“Sybil, what are you doing out here, without any clothes on?”

“I’m trying to wash all this paint off me. What’s it look like?”

“In the back yard where everyone can see you?”

“It’s either that or leave paint stains in the bathtub.”

“That’s oil paint. You’re going to need more than soap and water.”

“Damn. Why aren’t you inside having a beer or something?”

“I thought you might know why there’s a horse tied to the mailbox out front.”

“Because my car keys are locked in the trunk of my car.”

“So you borrowed a horse? Calling Triple-A won’t give you saddle sores.”

“I didn’t get the chance.”

“You could’ve called me. I have keys.”

“I was trying to avoid that.”

“Because—?”

“Because—I was buck-naked. I didn’t feel like hanging around, with a bunch of guys gawking at me, waiting for Triple-A or for you to show up and unlock my car.”

“How naked?”

“Buck-naked, I said. As in all-the-way naked. As in not-a-single-solitary-stitch-on naked. My clothes, my keys, my purse, everything was locked in the trunk.”

“Why the hell for?”

“Because it’s homecoming, Earl.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You asked why my clothes were locked in the trunk. I told you.”

“You just decided to strip yourself naked out back of the Save-Mart, lock everything in the trunk, so the guys hanging out there could paint you up. For homecoming.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Then why’re you painted up like a lunch board out front of the Steamboat Grill?”

“You’ll hear about eventually. The girls from Treadmore’s cheer squad—”

“You let a bunch of high school girls—!”

“It wasn’t a bunch of high school girls. It was those dried up old Treadmore twats from our senior year.”

“Our senior year?”

“Yes.”

“Out back of the Save-Mart?”

“Yes.”

“Wait ... somebody keeps a horse tied up back of the Save-Mart?”

“No.”

“So where’d the horse come from?”

“I rode it home from The Whipping Post out on Frontage Road.”

“That’s a tittie bar. Why did you go to a tittie bar?”

“I didn’t go. I was taken. They nabbed me out back of the Save-Mart, stripped all my clothes off, threw everything in the trunk, then carted me off to The Whipping Post. Stuck me in those old-timey stocks they have out back. You ever see them? The ones’t got your neck and wrists locked between two board, your head hanging out one side, your ass hanging out the other?”

“No, I’ve never seen them. I’ve never been out there.”

“Well, that’s where they had me.”

“Maybe I should stop in there once in a while - if you’re going to be part of the entertainment.”

“You better never. I’ll use that Mosberg double-barrel of yours on you, I ever catch you out there.”

“So, what’s homecoming got to do with you being stripped naked? This happen every year? How’s it I don’t know about this?”

“This doesn’t happen every year, Earl.”

“Just this year? What was it? Your turn?”

“It’s supposed to be friendly little rivalry between the two squads from senior year—a little good clean fun.”

“You’ve got ‘fuck me here’ painted across your ass.”

“I can’t very well see what’s going on behind me.”

“So you don’t know what all’s painted back here?”

“No. I don’t.”

“‘Let’s go Mustangs.’”

“Treadmore’s Mustangs.”

“I know who the Mustangs are. I didn’t burn out all my brain cells from high school. ‘Sybil bites dicks.’ ‘Silicone Sybil.’ ‘Mike the Mustang was here.’ Which one? The horse or that furry mascot of theirs?”

“Whichever one they meant, it was wishful thinking.”

“Is that the Treadmore’s mascot you stole?”

“I didn’t steal it. When they heard the sheriff’s deputy was on her way to see what all was going on out at The Whipping Post, everybody took off. The horse got left behind. I needed it for a ride away from there.”

“Naked.”

“I told you. They locked my clothes in the trunk of may car.”

“Behind the Save-Mart.”

“Yes.”

“So somebody called the police.”

“Yes.”

“This does not sound like a ‘little good clean fun.’”

“It usually is. Would’ve been if Sheila Wormcock hadn’t got her hands on Big Rexie.”

“Wait. Are you talking about Mercy Mains’ dildo?”

“Yes.”

“The one you girls’d to wave at the home games?”

“Yes. Big Rexie—T.Rex—Biggest fake dick I’ve ever seen. Brought it with her to sleepovers, too. I only let her use it on me once. That was plenty.”

“What’s Mercy’s dildo got to do with you being naked out back of The Whipping Post?”

“Okay. Every homecoming, since senior year, the girls from the Bergenville and the Treadmore cheer squads sort of pass it back and forth, finding ways to embarrass the other side with Rexie.”

“Like how?”

“Like—drop it in someone’s grocery cart for the clerk to find when they’re checking out, so they’ll call the manager for a price check. Or have one of the baristas at the coffee shop serve up Rexie in one of those hot cup sleeves, with your name written on it, yelling out so everyone in the place knows it’s for you. Or leaving it on the table in someone’s breadbasket at the Lucky Longhorn for their after-church brunch with the family.”

“What’s that got to do with stripping you naked out back of the Save-Mart this year?”

“It got a little out of hand this year, okay? Because there’s some people who’ll hang onto a grudge for years. You want to know somebody who can really hang onto a grudge? Sheila Wormcock. How long’s it been since senior year? And she’s still pissed off.”

“About what?”

“I’m guessing the trick we played on her the night before homecoming our senior year. Started this whole damn tradition.”

“So she’s the one—”

“—cornered me out at the Save-Mart, like I said. Her and the other girls from Treadmore.”

“Stripped you naked.”

“Yes.Threw all my stuff in the trunk and locked it. For safekeeping, they said.”

“Okay. Then locked you in the stocks out at the Whipping Post.”

“No. Then they zip-tied my wrists and ankles, and put me in the back of somebody’s pickup—Mike Albertson’s if I had to guess. He’d do something like that for a look at my puss.”

“You left out that part.”

“Well—I’m telling you now. Threw me into the back of the pickup and off we went down Route 5, my veejay showing like a prize pelt for everyone to see.”

“Then they locked you in the stocks.”

“Yes.”

“Painted you up.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Painting came after.”

“After what?”

“After Sheila Wormcock boned me bowlegged with Big Rexie.”

“With everybody watching!”

“That was the whole point, Earl. She must’ve been planning this prank for years.”

“Prank!”

“Wouldn’t you think whatever happens senior year, way back in high school, should be let go? Don’t you think a person should just forget it and let it go?”

“What’n hell’d you do to set her off?”

“It wasn’t just me. She’s had it in for all of us from back then.”

“It must be really something if she’s still stewing on it.”

“It’s her own fault. If she’d stayed on her side of the field, none of it would have happened.”

“What happened?”

“She’s got nobody to blame but herself.”

“What did you do?”

“The whole squad was in on it.”

“In on what?”

“Don’t get yourself all worked up, pestering me to death with all these questions.”

“There’s a stolen horse eating the hydrangeas out front of the trailer. I’d like to know what I’m going to tell the police when they show up.”

“All right, all right. But just you remember, it’s not entirely my fault. Here. Take this sponge and make yourself useful back there. Okay. Right before homecoming our senior year, we found out the Treadmore cheerleaders planned to help Howie Craddick lose his virginity the night before the game.”

“Howie? Our quarterback? Was a virgin?”

“Maybe still is, for all I know. You get a good look at him lately? Anyway—the plan was for one of the Treadmore girls to wet his willy for him. He’d be soooo busy thinking about that magical moment he couldn’t concentrate on the game. Treadmore could then whip the shit out of us in front of our own crowd. Naturally, Skidback Sheila got picked to do the deed.”

“Somebody must’ve had money on the game, listening in on the girls’ locker room. Because it sure got back to us in a hurry.”

“We beat them pretty easy, as I recall.”

“Thanks to me. Well, us. Our whole squad. We got to Sheila before she got to Howie. We let her think it was Howie she was meeting out at the haunted house.”

“That old trailer on Morning Wood Drive?”

“Told her it had to be someplace guys from the team wouldn’t find out. Which would be dark enough so she wouldn’t realize Howie wasn’t the one porking her. It’d be me.”

“You!”

“Had to be me. All the other girls were too small.”

“Sheila Wormcock—if we’re talking about the same Sheila Wormcock—would know the difference between you and Howie Craddick.”

“That’s why it had to be dark, nothing but a camp lantern for light. Barb Canary convinced Howie to let her have his jersey and his helmet—said she wanted to sleep in it—for luck. I guess the idea of Barb—”

“Barb Canary. With the big—uh—sizeable—uh—?”

“Yes, Earl, that Barb. Anyway—the idea of her wearing his jersey for a night shirt must’ve really stiffened that pecker his, because he handed it right over.”

“Why’d you all need his jersey?”

“Sheila convinced Howie she got all worked up seeing him in it, which got Howie all worked up, her gushing over him decked out in his uniform. She planned on keeping his jersey and wave it at him on the field during the game. Sheila’s been pushing you guys’ buttons since sixth grade.”

“Not my buttons.”

“Yes, your buttons. You’re only human, Earl. Anyway—I got to the haunted house before Sheila did, got myself set.”

“There had to be a little bit more to your fake Howie than just his uniform.”

“That’s why we had Big Rexie. Mercy had to help me strap it on. Had it on so tight, it felt like a part of me.”

“And Sheila somehow gets fooled by Mercy’s rubber dick?”

“We weren’t going to let her handle it. I said to her ‘Let me do you from behind.’”

“You don’t sound anything like Howie.”

“Well, I didn’t say it like that, Earl. I whispered, raspy, like I couldn’t breathe, like she’d got me—pretending to be Howie—so wound up, I could barely talk, you know?”

“I guess all guys sound alike in the dark.”

“I was hoping. Anyway—she shows up in her cheerleader uniform, and I say something like ‘oh wow’, and she says this is nothing, and turns, flipping up her skirt showing off her bare backside, giving it a little wiggle. Then, she turned back and gave her twat a rub, so I say ‘oh wow’, again. She reached for the jersey, wanting me to take it off, and I’m thinking this whole idea’s going to blow up, but I say ‘lemme keep it, like we’re doing it on the field’.”

“On the field.”

“I don’t know. I was trying to think. But it worked. She said something like ‘oh shit, yes, with everybody watching’, and she shucked off her uniform, stripping down to nothing but her sneakers. She bends over, reaches around and pulls at her butt cheeks—you know, even back then, she was shaving herself?”

“You could see that with nothing but a camp lantern?”

“Must’ve been fresh. To impress Howie. She kind of glowed in the dark.”

“I’m not sure I understand the point of that.”

“What? Shaving? Or me telling you about it?”

“Now I’ve got that movie stuck in my head—Sheila Wormcock running a razor over her business end.”

“Get it unstuck, right now, Earl. If you know what’s good for you.”

“All I’m saying is—I’m glad you don’t go in for that.”

“Well, you won’t catch me spending that kind of money the way some women do at Little Nippers. Most I’ll do is use a little conditioner and run a comb through it. Not that I go around showing off vanessa jane. Anyway—I oiled up Big Rexie and Sheila asks if I brought a condom. Of course, we didn’t think of that. Mercy usually brought some for sleepovers, but we weren’t thinking like it’s a real pecker. So I say ‘didn’t you bring them’. Glad I’d heard that from you guys often enough growing up.”

“Nobody likes carrying around a dried up old rubber.”

“You never thought you’d get lucky one night?”

“I didn’t want to look over-confident.”

“Anyway—I was sure she’d figure out what we were up to. But she just tells me to slip it in her ass. Totally her idea, like this is nothing new to her. So I squirt out a little extra lube and start in pushing. But it’s not going in. I can’t be sure if I’m even in the right spot. I kept jabbing at her—it’s not like I have a lot of practice hitting a tiny hole with a great big dork in the dark. She reaches through her legs and grabs hold of it. Now I know she’s going to realize something’s up. But she doesn’t, and suddenly her asshole gives way and in I go. She shouts out ‘holy shit, how big are you, Howie’. I couldn’t tell if she was complaining or giving me a compliment. I didn’t know what to say to her, so I didn’t say anything. What’s a guy supposed to say, Earl?”

“Can’t say anyone’s ever said that to me.”

“But, she doesn’t tell me to stop, so I lean into her, pushing, her ass taking it in with this wet, smacking sound until I reach the end of it. I’m pressed all the way against her. She just starts breathing in these quick little breaths, and in that camp light, I can see her ribs working. Sheila had this big ass, but a tiny, tiny waist. Anyway—I haven’t moved, just keeping it all the way up inside her. She lets out a long old groan and her breathing gets steadier so I start moving, sliding out, then pushing back in. I’ve got her by those big hips of hers and she’s gasping, and grunting out these long, low moans and saying ‘oh jeez’. I’m thinking on how she’s planning to embarrass us on our own field, so I start dashing it in a little bit harder and a little bit harder and a little bit harder, watching her butt cheeks shimmy when I smack my belly against her. I must’ve been going on too long, because she rasps out ‘God, Howie when’re you gonna come?’ Well shit, is all I can think. We forgot all about that, too. How’s she going to know we’re finished, if there’s no load to shoot?”

“Somebody didn’t think it through.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea. But, no. I keep telling her, ‘almost, almost’, as I keep whamming her, trying to think what to do next. So I wet my finger, and start working her button. Give her something else to think about.”