Free Heretics by Greg F. Gifune

anything’s gonna happen?”
          “How do you mean?”
          “You know how I mean.  One of us might end up in the sack with her.”
          Harry took the cigarette from him, took a drag and handed it back.  “I don’t think Madeline thinks of us like that.”
          “Yeah she does.  She just can’t make up her mind which one of us she wants.”
          “I don’t know.”
          “Cut the shit, this is me you’re talking to.  You telling me you don’t think about her like that?”
        “That’s not what I said.”  Harry allowed a slight smile.  “I don’t think she thinks of us  like that.”
          “And I’m telling you she does.”
        “Okay, stud, like you have any  clue.”
          “Fine.  Remember all those times we went skinny-dipping last summer?  What the hell you think that was about?”
          “Just having fun.  Shit, it was too dark to see anything anyway, and nothing ever happened besides swimming.”
          “Well what girl’s gonna even do that if she’s not thinking the same shit we are?”
          “Madeline’s not any girl.  She’s a one and only.”
          “True, but what do you think tonight’s about?  You think she’s inviting us both over in the middle of the night when her father’s out of town so we can go over there and play cards or something?  Use your fucking head, dude.”
          Harry stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket as a breeze kicked in off the ocean.  Even the sea smelled different in this neighborhood, like work, not play.  “Besides, we shouldn’t talk about Madeline like this.  She’s not some tramp.  She’s our friend.”
          “You’re in love with her,” Rip said through a smoky sigh.
          “So are you.”
          “Never said I wasn’t, dude.”
          Harry smiled but looked away.  “Wait until you see the inside of that house.  It’s like something on TV.”
          “Creepy though, you said.”
          “Yeah, definitely.”  Harry struggled to find the appropriate words before he spoke again.  “Rip, there’s shit going on there.  I don’t know what, exactly, but it’s bad.”
          “You think it’s got something to do with that maid?  From what you were telling me it sounds like Madeline can’t stand the bitch.”  He took a hard pull on his cigarette then flicked it out into the night.  “Or you think it’s about her old man?”
          “I don’t know, but—”
        “Yeah, but what do you think ?”
          Harry shivered from what he assumed was the cold night air.  “That it might have something to do with both of them.”
          “Well, you said her father was a dickhead.”
          “Yeah, real fancy-ass piece of shit.”
          “We all got our shit to deal with, Harry.”  Rip shrugged.  
          Sadly, parental abuse and horror at home were nothing new to him, and although they had never discussed specifics, Harry knew the kinds of things that happened to inmates even in juvenile prisons.  Rip was too young to be littered with such scars, his torment not the typical maudlin teenage angst found in so many young people, but pain that had been realized, and in comparison Harry often felt less worthy, as if the darkness clouding his soul was more abstract and therefore not entirely valid.  As for Madeline, perhaps it was worse for her, perhaps not.  Like usual, she remained just beyond his reach, her mysteries safely tucked away.  
          “I have a feeling she’s going to tell us tonight,” Harry said.
          “Maybe so.”
          “I’m not sure I want to know, Rip.”
          “Me either.”
          “You believe in all that stuff she talks about?”
          “Don’t matter if I believe it.  It gets her through the day and night, right?”
          Headlights emerged below, broke the darkness then vanished quickly as a car sped off along the