Little Eyes
South Bend
THE FIRST THING they did was show their tits. The three of them sat on the edge of the bed facing the camera, took off their shirts, and one by one, removed their bras. Robin had almost nothing to show but she did it anyway, paying more attention to the looks she got from Katia and Amy than to the game itself. If you want to survive in South Bend, she’d heard the girls say once, you have to make friends with the strong.
The animal’s camera was installed behind its eyes, and sometimes it spun around on the three wheels hidden in its base, moving forward or backward. Someone was controlling the creature from somewhere else, and they didn’t know who it was. The animal looked like a simple and artless plush panda bear, though really it was more similar to a football with one end sliced off so it could stand upright. Whoever was on the other side of the camera was trying to follow them without missing a thing, so Amy picked up the panda and put it on a chair so it would be right at the height of their tits. The gadget was Robin’s, but everything Robin had was also Katia’s and Amy’s: that was the blood pact they had made on Friday, the pact that would join them together for the rest of their lives. And now they each had to do their own little show, so they got dressed again.
Amy put the animal back on the floor, picked up the bucket she’d brought from the kitchen, and placed it upside down over the panda. The bucket moved nervously, blindly, around the room. It collided with notebooks, shoes, and clothing strewn on the floor, which seemed to make it grow more desperate. Amy started to pant and let out excited moans, and the bucket stopped moving. Katia joined in the game, and they acted out a long and profound simultaneous orgasm.
“That doesn’t count as your show,” Amy warned Katia as soon as they managed to stop laughing.
“Of course not,” said Katia, and she darted out of the room. “Get ready!” she cried as she ran down the hall.
Robin didn’t usually feel all that comfortable with these games, though she admired Katia’s and Amy’s nerve, and the way they talked to boys, and how they managed to keep their hair always smelling good and their nails perfectly painted. When the games crossed certain lines, Robin wondered if they might not be testing her. She’d been the last one to join the “club,” as they called themselves, and she tried hard to be worthy.
Katia returned to the room with her backpack. She sat down in front of the bucket and freed the panda.
“Pay attention,” she said, looking at the camera, and the bear’s eyes followed her.
Robin wondered if it could understand them. It seemed to hear them perfectly well, and they were speaking English, which is what everyone speaks. Maybe speaking English was the only good thing about having been born in a city as terribly boring as South Bend.
Katia opened her backpack, took out her yearbook, and looked for the class photo. Amy clapped and shouted:
“You brought the little whore? You’re gonna show him?”
Katia nodded. She flipped the pages eagerly, the tip of her tongue poking out between her lips. When she found the girl she was looking for, she opened the album wide and held the photo in front of the bear. Robin peered over the book to see. It was Susan, the weird girl from her biology class that the club bullied for fun.
“They call her Big Ass,” said Katia. She pursed her lips a couple of times, the way she did whenever she was about to do some high-level mischief, which was what being a member of the club demanded. “I’m going to show you how to make some free money with her,” Katia told the camera. “Robin, darling, could you hold the book while I show the gentleman his job?”
Robin went over and held the book, unsure. Amy looked on curiously; she didn’t know Katia’s plan either. Katia scrolled through her phone until she found a video, and then she held the screen up in front of the bear’s eyes. In the video, Susan lowered her stockings and underpants. It seemed to be filmed from the floor of the school bathroom, inside a stall; maybe the camera had been set up between the trash can and the wall. They heard some farts, and the three of them rolled with laughter, and they cried out in pleasure when, before flushing, Susan stood looking down at her own shit.
“This chick is loaded, my dear,” said Katia. “Half for you and the other half for us. It’s just that the club can’t blackmail her again, the teachers already have their eyes on us.”
Robin didn’t know what they were talking about, but it wasn’t the first time the club hadn’t included her in its most illegal activities. Soon Katia’s show would be over and it would be her turn, and she hadn’t thought of anything. Her hands were sweating. Katia took out her notebook and a pen and wrote down some information.
“Here’s Big Ass’s full name, phone number, e-mail, and mailing address,” she said as she held up the notebook alongside the photo.
“And just how is our little guy going to get us our share of the money?” Amy asked Katia, winking at the camera and the presumed man behind it. Katia hesitated. “We don’t know who the hell he is,” said Amy. “That’s why we showed him our tits, right?
Katia looked at Robin, as if asking her for help. It was in those brief moments that they counted on her, when Katia and Amy reached the heights of their individual rapaciousness and went to war with each other.
“How is the gentleman going to give us his e-mail, huh?” Amy went on, mocking Katia’s plan.
“I know how,” said Robin.
They both looked at her in surprise.
This would be her show, she thought, this was how she would emerge unscathed from the situation. The panda also turned toward her, trying to follow what was happening. Robin put the book down, went to her wardrobe, and opened a few drawers. She came back with a Ouija board that she opened and set down on the floor.
“Get on,” she said to the animal.
And the bear did. The three plastic wheels on its base easily maneuvered onto the cardboard; it moved across the length of the alphabet, as if investigating. Though its body took up more than one letter at a time, soon enough they understood which one it was pointing at, hidden between its wheels. The bear settled in under the arch of the alphabet and waited. It apparently knew exactly how to use a Ouija board. Robin wondered what she would do when the other girls left and she was alone again with this bear, now that she’d shown it her tits and had taught it a way to communicate with her.
“Awesome,” said Amy.
And Robin’s mouth twisted into a smile.
“Which of the three of us do you think has the best tits?” asked Katia.
The bear moved quickly over the board’s letters.
THEBLOND
Katia smiled proudly, clearly aware it was true.
How had she not thought of the Ouija board trick sooner? Robin wondered. She’d had the bear in her room for over a week, rolling around aimlessly. She could have talked calmly with him; maybe he was someone special, a boy she could have fallen in love with, and now she was ruining everything by letting Katia and Amy take over.
“Do you accept the deal with Big Ass?” asked Katia, showing him the photo of Susan once more.
The bear moved, started to write again.
WHORES
Robin frowned. She felt hurt, although maybe the bear’s insult spoke well of him: she knew what they were doing wasn’t right. Katia and Amy looked at each other and smiled proudly, stuck their tongues out at the bear.