

Then she looked up, throwing her gaze across the Octagon. Maddy caught her stare, and returned a smirking volley of her own, a look of disgust on her face mixed with a knowing, judgmental derision. I knew it, Maddy seemed to say. I just knew it about you. And then she turned away, Maddy turned away to talk to Trina and Gregory Gregor. When Wendy tried to catch Trina’s attention, the girl glanced at her briefly, smiled nervously, and turned away as Maddy poked her in the ribs, shaking her head. Wendy saw Trina lower her face to concentrate on her food tray. Wendy considered Trina’s new hair color for this week, pink on one side of the part in the middle, blue on the other. Well, at least she cut it down to two.

It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? To be the school whore.

Wendy nodded and felt someone’s hand on her inner thigh.

To just open your legs to anybody who wanted it.

Wendy startled up, straightened in her chair, and gripped the hand in her own, hearing Sara’s voice in her ear, Sara’s lips touching her ear, lightly brushing against her lobe. The hair stood up on Wendy’s neck, she felt goose bumps rise along her arms. She shook her head. No. No.

She faced Sara, an almost pleading shine in her eyes.

No. Not the school whore.

No, repeated Sara, shaking her head in turn. Not the school whore.

Sara’s lips moved, but Wendy couldn’t be sure she heard her voice now. Or just imagined it in her head, talking to her, prompting her, urging her, soothing her. It calmed and excited her at the same time. But Wendy held Sara’s hand between her thighs tightly, not allowing it to move further, but not permitting it to withdraw. Then the Octagon cleared, students rose slowly from their tables. Most avoided the attention of Wendy’s table, a few kids tittered and jeered as they walked past, but they quickly quieted with a blow from Sara’s eye. It’s nice to have friends in the top stratum, Wendy realized.

Maddy rushed by without looking at her. Trina turned to say something, faltered, and followed Maddy out the lunchroom.

Nikki, Laura, Melani, and Julie stood up, hugged Wendy, and left for their 5th period classes. Sara stayed behind to lead Wendy, arm in arm, to her locker. Wendy kept her eyes straight, but couldn’t help seeing the mocking smirks flashing on the faces of many of her classmates as they passed. She knew what they thought of her now. She read the hostility and contempt in their eyes. She wondered if it had always been there, some vague, directionless contempt for their fellow, their peer, just waiting for someone to attach to, someone to focus on, someone to hate? She tried to shake that feeling, tried to tell herself she dealt unjustly, but the stares she met, the derision she encountered told her otherwise. Her fellow humans, she realized, kind of sucked.

When Wendy opened her locker to get her blue and white Precal book, she found a folded piece of paper. Someone had shoved it through one of the slots of her locker. She opened it to see a large printout of her face, come dripping down her glossy pink lips, cheeks and chin, in color, her open mouth parted in a wide and happy smile, staring proudly into the phone’s camera lens, her blue eyes smeared in heavy mascara and eyeliner. Sara snatched the picture from her loose grip.

“Oh my god,” Sara said. “Everyone’s seen this.”

Wendy leaned her back against the closed door of her locker and covered her face with both her hands.

“I can’t do this, Sara. I just can’t do this.”

Sara leaned in against her, putting her hands on her shoulders, then raising them to pull Wendy’s hands down from her face.

“Sure you can, Wendy. You’re better than they are. I’ve seen you do such incredible things. And this picture? You know what, Wendy? You look great. So fuck them. Fuck them all.”

Wendy tried to laugh.

“I’m not going to fuck them all, Sara.”

She paused, and tears welled in the corners of her eyes.

“You don’t understand. My next class. Brad. Brad’s in my next class.”

“Then dry your eyes. Don’t you dare let him see you cry.”

Sara pulled out a wad of tissue from her purse and dried the corners of Wendy’s eyes for her.

“There. Good thing you didn’t put on makeup this morning.”

Sara walked Wendy to 5th period Precal. Sara leaned forward, touched Wendy’s lips with her own, pulled back and said, “You’ll be all right. Really, you’ll be all right.”

Wendy’s fortification broke down almost the moment she walked into the classroom without Sara (or Nikki, or Melani, or Julie, or Laura) by her side. The boys in the room all turned their eager, hungry faces toward her, while the girls just sneered. Even the teacher, Mr. Vernon, wore a shocked and disappointed expression when he saw Wendy enter the room. Wendy, forgetting not to back down, dropped her head and slunk to the back of the room, finding an open desk two rows up. No sooner did she sit down than she heard the whispers, louder than whispers, really.

“Slut.”

“Come dumpster.”

“Cock goblin.”

Wendy saw Brad Blake sat at the far corner of the room, in the back row, in the last desk, wearing his blue and gold varsity jacket. He looked her way, averted his eyes slightly. Wendy knew that he trailed her in his peripheral vision. He can’t ignore me, she thought. He knows what he did. But he doesn’t know what I’ll do.

Wendy tried not to look around her, not to look at the rest of the class, just to concentrate on Mr. Vernon, Vern the Worm, scribbling in dark blue marker on the whiteboard. A poster hung on the wall to the right of the whiteboard, between the door and board. A wet kitten hung from a clothesline, clawing at the line while staring into the camera with dazed eyes. Hang in There in bold white letters hovered below the kitten’s back paws and tail. She could do that, Wendy thought. She could hang in there. She could do that at least, a cock goblin could hang in there.

A paper wad hit her on her cheek, falling to the floor by her foot. The kid behind her handed her a folded piece of notebook paper. When she opened it she saw a scribbled drawing of a hairy dick spurting come in large drop on a stick figure with a round face. The artist had scrawled the name Wendy the Whore above the stick figure with the words Yum, yum, yum I love cum. Looking at the stick figure with the round head, Wendy suddenly remembered Sara’s funny necklace. She’d only wore it that one time, and Wendy had forgotten to ask her about it.

She swiveled her head on her shoulders, looking around the classroom to see who had thrown the paper wad at her. Neil, two columns across from her, grinned hostilely at her. Neil had the reputation of being bad. Not just someone who goofed around, but who could hurt you, if he wanted to. Jocks steered clear of him for the most part. Rumor had it he knifed someone in his last school, on the other side of town, at August Bebel High. Nobody wanted that kind of trouble. So everybody just left him alone. But sometimes he didn’t leave other people alone. And today, today it looked like Wendy had fallen into his line of sight.

“Turn around, Neil,” said Mr. Vernon. “Eyes up front.”

Neil ignored him.

Making a V-shape with his index and middle finger, Neil held the V up to his mouth and flicked his tongue grossly through the slot of the V.

“You know you want it, whore.”

His voice, loud enough to carry across the room, startled Brad from his apathy.

“You shut your fucking mouth, asshole.”

“Look who’s talking, camera man. You had your fun. It’s our turn now. Mine, anyway.”

Brad leaped out of his desk, flinging it over to bang loudly on the white, tiled floor.The class immediately jumped up and moved to the front of the room, clearing an area for the two combatants. Neil, sensing his danger, backed away. He balled his fists, but he knew he didn’t stand much of a chance against Brad. But he could hurt him, and to someone like Neil, that counted almost as much as winning. Brad guessed that about him, held off his attack, and said, “Just get the fuck out of here.”

“You gonna make me?”

The taunt worked. Brad threw himself forward, spun Neil around, twisted his arms around his back, and forced his shoulders downward. Neil slipped his grip, jabbed Brad in the face with an elbow, but Brad pushed him forward, shoving him to the floor. Brad kicked him in the chest, hard enough for Neil to understand that Brad Blake was no one to fuck with. Not without a knife.

“Okay, man, okay,” he said, scrambling to his feet, holding his hand up and wide. “She’s your girl now. I get it. You want to treat her like shit, that’s cool. The rest of us can’t. I get it. It’s cool.”

Neil brushed his jeans and turned to face Wendy.

“You hear that, whore? Your boyfriend says to leave you alone.”

But Wendy had already run out of the room.

Mr. Vernon had had enough, seizing his chance, he strode forward from his hiding place behind his desk, where he’d observed the fight without interference.

“Both of you come with me. Now. Shut up, Neil.”

Brad opened his mouth.

“Can it, Blake.”
* * *

She couldn’t hang in there after all. Not like that. Not with all that happening. Honestly, she couldn’t say what made her jump up and bolt like that. The moment Brad shouted at Neil, she’d had enough. Without even taking her book with her, she burst from the room, down the hallway, and out the double doors of the Octagon, across the parking lot filled with cars, around L-shaped building of Kid Lester High School, and down the sidewalk, running, running, running. She had jogged about six blocks before she turned into a neighborhood, jogged for another block or two, and then slowed to a forceful walk.

She’d never walked out of class before. She realized she’d never even called in sick or used up any of her excused absences. She never missed a day of school in, well, she couldn’t remember the last time she missed school. Certainly she never skipped school. Even more certainly she had never run out of class because a fight broke out over her after a picture of her face with the star quarterback’s semen streaked over it had been shared to the entire student body. That had never happened to her before.

It was too much.

Humiliated, but more than that. Her private world had been invaded. But that wasn’t it. Not exactly. It was the attention. She had dodged attention for two years of high school, making it through her freshman and sophomore years without so much as a peep from anybody but a handful of teachers who praised her study habits and homework. She had managed to hide behind Maddy, whose personality, though far from gregarious or outspoken, handled the spotlight with more aplomb. Maddy played in band, acted in the thespian club, and even went to school dances. But she collected the timid and the outcast around her. She, Wendy. Trina. Gregory. A few others flittered around the little group, around Maddy’s small light, but it had been that trio since the beginning of their freshman year, unchanging, constant, reliable.

But now Maddy rejected her. That much showed clearly, taking Trina with her. Not much of a loss, that one.

And the light shining on Wendy now more resembled the focused beam of sunlight through a magnifying glass than the adoring light of a stage. Wendy remembered how a neighbor kid, years ago, showed her how to burn little beetles on the sidewalk. How they scurried for a few seconds, then started smoking, finally flaring in a brief explosion of arthropodal life. Wendy had turned away in horror and pity for the little creatures, but the image stuck. Now she was the beetle, trying to scurry away from the horrible heat. She’d might as well stand still and burn up. She’d lost everything.

Everything.

Her reputation. It wasn’t much, but if anybody thought of her at all, they thought of her as that bookworm who made good grades. The one always on the Honor Roll. The one you could cheat from, if you didn’t make it obvious. The girl with straight As hanging around Maddy. The girl who didn’t speak much, but didn’t cause trouble either. That’s how she saw herself. Just plain Wendy. Get those grades and go. A week. A week was all it took to ruin it all, to bring it all crashing down around her.

Wendy. The girl who’d fuck anyone on the first date. The girl who’s suck anyone’s dick as long as they stuck it in front of her face. It didn’t even have to be true. But that picture didn’t lie. And Brad had more. She knew he had a photo of her spreading her legs for him, holding them up and stretched out for him to get a good shot of her leaking pussy. If that one got out. Well. What of it. She was a whore now. In for a penny, in for a pound.

No.

They wouldn’t get her. She didn’t know what had happened last week, but all that? All that wasn’t her. She didn’t do that. She didn’t finger strange women in restrooms, fuck guys in Jeeps, blow them till they shot a wad all over her. She didn’t even know how to say shoot a wad or what that meant before last week. Before that magazine, the pictures and the stories she read in it. Before Sara.

Sara. That’s when it started. Sara in the restroom. Coming in every morning at the same time, putting on lipstick, smelling like cinnamon, not even talking to her, just smelling, smiling, and pouting that mouth into the mirror for the pink lipstick. She smacked her lips, suddenly aware that they burned, dry, parched. Nude in the open air. But she’d left all hers at home. She hadn’t worn makeup this morning. Neither had Sara. Which was strange, if you thought about it. Sara always wore makeup. And she hadn’t worn the perfume either.

Then the Thursday before last when Sara talked to her for the first time. That was weird, wasn’t it? Talking her into wearing lipstick? And then wearing it for the rest of the day just because she asked her to? I mean. Going out to the mall with her to get more pink lipstick. That was weird, wasn’t it? Then dressing up at her house? Then. Then. Then all that masturbating the next week at night, talking to Sara, listening to Sara. Masturbating for the first time. Then squirting to porn. Women having oral sex with men, then having oral sex with each other. She’d heard about that. I mean, c’mon. She was sixteen. But it never really filtered through. Until last week.

It seemed like so much fun. And it was, it was fun!

But not her. It wasn’t her, wasn’t Wendy. Not until two weeks ago. Not until last week.

Could she pick up the pieces?

How? How could she go back to school like that? With that picture on everybody’s phone?

Could she home school? How the hell did people home school? She’d have to find out, because she wasn’t going to go back, not for anything in the world would she go back.

She heard a car rolling up slowly behind her. She ignored it until the car rolled past her, stopping a few feet in front of her. She recognized the Mercedes. No. Sara was the last person she wanted to see right now. She’d just get pulled into her world, just get sucked right into whatever it was that Sara wanted. Well. She had to stand up to her some time. But how? How did you stand up to Sara when you caved so easily? Reluctantly Wendy stepped up to Sara’s open window.

“Hey,” Sara said, “Are you doing all right? You really started something at school today. Neil got expelled, and Brad barely, just barely kept for getting expelled with him. But he’s been suspended. That’s what I heard anyway. That’s what the talk is all about. They can’t prove the picture on him, of course, and they don’t want to. Quarterback and all that. But they suspect, and they don’t like it. You might get into trouble too. With them.”

“Me?” Wendy shouted. “What did I do?”

“Well, I mean. You got your picture taken with come all over your face. That’s kind of frowned on.”

“But I didn’t send it out.”

“I don’t think that’s really the point.”

“I’m not going back anyway, so it doesn’t matter. No way am I going back there.”

“Whatcha gonna do then?” Sara sounded more curious than doubtful.

“I’m not sure, but I’ll think of something. Home school. GED. It just doesn’t matter to me right now. Oh god. I can’t stand that people are talking about me.”

“Want a ride?”

“I’m going home.”

“That’s still a ride.”

“I mean it. I’m going home. Nowhere else.”

“I believe you.”

Wendy walked around the car, climbed into the passenger seat, fastened her seat buckle, and leaned her head against the door window.

“Sara,” she asked, “Why did you start talking to me?”

“Hmm?”

“In the bathroom last week. The week before last. Why did you start talking to me?”

“Are you upset that I did?”

A pause followed that question.

“No. Not upset. Bothered. Not really bothered either. Confused. I’m not like your other friends. I don’t belong in your little group. I’m not a cheerleader, I don’t have money. I’m not popular, not even a little bit. I mean, Maddy’s more popular than I am, and she’s practically a nobody.”

“A funny thing about that Maddy.”

“What?”

“Who do you think put that picture in your locker?”

“No. I don’t believe it. How do you know? Why would she do something like that?”

“I don’t know. Jealousy? Anger? Resentment? All three?”

“But jealous of what? Angry about what? What would she resent me for?”

“You serious? You fucked the star quarterback for one. You got your name and picture all over school for the other. Believe me, that means something. In one week you completely eclipsed anything she’d ever done at this Kid Lester of yours. And she wants it. God she wants it bad. You think she doesn’t know she’s the big planet you little moons whirl around? You. That Trina. Gregory. And now look at you. You’re not just a planet. You’ve become the sun. A sun, anyway. When are you ever going to see yourself, Wendy?”

“What?”

“The way I see you.”

“I, I, I don’t know what to say.”

“And you did it so easily. Of course she’s going to resent you. I mean, you think that strange women just randomly follow Maddy into public restrooms, dying to get in her pants?”

“That was just that one time!” Wendy protested.

“That was just the first time,” Sara corrected.

“Anyway. I don’t believe that about Maddy.”

“Someone saw her.”

“Who?”

“Laura and Julie.”

Sara turned into Wendy’s driveway, stopping the car and letting it idle.

“Are you going to be okay, Wendy?”

Wendy shrugged.

“I don’t know. I can’t go back to school. I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to Mom. I’m actually near panic, but it’s nice to sit here with you Sara. You make me feel. Safe. Or at least able to be. To exist. To just exist without any effort.”

Sara squared her shoulders and faced Wendy.

“Wendy, listen to me. It’s just school, okay? It just doesn’t matter. This will all blow over, and you won’t even remember it happened. Your mother doesn’t have to know anything, and you don’t have to explain anything to her.”

Sara hugged Wendy and briefly kissed her mouth.

“And everything takes effort, Wendy.”

But Wendy had already opened the door. Stepping halfway out, she lingered for a second, then leaned over, twisting her body, and kissed Sara on the mouth in her turn. Her lips parted, and she flicked her tongue briefly over Sara’s startled lips.

“I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you back yesterday.”

Then Wendy walked up the driveway, hopped up her front porch, unlocked the door and disappeared into the darkness inside. Sara, Maddy, Brad, the entire student body of Kid Lester High gave her a lot to think about, along with a suddenly piercing headache.
* * *

Adamatic Paper Supply hosted its headquarters in the Edge City Corporate Park, a sprawling business campus filled with flat buildings, round buildings, tall buildings, triangular buildings, rectangular buildings, and one oddly shaped building reminiscent of an hourglass. The Adamatic Paper Supply Company boasted the nation’s largest network of paper products, paper product manufacturing, paper shippers and paper distribution, paper import, and paper export. Every conceivable use which paper could be put to was advanced, developed, created, advertised, implemented, and reconceived.

Adamatic Paper Supply boasted factories, distributions centers, warehouses, and even gift stores in practically every sovereignty of the United Sovereignties of Vespuccia. Quite simply, APS occupied position number three internationally when it came to the paper business, producing and selling everything from banknote paper to toilet tissue. It housed its headquarters in a low but expansive polygonal building, three stories, showing an exterior of glass, steel, and concrete façade.

For almost fifteen years, Mary Love called Adamatic Paper Supply her second home. In truth, it was her first home. Her second home waited for her on West Pigeon Street.

Mary Love stretched her arms above her head, yawned, rotated her head, and rubbed the back of her neck. I could definitely use a massage soon, she thought, as she finished the last business of the day. A few spreadsheets remained opened while she continued last-minute updating. Two weeks ago word swept over the department, the accounting department, that Adamite Paper would soon begin the downsizing. No department or team could expect to be safe. Except the top. However much changes needed to be made, Adamatic Paper Supply anticipated no change at the top.

Mary had mentally prepared herself for news which had not yet come. Now, as she updated the last three remaining spreadsheets, she looked over her cubicle and wondered whether a change might do her good. Ah, but she had made it her home. Had worked for the company for more than a decade, putting in more or less long hours, sharing responsibility for Wendy’s upbringing with William, who had always been more than happy to pick up any slack left by Mary’s business obligations.

Just a typical cubicle, really. A potted plant, a geranium, two, no three pictures of Wendy, Mary, and William, together, smiling blissfully into the camera. A wall calendar hanging on the blue fabric partition, just to the side of her tan filing cabinet, opposite her PC. Of puppies, the month of September showing a basketful of Dalmatians tumbling over on carpet. Her computer and monitor, on the side perpendicular to the cubicle opening. Slippers. A comfy blanket for when the men insisted on too much air conditioning. A compromise had been reached, but still. A rogue faction now and then persisted to keep the thermostat down.

Wendy popped into her mind, unsettling her once again. Mary exhaled. If only she had someone to talk to about her. To share concerns with. She’d attempted it once, discussing her daughter, with Evelyn, Maddy’s mother, but dropped the subject almost immediately. Something about Evelyn always left Mary cold, taciturn, disquieted. A shame, really. She’d love to be able to confide in Maddy’s mother, to have her as someone she trusted, someone who sympathized and understood Mary’s feelings.

She input the last figures on the final spreadsheet, closed the program window, and prepared to shut down the computer when she noticed new email in her private email inbox, which she kept open on her browser. The sender was Maddy Springer’s mother. Evelyn. They had added each other to their contact list, and sometimes Evelyn liked to send cute cat pictures or dress ideas. I wonder what she sent me this time, thought Mary, seeing the attached JPEG. The subject line said, YOU NEED TO SEE THIS! Probably a cat napping with pit bull. She clicked the attached file without reading the message.

It took her several seconds to fully realize what she was looking at.

When she did, she choked down bile rising to the back of her throat. Covering her mouth, she gasped in shock and worry. Who took the photo? That Brad, of course. When? Last night. Mary recognized the makeup Wendy wore, smeared now across her face. The mascara, the eyeliner, the lipstick, so pink and glossy with Brad’s, god, she hated to even think it much less say it, his seed dripping down her mouth and chin. It looked so. Unable to pull her eyes away, Mary fixated on the photo covering the screen of her monitor.

Brad had taken the photo a little above Wendy, so that her daughter stared into the camera lens with wide, dilated, happy eyes, smiling with a mouthful of, ugh, semen, at Brad. A stream of his seed had landed across both sides of her face, trickling down her the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t close them. Kept them wide open for Brad. She looked, well she looked like a well-used whore in garish makeup. Well, she couldn’t keep looking at this. That young lady would have a lot of explaining to do. No. Not lady. No lady would look like that. Mary felt a sense of fury, of anger, rising from heart. An anger mixed with anxiety and confusion.

How did Evelyn get this photo? Who else had seen it? But the relief did nothing to assuage her anxiety, anger, and alarm.

Mary suddenly realized with a caved-in heart that if Maddy’s mother had seen the picture, a good many other people must also have done so.

Unless.

Unless Wendy had sent it to Maddy, and Evelyn had only intercepted it, seen it on Maddy’s phone, maybe. She hurriedly read the message Evelyn had sent with the attachment, hoping for the best possible outcome to a bad, bad affair. Two sentences in, and she knew her world had crumbled. The entire fucking school, Wendy! The entire fucking school has seen you looking like this! And for the first time since William had passed, Mary felt glad of it. Relieved. At least he’d never have to see this. My god. It would have broken him. She turned off her PC, gathered her things, and stepped outside her cubicle.

As Mary walked down the dimly lighted corridors of her office building, she had a moment of unexpected realization.

“She looked happy. Happier than I’ve seen her in a long, long time.”

It brought a strange sense of relief which perhaps only another mother could fully understand. She exited the glass doors in front of the building. Her rage, her anger dissipated, transforming into another emotion she had grown more accustomed to. Guilt.

She had not been a good mother. She knew that. Bill provided all the emotional support, the encouragement, the love even. At least the signs of love. Mary, pregnant with Wendy not much older than Wendy now, resented her child in her first few years. She resented getting pregnant in the first place. Although Bill turned out to be a capable, affectionate, and stable husband and father, she wanted something more. She couldn’t say what, exactly. So she assumed the something more meant career, job, independence. And independence was not something you could have with an infant, or a toddler, or a child, or even a preteen to early teenager.

Then Bill collapsed one day on the side of a highway while inspecting powerlines, and suddenly the universe thrust Mary into that position she feared most. Single motherhood. Wendy, thirteen, fourteen years old, responded as best she could. If she hurt on the inside, nothing of the pain showed outwardly. Mary didn’t want to pry, fearing perhaps an onslaught of emotion she felt unprepared to encounter. So she went to work, stayed late, talked to a few friends on the phones, tried dating very casually a couple of times, hated it, and came home to a quiet, studious daughter, who apparently never liked to wear makeup, attractive clothing, or showed much interest in dating.

Was her daughter gay? Was she a lesbian? She’d wonder briefly, but she saw no indication of attraction to her own sex either, so Mary let the matter drop. Wendy’s just Wendy. When the time comes, she’ll show interest in boys. Until then, no harm in avoiding the conversation. No sense in making the girl talk about something she so obviously wanted not to talk about.

Besides, Wendy needed to study. She just needed to get that scholarship. She hated to imagine Wendy following her footsteps. Early pregnancy, early marriage, not an unwanted family exactly, but one not wanted at the time, not planned, not fully thought out, structured, arranged. Set. Wendy had a future, and Mary steadfastly determined to see Wendy through to that future. College, graduate school, maybe law, maybe medicine, perhaps a little something in academia. Wouldn’t that be nice? My daughter the professor. Politics. That was a thought. President Wendy Love. Senator Wendy Love. Justice Wendy Love. All that ringed very nicely in the mother’s ears. But she had to get that scholarship first, and that meant no photos of her with some guy’s, some boy’s, um, sperm on her face. No future lay in that direction.

I could have been a surgeon, Mary thought as she pulled from her stopped position at the intersection of West Pigeon and Acadia Boulevard. I have steady hands. I had the grades, too. At one time. But her own folks worked in a food processing factory back east, in one of those sovereignties bordering Big Water River, not poor, not really poor, but not wealthy, not enough to send her to school without a scholarship. And she lost any chance of a scholarship back in her senior year, four months pregnant and absolutely disinterested in going to class. So a GED had to cut it. Along with two years at the community college.

William, to his credit, stuck with her. His put his mind’s labor into technical training, and after receiving some kind of certification line laying and repair, found a steady position with the local power company, which service much of the northern half of the sovereignty. Later, after Mary earned her Associates, she found a position as administrative assistant at Adamatic Paper Supply, part time due to Wendy. Later, after being offered a promotion to Office Manager and a raise, Mary found suitable daycare.

Other mothers in her office oohed and aahed over every picture or every word, gesture, or action committed by their toddler offspring, an effusiveness that always left Mary cold, detached. She wondered what lacked in her not to feel the gushing warmth toward her own daughter, then she went back to her office duties. Before many years had passed, upper management transferred her to manage the office in the Accounting Department. By that time, Wendy went to school, relieving somewhat of her burden as a terrible mother. School could handle her.

Mary spent the next few years in night school or taking weekend or online classes, obtaining her BS in Accounting, which granted her another change of position, another raise, and more obligation, she felt this on her part, to the company. So yes, a bad mother, an unemotional, cold and distant mother. But one who kept her daughter clothed, fed, housed, and educated.

It wasn’t exactly true that Wendy needed a scholarship. But she needed one if she planned on going to the best universities, the Ivy League on the East, the West Coast schools. That university up north. And Mary fully intended that she did. Plan on going. Mary would force the issue if need be. Only those who’ve struggled in youth against, well, not exactly poverty, you couldn’t call it poverty, but. Only those would know the horrible waste of time, energy and spirit it takes just to stay even with the better off. Of course, you couldn’t get pregnant at seventeen. That would definitely throw a wrinkle in with the wrench.

Should she have aborted Wendy?

God, she had considered it. Thought about it, planned it, and almost executed the plan. Something held her back. Bill? Maybe. He argued strenuously to keep her. Morality? Doubtful. Nobody’s business but hers, and she didn’t think it a bad thing. Then what? Curiosity. What is it? What’s it, who’s it, who’s she, going to be? What will she turn into? What will happen to her? Fear, loathing, expectation, hope, all these emotions conspired and twisted in her mind, dancing a bizarre dance of reason and passion. At night these questions, these considerations, these wonderings seemed to come out of nowhere, out of the very silence of the dark, until they filled her almost with a desperate eagerness to give birth, to witness the event of Wendy arriving into the world.

And then one day, finally, she did.

God, Mary wanted to feel something.

Oh, love existed in her. She knew that. She felt it. Somewhere beneath all her detachment, all her distance, all her cool observation, she felt it, sometimes stirring to a real but quickly fading emotion. Having thrown herself into a routine of obligation, duty, work, she admired how Bill fastened about the toddler, spoiled her, doted on her, kept as much of his weekends as he could open for her. Eventually, as time passed, as Mary grew accustomed to the presence of Wendy, she too began to admire her, to even think highly of her. She recognized a plain and modest beauty, an independence mind, and a way of finding, well, a kind of amusement in her immediate surroundings, a self-reliance which began to worry the mother as the child grew older. Wendy did not easily make friends.

Besides the girl Madison, Mary couldn’t recall the names or faces of more than a handful of girls Wendy’s age. As third grade slipped into fourth grade, as fourth grade passed into fifth grade, Mary’s anxiety grew. She suggested sleepovers, parties, picnics, anything to bring in a greater number of companions for her daughter, but Wendy resisted, preferring her own company and the company of her favorite books. So Mary, not wanting to meet the resistance head-on, backed away. Wendy was Wendy after all. She knew what she wanted. And she seemed happy.

Now, as Mary’s blue Buick pulled into the driveway of the Love residence, she wondered if she had backed down too easily. Wendy should have had more friends. Mary should have forced that issue. Maybe then she wouldn’t have been so taken with that Sara. Because Mary harbored no doubt concerning the bad influence that young creature wielded on her daughter. Sara this, Sara that. For two weeks, Wendy talked of little else. And Mary couldn’t help but notice the change. That lipstick, that makeup. The way she dressed for school. The perfume she wore.

Oh, she looked nice, Wendy did. To be honest, Mary smiled at the change. Approved of it, in fact. With the misgiving Sara herself prompted in Mary’s heart. That girl raised a red flag if anyone did. But finally, finally, Wendy seemed to have discovered her body, her adolescent body just on the cusp of full womanhood. Slightly shorter than her mother, Wendy’s hips curved with the same round swell, narrowing upward until rising with the convex of her full breasts, the width of the chest. Almost a woman, now, but ah, yes, she’d heard those sounds. How could you not? That soft moaning, that shrill, sharp cry of ecstasy. Mary breathed a sigh of relief that she had Steve. She’d need her own, um, venting after hearing all that.

Mary parked the car, removed her keys, gathered her purse, and climbed out of her car. Steve. Another point of guilt. She’d promised not to bring him into the house, she’d promised not to let him spend the night, and now look at them. A frequent visitor, she shared her bed with him last night, he’d woken up in Mary’s house that morning. Wendy’s house. Met her in the hall on his way out. Not something a girl would want to experience, half-dressed bumping against a stranger early in the morning on the way to the bathroom. William, Bill, Wendy’s father gone now two years, departed, and now another man in the house. No wonder she’d started acting out.

Still. Those photos hurt her chances, slim enough as they were.

She’d be hearing from the school tomorrow, no doubt about that.

Mary slipped off her heels the moment she crossed the threshold of the door from the garage to the kitchen, the hard surface of the tile cool against the bottom of her hosed feet. Wouldn’t it be nice to have Steve over every night just to rub them? Maybe she should give him a call. After her talk with Wendy.

“Wendy?” She called out. No answer. Setting her baggy purse on the counter of the island, Mary walked to the bottom of the staircase.

“Wendy?” Still no answer. That girl.

Mary tripped up the stairs, turned right, walked down the carpeted hallway the short distance to Wendy’s bedroom. She knocked on the door. Mary listened to the bed creak, to the patter of feet on the carpet. The door opened to a disheveled, red-eyed Wendy.

“What?” she asked sharply.

“We need to talk.”

“Right now? Mom, I just don’t feel like it. I have a head—“

“Tough,” replied Mary, stepping through the cracked door.

“Then you?”

Mary nodded bitterly.

“I’ve seen it.”

“Oh, mom, what am I going to do? Everybody in school saw that picture. It’s horrible. I look like. I look so.”

Mary nodded in agreement.

“You certainly do.”

“I just can’t go back to school.”

“You’re going back to school. You’re just going to have to take it on the chin.”

“Mom!”

“I mean. Oh what do you expect? Do you have any idea how embarrassed I am for you? How angry and worried about you I am? What were you thinking?”

Now Wendy stepped back and faced her mother. Raising her lowered head, she looked at Mary with a mixture of defiance, anger, and hurt.

“I wasn’t thinking anything, Mother. I was doing.”

Mary returned her daughter’s fixed gaze until Wendy blinked and turned her head to the side. Mary’s look drifted over Wendy, noticing how her daughter must have showered. Her hair hung bedraggled and clumpy, and she wore pajamas although the light of early evening seeped through the window. Wendy had left off her bra after her shower, and the loose cotton of her pajama top clung to the curving slopes of her breasts, tiny nubs showing where her soft nipples poked the fabric. Mary felt her anger soften as she saw how her daughter must have been crying just before she came home from work. Red, watery eyes betrayed Wendy’s suffering, and Mary stepped forward to hug, to hold, to comfort her daughter.

“I suppose you could stay home a couple of days. This might blow over quickly. At least you could take a break from this mess.”

Wendy’s body relaxed, and she smiled gratefully at her mother.

“I mean, it’s not you ever skip school or anything. You’ve never even taken a sick day, have you?”

Wendy shook her head.

“No.”

Just then Wendy’s Hipkick vibrated on the top of the vanity.

Mary tossed Wendy a quizzical look.

“Whose phone is that?”

“Um, mine,” Wendy replied evasively.

“How did you get that?”

“Um. Sara. She wanted me to have it. I didn’t ask for it.”

“You let that girl give you a phone like that? How much does it cost?”

“I didn’t want to. I tried to refuse. But. You know.”

Wendy lifted the phone, held it, and furled her brows at her message.

“What is it? Give it her right now, young lady.”

“Mom. No. It’s my phone. I don’t have to show you anything.”

“Hand it over now.”

But Wendy held the phone behind her back.

“I said no.”

Mary stood to her full height and gave Wendy a final warning.

“Now. Or I’ll take it from you.”

“You do, and I’ll.”

“You’ll what, Wendy? What will you do?”

“Fine,” Wendy spat. “Take the damned thing.”

Wendy threw the phone on the floor near Mary’s stockinged feet.

Sighing, Mary bent over to retrieve the phone. Regaining her stature, she saw the text message Wendy had opened.

“Check your email you dirty whore. I can’t believe what a hot fucking cum bucket you are! God you drive me crazy you sexy girl.”

Sara sent the text.

Mary trembled with rage and confusion.

“You simply cannot see that girl again,” Mary told Wendy. “She’s off limits from now on.”

Wendy kept quiet, fighting down a rising rage of her own.

“What email?” Mary asked. “Show me.”

“No fucking way.”

The hand shot out before Mary could pull it back, crossing the short space between the two women in a wide, sweeping arc with irresistible force, her arm carrying the open palm of her hand like the end of a whip before landing sharply and brutally against the side of Wendy’s face.

Wendy staggered back, rubbing her reddening cheek. She glared at her mother.

“I hate you so fucking much.”

The she calmly walked around her mother and out the opened door.

Mary collapsed on Wendy’s bed, shocked and horrified at her violence. She leaned over and fell into a fetal position, sobbing on her side, tears streaming from her eyes, down her cheek, and onto the pink, fluffy case of Wendy’s pillow. Eventually she calmed down, dried her tears, and noticed the monitor of Wendy’s PC on the nightstand. Looking around, she found the keyboard tucked under the bed. Pushing a few keys randomly, the PC slowly woke from its sleep mode.

Mary opened Navigator to the VOL home page. Mary and Wendy had set up a VOL account years ago, and Mary hoped Wendy still used it. With any luck, Wendy would be logged in, and Mary wouldn’t have to force the issue with her daughter. I’ve done enough damage there, she thought. Mary’s luck held. VOL opened to Wendy’s home page. Mary clicked the mailbox icon and searched for a message from Sara. She found it.

The email itself contained a continuation of the theme introduced by the phone text, and Mary tried to ignore it as best she could, her horrified eyes skimming over the words slut, cum guzzler, cock whore, wet pussy, hot cum, pink cunt. Sexy. Hot. Lust. She saw two attachments. When she clicked the first attachment, she sighed with relief at seeing Wendy’s glazed face with Brad’s come streaming over it. Bad, but I’ve already seen it. She closed the file and opened the second attachment.

Mary gasped loudly, uttering a short, sharp, “Oh!”

The flash of Brad’s camera showed the same smiling Wendy, now leaning against the door of the back seat of Brad’s Jeep, holding her legs up and spread out, her womanhood on display, her daughter’s pussy, her daughter’s hot pussy, for all the world to see, Brad’s hot come leaking from the folds of Wendy’s pink cunt surrounded by her matted, golden pubic mound.

She didn’t even make him use a condom. My daughter. What on earth had happened to my daughter?

Not knowing why she did it, not really caring, or even thinking about it, Mary forwarded the email with attachments to her own email account. She can’t keep going like this, she thought. That girl Sara’s got to go. Then she deleted the email in Wendy’s account, closed the browser, and shut down the computer. Taking the Hipkick with her, crossing the room to pull the charger from its outlet, she saw the cordless phone and unhooked the line from its hookup on the wall. Cradling both phones in her arms, she stormed out of Wendy’s bedroom and searched for her daughter. She found her curled on the sofa, surfing cable channels, aiming the remote at the TV screen with a restless and impatient fury.

“Wendy,” Mary said quietly, dumping the pile of phones onto the carpet.

“You don’t get to talk to me.”

Mary sat down on the end of the sofa, reached to caress Wendy’s calf, but Wendy jerked her leg back.

“I’m so sorry, sweetie. I’m so very sorry.”

Wendy bored holes in the TV screen.

“You’ve never done that before.”

“You’ve never talked to me like that before. It happened so fast. I couldn’t think.”

“You hit me, Mom. You hit me hard.”

“I’m so sorry, honey.”

“I’m not. Now I know who you are.”

Mary watched Wendy wade through a blur of yelping, dancing commercials.

“You like to hit people.”

The remote rested on a sitcom of young people sitting on a sofa in a living room, presumably of a shared apartment, then rising to sit on a sofa in coffee shop, before going to sit at a booth in a New York diner. Afterwards, they went to a cinema to sit in a row of seats, before finally going home to sit once again on the sofa in the living room, talking of all the places they had sat in.

“It’s that Sara, honey. She’s changed you. You’ve changed. Surely you can see how much of a bad influence she is.”

“She doesn’t hit me.”

“I can’t keep apologizing, Wendy. And I’m not asking you to see things my way. I’m telling you. Sara is not welcome here. You can’t go over to see her. I can’t stop you from seeing her at school, but I can make sure you don’t see her outside of school. You’re grounded, Wendy. You’re grounded for the rest of the year. You’ve lost all phone privileges. I’d take away your computer, but you need that for school, but it stays down here. In the study, where I can check on you.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing with your life, but I can promise you this. I won’t let you screw it up. You can do so much, Wendy. You have so much potential. I can just feel it in you. You can become anything, Wendy. You’re so young, right now, you can put your mind to it and become anything you want to be. You have so many chances in front of you. So much opportunity. And that Sara can ruin everything for you. Don’t let her blow it for you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Sara. You don’t know how supportive she’s been of me.”

“You don’t understand, Wendy, because you’re so young. People like Sara. People from Sara’s background. People that rich. They’re not like you and me. They’re different. They play through life in a way we can’t, and sometimes they don’t care who gets hurt, because they know they can’t. It doesn’t make them good or bad, but you’ve got to watch out for them. And I know Sara’s rich if she drives that Mercedes and buys you the latest cell phones. I know I’m not a good mother, I know I’m not as warm and loving and affectionate as your father was. But I do want what’s best for you. I do care about you.”

Wendy shot up and said with an exasperated contempt, “Oh god, Mom. You can’t even say it, can you? You can’t even say it, because you don’t know if it’d be true, do you? You’re so full of it. You know that, right?”

“Full of what, honey? You know I care about you.”

Wendy stared plaintively at her mother.

“But do you love me?”
* * *

Moby banged on the drain in the big stall of the restroom next to his custodial maintenance closet on the second floor. The rubber mallet made a dull thud when it struck the metal covering, but the metal rang briefly, sending a clatter echoing down the drain. Moby scooted the canisters of bug powder, his cudgel-like black metal flashlight, and his cattle prod to one side, and bent his head to the floor, turning his ear to the drain. Nothing at first except the sound of his own breath reverberating against the tube of the drain. Then he heard it, softly, faintly, unmistakably. The sound of something large passing through the drain system, a wet, slurping, dragging sound, as if a large snake (or several large snakes), slithered through the sewage pipes below.

“That’s just wrong,” Moby muttered to himself. “I can feel it in my bones.”

Moby had first sensed something uncanny moving below the school some two or three weeks ago. At first he thought he just imagined it, or not imagined exactly, not something he conjured, but something that conjured itself despite his intent. Just the usual background noise in his head, just another noise among the yammering voices, the whispers, the whistles, the cacophony and clash of chords, the laughter. He’d learned to turn them all off years ago. No, not off, down. Not down, not down exactly. He bore the background sound like a roommate the noise of his flat mate’s stereo.

The drugs helped.

He’d consumed practically every drug known to science and pseudoscience. Recreational, therapeutic, psychiatric, anti-psychotic, bipolar, and homeopathic. Honestly, it was all recreational to Moby, who’d witness his trips, highs, mood suppressants with a kind a detached amusement. Ah, he’d say to the suddenly opened portal of swirling star faces and laughing moons, you again. Well. I’ve got some Old Style in the fridge. He’d gesture with a nod and backward toss of his head. Get it yourselves. You know where the glasses are.

He’d checked the fridge later. If any of the beer went missing, he’d know he’d had real visitors. If not. Well. Let the voices and visions on the other side dance their little dance. They needed him, not the other way around.

But when those noises in the drain kept getting louder, kept getting closer, well, sir. And when the toilets started clogging and sinks started overflowing. Well, then. He tried to pin down when it all started. Those two fillies now. Making all that ruckus in the restroom. His restroom. Damned students knew not to go in there. But not those two. That’s when that thing down there got restless, started stirring about, making noises, rattling the drains, slurping blob-like under the school. But he never saw it.

That’s the thing.

Moby never actually saw it.

Though once or twice he thought he could smell it. A weird bubblegum odor, somehow mixed with cinnamon. Made his thoughts wander, is what it did. Fogged his noggin. And he needed his noggin defogged. Fog-free and clear. Moby shook his head and pressed his ear close to the drain until it touch the metal grate. A bubblegum odor rose from the drain in the floor, spreading throughout the restroom. Moby’s nose twitched. Then something wet licked at his cheek, and he jerked back with a shock of disgusted awe. A pink, wet, fleshy tentacle pushed against the grate, lifting it. The grate fell to the tiled floor with a clang as the pink tip of the tentacle inched slithering across the rim of the drain.

Moby stood up, aghast and outraged. Not in his restroom. Not on his watch.

The tentacle had just reached the tip of Moby’s black, steel-toed work shoe. The custodial maintenance technician lunged for this cattle prod, raised it aloft and jabbed at the creature in the middle of its thick, fleshy, and smooth tentacle. He leaned over the creature’s boneless extremity and pushed the button on the handle. The tentacle instantly retracted as a pink cloud of gas or fine powder shot from the drain, blasting Moby directly in the face. The custodian jabbed the cattle prod as far as he could down the hole, shaking and rattling it against the side of the drain.

“You damned pink varmint. I see you now, you pink bastard.” Moby turned away from the hole. “Bug powder,” he muttered, wiping the pink substance off his face with the tails of his blue custodial shirt. “Bug powder will teach that son of a bitch.”

Dropping the stock prod, Moby reached for his flashlight and cast a beam of light down the dark hole of the drain, but he could see nothing beyond the curvature of the pipe, some two feet below the grate. He dragged a canister of bug powder, a non-descript, dark olive canister with a long, fabric-coated hose ending in a long conical nozzle toward the drain. Moby stuck the nozzle down the pipe, directing a long, steady blast of the bug powder. The fine yellow powder clung to the side of the pipe and hung in the air above the drain like a small radioactive cloud.

He scooted the grate over the drain hole with the tip of his shoe.

“He-he-he,” Moby chuckled. “Fuck with me varmint, and I’ll fuck right back.”
* * *

That Monday morning Pastor Flair’s mood flattened to a low point the following day. He had spent the rest of that Sunday, yesterday, jubilant, almost ecstatic, remembering and re-remembering his triumphant call to redemption. How the congregation responded! But as the day passed, as routine took over, the daily routine of life at home, among the wife, the two kids, he felt his jubilant mood subside, to flow out of him like the slow deflation of a balloon. He turned the key to the door of the church, walked into the dark foyer, the narthex, turned left and walked down the narrow corridor to his office, also on the left side of the hall.

Renee had left the offering trays on a small table standing against the back wall of Flair’s office. Good. Counting money always cheered him up. But he handled the welcome cards first. Church business, the money wasn’t going anywhere, no sense in acting greedy. Besides, he expected only two or three welcome cards per week, sometimes, often, none at all, and this Sunday’s offering saw only the one yellow index card. He hummed and smiled as he picked it up, wondering who the person was, and whether they, the church, could expect to receive much in the way of, well, donation. Of funds. His smile quickly turned to a frown as he read the contents of the welcome card.

Well, he thought. Youngsters. But that’s exactly what he spoke against yesterday. And they had listened, he had seen their prayers, their ardent worship. And anyway, after all. Teenage joke. Poor taste, yes. Bad, really. Absolutely. But that little prayer request at the end. So sweet. So thoughtful. Yes. He could do that. He could pray for Wendy to see in her what that sweet little friend of hers saw. He dismissed the other garbage, the trash, written above. He’d seen worse. The world was full of it. Besides, Wendy Love. He knew her mother. Talked to the daughter. Good, plain people. Hardly the ones to go galivanting or cavorting after sin. But he’d keep an eye. Oh, yes. He’d keep an eye.

Pastor Flair turned his attention to the wads of loose change and bills, his mood expanding to almost buoyancy.
* * *

Victoria Gothe, one of two assistant vice principals steering the operations of Kid Lester High School, saw Moby stretching yellow tape in an X across the door of the girl’s restroom on the second floor. She sighed. Why couldn’t he ever seem to get that facility functioning? She frowned in distaste at the sight of the man. Shirt untucked, when he turned to face her, she saw a face lined with yellow dust and some kind of pink glitter. She noticed the same pink glitter on his shirt tail. Really, he should keep that tucked in.

At over six feet, Hilda Gothe presented a formidable physique to staff and student alike. Stout, heavy set, wide of hip and shoulder, broad of bosom, but not actually fat, Ms. Gothe piled her raven-black hair forward and up in a beehive whose fashion went out of date several decades previously. Ms. Gothe chose dark clothes to wear, navy or black, billowing slacks or long black flowing skirts with loose, dark blouses. When weather turned colder, she wore dark jackets, blazers, or sweaters over her blouses. Ms. Gothe peered at the world behind a pair of large glasses with large, rounded, squared black frames.

Ms. Gothe towered over Moby. She wondered why they school had hired such a man as he. Several loose screws obviously rattled around in that bald head of his, and if you watched him long enough, you could see his head twitch in a sudden burst of facial expressions ranging from annoyance to laughter. That couldn’t be good. But these spasms were brief and seldom, usually out of view of prying eyes. She looked behind her, down the hallway, then in front of her, then at the floor. Absolutely spotless. He kept the floors shined, the restrooms gleaming, the rooms neat and orderly. And he stayed away from students. That fact couldn’t be overpriced. No one needed that headache.

The world around her, having found disfavor in her eyes, awaited her vituperative and vitriolic approach with a bemused aggravation. Moby counted himself no exception. He opened his mouth to defend himself against whatever it was that Goat wanted to bitch about next.

“I was just—“

Assistant Vice Principal Gothe cut him off.

“V’you seen that Love girl? She’s wanted in the office.”

“Love girl?”

“Wendy Love. Blond hair, little taller than you. She’s gotten herself in trouble. A shame, really. Wouldn’t have expected it of her. Didn’t seem the type.” Gothe sighed again. “Oh, well. Just goes to show you can never tell.”

“Nope,” Moby said with finality. “Ain’t seen her.”

“Well. If you do. You might want to let her know the office is looking for her.”

Moby nodded with no intention of getting involved in school politics. The vice principal turned around and walked away. Moby watched Gothe’s big ass trundle down the hall, swaying and shaking with that female seductiveness of large bottoms.
* * *

Low rings of hills surrounded Edge City on two sides, like geographic parentheses. The hill on the west side dropped off suddenly, forming a sheer cliff rising high above the border of Edge City. The sky yawned in its blue immensity over both rings of hills and the low, flat city nestled between them. A few thin cirrus clouds, lingering indecisively, stretched over the blue field, and the sun, nearing the end of its slow decline towards the west, poured out its last rays which glinted and reflected on the windshield of a white Corolla, parked a few yards from the edge of the west cliff.

The Roadman stood on the edge of the cliff, in the midst of a few stray scrub oak, desert willow, and mountain juniper, peering at the city below him with an odd-looking optical apparatus, which might have been a binocular but wasn’t. As the Roadman looked through his device, information flashed momentarily over the lens, information which the brain immediately received as a digital neurophotonic impulse. The effect caused the Roadman to become dizzy, and periodically the man had to lower the device, wipe his eyes, shake his head and try to collect his bearings.

The man lowered the device again and tapped a button on the side. A myriad of pink hotspots showed against the map of the city displayed in an extra-mental projection hovering vertically about three or four feet from the Roadman’s face.

“My god,” he said. “That thing’s been everywhere.”

Just then another white Corolla drove up and parked beside the first. Two Roadmen, the driver and passenger who had met with the Go-Between earlier that day, trotted up to the Roadman at the edge. The Roadman with the optic device turned to greet them.

“Well?” he asked.

“We’ve been using —” said the driver, his voice emerged from his throat in a kind of drone, articulating his speech in a halting, deliberate manner.

“The Handheld Device,” the passenger continued, speaking in the same manner as the driver. “The experience has been quite—“

“Interesting,” the driver picked up. “Exhilarating—“

“Up—“

“Lifting. Climactic. Informa—“

“Tive. We have just one question,” said the passenger.

“Who the hell is,” said the driver.

“Jack Randall?”

The first Roadman shook his head.

“Never heard of him. Look,” he said, pointing at the extra-mental map projection. “All those pink spots mark where it has been.”

“Ah,” said the passenger.

“That thing,” agreed the driver.

“But not where it’s at. That’s the problem.” The first Roadman sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and walked back to his car. “Well, how ’bout a drink at Dos Antonios? Frank and Rascal said they’d be there.”

A favorite and frequent hangout for Roadmen, Dos Antonios offered a chance to gather, talk shop, and drink Bud on tap away from the prying eyes and ears of The Group. Named after famed local barbers Anthony Gram and Tony Labrio, Dos Antonios combined poor service with poor fare and did so at a fairly low price, one suitable for the budget of a Roadman. Tucked away in the corner of a shabby retail strip facing the frontage of I-40 behind a dispirited growth of listless agave and apathetic yucca, Dos Antonios usually boasted no more than a bare handful of old and beaten automobiles in the parking slots in front of its business.

Tonight, however, the small parking lot held about a half a dozen Toyotas of various years, all Corollas, all white. Except for a blue Corolla parked in the rear corner of the parking lot. Although a large, plate glass window lined the front of Dos Antonios, a large, dark green blind covered the window from the inside. Walking into Dos Antonios was a like walking into a dark room after a bright day in the sun. The Roadmen waited several long moments for their eyes to adjust to the darkness, but after a while they saw Frank and Rascal booth, across the bar, against the far wall. Frank gestured something at Rascal, animate and excited, but Rascal just crossed his arms and shook his head, the only man in the crew who refused the requisite short cropped hair of the Roadmen. As the three Roadmen neared they caught a whiff of the conversation.

“I tell you, it’s coming. It’s coming closer. I don’t know what,” Frank was saying, “but I can feel it.” He struck his chest and beat on his legs. “Here. In my heart and bones.”

“That’s your heart attack coming. You’re primed for one and you know it.” Rascal quipped. Frank, heavy-set, a heavy drinker and an even heavier smoker, failed to find the humor.

“Maybe,” Frank sighed. “But that’s not it.”

“What’s not it?” the Roadman with the projection map asked.

“Aw, Frank here says something’s coming, but he won’t say what, and anyway, he’s just making a big deal out of someone ain’t nobody can do anything about.”

“I can’t say what,” Frank protested, sliding over to make room for the driver, while the passenger sat next to Rascal. The third Roadman scooted a chair from a nearby four-top up to the side of the booth.

“I tell you what,” the Roadman said.

The others waited, but the Roadman didn’t seemed inclined to finish that thought.

“Frank,” the driver began.

“What do you think—“

“is on its—“

“way?”

Frank shifted in his booth.

“I just feel it. I have no idea what. Something from,” Frank paused and looked up. “Outside.”

“Well, hell, Frank,” Rascal scoffed. “We already got that. That’s why we’re here.”

“Do we know that?” asked the Roadman. “Do we know that’s why we’re here?”

“What do you mean?” Rascal asked, while the driver and passenger cast a quizzical glance.

“I mean,” the Roadman said, “what do we know about these Go-Betweens? What do we really know about what these Go-Betweens want and who they represent? I’ve heard some talk about something called The Guild recently, and that’s a first. So it makes me ask. Who’s calling the shots? And what do they really want?”

“Does it matter?” Rascal asked. “I mean, does it really matter to us? What can we do about it anyway? You’ve seen what they got. You’ve seen what they can do. Look, buddy.” Rascal paused to lift a large glass full of yellow beer to his mouth. Tilting the glass, he swallowed several large gulps, set the beer down, and looked unsteadily at his interlocutor, who by a curious coincidence entirely unknown to Rascal, was called Buddy.

“Look, buddy. I used to work down at that paper place. In the warehouse, driving the forklift, loading and unloading truck after truck, moving one stack of pallets across the warehouse to make room for another stack of pallets. I didn’t ask what I loaded, I didn’t ask what I was unloading, or ask about why I moved one pile of crap from one corner to another. I just did it. And you got to just do it too. Cause whoever this Guild thing is, it’s bigger than any boss I ever had. When and if they ever get around to telling me to jump, I won’t even ask how high. I’ll just jump and wait for the next order. I recommend you do the same.”

“Is this—“

“wisdom or cowar—“

“dice,” asked the driver and passenger, or DP as they were beginning to be known.

“I don’t know,” answered Rascal, “but anybody who can glue your heads together with an overhyped cell phone gets my attention.”

News travels fast in the world of the Roadmen, and word of the pairing had made it to Dos Antonios before the driver and passenger themselves.

“We saw him today,” said DP, “the Go-Between.”

“We know,” Rascal replied.

“We have instructions. We have to find it. The thing. The thing that got away. It’s here. It’s. On the move. It’s. Restless.”

“What thing?” asked Frank.

“We’re not sure,” said Buddy, “but we’ve been keeping track of its movements. It’s been everywhere, according to the map projection.”

The Roadmen cleared an area on the table, and DP projected the map onto the surface. Pink spots stained the deep brown varnish of the tabletop, scarred with indentations from knives, pens, and years of use. Multiple pink spots spread throughout every corner of the city.

“We don’t know what it is. We don’t know where it lives. We don’t know where it comes from. And we don’t know it can move so much without our noticing it. We—“

“I think I can answer that.”

The Roadmen at the table looked up at the stranger who just then approached.

The stranger, a man, wore a black unmarked baseball style cap with the bill pulled down low over his eyes. A rumpled light brown jean jacket hung over his shoulders loosely, over a loose white shirt, tucked into unbelted khaki trousers. A week’s unshaven beard lined the hollows of his gaunt cheeks and haggard face. A real boozer, thought the Roadmen as they looked at him. They weren’t far wrong.

“What you’re looking for, they didn’t tell you, am I right?”

“Who’s they,” asked DP.

The stranger eyed the duo sitting on separate sides of the booth in turns.

“You don’t even know that?” asked the stranger incredulously.

“We know the Go-Between,” replied Frank smugly.

“Oh fudge,” sighed the stranger. “You don’t know a blessed thing, do you?”

The passenger half of DP fixed the stranger with a curious stare, defensively intrigued.

“First of all, the Go-Between has other fish to fry. Second, you live on a back planet nobody gives a rat’s ass about. Third, if anybody pays any attention to you at all, it’s because something got lost here that shouldn’t have been lost. Fourth, there are rules. And the rules can never be broken. That’s basically about it.”

“Rules? What rules? Nobody told us about any rules.”

“Really? The Go-Between didn’t mention it?”

“No. No, he didn’t. He didn’t tell us a bles- a damned thing.”

“No interaction,” said the stranger. “No interaction with a back planet whatsoever. That’s the big rule.”

“But that rule gets broken all the time!”

“Not by the big chiefs. And they don’t care much what the, uh, the other ones do.”

“What other ones?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“But who the hell are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I don’t.”

The Roadmen at the table waited expectantly, eyes fixed, and jaws open.

“Oh, yeah. That. I’m Jack. Jack Randall. I’m a Journeyman Recorder. The Journeyman Recorder, you might say. For these parts at any rate.”

The Roadmen at the table continued to wait expectantly, eyes slightly dazed now, darting in confusion, mouths muttering.

“You really don’t know a blessed thing, do you?

“No,” the Roadmen agreed. “Not a thing.”
* * *

Wendy had to start her computer to eject the Cock-Hungry Coeds DVD from her computer. She pulled the jewel case from beneath her mattress, her eyes grazing the cover. She opened the case, slipped in the DVD, and lay the case beside her on the bed. Then she opened her browser and checked her email. She rarely used her email. She saw no reason to. Again she wondered why she played the oddball, the odd girl out. She just didn’t seem to be interested in the same things her peers were. No social media. No Faceblab, no Jiffygram, no Peeper. No Internet, really, except for researching for homework assignments. She looked for the email Sara had sent and saw that her mother had trashed it. Restoring the email, she opened the pictures and gasped at the images.

“Oh. My. God.”

If anybody saw that second pic, she’d never hear the end of it. But someone already had. Brad. Sara. Her mother. Leaning against Brad’s door, she held her legs open, spreading them wide to reveal her pussy, a stream of Brad’s come leaking in trickles from her matted lips. Did she look good? The coeds in the movie looked so hot. Did she look that hot? I mean, she’d need a real photographer of course, but did she even have the body? She inspected herself critically. Too much flab around her belly, her ass looked huge on the seat of Brad’s Jeep. And even without all that come on it, her face would look, well, ridiculous.

She read Sara’s message.

“OMG, Wendy you’re so fucking hot like this. I can’t believe what a total whore you look like, wearing some guy’s come all over you like a hot slut. What a cum guzzler you are, a real cock whore, aren’t you? Just look at your wet pussy, your pink cunt with all that hot cum! So sexy and hot. You drive me crazy with lust.”

Well, she did look hot she supposed. She’d have to agree with Sara there. She saved the pics to a folder labeled Homework, logged out of her email account, and shut down the computer. She unplugged it, removed the cables, and set the computer with her monitor and keyboard outside her bedroom door. Then she picked up the DVD, dragged her magazine from below her mattress, and stuck them into a small plastic bag.

What was she doing?

That Sara, for one thing. I mean, come on. How much was she supposed to take? Wendy stood in the middle of her bedroom, turning around aimlessly. I mean. Just come on. And every time Wendy decided enough was enough, there was Sara to quickly change her mind. I mean. What the hell. I even kissed her this afternoon. No prompting or urging on Sara’s part. Just turned around while getting out of her car and planted a big wet one right on her lips. What the heck was that? And then these pictures!

Her mother was right. She needed to get Sara out of her life. At least for a while. She needed to take some time, take a rest, a break, and see what, if anything, had changed about her, Wendy. She walked over to her bed and squatted. I mean, she thought as she dragged the pink double-headed dildo out from beneath her mattress, just look at this thing. She remembered how she had fucked herself with it, just yesterday, at Sara’s command, sucking one end while plunging the other into her. Vagina. That’s what you call it, Wendy. Not the p-word, and certainly not the c-word. It’s your vagina. And you don’t show it off to just anyone with a camera, just a passerby who remarks on a casual interest to see it. You don’t let grown women finger you in a public bathroom no matter how good it feels. You don’t gob makeup on your face like a two-dollar whore.

I’m not a virgin, she thought, sitting on her bed, rolling the dildo in her two hands. Not anymore. Whatever’s happening to me, I’m not that Wendy anymore. I’ve changed that much at least. I’m the school slut, now. Wendy giggled to herself. Did she really just give herself up to Brad like that? My god, she even wore those horrible panties. What kind of underwear has a hole right in the crotch? Just like those jeans she wore last week, ass cheeks hanging out behind her. My god.

But. Two weeks, ago. One week ago, she wasn’t like that. Two weeks ago, just a little over one week ago, she could still pass as modest, plain, chaste. Well, she couldn’t be chaste now, but could she recover her modesty? Could she recover a little of her chastity? I mean. It’s just been an experiment, right? Sara introduced her to sex, and Wendy, overwhelmed, just fell head over heels into it, just tumbled right into Sara’s abundant sexual appetite, awakening perhaps her own hunger, but still. And then I just kissed her, right on the mouth.

And as for that Brad. Neil had hit home with that. Was she going to just let anybody have her? Have sex with any man who showed an interest? My god. What the heck has happened to me? Those photos. The whole school had seen her face covered in Brad’s. Discharge. No. She couldn’t go back. She wouldn’t go back, and her mother had no say in the matter. At sixteen she could quit. At least she thought she could. She’d have to look that up. Tomorrow. Cause she definitely planned on staying home tomorrow.

Honestly though, shouldn’t losing your virginity mean something? How come she didn’t feel anything? How come it didn’t seem like any big deal? Was she really just a slut? I thought it was supposed to be special, and really, it kind of, well. I liked doing him, I really did. Oh god, that body. The way she rolled with him, the way she guided him with her clasping legs, calves and thighs wrapping around his powerful back, his hips, god. What a body. And the way he just oozed into me. That look on his face. Yeah. I could get used to that.

But not now. Not after those pics. God, Wendy, what are you thinking? You’re supposed to hate him, remember?

She jumped up from her bed, ran to her vanity, threw open the drawer holding her cosmetics, her lipsticks, gifted to her by Sara and tossed them on the floor. She ran downstairs, ransacked the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink and pulled out a white plastic garbage bag. Then she fled back to her room, feet pounding up the stairs. She threw the cosmetics into the bag and then threw the smaller bag holding her pornography into the larger bag. Seeing the pink dildo, she threw that into the garbage too, tying the top in a wide, bulky knot. She stomped down the hall, down the stairs, and across the floor towards the garage. She opened the lid of the empty garbage can and tossed the sack inside it. Trash had already been picked up that morning, so she’d have to wait until next Monday to be free, to be completely and truly free of Sara. But she felt better, relieved, having taken that first, short step on the path to renormalization. Wendy was coming back. A little bounced around, a little worse for the wear perhaps, but she’d be back.

Her mother was right, after all. Sara was a bad influence.

But she never hurt you, Wendy told herself as she climbed the stairs to her room. She never hit you. All she gave you were kisses you never wanted.
* * *

Later that night, Mary tapped lightly on Wendy’s door. Wendy didn’t answer, so Mary gently pushed the door open, just ajar, a crack to peek in. Wendy lay curled up on her bed, clutching at her pillow, and shaking, almost convulsively. Mary shoved the door open and rushed to her daughter’s side. She held her arms out to hold Wendy’s face, but Wendy had covered it with her arms and hands, sobbing.

“Just go away, Mom. Just leave me alone. I’m so miserable.”

“Honey.”

“Oh, god, Mom. What have I done?”

“Honey.”

“I’m so embarrassed, Mom. I’m so embarrassed. Everybody saw that picture, Mom. Everybody. And everybody laughed. At me. They just pointed, called me names, and laughed.”

“Honey.”

“Why did Brad do it, Mom? Why did Brad do something so mean? I was so nice to him.”

“Honey.”

“I’m just a slut and whore now, Mom. That’s what everybody at school calls me now. A slut and a whore.”

“Honey, listen to me. Please.”

Wendy sat up, lifted the bottom of her pajama top to dry her eyes, and pulled her legs in to cross them, folding her hands in her lap to look at Mary, for all the world like the six-year old girl who once used to listen enthralled to her mother’s stories about spreadsheets and unclaimed assets.

“You’re not a slut, honey. You just got caught up in something you weren’t prepared for. You got overwhelmed.”

Mary took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Look, I’ve been a crap mother. I’m so sorry. I just. And after your father. I just assumed. You seemed so content with your life. You never really asked questions, and I never once asked you. I should have told you about this a long time ago. I should have talked to you about boys. About the birds, the bees. But I didn’t, and now you got stung. My god, I should have talked to you about birth control, about condoms, about making boys wear condoms. But you just seemed so. Disinterested. I thought I had time. And I did. I did have time. But I wasted it, and now you’re paying the price. God. To think I let someone like that little hussy teach you about sex.”

Wendy’s mouth curved in a slight smile at her mother.

“Mom, it’s okay. I used birth control. I used pills.”

“You did?” a surprised Mary asked. “How? I mean, where? Where did you get birth control pills? I’m so sorry. I should have done this for you already.”

“It’s no big deal, Mom. I got them from the school. From the school nurse.”

“Hmm,” Mary paused, reflecting. “I guess that’s all right. When did you get them? How long have you been taking them?”

“Um. A couple of weeks now.”

“A couple of week? You’ve been having sex for a couple of weeks now?”

“Mom! No. It’s just that. It’s just that I didn’t know when, so I took them anyway. In advance.” Wendy amazed herself with how quickly the lies tripped off her tongue. It was so easy.

Mary remained quiet. Wendy piped in with a question of her own.

“Am I still grounded?”

“Yes, Wendy. You’re still grounded. I need to keep an eye on you. I need to get you back in my life. And I need to get back into yours.”

Mary paused.

“And Wendy?”

“Yes, mother.”

“Maybe you were a little too nice to Brad.”
* * *

Rascal came home late from Dos Antonios. Much of what Jack Randall had said, he’d already known. He had his own sources and didn’t need some Journeyman Recorder to catch him up to date. He’d known about Nero Craft, of course. Almost every Roadman did. Hell, the entire public knew something about Nero Craft. The Diana Group was after all The Diana Group. It had its finger in every pot, and many of the pots were legitimate business concerns. But many pots, some of the most important pots, held secrets, dangerous secrets. And The Diana Group itself was the biggest pot of all, one with a very dangerous secret indeed. But the Roadmen didn’t know what it was, and the Go-Between never said.

Who was this Jack Randall now, and how the hell did he know about anything? What exactly was a Journeyman Recorder?

Rascal thought back to the conversation at the bar.

What did Jack Randall know? The question having put straight to him, Jack simply stated grimly, “Too much. Too many dark things.”

Queried further, Jack pulled another chair from the four-top, earning a quick reproving look from a passing waitress, but no actual protest. She’d gotten used to these over imaginative dorks showing up every two months or so to drop in, drink a beer or two, and stand in long lines outside the only restroom, containing a single, much used toilet. Roadmen weren’t known for prodigious bouts of drinking. Or large bladders. Honestly, Roadmen weren’t known at all. No one had ever heard of them. The Go-Between liked it that way.

“Well,” he said, “for one thing you got those pink marks all wrong. They’ve got nothing whatsoever to do with what you’re looking for. Maybe. Maybe peripherally they do. But not directly. And that’s the important thing, isn’t it? Because you’re not looking for peripherals, you’re looking for the thing itself.”

“But what are we looking for,” Frank and Buddy asked at the same time.

“Shouldn’t you be asking your friend here?” Jack Randall responded, pointing with a nod at Rascal, who picked up on the gesture’s implication.

“Me? What the hell do I know about it?”

“Your sources didn’t tell you?”

“What sources, mister? I’m not sure I like what you’re insinuating.”

“I’m just trying to point out,” Jack answered calmly, trying to diffuse the situation, to placate Rascal’s rising irritation, “that maybe you know just a little more than the rest of your outfit. That you’ve been in contact with certain people who’d prefer no one else know about.”

Rascal glance nervously from Jack, to Buddy, to Frank, to Buddy, and then to both poles of DP. The two of them had been quiet the whole time, listening to Jack and Rascal. Things were being said that they’ve never heard before, and at last it looked like they’d learn at least one blessed thing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rascal said flatly.

“What gives, Rascal?” This from Frank.

“Nothing, I swear. I don’t know what this guy is talking about.”

“I’m talking about The Group, Rascal. I’m talking about you having dealings with The Group.”

“Rascal!” shouted DP. Buddy looked horrified.

“It’s not what you think. It’s not what you think. I’ve been using them.”

“They’ve been using you, you damned fool. They got way more information out you than you ever got out of them,” Jack Randall snarled.

“What could they get out of us? We don’t know anything!”

“They know about the Roadmen now. They know about the Go-Between. They might even know about The Guild. At the very least, they know you’ve been looking for something.”

“How?” DP asked. “We just found about that today.”

“You did. Buddy’s been on it for two weeks. Rascal too. Maybe longer.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I told you. I’m a Recorder. A Journeyman Recorder.”

“What’s that? What do you do?”

Jack held up a small black note pad.

“I take notes.”

That seemed to satisfy the small group. The table grew quiet. Then two voices popped up, speaking one after the other.

“What’s The Guild?” DP asked.

Rascal came back to the present moment.

Rascal reached into his refrigerator, moved aside the six bottles of blue malt shakes he’d bought at a stall he’d never seen before at the farmer’s market, and reached for his last bottle of Old Style. He stumbled back to his sofa, a decrepit piece of furniture with the stuffing showing where bare patches of fabric, worn thin by use and age, broke apart. One of the rear legs had broken off. Rascal propped it up with a thick book, but the sofa still leaned, off-kilter.

The Guild. Jack Randall didn’t say much about it, but what he did say spooked the Roadman. He never liked the idea of being lumped on a back planet and dismissed, anyway. But to realize the extent of that dismissal. It vexed the mind, is what it did. Vexed the mind. He’d just assumed, ever since he joined the Roadmen, that he’d been protected somehow, that the earth itself was protected. To learn the contrary, to learn that this planet, his planet, far from being guarded was actually at the mercy and caprice of any passing civilization, well. That did alarm him. And then to hear that a passing civilization had noticed them, had noticed his planet, and interested themselves in it. Well. That scared the shit out of him.

That Randall had said it should scare him. He said to avoid them at all costs. He said to keep a cyanide capsule close by at all times, lest they be taken unawares. Suicide, he said, death, he said, was better than even a minute with them. And it’s much, much longer than a minute for most, he ended. Then he gave them a name. The Pain Rabble, he called them. The Guild kept them in check, but not on back planets. Not usually. Against the rules. If the Pain Rabble went too far, why then, sometimes, sometimes The Guild would step in. But that wouldn’t matter to anyone unlucky enough to get caught in the Pain Rabble’s snares.

“Is there anyone above The Guild?” Buddy had asked, but Jack didn’t answer.

Buddy had repeated his question, and this time Jack shook his head.

“No. Nobody. Nobody’s above The Guild. Not that I know of.”

Which left at least one question, Rascal thought as he sat on his couch nursing the last beer of the night. How the hell did you get hold of a cyanide capsule? Rascal sighed in relief at the realization that the conversation never did return to his dealings with The Diana Group. How Randall knew so much remained a mystery, but a shiver ran up Rascal’s spine at Jack’s uncanny knowledge. He knew too much. How and why didn’t really matter.

Hearing about the pink marks on the map explained a lot. Seems like Therapeutic Transformations, a subsidiary of The Diana Group, had been market testing a new brand of lipstick, of makeup, that interfered with the tracking functions of Buddy’s mapping optical. It would have to be recalibrated to exclude TDG substances. No reason for why the makeup interfered with tracking the thing could be discerned. Jack Randall hemmed and hawed and finally admitted he had no idea. Rascal had fixed him with a dubious stare but let the matter drop. After all, he’d been outed as a quasi-informant for The Diana Group.

“You might want to read this,” Jack Randall had said, pulling out a copy of his newly published The Secret History of Edge City. “I’ll let you all each have a copy at a ten percent discount on retailer’s price.”

Rascal glanced at his copy on the floor at his feet. He’d read it later. Maybe tomorrow. The Diana Group never told him about the pink makeup. What else hadn’t they told him?