Mark Dunn - We Five

“Oh. The tall one,” said Will, rolling his eyes.

“Oh yes. The tall one,” chimed in Jerry, opening his own eyes wide in a parody of great interest.

“That’s right,” said Tom, growing noticeably annoyed. “It turns out Jane and her friends don’t just pass out circulars for Sister Lydia. They’re in the choir. And because they’re church girls, I’d give you some pretty good odds they don’t have all that much experience…” Tom’s look suddenly became soiled. “…in the ways of love.”

“ Love ?” Jerry hooted.

“Shut up, Jerry,” snapped Cain. “Tommy, I think I know what it is you’re leading up to.”

Jerry grinned. “My dear Mr. Pardlow, you only know the half of it. Things are about to take themselves a nice little turn. I’ll pick up the ball here, Tommy, ol’ chap, because you talk too slow. So Tommy, he asks Jane what she’s doing on Friday night and she says she and her fellow canaries — they’re not doing nothing. But of course they are doing something Friday night — only at this point none of us knows it. See, Professor Prowse is throwing a big ol’ wingding birthday party for his brand-new wife on Friday and we’re all invited — all five of us and the songbirds, who, as it so happens, went to grammar school with bella Bella. Tommy just got our voice-vite from the missiz yesterday.”

“And the girls — just how do you know they’ll come?” asked Cain.

“Oh, they’ll fly their chancel cage, all right. Bella says one of them lives next door to her in the Heights, and she says she’ll flush her and the whole covey right over if she has to. Now, with our stage properly set… let the show begin .”

“Show? What show?” asked Pat, the perpetual literalist.

“Now wait just a minute,” said Cain, holding up his hand like a traffic cop. “We’re not doing anything that has anything to do with those girls.”

Jerry tossed a strawberry at Cain’s upheld hand. He batted it away.

“The rules say Tommy can come up with any kind of challenge he pleases,” Jerry gustily bayed. “And I’ve been waiting a long time at this stag institution for one of these silly intramural contests of ours to finally put me into a nice torso-lock with somebody that smells of Djer-Kiss lady talc. After all this time whiffing bay rum, gentlemen, don’t you think we’re due ?”

Pat looked puzzled. “Are you sure it’s Tommy’s turn to make the challenge?”

“Positive, Patty-Cake,” replied Jerry, pinching Pat’s nose playfully. The pinch hurt and Pat yowled. “And Tommy can make us do whatever he likes — so long as there’s no threat to the health and safety of the participants. That’s the rule we all agreed to. And we all have to play. No exceptions allowed.”

“What if we seriously, sincerely do not want to play?” asked Cain, the lines of his face set in stone-faced severity — like Buster Keaton — a dramatic contrast to the looks of animated mischief to be found upon the fizzes of his table companions.

Tom took the floor again: “You want to know what happens, Cain? You get ostracized from the group, that’s what happens. Not to mention, we sneak into your dormitory room some night and douse you with a bucket of ice water in your sleep. Now we played your stupid game last semester and we all thought it couldn’t have been any more painful to our self-respecting manhood if we’d all been hung up in the middle of the quad by our BVDs. But we did it. We picked a damned Shakespearean character and we showed up at Mr. Herzer’s Shakespearean class dutifully dressed as that character—”

“I was Puck,” said Pat, beaming.

“Yes, Master Fauntleroy,” laughed Tom. “How could we ever forget?”

Tom, who was sitting next to Pat, reached behind him to create tiny horns over Pat’s head with two fingers. Pat flicked the fingers away as if they were pestering insects.

“And I speak for everybody but Puck here,” Tom swept on, “when I say there is no challenge I could ever put forth as humiliating as that one. So I dare you, Mr. Pardlow, to try to pull yourself out of this particular competition — I dare you in the name of fair play and common decency and the preservation of your warm, dry little dormitory cot.”

“So just what is it?” asked Cain, with a weary sigh. “Winner is the first to wheedle a kiss from one of these choir-girl innocents?”

Tom shook his head. A diabolical grin settled upon his lips. “Move farther around the bases, my friend. And send me a wire when you get to home plate.”

Cain dropped his cereal spoon. It struck the now empty ceramic bowl in front of him with a noticeable ping.

“ Absolutely n— ”

“One night of carnal passion. Just like what Captain Phoebus wanted from Esmeralda. See, I’ve read the damned Hunchback book too, Pardlow. The difference is that Phoebus, perverse little piece of work that he was, invited Frollo to sit himself right down there at the fifty-yard line to witness the seedy mechanics of his conquest — Cracker Jacks and all. But we aren’t going to play it that way — not going to turn this into a spectator sport, gentlemen. We’re going to take each other at his word. But that word is important. Because it’s going to tell everything. And the conquest that wins will be the one that takes one of these five virginal lasses farthest down the road of depraved carnality.”

Cain glared at Tom. “I don’t know exactly what that means, but I’m guessing application of the word ‘rape’ wouldn’t be that far off base.”

Tom and Jerry spoke at the same time. Tom said, “Now hold on there!” while Jerry said, “Nothing of the kind, Pardlow. Seduction! That is the word. Seduction isn’t rape. Seduction is, well, seduction . It’s in all of your favorite petticoat novels. It’s in The Hunchback of Notre Dame , for crying out loud.”

Tom nodded. “Esmeralda wanted it. She begged for it. So that’s our mission — to make our five maidens want it just like oversexed Esmeralda.”

“What’s the prize?” asked Jerry, unaware that he was, at that moment, actually licking his lips like the villain in a Victorian melodrama.

Tom answered breathlessly: “My roommate Gill — you know, Gill of the ‘My dad may have more money than all the Rockefellers and the Mellons put together, but I’m for the good ol’ A&M!’—just got himself a new Stutz. And I can get him to lend it to me for a week. Winner gets to caress the wheel of an honest-to-God fire-engine-red 1923 model Stutz Bearcat for a whole damned week.”

“And what do you get if you win, Tom-Cat?” asked Holborne, his head tilted in canine-like anticipation.

“A sawbuck from each of you will suffice. Forty bucks in my pocket and a week with a Stutz — I’ll be the happiest one of us all.”

Three of Tom’s auditors smiled. The fourth stared out the window.

“I know what you’re thinking, Pardlow,” said Tom, his eyes narrowing on Cain. “You think you can get away with pretending to play the game and none of us will be any the wiser. Your shyness around women is, after all, legendary. But it isn’t going to work that way. We’re going to keep tabs. Close tabs. And if you don’t play, we’re all going to know about it.”

“I’ll tell you right now: I don’t want to play.”

“Then you know what this means, Pardlow.”

“Do whatever you’re going to do to me. It will be worth an ice-water bath to see at least one of these girls escape your contemptible designs.”

Tom was about to speak, but Jerry preempted him: “How do you know these five sheltered nuns-in-training won’t end up liking what it is they’ve never tried? There’s always that possibility, you know.”