Fluffy(11)

Beastman turns and interrupts. “You said you didn’t do film, Mal. Maybe you lied? This guy’s seen you in something?”

“Mal?” Will says, eyes narrowing, mouth firmly set in anger. Then he softens. “Mallory?”

Spatula inserts himself between us, Will dropping my shoulder. He waves his phone in Will’s face. “I have a signed rental contract. We paid the deposit to rent this place for today and tomorrow, fair and square. It’s all done through the online booking agency, and–”

Red and blue lights flash, fast, into the house from outside, the cut-off screech of sirens finally breaking through my awareness.

“Tell it all to the cops,” Will growls at him. “You broke so many rules.”

Oiled up and panting, Beastman stands tall, spine straight. His, uh, beastdom stands even straighter. “You got a problem?”

Will Lotham was quarterback for the Harmony Hills Hornets. He’s a tall one–six two, one eighty, nothing but muscle and flow. All his stats come streaming back into my brain like I’m a computer program. My eyes cut to Will and I'm guessing he's added twenty pounds of muscle since we graduated, so I have to adjust my Will Lotham database. He is thicker.

But Beastman is big and hairy and glistening, and in a match between the two, the odds are ever in favor of the guy who smells like coconut oil and looks like Hagrid’s porn twin.

Until Will cocks his arm and decks him.

Beastman goes down.

And no, that’s not a porn joke.

Because he brings me down with him.

All three hundred or so pounds of slick muscle hit me like a rock slide, shoving the entity that is Mallory Monahan into the floor, the anal-bead string wedged between my ass cheeks as I deeply regret the wrap dress I chose for professional style. All the wind knocks out of me as his oily skin slides against my clothes, my arms, my face, and soon I’m pinned beneath a man who doesn’t know the difference between a euphonium and a euphemism, but does know one thing.

“Mal” is another word for bad.

And this, my friends, is the very definition of bad.

“Son of a bitch,” Will swears, shaking his hand out, the air moving as he winces, Beastman toppled on his side, Spatula pressing his hands against his ears.

“Crystal jaw, man,” Spatula mourns. “That’s why he couldn’t keep on with the WWF wrestling.” Eyes darting to the window, Spatula looks at me, then Will, then down at Beastman.

Will bends down, offering me his good hand. “You’re Mallory Monahan. From Harmony Hills? Class of '09? I knew you were familiar. Jesus, look at you. From valedictorian to this.”

If I could breathe, I’d answer him.

And I would lie. Wouldn’t you?

But I can’t breathe, so I just sit there, twitching, Beastman’s hairy, oily skin turning my humiliation into a perverted deep-conditioning treatment. I try to rise, but my face is crotch level with Will, mouth open in an O of surprise.

Do I really look like a blow-up sex doll when I do this? Beastman’s words flit through me as the room starts to dim, his weight seriously making it impossible to get oxygen in me.

I look up at Spatula, trying to ask for help. All he does is hold up his phone up and press his finger against the glass screen.

“You are not taking photos!” Will bellows, dropping my hand and moving toward Spatula, who sprints out of the room. Will’s suit jacket flaps as he runs after him.

All the beards race out the front door. Within seconds, two car engines start, tires peeling out as I stand there, arms and legs turning to ice blocks.

My high school crush thinks I’m a porn star.

I am found like this by the cops, seconds later, as Beastman wakes up, hand going to his crotch, crying out, “I’m ready for my close-up!”

And that is when I faint.

Here’s the problem with fainting: Sometimes it only lasts a few seconds.

Damn it.

Here’s the other problem with fainting: Will is now standing next to the cop, telling him in a firm voice, “I think she needs Narcan. She’s high and unresponsive.”

I sit up again, surprised I can do it. Beastman is on the other side of the room, hands cuffed behind his back, his jaw an angry red on the left side. Red knuckles attest to Will's aching hand as he talks to the cop in a clear voice, unafraid to be heard.

“I don’t need Narcan. I’m not on anything,” I protest.

“That’s what they all say,” the cop mutters, giving Will a raised eyebrow and a look I really resent.

“I am not on drugs. I am not a porn star. I came here because I saw a job on Craigslist for a professional fluffer, and that’s what I do for a living.”

Blinks. I get blinks. Lots and lots of blinks.

Nothing but blinks.

A female cop joins us and as I look up at her, I realize she’s my next-door neighbor’s daughter, Karen Minsky.

My mom is going to hear about this in seventeen minutes.

You know how I know?

Because that’s how long it took for word to get back to her when we were busted at a house party by–you guessed it–Karen Minsky, when I was a junior in high school.

“You’re a fluffer?” Will chokes out. “The valedictorian of my high school class is a fluffer?”

“A house fluffer!” I say, indignant. “I make everything look better!”