The Swallows

by Lisa Lutz

  “In all fighting,” she recited, “the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed for securing victory.”

  The girls gaped at Kate. They weren’t ready for wisdom. They were still absorbing the news that the recipients of their blowjobs were not only ungrateful but heartless.

  “Tough crowd,” Kate said, climbing down from her pulpit.

  I gave them parting instructions: “Meet back here tomorrow and we’ll start then. In the meantime, get your heads straight and keep your mouths shut.”

  I gave Linny strict instructions to quit it with her plague campaign. I told her the boys needed to get comfortable, believe it was business as usual. She reluctantly agreed but insisted on coming to the strategy meetings. I asked why she was so invested in a war that wasn’t hers. And then I found out it was hers. Last year, a senior named Connor Pitts courted her until she gave in. He never spoke to her again. I asked Linny why she never told me.

  “Because you’d warned me what they were like. I felt stupid.”

  * * *

  —

  Tegan masked her feelings well. Back in our dorm room, with Emelia prattling on about Nick, Tegan didn’t crack. She even managed to parcel out enough small talk to avoid suspicion. Then she snapped on her earbuds and drowned out the world.

  Later, Emelia left us to see Nick. When the door shut, the earbuds came out and Tegan leveled her gaze at me.

  “You know who Doomsday is, right?”

  Doomsday was Jack Vandenberg.

  “I have a hunch,” I said.

  “How many other scorecards did he enter?”

  “I don’t know the exact number,” I said.

  It was twelve.

  “More than three?” she said.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Fewer than five?” Tegan asked.

  “Yes,” I said. It was the last lie I would tell her.

  * * *

  —

  At the next swallows meeting, we began to talk strategy:

  “We want to gaslight them first,” I said. “We want to confuse them, throw them off-balance. When it’s time to play our cards, we’ll go all in. For now it’s a long game. We ask for your loyalty, not your service. You don’t have to fight; you can stay on the sidelines and we will respect your wishes. What we won’t respect or tolerate is a traitor.”

  “Do you want to explain what gaslight means?” Hannah said.

  “It’s in reference to a 1944 film starring Ingrid Bergman—” Kate began.

  “Make them think they’re going crazy,” I said. “Well, I guess it’s ‘light gaslighting’ for now. Refusing to participate in the contest is one way. Don’t tell them why. You have a headache or you’re busy. But if you do choose to have relations, I encourage you to be less enthusiastic.”

  Mel whispered in my ear, “Remember Nastya? She said she wanted to see a bad-blowjob contest.”

  A bad blowjob was still a blowjob. I wasn’t comfortable advocating that.

  “Maybe we change the aim of the game. We can have our own winner of the contest. Our winner gives the worst blowjob ever,” Kate said.

  “Or none,” I said.

  “We should blue-ball them,” Tegan said.

  Some girls laughed, some cheered at the notion. There were also dissenters.

  Sandra Polonsky said, “Why would I get near anyone’s junk after reading this?”

  “Play it however you want,” I said. “Just don’t tell them anything.”

  “Any questions?” Mel asked.

  “Where’s Rachel? Why isn’t she here?” Sandra P asked.

  Hannah looked at me and then at Mel, awaiting a response. When we didn’t answer straightaway, Hannah did for us.

  “Rachel was going to win, wasn’t she?”

  “Meeting adjourned,” I said.

  Hannah approached me on the way out.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” she said.

  I couldn’t decide what hurt Hannah more: her low score or Rachel’s high marks.

  “We weren’t sure we could trust her. We weren’t sure we could trust you either,” I said.

  What I didn’t say was that we took a calculated risk. We needed one of the girls who was playing to win on our side. We figured Hannah would be the easiest to flip.

  “We—you say we a lot,” Hannah said.

  “I’m not working alone,” I said.

  “Makes it sound kinda Big Brother–like.”

  “I prefer to think of us more as a gang. A gang that will have your back if you have ours. Are you in or are you out?”

  “I’m in, I guess,” Hannah said.

  She sounded defeated. I hoped it was the recognition of what she had played a part in—that it was all the Dulcinea shit that crushed her spirit, not us.

  We—the original three—met later in my office for a quick debriefing.

  Mel picked up the Amy Logan scorecard. “This one is bugging me.”

  “It might help if we knew who TonyStarx was,” I said.

  “What other senior girls have the initials AL?” Kate asked.

  “Aileen Leach?” I said, looking down at our class roster.

  “Aileen has had the same boyfriend since like sixth grade,” I said.

  “Maybe he misspelled it,” Mel said. “Could be EL. Maybe he thought Emelia spelled her name with an A.”

  * * *

  —

  You could feel the energy shift on campus. I often saw the editors consorting in hushed tones, casting sidelong glances at the girls. They knew the tide had turned but couldn’t figure out how. The swallows kept them off-balance, with our strict orders to tamp down open hostility until we were ready to don war paint and run at them with spears and savage wails.

  The plan—Operation Blue Balls, as it was baptized—was working. You could see the effect on the boys. They were cranky, distracted, their spirits dulled. They were so confused. It was a challenge to keep myself from looking smug. Jonah would catch me relishing our success. He sent me a text.

  Jonah: Quit smiling. They’ll know it’s u

  But that was just the opening salvo. Leaving the boys unsatisfied only sharpened my comrades’ thirst for revenge. To quench it required something else altogether. We had been holding back so much energy, we needed to release it. We needed to fight.

  “It’s time to up the ante,” Tegan said at our next meeting.

  It was time. Only I wasn’t quite sure what the next step should be. I opened the floor to ideas.

  Let’s build our own Darkroom, expose all their embarrassing secrets.

  Ghost them.

  Steal their shoes.

  Linny raised her hand. “My sister told me about this friend of hers: She liked spicy food a lot. She could eat a whole jalapeño pepper with seeds and all, right? So she had been eating really spicy salsa and her boyfriend came over and asked her to blow him and she did. I heard he was in so much pain, he cried, like real tears. No permanent damage was done. But he never asked her to go down on him again.”

  Linny had come prepared. She handed me a paper bag.

  “I tried to eat one earlier. But I don’t think I can do it,” Linny said.

  “And I wouldn’t let you,” I said. “But I like the way you’re thinking.”

  The room was quiet. Like that moment during a standoff right after all the guns are drawn. I could tell the girls liked the plan. But I didn’t know if we’d have any takers.

  Then Tegan walked over to me and took the paper bag.

  “I got this,” Tegan said. “But I think we need at least two more soldiers for the message to be heard.”

  Tegan pocketed a pepper and waited for other volunteers to claim their ammunition. After a pause, Hannah and Sandra stepped up.

&
nbsp; “You need to coordinate the timing of your attacks,” I said.

  “Make sure you have a glass of milk handy when it’s over,” said Mel. “Or some bread.”

  “Carbs? Really?” Hannah said.

  * * *

  —

  After hanging out on Thanksgiving break, Jonah had some trouble snapping back into our old, unfamiliar ways. Sometimes he’d ask to see me, promising to be careful, but I said no out of caution, a warped sense of loyalty. But then, in the middle of our soft offensive, Jonah made contact again and insisted that we meet. He didn’t wait for an answer. He just showed up at my office.

  “This better be good,” I said when he arrived.

  “Norman and I have been checking thirteen to see if anyone has gotten wind of whatever it is you’re doing,” Jonah said.

  “And?”

  “There was a new entrant in Dulcinea, just a few hours ago,” he said.

  “Show me,” I said.

  “I took a screenshot,” he said, removing his phone from his pocket.

  I read the top line.

  VicVega enters 4Swallow512.

  “Fuck,” I said. VicVega was Nick. 512 was EL: Emelia Laird.

  Overall score: 5

  Technique: 5

  Artistry: 6

  Effort: 5

  Finish: 4

  Comments: Put in a lot of hours on that one. S512 proves the tenet that pretty girls can’t blow.

  “Norman says Nick is VicVega. He’s submitted other girls, but—”

  I found the TonyStarx card for 4Swallow112 and showed it to Jonah.

  “TonyStarx is Adam, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Jonah said.

  I looked at the TonyStarx card that we had errantly delivered. It had to be Emelia. I didn’t relish the job of telling her.

  “Are you done now?” Jonah said.

  “Of course not,” I said.

  He looked really serious right then. His arms were folded, brow furrowed. It was funny. I could see what he would look like as an old guy.

  “Something on your mind?” I said.

  “You’re taking this too far. Call them out, expose them, and end the stupid contest. If you get them to take down the Darkroom and maybe apologize, you’ve won. Right?”

  “Exposing the truth isn’t enough anymore. They have to learn from their mistakes; they need to pay for what they’ve done,” I said.

  “So it’s revenge you want?” Jonah said.

  “A day of reckoning, that’s all.”

  “That’s just a fancy way of saying revenge,” Jonah said.

  My phone was buzzing like crazy. I checked the screen.

  Tegan: It’s time. We’re locked and loaded.

  I texted back.

  Gemma: Cool your jets. Back in ten.

  I looked at Jonah. “Anything else?”

  “Do you even like me, or am I just part of your reckoning?”

  The answer should have been obvious to him. But we lived in a place where sexual deception was commonplace. Hell, it was expected.

  “I like you,” I said.

  I kissed him again.

  “I love you,” he said.

  No guy had ever said that to me before. I won’t pretend it meant nothing. But I couldn’t offer anything back. Not while we were in the thick of it. Every time I looked at Jonah, in those blue trousers, oxford shirt, blue-and-red tie, I saw his comrades, his brothers, his friends. He was wearing the uniform of my enemy. I couldn’t get past that.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  I returned to our dorm room. Emelia was out. Tegan stood rigid in front of the mirror, eyeing her jalapeño pepper, taking deep cleansing breaths, working up the courage.

  “It’s about time,” she said. “Hannah and Sandra are ready to go. We only have one shot.”

  She opened the refrigerator and broke the seal on a carton of milk.

  “Have that ready for me when I come back.”

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  Tegan nodded. “After this goes down, it’s war. We’re not playing games anymore.”

  She wrapped her pepper in a tissue and shoved it in her pocket.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “I don’t need luck,” Tegan said.

  She was seething with fury and bloodlust. She had never looked more beautiful.

  Norman Crowley

  I heard the first howl from the other end of the hall. It sounded like an animal caught in a snare. It gave me the chills. When I opened my door, Tegan rushed past me. She was crying and smiling at the same time. It was so weird. I didn’t know what she had done to Jack, but I figured he had it coming.

  And then I heard another wail, coming from Nick’s room. Hannah emerged from his doorway and ran down the hall. Her eyes were red and watery, like Tegan’s. Then Gabriel Smythe screamed and Sandra ran out of his room. I called her name. She said milk and ran past me.

  All three of the guys were baying like wolves.

  Adam stormed into the hallway, looked at me, and said, “What the fuck is going on?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, retreating into my room.

  I heard a stampede through the hallway, more shouting for milk, someone mentioning a doctor. I had no idea what had caused the pain, but I knew why. I stood behind my door, listening intently, hoping to figure it out. Later, I texted Jonah and he told me what the girls had done. I felt good. It seemed like the perfect dose of justice.

  The next day Adam came to me in a rage. He blamed me for the breach, saying I’d been sloppy. He called me all kinds of names, like I still cared what he thought of me.

  “Take it down, take it all down. Make sure there’s not a trace of it left,” he said.

  “Yeah, boss,” I said, like a good soldier.

  I didn’t destroy it. I moved the data to a secret server and cleared out all of their code names and passwords. I was now the keeper of the Darkroom, the only person who could shed a light on five years of douchebags airing their souls.

  I’d known the girls were fighting mad. But after the jalapeño blowjobs, all uncertainty was lost. It was war. The editors were thrown off-balance at first, but after they recovered, Adam, Jack, Mick, Gabe, and Nick began to have secret meetings in the lounge. Sometimes, if I stood in the right spot on the stairwell, I could hear them.

  “All of this shit started when Witt came to town,” Adam said.

  Jonah had warned me that things were going to get ugly. Everything was going to change, he said. I hoped he was right.

  Mr. Ford

  I don’t get paid enough for this shit.

  Every time Rachel Rose dropped by my apartment, she left her pink scarf behind. Eventually I realized she did it on purpose—that she wanted her classmates to think something was going on between us. I can’t even begin to unwrap the daddy issues with that one. I delivered it to the lost and found every time, but she’d still drop by. The last time she came over, I told her that she wasn’t allowed inside anymore. She started to fake-cry, but then I heard the real deal. A keening wail from the first floor.

  I locked my door behind me and rushed down three flights.

  I met Adam at the base of the stairs.

  “What the hell is going on?” I said.

  “Their dicks are on fire,” Adam said.

  It sounded like a joke, but Adam, who never loses his cool, had this unhinged look in his eyes. I followed him down the hallway to the communal bathroom, the door of which was being guarded by Mick Devlin.

  Adam said that Jack Vandenberg, Gabriel Smythe, and Nick Laughlin had been attacked and were in excruciating pain. The girls did something to their dicks while giving them oral. What they did, Adam didn’t know. He told the guys to take a shower, to wash it off, whatever it
was.

  All three boys were behind the shower curtains, still in agony, offering up palliative suggestions.

  I think the soap helps. You got to wash it off.

  Do you think we should go to the emergency room?

  I’m not going to a fucking hospital.

  Bloody ’ell. Those fucking cunts.

  “Can someone tell me what happened?” I said.

  One shower went silent and Gabriel Smythe emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist. His eyes were red, like he’d been crying. He opened his towel and showed me his bright-red penis.

  “Jesus,” I said, looking away.

  “I think she ate a hot pepper right before she gave me head,” said Gabe. “It was weird. We got started, she told me to close my eyes, and then I heard something, like chewing, I think. Then she, you know, and that’s when I felt it. It was like she set my dick on fire. I pushed her off of me—”

  “Dude,” Jack said, “mine did the exact same thing.”

  I noticed that they never said the girls’ names.

  Nick and Jack appeared from the showers, towels wrapped around their waists. Adam shook his head.

  “Three at the same time? That was a coordinated attack,” Adam said.

  “Fucking bitches,” said Jack.

  Nick grabbed his crotch and doubled over. “Fuck. Second wave.”

  He got back into the shower.

  “You should get some milk,” I said.

  Mick shouted at a random kid in the hall and ordered him to pick up a gallon from Dahl.

  “They know,” said Gabe. “They have to know. They must have hacked into the Darkroom. Too much weird shit has been happening.”

  “We have to do something,” said Mick.

  “Do I need to call in a doctor?” I said. “We might be able to find someone who does house calls. Otherwise it’s EMTs.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Adam said, pulling out his phone. “Let me do some research.”

  “Goddamn it,” said Gabriel, returning to the shower. “The soap didn’t work.”