Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Fuckin’ Bitchin’
Zef
By the time Zef had changed into their normal streetwear and washed most of the makeup off, their friends were well on their way to drunkenness.
Toni, Oliver, Jude, Liel, and even Willow were quite sloshed when they came upon the table.
Gem was doing shots “to catch up,” and Glyma was flushed and giggling, leaning heavily on Quin. Bryce and Rusty were sober, and Tad…
Well, Tad was simply very good at holding her liquor. It was impossible for even Zef to figure out if she was inebriated.
Not that it mattered to them. They rarely overindulged, but they never judged others on their consumption. In fact, they found it very humorous, especially when Toni and Gem got drunk together.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Oliver slurred, arm resting on Liel’s shoulder as he pointed a wavering finger at Gem. “You and Toni met and started—”
“A revolution!” Toni bellowed.
“It was a movement,” Gem said primly, swaying in his seat. “A feminist protest! Free-bleeding for everyone.”
“What?” Jude asked, and honestly, Zef wanted further explanation as well.
They sipped gingerly at their second glass of wine as Gem stood, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “I will tell the tale of how Gemae Odesa Akyllo and Toni Amylia Maryno started a feminist tradition in our secondary school and substitutely—”
“Subsequently,” Bryce corrected, but Gem ignored him.
“—became best friends.”
“Your middle name’s Amylia?” Oliver snickered.
Jude turned on Toni’s lap with a scowl. “You said you didn’t have a middle name.”
“I don’t,” Toni insisted. “Gem makes up middle names for us all the time. He don’t got a middle name either.”
“That’s true,” Gem said, taking a gulp from someone’s glass. “I don’t have a middle name, and I wish I did. But my parents already have so many kids. I don’t think they wanted to think up more names.”
“That was my cup,” Liel lamented as he pushed the glass Gem had drunk from away.
“My middle name is Gregory,” Oliver offered.
“Mine is Saule,” Willow said. “In honor of my mother.”
“Well, that’s just beautiful,” Toni said.
“I have eight middle names,” Zef said.
Gem’s face scrunched. “Way to rub it in our faces, Zef! Gods!”
“Quin doesn’t have a middle name, but her full first name is Quinastasia,” Glyma said with a giggle. “My middle name is Tierythe.”
“Mine’s Edward, after my uncle,” Bryce chimed in.
“Bryce Edward.” Zef rolled the names over their tongue. “Your names are very nice.”
The human smiled at them. “Thanks, Zef.”
“Even Rusty has a middle name, and it’s hella cool.” Gem withered under Rusty’s hard stare. “Shit, I forgot you told me that in confidence. Why am I the holder of everyone’s secrets? I am not built for this kind of responsibility.”
“What’s your middle name?” Jude asked.
“It’s not that cool,” Rusty said.
“So? Tell us!” Oliver commanded.
“Oh my gods, can I tell them?” Gem squealed, bouncing on his toes.
Taking a sip of his tonic and kili fruit, Rusty shrugged. “Sure, but it’s gonna be anticlimactic.”
“Shush, Care Bear.” Gem flapped several hands before taking a deep breath, as if in preparation. “His full name is Rusty Raul Roisyn. Isn’t that, like, the coolest name ever?”
“No,” Toni said definitively.
“It’s a lot of R’s,” Jude said.
“Yeah, but it rolls off the tongue nicely,” Liel said.
“I think my mom just liked alliteration,” Rusty said.
“Wait, what about your story about free bleeding?” Quin asked, and Gem blinked in a wave from left to right.
“Thank you, Quin, for remembering. It’s a great story.” Clearing his throat, he squared his shoulders and set the scene. “It was the first year of secondary, third semester. I was already well established in the hierarchy. Popular, but not, like, so popular that it’s cringe, you know?”
“Popular, or popular?” Tad asked, making a rather rude gesture for intercourse with her hands.
Hand to his chest, Gem looked properly affronted. “Girl, do you even know me at all? It was definitely both. But that doesn’t matter right now. I’m still getting to the good part.
“So it was third semester, and suddenly, we got a transfer student from Gluttony. He’d been expelled, they said. For killing a teacher, some said. For fucking a teacher, others said.”
“Which is kinda messed up if you think about it,” Toni interjected. “’Cause if I did fuck a teacher at fourteen, that would have been, like, molestation or some shit.”
“But the rumor of you being a murderer doesn’t bother you?” Jude asked.
Toni waved a blasé hand. “Nah, no one actually believed that.”
“The murder one? Not really. The molestation? Definitely,” Gem said, and Toni’s face fell.
“Aw, man, that’s a bummer.”
“Anyway,” Gem sang, snapping his fingers to bring their attention back to him, “the transfer student, bad boy Toni Eloise Maryno himself, was now attending our school. The girls wanted to be with him. The boys wanted to be him. And the theys… Actually, the theys thought you were annoying. Sorry, Toni.”
With a frustrated grunt, Toni bundled Jude tighter in his lap. “This story is not painting me in a good light.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get there,” Gem promised. “So I’d seen him around in his leather jacket and studded, fingerless gloves.”
“Aw, you were a baby douchebag,” Jude said fondly, giving Toni a peck on his cheek. “That’s cute.”
“Gem’s telling the story all wrong!” the Elas barked. “You see, I was hitting on his sister—”
The entire table filled with jeers, and Oliver even tossed a balled up napkin at Toni’s head.
“Hey, it wasn’t like that,” he defended.
“Oh, it was definitely like that,” Gem said. “He tried hard to land Tria, but she is the epitome of lesbian. Like, she hates men. She eviscerated him in the hallway, and it was amazing. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect and only made Toni want her more.”
“Okay, don’t look at me like that,” Toni hissed, jabbing his finger around the table of judgmental faces. “I have childhood trauma!”
“Anyway,” Gem said, louder this time, “One day, Tria and I are wearing matching white shorts, but she started her period unexpectedly. Blood stains everywhere. And as strong and confident as Tria was, she was still a fourteen-year-old girl. So to save her from embarrassment, we swapped shorts. I walked around all day with bloody shorts, and anytime anyone tried to give me shit, I called them a misogynistic asshole! So then bitchass Connor—”
“Fucking bitchass Connor,” Toni echoed.
“—who had always been jealous of me, decided it was his opportunity to uslurp me.”
“Usurp,” Bryce corrected, and Gem’s eyes flashed dangerously.
“Don’t tell me what I know, Bryce!” he snarled before collecting himself and continuing.
“Usurp me and steal my social status. So he called me a transvestite and said that the blood was mine. And I was like, who cares if I do have a pussy? Pussies are canonically stronger than dicks and balls and probably nicer to look at. You know, if you’re into that sort of thing.
“At least, I was going to say that, but then Toni—see, we’re bringing it back.
The story’s all coming together now.” Judging from numerous facial expressions around the table, the story was not connecting as fluidly as Gem claimed, but the Araknis did not appear to notice.
“Toni jumped into the fray in my defense. He has sisters—”
“So many sisters,” Toni said.
“And he knows all about periods.”
“They all synced up eventually, and every month, it was the week of suffering and torture. Of torture, I tell you,” Toni cried.
“Totally, and he also thought I was Tria because we look alike from behind, and as previously mentioned, he was trying to boink her.”
“I never said boink, Gemmy. I was maybe hoping for second base,” Toni said, adding on a, “respectfully,” at the end.
Jude laughed. “Such a douchebag.”
“So he started monologuing about periods and how they’re natural and shouldn’t be taboo, and I backed him up,” Gem said.
“And it kind of snowballed from there until we, along with Tria, were the face of a revolution. We lobbied for gender-neutral bathrooms and free period products, and every year, we had Red Week, where everyone free-bled.”
“You had a week of free bleeding in school?” Oliver asked hesitantly.
Gem grimaced. “Technically, no. ’Cause, you know, blood in any circumstance isn’t exactly hygienic.
But we made signs and everyone wore red as a statement.
We even organized a walk-out one year—though that was because Twilight: Breaking Dawn came out and we all wanted to go to the cinema and see it, and we figured that the school couldn’t punish us because we were protesting for women’s rights.
“But that was the only time our movement was abused for personal gain. The rest of the time, it was pure intentions and feminism.” Heaving a big sigh, Gem beamed at Toni.
“And that’s how Toni and I became best friends forever.
We were brought together by teenage hormones and period blood. It was beautiful.”
“It was,” Toni agreed, a little misty-eyed. “It was the best thing to ever happen to me.”
“You really think that?” Gem said, eyes flooding with tears.
“Of course, I do. You’re my best friend, and I just love you so much,” Toni sniveled.
“Oh my gods, Toni, you’re my best friend and I love you so much,” Gem sobbed.
Shoving Jude off his lap, Toni stood and threw himself into Gem’s many arms as they both started to blubber incoherently.
Zef took another, longer drink of their wine.
Willow simpered, pressing her hands to her chest as her eyes watered.
Glyma appeared to have fallen asleep on Quin’s shoulder, and Tad was scowling at Gem and Toni like they had offended her on a personal level.
Jude struggled to right himself after being so unceremoniously unseated, and Oliver and Liel were laughing quietly between themselves.
“What is happening?” Bryce asked no one in particular.