The Universal Law of Gravitation and Other Stories
Chapter 10: The Broflovski Effect – The Church of Ladies' Intimate Teachings
written by SleepySheep683 - illustrated by FriggingodessFor the first time in his life, Kyle was beginning to dread school. Not the lessons – they were more interesting than they'd ever been – but the bits in between.
Everywhere he looked, girls were staring at him, gawping as though he were some kind of alien. At first he'd assumed he had spilled something down his shirt or had got ketchup on his face, but a quick trip to the bathroom disproved this theory. No, he had no clue.
"Dude, what the hell is going on?" Stan asked as the twenty-fifth girl – yes, he'd been counting and it was twenty-seven if you included faculty members – beamed at him as she walked past and simpered, "Hi, Kyle."
Kyle rolled his eyes. "I have no idea," he spat. "No fucking clue."
Kenny leant casually against the lockers as Millie walked past and offered Kyle exactly the same platitude.
"Wow, the chicks are creaming themselves for you, Kyle. You should take advantage." Kenny wiggled his eyebrows, apparently just in case Kyle had missed his already rather obvious meaning.
"Oh, no way," Kyle said firmly. "I am through with women."
"Even Miss Cookson?"
"Dude, she's our World History teacher!"
"She's fucking hot."
"She's, like, forty or something!" Stan apparently found mature women grotesque; Kyle felt it would probably be cruel to point out to him that Nicole Kidman was forty-five.
"Yeah, so she's hot and experienced…" Suddenly Kenny trailed off, slammed his locker door shut and bolted.
"Kenny? What's up?" Kyle called after him, but he either didn't hear or didn't care.
Cartman, who had been uncharacteristically silent up until this point, predictably commented, "I thought you'd been off chicks for ages, Kyle. Must be tough getting Stan to do the same; he just won't leave that beard of his alone… speak of the devil!"
Wendy came up to Kyle, her long black hair neatly tucked into some sort of plait. She poked him gently on the arm.
"Hey, have you looked at our calculus homework yet?"
"I've had a brief look," he replied, ignoring Cartman's loud shouts of, "You know what AP stands for? Ass Pedalling." He instead watched Wendy fiddle nervously with the end of her plait.
"What did you think?" she asked.
Kyle shrugged. "Looks okay. It's a bit annoying that it needs to be in tomorrow because of the game tonight, but what can you do?"
Wendy smiled widely at this. "Yeah, of course. It looks fine. Well, see you later."
Stan had to grab her arm as she tried to walk straight past him.
"Whoa! What about me, babe?"
"Oh, right. Sorry." She quickly gave him a peck on the cheek, but practically squirmed out of his arms when he hugged her.
"Gotta go, bye!" she said over her shoulder as she sped off, leaving Stan bewildered
"Women. What do you expect?" Kyle replied tartly.
"Dude!"
"They just break your heart, okay?" Kyle knew this to be immutable fact; his own experiences had borne this out, although he lacked the robust heart he needed to fully prove his hypothesis.
He grabbed his books from his locker and shut the door, then nearly collided with Red as he turned to leave.
"Hey, Kyle." To anyone outside of South Park High, Red would have sounded cynical and disinterested; Kyle had known her long enough to be taken aback by the sweetness in her voice.
"Umm, hey."
She looked at the floor, rolled her eyes, and then stared at him. "You doing anything later?"
"Got the basketball match," he replied.
"Right. Cool. Wanna do something after to celebrate? Or commiserate? Whichever?"
"Umm… Thanks, but I… I'm kind of not looking for, you know, a girlfriend right now."
Red laughed. "Come on, Kyle. I wasn't thinking we should get married. I just figured we could, you know, have some fun."
Something in her tone caught Kyle's attention, and not in a good way.
"Fun?"
"Well, yeah. Word on the street is you're quite the teacher."
"What?"
Red stifled a giggle. "A lot of girls want to buy what you're selling, is all."
Kyle felt his temper flare up as it suddenly clicked into place – Red's little mime of her index finger sliding into her fist didn't exactly obfuscate things.
"So, let me get this straight. You came over here to ask if I'd fuck you? Is that it?"
He watched in grim triumph as she cast her gaze to the floor. "Well, when you put it like that—"
With a huff of irritation, Kyle shoved past her and walked off to the library.
"Kyle! Where the hell are you going? It's lunchtime!" Stan called after him; he didn't reply. He needed to get the fuck away.
"Ooh, hurry up, Stan. If you get on your knees quick enough, he might hang around and cuddle you after you've gargled his jizz!"
"Shut the fuck up, Cartman." Kyle could just about hear Stan's weary rebuttal as he went upstairs to the library entrance.
Was this what he had to look forward to? Being treated like a piece of meat? Why did every girl he meet just want him for sex? It's not like Rebecca was willing to fight for him like he would for her… Did he have an aura about him? Did he seem somehow unworthy as a boyfriend? Was he really only good for a fuck?
He snuck around the stacks to find his favourite study spot – the small table between where the geography and history shelves intersected – but could hear muffled sobs. He hovered around the Shakespeare books for a short while, wondering if he should leave whoever it was to it or whether he should see if they were okay. Eventually, he found himself walking past the Marlowe plays and finding the poor person making such a racket.
When he saw Wendy face down on the table, sobbing into her textbook, he was shocked.
"Wendy?" he asked tentatively. She looked up and instantly ducked her head.
"H… Hi, Kyle," she said in a shaky voice, wiping her face with her sleeve as though she thought he might not notice.
"Jesus, what's wrong?" Had she and Stan had a fight? He'd already eliminated the menopause on account of her age – his mother occasionally had moments like this and thought he didn't notice – but he supposed anything else was fair game.
"N… Nothing."
"It doesn't look like nothing." He scraped back the chair next to her and sat on it so he could lean his arms on the back. "C'mon, what is it?" He gently poked her arm with his finger.
She stared down at her damp textbook and Kyle watched as a couple more tear drops added to the collection.
"I can't do this, okay!" she yelled; Kyle figured now was totally the wrong time to remind her they were in a library.
"Do what?"
"This!" She gestured at her books. "I suck at AP Calculus! I… I got a C Minus in my last paper." The shame in her voice was clearly audible.
"Hey, it's one paper. You'll get better."
"Well, of course you'd say that," she spat. "You're really smart; you probably do our homework in your sleep and still get ‘A's!" she slumped onto the table again. "I should just quit," she mumbled into the plastic. "I'm too dumb."
"Don't be ridiculous," Kyle replied automatically. Wendy was fucking crazy sometimes, but she was deeply clever.
She sniffled a bit, but lifted her head to look him in the eye.
"I'll help you, if you like," he said before he even realised the words were out of his mouth. "I'm fine with graphs and functions, but I've always liked them. Trust me, I'm dreading integrals."
"Really?" She seemed to cheer at this; Kyle knew it was an area Wendy was good with.
"Yeah. So I'm going to want your help when we have to go through that part of the syllabus. Deal?" He held out his hand. Wendy tentatively took it.
"Deal."
She smiled; he smiled back. He also tried to surreptitiously wipe his tear-drenched hand on his jeans without her noticing.
"What the fuck is wrong with them! He's just some scrawny fucking ugly Jew!"
Cartman hadn't stopped ranting for the last ten minutes; Stan just ate his greasy lasagne and let him get on with it. He was more concerned with what was wrong with Kyle. Girls were throwing themselves at him and he was pissy about it. Stan couldn't help but think a few practise sessions couldn't go amiss; one of his recurring nightmares involved finally seducing Wendy only to be really, really bad in bed. Wendy would cry and tell him she'd wasted her virginity on him. Then Bebe would show up and laugh, followed by Wendy's other friends. Thankfully Stan generally woke up by the time the townspeople had dragged him to the town square and stuck him in the stocks, although sometimes they'd get a chance to pelt filled condoms at him to express their disgust.
"Oi!" Stan heard fingers clicking at his ears; Cartman was apparently feeling neglected.
"What is it?"
"You weren't listening." Cartman sighed heavily. "I was just explaining how that no good, backstabbing Jew is going to rob us of any chance to get laid—"
"Where's Kenny?"
"How should I know? Anyway, Kyle—"
"He doesn't miss lunch, like, ever." Stan craned his neck to look around the cafeteria. "This is kind of weird."
Cartman rolled his eyes. "He's probably saving his food stamps for a pimping jacket, or something. Anyway, Kyle—"
"Ahem."
Stan looked up and saw three girls he vaguely recognised as being ninth graders. They each held lunch trays with not much lunch on them, had bright shiny smiles and were pretty damn hot in an over-polished way.
"Can I help you?" He tried to be flirty, but half-way through his question he figured he kind of sucked at it.
"Can we sit here? With you?" the apparent leader asked eagerly, the other two nodding in agreement.
Stand and Cartman looked at each other knowingly.
"Sure, whatever," they replied simultaneously; Stan was fully aware of the subtle nod of approval Cartman shot in his direction.
As the girls sat down and picked at their food, Stan heard Cartman clear his throat.
"So, ladies, what brings you to our fine table?"
The girls giggled. "Oh, nothing," their leader said.
Then one of the other girls said the words Stan knew would send Cartman into a rage.
"Is Kyle joining you?"
Cartman slammed his fist down on the table. "Fucking Kyle fucking Broflovski. The god damn fucking Jew!"
As Stan wasn't busy throwing a massive tantrum at these girls, he was free to notice a rather unusual badge they were all wearing.
"Hey, what's that?" He gestured towards the bright pink tulip-like badge pinned to the leader girl's trilby hat – Stan knew it was a trilby because Wendy desperately wanted one and had been dropping the kind of hints that meant he knew he'd be spending the run up to her birthday camped out at Sears.
The girl blushed. "Oh, nothing." She then tried to cover the badge up with her hand, which Stan thought was dumb – why wear it if you didn't want people to look at it?
"Then you won't mind me taking it, will you?" Cartman said as he snatched the badge off the nearest girl's sweater and peered at it.
"Church of Ladies' Intimate Teachings? What the fuck's that?"
"It's for girls," the remaining girl spat. "Not fat assholes like you."
"Whatever, like I'd want to join your gay ass sparkling church," Cartman scoffed. "And I'm not fat; I'm big boned, you AIDS-riddled whore."
The trilby-wearing leader stood up. "Come on," she said. "Clearly He isn't going to Enlighten us today. We must be patient." She walked off, nose up in the air, leaving the remains of her lunch.
"Yeah." The two other girls quickly followed suit.
Stan and Cartman stared at each other in amazement.
"What the hell was that all about?" Stan asked.
"Fuck knows," Cartman replied, reaching across the table and grabbing a left over muffin.
"Dude!"
"What?" Cartman retorted defensively through a mouthful of double-chocolate muffin. Stan figured it was best to ignore him and instead rested his chin on his hands in thought.
"What's up with those badges – the Church of Ladies' Intimate Teachings. Is it some new cult?" he mused.
Cartman shrugged. "Like we need any more?"
"And did you see how desperate they were just to see Kyle?" Stan tried to ignore the look of pure hatred etched in Cartman's features, and smirked. "Wow, even good old-fashioned God botherers can't get enough of—"
He stopped dead as another group of girls – some nerdy but kind of sexy eleventh graders who had come fourth in a regional engineering competition – passed by, and a flash of pink on their jacket lapels caught his eye. Glancing around the cafeteria, he realised that dozens of girls were wearing these badges.
Then it slowly began to dawn on him that every girl who had cooed, goosed or sighed at Kyle had been wearing one of these badges.
"What's up with your face?" Cartman demanded, eating the third left over muffin – a blueberry one this time.
"There's something really weird going on," Stan said, breaking off a portion of Cartman's muffin and popping It into his mouth – he loved blueberry muffins just too much.
"Oi! Quit it, you thieving Jew! Just because your boyfriend's one doesn't make it okay!"
Stan ignored his complaint. "Do you think maybe someone has formed a cult around Kyle?"
Cartman stared at his muffin; Stan could see his cheeks turn red with anger.
"It'd be fucking typical of that manipulative little Jew rat," he spat.
Stan had to smother a smirk at Cartman calling anyone else out for manipulation when the guy practically had a PhD in the subject. "Come on, Cartman. Kyle doesn't have a clue."
"Clearly!" Cartman seemed oddly relieved.
Stan's eyes narrowed at him. "Have you got anything to do with this?" he asked in a warning tone; not that he could threaten Cartman as effectively as Kyle, but it was worth a shot.
"Fuck off, of course I don't have anything to do with this." This time Cartman eyed Stan with suspicion. "How do I know it wasn't you? I mean, come on, Stan. You're practically lapping up his cum every time you see him."
Stan sighed wearily. "Cartman, I am not gay, I am not gay for Kyle and I have nothing to do with this dumb club."
They both stared at the remains of their lunch and were distracted only by the sound of chairs scraping back en masse. Cartman looked up at the source of the noise and raised an eyebrow coolly. "Well, well, well; looks like Kyle's little fapping club has a meeting."
Stan sighed. "If only we knew what the hell went on in there. They could be being brainwashed to kill him for all we know!" He swiftly became conscious of the fact he sounded like the anxious girlfriend in a conspiracy thriller film, and braced himself for yet another onslaught of snide remarks from Cartman. He was surprised to be met with nothing; instead Cartman tapped his fingers together as a frown creased his forehead.
"If you really want to get in there, I think I might have a way," he said.
Stan couldn't decide whether his tone or his expression appeared more devious.
"Hurry up in there, or we'll miss it!" Cartman banged on the locked door of the bathroom stall.
"I'm hurrying. God damn, this has to be the most retarded plan I've ever heard, Cartman," Stan moaned from the stall. Fucking asshole hadn't the stomach for this level of investigation, really, but Cartman figured he didn't want to look like a pussy when it came to Kyle.
Pulling the hem of his dress down – not bad, reasonably on trend and the horizontal stripes were surprisingly slimming – Cartman checked out his reflection in the mirrors over the sinks. Not too shabby; the wig he had procured back in Newark when he was just thirteen had lasted pretty well.
The whole game in front of them worried him, though. Not for that they were doing, but why they were doing it. When Stan had suggested Kyle might get killed by these lunatic bitches, he felt as though something sick and cold had crawled into his gut. He'd felt the same when he'd heard those trailer-trash gorillas – well, now ex-trailer-trash gorillas – as they'd attempted to scour South Park to teach him a lesson. He probably deserved what was coming to him, the rotten, stinking Jew whore, but it didn't change how Cartman felt about the very idea of it happening.
Perhaps it was nothing, and his hatred was just turning to pity. Yeah that was it; like you feel sorry for a kitten wearing those lampshade-like neck braces so they can't scratch their stitches, you could feel sorry for the poor little Jew – nothing more, nothing less.
The past week he'd been on a fact-finding mission and used his mom's credit card to buy a whole fucking spectrum of gay porn. He had diligently sat through ‘Dawson's Crack', ‘The Italian Rim Job', ‘Ass Drivers' one, three and four – volume two had sold out for some reason – ‘Whorrey Potter and the Sorcerer's Balls' and ‘Lord of the Cock Ring'. His verdict was that they seemed kind of gross and they certainly didn't make him horny. On the plus side he had discovered some interesting new jacking-off techniques and that he was fucking right about guys having clits up there – these guys jizzed across whole rooms after some guy prodded it for a few minutes.
Still, whatever. He was as straight as a freeway.
The stall door creaked open; Stan had emerged and he looked like a sullen little bitch. He wasn't exactly working the sweet little shirt-dress Cartman had found for him, but at least he'd put on the contrasting belt, fashion pantyhose and jet black bobbed wig.
"Aww, cheer up, you're so much prettier when you smile," Cartman cooed between sniggers.
"Hey! I didn't laugh at you, ass-muncher," Stan grumbled.
"That's because I've got such a bootylicious bod." He patted his hair and pouted.
Stan rolled his eyes. "Let's just get this over with," he insisted as he checked himself out in the mirror with a look of dread. "We're going to get caught. We look nothing like girls."
"Will you relax? We'll pass. Sure, we'll be fucking ugly chicks – well, you'll be fucking ugly with that jawline – but it'll work, trust me. Those bitches will be way too busy rubbing one out over Kyle to pay that much attention."
Stan did actually look kind of hot with his sharp wig and preppy dress; even the Converse sneakers which Stan had refused to give up for ballet pumps worked. At least he'd done it; Cartman was pretty sure Kyle wouldn't have put on a dress if you paid him, which was kind of a shame. Cartman would love to see that gangly Jew drag up…
"Cartman, we're definitely not going to pass for girls if you're sporting a chubby." Stan had shielded his eyes with his hand as though seeing his hard-on would burn a hole through his retina.
"What? I can't help it if you make such a cute girl," he retorted and was rewarded by Stan cringing in horror. Cartman quickly handed him one of the pink badges he had stolen with surprising ease from the girl in the cafeteria and a girl in the halls later – he'd grabbed her ass and swiped the badge when she slapped him.
"Just pin that to your dress and look like a pussy," Cartman instructed. "That shouldn't be too hard for you."
He peered around the door and saw the corridor outside the men's bathroom was empty. He gestured to Stan and they snuck out. Stan looked noticeably awkward and Cartman began to wonder if he would blow their cover with his body-language.
"For fuck's sake, try and look like you're comfortable in that shit!"
"Funnily enough, I'm not!"
"Then fucking fake it! Girls fake shit all the time."
Cartman spied a couple of the crazy bitches heading towards the fire escape. He grabbed Stan's arm. "Come on, Sugar Tits—" he just couldn't resist mocking Stan when he looked so uncomfortable – "let's go that way."
They exited the main school building via the fire escape and followed the group of girls. Cartman soon noticed that it wasn't just crazy teen girls in their midst; there were other townswomen and even some of their teachers.
This couldn't be all about Kyle. It just couldn't.
Soon enough, Cartman could see the crown move towards the community centre.
"Holy shit, dude! There's hundreds of them!" Stan gasped in horror.
"Be cool, Stan. Be cool. We're supposed to be one of them, remember?"
They joined the queue and Cartman saw that the community centre doors had security, namely Red. This presented a problem, on account of her being a moody bitch.
"Shit," Stan hissed. "Shitty shit, shit, shit. We're going to get caught. She's going to notice!"
"Snap out of it, Stan!" Cartman hissed back. "Just think like a girl. Smile. Stick your titties out."
"I don't have any titties," Stan growled. Jesus Christ, was he channelling Kyle or something?
"Neither does Wendy, and she still sticks hers – Ow!" Cartman rubbed his shin awkwardly. God damn, all he'd done was offer Stan some sound advice. No need for him to get all pissy about it.
Even Cartman had to admit to feeling his pulse begin to race as they reached the doors and Red's wary gaze. She checked their badges, and then glared at them. They shuffled past, but froze when she yelled, "Oi! Get back here!"
They shuffled back meekly – Cartman could feel Stan's glare burning a hole in his wig.
"You need to start filling up the left hand side, okay?" Red insisted, pointing towards another entrance to the main hall. They nodded and walked off as directed, Cartman making a conscious effort to sway his hips. His first instincts were to assume it was a trap laid out for impostors like them, but then he saw several other girls filing into the hall from the same direction they had been sent.
They took seats at the back so that could both escape the building quickly and escape being seen. Cartman figured it wouldn't be a problem; there were so many people that he and Stan could easily slip into the crowds.
One thing was for certain, the congregation was entirely female. Sure, there were some unfortunate girls who you couldn't be sure about at first glance, but they were still girls.
Stan appeared to have relaxed a little; he was looking up and peering around the hall, his eyes as wide as saucers.
"Holy crap, it's packed!" he whispered just as the lights started to dim. A skinny girl with red curls shushed them angrily, and Cartman felt a sudden rush of blood to the head that wasn't on his shoulders. Maybe what he'd been feeling had nothing to do with Kyle at all? Maybe he just had a boner for gingers? Sure, it was pretty fucking humiliating, but better than being hot for Jew dick.
A PA crackled into life and the room thrummed with the bass line and sporadic vocals of what sounded like Tori Amos, the rest of the song was just about audible.
Bebe approached the stage full of fervour, her pink badge pinned proudly to her cheerleader's uniform; Cartman remembered that South Park High had a basketball match against those North Park bastards in just a few hours.
"Welcome, fellow worshippers of CLIT; the Church of Ladies' Intimate Teachings," she announced and it took all of Cartman's will-power not to burst out laughing. He glanced across at Stan and quickly looked away; he was as fit to burst as Cartman was.
"Thank you for this amazing turnout; it means so much that you are all giving yourselves over to the power deep within." At these words, Bebe hovered her hand around her snatch and made a circular gesture – Cartman saw Stan bite his knuckles in an attempt to smother his sniggers. Then the other girls in the congregation copied the movement. How Cartman didn't just howl with laughter there and then, he had no idea.
-Friggingodess-
"And we have the teaching of Kyle Broflovski to thank for this enlightenment. Yea, for he marketh the way with his tongue and leadeth the way with his fingers…"
Cartman snuck a look at Stan's horrified expression, and felt glad he wasn't the only one feeling pretty fucking weird about this.
"Ladies, let us turn to page eighty-seven of Cosmopolitan, September issue."
The girls around them swiftly pulled copies of the same chick magazine out of their school bags; Cartman could see the article on page eighty-seven was entitled, ‘Seven Orgasm Myths Exploded!'.
Bebe began to read the article aloud while adding her own commentary, and she enraptured the crowd. Cartman saw in utter amazement as he heard that dumb blonde bitch witter on about pussies and foreplay and shit while her congregation hung on her every word. This was fucking weird; for some reason she was basing her whole… her whole sermon around Kyle and how the fuck would she know what he did when he fucked a girl?
Suddenly, Cartman felt an overwhelming desire to climb up on the stage and snap her pretty little neck in two.
Why the fuck did he even care? He didn't care, except for the fact that scrawny Jew asshole got laid yet again, the mother fucking slut. Cartman hated him, and he hated her for – no, he hated Kyle. Had to focus on that.
Suddenly, he felt someone jab him hard in the arm. Cartman glanced in their direction to find some fucking ugly bitch glaring at him – he swiftly remembered it was Stan.
"Dude, they're staring at us," he hissed.
Cartman looked at his watch – six-thirty. The basketball game started in half an hour, so Bebe would have to finish up soon and they might get out before too many crazy bitches started to notice. Then he cast his eye over the congregation, and noticed a whole gaggle of furious girls glowering in their direction.
Bebe pointed at them. "Behold! They mean to make a mockery of our spiritual enlightenment! They're not girls at all," she boomed, "check out their garments!"
She rushed towards them and ripped Cartman's wig right from his head. The girls gasped.
"Oi, this is totally on trend, you bitches!" Cartman insisted.
"Not with those pumps!" Bebe retorted, and as the crowd began to close in on them, Cartman realised the extent of his folly.
"…Who's going to cream the North Park Gulls? Go, go, go South Park Bulls! Yeah!" Bebe's high-kicks and loud chants were whipping the crown up into a fury; Wendy was really only here for her benefit. Oh, and for Stan's, only he was nowhere to be seen. Wendy tried not to look too pissed off, or think too much about what she could have been doing instead of watching some dumb basketball match. Given she wanted to be school president in her last year, it made sense to be seen showing school spirit, after all.
She peered down at the huddled South Park players as they got a team briefing from the fearsome Mr. Anderson – he always gave Wendy the creeps – and could see Kyle's mass of red hair. When he turned around, he gave her a friendly wave; Wendy waved back, only to feel Bebe's furious gaze from the cheerleading spot below.
"Where's Stan?" Kyle mouthed at her, and Wendy shrugged her shoulders. He appeared somewhat disconcerted by this, which made Wendy feel a little better; if she was being deliberately stood up, Kyle would know.
The teams took their positions. Wendy didn't know anything about the North Park players, except that their Point Guard kept trying to get Bebe to join their cheerleading squad. She got the distinct impression it had nothing to do with her rousing cheers.
"…He can do what no-one else can; Go, go, go, Donovan!" Bebe led the cheer with enthusiasm, and Wendy couldn't help but smile at the faint blush that had crept across Clyde's cheeks. As if it couldn't have been any clearer those two were dating. The head cheerleader and the captain of the basketball team; there was a teen movie to be made out of their story, no doubt about it.
As Kyle took his place, Bebe started up the chants again.
" … He's the best, I'll make you see; Go, go, go, Broflovski!" She gazed at Kyle as though enraptured. Even the other cheerleaders seemed to find her behaviour a little odd; apart from Butters, of course. Butters just took everything at face value, including the fact that one of North Park's prettier cheerleaders seemed to be paying him an awful lot of attention.
Kyle appeared a little bewildered – not to mention suspicious – but he merely acknowledged the chant with a little nod of the head, as though he were embarrassed by the attention. Wendy couldn't blame him if he was; Bebe looked ready to drop her panties for him there and then.
Besides Clyde's captaincy, Wendy knew Kyle had taken over as Centre from Daniel Cavendish after he graduated last year, and that Token was near the basket, whatever position that meant he played. Wendy's grasp of basketball was rudimentary at best.
Her grasp of personal dynamics was pretty hot, however, and she could see that Clyde was ready to gut Kyle like a Cajun catfish.
The buzzer sounded and the game began. Wendy followed it as best she could – if the ball got near the opponents' basket, she figured this was a good thing. The South Park cheerleaders were extremely exuberant tonight; in fact the North Park cheer group were starting to look as though they felt somewhat inadequate.
The game was extremely close, in the kind of way Wendy could appreciate as nail-biting. Despite this, the drama playing out on the court was far more interesting. Bebe literally had eyes only for Kyle, and Clyde had noticed. Good God had he noticed. Every time he passed the ball to Kyle he seemed to aim for his crotch.
Kyle, of course, hadn't noticed at all. He was too busy with the business of the game; Wendy had spent enough time with him in their AP classes to realise that when Kyle was focused on something, literally nothing else could penetrate his skull. Coupled with the fact that, according to Stan, he had the emotional intuitiveness of the average gnat, then Clyde was going to have to pin him to the floor and knock his teeth out for him to get the message.
During the half-time team huddle, it seemed that Clyde was going to try seriously forceful tactics to make his feelings known. Token had to break them up, and Mr. Anderson simply shook his head in dismay and glared at Bebe as though she were the Devil incarnate. One look at the confusion on Kyle's face, and Wendy couldn't help but sympathise.
Where the hell was Stan? It was one thing to stand her up, but Kyle? She was beginning to get worried, which she instantly felt foolish for. Like anything could really happen to him between class and the school gym.
"This is totally fucked up right here," Stan muttered breathlessly as Cartman struggled to keep up with his insane running pace.
"Just keep fucking running!" he shouted back.
"We're missing the game!"
"We'll be missing our balls if those crazy bitches catch us!" Cartman retorted. God damn, Stan was a moron sometimes.
"Whatever, dude. Wendy's going to be pissed."
They ran up to the school, around the gym hall where the match was clearly underway, but were soon trapped at the gym supply closet by a pincer movement of pre-menstrual sluts. Fucking Bebe and her fucking outsourcing; why couldn't she forgo her cheerleading to face them like men, huh?
As the stood side by side, like a drag version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ready to face the bullets, Cartman had his brainwave.
"Stop!" he yelled in his best commanding voice. "You know not what you do!"
The gaggle of girls actually stopped, which kind of surprised him.
"Cartman, what the—"
Cartman silenced Stan's bitching with a wave of his hand.
"Ladies, haven't you ever stopped to consider why you hail the Jew… I mean, Kyle Broflovski, as your god?"
The girls looked at each other and burst out laughing.
"He's not our god, you moron," the one girl replied.
"Oh," Stan commented, apparently relieved.
"No, he's more like our prophet," another piped up.
"Right, but had he personally ever shown you this shit?" Cartman queried, while wondering what the fuck was wrong with women.
The girls appeared suddenly bereft – which Cartman couldn't deny was infinitely pleasurably – although one of them replied defiantly, "He has shown our spiritual leader the path to true enlightenment. With his tongue."
God damn fucking Bebe, that God damn fucking slut. Why the fuck would that Jew bastard go anywhere near her rancid fucking—
"Cartman!" Stan hissed. "Say something!"
The girls had stopped listening to his wise words and started to get restless; Cartman spotted one of them slide the ultimate combination out of her purse – hairspray and a cigarette lighter. He had to think fast.
"Why… why is he responsible for your… your sexual pleasure? You think he should just give it to you? No, it has to be earned; you have to prove yourselves worthy. With blow-jobs."
Cartman practically felt Stan pinch the bridge of his nose in dismay. Well, what the fuck did he know? He should be grateful – at least if Wendy gets sucked into this crazy cult, his BJ quota will sky rocket.
The girls glanced at each other as though a lightbulb had just gone off.
"You're right," one girl exclaimed. Cartman couldn't help but smirk.
"Yeah, we should totally worship Kyle by offering to pleasure him," another replied and the smirk left Cartman's face as though it had been slapped off.
"What?" he demanded.
"It makes perfect sense; if we want to be exalted, we must exalt back!" This girl took Cartman's hand and shook it. "Thank you for showing us the truth."
"Yeah!"
"You should be our figurehead," another insisted. "The boy who thinks Kyle Broflovski deserves to be sucked off for eternity!"
"Hey! That's not what I—" The girls didn't care. They had already begun to wander off, leaving Cartman and Stan alone in their lipstick and dresses.
Stan wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "Thank God for that," he gasped, patting Cartman on the back. "Nice job, dude."
Cartman shrugged, wondering if Stan would ever have paid him such a compliment if Kyle were around.
As they walked off to get changed, Cartman heard Stan chuckle to himself.
"What?" he asked, somewhat defensively.
"What, besides the fact a whole bunch of girls think you want Kyle to get lots of oral?" He shook his head. "Oh, Kyle," he said fondly.
Kyle. It was always fucking Kyle. He never left Cartman alone, not even for a second.
"What about the little Jew faggot?" he enquired, just in case Kenny had put any of his retarded ideas in Stan's head.
Stan rolled his eyes. "Can't you give it a rest for a minute? Call him a fag as much as you like, he's got way more girls interested in him right now than you've ever had."
"Jealous, are we?" Cartman mocked.
"Well, kind of, yeah. I wouldn't mind it if the whole class thought I was a sex god," he replied, fucking missing the subtle nuances of Cartman's dig, the philistine.
"Whatever, like that asshole is interested in pussy or religion. He's a fucking Jew; they just want to make money…" He trailed off as his mind joined up the obvious dots. Pussy. Religion. Money. The three things went together like tacos, chilli and guacamole; and if you've got tacos and chilli, some dumb fucker will always find you the guacamole.
"Cartman?"
Cartman grinned and patted Stan on the back. "Do excuse me, Stan. I have some unfinished business to take care of. Cheer on your little boyfriend for me, will you? He needs all the help he can get, given Jews can't actually play basketball. The school must be getting a grant for having him on the team."
"Goddamnit, Cartman!" Stan spat back, but Cartman was already skipping away; ideas were brewing like Starbucks during rush hour. There were a plethora of dumb, horny girls in Bebe's stupid cult, and they were just waiting to empty their wallets into Cartman's hand in the name of Kyle Broflovski.
Kyle deliberately dawdled as he got undressed, neatly folded his basketball kit and dug out his shower gel, shampoo and intensive conditioner. Partly because the amount of stuff he had to use on his hair to stop him looking like Ronald McDonald holding a Van der Graf generator was more than most girls took into the shower with them, but mostly because after his experience with Cartman in eighth grade he had been most reluctant to set foot in a public showering facility ever again.
"Hey, great game tonight, huh?" Token said, towel drying himself off unashamedly in front of Kyle.
"Yeah, we played pretty well," he agreed. Token grinned at him, a little uncertainly.
"Say, you and Bebe…"
"There isn't a ‘me and Bebe', Token," Kyle insisted. "She's dating Clyde again. We're just friends." It was much easier than explaining that Bebe had used him and cast him aside like a post-masturbation tissue.
"Whatever. Friends don't look at friends the way she was looking at you."
"Looking at me how?" Kyle wrapped his towel around himself, a little self-conscious.
"Like, I dunno, like she's in love with you or something. I swear her eyes never left you when she led the half-time cheer."
Kyle did his best to fake a smile. "Seems you were paying a lot of attention to her," he teased. Token shrugged.
"Dude, it's Bebe. Every guy's eyes are drawn to her huge… enthusiasm," he quickly added as Clyde walked past them, dripping water onto the floor.
"Umm, I'd better go and shower," Kyle said, grabbing his stuff and dashing off to the farthest shower head and pulling the curtain shut. He'd got the distinct impression that Clyde wanted to kill him, and was willing to sacrifice the game in his attempts. The asshole had brought this all on himself by being a douche. He supposed he should be happy for Bebe; at least she'd scared him into realising just how much he liked her. Not that it did his fucked up heart any good.
He was half-way through rinsing the conditioner out of his hair when the curtain shifted. To his utter amazement, Bebe was standing in front of him in her full cheerleading costume, pert and perky as water from the shower slowly drenched her. It didn't take long for her nipples to become erect and visible, and for Kyle to hastily find somewhere less obtrusive to fix his gaze.
"Hey there," she drawled. "Great game." She ran her finger down his chest. "And as the head cheerleader, I think I need to show you just how much we appreciated that last-minute score you made today."
She sank to her knees, and Kyle barely had time to ponder how similar the entire situation was to the cheesiest porno ever before Bebe's mouth wrapped around his cock.
"Fucking hell, Bebe!" he hissed. "I thought you were… Ah… I thought you were with…" Kyle had forgotten how difficult it was to form a sentence when someone was blowing you.
Bebe pulled away, her spit trailing from his dick and her expression displaying impatience. "Clyde, yeah. But you're special. You deserve to be, well, worshipped."
She put her lips back around the head and started to suck.
"Wait, what?" Kyle said, fighting the urge to thread his fingers through her hair. "What are you talking about, Bebe?"
Bebe let go of his cock once again and sighed. "Worshipping you. For bringing us enlightenment to true sexual fulfilment and showing us the natural power of our pussies. Now, are you going to shut up and let me blow you or what?"
Just as Kyle was about to respond with, "what the fuck?" the shower curtain was pulled back to reveal the entire basketball team gawping in amazement, Stan with his expression frozen in shock – wait, was he wearing makeup? – and a rapidly purpling Clyde.
"What," Clyde said in a low voice.
"Clyde, dude, I have no idea…"
Bebe turned around and smiled.
"Oh, hey Clyde."
"Don't you, ‘Hey, Clyde,' me!" he wailed. "What the hell are you doing?" He gesticulated in such a way that his towel started to slip and reveal a wobbling flaccid penis; Kyle was sure it would have been hysterically funny were he not naked with the head cheerleader on her knees in front of him while the whole team stared.
He hated communal showers.
"Sucking Kyle off, what does it look like?" she replied airily.
"But… Bebe, you're my girlfriend!"
"Yes," Bebe replied slowly, "but Kyle's my prophet. I'm, like, his disciple."
"That doesn't explain anything!"
"Wait, you're my disciple?" Kyle asked, but his query fell on deaf ears.
"Look Clyde, it's perfectly normal. Mary Magdalen followed Jesus around and washed his feet with her hair. I'm doing exactly the same thing, only I'm washing Kyle's cock. With my mouth."
Kyle tried to hide his face with his hand, but swiftly had to grab Bebe's shoulders and steer her away when she tried to continue what she'd started.
"I am fucking sick of this!" Clyde raged.
"Yeah, well, I don't exactly appreciate the flippant way you treat my religious beliefs," Bebe spat back.
Clyde glared at her. "You don't appreciate…? Every night this week, all I've heard is, ‘Kyle would do that,' ‘Kyle would touch me there,' ‘Kyle reaches the parts other guys can't reach,' ‘Kyle's cum tastes like cinnamon'…"
"Cinnamon? Really?" Stan asked, looking Kyle steadfastly in the eye.
"Dude, how the hell would I know?"
Stan sighed heavily. "You've never peed in the shower, you've never tasted your own cum…"
"You leave my saviour alone!" Bebe snapped, glaring at Stan. "How dare you try and sabotage my meeting, you asshole!"
"Oh, for fuck's sake…"
"What the hell is going on here?" Coach Anderson shoved through the crowd of players and stared at the scene in front of him. He raised an eyebrow at Bebe.
"Get lost on your way to the changing rooms, Miss Stevens?"
"I… I dropped a contact lens—"
"What, and it got stuck in Broflovski's pubic hair, did it? Get out of here." He shook his head as Bebe scrambled to her feet and rushed out of the boys' changing rooms.
Coach Anderson folded his eyes and fixed Kyle with a withering glare.
"Care to explain what you're doing in the showers with the head cheerleader and a crowd of spectators, Broflovski?"
"I don't know, sir," Kyle replied evenly. Coach Anderson raised an eyebrow in distain.
"You don't know." He sighed. "From the captain of the Sophomore debate team, I really expected better."
Kyle felt his cheeks burn with a double whammy of irritation and humiliation. "I don't know, sir. I don't know why Bebe waltzed into the showers and started blowing me. I don't know why she's calling me her saviour. I don't know, frankly, why Clyde is still going out with her if she keeps comparing him and me in… those sorts of ways, and I don't know why my cum tastes like cinnamon. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!" he spat out the words like rotting meat.
"Ike's a fiend for those Pop-Tarts," Stan pointed out, which snapped Kyle out of his rage.
"What?"
"He loves the cinnamon ones, and the cinnamon spiced oatmeal. You've all been having them for breakfast for, like, three months. Maybe that's why?" he mused
"Could be," Kyle agreed.
Coach Anderson stared at them both.
"What a charming domestic image. Just… just get dressed, Broflovski." He glanced across at Stan. "Marsh, try and keep your boyfriend out of trouble."
Token and Clyde tried desperately to smother helpless giggles. Stan gawped at Coach Anderson.
"Dude, sick! He's not my boyfriend!"
"Dude, what's going on? And why are you wearing makeup?" Kyle asked, wiping a spot of lipstick from Stan's mouth.
"Long story," Stan replied. "Dude, you are not going to believe what Cartman and I just found out."
Kyle figured that whatever it was, it was not going to be good. "What?"
"It's totally a cult," Stan said, just as Clyde walked past half-naked. "Bebe's started some, like, religion around you. There are all these girls who are worshipping you. I mean in a sexual way. It's fucked up."
"Yeah, they think that, like, one touch from Kyle and they'll squirt," Clyde commented nastily.
"Don't girls just do that?" Kyle asked.
"Contrary to what you've seen while jacking off to porn, real girls don't squirt when they come," Clyde pointed out with a definite air of smugness.
Kyle merely shrugged. "Are you sure? Because it's always happened when I've been with a…" He decided not to finish his explanation, given the look of rage on Clyde's face.
Slowly, Clyde walked up to him until they were almost touching each other. He slowly raised his middle finger and shoved it right in his face.
"Fuck you, Kyle," he said in a voice far too calm to be sane. "Fuck. You."
Once Kyle had got dressed and Stan had removed the last traces of his make-up, they walked sombrely to Kyle's Lincoln; Kyle hadn't offered a lift home and Stan hadn't asked, it was just implied.
"That's… that's just fucked up!" Kyle said for the fifth time.
"Tell me about it," Stan replied for the fourth time – one of his responses had been an, "I know, right?"
Kyle perched on the hood of his car and wrapped his arms protectively around himself. "Why would they do that? It's fucking insane!"
Stan merely shrugged. He didn't want to say anything in case he came across as a dick, but Jesus Christ! Stan didn't understand why all the women in town wanted Kyle, but he could at least have the decency to take advantage of it.
Kyle kicked a can across the parking lot before leaning back against the windscreen and dragging his hands through his hair.
Stan sat next to him. "Come on, dude. It'll pass. They'll get bored and find something new to obsess over," Stan soothed, trying to keep any hint of jealousy out of his voice. Oh, if only Wendy wanted to worship him, just for a day. Or a night. Half an hour would do. Come to think of it, Stan figured he might only need five minutes, as embarrassing as that was.
"It's just messed up, Stan. Why are they doing this? Why?"
Stan placed a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "I don't know, Kyle. I don't know."
Kyle sighed and fiddled with the bent aerial on his car. "You want to know something, Stan? I really kind of believed in, you know, ‘the one'. That there was this one special girl out there and we'd be perfect for each other," he commented while twisting the aerial back into shape.
Stan nodded, secretly rather surprised that Kyle held this view. He watched as Kyle lifted his head and fixed him with an intense gaze. "Now I don't know what to believe anymore."
Before Stan could even react, Kyle had cupped his face with his hand and planted a hard kiss smack on his lips.
"Dude!" Stan spluttered afterwards, his mind racing with thoughts of whether Rebecca was a ruse and if Kyle had met a guy in New York who had broken his heart. By the time he'd started running through every moment he'd said a variation on the phrase ‘That's gay' and worried about having hurt Kyle's feelings, Kyle had pulled away.
"Damn it!" he muttered.
Stan looked at Kyle's irritated expression. "I… I'm sorry, dude. I don't… I'm not… but, you know, we're still friends, right? If you want to be… I understand if that's hard for you – excuse the pun – if you like me, you know, that way—"
Kyle stared at him as though he'd sprouted another head. "Stan, relax. I'm not in love with you. I was just seeing if I might be gay and damn it, I'm not!"
"Why would you want to be gay, dude?" Stan couldn't help but ask.
"Because girls are fucking crazy!" Kyle retorted hotly.
There was a very long silence; at least it felt that way to Stan. He eventually punctuated it with a question that had been plaguing him ever since Kyle had locked lips with him.
"Why me?" he asked. "Why pick me to test whether you could get hot for a guy?"
Kyle shrugged. "Dude, if I was going to be gay for anyone, I'm sure it'd be you."
Stan felt oddly touched. "Really?"
"For sure."
"Aww. Thanks, man."
"Any time."
They sat in a more comfortable silence, absently watching the sun dip low beneath the swirling clouds.
"You know," Stan said casually, "I get why Bebe's gone all crazy, kind of. You're a really good kisser."
Kyle looked across at him. "Really? You think?" he asked eagerly.
"Totally," Stan affirmed. "You do this whole hand cuppy thing that's possessive without being obnoxious. It's hot, I think. I reckon chicks like that." He was so going to have to try it out on Wendy. You know, when he wasn't making her feel so God damn uncomfortable with his obsessive desires.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Kyle met his eyes once again. "We should probably never speak of this again."
"Totally," Stan agreed.
Cartman stared from the gym fire exit, gobsmacked. Well, he would have been if he hadn't been entirely convinced that Kyle and Stan were gay for each other.
He'd just finished putting the final fly poster up for his first meeting for the Church Of Contemplating Kyle – admission fee a mere twenty-five dollars – when he just happened to spot Stan and Kyle kiss on the hood of Kyle's car. Stan seemed freaked out at first, but he soon came around and by the time they had both clambered into Kyle's car, Cartman dreaded to think what they were up to.
Despite witnessing something he'd always claimed was inevitable, Cartman felt an astonishing amount of things he didn't really understand. There was mostly rage, although he wasn't sure who it was directed at. Maybe everyone? He knew he'd never felt such searing hatred towards Stan before, at best he felt a mixture of pity and irritation at his hippie ways and the way he let that skinny bitch Wendy trample all over his balls. This was different.
He felt a stab of anger towards Kyle, too, the fucking Jew slut. He'd already fucked that nerdy stuttering social reject from their youth, then that fucking dumb bitch who's probably got more sperm in her stomach that Cartman had ever had in his ball sack, and now he was fooling around with that boring hippie douche! The fucking ginger slut needed someone who could keep him on his toes and –
God fucking damn, what the hell was happening to him?
"Oh! Hello, Eric." A familiar blonde boy nudged his knuckles together nervously.
Fucking Butters. That was all he needed.
"What do you want, ass-muncher?"
"N… Nothing, really. Say, have you seen Kenny?"
"No. Why, stalking him, are you? Sneaking a good long look at him in the showers? Following him home so you can watch him sleep? You fucking faggy cheerleader."
Butters, irritatingly, simply laughed. "Oh, you are awful funny sometimes, Eric. No, I just saw him pass by here and wanted to talk to him about our art project." He frowned and pulled at a bit of dead skin on his lip. "He keeps going missing, doesn't he?"
"Huh?" Cartman hadn't noticed. Kenny was probably shooting up, or whatever it was poor people did instead of bettering themselves.
"Ever since we've come back to school he just seems to, well, cut class an awful lot, I guess. He must go away somewhere, because he doesn't answer his phone or the door. Which doesn't make life easy when he's your project partner."
Cartman thought he detected a hint of annoyance in Butters' tone, but it was difficult to tell with that pussy.
"Hey, Butters. If you saw… If you saw two people who were your friends – well, they were assholes, but whatever – kiss, would you feel all pissed off about it?"
Butters looked at Cartman and smiled. "Why, of course not, Eric! I'd probably think it was awful sweet. Unless I was pining after one of them, of course. Then I guess I'd feel really mad, by golly." His voice suddenly became a little dark. "Mad enough to… to want to make them suffer." He snapped out of it almost instantaneously. "Or want to win them over," he added chirpily.
"Right." That little bastard might as well have just stabbed him in the balls.
"Well, see you, Eric!" With those words, Butters trundled off and left Cartman with a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach.
He had to do something about this, and he had to do it quickly.
He rushed to the nearest gas station and bought a few essentials – Snacky S'Mores, film magazine, car battery – then phoned his mother to come and pick him up. The fucking bitch took forever; he had to have been waiting for almost fifteen minutes before she finally pulled up next to him!
"About fucking time, Mom," he grumbled as he climbed into the front seat.
"Well, this is half an hour away from home, sweetie. I had to really hurry to get here when I did—"
"Just shut the fuck up and drive," Cartman ordered. His mother obeyed.
"You really need to stop being such a grumpy guts," she chided softly, and Cartman was reminded that although she tended to do as she was told, she never did it quietly. "Do you want to talk, Eric?"
Cartman rested his elbow on the passenger side and stared through the window at the scenery as they flew by. Eventually, she got the message and drove on in silence.
He ran up to his room the moment he got into the house, grabbed a metal coat hanger out of his closet – it wasn't like he was going to wear that suit – and began building like mad.
An hour later, and there it was. A coil of metal at an angle wired up to the car battery and hammered into a wooden stand. He was not going to have any kind of feelings for Kyle that didn't involve disgust, and if he had to train himself to do that, then so be it.
Hesitantly, he approached the device and unzipped his fly. Pulling out his flaccid penis, he carefully rested it between the coil so no part of it touched the metal.
Right. Here we go.
With a deep breath, he began concentrating on the gay porn he had recently seen; the sweaty bears and panting twinks, the way they shot across a whole room… Good. Nothing, no pain whatsoever. Time to step it up a notch.
He thought about Kyle. The little Jew brat, with his stupid hair and big nose, the way almost every girl in town was obsessing over him because Bebe was a stupid, cum guzzling slut who couldn't keep her trap shut… No, don't think about Bebe. However much of a dumb bitch she was, she was still hot, and that was cool in Cartman's book.
Kyle. Kyle, Kyle, Kyle. Kyle being a sulky asshole in the school hallways; Kyle hunched over his desk taking notes, his forehead puckered in concentration; Kyle's wide-eyed excitement at seeing the results of some faggy science experiment; Kyle in the shower, his red curls soaking wet and the water running over his –
"Argh!" God damn that thing fucking hurt! Cartman didn't realise forty volts would feel that strong. The jolts of battery power seared through his cock as he failed to stop the images coming to his mind. In desperation, he pulled out of the machine and examined his red, flagpole-hard cock. This was clearly not going to be an overnight fix; he'd have to do this many times until his body understood.
First he'd take care of business, he decided, as he grabbed his tissues from the bed stand.