The Universal Law of Gravitation and Other Stories
Chapter 14: The Play's the Thing – The Three and Three-Quarter Year Itch
written by SleepySheep683 - illustrated by Friggingodess"I like the play," Bebe enthused. "Did you write it, Kyle?"
"Some of it," Kyle replied. In all honesty he'd written all of it in the end, but then when he opened up the copy of the script Cartman had printed out for them, he found that Cartman had butchered a whole load of sections.
Bebe frowned. "Even the scene where Dracula turns Lucy? Or Mina?" She didn't sound particularly convinced.
"Of course he didn't write those bits," Wendy said, having clearly overheard their discussion. "Cartman made some last-minute amendments of his own, right?" She looked at Kyle with hope in her eyes,
Kyle briefly wondered whether it would be funny to tell Wendy that it was all his work, but instead he truthfully replied, "Yep. Cartman decided that those sections ‘lacked bite', so he ‘improved them'," he made air quotes around those phrases he had copied from Cartman's early-morning email, and Wendy giggled.
"It's kind of… pornographic," Bebe settled on.
Clyde leant over and jabbed Kyle in the arm. "Nice one, Kyle. This is a great way to get your hands on our girlfriends!"
Jesus Christ, it had been over a year ago and Clyde just wouldn't let it lie. Before Kyle had a chance to angrily tell Clyde it was none of his idea and he hadn't been the one pursuing Bebe, while they were at it, Wendy piped up instead.
"Shut up, Clyde; he clearly didn't write those parts."
"Oh, and how would you know?"
"I recognise Kyle's voice in this, and it's mysteriously absent from any of the more… obvious scenes."
She smiled knowingly at Kyle, and he felt himself turn crimson. Holy fuck, she knew that he'd been writing Stan's love poems to her. She had to know. He thought he'd been clever by avoiding words like ‘incandescent' and ‘prostrating', and by alluding to breasts which, although nice, weren't the first thing he'd have waxed lyrical about in romantic poetry. He was close to Stan, but when it came down to it, he wasn't really that much like Stan.
"Stan? Aren't you bothered by this?" Clyde challenged, and Stan merely shrugged.
"I trust Kyle to look after Wendy when he, ‘Throws Mina to the bed and rips her top open, like that film with the crazy woman who gets shot by Michael Douglas after she boils his kid's pet rabbit, but not like that because he doesn't grab her titties… or does he?'," Stan deadpanned.
Wendy glared at Stan and Clyde. "I can't believe either of you! So, I'm Stan's property now, am I? Shall I phone up my dad and make sure he forwards you my damn dowry?" she spat.
"I can't believe you think I'd write something that obtuse," Kyle said, glaring at Bebe and Clyde.
At that moment, Cartman entered the drama studio and shut the door behind him.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our very first read-through. I think we should start off by giving ourselves a round of applause and really showing the love that's going to nurture our foetus of a play until it's ready to be birthed into the world with blood, sweat and that icky gunk babies are covered in when they first plop out of a vagina."
Cartman started to clap. Kyle noticed everyone look at each other uncertainly before they awkwardly joined it.
"Nice, very nice," Cartman agreed once they had stopped.
Kyle raised his hand. "Cartman, I have some serious reservations about the script—"
"Kyle, once we've done the read-through, you can bitch as much as you like," Cartman said with a tone of finality. Kyle sighed and pulled out his red pen, ready to make notes on anything which displeased him.
Two hours later, and Kyle's manuscript was littered with red inked scribbles – some on his own work that he felt didn't hold up when hearing it read aloud for the first time, but most of it was on Cartman's hastily added fuck fests. He'd especially noticed how mortified Wendy looked when they read out the pivotal scene where Mina is turned by Dracula and is left with mere days to be saved from becoming a vampire. Kyle couldn't blame her; the whole scene read like an excerpt from a porno.
"Cartman, we need to have a serious talk," he insisted, trying to keep the rage out of his voice.
"Kyle, anything you have to say to me, you can say to us all," Cartman replied calmly.
"We'll be here for the rest of the day if I do that! Some of do have classes we actually think are important to attend!"
"Well, in that case, perhaps I can continue, Kyle?" Cartman folded his arms, silently daring Kyle to challenge him. For some reason, Cartman always seemed to think Kyle would back down.
"No, we'll go over the most serious issues now!" Kyle countered, suddenly aware of the whole group shifting their glance from Cartman to Kyle as though watching a particularly gripping tennis match.
He slammed his hand against the manuscript. "There is no way you can put all this fucking in the play. It is ridiculous, and the school will just ban it."
"So? Everyone knows that anything of any worth ends up being banned somewhere," Cartman replied defensively.
"I see your argument, and I raise you, ‘Human Centipede II'."
He and Cartman stared each other out of a moment; Kyle felt the eyes of every student on him.
"Touché, Kyle. Touché. I trust you have a better idea? Maybe you should act out one of the scenes and show us how you would improve it with your genius touch?" Cartman's expression was most dubious, but the ball was firmly in Kyle's court and he figured he had to serve it as best he could.
"Fine. Bebe, would you help me out? We'll do the scene where Dracula turns Lucy, okay?" Kyle requested, doing his best to ignore Clyde's glowering. The simple fact of the matter was that, in the nicest possible way, Bebe had no shame. She would happily act out the nonsense in the script, plus he knew she wouldn't be weirded out by him touching her in vaguely inappropriate ways, which the scene called for in spades.
Bebe shrugged. "Sure thing," she replied breezily, before bounding up to him in the centre of their circle, script in hand. They found the right page and, with a cough and a shuffle, they began.
Bebe looked up at the imaginary stars and sighed deeply. "Oh dear, what am I to do? Three gorgeous suitors and I have to choose between them? That's, like, so unfair. If only this wasn't the Victorian times so I could have a foursome or something. Woe is me."
Kyle marvelled at how Bebe kept such a straight face with those lines. He tucked his script under his arm and swooped towards Bebe.
"Ah ha! It is Lucy Westerna, is it not? My, how the moonlight flatters your titties!"
The rest of the cast burst out laughing; Kyle felt a little bad for Cartman, but he figured he would find a way to shrug it off.
"Why, thank you, kind sir; they are most bounteous, are they not?"
"What are you doing out so late in the hour? T'is the time for whores and murderers, is it not?"
"Oh, I'm just lamenting my incredible hotness," Bebe said, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead as stipulated in the script. She let her hand fall, then asked, "So, what are you? A whore or a murderer?"
Kyle grinned evilly. "Why, both, my dear!" before fake-biting her neck. He knew Bebe could scream, but damn, she nearly perforated his eardrums.
They both had to look at the script as they tried to manoeuvre themselves into the required position; Bebe shoved Kyle's head right into her cleavage, while shouting, "Unhand me, you naughty undead man!"
Kyle did his best to grab hold of Bebe's butt and hoist her up; Bebe instantly locked her legs around his middle.
"Oh, stop it! This is so wrong!" she gasped.
"Yeah, and then some," Kyle thought, before continuing with the script's instructions and thrusting against her.
"But it feels so right!" Bebe swooned, arching back as per the script and, judging from the sudden dead weight Kyle had to hold up, she had left him to support her gymnastics; her legs were akimbo in perfect realisation of Cartman's stage directions, and Kyle felt like he was fake-fucking a windmill.
Kyle could hear the whole cast burst into hopeless hysterics – even Clyde.
Cartman, on the other hand, looked pretty pissed off. Halfway through Kyle's reading of the line, "Time for you to get on your knees and taste my life-force!" Cartman loudly shouted, "Alright, alright, you bunch of fucking philistines!" and sat down in a sulk.
Kyle gently let Bebe down, ducking to avoid her right leg as she swung it over his shoulder, and looked at the script again.
"The idea is good, Cartman," he soothed – and his did pain him to say those words – "we just need to be more… subtle about it. That was we can get it past the school board while still getting the message of sexual temptation across."
Cartman appeared thoughtful; the whole group seemed to collective hold their breath as he tapped his chin with his finger momentarily. Cartman locked eyes with Kyle and asked, "What did you have in mind, then?"
Kyle gently touched Bebe's hand. "Fancy some improv?" he asked.
"Sure," she replied, staring at the imaginary stars once again with a thoughtful smile on her lips. When Kyle approached her and stood by her side, she shivered and wrapped her cardigan tightly around herself. Kyle thought that was a nice touch.
"Beautiful night, is it not?" he offered.
"Indeed." She smiled. "It's a night for secrets."
Kyle glanced at her curiously. "Something to hide?"
"You're the one stalking young women," she retorted, a little flirtatiously.
He smiled and shook his head. "Is that really how you perceive yourself? Forgive me for my impertinence, but I rather feel you're selling yourself short."
Bebe looked at him with mild vexation. "I have three suitors and I don't know who to choose. Don't accuse me of selling myself short!"
Kyle placed his hand carefully on her shoulder, and Bebe shivered again.
"If you weren't selling yourself short, you'd take all three of them. Or none of them."
Bebe pulled off an impressive combination of scandalised and excited. The look in her eyes was deeply intense, but then she let her shoulders droop. "That's what I'd been thinking myself," she confessed.
Kyle took her hand. "Do you what to know what I think?" he asked, keeping his eyes on hers.
"Of course," she replied, not breaking their stare and acting as though hypnotised.
"I think you should turn down all three and take a more exciting offer," he replied darkly, without looking away from her.
"Such as?"
"I could set you free, Lucy. Free from all this… this banality. I could make you mine for eternity, and I would show you everything you've yearned for." Unsure exactly where else he could take this, he yanked her flush to him. Bebe seemed to understand exactly what he was trying to accomplish, and followed his every move as though possessed. When he fake-bit her throat, she acted as though torn between desire and fright; her hands dangled limply by her sides, yet they twitched in expectation.
They both pulled away and ended their scene. Before Kyle even had a chance to ask, "So, what do you think?" the whole cast had burst into applause.
Cartman, however, simply stared in apparent disbelief, his jaw slack. Eventually he seemed to pull himself together, and slammed his hand down on the desk before pointing at Kyle.
"You get me something like that for all those scenes, Kyle, and we're in fucking business!" he ordered gleefully.
Wow. Not the reaction Kyle had been expecting.
Wendy tentatively raised her hand. "When you say ‘all those scenes'… What precisely do you mean?"
Cartman rolled his eyes. "All the scenes where Dracula's turning bitches into the hot undead, of course. God damn!"
Wendy did not appear comforted by this, but she said nothing more. Kyle glanced at Stan for support, but he didn't appear to be paying attention. Damn it, he didn't exactly want the job of coaxing an erotic performance out of his best friend's girlfriend. It was… well, it was fucking weird. Still, he realised they were going to have to work together on this one to help keep the insane balance between Cartman's wishes, Wendy's comfort zone, and something the parents wouldn't grab pitchforks and torches to drive out of town.
Maybe he should have suggested ‘The Importance of Being Earnest'?
Wendy leant back on Bebe's mountain of pillows just as Bebe held two DVDs in front of her.
"Okay, we've got ‘the Ugly Truth', or ‘P.S. I Love You'. I'm in a Gerrard mood tonight," she said with a smile.
"Whichever," Wendy replied, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. For some reason, she felt really wound up by Bebe as she danced happily around her room without a care in the world. "I hope you're hungry; Mom kind of went overboard with the pizzas," Bebe said. "Oh, and I got some straighteners. I've been dying to try them out on your hair and make it all curly; there's this bit in the manual which says…"
Wendy glanced up at the ceiling and tried not to cry. Ever since that read-through, she'd felt all churned up and nauseated. First, the idea that Cartman wanted her to basically stage porn with Kyle was just… she couldn't even put it into words. No doubt about it, he was insane. Completely insane. The very thought of Kyle being… having his hands… She nearly quit there and then, and when Kyle stared acting out that scene with Bebe? She didn't know where to look. Even just hearing them seemed to put her whole nervous system on edge. To her relief, Kyle had an ulterior motive, but somehow what he had in mind as an alternative to Cartman's pornography didn't settle her nerves remotely. Once again she remembered Kyle and Bebe cavorting, which bothered her greatly. The fact that it bothered her greatly bothered her greatly, too. Why did it matter to her? She was sure they were both over each other, but still. Bebe shouldn't play with Kyle's heart like that, and he shouldn't be fooling around with her when she's got a boyfriend anyway.
"Wendy? What's up? You weren't listening to a word I said!" Bebe sounded a little peeved.
"Nothing!" Wendy protested, but Bebe seemed entirely unconvinced.
"It's not ‘nothing'. You've been acting odd all day." She sat on the bed next to Wendy. "Now, it can't be schoolwork because you're loving your AP classes with Kyle and you have your little homework club together, it can't be boyfriend trouble because you and Stan have been sickeningly adorable recently… Is it college applications? Because they aren't due for ages."
"No," Wendy assured her, "although you need to apply earlier for the Ivys – I must let Kyle know about that."
Bebe looked at her curiously. "Are you freaking out over the play?"
"A little," Wendy confessed. "I don't think I can do the stuff Cartman clearly wants us to do?"
Bebe laughed. "Do you really think Kyle's going to do the stuff Cartman wants? Not going to happen. Anyway, it's Kyle. He won't make you do anything you're not comfortable with," she assured her.
"I know that!" Wendy snapped and Bebe gawped at her.
"I'm sorry, Bebe. I didn't mean to—"
"Oh my God! You've got a crush on Kyle!" she squealed.
"No, I haven't!" Wendy protested. "How on earth did you come to that conclusion, anyway?" Wendy couldn't see how anything she or Bebe had just said could lead her to such a crazy conclusion, and it was a completely insane conclusion to draw.
Bebe said nothing and merely smiled knowingly. Irritatingly knowingly.
"What?" Wendy folded her arms defensively.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of—"
"Yes, it is! I have a boyfriend!"
"Ah ha! So you admit it?" Bebe challenged.
"No!" Wendy picked up the nearest pillow and hugged it, while Bebe playfully tried to pull it away.
"What? You've never wondered what it would be like to kiss him?" she teased.
"No!" She'd briefly wondered what it would be like to have him caress her naked body while whispering all the filthy things he wanted to do to her, which wasn't the same thing at all and was all his fault anyway.
"You've never thought about him while you're having your special shower time?"
"My what?"
Bebe's grin fell into a look of pity. "You don't know about Special Shower Time?" she asked, miming what appeared to be a shower head near her nether regions.
"Bebe!" Wendy gasped in horror.
"Don't look so horrified – you're the one missing out."
"What exactly do you do in… with your ‘Special Shower'?" Wendy stammered. "You can't just… I mean, would it fit?" she asked cautiously.
Bebe burst out laughing. "You don't shove it up there," she insisted. "You just… Look, next time you have a shower, just take the thing off the wall and have a little explore. You'll work it out."
Wendy felt her entire face burn with heat.
"Anyway, you're avoiding the issue at hand," Bebe continued. "Do you see him with other girls and want to claw their eyes out? Even if said girl is your best friend? Who's just acting? Like we're supposed to be?" Bebe snatched the pillow from Wendy's suddenly limp grasp and put her face right in front of Wendy's.
Overwhelmed, Wendy started to cry. "I'm sorry, Bebe!"
"Oh, Wendy. It's okay, don't feel bad," Bebe soothed. "I was a total bitch to you when you got your awesome SAT scores."
"No, you weren't," Wendy replied tearfully.
"I was," Bebe insisted. "I clearly just hid it better than you."
"I didn't realise… Do I really have a crush on…? Oh, God! I do! This is dreadful!"
Bebe patted her back gently. "Oh, don't be so melodramatic. You and Stan have been dating for ages; you're bound to notice other guys. It's like, the three-and-three-quarter year itch. It's no biggie."
"No biggie? I fantas – I think about Kyle… about other guys in a… a sexual way, and that's nothing to worry about? What about me and Stan? I… I love him!" Unless this meant she didn't? She tried to picture her life without Stan and it was impossible. She saw them getting married and having children together – after she'd majored in environmental studies, done a law conversion and helped get the US to ratify the Kyoto agreement. He'd propose at the top of the Eiffel Tower and they'd have an intimate ceremony where she'd wear deep-blue, not white, because they'd been living together for years and it seemed hypocritical… but Kyle would be the best man, wouldn't he? He'd be looking after Stan throughout the ceremony, wearing a dapper morning suit with a cummerbund which matched her dress just as Stan's did. He'd be required to dance with her at the reception. He'd hold her in the traditional style, his cool fingers pressed confidently on the small of her back, caressing the fabric. He'd tell her she looked hot as they danced close together, and she'd feel curiously frustrated at the chasteness of it all until he leant her backwards during the dance and used the opportunity to slide his hand up her thigh… Jesus Christ, he was infiltrating her ten year plan fantasy!
What about when she and Stan had babies? She'd have to take maternity leave and be equally enthralled with her new bundle of joy and lonely for her old life. Kyle would obviously come over to see his new Godchild, who Wendy couldn't get to stop crying, and be completely adorable with the baby until Wendy cracked and burst into tears. He'd get the baby to go to sleep, and then he'd comfort her. She'd confess she hated her postpartum body, he'd tell her she would always be beautiful to him as he tenderly ran his fingers through her hair…
Oh, God. He'd infiltrated the twenty year inevitability plan, too. He was right there, cooing over her fantasy baby and making out with her on the fantasy couch.
She actually screamed out loud and felt Bebe's comforting hands on her shoulders.
"Wendy! Wendy! It's okay," she soothed, handing her a brown paper bag. "Breathe, breathe."
Wend inhaled deeply, then exhaled deeply into the paper bag and felt herself calm down.
"It's okay to fantasise about other guys, Wendy – do you seriously think our boyfriends don't do the same?"
"What, fantasise about other guys?" Wendy joked, wiping her eyes. Bebe nudged her gently in the ribs.
"You know what I mean. Although when it comes to your boyfriend, I'm not so sure."
"Funny."
"Look, I love Clyde, right?"
"I know."
"But sometimes, Gerrard Butler makes a few booty calls in my head. That doesn't mean if he showed up here in South Park, all oiled up and muscular, slung me over his shoulder and insisted on having his wicked, manly way with me in every possible position until my whole body ached from overuse…" Bebe's eyes seemed to glaze over. "It doesn't mean that I'd… Okay, that's a bad example. I totally would," she sighed.
"What about Clyde?"
"Oh, I'd let him do it up my butt to make up for it," Bebe replied nonchalantly, and suddenly Wendy felt that old lingering terror creep back in. Was that what she could look forward to after losing her virginity? Would Stan want to do that? Would Kyle? Except it didn't matter to her what Kyle would want to do, of course… This was getting too much.
"Oh God! I have to do a play laced with erotic subtext with Kyle!" she said, suddenly panicked.
"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Bebe replied, "You get a legitimate reason to play around with him and get it out of your system, right?"
Wendy thought about Bebe's positive spin on the situation. She had a point. She had a very good point. Wendy knew she loved Stan; getting this slightly seedy opportunity to spend time with his best friend where they'd have to spend a reasonable amount of time touching each other in mildly inappropriate places couldn't possibly go wrong.
Wendy merely buried her face in the pillow and cried in response.
Three sliding tackles, a touchdown and being crippled by two fouls, and Stan was sure his bruised, muddy figure told the story; some days, football practise was a bitch. It didn't help that Dean Winters from twelfth grade kept finding excuses to try and to stomp on his head because he wanted to date Wendy.
"Great game, St… Stan," Tweek stammered out, his bundle of nervous tics threatening to burst through his padding.
"Thanks, you too," Stan replied. He and Tweek were the only eleventh graders on the team, for some reason. All the others were burly twelfth graders, apart from one aggressive tenth grader who allegedly got on the team as part of some anger management thing after he ran over a cow when it refused to move out of a dirt road. Stan had seen the dent in his car and the curious dark red stains; he believed the rumours.
As he wandered over to the changing rooms, Stan found himself distracted by the under thirteen's ice hockey team hanging outside their practice rink, jostling another player.
"Get lost, you nerd!"
"Yeah! What are you even doing on the team, nerd! Get back to your calculus!"
"Yeah, Geek-lovski!" This kid – who Stan thought might be as big as he was – grabbed Ike and yanked his underpants up as far as they would go.
The kids laughed cruelly. Stan couldn't help but be amazed at the epic force of that particular wedgie, but Ike's vulnerable expression shook that thought right from him. Then, as soon as he had seen it, a mask of rage slid over Ike's features.
"Leave me alone, asswipe!" he snarled, while surreptitiously adjusting himself.
"Ooh, look at the tough guy!"
"Yeah, you want to be careful; doesn't look like your brother's around to fight your battles for you!"
"We're going to get your asshole brother next time, too!" the apparent leader promised, all rage and lean muscle. Stan had to stifle a smirk at this; when you'd spent most of your life battling with an enormous fat bastard who was almost twice your weight, you became pretty handy in a fight. He was reminded of this when he noticed one of the brats seemed to turn a shade paler; he recognised the boy as one Kyle caught here when he arrived early to pick Ike up from hockey practise. Kyle had dragged the kid into the shower block and effectively waterboarded him for twenty minutes. Stan almost felt sorry for the little snot.
"Get bent!" Ike yelled back as the boys started to crowd him. Stan picked up the pace and rushed towards them to break it up – Kyle would kill him if he left Ike to get pummelled – but just before he reached them, Ike swung an inexpert punch which happened to connect with the lead kid's lip. There was a surprising amount of blood.
The kid looked up with murder in his eyes. "You're going to get it," he threatened, but to Stan's amazement, he stopped upon seeing him walk over to the group of rage-fuelled kids.
"Hey, Ike," Stan said casually. "You wanna come to the football lockers? I'm waiting for Kyle, too."
"Sure," Ike said casually, but his expression displayed extreme gratitude.
One of the boys – a zit covered one with lanky hair – snickered. "Whatever, hide behind your brother's butt-buddy," he hissed, only for the lead guy to punch him in the gut.
"Alright, Marsh?" he asked casually. "I saw your touchdown last Friday. Nice work, brah."
"Umm, thanks," Stan replied uncertainly, hastily dragging Ike along before he ended up chatting to Ike's bully about the Colorado high-school leagues.
Stan watched Ike as he sat on one of the benches in the changing rooms and took out a book. He appeared to be in deep concentration as Stan washed off the mud from his skin and hair. He felt bad for Ike, but in all honesty? He was an awesome little dude, but he was weird. He was a good year younger than all his classmates, he took the SAT last year and aced it, and now he'd transferred to the special genius school up near Middle Park. His name was mud. It seemed inevitable, if unfair, that he'd attract bullies. Stan tried to point this out to Kyle once – never again. He could honestly say he had never seen Kyle so angry in all his life; even Cartman had failed to get such a furious reaction from him, and he'd been trying since playschool. They'd ended up in a bit of a brawl over it – Kyle accused him of siding with the bullies, Stan accused him of being a dick when he was just saying it would be a factor and wasn't condoning it – Kenny broke them up in the end. Cartman just watched gleefully. Asshole.
"Dude, why do you even go to hockey anymore?" Stan asked as he rinsed himself down. "You're at the Browning Institute, you don't need to hang out with those losers."
Ike didn't so much as life his head from his book. "Because I like hockey, and they don't have it as an option at BI." He then lifted his head and looked Stan straight in the eye. "Why should I be driven out of the game because of a bunch of jealous assholes?"
Stan sighed. Ike may be adopted, but he was a Broflovski through and through.
Once he had dried off and got changed, the two of them waited for Kyle in the usual spot – under the tree at the edge of the parking lot. Ike was unusually quiet.
"What's up, dude?" Stan asked.
Ike shrugged. "Does it bother you that everyone thinks you and Kyle are gay together?" he asked in a blatant attempt to distract Stan from his original question.
"Nah," Stan replied, "and it's not everyone."
"It kind of is."
They were silent for a while; Stan checked his watch and saw Kyle was about twenty minutes late now. Presumably his tutoring sessions had overrun.
"Kyle is a lot like Ma, don't you think?" Ike asked inexplicably.
"Huh?"
"Well, he's got her hair and her temperament, although I guess he's got Dad's eyes and his intellect. He's really tall, but so was Grandpa Broflovski, apparently."
Stan could think of nothing to say to this, so he just said, "Oh."
"I don't think I'm really sure who I take after," Ike commented, and Stan suddenly realised where this was going and prayed for a miracle so he didn't have to deal with it. That miracle arrived in the form of a Lincoln Estate, driven by a very ashen Kyle.
"Hey, look. Kyle's here," Stan announced, neatly side-stepping the awkward question and picking up his backpack as Kyle pulled over.
"Hey, dude," Stan said in greeting as Kyle opened the door.
"Hey." Kyle didn't move his dead-eyed stare away from the windscreen.
"Umm, dude? What's up?" Stan asked as he slid into the front seat, ignoring Ike's complaining.
"You're smaller, dude, get in the back," Stan ordered and Ike grumpily complied.
"Dude?" He snapped his fingers in front of Kyle's face.
"Oh. Right." He drove off as though on autopilot.
"Dude? Want to talk?" Stan asked carefully, as Kyle gripped the steering wheel so tightly that the skin on his knuckles looked close to cracking. Stan suddenly noticed he was missing a few shirt buttons.
Kyle shook his head, and then suddenly slammed on the breaks.
"Shit! Where's Ike?" he yelled in a panic-stricken voice.
"Right here. Nice to know how cherished I am," Ike replied sarcastically.
Kyle seemed to shake himself out of his panic. "Sorry, Ike."
"Dude, what happened?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Kyle said dully as he sped up.
"Is Cartman still trying to get you to make Dracula all hardcore? No, you were doing tutoring this evening—"
"I. Don't. Want. To. Talk. About. It," Kyle ground out, clutching the steering wheel tightly again.
"Alright, alright; Jesus," Stan replied angrily, slouching in his seat. God damn, Kyle was in a shitty mood tonight.
They drove ahead in silence. Just as Stan was considering trying to make conversation again, Kyle said in a broken voice, "Ruby Tucker tried to seduce me, Stan."
"Huh?" If Stan was honest, he'd seen this coming a mile off.
"She tried to seduce me." He had the haunted expression of a man who'd fought in Vietnam and lost a limb; no, he looked even more shell-shocked than his uncle's friend Ned did whenever he saw more than thirteen seconds of ‘Apocalypse Now' on TV.
"How? I mean, what did she do?"
Kyle shook his head and kept his stare fixed to the road, his harder grip on the steering wheel his only betrayal of emotion.
"Come on, man," Stan soothed. "You can't keep it all bottled up. You need to talk about it, Kyle. You need to let go."
At first Kyle's stoicism didn't change. Then, just as Stan had given up hope, he heard a cracked, "I was just gathering my things after the session; the others had left."
He continued to stare at the road; Stan gently squeezed his hand where it gripped the steering wheel. "It's okay, dude. Take your time."
"It was… I didn't see it coming. It was all so… She asked if I could check her math homework; I said yes, of course. I sat down on their couch – Ruby had already set their table for dinner, see. She brought her little exercise book over and as I was checking it and showing her how to demonstrate her working for algebraic equations, I felt her hand on my wrist. I didn't think anything of it; I figured she was just trying to get a better look." He sounded pleading, as though he thought Stan might not believe him.
"I know, I know," Stan soothed, as Kyle took a deep, shaky breath.
"The next thing I knew, she was on my lap. Like, right on top of me. I tried to move, but I couldn't. She had me pinned; fuck, fourteen year old girls are stronger than they look. So, I tried to move her and she took it completely the wrong way." He shuddered. "I had to prise her off me like a cat that's sunk its claws into a frog to rip out its tiny lungs, Stan."
"Wow. Dude."
"She bit my ear, Stan. I kind of like that, you know? But I'll never be able to like it again, because she did it to me." Kyle's expression was eerily blank. "She grabbed my crotch, too. I don't think I'll ever be able to masturbate again."
"It's going to be okay, dude. Did you tell her you're not interested? You told her, right?"
"Of course," Kyle snapped and Stan felt grateful that a little of his fire was still burning. "It had no effect. I'd have been better off telling the kitchen table."
"Did you tell her mom?"
"She wasn't there," Kyle replied. "Do you think I should?"
"Well, what if Ruby tries to claim you started it, like in that episode of ‘90210'?"
"Shit!" Kyle hissed. "You've got a point."
Suddenly, Kyle's phone started to buzz.
"It's just a text," Kyle replied.
"Want me to get it?"
"Sure."
Stan reached over and pulled the phone out of Kyle's pocket. He looked at the screen and saw it was a photo message. Without thinking, he opened it and in the space of five seconds, he felt as though he'd been right alongside Kyle in ‘Nam.
"Jesus fucking Christ, dude! Ruby Tucker just sent you a naked picture of herself!"
"Can I see?" Ike piped up.
"No!" Stan and Kyle shouted back simultaneously.
"Oh my God, you can see her snatch, dude! Look at it!"
"No fucking way, dude!" Kyle said chirpily, clearly pleased at having avoided the sight.
"You can stop fucking smirking; it's on your phone."
Kyle's face fell quicker than Tom Landry's once Jerry Jones took over the Cowboys.
"She's got really nice boobies, though," Ike commented. Stan craned his neck and realised Ike had been watching over his shoulder.
"Ike!" Kyle remonstrated, but Stan glanced at Ike's self-satisfied expression. He hadn't seen anyone look less guilty about their actions in his life.
"Hi, Mrs Tucker? It's Kyle… No, I haven't left anything. It's about Ruby… No, her homework's okay, it's improving…"
Cartman watched from his lounging position on Kyle's bed, console controller in hand. He'd decided reclining on Kyle's bed was tantalisingly close to reclining in it, which in turn wasn't too far off from lying in it with him. He imagined he'd be able to smell him on the duvet, only he'd look pretty fucking weird to the others if he tried.
"I just think it's sad that Kyle didn't let us see it," Kenny commented idly.
"Trust me, you don't want to," Stan replied darkly, but then he was a pussy. As far as Cartman was concerned, if some jailbait slut wanted to flash her cum-catcher like a hooker, then he would have been doing her a favour by looking. He figured Ruby was probably worth a poke, and if she and Kyle tag-teamed? He was suddenly assaulted with the image of Ruby on her knees before him, and Kyle with his hands parting his ass cheeks behind him… Fortunately, Kyle was still on the phone, pacing up and down the room in his usual pent-up way. Cartman always felt that if Kyle ever caught his eyes during one of his fantasises, that he'd figure it out. Cartman knew neither of them were ready for that.
"The thing is, she's kind of… Well, I think she might have a little crush on me, and I'll be honest, I'm not sure how to… I don't think it's that funny, Mrs Tucker… No, really. Please stop laughing, I'm serious…" Kyle seemed quite offended by Mrs Tucker's response, whatever it might have been.
"Why didn't he just keep it for blackmail purposes, instead of just fucking deleting it," Cartman asked.
"Because he's not a dick?" Kenny offered. "Well, not as much of a dick as you."
"He also said it's illegal. Something about possessing pornographic images of a minor?" Stan offered.
"What, even if the minor's sent them herself like a fucking whore who's asking for it?"
"I think the argument is that a minor can't be held responsible, on account of being a minor," Kenny offered up, a sliver of sarcasm to his voice. Yeah, whatever. Fucking white trash – his mom pushed him out of her vagina when she was what? Fifteen, sixteen? She seemed to be pretty fucking responsible for that one.
"Of course I'm still going to tutor her, so long as you're okay with it… Well, fine. I'll see you tomorrow, Mrs Tucker." Kyle snapped shut his phone and hissed, "For fuck's sake!"
"Didn't go well?" Kenny asked innocently.
"She doesn't believe me," Kyle replied. "In fact, I got the distinct impression she found the idea of anyone having a crush on me rather amusing."
Cartman felt his cheeks start to glow.
"Dude, I swear she was one of the first members of Bebe's dumb cult last year," Stan pointed out.
Kyle rolled his eyes. "Please don't remind me; I've consigned that moment of my life to the blacked-out memory portion of my brain."
"How full is that getting now?" Kenny asked. Kyle simply grunted in response.
"Boys! Your pizzas have arrived!" God damn, Kyle's fat bitch of a mom had a voice that could peel paint. Cartman tried to shake the thought from his head; if he was going to seduce Kyle, he'd have to be nice to his mom. Fucking Jew bastard Mommy's boy. Still, he could fake it; he was pretty confident Kyle's mom thought he was a fucking angel anyway.
"Thanks, Mom!" Kyle grabbed their small stash of notes – Cartman noticed that Kyle was silently subbing Kenny, yet again – and headed downstairs. Stan followed him eagerly.
"I'll give you a hand, dude," he said nonchalantly, but Cartman knew what he had in mind; a few stolen moments away where he could sneak him a quick kiss, or grab his beautiful ass, or rub up against him like a dog in fucking heat. Then he'd leave Kyle all confused and trot off back to that hippie slut Wendy. Fucking Stan, he thought just because he was the handsome captain of the football team that he could do whatever he wanted to everyone around him. Asshole.
Kenny got up and stretched his scrawny figure like a cat ready to lick its own arse. "I'm just popping to the pisser," he announced, leaving Cartman alone in Kyle's room.
Cartman did some quick mental calculations. Five minutes to pay for the pizza, re-slice it because they could never fucking slice pizza properly in those places, Stan to get Kyle semi-hard by doing whatever the fuck Kyle let him do to him while Kenny finished his whizz and washed his hands – he'd better fucking well wash his hands if they were going to handle his pizza – meant Cartman had five minutes alone in Kyle's room.
He was going to make the most of it.
Hurriedly, he opened the closet door and ran his hand over one of Kyle's neatly pressed shirts, fingering the buttons and imagining what it would be like to undo them while Kyle was wearing it. He opened Kyle's underwear drawer and took a good, long look at what he was wearing under his jeans. He wandered over to Kyle's computer desk and felt the soft leather of his chair, wondering what it would be like to caress Kyle's shoulders and feel him arch his back in pleasure. Then, just because he could, he pressed his face against the leather seat and breathed in deeply. It smelled of sweat and ass and frankly, it wasn't as great as he'd imagined, but it was still Kyle's scent and if he jerked off to porn in this chair then he might be smelling a soupcon of jizz –
"Umm, what are you doing?"
Cartman tilted his head and saw Ike leaning in the doorway looking fairly creeped out.
"What are you doing?" Cartman retorted, struggling to come up with a decent excuse.
"Getting some of Kyle's textbooks for our study group," he replied, reaching up to a nearby bookshelf and taking three of Kyle's AP textbooks. God damn Ike and his God damn group of little genius freaks – Cartman had completely forgotten they were hunched around the dining room table like wilting plants hidden from the sun.
"Have you got permission to rifle through your brother's stuff?"
"Have you got permission to shove your face in his ass grooves?" Ike countered coolly.
"If you must know, you little pecker, I'm trying to adjust the seat," he lied.
"Then you want the button to the left," Ike replied, pointing at a button just under the seat. Cartman genuinely couldn't tell if he'd bought his story or not.
"Oh. Thanks," he said, pressing the button and shifting the chair into a position he didn't much want it in to keep up the act. "Now piss off back to your little freak group—"
Cartman soon realised Ike wasn't paying much attention to him. He was staring at his reflection in the nearby mirror. Vain fucking dick.
"Eric? Do you think I look more like my mom or my dad?" he asked, poking at his nose inquisitively.
"How the fuck should I know?" Cartman replied. "You were adopted."
Ike turned white as a sheet. "No, I wasn't!"
"Yes, you were."
"You're… You're lying, you asshole."
"Call me what you want, it's true." Cartman sat down in Kyle's seat and briefly entertained the idea that he could get Kyle to sit on his lap when he returned. "Look on the bright side, at least you're not really a Jew—"
Ike had dashed off. How fucking rude; he was right in the middle of a speech! Worse still, now his five minutes were up and he'd have to content himself with staying awake until Kyle fell into the part of his sleep cycle where he twitched and thrashed around a little. The first time Cartman had noticed this during a sleepover had been by accident; Kyle had woken him up by smacking him in the leg. When Cartman realised Kyle was actually asleep, he lay back and watched him as he kicked off the tangle of bed sheets and exposed his skinny, near-naked body, illuminated only by the bluish tint of moonlight. When Cartman had gingerly pulled the sheets back over him, he'd been able to trail his fingertips over the smooth, hot skin of Kyle's chest, punctuated only by a faint smattering of hair. Cartman's ultimate goal during one of these night-time fidgets was to find an opportunity to cup Kyle's ball sac. Maybe tonight would be the night.
"Hey, Ike… Hey! Watch it!" Kyle entered the room with a bunch of pizza boxes. Stan followed behind with some glasses and a bottle of cola.
"What's up with him?" Stan asked. Kyle shrugged.
"Beats me… Oi! Get out of my chair, you fat fuck."
"Make me!" Cartman retorted, hoping for a bit of a tussle.
Kyle just glared at him. "Just shut up and get on my bed," he ordered.
"Fine, whatever," Cartman grumbled, rushing over to the bed in the corner of the room. God damn, that boy was going to ruin his underwear one of these days.
Wendy ran as fast as she could to the door of the Broflovskis' house. It was pouring down with rain, and she cursed herself for not taking the car. Then she felt guilty, because taking the car for a journey that took ten minutes on foot was grossly irresponsible, given the current carbon footprint of the USA as a whole.
A flash of lightening distracted her from her reverie; on the bright side, it lit up the view a little better – about five minutes into her walk, all the street lights had gone out. Wendy glanced at the rows of blacked out houses; clearly there had been a power cut, which sucked because that meant Kyle's house would have no power and she wouldn't be able to chuck her clothes in the tumble dryer… which, again, would be terrible for the environment. Sometimes she was simply awful at being ecologically sound.
Kyle opened the door before she could even knock. To her shock, he was bare-chested and slick with sweat; his hair damp and starting to frizz at the ends.
"Jesus, Wendy; you must be freezing!" he exclaimed, ushering her in before she could say a word.
"We could have left this until tomorrow," he said.
"No, I want to get this over and done with," she relied, feeling a little awkward as Kyle bent over and threw a few chopped logs onto the now roaring fire. Clearly that's how he'd been working up a sweat while Wendy felt her whole body tremble from the cold.
He walked up to her. "Relax, Wendy. There is no fucking way I'm going to let Cartman turn Dracula's biting of Mina into porn. We will find a subtle, yet erotic, way of conveying this to the audience that does not involve nudity or thrusting; you have my word." He squeezed her arms, then let go suddenly. "You're drenched. Come upstairs; I'll get you some towels and you can raid my closet for something warm while your clothes dry."
Wendy followed him upstairs and into his bedroom. She'd never actually been here before, although she wasn't surprised by the mountains of brimming bookshelves and the computer parts stacked up in one corner of the room. As Kyle lit a few candles, she could see a poster from that ‘Underworld' film of Kate Beckinsale wearing PVC and holding guns – which Wendy knew was a new addition as she'd been with Stan when he bought it for him ‘for a laugh' – along with some traditional Japanese artwork and a poster for ‘The Serial Killer Barbies' latest world tour.
"The bottom shelf of my closet's got some old hoodies on it, I've got some tank-tops and boxers in the dresser… Just help yourself – you won't find anything creepy. All my porn's on my computer," Kyle assured her before he walked out of his room and along the landing.
Wendy still felt a little uncomfortable at the notion of Kyle and porn being in an interlocking Venn diagram, but she began to peel off her soaking wet clothes anyway. Even her underwear was soaked through.
"Kyle? Have you got a clothes horse or something for these?" she called out, holding her clothes aloft while unable to stop them dripping all over the carpet.
"Huh?" Kyle wandered in with his arms full of towels, and she squealed, dropping her clothes and covering her wet – and see through – underwear as best she could. She could feel her cheeks burning hotter than they probably ever had before in her entire life.
"Jesus! Sorry, Wendy!" He covered his eyes with one hand and thrust the towels at her with the other. "I had towels, and I didn't catch what you said and… Fuck, I should have knocked. I'm so sorry!"
"It's okay," Wendy stammered, snatching the towels from him as though they were a lifeline and wrapping the largest around herself for both modesty and warmth.
"Are… Are you decent?" he asked, still covering his eyes with his hand.
"It's fine. You can look," Wendy replied. When Kyle moved his hand away, she saw he was as red-faced as she felt.
"I'm really sorry," he said again. "I'm a fucking idiot."
"I should have said," Wendy offered, although she did think that, yes, he should have checked before barging in. He couldn't have made it any clearer that he was unused to girls in a cohabiting environment.
Kyle paced across to his dresser and pulled out a number of items, including a sports hoodie in the familiar South Park Bulls colours with his surname and position emblazoned across the back.
"Shit," he hissed. "I've got everything except pants that will fit you. I got rid of my middle school stuff ages ago…" He surveyed her with interest. "Actually, my track pants might be okay on you."
"Kyle, it's fine. I can pretty much guarantee I'd trip up in them. I'm not that tall, you know," she teased.
He smiled at her bashfully. "I was just thinking I could roll the cuffs up or something?"
"I'll see how I get on with these," Wendy replied, staring at him expectantly. Instead of leaving so she could get dried off and changed, he just stood there with his hands in his pockets looking oddly awkward.
"Umm, Kyle? I kind of need to get changed?"
Suddenly, his expression registered understanding, and he covered his face with his hand again.
"Shit. Of course. Sorry. Wasn't thinking," he stammered out. "I'll… I'll be downstairs. Let me know if you… If you need anything."
Wendy didn't have time to reply before he had bolted out of the room.
By the time she had dried off and slipped on his too-big tank top and hoodie – and worryingly well-fitting boxers – she found Kyle in the kitchen heating up water in a saucepan on the gas hob.
"Hey," he said without turning around. "I figured I'd try and make coffee. Want one?"
"That'd be great, thanks," she replied, leaning against the door jamb. "I hung my clothes over the bath, is that okay?"
"Yeah, fine." He finally turned around and looked her up and down; the very action made Wendy's skin prickle all over.
"Cute," he said with a little smirk.
"Well, I was thinking of taking it to New York fashion week," she joked, suddenly painfully aware of how bare her legs were. Not that she was cold, just that… Well, her bare, slightly spindly legs were on display in front of Kyle and Kyle alone. Even when she wore short skirts she tended to wear thick pantyhose. This wouldn't have crossed her mind quite so much if she hadn't been conscious of Kyle staring at them.
"You can borrow a pair of socks if you want," he mentioned. "Don't want you to get cold. I've got feet the size of a cruise ship, but Ma—"
"Trust me, Kyle. Yours are more likely to fit," Wendy replied as she let her toes touch in an attempt to make her feet look slightly less obtrusive. What could she say? She was tall. "Anyway, you know what they say about big feet…" The moment she'd made the joke, she wished to every deity that she hadn't. Kyle fortunately didn't seem to notice her comment or her clearly crimson face.
"Yeah, we need big shoes," he deadpanned, and Wendy laughed too hard out of relief.
He shooed her away with a flick of his hand. "Go and sit by the fire. I'll bring the drinks in."
"Okay." Panic flooded her as she made her way to the living room and sat on the inviting rug in between the fire and the heavy wooden coffee table. Had he just wanted her to get warm, or was he trying to make her go away? Was he imagining her practically naked, as he'd seen her just a short while ago? He must have seen her nipples; her bra was white, it was wet and she was cold. At some point between him walking in and her covering up, he must have noticed. Oh, God. If there wasn't a rule about not letting your boyfriend's best friend see your nipples, it was because everyone thought it was so obvious there was no point creating a rule for it.
By the time she had reminded herself that this was Kyle, there was no reason he'd be thinking about her naked, and why was it preoccupying her so much anyway, Kyle entered the living room and handed her a mug of black coffee.
"Here, this'll warm you up," he said in a low voice, touching her shoulder very gently. Wendy jumped at the contact.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."
"You didn't. I just… I wasn't expecting it."
Kyle didn't sit down as she had anticipated; instead he started lighting more candles. The glow of the fire was diffused by the additional flickering flames and turned the room from oppressive and creepy to cosy and intimate. He put his mug down on the coffee table and picked up his copy of their school play; Wendy could see the angry red scrawl that littered the white spaces.
"So," he said, sitting close to her and fixing her with his penetrating gaze. "Where should we start?"
"Umm…" Wendy felt oddly speechless. "I guess we should start with what happens in the book? I'm not all that familiar with it."
"Well, the moment where Dracula bites Mina and gets her to drink his blood is kind of… well, it's kind of rapey," Kyle pointed out.
"I take it that's why Cartman has you, erm, pinning me to the bed by my wrists and forcing your… yourself on me until I… until I give in and start to beg for it?" As much as Wendy could feel herself colour up, she was grateful that she felt her eyes roll in disgust at the last part. Even if she was trying to fend off unwanted images of Kyle wrestling her to the floor and pinning her to the rug with one hand while tugging away her boxers with the other, cumulating in a mess of brain-melting thrusts, friction burns and her pleas for him to stop, which were utterly unconvincing when they shook with orgasmic pleasure.
Dear God, she was having a creepy pseudo-rape fantasy and the perpetrator was right in front of her.
"Wendy, relax. We're not going to do that, okay?" he assured her, resting his hands on her shoulders comfortingly. Wendy gently shook him off her – she couldn't bear to feel his touch after what had just flashed through her mind.
"Sorry," he said bashfully, letting his arms fall by his sides. He stared hard at his script. "I definitely think it should be consensual – I mean, in the heat of the moment. Mina should be seduced, not coerced. Then when she's helping Van Helsing to defeat Dracula, it looks like she's successfully fighting her urges or she's being successfully repressed by the men in her life, depending on how you want to view it."
"Yeah, that sounds good," Wendy enthused, wishing she wasn't finding the way he said words like ‘consensual', ‘seduced' and ‘urges' quite so erotic. She took a deep drink from her mug of coffee and tried to put all thoughts of Kyle and sex out of her mind, which wasn't exactly easy when sex, or the subtle metaphor of it, was the focal point of their entire meeting.
After a good fifteen minutes where each of them said, "How about…? No," several times, Kyle stood up.
"I'm getting the chess board. Do you play?" he asked.
"I've played chess with my dad," Wendy replied. "Procrastinating, are we?"
"It helps me think," Kyle replied, dashing upstairs and leaving Wendy to stare into the crackling fire. She wandered into the kitchen to look at the LCD display on the microwave, but there was nothing. The power was still out.
By the time she had returned, Kyle had set up the board on the coffee table. A pair of white and green sweat pants also lay across the couch.
"I found them," he commented, jerking his head slightly towards the couch. "You can try them if you like."
"Thanks," Wendy replied, although she sat down next to him on the rug and inspected the chess board instead.
"White or black?" he asked as Wendy hugged her legs to her chest.
"Umm, white," she replied. "Seeing as I'm playing the good girl."
Kyle smirked; Wendy noticed that his upper lip curled slightly. "I always thought that in chess, the white pieces were evil. Does that subconsciously make you a bad girl, Wendy?"
"Maybe it means you subconsciously want me to be a bad girl, Kyle," she retorted coolly, unable to ignore the tingling sensation deep in the pit of her stomach.
Kyle simply smiled. "Your move," he instructed, and Wendy slid one of her pawns two spaces.
Everything about him was taut, Wendy decided, once they'd reached a mid-point in the game and Kyle was contemplating his next move. He was like a tightwire stretched to breaking point, yet you knew he could take whatever weight he was given to bear. His shoulder blades jutted out whenever he took a deep breath, and the flickering flames somehow made him appear even more angular. She felt a sudden, cheeky desire to tickle him, or barrel into him; anything to just slacken him a bit.
He looked up at her sharply. "What about hypnosis?"
"Huh?"
"Dracula. It's one of his major powers, mind-control."
Wendy suddenly realised he was talking about the play and had forgotten to clue her in. "You mean have Dracula hypnotise Mina?"
Kyle nodded. "Yeah, it's much scarier than brute force. I mean, your mind is the only thing you really have that's just yours, right? Nobody else really knows what you're thinking about."
"Thank God," Wendy thought, but didn't vocalise. Instead she replied, "I guess so."
"Exactly. Anyone could throw you against a wall if they trained hard enough, and you could probably throw them back. Getting into your mind? Nobody should be able to do that." He grinned. "We can even keep Cartman's weird obsession with seeing girls getting coerced, but this way the parents aren't going to freak and we don't have to do porn."
"Okay. How did you imagine it?" Wendy asked, dreading the response. What if he demonstrated on her? What if he didn't?
Kyle glanced at the Knight in his hand and put it down on the board – irritatingly taking her Queen with it – before clambering to his knees and facing her dead on.
"Constant eye-contact, too-close body language," he said, summarily invading her personal space and keeping his eyes locked on hers. "Everything he does should seem to be at the invitation of Mina." He reached experimentally for the zipper on her – well, his – track top. Wendy grabbed his hand and moved it away.
"I think…" She didn't finish vocalising her thought, and instead kept looking in his eyes as she slowly unzipped it herself.
"Nice touch," he whispered. "She should appear utterly lost in him. That, in itself, means he gets a little lost in her."
"But not so much that he forgets what he's after," Wendy whispered back, tilting her head a little to the side and exposing her neck.
"He takes his time though," Kyle murmured. "Just because he can. His actions are part predator, part lover. I think somewhere inside, he feels something for her."
"You think he loves her?"
"No. Maybe. I don't think he knows. It's supposed to be all about the game of revenge; maybe Mina's a game-breaker? The wild-card that throws everyone off?"
Wendy took in a sharp breath as Kyle's hand supported her head, keeping her in place for that innocence-stealing bite. His fingers wound their way into her hair, and she couldn't avoid him or his piercing gaze. Her mind was a litany of "I want you to kiss me, but don't kiss me. I don't want you to kiss me, but I do want you to kiss me." She could hear herself swallow thickly, the anticipation unbearable as she was caught between Kyle's potential action and inaction, yet she wanted him to do neither.
The door slammed, and Wendy jumped out of her skin. As soon as they broke eye-contact, it seemed to restore the levity; Kyle laughed gently.
"Kyle? Bubbeleh?"
"We're in here, Ma. The power's out."
Wendy felt her cheeks burn hot as Kyle's mother, father and little brother entered the living room. His mother in particular glared shrewdly at them.
"I thought you were doing homework?" she queried coldly.
"We are," Kyle replied nonchalantly. "We're working on the school play."
"What on Earth kind of school play is it?" His mother appeared horrified. Wendy instantly felt like a wicked, wicked slut.
"Dracula. You interrupted me from turning Mina into one of my undead love slaves. Damn it, now I'll have to be content with my three wives," he said in a fake melancholic tone. "Thanks a lot, Ma."
Mrs Broflovski stared at Kyle for rather a long time before she turned her attention to Wendy. "I'm sorry about my son," she said. "He's a little strange."
"Are you staying for dinner, Wendy?" his father asked. "He should really offer, given you've been helping him with his tutoring," he added inexplicably.
"Dad, I don't tutor on Mondays," Kyle said, which appeared to thoroughly bewilder his father.
"Oh, because… Oh. Okay. Anyway, Wendy, you're very welcome if you wish to join us."
For some reason, this felt all too much. Wendy stood up, ignoring the sudden head rush she felt. "Thank you, Mr and Mrs Broflovski, but I'd better head home," she said.
Kyle jumped up to his feet. "Do you want me to walk you back?"
"I'll be fine," Wendy replied hastily, finding her still-wet shoes and sliding Kyle's sweat pants on. They did indeed need rolling up rather a lot, but they would be good enough. "I'm meeting Stan anyway, you know?"
"What about your wet clothes?"
"I'll pick them up later," she replied. "I'm sure we've still got more to discuss."
"Umm, yeah. Sure. You sure you're okay?" He looked both perplexed and worried.
"I'm fine, really. See you later!"
She jammed her shoes on and dashed out of the house, hearing Kyle's mother call, "Kyle! Have you seen Ike…? Well, he's been really quiet. It's not at all like him," as she shut the door behind her. What was wrong with her? What the hell was she doing reacting to Kyle the way she was? She wrapped her hoodie tighter around herself, then realised she was wrapping his hoodie tighter around herself. She let go immediately.
"Stop it, stop it, stop it," she hissed to herself as she walked down the street, hastily texting Stan.
Grabbing his jacket and whistling a jaunty tune, Stan rushed down the stairs and headed for the front door.
"Stanley, dear? Dinner's nearly ready!" His mom wore an apron and had clearly been doing some serious cooking; there were flour marks and everything. That tended to happen when only the gas hobs and oven were working.
"I won't be long, Mom," Stan assured her. "Is it okay if Wendy comes over for dinner?"
"You could have warned me, Stanley," his mom said with a weary sigh. "I'm sure I can stretch it out with some more vegetables."
"Thanks, Mom," he called, before leaving the house and walking briskly up towards Kyle's house, hoping to meet Wendy on the way. He'd drop everything for Wendy, no matter how insane or sudden her whims were; not only because she was his girlfriend and he loved her, but because for the past few weeks, she'd been getting pretty horny around him, and he wasn't going to pass up any potential opportunity to help her alleviate such needs.
It didn't take long for him to find her, only Ruby Tucker had spotted her first. She peered over a copy of a book titled ‘Boy Vey!: The Shiksa's Guide to Dating Jewish Men' as she sat on the brick wall outside Kyle's house. As soon as Wendy passed her, she stuffed the book into her back pack and jumped off the wall shouting, "Oi! Testaburger!"
"Ruby?"
"What are you doing with my man?"
"Your man? What are you talking about, Ruby?"
"You know damn well what I'm talking about, you skanky bitch; digging your claws into my future husband! Why else were you hanging round his house, huh? Oh, and wearing his clothes? What the fuck's that about?"
Wendy looked utterly perplexed. "Ruby, I already have a boyfriend. Kyle and I were…" She suddenly glared at Ruby. "I don't have to explain myself to you. Run along home, little girl," she sneered.
Ruby's eyes flashed with rage, and Stan had to break into a run once he saw her grab a fistful of Wendy's hair and tug down hard.
"Ow! Get off me!"
"You listen here, you evil slut! Stay the fuck away from my man, or I'll mess you up!"
"Hey! Get off her!" Stan yelled, but before he even got a chance to loosen Ruby's grip on Wendy's silky locks, she'd already let go as though she'd catch something.
"Whatever," Ruby taunted, rolling her eyes before walking off as though it had all been her decision.
Stan gently rubbed Wendy's back comfortingly. "You okay?"
"I'm fine, Stan," she said in a slightly shaky voice. "It's not my fault Kyle attracts batshit crazy girls!" she yelled after Ruby, who simply flipped her the bird.
"Babe, didn't Bebe like him last year?"
"My point still stands," she replied firmly, though her body was still trembling a little.
Stan held her in his arms. "It's okay, babe," he soothed. "Why are you wearing Kyle's basketball sweats, anyway?"
"Got caught in the storm," she replied. "My clothes were soaked."
"I see," he replied, kissing her gently on the lips. "You look kind of hot. Is that freaky?"
She smirked, then slung her arms around his neck and kissed him back with the heat of an inferno. Fuck, she was on a course to totally destroy him when she was like this.
"Let me see; you've just informed me that you find the sight of me in your best friend's clothes erotic. You tell me if that's freaky," she teased, threading her fingers through his hair.
"I'd find the sight of you out of my best friend's clothes even more erotic," he assured her, and was a little surprised when she shoved him against the wall outside Kyle's house and pressed up against me.
"You're a bad, bad boy, Stan," she whispered. Holy fuck, what had got into her? And how long was it going to stay?
"Babe, not here," Stan pleaded.
"Scared Kyle will see?"
"Yeah, that's fucked up," Stan insisted, walking her down the next alley along. He could see the Spencers' house opposite was clearly unoccupied at the moment, which suited him fine. Having their Math teacher catch sight of them would be something of a passion killer.
He shoved her up against the wall. "I don't want anyone but me to get to see you when you're this hot," he insisted, kissing her again and sliding his tongue into her mouth the second she parted her lips. He felt her moan in gratitude, and it made him surprisingly hard surprisingly fast. That alluring combination of horny and needy got him going like nothing else, and the fact that it did made him feel deeply ashamed. He was supposed to be all New Man and supportive of equality and…
"Oh, Stan! Please!" Wendy begged, as she unzipped Kyle's top and exposed her erect nipples. She walked her fingers down over the tank top and started to caress her left breast.
This was all kinds of wrong. Stan couldn't have been more thrilled.
Unable to even think about being careful or slow, he yanked the tank top as high as he could get it and lavished Wendy's breasts with the undivided attention of his hungering mouth. As he continued, she panted like she'd just run a marathon. A very sexy marathon. Her hands gripped at his hair, pulling him closer, and when he felt a cool hand slip down his pants and underpants to squeeze his bare ass cheek, the overwhelming primal urge he felt to tear off her clothes and fuck her right there in the alleyway with the force of a haulage truck kind of scared him.
He pulled away, and the look on her face was both haunting and deeply, deeply arousing.
"Stan?" she begged, all desire and worry.
"Sorry, Wendy. I just… I need a minute," he said.
"Did I do something wrong?" Wendy didn't look scared by this, merely curious. She casually pulled her tank top back over her wonderfully sensitive breasts, and Stan had to stop himself from mournfully waving them goodbye.
"No way! I just… I need to get a bit of control, you know?" He sighed. "You're so fucking hot, I could die."
She leant back against the wall and smiled. "Am I, now?" Her fingers drummed against the brickwork, and she seemed to just know exactly what she was doing. Stan had never, ever seen her own her hotness the way she did right now, and it was… odd. Nice, very nice, but odd.
"Yes, you are," he replied. A multitude of sins were on his tongue: "take off your clothes," "turn around," "get on your knees." He kept them all to himself.
The insanely sexy moment between them seemed to pass. Wendy smiled sweetly and slid her arms around him, pressing a tender kiss to his lips. He wrapped his arms around her waist and gazed into her eyes.
"Do you want to come over for dinner? My Mom's making… Well, I have no idea what she's making, but it involves flour," he offered.
"Sure," Wendy replied, and they walked arm in arm towards his house. She showed no hint of the hot and heavy feelings which appeared to have engulfed her earlier.
Stan glanced over his shoulder at the alleyway, wondering briefly if it possessed some sort of magical power.