Chapter 40: Queen Mari

Pushing my way past bystanders at the periphery of whatever was going on, I briefly came to a wall of backpacks formed by the students who had circled around the commotion. “OUT OF MY WAY!” I roared, physically shoving people to the sides as I fought to get to the center.

“ALL STUDENTS! BACK UP!” a male voice boomed in a tone of authority, accustomed to instant obedience. Some of those in my way separated and started backing off, which gave me an opening to dart through.

“Mari!” I shouted as soon as I saw her, huddled on the ground. But she wasn’t alone.

She was clutched together with a boy, both of them holding each other fiercely. It was Gerald. He had his left arm up to try and shield himself from the hammering fists of some punk I didn’t immediately recognize. But before I could rush in to reach them, the punk looked around, realized his audience was bailing, and also noticed Mr. Cartwright, Physics teacher and our school’s basketball coach, closing in.

The punk took off at a dead run.

“Hey! You! Freeze!” Mr. Cartwright yelled, running after him.

Most everyone else dispersed as well, but Mari and Gerald remained on the ground. I quickly approached them, with Gerald reflexively throwing up his left arm as a shield between us. But I blew right past him to kneel next to Mari, asking, “Are you okay?”

“Wh-wha?” she blubbered, her eyes filled with water. She didn’t recognize me at first and recoiled when I tried to hug her.

“It’s me,” I said hurriedly. “You okay?”

“Matty!” Mari exclaimed through her tears, letting go of Gerald and burying her face in my chest. I held her tightly, stroked her spine, and tilted my head left and right inspecting her for scratches or bruises. There didn’t seem to be any.

Sam was suddenly beside us, barking, “Gerald, what happened?”

I turned my attention to the other boy. Gerald had the beginnings of a black eye and was cradling his ribs protectively. He looked at Sam blankly, perhaps still a little in shock himself. I turned back to Mari, my immediate focus on her while Sam repeated, “What happened?”

Just then, Mr. Cartwright returned alone, having apparently not chased the punk very far. He was breathing hard and looking around left and right as if the kid would magically appear beside us, then approached and called out in his booming voice. “Did anyone see what happened?”

Holly Thompson stepped forward, now with bubblegum pink hair, and explained, “Asher Kipling. He was following Mari making rude comments about her tits. I was by my locker over there.” She turned and pointed back down the hallway.

“Then what happened?”

“I didn’t see the rest,” Holly said apologetically. “I saw him talking to her as they passed, but by the time she started screaming there were too many people in the way.”

“He grabbed my ass,” Mari blubbered, still with her cheek pressed against my chest. “I told him not to touch me. He wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

“I heard the commotion and ran up to them,” Gerald explained quietly, staring off into space a bit. “He tried to say they were just talking, but I wasn’t buying it and put myself between them. That’s when he sucker punched me in the face and then kicked me in the side when I fell down.”

Mari was crying again, reliving the experience. “He jumped on me and started squeezing my breasts. I just kept yelling for him to get off me. Gerald managed to get himself between us again, and then you all showed up.”

Mr. Cartwright nodded and then looked at me, asking gruffly, “Who are you?”

I replied immediately, “I’m her boyfriend.”

“Were you here when it happened?”

I shook my head in the negative. “Just got here.”

Mr. Cartwright pursed his lips. “Then you’re not a witness. You gotta stay here. Everyone else, come with me.” He turned and pointed to Holly as well, who sighed a bit reluctantly but nodded.

“No, please...” Mari whimpered, clutching my chest. I could see the same terror in her eyes from the LAST time I’d heard her screaming ‘Get off me’ in that tone.

I looked up at the teacher. “Suspend me if you have to. I’m not leaving her.”

With a weary sigh, Mr. Cartwright muttered, “Fine, you can come too. But you’re not a witness, so you don’t get to talk, alright?”

“That’s fine,” I agreed.

“Everyone else!” He turned and addressed the crowd in a booming voice. “Go to your third periods! You too, young lady,” he added to Sam, who sighed but took a step back.

A school security officer arrived just then. “Mr. Cartwright, everything handled? Does anybody need medical attention?”

“Gerald should get looked at,” I pointed out.

“Can you walk?” the officer asked him.

Gerald nodded.

“I need Miss Stuart to meet us at the Principal’s office,” the officer called into his radio, referring to the school nurse.

The teacher nodded and gestured for me, Mari, and Gerald to get up. Once Holly joined us, the six of us all marched away to the Principal’s office, with Mr. Cartwright leading the way and the security officer in the rear.

Gerald kept sneaking glances at me and Mari. I felt bad for him. HE was the hero here, not me, but I still had the girl. He also walked stiffly, and I couldn’t imagine the pain he was in.

I scanned the other way and noticed Sam pacing us, watching with obvious concern. “Hey, we’re fine,” I told her. “Go tell the others what’s going on.”

At first, she looked like she didn’t want to leave us. But a moment later, she nodded and turned back.

I sighed. You couldn’t say my life was ever boring.

Gerald ended up having to go to the nurse’s office after we explained everything to Principal Lancaster, and Alice later reported that the school called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital to get a more complete checkup. He’d gotten bruised ribs but nothing was broken, and the black eye would take weeks to go away.

Asher Kipling had been retrieved from his third period classroom and held by school security. The word was that he tried to deny everything at first, and then melted under the Principal’s grilling. He was lucky he was still seventeen and therefore a minor, but still got referred to Juvenile Justice for sexual assault. None of us ever saw him again.

I was excused from third period but otherwise had to finish my school day. Mari spent the morning talking with the school counselor and missed lunch with us. And then in the afternoon she got pulled from her final period to also discuss the matter with a sexual assault counselor dispatched from the district office. The school also said it was trying to contact her parents but hadn’t had any luck yet. Mari told everyone she was fine and just wanted everything over with, but both counselors said they would be checking in on her again in the future.

After school, rather than go home immediately, the BTC banded together to get the full story, and Mari blamed herself.

“It was my fault,” she muttered through moist eyes. “I was so happy I was practically skipping down the hallway. It’s been such a great week with my boyfriend, and after what we talked about yesterday, I started thinking that my life is really starting to come together. I guess I was just a little too bouncy and effervescent given this plunging V-neck sweater here, and I attracted the wrong kind of attention.”

“Stop right there,” Sam interjected rather sternly. “This was NOT your fault. Being ‘bouncy and effervescent’ does NOT give a guy permission to grab your ass or tits.”

“I know, I know,” Mari whimpered. “But at the same time I can’t help but feel that he wouldn’t have done it if my boobs hadn’t been gyrating so much.”

“This is NOT your fault,” I repeated and squeezed her tightly since she was in my lap. “I’m only sorry I wasn’t there to defend you.”

“Good thing Gerald was nearby, though,” Belle pointed out.

“I agree,” I stated. “The guy is your hero.”

Mari blushed and wouldn’t look at me. “I suppose,” she mumbled.

I chuckled at her expression. “Relax, I’m not jealous about it.”

She snuggled a little tighter. “I told you: I LIKE you being jealous over me.”

“Well, let’s be clear here. You’re MY girlfriend and I don’t want you giving him a blowjob as a reward for defending your honor or anything like that. But I’m genuinely glad he was there.”

“Fair enough.” Mari snuggled closer to me and sighed. “Seriously, I just wanna get OUT of here.”

I nodded and stroked her hair. “Let’s go.”

Thursday afternoons had always been spent at Belle’s house, so rather than go into my place and wait for my girlfriend’s arrival, Belle and I went straight to her place and spread our books out in her bedroom. Belle, as usual, took her desk. I sat on her bed, leaning back against the wall.

Things still weren’t back to normal yet between us, and probably wouldn’t be until she got her key back. It was sort of a chicken or egg dilemma. What needed to happen first? It sort of felt like she needed to have the key back in order to relax and open up to me. But then I needed to feel like I could trust her in order to give her the key back. But how could I feel like I could trust her until she relaxed and opened up to me?

In the meantime, Belle and I continued to go through the motions, neither estranged nor completely comfortable around each other. I wasn’t MAD at her, and we still talked. But it was clear to both of us that there was some work still to do. Unfortunately, neither of us knew exactly what work we should do. And in the end, that afternoon became a perfect example of just how strange our relationship had become.

Belle and I did our homework in silence for about twenty minutes before Mari arrived. Once she did, my lusty Latina bombshell immediately started stripping off her clothes as she tackled me onto the bed. The adrenaline rush of the attack had fueled her arousal and received no outlet at school. I had worried that getting sexually assaulted at school would somehow make her withdraw inside herself and return to old traumas - like when she’d gone catatonic that night in January after I’d complimented her body built for sex and she’d promptly freaked out - and I’d mentally prepared myself for a long, drawn-out conversation to discuss what had happened and reassure her that we would support her in whatever way she needed. But Mari reacted in exactly the opposite way, demanding that Belle and I fuck the daylights out of her and wash away all memory of that punk’s hands ever touching her body.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Mari insisted, “it happened, but I’m already over it. I want that guy forgotten and nobody’s ever gonna bring him up again, alright?”

Also forgotten, albeit temporarily, were any issues between me and Belle once we fell into the haze of sexual frenzy. We fucked Mari together. Mari and I fucked Belle together. And the two of them fucked me together. But after I blasted away inside Mari’s sweet snatch and Matty’s Little Cumslut slurped out the creampie, the three of us sprawled naked across Belle’s room, with me slumped in the desk chair and the two BFF’s on the bed, Belle using Mari’s bosom as a pillow while idly suckling on a puffy nipple.

Even though I’d been pounding my big dick in and out of Belle’s tight twat only minutes earlier, as we came down from our orgasmic highs the awkwardness set in again. We cleaned ourselves up and tried to actually get some homework done. But as time went on, that awkwardness only grew, until it was thick enough to be palpable and made it nearly impossible for any of us to actually be productive.

“Okay, I’ve had enough of this,” Mari finally announced out of the blue, slamming her book shut and tossing it on the floor. Belle rotated the desk chair back to face us, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. I was once again seated on the bed beside my girlfriend, leaning back against the wall, and I too looked over at Mari not yet understanding what had caused her outburst.

“Had enough of what?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.

“You. Belle. This ... whatever this is,” Mari explained. “She wants her key back but she’s not sure what she needs to do to convince you to give it back. You haven’t made clear what you want from her to earn it back. Things are apparently chill enough that you don’t mind having sex with each other. But at the same time things are bad enough that -I- can’t study because you two are being all weird!”

Belle frowned. “We’re not being weird. I’m ... I’m just giving Matty space.”

I shrugged. “And I’m letting Belle decide what she really wants from me.”

“No, you’re both STALLING,” Mari complained. Holding up her pencil, she flipped it and jabbed the eraser side at Belle, stating, “You’re just going through the motions, hoping he’ll magically wake up one day, realize he misses you, and ask you to come back to him. Probably on a Saturday night when he’s feeling lonely and maybe sees all the sexy lingerie you left in his closet and realizes he could have a horny hot little sexpot in his bed instead of sleeping alone.”

Belle blushed and tried to hold back a little smirk.

“And you,” Mari continued while turning to point the eraser at me, “are just going through the motions waiting for Belle to make some grand gesture of apology, swear that she’ll never betray the BTC, and promise to love you forever as siblings-with-benefits.”

Well, she was right, and I blushed and bit my lip while staring down at my lap.

“So here’s what’s gonna happen,” Mari sighed while packing up her binder and sliding off the bed to retrieve her tossed book. “You two are gonna work this out right here and now. And by the end of the night, Matty, you’re either gonna give her the key back or take it away forever. Period.”

I frowned. “You can’t dictate that kind of ultimatum.”

“Of course I can. I’m ‘Matty’s Girlfriend’ this week,” she insisted while miming the air quotes. “I’m the primary, which means I give the orders.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” I laughed. “I think you’re letting the power trip go to your head a bit.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong about this, though.”

I frowned. “You can’t put a timeline on this. If I need another week or two, or a month, to give her the key back, then I need that time.”

“No, you don’t,” Mari insisted. “You either trust her, or you don’t. There’s no grand gesture that’s gonna make everything all better. She’s your Annabelle. She’s always been your Annabelle. And yeah, she got a little crazy there for a bit, but that just shows how much she loves you, how important you are to her. That part’s never gonna change. Have you forgiven her?”

“Yes, of course.”

Mari raised both eyebrows and leaned forward. “Then forgive her.” With that, Mari slammed the book into her backpack and zipped it closed.

“Hey, don’t go,” Belle pleaded once she realized Mari was prepping to leave. “You’re my best friend, you’ve had a really rough day, and we want to be here for you. I know I’d want you and Matty with me for company if some asshole ever grabbed my--”

“Stop right there,” Mari cut her off. “Didn’t I already tell you I wanted the whole thing forgotten?”

“You can’t just forget him,” I reasoned. “And even wild and crazy sex with us can’t wash away what already happened. You need to take the time to talk to someone about it, and if not us then someone else you trust.”

“Thanks for the lecture, Matty, but I have a little bit of experience dealing with this kind of trauma.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to condescend. What I meant to say was that we - ALL of us - are here for you. You don’t have to process what happened alone this time.”

Mari took a deep breath, looking first at me and then Belle, and sighed, “I get it. I promise that when the time is right, we can talk about this stuff. But right now, I just don’t wanna deal with it, alright? Focusing on you two, focusing on your issues, actually gives me something else I’d rather think about. And rather than stay here reliving what happened at school, I’d honestly prefer to go home knowing you two are working it out, alright?”

“Okay, not wanting to talk about it right now I can understand,” Belle conceded. “But this is your Girlfriend Week. You have such precious little time with Matty as it is. Matty and I don’t have to do this right now, and if having the two of us together is making things awkward for you, I should be the one to leave. Or ... well ... the two of you can go to his house. We both know he’s got a couple more rounds in him and you’ve got the whole afternoon to be alone with him. Tomorrow is Friday and the whole gang will be together and you’ll have to share him.”

Mari gave Belle a firm look. “Some things are more important to me than sex. You’re right: This is my Girlfriend Week, which means I call the shots. And as Matty’s Girlfriend, I’m ordering the two of you to work this out.”

With that, Mari leaned over and pecked Belle’s cheek. She crawled onto the bed and gave me a longer kiss on the lips. And then looking back and forth between both of us, she added, “If it makes you two feel better, I’ll go visit Alice or Neevie for the rest of the afternoon so that I’m not alone.”

I nodded immediately. “It would. It really would.”

Mari nodded as well. “I’ll see you both at school tomorrow.”

And then she left.

At least Belle and I were dressed. For some reason I felt like I kept having deep and heavy conversations with girls while they were naked and distracting. Sometimes I even had heavy conversations WHILE a girl was sitting on my dick. In this case, having Belle seated on her desk chair wearing shorts and a t-shirt kept any thoughts of sex at bay, allowing me to focus on nothing but our thoughts and feelings for each other.

At least, that was the idea. And yet, there was something inherently ... wrong ... about our current positioning. I didn’t like the fact that she was on her desk chair while I reclined on her bed. It didn’t feel ... natural. And while I simmered on that niggling thought that made me feel moderately uncomfortable, I silently watched Belle likewise cross her legs beneath her on the chair, drop one elbow onto the armrest, and plant her chin on her palm while she scowled with the kind of expression she’d make if she’d just been informed the restaurant cooks had dropped her meal onto the floor and then watched a cockroach crawl over it before serving it to her, but only AFTER she’d already eaten half of it.

Neither of us said anything for a long while. Part of me felt that it was her job to come groveling to me. After all, she was the one who had tried to betray the BTC. She was the one in the doghouse, which meant that it was HER responsibility to somehow make it up to me, right?

But the greater part of me agreed with Mari. I wanted this resolved, and wallowing in passive-aggressive self-pity wasn’t going to help that process any. So with a sigh, I finally gestured with my arm, “Come here, B.”

She furrowed her eyebrows, looking confused, and didn’t move.

I extended my arm out to her and repeated, “Come here.”

Puzzled but willing to play along, Belle got out of the chair and crawled onto the bed. I gently took hold of her arm and guided her to come sit next to me. And a moment later I tugged down on her shoulder until her head was pillowed on my chest while I reclined back against the wall.

Taking a deep breath, I sighed. Back in our familiar positions from so many of our past conversations, I felt MUCH better. And from the way Belle sighed and wrapped both arms around me in a firm hug, she seemed to feel much better too.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized first. She didn’t continue right away, and I didn’t respond. She seemed to be gathering herself for what came next, and I was prepared to wait as long as would be necessary.

But she only waited for a minute before adding, “I don’t blame you for not liking me very much at the moment. To be honest, I don’t like myself very much, either.”

I glanced down at her and stroked her hair. “Why do you say that?”

“I have self-esteem issues, alright? Every girl does. For me it gets amplified being such a little shorty who can barely fit your big dick inside me when you’ve got all these horny sluts just begging you to slam yourself up their unlubed assholes.”

“Well I can’t help you there; that’s basic physics. All I can promise you is that my love for you is not based on how easily you can fit my dick up your ass. That’s crazy talk.”

“But it’s a factor. I know it is. Everything’s a factor.”

I pursed my lips. She wasn’t necessarily wrong, but at the same time... “There will always be someone else who’s better at doing Thing A, and then there will be someone different who’s better at doing Thing B. Sure, everything’s a factor, but even if we try to sum up every aspect of a relationship in terms of things than span the length of the entire alphabet, the weight we apply to each of those individual things is different, and in the end it’s the sum total of whatever complicated calculations you want to make that define how much we mean to each other.”

Belle looked up at me, a little perplexed. “You lost me there for a minute.”

“Yes, other girls can take my dick up their asses more easily than you. But do you REALLY think I base a girl’s value solely on her ability to have anal sex with me at the drop of a hat?”

Belle shrugged. “Seemed to be the predominant factor in your relationship with Neevie.”

“And a factor that in and of itself was nowhere near sufficient to keep us together. Plus, I think Mari still has Neevie beat in that regard. You, on the other hand, I’ve always cherished having conversations like the one we’re having now.”

She made a face. “These are ‘best friend’ conversations or ‘little sister’ conversations, not necessarily ‘girlfriend’ conversations.”

“These are the kinds of conversations that keep two people together for the rest of their lives. When we’re old and decrepit geriatrics who can’t even think about anal sex without dislocating a hip, it’s these conversations that will have the greatest weight on my alphabetical list of factors.”

She looked up at me. “What if I don’t wanna wait until we’re decrepit geriatrics before I get to be with you?”

I took a deep breath. “Is being my girlfriend still what you want?”

Belle sighed and looked down. “Which answer will get me the house key back?”

“B...”

She shrugged. “The answer is no ... and yes ... and then no again ... and then yes again. I’m not sure. My head says one thing, but my heart says another. I love you, Matty. I’m in love with you. One fight where you took away my key because you realized I was turning into an obsessive stalker doesn’t change the core feelings I have inside. I LOVE you.”

“And I love you.”

“But not as a girlfriend.”

I took a deep breath, let my head fall back against the wall, and replied truthfully, “I don’t know, actually. You’ve never actually been my girlfriend, not yet at least. From the looks of it, you’ll have to ro-sham-bo with Alice to go next.”

Belle stared up at me again. “And if I won the ro-sham-bo, you’d give me an honest shot at being your girlfriend?”

I shrugged. “Isn’t that the whole point? To explore these feelings and figure out if we’re compatible that way?”

“Is that what you’re doing with Mari? Is this what you call giving her an honest shot? Or are you doing what I think you’re doing and just going through the motions until the week is over because you’ve already decided you’re not meant to be with each other long-term?”

I frowned. “I’m not ‘going through the motions’. In a vacuum, Mari would make a great girlfriend. She’s sweet, loyal, caring, great in bed, and today proves that she’s more resilient than she looks. I’ve known her longer than any of the girls except for you, and I feel comfortable talking to her. But the timing is just really bad right now, and I honestly told her that I’m still emotionally wrecked from the breakup with Neevie AND this little awkward thing going on between me and you.”

“So I should LET Alice go first to buy myself some more time so you can get your head on straight first. Maybe a no frills non-threatening sex-for-sex’s sake week with Alice will help unclog the pipes and clear your brain.”

I mused on that. “You’re not wrong.”

Belle sighed and looked away. “Or maybe I take Sam’s advice and opt out entirely.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Sam’s advice?”

Belle shook her head slowly. “She doesn’t want to tempt herself any more than she’s already tempted. She’s dead set on burying her feelings for you and not dating you until after she’s graduated college at the earliest. You know she’s got her career goals and all that. So she already told me she’s going to opt out of Neevie’s little round robin tournament for your affections, and advised me to do the same.”

I blinked twice. “When did she tell you all this?”

“Immediately after Neevie came up with the plan. You know, when Sam and I slipped away while you were banging the other four. Then we came back just in time for Neevie’s six-girl facial.”

“Ah.” I remembered their departure, but got so distracted by the end of the boycott and finally getting laid again that I hadn’t paid much attention to it at the time or really thought about it since. “Was that all you two talked about?”

Belle pursed her lips and looked away. “Maybe I shouldn’t say.”

“C’mon, B. Open communication. You want to earn my trust back? It starts with not keeping secrets from me. If nothing else, I’ve always been open with you, and I already told you that it’s gonna have to go both ways if I’m going to trust you again.”

“You said you were going to be LESS open with me, actually.”

“I said I wasn’t going to spill every detail about my feelings for the other girls anymore because you get jealous way too easily. I’ll still be open with stuff about myself and about my feelings for you, but that’s only as long as you start being open with your feelings for me.”

“I HAVE been open with my feelings for you. In fact, I feel like it’s me admitting my feelings for you that’s gotten me into trouble. Had I kept a lid on how much I’m in love with you, maybe you’d never know and I’d still have your house key.”

“Wrong. You TRYING to keep a lid on your feelings is what got them all bottled up under too much pressure until they literally erupted and nearly destroyed everything.”

Belle’s eyes narrowed as she swallowed that idea, decided she didn’t like the taste, and promptly made that same dropped-meal-on-the-floor-cockroach face. But she didn’t disagree with me. She buried her face into my chest, squeezed me a little harder, and sighed. “Fine, I’ll be more honest with you instead of trying to bury my emotions.”

“Good.”

“I’ve already started trying, alright? Admitting my self-esteem issues over not being able to physically satisfy you like the others. Admitting how much I love you and want to be with you forever. But Sam doesn’t want me to get my hopes up only to be disappointed. She looks at us and says you’re happy with the way things are, or at least the way things were before I tried to break the boycott. I felt taken for granted, but you felt like I was always dependably there for you, and you loved me for it.”

“I did love you for it. You were my anchor. No matter what else was going on in my life, whether it was my infatuation with Neevie, my confusion over how to deal with Alice, even Sam’s confusing two-tracked personality, I always believed I could count on you. I always trusted that you had my best interests at heart. And then one day all of a sudden, I realized you were just as selfish as everyone else, including me, and then that trust I had was gone.” I took a deep breath and exhaled. “It wasn’t fair. I was holding you to a higher standard than I could meet myself.”

“What are you talking about?” Belle sat up straight. “You are the LEAST selfish person I know!”

“I’m a walking horndog eager to stick my dick into whichever one of you will let me.”

Belle rolled her eyes. “You’re a GUY; you’re allowed to be a horndog. A truly selfish walking horndog would’ve stuck it into Holly when he had the chance, but you didn’t because you love us. You’re the ONLY guy in a club with six hot girls, and you’re still the most selfless person in the group. How ELSE have you managed to keep all of us happy and in love with you at the same time?”

I blinked. “Because I’m self-centered enough to dislike any of you being mad at me and wanna keep getting laid so I work super-duper hard to try and not piss any of you off?”

Belle giggled. “I suppose that’s one way of seeing it.”

“Well how do YOU see it?”

“I see you putting the needs of all six of us ahead of your own. You prioritize Mari’s need to feel safe. You prioritize Sam’s need to feel independent. You prioritize Alice’s need to feel sexy while still being a video game nerd. You prioritize Zofi’s need to take things at her own pace. And you prioritize Neevie’s need to feel adored. You may couch it in terms of trying super-duper hard to not piss us off. I see it as you working super-duper hard to make each of us feel fulfilled. I see that you’ve BEEN prioritizing all of us for YEARS already, and we all love you for it.”