The Reunion

A small flame of gossip began at one end of the table and began to spread like a wildfire at the first mention of Diane Morgan's name. “That little red-faced slut stole my boyfriend from me,” I overheard Maryann Blakely saying. “I could have been Prom Queen!” she spit out. “Should have! The little slut.”

This was about Donald Anderman, who'd been the Prom King, and his date for that dance, the infamous Diane Morgan. Who, as I remembered her, was a little red-faced slut if there ever was one. Pretty little slut though, there's no denying it. Sluts seem like they were always prettier in memory somehow, if not in fact. I'm not sure why I remember her as a slut, honestly.

Her little sister though, now there goes a slut if ever there was one. But with good reason, because of how the Caruso boys down the street had molested her when she was just a little kid. And I should know, I was there once when it happened. Well, I was in another room, but they went on to describe the whole thing to all us kids. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. As I said, it all began with a little innocent piece of gossip about Donald and Diane, our Prom King and Queen, who weren't at the table at our 50th high school reunion. So I guess you could say, they sort of had it coming to them.

            “What say we all tell what we know about our infamous Prom King, and Queen,” I said. That started a definite murmuring around our table of some dozen or so guests. Most of them without dates, and/or partners. “Who wants to begin?”

            After an embarrassed silence, one hand went up tentatively. “Well, I guess I should probably go first, naturally.” It was Maryann Blakely. The first ever to develop in our crowd. Develop hell, she had a real full-blown chest on her in the sixth grade already. No one could forget that, especially the men. I know I couldn't. I had a crush on her from that moment on.

            Maryann Blakely, God! With her dark eyes and long dark hair. I still remember how I made her laugh once when I sang under my breath in class, “Dance with me Henry, all right, Baby.” She just about ate me entirely, in one soul-gobbling gulp. And spit me out right away, like a bitter seed. Ah, me!

            “That little red-faced slut stole my man,” Maryann Blake repeated. “Well, I'm guessing you all know about that part.” Practically everyone around the table nodded their head at that.

            “Thought so,” she went on. “But there's a lot you don't know about. So, here goes. Maybe what you don't know is that he raped me, when I was a virgin.”

            “Wait, this is Donald Anderman now you're talking about?” asked one woman. “Our Prom King?”

            Maryann turned toward her in her chair. “The very same,” she said.

            “He raped you?”

            “Yes, he did.”

            “Well, how, where?”

            “Under the grandstands, of course. After a football game.”

            “Well, how old were you?”

            “I was thirteen. We both were. He was still a virgin, so he wasn't very good, of course.”

            “Of course,” we all said, almost in unison.

            “Not the raping. I mean at sex. He was good enough at rape.”