Losers

by Isaac Byrne

  Despite being so modest, the dress was somehow almost lewd. The top portion was so tight it was a wonder Brandy could breathe, clinging to her ample bust so tightly that one could make out its exact shape, and even the precise location of each nipple. The fabric curved down an under each breast so that it was almost like revealing her underboob. The skirt was billowy except for being rather tight across the hips, though with a caboose like Brandy’s, basically everything she wore highlighted her butt. Yet as she followed her winner into the poolhall, Chanda’s eyes popped again at the way her butt swayed hypnotically, the skirts flipping back with the force of her copious bottom’s movement only to fall right back down as if by magnetism.

  It was the sort of thing one would wear if one wanted to adhere to a strict dress code while still looking like a total slut. Brandy’s uptight Christian parents would lose their minds if they saw her in it.

  As for her winner, Chanda recognized him as their classmate Ezekiel Boecher. They’d gone to school together since elementary school, but that was also probably the last time she’d had a one on one conversation with him. It had been a conscious choice. Then, she’d thought of him as a know-it-all and an intellectual bully, the sort who treated anyone not on the honor roll – and in possession of a penis – like they were some kind of idiot. Only later when they’d had speech class together sophomore year, had Chanda learned that he was himself a very religious person, and every bit as much of a condescending jerk where his religious values were concerned.

  Chanda’s family had always been quietly agnostic, but growing up spending so much time around Brandy’s family had done a lot to color her attitudes towards Christians. The Staffords were kind, welcoming, and philanthropic. A cross in each bedroom and a framed hand-stitched sign that read Whatsoever you do for the least of these my brothers, you do for me were the only religious adornment in the house. Right now in fact, her parents and older brother were helping build houses in poverty-stricken areas of Appalachia after their annual attendance of the anti-Lottery protests in Washington DC. Brandy used to go with them, before this year.

  Still, for every Christian household like Brandy’s who focused on their faith’s call to serve the less fortunate, there seemed to be five that behaved as if the real shame in the Lottery was how long it had taken mankind to realize its necessity. Those sorts were five times as loud, at least. Chanda remembered hearing him debate someone in speech class, when he’d defended the Lottery by insisting that nothing the losers did could be held against them by God because it was all involuntary. When pressed as to why he wasn’t advocating for men to be treated the same way, he dodged it by stating that the bible had ordained for men to rule over their families. Besides, the government ran the Lottery, and therefore render unto Caesar.

  That he of all people should win a girl like Brandy was beyond cruel. It took whatever curiosity Chanda had ever possessed as to whether some benevolent higher power might exist and simply have a very long-term plan for universal harmony, and confirmed that if there ever had been a god, she had been killed before the Lottery had come to pass.

  “Miss, your popcorn?”

  Chanda paused. She’d been so consumed by her sudden need to talk to her friend that she’d almost forgotten where she was. She hastily paid, snatched the bucket and strode after her friend. By the time she caught up, Ezekiel had gone into the men’s room, leaving a wary-looking Brandy waiting for him, hands folded demurely in front of her.

  “Brandy?” Chanda asked.

  Her friend looked at her blankly. “Excuse me?”

  Nothing had ever made the Lottery feel so real as the utter lack of recognition in her friend’s eyes. “Brandy, it’s me, Chanda,” she pressed. “Your friend.”

  But there was no spark of recognition, only an apologetic smile. “Oh I’m sorry. Brandy was my heathen name. My fiancé has washed away my old life and blessed me with a new one.”

  Chanda’s eyes widened. Some guy Chanda didn’t recognize – nor, it seemed, did Brandy – stepped out of the nearby men’s room, pausing to look at the two girls and giving an authentic wolf whistle. “Damn, so much titty !” He laughed and walked away. Titties were in too abundant supply here for even such remarkable ones as theirs to merit further scrutiny.

  Brandy’s cheeks colored, which was actually pretty Brandy of her. Chanda tried to hold back tears. “He… he changed your name?”

  Her former friend nodded, glad to be distracted from the crude comment. “Yes. I’m Eve now. It’s such a better name, don’t you think? Created by God from man, made without sin to serve her husband. I love it.”

  Chanda tried to ignore her rapturous sigh. “Um, I’m not exactly up to speed on the bible, but didn’t Eve eat some forbidden fruit and doom mankind?”

  Brandy – Eve – frowned at her, even more bitterly than she had at the man who’d complimented her chest. “And what was your name again, Miss?”

  “I’m Chanda. I’m… I was your friend. We lived across the street from each other in elementary school.”

  “I see. And that’s where my parents still reside, then?” The disinterest in her voice was thick. This Eve persona of hers was making conversation out of politeness, and was impolite enough to make that felt.

  “No. Um, your grandma died, and your grandpa a few months after. Your parents inherited their house and you guys moved in there. It’s on the north side of town, on Horse Prairie.”

  Brandy arched an eyebrow. “I lived in a horse prairie?”

  “What? No. It’s a street. If there was an actual horse prairie there, it was gone before your grandparents moved in.”

  “Oh. Interesting.” She did not, in fact, sound interested. Eve actually sounded like she resented being informed of these things her fiancé – her fiancé! – had wiped from her memory. “Anyway, it was nice meeting you Ms. Chanda. Um, again, I suppose. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m waiting for my Ezekiel.”

  Chanda looked at her for a long moment, but saw only a stranger’s eyes looking back. With a sigh, she was about to go find her father, when suddenly…

  Somebody’s hand was between her legs.

  She was too shocked to react at first. Doctor aside, no one had touched her there since her infancy. But this man’s hand – and it could only be a man’s – was as confidently placed as if she’d invited it. Her leggings were so thin that it felt like he was touching her directly, massaging her vulva and pressing a digit upward and stuffing her panties inside partially her.

  Finally, Chanda managed a belated squeal of alarm and whirled free to find herself looking at none other than Brandy’s fiancé, laughing right in her face. “Ezekiel! What do you think you’re doing? How dare you!”

  But he simply looked her over. Leered, really. In fact, her outburst had gotten quite a bit of attention. The only female protesting rather than inviting male attention was a subject of interest, and suddenly, there was a small group of people surrounding them as instantaneously as when a fight broke out in the cafeteria, and their presence only sparked more interest. The crowd was growing by the second.

  “Relax, Chanda. I’m just having some fun with you. You look nice. A little casual, but glad to see you haven’t completely lost your dignified edge. ‘Pretending not to be a slut’ was always a good look on you.”

  Her hands formed fists of their own accord. She had no idea how to punch someone, but she was suddenly very much mindful of what it felt like to want to. “Oh, I’m sorry, you’re criticizing me for the way I dress? When you stuffed Brandy – sorry, Eve – into that ?”

  The crowd oohed at her jibe. Brandy’s cheeks turned crimson as many of the male eyes abandoned Chanda in favor of her, but she said nothing, deferring to her winner. “I think she looks better than she ever has. Classy, elegant, but without trying to hide her feminine attributes.”

  How she wished she could fix where her leggings and underwear had ridden up when he’d molested her! But everyone was watching, a gathering of scores of people at least.
She couldn’t even see the edge of the crowd penning them in by the restrooms. “I’m sorry, weren’t you just criticizing me for my feminine attributes?”

  “You’re dressed like all these other jezebels, desperate for male attention,” he retorted with clearly feigned disdain. Chanda’s jaw clenched. She was wearing a sweater, for crying out loud! Not like she’d asked to have big boobs! “But Brandy – Eve, I mean – she’s simply proud of her breasts. She’s going to have a great many children to nurse with them, aren’t you darling?”

  Even batted her eyelashes and nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, dear! I can’t wait until we’re married next weekend so you can finally make a mother of me! For as the Lord commanded, we are each of us to go forth and multiply.” Her eyes darted to the lookers-on for only a moment, as some of them were laughing at her. She looked mortified to be discussing such matters openly, but still insistent on having her fiancé know the depth of her devotion.

  “Wow, not wasting any time, are you. I bet you’ve been dreaming about this since freshman year, haven’t you?” Chanda folded her arms haughtily.

  He snickered and said, “Way before then. I put every last one of my tickets in her pot. She was meant for me.”

  “Meant for you? What are you, the second coming?” Chanda snorted. “Actually, from what Brandy was telling me, second coming is a good name for you, since I guess that’s how long it takes.”

  This time, the crowd was laughing at Ezekiel. He might be a boy, but he wasn’t popular like Chanda was. Besides, it was standard operating procedure for boys to have to all act like they had infinite stamina. She’d heard enough locker room talk to know that basically all of them had nutted in under thirty seconds their first time out. Still, they laughed.

  “Oh yeah? You don’t think I know how to satisfy a woman?” The open-ended question enticed some wise guy in the surrounding mob to yell back that’s what your mother told me! Wooo! But Ezekiel ignored it, glaring at Chanda defiantly. “Brandy, take off your dress. Let’s show them.”

  “I thought you wished to call me Eve, dear,” she said uncertainly. There was no uncertainty when it came to obeying him, however. Her fingers got to work immediately on the rows of buttons down the front of her dress. Ezekiel didn’t answer, drinking in the adulation his peers were directing at him. Or at his new toy, at least.

  The crowd drew even closer around them. An argument – from a girl! – was interesting. But seeing Brandy Stafford strip naked and get fucked in the lobby of a public building… now that was a sight to behold. Like Chanda, one of the more sought-after girls in their class, and if Chanda’s reputation was to be unapproachable, Brandy was Fort Knox.

  In moments, someone started a chant of her name. Her old name. Bran-DEE! Bran-DEE! But as much as her face looked as though she wanted to die of embarrassment, she didn’t slow. There was no bra beneath that dress, and soon she peeled it down her torso to reveal two huge breasts, round brown nipples hardening even in all that collective body heat. The crowd went wild. The girls who’d been performing for them before had been restrained by their winners’ desire not to risk having them arrested. For all the guys here who had neither won the Lottery nor negotiated favors from a winner, this was their first sight of naked girl flesh.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Chanda protested to Ezekiel, but if he heard her underneath all that chanting, he ignored it. He was focused entirely on his bride-to-be.

  “The skirt too, dear?” asked Brandy. “Everyone seems to be… watching.”

  “Of course the skirt too, you stupid twat,” he snapped, further reprimanding her with a painful-looking slap across her exposed left breast.

  Chanda wasn’t sure she heard right, but she thought she perceived a chastened murmur from Brandy. “Thank you for teaching me, dear.”

  The remainder of the dress followed. Another cheer went up at the revelation of Brandy’s underwear, but even as she began to remove that as well, Chanda was preoccupied trying to read the fresh tattoo on the irritated skin on her inner thigh. Ephesians 6:5, she thought it said. Some kind of bible thing, she was pretty sure, but who knew what the hell it meant.

  With the sight of her friend’s desecrated skin and freshly shaved pubes before her, and everyone else, Chanda decided she’d had enough. She threw her body in front of Brandy’s. It only did so much considering they were surrounded on three sides, the wall with the restroom doors in it forming the fourth, but still. She wasn’t about to let her friend be debased like this, to risk jail time for indecent exposure all so Ezekiel’s hypocritical ass could show off what hot shit he was.

  “Move aside, Chanda!” demanded Ezekiel. Dozens of male voices echoed his sentiment, if not his imperious tone, followed by some female voices eager to parrot the wishes of their winners.

  “The hell I will!” She spread her arms out to the sides, making herself the best curtain she could be. Her popcorn bucket was her shield to protect her friend’s dignity.

  “You want to be part of the show? All right, be that way.” Ezekiel raised his voice to make sure his fiancée heard him clearly. “Darling, I want you to strip Chanda naked and make love to her. Like you were an actress in a porno.”

  Chanda’s eyes bulged as Brandy – naked Brandy! – suddenly reached around her body and cupped her breasts in both hands. The bucket of popcorn tumbled to the floor, spilling its contents. Brandy squeezed hard, but not too hard. The exact right amount of hard. The same hard that she had in Chanda’s secret fantasies in which she helped Brandy over her homophobia. Sometimes they brought a guy with them, sometimes not, but the scenarios always entailed Brandy being surprised and overwhelmed by her sudden interest in the female form. Chanda’s in particular.

  However, this was the real Brandy. Or had been Friday morning. The real Brandy, who in middle school had used the word “abomination” once in regards to homosexuality, stopping only when her friends confronted her. Who’d been afraid of being made to do “butt stuff,” but positively terrified of having to eat out another girl.

  “Brandy, stop! This isn’t like you!”

  But Brandy only pulled Chanda back against her. “‘Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands,’ first Peter chapter 3 verse 1,” she quoted reverently. Then she spun Chanda around and tilted her chin up toward her stern visage. “Now shut up and kiss me, harlot.”

  She was an amazing kisser, Chanda quickly decided. At least, by the standards of her own limited experience. She could have stopped her. Should have, she knew. Would any moment now. But, for a short time…

  This was a fantasy come to life, after all. And with the lookers-on cheering, with Brandy so ravenously affectionate, it felt too much like a dream to resist it.

  It was when Brandy’s hands moved from squeezing her ass through her leggings to trying to sneak inside of them to do more of it that she finally remembered herself. For crying out loud, her dad was here in the building somewhere! She squirmed loose, only holding Brandy at bay with a lot of crafty hand placements to avoid eliciting further theatrical moans when she touched anything remotely erogenous. She’d taken the whole “like a porn star” thing rather literally. It was cheesy, but still somehow kind of hot.

  Mercifully, she couldn’t see her father’s face in the crowd.

  “Call her off, Ezekiel!” she pleaded.

  Brandy darted through her guard, twining her arms beneath Chanda’s like a pair of snakes. One of them somehow made it under her shirt and was working on her bra clasp. “I’d rather not,” said his voice behind her.

  Brandy was unrelenting. Nothing Chanda said or did dissuaded her in the least. Why would it? Her winner had transformed her into this parody of a doting Christian housewife, and that parody entailed a bottomless capacity for obedience. A moment later, Brandy managed to trip her to the ground, pouncing down on top of her and raining kisses against Chanda’s half-heartedly protesting mouth.

  Why wasn’t someone doing something? she wondered dimly. Surely someone present must object to seeing her
violated like this. Yes, Brandy was beautiful, and yes, she’d encouraged it for those first few moments before making it unbelievably clear that she did not consent. Cameras were flashing all around her, disorienting her further, and in the midst of all that madness, she overheard a fragment of a conversation.

  “Who the hell won Chanda anyway?”

  “Must’ve been Ray Reddick. You know how he kept saying he wanted a girl to still have some fight in her.”

  She had no idea who the voices belonged to, but they nevertheless locked the reality of her circumstance into place in a microsecond. As she tried to pull her shirt back down to conceal her bra without opening up Brandy to work on her leggings, some part of her even recollected Ray Reddick and his horrifying boasts about what he’d do with any girl he won.

  Almost nothing , she remembered him saying to his dirtbag friends at a nearby lunch table. She’d been eavesdropping because he’d dropped her name more than once, one of a million what-ifs played out by the overweening boys of CHS. It was the kind of talk most people had about what they’d do if they won the lower-case-l lottery, except with living people as the stakes.

  That almost , however, had chilled her. Which had probably been his intention, to screw with the hot girl he stood no chance of dating and barely any chance of winning. Almost nothing meant that he would leave his girl’s personality intact, right down to her loathing for Ray himself. The catch, however, was that he’d remove her ability to fight back, or to run away. His fantasy was to have a girl he could not merely fuck but to violate . To legitimately rape over and over. For decades.

  She hadn’t seen Ray here tonight, not that it would have mattered if she had. What that conversation snippet had done, though, was to crystallize why nobody was lifting a finger to help. It wasn’t that they were making the same erroneous assumption about Ray Reddick that other boy had.

  It was because no one truly believed she wanted help.

  To them, Chanda was not a person any more. She was nothing more than another loser, a toy being played with exactly as it was designed to be. Whatever she said, whatever she did, it was a programmed response put in place by a man. Obviously nobody could have imagined Chanda with her gorgeous face and dynamite body would be a survivor. She certainly hadn’t. Only now, as Brandy suddenly threw herself around and squirmed into a 69ing position, lapping Chanda’s sex through her leggings as steely arms pried her legs apart, she realized the Lottery was still very much a reality for her future, if not how she had envisioned.