Free A Dark Autumn by Kristopher Rufty Page B

with her friends. Yes—she’d participated, but it had been quick and basically painless, but she still regretted it and probably would forever.  
    As she began putting her clothes back on, she realized nothing about this night had been quick and painless and she was just as bad as the others. Then she allowed the guilt to register. It sat on her chest like a boulder, slowly crushing her lungs and making it difficult to breathe.  
    Lucy hiked her panties up. She ran her thumb along the waist band to straighten it. Then she sat on the log that had become her true companion tonight, and slid her feet into the legs of her pants. She looked beyond the fire to where Ricky lay on his side, quietly sobbing.  
    His penis was softening, but had not completely gone limp. She’d wondered how he’d remained hard throughout it all, but then Helen had confessed to drugging him with Roger’s pills and it had all made sense.  
    Amanda stood by the fire smoking a cigarette while Helen drank vodka straight from the bottle. Michelle sat on the ground near Ricky’s feet, naked, hugging her legs to her chest. Her eyes were serious, her mouth partly opened. There was a battle going on behind her bothered expression. Lucy couldn’t hear the thoughts, but she could guess as to what they were.
    Helen’s laughter killed the silence. “I can hardly walk.”
    Lucy watched as Helen staggered, her legs bowed out to the side. It wasn’t just the booze that had caused it, but Ricky’s gigantic penis. They would all be sore for the next few days.  
    Amanda rubbed the area below her stomach. “I hurt deep. I think he messed me up in there.”
    Helen laughed again. “He messed us all up deep in there.”
    “So, what do we do now?” asked Michelle.
    Lucy had been wondering the same thing, but was too scared to ask. With Helen’s track record, she would not have been surprised if she declared they should kill Ricky.  
    “About what?” asked Helen.
    “Him,” nodded Michelle.
    Ricky hadn’t moved.  
    Helen sighed. “Who cares?”
    “I care. We… We…”
    “Yes,” said Helen. “We. We?”
    Groaning, Michelle shrugged, clucked her tongue.  
    Lucy cleared her throat. “Michelle’s right. Do you think we can…just…go on like we didn’t do anything?”
    “Of course we can,” Helen snapped back. “I can, so why wouldn’t you able to?”
    “We forced ourselves on him!” Lucy shoved her arms into her shirt, and jerked it over her head. When the shirt passed her eyes and her view was no longer obstructed, Helen was glaring down on her. Lucy gasped.
    “You shut your fucking mouth! We didn’t do anything he didn’t want us to! That is the truth.”  
    Lucy felt the heat of her words, the warm saliva as it spattered her face.  
    Michelle stood up, her exposed flesh the color of candlelight. “He didn’t want us to do that…we just…did it.”
    “Yes, we did. Even you. And, who gives a shit? Who really gives a shit?” Helen shook her head, and took another swig from the bottle. “What do you think he’s going to do? Tell on us? Do you think a man would be willing to admit that four little girls got the better of him? And, the fact that he’s gay… Who would believe him?”
    “You think he’s gay now?” asked Michelle.
    “Fuck if he is or not. No one will believe him.”
    Lucy wanted to quarrel some more, but there was no point in doing so. Besides, through all of Helen’s psychotic babblings she had made some valid points, and Lucy had to admit they all made sense. Who would he tell? Why would he tell? Every man she’d ever known was cursed by their stubborn pride, even the ones that hardly seemed to be men at all. She doubted any of them would report being assaulted by four women, and doubted even more that Ricky would.  
    Lucy was confident they were in the clear.  
    When she turned around to profess her agreement with Helen, she saw a flash of movement. She felt the rugged tread of a boot bracket her