The WhatsApp Group

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Prologue

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There it stood, mocking her, the book Madalena had promised herself to be finished reading within a month. Now the self-imposed deadline was one week away, and only twenty pages of the book had been turned thus far. But tonight would be the night. She'd taken her pyjama from the small drawer of the room her college was willing to give its students, put it on, and decided to have a calm night in.

Her phone buzzed once as soon as she got to the third paragraph of page twenty-one.

What do those idiots want now? She thought. Whatever it was that her group project members wanted to find out on a Sunday at 11 PM could wait for the following morning when her patience and caffeine levels were at a much higher level.

The chapter was ending, dreary to no end, when her phone hummed again. And then again. For a few seconds it seemed to never miss a beat, whirring into life until it was almost permanently buzzing. She picked it up, keeping her finger on the page she was at, determined to inconvenience herself into reading more.

Just as the noise it had made indicated, it was a WhatsApp conversation icon that popped up. As she clicked on the familiar green icon, Madalena was a little surprised when she saw this conversation did not have a group name. In fact, it was made up exclusively of numbers that were not on her contact list.

Frowning at this, she opened the app. The first message was a picture of a semi erect penis. What followed this up, however, were lines of conversation she really had not expected.

\ Oh my God, a dick. I'm so horny for you. NOT! /

\ Uh, Kyle, buddy, dumbass, did you add someone else to this? /

\ Holy shit, how many numbers are on this??? /

\ LOL! There are 6 numbers here! Who wants to bet that he wanted to send 5 girls his junk?....... /

\ Wow! xD He accidentally created a group convo! That is fucking incredible... xD /

\ Seriously? /

Judging the situation as interesting enough to warrant replacing her finger on the book with an actual bookmark, Madalena gave the text thread her full attention, laughing until her sides hurt.

Excitedly, she typed her own message and hit send.

\ Just arrived at this beautiful mess... Hi, other ladies, nice to meet you! :) How did you guys come to meet the owner of this downsized prick (pun intended)? /

It was rather silly of Madalena, but it amused her.

\ Bad life choices, honey. It can only have been bad life choices... /

\ I think Kyle was the one who made a real bad, bad life choice, girls xD /

\ Damn right! /

\ I actually attend the same lecture as him. /

\ Ew... That sucks. /

\ On the contrary, I'm making sure he doesn't get laid with ANYONE in that class! /

\ Oh, hell yeah, girl! ;) /

\ Payback's a bitch! And so are we, Kyle! Ahahahah /

There was a notification from the app at that moment. Kyle had apparently assessed the gravity of his mistake and bailed on them, removing himself from the conversation entirely.

\ COWARD!!! / Madalena wrote out of pettiness, despite the fact that he obviously couldn't see her reaction anymore.

\ YOU GIANT PUSSY! / Someone else sent at the exact same time, making Madalena chuckle in her silent bedroom.

\ I don't think he's getting one of those anytime soon... /

\ Damn straight! /

\ It's a shame, I had a nice round of insults lined up, and now I don't get to use them. /

\ NO! I wanna hear them! /

\ Fuck yeah, me too! /

\ Me too, damnit! -.-' /

\ Some of them need a graphical reaction, hang on... /

The next message was a picture of a blonde girl, holding a very rough looking pepper shaker, with the caption "things I would rather put up my pussy than Kyle's dick".

This was much too amusing for the group of five women, who began one by one to try to one-up each another with household items that had no place anywhere near a vagina and the same caption. The original blonde girl reappeared at a certain point with a porcelain duck and was declared the winner.

\ Hang on, I figured you were all posting stock pictures from online, are we all using actual pictures of us? / Madalena asked the group.

When all of them confirmed they were in fact searching around their houses and taking selfies to send to the group chat, Madalena looked at the other girls' photos with renewed interest.

\ Why did you ask, though? / One of them sent.

\ Cause you're all too damn gorgeous, that's all... / She typed back, blushing a little after hitting send.

God bless women. Madalena thought as the responses to her statement rolled in. She was instantaneously called a hottie in a myriad of different ways. It also marked the beginnings of another game of one-upmanship as they went increasingly over-the-top to sweettalk one another.

Once more there was a clear winner when someone else other than the blonde woman took the opportunity to write to another one how she'd tie her to a bed pole and have her way with her till the bed broke.

\ *wolf whistles* /

\ You sure you're not a dude? /

\ Hey, no need to insult, just admit I won... /

They all agreed that the woman with the hot message was the winner of that particular bout.

\ Thank you, thank you! /

Somehow it felt a little sad to be leaving these funny and cool people behind. Taking sudden inspiration, Madalena wrote out her proposal.

\ I don't know about you girls, but would you want to meet up for dinner one of these days? Just to really rub it in that Kyle dropped the ball massively on this... / She joked.

\ Girl, I stopped listening after the "rub it in" part... Let's go! /

Everyone else seemed equally excited about it and agreed, as they set about choosing a place to go.

Madalena's book lay by her side, forgotten. Probably for quite a while. In her defence it was not a regular occurrence to have something like this happen to her.

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The Dinner

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A cacophony of sound greeted Naomi as she entered the Irish pub at the corner of the street, two blocks away from where she lived. She made her way past the large number of boozy tourists at the bar and walked up a narrow staircase in the middle of the place, towards the group tables at the top.

A couple of televisions were showing two rugby teams going at each other, though they were on silent, fortunately. Looking around, Naomi could swear she was looking straight at the girl who had taken the selfie with her computer mouse during their competition the previous night.

With less than confident steps, Naomi approached the bench and saw the two women there look up at her and smile. One was a small, brown-haired woman with large round wired glasses, who seemed to be packing a few extra pounds, as Naomi's mother would say. To this Naomi would reply with "in some nice places", as was the case this time.

'Hello, welcome to our corner of the woods.' The girl greeted.

'We can offer nothing other than boring conversation.' The other woman interjected. She had big brown eyes, puffy lips and a dark-skinned complexion. Not to mention some ridiculous geometrically circular breasts that, no doubt, had played a part in being one of the addressees of the dick pic from the previous night.

'Then I have come to the right place.' Naomi smiled and sat down.

She had to do so on the opposite end of the table from where the other two women sat, as they were very closely seated together on their own bench of the rectangular table. Soon it became clear why that was.

Both were apparently taking the same class in college and had never talked to each other before, only noticing the other from a distance. Now it appeared they had taken an instant liking in the short while they had been there before Naomi arrived, and were keenly discussing plans to join up for one of the group projects that lay ahead.

They got Naomi up to speed on their most recent topic of conversation. They were discussing the worst professors they had gotten during their seven months of college experience so far. The girl with the round glasses was laying out her own candidate.

'We arrive to present an end of semester project and the professor laughs at us and goes: "My, my, I don't think I'd ever even seen all members of this group together at one of my lectures before..."'

'Fuck...' The dark-skinned girl shook her head, half-amused, half-shocked.

'And then, after everything was done he said he was going to leave the room and for us to write down on the board what grade we, as a group, felt that each member deserved before he got back...'

'Evil fucker!'

'I think she's the winner.' Naomi stated, the other woman agreeing.

Truth was, Naomi felt a little bit like a fish out of water with the company of the two women that clearly had gotten into a groove of conversation before her arrival. So, when another girl started to head to their table, she was just a little relieved.

'Ladies, is this the right table for the meeting of the unfortunate sightseers of awful dicks?'

'Aren't all women?' Naomi asked, drawing laughs from the others.

'I have come to the right place, then...'

'Ah-ah, not so fast!' The girl with the big brown eyes stopped her, clearly the most outgoing of the pair that arrived first. 'Password?'

'What do you mean?'

'Show her the picture of the disappointing dick from our convo.' Her friend replied. 'She made me do it when I arrived, though she forgot to do it with her...' She pointed to Naomi.

'I knew I'd forgotten something when you arrived!'

'Fine, fine...' The newcomer smirked and produced the picture from her phone.

Welcoming her properly as she sat down to Naomi's right, the other two women inevitably started to go into a conversation of their own. It wasn't that they were rude, it was merely how well they had begun to get along from their short interaction.

'I feel a little old, all of a sudden...' The new girl told Naomi.

'I'm pretty sure they're of age.' Naomi said, with an understanding smile.

Contrary to the other two women, this girl appeared to be closer to her mid-twenties rather than her teens. Her more adult face was thin, with prominent cheekbones and her hair was a short silver bundle on top of her head. At her neck was a choker made up of a few bits of plastic resembling blood drops, which she found to be cool.

'I know, but sometimes you just feel your extra couple of years, you know? With these younglings...'

'With that you are calling me old as well, is it?'

'I know the face of someone who's just fucking with me when I see it!' She replied, understanding her bluff.

'Peeps, good looking girl climbing up the stairs,' The girl with glasses nudged them. 'is that our fifth member?'

///////////////

Late, late, late, late, late... Hailey thought, climbing the stairs two by two. As usual. Came the snarky reply of her subconscious, which instantly received machine gun fire up its ass, since she was in no mood for its bullshit.

As it turned out, recognizing which table was hers proved to be a rather easy task, as there was no mistaking the table of four women staring her way with anticipation.

'Would you believe me if I told you I had to save a kitten from a tree?' She asked them.

'Not unless you're secretly Elastic Girl.'

'Man, I wish I was as thick as that bitch...' Hailey said with longing, making the Asian girl closest to the wall snort in amusement. The two two-person benches were already filled up, so she pulled up a chair from a nearby empty round table and sat down, with four expectant faces looking back at her.

'Alright, then...' She cleared her throat, having anticipated the slow awkward start to a conversation between five strangers. 'Dearly beloved, we all know why we are gathered here today.' Hailey started in mock-solemnness. 'Because Kyle is a fucking idiot!' She bellowed out, causing glares from the surrounding people but succeeding in breaking the ice, as her companions hooted in agreement. 'He is such a fucking idiot, and you seemed real dope, so here we are!'

The girl to her right tapped the table rhythmically, kind of firing her up further. She took the fact that the girl that appeared to be the shyest of them all was getting into it as a good sign.

'And now, since I don't know you, and there is a possibility that you're creepy stalker people, we shall go to introductions! Me first.' Hailey said, before leaning back and making a show of batting her eyelashes. ''Sup?' She said in a "bro accent".

Her audience was captive now.

'This gorgeous beauty you see in front of you is called Hailey.' She continued. 'I do livestreams online for a living, working from home, I'm asleep a lot of the time, and when I'm not there's a high chance I'm hitting on someone or exercising.'

'Considering your lack of sporty wear, are you hitting on me?' The woman immediately to her left asked, with a Cheshire cat smirk.

'Maybe I was, what's it to you?' Hailey replied with unnecessary aggressiveness.

'So, Kyle was barking up the wrong tree, then...'

'Just because I'm into girls doesn't mean that I don't dig dudes, I don't discriminate, unlike other people at this table!'

'Since when is being straight discrimination?'

'And what makes you think we're all straight?' The woman to her further right asked, raising her eyebrows cheekily.

'Those are two excellent questions, good job, girls.' Hailey said, but shook her finger at them. 'But I feel I've shared enough of myself with you-'

'Clearly not, since you're still wearing clothes after that...' The woman with silver hair at her left pretended to whisper, for the others benefit.

'-it's time for someone else to expose herself.' Hailey finished with the deliberately provocative inuendo.

The sassy whisperer volunteered.

'Alright, I'll bite. Shush!' She added, when Hailey's mouth began opening, the giggles around the table proving to be contagious, as the mood escalated quickly into full party mode. 'This trash-fire of a person in front of you goes by Sonja.' She told them, to a chorus of "boos" for how she had insulted herself. 'I am taking my Master's degree in Chemistry over this side of the Atlantic because I'm from Finland, which essentially makes me wanna be asleep most of the time rather than study for it.'

There were two eager understanding nods from the two women on the other side of the bench, as well as an interested look from the girl behind Sonja, but Hailey had more pressing concerns.

'Oh, oh, I totally forgot, add how you had the misfortune of having Kyle know your number.'

'I met him at a college party. He's not from my university and I didn't give him my number, but, apparently, we have a mutual "soon to be ex" friend who shared my cell number with him. What about you?'

'Tracked it down from an ex of mine, apparently...'

'Ew, creepy!'

'As opposed to your garden-variety normal random dick pic senders.' Hailey laughed. 'Next up!'

'Alright.' The girl with glasses called out, appearing to not want to be one of the last ones to get it out. 'I'm Madalena, y'all.' She said, getting chorus of "hi, Madalena" back, which made her laugh. 'Very alcoholics anonymous of us, I dig it.' She paused. 'I'm studying to be a doctor, apparently together with this one...' She nodded to the woman to her right. 'I was rudely interrupted of the book I was reading last night by a sudden stream of messages, and I have two moms.' She shrugged. 'That's about it to me.'

'Two moms, huh?' Sonja commented, appearing interested.

'I wonder why that caught your eye, and not my studies...' Madalena sassed, to the others' delight. 'Two awesome moms raised me in the great city of New York.'

'Adopted?'

'Nope, biological.'

'From which one?'

'Both.'

There was a pause of misunderstanding amongst the group.

'Wait, one of them...'

'Didn't have something in their pockets but were actually really glad to see the other.' Madalena completed, trying not to smile.

'Damn, that's hot!' The dark-skinned girl, that shared classes with her, proclaimed.

'Nope. No one wants to hear their parents called that.' The short girl shook her head.

'But seriously, imagine how dope it would be to see a woman with an actual dick just fucking the shit out-' Hailey began, excitedly.

'La la la la la la la la la...!' Madalena covered her ears and chanted childishly, creating a fit of laughter across the table, and further annoying other diners.

'Alright, alright, we'll change the subject, you prude...' The woman to Madalena's right said. 'Hey, everybody, I am Carolyn, I know Kyle because we came to college here from the same high school, where I'm sad to say he's always been a moron. My dad is a cardiovascular surgeon, not to be confused with a "heart surgeon", 'cause if he hears the expression it sends him into monologues about the proper naming of things... And, uh, yeah, trying to make it in his own field.'

'Daddy issues, totally dig it.' Hailey commented, getting flipped off.

'Only one to go.' Madalena put in, and they all excitedly looked towards the remaining group member.

'Hi.' She squeaked out in a slightly nervous tone.

'Hello, yourself.' Sonja gave her a reassuring smile.

'I'm Naomi. I was born in Yokohama, came to the States when I was twelve, I'm a primary school teacher and I'm newly divorced. Oh, and I am clearly the oldest here, which is why I know Kyle from babysitting him.' Naomi sarcastically smiled at the last one.

'No!'

'No way, no fucking way!'

'That shit's too good!'

'With that statement, ladies,' Hailey said, still a little stunned, like the rest of them. 'let's get this shit on the road and order some food!'

///////////////

Whatever awkward pauses Sonja had feared would occur among these five complete strangers ended up not happening at all. She could tell their stages in life, apart from the two younger women, were entirely different which in turn meant a lot of interest in finding out what the others were up to.

Carolyn and Madalena had hit it off instantly, their introvert styles seeming to have a few slight differences, Sonja realised. Madalena was a classical bookworm, overbearing with concern for her grades, but there was also something else there. A desire to be pushed out of her shell. The girl to her right was also a little introspective, but Hailey appeared to have nailed her first impression of her: her studies seemed to be about making her father proud.

Conversation shot in all direction whilst the hungry women gulped everything down, but now they had split off into two groups once more. Hailey was now talking about a friend of hers who'd started to apply for university after years of no interest, and Carolyn and Madalena were extremely enthralled.

For her part, Sonja once more was focussed on Naomi.

'You look like you're surprised to be having fun.' She told her.

'I kind of am.' Naomi blushed a little. 'I tend to isolate myself a little to be comfortable. And I haven't exactly been improving on that since the divorce.'

'It's really none of my business, but can you talk about that?'

The Japanese girl shrugged.

'Not much to say, really. We were both raised traditionally, in my case I only came to the US pretty late, and we thought that since we "had" to marry someone in our group,' Naomi made air quotes with her fingers. 'it may as well be us. There was never any passion, though.'

A ridiculous giggle escaped Madalena's throat as Hailey mentioned the story of putting her arm into a condom all the way to her elbow in front of a date when he claimed he was too big for one.

'I wish I was like that, sometimes.' Naomi said, with a wide grin.