Yay Feminism

Their own repressed horniness. That, at the root, was what was driving this whole business. They all just kept it buried so deep, they didn't even realize. Couldn't face it square. They were too embarrassed by it. Had to disguise the feelings with phony feminism. Yay.

It was an insult to real feminists. Real feminists would smack their faces, if they heard these girls.

And then they'd dragged her into it with them. No escape. They couldn't let her refuse, in order to protect their illusions.

She was just as much to blame now. She'd let herself become implicated and tainted. That was the saddest and shittiest part. Too big a pussy to hold her ground.

4.

It's a rattling, banging noise that wakes her up. Like nails shaking around in a coffee can. This is what she's picturing before she opens her eyes. Actually all it is, it's just rain. Hammering the roof and the windows of this van.

Yeah, a van. Well, that's what it looks like. She's laying in the back of a big van, on the floor. There are no seats back here; they've all been removed to make lots of room. Beneath her, there's no carpet, but the metal floor has a few plaid blankets and beach towels spread out across it for cushioning. They're all pretty filthy and ragged and ugly looking, and as for cushioning, they don't work very well. The goddamn floor is still uncomfortably hard under her bottom, and her back too, and also it's baking hot, plus she can feel sharp ridges or bolts or something bulging up in a few different spots. Probably imprinting deep marks in her skin, if they don't end up making her break-out. Which more than likely they will. Her skin is sensitive that way. You stare too hard at a certain spot with a dirty look, and you can make a pimple form there.

Shit. Owee. Why is the floor so damn hot? The engine isn't running and it's raining. Why hasn't that made it cool down? They should crack the windows; the air's stifling in here and doesn't smell great either. Like a locker room.

Then pretty fast after that it becomes clear she has a hangover, and it's a real good whopper. All the standard symptoms down the checklist. That particular distinct headache—it throbs in a few different specific spots than other kinds of headaches she gets. There's also the queasy gurgling swamp-belly, and the worrisome itchy-sensation in her bladder like some tiny jagged thing has got itself caught in there that shouldn't be, and how the fuck is she ever gonna be able to pee it out? Then of course let's not forget the obligatory scratchy hairy cottonmouth, or the gummy, shriveled-feeling eyes that are hard to force open, like they've glued themselves shut, and harder to focus. So just looking at things makes her cheeks and nasal passages throb from the strain.

The ceiling of the van has writing on it. Little scrawls of graffiti, here and there, every which way. It's all too far away and too tiny and too messy for her to be able to read any of the shit. Not without her glasses. Where are her glasses anyway? They're at home on her nightstand. She didn't wear them to the Smash. Just sunglasses. Where are they then? They're not here, wherever they are. They're gone.

In addition to the illegible phrases, she spots a crude drawing up there on the ceiling of a smiling shark in a superman cape. There's also a giant green penis, spurting goo. It seems to be aiming the discharge at the super-shark. Lovely.

Where the fuck is she and how did she get here?

She can't remember. She has no fucking clue yet. God oh God. Nothing comes back at all.

She sits up a little. Only now is when she discovers that she is not alone. Though at the same time it's not particularly surprising to find this out, is it? It's what one expects in circumstances of this kind.

A man is lying next to her, still asleep, and he happens to be absolutely stark naked. Which is wonderful.

He's a muscular Latino guy, much taller than her, with a shaved head and many elaborate tattoos. Barbwire and grapevines intertwined all over his arms and his legs and most of his chest, with little cute bumblebees and hummingbirds and few scantily-dressed pixies flitting around amongst them. She recognizes this guy's bearded face ... doesn't she? Yeah she's pretty sure she does. Can't recall his name. Still, she's known him a little, or at least she's known of him, and not just from yesterday. It's from before that. A good while too. He's a friend of friends that she's seen around quite a few times in bars and a few parties, but those friends that he's proper-friends of are not very close friends of hers, not any longer. People she initially got to know as part of a big church group she tried out for a while and then dropped out of when it started to feel too weird for her. So she hardly associates with any of that crowd anymore.

What people call a "nodding acquaintance". That's what he is.

That seems to have changed a bit, hasn't it? Judging by available evidence. Is this better than waking up next to an absolute stranger? Well, maybe. Maybe not. She isn't sure yet. Too soon to decide.

Guy's snoring a little. Not too bad. He also, she just happens to casually notice, turns out to have the biggest dick she's ever laid eyes on, at least in real tangible life, not just a picture or a video. And though at the moment it lays flat, draped backward like the rest of him, it's pointing up his stomach and practically covering it; the uncircumcised head almost reaches beyond his belly button, believe it or not. It's more or less hard. Not a full erection but pretty darn close, looks to her. More than three quarters. Maybe nine-tenths. Of course she knows this tends to happen off-and-on all night with males of the human species, while they're asleep, regardless of what they're dreaming about. So she shouldn't let it freak her out. This is perfectly normal and non-threatening, meaningless, involuntary behavior. And it's not completely surged up for battle, so to speak—not enough to stand, or pulse, or leak, and the, um, turtleneck still covers most of the acorn.

It's still really something, as cocks go. For a time, she can't take her eyes off it. Feels a bit like a little furry critter in one of those nature shows, mesmerized by a huge looming serpent before it strikes ... Even though the damn thing isn't really looming yet. And actually, does that shit ever happen in real life? Or is it just one of those dumb myths from cartoons or whatever, that snakes can hypnotize their prey? Probably they just gotta sneak up and pounce like every other predator, or they're SOL.

She still can't stop staring at the stupid thing with butterflies in her tummy.

Don't read more into that than there is ... Like a lot of girls, M has conflicted emotions when she looks at a penis, especially a more-or-less erect one. They're so horrible, aren't they? They're so completely ridiculous, too. A girl can't help thinking: "This is what I have to work with? This thing? And you're telling me it goes where?" It's asking a bit much, isn't it? Doesn't seem like the best way to go about this whole procreational business. Just plain awkward, overall.

But then again, when you get used to them, and if you're honest with yourself, they're pretty awesome too, form and function, both together. If you choose to let yourself acknowledge the fact (and some girls never will, and that's their prerogative), penises have a real magnificent beauty all of their own, once a girl learns to appreciate it. Same as, for example, a crocodile does, or a water buffalo. And regardless, love 'em or hate 'em, just as objects or as organs, they're a pretty darn nifty piece of organic design, whether it was God that's responsible or Evolution, whichever idea you find more sensible and convincing ... And let's be frank and fair—pussies are the same. Initially off-putting, at first sight. Sure they are.

You can call them gross or you can call them gorgeous. Both devices. You can make a fair case on either side. It's really up to the viewer, whatever attitude they want to have about it.

Here is the moment when M realizes that the guy is not the only person in this van without any clothing on. The same happens to be true of M herself, stretched out here on the floor right beside him, with her hangover, and her amnesia. She hasn't got a stitch.

And nothing is laying around for her to grab either. She sees the guy's clothes, scattered around. No items that belong to her. Not so much as her sunglasses.

Jesus Christ. Her heart starts pounding, and soon it matches rhythm with the pounding in her skull, from her hangover-headache.

Of course on some level she's been aware of her nakedness this whole time, since the first instant she woke up. But without being fully aware of the awareness, if that makes any sense. Like that one part of her mind was carefully holding the fact back from the rest. 'Cause it was too much to deal with right off the bat on top of everything else. Until she sat up on her elbows and looked down at herself and it became impossible to put off the acknowledgment any longer.

The big pink-and-purple glittery dragonfly that was painted across her torso yesterday ... It is smeared, and not slightly. Smeared all to hell, ruined. Looks halfway melted, or dissolved, with sad sick dribbles and splotches oozed down from the original shape across her belly and her crotch and one of her thighs. Where they seem to have dried out and solidified again on her skin. God, she's got a few little globs stuck in the curls of her bush! What the Hell!

It's like someone tried to hose the butterfly off her but gave up the job after a couple minutes, leaving it half done. One of her tits, the right one, is almost completely clean, except for the underside. Not the other one, though. It's still totally painted over, despite how much of the original pretty pattern of the butterfly wing has been stirred around and uglified.

She's got other dark smeared smudges from the body-paint, including a few almost-complete handprints, printed up across both of her shoulders and her upper arms, and more on both her hips, and a little bit in places around her calves and her ankles, too. Altogether, she's a real mess. Somebody messed her up real good.

She checks the guy's hands, his fingers. Oh yeah. Stained pink and purple and glittery. Those hands have been all over her, no question. Moving her every which way like a puppet or a poseable action-figure. He must have been having a whole lot of fun.

She notices how filthy her feet are. Thinks for a second it's more of the paint covering them, but it's not. It's just a lot of mud and bits of yellow grass, stuck all over them. The guy's big hairy Hobbit feet are the same.

Then finally she looks at her vagina. Leans over to give it a good close inspection.

It's sore, is the thing. Not dreadfully, but it is. It's had some strenuous exercise, wearing it out inside. And of course, same as her state of undress, she's been vaguely aware of that feeling this entire time, the instant the rain woke her up, without letting herself focus on it or think about it until she felt ready to. Or at least 'til she got to the point where it couldn't be delayed any more.

Yeah, she sees what she's expected, and what she feared. It's exactly what it feels like, down there. Not just sore—there was another accompanying sensation. Moisture, seeping, and chilly. White goo is trickling out of her pussy. Not a gigantic amount, only a tiny little rivulet. Enough has come out already, over a long enough period, to form a pretty good size dark splotch where it reached the blanket she's lying on. Bigger around than a quarter.

When she widens her thighs a tiny bit and lifts her knees, more of the stuff emerges. The trickle thickens, with bubbles in it. She doesn't even have to push inside to make the flow increase; it does that all on its own. She couldn't hold it inside if she wanted to. Her pussy can't close itself enough.

Watching it, and recognizing what it signifies, it triggers a strong physical reaction in her. A hot buzzing current of electricity races through her entire body. A jolt of pure shock, in the most literal sense. It makes her jerk her legs and her stomach clenches, and she clamps and grinds her teeth, plus she almost pees herself. She feels a tiny scalding-hot squirt nearly escape her, but somehow (Thank Christ!) she tightens and inhales and stops it getting out at the last instant. And finally she makes a strange, funny-sounding exclamation. A sort of yelp, like a kicked puppy might make. It's kind of embarrassing. More than kind of. But then, that's true of this entire scenario.

It wakes up the guy, when she cries out. He smiles at her and says something incomprehensible in Spanish. Reaches up to stroke her bangs away from her eyes.

She wasn't raped. She's pretty sure that wasn't what happened.

She's pretty sure she walked into this situation willingly and knowingly, at the time. She's pretty sure she was a conscious and active participant, while everything that must have followed occurred. She can tell all this from the way the fucking guy looks at her. Not just happy, not just satisfied. It's not the typical smug HurHur-I-Just-Got-Laid expression. The look on his face is grateful, more than anything else, and radiant. It's a Jesus Loves Me, This I Know look. Because of her. And not just that he evidently got to fuck her—it seems to be the fact of her presence itself. The fact that she's still right here with him in the back of this van, waking up snuggled next to him.

God, he's giving her a happily-ever-after look. While she doesn't remember any of this.

5.

So what does she remember? What's the last thing? Where does the narrative cut off?

Like always happens in these cases, that cut-off point turns out real tough to pin down.

Next half hour or so, bits and pieces start coming back, or she thinks they do. Flashes of vivid images. She's never sure then or later how much of them really happened, and how much her imagination fills in for her. It's not like there's all that much mystery to what must have went down, after all. Real easy to extrapolate the basics.

And from those basics, her brain dredges up more and more detail. What it can't recover, it invents. Soon she has herself a narrative. Yet most of it's got the feel of a story she's only read or that somebody told her secondhand, not like something that actually happened to her herself. And it's going to stay like that. Possibly this sense-of-distance is a good thing. Makes it easier to process, and to bear.

Here's how it ends up going:

There'd been a sudden storm. Blew up superfast out of nowhere, like an ambush, like a mean magic trick. She got caught in it. Got drenched. Well, her and everybody else.

Not her friends, though. She'd already got separated from her so-called friends by the time that happened. Had they ditched her deliberately or had it been just an accident? She had no idea. The crowds had been crazy. Riotous. Much scarier than any of them expected. They'd thought they were prepared for the worst, but they weren't. This year's Smash had definitely lived up to its name, in that particular sense.

And yeah, in pretty much the all other nastier senses, too.

She knew she'd been totally wasted, when the storm hit. Completely trashed and blasted out of her mind. Just with beer. No other substances. But it doesn't take anything else. Beer does the job just fine by itself, if you guzzle enough of the shit, and she had. Made a pig of herself.

Why had she done that? Why had she gone so far overboard?

Well, 'cause she had to. Or she felt like she had to. It was the only way to stop herself freaking out, after her group abandoned her. All alone in the middle of that vast blazing hot field—but not actually alone, not at all, no siree. Friendless and forsaken, mos def, but not alone. 'Cause the whole huge treeless park was full from edge to edge. A bajillion crazy sweaty people jammed-packed around her, all right up in her face, all right up in her business, all right up in every other imaginable description. Proverbial sardines in a can, everybody breathing each other's air and each other's stink, zero personal space available for any single helpless desperate soul, not for a second ...

And the whole fucking crowd was looking at her, in the middle of them. All at once. Everybody looking at her exposed bobbing sweaty tits.

Except looking wasn't the right word, oh no. "Staring" didn't cut it either. Not really. Try gawping, or ogling. Except those aren't violent enough. The looks she got, they were looks that felt like they were clawing at her body and tearing pieces off her—trying to eat her, in fact, just by looking. And almost accomplishing it. All these countless wolf-eyed shaggy-haired men, huffing and puffing, muttering and giggling, reeking of beer and pot and b.o. And lust, more than anything else. Hordes and hordes of them.

It was dreadful. Petrifying. And there didn't seem to be any way to escape. Not by herself. All the exits were too far away, with no clear paths to get to them. Just people, wicked-looking men, blocking every direction she turned. Grinning at her and licking their lips. Everybody seemed twice as tall as her, and twice as thick. Everybody looked like a monster out of a fairy tale. Trolls and ogres and goblins. Not a single regular looking guy to be seen. They'd all transformed. And it was her bare tits that had did it, like an evil enchantment or a curse.

There had been some other women around, but not near as many as the men. One in twenty, it felt like. And none of them were topless like M was—not a single other woman was doing what she was doing, after her friends vanished. Most of the women looked much older than her, and mean—leathery-faced, lowclass hardcase-looking women. Like biker chicks. She didn't know how many actually had been biker chicks for real, but they'd all sure looked like they were, the whole bunch. They all had that go-fuck-yourself-and-eat-my-shit-while-you're-at-it biker-chick aura and attitude. The looks on all those women's faces, when they stared at her, were nastier than the nastiest of the men's. Looks of total disgust and hatred. The men all wanted to bang the hell out of her; the women seemed to want her dead, and mutilated too.

Yeah, it probably wasn't really as bad as it seemed. Not from everybody. Probably most of this shit was just in her head, exaggerated by her fears, by her panic. But it was what she had to deal with, real or imagined, and the only way she could come up with to handle these feelings without going nuts and collapsing to the ground and bawling like a baby was to get herself totally trashed, as fast as possible. So that was what she did. Soon as she struggled her way to the closest of the beer tents. An agonizing epic journey in itself. Let's skip right over that ...

Got herself the biggest plastic cup they were offering—damn near a bucket. Kind you had to hold in both hands. She drained it dry in about thirty seconds and bought herself a second. Hadn't brought much cash with her. Those two mammoth beers—and possibly there'd been a third one—cleaned out her pockets almost completely. Beer at the Smash was supposed to be cheap. Another myth. Tasted cheap, yeah, but it sure wasn't cheap to purchase. At least not the sizes she picked.

She remembered she hadn't brought her wallet—just a little folded bundle of cash. Didn't want to risk losing all her cards and things, so she'd left her wallet at home with her glasses. That turned out to have been a smart choice. She'd had her phone with her, and her spare house key—didn't bring her full ring, with her car keys and stuff. They didn't fit comfortably in her pockets, at least not when she was wearing skimpy cut-off jean shorts. Its side pockets were too tiny and tight, you could barely dig your fingers into them. Pockets on girl clothes are usually pretty worthless. One single key on one side, and the folded wad of cash in the other—that was all they could take. And she hadn't wanted to carry a purse with her. The phone was flat enough to fit in one of her buttpockets; she'd got fairly used to carrying her phone around that way, regardless what kind of pants she had on. Just had to watch you didn't sit down on it. Now she didn't have any of those things no more. Her phone was gone, her spare key was gone, and the remainder of the cash, if there'd been any remainder (probably just a few coins). Because she'd lost her shorts.