"Okay everyone shut up!" Bea said as they drove away from Hunwick, their mission successful. She took a quick look around, first behind them, then ahead of them, then took off her seatbelt. "It's time for me to reveal my secret upgrade."

"Uh...what does that mean?" Mae asked.

"Yeah, you got me curious," Ann said.

"Do you remember, not so long ago, when Trent hooked up with a cougar?" Bea asked, reaching over slowly and unzipping his zipper.

Mae chuckled. "Oh yeah, I remember. So hot."

"She gave me some advice on how to suck dick," Bea replied.

"Oh yeah, I remember you saying that," Mae murmured. "What's, like, the secret?"

"Maybe I won't tell you and I will become best girl," Bea replied as she freed his erection.

"We'll just see about that," Mae growled.

"Let's not compete for best girl, there is no best girl," Trent replied.

"Shut up," Bea replied, and lowered her head into his lap. "It's mostly in the lips," she said, and then she got to work.

"Ah...holy fuck…" Trent groaned.

"Don't you fucking crash us," Ann said.

"Yep," he replied tightly, gripping the steering wheel hard and clenching his teeth as he focused hard on the road.

"Don't worry, I'll make you nut fast," Bea murmured, and went back to work.

"What the hell is she doing?" Mae asked, leaning forward. "I can't see anything."

"Can we all shut up?" Trent asked. "Oh my fucking God Bea."

"I actually can't tell if this is a stronger reaction than normal or not," Ann said.

"It's stronger," Trent grunted. "Fucking hell, Bea."

"That must be some head," Ann said.

"Yep. Ah God! Right there!"

"Drain his nuts, Bea! You filthy whore!" Mae yelled.

Bea grumbled something but kept going. He could feel her tongue and her lips. Her amazing lips. He wasn't really sure what she was doing, precisely, but it felt kind of similar to what Ellen had done for him. So hot and wet and…

"Ah fuck!" He started cumming in her mouth. She let out a sound that he couldn't quite interpret but she didn't stop sucking. "Holy shit! Ah yeah, Bea!"

She sucked everything out and then sat up, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand and looking very satisfied with herself. She stared at him for a moment, then grabbed her twenty ounce of Blue Mule and took a drink.

"You know, I never thought I'd be a girl who sucked a lot of dick for my boyfriend. Like, I mean, that I'd actually like doing it. I thought I'd pretty much match his energy in terms of oral. Which I suppose is actually still true, because you eat a lot of pussy, and I fucking love you for that, but...I kinda like doing it."

"Same," Ann said. "It was, you know, whatever for Dennis, and then it was just miserable. But I'm very glad that I've...rehabilitated my relationship with sucking dick with you, babe."

"I am very glad about that too," he replied, making her laugh.

"I'm just glad I can do it," Mae said. "I was so worried I'd...well, suck dick at sucking dick. But it's honestly easier than I thought it would be. And eating pussy is even easier than that. Also, Trent, my God, I have sympathy for you now."

"In what regard?"

"Now that I know what it's like to hump pussy. Putting that strap-on on and going at it with Ann is like...dude, that's work. I mean, it's work riding, too, but that's more work."

"I appreciate it, but to be honest, a lot of the work factor gets mitigated by how fucking good it feels to ram pussy. The motivation to keep going is very intense," he replied.

"Yeah…" She groaned suddenly and hid her face behind her hands.

"What?" Ann asked.

"I have something embarrassing to admit."

"Oh my God I have to hear this," Bea said.

"What? Why!? Why are you this excited to see me embarrassed?" she asked, uncovering her face.

"I dunno, I guess cause it's always entertaining? And you seem to weirdly thrive on it?" Bea replied.

"I...do I?"

"Kinda," Trent said.

"I'd more say you own it a lot better nowadays," Ann said. "But you do kinda seem to like being embarrassed? I guess when it's just us though? Or Gregg or Angus."

"Hmm...okay that's some stuff to unpack later. Anyway. Here's the embarrassing thing. I realized I'm not a lesbian because of Fiasco Fox."

Bea snorted, then burst out laughing. "What?"

"I had a dream! This was back in like the beginning of high school. I thought I was a lesbian. But then they began their Fiasco Fox campaign. And he...did things to me. In my pants. And I kept thinking about him. And this went on for a while. And this all culminated in me having this super weirdly intense and emotional dream where we went on a date and I sucked his dick and I really liked it? Anyway, I woke up and thought 'mmm I think I'm actually bisexual'," she murmured.

Bea had begun laughing as she was talking but now she began laughing even harder. "That's fucking hilarious!"

"Oh is it Beatrice?!" Mae demanded.

"Yes!"

"It's a little funny," Trent said.

"You've never dreamed about sucking dick?!" Mae demanded.

"No I've dreamed about it," Bea replied after getting herself back under control. "I've dreamed about lots of sex stuff. It's just...Fiasco Fox? I don't know, there's just something really funny about it. About you specifically dreaming about him. I don't really know why...when did you realize you were pansexual?"

"Hmm. I...don't really know. I think sometime near the end of high school. I saw the phrase on the internet and that wasn't an ah-ha moment but I slowly began thinking about it more and more. Finally put it together. How about you, Ann?"

"I knew I was bisexual after a little experimenting the summer just before I turned seventeen. Made out with a girl at a party, but even before that I knew that chicks did it for me," she replied. "That sorta just confirmed it. But I also knew that it was about half and half, and that I probably wasn't gonna make it work with a woman, so I just focused on men."

"I'm glad it worked out," Trent said.

"Me too. So much." She paused. "Ugh, we got Briddle next."

"Have you heard anymore from...you know?" Bea asked.

"No but I did block him. My mom hasn't heard from him either. He's gotta be back in Briddle by now...I still don't even know what he was doing back in P Springs. Maybe visiting his parents. I dunno, let's just keep a low profile and do it fast."

"Yep," Trent agreed, and drove on.

Trent kept expecting something to happen in Briddle, but nothing did.

They had six places to hit, and they hit them all, posting the flyers to poster and cork boards, and leaving stacks in two of the cafes. Once they'd gassed up, they'd hit the road and made it back onto the highway without a problem.

Ann ended up sucking him dry right as they were heading away from Briddle, and he had the idea it was, in a symbolic way, a kind of 'fuck you' to her boyfriend and, maybe more broadly, her old life. Well, it made them both happy.

When they hit Brush Valley, it was early evening, and this time he found himself walking with Ann down the road, making for a string of friendly restaurants while Bea and Mae drove around to the rest. They already had a motel picked out.

"Hey so...is everything cool with Bea now? I feel like you guys had some kind of talk back in Hunwick," Ann asked as they walked among lengthening shadows down a mostly empty, cracked sidewalk.

"Yes, we did," he replied. "We're cool. I...need to be better about talking about my problems is the conclusion we came to. And Bea also needs to begin dealing with her emotional trauma, is the other conclusion. Though I guess we had already come to that one...speaking of which…"

"What?" Ann asked.

"I feel bad, because everything has been so crazy lately, and it kind of just occurred to me that maybe you might be getting lost in the shuffle. Mae's obviously losing her mind because of this. And then the thing with me and Bea...you've just had to come back to Briddle and Dennis walked back into your life, unannounced, uninvited, and unwelcome, so I want to make sure you're doing okay."

"That's really sweet," she said, smiling awkwardly. "I'm...more or less okay."

"That's not the most reassuring answer."

She sighed softly. "It's a tumultuous time, but I will say right now, to put you at ease: I'm not feeling neglected. I'm stressed but we all are. Beyond that...I'm admittedly using this whole thing as an opportunity to just not think about Dennis. So far, I haven't heard from him, I haven't seen him lurking. As far as I know, he fucked off back to his life in Briddle with his little gas station slut." A moment of silence passed. "Yeah, I'm still kind of bitter about that."

"I mean that's not an unreasonable emotion," Trent replied.

"I'm glad I don't have to worry about it from you and Mae. I feel like Mae would rather die than hurt me by cheating on me, and also our relationship is just so much more open and relaxed that honestly it's kind of hard to imagine her even successfully doing it. I mean everyone she wants to have sex with she wants me to have sex with them, too. She literally pushed you onto me like the first night you two started dating." She paused. "Maybe pushed was the wrong word." She paused again. "Okay, different train of thought but I want to say it: you are so much better in bed than Dennis was."

He chuckled. "Really? You've said it before, but I never really pursued it…"

"Yes. You are. Dear fucking lord. You're so much more concerned with foreplay and getting me off and actually listening to me. You never argue with me about things." She frowned. "I guess that's probably one of the biggest differences. It wasn't so bad at first, but after we got married, I don't know, at some point he started reacting to everything I said that had the slightest bit of pushback or even just request in it like I'd just screamed it at him. Everything turned so hostile. I couldn't even ask him to, like, get me a glass of water if he was headed into the kitchen without it turning into a thing."

"Holy shit, that's awful," he muttered.

"Yeah...so I know I've asked this before, but I'm still kind of worried about it: do I talk too much about my past relationship? I know it's like a thing with a lot of people, and I know we have a...somewhat different relationship than a lot of people, but I also don't want you to just let me keep complaining about Dennis even though it's secretly bugging you because you feel like you want to maintain your 'cool boyfriend who isn't like other boyfriends' status. Because I won't get mad or sad if you tell me you'd rather hear less."

"It's a complicated subject," he admitted after a moment. "To be honest, I really don't mind, and I encourage it even. It's obviously a bad thing that happened to you, for years, and it left scars on you, and that's awful and tragic, and you went through a lot. So it's important that you be able to talk about it with other people, especially people you feel closest to in your life. I'm not uncomfortable with hearing about it because I'm jealous, because fucking hell am I not jealous of him, he's such an asshole. It's more that...it does cause a certain amount of pain, hearing you talk about all these bad things that happened to you. I hate seeing you suffer. But I'm not going to ask you to stop expressing yourself for my benefit."

"And I appreciate that. So much. But I don't think it's that cut and dry. I think...a lot of stuff in relationships, in all of them really, is just...modulating? Like I mean there's some stuff that, yeah, it's gonna be more like a switch. On or off. Either this is cool to talk about and causes no problems, or it's just off the table, although I'm admittedly reluctant to go into that territory. I'll respect it, it just feels like a problem waiting to happen."

"Yeah...flat out refusing to talk about something rarely turns out well. But also there are some times I guess it's necessary?" Trent replied.

"Yeah. Luckily, we don't really have to deal with that. But everything else is just...figuring out how frequently to talk about it? I mean I know that we all have problems. All four of us have deep-seated issues, people or events that hurt us so badly we'll take those scars to our graves even if we die of old age and the rest of our lives go more or less well. And that sucks. And the best we can do is, you know, figure out how to adjust to it. But I think that's really normal, unfortunately. But it's becoming more normal, talking about it, acknowledging it, figuring it out. And it's so much easier when you have other people helping you...and you help me, Trent. You really, really help me."

"You help me too, Ann," he said.

"I'm really glad." She frowned again. "That was another problem with my old relationship." She paused, and the silence that followed seemed to be asking...permission didn't seem quite right, more asking if he was okay with continuing to talk about this particular subject.

"What was?" he asked.

"Dennis did a lot of shit, but I mean, it wasn't like it was shit from the beginning. I mean I agreed to marry him for a reason. Maybe not the best reason, there was love there, in the beginning. But even when we first started dating, one thing that was always there was his refusal to accept my help. It was like he was determined never to let me help him with anything outside of the strictly codified 'things girls should do'. So I could help him with the chores, clearly, but I couldn't help him if he was feeling down or had a really hard day at work or had a fight with his parents.

"I tried, but he rarely let me in. And I don't to seem like I'm mad at him about it, or I necessarily blame him. I mean...I do somewhat, but mostly I just feel bad. Even after everything that's happened, I feel bad...I guess maybe, in some kind of way, I understand why you keep helping Chris. It's not really the same thing but there are definitely parallels. I just hated seeing him miserable and have him refuse to let me help. And it isn't like that with you, although sometimes I see shades of the same thing."

Trent sighed. "Well...you aren't wrong. It is hard. Mostly I'm just, you know, trying to teach myself how to do it. To just...stop being so fucking paranoid and let you all help me." He grunted uncomfortably. "Still embarrassed about breaking down in front of Candy."

"Don't be. Candy has...difficulties with some things in her life, but one thing she clearly is adept at, more so now than ever before now that she's fully come to understand Mae's problems, is being a mother. And not just for Mae, for all of us. She has such powerful mom energy. And there's something in all of us that reacts to that. But it's especially powerful in you because, well, you know."

"Yeah," he agreed reluctantly. "Still weird. But I at least know she was cool with it. It feels weird, too. Like...I dunno, just all of a sudden everything like rushed in? I wasn't even that upset before it happened. It just...happened."

"Well, I mean, that's how a trigger works, babe. When you've got damage, it comes with certain triggers, so you can basically be having a neutral day or even a fantastic day and then the trigger happens and boom, crying. It's awful."

"Yeah…"

"Hey, there's the coffee shop. Let's get the flyers up, babe," Ann said, grinning at him and then kissing the back of his hand.

Trent found himself grinning despite the sour topic of conversation. He kissed the back of her hand and they walked on, holding hands and smiling.