Chapter #17Secret Auditions by: Seuzz   "I'm not quitting the squad," Cindy-you sniffs. Your voice is raw and haggard from the day's weeping. And there are still tears banked up behind your waterlogged eyes. You'd only have to touch them, and they'd start streaming again.
"Of course you're not," Jessica-you assures her, and puts an arm around her shoulder. "We wouldn't let you, Cindy."
"You'd be outvoted," Eva-you chimes in.
The conversation is taking place in the Garners' bedroom, between these three bodies. Yumi wanted to come out to help comfort Cindy in her distress, but you wanted the option of breaking out of character if you wanted to, so you told her you didn't want to overwhelm Cindy and asked her stay away. For good measure, you sent Lin-you with her; together they are at Panera, sipping acidic coffees and making acidic insults at Chelsea Cooper's expense.
And as you have Cindy and Eva and Jessica alone to yourself ...
Jessica-you pushes into Cindy-you's face and pulls a succulent kiss from her. "That's nice," Cindy-you murmurs. "But it doesn't help."
"Then maybe if I—" Jessica-you embraces Cindy-you as she reaches around to unzip her top. "Little help here, sis?" you ask Eva-you, who obliges by lifting one of Cindy's feet and undoing the laces.
Cindy-you hunches limply as your other limbs peel the clothes off her, and has to be coaxed onto the bed. "Marc would love to be here helping, you know," Jessica-you says as she straddles Cindy-you's stomach and covers her breasts with her palms. "But he's got Hannah duty. You doing okay back there, sis?" you call over your shoulder.
Eva-you pushes Cindy-you's legs apart and mumbles an affirmative from inside the exposed bush.
"Yeah," Jessica-you drawls as you continue to stroke Cindy-you, and you squirm as a seam of warming fire runs through up Cindy-you's back as Eva-you's tongue finds tender tissues. "I bet you anything Chelsea's sending Kendra or Gloria to keep Seth company, try to get him to see there's benefits to being a douchey little worm and dumping you just 'cos Gordon and Steve told him he had to."
"Don't you know it," Cindy-you agrees. You arc your back and thrust your hips into Eva-you's face. "I wonder, if they fucked him, would I feel it?"
"Depends on if it's a blowjob they give him, I guess. They should let him do it doggie-style on them, though. That way maybe we could all feel it. And that's the way they'd deserve to get it. Bitches."
"Mm. You're making me feel better, talking about it, Jessica," Cindy-you says. "But you could give me a little less talk and a little more—"
"Tongue?" Jessica-you finishes for her. "That's what friends are for, Cindy." You bend double and take her mouth in yours.
* * * * *
The next morning.
"Bitch," Kendra-you mutters at Gloria-you as your latest acquisition slips past her into changing room.
"Slut," Gloria-you mutters back. You push your hair—a great tawny bush of dark-red tresses with highlights of crimson, like tongues of flame, inside it—out of your face. Kendra would love to have hair like Gloria's, and she flaunts it every chance she gets.
It was an unhappy night at home for Gloria, and not a pleasant morning for Gloria-you when you surfaced inside her to take control when the alarm went off. A household with a single mother and an Alzheimer's-addled grandmother would not be your choice of home, and Gloria hasn't got any really good friends at school to take the edge off. The cheerleader squad ought to be a place to forge friendships; at Westside, it's a viper pit.
You'll make it up to her once you've eaten the whole squad, though; just as you'll make it up to Cindy.
From six different vantage points—Jessica Garner, Eva Garner, Kendra Saunders, Lin Pol, Cindy Vredenburg, and Gloria Rea—you listen as Coach Tesla talks about the new vacancy on the squad. The coach is a squat, frog-like woman with a face like a leather bag and the bloodshot eyes of a secret alcoholic, and she is usually happy to leave the running of things to Chelsea.
This morning is no different, and after conveying some tepid regrets about having to find a new girl for the squad, she announces that she'll be happy to leave it to the squad itself to figure out how to fill the vacancy. "You'll be the ones working with her," she concludes with a shrug, "so it should be your choice." The sag in her shoulders as she waddles off to her office suggests to you that she just doesn't want the responsibility of throwing another girl into the snake pit.
"So there's not a lot of girls really qualified for the squad," Chelsea says. "And—"
"So let's ask Kelsey if she'll come back," Yumi interrupts. Her smile is sharp.
Way to stir the shit, Yumi, you think.
"I think the fairest way," Kendra-you says, as Chelsea had instructed late last night via text, "is to have an open tryout."
"Isn't that a waste of everyone's time?" Lin-you objects. "I mean, if there's not a lot of 'really qualified girls'," you add, smiling at Chelsea, "then shouldn't we just pick one of them?"
"That's a good point, Lin," Chelsea airily replies. "Who are the girls that you think are qualified?"
"Um—"
"In fact," Chelsea continues, "maybe we should do it that way. We should do nominations. By ballot. Maria," she says to her best friend, Maria Vasquez, who is staring vacantly past her at the bleachers. "Maria," she repeats, then snaps her fingers in the girl's face.
"Earth to Maria," Gloria-you murmurs with a smirk.
"Hmm?"
"Be a sweetheart," Chelsea says, "and get some paper and pens from Coach Tesla. Nine of them," she calls after. One for each of us!"
"She won't remember," Jessica-you mutters at Eva-you. Eva-you titters. Maria is the spaciest space cadet in the school.
"Each of us should write down who you think we should invite onto the squad," Chelsea continues. "After looking them over we'll figure out if we want to just vote to invite someone or if we should hold tryouts."
"I still think we should hold tryouts," Kendra-you stubbornly insists.
"Kendra," Chelsea says with a lemony smile, "you made your point, and we thank you for it."
Kendra-you casts a slit-eyed side glare at Gloria-you, whose smirk has widened.
* * * * *
Chelsea insists that each girl sit off separately so that there won't be any colluding over the nominations. Like that can defeat someone who is in control of six of their minds. Still, though the names you write down mostly overlap, you slip in enough differences that the lists won't look identical.
With six perspectives—seven, if you include Marc's—you center your nominees on four who you think combine sexiness with plausibility.
The first is Kristina Townes, who is on the marching band color squad, which means she's good at the dancing and gymnastics already.
The second is Olivia Byrne, who is currently a swimmer. She actually made it onto the squad at the start-of-the-year tryouts, but she quit when Kelsey Blankenship quit. She's good, and with her swimmer's physique she is very sexy.
The third is Alana Ocampo, who Kendra remembers as being an almost-finalist during the tryouts. She's Hispanic, with big, brown, almond-shaped eyes and a shy smile—the kind of mask no one would suspect of harboring a calculating intelligence.
The last is a bit of a mystery: Sydney McGlynn. Like Michelle, she only entered Westside this year after moving to Saratoga Falls. But with her California tan and her shimmering gold hair, she hardly needs the honed curves she shows off in her clingy dresses to look the part of "cheerleader."
"Ugh," Chelsea exclaims later after school when she is looking through the ballots. There's four of you spread out on the bleachers: Chelsea, Maria, and Kendra-you and Gloria-you. "It's the same names over and over. My God, Gloria, even you nominated that Sydney girl?"
"I hear she's really good." Gloria-you squirms under Kendra-you's smug smile; she was smart enough to avoid overlapping with your other girls.
"Tch. If I wanted another Kelsey on the squad then I'd ask Kelsey to come back on." Chelsea shuffles to the next ballot, and freezes. "Jack Li?" she exclaims in a half-strangled voice. She looks up to glare at Maria. "You nominated Jack Li?"
"Huh?"
"Maria," Kendra-you says in a singsong. "No one wants a guy on the squad." No one wants a gay Chinese-American on the squad, you could have said, but "guy" says it well enough.
"I just think he's good," Maria says.
"I'm all in favor of diversity," Chelsea fumes, "as long as they let me do the thinking for them."
Hear hear, you think with seven brains.
When practice is over, Chelsea goes off with Gordon, but you send Gloria-you and Kendra-you, marching in an intentionally eerie lockstep after Maria. You intercept her at her car. "We really need to talk," Kendra-you tells her as Gloria-you opens the car door for her.
"What about?" Maria looks genuinely mystified.
"Your nominations. Your lack of teamwork. You need to start thinking like the rest of us."
"Huh?"
"Huh?" Gloria-you mimics her. "Get in the car, Maria."
The girl looks momentarily alarmed as Kendra-you pushes her in, and she gasps as you sit on her.
"There's already six of us on the squad, Maria," Kendra-you tells her as Gloria gets in on the passenger side. "With you it'll be seven, enough to override Chelsea. And with you, we'll have her surrounded." Kendra-you takes the worm from Gloria-you and slams it into Maria's gaping mouth.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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