Spanky Bullwhips

Disclaimer: The names in the story below are, like the story itself, fiction - made up - fake. You get the point, right? Any correlation between thice chipsese characters and real people is purely coincidental etc. etc. The song quote at the end is real though: I pinched it from the Barenaked Ladies, may they live forever and ever…

Spanky Bullwhips wasn't as fucked up as he looked. Nobody is that fucked up. Disturbing, not disturbed, might be one way to put it - one of a kind. Unlucky enough to look 'challenged' and sharp enough to play the part, if you know what I mean.

I'm not the best person to give a first impression of the guy. We grew up on the same block, just a few houses apart. Honestly, I never gave his looks much thought until our first day at school. The reactions of the other kids drove the point home: laughing, pointing, whispering. A little girl started screaming; it took her mother forever to peel her tiny fingers off the doorframe and wrestle her into the classroom. Percy didn't pay her any mind though - he was used to worse from adults.

Yeah, his name was Percy. Percy Darkin. I doubt many people remember him. I don't doubt that his parents are happy about it: the no one remembering part that is. They made no bones about the fact that he was not the Golden Child. I think he wore the same clothes for two years at a stretch. That – or his closet resembled a forest of identical yellow and blue striped sweaters that all shrank at the same rate. I used to trade lunches with him a lot, even though I hate bologna and ketchup sandwiches – especially when the ketchup leeches through the bread.

He got his nickname in second grade. It was Billy Owens - he was a Little Rascals fan. One day Billy was leading the 'let's kick the shit out of Percy' fan club and made the inspired comment that Percy looked like Spanky after a bullwhipping. It stuck.

That's when I picked up the rock. Billy seemed smaller at that moment. His eyes were nailed to my hands. I felt the grit against my fingers – saw the dust trailing behind the granite just before it bounced off his skull. Billy stared, unbelieving. His eyes swelled big and black like a frightened puppy - I felt terrible. Terrible like a bomb - terrible like a beaten dog taking its first bite. After that, Billy's friends started calling him 'Billy girl-fight'. Billy's nickname didn't stick, but Percy's did - and Billy is still an asshole: an asshole of the ex-husband variety.

On our way home that day Percy said it for the first time, tears running this way and that over his puffy red face, his broken glasses sliding again and again off the end of his nose.

"Ah ooh I bet fend?"

"Yeah Percy, I guess I am."

We walked home after school, hand in hand; it was the first time in my life I felt comfortable with anyone. That was a long time ago - but springtime turns to summer and on to fall and winter. Sometimes, if I try really hard, the nights don't seem so long.

Fast forward to fall, my twelfth birthday party: not much of a party. Percy and I sat at the table eating our cake and ice cream, taking care not to let our merriment rise above a whisper. My dad locked himself in his office that morning – my Mom walked around on tiptoe. That was the best birthday present my Dad ever gave me. I could breathe easier when he left me alone: my hands didn't shake. I could go outside to escape. I could smile.

It was a good day to smile. The leaves, red, yellow and brown, danced around the yard on a warm liquid breeze. It was Percy's idea, jumping in the leaves. Sometimes he got an idea into his head and no one could shake him out of it. We took turns jumping into huge piles of the crispy things until we were covered from head to toe in leaf confetti. We looked like two pieces of cookie dough, rolled in candy and ready for the baker's rack. It was great fun until we started to itch. I felt the jagged crumbs sticking me like thousands of tiny pinpricks - I needed to get them out of my clothes and there was no way I was going back into that house.

That's how we got caught. It's funny how I still think of it as getting caught; we weren't doing anything wrong. It never crossed our minds that we were doing anything wrong – but there we were, standing in the garage in our underwear, shaking out our clothes and brushing leaves off each other; looking at my mom's face as it boiled from white to red like a stuck traffic light.

"Cathy, you Little SLUT!"

She screamed – and my face exploded. Red finger-marks in the shape of Mom's hand tattooed themselves on my jaw. My ear became a bright stab of pain. Percy ducked and ran out the door in his underwear; his yellow sweater trailed behind him like a flag. I felt abandoned – but I don't blame him.

"Comon' Little Slut," mom ranted, dragging me across the yard by my hair, mumbling the words I didn't want to hear: "let's see what your Father thinks about a Little Slut playing doctor in the garage!"

Now, this story isn't about me, else it would be titled "Little Slut." That's what my Mom and Dad called me for over a year.

My Christmas present the following year? Little Slut once again bestowed with the title "Cathy." The farce was iced with ceremonial hugs, inexpensive presents and cold kisses. Percy was allowed into the house again to play, supervised, with Little Slut.

But, as they say, the Lord givith and the Lord taketh away. I don't believe in God anymore, but I like the saying. In Percy's case the taking came at birth. The giving started sometime in our second year of High School - if you can call it giving. You see, for some odd reason, some divine cosmic joke, many women found Percy irresistible.

I never understood the attraction. Maybe I was just used to him – to me he was just a friend. Sure, he smelled good: like bread baking, like kitten fur full of fresh air, like a warm summer breeze – but that was it. I was into eyes. That's how I got hooked on Billy Owens, his bright blue eyes – more like beady little ice chips – but my opinion is colored by experience. Back then all it took was a cute face and great eyes to get Little Slut all hot and bothered. With Percy it wasn't like that. I could say anything to the guy and he listened to me. He was the only person I could really connect with. His tutoring was the only reason I was able to get passing grades. He made me laugh.

"What are you looking so worried about?" I asked him one day as we sat in a pile of papers and textbooks. He sank his teeth deeper into the end of his pencil.

"Not-in," he said, eyes downcast.

"What do you mean nothing? You've brushed you hair out of your eyes like sixty times in the last three minutes."

I eased the pencil out of his shaking hands – he folded them in his lap.

"Come on, spill it."

"Ms Feg-maher..."

"What about Ms Fegenmacher?" (Betty Fegenmacher was our tenth grade algebra teacher. Young, almost a kid herself at the time, maybe twenty-three or four. Not exactly a Van-Halen-video kind of teacher, but attractive nonetheless. Not all there, if you ask me.)

Percy just looked at me with his good eye; his face flushed crimson.

"Do I have to drag it out of you?" I reached out, laid a hand on his arm. He shied away, adjusted his glasses with one stubby finger and looked back at the floor.

"Mahe move." He snatched the pencil and stuck it back in his mouth.

"What?" I was short with him, unbelieving. "You sound like the assholes on the football team! Stop it!"

"No!" He stared up from the floor, "not ike tat! She n me…" His shoulders shook with little sobs.

My heart jumped. My face began to burn. I knew him well enough to realize he wasn't bullshitting. He was the world's worst bullshitter. I could feel knots turning my belly to panic fire. I tucked my feet beneath me on the bed, wrung my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking. I felt like I was standing in front of my Dad, listening to one of his endless rants as I fought to stand straight and still, my body swaying back and forth. All I wanted was to sink into a barrel of ice water and let the numbness wash over me.

"Just stop it, I don't want to know…"

He bolted from the room before I could finish speaking; my bedroom door crashed into the frame – a spiderweb crack ran up the wall. I felt like shit. I wanted to go after him but didn't. I could say I was numb, but that wasn't it. I could say I was in denial, that it was too much for me to process, that I was too young to understand. Not true – not any of it. I just didn't want to deal with it – I didn't know how to make it better – but I did understand. I'll always understand and that's what hell is: hell is regret for things done or not done; things I can't change and things I can't stop thinking about. It's personal.

We didn't speak much for the next couple of years; we only glanced at each other when we passed in the halls – especially when one of us was with someone. Switching partners and trying to better each other became a kind of unspoken competition between us and Little Slut was up for the challenge. I never said a word about what Percy told me, though I listened to the rumors - never letting on what I knew but never doing anything to stop it.

I never saw Percy outside of school until the summer after graduation - a party at Janet Manning's house. There were always parties at Janet's house. Her dad was long gone and her mom often spent nights elsewhere, sometimes several nights in a row. Janet and I spent those hours cleaning up – spent even longer hours perfecting our reputations. Infamous, we were – and proud of it.

That night was like most others: drinking, loud music, pot smoking, guys in the basement fiddling with guitars, guys in the upper bedrooms fiddling with girls - typical eighteen-year-old bullshit. By eleven-something I was more than half in the bag, sitting between two guys sharing a joint, grabbing two hits for every one of theirs. That's when I saw him watching me.

Percy sat in a recliner at the other end of the room. Janet sat on the arm of that chair, stars in her big hazel eyes and a gin and Squirt in her hand. My best friend. Her other hand roamed inside his half-open navy dress shirt, a kind of nonchalant nail-scraping tease. At his feet sat a dark-haired girl I didn't recognize: chubby arms, round of hip and spilling out of her lace Harley tank top. Her lips were moving but nothing was coming out – like a stymied ventriloquist dummy. Not that anyone could have overpowered Phil Collins on the stereo that night. I hate fucking Phil Collins too.

I was mesmerized, watching that scene. I paid no mind to the guy's hand on my bare thigh, even when it crept inside the cuff of my shorts - he'd been there before. I was too busy watching Percy. What was it about him that commanded all that attention? Certainly not the cut of his jaw. His body – to die for: huge shoulders, a thick, sweeping chest, a broad, powerful back and one of the best asses I've ever seen – but how did anyone get past that face? One of the guys snapped me out of my musing by handing me another joint. His lips moved.

"…"

"What?" I yelled over the music. A moment later his lips touched my ear. Shivers.

"…," he repeated.

I should have taken offense I suppose, but I lit the joint anyway and turned my eyes back to Percy. Harley Girl slithered a hand onto his knee. Her finger made little circles and her voiceless marionette mouth kept chopping up and down. I inhaled; the cherry glowed red and tore the joint into a canoe. I held my breath and passed it to my left, still watching. Percy and I locked eyes. He raised his beer to his lips. Half of it vanished.

"…upstairs?" breathed the guy with his tongue in my ear. I closed my eyes and exhaled. I should have done something to stop him but I was in the middle of a staring contest. No, it was more than a staring contest; it was our coldwar. Percy's hand dropped to Harley Girl's rounded shoulder, eased aside the thin, lacy strap and wandered over her collarbone to tickle the tops of her breasts. My eyelids fell to half-mast; Mr. Tongue invaded my ear. Janet got up off the arm of the chair and took Percy's hand, led him after her as my eyes burned into her back. They left the room followed by Harley Girl.

I was determined to follow but I wanted an excuse. I turned my head, felt a hot wet tongue flick my cheek, teasing. I sucked him into my mouth, crushed my lips to his, tasting beer and burnt joint and a hint of earwax. We stabbed into the kiss: our heads moving, violent, my hands behind his neck, my head spinning, lost. A hand kneaded my breasts through my tube top. I felt my nipples come alive as another set of hands began to explore my thighs. Tongue wiggled the finger inside my shorts. I broke the kiss, panting.

"Upstairs," I mouthed. I didn't need to say it twice. I took his hand, dragged him after me as I followed Percy. The Pot Man scrambled to collect his party supplies and we shoved our way through the crowded room and up the stairs. My two excuses trailed behind like rats following the Pied Piper.

The hallway swept ahead of me, long and wavering; several doors on either side stood open and gaping. Not so Janet's bedroom door. I broke away from my entourage, strode to the door and pressed my ear against it. Nothing. Tongue slid his arms around my waist, pressed his lips once more against my ear.

"Why don't we use an empty room?"

I turned, raised an eyebrow, quieted him with my best 'because I'm in charge here' look. We stood at the door, my hand on the knob, his knob pressed against my ass, grinding. I let it happen, let myself get lost in his pawing – I welcomed the distraction. I tapped at the door. A moment later the door cracked open and Janet's face appeared – a worried smile, a glance over her shoulder, a giving in. She opened the door with a 'what the fuck' kind of look on her face.

"Comon' in and join the party, I guess." She turned. I glared at the back of her head. We stepped inside and Potman closed the door behind us.

The room was dim, lit only by a bedside lamp that cast mangled shadows over the walls. Harley Girl was already on her back, her eyes about six counties east of the next state. Her top was wrapped around her belly, exposing ample breasts that lolled like jelly off the sides of her chest. I think her tiny pink nipples were the most alert part of her at that moment. Percy lay between her legs, nibbling at one of her nipples. Until he turned his head to see who was there he looked just like anyone else.

Mr. Tongue went to work again: his paws ran all over me. His mouth, hot on my neck, sent fresh shivers. Before I knew what was happening my shorts were bunched around my ankles, my tube top was a skirt and his hand pistoned between my legs – kneading me like I was a piece of cookie dough.

I felt more than naked with Percy in the room – I felt like a whore. This was taking our war to a new level. I wanted out – but at the same time I was stoned out of my mind and this was not the first group-grope Janet and I had instigated. I bit down hard on my resolve and kept going.

I arched my back; a moan escaped my lips. Percy and I locked eyes as he rolled over on the bed and began to work on Harley Girl's shorts. Potman sat at the desk in the corner rolling another joint; his eyes darted this way and that like a trapped animal. Percy yanked off Harley Girl's shorts and panties at the same time. She squirmed on the two fingers he shoved inside her – frantic, thrashing, rolling around on the bed with glazed eyes. Her hips, out of control, flexed and shook. Janet decided to get into the act too and worked Percy's shirt up and off, revealing strong, rippling muscles that twisted with each thrust of his arm. Mr. Tongue stuck a finger inside my panties and I gyrated against him, felt his fingers tug on my clit.

"You like that, don't you?" he slobbered in my ear. I nodded, captivated by the sight of Percy driving Harley Girl into violent thrashing convulsions until she screamed, coming, impaled on his thick fingers. Percy turned and looked at me with a wild grin as if to say, "I'm in the lead now!"

I decided to take up the challenge. I turned to my excuse, began working at his belt buckle with a mind to swallow his come while Percy watched. The thought of him watching me like this sent an evil shiver up my spine: an electric current that cut through my detachment like a razor. Percy threw the gauntlet – the battle was joined. I was dying to see the look on Percy's face while I sucked Tongue's cock; I wanted to write shock there, and I wasn't going to stop until the I's were dotted and the T's were crossed.

Potman lit his joint, and for whatever reason decided to open his mouth.

"Way to go, Spanky…"

Percy's head jerked around like he'd been hit with a cast iron frying pan. His good eye misted over, his shoulders sank. Suddenly he looked very, very small: a sad little puppy hit in the head by a brick.

"FUCK YOU!" I heard someone that sounded like me, screaming. A joint flew across the room and my knuckles erupted in pain but I kept hitting and then Janet was wrestling me off and Potman tried to get at me but they held him down.

"FUFFIN' CUNT, OO BOKE MY GOD DAN TOOF YOU FUFIN' 'ORE!"

Potman kept screaming as he struggled to break free. I pinwheeled my arms in a red fog, then slowed, trying to catch my breath. The damage done was just beginning to sink in. His right eye was almost closed, leaking. His lips, swollen and raw, twisted into a viscous snarl. I can't recall anyone looking so repulsive. Harley Girl threw some of her clothes back on and ran from the room trailing the rest. Janet looked at me with wide eyes that narrowed to volcanic slits as she turned to face Potman.

"Just get the fuck out of my house, asshole," she snarled – the warning growl of Mamma Tiger.

"But SEE stahted it, fuffin' BITS!" screamed Potman, spraying spit and blood all over the room.

"JUST GET THE FUCK OUT!" I thought her voice would shatter the window.

"Comon' man," said Tongue, buckling his belt. He shot me an evil glance before he turned back to his buddy. "Let's' just go."

They left; Potman hurled a final, mangled insult and slammed the door behind him. Janet turned a comic smile at me.

"Way to ruin a buzz, Cathy."

"He's an asshole."

"Yup," said Janet, "but you didn't have to try and kill him."

"Whatever. He pissed me off."

"I sorta gathered that…"

I couldn't help it - I just started laughing. So did Janet. There was nothing else to do. I laughed until my ribs began to ache and I struggled for breath. Finally, I wiped the tears from my eyes, shifted my tube top back into place and rescued the flying joint from the corner.

It was then that we remembered Percy; he was still in the room, crying. His huge shoulders jerked up and down, his chin bounced against his chest, his long hair hung – plastered to his face. I whispered to Janet and she nodded, tiptoed out of her room, closed the door behind her with a click. I crawled onto her bed next to Percy, still wearing nothing but panties and a tube top. It didn't seem to matter. I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight to my chest. His body shook. His tears ran cold between my breasts as I rocked him back and forth, telling him it would be OK.

"Why?" he said through the sobs, "why tey nah let me forgeh? Why tey jus oose me alla time?"

"They use you because they're not your friends, Percy."

"Nah?"

"No."

We sat for a long while in silence until he began to breathe easier. He looked at me then; his head still cradled against my breasts. I tucked my knee against his chest; a smile tried to form on his lips.

"Ooh gotta hot tenper," he said, "Ooh gonna get in toble un od dese daysh."