So, when Max, President of the Current Anime Club of Pioneer College, asked Alan if he was okay, Alan had finally depleted his supply of fucks, and answered “No.”
Everyone turned to him. He saw Steve and Jeff turn more slowly, out of respect, and Henry had never taken his eyes off of Alan, but eventually, the heat of all those eyes fell on him.
“You look kind of fucked up,” Jack said. The words cut. Jack didn't often offer something so… opinionated.
“Yeah,” said Steve, helpfully. “What's up with that?”
Alan looked at his feet. He was starving, he was tired, he was trying desperately to adapt his memorized choreography to match a cane rather than a scavenged warglaive, and he was done. “I've had a rough night.”
This caught Henry's attention. “Yeah?” he said, not willing to let a member of the club fall by the wayside. Henry's words carried enough weight that, unfortunately for Alan, no one wanted to reply before him.
“Yeah,” Alan said, nodding. The silence hung heavy, and tired of disappointing others, Alan continued. “I hooked up with someone Thursday night.”
Steve gave a low whistle, and Jeff punched his bicep. Clearly, Alan wouldn't be sharing this if it was a good thing. The newer members of the club, the ones who didn't know Alan well, smiled, and clapped.
Bill was one of the others. “Can we count you as finally over Stephanie?”
The tension in the air immediately ratcheted up. That name was on the not to be mentioned list, along with the significant exes of a few others. The mere mention of them could spark wars.
“Yeah, I guess,” Alan said.
“So it went well?” Steve guessed. The others followed his smile, and hoped that he'd judged Alan's emotions correctly.
“No, I said rough night,” Alan said.
“Yeah, but you rode the midnight train to bone-town, right?”
Alan sighed. “Yes, but that doesn't mean things went well-”
“What, is my bro some kind of one-pump chump?” Steve said, skeptically. If he thought the insult would land, he never would have said it. He expected Alan to laugh it off, and assert some kind of masculine dominance. Instead…
“I wish,” Alan said.
No one knew how to respond to this.
Uncharacteristic silence hung over the Club.
Eventually, Alan spoke up.
“She's never going to talk to me again,” he said, speaking technical truths.
“That bad?” Jeff said.
“You're fine,” Steve said. “You're probably never going to see her again. Conventions are weird, and one little slip-up won't-”
“I won't see her again,” Alan said, flatly.
“Yes,” Henry said. “The statistics are against it.”
Alan nodded. He didn't have to explain why Henry was right.
“I still think…” Alan trailed off. Saying that he thought it would come back to bite him wasn't quite right. “Other people will find out.”
“What, are you going to be some legend of Bad Sex?” Sharon asked, laughing.
“Close enough,” Alan said.
Rebuffed on several jokey outs at this point, the group was alarmed.
“Hey,” Jeff said, putting his arm on Alan's shoulder. Steve and Henry soon followed.
“It's not right, what I did to her,” Alan said. He could barely keep track of the lied reality, what probably happened, and what he'd seen. His muscles kept twitching – That strange feeling of being so tired that one's eyebrow started acting of its own accord had spread all the way to his extremities. “She didn't deserve-”
Steve pressed a finger to Alan's lips. “Don't put pussy on a pedestal. She got what she put into the sex and you got what you put into it, that's all it was.”
Alan's vision flashed to his hands around her throat. The precise moment that her eyes changed from “Please more” to “Please stop”, and how he'd ignored it. How he'd grown intoxicated with that feeling of power, and enjoyed her struggling against him. He'd convinced himself, in that moment, that it was all part of the game.
The memory of watching her fall into the night struck against that, like an ice-pick in a glacier.