“We could fuck,” said Rachel. She made jokes like this often, with a deadpan so practiced they didn’t always read as jokes. Rachel was a light-skinned, curvy, beautiful brunette with curly hair and an ardent smile that made you forget you weren’t the center of the universe. That smile had worked on most of us, at some point or other. I think of the six of us, I was the only one who had yet to fall into her bed–mainly, I think, because doing so did not appeal to me.

“I’mma say yes and no.” That was Fumine, Vivian’s roommate. They were childhood friends, Georgeville locals, both grandchildren of immigrants from Starsource. She shared some of Vivian’s looks–the straight black hair, the skin tone–but she was thinner and preppier, and her eyes were darker.

“Ooor instead of debauchery at 2 p.m. we could just start a fire,” said Louise.

Louise was a foreign student; she had come to us sophomore year from the Republic of Freedom. She looked like a Cauldronite stereotype: rail-thin, wearing only sensible but fashionably cut garments, everything fitted perfectly, never unadorned or dressed down like us Province folk (when she first arrived, she had been baffled by Vivian’s decision to wear oversized hoodies everywhere). She had a small, sharp face framed in a messy brown bob, and always wore some kind of golden chain around her summer-pale neck that drew attention to her cleavage. She had a large variety of cleavage-accentuating golden chain necklaces. Maybe this was just due to assumptions based on her mature dress and dismissive humor, but she had been slotted into the role of the reasonable one in our group from day one, steering us toward better decisions–much like now.

“I’d drink,” Deedoss said, shrugging. Deedoss was a charming east coaster out of Longriver. She wore things that had been out of fashion a decade or so in Georgeville, but she wore them well: frilly sweetheart neckline blouses, capri jeans, vintage floral-print ankle boots. She was a natural strawberry blonde with a light dousing of freckles. She was the least fit of us, but she carried her weight well.

“Well c’mon, then, Dee, let’s get this party started.”

Vivian took Deedoss to the kitchen, where we’d stashed our weekend’s booze supplies, while Louise conscripted me to help her figure out the package of firestarter that had come with the Airbnb. Rachel and Fumine lounged on one of the three couches that formed a semicircle around the fireplace, clearly content to watch the rest of us labor.

As we got crouched down and got the fire going–a process that involved giving up on the firestarter and turning to old newspaper, pinecones, and matches–Louise leaned toward me, concern in her eyes, and whispered.

“Is Rachel bothering you?”

Bothering me? Not exactly. I’d felt for a while now that there was a target on my back (or my ass, or my tits) given I was the only one in the group Rachel hadn’t banged, but she hadn’t said anything untoward to me specifically.

“It’s just how she is,” I whispered back.

“Okay,” said Louise. “Just asking, because, you know, if she were. I’d get it.”

“You guys were a thing, right?”

Louise snorted at that.

“I don’t think Rachel does ‘things.'”

“Rachel does lots of things,” said Rachel, “and people, too. You’re not half as sneaky as you think, mademoiselle.”

Louise flushed, and stood. I followed suit. The fire was appreciable, now, and I was getting toasty–though it’s possible some of the heat I felt was from picturing Rachel and Louise doing a lot of things.

“Just looking out for Shirby,” Louise said, adopting that uncaring tone she used like armor. “We all know you’re insatiable, but some people might not want what you–“

“Spare me the lecture,” Rachel said dismissively. “I know better than to go after the repressed girl.”

“I am not repressed,” I objected. Even as I said the istanbul travesti words I wasn’t sure why I was arguing. It’s not like I wanted Rachel to go after me. I guess I just didn’t want to look like the prude in the group, an increasingly difficult proposition with every semester I spent failing to find sex or love on campus.

“This is exactly what Louise is talking about, you know,” said Fumine. “Even now, you’re gunning for pussy.”

“Sure, I’m always ‘gunning for pussy,’ or whatever,” said Rachel. “Cock too, I’ll have you know, but that doesn’t mean I’m tryna get in Shirby’s pants–very nice pants, of course, but no. Shirby doesn’t want it.”

“I’m so glad you all figured that out for me,” I said, and I left to find Deedoss and V.

I found them at the kitchen counter, a couple drinks in by the looks of it. Deedoss fiddled with the label on a bottle of hard cider; Vivian, uncharacteristically stripped down to a tank top, had just slammed down an empty shot glass.

“Hey Shirb,” said Vivian. “How’s things in the living room?”

“Oh, the yuzh,” I said. “Rachel’s a big slut, she’s slept with everyone here but me, yada yada.”

Deedoss blushed at that, and Vivian clicked her tongue. “I oughta take her down a peg,” she said, an edge in her voice I wasn’t used to. “She’s not the only accomplished slut among us.”

“Riight… I kinda came here to get away from that talk,” I said.

“Oh.” Vivian blinked. “Oh, fuck. Yeah. Of course. Sorry. You’re like Louise, then?”

“What do you mean like Louise?”

I wasn’t like Louise in any way. Aside from being a twenty-two year old female college student, at least. She was from Cauldron, the exotic capital of glamor; I was from the trashy beach town of Lady Solitude. She was tall, thin, and impeccably fashionable. I was one degree removed from surfer dude chic, saved from androgyny only by my slight shoulders and ample makeup.

“I think she means ace,” said Deedoss. Vivian nodded.

“Ace?” I asked.

“Asexual,” Vivian clarified, though that wasn’t the point on which I needed clarity.

“Yeah, no, I know what ace is, I’m not an idiot,” I said. “Or maybe I am. But how is Louise ace? She’s had boyfriends, she and Rachel fucked–“

“I’d say ‘there’s all kinds of ace,’ Shirb,” said Vivian, “except it might make me look like an asshole if I’m allosplaining your own identity to you, and anyway I learned most of what I know on the topic from an old classmate’s Tumblr.”

“Hold on.” I put up two hands. “I’m not asexual, V.” I wasn’t, right? “I’m just confused about Louise.”

Vivian poured herself another shot of fireball. “Okay. Well, there’s a lot of ways to be ace, Shirb. Louise can enjoy sex sometimes, I think, but it’s different for her from how it is with most people. Like it needs to be the right time, the right place, the right person.”

“That sounds pretty typical to me,” I said.

“Right?” Vivian laughed, then knocked back her shot. “That’s what I said to her when she rejected me on these grounds, but I guess it’s a question of how many right times, places, and people there are. For me it’s a lot and for her it’s very few. There may be some more specificity, but she’s still figuring it all out, I think.”

Deedoss offered me a cider, and I took it, happily. The fire was now roaring in the other room, and even the kitchen was starting to heat up.

“Back up a sec,” I said. “Rejected you?”

Vivian and Deedoss exchanged some kind of look, and then Vivian smiled wolfishly. “This is why I’m saying Rachel’s talking too big. I mean, sure, she bagged Louise before Louise figured stuff out, as if that’s an accomplishment, but I get around.”

The puzzle pieces started to fall in place in my mind. V and Fumine always going back early after movie nights. V and Deedoss disappearing together that one time at Six Flags, reappearing around the same time with mussed clothes. V and Rachel making eyes at each other in the dining hall freshman year.

“You too?”

“Yeah. I mean, again. Not Louise. And not you. But yeah.”

“You have a boyfriend!” I thought of Barry, the tall, quiet metal guitarist on the periphery of our friend group.

“Yeah, and he gets it. I think.”

“You think?”

“Shit, he’s taken Rach up on her offers enough times,” Vivian shrugged. “We haven’t talked about being exclusive yet. Why are you getting all preachy, Shirby? Me and Rachel are sluts, always have been. Only real question is who’s the better slut.”

“What makes one slut better than another?” asked Deedoss. Her tone was istanbul travestileri analytical, her expression serious.

This got Vivian thinking, and Vivian thinking meant more drinks.

I sighed and knocked back my cider. This was going to be a long afternoon if we couldn’t get outside or watch a movie.

After a few moments of silent drinking, Vivian furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure, really. Hey Shirby, what do you think? What makes one slut better than another?”

I almost said “I don’t know,” on reflex. I wasn’t a slut. I hadn’t been with a slut. I didn’t know too much about sluts, to be honest, except that Rachel was one (and Vivian, apparently!). But as I contemplated the question I found it an intriguing one. Could someone be a bad slut? And what would that mean? Was it like, a slut who behaved poorly? Was it a power play thing, like, I’ve been a bad slut, punish me? (I knew I was blushing as I flipped through the possibilities.) Or was it a question of competence: was a good slut one who slutted well?

I must have had a very serious expression on my face, because V burst out laughing, threw a bare arm around my shoulder, and, still laughing, steered us back to the living room.

We played some Uno in the warmth from the fire, and everyone else got a drink or two, and the earlier topics seemed all but abandoned for about two hours.

Then my dumb ass, having spent the entire time grinding away on Deedoss’s question, spoke up.

“I think the better slut is the one who has the better experiences.”

“Non sequitur much?” Fumine asked. We’d been talking about which classes’ final exams were poised to give us the most trouble when we got back from this break.

Deedoss giggled, and Vivian snorted.

“Who put you in charge of ranking sluts?” asked Rachel, giving me a sidelong but not unfriendly look.

I just pointed at Vivian, who put her hand of cards down and leaned back.

“Well,” she said, “are you going to explain your answer?”

I gulped. Everyone looked at me expectantly.

“I just figured. Sluttiness is about disregarding society’s rules for courtship in order to enjoy one’s body freely, right?” Rachel and Vivian both looked like they had something to say to that, but neither spoke up. “So, if you’re making that decision, the optimal slut would seek maximal enjoyment from that freedom. Some kind of graph for most encounters, best encounters, most memorable encounters…”

“Most memorable,” said Rachel. “I like that, actually. I don’t think you nailed my sexual philosophy–haha, get it, nailed–” We all groaned. “–but you’re right. I want to build a life of pleasant memories, minimizing for lost opportunities.”

“I’ll accept it,” Vivian said. “I don’t think ‘most’ is right, because sluts have varying opportunity for encounters, but I do think a good experience is a memorable one, and the best slut will have the best sexual memories.”

“What is going on here?” asked Louise.

“I asked V a dumb question,” Deedoss said, “back in the kitchen, and V dumped it on Shirby.”

“It wasn’t a dumb question,” said Vivian. “If anyone asked a dumb question, it was me.” Fumine gestured for her to tell the room the question, and she did. “Whether me or Rach was the better slut.”

“I love you, V, but yeah, that’s a pretty dumb question,” Rachel agreed.

“Is it?” asked Fumine, pensive. “I feel like you’re pretty evenly matched.”

“How do we even quantify the quality of someone’s sexual memories?” Rachel challenged.

“I have an answer to that,” Vivian said with a smirk, “but I don’t know if we could implement my system here.”

“A whole system,” I sighed. “I didn’t realize this was so serious.”

“Call me competitive,” said Vivian, “but I’m five fireballs in and I’m bored of Rach being the undisputed queen of sluts in our group. I’ll have you know I left her gasping, and I’m just as well-traveled in this group.”

Louise did some mental math. “You got Shirby?”

“I’m not counting you, hon.”

“Louise definitely counts,” said Rachel.

Louise crossed her arms, clearly unsure how to weigh in on the question.

“Let’s hear your system, V,” said Fumine. “I’m curious, now.”

“I’m not sure Louise and Shirby wanna hear it.”

“Let them speak for themselves,” Deedoss argued.

I locked eyes with Louise. I didn’t expect that to happen. I was just glancing her way to get a read on her comfort. Rach summarized her sexual exploits often, and apparently everyone had fucked everyone else at some point, but we didn’t typically travesti istanbul get this in the weeds. Maybe it was being stuck in the cabin. Maybe it was senior year at Georgeville and all the pursuant stress. Maybe it was just time. I blushed and looked down.

“We can at least hear it,” I said, speaking to my forgotten Uno cards.

Vivian perked up.

“Okay, so this is my first thought. Me’n’Rach pick a random sample of people we’ve fucked, blindfold ourselves, and go down on them. We have to guess who’s who based on remembering taste from past encounters. Whoever gets the higher score clearly has the more enduring sexual memories–the better slut, according to Shirby.”

I didn’t like “according to Shirby.” I was not trying to set myself up as the grand judge of slutty excellence. I wasn’t qualified.

Louise, on the other hand–

“Let’s do it,” she said, standing.

Everyone looked at her like she was out of her mind, except Vivian, who looked pleased as a peach, and Rachel, who seemed to never lose her chill, and Deedoss, who looked excited for science, and Fumine, who… I don’t know, maybe she just wanted her pussy licked. All this to say: the only person in the room who looked at Louise like she was out of her mind was me.

“Unless you don’t want to.” Louise was looking down at me with an expression I couldn’t quite clock.

“If you dudes wanna go crazy,” I said, shrugging, “I dunno, by all means. I can make myself scarce.”

But I didn’t stand up, and Louise’s gaze intensified.

“Shirby’s the control,” said Deedoss, sliding toward me on the couch and putting an arm over my shoulder. “Rach and V will go down on her, me, Fumine, and each other, one at a time, and they have to guess who’s who based on their memories. Shirby’s the one they haven’t had before. Four points of data is better than three.”

“That does make sense,” Louise nodded.

Did it make sense?

I looked back up into Louise’s eyes, and something deep inside me flipped. I felt my heartbeat thudding in my ears. Why did Rachel and Vivian have to go down on me to prove which of them was the better slut? More pressingly: why wasn’t I objecting?

Louise took a deep breath, as the room looked to her for direction. “Alright. I’m the judge, obviously. Let’s have Vivian go first, as the challenger. Everyone else, line up on the couch.”

“We can’t do it in private?”

“I need to make sure no one’s cheating,” Louise said matter-of-factly. “Here, to preserve some privacy, and to keep this from getting out of hand, we’ll have everyone blindfolded, not just the taster.”

The taster. I couldn’t believe this was happening. No one else wanted to object? This was a normal, okay thing for friends to do?

“No hands,” Louise continued, her cheeks glowing. She was always the reasonable one, the one who steered us away from shit like this. Now she looked high on her power. “Ten seconds each. The girl being sampled can do whatever she wants with in that time, but try not to give away who you are. So be mindful of your nails and your voices.”

Louise was really running with this. She’d thought it through. I looked at my own short, unpolished nails; compared them to Vivian’s dark blue varnish and Fumine’s gels. I thought–not unbidden–of the sounds I make under pleasure, and of what sounds my friends might make. I felt another flip. Louise had been maintaining brutal eye contact with me this entire time, and I knew I was wet.

It would only be ten seconds, I reminded myself. It’s a joke. A gas. A game. For an unimportant title. I’m sure girls do worse at bachelorette parties.

“Who’s got the blindfolds?” Vivian asked, her tone the tone of a contestant asking a logistical question. It belied no desire, no playfulness. She just wanted to win, which could only happen if we got started.

Minutes later, we’d returned to the living room from our various bedrooms, bringing down whatever we had in the way of shawls, scarves, thick-sleeved shirts, and so on. We made a pile, sorted out the best items for eye-binding, and passed them out. Then we pushed the coffee table we’d been using for Uno into the corner of the room, leaving just a big open space between the fireplace and the couches.

“Okay. First, V, let’s get you blindfolded.” Louise made sure Vivian couldn’t see, then turned to the rest of us. We fell into a random lineup on the couches, and Louise gestured for us to take off our pants and blindfold up.

We did all this as quietly as possible, lest we give V clues as to our positions. But how could she not hear my heart, I wondered. I’d give everything away with my stupid pulse, with my sexual anxiety. She’d smell the fear on my pussy. She’d know. The last thing I saw before putting my blindfold on was Louise biting her lip. Was she looking at me? Did she know I would fuck everything up?