Accountability

"This is all a misunderstanding," Kayla said confidently. Her and Meryl's respective heads of department were glaring from them from across the table. "So Coach Merryweather didn't come across you giving oral sex to Meryl Prentiss in her office?"

"What?!" Kayla chuckled nervously. "No! The coach got the wrong end of the stick, see Meryl had lost her knickers and so we went to Coach Merryweather's office and looked through lost and found for replacements, but the only good ones we found were a little small, so I was helping Meryl get them on—"

Kayla's department head, Eudoria Trench, a spectacled, silver-haired woman of about fifty-six dressed in a tweed jacket and matching trousers, raised an eyebrow. "Your explanation..." she began, taking her spectacles off with slightly shaking hands. "Is that you were kneeling before your friend, helping her try on underwear that was too small for her?"

"It's the truth!" Kayla replied, hotly. "Ask anyone on our volleyball team what happened! Ask Meryl to lift her skirt and show you what I mean!"

Eudoria and Meryl's department head, Graham Runciter — bald, goateed, as always in a clean white dress shirt and black trousers — put his head in his hands. "Please," he said, a note of anguish in his tone. "Tell me you did not just invite us to look up a student's skirt, Kayla,"

"Or," Eudoria added, "For said student to lift her skirt for us?"

"That's not what I—" Kayla sighed, "I just don't want Meryl to get in trouble for this. It was my idea and I swear it wasn't what it looked like."

"Hmm," Eudoria mused, "Meryl Prentiss' record is exceptionally clean, all the way through her time in education. You, on the other hand..."

Kayla smiled uneasily, she was beginning to suspect she'd be taking the fall for this one. The thought of yet another mark on her record stung a little, but it was worth it to avoid this going down on Meryl's,'solicited oral sex from a fellow student in a tutor's office,' what a jarring first entry that would be.

Meryl was sitting in the canteen, a traumatised expression on her face, as Kayla came sauntering in, looked about, then beelined toward and sat down opposite her. "Hey, Bestie!" Kayla grinned.

Meryl looked up, her eyes like saucers. "She'll never be able to forget it," she murmured.

Kayla frowned, "What?"

"Coach Merryweather," Meryl closed her eyes and shuddered deeply. "Every time she sees either of us now, she'll think of you on your knees in front of me..." She looked up beseechingly at the ceiling, as if searching for guidance in the canteen's fluorescent lights. "I never should have listened to you," She shook her head, "You're a bad influence!"

Kayla looked offended, "I just took the fall for you over that little misunderstanding with the Coach! I told them it was my idea!"

"It was your idea!"

"Yeah but they were gonna punish both of us because they thought you solicititted...solice—that you got me to give you head in Merryweather's office!"

"We wouldn't have been there if not for you, I mean, what was I even thinking? Your face was right in front of my...my..." She trailed off, unable to say it.

"Fuck's sake, Meryl, it's a pussy, we've all got one."

"But most of us don't get right in our friends'!"

"You," Kayla sniffed, "Have been going to the wrong sleepovers."

Meryl didn't respond, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked down at her lap. "They...they're so tight, Kayla."

"You mean the—?"

"The knickers you **** onto me, they're so tight I feel like I can't move, and they're..." She exhaled slowly, "They're up my...they're in my..." Meryl leaned in, as if she were about to share the Trident Nuclear Codes, "Bum!"

"You seriously think you're the first girl to experience her underwear being gobbled up by her arse?"

"I—I've had wedgies before, small ones, I mean, but this...I feel like—"

"Like someone's stuck a length of dental floss all the way up your crack?"

"Yep," Kayla nodded sympathetically, "That's skimpy underwear for you."

Meryl was confused, "If this is what it's like, why wear skimpy stuff at all?"

Kayla rolled her eyes, "Jesus, it's like talking to my fucking Grandma," She took a deep breath, then continued, "Because it makes me feel sexy, but there's another reason, do you want to know it?"

Meryl nodded hesitantly. Kayla took Meryl's hands and held them tight, "Because of Baboons' arses."

Meryl was visibly baffled, "Baboons'...arses?"

"You know how Baboon's have got those bright red bums?"

Meryl nodded again, more confidently now. "Famously."

"Skimpy, colourful underwear is like a Baboon's arse. It gets the imagination going of whoever sees it; it entices, it's like wrapping a present up in nice, pretty wrapping paper. You see the shape of the thing inside — Little Billy knows his present is shaped like a tricycle, but the anticipation still builds, and he just has to rip the paper off — that's what skimpy underwear does to guys," She hesitated, then added, "Or girls, if you yourself feel a twinge when you see a minge," Kayla shrugged. "Point is, the individual of the species sees you up in the club, your skirt so high up on you the only thing it covers is your tramp stamp, and he goes like Billy seeing his tricycle, he knows what's under your thong or your g-string," She gestured toward Meryl at the words, 'g-string', "But he has to see the thing itself, he needs to have the satisfaction of tearing your pants off and just...mmm...taking that trike for a ride round the Estate, if you know what I mean."

Meryl blinked, "This is a very disturbing metaphor."

"Shut the fuck up," Kayla replied coolly, "It's the truth."

"So the reason I'm wearing knickers that are at least three sizes too small for me and with the consistency of string cheese is to make guys want to rip them off me and..." She blushed a little, "Ravish me?"

"Ravish...there we go again with Granny's winning Scrabble moves."

"I will never wear skimpy underwear again after this," Meryl vowed, "I'll cover myself with the old reliables, if everything I need covered hasn't been crushed by these things by then," Meryl grimaced, scooted forward a little in her seat as she tried to dislodge her pants from her arse-crack, then finally just reached under the table and extracted the thin material herself, sighing in relief.

"You do know anyone who might have been looking vaguely at us might have seen you basically fingering yourself under the table?" Kayla smirked.

Meryl panicked, looking around for prying eyes. "Relax, Mer Bear," Kayla laughed, "Was only teasing!"

Meryl slapped Kayla's hand, then crossed her arms, glaring at her. A few seconds later, Meryl heard footsteps behind her, and a familiar voice became audible, "Hey bitch one, bitch two, how's it hanging?"

Meryl didn't even turn to look as Victoria Pinkwell took a seat next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder and leaning in, a cruel smile on her lips. "Fuck off, Kinkwell," Kayla growled.

Victoria put her free hand up innocently. She was a pretty girl, though her pleasant features were marred by the often unpleasant faces she pulled. Raven-haired and hourglass-figured, Victoria had it all and knew it: The body, the clique, and the boyfriends, of course, ever and always a new boyfriend. She rotated them like plastic horses at a merry-go-round, one and then another, in an endless, dizzying spiral. Legs to die for, boobs you'd kill for, an arse that wouldn't quit and a set of what could politely be called 'Dick-Sucking Lips' that didn't look as they ever wanted to quit. Victoria was also a bully to many, had been since many of the students at Hartwell College had suffered through Secondary School with her. Meryl was no exception, and even now she mentally filed through an exhaustive list of incidents caused by the other girl: The time she'd 'lost' her class project notes and failed the assignment, the time her bathing suit had been sabotaged during swim practice and Kayla had noticed just in the nick of time, holding it together with her hands even as large cuts appeared in it, while Meryl stood terrified at the pool's edge. Meryl's modesty would have been in tatters years ago on Victoria's account, if not for Kayla.

Kayla understandably hated the bitch, for all she'd put her bestie through, and for that one time she'd come across her bouncing on top of her ex, Daniel's rather sizeable dick in the girls' toilets during their final year prom. "Fuck off, cunt, or I will cut you," She said, brandishing a butter knife for effect.

"Cool it, I was just saying high to an old friend!" Victoria pinched Meryl's cheek and smiled. "Been a minute, babes, how are you holding up? Still the boring choir girl? Still clueless about boys?" Her free hand snaked beneath the table and up Meryl's skirt, "Still insisting on wearing the most boring—" Victoria stopped talking abruptly, her eyes wide as her finger brushed against one of the thinnest, tightest pair of undies she'd ever laid hands on. She stared at Meryl, shocked.

"Goddamn, you little slut! I did not think you had it in you!"

Meryl stammered out an excuse, "Th—they're n—not m—mine."

"Uh-huh," Victoria said, amused. "Sure, they're Mother Theresa's right?" She slapped Meryl's arm playfully. "I see you, babes. Reinventing yourself, bringing out the big guns, or should I say the big buns?" She laughed, reaching down and squeezing Meryl's surprisingly large buttocks. "Good for you, I mean it. I'll be watching out for you, now, really I will. You've piqued my interest," Victoria went to stand, using Meryl's shoulder as support, "Can't wait for you to come in next week in stripper heels and a mini-skirt!" She said, turning and walking away from the table.

Kayla glared at her as she left, "Arsehole," she muttered, "But at least it's over. You ok, Mer Bear? She didn't feel you up too much, did she?"

Meryl shook her head, a fearful look on her face. Kayla caught it and cocked her own head to the side, "What's the matter? What, did she finger-blast you or something?"

"I—I don't think it's over, Kayla. Now that Victoria knows I'm wearing...these, she'll try to do something with it. I just know it..."

Kayla shrugged airily, "You're only in itty bitty teeny weenie knickers for one day, though. Things can't get any worse, so after today it'll be business as usual, right?"

Meryl stared at her, "...Right," She said, but something told her it wasn't. Not at all.