Losers Read online

  “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 forc
ed 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 o
ut 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.”