8: Then they Banged, pt 1 (Patreon)

“I’ve... never showered with another girl before,” Megan said uneasily.

“Scrub scrub scrub!” Rebecca instructed cheerfully, taking the girl by the shoulder and turning her to face the other direction again. She needed to finish working this sopping mass of suds into Megan’s hair.

“Okay, yeah,” Megan agreed, self-consciously squashing her breasts against herself with her hands.

At first, the smell had been overpowering. Standing together in the shower enclosure, however, the spray of water eventually sluiced away enough of Megan’s sweat that Rebecca dared to breath again. She’d pressed one of those slim bars of hotel soap into the girl’s hands, and hopefully some encouragement and gentle prodding would be enough to spare her from having to actually thoroughly wash the girl’s intimate regions for her.

The whole experience wasn’t bad. But, it was weird, and in ways that had Rebecca turning introspective. She didn’t really mind getting naked and stepping into this tub with a stranger. As Mara, she bathed with the other Daegonhir ladies in Mill Creek during campouts, and even danced naked beneath the moonlight during the last Solstice event, so she felt unfazed even with all of the awkward peeks Megan kept sneaking at her body.

Sporting a wry smile, Rebecca couldn’t help but think she didn’t have anything much for Megan to be too impressed by. She’d always felt average rather than attractive, the last girl in a group to be noticed and the first to be overlooked. Tall, for a girl, and somewhat athletic. A fair amount of muscle tone replaced more feminine curves, and her small breasts didn’t really seem to stand out much on her frame. She had bland, tawny hair that fell in wild tangles when freed from the braid she wore to work, and always thought of her facial features as somewhere halfway between pretty and forgettable. They’d honestly never really felt like they set her apart from anyone else, that they were the unique way people identified her; her face never even felt much like it was her own.

“Do you, um, want me to help wash you, too?” Megan asked in a nervous voice, glancing back again.

“If you want to!” Rebecca gave her a sleepy smile. “If you could help get my hair when I’m done with yours, that’d be really cool, yeah.”

As Rebecca, she wasn’t in any way squeamish actually washing another person, because she was regularly on call to assist elderly residents during their scheduled bathtimes. So, while Megan was wide and well overweight, there wasn’t anything off-putting or gross about her figure to Rebecca. Being a nurse’s aide at an assisted living center meant helping the less-able-bodied take baths, so she was well acclimated to seeing folds of flesh, sagging arms, swollen legs, and the drooping, deflating bellies of large older women. By comparison, Megan was practically pleasant to the eyes—fat like a lovely rounded, ripened tomato—rather than one long since expired.

Despite Megan’s misunderstanding about being invited to shower together with another girl, Rebecca was maintaining a careful distance from the girl and minding their safety. Most falls happen in the bathroom, after all! She tried to be respectful, give Megan some private space and some illusion of normalcy by not overtly staring. The Mara in her was ready to just get this over with in a no-nonsense way, to roughly lift Megan’s arms up one after the other like a child and gouge her pits out with that bar of soap in an ungentle way.

Well. It may be weird, I may be weird, but at the very least I’m… uniquely suited? To situations like this, where—

Then, she heard the scream.

She was completely Mara again in an instant, sliding the shower curtain out of the way with a sweep of her hand and deftly jumping out of the tub and onto the tile, practically hearing her Rebecca voice—don’t you slip, you silly goof! There was still lathered shampoo on her hands, and she flicked them harshly in annoyance in the general direction of the bathroom sink.

The scream, more of a shriek, really, sounded close. Too close. The door of their hotel room had been left open to air out the place, and it was like someone had screamed right outside in the hall. Not a happy squeal of laughter or one of excitement, but the other kind of scream, the kind she heard when someone was in genuine pain and fear. This wasn’t an SCE or Daeghir battlefield, though, where injuries happened amidst the meat grinder of a melee press though, this was a hotel.

Mara snatched at a folded towel and wrenched it off the bar of the drying rack—don’t forget to cover up, dearie!—when the white towel was haphazardly wrapped around her body and tucked into place, she yanked open the bathroom door and padded out of their room and into the hall, still barefoot and soaking wet.

You’ve GOT to be kidding me…

Emily was straddled atop Chloe, raining fists down upon the shrieking girl’s face as Chloe flailed, trying to scratch and claw Emily off of her in turn. Crouched down several feet behind them, Stephanie had one hand on the wall of the corridor for balance, the other clutching at the side of her face. The first flash of adrenaline spiking through Mara’s veins turned to immediate anger as she realized no one was in real danger.

Her friends were fighting each other, which was even worse.

“Stop. Both of you, stop,” Mara demanded in a growl, stepping forward to catch Emily’s wrist and forcibly pull her up off of her other friend. “Stop.”

“Let go!” Emily seemed to hiss and spit like an angry cat, trying to thrash her way out of Mara’s iron grip and lashing out one last kick at Chloe, who was trying to scramble up to her feet. “Lemme—let me go!”

“Everyone, stop,” Mara hissed, standing firm against Chloe and swinging Emily away to send her sprawling across the carpet.

Down the long stretch of hallway, Mara could see several different doors open as people peeked out of their rooms to see what all the commotion was about. Inwardly fuming at the predicament her friends were embroiled in, Mara imposed herself firmly between the catfighting girls. Chloe lunged forwards, regardless of the stoic obstacle in her path, grappling wildly in vain across Mara in attempt to lash out at Emily one last time.

“You. Fucking. Bitch!” Unable to push past, Chloe’s unbridled fury exploded out, slapping and scratching angrily at Mara to get through. Her fingernails raked down across the towel, pulling it loose, and clawed along the outside of Mara’s shoulder and down her arm.

Gritting her teeth and grabbing Chloe’s hand, Mara squeezed, squashing it into an immobile press of fingers that elicited a pained yelp from the irate girl. She then pushed Chloe down, pinning her to the floor with her one arm twisted uncomfortably across her chest. When the crazed Chloe tried to buck and twist out of Mara’s grasp, it was all too easy to subdue her by pressing her right back down to the carpet with a knee planted firmly between Chloe’s shoulder blades.

“She—she hit Stephanie!” Emily accused, stumbling back up onto her feet. “Out of nowhere! Fucking bitch, she just started like, attacking her, and—”

“Get. Off of me!” Chloe screeched. “I swear to—”

“You can’t be fighting in here,” Mara cut them both off, annoyed. “You guys should never be fighting in the first place!”

“Tell that to her—” Emily began.

“She’s the—she’s the one who started it!” Chloe sobbed angrily, stabbing a finger towards Stephanie from where she struggled beneath Mara. “An-and then, then Emily just jumped on me—”

“Shut the fuck up, you stupid fucking—”

“Both of them were attacking me, and—”

“Enough, enough!” Mara silenced their protests with a furious glare. Both the Mara and Rebecca parts of her were reconciled in the anger and disappointment she felt with her friends. They were acting like out-of-control children, and she hated the cold, dispassionate way they were making her feel right now. “Not out here in the hallway. Both of you, get in the—”

Mara flinched back as she felt a new pair of hands at her side, only to realize that Stephanie was now beside her, fitting that towel that had slipped down her back up around her in proper place.

“—Thank you, Steph,” Mara said stiffly. “Everyone, get into the room. We can’t be making a scene out here.”

“They attacked me!” Chloe yelled. “Get off of me! Get the fuck off of me! You’re… you’re wet!”

“It was my fault. I think,” Stephanie admitted, giving Mara an apologetic look. “But, she did start hitting first—”

“I did not—” Chloe retorted. “She just even said it was her fault—”

“I don’t care,” Mara snapped angrily. “I don’t care whose fault it is. All of you, stop fighting and get in the room.”

“No. I… just, no,” Emily huffed. “I’m not going anywhere with her, and I’m never gonna stop fighting her or get along. Ever. She’s not my friend—she was never my friend. She was never your friend!”

How can you SAY that? Mara stared hard at the Emily who was still all keyed up, arms shaking as the petite girl practically vibrated with rage. What is this all even about? Weren’t we all getting along alright just a few minutes ago?

“Is… everything okay?” Megan was standing in the doorway of their room now, wearing a towel and watching the scene wide-eyed and bewildered.

“Emily, let’s just go,” Stephanie insisted, taking her livid friend gently by the arm. “I’m sorry about all of this, Rebecca. Sorry, Megan.”

“Cunt, you think you can just—” Chloe started again, but Mara cut her off by hauling the girl up to her feet and then shoving her past Megan into room 502.

“Fuck off,” Chloe violently shrugged off Mara’s hands the moment she was inside. “Just—fuck off, all of you.” Then, the teary-eyed girl stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door closed and locking out the still-dripping towel-clad Mara and Megan.

“...What’s going on?!” Megan whispered to Mara. They watched as Stephanie pulled Emily down the hallway away from them, Emily giving them a parting glance that was equal parts angry glare and hurt look.

“Sorry about them,” Mara said, a little more brusquely than she intended, and with a stony face, she closed the door on them.

It stung, deep inside. This sudden rift between friends had torn wide like a jagged wound, and she didn’t know how to cope with it. She needed to put herself back in Rebecca mindset for dealing with Megan, but it felt like tears lurking just behind her eyes, and she didn’t dare compound the messy situation by pouring more emotion on the fire right now. Sudden exhaustion and a biting, bitter sadness washed over her all at once, and she crossed the room to sit down heavily on the edge of one of the beds.

“You’re—oh my god, you’re bleeding!” Megan pointed out, hurrying over to grab for travel-bag tissues from the cluttered swath of belongings scattered across the room.

“It’s fine,” Mara dispassionately ran a finger across the dotted-line scrape on the outside of her thigh, already beading with blood.

It was nothing, not worth noticing. Something Rebecca would surely fuss over someone for and—oh my goodness, are you okay?!—but, she wasn’t feeling up to being very Rebecca right now, wasn’t up to being a sweetie who channelled all of her grandmother’s worries and wisdom. It wasn’t that bad anyways, a scratch like this wasn’t even deep enough to scold Prince Charming for.

“It’s not fine, you’re bleeding!” Megan insisted, batting away Mara’s hands and dabbing at the stinging scrape with a wad of tissues. “What is—what’s going on?!”

“It’s whatever. Complicated,” Mara reported bluntly, before wincing inwardly and feeling conflicted. Ugh. This... isn’t going to work. Need to put more Rebecca into this.

Wandering the gap separating her Mara and Rebecca attitudes felt like she was uselessly floundering, right now. Caught in an uncertain back-and-forth between the social security blanket and the problem-solving hammer, when neither seemed to be the right tool for this job. Her identity issues weren’t anything as extreme as a personality disorder, both personas were the real her, but also affectated in certain ways, acting the role best suited for the situation she faced.

So, how do I fix THIS? Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut and cradled her face in her hands. Hah, how does everyone else manage to turn out so much more… normal?

“You… alright?” Megan asked, looking concerned.

“I think,” Rebecca began with a slow, deep sigh. “That was the big falling out between them. Chloe and Emily. The one that I was praying would never actually happen, for all this time. They’d—yeah, they’d always fight, they were always fighting, but it was never this bad. I don’t think… that they can come back from this, that we can come back from this, and I don’t know if they’ll still be my friend like before, if I don’t take sides. And, I don’t want to ever take sides. Not over stupid, silly relationship drama that shouldn’t even…”

“Shouldn’t even what?” Megan asked.

“It’s nothing,” Rebecca gave her a wistful smile and shook her head, slowly blinking her drowsy-looking eyes. “Sorry! You don’t even know them. Us. I shouldn’t be complaining to you, of all people. We’ve only just met! I don’t mean to put all my worries on you.”

“No, go on—I’m totally interested,” Megan said helpfully. “This was all like, crazy! I’ve never seen people fighting all up close, and you just... waded right there into the thick of it and made them all stop. I could never do that! I just, I don’t understand what even happened in the first place.”

“Chloe is the ex-girlfriend of Brian, who I think both Stephanie and Emily are… interested in, maybe involved with, now?” Rebecca weakly tried to explain, grimacing at the ridiculousness of it all. “Somehow?”

“That guy! The guy Steph went off with yesterday?” Megan’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Sorry, this is all just… really cool, kind of? I never would have imagined Steph, of all people, would get caught up in that kinda stuff.”

“Really… cool?” Rebecca blinked in confusion.

“Oh no no, I don’t mean it that way!” Megan blurted out. “Sorry, I just. Yeah, I can see why them fighting would be awful and upsetting and all for you. You were amazing though, you did what you should have done, the only thing you could’ve done. Do you... want a hug?”

“...Yes,” Rebecca nodded, trying not to let herself start to cry. “Please.”

(pt 2)

/// Off to a shaky start with rewriting this section three times, but now I feel like we're finally in business.