Daniela had to rush to meet with her group before a presentation in Geology, so I said goodbye and headed to the bathroom. I was hanging my purse up in the stall when I heard two girls enter with noisy footwear. They were chatting excitedly and quickly. I was preparing to ignore their gossip when I caught two words: “kittens” and “Hunter.”
“Did you see how little they were?” the girl with flats said.
“Oh my god, I know! And he looked so cute holding them. He’s so hot,” her friend wearing boots replied.
“I knowwwww!” Flats gushed.
“I’ve never seen that side of him before. He always seems so tough. He’s like an M&M: hard on the outside but soft on the inside.”
Flats laughed. “Maybe. But I like to think of him as a Snickers: long and hard.” They both laughed.
These girls were talking like they knew Hunter intimately. I started to fear the worst.
“Yeah, it’s too bad we didn’t get a chance to have sex with him,” Boots said.
I carefully released a breath of relief. Hunter had a reputation for being a player with women. Daniela had warned me multiple times and I had my own suspicions. But after becoming friends with Hunter, I realized he was a good-hearted guy who liked to be alone most of the time or only with close friends like me and Gary. Other than the threesome proposition at the hockey game—which he turned down—I hadn’t seen any signs of him living up to his reputation. Gossip could be stupid. These girls were stupid.
“Do you think he uses the kittens to pick up girls?”
“I wonder if he’s trying to be ironic with the whole using pu**y to get pu**y you know?” She laughed. “That’s so Hunter’s sense of humor! He doesn’t need to but I don’t see how any girl could resist him after seeing him with those kitties. I mean, it definitely worked on us. I was like so ready to scratch his pants off!”
“Yeah, me too.” They both laughed.
God, these girls made me want to hurl. Fortunately—but unfortunately for them—I couldn’t see Hunter ever going for these bimbos. It’s because of these types of girls that Hunter often wore hooded sweaters to hide his identity in public.
“At least we got to give him a blowjob,” Flats said.
My stomach dropped. Did I hear that correctly? Hunter got a blowjob from them? What the f**k.
I suddenly felt light headed. Surely I misheard her or she was joking. I had to have misunderstood her words. “Blowjob” could mean she’d been cutting his hair and had blow-dried his head after a rinse. Maybe these girls were part-time hair-stylists. Misinterpretation and jumping to conclusions was how rumors got started in the first place.
Boots chuckled. “Yeah, his c**k has literally got to be the biggest on campus! I didn’t think it was possible but it was somehow long enough for both of us to suck on it at the same time!”
I fought against the urge to retch. The sordid details were too damning to ignore. How could Hunter be using his kittens to pick up girls? Our kittens, really. I was over there just about every day taking care of those things. And he was using them to get girls to suck his cock? I was so disgusted I wanted to vomit.
“Oh, and did you hear their names?” Flats giggled. “Rampage? How funny is that?”
“He said that girl Lorrie named the females. Are they like together?”
My heart pounded as I tried to steady my breathing.
“They have to be, right? I mean they have kittens together. Even still, Hunter’s never really ‘with’ girls. I mean, he let us give him a BJ.”
“Yeah. So weird. He must like the tragic emo type. I guess he’s probably as much with her as he ever is with anyone?”
Her friend laughed. “Well, now that I think about it, that’s not entirely true. He was with Ada for a while during freshman year and I don’t think he ever cheated on her.”
“Oh right, I never heard anything either, but who knows with him? It’s been a pretty long time since they dated, anyway.”
Who’s Ada? I was tempted to ask them what Ada’s last name was so I could look her up but decided against blowing my cover.
“Okay, how do my eyes look?” Boots said.
“Great! Let’s go before we’re late.”
I heard footsteps, and then the door opened and closed. Bending down to look under the stall, I scanned the room for feet, but there were none. They were gone. I finished up in the bathroom and headed out. My face was hot with rage; it took all of my effort to try and fix my face in an expression that didn’t make me look like a deranged person. How could he do that to me? How?
Hunter texted me just as I entered my dorm after my drawing class. It was a little after three.
Hey are you coming by later to take care of the kittens? Rampage misses you ;-)
I stared at my phone, angry that he still thought he was tricking me into taking care of his kittens for him. How long would he have kept it up if I hadn’t found out? Months? I thought about giving him the typical avoidance treatment but decided I was going to be slightly more mature this time.
Find some other girl to take care of them.
Right as I hit ‘send’, I realized I should’ve made myself clearer so I sent another text immediately afterward.
Asshole.
Seconds later, my phone buzzed, but I put it on silent. I didn’t want to deal with his bullshit just then. If he wanted to try and explain his actions, I was going to make him think long and hard about what he had to say—like a f**king Snickers bar.
As soon as I got to my suite I threw my bag down on the futon and began to cry. I knew Kate and Petra were probably at the gym at this time so I didn’t care about letting loose. It was the first time I’d cried in a while and it surprised me that I was having this stupid reaction to what I’d heard earlier. Just when I opened myself up to someone, he stabbed me in the back with a smiley in his text message.
Daniela came out from her room and saw me. Her face fell as her eyes tracked the tears falling down my cheeks.
“Oh my god Lorrie! What happened?”
I took a deep breath and sat down on the futon. She took a seat beside me and took my hand in hers.
“So I was in the bathroom today and I heard some girls gossiping . . .” I sighed deeply.
“Oh no,” Daniela said. “They weren’t talking crap about you were they?”
“No, worse. They were talking about how they went over to Hunter’s apartment to play with the kittens.”