Losers

By Isaac Byrne

Copyright © 20 20  by Isaac Byrne

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

First Edition, 20 20

“I wonder if I’ll have to do, like... butt stuff,” mumbled Brandy.

Mya rolled her eyes. “Of course you will. We all will.”

“Some guys aren’t into that, though… right?” Kelsey squirmed, as if trying to protect her own tight little keister in the confines of her sleeping bag.

“I’ll do all the butt stuff they want so long as they don’t make me…” She couldn’t say it, but she didn’t need to. They all knew by now what Brandy was afraid of.

It was going on midnight, and this discussion already had dragged on for hours. In one form or another it had dragged on in cloistered gatherings of young women like these for years, ever since the Lottery program had been implemented. Chanda had had about enough of it. “I guess we’ll all know about butt stuff soon enough. Come on, ladies, let’s try and get a good night’s sleep. Heaven only knows when we’ll get another opportunity. And definitely not together.”

“Unless our winners, you know… share us.” Brandy grimaced at the prospect. The thought, coupled with Chanda’s admonition, had been enough to at last impose a silence as everyone nestled in and closed their eyes. Privately, Chanda thought it wouldn’t be the worst thing for her friend. The girl had a bit of a homophobic streak in her, and maybe it would help open her up. Maybe at least a little good could come from all this. Chanda herself had decidedly bisexual tendencies – at least when she could forget what boys represented for her future – but she was alone in that appetite in this company. But that wouldn’t matter soon, either.

It wasn’t ninety seconds before someone violated the silence. “I can’t sleep.” Kelsey, Chanda was pretty sure. It was dark, but nobody moped like Kelsey.

“Me either,” echoed Tiffany. “This fucking sucks. It’s so unfair.”

Chanda sat up in her own sleeping bag, glaring in the direction of their sullen hostess’s bed. “It is what it is, Tiffany. Yeah, it’s not our fault that previous generations overpopulated the planet, or that greedy corporations primed it for the extinction of a million plus species. But so what? Should we just shrug our shoulders, keep on breeding out of control and destroy the earth?”

“That doesn’t sound so bad right now, to be honest,” snapped Tiffany. “It’s pure win for the boys! Why don’t we get any say in the Lottery?”

Chanda’s glower intensified. Everyone knew the why of it; they’d been taught it since they were old enough to understand. Tiffany was simply pouting, and in a room full of people whose recent ascent to adulthood was a common bond, Chanda found it childish and unbecoming of their dignity, for these final hours in which they still had any.

She flopped back down on her back and snapped, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because one boy can impregnate multiple women every single day? It’s the bullshit of god’s plan.” She continued over Brandy’s offended gasp. “They’re the ones who need to be pacified. They’re the problem. Which puts it on us women to solve it. It’s not like they take our whole lives. Thirty years, then you get to retire early on the public dole. You bet your bottom dollar that there’s going to be tons of survivors tomorrow night crying themselves to sleep because now they’ll never be able to have kids of their own. Women who’d kill for the opportunity.”

“So let ‘em,” grumbled Tiffany. “I never signed on to be some loser’s sex slave.”

“Me neither,” murmured Mya. Kelsey and Brandy agreed soon after. All of them were looking at Chanda sullenly, like the whole thing was her fault simply because she had the maturity to acknowledge the whole of the issue.

“You want me to list all the people who are dealing with bullshit they didn’t sign into? People starving because of the droughts. Refugees begging for aid. Victims of war, people born with genetic defects, people–”

“All right, all right, we get it,” said Tiffany. “Jesus fuck, Chanda, I don’t know who appointed you the high priestess of the Lottery, but you defend it harder than any boy I know.”

“I’m not defending it. But it’s a fact of life, and I can’t handle having to comfort you while I’m trying not to freak out thinking about who’s going to win me.”

Mya whined pitifully. “My sister Jessica’s winner? He was this mega-millionaire guy who already owned four other girls. He let her visit last summer and she said she has to eat out of a bowl on the floor without using her hands, and–”

Brandy swatted her with a pillow. “We said no horror stories! We’re never gonna get to sleep if you keep telling everybody – again – about Jessie’s stupid harem gig!”

“Yeah, your sister was a fucking slut before she got won anyways. Good thing we’re all sterile before our Drawing Day or she’d have already been nursing a litter,” chided Tiffany, sticking her tongue out. The girl really was still a child. At least until her winner was announced tomorrow. She’d grow up really fast then.

Mya flipped her off, but didn’t retort. With everyone still wide awake, Chanda didn’t bother trying to put her friends back to bed and decided to try to be comforting instead. “You know, maybe it won’t be so bad, ladies. Not everybody’s experience is awful. We could wind up getting won by some really hot guy. Or a rich guy who spoils us rotten.” She didn’t bother to posit the existence of a really sweet guy. Really sweet guys didn’t participate in the Lottery. They were also incredibly rare, for obvious reasons. Popular rumors held that they were mostly abstaining for religious reasons, though it wasn’t hard to find men with fancy robes and silly hats surrounded by their own silent, utterly devoted Lottery losers.

Mya accepted the offering of succor from their despair, albeit with her own grim twist. “Or maybe our winners will die in three days. Then we could live like survivors, except we could have families of our own, like our moms and grandmas did.”

Tiffany snorted. “Have fun raising your brood. My winner bites it and I’m getting my tubes retied that fuckin’ night, yo.”

Brandy for once decided to be helpful, returning to Chanda’s point. “OK, so let’s play a hypothetical. If you could get won by any guy, who would it be? Mya, you go first.”

There were a chorus of relieved giggles. This was easier. It was a game they’d all played before, but even so it was a happier distraction than most. Chanda didn’t point out that she’d sneaked a peek at her phone and seen that it was after midnight. Drawing Day.

“Anyone at school, or anyone in the world?” asked Mya. The distinction was an important one, though it did elicit a whine from Tiffany. Her parents had put her pot out for auction. Not many families did. Chanda’s own parents had asked her what she preferred, and she’d unhesitatingly opted out. Auctioned women all too often wound up like Jessie, bought by some random guy in another country who flooded her pot with tickets to make it all but certain he won. It was why Mya’ family lived in that giant house they had. But after losing all contact with their eldest child, they’d not had the heart to go through it again with Mya.

Tiffany’s parents, it seemed, had other priorities. Having a daughter as attractive as her was sometimes called pre-winning the Lottery, though pretty much only by people who didn’t have daughters. Mya, Kelsey, Brandy and Chanda had their a pool going on how much Tiffany went for that they’d declare a winner on once everybody’s time was up in a few decades. Brandy had the highest bet at three million dollars bid, but Chanda had done her own morbid research and new that minor imperfections like canine teeth that were slightly out of line and the  mole on her neck could cost big. Nationwide there were close to two million women who would be won tomorrow, and last year’s Lottery census said that around 6% of them had been auctioned. If that held up this Drawing Day, that meant there would likely be over a hundred thousand auctioned. People with the kind of money it took to win those auctions insisted on perfection.

Chanda’s own bet was four hundred thousand.

Her friends took turns, and though the answers were mostly familiar, variations of the same hopes they’d shared a hundred times in these hypotheticals over the years, it was helpful. Brandy wanted someone who shared her values and wanted a big family. Kelsey wanted to be part of somebody’s mass winnings, so they’d have less time to spend on her. Tiffany still wanted Henry Cavill. As for Chanda, she would be content (as content as one could be) to be won by some local dude, where she’d at least probably still get to see her friends and family sometimes. Probably. Maybe she’d even be herself enough that they would still love her.

The last time Jessie had visited, her parents had left town. With no contravening orders to return to her winner, she’d spent Easter weekend sleeping outside in their back yard and drinking from their pool.

The game lasted as long as they could drag it out, but eventually, their dread eclipsed their escapism. Everybody closed their mouths and eyes, but nobody got any sleep.

It was almost how comical how casually they all dressed the next morning. Almost. None of them had pre-planned it, either. Like most of the hot girls in most high schools across the country, Chanda and her friends had been pushed into their own clique, and coordinating outfits was not unheard of. Today, though, everybody was in loose jeans, hoodies, baggy t-shirts, sweatpants, and otherwise decked out in the least flattering things they owned. Chanda herself had chosen an ugly sweater her grandmother had gotten her last Christmas. It wouldn’t make any difference – the boys had already pledged their tickets – but it felt like an armor of sorts. One last time she could dress herself, conceal her body from strangers’ eyes.

After a big breakfast, the girls went outside to pile into Tiffany’s car for the ride to school. Chanda had expected Tiffany to hang back to say goodbye to her mom and dad, but evidently her bitterness over being auctioned won out, and she was right on their heels in their departure. The rest of the young women in the car had already said their farewells the night before when they’d been dropped off. Chanda and her dad had both cried and cried, but her mom had been stronger, and with a little kiss on the forehead, told her “not to be a stranger.”

Not that she’d have much choice. She’d be whatever her winner made her be.

For the thousandth time, she wondered how it was done. Everybody knew what the results were – the losers became whoever the winners desired they become. How, though… that was a tightly guarded corporate secret from the manufacturers of whatever technology was involved. The way most people talked about it, it was like there was a switch in their Lottery implants, with one end being free-willed and sterile and the other fertile and servile. Not that the winners always, or even usually, immediately went for baby-making mode, since they make the alteration whenever they wanted and most winners were no older than their losers. But whatever happened to those women – whatever would happen to her in a few short hours, Chanda reminded herself – nobody really knew.

She remembered last year, watching the senior girls get called out of class one at a time as their pots were won. There had been scores of losers, but it was the memory of Yvonne Vernier that stood out to her the most. The bitchy goth girl had been repeating American Lit and was in Chanda’s class with the other juniors. All semester, she’d sat in the corner glaring at the world behind a facade of dark clothes and pale skin. Then the door had swung open, and there were two of the city’s Lottery officers. They’d said her name softly to the teacher, who’d pointed Yvonne out. Her glare had wilted in an instant; Yvonne burst into tears and pleaded “No! No, god, no! Please, please, oh fuck, no!” Chanda could still hear it, still remember the look on her face. But the Lottery officers simply aimed their control baton at them (or whatever it was, another corporate secret) and Yvonne meekly stood and followed them out of the room, sable tears trailing down ivory skin.

Many Lottery losers simply disappeared after Drawing Day. Most, actually. They did it the Friday before Spring Break to give the winners a little time to get it out of their system, but there wasn’t much more point in providing your sex slave further education. Yvonne Vernier, though… Yvonne had been in her seat bright and early the Monday  after break.

Bright being the operative word.

Pink. Head to toe, where there was fabric, or the opportunity to tastefully color her body… pink. Pink penny loafers. Pink knee-high stockings. A plaid pink tartan skirt, not a millimeter longer than required by the school’s dress code. A thin pale pink blouse (again, concealing exactly as much cleavage as the dress code demanded), faintly visible beneath which was a hot pink bra. New glasses with bright pink frames. Chanda had thought that maybe the lenses were even tinted pink, but she couldn’t be sure if it was merely the haze surrounding Yvonne that made her think so. Then there were the pink nails, pink eye shadow, pink earrings, pink ribbons in her hair – which was itself now, of course, pink.

The new Yvonne smiled. Always. She paid attention, raised her hand, and beamed delightedly whenever she was praised. She was patient with any guy who wanted to ogle her, and deflected any who wanted more with such sweetness that they didn’t even mind being shot down. She attended every sporting event on the arm of her winner, whose name Chanda had forgotten, but whose face she had not. She split her time at such extracurriculars between cheering on the home team and pushing the boundaries of the school’s PDA rules. Occasionally she and her winner  were asked to leave when she moaned a little too loudly at how masterfully he whatevered her right there in the bleachers, but she never seemed to mind that, either.

Had the real Yvonne still been in there? A helpless prisoner of this effervescent pastel doppleganger? Or was she put on hold, her brain cryogenically frozen on a thirty-year timer? Or was the feisty goth gone, washed away and all that she had ever been replaced by a simpering, pleasing bimbo? Would anything be left of Yvonne – the real Yvonne – in twenty-nine years?

As Tiffany drove the carload of the hottest girls at Clark High School, nobody said a word, but they were all wondering along the same lines.

Mya got won first.

Chanda wasn’t there to see it, but she got an all caps text from Brandy notifying her. She didn’t know who’d won her, of course, but she assured them she’d borne it with dignity, holding her chin high and ignoring the eyes of her peers.

Drawing Day was a phenomenon, naturally. It brought out the best and worst in people. Every woman had rehearsed and rehearsed how they would react when they were called in. Most did well. Some girls even managed to look excited, like there was some pride to be had in being worthy of having one’s pot seeded. More than a few had issued an exuberant “fuck you” to a teacher or hated classmate before the Lottery officers whisked them out the door.

Maybe some were even happy not to have to come back to school any more, to be allowed to lay around the house having sex all day. Maybe. Chanda had suspicions that for every woman who were sincere when they said they saw the Lottery through that lens, there were a hundred more who were full of shit about it.

Still, at least the school was pretty good about crowd control. It was easy to imagine the wolf whistles, the slaps on the ass, the lewd comments that would be made if the school didn’t crack down on such infractions. Chanda’s cousin Tony, who was in his early thirties, said that in his day, when the Lottery first started, there had nearly been riots all over school as horny guys abused the vulnerability of women being herded away to be reprogrammed, easy marks who’d never have the freedom to pursue justice, or even retribution.

Nowadays, the guys were perfect gentlemen, at least for Drawing Day. Though the women found out their pots had been won as each drawing occurred, they had no real chance for rebellion. Between the sheer dread of it all and the presence of those batons, they were no problem. The guys, however, had needed a stick whose menace matched the allure of their carrots. Very simply, any boy who received disciplinary action on Drawing Day had all of their tickets voided.

If not for the looming threat, it would have actually been a really pleasant day. Not a one  of them dared speak out of turn, harass anyone in the halls, talk back to teachers, cut in the lunch line or engage in all that macho chest-thumping that seemed to characterize adolescent malehood.

Tiffany was next. None of them had class with her when it happened, but by the time Chanda, Brandy and Kelsey had met up at their lunch table, her absence was already being whispered about by the boys at the next table. That meant Chanda had almost certainly lost the pool. Auctions ran until 4:00 that afternoon, so if she had been pulled out already, someone had ponied up the no contest amount her parents had predetermined. Ah, well. In thirty years, she’d pay Brandy her twenty bucks.

Somewhere in the building, Mya and Tiffany were being unmade, repackaged according to the specifications attached to their winners’ tickets. The Lottery officers did the work on-site, reserving the gymnasium for the day and strictly monitoring foot traffic around it, but the process didn’t seem to take long. Most of the losers went home that afternoon with their winners, and depending on how many losers there were in a given year, a handful might have to wait their turn after school. None had to wait long.

As for Tiffany, Chanda saw her departure with her own eyes from her seat near the window in Mr. Amedori’s class. From her roost on the school’s second floor, she could make out a familiar figure on the school’s front sidewalk. A blank-faced Tiffany shuffled along behind two Lottery officers into a waiting car. Chanda couldn’t tell from here if it was some kind of luxury car or something more pedestrian. Probably the former. The guys who won auctioned girls had money to burn.

Should we pay you now or after, Britt?  texted Kelsey along with a winky emoji that none of them felt. There was no reply.

Next period, the empty seat usually occupied by Brandy explained her silence. Chanda was simply regretting her own decision not to auction herself. She’d seen girls less attractive than her raise millions, and her parents could’ve used the money. She was going to be won by some loser, used and perverted and humiliated all the same, and they’d have nothing to show for it. She found herself hating herself for being so selfish.

There were a lot of empty seats in that class. Mr. Amedori was playing a video; Chanda simply lowered her head to her desk, squeezed her eyes shut, and prayed each time the door opened that it wasn’t for her. But by the time the dismissal bell rang, she was still there.

Kelsey and Chanda shared a brief hug as they entered last period together. There was a palpable energy in the air as boys were all desperately awaiting news of their chosen pots, and the dwindling female population were all wondering who was yet to fall.

Plainly, from the looks they directed at the two of them, they wondered not if, but when. How could it be that Kelsey Roach and Chanda Brighton were still sitting among them?

Chanda and Kelsey were each as acclimated to male attention as they were to female jealousy. Chanda had been dealing with it since fifth grade. She’d been one of the first girls in her class to start menstruating, and the second to start wearing a bra. By the time high school rolled around, those bras had their work cut out for them. Kelsey had a more petite build than Chanda’s, but she had the face of an angel. Yes, she had a big scar on her lower belly from a surgery she’d needed when she was a kid, but Chanda was yet to meet the guy who was truly put off by it.

Chanda could imagine a world in which guys checked her out without that look in their eyes, where you could see them wondering how many tickets she was worth. Some girls actually spent a lot of their 17 th  year deliberately piling on weight in hopes of not being drawn, but most guys had long enough memories not to fall for it. Pointless, and nothing but sadness dressing on a sad salad as far as Chanda was concerned. She was beautiful, she knew it, and she wasn’t going to lessen herself for anyone until she had two. In less than an hour now.

It was actually a bit jarring. Here in Mr. Corley’s room, there were Kelsey and Chanda, both in the 8-10 range depending on how one felt about particular body types, and then there were the rest of the girls, 3’s or lower all . Snaggle-toothed Janet, Kristin with her bulging eyes and pockmarked skin, and Maria, who could barely squeeze into her desk (and had a hair lip besides). Then Kelsey and Chanda. It felt almost like being part of a different species. One that was very much endangered. All the other hotties had been drawn by now, and the middle range ones as well. Some would have been taken by guys who preferred bidding on girls they had better odds of winning, and some, maybe,  hopefully, by boyfriends who’d agreed to seed their girlfriends’ pots to protect them.

When school resumed Monday after break, Chanda wondered which girls would be beaming adoringly at their faithful fellas, and which would be scowling at them and those other women in their laps. Chanda actually managed a grin at the thought of those pricks who neglected their girlfriends’ pots and didn’t wind up winning anyone. Served them right.

As it was the final Friday before spring break, Mr. Corley was teaching with a light hand. Everyone received a heads up of what assignments, quizzes and tests needed to be made up or repeated, and those who had such work were working on it. The rest were allowed to quietly socialize or be on their phones.

Chanda was in the midst of typing out a text to her mom – looks like I might need a ride home today after all! ;) j/k obvs, still waiting and going nuts!!!  – when the door opened, and her heart sank. The Lottery officers, two men cut from the same cloth, burly mustaches, navy blue suits, indoor sunglasses and all, approached Mr. Corley and the shorter one murmured something to him. Their heads panned the classroom, slowing quite obviously on where Kelsey and Chanda were seated.

“Be strong,” whispered Chanda.

“I’ll miss you,” Kelsey whispered back.

“Kelsey?” said Mr. Corley. “It’s time.”

Chanda didn’t think anybody else was close enough to hear the whimper that rose, then caught in her friend’s throat. Kelsey didn’t say a word; she calmly stood up and walked to the front of the room. Her books were left behind. Not likely to be a need for those any more. Once the door had swung shut behind her friend, Chanda put them back on Mr. Corley’s shelves and took her seat, trying to suppress the mounting panic.

Twenty minutes to go. Chanda could feel glances flickering in her direction from every direction. Why wouldn’t they? Sure, there might not be any official ranking, but she knew full well that she was widely considered to be one of, if not the hottest girl in school. All day long, people had watched 4’s and 5’s and 6’s pulled out of class, won, yet here sat Clark High School’s only viable candidate for 10dom. It was like the fates were screwing with her, taking revenge for all of her attempts at rationalization and equanimity over the preceding year by making her stew as long as humanly possible.

Why? Why was this taking so long? More than a decade she’d been living in terror of this day, ever since she’d realized that she was pretty, and heard adults speaking behind closed doors about what happened to the pretty ones. There had been nights she’d woken with her fingernails sunk deep into her pillow from some nightmare where she’d been consensually raped by some disgusting pig old enough to be her grandfather, or fat enough to be three of him. It had devastated her ability to make friends with men, knowing that every kindness she showed them was one more reason for them to seed her pot. She’d never so much as had a boyfriend, terrified by the prospect of being torn away from someone she loved. Chanda found some of them attractive, yes, but they were all enemies in the end. The homelier girls might be able to rely on having boyfriends who could scare off the one or two guys who might consider dipping in their pots, but the pots of girls like Chanda would be so stuffed full of tickets that if the terminator were her boyfriend, he’d still be trampled to death by the stampede of guys who wanted to make her their slave.

Was she having a hot flash? It was all so overwhelming! How had she ever managed to attempt a defense of this barbarism?! Whatever justification the government wanted to offer, it was female slavery. No. Not mere (“mere”) slavery, but brainwashing and indoctrination, a violation of a sort that had never before been possible. She wouldn’t simply lose her virginity; she would lose her entire self. Her body, yes, but also her personality, her aspirations, her reservations, all bonds of love and friendship so that a bunch of horny assholes wouldn’t keep breeding the species into certain oblivion. She thought back to that defeated girl she’d seen on the sidewalk, and heard the echo of her voice from the night before. This fucking sucks. It’s so unfair.

And yet she was helpless before it. Completely and utterly helpless.

She heard a sound from the front of the room and her head whipped around so fast, and she was so light-headed, and so frightened, that  she fainted dead away.

Chanda could hear again before she could see. She’d been dreaming – nightmares, really – but was surprised to hear only the soft white noise that must be an oscillating fan. She could tell because she could feel it blowing gently across her skin. That felt nice. Her face felt hot, flushed, even though the rest of her body felt frigid. Her clothes kept the moving air off of her body though – which was doubly reassuring as she realized she was still wearing clothes. Her own clothes.

Her eyelids fluttered open. She was in the nurse’s office, she soon realized. It was dark in here. No, only dim. Chanda was lying on the cot, the same cot she’d wound up on when she’d sprained her ankle freshman year in gym class. She hadn’t been back in here  since, but not much had  changed.

“She’s awake!”

A male voice, and a loud one. With a groan, her head swimming, she craned her neck to see the boy sitting beside her, now standing, darting out of the room. Aaron. Eichhorn, she thought. She didn’t have time to ponder what he was doing here before he was back, the nurse walking quickly in his wake, then brushing him aside when she reached Chanda.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You fainted. Third fainter today, in fact.” The nurse’s tone offered no sympathy. She must be one of those women who resented all the pretty girls who traded a lifetime of labor for thirty years of pampering sexual servitude. It seemed that the older a woman grew, the more that resentment leaked out in public. The nurse was not young.

“I did?”

Aaron nodded. “Yeah. I saw you were kind of breathing funny, then suddenly you went limp. I barely caught you before you hit the floor.”

Oh, right. He was in her seventh period. Aaron was a wallflower’s wallflower, the sort of unremarkable nobody she’d always sort of figured would own her someday. Oh, shit. Did he? Had it happened? Was this slightly doughy stranger her new owner?

The nurse kept her from sitting up with a firm hand on her breastplate. “Don’t try and move just yet, girly. You’ll just wind up right back here and we’ll have to start over again. I’m supposed to be on my way home. They’re already closing the school.”

“They are? But…” She paused, but figured she may as well say it. “Did someone… win me?” No sense beating around the bush. Not like her not asking would make it any less so. She’d read an article about this one case where a young woman had been in a car accident on the morning of Drawing Day, and when she woke up from her coma four days later, her winner was right there waiting for her. According to the article, he hadn’t even let her parents in to see her.

“I don’t know. They’re still processing down in the gym, so you’d better stop by and check. Or not. I don’t care.” She turned to Aaron. “You know this girl?”

“Um, yeah?” He looked confused by the question. “I mean, it’s Chanda .”

It was a big high school; the nurse didn’t seem to see her as quite such a legend, judging by her apathetic shrug. “Good. Get her a cup of water and let her rest a  few minutes, then help her out. OK? I’m gonna be in my office packing up.”

“Sure,” said Aaron gamely. He looked pretty pleased to be ordered to interact with this classmate who was otherwise entirely outside his league.

With one final look conveying her displeasure at the delay, the nurse left the room, leaving the two of them alone. “Are you OK?” asked Aaron.

Chanda, however was not about to change her stance on male friendship here in the final minutes of freedom. “Did they come for me? I thought I heard the door.”

“No.” But even as the surge of hope threatened to send her right back into oblivion’s embrace, he amended his reply. “Not that I know of, that is. When you passed out, it was only somebody coming back from the bathroom. I helped Mr. Corley carry you down here. I told him we shouldn’t move you, because we didn’t know why you… ya know. But he said it was only nerves, so we just did it. Guess they must’ve come for you after that.”

She nodded. “Hey, about that water…?”

“Right!” Aaron leapt to his feet, hurrying so quickly to the water cooler in the corner that she had to conceal a laugh. The whole room was only ten feet long. The guy nearly knocked the jug off the stand. Then he was back, offering her the conical paper cup with a trembling hand. She accepted it, and then the refill was fetched with a bit more grace.

“So you really didn’t get… won?” he asked softly.

“No. Well no, I mean I didn’t find out yet is all. I’m sure I did. I just don’t know by who  yet. They’ll tell me when I get to the gym, I guess. Probably waiting for me outside the office in case I try to run. Not that I’d want to piss off the Lotto gestapo by making them postpone their vacations like I did the nurse.” She snorted.

Aaron chuckled. “Lotto gestapo… I like that. We could’ve used that when we were doing signs. Though Principal Doherty would’ve probably made us take them down.”

“Signs? What are you talking about?” Chanda made a face. She didn’t find him especially interesting, but she’d certainly rather be here chatting up this geek than in the gym having her brain scrambled.

“You know, for the WAL.” She stared blankly. “We’re All Losers…?”

“Oh!” That did ring a bell. WAL was a nationwide group of protesters against the Lottery. By reputation, it was mostly young Lottery-losers-to-be and older women who’d not been won but still opposed it on principle. Chanda hadn’t realized there was a local chapter. She was even more surprised to hear that they counted an eighteen-year-old boy among their members. “You’re… are there a lot of you? I hadn’t heard anything.”

“It’s really only three of us. Me, Heidi Weaver and Julie Burgess. Or it was, anyway.”

“Was? They get cold feet?”

She realized her mistake even as he pointed it out. “They were won. Julie during second period. Heidi got taken out of lunch.”

“Oh. Um, sorry.”

“Hey, you sure as heck don’t need to apologize to me for it. I’m the last demographic anyone in yours should be apologizing to today of all days.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Her tone was sharp, but really, she was grateful for his humility. She could only imagine the swagger to be seen around town right now as the losers were being paraded around by the winners. Three Drawing Days ago, a neighbor girl who’d lived  across the street and a couple doors down had been won. By an adult, too, one of those older guys who bought extra tickets from Clark’s community chest. (Chanda fervently hoped she’d kept a low enough profile to avoid getting too many of those  creeps in her pot.) This one had made his prize take off all her clothes and stand in her front yard shaking her chest at passers-by. She’d been arrested before long, and done some jail time for it. She wondered if her winner had thought it was worth the thrill.

Punishing losers for their crimes committed while won seemed like the least fair part of it all, but Mya had once pointed out that at least time in jail was time away from their winner, and their records were expunged when their time was up. (Their loser-time, that is.) Many crimes were considered so serious that winners were automatically tried as accessories even so, as apparently in the early days some clever guys had seeded all those 1’s and 2’s pots to form their own tiny gangs. Crazy the things some people came up with.

Chanda asked for another cup of water, and Aaron once more obliged her. She was sitting up now, and her head wasn’t as fuzzy. She could probably get up and walk. It might be better, she reflected, rather than having the Lottery officers come find her and drag her out with those control batons. She didn’t want her final moments of freedom to be humiliating. But, more than that – much  more than that – she did not want to go to the gym.

“So how did you get involved in WAL? You lose a sister or something?” There was a lot of talk about children of losers and how they might view the process considering their secondhand involvement in it, but the Lottery wasn’t quite old enough as an institution to have any eligible winners or losers born out of it. All over the country, though, grade schools had been shutting down left and right at the Lottery had bottlenecked birth rates, the number of children enrolled plummeting. Middle schools were no following suit, and she supposed high schools weren’t far behind. Chanda could only imagine what that would be like, every student going home to a winner-loser household.

She supposed before long, she’d know, albeit not from the student perspective.

Aaron spoke softly, sensing how distracted she was. “No, nothing like that. I… I guess it sounds stupid to say that it just seems… wrong?”

“It doesn’t sound stupid when I say it, but I’m on the loser side of the debate. There wasn’t anybody you wanted to win?”

“I don’t want to win  a person, no. I always wanted to do it like my parents did it, you know? Meet some nice girl, beg for a date, get shot down, cry so hard she feels so bad she gives me a shot, hit it off, fall in love, happily ever after.”

“That’s sweet.” And naïve, but she didn’t feel the need to say as much.

“But it’s more than that,” Aaron continued. “I hate that as a civilization we’ve decided to formally separate procreation from love. I think about what that must be doing to us as a society, and I shudder. Already, most children’s so-called mothers are nothing more than concubines, raising some guy’s offspring because his name got drawn out of a hat.”

“So-called mothers?” Chanda frowned. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m with you on the merits, but a mother is a mother. Just because they didn’t choose to have the sex doesn’t mean they can’t be a good mom.”

“You’re right, sorry. I only meant…” He pursed his lips, obviously trying not to put his foot between them again. “It’s not how it’s supposed to be, is all.”

“You got that right.” Chanda almost, almost  reached out and gave his plump little hand a squeeze. But why? She’d be giving the guys plenty of thrills soon enough. Let Aaron’s principles keep his ego swoll. “I guess we ought to get to the gym, before the nurse comes in and kicks our asses.”

“Language,” came a dispassionate rebuke from around the corner.

Chanda extended her middle finger in the woman’s direction, but took it no further. Aaron offered a hand to help her up, and though she probably didn’t need it, there was nothing like a fainting spell to keep you grounded, literally. Once she was sure she could manage it on her own, she let go and made her way past the nurse with her impatient foot-tapping, and out into the halls.

The school was pretty dark by now, and all but silent. The student population was now divided neatly into five categories: underclassmen, survivors, losers, winners, and boys with bad luck. And Aaron, she supposed. In any event, each category had its own reason not to be in school at that hour. Class had been out for less than half an hour, but already they had scattered. Teachers, too, most probably as eager as nurse whatshername  to get out of here for a week.

Then she rounded the corner, and nearly bowled over none other than Kelsey.

“Kelsey! Oh gosh, I didn’t… wait, are you…?! Are you… you?”

Kelsey smiled, but Chanda knew in an instant that it wasn’t her  smile. Kelsey had a gorgeous smile, all teeth and so broad it almost forced her big brown eyes closed. This Kelsey, however, gave only a slight upward twist at the corners of her mouth. It didn’t touch her eyes. “Of course I am me, Chanda. Excuse me. I must go meet master.”

Chanda tried to body block her, slow her down, but Kelsey only whirled around her and quickened her pace. Where the heck were her shoes? “Kelsey, talk to me! What happened? What was it like?”

“You’ll find out,” she said cryptically.

“Wait, do you know something? Who won me?”

Kelsey walked around her as if she was a mere obstacle in her path. “I must go meet with master, Chanda.”

“Come on, Rach – we’re friends! I mean, we were, right? Just tell me who,” pleaded Chanda. The hasty steps she took to block her path reminded her how light-headed she still was, so the best she could do was trail along behind her.

“I don’t know. I know only that I must find my master so I may learn how to please him. If he wills it, you may remain my friend.” There was no emotion to her voice; it was hard to fathom how this new robotic Kelsey might define friendship.

“She can’t help you. If she could, she probably would. There’s no use,” said Aaron grimly, following them warily.

Chanda ignored him, and resumed peppering Kelsey with questions as she padded down the halls, but she learned nothing new. He was right. Either Kelsey didn’t know, or she wouldn’t say. Appeals to shared history, mercy, friendship… none of them moved her in the least. The only thing weighing on her once-kindred mind seemed to be the most direct route to her master. Chanda followed her right to the front doors of the school. Kelsey simply kept walking. Barefoot. In windy fifty-degree weather. That same thin smile etched into her face.

“I’m so sorry,” said Aaron, who had apparently still been trailing along behind her. “You guys are friends, right?”

“Were.” Chanda sighed. Maybe in another thirty years, they would be again. “Come on. Time to bite the bullet.”

“I… I hope you get somebody nice,” he said softly, but even she could tell he was aware his words held no real comfort.

The lights were on in the hallway outside the gym, and there were still five agents in sight. Two were having a conversation by the water fountain; the other three were each clearly guarding a set of doors. Chanda’s knees suddenly went weak. Aaron must have noticed because he suddenly rushed up to support her, but a male touch was enough to make her remember herself and shrug him off. She might not get to flip her hair over her shoulder triumphantly and march stoically out of a classroom like she’d mentally rehearsed all those times, but that didn’t mean she was going to be a sissy about it either.

“My name is Chanda Brighton. I…” She didn’t want to tell this jerk that she’d fainted. “I’m reporting for Lottery duty. Or whatever.”

His surprise was evident; she could well imagine they didn’t get a lot of self-surrenders. “Wait here, please.” The man disappeared into the gym. Chanda tried to peer in after him, but they’d put up some kind of privacy curtain right inside the doors.

She folded her arms impatiently – and fearfully. As the seconds ticked past, she became increasingly aware of Aaron lurking right behind her shoulder. “You know I can walk OK now, right? You don’t have to wait with me.”

“Sure, I know that. I only thought you might…”

“Well I don’t. I’m fine all by myself. All right? You’re a day late and a miracle short of saving me, so spare me the hero complex and leave me alone.”

He wilted. She’d made guys do that before, but only jerks who wouldn’t take her initial rejection for an answer. She felt bad. Aaron had been nice to her, and if there was a moment in her life when a guy had to know he didn’t have a chance in hell and was acting out of pure altruism, it was this one. “Right, sure. Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He looked over to where the nearest Lottery officer was standing, hands clasped in front of him, staring dutifully at the wall opposite him. “I’m really sorry, Chanda. I’ll… yeah. I’ll go.”

So he left. Chanda didn’t stop him. I mean, why would she? Her overactive imagination spun an immediate justification for the cruelty of her dismissal, a whole narrative in which she’d inadvertently given him some hope she might be into him, then he kept pursuing her after she was reprogrammed and her winner ordered her to humiliate him in the worst possible way. No. No, a clean break was better. Not that they’d ever had anything to break off. He’d brought her water once, and before that had been decent enough that she’d never had to notice him. That was it.

Some minutes later, the door opened, and a different officer popped out. One of the ones who’d taken Kelsey, she was pretty sure. “What was the name again?”

“Chan-da. Brigh-ton.” she said, enunciating with exaggerated crispness. “Want me to spell it for you?”

Then he was gone again. Good lord, these guys were the absolute worst. In thirty years, she’d have to file some kind of complaint. If these guys hadn’t retired yet, maybe she could demand they be demoted. She sighed.

Finally, the first guy returned, wearing a perturbed expression. “Nothing for you here, Ms. Brighton. Sorry.”

“What? Where am I supposed to go then?” Surely she hadn’t misunderstood. Kelsey had definitely been coming from here, and had very definitely been processed.

“I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here. Now move along.”

“Move along? I… I don’t understand,” she persisted.

“Between you and me, Miss, I don’t either.” The man gave her chest a much too appreciative look. You had to be a special sort of misogynist to to work for the Lottery Bureau, evidently. “But all the same, you’re not on our list.”

“Not on your list? What list? What does that mean?”

“It means: nobody. Seed-ed. Your. Pot,” he said, mocking her with his own bout of over-enunciation. “Want me to spell it for you?”

“Uh, spell what?”

“Miss, I’m going to count to three, and if you haven’t gotten that sweet ass out of here before I finish–”

“Yes sir!” she squeaked. Chanda was three blocks away before she remembered she could call her mom for a ride home.

Home. Her home.

“Surprise! GAAAAH!” cried both Chanda and her father. For him, it was the surprise of leaping into the living room to collide with his daughter, whom he had expected not to see for, at the least, quite a little time yet. For her, it was the shock of having her naked father knock her off her feet.

He scurried out of the room before worrying if he might have hurt her, which turned out to be the correct call. “Dad! What the hell?!” A scarlet-hued Chanda picked herself up and hastened to the other exit to the room, assiduously keeping her eyes from going anywhere near the insidious doorway through which her father had entered.

“Sweetheart! You’re home!” She could tell he was in the midst of vigorous motion, and could only pray he was dressing himself. She’d barely seen anything, but already the image was firmly ensconced in her memory. The harder she tried not to think about it, the deeper it burrowed.

Chanda’s mother, who like her daughter, had been so excited she’d failed to notify her husband, hurried around the corner to help him dress himself. “She’s home, Jon! Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Well, yes, of course! I’m so… Goodness. I’m so happy you’re home, sweetheart,” he called from around the corner. “I… shut. I’d meant to, ah, surprise your mother. Not you, obviously.”

“ I sure  the heck hope so!” she groused.

A few minutes later, emotions asserted themselves into their proper frames. After he muttered a sheepish explanation about his intentions to help his wife take her mind off of their Drawing Day blues and she insisted she never wanted to hear another word on the subject of her parents’ sex life, her father embraced his daughter. Chanda barely felt weird hugging him back. Yesterday, when they’d bid each other farewell before going to Tiffany’s last night – oh, Tiffany! – they had all three of them been sobbing despondently. Now, to be right here, everyone unchanged, was practically a miracle. An ecstatic Bumper jumped on any leg he could find, tail wagging exuberantly at their reunion.

“So what happened?” her father asked once they’d settled in. “Was there some glitch or something?”

“No glitch,” said her mother. “Chanda wasn’t won!”

His head snapped back. “What? That can’t be… what?”

“I know,” she said. “I was pretty shocked, too. I wish I had an explanation. The Lottery guys, they wouldn’t answer any questions, only told me nobody won me and to get the heck outta Dodge.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Chanda’s mother. For probably the twentieth time since picking her up after school, she swept back her daughter’s hair and kissed her forehead.

“Wonderful, yeah, right,” he said distractedly. His wife elbowed him, and then he repeated more earnestly, “I mean, yes, absolutely. Wonderful. I’m so happy, sweetheart. Only… it doesn’t… make sense, does it?”

Chanda and her mother had gotten past the awkwardness of the subject of the Lottery long ago, but she suspected shared gender played a role in that. It was no doubt harder for his father to point out, as he was so euphemistically struggling to do, that his daughter was insanely hot, and that it simply didn’t add up.

She smiled fondly, amused by how uncomfortable it made him. “I don’t know. We were talking, and we thought maybe we could contact the Lottery Bureau, but… why? Like, say it’s all a big error in my favor. Why call their attention to it? It’s a blind draw, so not like there’s a winner out there thinking he’s been cheated out of me.”

Her mother nodded. “Besides, you hear those awful tales of corruption in the Bureau, people rigging drawings for bribes or as favors to influential people. Why give some unelected bureaucrat  the opportunity to abuse his power on our baby?”

He considered, but it was obvious he was still pondering. “Yeah, yeah. Probably. I just… wow. I didn’t want to tell you, but I guess I may as well. So you know how they have the big meeting at City Hall every year in advance of Drawing Day?”

“Yeah.” She was aware, though like any other pot-holder, she’d been barred from attendance. Chanda knew what went on there, though. Outlining the process with the relevant dates and publicly known procedural stuff, yes, but it was also where the people of Clark were given their first opportunity to purchase tickets. By law, no community could sell more tickets to its members than were freely available to the 18-year-old boys who lived in it. It kept the breeders young, since the whole idea behind the Lottery was to winnow down the population, not render the species extinct as a bunch of rich old men failed to impregnate teenage girls they’d purchased. Beyond that limitation, it was largely up to local government to handle implementation. Most cities gave boys multiple tickets; at Clark, it was common knowledge that each of them was given five for free. With roughly 1500 boys in school, that meant the community could sell off seven plus thousand and still make sure the youth was favored.

The meeting her father referenced was where the nitty gritty decisions were made. How many community tickets to sell, for how much, provisions for emergency delays, reminders of protocol, all that jazz. What she didn’t know, her father was about to tell her.

“Well, I went.”

“You what?!” her mother gasped. People had accepted the Lottery as a necessary step in saving the planet, but there was still a stigma associated with the sort of adult men who participated in bidding on nubile female slaves.

“Not to participate!” He held up his hands defensively. “But I wanted to know what went on. I thought it might help me prepare.”

Chanda could see her mother was going to continue to make an issue out of her husband going without telling them, so she cut her off. “What did they talk about?”

“Oh, it was all about like you’d expect, a bunch of perverts drooling all over themselves at the prospect of…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, they actually had a whole presentation prepared and everything, sort of an advertisement to help sell tickets. A whole video production, then a powerpoint and everything.”

“A powerpoint? They tried to sell us with powerpoint?”

“They sure did. Absolutely disgusting, all of it. I don’t even know how they got all the footage they had. It was from all over – and I mean all  over. In classrooms, around the halls, even footage from the locker rooms!”

“From where ?!” It was Chanda’s turn to gasp.

“They blurred out the bodies,” he said, then realizing he sounded defensive, he forced himself to speak more evenly. “But that’s why I’m so surprised. We’ve known for a long time what a beautiful young woman you were blossoming into, but… Well, suffice to say you were… featured. Prominently.”

“Define ‘prominently,’” Chanda said heatedly.

“Prominently.” It was all the more he seemed willing to share on the topic. “But that’s the thing, the men were talking, and… I heard some of them announce  they wanted to bid on you. Hell, J– I mean, one man I know, he was giving me this shit-eating grin the whole time he filled out his tickets, like he wanted me to know whose pot he meant to stuff.”

“Who?” demanded Chanda’s mother.

“Chanda’s, dear,” he said, trying not to sound too condescending.

She rolled her eyes. “I meant who was the jackass seeding our–”

“It’s not important who he was,” he insisted. Chanda’s mind was with her mother’s. J who? His manager Jerry? She was pretty sure their neighbor Mr. Hargraves was a John like her father, only with an H. Ew! “But my point is, I don’t see how it’s possible that nobody  seeded her pot.”

His wife folded her arms across her chest in that way she had, one that made their daughter sure his lack of forthcomingness would be a featured topic in a discussion later when she wasn’t around. “You were at the meeting. Surely there’s some logical explanation. Some… I don’t know, algorithm or whatever.”

“Honey, no. Sure, the process is digital nowadays, but it’s still nothing mysterious. You seed a pot with ten tickets, you have a 10% chance. That’s it. It doesn’t put any fingers on the scale. It’s pure random chance. The only way a girl doesn’t get won–”

“A woman,” Chanda corrected automatically. It was a pet peeve she’d developed. If she was mature enough to be made a sex object, she was mature enough not to be a “girl” any more.

“Right, yes, the only way a woman doesn’t get won is if nobody puts anything in her pot. Even one ticket, and it’s a guarantee.”

“Even if the man who placed the ticket already won somebody else?” asked her mother. “I know there are rules about limits on how many a man can win in a given drawing, right?”

Chanda was glad her father answered, because the withering look she was directing  at the back of the woman’s head would have gotten her grounded for sure. Her mom had always despaired about losing her daughter, but had never bothered to actually educate herself on the process.

Her dad answered. “That’s not been the case for years now, dear. The only thing stopping one man from winning fifty women is the extent of his luck.”

Chanda nodded. “He’s right. I read a thing in Teen Vogue  about a man in the Canadian Lottery, which is pretty much the same as ours aside from a few added humanitarian restrictions on how losers can be treated… anyway, this kid apparently seeded ten pots with ten tickets and won ten girls.”

Her mother chimed in, “I think I read that one, too. He won the twins, too, right? My recollection was that was why they profiled him.”

“Yeah.” She’d never been gladder not to have a sibling than when she’d read that. Compulsory lesbian incest had run rampant since the advent of the Lottery, disgusting winners getting together to watch their losers perform on their own sisters.

Nobody knew quite what to say. What her father had said only made it seem even more bizarre. Perhaps it had been ego, but Chanda had honestly figured on being bid easily five hundred tickets just from her classmates, and that might have been conservative. If pervs around town had gotten to see her blurred out naked body, the tickets would have only flooded in faster.

She’d have to ask her math teacher to help her calculate the odds of this happening on Monday after break. A little data analysis might help this feel less like divine intervention.

“Well then. So much for date night. How about I order pizza, and we keep working on binging   The Office ?”

Chanda grinned. Her dad rewatched the series at least once a year , and she’d watched it right alongside him since she’d been too little to even get all the jokes. They’d done it less in high school, with her busier social calendar, but right now, she could think of nothing more wonderful than curling up under a blanket with her parents and letting Michael Scott shut down her brain for an evening.

Some hours later, for the second time that day, a man carried her into a bed, and both her parents gave her a long hug and kiss goodnight as they tucked their baby girl in.

It was the next day when she began to realize her new situation.

While Chanda slept almost until noon, her friends were all out there being forced into every manner of degrading, depraved, and debasing acts as they settled into their new lives.

Had Kelsey been given new shoes? Many winners would have no money to furnish a fresh wardrobe for their slaves. By law, losers could transport her own clothes and possessions to their new homes; some didn’t even move out of their parents’ houses. Though as legal adults, it was a rare family who didn’t object to their sex slave daughters coming and going at all hours.

Chanda sent out a text blast, but the only replies she received were automated responses informing her that Kelsey’s and Tiffany’s cell phones had been permanently deactivated. She wouldn’t be surprised if Brandy and Mya soon followed, but regardless, they didn’t respond. Busy, she supposed.

Those were the issues her friends were facing now.

As for Chanda, she supposed she could – by all rights should  – be on her hands and knees being knocked up by some gross stranger right now instead of waking up getting her face licked by a particularly snuggly Bumper hoping to get a little taste of her bacon. She took her time getting up, her thoughts fixated  on what her friends were doing at that moment. And what she’d done to sidestep the same fate.

Survivor’s guilt, she knew, was a thing, but in all her obsessive reading on the Lottery, it wasn’t something she’d dwelled on. Never in her wildest dreams had she dared to imagine she’d be a survivor. Really, it was less guilt she felt right now, and more…

Chanda stepped out of the shower and toweled off. The mirror was all fogged over, but a few quick wipes was sufficient to reveal her reflection. She studied herself, trying to discern if there was some flaw, some previously unnoticed quality that had driven tickets out of her pot.

It wasn’t her skin. That much was plain. Even had they not blurred it – whatever pig of a clerk at City Hall who was responsible for collecting and editing candid footage of naked teen girls – her compHeidion was pristine. She had a small mole on her left cheek and another on her shoulder, but other than that it was naught but soft, inviting, and every bit as rosy pink as Yvonne Vernier’ wardrobe. Pinker than usual on account of the hot shower, but pink.

Her hair? No, impossible. If there was a feature for which Chanda’s confidence transcended into open vanity, it was her hair. Jet black, thick and wavy with the occasional natural curl snuck in to add it an almost fey mystique. Wet, it hung straight and down past the top of her ass; dry, it would only come to mid-back, but still. She’d been growing it out since she could remember, trimming mostly to keep herself from sitting on it. Once, at a time when sleepovers were more age-appropriate, Tiffany had joked about cutting it off in her sleep. Chanda had kept vigil all night, a female Samson guarding the source of her strength.

Her face, then. High plump cheeks, naturally red lips, delicate bone structure and a dainty little nose… Seemed unlikely. Even more so beneath two big green eyes, themselves accented by freshly tweezed eyebrows and long, up-turned lashes. (She’d dreaded the thought of some jerk changing her aesthetic, so Chanda had gotten a full makeover only last week, her last purchase before transferring her bank account’s contents to her parents. She’d hoped her winner would find it hard to alter perfection.)

If not the face… no way it was the body. No way. It was a point of silent pride that she’d literally almost killed someone with it once, sophomore year. She’d been walking to Brandy’s house after school, wearing a skirt, and when she’d bent over to tie her shoe, and some guy in his car on his way out of the school lot had drifted into the pedestrian crosswalk and rammed right into Gia Mendes. Gia hadn’t been hurt, but only because Chanda stood up in time for him to snap out of it before he completely ran her over. Or so the legend was told.

That had only been the sight of her legs. They gradually widened into a thick, glorious ass. And it was widely said that her breasts put her ass to shame. She cupped them in the re-fogging mirror, and even Chanda herself had to admire them. Heavy, massive even, but still untouched by age. Perky and prominent, capped with a pair of even brighter pink nipples. These were some huge, symmetrical, mouth-watering sexy boobs. If Chanda ever actually hooked up with another  woman, she was exactly the kind of woman she’d want to be with.

So what the hell, guys of Clark? Her reflection glared back at her until it was lost beneath a fresh coat of vapor. She was absolutely smoking, and still not one man in the whole city had thought she was worth a single ticket?! Maybe she’d given the all-consuming libidinousness of her male classmates too much weight.

Last night had been the time for sentimentality; today, her parents went back to their normal lives. Her mom was putting in a shift at the hospital, and Dad was engaged in spring cleaning. (Ordinarily it was a shared responsibility, but a week back, with bittersweet humor, he’d offered her the year off, and she wasn’t noble enough of a daughter to voluntarily reject it now.) On a normal Saturday, especially the first Saturday of spring break, she’d be making plans with her friends. Spring had come early, and though the high was only in the high sixties, coming out of winter it felt positively tropical.

The only problem was… as of today, Chanda didn’t have any friends.

The thought came to her first with a pang of self-pity that she squelched the moment she detected it, but it was true. She’d never had any male friends on account of the Lottery, and every last one of her female friends was gone. Not only her close friends, but even the friends of friends. Was it shallow to only hang out with Lottery-worthy friends? Maybe. But if Chanda had ever felt superficial about the thought that basically every female at any party she ever attended would be snatched up in the Lottery, she’d rationalized that it would cause less pain when none of the losers left any survivors behind to miss them.

To make sure nobody else had enjoyed the same surprise she had, she texted them one by one. Julie, Big Jenn, Corinne, Annie, Elsie, Jen Junior… one after another text went unanswered and unread, and several returned that same disconnect notice.

Finally, early that afternoon and right as she was beginning to accept she was truly alone, Chanda received a response.

Krystal: Hey Chanda!  

It was followed by the same panda emoji that had followed her since her classmates had received phones. The rhyme was a bit cutesie for Chanda’s tastes, but pandas were adorable enough she’d never fought it too hard. Besides, it had been kind of cool to be a middle schooler with a brand.

Chanda: omg omg omg Krystal! I’ve been texting people all morning but nobody’s been answering . Her fingers moving like lightning in her excitement.

Chanda: How are you?

Krystal: Living the dream lol

Krystal: My winner’s passed out from an all-nighter, so I’m just sitting around his house bored af

Chanda: Who’s the lucky buck?

Krystal: Do you know Bart Schlegel? He was in choir with us

Chanda did, and that was precisely the lens through which she remembered him. Both girls had dropped choir as they moved into high school (and Chanda quietly conceded the ears of Clark were grateful for it, at least in her case). Still, she’d had plenty of classes with Bart over the years. He’d seemed like a nice enough guy, from what she’d observed. Or at least before she considered what he’d been up to the previous night.

Chanda: I do

Chanda: So he let you keep your phone and stuff? Do you still feel “normal”?

Krystal: Ya I guess? Other than Bart stuff anyways lol

Chanda: Bart stuff…?

Krystal: Ya you know how it is

Krystal: lol

Krystal: Hbu? Who’s the new envy of the boys of CHS?

Chanda was trying to formulate a response that conveyed her status with appropriate humility when Krystal followed up.

Krystal: Hey you wanna come over? If you’re not busy… ;)  She included an eggplant and a peach, in case it was somehow unclear what she presumed Chanda might be busy with.

Chanda deleted the text she’d been drafting. Could she go over there? Should she? What if Bart tried to… She shuddered. But he couldn’t. She wasn’t processed. She had no winner he could trade with. If Bart got fresh, she could simply leave.

Besides… she was curious. Heaven help her, she was.

Chanda: What’s his address?

Brookstone was one of the town’s newer subdivisions, and suffered from a lack of architectural imagination that even Chanda’s novice eyes couldn’t fail to note. Every last house was beige. The range of shades was so narrow that it almost made it seem as though beige were an entire spectrum. Two and three-car garages were framed with grey brick or greyer cobblestone. Yards were still bare from diligent raking last fall, each lawn cut to the homeowner association’s prescribed length. Nearly every back yard featured a privacy fence to make sure they’d never have to interact with neighbors.

Chanda had to pull her dad’s jeep over and call Krystal for directions before she finally found the place. She’d driven past it twice. The door swung open as Chanda approached, and waiting for her inside was Krystal.

Naked.

“Hey there, babe!” The blonde-haired blue-eyed and oh-so-unmistakeably  shapely homecoming queen waved her inside, peering behind her. “What, no winner?”

“Just me,” said Chanda, trying to avert her eyes. She’d told herself on the drive over that she’d have to start expecting and getting used to lewd displays. She might not have friends to hang out with, but the town wasn’t that big, and winners loved showing off their losers. She’d simply figured it might be more Bart kissing her in front of him, rather than… this.

“Well come on in! You can kick your shoes off, if you don’t mind. Mrs. Schlegel’s a stickler for keeping things tidy.”

“Oh! Sorry.” Chanda took off her sneakers. Lord, her feet were better concealed than Krystal’s entire body. She wondered if her pubes had been shaved before yesterday, or if that was for Bart’s benefit. Chanda had always sort of liked the aesthetic, but never indulged in it herself. She’d figured if her winner wanted her pussy bare, he’d have to wait on her  to wax it for him. Take that. Perhaps now that it was all hers, she’d give it a try – though the waxing places were probably booked for weeks, with Drawing Day come and gone.

“It’s all good. Mr. and Mrs. Schlegel left for the week so Bart and I would have the whole house to ourselves. Isn’t that sweet of them?”

“Um, yeah, I guess so. Nice of them to give their son a whole week to break in his… you.” Chanda grimaced. She’d gotten so used to being glib about it as a mental defense that she was going to have to adjust and incorporate a little more sensitivity.

Krystal didn’t seem to mind, though, and lead her casually down the hall to a spacious living room. It really was tidy. One of the couches even had those plastic covers on it like you saw old people using back when on TV. Krystal flopped down on it, and Chanda seated herself at the far end. As far as she could.

“You’ll want to keep your voice down,” Krystal said, modeling her advice. “I don’t know how sound of a sleeper Bart is yet, and I doubt he’d appreciate me waking him up. At least, not by chit-chatting with friends.”

“Looking like that, I don’t think he’d throw a fit.” She managed a smile. May as well break the ice. No sense pretending things were same old any more.

“I know, right?” Krystal giggled. “Took the guy’s cherry last night, and after that he couldn’t get enough. I woke up at one point and he was sucking on my tit  in my sleep.”

“Yikes.”

Krystal waved it off though. “But hey, what about you? You can’t tell me your winner already got bored of you, did he? Or are you here to arrange a trade? Geez, one day in and we’re already about to be shared around like Netflix passwords.”

“What? No, no you’re not being traded. Me either. Ever, actually. See, as it turns out…” Chanda took a deep breath, and filled Krystal in on everything. From her panic attack to her fainting spell to being turned away at the gym to getting to go home and sleep in her own bed, all by herself, wearing actual pajamas.

“Wow, that’s so unreal! I thought for sure you were gonna break records!” exclaimed Krystal, casually scratching an itch on her upper thigh. Chanda tried not to stare too hard. “Are you screwing with me? I mean, I know how some girls get turned, you know, weird. I heard Bart talking to one of his friends on the phone last night and it sounded like they were saying Lacie Steiger was crawling around in diapers and drinking her dinner out of a bottle.” Both girls made a face at that.

“I am happy to say I am not screwing with you,” Chanda assured her. “Have you heard from anyone else? I texted around, but you were the first one who answered.”

“You’re the only one who even tried reaching out to me. I sorta figured nobody would answer. Either I’ll see girls in school Monday, or I won’t, you know?”

Chanda brightened. “So he’s sending you back to school?”

“I guess so. Gonna suck too, because I totally told Mr. Amedori he was a fucking loser and a pervert and knocked a bunch of his shit off his desk on my way out the door before they zapped me with the baton. I wonder if he’ll still be pissed, considering.”

She laughed. “I don’t think students tell him that often enough that he’ll forget. True, though. I heard he tried to bid on some of his own students a couple years ago.”

“Heard the same. My ex-step-brother goes to Newton, and he told me once that one of his teachers has not one, not two, but three  losers. Like, how do you even make yourself keep doing a suck-ass job like teaching when you have three of us  waiting at home, right?” She paused. “Well, three of me, anyway. Oh, well. Mr. Amedori can deal with me. Not like it’s going to be the same anyway.”

“Yeah, I was wondering if you could, I dunno, tell me what changed. Always figured I’d wind up learning firsthand, but now, here I am, the only surviving non-uggo at CHS.”

Krystal took on a pensive look. “What changed. Hmm. It’s sort of hard to gauge. It’s like everything still feels  the same, for the most part.”

“He didn’t, like, change stuff about you? I know they can tweak all sorts of stuff.”

“I still seem normal to me, but it’s probably hard to tell if you’re normal when the weirdness would be in your brain and it’s your brain that tells you you’re not normal, ya know? But Bart told me he wanted me pretty much as is.”

“Really? Not that you’re not super cute and all, Krystal.” Chanda flashed her a smile. “But surprised he didn’t at least play around a little.”

“He probably changed some stuff, but actually, he told me on the bus ride home after school that he liked me the way I was, the hot blonde bimbo, ditzy cheerleader and all that shit. Which was fucking rude, but hey, I’ll take it. He doesn’t have to know I have a 3.4 GPA.”

Chanda had actually thought Krystal was a little on the dim side too, but she kept it to herself. “What about the process? Do you remember what happened? What they did to you in the gym?”

“Yeah, but you can’t talk about it. They told me that, and I guess it stuck because I’m trying to but I guess I’m not, am I .”

She laughed. “You’re definitely not. Hmm. But what about after? You texted that it was normal ‘except for Bart stuff,’ or something like that. What’s that about?”

Krystal folded her arms behind her head, breasts thrust out casually as she considered. She really was pretty fine. Bart was a lucky guy. For a split second, it occurred to Chanda that now that she was effectively her own winner, she might be able to arrange some kind of trade herself. But she couldn’t take advantage of a loser like that.

The blonde finally seemed to give up finding words for her experience. “It’s hard to describe. I’ve definitely never felt anything like this. It’s like… like he’s my dad, kind of?”

Chanda gasped in horror. “Your dad?! Ew!”

“No, I know. But I mean, not like ‘Hay Daaaaaaddy,’ but more like ‘yes, sir.’ Like there’s something in my head that tells me I have to do what he wants, like it or not. Like, I got grounded once – shut up – when I was in sixth grade because I was in this huge fight with Kelsey about something, I forget what, and I told everyone her scar was from her parents tried to abort her but it didn’t take and that’s why they lied about her age on her birth certificate so they could Lotto her a year early.”

Chanda’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, I remember that! Oh man, she was… wow. I don’t think I ever knew you were the one who started that rumor.”

“I didn’t start the fight, for the record. But whatever. I’m not proud of it. Actually yeah, that’s sort of my point.” Krystal adjusted her position, scooting closer. There was a squeak as her bare ass rubbed across the plastic sofa cover. When my dad found out, he was… ugh. Just the way he looked at me, so disappointed. And he grounded me until he said I thought I deserved to be ungrounded. And I tell you what, that look… I didn’t leave the house for like three months because I hated  knowing I’d let him down and I just wanted him to know I was sorry, and I was better than that.”

Chanda didn’t interrupt her as she went on. “So anyway, it’s sort of like that with Bart. Like I want him to approve of me, and I can’t stand the idea of letting him down. And now there’s this whole part of my brain that just knows  things about him. That’s a change, I guess. What he likes, what he hates, and all of it is wrapped in this, like, bubble? Of wanting to be on his good side, like with my dad. That’s the best I can describe it.”

The more she talked about Bart, the harder it was not to notice how hard her nipples had gotten, two big brown pebbles on sun-kissed breasts. Chanda smelled her pussy before she actually saw it, but from this close, it was impossible to miss how that thing was glistening with readiness. In fact, she noticed, there was a small puddle where she’d first been sitting, smudged to where her ass was now. Good foresight on Mrs. Schlegel’s part with the cover. As for Krystal, everything about her was clearly showing her readiness for sex.

“So, was the nudity his idea then, or yours?” Chanda asked, still trying to maintain sociability in spite of it all.

“The nudity…?” Krystal looked herself over as if surprised someone had noticed, like Chanda had pointed out a chunk of lettuce in her teeth. “I don’t know, it didn’t occur to me to wear clothes around Bart’s house. Why, is it weird? I guess I always used to wear clothes around you, huh. It doesn’t feel  weird, but your eyes are telling me it’s another loser thing.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered you being a nudist.”

The young woman sighed. “I’m so sorry, Chanda. I didn’t invite you over to weird you out and make you think I’m some stupid slut.”

“What? No, I know you’re not… That is, I know this isn’t you .”

“Yeah, well it is now. But hey, Bart’s still napping. You’re here, I’m here… let’s just be us . Shit, girl, feels like forever since I saw you outside of school. When was it… oh yeah! That party after the winter formal at Jason’s house, or farm, or whatever. That was wild! You remember?”

“Oh gosh, yes. I can’t believe that even happened. They almost burned his barn down! When I heard the party was going to be at Jason’s, literally the first thing I thought was ‘ outdoors, in  winter? Are we going to wind up starting a fire?’ And sure enough…”

Krystal giggled hysterically, boobs wobbling around her chest. Chanda licked her lips. “Yeah, for sure! I mean, thank goodness nobody got hurt. Speaking of grounded, I heard he’s still not allowed out after school over that. Eighteen and fucking grounded .”

Chanda forced herself to maintain eye contact, though Krystal hadn’t shown the least sign of noticing when she strayed. “Worth it, though. The dance sucked butt, since everybody was so…” afraid of the looming Drawing Day , she’d meant to say, but levity was the point of all this. “But yeah, I got to actually pet a goat. There was this one goat, I forget her name, and we fell in love. I gave her a packet of nuts I’d snagged at the dance, and the rest was history. I seriously tried to talk my mom into letting me get a goat for the back yard for, like, a day, maybe two.”

“Then you realized that you’d be the goat girl?”

“Maaaybe. But hey, better than being the ostrich bait girl,” Chanda taunted, patting Krystal’s knee. She shouldn’t, but… well, the girl was really cute. She wasn’t going to take advantage, but no harm in flirting a little.

“Ostrich…! Oh my fucking god, that was in fourth grade!”

“Fifth, actually.”

Krystal laughed, flipped her hair back over her shoulder, as if already habituated to the need to expose herself completely. “Look, my mom said I should hold the branch out for the stupid things. How were we supposed to know those birds were assholes who’d literally bite the hand that fed them?”

The two girls bantered back and forth like that for some time. It was easy to forget sometimes how much history the two shared. They might not be close friends, but had so many friends in common, and had gone to school together for so long, that they still had a strong bond. One that the Lottery had somehow spared, despite all it had changed for Krystal. They were reminiscing about the time they’d both had a minor crush on RJ Silva freshman year, before he came out of the closet, when the sound of a clearing throat directed both their attention to the living room’s entryway.

“Hey, Chanda,” said Bart. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Hey there babe,” said Krystal, giving him a nonchalant wave. “You were asleep, and I didn’t think you’d mind if I had a friend over.”

“No, it’s cool. Hell, if I’d known you could get Chanda in my living room, I’d have told you to do it right off.”

Krystal frowned at him, though there was timidity even in that. The sort that said this frown was all the resistance she could muster toward him. “Don’t be a pig, Bart.”

As the boy crossed the room and perched on the nearby foot stool, he disregarded it, aware of exactly that limitation. “Oh come on, I’m supposed to watch what I say for fear of offending one of you losers?”

“Actually,” said Chanda heatedly, “I’m not a loser. Still 100% free agent.”

At that, his brimming confidence seemed to actually fade for a moment. “Wait, what?”

Krystal folded her arms smugly – the quickly unfolded them when she realized it hid her boobs from him – and said, “It’s true. Nobody won her. The whole school – the whole town  – thought she’d be so in demand that no one wanted to throw away a ticket.”

“Fucking hell. Guess I wasn’t the only one playing the odds,” said Bart. “Funny how it worked out. I worked summer jobs all through high school and part time on the side, all so I could max out my tickets. I thought I’d play smart, go after low-hanging fruit, but when the day came to seed my tickets, I figured what the hell and tossed one at Krystal here.”

Krystal snorted. “Yeah. He actually put four tickets on Chelsea Leak. Can you believe that?”

Chelsea Leak was a plump girl with some serious body hair, as both girls present remembered from PE. She was pretty, ish, if you didn’t mind the extra pounds – and if you didn’t know her DNA had been spliced with some percent of sasquatch. No wonder the girl always wore pants.

“I guess there’s no accounting for taste.”

“It’s not taste,” snapped Bart. “It’s math. Girls like you two… every guy in school has wanted to fuck you since we first had sex ed and found out what our boners were for.”

The blonde’s nose wrinkled. “That’s a super gross way of putting it.”

“It’s true though. I used to go to football and basketball games just to see you cheer, you know that? I can’t even guess how many times I jacked it to the sight of you in those little cheerleader panties.”

Chanda rolled her eyes at this boy’s crudeness. “Is that even a usage? Jacking it to  something?” The guy was phoning it in to impress her, she knew, and had no clue how poorly it was faring in that endeavor. The Lottery may transform girls in a literal sense, but it turned guys into chauvinist pigs every bit as irrevocably.

“Sure it is. Don’t pout, Chanda, you got almost as much time on the playing field. Every last guy in school has definitely jacked it to you, multiple times. Guarantee. I bet all kinds of guys who you barely know have. Your neighbors, your parents’ friends, probably even some of your own relatives, uncles and cousins and shit. I bet there’s guys who walked past you once and the street and filed the memory away in the ol’ spank bank.”

Chanda was thunderstruck, and he went on. “That’s why nobody seeded your pot, see? Because the math is that easy. Everybody knew   everybody would .”

“That’s it, eh? You’re such a statistics genius that you were too smart to seed me? But not too smart to burn one on a hot blonde cheerleader turned homecoming queen.” Chanda rolled her eyes. “Give me a break.”

Bart shrugged. “The heart wants what it wants. And hey, it got it. So how’s that for playing the Lotto smart.”

“Oh yeah? If you’d seeded one of the other tickets you worked all those summers for in my pot, you’d have two losers right now instead of one. So nice work, genius.”

Bart still didn’t look displeased with her, buffering his ego with an arm around his prize, and a hand around her boob. “A girl like our Krystal here, sure, she probably got a vote from a decent chunk of guys in school and probably a good handful outside, but you? You’re world class fuckability, Chanda, hand to god. But hey, I still consider myself quite a lucky man – all the luckier not to have a bitch like you to feed and care for.”

Krystal gave her a sympathetic look, but couldn’t chime in to dissuade him. Chanda rose to her feet, patted her friend’s shoulder, the one not draped in asshole, and turned to Bart. “Yeah, I’m gonna head out. Krystal, it was cool seeing you, and text me sometime if you’re free and wanna hang out. Bart… yeah. Whatever. See ya.”

She was halfway down the hall to the front door when he spoke up behind her. “Wait.”

Chanda looked over her shoulder, but didn’t turn. “You ready to apologize?”

“Apolo…” He chuckled. “No, my days of apologizing to you stuck-up hot girls are way over.”

“Well then, screw you, and–”

“I said, wait . I wanted to make you a trade.”

Chanda froze, muscles thawing only when she remembered that while he might have mind control over Krystal, he couldn’t have read her mind when that stray thought had forced its way into hers. As the realization set in, it became easier to summon the appropriate righteous indignation.

She turned, mouth agape. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Just hear me out, now–”

“No freaking way, Bart. I’ll see you in hell before I give you the time of day.”

She was to the door when he replied. “All right, but it’s Krystal who’s going to suffer for it.”

Her hand froze on the knob. “What do you mean by that?”

Bart leaned against the wall with his shoulder, the portrait of a guy trying his hardest to look casual. “I mean exactly what I said. You either hear me out, or I punish Krystal for you bitching out on me.”

“Punish her? What’re you going to do, steal from her family and turn her into your sex slave? Oh wait, too late.”

“Sure. Which means now I can punish her any other way I like. Oh Krystal, dear, come here, would you?”

Chanda wondered why she was staying, why she wasn’t simply storming out. But whatever it was, she held her ground. Krystal emerged into the foyeur a moment later. “Please don’t fight, you guys.”

Bart ignored her. “Krystal, I want you to bend over and start smacking your ass. Hard.”

She arched a blonde brow, but Chanda could see her desire for peace crumble before her need to please. “Uh, OK, babe.”

Krystal the eccentrically naked but still mostly herself friend gave way to Krystal the loser, willing to do anything to satisfy Bart’s command. She turned around first, as if to make sure her bare ass was fully visible. Bart would like that, no doubt, Chanda could see her thinking. Between slender thighs gleamed a waxed and willing pussy. She twisted herself to look back between the two of them, but there was no hesitation, no questioning, as her whole arm swung and her delicate hand connected with her toned buttock.

“Ow! Shit, ow! ” she cried. But she was already winding up for another swat. It landed, and her whole body flinched. Then came a third. A fourth. “Jesus, I didn’t know it was possible to spank myself this hard, you guys! FUCK , ow! ”

Krystal’s butt was already turning red, as was her hand. Meanwhile, Chanda looked on in horror, while Bart ignored the display to smirk at Chanda.

“Make her stop, Bart! What the hell is wrong with you?” she cried.

“Krystal, do it harder.”

“Sure, if you say so,” said Krystal amiably, but through gritted teeth. On the next swing, she put her whole body into it, her hand connecting like the tail of a whip. “ FUCKING OW SHIT OW! ” She wound up to do it again.

“What in the hell do you want from me?!” demanded Chanda, horrified by this whole surreal affair.

“Hey, now you’re asking the right question.” Bart grinned as Krystal wailed in pain from another blow. “What do I want? For starters… I wanna see your tits.”

“My t–!” The remainder of the word was cut off by the crack of another brutal spank, and another desperate yelp of pain. “Are you really going to let your own sex slave torture herself to the point you can’t stand the sight of her black and blue butt to try to get to see some girl’s boobs? What makes you even think mine are any better than hers?”

“She’ll heal,” he said glibly after Krystal’s next noisy self-infliction. She was crying now, her face contorted in misery. “Might have to go easy on her for a few days, but I got her for another eleven thousand-ish, so… what’s a weekend, right? And I’ve seen hers. Now I want to see yours.” He turned to Krystal. “Krystal, don’t stop, but tell your little buddy here what you’re thinking right now.”

“I… I… oh god, oh no, I OW FUCK FUCK FUCK THAT HURTS! ” she began. She was crying now. Desperate, afraid. “Chanda, please!  Just flash him your boobs! I’d do it for you! Please, Chanda, please just OW OW OW OW FUUUUCK! ”

Bart stepped to her side – the one that didn’t have an arm flailing violently – and stroked up and down her spine with his fingertips. “Give her a moment to think, babe. But one more first.”

“You got it, Barrrr AAAAAAAAAAAHAAAHAAHAAHAAAAAA ! ” Krystal’s arm dropped to her side, limp, her body trembling.

“So what’s it gonna be? Tits, or ass?” He laughed way too hard at his own joke. “I promise, I can have her do this for hours yet. I’ll record it on her phone, have her send you the video. Send it to the rest of your bitch friends. Her parents, too, have her tell everybody she had to torture herself because you were too proud, couldn’t handle a tiny dose of what every loser in school has been guzzling for a whole day already.”

Chanda glared balefully at this arrogant little bastard. This was her first extortion, but even so, she knew that if she gave into this demand, he’d only use it to push for more. Krystal’s eyes bored into her, silently pleading, her mouth forming the word please  over and over when she wasn’t sobbing.

What choice did she have?

“Fine,” said Chanda. Only then did she release her grip on the knob. “Fine. I’ll flash you. Just this once. But if you ask for anything else, and I mean anything , I’m gone. Understand?”

“Sure, far be it from me to impose.” He grinned and pulled Krystal upright with a fistful of her hair. “But let’s do it in the living room. Better lighting. Not every day I get the hottest bitch I’ve ever seen with my own two eyes showing off her tits for me. I want to savor this.”

Chanda considered not following after him for a long moment, but ultimately decided not to risk calling his bluff. They had been right, after all. It was only showing her boobs. It was way less than all of her friends were having to deal with.

When she joined them back in the living room, the blinds were already drawn up, and each of the room’s three lamps switched on and he was pulling the chain on the lights on the ceiling fan. Krystal was on her knees, her torso splayed across the foot stool. Her ass was an ugly crimson red, several handprints rising as welts.

Bart seated himself in the arm chair, slouching lazily. To her disgust, he then lifted his feet and planted them on Krystal’s back. The homecoming queen, now a living footstool.

There but for the grace of god pose I , she thought.

“All right, Chanda. Time to find out if I was right.”

“Right about what?”

“How epic your titties are gonna look.” He folded his hands behind his head, crossing his legs at the ankles. “Now. Shirt off.”

She wanted to say something pithy. Clever. Or even just mean. Not like she wasn’t a thousand miles out of this dork’s league, like he wouldn’t have sprayed his shorts simply to be invited to the sort of social events she and her friends attended all the time. But presently, she was at his mercy, or at least Krystal was, and there was no point dragging it out.

She untucked the bottom of her shirt. By reflex, she was careful not to show him any skin on her stomach while she did so. The irony wasn’t lost on him, and he laughed right at her modesty. She hmmphed  back. All right. Time to get this over with.

Chanda gripped the hem of her shirt with both hands and lifted it up until it peeled the tight part across her chest up to her neck. There. Her boobs were out. And looking pretty good, all things considered, in the bright red bra she’d chosen today. Chanda hadn’t expected anyone to see it, but she supposed if her breasts were going to be on display, at least they were looking good. Krystal looked on with surprising interest, and to see Bart’s reaction, one would think he hadn’t had a pair of tits available to him for twenty-four hours already.

Silently, she counted to ten, then tugged everything back into place. There was no point tucking it back in, but at least it was over. She’d done it, no matter than she felt like she was blushing even redder than her bra.

“There, happy now?”

“I mean, I guess? Krystal, go ahead and give yourself another whack. Or actually no. You’re way too whiny about it. Go to the basement and do it there. And take your phone, so I can let you know when to stop. Or if you ever should.”

“No problem,” she said glibly, squirming out from under his feet, plucking her phone from the coffee table before disappearing around the corner. “See ya, Chanda. Gotta go do some Bart stuff.”

Chanda planted her hands on her hips. “What the hell are you doing? I told you I’d flash you. I did.”

“No, I told you to take your shirt off, and instead, you briefly showed me your bra. That wasn’t the deal. What, you thought that PG-13 bullshit was going to pacify me? Chanda, I got thirty years  of that scrumptious little bitch down  there. You really think I give a fuck if she can’t sit down for the next few days?”

“You are such  an asshole, Bart.”

“Be glad I don’t want to shove something up your  asshole, too. Now I am done hearing you talk. Put up or shut up and get the fuck out of my house so I can get on with punishing your little whore friend.”

“Come on, do you really expect me to–”

She could hear the crack of flesh on flesh even through the floor, though it was much more subtle. The cries that followed, however, were anything but. Bart merely smirked as her retort fell short.

“FINE.” She literally growled with rage as she once more lifted up her shirt, this time taking it up over her head and all the way off. How had she ever thought she could insert herself into the depraved horror of the Lottery without something awful happening? She might not have guessed at something like this, but she should have known something this sleazy would happen. There was a good reason her parents had expressly forbid her to be friends with winners and losers in grades above her. She shouldn’t have thought that things would be any different simply because she ought to be a loser herself now.

She lowered her bra straps, but her breasts had no trouble holding up the bra with sheer mass pressing out against the cups. Krystal wailed again. With one last frustrated sigh, she turned her back to him, then lowered her bra down around her waist, spinning it and undoing the clasps. It landed next to her socks, and she momentarily felt bad for dirtying Mrs. Schlegel’s tidy floor.

“Text her,” said Chanda over her shoulder. “If you want me to turn back around, you text her right now and tell her to stop.”

Rather than reach for his phone, though, Bart simply bellowed the command at the top of his lungs. “ Krystal! KNOCK IT OFF! ” He cleared his throat. “There. Satisfied?”

She waited to make sure he’d been heard, and was soon satisfied that it had stopped. Chanda’s feet didn’t want to move, but with effort, she summoned the force of will to make herself shuffle around until she was facing the smirking prick on his recliner. To her horror, she saw his cock was out now, erect and angrily red, gripped in his right fist.

“Bart! What the hell!”

“What the hell indeed,” he said irritably. “Get your fucking hands out of the way.”

But Chanda kept them in place. Her boobs were much too big to be concealed entirely with only the two hands, but they covered the nipples and most of the naughtiest parts. It was still humiliating. “No. I didn’t say you could jerk off while you ogle me.”

“You didn’t say I couldn’t. But hey, look at us negotiating again.” Bart sat up straight, and in that position he was able to pull his shirt down to conceal his erection. Most of it, at least. His balls were still partially visible in all their wrinkly fuzzy horribleness.

“Negotiating? I told you, this is all I’m going to do. You’re dreaming if you think I’m taking off one more stitch of clothes to stop you from this psycho tantrum. In fact–”

She shifted her grip to block his view with one arm, freeing the other to reach down and pick up her bra. He spoke quickly though. “No – I won’t punish her any more, OK? You win. Shit, I honestly feel bad about it as it is. You’re just so insanely hot and I panicked and it was the first thing I could think of to get you to… yeah.”

“Says a lot about you, doesn’t it, that your first instinct was to abuse an innocent woman.” It was surprisingly hard to get those clasps done one-handed, especially when she was flustered like this.

“Probably. But I’m new to being a winner, see? So look. I know that right now, all of your friends are out being fucked like twenty-dollar whores, and I also know that most of them aren’t going to be the same people they used to be. Most of the guys I talked to had some really, let’s say, ‘creative’ ideas for what they wanted to turn their losers into. Shit, let me tell you about Lacie Steiger!”

“I heard. What’s your point.”

“My point is, it means your friends are basically all gone. But I tell you what. I’ll let you and Krystal hang out – clothes and all, without me – any time you want. If…”

She provided the obvious conclusion. “If… I watch you masturbate, topless, to me.”

“See, and you were griping about usage. Fits perfectly, see?” He smiled. “But think about it. I mean, I left her pretty much normal. I hadn’t really figured that she’d be bored of me so easily, or miss her old life so much. Maybe that’s why the other guys were more heavy-handed about stuff. But I liked her the way she is, so I didn’t do that. And now I think she could really use a friend to help her get through this.”

Chanda stopped working at her bra, though was annoyed that every word he’d said was delivered to her obstructing forearm, like he thought if he stared hard enough he’d get X-ray vision. “So let me get this straight. You’ll let me be friends with Krystal, without getting in the way, whenever we want, if this once and only  once I let you… do that.”

“Yes. Hell, you’d be doing me two favors. I don’t want a mopey, lonely loser hanging around the house all the time.” She noticed that his cock hadn’t lost any interest, tenting up the hem of his shirt.

Was she insane to be considering this? What he was asking, it was humiliating. Orders of magnitude more degrading than anything else she’d ever let herself get talked into. Not that she’d been the most sexually adventurous girl, but still.

On the other hand, she’d already been panicking about the death of her social life. And Krystal! Poor Krystal, she was bound to him for almost twice the amount of time she’d been alive. How much did she have to need a friend herself? If the tables were turned, how desperate would Chanda be for somebody to help relieve her boredom and give her some respite from her wretched circumstances?

Besides, it wasn’t like there wasn’t something in this for her, she conceded guiltily. It could mean a lot of time spent around a very naked, very vulnerable Krystal. That wasn’t a reason to capitulate, but it was certainly a nice bonus should she choose to go that route. She’d never actually gotten to be with a girl beyond a little kissing in some party games, which hardly counted. But it had always left her wanting more. Women seemed at least as appealing as boys, with the added benefit of not involving a boy.

Chanda dropped her bra, and finally, Bart got to see her topless, unobstructed. “How long do you usually take?”

She didn’t leave her room the following day. Facing her parents was too daunting. Forty-eight hours ago she had been their baby girl, then they’d all been traumatized by the prospect of losing her on Drawing Day, and now, she  was some skank who stripped out of her top and bounced and jiggled her tits for sketchy guys while they jerked off.

She didn’t like that word, “tits.” It was vulgar. But then, like the bouncing and jiggling, using it had seemed to help Bart get off faster, so it was “you like my big bouncy titties” for her. Anything to get out of there faster.

Bart came so hard he sprayed across the room, some of it landing on her pants and, she found out as she re-dressed herself, inside her discarded bra. Disgusting. Krystal, however, had been nothing but gratitude when he released her from his basement dungeon, giving Chanda a firm and uncomfortably long hug. If Bart hadn’t been watching and stroking his flaccid penis that way, “uncomfortable” might not have been the way she’d have described it.

Replies eventually came from two of her other friends. The response from Mya clearly wasn’t actually from Mya, as it read, simply, wanna come over and have a 3some? will pay or trade ur winner!  Kelsey’s response was a simple URL; nervously, Chanda clicked to find it redirected her to a site where you could hire girls by the hour as “escorts.” Kelsey was dressed in a form-fitting red dress that might have merely been sexy if she were not curled up in a hotel room bed, crooking  her finger suggestively at the camera. That bridged the gap from sexy right to slutty. Chanda had to concede that her makeup job and the photography  were both top notch. This Kelsey looked like a model. Except really, she was simply a well-dressed hooker, now paying her winner’s way through college and beyond with her pussy.

These escort businesses had ballooned in the Lottery era, bolstered by opportunistic winners who didn’t care to be waited on hand and foot all day every day and preferred to monetize their gains. It was one more reason the boys who didn’t win anyone took their plight so well; there were still plenty of opportunities to have sex with women who’d been previously unattainable.

Chanda closed the browser window with a sigh. After a moment, she reconsidered, opening it again and adding it to her bookmarks. Kelsey was gone now, but maybe the site would update her profile picture from time to time. It might be nice now and again to see her, if only in this sad venue. Or maybe once she stopped thinking of her as Kelsey her friend and accepted that she was now Kelsey the whore, the pics might provide a little stimulation. Or maybe just make her cry. She’d have decades to discover how her brain would sort all this out.

As the weekend grinded on, Chanda’s parents’ efforts to get her out of her room intensified. Saturday it was offerings of food, invitations to spend time with them. She mumbled excuses, snuck out to use the bathroom and grab a bite to eat only when she could hear their snoring from down the hall. But by Sunday afternoon, the worry in her father’s voice was no longer possible to ignore.

“Honey? Are you OK in there ?”

“Yeah, Dad.”

“Come on, let me see you. You don’t even have to smile.”

“I’m not decent.” Ever since she’d slipped out of her pants to see how it felt to masturbate, grudgingly spurred on by lingering images of Krystal’s naked body, there had seemed  little point in getting dressed again. (And it had felt a little weird, but not so weird she didn’t finish.)

“Lucky for you, I don’t mind waiting. Got nothing on my plate for the rest of the night.”

She sighed. “Dad, I’m fine. Really.”

“Great. But I still want to see you.”

Her intent to outwait him was thwarted when, ten minutes later, she still hadn’t heard that telltale creak  of his weight pressing on the floorboard at the top of the stairs. That board had been her saving grace more than once. She’d been a good kid, but not perfect.

If she had to get dressed, all she wanted was to throw on her favorite sweatpants and her CHS volleyball hoodie, her comfiest one. But she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of seeing that she was in need of comfort garb. She’d been weak with Bart and Krystal; she would be strong for her dad. So instead, she put on some black leggings and the cashmere sweater she’d gotten for Christmas. She thought back to that night when she’d heard her parents’ voices carrying from down the hall, her mom wondering if there was any point to getting her new clothes when, a few months later, Drawing Day would negate any need for them. This was the first time she’d been able to choke down that thought and let herself put it on. It had been in her closet long enough that the new sweater smell was sadly gone, but it was comfortable. Not as comfortable as her hoodie, but comfortable, and much more flattering.

Then she took a moment to smear on some lip gloss and do a quick touch-up on her lashes, run a brush through her hair, and finally begin to feel like herself again. With a resurgence in confidence, she made for the door and opened it to find her father leaning  against the banister.

Chanda summoned all the casual teenage disinterest she could and thrust it into her voice. “What did you want, Dad?”

But he only smiled and stepped across the hall, then wrapped her in his big arms. “Nothing any more.”

She tried her best to direct the sobs that soon burst forth into her father’s shoulder, but soon her mother had emerged in response to her daughter’s cries and the three of them huddled together, comforting one another. She couldn’t even make sense of it. She’d escaped  the Lottery. She was a survivor . So why was she crying? Why were they?

Maybe it would take some time to make sense of this strange circumstance she had unexpectedly inherited. A hearty home-cooked meal was a good start, an early dinner that passed in welcomed silence. Chanda might be ready to leave her room, but the spectre of what had befallen her friends had not subsided.

“Hey Dad, wanna take a girl to the movies?”

Since she could remember, that had always been his way of trying to take her mind off of her troubles. As a child Chanda had relished it. As she’d grown  older, it had come to be more of something she tolerated in the name of tradition, not wanting to snatch away his little girl any sooner than the Lottery would force her to. For tonight, though, she was eager to be his little girl again.

Her dad smiled broadly, and his wife’s face radiated the same pleasure at this familiar exchange. “Sure. What’s showing?”

After some discussion, she ultimately went with some superhero movie she thought her dad would enjoy. Chanda knew her brain wasn’t about to let her switch it off and enjoy entertainment, so she figured at least one of them ought to have some fun. She only wanted to get out of the house and away from her thoughts. Hopefully a public place with lots of loud noises would be a good start.

The Grand River 16 Cinema was a Clark institution. In a town where it could be a challenge to buy food after 8 PM, it was one of only a few businesses that gave young people a place to be after sundown. It had grown to consume the business next door, too, allowing it to affix a small eatery and poolhall, with a number of arcade games rimming the walls. Once upon a time, Chanda and Tiffany had grown pretty good and very competitive at DDR until they’d tired of guys showing up to stare. Chanda had, at least.

On any normal Sunday, half past eight was not exactly a busy hour here. It was a school night, adults worked the next day, and anything people were desperate to see had already been out for several days. It was the night you went to a movie if it was something you’d be embarrassed to have your friends know you went to.

What Chanda had failed to take into consideration, however, was that it was the Sunday after Drawing Day.

The lobby was thronged with young people, and the poolhall was audible from the parking lot. Half the losers of CHS’s senior class – most of them now merely former members – were present, a dizzying array of scantily clad young women preening and posing for the amusement of lookers-on. Hands and lips were free, scandalously so. The winners were readily identifiable by the smug grins on their faces, though they were a minority of males present. All those boys whose tickets had not been pulled were lined up, in some cases literally, to admire the eye candy, and no doubt to make offers on getting some alone time with some of the women whose pots they’d unsuccessfully seeded.

Every guy said they’d be too busy availing themselves of their loser to have time left in her day to rent her out, but once people started waving stacks of cash in their face, they were perfectly happy to rearrange their nap schedule to accommodate. Heck, Chanda had read stories of guys who made agreements to pool their tickets and equitably divvy up the time with any losers netted. Not legally binding – it wasn’t lawful to share custody, since it raised too many questions of who was to be unsterilized – and she suspected most such gentlemen’s agreements disintegrated soon after the first so-called devil’s threesome. But still. Boys tried.

“Well, look who it is! Chanda and her silver fox!” cried someone off to the right. She couldn’t whip her head around fast enough to see who.

“Who’s that lucky fucker?” said someone to the left, who likewise maintained anonymity.

Her father was fast realizing his mistake, too. “Honey… maybe we should go. We can rent something back at home.”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “Why don’t you go on in and save us some seats, and I’ll get the popcorn.”

He looked around, clearly dismayed by the way some of these boys, newly relieved of their inhibitions, were eyeing his daughter. “I don’t know…”

She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Dad, the rule of law still applies. We’re talking about popcorn here. I can do it. Really. I’m a survivor now. Gotta start dealing with it sometime .”

He made a face but conceded, giving a sweeping stern look around the lobby before heading back toward the theater area. The look did nothing, of course. These boys had already stolen daughters from men like Jon Brighton. They had shed their fear of their elders.

Chanda did indeed get in line for concessions, but in truth, she’d sent him ahead because she wanted to do some people-watching, trying not to let the guys watching her ruin it. Though really, she was far from the center of attention. Even in this environment, easily a 4:1 male to female ratio, there might not be many women near her level of attractiveness, but there were a lot of them trying a lot harder to command that attention.

As the line crawled forward, she panned the gathering, trying to match winners with losers. In some cases it was obvious. Imani Manning was nestled beneath the arm of Kyle Davis, gazing up at him adoringly as he fondled her ass. Stacy Allen was wearing a dog collar, the attached leash resting firmly in the hand of some older guy Chanda didn’t recognize, a twenty-something winner who still seemed to want to show off to the kiddies. At first she thought Janesa Ramirez must have been won by Jared Romatelli from the way he was poking around inside her neckline, but then she pranced over to Chris Henschel and he fished out a twenty dollar bill and gave Jared a nod.

If Chanda hadn’t frozen all of her accounts in anticipation of Drawing Day, she could have learned a lot of this  on social media. They wouldn’t unfreeze for thirty years, and there was no appeal process. Or could survivors, maybe? She hadn’t bothered to learn. It might have been considered a magnanimous protection for losers from the social media giants if they didn’t also rake in billions monetizing the photos of the new accounts many of their winners had them create. She could still browse public posts, she supposed, but like in real life, she was all out of friends.

“Large popcorn, light butter, light salt,” she told the guy behind the counter, a chubby, slovenly fellow who’d gotten way too comfortable leering at customers for her liking.

As if to double down on her assessment of him, he gave her a yellow grin. “Tell you what, sexy. Your winner has you flash me them titties and it’s half off.”

“Yeah, no thanks. I can afford some popcorn, I think.” Half off? Half ? For Chanda freaking Brighton? She was almost as insulted as she was grossed out.

The guy shrugged, and after taking a moment to appreciate one of her classmates twerking in a miniskirt on a pool table for a small crowd, he saw to her order. Chanda resumed her people-watching. She saw Bart talking to some of what must be his friends, but no sign of Krystal. She was probably nearby. Chanda fished her phone out of her purse to text her when suddenly, from the front entrance, in walked none other than Brandy.

It took Chanda’s breath away how her friend could look so similar and yet so different. Her hair was the same, long and straight and golden honey brown, adorned only with a simple pearl white barrett. Her makeup too, minimalist save for a little blush to help make her dimples pop when she smiled. Not that she was smiling. No, her lips were twisted decidedly downward, frowning at the goings-on around her in a fashion that was as austere as the rest of her.

She looked like she was on her way to brunch at a rich relative’s house. The ensemble was sleeveless, but her bare arms were the only part of her aside from her face that wasn’t covered. The rest of her was decked in a royal blue with no frills aside from a double row of white buttons up the front of it. Chanda couldn’t even see her shoes, the dress was so long. Although as Chanda studied her, she realized it might not be quite grandma-approved after all.

Despite being so modest, the dress was somehow almost lewd. The top portion was so tight it was a wonder Brandy could breathe, clinging to her ample bust so tightly that one could make out its exact shape, and even the precise location of each nipple. The fabric curved down an under each breast so that it was almost like revealing her underboob. The skirt was billowy except for being rather tight across the hips, though with a caboose like Brandy’s, basically everything she wore highlighted her butt. Yet as she followed her winner into the poolhall, Chanda’s eyes popped again at the way her butt swayed hypnotically, the skirts flipping back with the force of her copious bottom’s movement only to fall right back down as if by magnetism.

It was the sort of thing one would wear if one wanted to adhere to a strict dress code while still looking like a total slut. Brandy’s uptight Christian parents would lose their minds if they saw her in it.

As for her winner, Chanda  recognized him as their classmate Ezekiel Boecher. They’d gone to school together since elementary school, but that was also probably the last time she’d had a one on one conversation with him. It had been a conscious choice. Then, she’d thought  of him as a know-it-all and an intellectual bully, the sort who treated anyone not on the honor roll – and in possession of a penis – like they were some kind of idiot. Only later when they’d had speech class together sophomore year, had Chanda learned that he was himself a very religious person, and every bit as much of a condescending jerk where his religious values were concerned.

Chanda’s family had always been quietly agnostic, but growing up spending so much time around Brandy’s family had done a lot to color her attitudes towards Christians. The Staffords were kind, welcoming, and philanthropic. A cross in each bedroom and a framed hand-stitched sign that read Whatsoever you do for the least of these my brothers, you do for me were the only religious adornment in the house. Right now in fact, her parents and older brother were helping build houses in poverty-stricken areas of Appalachia after their annual attendance of the anti-Lottery protests in Washington DC. Brandy used to go with them, before this year.

Still, for every Christian household like Brandy’s who focused on their faith’s call to serve the less fortunate, there seemed to be five that behaved as if the real shame in the Lottery was how long it had taken mankind to realize its necessity. Those sorts were five times as loud, at least. Chanda remembered hearing him debate someone in speech class, when he’d defended the Lottery by insisting that nothing the losers did could be held against them by God because it was all involuntary. When pressed as to why he wasn’t advocating for men to be treated the same way, he dodged it by stating that the bible had ordained for men to rule over their families. Besides, the government ran the Lottery, and therefore render unto Caesar.

That he of all people should win a girl like Brandy was beyond cruel. It took whatever curiosity Chanda had ever possessed as to whether some benevolent higher power might exist and simply have a very long-term plan for universal harmony, and confirmed that if there ever had been a god, she had been killed before the Lottery had come to pass.

“Miss, your popcorn?”

Chanda paused. She’d been so consumed by her sudden need to talk to her friend that she’d almost forgotten where she was. She hastily paid, snatched the bucket and strode after her friend. By the time she caught up, Ezekiel had gone into the men’s room, leaving a wary-looking  Brandy waiting for him, hands folded demurely in front of her.

“Brandy?” Chanda asked.

Her friend looked at her blankly. “Excuse me?”

Nothing had ever made the Lottery feel so real as the utter lack of recognition in her friend’s eyes. “Brandy, it’s me, Chanda,” she pressed. “Your friend.”

But there was no spark of recognition, only an apologetic smile. “Oh I’m sorry. Brandy was my heathen name. My fiancé has washed away my old life and blessed me with a new one.”

Chanda’s eyes widened. Some guy Chanda didn’t recognize – nor, it seemed, did Brandy – stepped out of the nearby men’s room, pausing to look at the two girls and giving an authentic wolf whistle. “Damn, so much titty !” He laughed and walked away. Titties were in too abundant supply here for even such remarkable ones as theirs to merit further scrutiny.

Brandy’s cheeks colored, which was actually pretty Brandy of her. Chanda tried to hold back tears. “He… he changed your name?”

Her former friend nodded, glad to be distracted from the crude comment. “Yes. I’m Eve now. It’s such a better name, don’t you think? Created by God from man, made without sin to serve her husband. I love it.”

Chanda tried to ignore her rapturous sigh. “Um, I’m not exactly up to speed on the bible, but didn’t Eve eat  some forbidden fruit and doom mankind?”

Brandy – Eve – frowned at her, even more bitterly than she had at the man who’d complimented her chest. “And what was your name again, Miss?”

“I’m Chanda. I’m… I was your friend. We lived across the street from each other in elementary school.”

“I see. And that’s where my parents still reside, then?” The disinterest in her voice was thick. This Eve persona of hers was making conversation out of politeness, and was impolite enough to make that felt.

“No. Um, your grandma died, and your grandpa a few months after. Your parents inherited their house and you guys moved in there. It’s on the north side of town, on Horse Prairie.”

Brandy arched an eyebrow. “I lived in a horse prairie?”

“What? No. It’s a street. If there was an actual horse prairie there, it was gone before your grandparents moved in.”

“Oh. Interesting.” She did not, in fact, sound interested. Eve actually sounded like she resented being informed of these things her fiancé – her fiancé! – had wiped from her memory. “Anyway, it was nice meeting you Ms. Chanda. Um, again, I suppose. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m waiting for my Ezekiel.”

Chanda looked at her for a long moment, but saw only a stranger’s eyes looking back. With a sigh, she was about to go find her father, when suddenly…

Somebody’s hand was between her legs.

She was too shocked to react at first. Doctor aside, no one had touched her there since her infancy. But this man’s hand – and it could only be a man’s – was as confidently placed as if she’d invited it. Her leggings were so thin that it felt like he was touching her directly, massaging her vulva and pressing a digit upward and stuffing her panties inside partially her.

Finally, Chanda managed a belated squeal of alarm and whirled free to find herself looking at none other than Brandy’s fiancé, laughing right in her face. “Ezekiel! What do you think you’re doing? How dare you!”

But he simply looked her over. Leered, really. In fact, her outburst had gotten quite a bit of attention. The only female protesting rather than inviting male attention was a subject of interest, and suddenly, there was a small group of people surrounding them as instantaneously as when a fight broke out in the cafeteria, and their presence only sparked more interest. The crowd was growing by the second.

“Relax, Chanda. I’m just having some fun with you. You look nice. A little casual, but glad to see you haven’t completely lost your dignified edge. ‘Pretending not to be a slut’ was always a good look on you.”

Her hands formed fists of their own accord. She had no idea how to punch someone, but she was suddenly very much mindful of what it felt like to want to. “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re criticizing me for the way I dress? When you stuffed Brandy – sorry, Eve  – into that ?”

The crowd oohed  at her jibe. Brandy’s cheeks turned crimson as many of the male eyes abandoned Chanda in favor of her, but she said nothing, deferring to her winner. “I think she looks better than she ever has. Classy, elegant, but without trying to hide her feminine attributes.”

How she wished she could fix where her leggings and underwear had ridden up when he’d molested her! But everyone was watching, a gathering of scores of people at least. She couldn’t even see the edge of the crowd penning them in by the restrooms. “I’m sorry, weren’t you just criticizing me for my feminine attributes?”

“You’re dressed like all these other jezebels, desperate for male attention,” he retorted with clearly feigned disdain. Chanda’s jaw clenched. She was wearing a sweater, for crying out loud! Not like she’d asked to have big boobs! “But Brandy – Eve, I mean – she’s simply proud of her breasts. She’s going to have a great many children to nurse with them, aren’t you darling?”

Even batted her eyelashes and nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, dear! I can’t wait until we’re married next weekend so you can finally make a mother of me! For as the Lord commanded, we are each of us to go forth and multiply.” Her eyes darted to the lookers-on for only a moment, as some of them were laughing at her. She looked mortified to be discussing such matters openly, but still insistent on having her fiancé know the depth of her devotion.

“Wow, not wasting any time, are you. I bet you’ve been dreaming about this since freshman year, haven’t you?” Chanda folded her arms haughtily.

He snickered and said, “Way before then. I put every last one of my tickets in her pot. She was meant for me.”

“Meant for you? What are you, the second coming?” Chanda snorted. “Actually, from what Brandy was telling me, second coming is a good name for you, since I guess that’s how long it takes.”

This time, the crowd was laughing at Ezekiel. He might be a boy, but he wasn’t popular like Chanda was. Besides, it was standard operating procedure for boys to have to all act like they had infinite stamina. She’d heard enough locker room talk to know that basically all of them had nutted in under thirty seconds their first time out. Still, they laughed.

“Oh yeah? You don’t think I know how to satisfy a woman?” The open-ended question enticed some wise guy in the surrounding mob to yell back that’s what your mother told me! Wooo!  But Ezekiel ignored it, glaring at Chanda defiantly. “Brandy, take off your dress. Let’s show them.”

“I thought you wished to call me Eve, dear,” she said uncertainly . There was no uncertainty when it came to obeying him, however. Her fingers got to work immediately on the rows of buttons down the front of her dress. Ezekiel didn’t answer, drinking in the adulation his peers were directing  at him. Or at his new toy, at least.

The crowd drew even closer around them. An argument – from a girl!  – was interesting. But seeing Brandy Stafford strip naked and get fucked in the lobby of a public building… now that was a sight to behold. Like Chanda, one of the more sought-after girls in their class, and if Chanda’s reputation was to be unapproachable, Brandy was Fort Knox.

In moments, someone started a chant of her name. Her old name. Bran-DEE! Bran-DEE!  But as much as her face looked as though she wanted to die of embarrassment, she didn’t slow. There was no bra beneath that dress, and soon she peeled it down her torso to reveal two huge breasts, round brown nipples hardening even in all that collective body heat. The crowd went wild. The girls who’d been performing for them before had been restrained by their winners’ desire not to risk having them arrested. For all the guys here who had neither won the Lottery nor negotiated favors from a winner, this was their first sight of naked girl flesh.

“You don’t have to do this,” Chanda protested to Ezekiel, but if he heard her underneath all that chanting, he ignored it. He was focused entirely on his bride-to-be.

“The skirt too, dear?” asked Brandy. “Everyone seems to be… watching.”

“Of course the skirt too, you stupid twat,” he snapped, further reprimanding her with a painful-looking slap across her exposed left breast.

Chanda wasn’t sure she heard right, but she thought she perceived a chastened murmur from Brandy. “Thank you for teaching me, dear.”

The remainder of the dress followed. Another cheer went up at the revelation of Brandy’s underwear, but even as she began to remove that as well, Chanda was preoccupied trying to read the fresh tattoo on the irritated skin on her inner thigh. Ephesians 6:5, she thought it said. Some kind of bible thing, she was pretty sure, but who knew what the hell it meant.

With the sight of her friend’s desecrated skin and freshly shaved pubes before her, and everyone else, Chanda decided she’d had enough. She threw her body in front of Brandy’s. It only did so much considering they were surrounded on three sides, the wall with the restroom doors in it forming the fourth, but still. She wasn’t about to let her friend be debased like this, to risk jail time for indecent exposure all so Ezekiel’s hypocritical ass could show off what hot shit he was.

“Move aside, Chanda!” demanded Ezekiel. Dozens of male voices echoed his sentiment, if not his imperious tone, followed by some female voices eager to parrot the wishes of their winners.

“The hell I will!” She spread her arms out to the sides, making herself the best curtain she could be. Her popcorn bucket was her shield to protect her friend’s dignity.

“You want to be part of the show? All right, be that way.” Ezekiel raised his voice to make sure his fiancée heard him clearly. “Darling, I want you to strip Chanda naked and make love to her. Like you were an actress in a porno.”

Chanda’s eyes bulged as Brandy – naked  Brandy! – suddenly reached around her body and cupped her breasts in both hands. The bucket of popcorn tumbled to the floor, spilling its contents. Brandy squeezed hard, but not too hard. The exact right amount of hard. The same hard that she had in Chanda’s secret fantasies in which she helped Brandy over her homophobia. Sometimes they brought a guy with them, sometimes not, but the scenarios always entailed Brandy being surprised and overwhelmed by her sudden interest in the female form. Chanda’s in particular.

However, this was the real Brandy. Or had been Friday morning. The real Brandy, who in middle school had used the word “abomination” once in regards to homosexuality, stopping only when her friends confronted her. Who’d been afraid of being made to do “butt stuff,” but positively terrified of having to eat out another  girl.

“Brandy, stop! This isn’t like you!”

But Brandy only pulled Chanda back against her. “‘Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands,’ first Peter chapter 3 verse 1,” she quoted reverently. Then she spun Chanda around and tilted her chin up toward her stern visage. “Now shut up and kiss me, harlot.”

She was an amazing kisser, Chanda quickly decided. At least, by the standards of her own limited experience. She could have stopped her. Should have, she knew. Would any moment now. But, for a short time…

This was a fantasy come to life, after all. And with the lookers-on cheering, with Brandy so ravenously affectionate, it felt too much like a dream to resist it.

It was when Brandy’s hands moved from squeezing her ass through her leggings to trying to sneak inside of them to do more of it that she finally remembered herself. For crying out loud, her dad was here in the building somewhere! She squirmed loose, only holding Brandy at bay with a lot of crafty hand placements  to avoid eliciting further theatrical moans when she touched anything remotely erogenous. She’d taken the whole “like a porn star” thing rather literally. It was cheesy, but still somehow kind of hot.

Mercifully, she couldn’t see her father’s face in the crowd.

“Call her off, Ezekiel!” she pleaded.

Brandy darted through her guard, twining her arms beneath Chanda’s like a pair of snakes. One of them somehow made it under her shirt and was working on her bra clasp. “I’d rather not,” said his voice behind her.

Brandy was unrelenting. Nothing Chanda said or did dissuaded her in the least. Why would it? Her winner had transformed her into this parody of a doting Christian housewife, and that parody entailed a bottomless capacity for obedience. A moment later, Brandy managed to trip her to the ground, pouncing down on top of her and raining kisses against Chanda’s half-heartedly protesting mouth.

Why wasn’t someone doing something? she wondered dimly. Surely someone present must object to seeing her violated like this. Yes, Brandy was beautiful, and yes, she’d encouraged it for those first few moments before making it unbelievably clear that she did not consent. Cameras were flashing all around her, disorienting her further, and in the midst of all that madness, she overheard a fragment of a conversation.

“Who the hell won Chanda anyway?”

“Must’ve been Ray Reddick. You know how he kept saying he wanted a girl to still have some fight in her.”

She had no idea who the voices belonged to, but they nevertheless locked the reality of her circumstance into place in a microsecond. As she tried to pull her shirt back down to conceal her bra without opening up Brandy to work on her leggings, some part of her even recollected Ray Reddick and his horrifying boasts about what he’d do with any girl he won.

Almost nothing , she remembered him saying to his dirtbag friends at a nearby lunch table. She’d been eavesdropping because he’d dropped her name more than once, one of a million what-ifs played out by the overweening boys of CHS. It was the kind of talk most people had about what they’d do if they won the lower-case-l lottery, except with living people as the stakes.

That almost , however, had chilled her. Which had probably been his intention, to screw with the hot girl he stood no chance of dating and barely any chance of winning. Almost nothing  meant that he would leave his girl’s personality intact, right down to her loathing for Ray himself. The catch, however, was that he’d remove her ability to fight back, or to run away. His fantasy was to have a girl he could not merely fuck but to violate . To legitimately rape over and over. For decades.

She hadn’t seen Ray here tonight, not that it would have mattered if she had. What that conversation snippet had done, though, was to crystallize why nobody was lifting a finger to help. It wasn’t that they were making the same erroneous assumption about Ray Reddick that other boy had.

It was because no one truly believed she wanted help.

To them, Chanda was not a person any more. She was nothing more than another loser, a toy being played with exactly as it was designed to be. Whatever she said, whatever she did, it was a programmed response put in place by a man. Obviously nobody could have imagined Chanda with her gorgeous face and dynamite body would be a survivor. She certainly hadn’t. Only now, as Brandy suddenly threw herself around and squirmed into a 69ing position, lapping Chanda’s sex through her leggings as steely arms pried her legs apart, she realized the Lottery was still very much a reality for her future, if not how she had envisioned.

Her cries were now completely muffled by Brandy’s pussy in her face. Her friend was wet , she couldn’t help but notice, just as Krystal had been the day before. Whether or not her new persona Eve shared Brandy’s homophobia, she’d been told to fuck Chanda like a lesbian porn star, and so she was. Chanda had dropped off the volleyball team after sophomore season, but Brandy was a three-sport athlete. A good one. With the power in the thighs squeezing around her face, it showed.

Her leggings were coming off. She couldn’t stop it. Nobody could even hear her pleas – not that they’d believe them anyway. Her struggles were roleplay to them. Maybe she could enjoy it. She’d fantasized about this, after all. Or something like it. Maybe that was what she’d have to do now, to close her eyes and pretend this was all like it had been in her bedroom, when her vibrator had been where Brandy’s tongue was thirstily licking now.

It did feel kind of good, she admitted to herself, and Chanda at last relaxed her legs and let Brandy splay them wide and dive in with relish. “I love the taste of you, bitch,” moaned her friend, as if she knew exactly what she was supposed to say from playing this role in her fantasies.

Then she was gone, and Chanda could breathe free, unpussied air.

There was some confusion. She was lightheaded and had more than a little adrenaline pumping, thus had a hard time making sense of things. People were yelling nearby. Other people were cheering, booing, whistling, applauding, but farther away. Not far though. Someone was pulling Brandy off of her again, then more yelling. The man, the one who’d pulled Brandy off of her, was looming right over her, so Chanda couldn’t see his face from down there. But he handed her his jacket, and when she didn’t reach out to take it, he draped it over her lower half.

Oh. Because Brandy had pulled my leggings down, and my underwear , she realized numbly .  Chanda remedied that beneath the proffered cover. Ezekiel seemed to be gaining cognizance of how out of hand he’d let things get, and was himself frantically searching for Brandy’s clothes. They were already somebody’s trophy, however, so with a barked command, she meekly trotted after him into the parking lot, issuing not so much as an apologetic glance over her shoulder at her erstwhile best friend.

Her rescuer said something to her. She wasn’t entirely sure what, there were so many people talking around her. His voice was thick with concern, whoever he was. People were still lingering, and he raised his voice to yell for them to piss off. “And don’t let me catch you in here  again!” he bellowed. With the show over, the holdouts seemed ready to shrug and move on. It had been a better show than whatever movie they might have taken in. Money well spent.

Then her benefactor turned back to Chanda and knelt beside her.

“Aaron?” Chanda studied his gently rounded face as if unsure, but it was definitely him. She accepted his hand and let him pull her into a sitting position, then scooted over to lean against the wall for support.

“We have to stop bumping into each other like this,” he said with a little smile.

“Like… oh. Right. Friday.” She shook her head, but it felt like her brain was bouncing around the interior of her skull, and she felt so dizzy she was nearly sick. All the anxiety of Drawing Day had certainly taken a toll on her health. Yet when Chanda opened her eyes again, Aaron was still there.

“Hi. You’re OK now. Understand? You’re safe.”

“I know I am. Why would you say that?” She felt a pressure, and suddenly realized that she was still gripping his hand like so hard it would have hurt if she were a little stronger. “Oh. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked. It felt like a stupid question, which she only realized after the words were out. There had to be going on two hundred people from CHS there.

“I work here, actually,” he answered.

That had not been what she had expected to hear. “You do?”

“Sure do.” He pointed to the jacket still draped over her legs, and sure enough there was the Grand River insignia. “I was working the ticket receipt booth when I saw the crowd forming. I thought there was a fight.”

“And you decided to dive in and intervene?”

“Ashamed to say it, but… honestly, I sort of came over to watch. Our manager’s policy is basically to ignore whatever happens Drawing Day weekend. Kids go nuts, but they pay money so we don’t get involved. We can threaten to call the cops if anybody gets too wild, like Brandy and Ezekiel did there, but I’d be out of a job if I actually carried through on it. That whole horrible scene is unfortunately the kind of thing that brings in customers. Really, I thought if  a couple of these jerks mess one another up, hey, no skin off my back.”

“Yeah.” Chanda closed her eyes for a moment and the room began to slow. It was still sinking in that she’d moments ago been sexually assaulted by her childhood best friend in the middle of the Grand River lobby. Chanda had been braced for the possibility of a lot of her peers seeing her naked after Drawing Day, but she’d expected to have her new personality there to buffer the embarrassment of it. A detail came back to her. “Oh god! People were recording that!”

Aaron winced. “Yeah. I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I don’t think they could see much. Of you, anyway. Brandy has a lot of hair. I think it covered–”

“I get it.” It was a comfort, though. A little. “You’re lucky they didn’t beat your ass for breaking up the show.”

“Probably. But people are pretty respectful to winners. Especially the PowerBall winners.” He said the term with some disdain, which she appreciated. It referred to guys who won the really desirable women, the cream of the crop. She must have heard guys use it a thousand times over the years in regards to their hopes to win her.

Wait.

“What do you mean, respectful to winners? I thought you didn’t… what?”

“Did you not…” But whatever he was about to ask about, he could see she didn’t. “All right. First… you’re still squeezing my hand.”

“Oh! Sorry!” She released it in a flash.

“You still don’t have to apologize. I, ah, only wanted to make sure you didn’t break my fingers.”

“Why would I…?” Her eyes narrowed. “What did you do, Aaron.”

He stood up, taking a defensive step back. She followed him on both counts. She was still dizzy, but fuck it if she was going to let another boy get away with more bullshit at her expense. “I didn’t know what else to do! They were surrounding you, and she was… it was like she was possessed or something! So I thought maybe they’d back off if they thought…”

It finally came back to her, all that shouting. It hadn’t made sense at the time, and she’d been suffocating, and confused, and kinda weirdly turned on, and… “If they thought I was your property.” Chanda planted her hands on her hips.

“I know, I know – believe me, I know. But it was getting out of hand – more  out of hand – really fast, and I panicked!”

“ That  was your panic response?! To tell the whole school that you won me?!”

“OK, I get that you’re upset, and you have every right to be with everything that happened, but… I have to get back to my station or I’ll get fired. The only reason they let me work the ticket booth is because they trust me not to let people in without paying, and I think like twenty people just snuck in while we were talking.”

Aaron could see she wasn’t mollified, though. “Hey, you can still yell at me. Just follow me to the ticket receipt booth and yell at me. OK?” He held up his hands defensively as he backed away, as if she might try to tackle him. As if he wasn’t time and a half her size.

As if he hadn’t just saved her from being violated and humiliated – well, more so – in front of a crowd of lookers-on who might have torn him apart for wrecking their show.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say, so Chanda simply walked past him and headed for the theater her dad’s movie was playing in. The trailers were already rolling, but after a minute she found her dad in their usual spot in the back row.

He smiled at her, but it faded once he saw her empty hands. “No popcorn?”

“Sorry. I dropped it.”

If someone had put a gun to her head, Chanda couldn’t have told them what the movie had been  about. Was this what life was like for survivors? Being surrounded all the time by entitled assholes and totally insane women? She’d always felt sympathy for losers, but there was nothing like having one pin you to the ground with her crotch and flash yours to the senior class to lessen your sense of compassion. She’d told her dad she was going to the restroom but stopped right outside the theater to check social media, and sure enough, those pictures (and videos) had already made the rounds. Aaron had been right about the cover, and the sheer chaos of the crowd had played an equal role in nothing truly damning getting out. As she scrolled down, Chanda realized she was likewise fortunate that so many other such images were now in circulation, and much better quality. Nothing that Brandy’s new account (yech, “Eve Boecher <3”) was tagged in had more than forty or fifty reacts; the thread of the Dobson sisters modeling string bikinis for their winners were already in the thousands.

She returned to her seat no more ready to watch explosions and fist fights. More than worrying about the exposure, Chanda started thinking about this new world she was living in, and how she could truly endure it. The term survivor, she was learning, didn’t apply solely to Drawing Day.

It had started raining somewhere during the movie. As the credits began to roll, she could hear it pounding on the theater’s roof. Her dad seemed to have enjoyed the movie, and she did her best to make vague conversation with him on it. He was happy to do the bulk of the talking.

“Dad, do you think you could pull the car up front and pick me up?”

He looked surprised at the sudden shift in topic. “Sure, sweetheart. Not feeling great still?”

“No, just with the rain, and I didn’t bring a jacket.”

But he pointed to the one folded up in her lap. “Then what’s that?”

The answer was that it was Aaron’s jacket, which she hadn’t realized she’d kept until that moment. If there was an easy way to explain what she was doing with it though, she didn’t know, so she simply deflected. “I just used this new product in my hair, and it’s not good to get it too wet. And I read that the movie doesn’t have one of those end credit sequences, but I figure I can chill here and make sure.”

He eyed her for a moment, Dad senses tingling, but let it go with a peck on the forehead. “All right. I’ll see you out front.”

She waited for him to exit the theater to stand up, but followed at the same pace he’d been moving at. The pervert who’d sold her popcorn was waiting at the theater door to sweep up. Chanda could feel his eyes on her butt as she walked away. The lobby was empty now. It seemed most of the people there earlier hadn’t stuck around for a movie; they’d had their fun with the losers in the poolhall and gone home. Up ahead, she could see a silhouette that she was pretty sure was her dad trekking out into the drizzly parking lot. Ordinarily Chanda loved the rain, especially after all those months of snow; no wonder he’d been suspicious. But she had to do something before she left the theater, deal with the other thing she’d been thinking about over those two hours and forty-two minutes.

“I’m not mad,” she told Aaron as she thrust his jacket back into his hands. She’d found him sweeping up in the poolhall . It was a sty in there. She couldn’t help but notice the presence of a hot pink satin bra in his wastebin , and tried not to think about which one of her classmates had been forced to strip out of it, or by whom.

“That’s… good. I think? Unless there’s something worse than mad.” He stopped what he was doing, giving her his full attention.

But she only smiled. “No. You stepped in to help me, and you did. I was a little crazy earlier, because of the… everything.”

“Yeah. That was a lot of everything, all right. She was a friend of yours, right? Before?”

She flashed back to when they’d seen Kelsey in the hall by the gym after school Friday. “You stalking me or something? You seem to know who all my  friends are.”

“Stalking…?!” Her shook his head vigorously. “No, just… I mean, you’re all popular. I think most people know who your friends are. That’s all.”

Chanda silently rebuked  herself for jumping to conclusions. “Right. Maybe still a little crazy.”

“It’s OK. Do you need a ride home? Not that I’m hitting on you or anything!” he said a little too defensively. “But it might not be safe to drive if you’re still emotional like that. Which would be totally understandable.”

“I have a ride. In fact…” She darted out to where she could see out the Grand River’s front windows, and there was her dad’s car, waiting. When she turned, she almost jumped, surprised to find Aaron had followed.

“You know,” she said, poking him in the chest. He was a little hefty, but she was surprised to find his chest was still pretty firm. “Everybody in school is going to think you won me now.”

“Somebody had started rumor that you’d survived, but I don’t think anyone believed it. Guess there’s that old saying about how a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can pull on its pants. Anyway, yeah, my phone’s sort of already been blowing up while you were in there. ”

She grinned. “Oh yeah? So you’re popular now too, huh?”

“I’m popular adjacent. At least until we tell everybody that you really did survive.”

She ventured another poke. “Sooo… maybe we don’t tell them.”

Aaron’s head snapped back like she’d slapped him. “What? Chanda, we have to tell them. I can’t have everybody thinking the secretary of the WAL actually took part in the Lottery. I’d lose the respect of all of my friends!”

“First off, do not talk to me about losing friends right now, OK?” Aaron grimaced as he took her meaning. “Look, I’m not saying we trash anybody’s reputation. But I was thinking… maybe, for a little while… we let them think I’m… yours.” Wow was that hard for her to say. “Only until things calm down again and people aren’t going crazy.”

“But why? Why would you want people to think you’re a loser?”

“I know it sounds weird, but… trust me, I have been violated twice in the past two days. Both times, it happened because people thought they could push me around because nobody takes women like me seriously, and because I didn’t have a winner to stick up for me. The second you stepped in, I was safe. Before that… well, you saw before that.”

“So, what, I’d be your… post-Lottery security blanket?”

“Security guard is more like it. Don’t worry, I won’t get in any more predicaments like tonight’s!” she added quickly. “But people don’t mess with winners. If I’m won by somebody, then that means whatever I’m doing, it’s what my winner wants me to do. So if people want to get anything out of me, which it seems like everybody and their brother does, they can’t risk getting on my winner’s bad side by interfering. See?”

“Sort of? But really, Chanda, I don’t think I can–”

Chanda put a finger to Aaron’s lips, and he fell silent in an instant. “After, I’ll make it my mission to make sure anyone, everyone, knows  you were only doing me a favor and you got  nothing out of it but the karmic satisfaction of helping a maiden in distress. Hand to god.”

He made a face. “I wouldn’t bring god into this after you pissed off his chosen one earlier.”

“If I were god and Ezekiel Boecher was the best chosen one I could muster, I’d smite myself on the spot. Hell, maybe she did.”

Aaron laughed, but still didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, I don’t know about this…”

“Come on, Aaron. You rescued me Friday, you rescued me tonight… one more and I think you’re guaranteed sainthood.” It wasn’t fair, but Chanda even clasped her hands pleadingly, batting eyelashes at him and everything. The works. Ordinarily she didn’t like to exploit her feminine wiles or masculines inclinations of chivalry for advantage, but considering what she’d been put through lately, she didn’t feel too guilty.

The poor guy was helpless. “All right, so if  I agreed to this… what exactly would this look like?”

“Gimme your phone.”

Aaron was smart enough not to ask questions and quickly forked it over. He wasn’t kidding about his surge in popularity; he had more notifications than would show up on the screen, and while Chanda wasn’t trying to invade his privacy, from the abbreviated notifications alone it was clear they were all in regards to his winnings. She swiped past them and opened his contacts, quickly adding herself, then sending a quick text to herself so she’d have his number too. She handed it back as her purse buzzed with a notification of her own.

“We’ll talk. For tonight, just finish your sweeping, and luxuriate in all your new fans. I’ll text you tomorrow, OK winner?” On impulse, Chanda leaned in and gave him a hug. She had  meant it to be one-sided, but before she pulled back, his arms closed in around her. It was more intimate of a hug than she’d meant to allow, but once he started rubbing her back while he held her, all she could do was try not to give away her pleasure by smile too big at him when she let go. Chanda had never had a boyfriend, but every time she’d come close, it had begun with a hug from a guy who rubbed her back.

“Get some sleep, and trust me when I say I’ll have no hard feelings if you change your mind. But… I guess I’ll do my best if you don’t. Talk to you tomorrow, Chanda.”

She was half-dreaming when she woke up sometime in the middle of the night. It was still totally dark, whatever time it was. In her lingering dream, Brandy was wearing that dress, unbuttoned to the waist, and throwing herself needfully at Chanda. When their breasts touched, it felt like they were being sucked on, and Chanda rubbed hers against her friends as they each let out a moan of pleasure from the sensual friction.

As Chanda’s hand slipped into the waistband of her panties, she consciously let the dream evolve into a fantasy. The premises remained the same – they were still on the floor of the theater, except it was dark now, and vacant, and smelled richly of pussy and popcorn in equal measure. And Brandy was Eve again, and instead of a bible verse, her thigh was tattooed with a cartoon panda.

Chanda did, however, decide to make a few tweaks in this more conscious endeavor. For starters, she wanted an audience back.

The door swung open, and in strode Krystal, as naked as she’d been at Bart’s. She hopped her butt up onto the drinking fountain to watch without saying a word. Her legs spread, and her fingers dove straight into a bare, hungry, drippingly  wet pussy as she watched her friends kissing, caressing one another. Chanda imagined away the skirts of Eve’s dress, leaving the unbuttoned bodice, and gently, she slid a finger between the wet velvet folds of her friend’s labia.

She was so tight. A limp-dicked loser like Ezekiel would never appreciate it, but Chanda did. She moaned the words aloud, and they echoed around her skull alongside images of this clingy, conservative, slutty and beautiful woman who had no shame about being naked in front of her, the sound of Eve telling her to shut up and kiss her, the taste of her mouth, the softness of her skin. Her boobs were so firm . Why didn’t Chanda’s own feel that firm? Eve didn’t seem to mind though. In fact, she couldn’t get enough of them. Her unspoken apology for every homophobic thought she’d ever had was in the hunger in her lips for Chanda’s breasts.

Why, why hadn’t she taken the opportunity to play with Eve’s boobs tonight?

But in her fantasy, she knew exactly how they felt, and her friend luxuriated in being touched almost as much as she did in being allowed to explore her new-found passion for the female form. “Why haven’t we done this before? Fuck, Chanda, don’t stop…”

“Such language,” Chanda replied. Dirty talk she could take or leave, but this time it was important. She’d scripted this part of the fantasy a long time ago, but it still lit a fire in her clit as much as ever. It introduced one of her favorite parts.

“I don’t care any more !” Eve cried. “I don’t care about the ten commandments or god’s will or anything! God told me not to eat your pussy, so as far as I’m concerned, God can go to hell!”

Chanda moaned. YES. That was it. That moment when her hot Christian friend forsook her faith for the opportunity to pleasure her. That was so fucking it. She held Eve’s head in place, her fingers doing their best to simulate what Eve’s tongue was doing in her imagination. She was too turned on to even consider going for her vibrator, even though it was right there in the drawer in her night stand. It would take seconds of having her pussy empty that she wasn’t willing to give right then.

The water fountain turned on suddenly, but instead of water, it splashed Krystal’s naked body with gouts of liquid butter. In an instant, she was coated in the stuff, her skin glistening and slick and smelling as delicious as it looked. She moaned in delight, smearing it in for Chanda’s benefit, then slid to the floor and knelt down behind Eve.

“What you did to Chanda was very very   bad ,” she declared, and that was when she gave Eve’s huge, round ass its first slap. Chanda nodded, gestured  for her to continue. “See, she agrees. You’re a bad  bitch, Evie, and bad little bitches with bad  little bottoms get spanked like the bad  little loser brats that they are!”

Yes. That was good. It helped resolve her need to be angry about it without ruining the fantasy. Yes. Krystal had showed her that spanking was fucking hot , if it was done under the right circumstances. Very good. Eve seemed to agree, if the way her body started trembling excitedly was any judge. She was glad to still feel the judgment and penance of her deserted faith. Glad that her new god, pleasure, was so much more responsive and hands fucking on.

The only problem was… now she didn’t have an audience.

Aaron walked around the corner. He didn’t have a thing on other than his jacket. His cock hung limp, but the moment it laid eyes on them – no, not them, her  – it grew before her eyes until it was pointing skywards, thick and red. Yes. He wasn’t the best-built guy, so she had him make it up to her by being super hung. He deserved that.

“Are you OK?” he asked in that same tone.

Oh god, was she ever. Don’t stop, Eve, you psycho culty  loser bitch. Don’t you dare stop. Smack her again, Krystal. Yes. Now do it harder. Now rub her pussy in between so she can be ready for my blessing, but don’t you dare let her come until I do. In fact, make her ask permission first, like the loser  she is. Krystal, you don’t get to come at all, not until you come over to my house and let me play you like a fiddle, until I see you naked in my bed and letting me kiss that gorgeous ass of yours to make it allll  better. Yes.

See, Aaron? Look how these losers need it. How they beg for it. Come. Fucking make me come, Eve. Or Krystal. Suck on my tits, Krystal. That’s better. Fuck yes. Now you, Aaron. You get the other one. And Brandy, climb back up and sit on my face so he can put that monster to use where it fucking belongs right inside my fucking pussy and SHIT FUCK THAT’S IT FUCKING GO GO GO FUCK ME and don’t you DARE STOP because you fucking WON me and FUCK FUCK LICK ME SUCK ME RIDE ME FUCK ME

“Are you all right, sweetie?” came her mother’s voice from outside the door.

Chanda tried not to breathe too loudly, but it wasn’t easy. She was sweating bullets, and that wasn’t the only thing she was leaking into her sheets. Holy SHIT that had been an orgasm.

“Sorry mom, just… bad dreams,” she answered. Crap! What noises had she been making?

“Oh. Want me to get you a glass of water?”

“No, mom, I think I’m up now, I’ll get it myself.”

“All right.” A pause. “I love you, Chanda.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

Her mom was gone. Chanda waited as long as she could before she opened her drawer and retrieved her vibrator. It wasn’t long. She slipped it inside her, holding it in place with her thighs as she then retrieved her phone.

Chanda: You up?

Aaron: Yeah. You?

Chanda: Yeah.

Aaron: Can’t sleep?

Chanda: Don’t wanna.

Aaron: Yeah. same.

Chanda: If you really won me, what would you do with me?

There was a long pause. He was typing, it said. Had she freaked him out? Was he about to tell her he couldn’t go through with it after all?

Aaron: I’d want to get to know you better first. Because I bet I’d really like most of you, so I’d want to make sure I didn’t change anything I liked. Then I’d help you change any of the stuff about yourself you don’t like, like if you’re insecure about something, or have something you wanted to forget. Or wanted to speak Latin or something I dunno lol

Chanda: Aaaaaaand?

Aaron: Aaaaaaand what?

Chanda: I’m really asking – not judging. I know what all the other assholes would do with me, but you seem nice, so I’m curious what the nice guy winner would be like

Chanda: But nobody’s  * that* nice ;)

Aaron: I mean it, I don’t want to mess with near perfection

Aaron: I’m assuming you already really love giving blowjobs, that is

Chanda laughed as she came. She gave herself a moment to ride out the orgasm, teasing her clit to drag it into a second. That was rare. Aaron was probably shitting himself wondering if she’d thought he was funny or a total creep. But let him stew for a moment.

Chanda flipped on the lamp next to her bed, set her still-glistening vibrator on the nightstand, and snapped a picture. Before she could stop to ask herself what the hell she was doing, the picture was sent and received. Had she really just…?! Holy crap, was this how normal girls, girls who weren’t terrified of boys, flirted? After the weirdest weekend of her life, she was way beyond guessing what was normal and what was bizarre any more.

Aaron: What is that?

Chanda had to throw her pillow over her face to muffle her giggles.

Chanda: What does it look like?

Aaron: Like part of a toy flamingo with no beak or legs or wings…?

Chanda: Well that’s your homework for the night, Aaron. Figure out what I was doing at 2 AM with a mutilated plastic flamingo lol

Aaron: On it.

Aaron: Is it something for your hair?

Chanda: Good night, ya nerd

Aaron: Good night, loser.