DISCLAIMER:
All characters appearing in this story are at least eighteen years of age.
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
incest, pee
§
Kat Peoples stared, perplexed, at the doorknob that would not turn. She tried it clockwise, counterclockwise. It was definitively locked. And then she clocked the sounds coming from inside the room: the high melodious girl sounds, the rhythmic baritone boy sounds, and the insistent wooden drumming, as of a headboard thumping a wall.
"Well, this is an unexpected development," she said, turning to her twin brother, Rufus, who was swaying sleepily behind her in the hall. "Is that Ash?"
"I've never heard him moan like that," said Rufus. "But it sounds like his voice."
"Hmm," said Kat. "I thought Ash was supposed to be gay."
"That's what he says. But celibate. 'Cause of Jesus."
"Sounds like he's breaking his vow...and not with a dude."
Rufus shrugged. "Now that he's graduated, he must be branching out, trying new things. He also lost his beer virginity tonight. I saw him drink at least half a bottle. Come to think of it, he was sharing that bottle with Keri Lobl. I wonder if she's-"
"I saw him rubbing sunscreen on Keri's back this afternoon. I thought he was being oddly non-awkward about it."
"Damn." Rufus scratched his chin. "Ash and Keri. That's...an unusual couple. She must have worked her pagan magic on him. Well, good for them, I suppose."
"It's good somebody's getting laid tonight," agreed Kat. "But Ash could have done better than Keri Lobl."
"I dunno. She's attractive, in a hairy, dirt-under-the-fingernails sort of way."
"She's dumb. She believes in elves. Like, literal elves. She thinks they exist."
"You sound a little jealous."
"If I'd've known Ash was into girls..." Kat frowned. "He could have turned to me for his deflowering needs."
"He probably thinks of you like a sister. Y'know? It'd be weird."
"Why? You hooked up with Ash's sister, didn't you?"
"Sure, but that's different."
"How so?"
"You know Tish. She likes to spread it around."
Kat nodded. "I heard she gangbanged the entire men's lacrosse team at Penn State."
"Nonsense," said Rufus. "People like to start rumors. I mean, Tish may well have banged the entire lacrosse team. That I can believe. But one at a time is more her style."
"Anyway...so now what, R.P.? We're obviously not sleeping in there." Kat poked her thumb in the direction of the sex sounds. "This is a conundrum."
§§
Ash Haushauer was hosting the biggest, albeit somewhat belated, graduation party for the Conestoga Valley High class of 2018. Graduation had actually occurred two weeks earlier, but it wasn't till this weekend that Ash could host his party of parties. This weekend, his parents were out of town, attending yet another graduation. Their fifth eldest daughter, Tess, was receiving her law degree from the University of Chicago. This left Ash alone on the family farm.
Festivities had commenced that day around noon. Kat and Rufus had competed in spirited cornhole and wiffleball tournaments, had swum in the pond and ridden the Sea Doo, had shouted, flirted, and danced to loud terrible music, and at dusk had sacrificed and devoured a pig.
The Haushauers, including Ash, were devout Mennonites. Ash was a non-drinker (at least, prior to that evening). Although he'd not, himself, provided any alcohol for the party, he'd not disallowed others from bringing their own. And bring it, they did. The booze had flowed copiously.
On the other hand, Ash had been a stickler about drunk driving. To that end, he'd collected everyone's car keys and locked them away in a big metal toolbox, to be returned the following morning, or upon proof of sobriety. He'd rather everyone crash at his house, he'd said, than anyone crash their car.
The Haushauers' commodious old farmhouse had many spare bedrooms (for Ash was the youngest of eight siblings, all of whom, save Ash, had left the nest). There were also numerous couches and recliners, a passel of chaise lounges on the back porch, and if nothing else, there was plenty space on the floor. Ash had encouraged people to bring sleeping bags. Some had pitched tents on the hill behind the pond.
Ash had given up his own bedroom to guests and was instead sleeping in the master bedroom downstairs, his parents' bedroom. He'd invited Kat and Rufus to spend the night with him, as they were among his closest friends, and he trusted them not to steal, befoul, or break anything. His parents' bed was an enormous California king, with plenty of room for three people to sprawl without touching. To minimize temptation, they were to have arranged themselves with Kat in the middle: boy-sister-celibate gay boy.
Actually, Kat and Rufus had each secretly hoped to find a hookup partner for the evening, and thus avoid Ash's bed of chastity. However, this did not come to pass. Instead, Ash's bed, improbably, had become the bed of fornication. And now Kat and Rufus were left without a place to sleep.
§§§
Behind the bedroom door, things seemed to be reaching a crescendo. The thumping of the headboard quickened, bedsprings screaked precariously, Ash huffed like a wild beast, and Keri wailed in a shrill, hyphenated falsetto.
Kat's lips scrunched into a pout. "This sucks, R.P. Now it's late, and all the other beds are already taken, I'm sure."
They checked the other bedroom downstairs, the guest bedroom. At least half a dozen people, all guys from the looks of it, were crammed sardine-like onto the bed, snoring like a chorus of mechanical frogs. The room smelled of foot fungus.
Kat sounded a sad trombone. "Wah, wah, wah."
In the living room, the two sofas and two recliners were occupied. The floors, too, were littered with bodies, some curled up on the rug, some lolling and drooling on the bare hardwood. Scattered amidst them was a wreckage of cups, cans, bottles, paper plates, discarded clothing, shoes, fragments of smashed pottery, a spray of blackish soil, and an uprooted fiddle-leaf fig.
Rufus thought a spot on the floor between the piano and the fireplace looked adequate, but Kat tugged him away by his sleeve.
"You don't have a sleeping bag," she admonished.
Kat went to investigate the back porch. Meanwhile, Rufus poked his head into the den. His eyes nearly poked on out of his head when he beheld the spectacle within.
Ottavia Putkowski and Lucy Gruetzmacher were spooning on a blue leather sofa, wearing nothing but skimpy panties, watching anime on an ancient black-and-white TV. Or rather, their eyes were open and their faces aimed at the TV, but they appeared to be in a catatonic state. Their mouths were slack, and Lucy was drooling. They didn't react to Rufus's intrusion.
In the corner of the room, another girl was wearing not even panties. She knelt, fully nude, before an old wingback chair in brown and green plaid, her head down, dark hair ensconcing her face like a veil.
At first, Rufus thought she was vomiting (perhaps inspired by the chair's colors). He'd seen a number of his classmates in a similar posture that evening. But then he heard the slurping and saw the slow bobbing of her head. Whoever was sitting in the chair was obscured by its angle, its wing, and the girl's naked body.
Although her face was not visible, Rufus knew the body: short but sturdy, somewhat stubby of limb, wide of hip, thick through the thighs and rump, with a good bit of muscle and a little pudge-not too much pudge, just enough to make everything soft and round. Her skin was tawny, with complex and diffuse tan lines left behind by various cuts of summer clothes. From where Rufus stood, to her rear and diagonal, he could have easily mistaken the girl for his sister, except that Kat was currently accounted for. Which meant that she could only be Rose Gillogly.