"Finally hangin' out with us," Bryan joked as we thumped down the stairs into his parents' basement.

"I've been busy," I said sarcastically, "Doing stuff and things."

The girls laughed and flopped down on a couch together. Cam turned on a speaker, plugging his phone into it and shuffled through some music. DJ grabbed a few sodas from a fridge and Bryan squished himself between Tori and Lil.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure, doing things," Lil laughed, "Or someone."

Did she know? Lil looked at me, her electric blue hair falling into her eyes for a moment before she flicked it away. The others looked surprised.

"What? Not our goody boy Jake?" DJ asked in mock surprise, "Not our all-star pretty boy?"

I kept quiet hoping maybe they'd drop it.

"Whadya mean, Lil?" Tori glanced at her, then poked her hard in the ribs when Lil didn't respond.

Lil stuck her tongue out at Tori, laughed again, stole a sip of coke from DJ, and looked back to me.

"Maybe we should let him answer for himself," she wiggled her eyebrows at me.

"There's nothing to tell, you're just hearing shit."

"Come on, give us something," Bryan complained, forcing his voice into a whine, "Pretty please, with sugar on top."

"No, fuck you," I grumbled and took a sip of Sprite hoping it might keep my mouth shut.

"He's a bit sensitive about the subject, ya know, cause he's actually never fucked anyone," Cam laughed, his mohawk moving ever so slightly with the motion of his head.

"Oh fuck you."

"You were the good little boy, it could be true," Bryan said pretending to consider the possibility, "You could be the virgin of the group."

"Oh, now we could perform all those sacrifices I've wanted to, now that I know a pure virgin," Tori laughed.

"Right..." I grinned, "You guys do remember that I played football, right? No one on that team was a virgin."

"True," Tori feigned disappointment; "Maybe you were the only one then, saving yourself for marriage."

"Shut up."

"Then tell us Jakey-poo, who's the lucky lady?" DJ asked, "Is it your right hand? I'm so excited to meet her."

"I prefer my left actually, but still not as good as your mom was the other night."

"Okay, whoa, no need to bring my mother into it," DJ laughed, "She's a nice lady."

"Who is it? Come on, just give us a name, there's hundreds of girls at the school," Tori begged, "We aren't going to know who she is."

"Oh, maybe that's it. Maybe she so ugly, he can only fuck her if she's got a bag over her face," Bryan said smirking.

"No, fuck you, she's hot okay. And she's not a student," I blurted out.

"Oh, so she's older?" Cam asked.

"Yeah," I replied and took another gulp of Sprite.

"You fucking a cougar? Are her tits saggy? There dust in her cooch?" DJ asked unable to rein in his laughter.

"No, she's in college, so no her boobs ain't saggy and I know there's no dust down there or my dick would be covered in it." I hadn't meant to say that. I felt my face flush. There was a chorus of oohs and awes.

"So, what's her name?" Tori prodded.

I kept quiet.

"I'm not going to stop asking until you tell me," she said, "So..."

"Okay, fine, fine," I said giving in, "It's Mara. Okay. You happy?"

"That's a pretty name," Bryan mumbled through a handful of Cheetos. I should have given a fake name. I could see him processing the information, coming to conclusions. I held my breath and waited for it to come out.

"Wait a sec," he continued, "Wait just a fuckin' minute. Mara, as in still in grad school Mara?"

They all stared at me for a moment, silent with shock.

"What?" I said too quickly, "No."

"Oh my God, you little fucker," Lil said shocked, "You are. Goddamn, I knew you were fucking someone, but a college girl, dang son."

"Fuck man, she's hot," DJ congratulated.

"You fuckers can't tell a soul." I didn't want to know what Mara would do if she found out they knew.

"Oh, of course, we wouldn't, never," Cam said in mock seriousness, "That's like totally something I would never share."

"I'm serious, okay," I begged, "Please don't."

A break of silence again and then laughter.

"Of course not," Tori said brightly, "It'll be our little secret."

"You gotta tell me, what's it like?" Bryan asked, a hint of admiration in his voice.

"You don't know? Have you had sex?" I turned the tables and asked in shock, "Are you a virgin?"

"Fuck no, dude," he smiled smugly, "But can't say I've done it with an older lady."

They laughed again. Bryan had a thing for freshman girls. We broke out a joint and they pounded me with more questions.

By the time I thought about getting home we filled the room with smoke and had just started in on a bottle of cheap-ass vodka when Bryan's parents got home and kicked us all out. They had no problem with smoking or drinking, as long as we shared. Pretty fucking awesome parents, but they had their own friends coming over and didn't want a bunch of teenagers hanging around on a Friday night.

The house was dead quiet when I got back. I was starving, worn out Mara. It had been a long fucking day. Literally.

Mara called me to her office twice that day. Pleasured herself and shoved me out the door. I was worn out, tired, exhausted. Cam had repeatedly asked what the hell I was doing and finally persuaded me to go hang out with them. Mara was pissed, she said she never wanted to see me again, and if she did she'd tell everyone I had forced her to do everything.

I sighed and tugged my shoes off wandered into the kitchen and found a tube of Pringles. A beer would have been better, the vodka buzz from earlier was wearing off, but Mom was keeping the house on liquor lockdown. We hadn't had anything above seltzer water in the house for a long while, although she had been spending a suspicious amount of time without neighbors. I was pretty sure she was having a few glasses of wine with the other housewives in the evenings.

Climbing the stairs to my room, I stuffed a handful of chips in my mouth. Crumbs fell to the floor adding to the mess. My room was a festering mess, but I didn't care enough to clean it. As long as I kept the door shut, Mom didn't notice and everything was fine. Flopping down on my bed I stared at the ceiling for a moment and felt my phone buzz.

A message from Mara.

                                  Hey. I'm sorry for going crazy on you. You can have friends, it's probably good for you. Sorry for being crazy again. Miss you.

At least she knew she was crazy. That meant that she wasn't, right? Crazy people didn't know they were crazy. I typed out a quick message back.

                               Yeah its fine. Don't worry.

Her reply came back nearly instantly.

                             I want to see you this weekend.

She hadn't asked that before. Before I could reply another test from her buzzed on my screen.

                            I want to see you now.

I typed back.

                          Really?

I kind of wanted to see her this weekend too.

                        Yeah, my place. Tonite?

Tonight? Jesus. My dick was still sore from earlier. But I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to get out of the house and see Mara again.

                       I could do tonite.

She took a little longer to reply, I finished the can of chips and started to open my laptop.

                    Send me your address. Be there in an hour.

I sent it to her and refocused on the laptop screen. I turned on some music and brought up Reddit, starting to scroll through the endless posts. I grabbed my phone again.

                   Hey I'm going to Mara's for the weekend can you cover me and say im at your house if my mom asks

It took DJ longer than I would have liked to reply. I kept scrolling, pausing to watch a funny cat video, my phone buzzed again.

                   Sure dude. No prob. I want deets later.

                  Fuck you.

                 You owe me.

                Yeah sure.

I typed another message out to my mom.

               Going to a friends house for the night. Don't worry.

              Do I know him?

             Is he a good kid?

            Should I call his parents?

            When will you be home?

The barrage of questions came one text at a time. I sighed as the phone vibrated again.

              Proud of you jake.

My heart dropped a bit, if she really knew what I was doing; I guessed she wouldn't be so proud.

               Be home tomorrow sometime. He lives close, don't worry. I am making good choices. You wanted me to have more friends.

              Okay. Love you.

I set the phone down and focused back on my laptop screen. I hoped Mara would be here soon, before I changed my mind about lying to my mom.

My phone a bit later.

              Here.

I closed the laptop and headed out to where Mara was waiting for me. Her small silver car idled at the curb. I slid into the passenger seat.

Mara was still in the clothes she had worn to work. Tight jeans, a low cut shirt. She barely looked at me as she drove away from the curb, kept her eyes on the road. It was like I wasn't even there. The engine whined again as we weaved through the suburbs. I reached over to rest my hand on her thigh she swatted me away. I tried again with the same result.

"Jake, stop," she snapped.

"What?"

"You know what, just don't okay?"

"Fine," I shifted my gaze to the window and watched as houses passed by.

We rode in silence until we reached her apartment building, just outside the city, on the limits of the suburbs. It wasn't the nicest apartment, but on a grad school salary, I guessed it was the best she could afford. Mara parked the car and got out, heading towards the building. I had to hustle to keep up with her. We rode the elevator up in silence, walked to her door in silence and entered her third floor apartment in silence.

She shut and locked the door behind us, dropped her purse on a small table and walked into the kitchen. Still silent.

I followed her, uncomfortable. She was the one who fucking wanted me to come over, not the other way around. I wasn't begging her to talk to me, to do anything. She was hot, then she was cold, and it was fucking irritating.

"You want a beer?" she asked, her head poking in the fridge.

"Yeah, sure," I reached for the bottle she handed me. Popping off the cap I took a swig, still feeling a tingle from the vodka before.

Mara turned from the fridge with her own and leaned against the counter. She stared at me, her green brown eyes regarding me coolly, like I had made an unforgivable mistake.

"What?" I asked her again.

She said nothing.

"What do you want?" I asked more forcefully.

"What did I tell you about hanging out with that slut?" she glared at me, "I thought I told you to get the fuck away from her. So why are you still hanging out with them?"

"What? Really, that's what this is about?" I was shocked she hadn't gotten over it, "You still think I want her? Her of all people?"

"Why else would you be hanging out with those losers?" she practically snarled, "It's not like they actually like you or anything."

"Actually they fucking do and it's because I have no one else to hang out with."

She snorted and glanced at me again, her eyes flashing.

"You've got me, who else do you want? Don't make me tell everyone you raped me. Don't make me tell them how you forced yourself on me." she edged closer to me, her hands grasping at my belt.

"What. The. Fuck. I would never," I pulled away from her, staring, "I would never do that to anyone."

"Oh, I think you would, darling, I think you would. Ever since the accident, you've needed to overpower someone, take something from them," she said softly, her eyes focused low, "I've seen it in your eyes, I heard about your angry outbursts, how you hit that teacher. What do you think the next step is?"

"No one would believe you. I'm not a rapist. I would never fucking do that," I was shocked, I hadn't thought she'd actually go through with it, "You wouldn't be able to prove it."

"Oh, baby, I could, and so easily," she smiled and looked into my eyes, "So easily. I've done it before, hun. I can easily do it again. Everyone takes a battered woman's side, never the man with anger problems, never the man who's shown what he can do. They never side with the man who has so many issues and can't control himself."

"What?" I nearly shouted, "You've done it before?"

"Sweetie, you didn't actually think my parents disowned me because I married some guy, did you?" she asked sweetly, "They knew the truth. Or at least they thought they did. My husband isn't dead. He didn't die in a tragic accident. He raped me. That's what the jury decided. My parents knew better, but couldn't do anything so told me to never speak to them again. They still talk to my husband during visiting hours."

I stared at her. She had done this before. She had planned it out and had gotten away with it before.

"W-what?" I stuttered.

"He kept seeing people I didn't want him to see. He said they were just his co-workers. He said they were just working on stuff for his job, that there was a deadline and he had to stay late for work. Right, like I'm that stupid," she laughed again and moved closer to me, "But you're smarter than he was, baby, I know you'll make the right decision."

She reached down to unbuckle my belt, unbutton my jeans. I hated myself for it, but felt my jeans snug, she smiled and tucked her hands into the fabric.

"See, baby, I can make you happy," she whispered softly, lowering herself on her knees and pulling me out. I groaned softly as she took me, gripped the counter as she sucked, held her soft hair in my hand.