A few minutes after his father had angrily stormed out of the lawyer’s office, Curt finally looked back over at where Sullivan sat, still looking more than a little distraught by the prospect of the entire case laying before him.

Upon seeing Sullivan’s look of hopelessness, Curt had to speak up, “he’s just being an even bigger asshole now that I can’t play ball. Just because there was blood on my sheets after I screwed those girls, it hardly means they weren’t all there willingly.”

“Blood, and other stuff” Sullivan mumbled.

“Whatever” Curt scoffed, “still, doesn’t mean they weren’t willing” he defended again.

“That argument may almost work with Chloe and Sarah, since you took their virginity the same night you ra--- allegedly raped them” Sullivan quickly corrected, “but as I said, almost.” Sullivan then let out another frustrated sigh to hide any other emotions as he continued, “but with all the others? Not so much. And it won’t even work completely with any of them, really. Yes, girls bleed their first time; their first time having normal sex. But all of those girls bled all over your sheets. All except the one who bled all over the supply closet. And it’s likely that all of them left other stuff behind too, considering your chosen method of entrance with all of them” Sullivan stated pointedly as he shook his head once more.

“What are you trying to say?” Curt bit back, “when you do it that way, it makes you come harder, and it doesn’t cause pregnancy. That’s the only reason I like it like that. Just makes a bigger mess” he added more quietly with a grimace.

“And there are plenty of people in the world who ‘like it like that;’ but they don’t leave their lovers bleeding and crying and in pain like you seem to have left all these girls, and the one boy” he added more quietly.

“Shut up. I never fucked Sky. I only used my hand, just to teach him a lesson” Curt glared back.

“Law says it’s still rape if you penetrate someone against their will” Sullivan grumbled under his breath, then spoke at a normal volume again, “and what lesson is it that you were teaching Sky exactly? I just gotta know” Sullivan asked with a bit of sarcasm, all his professionalism slipping slowly away in the face of this particular client.

“He fucking knows. Probably why he won’t go on the stand” Curt scoffed, though he averted his eyes once more then.

Sullivan’s annoyance then developed a slight crack as he remembered that he still needed the paycheck for this case, despite how impossible it was beginning to look. “Are you saying Sky did something to provoke what you did to him; other than just looking the way he looks?” he had to add.

“That’s a pretty big ‘other than’” Curt scoffed.

“Seriously, did Mr. Vargas do something specifically to provoke the incident last month? Because if he did, we may be able to use that. So you had better tell me now, before the trial” Sullivan prodded, grasping at any straw he could at that point.

Curt scoffed as he glanced back at the door his father had stormed out of several minutes earlier. He then looked back at Sullivan with narrowed eyes, content that no one would overhear. He then took a breath before speaking, “Attorney-client privilege, right?” he asked, as Sullivan just nodded. Curt then took a breath and continued, “Sky did come on to me. It just wasn’t that day. It was... a while ago” Curt decided on.

“You’re going to have to be a lot more specific than that if I’m gonna find anything I can use at all” Sullivan pressed.

“All of this is really his fault when you think about it” Curt stated, more to himself.

“Details please?” Sullivan returned with a bit of impatience.

Curt sighed heavily before speaking up again, “it was back in middle school. Sky’s always looked like a girl. He literally goes out of his way to look like a super-hot chick. He gets off on it” he grumbled, “but back then, and this was like almost five years ago; we had gym together. I was late coming into the locker room; Sky was the only one left in the showers. He always waited til last” he took another breath, “anyway, I walked past the shower he was in. I saw him from behind, and he literally looked like a hot fucking chick from the back. He didn’t look like a guy at all. He never has” he defended as he cast Sullivan another look, as the older man attempted to keep his expression blank.

“And I take it Sky saw you watching him?” Sullivan pressed, though his volume was low.

“Don’t say it like that: Like I was just standing there watching him!” Curt bit out. “Like I said, when he was standing there with his back to me, all naked and wet like that, in the shower, he literally looked exactly like a chick. So don’t go acting like I was getting turned on by a guy!” Curt warned.

“So, you got turned on?” Sullivan couldn’t help repeating.

“He looked like a hot, fucking naked chick!” Curt replied more angrily.

Sullivan just looked down and took a breath before turning his gaze back to the teen, “then what happened? You said he came on to you? Exactly how so?”

Curt let out another uncomfortable sigh, but continued to try and make whatever defense he was trying to make, “yeah, Sky noticed me looking at him and glanced back at me. Said something about being almost done. Then he looked down at me. I already had my towel off, ready to get into my own shower. He saw that I was getting hard looking at him. So I quickly told him that I was only even looking because he looked so much like a girl. Keep in mind, we were like thirteen back then. I hadn’t even had sex with an actual girl yet. I’d get hard all the time, even without someone who looked like him, standing there, like that” he looked down again.

Sullivan swallowed another breath, “and what did Sky do when he saw that you were getting aroused?”

“He just smirked and turned to lean back against the shower stall, so I could see all of him then. After my eyes moved down to his dick, he just smiled and looked down at my hard on again. Then he just said some shit like, ‘see, not a girl.’” Curt allowed an angry breath before he could admit the rest of the story. “Like I said, I was only thirteen; had never even had any kind of sex yet. I was just hard almost all the time already; and he was just standing there, naked, wet, smiling, showing me all of him; not even trying to hide himself. And he was looking at me too. So I just reached down and started jerking off. And he actually just stood there, naked, under the shower, watching me” he bit out.

“Did he touch you as well then? Or himself? Was he also aroused?” Sullivan asked those questions in quick succession, though in a near whisper.

“No, he just watched while I did it to myself. Watched and smiled. And then, when I came all over the shower floor in front of him, he just grinned again. Then he asked me if I felt better now. Then he just grabbed his towel and left! See, that’s the kind of prick he is! He’s probably the reason why I’m the way I am. Why I wanna do it the way I wanna do it. It’s all that prick’s fault!” Curt retorted angrily, then added, “he’s lucky I didn’t do worse to him after all!”

That day at lunch, Chandler and Emily were sitting outside canoodling in the bleachers, as usual. Scott and Regan sat nearby as she picked at a cup of yogurt and he devoured a rather large sandwich in barely four bites. Chandler was then distracted away from the pretty brunette who he had been attached to at the hip since freshman year, when his text message alert went off. He sighed as he moved away from her long enough to glance down at the phone.

“Curt” he grumbled.

“God, what’s he want?” Emily complained.

“A ride, apparently” Chandler mumbled. He then looked over at Scott, “why isn’t he texting you instead?”

“Beats me. I haven’t talked to him since he got arrested” Scott offered, “he sent me some weird text the other day telling me to stop playing taxi for his sister” he scoffed, “hell, I haven’t seen Phoebe for even longer; months probably. Figured he was drinking his way through his suspension or some shit.”

Emily then looked back at Chandler, “why is he even asking any of you for a ride anyway? Did they take away his car too?” she scoffed.

“Apparently he was somewhere with his dad and his dad ditched him” Chandler shrugged as he looked down at the phone again.

“Harsh” Scott returned with a smirk as Chandler put away his phone.

“So you’re not going to get him?” Regan asked Chandler as she raised a brow.

Chandler then gestured to the school behind them, “a little busy for the next three or four hours. Besides, company’s better here” he snickered, going back to kissing Emily as she smiled back at him.

Regan scoffed, “like you’ve never skipped before?”

“Only when I had a much better reason” Chandler teased as he pointedly squeezed Emily’s behind and went back to kissing her.

Regan just rolled her eyes and then moved them away from the poster children for PDA and gave Scott a pointed look, “you’re not gonna go get him either?”

Scott scoffed as he opened a can of soda, took a long swig, then finally answered her, “he didn’t text me, now did he?”

“What is your issue with him anyway?” Regan asked.

Then all three of her companions laughed out loud, though Emily was the one who replied, “where to begin to answer that.”

“You can’t tell me you guys actually buy all the shit these bitches are saying” Regan returned, casting a scowl between all of them.

Scott then looked back at her with a questioning look, “you mean he hasn’t tried any weird stuff with you? My ex, Sarah, and Tim’s ex, Chloe, as well as all three of Curt’s ex-girlfriends, and even that Raina chick who graduated last year; they’ve all been saying some pretty heinous stuff about him trying shit with them” Scott asked, “and you are remarkably similar to all of them” he added as he pointedly looked over the curves she barely hid under the tight shirt and short skirt.

“Maybe he just doesn’t like redheads” Chandler smirked. He then looked back at his brown haired girlfriend, “or apparently brunettes. He’s never tried anything with you, has he?” he asked with a bit of worry.

Emily scoffed, “please, at every party we’ve ever went to at his house, you and I always spent most of the night locked in one of the other bedrooms together. Curt never got the chance to try to talk me into his weird ass fetish” she assured.

Scott then looked back at Regan, “and he never tried anything with you?” he asked her again.

“Like it would matter to you? Not like we’re even sleeping together, still” she mumbled as she looked down at her phone.

“But did he?” Scott asked more firmly, trying to push aside her other comment.

Regan just scoffed, though her eyes remained averted, “if these girls didn’t want it in their ass, they shoulda just did what I did. I know how to deal with that ‘weird fetish,’ as Emily called it.”

“Did what you did? What does that mean?” Scott pressed.

Regan shook her head, “it’s simple. I heard all about the entrance he prefers, so I just never let him near my drink; and when he started tryin to talk me into anything, I’d just get down on my knees and start blowing him. He came in minutes and was no longer hard enough to put anything in my ass or anywhere else. Pretty easy to figure out how to navigate a teenage boy with a hard on” she smirked.

Scott just looked at her a long moment before he easily remembered the night Tim’s girlfriend, Chloe, had to get her stomach pumped, and the reasons she wouldn’t explain, back then, for having taken all of those pills. Then he remembered how his own girlfriend Sarah had changed from the girl who always smiled at him sweetly, into the girl who could never stop crying and couldn’t even bear to be kissed, seemingly overnight. Then he remembered what Tim had done to himself not even a month earlier, on the same day that Curt supposedly assaulted Sky.

Then he had to ask Regan, “and for some reason, you wouldn’t take a drink from Curt, not ever? And if you had taken a drink from Curt on any of those nights... Do you think you’d still have trouble believing the claims all these people are making about him now?” and with that, he headed back into the school, just leaving Regan with that question to think on. And having quite a few of his own to think on then as well.