"Who told you?" I asked, clutching my phone to my ear as my voice quivered with both outrage and fear.
My mother had just called with news that she and my father had come to the decision to cut me off, given some 'distressing news' about my behavior in college. Nonplussed, I asked what she'd thought I'd done. She was reluctant to tell me at first, but eventually agreed with my reasoning that I had the right to confront my accuser under the sixth amendment. Mom told me they'd heard about me sleeping around with guys, and they weren't paying for me to 'be a whore'.
I was outraged over the news. For one, it was a total lie! Not only was I not that kind of girl, I was too busy studying to date anyway. I'd certainly had the opportunity to sleep around had I wanted, plenty of boys had asked when I first arrived at school but I'd declined them on and eventually all the guys on campus seemed to give up. Besides, even if it was the truth, what business was it of my parents anyway? I was an adult, damnit, who I slept with was my concern!
Unfortunately, fear undercut my righteous fury and limited my ability to reply. I wasn't sure what I'd do if my parents actually cut me off. Between tuition, books, room and board, plus the few precious luxuries I did afford myself, I was tapped at the end of every month. Even with my part-time job, scholarships, and small yet quickly growing student debt. The $1,500 a month my parents had been sending hardly paid my way, but it had been enough to force me to stick to my dad's strict rules even after I had thought I'd escaped his tyrannical rules.
"It doesn't matter who told us..." My mother began, but I didn't let her finish. I already knew who the rat was.
While I couldn't prove it was my twin brother who had fed my parents this line of BS, there was none else with the motive or ability to lie to my parents about my 'sleeping around' in college. Anger was quickly trumping cold, rational thought. Bitter rage rose in the back of my throat like bile, and suddenly I felt like burning the whole world down! My big bushy tail began to swish behind me as I rose from my desk chair and began to yell into the phone. I was sure my brother would derisively refer to my justifiable rage as 'typical vixen hysteria' later, when he heard about my outburst, but I didn't care. "Like hell it doesn't matter! I know it was Jimmy, that little fuck head wants my allowance, and he thinks he'll get it by being your jailhouse snitch!"
My rant may have sounded tame, especially when read back in text form, but I don't think there is anything harsher I could've said. My voice was an angry torch, blasting verbal fire through the phone which I was positive my mom felt on the other side of the line. Plus, in a family full of defense lawyers 'jailhouse snitch' was a curse roughly akin to 'motherfucker' in most families. Not just for those that rat out their fellow criminals, but for the lawyers unscrupulous enough to use them. Jailhouse snitches are typically lying cowards. Sniveling fools willing to burn someone else to the ground to save their own skin, cowards who had cost the family firm many cases over their years. But, regardless if they were liars or not, my grandfather believed that criminals ought to have some basic understanding of each other's position.
"Who is one drug dealer to rat out another?" He often asked, rhetorically. "If you want to roll on a pedophile or some other horrid degenerate, that is one thing. Otherwise play the game better. Don't rat out some other poor sod just because he's better at your job."
Although, despite his rant and condemnation of perverts, I had no doubts that dear old Papa would happily defend a pedo or anyone else, no matter how disgusting of a crime they'd been accused of. Provided if the check was large enough, at least. And while some defense lawyers might actually buy their own high-minded ideals of 'everyone deserving the best defense possible' in the case of my family it was the most self serving dreck I could imagine! I promise, most defense attorneys are just in it for the money. That was the main reason I intended to forge my own path, rather than following the ones my parents had plotted out for me once I left law school: one of the many ways I was sure to disappoint my parents when I finally managed to wiggle out of their control. I wasn't going to get my degree, practice law in the family firm for roughly ten to fifteen years to ensure my pedigree, before getting married off to one of the senior partners to make more little lawyer babies. I was going to be a prosecuting attorney and put bad people away. Or, failing that, a public defender helping to protect the defenseless. I might not get a fancy new German car every few years, but at least I'd be able to sleep at night! I would be my own woman, damnit, and with any luck every defense lawyer from Seattle to San Diego would fear me.
"Young lady!" My mother said, aghast, in response to my rant.
I felt slightly bad about yelling at my mother. While she may have broken the news, I knew it was my father who'd made the decision. Was it fair to 'shoot the messenger'? Particularly when she was arguably just as much a victim of my father's misogyny as I was! Hell, now that I thought about it some, Dad was probably trying to turn us against each other. Still, I hadn't made her pick up the phone to tell me this bullshit! "Tell Dad I haven't been 'sleeping around', but if he's gonna punish me for something I didn't even do, I suppose I might as well earn it."
There was a long bead of silence on the phone before my mother finally spoke up. "What does that mean, honey?"
"It means maybe I'll go out and catch some strange cock right now! Tell that disgusting voyeur of a brother I have to get his camera ready!" And, with that, I angrily hung up the phone.
I heard my mom cry out "Audrey!" sharply as I lowered my phone from my ear, but that didn't stop me from jabbing the button to terminate the call. Angrily hanging up before slamming my phone down on my desk hard enough it was a small wonder I hadn't broken the glass. I was young enough that landlines were before my time. However, I'd seen them in movies and wish I had been using one now. They looked so much more satisfying to slam down.
"Better be careful talking like that." My roommate idly remarked without looking up from her book. "Boys around the campus will be bursting our door down to be the one to finally thaw the Ice Queen."
"Not now, Becca." I replied, burying my face in my hands.
Rebecca looked up from her textbook, perched on a mountain of pillows, with a raised eyebrow. "Is the news really that bad?"
I quickly relayed the story to my roommate, who listened with a concerned ear yet scoffed at my concerns. "Girl, your cheapskate of dad was only sending you 1500 a month. Just enough to keep you under his thumb. If anything he did you a favor by cutting you loose!"
She had a point there. Heck, if my parents truly disowned me, I would probably qualify for some sort of assistance from the school. I was a straight A student: surely they'd find some way to keep me around... right?
Rebecca closed her book, the bunny girl carefully marking her place with a sticky note, and snapping her book closed. She then leapt from the bed, her short bushy tail twitching back and forth with her excitement, her ears standing tall and at attention. "Come on, dry those tears dear and let's go out."
I quickly started to back pedal from the threat I'd made to my mother, tucking my long tail between my legs and taking a literal step back. I really wasn't that kind of girl, only leaving my dorm for classes, meals, and the occasional walk around campus: carefully avoiding the places where people typically congregated. Going out with the intention of finding a one night stand sounded like my idea of hell. "You know I wasn't serious about fucking some strangers?"
Rebecca shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You don't need to spread your legs to go have fun with boys... or girls if that's your thing." She added that last addendum awkwardly, and looking back I should have spotted it, but I was too worked up at that moment to pay it any mind. Besides, always one smooth operator, Rebecca recovered quickly. "It is Friday night at one of the biggest party schools in the country! Let's just go somewhere and feel pretty, you can worry about being an angel of the morning later."
"What?" I said, nonplussed. I was never sure if Rebecca's cultural references made no sense or if I was just that sheltered. But I wasn't given much time to worry about it before Rebecca started shoving me towards the college.
"You'll have to borrow one of my outfits. It might be tough with those big jugs you've got, but I'm sure I've got something that will work."
I groaned. Rebecca was a pretty girl who had pretty good taste in clothes, but her taste wasn't my taste. Besides, bunnies had a weird habit of getting away with stuff us predators couldn't.
"What?" She said indignantly, before suddenly getting it. Exasperated with my... reserved fashion choices, the bunny girl reached up and grabbed her ears. She tugged them down in a manner that looked painful, showcasing with her frustration. Finally, she let them go and said. "You want to go out dressed like Allison Reynolds? I guess that is your business."
