“Hmph,” Mrs. Karczewski studied Emma, still not believing what she had just consumed was gum. “Do I need to call the nurse? Be honest, you could actually die Ms. Cooke if those were drugs,” Mrs. K prodded with genuine concern.

FuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!!!!! Emma had made the decision on the spot to swallow Mr. C rather than reveal his secret, and she was already regretting it. She had heard a faint cry resonating up the back of her throat through her nostrils as the small form had hit the entrance to her esophagus, had felt the lump flailing all the way down…deeper and deeper into her body. But that wasn’t the scariest part, no. The scariest part was that now she didn’t feel anything at all.

She glanced down at her belly in terror-filled shock. I…I ate him. I ATE HIM!! Mr. C is in there, right now. In….in me….In my stomach. HOLY SHIT what did I do??!!! She felt like she was going to throw up, which honestly would be for the best. She wracked her brain for what she could remember from learning about the digestive system. She knew there was no air in there, contrary to cartoon and video game depictions showing characters just plodding along in a gut like nothing happened. If the acidic bile hadn’t killed him already, he would be suffocating. Slowly. Painfully. Dying alone inside me…The thought was paradoxical. It could be argued that one couldn’t possibly get any closer to another human being, physically at least, than literally being INSIDE them. But even though Mr. C was inches away, just on the other side of her abdomen, so close she could probably poke him through her skin, he was alone in all the ways that mattered. No holding hands around a hospital bed as the nursing staff dimmed the lights and gave a grieving family their last moments with a loved one. No, Mr. C’s company was partially digested pizza and the ominous groans and gurgles of a stomach hard at work. She knew he wouldn’t even hear her if she tried to talk to him, even though the only thing separating her vocal chords from her belly was a short length of esophagus.

How long did Mr. C have, realistically? Ten seconds? Thirty? A minute? Five minutes? Or was he dead already, the acid dissolving him on contact, his corpse being melded with masticated, half-digested pizza and soda as she sat here…

No. NO!!! Mr. C couldn’t be dead. She had time. Amy had trusted her. They BOTH had trusted her. And on her first day helping them, she had suffocated and crushed him with her breasts, stepped on him as he drowned in sweat in her boot, almost jerked him off with her big toe, and now…now she had eaten him. She couldn’t have done a poorer job of keeping him safe if she had tried.

It can’t end this way.

“Ms. Cooke?” Mrs. K was still awaiting a response, Ashley looking over her shoulder, a mix of surprise and concern written on her face.

Think Emma. THINK!!!! She forced herself to breathe. Closed her eyes for a moment, regained her composure. That’s it. I have an idea. Just have to sell it. Time for those stage lessons to work their magic.

She turned from her seat on the ground to make eye contact with Mrs. K, nonchalantly grabbing her boot and slipping it back over her foot before lacing it up as she responded. “I’m fine, Mrs. K. Really, I am. Just feeling a little queasy from nerves over the concert and a big dinner. Mom gave me something to help settle my stomach. I was worried you would think it was drugs, and I panicked, which of course made you think it was drugs. I’m really sorry, I should’ve been more transparent. But I’m fine, Mrs. K. I really am,” she offered with a weak smile. Did she buy it?

She saw Mrs. K’s face go from concern to sympathy before snapping back to its ordinary sternness. “Can you finish rehearsal?” Phew, she bought it.

“Absolutely! I left some of the sheet music in my locker though, so I have to run over there real quick. I swear I’ll be RIGHT back!!” Emma asked with what she hoped was very little audible desperation.

Mrs. K’s eyes narrowed in suspicion again, her eyes darting up to the clock on the wall. “Three and a half minutes, Ms. Cooke. Three and a half minutes until you’re back in your chair, or I am giving the solo to Ms. Platt.”

Fine, I don’t give a fuck as long as Mr. C’s okay. “Thank you thank you thank you!!” Emma said with entirely faked excitement. “I’ll be right back!!” She turned around and began sprinting down the hallway, rounding the corner before her foot struck something and she suddenly found herself falling forward, the momentum causing her to smack her elbow on the hard tile floor, only mitigating the impact on her breasts slightly. OW!! What the fuck…

Emma turned and looked up, saw Sheila with her leg stuck out, smirking. I swear to Satan I’m gonna kill this fucking cunt one of these days. No time now. She just gave what she hoped was her most threatening glare, and scrambled back to her feet, resuming her sprint.

Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay. Please be okay….

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From the moment he had seen the look of concerned apology on Emma’s face as she had him cupped in her hands, Steve knew what she was thinking about doing. Knew the conductor wasn’t going to buy it. Knew Emma would be forced into two equally undesirable, unthinkable choices. But he had expected her to spit him out, and his plan was to just lay very still. Hopefully, she would pick up on what he was doing and pretend he was a toy. He had NOT expected her to take the other option.

He'd had a chance to take in all the details of Amy’s mouth when they had their little play session in the shower. He was able to see her lips, her teeth, the view of the outside world from his unique perch on her tongue. With Emma, he had none of that. One moment he was drenched in sweat sitting in her cupped palm, and then he was in complete and utter darkness. A different kind of wet darkness.

In response to the saltiness of sweat-soaked Steve on her tongue, Emma’s mouth had instantly begun flooding with saliva. The first step in preparing a meal for consumption and digestion. Her voice had nearly deafened him, the waft of Angeloni’s pizza on her breath washing over him as she tried to play him off as just bubblegum. He thought he could make out the faint scent of starchy wood on Emma’s tongue from her saxophone reed. That tongue had then flipped him to the back of her mouth, directly into her throat, where he sat for a split second on what he presumed was Emma’s upper esophageal sphincter. He had briefly called out, fruitlessly hoping to stop what was coming. And then…

And then she…she ate me. Like the pizza they had shared not even an hour ago, Emma had cast him down into the fiery cauldron of her stomach for processing. She had swallowed him whole, with all the consideration a frog would give to a fly, the audible gulp echoing in his mind as one of the last sounds he’d ever hear.

With his macrophilia, Steve had often fantasized about what this moment would be like in his mind. By far, the hottest thought to him was his cute, tiny, loving wife eating him by accident and never being the wiser. And what he was quickly realizing was that the vision he had in his head had been HEAVILY romanticized. He wasn’t aroused. He wasn’t excited. The scenario of him sitting in his Amy’s belly jerking off as he slowly succumbed to her stomach acids hadn’t even entered his mind for a split second.

No, there was none of that. In its place was one thing: terror. Sheer, unadulterated, all-consuming terror. He realized he actually knew very little about what awaited him at the end of his journey down Emma’s esophagus. He didn’t know if the seconds he had for his life to flash before his eyes as he was pulled ever downward would, in fact, be his last seconds alive. He didn’t know if it was instantaneous death waiting for him at the bottom, if he would feel the sphincter to the stomach dilate open before he plunged into a sea of churning acid, his skin sloughing off him in great clumps as he bled out.

The one thing he knew for sure was that there would be no air inside Emma’s stomach. He had the wherewithal in his moment at the top of her throat to suck in one last, great big gulp of air into his lungs. He was holding his breath during his descent. He felt like a prisoner being walked to the gallows, felt his bladder growing weak at the stark realization that he was about to die. Die inside the belly of an 18-year-old girl who he loved dearly, and who he knew loved him back. He might have urinated himself in fear, there was no way of knowing with all the wetness already on his body and clothes and the sensory overload. 

And so he had fought. He didn’t care that Emma might choke, didn’t care that if she hacked him back up his secret would be exposed. He wanted to LIVE. All of those concerns were secondary to the overwhelming survival instinct. He panicked, he kicked, he punched, he flailed. He tried fruitlessly to dig his nails into the soft esophageal lining around him to slow his descent. Tried spreading his arms and legs out as wide as he could to stick himself in place like a child would on a waterslide.

He struggled. Struggled for his life. And in response, he got a cold dose of humility and insignificance. The reality was: nothing he was doing mattered. Nothing he was doing worked. It didn’t even help slightly. He wasn’t even sure if Emma felt any of it or if he had already departed the world of the living in her mind. No, Emma’s bodily functions reigned supreme, conquered him completely and utterly without effort. The simple act of her swallowing had doomed him to a fate worse than ordinary death, and the stark reality was there was absolutely NOTHING he could do about it. The waves and waves of continued peristalsis ushered him along like a bouncer throwing a drunk out of a bar. There was no slowing or stopping it. There was simply Emma eating him. Swallowing him. Digesting him. Killing him.

And so when he found his journey down her esophagus come to a rather abrupt halt, he knew what it signified. And he suddenly became wistful for his brief seconds in Emma’s esophagus, bargaining with a god that wasn’t watching that he would give anything just to be a few inches higher in Emma’s body than he was right now, just for a few more seconds. Anything but this.

In most of the media depictions of vore, there is a description of a plummet after the journey down a person’s throat and into their stomach. A sensation of falling through air as you plunk unceremoniously into a pit of acid at the bottom. He didn’t know if it was because Emma had consumed almost an entire pizza to herself earlier, but there was none of that. No falling, no sense of weightlessness. No final requiem knell of a ‘plop’ at the bottom.

Instead, he went from being pushed down Emma’s throat, to the briefest of halts before the tissue underneath him dilated to accommodate his inch-tall frame, and then he was consumed for the second time in less than a minute. This time, by a roiling mass of masticated and partially digested pizza, the faint hint of soda sweetness lingering within, but the unmistakable odor of human digestive bile dominating his senses. He came out of Emma’s esophagus, and he was pulled into a digesting bolus of food. Simple as that. It wouldn’t be accurate to describe his experience in her esophagus as tranquil, but there had been a systemic, predictable, and gradual sequence of peristalsis when he was swallowed. Order, of a sort. This…this was pure chaos.

Steve couldn’t see anything at all. It wasn’t just darkness; it was the complete absence of light altogether. As he got sucked into the digesting mass of pizza, pulled underneath the surface and sloshed through it like clothes in the wash, the only sounds he could hear were the telltale gurgles of a stomach doing what it does best, each groan sounding to him like the Grim Reaper laughing. He rapidly lost all sense of spatial orientation as Emma’s stomach continued churning and processing its prize, being dragged down, rolled over, briefly gasping back at the surface for air that wasn’t there before a wave of chewed food collapsed down on top of him again, the process effortlessly and continually tossing him about like a leaf in the wind. He thought he could dimly make out the sound of Emma’s voice, presumably concocting some contrivance for her odd behavior and, hopefully, enacting a plan for his imminent rescue. Steve felt like any such plan that took more than a minute would probably already be too late.

He thought at one point he might’ve thrown up, but there was really no way of knowing. Either partially digested pizza poured into his mouth from his own stomach, or it poured into his mouth from Emma’s. He had felt close to death in Amy’s sneaker. Made peace with it, forgave her for whatever happened because it wasn’t her fault. He realized now that was nothing, comparatively. THIS…this was life or death. As suffocating as the darkness and absence of breathable air were, and as disgusting as the heaving mass of digestive slurry washing over him in waves was, none of that was the worst part. No, the worst part was that his body had begun to tingle.

She’s…she’s DIGESTING me. Under other circumstances, the thought would have been laughable. Hell, many an evening in front of the laptop surfing various giantess porn repositories, the thought would have been arousing. Now, it was just terrifying. And sad. Sad because he knew Emma would never forgive herself, would probably be scarred for life from the ordeal. Sad because he and Amy would never find a solution to his problem. Sad because he could just picture the intolerably tragic and awkward confession Emma would have to make to his wife. That her darling husband, whom she had entrusted to Emma’s care, ended his life as little more than a bowel movement. He didn’t know if his desiccated, digested corpse would ever find its way back to Amy for a burial and some final mourning closure. What was Emma supposed to do? Fish through the toilet bowl tomorrow morning, clean off his lifeless body, and bring it over to Amy in a shoebox to be interred in the backyard like a pet hamster? Would there even be anything left of him, or would a stained, brown skeleton be the only indication that he had ever been alive?

These thoughts in particular, the inescapable tragedy of it all, the emotional damage it would inflict that would resonate for the rest of the two young women’s lives, were what kept him from achieving any sort of peace in what he believed to be his final moments. This is what differed from his time in Amy’s sneaker. He had known Amy would have eventually found him, that she never would have forgiven herself. But it would have been an accident, and as he and Emma had just discussed, accidents happened without regard to fault. It would be a stretch to classify this situation in the same manner. Emma had looked him in the eyes, the apology plain on her face for what she was about to do, and then she had made a choice. Made a choice to EAT him. Yes, being executed under your wife’s sweaty foot while she blithely jogged along without a care in the world was an ignoble end by any stretch of the imagination. Ending up as a teenager’s shit was as bad as it could possibly get though.

He felt his execution chamber suddenly start jostling violently, the digesting mass within heaving up and down as Emma moved with determined purpose. She was running…somewhere. He fervently wished it was toward some sort of salvation, but he refused to allow himself any false hope at the moment. If he was being tossed about by Emma’s ordinary digestive processes before, this new sensation was akin to being ice cubes in a bartender’s shaker. Just a violent, senseless, unpredictable sense of weightless, chaotic movement.

And then, inexplicably, it got worse. He felt both his own body and Emma’s stomach turn end over end before a sudden, jarring impact. Though he had been getting sucked down into the digesting pizza like so much quicksand, he had entertained some faint hope that if he managed to remain somewhere near the surface, he would be first in line for the eventual life-saving vomit, if that vomit was even coming. Now…now he had no idea where he was, but he suspected it was worse. In the same way a diver would feel the sense of pressure at the bottom of a pool, he knew he had been pushed to the bottom of the chaos unfolding around him. Knew he now had to somehow muster enough strength, his lungs burning and his limbs already going limp, to claw his way back upward through a mass of chyme that had no purchase.

And the tingling was getting worse. It had started as faint pins and needles itching at his skin. Now it felt like the type of itchiness you feel when you just KNOW you missed a spot with sunscreen and would be punished for it imminently. It burned. And it was getting worse. Not for the first time, he let out a wordless, soundless scream that was absorbed by the digestive slop around him. A scream that nobody would hear.

Just when he thought his situation could not possibly get any worse, he felt it. He felt the tissue dilating beneath him, felt some of the chyme around him drain downward. Right now, Emma’s pyloric sphincter was the only thing separating him from her stomach and her duodenum. He was less than an inch away from what was assuredly death. The only way to retrieve him alive at that point would be surgical incision. He would be long dead from suffocation, likely even long dead from the acid, before Emma even got halfway to the hospital ER. The most likely outcome would be Emma sifting through a bowel movement for his remains in the morning.

The recesses of his mind drew a grim comparison between his immediate situation and the Greek myth of Charybdis, the ocean-borne monster that would suck unwitting sailors into its depths with unerring, devastatingly effective vortices. He had no more chance of survival than they did.

This is it. This is…the end. He would have cried if he hadn’t already sweated out almost of all his moisture in his combined experiences in Emma’s breasts and boot. And in a dark parody of the times Amy had wiped away the tears rolling down his cheeks when he lost a trial, worried about their future together, judged himself harshly, he knew the masticated slop around him would have wiped those tears away instantly, only more fodder for the horrific mixture around him.

He realized that his pink sock outfit with the little yellow daisies had been lost somewhere in the incalculable, unknowable vastness of Emma’s stomach. And he was reminded of his cellphone wallpaper, Amy’s arms draped around his neck, both of them smiling uninhibited, even knowing that the tour guide was almost certainly judging the comically touristy cliché gringos. He was reminded of the lipstick in his hair this morning as he sat in the “tub” Amy had thoughtfully laid out for him, his cleanliness from mere hours ago now truly a thing of the past. Again he remembered the “luv u” texts, the heart emojis, Amy’s smile as she made her way out the door this morning, trusting Emma would look out for him.

And so, when he felt the pyloric sphincter seize onto his foot like mud suction grabs a boot, he fought. Fought with everything he had, or everything he had left, at least. He grabbed his leg and pulled with both arms, his abdominal muscles straining as he leaned backward to leverage against the sludge draining around him, attempting to push him down just a LITTLE further to end his life. The human stomach is unquestionably efficient at what it does. The digestive system seamlessly moves food along the disassembly line, from the moment saliva begins breaking it down, to when it is chewed and swallowed, to when it is tossed in stomach acid, to when it drains into the small intestine. It was brutally and inexorably effective. But it wasn’t used to its prey fighting back.

He never had long inside Emma’s stomach to begin with. Death was imminent from the moment she had swallowed him. But now…now he had seconds. Milliseconds, maybe. Unless Emma did something right this very moment, it was over. He felt his execution chamber lurch one last time, wondering if Emma had somehow fallen again. If she had, well…Steve Clover’s time had run out.

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Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!!! Emma had sprinted down the long hallways of her high school to a bathroom on the north wing, far away from any prying eyes. She made a point of using the disabled bathroom this time so she could shut and lock the door.

She felt bad for the janitor that would invariably be sweeping through here shortly, but she had no intention of depositing Mr. C into the toilet. Instead, she just immediately fell to her knees and jammed two fingers down her throat, attempting to trigger her gag reflex.

Come on…..COME ON!!! COME THE FUCK ON!! THROW UP ALREADY!! She was coughing and hacking, her mouth filling with the saliva that signifies imminent vomit, but nothing was coming up. She felt tears streaming down her face, both from the effort and the worry. She glanced around the bathroom frantically, her gaze seizing upon one last potential lifeline: the plunger.

It was undoubtedly filthy. The kind of thing no sane person would EVER stick in their mouth, and just the thought of doing it made her nauseous. But, nausea was what she needed right now. She grabbed the plunger and didn’t hesitate any longer, immediately jamming the wooden handle down her throat.

Mercifully, it worked. She felt the gorge rising up the back of her throat, spewing onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. She immediately began rifling through the vomit like a child digging for seashells on the beach.

Where is he??!! WHERE IS HE??!!! Emma wasn’t just tearing up now, she was fully sobbing. Mr. C wasn’t there.

Don’t….don’t tell me… She looked down at her abdomen, wondering if her neighbor, her confidante, her friend, was somewhere inside her small intestine already, burning alive if he hadn’t already suffocated. She looked around the bathroom again hoping against all hope to even see a pair of scissors. Maybe she could cut herself open and get him out.

She knew it was insane. She had no idea where her small intestine was, no idea if she would impale Mr. C in her efforts. Knew they would both die if she even attempted it. And she knew there wasn’t a single sharp object to be found in the bathroom. She wracked her brain, trying to think of ANYTHING around her that could do the trick. She didn’t even have her keys. The lack of pockets had ensured she had left those in her saxophone case.

There wasn’t another option. She had to just keep trying, and hope. Pray. Even though she was an avowed atheist in contrast to her mother, she had to pray for a miracle. She grabbed the plunger and rammed the handle down her throat again, gagging immediately. And she felt more vomit coming up, adding to the messy, wet pile that was already seeping out and spreading into the grout of the tile.

This time, there was visible blood, whether from the soreness of her throat from vomiting or from damage inflicted by the plunger handle, she didn’t know. An inescapably dark thought entered her mind: what if that blood is Mr. C’s body, dissolved and bleeding out….

But then she saw it. The flicker of faint, feeble movement just underneath the surface of the grotesque, partially digested pile of masticated pizza. She had never reacted quicker in her life, her hand darting into the mess without hesitation, seizing the tiny one-inch lump she found and dragging it out. Her fist was clenched around it.

She didn’t want to look. What if Mr. C was alive, but already dead? What if she was just holding a disembodied torso, having rescued him just in time for his limbs to be digested, to become a part of her, while he bled out in her hand? What if the thing she was holding was no longer even recognizable?

Well, as her father used to say before he passed: “the task of gutting a fish doesn’t get any more pleasant for having waited to do it.” Hesitantly, chilled to her core, shaking in fear, she slowly unraveled her first.

Oh thank…thank somebody. Mr. C was in one piece. But as opposed to a few seconds ago when there was a little motion within the digestive slop, he was completely and utterly still. Lifelessly still, and limp. It would be the cruelest possible twist of fate for her to have rescued him, only for him to finally suffocate in the seconds it took to extract him from her vomit.

She didn’t know what else to do. Emma placed Steve’s tiny body on the tile, away from the vomit, and for the second time in 30 seconds, did something unspeakably gross. She pressed her lips to his face, his head being so tiny that even her puckered lips buried his head between them. She was basically kissing the tile floor of a bathroom that hadn’t been cleaned yet today. But she didn’t care. She blew slowly, gently, the lingering, unmistakable taste of vomit still overpowering her tongue. She couldn’t even tell if any of the air passed into him, but she started compressions with her pinky finger, frantically trying to recall the CPR course her high school had put them all through.

One two three four five six…she counted the compressions in her head, after thirty of them lowering her mouth once again. But as she neared Mr. C’s body, she saw it curl almost in half as he let out a great, heaving cough. She was ashamed to see bits of her own vomit come flying out his mouth, realizing that he had been drowning slowly in the pizza they had consumed together earlier while watching Bonanza.

Emma quickly grabbed his body, running over to the sink and turning on the faucet, running Mr. C’s body under the cold water, figuring that he had to be burning. He looked very, very red to her. That did the trick: his eyes flew open at the shock of the cold water, a dazed, disoriented confusion plain on his face as his gaze came slowly back into focus.

She took him out from under the stream of water. She didn’t know what to say. “Mr….Mr. C?” she asked hesitantly. His eyes stopped wandering around the room aimlessly, slowly locking onto hers.

“………Emma?” he asked blearily. She could barely even hear him, his voice was so quiet. She saw him jolt as yet more liquid splashed on his face, realizing that one of her tears had struck him head on. She leaned back to avoid it happening again.

“Mr. C…..I don’t….I don’t know what to say. I’m so, so sorry…” she trailed off, biting her lip as it trembled. “I…..I panicked. I didn’t want them to find out. Amy said they couldn’t. I didn’t….I didn’t know what else to do…”

She was waiting for the lopsided, easy grin to come across his face again, waiting for him to reassure her like he had done only minutes ago in the other bathroom, assuage her guilt and tell her accidents happen, that he forgave her.

He said none of that. He didn’t smile, didn’t respond. Didn’t say anything. And maybe he didn’t need to. His expression said it all. It wasn’t anger, relief, empathy, forgiveness, or anything of the sort. It was the unmistakable thousand-yard stare of trauma, the human brain’s natural, emotional defense mechanism of cold detachment from reality. Her mom had much the same look on her face as her dad drew in his last raspy, weak breath on the hospital bed in the intensive care unit of the oncology department. She imagined that she and her brother Tommy had looked similar, if not identical, at her father’s wake, his body in the casket mere feet away as a seemingly endless line of well-wishers and apologists queued up in front of the distraught family.

Though she of course felt relieved that Mr. C hadn’t died, the enormity of what had just transpired set in. I…I almost killed him. Mr. C almost DIED inside me….in my stomach. I…I ate him. Like he was food. I’ve….I’ve been….DIGESTING him…. The redness of his body stuck out to her again.

A fresh bout of tears and emotion washed over her as she clutched his still-limp form to her chest, hugging him while sobbing and heaving uncontrollably. It took several minutes before she had regained her composure.

“Mr. C….I’m gonna leave you on the sink while I…clean this up, okay?” He didn’t answer. STILL didn’t answer her. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was just gazing around the bathroom aimlessly as though it were his first moments on Earth, as if everything he was seeing was new, and shocking. She gently placed him on the edge of the sink as she grabbed fistfuls of paper towel, beginning the arduous, tedious process of scooping up her pile of vomit and depositing it into the trashcan, hopefully a small mercy for the janitor who had to mop up her mess.

Afterward, Emma washed her hands thoroughly with soap and water, rinsing her mouth and gargling a bit to get the taste of vomit out. She realized she hadn’t really cleaned Mr. C off yet, just having rinsed him with cold water. She glanced over at him…and realized for the first time that he was completely and utterly naked. She blushed deeply, averting her gaze.

“Mr. C, I’m going to, uh, clean you off….is…is that alright?” she asked hesitantly without looking at him.

His response wasn’t even an answer. Just a barely audible two-word utterance that struck her like a dagger to the heart: “I’m alive.”

Emma choked back the tears again. She couldn’t believe how stupid she was, what she had put him through.

“Mr. C….I’m really sorry, but…I have to get back to band and I can’t leave you here. Can…can I clean you off?” she asked again, looking in his direction out of the corner of her eye.

His response was an uncomfortably long time forthcoming, and it was just a simple, slow head nod.

Still without really looking at him, Emma squirted a dollop of hand soap into her palm, then ran it under hot water, creating a sudsy puddle in the palm of her hand. She picked Steve up with her other hand and brought her two hands together, gently using her fingers to massage the soap and water over his body. “Close your eyes,” she instructed, “don’t want soap getting in them.” Yes…that was true. But she also didn’t want him looking at her while she cleaned his privates.

Her fingers danced over his genitals quickly and lightly, refusing to make it even remotely sensual. She rinsed him under warm water again, and then grabbed a paper towel, dabbing him off.

“I’m…naked.” It was more a statement than a question.

“Hold on,” she said as she grabbed a piece of paper towel, tearing off a strip and handing it to him. “It’ll probably be a little scratchy, but it’s better than nothing.”

Steve wrapped himself in the paper towel like a toga, visibly gathering himself. He tried disingenuously to summon some of his usual charm and restore some normalcy to their dynamic, offering Emma a sheepish grin. “You know…I actually liked that outfit. Was thinking about keeping it,” he said with a laugh he truly did not feel.

“Yeah, uh….I don’t think you’re going to want that outfit back,” she said with nervous chuckle. “We should probably just let that go. Are you, um, ready?” she asked him.

“What are we going to do with me now?” he asked almost in a whisper.

The dread on his face with that question broke Emma’s heart. “I was thinking of leaving you in my locker for the rest of practice, but I’m worried Mrs. K is gonna wanna talk to me afterward, and they lock down this section of the school for safety after 6:00. I was thinking maybe you just um…ride on my shoulder. Like, under the sleeve. We could even tuck you under my uh….my bra strap so you don’t fall out.” She felt uncomfortable talking about using her underwear to secure him, but her shoulder was nowhere near the same level of scandalous as her nipple was.

“Fine by me,” he responded. Emma reached over and picked Steve up, lifting up the collar of her shirt and seeking out the top of her bra strap, tucking his tiny form underneath it like a child tucked into bed.

“I’m really sorry again, Mr. C,” Emma offered.

“Let’s just get this over with.” His response lacked any of its usual mirth, a clear indication of where their relationship stood after their shared ordeal.

Emma hurried out of the bathroom, beginning a brisk walk through the hallway. As she rounded the corner to head toward the band room, she glanced up at the clock and gulped. 5:12 P.M. She was supposed to have been back by 5:00.

Emma had a feeling what was waiting for her on the other side of the door into the band room, but she still wasn’t entirely prepared to see it. When she walked in, Mrs. K was talking to a trombonist and shot a glare of pure daggers in her direction. Emma turned her eyes to the line of saxophone players, seeking out her chair. Well, what used to be her chair. The satisfied, sneering smirk on Sheila’s face said it all. Emma’s chair was filled. The second chair, however, was vacant.

For as long as she had been playing music, first chair had felt like her birthright. Emma Cooke being the best musician in the building was as routine and predictable as the sun rising, day after day and year after year. That chair now belonged to Sheila.

Emma though it would hurt more, but after what she and Mr. C had just been through, she found it kind of…didn’t matter. I’m okay with this. He’s alive. She actually found herself grinning a little bit as she took her seat, her smile instantly evaporating Sheila’s. Yeah, that’s right bitch. Enjoy your victory by default because I truly do not give a FUCK.

Mrs. K walked back to the front of the room, grabbed her baton and tapped it onto the podium vigorously to bring the room to immediate silence, and then before she resumed conducting, she gave Emma a disappointed shake of the head.

------------------------------------

It transpired that Emma was actually incorrect. Mrs. K had no interest in speaking to her after practice. She suspected that role would be left up to her mother, who would doubtlessly be receiving a phone call that would put her on edge. Whatever…I just need to get the fuck out of here.

She had actually felt Mr. C slipping a little bit again as she moved her saxophone around, the strap over her shoulder sliding him out of place. He had righted himself, mostly, but she still wanted to get him out of there before he fell out.

Emma moved to the back of the band room to begin disassembling her saxophone, looking around her surreptitiously before she slid her hand into the collar of her shirt pretending to scratch her shoulder, withdrawing Mr. C in her closed fist. She opened her box of unused reeds, ready to deposit him inside at least until she got to her car.

“Hey Cookie.” Emma suppressed a shudder of revulsion. Barnyard Levy’s nickname for her, that she had informed him on countless occasions that she HATED, never failed to repulse her to her core.

“Don’t call me that, Bernie,” she said as she dumped Mr. C into the box of reeds in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner. It wasn’t.

“Whatcha got there?” she heard him ask. Emma saw him leaning over her shoulder, and realized that, without question, he had absolutely just been standing behind her moments ago, staring at her ass as she squatted. She wanted to throw up…again.

“Nothing Bernie, fuck off. I’m really not in the mood,” she grumbled.

“You’re pretty when you’re angry,” he persisted. Ew. “What was that? You got oxy?”

“What?? No!!” Emma had enough. She stood up and whirled around to give him a piece of her mind and was taken aback by what she saw. He was unkempt as usual, of course, body odor stinging her nostrils. How is it possible for a human being to smell like rotten Domino’s pizza? But there was something else. The predatory leer he always had on his face whenever he spoke to her was there, but it was turned up in a placid grin. His eyes were…red.

Oh no…he’s high. Barnyard wasn’t vaping behind the school during breaks. He was smoking weed. She could smell it on him, now that she realized it.

“Lemme see,” he said, going to reach around her. Emma moved into his path, holding her arms out. That immediately redirected his gaze to her chest. UGH!!!

“No, Bernie! Leave me alone!!” she cried. He just pushed her out of the way, his enormous bulk tossing her aside like a bowling pin, causing her to fall to her ass on the ground. Now people were staring.

She looked up and saw that Bernie had the box of reeds in his hands, was flipping the lid open to peer inside. Emma jumped up and charged at him, trying to tackle him. She had an arm around his neck as she grabbed for the box, Bernie’s longer arm holding it just out of reach.

“GIVE…IT…BACK!!!” she grunted as she jumped at him, punching him repeatedly.

“You smell good,” he laughed at her. That was it. That was the line. She slapped him. Not a light warning tap. No, she got her hips into it, twisting back and uncorking with unbridled, unfettered fury, the sound of the slap seemingly resounding throughout the band room louder than Bernie’s timpani ever had.

“MS. COOKE!!!!!” Emma whirled around, seeing Mrs. K at the front of the room, the threat evident in her expression. “What has gotten into you??!”

“Bernie took my…my reeds, and won’t give them back!” she protested.

“Mr. Levy, do you have her reeds?”

Bernie held both hands over his head, completely empty. “No idea what she’s talking about Mrs. K.”

“HE’S LYING!!” Emma shouted. She could see Sheila sniggering by her case, clearly relishing Emma’s public emotional breakdown.

“Ms. Cooke, I will be speaking with your mother tonight. And you and I will be meeting with the Principal tomorrow. I am going to strongly, strongly recommend suspension. Maybe missing the concert will snap you out of…whatever’s going on.”

Emma opened her mouth to protest, but Mrs. K just held up a single finger. She wasn’t going to hear another word on the subject. Mrs. K turned around and went into her office adjacent to the band room, presumably to call Jackie Cooke. Emma saw Ashley a few feet away in the corner disassembling her flute, shaking her head sadly as she avoided eye contact.

“Whooooaaaaaa……” she heard Bernie’s amazed gasp behind her. Oh…oh no.

The box of reeds was discarded on the floor, Bernie staring at something in his palm in evident wonder.

“Are you…are you a leprechaun or something?” Bernie asked with the detached semi-awareness unique to pot-enabled high.

She heard Mr. C’s terse response. “Yes, top o’ the mornin’ to ya. Now fuck off.”

Emma reached again for Bernie’s hand trying to snatch Mr. C back, Bernie twisting away and turning his back on her.

“Whoooaaa….it talks. Do you grant wishes or somethin’?”

“Fresh out of wishes. I can curse you though, make sure you never get laid, though I think you have that squared away on your own,” she heard Mr. C answer impatiently.

“Nasty little thing, ain’t ya? I could just squash you,” Bernie threatened, holding his other hand above the one holding Mr. C.

“Bernie. Give. Him. Back,” Emma growled, hoping her glare adequately conveyed her threat.

He turned a smarmy, lazy grin on her. “Or what? You’ll tell on me?” He laughed, his eyes looking over through the glass at the back of the room to Mrs. K, who was on her feet pacing around her desk with the door closed, on the phone with someone.

Emma decided to try something, knowing Bernie was high out his mind. “He’s not kidding you know. About the curses. Hurt him and you’ll die…painfully” Emma warned.

She wasn’t sure if the threat landed. Bernie was newly distracted by something else. Ashley was now squatting in the corner putting her flute away, her bright green thong poking out of the top of her tight, low-cut jeans, a little opening between the small of her back and the top of her underwear. She was surprised Bernie hadn’t already accumulated a puddle of drool.

She saw the gears turning in Bernie’s head. She had been the victim of this particular foul trick many a time. Bernie would ball up spitballs and then try to flick them down girls’ pants. There was nothing more shocking, or disgusting, than being in the middle of a song and feeling the sting of a wet lump on your back, sometimes slipping down into your underwear. It was positively revolting, particularly since your choices were either to fish it out, and thereby touch it, or leave it in your underwear.

“Bernie…don’t.” This wasn’t so much a threat as it was a plea. She was asking him, sincerely, for once in his life, to not be a total creep. To do the right thing.

He looked at her, smirked. “Whatever,” he responded. And then he flicked at his palm, Emma seeing a tiny object go flying, praying that Bernie would be off the mark. He wasn’t. He had done this too many times, was too good at it. She saw Mr. C’s one-inch form smack against the bottom of Ashley’s shirt, knowing she wouldn’t feel the impact. He tumbled down, sliding down the small of Ashley’s back into the tiny opening at the top of her thong.

Ashley might have felt something, because she closed her flute case, stood up, shimmied about for a second, grabbed the hem of her jeans, did a little hop, grabbed the top of her underwear, pulled it out and hiked it up a bit, appearing confused for a second before shrugging and bending down to pick up her flute case.

FUCK.

------------------------------------

Oh my God does this kid stink. Everything about the sloppy mess of a young adult towering over Steve was disgusting. He could feel the greasy, oily sheen on the kid’s palm under his feet, could see the unnaturally billowing arm hair. Saw the spit and crumbs of food caught in his double chin, the disgusting grin on his face displaying yellowed, stained teeth proudly. But most of all, he could smell him. And it was positively revolting.

Emma had tried, bless her heart, to get him back. Had actually fought for him. But the discrepancy between this kid’s size and Emma’s was even greater than the discrepancy there used to be between him and Amy. She didn’t have a chance in hell of prying him out of the kid’s grasp. Bernie? Is that what she called him?

And so he had tried to talk his way out of it. Well, not really. Realistically he could have been a little nicer, or at least a little more convincing. The kid was clearly baked out of his mind. But Steve was having a HELL of a day. He had no patience for this bully’s nonsense. He hadn’t expected it to end well, but what happened next wasn’t anywhere NEAR the spectrum of possible outcomes he had considered. The kid had given him one last mocking grin before placing his thumb in front of Steve on his palm, his forefinger tensed on top of it, bent slightly backward. Steve knew that finger posture. The hallmark of a super-powered flick.

The fingers had snapped so quickly he hadn’t even seen them move, briefly felt the sting of the impact on his body before he was soaring through the air to God knows where. The band room spun around him on his dizzying flight, his body and his vision turning end over end before striking something soft. He had but the briefest of moments to register where he was. He glanced up, saw a slender back rising up into the heavens above him, soft and straight red hair caressing it about halfway down. He glanced down, saw the neon green top of this girl’s thong, her jeans riding low beneath it. Not for the first time, he questioned whether this type of fashion choice was intentional. With that cut of jeans and that type of underwear, there was NO WAY this girl could so much as slightly lean over without the tip of the underwear crowning. Ask women and they’ll tell you it’s absolutely not by design, they’re just wearing clothes they like, and men are all creeps for thinking it’s for them. But come ON.

His brain did the math before his body did the motion. He started sliding down immediately, saw his trajectory to the dark little opening at the top of the underwear. Tried to course-correct on the fly. Roll, twist, kick, pedal, whatever. But it was a rather short drop, not a lot of time to readjust. All he had succeeded in doing was twisting himself around, his back now to Emma and his face now taking in the peach fuzz that dotted the silky landscape that was the small of this girl’s back below her shirt. He had a brief moment to glance over his shoulder, to see the shock and dread on Emma’s face. And then he was gone from the outside world. Again.

He felt like laughing, but he really wanted to cry. In the span of a few short hours, life had given him everything his fetish-addled brain had always wanted. And he hated ALL of it. The breast play was awkward at best and torturous at worst. The time in Emma’s boot was disgustingly wet and uncomfortably arousing. Being swallowed alive wasn’t hot, it was fucking TERRIFYING. And now he was a on a fast track to some random girl’s ass crack.

He didn’t know what to do. If he flailed around to get noticed he…would get noticed. And that was actually a bad thing. He shouldn’t get noticed. COULDN’T get noticed. But what was the alternative? Hanging on for dear life until this girl eventually took her underwear off? Where would he be? Some stranger’s house in the middle of nowhere? What if she didn’t take it off tonight? Would he be spending the night up some teenager’s butt? It felt disgustingly predatory and objectively wrong, an older man fiddling around in a much younger girl’s bottom without her knowing. But he didn’t have much say in the scenario. In their current roles, this girl was the predator.

He hoped Emma had a solution, but he couldn’t possibly imagine what it would be. “Hey, let me dig around in your ass a bit, you have something that belongs to me?” How in God’s name could she pull that off?

It wasn’t too bad at first. The tightness of the thong stopped his descent. He was pinned under that little triangle of fabric where the straps intersected above the girl’s butt. But then she had stood up, and he slid down a little further, his feet making contact with the top of her crack. The REAL problem began when she adjusted herself. First, she had wiggled a little, now wedging at least three quarters of his body in her crack. Then she had hooked her thumbs into her underwear as she had grabbed the hem of her jeans, giving a little hop as she pulled them back up after coming out of her squat. That had sunk him further down, but he could still see the light of day.

Then she had grabbed the underwear and fished it out of her crack, causing him to fall down further, before she yanked it back up into place. He had fallen down the arc of her underwear, coming to a short rest at the bottom, the twin, soft, warm moons of this girl’s cheeks dominating his point of view, and then the bright green fabric was rushing in at his back, slingshotting him forward. The friction of the skin around him burned as he was aggressively yanked into the dank depths, but that was the least of his problems.

-SLIGHT SCAT MENTION WARNING-

There was no light anymore. There hadn’t been any since he had tumbled all the way down to the back of this girl’s pants. He had to rely on his other senses for orientation in his surroundings. And he smelled it before he touched it. It went from the faint scent of stale human skin to the pungent, acrid, nostril-stinging odor of fermenting sweat, to finally something altogether worse. The smell of shit. It wasn’t like this girl’s butthole was caked in it. In fact, he was relatively certain that Amy was less clean than this girl was right now on a few occasions where she had sat on his face, and the smell hadn’t been overpowering. But now…now this girl’s butthole was bigger than his entire body, and it wasn’t just the tip of his nose pressed against it. HE was buried in it. His entire self. There was no avoiding it.

So, the smell was the first thing that clued him off to where he was, exactly. The second was his tactile senses. Much like when he had intentionally dived in between Amy’s cheeks the day before, the skin around him went from soft and pillow, to faintly stubbly, to firm and rubbery. And wrinkly. The fabric pressing at his back was shoving his entire body against it. He could feel the contours of the wrinkles against his face, against his hands, against his legs. He knew that there would, undoubtedly, be some…residue…within those wrinkles. They were literally still in the shower yesterday when he had invaded Amy’s privacy. She had JUST cleaned off. This…this was a teenager’s butthole at 6:00 P.M. on a weekday. After a full day of school, including gym class, and then a full two hours of having that ass planted in a chair to play music. It’s not like the girl was filthy or anything. It’s just…there’s a limit. A limit to how clean someone’s asshole could possibly be at the end of a full day.

-END OF SLIGHT SCAT SECTION-

Even with the innate pheromones in this girl’s sweat, and even with this same scent having been the smell of arousal to him before on the many occasions he had buried his face in Amy’s butt, this wasn’t sensual. It wasn’t arousing. Not after the day he’d had. It was just…gross. And while he felt like he was violating this poor girl’s privacy, he felt like this girl’s butthole was violating his privacy even more. There was nowhere to go. It was dominating him right now, the thong holding him taut against it as it pulsed, twitched and clenched around him, all undoubtedly subconscious movements the girl wasn’t even aware her body was doing.

He was afraid to open his mouth, breathing in exclusively through his nose. After his experience today with Emma’s tits, he knew that with this level of equal and opposite force, there was a high propensity for flesh to end up inside his mouth if he opened it. And that was the last thing he wanted right now.

The situation felt so thoroughly unarousing that, unlike his time with Emma earlier, he didn’t feel the need to apologize to Amy mentally, to adopt a mantra that reassured him that he wasn’t cheating. This was just…disgusting. And punitive. And unfair after the day he’d had.

Steve was holding out hope for Emma to pull some sort of miracle, but he suspected that the most he could hope for would be for this girl to just not…fart. If I could just have that, Lord, please…just give me that. Give me SOMETHING. He couldn’t handle the thought right now. He had been submerged in tits, rolled in foot sweat, buried in digestive soup, inches away from slipping into Emma’s small intestine and never coming back. The last thing he needed was this girl unwittingly uncorking on his entire body. He didn’t thing he’d be able to stop himself from struggling then. He would want out. Immediately.

He decided to trust Emma to come up with something, at least until this girl got to her car. When she sat down again, he decided it would be time to start struggling. He would rather have his secret discovered than be kidnapped by a random teenaged girl’s butt. One way or another, he was NOT going to spend the rest of the evening pressed up against this girl’s oily, malodorous sphincter.

He felt the rhythmic sway of the girl’s hips moving side to side as she began to walk, and then he heard a sound he was sure neither man nor science had ever recorded before. The girl’s buttcheeks were rubbing back and forth against one another as she walked, and he was mere millimeters removed from it. The sound was faint, but the friction produced a perceptible rubbing sound as she moved. There was no way this noise was audible outside of this girl’s jeans, but where he was, he could hear it. Faint, but undoubtedly there.

He was jostled slightly as he thought he heard a door slam. He couldn’t hear much from the depths of this girl’s crack, but he thought he could faintly make out Emma’s sonorous, crystalline voice calling out. He felt a small jerking motion, presumably the girl opening her car door. And just when he thought his situation couldn’t get any worse, it did.

-LITTLE MORE GROSS STUFF WARNING-

The girl swung one leg into her car, pivoting on her other foot as she lowered her butt into the car seat. That motion opened up the girl’s buttcheeks slightly…and also her asshole. It wasn’t a gaping vortex that he fell into like in some anal vore scenarios, but it was enough. He was pressed tight against it, and suddenly it was stretched wide, his head and his body sinking into it a bit, getting caught. The sensation of the skin against his body went from rubbery and oily to slick, silky and sticky, Steve’s mind realizing that he was now being smeared into the remnants of the rectal lubricant this girl’s anus used to pass bowel movements. It was revolting. He gagged, which ended up being a mistake as, without fail, his mouth was pressed into the wet tissue. It was faintly salty from accumulated sweat, faintly sweet from…things he would rather not think about.

-END GROSS STUFF SECTION-

And then the girl’s butt hit the car seat, and he was shoved further upward and inward. He knew the sphincter wasn’t a thin layer of tissue. He knew he would have to pass through a tight, constrictive vice of sorts that was designed to push things out, not bring them in. He wasn’t expecting to plop into her rectum suddenly, in other words. But he could also no longer fairly describe his position as “outside” this girl’s anus. He was firmly stuck into it, sunk into it.

She must’ve felt it, because the next thing he knew, there were fingernails harshly digging at his back through the small line of thong fabric, scraping him despite the barrier, mashing his entire body into this girl’s butthole. If she kept digging like this, he WAS actually concerned about ending up on the wrong side of her anus. But suddenly, the hand retreated with a haste that could only be attributed to alarm. Presumably, Emma had caught up with the girl, and she had retracted her hand before Emma saw her digging at her butt.

The girl’s body vibrated slightly from whatever she was saying to Emma, the details of the conversation lost on him. And then the leg swung out again, and he felt a lurch as the girl got back to her feet, the movement loosening him somewhat. Thankfully. The sway of the girl’s hips resumed, albeit slowly, as she ostensibly followed Emma somewhere.

What transpired next was difficult to describe, and deeply confusing. He had felt the girl spin around, had felt her cheeks compress inward once more as she leaned against something. Felt the faint vibrations again as the girl spoke with Emma. And then the girl’s whole body was violently yanked forward, and he felt the butthole pulsing around his body pucker closed in shock, pinching around him, the girl’s entire form seizing and going rigid…briefly. But then everything softened, seemingly relaxing. And yet again he felt a vibration resonate throughout this girl, but this wasn’t speech. This was a guttural moan. He was sure of it.

What the fuck? He felt the girl gently swaying back and forth a bit, before he felt his fleshy prison get jostled more violently. He felt fingernails scraping over him through the fabric of the thong, prodding, searching…passing over him once or twice before they zeroed in on his location. He felt the tense, constrictive fabric at his back ease up suddenly, felt two fingers digging into him, pressing him further into this girl’s anus but also pinching him, seizing onto him…and holding him there for a few seconds.

What in the name of all that is holy is going on??! The fingers seemed to take their time, and he was briefly concerned that one of them would lurch forward at any second, burying him fully up this girl’s butt and into her rectum. But as the long fingernails clenched gently around him, they began, ever so slowly, to extract him, plucking him out of his location and dragging him upward, his body rubbing against the inside of this girl’s asscheeks again as he was squeezed between the, before he was greeted by artificial light blaring overhead…and fresh air.

------------------------------------

Emma wracked her brain in desperation. He’s….he’s in Ashley’s BUTT. How the fuck was she supposed to rescue him? Her mind sorted through improbable scenario after improbable scenario, her eyes locked onto the hypnotizing, rhythmic rise and fall of Ashley’s buttcheeks as she walked confidently toward her car, not a care in the world. How far in there WAS Mr. C? Hopefully when Ashley had hiked up her thong, Mr. C had remained…outside. If he wasn’t, Emma truly was out of options other than just telling the truth and begging Ashley, against all hope, to believe her.

She saw Ashley toss her flute case into the backseat and slam the door, and Emma winced as Ashley opened her driver’s side door, swung a leg into the vehicle, and plopped her butt onto the seat. Whatever Mr. C’s current predicament was, that could NOT have helped it.

Ashley was reaching out to pull the door shut. Think Emma, THINK!!! Yet again, for the umpteenth time in this disastrous sequence of events ever since she and Mr. C had left the house, she was begging her brain to come up with something. And then…then the seeds of an idea took root. A truly insane, unhinged, desperate and frankly bad idea. But it was all she had.

“Hey Ash!! Wait up!!” she called out as Ashley had begun to swing the door shut.

“Oh….hey Emma. What’s up?” Ashley asked curiously, seated in her car still.

“Can I uh….can I…talk to you…about…something?” Emma invited shyly, not fully convinced that what she was about to attempt would work.

“Sure Ems, what’s up?”

“Just um…just come with me for a sec,” Emma smiled nervously as she gestured for Ashley to follow her.

“Okay….” Ashley responded quizzically, frowning slightly as she climbed back out of her car, shutting the door and walking quickly to catch up to Emma.

“Is this about why you’ve been so weird today?” Ashley asked with a hint of concern.

“Um….yes!! I mean…kind of. Just uh, just follow me…”

Emma led Ashley around the back of the school. The sky was fully dark, the sun having set hours ago with the shortened days of winter. There were lights scattered about throughout the parking lot, most of the other students having dispersed with only a handful of cars remaining.

Ashley leaned her back against the brick wall, reclining under a safety light on the outside of the building. “Wait…we’re not…smoking pot, right? You know I get all weird and paranoid,” Ashley said with a frown.

“No, no….nothing like that,” Emma responded, her heart pounding in her chest over what she was about to attempt.

Emma found herself biting her lip as she mustered her courage. Welp, may as well do this. “Emma, I gotta say, you’re being REALLY weird…”

Emma cut her off, reaching out and grabbing the front of Ashley’s shirt, pulling her close. For Emma, it was all moving in slow motion. She saw Ashley’s eyes widen in alarm at first, and then genuine shock as Emma leaned in.

“Emma…wait…” Emma kissed her. Deeply. It wasn’t just a peck on the lips. That wouldn’t cut it for what she was attempting. She needed to convey PASSION. She closed her eyes and leaned into it, her right hand reaching behind Ashley’s back and pulling her into it, melding the two of them together intimately.

Emma breathed out through her nose, feeling Ashley’s body stiffen in shock, her shoulders hunching up defensively, her hand on Emma’s stomach extended in defense, intending to push her away. But then…Ashley softened. Her shoulders slouched, her posture melted.

Ashley’s hand stopped pushing at Emma’s stomach and instead snuck around her back, landing softly between Emma’s shoulder blades, Ashley’s other hand rising up to meet it and complete the embrace. Emma’s mouth was opened only slightly, but then she felt it. Ashley’s tongue darted in between her lips like a viper striking prey. Testing at first, probing, if shyness could be conveyed with such a simple movement. Seeing how far she could take it with Emma.

Oh… Emma wasn’t expecting that. At ALL. She and Ashley had been friends since they were kids, countless Friday night sleepovers rolling into Saturday morning cartoons, bowls of sugary cereal on their laps as they laughed and talked about everything and nothing. She remembered when they had both started becoming interested in boys, getting their nails done for the first time at the mall, Emma keeping to herself how she also was interested in girls, and how pretty she thought Ashley was. How Ashley would relay her experiences with her various boyfriends with an air of wisdom, the self-appointed guru of all things adolescent love as the only one of them with any practical experience. How Emma would feel the occasional pang of jealousy when Ashley did so.

And throughout all of those years, there was never even a HINT of anything else with Ashley. There was none of the slow-burn, smoldering embers of a bonfire just waiting to be lit that she felt when she was with Becky. As far as Emma knew, Ashley was as straight as the day was long.

All of this was to say that Ashley’s tongue slipping into Emma’s mouth, the soft moan she let out as their bodies came intertwined, her comparatively slighter frame melting into Emma’s, was all a surprise. Not an entirely unwelcome one, but a surprise nonetheless.

Emma leaned into it, upping the ante on Ashley’s probative kiss by sinking her tongue deeply into Ashley’s mouth. She felt her cheeks flushing at the unexpected intimacy of the situation, found herself getting caught up in the moment. But she had a mission. Sorry Ash…this…this isn’t real…

Emma snaked her hand lower down Ashley’s back, testing Ashley’s limits first by grabbing a handful of Ashley’s butt through her jeans, seizing onto it with a sinking squeeze. Ashley made no move to stop her. Green light…I guess…

As their tongues continued to explore each other’s mouths, awkwardly and haltingly at first but with increasing confidence and rhythm, Emma snaked her hand upward from Ashley’s butt onto the hem of her jeans, hooking her fingers into Ashley’s unoccupied belt loop. She suspected the decision not to wear a belt was by design. When you looked like Ashley did, you didn’t buy a neon green thong unless you wanted people to know you were wearing it.

And then Emma continued to test Ashley’s limits, her fingers sneaking below the waistline of Ashley’s jeans, inside her pants, her long fingernails plucking at the thong like a guitar string. Ashley didn’t stop her…so she continued. Slipped her fingers inside Ashley’s buttcrack, her nails probing for any sign of Mr. C. She didn’t feel anything at first. She was briefly concerned that Mr. C had fallen out in the parking lot or, even worse, was already….inside Ashley. Emma was pushing boundaries with Ashley and getting away with it for the moment, but she suspected they were quite far removed from a level of comfort whereby Ashley would suddenly let Emma toss her salad. If Mr. C was….up THERE, it was going to be a problem.

But then she felt it, the nail on her index finger rolling over a lump underneath Ashley’s thong. And if that lump was where she thought it was….Oof….sorry Mr. C. That can’t be enjoyable. Her hapless neighbor was having a rough go of it today, to put it lightly.

Her middle finger gently pulled the thong string out of the way as she felt Ashley’s breathing intensify, Emma’s own body heat rising even though none of this was supposed to be….real. Ashley tensed again, clearly wondering what Emma was doing fiddling around in her behind, probably suspecting that Emma intended to stick a finger in her.

That would have to be a first, even for Ashley. Nobody’s first kiss ends with their butt getting fingered. The nails on Emma’s thumb and index finger dexterously clamped around Mr. C’s form and…extracted him. She felt something like a little pop, almost as if Mr. C had been stuck halfway up Ashley’s butt. This poor, poor man, Emma thought remorsefully. And then slowly, ever so slowly, she withdrew her fingers, sliding them out gently from between Ashley’s buttcrack, making sure to continue leaning into the kiss and, well, selling it. She felt like more of a sleaze than Barnyard Levy. She was VIOLATING her good friend, whether she wanted to admit it or not. Nothing about this was remotely genuine. It was purely practical. A necessary evil. Wasn’t it?

Even though she had Mr. C secured, Emma made sure to give Ashley’s cheek another deep squeeze, digging her fingernails into the delightfully squishy flesh so that it wouldn’t be obvious that she had been fishing for something in Ashley’s butt. She was sure Mr. C wasn’t going to be happy being pressed into Ashley’s asscheek after having almost been swallowed whole by her anus, but she couldn’t just yank her hand out and run away. That would be even MORE suspicious.

Letting go of the handful of Ashley’s butt, Emma slowly extracted her hand, making certain to keep her fingernails clenched around Mr. C’s body in a vice. She slid that hand up Ashley’s back again, gliding under her shirt as though she intended to unclasp Ashley’s bra, pulling Ashley in so deep that Emma thought her tongue must be halfway down Ashley’s throat by now…but then she cut herself off. Withdrawing the hand and pulling it behind her back, she withdrew slowly.

As their lips parted, neither of them backed away immediately. Their eyes both opened, taking each other in, each peering into the other’s soul trying to find something, neither of them willing to break the moment or the silence. Their noses were still touching, each of their lips brushing the surface of the other’s. She felt Ashley’s breath on her, Ashley’s breathing having quickened and intensified. It tickled her wet lips in all the right ways.

Wow…that was…that was…something. She was surprised at the amount of will it took to back away, to separate from Ashley. Ashley’s eyes looked down at the ground bashfully, her hands linked behind her back, her foot twisting on the pavement in awkwardness as they both tried to find the words.

Hesitantly, perhaps even a little fearfully, Ashley’s eyes slowly rose to meet Emma’s. What was it she saw there? Was it fear? Shock? Nerves? Lust? Or was it something…more?

“Emma, I uh….wow,” Ashley began with painful awkwardness, biting her lip. “I had….had no idea…” Emma didn’t know what to say. Truthfully, she hadn’t expected her half-baked plan to get this far. She hadn’t planned out what would happen after, only now realizing that THIS was the most difficult part. Navigating this situation without torching a lifelong friendship. Plucking Mr. C from her friend’s butthole had actually been the easiest part. This would have to be handled delicately…and carefully.

“Ems…I’m not….I’m not gay…” Ashley continued. “I have a boyfriend…”

“No no Ash, I know. This was a bad idea, I’m really sorry…” Emma responded sheepishly as she backed away from Ashley, clasping her hands behind her back so Ashley wouldn’t see Mr. C. “I should go…” Emma trailed off as she continued backing away.

“No, wait Ems,” Ashley pleaded. “Why…why didn’t you, you know, ever…SAY something?” Ashley asked genuinely. “I thought….I thought you and Becky…”

“We’re not. I mean, I don’t think we are. I don’t know. Look Ash, I’m really sorry, again…” Emma turned her back on her friend, bringing her hands in front of her as she began to walk away. She heard Ashley’s quick footsteps as she jogged up behind her, grabbing her arm and turning her around.

“Emma….we should, you know, TALK about this…” Ashley begged.

“We will, Ash. Soon. I just…I just need a minute to think…Again, I’m really REALLY sorry.”

Ashley looked hurt for a second, her brow furrowing as her eyes searched Emma’s face for something. Emma felt she could almost see the gears turning in Ashley’s head, her brain processing the enormity of what had just happened, how it had reshaped their dynamic as friends potentially irrevocably. Ashley seemed to reach a decision, a shy grin coming across her face. She took Emma’s hand, pulled her forward, Emma’s eyes widening in shock and her face flushing again as Ashley planted a soft kiss on her lips that lingered perhaps just a moment too long. Emma’s body tingled, the soft, hesitant touch of Ashley’s lips brushing on hers somehow even more electrifying than their more intimate moment together a few seconds ago. Oh no….what did I do?

Ashley’s shy grin continued, her eyes darting to the pavement once again. “Call me later, Ems.”

“O…okay…” Emma trailed off as Ashley smiled at her, turning around and walking back toward her car.

Emma turned about to walk to her own car, lifting Mr. C up in her hands about to ask him if he was okay when, somehow, this cursed day got even worse. Under the parking lot lights, she saw someone waiting by her car, staring in her direction.

Oh…oh no. Emma felt dread mounting and snowballing within her. With everything that had transpired over the past few hours, she had completely forgotten her plans with Becky. Becky had likewise been staying late at the school for chess club. They were supposed to meet at Emma’s car when they were both done to go grab a bite to eat and…well, hopefully more. Emma had been hoping the evening wouldn’t end there, for once.

PLEASE tell me she didn’t see that. No such luck. Her eyes found Becky’s from across the parking lot, Becky immediately averting her gaze as her body took on a hunched, defensive posture and her head looked down at the ground. Becky grabbed her backpack off the top of Emma’s car and tucked it under her arm, storming off quickly, her movements stiff and almost robotic.

Emma started jogging after her. “Becky!!! Wait!!!” she called out. Becky ignored her, continuing her determined retreat to her own car. Everything about her posture screamed hurt and defense mechanisms.

“Becky!!” Emma called after her one more time, as her friend threw her backpack into the passenger’s seat, got into her car and slammed the door. Emma heard the ignition turn over, the headlights on the vehicle turning on before it peeled out of its spot, speeding away into the distance toward the street.

FUCK!!! Just when she thought this day could not possibly have gotten any worse, Becky had seen her and Ashley. Becky’s reaction had seemingly confirmed something Emma had fervently hoped was true, but now she wished she had never found out. Not the way she did just now, at least. Motherfucker.

Emma sighed, her shoulders drooping, feeling the tears tugging at her face again. She was sure her makeup was an absolute runny mess. As she got into her own car and deployed the rearview mirror, her suspicion was confirmed. She thought she looked like Heath Ledger’s twisted, damaged Joker more than a teenage girl in the prime of her life.

She collapsed forward, banging her head on the steering wheel in exasperation. “UGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!” she moaned in sheer, unadulterated frustration.

She heard a faint voice. “Everything okay, Emma?”

She opened her cupped palms, looking at Mr. C who had once again lost his “clothing.” Somewhere up Ashley’s butt was a little wad of paper towel. The Barnyard Levy Spitball Special had never been more successful. Somewhere, somewhere gross probably, Barnyard was doing victory laps.

Neither of them cared about his nudity at that point. They had both seen too much of each other, been through too much together, for something so mundane to matter in this moment.

All things considered, Mr. C was looking better. He had lost that wan and waxy look to him that she had seen after fishing him out of her vomit, his eyes more focused, his demeanor somewhat normal. She was certain there would be lingering trauma over his experiences today, for BOTH of them, but that dazed, detached and, frankly, frightening stare he had displayed earlier was gone. Emma was glad to see it. She had been concerned that he would NEVER get back to normal.

She caught a whiff of him, her nose wrinkling involuntarily in disgust. “P.U.! Mr. C, you smell positively foul,” she said with a tremulous smile.

“Yeahhhhh….your friend’s butt almost ate me. You uh, you might want to wash your hands, by the way.”

Emma fished around in her backpack, extracting a small bottle of hand sanitizer. She held it up in front of him, wagging her eyebrows suggestively. “Want a squirt?”

“Yes please,” he answered quickly. Emma held it over his head, squeezing out a little dollop that covered Mr. C easily from head to toe. She heard him let out a loud hiss as he frantically scrubbed it everywhere around his body. What? He doesn’t have any cuts… But then she saw it, the redness of his skin sticking out even more after having been irritated, and she winced. Oh….that’s….that’s um, acid burn, isn’t it? From….from my stomach…. Just when she felt like they were both starting to get over their shared ordeal, life handed her this painful, unforgiving reminder of just how close she had come to committing the most disgraceful type of murder imaginable. Well, actually…I think dying up Ashley’s butt would’ve been worse. A little. The thought was so patently ridiculous that she felt an involuntary grin crack her lips.

Mr. C looked at her skeptically. “What?” he asked with a frown.

“Nothing,” she answered, placing him on the armrest as she squirted sanitizer into her palms and lathered her hands. “Just…you’ve had a day, haven’t you?”

“That’s an EXTREMELY mild, generous way of putting it,” he responded, mercifully matching her grin.

“That was some quick thinking earlier, Emma. Thank you for…for saving me from your uh, your friend’s butt.” Mr. C said awkwardly.

“Please don’t thank me. It was the absolute least I could do after what I’ve put you through. Amy would murder me, painfully and slowly, if she knew what I’ve been doing to her husband since 3:45 this afternoon.”

“Don’t worry, Emma. Your secret is safe with me. For the record, Amy would ALSO murder me if she knew,” he said with a faint smile. His expression grew more serious. “What was with that girl?”

“The girl whose butt I rescued you from?” Emma asked curiously.

“No, the other one. The one that ran away from your car.”

Didn’t realize he saw that. “Oh that’s…that’s nothing. Just my um….friend. Becky.” Emma’s response sounded unconvincing even to her own ears.

Mr. C looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you like her?”

Emma debated internally for a moment. She didn’t know where Mr. C stood on these kinds of issues, where he was on the political spectrum, whether he would judge her for being bisexual, whether he’d approve of her lifestyle choices. She didn’t know if she should tell him the truth. And honestly, this would be the first time she had admitted it out loud to herself to boot. That she liked Becky. Weirdly, it felt like a point of no return. That if she gave voice to what she hoped had been building since they were kids, nothing would ever be the same again. What am I talking about? This is Mr. C. He’s always been kind to me.

“…..yes. I think….I think I do like her,” Emma answered softly.

“And does she like you?” Mr. C questioned immediately.

“I don’t uh….I don’t know,” Emma answered honestly.

Mr. C raised an eyebrow. “You saw her have THAT reaction, and you seriously don’t know? REALLY, Emma? You’re a smart kid,” he coaxed. “She likes you, trust me.”

Emma was briefly elated at the thought, but then her heart plummeted again. “Well, not anymore she doesn’t. I just blew it.”

Mr. C’s gaze narrowed, his expression suddenly growing serious. “Bullshit. Bullshit Emma. FUCK that. If you like this girl, and she likes you back, you fucking talk to her. Do you know how many times I’ve pissed Amy off, how many times I’ve made her uncomfortable, how many misunderstandings we’ve had over the years?”

“I can guess,” Emma answered with a wry grin.

“The point is: you’re both adults. And adults talk to each other. Amy and I wouldn’t still be together if we couldn’t talk to each other about everything. You’re done with the high school politics at your age. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that can’t be solved with a real conversation. Maybe you don’t end up together, but wouldn’t you still want her as your friend?”

“I would, yeah,” Emma conceded. “What am I even supposed to say? ‘Hey sorry you saw that Becky, but believe when I tell you that I had my tongue down Ashley’s throat and was fiddling around in her butt just for laughs, it meant nothing’”?

“Emma, this may come as a surprise to you, but I wouldn’t lead with that,” Mr. C answered, both of them laughing. “Let me think on it. I’m a lawyer, Emma. We can make a case for you, we just gotta sort out our approach.”

“You don’t have to do that Mr. C, but…I appreciate it,” Emma responded with a warm, genuine smile.

“No problem.” Mr. C paused for a second. “This is going to sound absolutely bonkers after the past few hours but….are you hungry?”

“Actually, yeah. I could eat,” Emma answered.

“As long as it’s not me this time,” Mr. C warned mockingly. Emma smiled again. It was good that they could already joke about it. She buckled herself in, put Mr. C in the cupholder, and started her car, pulling out of the parking lot.