Chapter 12

The water couldn’t get hot enough. The pressure couldn’t get strong enough. The shower wasn’t the problem. I had shared this shower with Leo just this morning. I could see the aisle, stretched out between the ugly green shower curtains, where I had made him a man. I smirked. That was a terrible metaphor. I was his assistant. It was my job to make sure he was the man he could be. The man who could handle all the power of a green ribbon tied around his wrist.

My pussy still ached. Leo was a bigger boy than Owen was, not by much, and I had heard stories from Wendy and Shirley that frankly scared me. Leo was big for me. Leo had made his mark on me. That ache was just a symptom of the rest of it. I fingered the dull gray ribbon on my wrist. Soaked and running with water it looked reflective, metallic. I hoped I had done enough for Leo.

I stepped out of the shower. My third today. The only one I hadn’t had cum in. Mom had to drive me to school because I spent an extra twenty minutes in the shower this morning. I couldn’t help but sway my hips as I walked. I was always a show-off after a good lay. I could close my eyes and remember being hinged over Mr Beaton’s desk. I smiled till it hurt. Then I opened my eyes. I was in the girl’s locker room, confined to the gym, waiting blind until the end of the day.

“Not as fun as last time, is it?” Sharon asked me from the row of sinks. She threw me a towel. She squeezed her hairbrush in both her hands. I just didn’t want to feel naked anymore.

“What was last time?” Elaine Beaton was the wife of Mr Beaton. She ran a small salon out of their home. She and Sharon were light and dark versions of each other. Sharon just a little shorter. Elaine just a little curvier.

“You’ll see when Leo gets here,” I grinned and stepped between them. There were a few other faculty wives coming and going from the rest area. I was given a plethora of disapproving looks and one admiring one. Elaine had a few borrowed makeup cases arrayed out waiting for me.

“Can you at least tie that around yourself if you’re not going to get dressed?” Sharon pleaded.

“I can,” I said, but I was drying my hair so the towel was in use, “Do you have something a little lighter than the shade I borrowed from Beth?”

“Lighter?” She asked surprised putting down a vivid purple tube and sussing out something in a lighter pink.

“This is more her color,” Elaine exchanged the stick in Sharon’s fingers quickly, “So, how do you want to look for him?”

“Ready. Confident,” I said to the picture of myself in the mirror. I wish I had my hair dryer. My purple streaked hair threatened to become a billowing mess, “Can you braid my hair back?”

“I’ll do it,” Sharon handed the lipstick back to Elaine and rushed behind me. I stepped up to the mirror.

I liked being pampered. If things went well, I’d--No, I shouldn’t get used to this. I was only his assistant till the end of the day. I had whole flutters of butterflies in my stomach. Which were worried about this afternoon? Which were worried about tomorrow? There were too many to count.

“Your Leo,” Elaine was asking me as she penciled along my eyelids, “Is he like Fernando or Seth?”

She was asking if Leo was wearing green. Like the man who had collected all of the wives, husbands, and college age kids living in the homes of Josham High’s faculty. I kept my face serene so she wouldn’t have to correct any mistakes in my makeup. She had kept her hands away as she asked about Principal Chavez. She was asking if Leo was wearing black. Like the man who concocted this mad science and inflicted it on all of us today. I scowled at the mental image of his skinny face and orange hair. Elaine hushed me into tranquility as she swabbed away the mess around my eye.

“You’ve got great skin,” Elaine told me as she rubbed the concealer into my cheeks, all the way to under my ear. I felt stronger already.

Sharon put down the towel and started dragging my hair back from forehead back over my ear. I grabbed her wrists. “Leave my bangs.” He liked bangs.

“Yes, she’ll look fantastic with her face framed like that,” Elaine agreed, picking a good sized lock of my hair and ran it down around my chin.

“Fine,” Sharon murmured. She pulled my hair hard, rapidly braiding a pair of pigtails and dropping them onto either shoulder. She had tied them off with little ladybug decorated elastics.

“Alright,” Elaine beamed, “Take a look.”

I opened my eyes. I was still nude, but I was no longer naked. I smiled. Elaine had gone for a much more understated look than I usually did on my own. My eyes were framed in a beautiful smokey shadow and I could never get my eyelashes to look that good. Sharon fluffed out my hair above ears. I smiled, and then I smiled so hard I showed my teeth, then I dropped my smile back to just my lips.

“Thank you so much!” I beamed at Elaine, “This is so good.”

“No,” She smiled sadly, “I have to thank you two girls. I’m glad I got to do something to pass the time. All this waiting, it’s torturous.”

“Well, I still need to get dressed,” I pointed out.

“Not for Leo,” Sharon snorted. I gave her an impatient look. Of course for Leo, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t for me.

“You have a change of clothes?” Elaine waved to my jeans and black t-shirt.

“No, just what I picked out last night,” Thankfully, they had been good enough to catch his eye in the hallway this morning. I would’ve loved to raid my closet, but because I couldn’t, at least I knew these clothes had his attention, “Are we just going to hide in here?”

“They’ll send someone soon enough,” Elaine frowned, “Their setup is almost done. He wants you gray ribbons where he can shame you.”

I just smiled. I had to, or the cracks would show. What if there wasn’t a way to overcome Seth’s black ribbon? Were we drugged? Did chemicals seep in through our skin and our clothes all day? Did I have red, green and gray compounds running through my veins? Settling into my brain folds? I settled my breasts into the cups of my bra. Elaine fastened it behind me. I was quickly dressed.

“C’mon,” I led.

“I don’t have to do what you tell me to,” Sharon gleefully raced ahead of me. Elaine sighed.

“I can’t understand why anyone would ever come back to high school,” She grumbled.

The gymnasium was no longer split with a wall down the middle. I shivered. That wall had been stowed away when we had been herded here this morning. I had sat up on the top row of the bleachers, between Wendy and Mike, fully prepared to just let the forced assembly pass over me without word one making it into my ears. Coach Thompson wore yellow and I couldn’t zone him out. Now, I couldn’t even touch my phone. Now, I couldn’t leave the school. I swallowed a deep breath and stepped out of the locker room.

The moving trucks had brought in a big projector rig; tall speakers flanked a black steel dais. Three microphone stands were arrayed along the front. The workers were rolling down the screen down and hooking it tight to the floor. Mandy’s mom, in her elegant blue dress, smiled simply as she watched. Mandy’s father sat down on the lowest tier of the bleachers. He sucked back on a fat water bottle. The brother smiled broadly at me from a few rows higher.

Seth Matheson was a lot like his sister. He was short, slender, ginger, and made you hate him. He was dressed in a thin sweater and bland jeans. He wore pristine white sneakers, his legs kicked out in front of him. His ankles crossed and his arms wide open as he reclined just where I had sat this morning. His stupid black ribbon was a half inch fatter and considerably longer than any worn in the school. He wore it loosely tied around his throat. He gestured across the room with a flick of his head.

I had been a red ribbon. I had heard the orders sling out of yellows and greens. I acted. I had to. It was like your brain was a gas pedal and their words pressed it down. Seth’s lazy gestured was a lead-footed stomp. My legs were halfway to where Miles and Stewart sprawled before my brain told me to get there. Sharon followed. Elaine headed for the bleachers as far away from the main exit as she could. The rest of Seth’s collection today was gathered there quietly. Wives of faculty. Mothers and fathers of kids who had been out sick for the day. Anyone tied to the school that could be quickly ribboned and wrangled.

“Welcome back,” Stewart growled. He was stretched out across the floor. His arms were crossed over his chest. Only his shoulders and his head weren’t laid out across the hardwood. Miles sneered at me. He was sitting in the lotus position, hunched forward, squeezing his hands together. He squeezed even harder rather than look at me.

“Yeah,” I sat down on the lip of the dais. Sharon dropped down on my left. Seth shook his head and we inched our butts forward onto the floor, “What a piece of shit.”

“Talk about my son with respect only,” Mrs Matheson said coolly. I rolled my eyes. Whites didn’t have power over us. I smiled behind my middle finger. She huffed. She sneered and walked off.

“That’s right bait the son of bitch who can make us rip out our own intestines with a word.” Sharon elbowed me. Seth was just looking at me. He didn’t seem angry.

“That’s really dark,” Miles said. He looked at me. He wasn’t happy. He bit back whatever he was going to say and looked forward again.

“He had sex with her,” I answered the unspoken question, “In the showers.”

“I didn’t ask,” He kept his lips tight.

“She’s a cute girl,” I was talking about Anna clearly, “Bright, funny, caring, out of all the girls he’s chased to day, she was my second favorite.”

“After yourself,” Stewart laughed knowingly.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Sharon growled scornfully, “She hates herself.”

“So, I’m supposed to be OK that Leo coerced my sister into sex because she’s a great girl?” Miles growled, “That makes it a good thing?”

“Yeah,” I looked up the world was different today than it was tomorrow, “It turned out it could’ve been.”

“So, if not yourself Lisa? Then who?” Stewart elbowed my knee making me look down on him. He had been an asshole since he was six. He looked harmless now. In truth, before this morning, despite the bad blood he had fostered, the bad memories of running from the swing set with spiders in my hair, or watching him push Owen teeth first into his middle school locker door, I underestimated just how far ahead of him we had grown up. Without his green ribbon, Stewart was hardly a footnote in my life. With his green ribbon, Leo had easily clipped his wings.

“Holly,” I scowled, lying, but I wanted him to be scared. I’d be scared of Leo if I hadn’t been his assistant. Now I could never be scared of Leo, “And Leo knows it to.”

Truth was, Holly made Leo softer; Anna made Leo blind; Rebecca made Leo hesitant. I did my best, I hoped. He needed to be hard, aware, and decisive. In twenty minutes, the last bell would ring and we’d know. I wanted to throw up.

“That’s the blonde girl?” Stewart remembered fearlessly, “Good snag.”

“You’re both sick,” Miles informed us.

“Yeah,” I sighed. I flinched at a bit of feedback from the speakers. The noise quickly zeroed out.

“We’re all set,” Shouted one of the movers.

“With time to spare and everything,” Seth’s voice was startlingly deep. He stood up to his almost 5’6’’ height and swaggered down the bleachers past his father. I rose defiantly to my feet. Miles followed. Sharon meekly stood behind my left shoulder. Stewart couldn’t be bothered to climb out of his own puddle.

Seth had the same green eyes as his sister, just narrower and snider. He grinned.

“I have to admit,” He kicked Stewart’s foot, “I figured I could find some yellow or green here to help me run tomorrow’s expansion, but you,” He stabbed Miles in the chest with his right index and middle fingers, “Clipped the yellow’s wings before any figured out if they could fly.”

“Would you have do less to protect your sister?” Miles wasn’t a big guy for a football player. Stewart was as strong looking. Leo was as tall. The stark difference between Seth and Miles was pretty clear though.

“I’ve done far more,” Seth shamed Miles, “My sister hasn’t been grabbed, molested, and fucked. She isn’t being stripped in class and made to perform.”

I wanted to hold my snorting in. I couldn’t help it. I could remember Mandy’s pale tits dropping down out of her cheerleader’s shell and bra in Mrs MacMillan’s class. Girl was a little dense but with Holly and I bating her behind Leo’s shoulder she saw what she needed to get that easy A. Seth turned on me.