"Let's fucking do this!" Mae cried as she fell onto her back and began unbuttoning her jeans.
"You know this would be a lot easier if you'd worn, like, a skirt or something," Trent said as he did the same.
"Eff that! Fuck skirts and dresses!" Mae growled. "I like my goddamned pants-whoa!"
She got her underwear off and then fell backwards into the rear section of the Jeep. She rolled until she bumped against the back door.
"This is literally the reason I make sure to triple check that that door is shut securely and locked," Trent muttered as he took off his shirt.
"Yeah good thing for me," Mae muttered as she shifted and then looked down at herself. She was bottomless now. She looked from herself to Trent as he moved to join her. "Is my pussy fat?"
"Yeah," he replied.
"Hey!"
"What?...are you mad about that?"
"Well, I mean...isn't that bad?" she asked, looking back down at herself.
"I don't think so," Trent replied. "I like it."
"Really?" she asked. "I always thought it was kinda fat, especially after seeing Bea's."
"Still kinda fucking weird to talk about that," Bea muttered from the driver's seat.
"Your pussy looks like how it looks. There's some stuff you can do, but not much," Trent replied as he grabbed her ankles and gave her a little tug, so that she ended up on her back before him. "I like your pussy. All of you. Now, get your huge tits out."
Mae laughed. "Okay. This is fun."
"Yeah just don't go too crazy, we don't wanna get pulled over," Ann said.
"We will. Just keep an eye out," Trent replied.
"I am." She laughed. "I never thought this is the kind of thing I'd be doing. But I'm really glad I am. This is awesome, and hot."
"Yep," Trent agreed as Mae pulled her shirt and her undershirt up, freeing her big breasts. She grinned up at him fiercely. He laid against her and began working his way into her pussy, finding her wonderfully wet and inviting.
Mae moaned and kissed him, then wrapped her legs around him and pulling him closer, forcing him deeper into herself faster. She cried out as he got all the way inside, then moaned and started panting as he began to fuck her.
"Oh wow," she gasped. "Oh man, that's still so fucking good. That dick feels soooo good," she moaned. She cried out as he started going faster. "Yes! Oh yes fuck my fat pussy!" she screamed. "I want that creampie!"
"Oh fuck Mae…" he groaned, panting as he drove into her furiously.
It wasn't a particularly long encounter.
Trent felt his whole body go rigid as he started cumming inside of her, just his hips jerking automatically in rhythm with his orgasm, his stuff spurting out of him and filling her up. He went until he had nothing left to give, then pulled out of her and rolled onto his back.
"Oh man, I came…" Mae groaned, she laughed. "Ew. It feels gross." She laughed again.
"Mae you're so weird," Bea said.
"I gotta say, I'm really glad to see you embracing things about your body more," Ann said. "Here, loves. Take it."
A wadded up collection of tissues flipped back into the trunk area with them and Trent took it and passed it to Mae. She began cleaning herself up.
"It's, like, way easier now, I have to be honest," Mae murmured. "I dunno. I do wanna get healthier, but also, like...that's so hard. But it's easier now that I'm dating people and I've had sex and you all see me naked regularly. And now I have real access to the internet and...Jackie sent to some sites that help with body positivity. Which, like, man. That was not on my fucking 2018 Bingo Card. Like...I was pretty sure Jackie was just set on hating me for the rest of our lives, or at the very least just being curtly polite with me. But...I'm really glad it turned out that way."
"Me too," Bea said. "Things were so...tumultuous between you two. It's really nice to see."
"Yeah. But like, my original point was honestly it's just weirdly easier to tell my brain to shut up about my body? Like I'll see myself in the mirror and the thoughts come in: you're ugly. You're getting fatter. You're so fucking short. And like, now there's my voice, and it's just: who gives a fuck? Obviously Trent and Ann are super into me, and so was Molly, and she's like...a lot more motivated by physical features, I think. But it's still hard, the mental stuff. Like...I know I've matured a lot since I came back home from college, but every time some sort of accommodation needs to be made because I'm in a bad mood, or I'm sleeping too much, or I'm just being irresponsible...it hurts. It's not that anyone's really making me feel bad, I just do."
They were pulling their clothes back on now. As they finished up, he and Mae settled back into the backseat and pulled its back up again, locking it into place.
"The therapy should help," Ann said finally.
"I hope so. I feel dumb that I missed it. But at least it wasn't over something stupid, like I just overslept or wanted to play video games all day, we were in another city," Mae replied. "And there's this whole thing with my parent's house...ugh."
"We're doing well, Mae," Bea said. "Like, seriously, forty grand in a few days. I mean, that's a really big deal. I'm extremely confident we're going to at least hit the bare minimum. You're not gonna lose your house, Mae."
"Probably," she murmured. "I mean I'm paranoid the bank's gonna pull some last-minute bullshit. Take the money and then be like 'oh yeah there was this one thing in the contract we never mentioned that still lets us take your house ha ha fuck you'."
"Yeah…" Bea grumbled. "They like to pull that shit. But I looked over all the paperwork, I didn't see anything like that. Also, if it helps, they honestly don't really do that much anymore if you give them the money. They want the money and usually once they get it, the process of continuing to try and rip you off is more hassle than they want to put up with...usually. My point is, we have like a super good chance we can at least get them to fuck off and let your parents go back to paying the house at, like, a sane rate."
"Want them to just fuck off," Mae groused. "It's always the same fucking story. Money, money, money. Gimme money. Now gimme more. You lost power? Lost your house? Lost your health insurance? I don't give a fuck, I just want more money. Your last penny, give it."
"Yeah," Ann said.
"Yep," Bea muttered.
"Uh-huh," Trent replied. "Which is why we're gonna help your parents, and we're gonna make it so that they own that house lock, stock, the fucking lot. And then they don't have to bullshit around with a mortgage or debt anymore. It's gonna be wiped the fuck out."
"You really think we can do it? Two hundred grand is like so much money. It's an unthinkable amount of money. More money than I'll ever see in my fucking life," Mae murmured.
"It's more than that, actually," Bea said, "closer to a quarter mil since we gotta pay taxes on it. But I dunno, man, I saw some of Trent's sales numbers and like, if that keeps up even kinda, like...we're fucking set." She hesitated. "I still feel so weird talking about it like that. I feel like a fucking mooch. I say we're set but it's your money resulting from your hard work-"
"Hey, no, fuck that," Trent replied. "We will be set. It is our communal fund. And I don't fucking care if I'm contributing ninety percent of it, I don't want you all feeling indebted to me. I love you. All three of you. And I want to take care of you as much as you've all taken care of me. I'm not bullshitting. I really believe that there's more ways to contribute meaningfully to a household that doesn't involve money. And you all contribute in big ways. And I appreciate it every day." He paused. "And I don't just mean the sex."
"You aren't passing it out of hand, though," Ann said, grinning.
"No, I am not. Obviously. But the point I wanted to get at was…" He sighed heavily. "How do I put this exactly? I saw something about it online recently and it struck a thought about you Mae."
"What about me?" she asked cautiously.
"How you help. Like...so the concept of contributing to society, or a given portion of society, is like a really difficult one, in the sense that it's already fucked up for the average person, but even in purely conceptual form, it has to be balanced. Too many people obviously think that if you don't have a job, as in a job that they deem necessary, you're not pulling your weight. But clearly that is contextual, and I mean even beyond the obviousness of 'different people have different meanings for a 'real' job'. I mean the same people will basically let rich people off the hook immediately. Partying and doing drugs all day while rich? Natural and super badass. Doing it while poor? Jesus, get your fucking life together you fucking loser. It's horseshit.
"But it's even more complicated than that. That's all surface level. And the thing is, based on conversations I've had with you all, especially you Mae, I think you're picking up on this concept without fully realizing you are. You know you have something, you just don't know how to put it into words."
"I feel like I'm not even getting the gist of what you're trying to say at this point," Mae admitted.
"Right, okay, too large of a scope and too vague. I'll narrow it down: you provide value to society that has nothing to do with money, and you were doing this before we met," he said.
"How?" she asked.
"You spent most of your days, from what I understand, wandering around town, talking to people. And listening to people."
"I mean...anyone can do that," Mae said. "And mostly people didn't seem to necessarily like it."
"No wait," Ann said suddenly, "he's onto something. Do you know how big a deal it was to me that you'd come by damn near every day and listen to one of my dumb poems and just shoot the shit? Like that was a huge deal for me, Mae. I was going though some crazy shit and honestly you helped majorly just by spending like fifteen minutes a day talking to me and listening to me."
"I mean...I'm glad, but like, again, anyone can do that…" Mae murmured.
"But no one did is my point, Mae," Trent said.
"Yeah, no one did. No one wanted to talk to me. I was a pariah. Still kinda am, but I don't really care anymore."
"He's right," Bea said. "We had a really rocky start, but even I have to admit that you coming into the Pickaxe to bullshit with me for like ten minutes or coming along on the house calls sometimes or walking or riding back home with me: big deal. It wasn't so obvious back then, but looking back? Yeah. It really helped."
"And that's a thing that people overlook. I mean I think people generally feel the exact same way about it that you do: anyone can do it. But how many people actually do? Not nearly enough. Practically speaking, you were providing a service that had nothing to do with money. It's like...invisible labor."
"I think the technical term is emotional labor," Bea said, "although that usually refers to a situation within a traditional relationship. But you're totally right. And you're making people happy with your YouTube gaming. And, like...we don't resent you for when we have to do stuff to help you, you know."
"I know. I mean, I said that. It's just-I feel like it's so easy to mistake being mentally ill for being lazy or childish," Mae replied.
"Well you aren't wrong," Trent replied. "That's the general sense I get from society, especially places like P Springs. 'Depressed my ass, you just don't wanna put in a real days' work'. People love feeling superior, and the easiest shortcut to feeling superior is dumping on someone else."
Mae snorted. "You said dump...I'm sorry."
"Well, I did say dump," Trent agreed, and she snorted again, the started laughing.
"I don't know why that shit's so hilarious, but that word really is." She sighed after she finished laughing. "I feel like I derailed the conversation."
"It happens," Trent said. "Did we get the point across?"
"Yeah. I need therapy and I need to just keep practicing not feeling like a piece of shit every time I'm less than useful and chatting people up is useful to society. We can move on. Um. How are we doing?"
"Well, so far I'd say that we've been successful," Bea replied. "We hit up all our points of interest, only got turned down for three of them, and now we're like...fifteen minutes away from our last stop. That'll probably take like an hour, maybe two at the most, then another forty five minute drive and we're back home."
"And then it's back to work, work, work," Mae murmured. "God I'll be so fucking glad when this is over and we've actually done it."
"Definitely having a party after this," Ann said.
"Well, we do have Bea's party coming up," Trent said.
"Should we, like, delay that? I mean I know your birthday is like a week later, but...I dunno, maybe we could do a double?" Bea asked.
"It's your twenty first birthday, Bea," Trent replied, "we're gonna do it. Everything's basically locked. I mean, unless you don't want to."
"I want to, I just feel kinda bad…"
"Don't worry about it."
"All right then, I guess we've got enough to worry about," she murmured.
"...so like, I've been thinking, can we actually do this? We've got a lot coming up," Mae said. "Like, what, there's the book signing tomorrow. And then the Desperate Measures concert day after that. And then Gasmask day after that. It's a lot…"
"We can handle it," Bea said.
"You sound really confident."
"I am," she replied firmly. "Don't worry, Mae, we've got a lot of people on this, some of whom I even trust to get the job done. But I am involved in this, and if there was one thing that I learned from all my time in high school and then the Pickaxe, it was how to fucking make sure shit got done."
"Well, you are super badass," Mae replied. She groaned suddenly. "God, so many people know about my fuckup now. I mean, they already did, but now they know that it had lasting consequences and it's fucking up my parent's lives too and I know what you're going to say, it wasn't my fault, it's just humiliating and there's really nothing you can say to make it less humiliating."
"You're right, Mae," Ann said.
"I am?"
"Yes. As someone who fucking destroyed her life, very publicly, I can say that...sometimes there's nothing you can do to make it better. Sometimes you just gotta take it."
Mae opened her mouth, then suddenly smiled, then started laughing softly.
"What?" Ann asked.
"Nothing, ignore me." She snorted. "You're right. You just gotta...take it."
"Okay, come on Mae, what's so funny?" Ann asked, grinning herself now.
"Take it? LIKE A DICK!?" she burst out, and then immediately started laughing.
"Oh my lord you are still so fucking immature," Bea muttered, then chuckled.
"It's funny, see!? You laughed!" Mae cried.
"It's...dumb. Sometimes dumb things are funny. Now shush, gotta focus on driving," Bea replied.
"Okay, okay." Mae settled down, then sighed softly. "Thanks. For putting up with me, and trying to make me feel better."
"Well, we do love you, dear," Trent replied.
"I know, and I love you all, too."
They drove on.