Kate sat on her bed, lazily scrolling through Tiktok. It's what she found herself doing more often than not as of late on Wednesday afternoons like this. Or it might be more accurate to say Katie was anyway. Her friends called her Kate, sometimes even K. But here at home, she was lovingly referred to as Katie. Her mom, her stepdad, and her brother Jake could often be heard shouting "Katie!" when dinner was ready or someone needed a ride somewhere.
She preferred Kate, but all and all she didn't mind most names she was called. Even the occasional Katherine didn't phase her. There was only really one name that she couldn't stand...
After the sixth or seventh cooking video in a row, she finally decided to put her phone to sleep. Kate laid her head back on the pillow, eyes closed to rest from the screen time. Tiktok wasn't doing it. Her mind was on something else, and she couldn't shake it. She lifted her phone up over her head and opened her eyes, switching over to Instagram as she did. After a few swipes down her feed, she stopped stopped trying to fool herself: she was here for one reason. She typed a name into the search bar and tapped the first entry that came up.
Dilan.
Kate hated Dilan. Katie, K and Katherine all did too. And she didn't just hate him for breaking up with her. They ended things on a mostly mutual note. Dilan was moving three states away for school while Kate chose to commute from home. She might not have wanted things to end but she could understand why he did. No, the reason she hated him was something completely different...
"Kay-Hole? What does that even mean?" Kate asked the two young girls sitting across from her. They were at their usual spot in the local Starbucks, sitting at the table in the back left corner of the store. A detail that she wouldn't be forgetting any time soon with how many times she played this back in her head. The two girls snuck glances at each other and then looked at Kate, obviously holding something back.
"What? Like a play on A-Hole? He's calling me an asshole?"
Lex, the taller dirty blonde haired girl, lightly slapped the shorter red-headed girl on the back, making her horn-rimmed glasses almost fall off her face in the process. "This one's all you sister."
"Uhh... not exactly" said Billie as she pushed her glasses back up to her face with one finger. It would almost have been funny if it wasn't for the subject at hand.
"I think uhh... it has more to do with a uhh drug called ketamine and uhh the term K-Hole and he's uhh... well-"
Lex cut her off. "Oh for christsake if you're not gonna spit it out then I guess I will. We don't have all day."
She paused for a moment, glanced down at the table, and looked back up at Kate.
"Look K, you know momma didn't raise a subtle girl," One of Lex's favorite catchphrases, which unfortunately didn't net Kate any relief. "... he started some rumors about you. He's tellin' people you've been sleepin' around a bunch. And the Kay-Hole thing," she glanced at Billie as if looking for moral support and continued. "I don't know. He's saying you got a... a gorilla grip. When they're inside you, you don't let 'em go."
She was silent again for just a bit once more and then interjected.
"But fuck that guy, right?! New school, new you and anyone who listens to that bullshit ain't someone you wanna be within 10 feet of anyway! Also I don't even fuckin' know if that's what a K-Hole means. It's stupid as fuck. And besides people call me a slut all the time and I don't let it bother me!"
Billie chimed in with a resounding "Yeah but you actually are a slut."
Lex playfully responded with another slap on Billie's back that knocked her glasses all the way off and the two began to laugh, partly from the humor and partly from the cut tension. Their laughs trailed off when they realized Kate was already out of her seat and heading towards the bathroom, one hand on her face and the other across her chest.
Her heart was in her throat. Her brain was in a three-way tug of war match between anger, betrayal and disgust. She didn't want to believe that someone she shared her food and her bed and her hopes and dreams with would hurt her like this and she didn't even know the reason why. Dilan didn't return her texts and she spent the next few weeks locked in her room staring at her ceiling like the night sky without a star in sight.
Now, months later and into the start of her first college semester Kate knew Lex was both right and wrong. She shouldn't have let it bother her. But 'new school, new you' didn't seem to apply. Since Waldon University was close to home, students from her high school filled a lot of seats in the classes there. And when everyone's looking to make an impression on their new classmates, rumors spread like wildfire.
Kay-Hole. Kate despised that name and everything it represented. Broken trust. Insecurity. Every time she heard someone mutter it as she was walking down the halls or had someone make a move on her because they thought she was an easy lay she felt furious and hurt. But mostly she felt powerless. She couldn't muster the nerve to argue back in a pool full of sharks. When Lex or Billie weren't around, she kept to herself.
And fucking Dilan. Staring back at her from a grid on her phone. She really did hate him. She wanted nothing to do with him. Who the fuck even spells Dilan with an 'i'? She blocked his number when he tried to apologize and she blocked him on every social media platform she could think of.
With one small exception. Instagram.
Kate looked past her phone at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Dilan. In spite of all the anger in her heart, another feeling was taking over. She hadn't had sex in months. Kate was feeling
horny
. So horny that she needed relief the best way she knew how. She looked for her picture of choice (usually something showing off his forearms) and at the same time searched her brain for a good memory. She settled on one of the times Dilan fucked her in the back seat of her car.
With everything in place she slowly slid her hand down to her chest, giving one of her tits a squeeze and her nipple a light pinch before moving down further. She slid her hand under her black sweatpants, down further, teasing herself over her underwear before moving her hand up just enough to slide back down under her panties. She could hear her heartbeat picking up as she felt the heat on her fingers. With her pointer and ring finger Kate spread her lips open and slowly brought her middle finger down until...
A Discord notification flashed across the screen. Startled by the noise, Kate dropped her phone on her face, snatching it back up before instinctively touching her face where it fell and responding with a grimace.
The message was from someone simply named "V". It had been a long time since gotten a message from V. An old online friend of hers whom she'd never met in person but shared music recommendations with after the two met in an EDM fan channel. After the mild annoyance of a ruined masturbation session wore off, Kate felt some excitement creep back in. She opened Discord and tapped into her direct messages.