Bang Gang(4)

I'm sure I caught the end of a ‘hung like a horse' comment, but then the gossip stopped. Entirely.

Not for an interlude of hellos and smiles, or to give me a chance to  catch up with the flow of conversation. Nothing so innocuous as that. It  just stopped. Dead.

Nobody said a word.

"What?" I said. "Have I got shit on my face or something?" I patted my  cheeks, but couldn't feel anything out of the ordinary. I didn't even  have any makeup to smudge.

Silence.

"So what's the news?" I settled into my chair, kept my smile bright.

Tonya cleared her throat. "Mandy was just, ergh …  She was just saying how she had a … "

"It was nothing," Mandy interrupted.

"Nothing?" I asked. "It didn't sound like nothing … "

She shrugged. "Just a date. Nothing too much of note."

I'd have believed her if the whole lot of them weren't staring straight into their coffee cups and not at me.

"A date?" I prompted.

She wouldn't meet my eyes. "A date, yeah. A kind of date."

"Booty call," Steph said.

I smiled. "Someone got lucky, then. Tell me all, I'm desperate for a  good giggle. Morning from hell." I sipped my drink and waited. Kept  waiting.

Debbie started talking to Steph about her new blonde highlights, and  they all jumped in, jabbering on about some boring hair crap that nobody  really gave a shit about.

"Come on!" I laughed. "Don't hold out on me. What's going on?"

"It wasn't anything," Mandy said. "Just a …  I had a … "

"An orgy," Debbie blurted. "Mandy had a gang bang last night. Three men  to herself!" The others looked horrified, but Debbie shrugged. "It's all  over Facebook, it's hardly a secret … "

I nearly spat out my coffee as I giggled, but they weren't joining in. I  looked around the faces. "Seriously? For real? Three men at once?"

Mandy shrugged. "It was a …  fantasy …  of mine … "

Isn't it everyone's? Three hot guys at once. Ripped and well hung and well aware of what to do with it …

I stared at her, willing her to tell me everything. This kind of shit  was like balm for my frazzled, chore-shackled soul. I could practically  feel the restraints of Mum-Jodie slipping away at the thought of some  decent sex-gossip.

I leaned in, elbows on the table. "So? Was it …  good?"

Mandy nodded, and her face lit up like an arcade after dark. "It was absolutely. Fucking. Amazing."

Tonya coughed, shook her head at Mandy and my stomach did a weird little  flip. "What?" I said. "Why the weirdness? What's going on?"

Debbie smiled straight at me. "So, how was your morning?"

I laughed. "My morning sucked, same as every other school morning. Only  this morning I found the washing machine had decided to go all kamikaze  overnight and take a load of school uniform down with it, Ruby had a  tantrum over black socks, I found out Mia hates high school and then  found out Ruby's been taking anger-management classes from her father." I  sighed. "But none of this is even remotely as interesting as taking  three guys at once, and you all know it, so what's the big deal?"

I waited, again. They said nothing - again.

And then Steph checked her phone. "Ooh, is that the time?" She downed  her coffee and gathered her bag, and the others followed suit, except  Tonya who stayed put.

"What?" I said, and then I saw it. The empty cake plates. The almost  empty mugs. They'd been here before me, much before our regular time  slot. I felt ridiculously hurt.                       
       
           



       

"We'll meet up again next week," Debbie said. "Catch up properly."

"But it's not even eleven … " I said.

I watched in silence as they all said their goodbyes, dumbstruck as they  air-kissed me and told me to have a great week. I was watching them  across the street when Tonya sighed.

"I'll get us another coffee," she said.

I grabbed her wrist. "I don't want another coffee, Tonya, I want to know what's going on. What time did you get here?"

She held up her hands. "This wasn't me. I didn't know you weren't in on the earlier start time."

I folded my arms. "I'm hardly a prude, Tonya. Is that what they think?  Do they think I'm a prude?" I shrugged. "I'd love to hear about a bloody  orgy, same as everyone else around here."

She stared right at me. "I said they should just tell you, you're going  to find out soon enough anyway. Mandy's vague Facebook status got over  fifty likes last night, PM me comments all over the place."

I hadn't checked Facebook the evening before, I'd been too busy watching  old films with Nanna. I pulled out my phone, typed in Mandy Taylor.

Best night ever, her status said. Some fantasies are even better in real  life! Then a load of hashtags about bucket lists and being a bad girl.

It seemed the whole village knew about this shit already, but not me. Clearly this gossip wasn't for me.

I asked the obvious question. Spat it out like a rotten egg. "Who was it? Who did she fuck?"

"Buck," she said, and that made sense. Buck and Mandy had been flirting all summer. I'd seen it as well as heard it.

"And?"

"Little Petey … "

My stomach dropped. Petey was new, Trent's young apprentice mechanic. Cute and blonde and Polish. A nice guy.

She didn't need to continue, but she did.

"And Trent." She groaned. "Mandy fucked Trent last night."

I shrugged, pretended it didn't matter. "Trent's a free agent. He fucks loads of people, so I gather. That's his prerogative."

She shook her head. "Not like this, not three on one."

I thought it through, Trent, Buck, and Petey, with Mandy Taylor. Trent  doesn't even like Mandy Taylor. Mandy's nice enough, but she isn't his  type, not that I knew.

Maybe I didn't know.

"She paid them," Tonya said. "Trent's running a gigolo service down there. They call themselves the bang gang."

The thought made me snort-laugh. "The bang gang? That's the most  ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Trent's no bloody gigolo, he struggles  with people skills at the best of times."

"Not with these people skills, he doesn't. Not according to Mandy."  Tonya looked so sorry. "It was him, Jo. She gave them three hundred, and  that was a massive discount apparently."

"Three hundred quid?! For a fuck?" I still couldn't believe it. Couldn't imagine it.

She nodded. "Worth every penny, Mandy said. She's planning on a repeat  performance when her wages come in." She sighed. "I don't imagine she'll  be alone, either. Not when she's finished mouthing off about how  brilliant it was."

I put another sugar in my coffee. "Everyone knows?"

"It's Mandy Taylor. I imagine it's reached the valleys by now … "

I looked around the coffee shop, the regular tables of regular people, and they were looking. Looking at me.

Everyone fucking knew.

"The kids," I said. "What am I going to tell the fucking kids when they start asking if their dad fucks for money?"

Tonya leaned in. "Maybe it'll go over their heads? Maybe they won't know  anything about any of it? They're young …  It could blow over without  them knowing … "

I raised my eyebrows. "Mia is at high school now. She's fully aware of  where babies come from. Somehow I doubt it's still the fluffy,  biologically slanted version of the birds and the bees that I told her."

She stopped trying to make me feel better. "He probably didn't know,"  she said. "That Mandy would blab like this, I mean. He hardly knows  her."                       
       
           



       

"I'd say he knows her pretty fucking well from the sounds of it."

"She's probably exaggerating …  you know what she's like …  you can't take her side of the story as gospel … "

"No," I said, and downed my coffee. "I can't take her word for it. Which  is exactly why I'm going to hear it from the stud himself." I grabbed  my bag. "Right now."

She grabbed hers, too.





Tonya let out a gasp as I swung my trusty little Ford into Trent's yard.  The adrenaline had me on edge, over-steering enough that I nearly  clipped Betty Baker's old Mini Cooper, but from the looks of the bumper  on it, another little knock would be the least of her concerns. I pulled  up with a screech beside Darren's hulking black beast of a truck, and  Tonya opened the passenger door right next to it, swung her legs out to  give her a clear view of the garage entrance, then lit up a cigarette.

"I'll wait here and block his exit," she said. "Holler if you need me."