The Fap Report Mystery (unfinished)

[Salamando]

Rooting through my "half-finished" backlog, I found this little gem I'd apparently forgotten about. I have no idea where I was going with this, but the character interaction is fun and I like the Fap Report concept, so what the hell, I figured I'd post it.



ONE
Joe had been enjoying a piece of the not-as-bad-as-everyone-said-it-was cafeteria pizza, when his friend Kyle nearly slammed his own food tray down in front of him. Kyle dropped into the seat, shoulders hunched, and face beet red. He was breathing deeply, like he was trying to calm himself down, and having a difficult time of it.

“Dude, what the hell?” said Joe.

“Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look,” muttered Kyle quickly.

Suddenly, a few of the girls from their class walked by, one of them lightly strumming her fingers along Kyle’s back. “Bon appetite, sucker boy,” the girl said, and the whole group erupted into giggles.

Kyle cursed and buried his face in his arms. Joe watched girls go, one of them winking at Joe as if sharing a private joke. Joe, perplexed, tapped Kyle on the head. “I repeat: dude, what the hell?”

“Don’t ask, please, just don’t ask,” said Kyle, shaking his head.

“Okay,” said Joe, knowing how this game worked. He said nothing for a few moments. Finally, Kyle popped his up and sighed raggedly, the blush on his face fading a bit.

“They know about that thing I did with Kelly,” said Kyle.

Joe cocked an eyebrow. “You mean, that time she made you…”

“Don’t say it! I’ve already been reminded enough times today!”

“Well, that’s what you get for trusting a girl not to squeal to her friends,” said Joe. “Sorry, man.”

“No, you don’t understand,” said Kyle. “She didn’t, like, spread rumors or anything. And it’s not just her friends. It’s everybody, or at least all the girls, who know. Probably most of the guys, too.”

“Okay, so if Kelly didn’t tell anyone, how’d they find out?” said Joe.

Kyle pulled out his smart phone, flipped to an app, and held it out for Joe to see. Joe took it and looked it over. “The heck is this?”

“It’s called Fap Report,” said Kyle.

“Fap Report?” Joe looked at the screen, which was cued up to some kind of online profile for one Kyle Mendez. “Let’s see… top 10 things Kyle doesn’t want you to know about his dirty habits… number 10) Kyle likes to stroke off while thinking about—”

Kyle yanked the phone back out of Joe’s hand. “Don’t read it outloud, idiot!”

“Wait, so, what is it?” said Joe. “Some kind of sex site?”

“It’s like a mock-up of Facebook or Myspace or one of those places,” said Kyle. “There’s all these profiles of guys, see, and people put up messages about, well, when a dude might be, you know, jerking themselves, and what they’re thinking about, and their most embarrassing dirty fantasies.”

Joe’s eyes widened. “Why in god’s name would you make a profile like that?”

“I didn’t! Someone else did! Someone with Sex Magic! In fact, that’s like the whole point of the site, it’s a place where Sex Mages can post this stuff about the men they know.”

“Get out,” said Joe. He had pulled out his own phone, and searched for the site. He found it almost immediately, and started downloading the smart phone viewer mode app. After only a minute, it was ready, and he immediately started searching, calling up Kyle’s profile. He found that top ten list again. “Holy, crap.” He paused as he saw the number one listing, and his eyes widened. He glanced at Kyle and shuddered slightly. “Wow, dude, I never knew you were that flexible.”

“Get off my page, you ass!” said Kyle.

“Jeez, I bet every girl in the school has seen this,” said Joe. “No wonder they’ve all been giggling at you.” Kyle’s blush deepened, and he hunched lower in his seat. If he hunched any farther, he’d slide right under the table. “So who do you think did it? I mean, you’re absolutely sure Kelly didn’t?”

Kyle shook his head. “We’re genuinely friends, I trust she wouldn’t. Besides, she doesn’t know about half of the stuff on that list.” He paused. “Well, didn’t.”

“Sorry, man,” said Joe. There was another eruption of giggles from the table across from them, and Joe looked over to see another group of girls pointing at Kyle, grinning widely. Kyle refused to look at them.

“I’m… I’m gunna go eat in the bathroom or something,” said Kyle, scooping up his food. “I’ll see you after school.”

“Yeah, you wanna hang out or something, let me know,” said Joe. Kyle nodded and crept out of the cafeteria, wincing as he got a few cat calls. Joe frowned, then pulled out his phone. He knew he should respect his friends privacy, but he had to confirm what he’d just seen on that list. “Jesus,” Joe muttered to himself. “That’s gotta cause some serious neck strain.”

“Wasn’t as bad as all that,” said a female voice, and Joe nearly dropped his phone as he jumped again. He looked up to see Kelly sitting down across from him. Joe narrowed his eyes at her.

“Kyle says you didn’t do this,” said Joe, tapping his phone. “Is that true?”

Kelly nodded. “I like Kyle, okay? I mean, we’re not an item, we were just fooling around, and well, we were being silly, and then I dared him to suck his—look, I didn’t snitch on him. I didn’t even know half this stuff.”

Joe watched her carefully, then nodded. “Alright, I believe you.”

Kelly sighed. “Can you tell him I’m sorry anyway? He won’t even look me in the eye right now.”

Joe nodded. “So who do you think did it?”

Kelly shrugged. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I mean, there’s no girls here old enough to get the magic. And I can’t imagine any of the teachers would do this. Although I give it till the end of the week before they get slammed with lawsuits.”

“Well, he doesn’t really know any girls outside of school,” said Joe. He thought, then glanced back at the phone. “The damnable thing is, anyone with the magic could have done this, huh? He might have cut off some lady in traffic, might have gotten into it with someone at school and said someone has an older sister they went to for help in getting revenge. It could have just been some random passerby on the street.”

“That is the problem, isn’t it?” said Kelly. “But I doubt it. With the number of boys getting profiles made from this school alone, well…”

“Wait, other guys are getting this, too?”

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? Half guys in school are on this on thing! How are you only just now finding out about this?”

“Probably because no one’s been making a point to laugh at me all day? Although now that you mention it, it does seem like the girls have been gigglier lately. How long has this site been up, anyway?”

“A couple months, but I think it’s only been the past week or so that a lot of guys from here are on it.” Kelly shrugged. “You got a page, too, by the way, it’s just, well, it’s not very juicy.”

“Really?” Joe checked, and sure enough, there he was, Joseph Farren, complete with a picture and everything. So far, only one entry was on his wall, though. “Let’s see here: ‘Joe Farren likes it in the butt.’ Huh. Well, everyone knows that already.”

Kelly smirked. “Yeah. Well, just tell Kyle not to worry. This’ll blow over in a few days, I’m sure; there are just too many boys for any one to get singled out for long.”

“I doubt that’s much of a comfort to any single one of them right now,” said Joe. Kelly nodded, but shrugged, as if to say it could not be helped. She may have been right about that, but that didn’t put Joe’s mind at ease.


TWO
Joe and Kyle walked back a bit slower than usual, Kyle dragging his feet. Joe would have thought that he would be booking it twice as fast just to get away from school, but perhaps the weight of his humiliation was pushing him down too much.

“Dude, you’re just going to have to let it go, alright?” said Joe. “I know it’s embarrassing, but come on, we all knew this sort of thing was going to happen eventually. It’s just a little sooner than we thought.”

“We’re still in High School!” said Kyle. “We shouldn’t have to put up with the girls knowing all this stuff for at least another year!”

“Every woman older than us already has access to this knowledge if they want anyway,” said Joe. “I mean, your Mom, your aunt and cousins, its not like you haven’t had to deal with this before.”

“That’s different! I don’t have to go to class every day with those women!”

“What about our teachers? Miss Maria sure seemed to notice your thoughts.”

Kyle swallowed. “Well… yeah, but… I mean, they all train to block out the thoughts and signals, and even if they can’t, they have whole classes of guy’s thoughts to filter through, so it all becomes like a white noise. That’s what Miss Maria said.”

“And yet, when you fell asleep in class and started dreaming about her, she went red as an apple,” said Joe. “So did you, when she pulled you out of class by your ear.”

“Come on, man, please,” said Kyle. “Enough already. You’re as bad as the girls!”

Joe shrugged. “Look, there’s just no point in being embarrassed by this stuff. It’s out in the open. You can’t help it, they pretty much can’t help it, that’s how it is. So you may as well suck it up, and learn to realize it’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal!” said Kyle, throwing his hands into the air. “You’re only saying that, because you’re not the one all the girls are laughing at! We have no privacy as it is, they couldn’t just give us a little more time?”

Joe’s expression darkened a bit and he stepped close to Kyle. “You really think I don’t know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of people’s shit? Do you really?”

Kyle backed up a step, eyes wide, then lowered his gaze. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I forgot. I guess you would know.”

“You bet your ass I do. Now, chin up, face front, and walk like your buck naked and couldn’t give a single shit.” Kyle managed to lift his gaze up, but his face reddened again at the last part. Joe shook his head. “God, you’re hopeless.”

“I can’t help it! I practically am naked as far as women are concerned, and yes I do give a shit!” Kyle frowned. “I just, look, this is still wrong either way. Now women I haven’t even met yet, girls who haven’t had a chance to know me in person, not even peeked into my head yet, are gunna know the kind of things I’ve done.”

“Kelly says she sorry, by the way,” said Joe.

Kyle just shrugged. A few moments later, they had reached his house. As soon as they got into the driveway, his mother came out the door and strode onto the lawn. She looked most displeased. “Kyle Herbert Mendez!”

Kyle winced but stood up straight and said, “Yes, mom.”

“The answering machine has about twenty messages from various girls describing some very intimate habits of yours. What is this all about?”

Kyle flinched and buried his face in his hands. “Oh, Christ,” he moaned. Joe pat him on the back.

“Mrs. Mendez, if I may, I can explain,” he said.

She cocked an eyebrow at Joe in such a way that she expected the explanation to be quite good. Joe simply pulled out his phone, opened the Fap Report app, and handed it to her. She glanced it over, eyes widening, then handed it back to Joe. “Oh, dear,” she said, putting a hand to her head. “Kyle, come inside. We have a lot to talk about that I’m thinking I shouldn’t have put off.” She looked to Joe. “Forgive me, Joe, but you’d best head off. And be careful you don’t end up on this list.”

“Already on there, but apparently no one cares.”

“Lucky prick,” muttered Kyle.

“Not lucky enough to be able to suck my own,” said Joe, winking.

Kyle gawked. “My mother is standing right here!”

“See this is exactly what I’m talking about,” said Joe. “You need to be able to deal with this stuff right in front of women without flipping out. Besides, it’s not like she didn’t know about it. Right, ma’am?”

Mrs. Mendez gave Joe an exasperated look. “Okay, Mr. Life Coach. Who’s the mother here, you or me?”

“Sorry, ma’am. Just saying.”

“Fine, fine, thanks,” said Mrs. Mendez. She turned and pat her son on the shoulder. “Come on, Kyle.” The two waved to Joe, who waved back and watched them go into the house. As soon as they were out of sight, Joe’s nonchalant smile dropped, and he turned, walking another five blocks to his own home.