Horsin' Around

Your mom held the little plastic bottle in her fingers. It felt strange taking pills to do something as natural as falling asleep, but her doctor said that until he could figure out what was ailing her, sleeping pills would be the only thing that would help her get some rest. Besides, he said, they’re totally harmless.

The little woman on the bottle, her head against her pillow, her eyes shut, dreaming the night away with z’s floating above, sure made it look safe and normal to your mom. She shrugged her shoulders, placed the pills back into the pharmacy bag, and got out of the car.

When she got inside, she put the bag on the kitchen table and went to go sit on the living room couch and relax, just like Dr. Dresnyk told her to.

She put her head to her pillow, not expecting anything, especially not without taking the pills, but after a few minutes of lying there, with the birds chirping outside, she slowly drifted off into sleep.

Sebastian stood in the corner of the changing room, blushing. He looked at the center of the room, where the three boys stood, all of them laughing, as they waved around the thing Henry snatched from Sebastian’s mother’s room.

“Sebastian,” he called, as he swung it around in the air, watching it flop about. “Just imagine what your mom does with this.”

Sebastian held his arm, standing there in his underwear, silently. Not sure of what to say. He hadn’t realized that Henry and Jake had taken that from his mom’s room until they had already left the house together. And then Sebastian didn’t want to tell his mom because he didn’t want her knowing that he had let his classmates into her room. Henry had asked to, begging him. Telling him that it was just to get a full tour of the house. Sebastian felt stupid for believing him, but he was just so excited to have friends for once. He should have known.

“You promised you wouldn’t!” he wailed in his high-pitched voice. “You said you just wanted it for a souvenir. You said you wouldn’t show anyone.”

“Well, Sea-bass,” said Henry. “Today you learned a nasty lesson. Never trust anyone when they tell you they want to be your friend. After all, who would want to be friends with you?”

You watched from across the room as red-face Sebastian’s bottom lip began to quiver, and a slow tear rolled down his cheek.

Henry jiggled the cylindrical, fleshy device in his hands. “She puts this up the same hole you were born out of, Sebastian, up and down. I’ve seen girls do it in my brother’s porn videos. Your mom does that and then she screams and moves her butt weird. I think I’m going to give this to my brother. He’ll want it. He says he loves your mom’s big boobies, Sebastian, and he wants to suck on them.”

Sebastian’s single tear suddenly turned into crying.

You watched in horror as the rest of the guys in the room either stood silent out of fear or laughed along with Henry and Jake. At the very least, some listened with profound curiosity to Henry’s descriptions of weird female rituals and secrets.

“Sebastian,” said Henry. “You don’t look so good. Maybe you need some medicine.” He began to approach with the long, floppy object in his hands, pointing at Sebastian’s face. “Say uhhhhhh.”

Sebastian backed up against the wall, his crying not slowing down in intensity one bit.

As Henry got closer, and the other kids stood there and watched, horrified or enthralled, Sebastian put his arms up to his face to keep that object - the one he hadn’t even known about until Henry showed him it to him later near the baseball diamond, the one that had been inside his loving mother’s body, doing things to her that Sebastian could only take a guess at - away from his mouth, with all the strength he could. As he writhed there in that corner, the entire world against him, the image of his mom’s big naked jiggling breasts as she shoved that thing inside of her with her eyes shut, assaulted his mind and ate away at him like acid.

As Henry got closer, close enough to grab the collar of Sebastian’s sweater, pulling Sebastian closer and closer to the dreaded artifact of his mom’s lust, suddenly there was a rhythmic slamming on the changeroom doors.

“Are you kids done in there!? It’s next period! My next class is waiting out here while you’re all horsin’ around!”

Henry let go of Sebastian, and Sebastian stood there, his eyes wide, watching Henry walk off with a smile, realizing just how close he was to being the guy who sucked on the object that had been in his own mom’s body in front of everybody, a reputation he would never live down. One that would define him well into adulthood, even if he never saw any of your faces ever again.

“Got it, teach!” Henry yelled at the door, sarcastically, and he threw the thing into his gym bag.

As everyone continued to get changed, periodically hearing the steady rhythm of your gym teacher slapping the door with his open hand, Sebastian began to scratch at his thigh.

Jake looked over at him as he did, then he looked down and smiled. After Sebastian grabbed his bag, wiped at his nose with his sleeve, and took a deep breath, he began to walk, staying as close to the wall as possible, not daring getting close to anyone, especially not Henry and Jake, he scratched again, this time at the area between his crotch and thigh.

Jake looked over at him. “What’s the matter Sebastian? Have an itch you can’t scratch?”

Sebastian looked at him with horror in his eyes.

Then suddenly, as if a switch was turned, he threw his hands down and began to scratch at his body furiously. Henry looked over at Jake, expecting an explanation. Luckily, Jake had one. He pulled a little ziplock baggie of something out of his gym bag. “It’s itching powder.”

As Sebastian wailed in the background, Henry said “I can’t believe it. You have to give me some of that stuff later, deal?”

After all of you left the changeroom, passing by the second period students all waiting in a line, annoyed, for their time to change, your gym teacher rushed into the change room after you cleared the door. “Where’s Sebastian!?” he yelled.

None of you said anything as you went. You just all kept walking, some of you with the look of humor in your eyes, and the others with a look of fear. Either way, it didn’t help Sebastian one bit. You could hear the sound of him crying intermingled with the gym teacher’s screaming from the changeroom, even as you all left the gym.

Your mom woke up sweating. She had had another bad dream. She grabbed her phone off the coffee table. It had only been 14-minutes. Well, she thought. Those were 14-minutes of sleep to make up for the hours and hours that she had lost in the past few weeks. It was better than nothing. She got up, feeling the head rush sensation she had been getting a lot lately, possibly the result of sleep deprivation. At least that’s what her doctor told her.

She went into the kitchen to grab herself a glass of water. It was probably good she hadn’t slept for too long. She didn’t want you coming home and catching her sleeping on the couch. That was so unlike her, and she knew you’d pick up on it and start to wonder what was wrong.

She drank from the glass over the sink, spilling water onto her clavicle. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. She began to yawn. She gripped the counter, as if she needed it to hold herself up. Maybe she did, but she didn’t want to let go to find out. She couldn’t believe anybody could be as tired as she was now.

She took her fingers and rubbed her forehead, feeling the wetness from her water, its cool embrace against her skin. She shut her eyes. And when she did, her world ended. What that meant, she didn’t know, she just knew how real it felt for that half-second that her eyes were shut. But when she opened them again, she was still standing in her kitchen, holding onto her counter, looking out into her quiet backyard through the window.

She stood there, propping herself up, and she yawned again. And as she put her fist to her mouth to shield it, a force of habit really, she began to close her eyes. Images of nondescript horror flashed in her mind, sensations like ones she couldn’t describe. A humiliation of immense proportions, almost too unbelievable to be true. One that she knew within that single moment as well as she knew anything, except she didn’t know what it was in practice. All she knew was an emotion like that of being exposed. Almost like the dreams people have of going to work and forgetting their pants, but much more invasive and violating than even that, a feeling of being totally open when all one wants is to be shut tight. The terror of being seen as what one was in only the most private possibilities of being, all veneer of respectability stripped, and all cover of society or time erased.

As soon as her eyes opened, it had all left her.

Am I losing my mind, she thought. But she knew that wasn’t true. She was dreaming as she stood there. Her body longing for rest, begging her for it. And she wanted to give it to him, but she knew that no matter how tired she was, and no matter where her resting place was, she’d feel that same dread and humiliation, whichever part of her mind it was derived from, and she’d be dragged kicking and screaming back into the world of the awoken by the strength of her own fear.

At least she would have those pills for later tonight. It was just… eight hours away. Your mom thought about it, thought about closing her eyes. And even the thought of it sent chills up her spine. She knew she couldn’t do it. She looked over at her pharmacy bag on the table. She turned around and filled herself another glass of water, then she went back over to that bag.

You hiked your bag up to your back and you left class with the crowd. You walked through the hallways silently, finding your usual exit, and you walked through it, past all your classmates running to and fro, and you continued out through the track and field area, with peers and classmates off in the distance. You kept walking, feeling good that it was finally over. Even still, it was only Wednesday, and you had plenty more of the week to go. But no homework today, that was a plus. You thought about that as you went, feeling good, when suddenly you felt a hand grab your shoulder.

You turned, startled, to see Henry standing there, looking at you.

“Hey man,” he said. “Crazy day at school, hey?”

You kept walking, but you were looking at him as you went. You were slightly ahead.

He followed along, looking forward at you. “What Jake did was crazy, hey? How did he think he’d get away with that? Do you think Sebastian will tell anyone?” He was laughing as he asked you.

“No,” you said.

“I hope you’re right. But why do you say no?”

You stopped in your tracks, almost startling him, and you thought about it. “Because he’s scared,” you said.

He looked at you for a moment, the wind blowing through your and his hair. “Yeah,” he said. “Jake is a pretty scary guy when he wants to be. I might be scared to if I was Sebastian.”

You just looked at him.

He grabbed you by the crook of your elbow and walked you along. “So anyways, what were you planning on doing now?”

You looked at the ground as you walked. “Umm,” you said. “I don’t know.”

“Are you busy with anything. You have homework to do?”

You wanted to say yes, but something in you, maybe the excitement of not having homework to do, made it so you said “no,” without thinking about it.

“No homework! When I tell my mom I have no homework, that’s because I threw mine in the trash. But I know that’s not your style. You really have no homework today? Lucky bastard!”

You heard the swear word, but you didn’t want to say anything. The type of person who could swear without feeling ashamed was the type of person you’d never want to tell not to.

You felt weird at how nice he was being. You always thought of Henry as a mean guy, even though he had never done anything bad to you in particular. But you had seen run-ins he had with other boys your age. What he did, as far as you could tell, was bullying. Some of it extremely mean and unnecessary, and you always feared him for it, though you had never had a run-in with him previously. So you were surprised to see that he apparently didn’t have a problem with you. Surprised and relieved.

“So,” he said. “You want to hang out.”

You just stared at him.

“You’re going home anyways,” he said. “Mind if I tag along?”

You kept walking, not knowing what to say. And even though you didn’t like the idea of hanging out with Henry, or letting him come to your house, you also felt surprisingly at ease. And you didn’t want to judge him based on your perception of him. Both your teachers and your mom called that judging a book by its cover, and you knew that was wrong.

“Okay,” you said. “I live close by.”

He smiled down at the ground, then looked back up at you. “Cool,” he said. I’ve always wanted to see your house.”

Your mom lay with her head on the throw pillow, her eyes heavy. Those little guys did the trick, she said to herself. I can’t believe it. She felt the warm embrace of sleep coming on. As she did, the broad daylight spilled in through the living room window.

The thought occurred to her of you coming in, and trying to wake her up, only to realize you couldn’t. But she told herself that you wouldn’t try to wake her up if you saw her sleeping. You knew that would be rude. It was a convenient thing to believe, even if it was true, it meant that she wouldn’t have to get up and crawl up the staircase to her bed. Something she was sure she no longer could do at this point.

She heard the front door clicking, and just as it opened, she shut her eyes. And she didn’t open them even as you and John stepped in through the front door.

You both stood there.

“Nice place,” he said, and looked around. “Care to give me a tour?”

“Sure,” you said awkwardly, not knowing what formalities one went through when giving a tour. “Umm, let’s go-“

“Holy cow!” you jumped when he said it. “Is that your mom!?”

You looked over to see your mom resting chest-down on the couch, her arm underneath the cheek of her face. Her eyes tightly shut.

“Her butt is bigger than Mrs. Sandantino’s,” he exclaimed shamelessly. “Are you Brazilian?”

You were embarrassed by his comment about the size of your mom’s butt, a subject which you had never thought about before. You answered the question to avoid that subject, not realizing the two were related. “My grandma is Brazilian? How did you know tha-“

“That he explains it,” he says. “Brazilians have big butts. My brother is crazy about big Brazilian butts.”

You blushed, not sure what to say, afraid that your mom would wake up, hearing what Henry was saying about her.

“He would love your mom and want to roll around with her. He said he wants to do that to Mrs. Sandantino too. So he’d want to do it to your mom especially. No offense.”

Was offense something you were supposed to feel? You didn’t know. All you felt was embarrassment and confusion, which you feared would show on your face.

“Anyways,” he said, now quietly. “I don’t’ want to wake her up. Let’s see your house.”

“Okay,” you said, sheepishly as if you were the one being lead. “Let’s go this way.”

You took him to the kitchen. As he set his bag down on one of your kitchen chairs, he noticed the bottle sitting there with the little woman sleeping on it. “No wonder she didn’t wake up when we came in,” he said, pointing to the bottle. “She’s out like a light.”

For some reason, this embarrassed you more than his comments about her butt.

“Okay,” he said. “Show me around.”

“Umm,” you said, unsure of what to show him.

“Show me what’s in your cupboards, I want to know what you guys eat every day.”

You looked at the cupboards, sitting there nonchalantly. “Okay,” you said.

As you showed him each cupboard and drawer, he looked at their contents with his eyes narrowed, as if thinking. But he’d always just unnarrow them and say “cool,” while nodding his head after each display. As you finished with the fridge, the space under the sink, and even the dishwasher, he asked to see the rest of the house.

As you both stepped into the dining room, you heard him from behind as he called “Hey, Mrs. ----------!” You turned around to see him looking at her, smiling. “Hey!” he called again, and then he clapped.

Your mom sat there, not moving an inch or even twitching. Her eyes clasped tightly.

“Wow,” he said. “She’s really sleeping hard. I wonder what would wake her up?” He turned around to look at you. “Anyways,” he said. “Show me more.” You walked him around the dining room table, the whole time he nodded his head. “Hmm,” he said, as you were both in motion. “What about the bathroom?”

“Oh,” you said. “It’s upstairs.”

“Up this thing?” he said, and grabbed the railing of your spiral staircase.

“Yeah,” you said.

“Well, lead the way then.”

As you both walked up the staircase, it audibly creaked. As you came back around halfway up its vertical length, you saw your mom lying there, unperturbed by the noises you both made, so you continued on without stopping or slowing your motion. As you neared the second floor, you looked back at Henry to see him looking down at your mom as he followed. Then he turned around to see you looking at him. He had a grin on his face.

You continued on, and as you guided him to the bathroom, you passed your mom’s bedroom door.

“Wait a minute,” he said, and grabbed your shoulder. “What’s here?”

You looked at the door, then back at him. “That’s my mom’s room,” you said.

“Oh,” he replied. “You know, maybe you should show me this first. It’s the first door in order anyways.”

You felt uneasy at that suggestion. But when you looked back at him, he smiled at you. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay. I just really wanted to see your house.”

You looked back at the door. “Okay,” you said. As you opened the door, Henry pushed past you to get inside. You looked down the staircase at your mom sleeping peacefully below on the couch. You looked back into her room to see Henry standing at the edge of her bed, looking around. He had the same look in his face here that he had in the kitchen.

He put both his palms down on the bed and pushed. “Why isn’t she sleeping here?” he asked. “This bed looks so comfy.” He looked back at you.

You shrugged your shoulders.

“Does she usually sleep on the couch?”

“No,” you said. “Almost never.”

“Hmm,” he said. “It’s a mystery.” He started wandering around with his eyes and steps. “Maybe the answer is hidden somewhere around here.” He grabbed onto the top drawer of your mom’s chest-of-drawers.

“Wait,” you said.

He turned to look at you.

“That’s her underwear.”

He looked back at the knob in his fingers, then back at you. “So?”

“You can’t look at my mom’s underwear,” you said, surprised at your own authoritative tone.

“Why not?” he asked, sounding sincere. “I just want to see how big her underwear has to be.”

You began to blush again.

“Is that okay?” he said, and jerked his arm, as if to mimic opening the drawer to you.

You didn’t know. Nobody had ever asked to see your mom’s underwear before, and you had no understanding of whether or not it was okay. You felt like it wasn’t. But the innocence in Henry’s confusion made it feel so normal. Finally, knowing he was expecting an answer, you replied. “Okay.”

“Good,” he said, and turned back to the drawer. “I wanted to grab a pair for my brother.”

“No!” you said, loud and firm.

He looked at you startled. “Whoah!” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you mad. I thought it was okay. I didn’t mean to… it’s just…”

He began to look flustered and embarrassed.

“It’s just that I thought… I mean, it’s okay if… but… it’s just that…” suddenly, he stopped and went wide-eyed, then he put his nose up in the air, as if looking at the roof, but his eyes were closed. “Oh no! Can you get me a tissue?”

You stood there, startled.

“Please,” he said. “This happens every time I feel scared. Please go get me one.”

You backed up a few steps and stood there. Then you turned around and ran out of the room. You opened the bathroom door and grabbed toilet paper, pulling on it until the rolls fell off the holder and bounced on the ground next to the toilet. You ripped off an amount that you thought would be sufficient. Then you went to bend down and pick up the roll to replace it on its holder, but you stopped and realized that Henry still needed your help. You got up and turned around, leaving the roll on the floor, and you ran out of the washroom and turned into into your mom’s room. And as you took a took only two steps within, you looked up and stopped dead in your tracks.

On the bed was a rainbow conflagration of fine materials, all in a heap. Next to it an empty drawer lying openside-down on the sheets. And through that silky pile ran Henry’s fingers. He looked up at you. “Oh, I know you said I couldn’t. I just thought I’d look. They’re not as big as I thought they’d be though.” He lifted a pair and spread them out before him. “This one will be perfect for my bro.”

“No!” you said, and you rocketed towards him.

He dropped the pair and sidestepped you, saying nothing, but slapping the pile so much of it fell to the floor as he went.

You flipped over the drawer and you started gathering pairs of your mom’s panties in your hands, doing it with a lump in your throat born of frustration. You couldn’t believe it. What was Henry doing? As you lifted pair after pair, feeling them falling through your fingers, being held by waist-bands or thongs, you thought to yourself: “They really are small,” and you scooped them back into the drawer. Then you knelt down and grabbed more off the floor, getting up to place them back in the drawer, and then kneeling back down to grab more, making four or five cycles before you were finished.

When the drawer was finally filled, you grabbed it, being surprised at how heavy it was outside of the chest-of-drawers, so you lifted it and tried to place it back within its empty slot at the top. But as you pushed, the left side of the drawer slid in, but the right clanked against the wall. So you tried again, this time readjusting it, but now it was the right side which had slid in perfectly, and the left side which had stopped cold, jammed in place. You tried again and it got stuck on both the left and the right side somehow. So then you pulled it out and looked at the slot. Then you looked down at the sliders of both sides of the drawer. “Why won’t it go in?” you said, frustrated. It was as if you were asking the chaos of your mom’s panties that sat below your chin. They didn’t answer back.

You went to put the drawer back in, this time with force, but it stopped short with a thud, and the whole thing slipped out of your fingers and fell to the floor below. You jumped back just in time for it to miss your toes, and instead it banged loudly into your mom’s hardwood floor. “Ugghhh” you exclaimed to yourself. You knelt down, flipping over the drawer and you started to refill it from scratch. After you were finished, you got back up with the drawer in hand and you looked at the hole again. Then back at the drawer. Then you pushed the drawer against the slot, and suddenly, without trouble, it pushed straight in.

But as you pushed it in, underwear got caught between the drawer and the sliders, so you had to pull it back out to readjust it by patting down the underwear with your palm. You did that two or three more times, before finally closing the drawer, only catching the end of a pink pair, which now hung out of the drawer conspicuously. You opened the drawer again, carefully pressing the pair of panties within, then you closed it. You stood back and looked at it. Good as new. Your mom wouldn’t even know, or be able to guess, that Henry had been running his fingers through them with impunity.

Henry…, you thought, and you turned around.

Looking back at you was an empty room. You were alone.

You rushed out into the hallway and you went to the bathroom. It was empty. Then you went to your room and saw the same. That’s when you heard ruffling downstairs. You rushed to the railing and looked down.

Sitting there, not far below, was your mom lying there, her eyes closed, undisturbed. You slowly came down the stairs, still afraid you’d wake her. When you got to the bottom, you looked at her. She was still sleeping soundly. Knowing nothing of the chaos happening under her roof. She looked peaceful in her sleep. Probably in the middle of a nice dream. You had dodged a bullet.

Then suddenly you heard the tap being turned on in the kitchen, so you headed there in a rush.

When you got there, you saw Henry’s back facing away from you. His shoulders shook and gyrated as he cleaned his hands under the faucet. Your face went red, wondering if you needed to wash your hands too. After all, you touched your mom’s underwear just like he did. You decided then that if he asked, you’d say you already washed your hands in the upstairs bathroom.

He turned around and seemed startled to see you there. “There you are,” he said, and shuffled over to the oven door where a cloth hung to dry his hands on. “I was wondering when you’d come back down.”

“I had to clean your mess,” you said with a flat voice, not meaning to sound bothered.

“Oh yeah,” he said, and pulled out a chair. He sat down. “My brother’s not going to believe when I tell him how big your mom’s butt is.” He grabbed the bottle of pills on the table and began to examine them.

You didn’t say anything.

“He’s going to be sad though when he finds out that I could have gotten her panties for him and you stopped me.” He looked up at you. “Why won’t you let me take a pair?” The bottle was still clasped in his fingers. He looked back down at it.

“Umm,” you said, your face burning. “I just don’t think we should take her stuff without her knowing.”

As if he wasn’t listening, he stopped rolling the bottle in his fingers, and then, still looking down at it, he said “these look interesting. I wonder what it would feel like to take them.” He let go of the bottle to scratch the knuckle on his right hand.

“I don’t know,” you said.

“I bet it would feel crazy. Like you’d be so sleepy that your dreams would feel like real life or something.” He put the bottle down and began to scratch his left palm.

You didn’t say anything. You just looked at his hands.

“You know,” he said, still scratching his hand. “Maybe we should take some.” He looked up at you. “Like as an experiment. Just to see what it feels like. Do you want to try?”

You were still looking at his hands. He was scratching his palm.

“What do you say? Maybe you can go first.”

“Umm,” you say, still looking down. “No, that’s okay. I…”

“Oh, come on! What’s the worst that can happen?”

Suddenly the sound of ruffling came from behind you, startling you. Your mom was invisible from where Henry sat, but he looked over your shoulder, into the dining room, as if he could see her around the corner.

“I guess these aren’t that strong,” he said, pointing at the bottle with his index, while scratching the palm of that hand with the fingers of his other one.

You could both hear the weight of your mom’s body as she rotated herself along the cushions restlessly.

“Hmm,” he said. “Maybe she’s drea-“

Breaking that thought in two were the sudden, aggravated moans coming into the kitchen. Something in your mom’s voice, as strained and mumbly as it was, sounded unwell. Like she was talking in her sleep, but with an irritation that was surprisingly lucid.

“I guess it’s a bad dream. I wonde-“

And just then, his thought was interrupted a second time by the high-pitched notes of your mom’s screaming.

Henry looked at you, still scratching his hands, a smile forming at the end of his mouth.

You shot up, your chair falling behind you, and you ran into the living room. You were startled to see what awaited you there. Your mom was face down on the couch, her cheek and shoulders against the cushions, her face turned away from you, as her butt stuck up in the air, supported by her knees. And her right hand had been submerged within the belt of her pants with her forearm facing down, resting on her back, and you watched as a lump, about the size of a fist, popped up and down in your mom’s pants, her forearm tensing up and releasing with the rhythm of the lump’s appearance and disappearance, which you soon realized was her hand moving back and forth within.

She wailed painfully into the cushion as her hand moved more frantically. You had never heard your mom making noises like that before. And you never wanted to hear her do it again. As you scanned over the bizarre and freakish image, not believing it was your mom whose body was doing this before you, you still managed to catch a strange sight, though of much more subtle form, in your field of vision despite where your eyes were naturally being drawn to.

It was the edge of the couch. Sitting there, on the corner of the cushion, was a soft white powdery substance spread thin, which you then followed to see it spilling off of the couch, down towards the floor below.

You looked back up at the seat of your mom’s pants, and you saw the lump getting bigger and smaller as her arm twitched. And then the only image that came to you, a sight of mild interest before now, but the key puzzle piece in this moment, was Henry scratching his hands.

And before you could even think, you felt Henry’s hands grab your shoulder and push you behind the opposing couch to your mom and her display.

He grabbed your mouth as he pushed you downward, and then he laid his bag next to him, slowly as to not make any noise louder than the one your mom was making with her screaming lungs. When he was sure you wouldn’t make a noise, he pulled his hand from your mouth and began using it to scratch his other hand. As he whispered to you, he had to increase his volume until he was almost speaking with his normal daytime voice, just to be heard above the noise of your mom’s desperate crying. “I wonder what’s going on with her,” he said innocently.

“You put itching powder in her butt,” you said, dryly.

He smiled at you, as if to submit that his jig was up. “Not in her butt,” he said. “In her other hole. I poured the whole bag in there.” He grinned proudly at you.

You looked into his grinning face, only inches from it, and you tried to say something, anything, but before you could even think, you both heard a sound that caused your faces to drop.

It was the metallic clanging of a belt being undone.

“No,” was all he said, a sentiment filled with disbelief, his eyes wide looking into yours.

You watched as he slowly began to stand up, and then as his head cleared the top of the couch, his eyes went wide. His mouth pantomimed speech in slow motion, as if to say “holy shit!”

Your face went red, not knowing what sight had blown Henry’s mind so. All you could do, though it was the last thing you wanted to do, was slowly rise on your knees to clear the backrest of that couch and see what it was that had Henry in such a state of disbelief.

As you slowly rose, nearing that goal, your throat began to tighten. And then you made it over, and your face had all the same trappings of Henry’s when it saw what was waiting for it, except for the slight tinge of humor. You felt none of that in this moment. You didn’t see anything funny about what you saw.

Across from you, lying on the couch, fidgeting, twitching, gyrating, shaking, was a large, white piece of flesh, which jiggled and shook. Below that piece of flesh was a hand, and multiple fingers of that hand disappeared in and out of a pink hole, as the voicebox attached to that same body erupted in guttural screams of unceasing discomfort and helplessness. “Please stop!” she begged. “Aghh! Oh God!”

You heard in your left eardrum: “your mom’s butt is so jiggly.” As your mom’s fingers disappeared inside her, before reappearing again, and doing the whole thing over and over again, you heard him continue whispering. “She’s only shoving the itch in deeper. It’s going to drive her crazy.”

You then felt him to your left moving, and you turned and watched to see him slowly lowering himself down to his bag. When he got to it, he slid open its zipper silently, and then reached inside, and when his hand came back out, your mouth dropped.

It was the thing he had taken from Sebastian’s mom’s drawer.

You stood shocked, not expecting to see it in your very own living room. It had traveled so far. But here it was now. Instead of standing back up, he leaned around the couch and, to your shock, he winded back his arm slightly, and then rolled the fleshy object out on its cylindrical axis. You followed it with your eyes as it went, your mouth open, and you watched it tumble over the floor until hitting the first step of the staircase and then stopping.

It sat there, freakish and large, but ultimately unassuming as your mom furiously beat on the inside of her body with her fingers only feet away. Then just as suddenly, as if her peripherals expanded, she looked over to see it lying there, waiting for her, long and cylindrical, the exact shape she needed. Or at least the one she thought she needed. As she let her feet fall back to the ground, her butt jiggling from the shock of it, and she stabilized herself off of the couch, you ducked back down behind cover.

And what you ducked down to was equally as stomach churning. Henry was down there, his phone in his hands, in camera mode, filming around the couch. You could see the tiny image of your mom running into his frame, and you saw her kneeling down to grab what he had thrown to her. And then you watched her bend over and pick it up. And then, you saw a sight that was unbelievable to you. So you stood up to confirm that it wasn’t just a trick of Henry’s phone. And there you saw it before you, exactly as it was on the face of that phone, except it was much bigger and, to your unending horror, it was real.

“Oh god!” your mom screeched. “Oh my god! Stop!”

She yelled it to herself.

“For the love of god! Make it stop! Please. Please stop!” She screamed it to herself, filling the room with her voice, which was accompanied by the sucking and smacking noise of the object going in and out. Her body and voice now an instrument for strange and unique noises, just as much as it was a source for unwordly strange sights. The air was permeated with the smell of her activity, which you knew Henry was taking in through his nostrils, making up for the fact that he couldn’t take it in through the eyes and ears of his phone.

“Yeah,” you heard from below you. “Push it in deeper. Make it itchier.” The way he said it reminded you of picture day, the way the photographer would talk to you as you sat up on that cold chair, guiding you toward the perfect picture, timeless. Henry began laughing at the sight.

Apparently he laughed too loudly, as your mom, even over the sound of her own cheeks clapping, and the wet suction noises of the object going in and out of her body, turned around to look over the curve of her own naked, jiggling ass to see Henry’s little grinning face waiting for her beside the couch, with his phone in hand and aimed directly at her open backside.

Her stomach dropped.

Your mom shot upward and grabbed the railing of the staircase out of instinct.

“Wait Mrs.--------” said Henry. “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Your mom let go of the object, leaving it to hang out of her body, and the muscles in her buttocks and thighs tensed as she threw her first step up the staircase, followed by more, taking her full weight, and jiggling butt, up with her and away from the eye of Henry’s phone. Though the nature of the staircase, with its corkscrew path upwards, and its minimalistic form did nothing to hide the private nuances of her body, instead accentuating them and displaying them to the phone’s posterity. The circular nature of the path upward forcing a 360-degree view of her beautiful and exposed form as she moved, and the change in elevation allowed for an appreciation of her body’s curves at all angles. Her butt, with the object still hanging out of it, appeared biggest, as things often do when seen from below, at the exact moment before she reached the final step and disappeared behind the shelter of the second floor.

After she had disappeared, the staircase sat there, empty. It was hard to believe that a sight so strange, with a weight so exotic pressed against its every metal step, had existed there just moments ago. You could both hear the tap turn on in the washroom, coming muffled through the door.

Henry got up with his phone in hand and he leaped over the back of the couch, landing on its cushions, before jumping off and running to the stairwell. “Wait! That scratcher doesn’t belong to you, Mrs.----------!"

You watched in disbelief as he ran up the stairs with his phone in hand. When he disappeared, you heard a thud, like wood against flesh, and then a crashing noise, as if something, or someone, was bumped through the shower curtain, bringing it all down into the shower below with her. The sound of running water which reverberated down to you no longer sounded muffled.

“Wow Mrs. -----------, your butt is so big.”

You heard desperate thrashing and a sound like palms rubbing against the convex inside of the tub, while your mom groaned. “No! Shut it off!” she pleaded.

“It’s just for my brother,” Henry said. “It must be those pills that you took that are doing that to you. Yeah, that’s it! What else could it be?”

Your mom growled.

“Maybe you should take a shower. That should do it.”

“Get out!” she screamed.

“Sure,” he said.

“Get out!”

“Yeah, I will. But first…”

“Get out! Get out! Get out!” Her voice was wet and sticky with discomfort, frustration, humiliation, rage, and disbelief.

“Okay, geeze. Just lie still for a second.”

“Get ooouuu-“

Her screaming demand was cut short by a wet sucking noise.

“This doesn’t belong to you, Mrs. ---------. That’s all.”

Your mom screamed to herself and thrashed among the fallen curtains.

“I’ll just close the door and give you some privacy.”

You heard the door shut, and then her screaming became muffled.

And then, just as suddenly, you saw him appear above you, and come down the stairs with his phone in his right hand, and Sebastian’s mom’s object in his left.

He had a big smile on his face. “Your mom fell facefirst into the bathtub.” His grin disappeared as he rounded the staircase, then it appeared again as he came back around and he stepped down onto the main floor. “When I pulled this out of her, it made a *clop* noise.” He lifted the thing and it jiggled in his hands. “My brother’s going to be buying me ice cream for a month straight.”

You stood there, your face burning, your limbs heavy. Not sure what to say, and, even more so, not sure what to do. You just stared at him.

“She’s going to be in there for a few hours. I poured the whole sack in her.”

You shuffled slightly in place. Uncomfortable, not knowing how or what to feel. No one had told you what to do in a moment like this. You had never heard of something like this happening to anyone. What was the blueprint for what proper behavior looked like in this context? Which guidance councillor or anti-bullying video or commercial had the answers? Which adult figure of authority had anything like this happen to them as a kid, and what was their advice? Their story of how they dealt with it? Their story about how it would get better?

You looked down at the object, which Henry shook in his hands so that it flapped back and forth. You had been so fixated on it, and its now-wet surface, that you hadn’t noticed that Henry was typing on his phone with his other hand.

“What are you doing?” you asked him.

“Just texting Jake and my brother and a few other people.”

Your mouth and throat were dry. “A-ab-about what?”

“I’m going to send them the video of your mom. What do you think?”

“No!” you said, loudly and firmly.

To your surprise, Henry’s rhythm and poise didn’t stop or change. He stayed looking down at his phone, typing with his thumb. “Why?” he said, not looking at you. “You gonna stop me?”

“Stop!” you demanded.

“No,” he replied, calmly.

Your fist began to ball up, and you could feel your anger building, first at the level of your stomach, then at the level of your chest, until you felt it bubbling up through your throat and into your mouth.

“I said stop!”

“No, that’s okay. I’d rather not.”

You felt your weight fall on your backfoot, knowing that you were going to use it to step off of and lunge right at him with your fist cocked. In

3…

2….

“Okay, sent,” he said.

You stood there. The weight in your back foot loosened.

You both stood where you were, saying nothing.

Henry lifted the pink object to his face, and sniffed the tip of it. Then he pouted his mouth and nodded. “Your mom has a nice smell,” he said.

Your cheeks were red.

His phone vibrated in his hand. He looked down at it and then smiled. “Jake is laughing his ass of,” he said. He began texting back with one thumb, still dangling that object from his other hand, talking out what he was writing slowly. “Yes… that… is… really… his… mom. I… poured… in… the… whole… bag… while… she… slept.” You stood there as he wrote, your body as stiff as stone, but simultaneously rubbery in its sensation, like at any moment, you’d collapse in on yourself. “Send… it… to… the… guys…”

You thought about Sebastian. About all the horrified faces around him, including yours. And you thought about how through all those horrified faces, nobody, including yourself, had stepped in to help him. He suffered alone. And you remembered thinking how horrible it must have been, standing there, needing help, being desperate for it, but realizing then that it would never come. That anyone who could have possibly helped would only end up being a witness to your humiliation at best. You couldn’t imagine what that must have felt like. At least not then.

But now you could.

“Do you have Sebastian’s number?” he asked you, as if he was thinking what you were thinking. “I want to show him where his mom’s toy ended up. I’m sure he’ll be happy to know he isn’t the biggest loser in school anymore.”

You just shook your head, and as you did, feeling nothing, you were surprised to feel something wet run down your cheek. Henry looked at you and grinned. Then another wet drop ran down your cheek, less than an inch to the right of the first one.

And then as if a water mane burst within you, your eyes and nose gushed with tears and snot.

You could hear the shower on upstairs, your mom incapacitated by her unquenchable itch within, and you knew you had no useful allies within the house. So when he said “what’s the matter? Does baby need his medicine?” and he lifted the pink floppy object to the level of his cheek, you just stood there, watching as he got closer, the tip of the object going from a surreal image to a wet, hot reality before you, as it neared your face.

“Say ahhhh” he said, playfully.

Somewhere you knew that Sebastian was out there, not realizing his luck. Within 24 hours, nobody would remember what had happened to him in the gym changeroom. His pathetic moment had been outdone by one of such a raging success and horror that it could likely never be beaten by anything that could ever be imagined, never mind done. He was no longer the biggest loser in the school anymore. You had taken that title from him. And it was one you knew would stick to you.

As the pink object got closer to your face, and Henry’s grin with it, you felt all will to fight back leave you.

And just as he got within a foot of you, pushing the object, with its wet and sticky length, toward you, you did the only thing left for you to do. You slowly opened your mouth.