Cross Contamination part 12: Business and Pleasure
Cassie Harlowe collapsed into a fit of laughter as Peter continued an eerily accurate imitation of Principal Wheaton. She glanced across the lunch table at Kelsey, who was giggling as well, sharing a moment of female solidarity over Peter's immaturity even as they laughed at his impression.
It had been a good couple of days. Cassie was already feeling less stressed and more confident. She had been a little worried on that dark day last week when Renee strong-armed the entire school into bullying her. It felt at the time like fighting back and escaping Renee's influence would be impossible. But, just as she hoped, having her two oldest friends in her corner had short-circuited Renee's plan. It was a lot harder to maintain a united front of mockery against someone with allies, and the rest of the student body seemed to have already gotten bored with the project of sexually humiliating Cassie.
"Wait, Kissy," said Peter suddenly as if he had just remembered something. Cassie tried not to make a face as he used the nickname that Renee had popularized. She might have her two best friends back, but it seemed like the demeaning middle school nickname had stuck like glue, even with them. "A guy in my math class told me something crazy. He said he saw you streaming online!" continued Peter with an excited grin.
Cassie froze, an icy spike of panic piercing her heart. Shit! Was it possible that someone from the school had seen one of her secret exhibitionist masturbation streams and recognized her? A thousand weak excuses and justifications whirled through her brain. She opened her mouth to try to explain.
"You've been streaming on Argus?" asked Peter with an impressed tone, "Playing shooters?"
Oh. Ohhhhh! That streaming. Relief flooded Cassie and she gave Peter a sheepish smile. "That? Oh, I don't know. I just tried it out for fun. I don't even know if I'm going to do it again."
"But you have to!" said Peter seriously, leaning across the table. "He said it was a really good stream, and you were even getting donations!"
"Yeah," said Cassie lightly with a shrug. But despite her dismissive tone, a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Streaming had been pretty fun. And she had made like fifty dollars just chatting with people and playing video games!
"I can picture it now," said Kelsey with a grin, patting Cassie on the shoulder. "My best friend: internet famous."
"Stop," said Cassie with a giggle. Suddenly, Kelsy's expression clouded over, and Cassie turned to see Renee Cross standing above the table, arms folded beneath her perfect breasts, hip cocked, and a cool, disdainful look on her delicate features.
Just the sight of her sent a complicated squirming combination of hate and arousal spreading through Cassie's belly.
"Renee," she said flatly, trying to hide her mixed emotions, "What can I do for you?"
Renee stood silently for a moment with an eyebrow raised before deigning to speak.
"I've been informed that, since you received no complaints during your probationary period, I am required to offer you a position on the cheerleading squad," said Renee in a cold, precisely polite voice.
"I see," said Cassie, unable to hide a little smirk.
"The position would be conditional on you completing the traditional team initiation," continued Renee. "As always, you are free to withdraw from the team at any time." Her tone made Renee's intention perfectly clear: she expected and wanted Cassie to drop out of the squad.
"I'll have to consider it," said Cassie, locking eyes confrontationally with her former friend, "but thank you for letting me know." Being a cheerleader with Renee Cross as her squad captain sounded like torture at this point, but Cassie didn't feel like withdrawing and giving Renee the satisfaction right at this moment.
A look of frustrated annoyance crossed Renee's face. "Fine," she said huffily, "But get back to me by the end of the week. We need to finalize our plans for the big pep rally." The gorgeous, catty teen stalked off with her lacky Mel following in her wake.
"Are you going to do it?" asked Kelsey with a concerned frown as soon as Renee was out of earshot.
"What?" asked Cassie, "Withdraw from the squad? Yeah. But I want to make Renee squirm about it a little first."
Peter tilted his head in confusion. "Really? I was thinking it would be better if you do the initiation." Cassie's mouth fell open in bewilderment. Peter wanted her to submit to some mysterious "initiation"? Just for the privilege of joining a cheerleading squad that was ruled with an iron fist by the person she was currently feuding with? It made no sense.
Cassie turned to Kesley, hoping to get her support against Peter's crazy idea, but instead saw that Kelsey was nodding thoughtfully. "Yeah, I think so too."
"What?" said Cassie incredulously, looking back and forth between them in disbelief. 'Renee and I are NOT getting along right now. Why would I want to join the team she runs?"
"That's why you should join," insisted Peter with a serious look on his face. "Right now, everyone in the school is watching what you do. You're the first person to stand up to Renee in a really long time. If you just quietly quit the squad, everyone will absolutely see it as a weakness."
"So... what?" said Cassie incredulously, "I should just submit to whatever freaky initiation Renee wants to do to me? That's sure to end well."
Kelsy sighed. "I hate to agree with Peter on this, Kissy, but he's right. I mean, yeah, Renee is going to try to make the initiation unbearable to drive you out. We both know it. But everyone else knows it too! If you pass her biased initiation, it will show everyone that you aren't scared of her and that you're willing to go toe-to-toe with her on her home turf."
Cassie wasn't convinced, but she didn't want to spoil her newly repaired friendship with Kelsey and Peter. It had been awkward and strange enough that they had both demanded sexual favors before becoming friends with her again. Luckily, neither had pushed those demands any further in the days since, but the awkward sexual tension was still fresh, and Cassie didn't want to rock the boat by getting into an argument with them today.
"I'll think about it," she said grudgingly, and they turned to lighter topics. By the time the bell rang for the next period, she had forgotten about cheer squad completely.