Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.
The Talk, pt 4, or People Will Talk
It had been a few days. A few days blessedly free of all the unpleasantness that had plagued the house since Vick had first mentioned his wild little plan.
Gale had gotten home, cleaned up, eaten a calm, unsatisfying dinner, and planned to take his aching bones to bed.
He'd just flopped down, face in his flat pillow, when he heard his brothers' voices whispering on the other side of the room, on the floor by Rory's bed.
Try as he might, he couldn't hear what was being said, but as it was Rory doing the majority of the talking, he could guess that it was something he wasn't going to like. Hoping to avoid another embarrassing situation, Gale pushed himself up and stumbled over to them, falling across Rory's bed and landing with his face between the two conspirators.
"What're yo-"
His eyes landed on the book in Vick's lap. A biology book, apparently, opened to a page with a color diagram of a very intimate part of the female anatomy.
"We're examining a vagina," Vick tells him. Because it just isn't obvious enough.
"I, uh, see that." Gale frowns down at the picture. He's never seen one at this angle before. "Why?"
"I'm trying to figure out the baby thing still," Vick's brow creases. His finger jabs the hole labeled 'urethra'. "That's where they pee from, so no wonder it makes them hafta go all the time when they're pregnant."
Gale arches an eyebrow. He hadn't really thought about the ramifications of pregnancy on the female body all that much, only the ramification of getting a female body pregnant. This recurring information is a bit unsettling and he heartily wishes to erase it from his mind.
"I'm examining boobs," Rory grinned. "Vick's just an 'Undersee boob expert', I'd rather be a 'general boob expert'."
Gale tries not to laugh, he'spretty sure he'd rather be any kind of boob expert than a miner.
Vick's color darkens, "I'm not an 'Undersee boob expert'. I just hug her…a lot."
Gale is struck that there isn't as much conviction behind Vick's protest as there had been the year before when he'd gotten in a knock down fight with Rory over Madge's boobs and his apparent knowledge of them, it makes him a little sad to know his youngest brother is crossing that line.
Before Rory knows what's happened, Gale snatches the book from his hand, which turns out not to be a book at all.
"Where did you get this?"
Rory shrugs and makes to grab it back.
It's a girly magazine, and despite Rory's lack of response, Gale recognizes the worn out thing.
Thom, that asshole.
"Give it back, Gale! I'm studying!"
Gale considers not giving it back, rolling it up and shoving it in the orifice of the man who'd thought it was a good idea to give it to a kid that hasn't even hit thirteen yet, but he'd rather Rory have pictures than try and get a look at the real things, so he reluctantly hands it back.
The boy grins as he flops back down and flips the magazine back open to a page with a very busty, very naked blonde on it.
Vick has looked over and is focused intensely on Rory's magazine for several seconds before he says anything. "I think Madge's are nicer."
No. No more of that.
"Yeah," Rory agrees, "but hers are under a bra, under a shirt, these aren't."
Gale covers his face and tries hard not to think about what is under Madge's shirt, and tries even harder to not think about what's under her bra.
Vick turns his look to Gale. "Why are breasts so nice?"
For several seconds Gale doesn't say anything, because, honestly, he isn't sure what is so appealing about them, they just are. He certainly isn't a fan of his mother's, he'd watched her feed three siblings with them, like most of the women in the Seam did, and that was their actual function, but on any girl other than the mothers…Gale was quite the fan of the fleshy mounds.
Vick flips back to a dog eared page showing a side cut view of a breast, "See? They're full of milk ducts and fat. That's it pretty much. Why are they so nice?"
"'Cause they're like pillows. Fluffy pillows on their chests. And if they've got bigger ones…" Rory gets a fond look on his face.
Gale rolls his eyes. As if Rory has any idea what a breast feels like…or at least Gale hopes he has no real knowledge of what a breast feels like.
"Hmm," Vick's eyebrows knit together in thought. "I bet Madge's would be real nice to sleep on." Gale furiously tries to block that idea from his mind. Vick looks back at the diagram, "I bet she makes a bunch of milk when she has a baby."
Gale's isn't certain there's a correlation between breast size and milk production. He's never really thought about it before. That's probably a question for his mother, since she had actual knowledge of that sort of thing, or so he hoped.
"Let's keep that thought to ourselves, alright?"
Vick nods absently as he turns back to the vagina diagram.
"Hey, Gale? What do you know about the," he squints at a word arising from the top of the diagram, "clit-or-is?"
Since he'd never even heard of the thing the answer was nothing. "The what?"
Vick climbed up on the bed beside him and pokes his finger to a nub on the diagram. "The clit-or-is."
Rory jumps up and reads off, "Highly sensitized and engorged after orgasm." He shoots Gale a sardonic look, "Well that would be why Gale looks so clueless."
Gale catches Rory behind the knee with his foot and sends him toppling over. "Ouch!"
"It does say that most men reach orgasm before women," Vick points to a paragraph in another book.
Gale shoots him a look. He would argue, but he really doesn't feel like having this conversation with his little brothers.
"Most of the vaginal nerve endings are toward the opening," Vick tells him as he flips the page. "Supposedly that's what makes childbirth a little less horrible, cause the inside part isn't as sensitive. I dunno though, having your body stretch like that seems really, really painful, even if there aren't that many nerves up there."
Rory gets back up giggling holding another book out to his brothers, "It says here 'vagina' is Latin for 'Scabbard'. Get it?"
The look of confusion on Vick's face says he doesn't, Gale does though, so he trips Rory again.
"Stop that!"
"Stop being a little asshole then!"
Gale looks at the clock and sighs, "Put these away, and don't let mom catch you with them."
God that's the last thing he needs, to explain to his mother why he and his little brothers are investigating mysterious parts of the female anatomy.
Vick trots off to put on his pajamas and Rory searches for a hiding place for his dirty magazine.
He finally settles on the loose board by his bed. He gives it one last fond look.
"You know, Gale," he looks over his shoulder at his brother, "Undersee actually likes you. I have no ideawhy, but she does." Rory shakes the magazine, "You could get to see a real live girl, like one of these, and you're not even going to try? I mean, I know you've seen some before, but let's face, she's a hell of a lot better looking."
He shoves the magazine under the board and gathers his sleeping clothes.
"Just so you know, if you aren't interested in her, I might just have to turn up the charm. There's only a few years between us, I think I can swing it."
Gale snorts. "Not a chance."
############################################
When he gets to the mines the next day, the sun just barely peaking over the horizon, he spots Thom, slinking in and avoiding him.
"You dick! Why are you giving my brothers dirty magazines?"
Thom shrugs before darting to the elevators that take them down, he knows Gale can't kick his ass in there or in the mines themselves, he's safe until the end of the day, and by that time Gale will be too worn out to do anything more than shout.
He gives his supposed 'best friend' a filthy look as he gets on the elevator. Come Sunday he's going to kick his ass.
Thom leans back, smirking as the other men filter on with dead feet.
As the doors close and the gears groan to life, Thom leans up to Gale and whispers loudly, "So," he waits until everyone is listening, "heard you were boning Undersee."
Gale pulls his helmet down over his eyes, groaning as the men begin whooping and whistling, applauding his supposed success.
"The Mayor's girl, huh?"
"Aiming high, aren't we, Hawthorne?"
Gale ignores the constant barrage of congratulations on such a 'tight little number'.
"Town girls," Sanderson, a huge beast of a man who has spent more of his life underground than above grins, "got a little more meat on them. Give you something to hold onto."
He makes a few crude gestures before violently humping the air, complete with lewd noises, earning a round of cheers from the other men. Gale wonders how much he'll have to drink to erase the memory from his mind.
"Always knew if any guy was gonna bed one, it'd be you," another man nodded.
Gale swung his ax harder, maybe he could dig himself a way out of this increasingly hellish hole. He didn't know how much longer he could handle being in such close quarters with his perverted coworkers.
Thom makes his way over, actual tears in his eyes.
"Are you crying?" Gale is incredulous. He's the one being humiliated.
Thom rubs his glove over his face, smearing coal and sweat across his cheek before he wheezes, "I'm just so happy for you."
Gale makes a threatening gesture with his ax.
"You're lucky to have found a girl to take you," one of the old men eyes him. "'Specially with all them venereal diseases you got."
Damn it, Haymitch!
"I don't have any venereal diseases!"
The old man squints at him, "Not what I heard. Heard you got the 'Dutch elder's disease'."
Gale rolls his eyes, "It's 'Dutch elm disease' and that's a tree fungus."
He's never heard the mines go so quiet. He can feel everyone's eyes on him.
"Uh, not that it's any of my business, but, uh, how'd you get a tree fungus?" Sanderson looks a little worried as he glances down at Gale's crotch. "A lot of hard liquor?"
"You'd have to be pretty drunk to do that with a tree!" Another man shouts and laughter erupts from behind Gale.
"Desperate times?" Thom offers a little less than helpfully.
Gale runs his hand over his face and groans. He's surrounded by morons.
"I don't have a tree disease, or any other kind of disease." Not that he's aware of anyways.
The noise restarts and Sanderson's face relaxes, apparently relieved Gale's manly parts aren't being currently eaten away.
He can only pray Madge isn't suffering the same fate at school. That place was worse than the mines for gossip.
####################################################
Madge was quietly eating her dry crackers when a shadow crossed over her. Standing, tall and thin and with a wicked grin on her face, was the schools most notorious gossip and just an all around unpleasant girl, Chesney Shumard.
She plops down in front of Madge, grin still in place, and tosses her dry looking dark hair over her shoulder. It isn't a promising sign, she never has anything good to say to, or about, anyone. The last time she'd spoken to Madge had been to tell her should wear makeup because her complexion was 'pasty'.
"My mother's cousin's best friend's little girl heard that you and Gale Hawthorne were getting married because you've had sex." She narrows her eyes, "Are you pregnant with his love child?"
Madge is so dumbfounded she can only gape at her. It isn't until Chesney turns to her group of friends and grins, apparently taking stunned silence as an admission, that Madge finds her voice.
"I'm not pregnant, with Gale or any other guy's 'love child'."
Chesney's smile droops with disappointment, "Oh."
Several of her vile friends slither over. "What's it like?"
"Have you done the mouth thing?"
"How bi-"
Madge throws he hands up. This conversation is over. "I have not, nor am I planning to do anything, with any part of my body with Gale Hawthorne's body."
How do these things get started?
She suspects Rory was blabbing about the whole messy situation to his friends, he has a loud mouth, and someone overheard and passed it along, distorting it into a more sordid story than it had been originally.
Granted, the fact that anyone would think she even had a chance with Gale is a little satisfying to Madge. Then again, he has a reputation of not being too picky…maybe it's not as big a compliment as she thought.
Chesney purses her lips, "It's just as well."
"Yeah," her friend piped in. "I heard he has parvo."
"That's a dog disease," Madge points out.
"Exactly," another friend nods. "You don't want to get with a guy that's into bestiality."
"I'll keep that in mind," Madge rolls her eyes. "But I'm pretty sure Gale doesn't have parvo."
"How would you know if you hadn't seen anything?" Chesney grins, thinking she's caught Madge in a lie.
"He's got half the girls at the school lined up to do all kinds of nasty things with him up at the slag heap." Which she's certain isn't entirelytrue. "Why would he start with animals?"
"Well, I wouldn't take the chance," one of her snotty friends tells her. The others nod their enthusiastic agreement.
My how their tunes have changed. Only minutes before they'd been chomping at the bit for all the disgusting and intimate details, now they're playing like they wouldn't touch Gale with a ten foot pole. Which is so far from the truth it's laughable. They'd jump him without a second thought, parvo or not.
Hopefully, she thinks, someone will get caught actually doing something, perhaps under the bleachers. The gossip ring at the school has a notoriously short attention span, for which she's grateful. A few days and this will all blow past.. Just a few blessed days