Hearsay & Lies

“Well,” Mary blinked, licking her lips nervously, “For starters, none of the girls liked how you looked at them. You made our skin crawl. It was very creepy.”

“I never looked at you,” I said slowly. “So how would you know?”

“Susanna told me,” the brunette said defiantly.

“Her,” I said coldly. “That would explain a lot. I’ve never figured out quite why the two of us had been friends for so long, even after she began dating Tom Hamlin. Remember him? The football star?”

“All too well,” Mary shuddered. “He was always undressing my friends and I with those lecherous eyes of his. Yours were still worse. You looked at us as if we were insects, insignificant and unworthy of your presence.”

“For the last two years of high school,” I began, “You were. My mind was not on girls or anything else besides my family and my classes. I was in a very bad place because, the summer before my junior year when you were still at that private school, my mother and sister died in a car accident. I was devastated and my friendship with Susanna broke up completely, already estranged because of her bullying boyfriend and his pals. So yes, sadly, I was not looking at anyone else as a fellow human being while I was wallowing in my own pit of despair and grief. Yet, that could not have been the reason why I earned the moniker ‘Fungus.’”

“I didn’t know that,” the brunette said, her voice soft and meek. “As for, for that nickname, I think it was Tamara Donnellson who started it because, well, she said you spent a, a lot of time in the dark m, mast –”

“Masturbating?” I laughed. “Good Lord! Is that what you all thought I did in the school basement? Where would I have the time? I had school, therapy, and my part-time job as a photograph developer, both for the school and the Tribune.”

“But Tamara –”

“Was quite disappointed when I turned away from her attentions,” I said flatly. “She cornered me down in the darkroom one afternoon, early in our senior year just after my eighteenth birthday, and tried to make out with me, even managing to cop a feel before I could stop her.”

“She what?” Mary blurted out. “I thought she hated you before our senior year.”

“She didn’t,” I shook my head. “I don’t know why Tamara did it, but afterwards the bloody nickname began to follow me around.”

“But why Fungus then?”

“Because possibly, at the center of the lie, is a small kernel of truth,” I said, leaning forward. “And there are things that certainly grow well in the dark.”

“It is quite nice,” Katie murmured, her hazel eyes glittering. “It’ll certainly make my night, if Mary ever shuts up.”

“Katie!”

“Oh, hush,” the former basketball player said. “I don’t car about your sordid history. I want to have the good time that I won’t remember later because, hell, I’d rather enjoy myself than just sit here, waiting for Victor to take his turn with me.”

“Not until this mess is cleaned up,” Jessica declared, returning to the great room. “There’s only so much time and I want my fair share, too. I’m already getting wet thinking about it.”

“But it isn’t right!” Mary cried.

“So?” Katie arched an eyebrow. “We do have a choice in the matter and I would much rather give myself willingly than be ****. It’s more fun to share than to be treated as a piece of meat.”

“Katie has a point,” Melissa said, standing up from the ratty loveseat. “Besides,” her eyes flickered to Jessica’s naked chest, “This might be my only chance at a three-way.”

“Then you’d better start cleaning,” Jessica growled, turning about with a heavy sway of her hips. “I’m not putting out unless you help out.”

“I’ll be just a moment,” she said with a wicked grin. The young woman quickly shucked her tight black top, her heaving bosom constrained by her lacy black bra.

“And since Jessica’s already sharing hers,” Melissa leered at me and unclasped her bra, tossing it aside atop her tube top.

“Much better,” she said, cupping her large breasts towards me. “You like?”

“Very nice,” I smiled at the titian-haired beauty.

“C’mon, Katie,” Melissa said. “Strip down and pitch in.”

“Don’t,” Mary glared at the tallest of the four girls.

“Live a little,” the dark-haired girl smiled, standing up and undoing the ties of her halter. “You can’t be a prude, forever. Besides you still won’t be able to compete with me tonight. Victor’s going to see every bare inch of me because I’m not wearing any underwear.”

“This isn’t fair!” the young woman pouted loudly. “You shouldn’t be doing any of this at all! It’s not right!”

“So? We won’t know about it in the morning,” Jessica said from the doorway to the kitchen. “What’s it going to matter? Either you’ll join in willingly, we’ll **** you, or Victor will order you to. What’s it going to be?”